Project 659

Project 659

A Project 659 boat

Ship data country  Soviet Union Shipyard Shipyard 199 Komsomolsk Construction period 1958 to 1963 Decommissioning 1990s Units built 5

Ship dimensions and crew length 111.2 m ( Lüa ) width 9.2 m Draft Max. 6.35 m displacement surfaced: 3,730 t submerged: 4,920 t   crew 104 men

Machine system machine 2 × pressurized water reactors WM-A with 140 MW th each 2 × electric motors PG-116 with 460 HP each propeller 2 × five leaves

Mission data submarine Immersion depth, max. 300 m Top speed submerged 23 kn (43 km / h) Top speed surfaced 14 kn (26 km / h)

Armament 6 × P-5D Pitjorka starting tanks 4 × torpedo tubes (bow) ∅ 533 mm 2 × torpedo tubes (bow) ∅ 400 mm 2 × torpedo tubes (stern) ∅ 400 mm

Project 659 , designated by NATO as the Echo-I-class , was a nuclear -powered submarine class of the Soviet Navy with cruise missiles ( SSGN ).

history

Project 659

Drawing of the starboard view of Project 659

Project 659 was a first generation SSGN and was developed as a result of a corresponding government order from August 1956. Technical facilities, especially the propulsion system, were based on Project 627 . Project 659 and simultaneously developed Project 658 ( SSBN ) then used both the World Cup-A - pressurized water reactors from Project 627, with hot steam at 659 project two turbines, each with 17,500 hp (12,870 kW drives) performance. O. Klimow was appointed chief developer.

Six P-5D Pitjorka were planned as armament , which could only be used against land targets due to the lack of tracking and control systems in the carrier submarine. The bulky missiles were to be housed in launch canisters, for which the hull of the boats was raised so that they were embedded precisely so as not to increase the flow resistance of the hull when underwater. At the time it was not technically feasible to start the weapons from the submerged boat, so that Project 659 boats appeared and the canisters with the missiles had to be extended to 15 ° in order to be able to fire the cruise missiles - which the U- Made boats very vulnerable. The extension process took around 140 seconds.

The problem for the designers was the lack of technical specifications for the missile systems, which were not fully available until the construction of Project 659 had already been underway for a year. Accordingly, numerous adjustments had to be made afterwards.

Conversion project 659T

The insufficient performance data of the P-5D missile soon led to the decision to remove these weapons from Project 659. It was decided to replace them with P-6 "Pitjorka" missiles. Since the two systems were not compatible, the launch containers from Project 659 had to be removed and replaced with new ones. In addition, interfaces and electronic equipment had to be adapted. The armory for torpedoes in the bow was enlarged so that 32 torpedoes could be carried. The conversion was carried out on all five boats between 1968 and 1976 and the new project was classified as the 659T.

At the end of the 1980s, all five boats were decommissioned.

construction

Project 659 was constructed with a double hull . The inner pressure hull, in which the crew and ship systems were housed, was divided into ten compartments, which were separated from each other by watertight bulkheads . The internal structure was in many parts identical to that of Project 658.

An extendable mast with an “Albatros” X-band radar (NATO: “Snoop Tray”) was mounted on the tower of Project 659 . In addition, each boat had a “Chrom-M” friend-foe identification system , a NEL-5 echo sounder and a “Plutonium” sonar system.

units

The construction of six boats of the class was planned, but the project was discontinued after five units. The sixth hull was demolished after a few months of construction.

K-45

K-45 was on 20 December 1958 in Komsomolsk-on-Amur to put Kiel and ran on 12 May 1960 by the stack. The boat was subjected to numerous tests from June 1960 to 1961 in order to identify possible errors in the planning in addition to testing the functionality of the K-45 itself. The checks of all systems resulted in 270 identified defects, including a loss of 15 liters of coolant per hour in the second cooling circuit of the reactor system. The test starts with the P-5D missiles carried out in 1961 revealed numerous other problems - some of the transport containers were leaky and the missiles were unusable due to the ingress of seawater. Damage was also caused by the return beam from the missile's engine when it was launched. K-45 was assigned to the Pacific Fleet after repairs and converted to Project 959T in 1970. It was deployed in the South China Sea in 1972 in the course of the Vietnam War and then carried out a 163-day patrol (with stopovers). On September 10, 1981, she collided with a fishing trawler while crossing the water and was slightly damaged. In 1995, K-45 was towed to a Navy storage facility in preparation for scrapping.

K-59

The boat was laid down on September 30, 1959 in Komsomolsk am Amur and was launched on September 25, 1960. It served in the Pacific Fleet and was modernized into Project 659T between 1967 and 1970. In 1977 it was renamed K-259 as part of a reorganization . The boat conducted several extensive patrols in the Pacific and was transferred to reserve in 1989 before being permanently decommissioned in 1997 and scrapped the following year.

