Recently, the Russian Navy has built two more ” Underwater Black Holes ” – an upgraded version of Kilo-class diesel-electric attack submarine.
The Russian Ministry of Defense has decided to build a modified version of Type 636.3 Kilo-class diesel-electric attack submarine, in part because of overspend and construction problems of other submarine construction projects, including Type 677 “Lada” project.
The Russian Navy originally planned to build an underwater fleet of six more advanced Lada-class attack submarines. However, so far, only one such submarine, the “St. Petersburg” built in 1997, has now entered the Russian Navy.
Another Lada-class attack submarine “Velikiye Luki” has already been funded, but the construction contracts for the fourth and fifth “Lada”-class attack submarines are only told to be signed in 2019. Therefore, it is reasonable to believe that construction of Lada-class conventional power attack submarine is likely to stop after the completion of the “Velikiye Luki” Lada-class submarine.
The fate of the Lada-class submarine is not smooth, because the Lada-class submarine has been unable to make substantial progress in AIP system, data link and new torpedoes.
The export type of Lada-class submarine is called Amur-class submarine. The Russian media reported in 2012 that China and Russia signed an agreement to purchase four Amur-class submarines. However, due to slow progress in the construction of the submarines in Russia, no further specifics were reported thereafter.
Nowadays, in the context of various problems of Amur-class, the performance of the Chinese-made new conventional submarines is excellent, so China has no more interest in Russia’s Lada-class submarine.
In fact, in the past ten years, China’s Type 039 series submarines have made great progress, and their comprehensive performance is ranked very high among conventional submarines. According to Chinese analyst Shi Jiangyue, Lada-class submarines have no advantage in front of Type 039 submarines. So there is no reason to continue the purchase agreement with Russia.
The improved Type 636.3 Kilo-class diesel-electric attack submarine was called “underwater black hole” by the US Navy, highlighting the submarine’s reputation for its extremely low underwater noise.
According to reports, the new Type 636.3 Kilo-class submarine uses a special sound-absorbing coating applied to the outer surface of the boat to reduce the noise from the interior of the submarine. But it is worth noting that the new 636.3 Kilo-class submarine is not equipped with any air-independent propulsion system (AIP).