Submarine Kalina. "Viburnum" takes root in the sea. An excerpt characterizing the Kalina project submarines
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| DEPL project "Kalina" | ||
|---|---|---|
| Main characteristics | ||
| Project designation | "Kalina" | |
| Project developer | CDB MT "Rubin" | |
| Dimensions | ||
| Armament | ||
| Missile weapons | complex "Caliber" | |
"Kalina"- the name of the project of a 5th generation non-nuclear submarine for the Russian Navy. Boats of this project should replace diesel-electric submarines of the 3rd generation.
Story
On March 18, 2013, information appeared in the media that specialists from the Central Design Bureau of Marine Equipment "Rubin", commissioned by the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, began research and development (R&D) to determine the design of a new non-nuclear submarine. By December 2014, the work was completed, and a preliminary design was prepared, which received the designation “Kalina-VMF”. The preliminary design provides for the possibility of deploying cruise missiles of the Caliber complex, and using two variants of the propulsion system - an air-independent power plant (VNEU) and a lithium-ion battery (LIAB).
According to the USC annual report for 2014, the design of the boat is planned for 2015.
On March 18, 2016, it was announced that the Rubin Central Design Bureau for Mechanical Engineering had completed the development of the Kalina project, which would have to be approved by the Russian Ministry of Defense. The construction of 5th generation submarines will be included in the state weapons program until 2025. And mass production will begin no earlier than 2025.
On June 28, 2016, it was reported that the first non-nuclear submarine of the Kalina project will be laid down in 2018, construction will take place at the Admiralty Shipyards enterprise.
GEM
The main advantage of the 5th generation Kalina boats should be an anaerobic air-independent power plant based on a modular Stirling engine. It will make it possible to stay underwater without surfacing to charge batteries much longer than boats with a classic power plant. Its development is being carried out at the Rubin Central Design Bureau for MT, possibly with the participation of specialists from the Stirling Technologies Research Center.
In 2016, ground tests of the VNEU were completed, and in March, preparations began for sea tests on a special floating stand. Tests will begin in the Baltic Sea in 2016, said Igor Vilnit, General Director of the Rubin Central Design Bureau. Upon completion of testing and the start of mass production, power plants can be mounted on a submarine at any stage of construction, thanks to its modular type. The fundamental difference between the new VNEU and its foreign analogues is that the hydrogen supply is not on board but is produced in the volume of consumption by reforming diesel fuel in a special installation.
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Notes
Sources
- Annual report of JSC "USC" for 2014.
An excerpt characterizing the Kalina project submarines
- Parole d"honneur, sans parler de ce que je vous dois, j"ai de l"amitie pour vous. Puis je faire quelque chose pour vous? Disposez de moi. C"est a la vie et a la mort. C"est la main sur le c?ur que je vous le dis, [Honestly, not to mention what I owe you, I feel friendship for you. Can I do something for you? Use me. This is for life and death. I tell you this with my hand on my heart,” he said, hitting his chest.“Merci,” said Pierre. The captain looked intently at Pierre the same way he looked when he learned what the shelter was called in German, and his face suddenly lit up.
- Ah! dans ce cas je bois a notre amitie! [Ah, in that case, I drink to your friendship!] - he shouted cheerfully, pouring two glasses of wine. Pierre took the glass he had poured and drank it. Rambal drank his, shook Pierre's hand again and leaned his elbows on the table in a thoughtfully melancholy pose.
“Oui, mon cher ami, voila les caprices de la fortune,” he began. – Qui m"aurait dit que je serai soldat et capitaine de dragons au service de Bonaparte, comme nous l"appellions jadis. Et cependant me voila a Moscou avec lui. “Il faut vous dire, mon cher,” he continued in the sad, measured voice of a man who is about to tell a story. long story, - que notre nom est l "un des plus anciens de la France. [Yes, my friend, here is the wheel of fortune. Who would have told me that I would be a soldier and captain of dragoons in the service of Bonaparte, as we used to call him However, here I am in Moscow with him. I must tell you, my dear... that our name is one of the most ancient in France.]
