Project 941 "Shark" - the largest submarine in history

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:55

The largest submarine in the history of mankind was created by Soviet designers from the Rubin design bureau in the period from 1972 to 1980. By 1976, design work was completed, and the boat was laid down at Sevmash. However, it was more of a heavy cruiser than a boat. The silhouette of a shark was painted on the bow of the submarine, and later it appeared on the sleeve of the sailors who served on this ship.

The illustration shows the silhouettes of nuclear submarines, first American: "Sea Wolf", "Virginia", "Ohio", "Kilo", then our projects 209 and 212. Below is the silhouette of the "Shark". Its length is 173 meters, the submerged displacement is 48,000 tons.

"Shark" in official documents was called modestly - nuclear submarine - project 941. L. I. called these boats "Typhoon". Brezhnev during the XXVI Congress of the CPSU in 1981, he did not want to reveal the real name of the new submarine, created in response to the launch by the Americans of the Ohio program with Trident missiles on board.

The largest submarine owes its sizemissiles with which they were going to arm it. P-39s were three-stage, their warhead was divided into ten independently guided warheads of one hundred kilotons each. Besides, there were twenty of them.

The design of the submarine was unique. If an ordinary submarine has one strong and one outer lightweight hull, located in each other in the likeness of a nesting doll, then in this project there were two main and three additional ones. Missile silos were located ahead of the wheelhouse, which was also a novelty in underwater shipbuilding. The torpedo compartment was enclosed in a separate hull, like the TsKP, and a mechanical aft compartment.

But this largest submarine in the world was unique not only in its design scheme, but also in its running and operational qualities. One of the points of the technical assignment contained a requirement for the draft of the ship in the surface position, small enough so that it could pass in shallow water. To fulfill this condition, it was necessary to equip the nuclear submarine with very large tanks of the main ballast, which were filled with water when immersed. This design feature allowed the Shark to float even at the North Pole, breaking through more than two meters of ice from below.

The material for the manufacture of durable cases is titanium, the light ones were made of steel. Coating with special rubber improved driving performance and reduced noise, making it difficult to detect a submarine cruiser by anti-submarine defense forces of a potential enemy. The permissible immersion depth was 500meters.

The largest submarine in the world had an appropriate power plant - almost two and a half million horses, and this is even hard to imagine, but it made it possible to keep under water at 25 knots. There were additional engines for complex maneuvers and emergency backup.

Combat posts were alternately occupied by 160 midshipman sailors and officers. Living conditions on board were comfortable, the crew could fully relax in the pool and play sports in the gym.

The largest submarine could make semi-annual autonomous trips.

After the end of the Cold War, Russia's military doctrine has changed. The nuclear submarine "Shark", as a tool for delivering a preventive strike, turned out to be unnecessary. In total, six of them were built, one is in service, two are in reserve.

Like many other examples of unique military equipment from the Cold War, the largest submarine did not take part in hostilities, and that's good. She made her contribution to maintaining the balance of power, and, perhaps, this helped to maintain peace on our planet.