Russia plans not only to develop new nuclear submarines, but also to deeply modernize already tested design solutions. Work is already underway on the Project 949A Antey submarines: they will receive new missiles and new technical equipment, from radio electronics to maintenance systems.
This was announced by the commander of the Pacific Fleet of the Russian Navy, Admiral Viktor Liina, on the Zvezda TV channel.
Submarines of this project have very good modernization potential. One of the submarines of the 949 project is being modernized, which will be equipped with a new missile system, new radio-technical weapons and communications equipment. New service complexes will be installed. It [will have] a different displacement, but it will solve the same tasks as the Yasen [multipurpose nuclear submarines of projects 885 Yasen and 885M Yasen-M, editor's note].
The "predecessor" of the Antey, Project 949 Granit, is the third generation of nuclear-powered ships. It was created in the seventies of the last century by TsKBM Rubin. Later, Project 949A Antey was developed on its basis. These nuclear submarines have a submerged displacement of up to 24 thousand tons. They were armed with twenty-four P-700 anti-ship missiles for the Granit complex with a range of up to 600 km and six torpedoes - two 650-mm and four 533-mm.
A total of 11 Project 949A nuclear submarines were built. All of them are named after major Russian cities - regional centers. The Kursk submarine tragically died in the summer of 2000 in the Barents Sea, the Krasnodar and Krasnoyarsk submarines were decommissioned. Currently, the nuclear-powered ships of this project Voronezh, Smolensk, Tver, Orel, Omsk and Tomsk are in service in Russian waters.
Irkutsk and Chelyabinsk were the first of this project to be sent for modernization to the Far Eastern Zvezda plant - according to the Ministry of Defense, to be brought up to the level of Project 949AM. They have been there for more than five years. Modernization was planned to be completed by 2021, but then the deadlines shifted. According to data from open sources, now the Granits should be replaced by Onyx and hypersonic Zircons.