And with the easy and naive frankness of a Frenchman, the captain told Pierre the history of his ancestors, his childhood, adolescence and manhood, all his family, property, and family relationships. “Ma pauvre mere [“My poor mother.”] played, of course, an important role in this story.
– Mais tout ca ce n"est que la mise en scene de la vie, le fond c"est l"amour? L"amour! “N"est ce pas, monsieur; Pierre?” he said, perking up. “Encore un verre.” [But all this is only an introduction to life, its essence is love. Love! Isn’t it so, Monsieur Pierre? Another glass. ]
Pierre drank again and poured himself a third.
- Oh! Les femmes, les femmes! [ABOUT! women, women!] - and the captain, looking at Pierre with oily eyes, began to talk about love and his love affairs. There were a lot of them, which was easy to believe, looking at the smug, handsome face of the officer and at the enthusiastic animation with which he spoke about women. Despite the fact that all of Rambal's love stories had that dirty character in which the French see the exceptional charm and poetry of love, the captain told his stories with such sincere conviction that he alone experienced and knew all the delights of love, and described women so temptingly that Pierre listened to him with curiosity.
It was obvious that l "amour, which the Frenchman loved so much, was neither that lower and simple kind of love that Pierre once felt for his wife, nor that inflated by himself romantic love which he felt for Natasha (Rambal despised both types of love equally - one was l'amour des charretiers, the other l'amour des nigauds) [the love of cabbies, the other was the love of fools.]; l'amour, which the Frenchman worshiped, consisted mainly in the unnaturalness of relationships with women and in a combination of ugliness that gave the main charm to the feeling.
So the captain told the touching story of his love for one charming thirty-five-year-old marquise and at the same time for a charming innocent seventeen-year-old child, the daughter of a charming marquise. The struggle of generosity between mother and daughter, which ended with the mother, sacrificing herself, offering her daughter as a wife to her lover, even now, although a long-past memory, worried the captain. Then he told one episode in which the husband played the role of a lover, and he (the lover) played the role of a husband, and several comic episodes from souvenirs d'Allemagne, where asile means Unterkunft, where les maris mangent de la choux croute and where les jeunes filles sont trop blondes [memories of Germany, where husbands eat cabbage soup and where young girls are too blond.]
With reference to the general director of the Rubin Central Design Bureau, Igor Vilnit, it was reported that Rubin had begun developing 5th generation submarines, both nuclear and non-nuclear. According to Vilnit, the design of the new ships is being created taking into account the proposals and comments that we receive during the operation of ships of previous generations and the lead submarines of new projects. Earlier, the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy, Viktor Chirkov, said that serial production of 5th generation submarines will begin in Russia after 2030.
Currently, the basis of Russian submarine fleet constitute ships of the 3rd generation. The first submarine belonging to the fourth generation - the strategic nuclear submarine "Yuri Dolgoruky" of Project 955 "Borey" - was accepted into service with the fleet only in January 2013. In total, the Russian fleet will receive 8 such submarines - 3 Project 955 Borei and 5 Project 955A Borei-A. All of them will have to replace in the fleet the 3rd generation nuclear submarines of Project 667BDRM "Dolphin", which currently form the basis of Russia's nuclear submarine deterrent forces.
The fourth generation nuclear submarines also include Project 885 Yasen ships. The lead submarine of this project is currently undergoing testing and could enter service with the Russian fleet as early as this year. In total, by 2021 the Russian Navy expects to receive 7 Yasen nuclear submarines. Among non-nuclear submarines, 4th generation ships also include diesel-electric submarines of Project 677 Lada. The lead submarine of this project, named “St. Petersburg,” has been undergoing trial operation in the fleet since May 2010.
Diesel-electric submarine pr. 677 "Lada"
Earlier, a representative of the General Staff of the Fleet said that 5th generation submarines, the development of which was included in the State Armament Program of Russia until 2020, will be unified for the use of both ballistic and cruise missiles. It is assumed that such ships will be distinguished by greater automation of control systems, lower noise levels, long-range, safe reactors. First of all, we are talking about new torpedoes and long-range cruise missiles.