K-66

K-66 was laid down on March 26, 1960 in Komsomolsk am Amur and launched on July 30, 1961. After completing its testing, the boat conducted several extended patrols in the Pacific, some of which lasted longer than two months. On May 6, 1966, a fire broke out in the turbine room, causing severe damage to the electronic equipment, but which could be brought under control without loss. Between 1970 and 1972, the K-66 was converted into the 659T project. In 1979, six tons of gear oil were lost due to a seal failure. As a result of the resulting damage, K-66 was transferred to the reserve and in 1986 moved to a permanent storage facility of the Navy. The “Stern” shipyard was later commissioned with the scrapping.

K-122

The boat was laid on November 16, 1960 in Komsomolsk am Amur and was launched on September 17, 1961. In 1963 there were two serious technical defects. In August 1963, cooling water accumulated in the reactor compartment, which rose to waist height before the team could repair the defect with on-board resources. In September 1963 the crew suddenly lost control of the steering gear while underwater at 14 knots. The boat began to sink rapidly over the bow and could only be intercepted with difficulty. The cause was a defect in the rudder linkage that was overlooked when the boat was built. In 1968, K-122 was modernized to the 659T project. During the Soviet Navy's "Ocean" exercise in 1970, there were disagreements on board about the exact position of K-122 and a commander-ordered dive to a depth of 200 meters ended at 196 meters when K-122 hit a coral reef with the bow sonar rammed. The damage did not put the boat at risk, but a few days later small fires broke out in three compartments and several seafarers suffered carbon monoxide poisoning . The commander was relieved after the exercise. On August 20, 1980, a fire broke out in Division VII while diving. The automatic fire extinguishing system was triggered, but nine men for whom protective masks were not available were poisoned by the Freon extinguishing agent. With the exception of the bow torpedo room, the entire pressure hull was filled with smoke and toxic gases, so that the crew had to go on deck after surfacing. However, the fire had changed the pressure in the boat so that the upper access hatches to the compartments in the stern could not be opened. The seamen who were trapped in the rear compartments could only be released after a mate , who was fatally inhaled by smoke, opened one of the torpedo tubes and thus equalized the pressure. The team gained access to the reactor from outside and secured it by lowering the control rods . Since all communication and guidance systems were inaccessible due to the toxic atmosphere in the boat and no help could be called by radio, the boat drifted on the surface and a British ship ultimately forwarded the information about the plight of K-122 via its embassy to the Soviet Navy continued, which then dispatched rescue ships. The boat was brought in. A total of 14 seafarers were killed - mainly due to a lack of protective equipment. The boat was no longer repaired and was scrapped in 1995.

K-151

K-151 was laid down in Komsomolsk-on-Amur on April 21, 1962 and launched on September 30, 1962. It was assigned to the Pacific Fleet and stationed in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky . It was upgraded to Project 659T between 1972 and 1976. The boat took part in numerous exercises and the crew received various awards. On June 30, 1984, a seaman was killed by smoke inhalation after a fire broke out in Division VII. In 1989 the boat was transferred to the reserve and in 1995 it was removed from the fleet list. Although it was scheduled for scrapping, it was still anchored in the storage facility in 2006.

Project 675

→ Main article : Project 675

Evidence and references

Remarks

1. ↑ ( Russian name подводная лодка атомная с ракетами крылатыми , transcribed Podwodnaja lodka atomnaja s raketami krylatymi , ПЛАРК for short)

Individual evidence

1. ^ JW Apalkow: Submarines of the Soviet Navy 1945–1991, part 1. p. 105.
2. ^ JW Apalkow: U-Boats of the Soviet Navy 1945–1991, Part 1. P. 166 and following.

literature

• Ю.В. Апальков: Подводные лодки советского флота 1945–1991, том I. (for example: JW Apalkow: U-Boats of the Soviet Navy 1945–1991, part 1. ) 2009, ISBN 978-5-903080-55-7 (Russian).
• Ю.В. Апальков: Корабли ВМФ СССР Том I - Подводные лодки. Часть 1 - Ракетные подводные крейсера стратегического назначения и многоцелевые подводные лодки. (For example: JW Apalkow: Ships of the USSR - Strategic Missile Submarines and Multipurpose Submarines. ) Saint Petersburg 2002, ISBN 5-8172-0069-4 (Russian).
• Oleg A. Godin, David R. Palmer: History of Russian underwater acoustics. World Scientific Publishing Company, 2008, ISBN 978-9812568250 (English).
• Norman Polmar, Kenneth J. Moore: Cold War submarines: the design and construction of US and Soviet submarines, 1945-2001. Free Press, 2003, ISBN 978-1-57488-594-1 (English).
• Н.В. Усенко, П.Г. Котов, В.Г. Реданский, В.К. Куличков: Как создавался атомный подводный флот Советского Союза (NW Usenko, PG Kotow, WG Redanski, WK Kulitschkow, WK Kulitschkow: When the Soviet Union was founded in 2004 ( Saint Petersburg) -23-74. .
• Edward Offley: Scorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon: The Untold Story of the USS Scorpion. Basic Books, 2007, ISBN 978-0-465-05185-4 .

Web links

• Project 659 at deepstorm.ru (Russian)
• Project 675 at deepstorm.ru (Russian)