The missile central part of the sub don't seem smoothy integrated with the rest of the hull. Old russian design inspired ?
Arihant-class SSBN - News & Discussions
- Thread starter Nick
- Start date
The graphics used are poor. At best they're indicative. These aren't from official sources but from fairly well informed amateurs. I wouldn't read too much into the point you've raised.
The yellow mock up shows also this lack of smooth of the hull. It's strange. Maybe some missinformation for foreign secret services ?
Plageriesm should never be encouraged, no matter what, as it kills the very essence
of first hand information source. Otherwise it remains secondary source of information (off-course with giving due credits). Thank you.
Though I do follow vice president, however his post didn't appeared in my Twitter updates. I went through the quoted web-link while returning from office. There I saw that the pic of alledged SSBN for first time.
You might be correct, I am operating on mobile as of now, so no way to spell check. Anyway I am sorry for any misunderstanding due to any spelling errors happened from my side. Thank you.
I hope the revelation of the pic wasn't earth shattering. Also apologies on behalf of H I Sutton & Indo Pacific SCS for misquoting the VP attributing those photographs to him. Sincerely regretted.
It's not me who's correct. It's Autospellcheck.
It's alright. You're excused.
Thank you too.
God I hope that design isn't representative of a future submarine program, it's a sub-hunters dream
.Anyway, it look like someone took a Delta IV and moved the fore-planes from the sail to the bow and made them retractable. Maybe it's intended missile armament is too large for a blended body design, or maybe it's some internal structure, maybe that design doesn't mean a damn thing and is nothing more then a mockup, but that design is a nightmare from a non-acoustic signature standpoint. You can practically see the cavitation on the missile hump! The Delta design proved highly traceable for NATO sub-hunters and sensors systems as the hull design propagated non-acoustic signatures - wakes, cavitation - more easily then blended body designs like Ohio, Vanguard or Typhoon, which have their own issues to contend with. Fitting a submarine with rounded edges mating hull and sail like that isn't easy on anechoic tile and rubber/dampener coating maintenance either. The rounded edges and right angels formed where the missile hump, main hull and sail meet form stress spots in the coating.
There's no reason to design a submarine with a large hump unless it's necessary at this point. If you absolutely need to fit outsized missiles, a blended body like Russia's Borei can be done with the same effect, just sacrificing some internal structures to make room.
The only Delta IV design worth anything is a Project 09787 Delta IV "Stretch", which supports special missions submarines as a mothership. It's missile hump has been converted into a hanger for AUVs, deep-diving submarines and special operations support systems.
As someone who spent a lot of time and resources designing systems to trace, track and kill submarines, I look forward to snooping any new classes the IN fields
. No matter how they look.*The author of that article, HiSutton is writing for Forbes
? One of the best resources on subsurface warfare out there. Covert Shores, the main site for HiSutton is highly worth a look.
Last edited:
As far as I know, NPOL studies almost all nuke sub designs from around the world. They often make hydrodynamic models of subs for extensive studies. This is very helpful to us. You see we are new to making nuke subs, as such learning from others is a good way of quickly getting ahead. The conventional methods of R&D would result in us being behind the world by decades in a very crucial area of national security.God I hope that design isn't representative of a future submarine program, it's a sub-hunters dream
For all you know, that model might as well be a Soviet/Russian Delta IV. We do study a lot of Russian subs, we've used quite a few of them too. So the interest in a Russian nuke sub, even if old isn't entirely surprising.
As for the size of the missiles, I've some doubts about that. Let me explain :
This is the baseline design of the Arihant class :
The other boats of the class will be stretched(more missiles baby !!) but will have the same design. The Arihant is essentially a big nuke powered Kilo class submarine. Compared to other nuke subs around the world the Arihant is pretty puny(6000 tons only) and even with that small size look at how well blended the hump is. To throw a shameless self-complement, we've outdone ourselves here given this is our first nuke sub(not that we've designed conventional subs before, we haven't).
Now look at the weapons carried by the Arihant today : 4 K-4 SLBMs or 12 K-15 missiles & torpedoes, depth charges etc. Among them the largest(by height) ballistic missile carried today is the K-4 :12 m in height.
The the longest ranged SLBM we have in development is the K-6 SLBM(ranged over 8000 kms). The K-6 also has a height of 12 m, just like the K-4. The K-6 is meant of the next gen nuke subs.
So no, we are not going to make any missiles that are so huge that it would need a massive hump to accommodate them. The next gen SSBNs are reported to be 13,000 tons in displacement. More than twice that of the Arihant. So its not difficult to assume that those subs will have a bigger hull(both in length and dia) than that of the Arihant. Bigger hull should at least theoretically mean more internal space to accommodate the missiles.
I don't see how we'll end up with that design that was tweeted. Hence my assertion that it could be that we are only studying the old Russian boats. We might've added the fore planes for extra fun.
As for acoustics and other emissions, I am illiterate here. But it was widely reported that the Kilo is one of the quietest subs out there(okay okay the original DE version, not our nuke version) and this might be the reason why we chose to base the Arihant on a Kilo class design. The Arihant must also be quiet for a nuke sub, surely not as much as the latest US or Russian designs. But I am pretty sure its quieter than the Chinese boats(granted that's a pretty low bar to set for oneself).
I don't see how the Navy would be happy switching from such a design to a older, louder & inefficient design. Let's just wait a few years, we should've some good photos when the boat comes out. Don't know when that will happen though.
How are you going to do that from Scandinavia ? Our boats don't go there, nothing to see. You boats don't come here, too hot I guess. So how then ? Satellites ?As someone who spent a lot of time and resources designing systems to trace, track and kill submarines, I look forward to snooping any new classes the IN fields
Just take a plane ticket to Vizag. Visit the Ship Building Centre(SBC), that's where the nuke subs are made. Tell the Navy you are here to take some pics of their secret subs and I an sure they will let you in. They are nice like that. Just ask @vstol Jockey , he can personally attest to that.