The head of the Rubin design bureau emphasized that the life cycle of modern submarines is about 50 years from the moment of research design to the moment of disposal of the boat. Therefore, there is nothing strange in the fact that work on the design of new ships has already begun. Work has always been carried out according to this principle. After completing the design work for one generation of submarines, the designers began a new stage. This is a normal workflow that simply cannot stand still.
Regarding the 5th generation of attack nuclear submarines, there are 2 opposite concepts of the paths of their probable development: evolutionary and revolutionary. The first of them is the most likely and involves the gradual improvement of existing technical solutions that are characteristic of modern submarines. At the same time, some of the existing solutions are already at the limit of their development, and the very high cost of today's submarines will force designers to try to do everything possible to reduce their final cost and reduce their dimensions.
Strategic nuclear submarine project 955 "Borey"
The main method of reducing costs is to increase the flexibility of using 5th generation submarines. To put this into practice, it is planned to equip them with interchangeable weapon modules, as well as uninhabited underwater vehicles (UVs) and even UAVs. For best location on a ship of similar load, it is proposed to shorten the submarine’s hull, while simultaneously increasing its diameter. At the same time, a return to a two-hull architecture is possible, but such a solution is not consistent with the requirements to reduce the price of the structure.
Today, in all countries that have their own nuclear submarine development programs, there is a search for new types of propulsors, alternative hull contours, methods of using weapons, target designation and methods of information exchange based on new physical principles. In any case, the automation of 5th generation submarines will be significantly increased, and the method of their use in combat will be linked to the concept of “network-centric warfare”, when the enemy will have to engage in battle not with individual combat units, but with a single, monolithic system that will include surface, underwater, air, land and space assets. All future submarines will be designed to operate in this “network.”
The use of the concept of “network-centric warfare,” as well as the opinion of a number of specialized experts that the evolutionary path of development of the submarine fleet is a dead end, led to the emergence of a “revolutionary path” of development. The basis of this concept is the abandonment of “obsolete” large nuclear submarines and concentration on the production of small submarines with a displacement of up to 1,500 tons, equipped with an auxiliary nuclear power plant. It is assumed that each of the mini-submarines individually will not be able to solve complex problems. They will be limited in autonomy, range of use of weapons and target designation, and seaworthiness, but a deployed group of such submarines will surpass in efficiency any modern submarine cruiser. And the loss of part of such a group will not jeopardize the fulfillment of the main combat mission.
Multi-purpose nuclear submarine pr. 885 "Ash"
Be that as it may, for all its logic, this concept currently seems quite futuristic for the majority of representatives of the Navy of both the United States and Russia due to their conservatism. Probably, this idea can be implemented within the framework of the 6th generation of submarines, but in the next 10-15 years the development of the fleet will follow an evolutionary path of development without any unexpected “leaps”.
Currently, the main developers of boats in the country are considered to be the Rubin and Malachite design bureaus. The designers of both design bureaus agree that future submarines will finally switch to a one-and-a-half-hull or single-hull architecture with a buoyancy reserve of 15%. Low-magnetic steel will continue to be used as the main structural material, but the use of composite materials for both indoor and outdoor applications will increase significantly. In addition, a search is underway for solutions that make it possible to abandon the traditional fencing of retractable devices in favor of alternative design solutions, for example, a retractable navigation bridge that folds into a developed superstructure, etc. At the same time, on this moment there are no special prerequisites or need to increase the speed, autonomy or diving depth of submarines. However, a decrease in displacement may lead to a reduction in boat crews and widespread automation of ship facilities and equipment.
On boats of the 5th generation, a final transition to water-jet propulsion is expected, perhaps even with an outboard electric propeller motor as the main propulsion system of the boat, with the final displacement of classic propellers from the scene. If we talk about the missile weapons of such submarines, then most likely they will have hypersonic flight speeds. At the same time, the development of boats will be carried out in the direction of improving combat use algorithms and on-board electronics.
