Russia’s New Submarine Warships: Are they a threat?

Russia has been busy making plans to stock up on specialized submarine warships. They are making an effort to resurrect their submarine fleet, creating two new classes of submarines: the Borei and the Yasen.

What are they up to, and should we be concerned?

Russia’s New Top-of-the-Line Submarine: Borei

Russia is the process of scrapping its Typhoon submarine vessels and building more sophisticated (and deadlier) Borei- and Yasen-class submarines.

Borei (meaning ‘North Wind’) submarinesare much harder to detect than other submarines. They carry 16 nuclear-tipped RSM-56 Bulava missiles, each featuring 10 independent warheads that have a host of countermeasures able to defend against interception and thwart ballistic defense shields, according to U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Tom Spahn in the June 2013 edition of the journal Proceedings.

Russia plans to make and deploy eight by 2020.

Russia’s New Top-of-the-Line Submarine: Yasen

Yasen (meaning ‘Ash Tree’) submarines are essentially attack submarines with:

• very sophisticated internal systems;
• impressive technological advances;
• numerous cruise missiles; and
• VA-111 Schval torpedoes that travel at such a high speed that it gives targets little or no time to react before impact, notes Lt. Cmdr. Spahn.

These aren’t just your run-of-the-mill Delta type warships like in the Cold War. Rather, Yasen attack submarines actually fulfill three distinct roles. They are:

• antisubmarine;
• antisurface; and
• tactical land-attack.

The first Yasen launched in 2011, was planned for active service in 2013, and they plan to have four more by 2016, according to the Proceedings report.

Concern Over Russia’s Initiatives

Should the U.S. be concerned? The answer is: maybe. Granted, the cost of the program has been greater than expected. The building of the second Yasen has already ballooned to $3 billion, “jeopardizing the entire program,” reports Lt. Cmdr. Spahn.

But, there is, after all, a lot to be concerned about. Firstly, the new fleet is designed quite well to be undetected. Secondly, Lt. Cmdr. Spahn points out that Russia has never hidden its stance that it has no qualms about selling to the highest bidder. What if the ships get in the hands of even more adversarial parties? Furthermore, Russia seems bent on aggressive expansionism, seemly caring little about diplomacy.

Lt. Cmdr. Spahn has some interesting insight and words of forewarning about Russia’s new superfleet plans: “It only takes one submarine to change an entire geo-political region. If you have the threat of even one submarine lurking off the coast undetected, a carrier strike group is going to have to think twice about going to that area.”

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