The K-410 Smolensk (photo), nuclear-powered submarine class Oscar II operating with the Northern Fleet, launched a cruise missile Turkish Granite hitting the designated target in the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, in the Arctic. This is what the command of the Northern Vadim Fleet communicates.
"The missile was launched on the surface from the Barents Sea against a deep target."
The Russian Ministry of Defense authorized the multi-year plan to modernize nuclear-powered missile submarines Project 949A Oscar II. The eight platforms in service on the eleven built between the years '80 and' 90, will be brought to the 949AM standard which provides for greater offensive capacity and implementation of new systems. The 949A currently carry 24 P-700 anti-ship missiles Turkish Granite (SS-N-19 Shipwreck).
the class Oscar was designed in Soviet times with the precise role carrier-killer, designed to counter US carriers. The 949A standard proposed by the Rubin Central Design Bureau for the class Oscar-II will require an investment (official data) of 400 million dollars. The interventions appear immediately underestimated, considering that all the Oscars II will receive new systems (fire control, communications, sonar, radar, navigation). The 949A II submarines will carry up to 72 anti-ship missiles, including the SS-N-26 Strobile and the SS-N-27 Sizzler: no changes to the hull will be necessary. Both the Rubin Central Design Bureau and the Missile Design Bureau Mashinostroyeniya and Novator are working to develop a standard launcher.
the class Oscar has always been wrapped in an aura of mystery. Still not clear, for example, the specifications of the K-139 submarine Belgorod. Officially it appears as an evolution of the class Oscar II. The only certain data is that it will carry out retaliatory missions transporting ICBM submarines with cobalt warheads (Ocean Multipurpose System: Status-6). Despite being a weapon (still on paper), in some ways the latest, designed to starve the survivors of a nuclear holocaust, the Russian leadership has decided to entrust this mission to a class submarine Oscar II.
The second platform equipped with the Status-6 will be the Khabarovsk, 09851 project, similar to the class Borei. Information on Khabarovsk they are practically nil.
(photo: MoD Russian Federation)