Diesel-electric submarine pr. 636.3 "Varshavyanka"
With the advent of the first sonar system with a quasi-conformal bow antenna on Project 677 Lada diesel-electric submarines large area"Lyra", there is a trend in the fleet to equip nuclear submarines with similar antennas in addition to onboard antennas, whose sizes are also growing. These measures made it possible to significantly increase the aperture of antenna devices. By abandoning the very large and heavy spherical antennas of the GAK with ballast systems, durable capsules and massive fastening elements, it will be possible to free up significant volumes located in the bow of the submarines. On the one hand, this leads to a reduction in the dimensions of the boat’s hull, to simplifying the design and reducing the cost of the entire sonar system, and on the other hand, it allows engineers to return to the bow placement of torpedo tubes, which is more advantageous from a technical and tactical point of view.
If we talk about underwater weapons, then among experts there are different opinions on this matter. Currently, it is believed that a caliber of 533 mm for rocket torpedoes and torpedoes no longer ensures the implementation of sufficiently high transport characteristics of ammunition (speed and range), and therefore a return to a larger caliber is necessary - 650 mm with the possibility of placing a more powerful combat weapon on such torpedoes parts and a perfect homing system. However, along with this, 650-mm torpedoes have a large mass (about 5 tons versus 2 tons for 533-mm torpedoes) and length (about 11 meters). And this, in turn, leads to the complication and enlargement of torpedo compartments, torpedo loading and charging devices, reducing the boat’s ammunition. Along with this, there is an opinion that for promising submarines it makes sense to increase the number of torpedo tubes to fire massive salvoes against numerous, including different targets, using different weapons systems.
Information sources:
-http://vz.ru/news/2013/3/18/624879.html
-http://lenta.ru/news/2013/03/18/nsub5gen
-http://vpk.name/news/68946_sovetskie_i_rossiiskie_atomnyie_podvodnyie_lodki_4go_i_5go_pokolenii_chast_2.html
-http://vpk.name/news/68890_sovetskie_i_rossiiskie_atomnyie_podvodnyie_lodki_4go_i_5go_pokolenii_chast_1.html
Back in September of this year, an unnamed “high-ranking representative of the command of the Russian Navy,” which was easily guessed as either himself Commander-in-Chief of the Navy Admiral Viktor Chirkov or one of his deputies, RIA Novosti confidently stated: “The series of six Project 636.3 submarines for the Black Sea Fleet will be the last.”
Let us clarify - not the last for the Black Sea Fleet, but the last in general, since the construction of multi-purpose diesel-electric submarines of this project (Varshavyanka), which has been going on for about half a century, was decided to be stopped. Further, after 2020, as was said, according to the plan, the fleet should go new project non-nuclear submarines - "Kalina". The St. Petersburg Central Design Bureau "Rubin" is now working hard on it.
The fundamental difference between the promising Kalina and Varshavyanka is an anaerobic air-independent power plant (VNEU) and a lithium-ion battery (LIAB). Or an engine capable of operating underwater for days without access to atmospheric air. And this essential element stealth for submariners. Since with these new products you do not need to surface too often to recharge the batteries, there is no need to regularly ventilate the compartments in which, after a long swim in sea depths the carbon dioxide content in the air inevitably reaches dangerous levels for the crew.
A maximum of three to four days in a row is the time that third-generation submarines, which include Varshavyanka, can continuously stay under water. Submarines with VNEU are able to survive without surfacing six to seven times longer. These are the Swedish Hogland-class submarines, the Japanese Soryu-class submarines, and the German ships of projects 212 and 214, which have been in operation for a long time. Presumably, the promising Russian non-nuclear submarine Kalina should also be like this in the future.
Well, everything is in the spirit of the times. The truly successful “Varshavyanka”, the world’s quietest multi-purpose diesel-electric submarines (diesel-electric submarines), armed with the world-famous “Caliber” missile system, are indeed in need of replacement for a long time. After all, they were designed at the same Rubin Central Design Bureau almost half a century ago. Design thought over the past decades simply has to go far ahead.
