Russia’s new Severodvinsk submarine to go on trial run in early July

Russia’s Yasen-class nuclear submarine Severodvinsk (Project 885), which joined the Navy last week, will go on a trial run in deep sees in early July, the Sevmsh shipyard said on Monday.
“The submarine now moored in Severodvinsk will have to complete sea trials for certain systems and fire a Kalibr long-range cruise missile from a submerged position. This missile system has not been put into service yet,” a source in the defense industry told ITAR-TASS earlier this year. Other systems will also be checked and tested. “Work will also be done to further reduce the submarine’s noisiness, which is lower than that of other nuclear submarines now in service, but still above the parameters prescribed in the Defense Ministry’s request for proposals,” the source said.

The submarine will resume climatic trials in the White Sea in early July and will continue them for several months, during which it will make several voyages. The source said that the trials would not end before September or October and this timeline might be changed to November or December. “Everything will depend on how the set tasks are solved. Unnecessary haste to the detriment of quality would be unacceptable,” he said.
Since the Dagdizel plant in Dagestan, southern Russia, has not yet finished building the new heat-seeking self-guided torpedo Fizik, the Severodvinsk, just like the Yuri Dolgoruky and Alexander Nevsky, both accepted by the Navy last year, are armed with a USET-80 multipurpose electric-propelled torpedo. “As soon as the Fizik torpedo completes the tests, it will be put into service and installed aboard the Severodvinsk and other Russian submarines,” the source told ITAR-TASS.
Earlier reports said that the torpedo would be finished by 2017.

Transfer of Severodvinsk to Russian Navy
In November 2013, the Sevmash defense shipyard said that the submarine had completed the contractor’s sea trials commenced in 2011 and begun state trials preceding the transfer to the Navy.

By that time, the submarine had made 14 sea voyages lasting more than 222 days, sailed tens of thousands of nautical miles, and performed over a hundred of dives and emersions. The contractor’s trials confirmed the craft’s excellent performance characteristics. “The Severodvinsk is the most advanced and the quietest domestic submarine,” Sevmash specialists say.
Sevmash is building seven new Yasen-class multi-role nuclear submarines, which are to be handed over to the Navy by 2020.
In 2012, the Severodvinsk fired the newest supersonic cruise missile five times. The submerged submarine fired the newest supersonic cruise missile at a surface target from the White Sea in five successive successful launches of a new cruise supersonic missile conducted as part of the Caliber rocket system tests.
The fourth generation nuclear-powered submarine Severodvinsk started mooring trials at the Sevmash shipyard in 2010.
The Project 885 submarine was designed by the Malakhit design bureau in St. Petersburg. The Sevmash shipyard launched the project in 1993. The protracted period of construction was caused by economic difficulties, and also by the need to design a new architecture of the hull and armaments.
Russia intends to produce six more vessels of this type. In July 2009, Sevmash started building a second Project 885 submarine named Kazan.

The Severodvinsk is the first in the Graney class (Yasen in Russian classification) of nuclear powered attack submarines. A source in the Russian Defense Ministry told ITAR-TASs earlier that at least six submarines of the Graney class would be built within the next eight years. Construction of the second submarine in the series, the Kazan, started in July 2009. A similar submarine called Novosibirsk was laid down in the summer of 2013. The construction of the fourth craft of the same class named Krasnoyrsk will begin on July 19.
Severodvinsk is the 131st nuclear submarine built by Sevmash for the Navy. In all, eight Yasen-class submarines are to be built by 2020.
Vessels of the Yasen class will be the most silent submarines in the world. They will have a maximum speed of 16 knots surfaced and 31 knots submerged. They will be 119m long, 13.5m wide and 9.4m high.
According to Russia’s Naval Doctrine, submarines of this class will become the main multi-role nuclear vehicles in the Navy.