Russian 'Lira' ('Alfa') Submarines

[Cybermat47]

The Lira, or Alfa as it's known in the west, is probably my favourite modern submarine. It's sleek, sexy, and damn fast - 40 knots submerged! I even made a soon-to-be released mission for Dangerous Waters focusing on the Lira. But I'm afraid that I don't actually know that much about what they did in service. Did they go out into the Atlantic to keep an eye on N.A.T.O. boomers, or did they stay in port, ready to rush into action when the day came?

Also, apparently they've all been decomissioned. If there aren't any left as museum ships, I will be very much displeased.

[Sledgehammer427]

From what I know, they were heinously expensive to build (all titanium construction) but even more expensive to maintain.
Alfa/Lira class boats had liquid metal cooled reactors.
let that sink in.
liquid metal
in order to be kept idle in port without the reactors running at critical they had to be kept hooked up to shore power, which kept the bah gawd liquified metal liquidy so it didn't seize up and ruin the entire reactor system
buuuuuuut Russians being Russians..they forgot that simple yet very important step and at least 2 boats are now 100% worthless because someone forgot to plug them in.

Thats all I know.
They were fast, expensive, and kept cool using freakin' liquified metal

[Subnuts]

Really cool imgur gallery on the Alfa with construction pics and diagrams: http://imgur.com/a/WyJ20

[Mr Quatro]

She was used mostly for training and for planing what to do for the next generation of submarines.

They did not use her for following USN FBM's on patrol in the Med they used Novembers for that duty, but from what I know they used her to intercept USN SSN's that were caught or suspected of following Russian FBM's.

Their jet fighter pilots fly by wire with the ground always in control which is why I think she was used by the Arm chair admirals to show off Russians mighty know how.

All gone now both the cold war and the men and weapons systems they designed. The Alfa is too hot with the nuclear reactor removed to be used as a musem memory.

At 44 knots you could hear one a long ways away ... not that I ever heard one lol

[ikalugin]

The concept behind Lira was to have a fast, small, highly automated submarine to operate as an "interceptor" against NATO SSBNs. There was also an "AWACS" type sub being developed in paralel to the "interceptors" - Afalina. As such Lira had minimal crew with high automation, high energy density power plant, lightweight titanium hull. The idea was to have multiple crews per same sub, with all repairs and maintenance being done at port, majority of compartments would be unmanned during the sorties.

As the SLBMs got longer and longer ranges, pushing SSBN patrol areas further and further from USSR, the concept has changed, fast subs were tasked with chasing after fast surface action groups, while "AWACS" sub project was repurposed to hunt SSBNs close to the NATO shores.

You could see one of the later versions of this "AWACS" sub here:
http://savepic.su/7004794m.jpg (http://savepic.su/7004794.htm)
The legacy of this project lives on in Akula series (which were originally developed under the guise of a modified "AWACS" sub project, that is where Akula got it's "cheeks") and the Yasen class (which received the sonar).

[Cybermat47]

Sorry for the late reply, but many thanks for the replies guys :)

[Kapitan]

as ikalugin said fast interceptor submarine which achieved 45knots but could sustain 44.7knots however this speed came at a huge price it made alot of noise!

the submarine is tiny and made of titanium although the submarines were rated down to 900meters they soon rapidly began seeing this maximum depth decrease down to 750meters and later in life that went down to just 450meters the reason was the hull which is titanium was liable to cracking.

They were extremely expensive boats even for the soviets hence why only 7 were made, later boats such as sierra and mike was made of a titanium nickel alloy allowing it to dive deep and not worry about hull cracking.

The last one retired in 1995 after being used as a test platform.

[ikalugin]

The dive depth/hull cracking stuff is a myth. The reason behind titanium hull is that it is lightweight compared to the steel one and is less magnetic. Which is why papa/Alfa/Sierra had generic work/crash depths.

Mike was special, one of the kind, deep diving sub. For some reason in 60s and 70s we though that 1000m dove depth was to become standard for the 3rd-4th gen boats.

[Kapitan]

The dive depth/hull cracking stuff is a myth. The reason behind titanium hull is that it is lightweight compared to the steel one and is less magnetic. Which is why papa/Alfa/Sierra had generic work/crash depths.

Mike was special, one of the kind, deep diving sub. For some reason in 60s and 70s we though that 1000m dove depth was to become standard for the 3rd-4th gen boats.



If you can substantiate that hull cracking one id be very interested, the whole thing was put about by the west after tests on models were done which showed titanium cracks due to impurities in the welding, give al'fa is the 1st generation titanium boat id hedge on the side of caution it is something i would expect to happen.

[ikalugin]

Alfa was built after a full scale boat (Papa class) was built.

