![]() HMS Audacious recently returned from an epic deployment in the eastern Med, spending 363 days away from Faslane, she may soon be replaced by HMS Triumph as the RN is assigning this region a high priority (with the likely deployment of HMS Queen Elizabeth and the carrier strike group later in this year). Attempting to shadow Russian submarines demands considerable effort from NATO naval forces in the region. ![]() Russian SSKs have also operated from their Syrian base of Tartus and maintain an almost constant presence in the eastern Mediterranean. The 4 boats based in Sevastopol have conducted cruise missile attacks on Ukraine and would be by far the greatest threat to any warship that might venture into the Black Sea. Russian Kilo and Lada class conventional submarines should not be underestimated and are well suited to shorter-range and littoral missions operating in the Barents Sea and the Baltic. Especially in the open ocean, the presence of a single SSN/SSGN can have a powerful effect, even against considerably more numerous opponents, threatening across a wide area. In 2018, the lead boat RFS Severodvinsk got loose in the North Atlantic and evaded considerable USN efforts to find her for several weeks. The new Yasen, based on the Akula class, builds on this knowledge and although developed and delivered painfully slowly, are now able to exert tactical and even strategic influence. Thanks to a US-based spy ring, Russian designers got insights into the acoustic hygiene measures painstakingly and expensively developed by the USN over several decades and were able to quickly apply them to their designs. Aided by underwater fixed sonar arrays of the SOSUS network (Later the IUSS) it had usually been possible to determine approximate Russian submarine dispositions, even if it required other naval assets to localise and shadow them. At the tail end of the cold war, the appearance of the quiet Victor III class SSNs finally began to challenge NATO’s assumption they would have the upper hand over noisy Soviet boats. (The Northern Fleet alone boasted 176 boats in 1984.) This has been attempted with some success through weapon and sensor development together with great effort to match the noise reduction features of Western designs. The number of boats available to the VMF is nowhere near that of the Soviet heyday so lacking numerical advantage, the Russians now have little choice but to strive for qualitative parity. This would suggest that of the SSNs and SSGNs, which comprise the primary conventional threat, between 3 – 5 boats are typically at sea. However, determining their precise availability remains challenging, although estimates suggest that approximately 25-30% of the fleet may be deployed at any given time. Their ‘on-paper’ order of battle in 2023 is 7 x SSBNs, 9 x SSNs, 5 x SSGNs, 6 x SSKs, and a number of special-purpose boats. The Russian Northern Fleet remains the significant focus of interest for the RN. What can be said with certainty is that Russian submarine activity had been rising significantly in the decade before the Ukraine war, the VMF has been slowly taking delivery of submarines almost on a par with Western equivalents and the Severodvinsk class are the finest boats SSN/SSGNs they have ever possessed. Some may argue that is in the interests of Western navies and their industrial suppliers for senior uniformed personnel to overstate the threat. The extent of this threat is difficult to fully quantify as real analysis does not involve just counting platform numbers but is a much more complex assessment of readiness, material state, weapon capability and crew training and competence. If the Russian surface fleet is predominantly obsolete and its few modern combatants are of frigate size and below, their submarine forces pose a potentially much more serious challenge. ![]() The sinking of the ancient cruiser Moskva and the poor performance of the Russian Navy (VMF) in the Black Sea would appear to indicate a much-diminished threat across the full spectrum of non-nuclear capabilities. The heavy losses of Russian Army (SV) soldiers and armour, accompanied by the mediocre performance of the Air Force (VVS) is a matter of record. The broad consensus in the West is that the war in Ukraine has proven the once much-feared Russian armed forces to be hollowed out, poorly equipped and badly led. Here we look at these boats and the wider Russian submarine threat that is equally applicable to the UK and Europe. Head of the US Northern Command recently told Senators that Russia could have its most powerful Yasen (NATO name Severodvinsk) class attack submarines on persistent patrols off either of America’s coasts within two years which will “reduce decision space for a national senior leader in a time of crisis”. ![]()
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