The Akula-class nuclear-powered attack submarines are a stunning and remarkably long-lived example of the late Soviet Union’s single-minded drive to keep up, if not outperform, its Cold War competitor.
Late Cold War Soviet submarines were, for the most part, faster and more durable than their US counterparts. But their performance was crippled by a glaring flaw: suboptimal acoustics. Regardless of their shortcomings in other areas, the U.S. military believed that in the event of a major maritime conflict, American submarines could detect, target, and neutralize their Soviet counterparts before they had a chance to react.
The Soviet high command got wind of this vulnerability – not least through the efforts of Soviet spies such as John Antony Walker – and set out to test it with a new line of nuclear attack submarines called Project 971 Shchuka-B (NATO report name Akula ), not to be confused with the strategic submarines of the Soviet Akula class (NATO report name Typhoon). With a displacement of around 8,000 tons and a top speed of around 34 knots, the Akula attack submarines were built from the steel double-hulled construction typical of late Soviet submarine construction. The Akula-class baseline featured four standard 533mm torpedo tubes and four more 650mm tubes for a total of forty torpedoes, as well as mines and the RPK family of anti-submarine anti-submarine missiles.
But although their external construction was hardly revolutionary, the Akula submarines offered a variety of forward-looking design measures to reduce the acoustic signature of the ships. With the help of milling machines from a Japanese company, the Soviet shipbuilding industry constructed new, higher quality propellers that made significantly less noise than their predecessors. The inner compartments were also designed for maximum sound absorption and a number of measures for active noise suppression. The results spoke for themselves: within a generation of attack submarines, the USSR evolved from a crippling acoustic disadvantage to an ability to trade clandestine performance punches with the rival US Los Angeles class.
The Akula class saw three additional major revisions after its introduction in 1985. The improved Akula I-Class brought additional noise reductions and sensor upgrades as well as two more torpedo tubes. There were seven original Akulas and six other improved Akula I – together these make up the vast majority of Akula submarines in mass production.
The Akula II revision should have further acoustic improvements that would have made the Akula line quieter than the Los Angeles class, but the effort failed in the face of unexpectedly high production costs; only one Akula II inspection ship, the K-157 Vepr, made it into service. The Akula III line, conceived amid the decline and budget deficits of the Soviet collapse, did just as badly with just one production model, the K-335 Gepard. Four of the original Akulas have been decommissioned, leaving only three. All six upgraded Akulas are currently in active service or being refurbished, with one – er Nerpa – leased to India until 2022. Both Vepr and Gepard are currently active in Russia’s Northern Fleet, with the former reportedly slated to be upgraded to Russia’s new calibr cruise missiles.
The Russian Navy intends to retire its remaining Akula ships with the new Yasen / Yasen-M-class of modern nuclear-powered cruise missile submarines. Nine Yasen submarines are expected to be put into service by 2028.
Mark Episkopos is a National Security Reporter for the National Interest.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
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