Indian Akula II attack submarine

Wy would a nation "lease" a sub!? If india bought it they would pretty much fix the sub to meet their needs (e.g. alter all writing from cyryllic to western at the controls labels) and many other things. So why would russia want the sub back?

reply to post by Anonymous ATS


LOL LOL LOL!!!

Sorry anonymous poster..but your question I find humorous.

When you lease a machine you are prepared to lose it in accidents or disaster or in this case...even a war.. It is simply part of the understanding of what can happen.

What they want in leasing this is capital..not in the initial lease but the attempt at follow up buisness. This lease is simply an investment against future buisness. It is buisness as usual.
As I recall the Russians have already sold them Kilos class submarines..a previous investment.

Nuclear powered ships are a very expensive investment. Renting or leasing is a logical step until the Indian Navy becomes proficient in them and may desire to purchase outright.

Nonetheless it is buisness as usual.

Orangetom

Originally posted by Anonymous ATS
Wy would a nation "lease" a sub!? If india bought it they would pretty much fix the sub to meet their needs (e.g. alter all writing from cyryllic to western at the controls labels) and many other things. So why would russia want the sub back?

many factors here..

1) outright purchase/sale of a nuclear vessel is somewhat of a sour point when it comes to the international community. I do not recall many (if any) instances of the lease of high-end nuclear submarines between any countries (allies or not), let alone an out right purchase.
A lease adds of sense of 'expiry' to this newly acquired nuclear ability, and thus calms non proliferation hawks..
Although a lease for anything more than 5 years is a purchase in all operational terms.. which is what this is.

2)India has its own nascent nuclear SSN/SSBN program which is supposed to bear operational fruit in the next decade. We all know that having an operational vessel, esp one of the complexity of nuclear one, does not automatically gift the nation with a set of skilled sailors and knowhow to run it at the most optimum levels of the tactical/strategic operational envelopes. The nuclear vessel 'practical' doctrine for the IN needs to be developed on the fly as well (conventional patrol areas, interdiction/probing missions of rival navies' capabilities etc).
As such, a head start (of a decade or so) in building these skills and operational boundaries is a very good idea. So when the locally built boats to eventually come out (fingers crossed), the crews are very adept of evaluating them and operating them as veterans and not rookies..


Note that India eventually plan to operate 4-5 indigenously built SSN/SSGN/SSBNs with cruise/ballistic missiles (range 2000-5000km), i.e. a most basic and minimal second strike seaborne nuclear deterrent that completes the land-air-sea nuclear triad. Nothing as 'heavy' as what the Americans,British, Russians, French or Chinese operate (ICBM ranges)

You can probably smell that thing underwater. Just follow the curry

Akula-2 is a fine submarine. Sooner or later, Russian navy will make a comeback.

the akula II is a fine submarine, and the russian navy will be making a comeback. but I still say that other countries have subs that beat out the russian/soviet ones.

reply to orangetompost by orangetom1999


The surfaced angle of the boat is, to my experience, correct with one exception. The bow is riding abnormally high which leads me to believe there are few weapons onboard. An Akula II has a large weapons compartment and would be carrying alot fish(torpedos). One thing that makes me wonder is why is she not tied to the pier instead of anchored.

Marcus 1

reply to post by BASSPLYR



Like who? The Akula class boats are the scariest attack boats in the world.
The stealth of an 88, more speed, more weapons... have I left anything out?

Marcus 1

wouldn't be so sure the akula 2 is quieter than the advanced 688s or the seawolfs or the virginias or most of the UK boats. the soviet tech (which i gotta admit is actually pretty good) won't help if the crew is underfunded undertrained.

Don't know if the akulas are better armed. most first rate boats have some pretty nasty toys that they bring to the party.

the akula 2 are scary boats and they did surprise the navies of the world when they first arrived but they were still an attempt to catch up to other countries boats in many areas.

reply to post by oxillini


I was the reactor operator who took MARF critical for the first time (back in 1976) so I can give you some information on how it worked. MARF (or S7G) used tubes clad with Gadolinium instead of Hafnium control rods used in all the other naval nukes. There were pumps mounted on top of each tube that would pump the water levels down, exposing more fuel to the neutrons, allowing it to go critical.