Yes. That's just one of the many models that they have studied over the course of decades.
This is the only official word on how quiet Arihant is. The journo is a bit funny, but he was at least thorough.
INS Arihant is an Indian design: Anil Kakodkar
Is the noise level comparable to other submarines of this class, since that is one way of detecting submarines?
Yes, I think so. You have seen the inside. Tell me if you felt some sound there?
Compared to a power reactor the sound was minimal.
Compared to machinery running in any other place, did you hear much sound? I think this is a very quiet system.
Still a very relative term don't you think ? I bet the Arihant is quieter than a silencer-less Royal Enfield Bullet, but that doesn't quite tell me anything. We wouldn't know how quiet it is compared to other SSBNs/SSNs at that time(when the article was written) given the Navy had no experience operating it yet. But now the Navy can compare it to say INS Chakra or other subs they come in contact with(Chinese nuke subs recently).
Also, wasn't the media given a tour of the S-1(i.e. is the land based prototype reactor) and not the actual submarine ? Here is a photo of the prototype reactor, in case anybody missed it :
And if comparatively lower valued ships like the Kamorta class ASW corvettes(speaking of which, where is INS Kavaratti ?) have raft mounted engines and gearboxes for acoustic emission reduction, you can bet your life the Arihant has the same if not better. Not to mention rubber tiles, secluded engine and gearbox rooms etc.
For a first time attempt the Arihant is quite good. But we need better and we need them fast.
And about the follow on subs of the Arihant class. Do you think that small 83 MW reactor is good enough for them ? The follow on boats will be longer & will have more missiles. So they will definitely be heavier than the first sub.
Noob question - have you read "Hunt for Red October"God I hope that design isn't representative of a future submarine program, it's a sub-hunters dream
Anyway, it look like someone took a Delta IV and moved the fore-planes from the sail to the bow and made them retractable. Maybe it's intended missile armament is too large for a blended body design, or maybe it's some internal structure, maybe that design doesn't mean a damn thing and is nothing more then a mockup, but that design is a nightmare from a non-acoustic signature standpoint. You can practically see the cavitation on the missile hump! The Delta design proved highly traceable for NATO sub-hunters and sensors systems as the hull design propagated non-acoustic signatures - wakes, cavitation - more easily then blended body designs like Ohio, Vanguard or Typhoon, which have their own issues to contend with. Fitting a submarine with rounded edges mating hull and sail like that isn't easy on anechoic tile and rubber/dampener coating maintenance either. The rounded edges and right angels formed where the missile hump, main hull and sail meet form stress spots in the coating.
View attachment 9959
There's no reason to design a submarine with a large hump unless it's necessary at this point. If you absolutely need to fit outsized missiles, a blended body like Russia's Borei can be done with the same effect, just sacrificing some internal structures to make room.
View attachment 9960
The only Delta IV design worth anything is a Project 09787 Delta IV "Stretch", which supports special missions submarines as a mothership. It's missile hump has been converted into a hanger for AUVs, deep-diving submarines and special operations support systems.
As someone who spent a lot of time and resources designing systems to trace, track and kill submarines, I look forward to snooping any new classes the IN fields
*The author of that article, HiSutton is writing for Forbes
Here we have Jack Ryan approach a specialist who - looking at spy photos and with approx dimension and other specs - was able to generate a computer model and then was able to predict what the acostics can do !
This is work of fiction? correct?
All it means is they are happy with the level of silence achieved. The Russian Ambassador said Arihant's noise is the same as the Akula class, but I'm not sure if we should take him at his word. But one can at least guess the noise levels are similar to Akula, Los Angeles etc, which is really, really good, especially in our extremely noisy ocean.
They were talking about the land reactor.
Arihant and Arighat can carry only 4 BMs. Whereas S4 and S4* will carry 8 with 1000T extra weight, so the 83MW reactor is likely enough. S5 onwards will be 12 missiles or more on a sub that's twice as large, so it most definitely needs a 190+MW reactor. They were also talking about making Gen IV reactors. The Arihant has Gen II. There was also talk of simply using 2 of Arihant's reactors in each S5 class. The SSNs, although lighter, will require a whole new class of reactors.
How are you going to do that from Scandinavia ? Our boats don't go there, nothing to see. You boats don't come here, too hot I guess. So how then ? Satellites ?
I spend very little time in the home country and kit I work on has a tendency to proliferate. I have opportunities
.
Proliferate with in the NATO, I imagine. Not outside the NATO. The only Western Navies that have sub hunting capabilities within the Indian Ocean-Arabian Sea-Bay of Bengal region would be the US, to lesser degree France and to a considerably lesser degree the UK. Most of their deployment remains with in the Arabian Sea-Gulf-Indian ocean region. The reason is obvious : Iran, Yemen, the Arabs, Pakistan etc. all lie at the edges of the Arabian Sea.
Our SSBNs are based in the Bay of Bengal. I don't think there will be any foreign navy doing sub hunting in the Bay of Bengal anytime soon. The geography around it isn't very supportive of ASW operations. The Chinese might try, NATO won't even do that. So unless you are telling me you are ganging up with the Bangladeshi or Myanmar navies to hunt our SSBNs, I don't see how your kit will do much hunting in our part of the world.
I have opportunities
Aren't you retired ? Weren't you in the Air Force ? You have opportunities to conduct ASW ops. after retirement, piggybacking on foreign navies ? Wow ! I envy you.
I remember the talks where they were planning to leap frog from 2nd gen to 4th gen reactors.....was it for S5 or SSN?