However, suddenly last Thursday, November 5, on the occasion of the transfer Black Sea Fleet with the fourth new “Varshavyanka”, named “Krasnodar”, Admiral Chirkov immediately crossed out these harmonious arguments. He stated that the General Staff of the Navy, it turns out, had changed their minds and now intend to continue the construction of the Varshavyanka. The commander-in-chief told the TASS agency: “The High Command of the Navy is considering the possibility of building submarines of this project (636.3) for other fleets. There is logic in this, since Project 636.3 submarines have good combat effectiveness and operational characteristics.”
It turns out that in September the decision of the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff of the Navy was unequivocal: we are no longer building Varshavyanka. We now have something better." And in November - a sudden turn, "everything is suddenly on the opposite course."
Such a sharp change in the course of our naval commanders requires explanation. According to experts-submariners and shipbuilders interviewed by Free Press, the whole point is that the shift for the Varshavyankas has not been going well for a long time. Despite the billions spent, there was and still is no domestic anaerobic plant for a non-nuclear submarine in Russia. Even on the way. And apart from the ships of the outdated, but long-proven Project 636.3, we have nothing to build in this area today.
What does the general public know about the work of the Rubin Central Design Bureau on the Kalina project? Suspiciously few.
The first mention of “Kalina” appeared in the spring of this year. In June 2015 Director of the State Defense Order Department of the United Shipbuilding Corporation Anatoly Shlemov reported that “in December 2014, the Kalina-VMF research work was completed at the Rubin Central Design Bureau, as a result of which the preliminary design of a promising multi-purpose non-nuclear submarine with VNEU and LIAB was completed in accordance with the tactical and technical specifications of the Russian Ministry of Defense.”
A few days later, at the International Naval Show in St. Petersburg, one of the designers of the Rubin Central Design Bureau refused to shed any light on the parameters of the future submarine: “This is classified information. No one knows about this and no one will ever tell.”
And this is correct, since we are talking about new weapons. But it’s very convenient to cover up your own design failures with references to military secrets. Isn't this the case?
But we will continue to analyze information from open sources about the work on promising Russian non-nuclear submarines. In 2014 General Director of Central Design Bureau "Rubin" Igor Vilnit stated that Kalina will become a fifth-generation warship. As already mentioned, project 636.3 is the third generation of diesel-electric submarines. Where did generation No. 4 of our submarines go?
But nowhere. In theory, it is represented by diesel-electric submarines of Project 677 Lada. Which the General Staff of the Navy many years ago called in advance “fundamentally new non-nuclear submarines with a closed circuit engine for operations in the near sea zone.” It was also said that each of them will be able to “stand under water for several weeks in autonomous mode without surfacing.”
Compared to the Varshavyanka, the designers reduced the displacement of the Lada by 1.3 times (from 2,300 to 1,765 tons). The crew size was also reduced - from 52 to 36 submariners. But they also increased the stealth of navigation and the maximum underwater speed (from 19 to 21 knots). Many other innovations were also introduced.
In a word, in all respects, the Lada was supposed to be a breakthrough into the future. In 2008, the Navy announced plans to field up to 20 such submarines. Alas, by and large I didn’t accept any of them. The lead one, “St. Petersburg,” was launched in 2004 and immediately sank in a sea of defects. Problems arose with the weapons, with the Lithium combat information and control system, and with the sonar system. Even with an engine that did not want to produce more than half of the declared power. Although there was and is no “closed cycle engine” on the St. Petersburg. Consequently, this ship is not destined to “stay under water for several weeks in autonomous mode without surfacing.”
In fact, it’s an ordinary diesel-electric submarine. In 2010, it was accepted by the fleet for so-called “trial operation.” In other words, it was sent to the Northern Fleet for all kinds of design experiments.
Meanwhile, two more Ladas are stuck at the shipyards. The first one is called “Kronstadt” and was founded in 2005. The second - "Sevastopol" - began to be built a year later. None are ready to this day. Although on these submarines there is no question of VNEU. True, the Kronstadt is promised to be launched in December. But with a regular engine. Time will tell how realistic even these plans are.
