Romeo's were obsolete when being built, noisey small and just not very good, the ideal would have been the coast defence not really a long range boat (thats where foxtrots came in), to put it bluntly the soviets took a step backwards with the romeo despite having no deck gun and all that they were as noisey if not noiser than the type VII U boats of the war.
Today romeos still see some sort of active service, china maintaining about 12 of its origional 33 boat class (improved version) and 8 remain in the egyptian navy, and to be honest the egyptian romeos dont look like they have done much in the last decade (i saw 6 of the 8 in 2004 in a right state).
Romeo's came in two forms the standard romeo and romeo improved, the improvements were mainly mechanical batteries and engines, all chinese and egyptian boats are of improved kind the chines labeling them 033 ming class, the chinese boats differ some what they have some chinese parts in them as well.
So all in all one rushed boat design no good just about does what its built for, the foxtrots the long range veriants of the same time were much better boats, and the tango's which ultimately replaced boat foxtrots and romeos and also the whiskeys were even better and the follow on kilo better still.
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