[Oberon]

Good news for you Cybermat!

http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/russia-may-revive-its-ultra-high-performance-alfa-class-1761291246?rev=1456439455758

[mako88sb]

Good news for you Cybermat!

http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/russia-may-revive-its-ultra-high-performance-alfa-class-1761291246?rev=1456439455758

Interesting. I wonder if they would go with a titanium hull again? We had a titanium heat exchanger on one of our processing packages and found out that they had not provided a large enough nameplate bracket for all the info that needed to be riveted on. I never did see what the additional 6"x 6" 1/8" thick plate and filler material cost but my boss said it was so outrageous that they went instead with a stainless steel backer plate riveted to the inside of the bracket with some kind of isolation material between them.

[Kapitan]

unfortunatly all the alphas were scrapped in the 90's theres none left to re activate and i strongly doubt they ever will produce such an expensive submarine again.

[Cybermat47]

Thanks for the news, Oberon :D

unfortunatly all the alphas were scrapped in the 90's theres none left to re activate and i strongly doubt they ever will produce such an expensive submarine again.

According to the article, they're making entirely new subs - Alfa-IIs, perhaps?

But yes, the cost is a major factor. We'll have to wait and see.

[Mr Quatro]

unfortunatly all the alphas were scrapped in the 90's theres none left to re activate and i strongly doubt they ever will produce such an expensive submarine again.

True, but the men that served are still alive and sometimes we forget that they are the most important part of any submarine. :up:

[Kapitan]

true but i think the only things they will take away from alfa class is the automation small crew sizes which if you look at current submarines they have less crew then western boats.

take akula almost the same size as a 688 has a crew of around 65 where the 688 has a crew of nearly 130, i think the whole alfa idea is good and it was a design screw up that went in the designers favor.
perhapse a cheaper steel hulled version would be a good sign but i think the russians will continue to create the hybrid SSGN models as they have more flexability.

[ikalugin]

There is discussion around building smaller SSNs to compliment Yasen class, but the size here is due to the desire to keep the costs down (Yasens are viewed as expensive/redundant).

Automation experience from Alfas was used in the 3rd and 4th gen submarines. It is not directly applicable to modern subs, as the Alfas were viewed as non maintainable subs (ie crew does not do the maintenance), meaning that modern crews would be larger than those of Alfas.

[Mr Quatro]

true but i think the only things they will take away from alfa class is the automation small crew sizes which if you look at current submarines they have less crew then western boats.

take akula almost the same size as a 688 has a crew of around 65 where the 688 has a crew of nearly 130, i think the whole alfa idea is good and it was a design screw up that went in the designers favor.


Good points, but hard to understand why ...

http://news.usni.org/2014/10/28/u-s-navy-impressed-new-russian-attack-boat
Severodvinsk is the most capable Russian attack submarine ever built and ... vessel with a crew of only 32 officers and 58 enlisted submariners. ...

I noticed on some submarines the russians have more officers than enlisted men ... that's really hard to understand. Who gets the blame then if something goes wrong :D

[ikalugin]

Historically this can be atributed to two factors:
- small crews due to high automation (Alfas were more or less run purely by officers).
- bias towards officers due to the sailors being conscripted.

[Mr Quatro]

Really cool imgur gallery on the Alfa with construction pics and diagrams: http://imgur.com/a/WyJ20

Your right subnuts, this link leads to some really cool pictures and information about Alfa class submarines.

You know how sometimes a person will save a link, but not really go there?
That's what I did back in February ... this morning I was bored and saw the link in my favorites folder for subsim.

My respect for Russian tech advances went up a bit higher ... how did they ever get the big boys with the money to approve of this I will never understand.

What else is lurking in their minds while the budget is low, ready to produce as soon as they can get more oil money into their banks?

[Kapitan]

Your right subnuts, this link leads to some really cool pictures and information about Alfa class submarines.

You know how sometimes a person will save a link, but not really go there?
That's what I did back in February ... this morning I was bored and saw the link in my favorites folder for subsim.

My respect for Russian tech advances went up a bit higher ... how did they ever get the big boys with the money to approve of this I will never understand.

What else is lurking in their minds while the budget is low, ready to produce as soon as they can get more oil money into their banks?

While the budget is certainly alot lower than in soviet times, the Russian federation still maintains the 3rd largest defence budget in the world and its expect this year to rise to $96bn USD

In contrast the UK budget is $60bn while the american budget is some $630bn

[ikalugin]

What else is lurking in their minds while the budget is low, ready to produce as soon as they can get more oil money into their banks?
Defense (and other critical) spending is balanced against the stable incomes such as non oil/gas/foreighn trade taxes.

[Kapitan]

Defense (and other critical) spending is balanced against the stable incomes such as non oil/gas/foreighn trade taxes.

Very correct which means your total spending in percentage to GDP is around 4.5% expected to rise to 4.7% this year.
The USA on the other hand has declined from 4.6% in 2011 to 3.5% in 2014.

Figures obtained from the world bank data pool

At the moment due to low oil prices Russia is hurting plus the sanctions what is it now over there 70ruble to 1 USD ?