One thing is for sure: at a certain stage, the General Staff of the Navy was very tired of this endless rigmarole. In 2012, a scandal arose. Former Commander in Chief Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky stated : " Lada"? This ship does not exist at all, what can we say about it? There is a submarine "St. Petersburg" in trial operation, which is declared specifications doesn’t show... We don’t need new brains with weapons that would run on the energy of World War II. For what? Who needs this? And its operational properties are the same. IN existing form"Lada" To the Navy Russia doesn't need it."
They say that it was this interview that became the reason for Vysotsky’s removal from office. Three months later, the 57-year-old full admiral was dismissed. And his successor Viktor Chirkov immediately ordered work on the Lada to be resumed.
Doesn't he regret it now? Especially when it became clear that in the foreseeable future we will still have to replenish the fleet with the good old Varshavyankas? Because there is nothing else. After all, even if the fate of the Kalina project turns out completely differently - happily! — it will be possible to verify this no earlier than in five years. And the first ships of the new project will be received even later.
True, there was hope that it would be possible to bring the Lada to completion (that is, the Kronstadt and Sevastopol under construction). At the end of last summer Chirkov said that in 2015 Russia will begin testing a serial submarine with VNEU. They say that the new power plant was previously tested on the experimental submarine B-90 Sarov.
The end of the year has already arrived, but where is the production submarine? Where are the tests?
Unnamed “representatives of the military-industrial complex” tried to add optimism. On October 1, they announced that “in the near future, mass production of anaerobic plants will begin, bench tests of which have been recognized as successful.” If this is so, why would the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy talk about continuing the construction of the ocean- and time-tested Varshavyanka?
Where are the roots of these many years of design failures? Without pretending to be a complete generalization, I will refer to my long-standing conversation with Honored Inventor of the Russian Federation, Doctor of Technical Sciences Nikolai Kirillov. In his opinion, for many years we have blindly copied and continue to copy Germany’s experience in creating non-nuclear submarines. On their Project 212 and 214 submarines, hydrogen is used in closed-cycle engines. Over time, it turned out that this was expensive and ineffective. And the path itself is a dead end.
An option could be air-independent Stirling engines. The Swedes and Japanese followed this path, whose non-nuclear submarines today are much better than the German ones. True, in Japan, having equipped the first six Soryu submarines with Stirling engines, they decided not to install them on the rest, replacing them with lithium-ion batteries. This was recently reported by Defense News.
Be that as it may, it turns out that vigorous searches continue abroad best options creation of non-nuclear submarines. What prevents us from following this path, abandoning templates?
Kirilov admitted that he discussed this topic with colleagues from the Rubin Central Clinical Hospital. And this is what one of the interlocutors answered him:
“Over thirty years of work on hydrogen fuel cells, we have consumed so much budget money that if we suddenly recognize this path as erroneous, we will simply be torn to pieces.”
| DEPL project "Kalina" | |
|---|---|
| Main characteristics | |
| Project designation | "Kalina" |
| Project developer | CDB MT "Rubin" |
| Armament | |
| Missile weapons | complex "Caliber" |
"Kalina"- the name of the project of a 5th generation non-nuclear submarine for the Russian Navy. Boats of this project should replace diesel-electric submarines of the 3rd and 4th generations.
Story
On March 18, 2013, information appeared in the media that specialists from the Central Design Bureau of Marine Equipment "Rubin", commissioned by the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, began research and development (R&D) to determine the design of a new non-nuclear submarine. By December 2014, the work was completed, and a preliminary design was prepared, which received the designation “Kalina-VMF”. The preliminary design provides for the possibility of deploying cruise missiles of the Caliber complex, and using two variants of the propulsion system - an air-independent power plant (VNEU) and a lithium-ion battery (LIAB).
According to the USC annual report for 2014, the design of the boat is planned for 2015.
On March 18, 2016, it was announced that the Rubin Central Design Bureau for Mechanical Engineering had completed the development of the Kalina project, which would have to be approved by the Russian Ministry of Defense. The construction of 5th generation submarines will be included in the state weapons program until 2025. And mass production will begin no earlier than 2025.
On June 28, 2016, it was reported that the first non-nuclear submarine of the Kalina project will be laid down in 2018, construction will take place at the Admiralty Shipyards enterprise.
