New Russian Boomer Finally Hits The Water
Back in April 2007, the Russians announced that they had "launched" their first new SSBN since the fall of the Soviet Union, the RFS Yuri Dolgorukii. To everyone's amusement, the announcements of the "launch" indicated that the boat would go out to sea in October of last year, even though the sub was only 82% complete at the time.
It turns out the Russians apparently have a different definition of "launched" than most navies; it's been announced that she finally made it into the water for the first time yesterday. For those interested, here are some pictures of the original "launch", which apparently involved moving the sub from the construction building to a drydock.
At this rate, we're not going to get any pictures taken from one of our periscopes until 2011 or so.
posted by Bubblehead at 10:58 PM
4 Comments:
Here's my question: Why are my tax dollars being paid to decommission Russian nuclear weapons and submarine powerplants, but the Russians can afford to build and launch a new SSBN? Sure, it's no Typhoon-class cream puff like in the good old days, but still: can't these guys clean up their last 40 years of submarining before they start to build new boats?
2/14/2008 7:50 AM
FYI - the translation simply indicates the pictures were culled from a video. The Russian Blogger apologizes for distortions in the photos.
2/14/2008 9:56 AM
Answers to prior anon:
(1) Because the Russians have successfully extorted our (and European) tax dollars to pay for the cleanup.
(2) Why should they, given #1 above?
2/14/2008 5:25 PM
Is this the same sub that had major design flaws where they couldn't fit in the reactor in the space it was supposed to occupy? I heard about this some months ago, wondering if you can comment on this and add more details if you know of them?
1/07/2009 10:51 AM
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