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India is crazy to turn away this Lada class sub sale which is much better than Kilo.I wonder who is the foreign customer who bought these subs?The use of state-of-the-art acoustic protection systems and original engineering innovations on Amur-class submarines will make them several times quieter than Kilo-class submarines. Amurs are well-suited to their underwater environment.
Two diesel-electric submarines of a new, fourth postwar generation have been laid down at the Admiralteiskiye Verfi state-owned shipyard in St. Petersburg. One submarine (Project 677 Lada), designated Sankt Peterburg, is being built for Russia's Navy, and the other (Amur-1650) is intended for export.
Both submarines are part of the same project and differ only in customer requirements and operational conditions. The submarines will have high submerged cruising range and endurance, combat efficiency and reliability, and low acoustic signature (characteristics of the Amur-1650 submarine are given in Table 1).
In the Jan/Feb '95 issue, Military Parade described in detail Amur-class submarines with a normal displacement of 550 to 1,850 m3, which were developed by the Rubin Central Marine Design Bureau. The magazine quoted the Project's General Designer Yuri Kormilitsin as saying: "The submarine has been conceived as a kind of an underwater sea hunter, capable of destroying any target – surface naval ships, transport vessels, or submarines – using torpedoes, missiles, mines and also with the help of frogmen."
The Rubin-designed submarine of the previous generation (Project 877, Kilo class) was described in the West as a "black hole in the ocean" for its low level of noise which prevented its detection. The use of state-of-the-art acoustic protection systems and original engineering innovations on Amur-class submarines will make them several times quieter than Kilo-class submarines. Amurs are well-suited to their underwater environment. Their sonar equipment includes highly sensitive direct-
listening transducers at the forward end and a towed transducer array.
Control of the submarine, its armament and equipment is highly automated and carried out from operators' consoles concentrated in the main control room.
Admiralteiskie Verfi has vast experience in building such vessels. The shipyard's Director General Vladimir Alexandrov said at the laying-down ceremony that the Sankt Peterburg is the 300th submarine built by Admiralteiskie Verfi. The shipyard's vessels are eagerly purchased by foreign navies. In November and December 1997 alone, two submarines (Projects 636 and 877 EKM) were turned over to foreign customers.
