"Moscow Doesn't Believe In..."
...putting aside enough money to keep their SSBNs repaired, according to this article from Bellona:
"The sea trials of K-114 Tula submarine were scheduled for spring but delays with delivery of the new sonar system led to another postponement. Meanwhile the commander of the submarine prolonged the sponsorship agreement of city Tula for the submarine’s crew. The mayor of Tula promised to send working and sport clothes to the submariners as well as a minibus. In exchange, every year Tula submarine receives conscripts from the sister-city. The submarine commander also promised to invite representatives from Tula when the submarine is back in operation after the overhaul in October 2005. The upgrade of K-114 will allow the submarine to operate 10 years more. The project 667 Tula, Delta-IV, was built at the Sevmash plant in 1987 K-114 sub is one of the last Soviet built subs. Sevmash built it in 1987. Tula got its name in 1995 together with the sponsorship from the city of Tula.
"The biggest difficulties are with K-117 Bryansk, which is underfinanced and could be hardly finished even in 2007. K-18 Karelia, where president Putin drank seawater and became a submariner, also lacks financing. No repair works at all were carried out at the presidential Delta-IV."
This is good news; the Delta-IV's are fairly capable boats, and I'd much rather have them rusting alongside the pier rather than on patrol. Some other boats that I'm happy to see gone are these:
"Total eight nuclear submarines of 671RTM (Victor-III) project will be tugged from the Northern fleet bases to the Zvezdochka shipyard for scrapping in July and August, Interfax reported. Three subs located in the Ura Bay, two – in Zapadnaya Litsa, and three – in Vidyaevo. "The dismantling works will be sponsored by Canada, which promised to allocate $18m for this purpose. This Canadian initiative is the part of the one billion Canadian dollars obligation in the frames of the Global Partnership program adopted in 2002 at the G8 summit. The dismantling of the first multipurpose submarine sponsored by Canada, has been already completed. Scrapping of another two submarines is under way. Canada pledged to allocate $100m to finance dismantling of 12 multipurpose submarines at the Zvezdochka shipyard."
Intel Source: NOSI
2 Comments:
A TYPHOON was actually sponsored by a company: Northern Steel, and carried its name, though not very far; she does her "strategic patrols" tied up pierside.
6/15/2005 3:03 PM
In response to subsunk, you left out the Oscar II's, Akula II's, Uniform, Yankee-stretch/Paltus, Tango's, and Kilo's. Not to mention their surface OOB...yeah, they need to be watched...they are not our friends...
6/16/2005 9:28 AM
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