Page 50 - Australian Defence Magazine May 2022

50 DEFENCE IN THE NORTH
MAY 2022 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
Project 877 export-standard while the remaining ten are Improved Kilos (Project 636). All ten boats were delivered by around 2007.
The Kilos are armed with a mixture of torpedoes and Rus- sia’s 3M54E Klub-S anti-ship/land-attack cruise missile and are joined in the PLAN by several domestically built subma- rine classes. These include older Type 035A, B and G boats in service, although these are being rapidly superseded by the Type 039 (Song-class) and the larger 039A
naval combat and presence missions in the Indo-Pacific. An up-to-date order of battle of the Russian Pacific Fleet is hard to come by, but a 2019 news report in Russian news agency TASS listed three Borei-class (Project 955) and a sin- gle Delta III Kalmar (Project 667BDR) SSBNs, five Oscar II (Project 949A/AM) SSGNs, four Akula I/II-class (Project 971)
SSNs and nine Kilo/Improved Kilo SSKs in its inventory. Another boat assigned to the Pacific Fleet is the Bel- gorod, a drastically modified Oscar II SSGN that will be used to deploy the Sta- tus-6 Oceanic Multipurpose System, an autonomous, nuclear-powered, and nucle- ar-armed unmanned underwater vehicle under development that will be capable of delivering both conventional and nuclear
payloads.
Each of the Oscar IIs has the capacity
for 24 P-700 Granit (SS-N-19 Shipwreck)
cruise missiles in addition to torpedoes, while the boats themselves can stay at sea for 120 days. The Akulas can deliver the Kalibr cruise missiles and can stay out
at sea for 100 days.
Subsequent reporting has found two of the four Akulas are
currently inactive while awaiting a major refit that was sched- uled for 2020, along with two of the Kilos although one of these has been replaced by an Improved Kilo (Project 636.3) boat.
Two new Yasen-class (Project 885/885M) SSGNs are also due to join the fleet from 2022 onwards, although it is not known how or if the Russian invasion of Ukraine may affect these plans. Each Yasen can carry 40 Kalibr or the even longer-range Kh-101 cruise missile, which has a reported range of 4,500 to 5,500 km (2,430 – 2,970 nm), capable of putting targets even in Australia’s red centre within range. ■
LEFT: A Chinese Navy Type 074 (Jinclass) SSBN
(Yuan-class) boats.
Despite the similar nomenclature, there
are very little similarities between the Type
039 and 039A, with the latter class inherit-
ing only the rear section of the former. The
newer Yuan class is bigger (3600 tonnes
submerged and 77.6 metres long, compared
with the 2250 tonnes, 75-metre length of the
Song class), dives deeper and features im-
proved noise reduction features. The class is
further divided into four sub-classes with minor differences such as the addition of flank sonar arrays or changes to the configuration of the conning tower.
It is almost impossible to independently keep track of the number of submarines in service given China’s opacity. However, the Pentagon’s 2019 China Military Power Re- port says the PLAN has 50 SSKs, six SSNs and four SSBNs distributed among its North, East and South Sea Fleets, al- though commercial satellite imagery from 2018 shows that there are at least five Type 094 SSBNs in service.
THE RUSSIAN THREAT
The Russian Navy’s Pacific Fleet, headquartered at the port city of Vladivostok, maintains a fleet of submarines as part of its stated mission of at-sea nuclear deterrence,
“IN THEORY A TYPE 094 POSITIONED NORTHEAST OF THE KURIL ISLANDS WOULD BE ABLE TO STRIKE MOST OF THE CONTINENTAL UNITED STATES”
CHINESE MOD