GEM
The main advantage of the 5th generation Kalina boats should be an air-independent power plant based on an electrochemical generator. It will make it possible to stay underwater without surfacing to charge batteries much longer than boats with a classic power plant. It is being developed at the Rubin Central Design Bureau for Medical Technologies.
In 2016, ground tests of the VNEU were completed, and in March, preparations began for sea tests on a special floating stand. Tests will begin in the Baltic Sea in 2016, said Igor Vilnit, General Director of the Rubin Central Design Bureau. Upon completion of testing and the start of mass production, power plants can be mounted on a submarine at any stage of construction, thanks to its modular type. The fundamental difference between the new VNEU and its foreign analogues is that the hydrogen supply is not on board but is produced in the volume of consumption by reforming diesel fuel in a special installation.
The Rubin Central Marine Engineering Design Bureau in St. Petersburg has completed the development of the design of the newest non-nuclear submarine Kalina, which is classified as the fifth generation. About it reports RIA Novosti with reference to a high-ranking representative of the military-industrial complex. Previously, the military-industrial complex stated that a fundamentally new propulsion system for it would be ready by 2018, and construction of the first boat of the project would begin immediately after 2020.
Quite little is known about the details of the project, especially since it is still awaiting approval from the Ministry of Defense. However, the press has already received unconfirmed information that in terms of armament it will be close to existing Russian non-nuclear submarines. Presumably, the Kalina will be equipped with half a dozen torpedo tubes and a stock of 18 new Caliber cruise missiles or 533-mm torpedoes or a mixed version (part of the ammunition in torpedoes, part in missiles). At the beginning of this year, the director of Rubin noted that tests of the power plant for Kalina would begin in the Baltic Sea in 2016.
The Kalina project largely takes into account the results of unsuccessful work on Russian fourth-generation submarines of the Lada project. Just like the future Kalinas, these submarines, developed in the 1990s, were planned to be equipped with an air-independent power plant (VNEU). It was supposed to decompose diesel fuel into components and thereby obtain hydrogen for fuel batteries. Although the first Lada was supposed to enter the fleet in 2010, the boat was until recently in trial operation, and with a conventional diesel engine. Due to shortcomings, the design VNEU was able to produce only 50 - 60 percent of the declared capacity.
Currently, there are three most promising approaches to creating an advanced VNEU in the world - Russian, German and Swedish. When submerged, German type 212 boats use hydrogen and oxygen supplied to fuel batteries with a capacity of 120 kilowatts. The problem with this approach is that hydrogen requires large storage tanks and without outside air the boat can operate for no more than three weeks, which prevents it from remaining undetected.
Swedish Gotland-class submarines use a Stirling engine (external combustion engine) in which diesel fuel is burned for underwater propulsion. True, the power of the generators powered by such an engine is limited - only 75 kilowatts. Therefore, Gotland cannot move faster than 9 kilometers per hour in this mode. Since tanks with liquid fuel take up much less space than hydrogen, in theory such a submarine could have greater autonomy than the German one and would not float to the surface longer. During NATO exercises, the Gotlands were never detected by other boats, while they themselves almost always found the submarines of the mock enemy.
The Russian concept of creating VNEU currently combines features of the German and Swedish approaches. It uses diesel fuel, which decomposes due to heating into gases from which hydrogen is removed. However, it does not go to the Stirling engine, but to the fuel battery, just like the oxidizer obtained from sea water. Theoretically, the use of diesel fuel should help avoid problems with storing large amounts of hydrogen on board and allow Kalina to operate for many weeks without outside air.
In addition, the reforming VNEU can easily be made significantly more powerful than those of Western submarines. The approximate power of such a system at Kalina is 400 kilowatts. Accordingly, it will be able to go to VNEU not only longer than its German and Swedish counterparts, but also much faster, which is important in the case of covert transfer from one naval theater to another. However, implementing such a system in practice, as the Lada project showed, is quite difficult. In particular, hydrogen produced by reforming diesel fuel may contain impurities that, over time, “poison” the fuel cell catalyst.