In the event of a shutdown, scram, or loss of power the water would flow back down into the tubes from the reservoirs above the fuel rods, shutting down the reactor. As opposed to the reactors with control rods which burn the fuel from bottom up, MARF would burn from the top down.

It was an interesting concept that did work and there were some new and interesting electronics for the reactor control. I got to work on it as one of the first five or six nukes assigned to MARF during its construction and I helped with debugging some issues with the control system. Lots of fun working on this new reactor design but that was a LONG time ago.

Steve

reply to post by Anonymous ATS



Wow...thanks for the description of how this MARF type reactor works. I was able to follow most of it. Very interesting.

The description of the pumps at the top of the fuel cells or tube is very interesting and unusual. Wow...these pumps would have to be very high reliability.

Also very interesting the description of the fuel burning from the top down verses the bottom up. Once again very unusual. Also the scram procedure or description had me chuckling to myself.

Thanks for the description and run through.

Orangetom

Originally posted by BASSPLYR
most first rate boats have some pretty nasty toys that they bring to the party.

A single MK48 ADCAP can sink most any surface warship smaller than a CVN.

MK 48 ADCAP SINKEX

I was in a bar once and noticed a guy next to me. an old timer. raised in the navy that was more about iron men and wooden ships mentality. noticed his cap and that it was from some older ship he used to serve on. he was an officer retired. After a few drinks just chatting. I mentioned that I thought the MK48 was an excellent weapon. he nodded in agreement didn't say anything and went back to drinking his beer.

His response, as he was getting up to head home and deal with his old lady was this.

"Hey kid. those mark 48's. some lethal sons of bitches those are." and walked off into the night.

I wouldn't ever, ever, ever want to be anywhere near one of those fish when they go off.

Imagine if the Russians were able to build a double hull titanium boat with large bore weapons with about 40 weapons total, quieter than the Akula IIs, faster than the Alpha, deep diving had Russia become a superpower again with its vast natural resources.

Originally posted by Anonymous ATS
Like who? The Akula class boats are the scariest attack boats in the world.
The stealth of an 88, more speed, more weapons... have I left anything out?

Marcus 1

Sonar/combat systems suite for one, something UK/US sub excel at.

I'm still of those who believe that the US and UK's boats can be much quieter than we are lead on to believe. quieter than the russian boats in my opinion.

Not knocking the soviet/russian boats. just think that although they are nice and can do some neat tricks they are still not on par with us and uk boats.

delta,

what do you mean by large bore. torpedoes can have some pretty potent things packed into them that are the normal size for a torpedo (21 inches I think, no wait that's only my torpedo-I kid, I kid) The standard size torpedo can probably do more than enough damage than would be necessary. I don't know why one would need to make one even wider.

but I like the idea of deep diving, and the double hulled thing. double hulls have their advantages, although I don't know if they make too much of a difference when stacked up against other tricks modern subs can pull.

[edit on 6-12-2008 by BASSPLYR]

Originally posted by BASSPLYR
I'm still of those who believe that the US and UK's boats can be much quieter than we are lead on to believe. quieter than the russian boats in my opinion.

Not knocking the soviet/russian boats. just think that although they are nice and can do some neat tricks they are still not on par with us and uk boats.

delta,

what do you mean by large bore. torpedoes can have some pretty potent things packed into them that are the normal size for a torpedo (21 inches I think, no wait that's only my torpedo-I kid, I kid) The standard size torpedo can probably do more than enough damage than would be necessary. I don't know why one would need to make one even wider.

but I like the idea of deep diving, and the double hulled thing. double hulls have their advantages, although I don't know if they make too much of a difference when stacked up against other tricks modern subs can pull.

[edit on 6-12-2008 by BASSPLYR]

Do you know how many times U.S. CBG's have been sunk by "desiel subs" during practice runs????????????