fun facts about the Alfa class submarine also known as project 705 Lira
its one of the first titanium hulled submarines ever made which allowed it together with the use of a unique liquid metal reactor to reach speeds of up to 44 knots underwater making it one of the fastest submarines ever built only surpassed by the papa class submarine
it was designed as a "interceptor"submarine meaning it was to stay in port until an enemy vessel is detected and then run up to it using its incredible speed
It could also be heard from land when leaving port
by the clinically deaf.
And any cooldown solidified the metal, rendering the reactor and all its associated piping useless. It all had to be removed; this is why they needed dockside heating systems to keep the metal fluid while the boat was tied up. The USN tried the liquid metal reactor idea with the first USS Seawolf, and quickly replaced it with conventional pressurized water reactors as a result.
what metal was used in the reactor? sodium?
in the Seawolf? it was sodium, yes. the risks and costs of upkeep vastly outweigh the benefits of a liquid metal reactor, whereas at the end of the day a PWR is just spicy water.
Specifically, the USS Seawolf used this one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S2G_reactor
>any cooldown solidified the metal, rendering the reactor and all its associated piping useless. It all had to be removed; this is why they needed dockside heating systems to keep the metal fluid while the boat was tied up
I thought it was an Onion-tier spoof the first time I read that
nuke torpedoes and depth charges are the most likely to be used, moron, they have the distinct advantages of being very far away from any population centre and being surrounded by masses of natural dilutant
>ussr
they were shit anon
>What would that change
instant unanimous worldwiode condemnation like nothing seen since 1991
NOBODY wants to be the first to use a nuclear weapon since 1945, they would forever be hated for opening Pandora's box
This may be an incredibly dumb question but why not use Mercury? I know it has a lower boiling point than Sodium but it's liquid at room temperature meaning no special heating and its higher than water
1. Low boiling point. Mercury boils at only ~672°f, much lower than sodium or lead. This means the reactor has to run cooler, worsening performance
2. Mercury commonly dissolves and embrittles metals, including zirconium, which is critical because zirconium is necessary for reactors.
3. Mercury neutron absorption cross sections are not insignificant. A quick google search on my phone gives me the impression isotopes of mercury hover around 10^-1 barn, which is high for a coolant.
4. It's fricking mercury. It's poison if any of it leaks.
Who are you, who are so wise in the ways of nuclear reactors?
It's basic knowledge.
t. Navy nuc.
Come to commercial power, we have cookies.
And money, mostly money.
Mercury is the devil if you're working with certain other metals. In a lot of military production plants, bringing mercury onto the facility is on the same level as bringing a gun past security or taking pictures of sensitive materials with your phone. Depending on context, you might even end up charged with some sort of sabotage, especially if that shit actually gets on anything. Mercury bad.
also owing to its titanium hull it could operate at depths which other submarines would consider test depths(aka depths where theyre close to crush depth) which is beneficial because it allowed it to escape enemy torpedos(most of which couldnt reach such depths)
the Alfa could also use its own weapons freely at that depth however which meant in theory it could be out of the grasp of enemy ASW weapons and attack with impunity
pic related is the control room
the problem with titanium was titanium fatigue and embrittlement which meant that every time you go to the low depth it will reduce the depth you're allowed to descend, weakening the structure of the submarine. this means that your submarine is either limited to much more shallow depths than the design allows most of the time or it's going to see its service life significantly reduced.
I thought super deep subs like the 5 deeps one were a titanium sphere?
There’s a difference between a bathesphere and a proper submarine. Alvin’s pressure hull is 14.6 tons despite being a roughly 3 meter sphere, and it holds 3 dudes for a matter of hours. A normal submarine is paper thin by comparison, otherwise it couldn’t float. Alvin’s body, that you see that isn’t a 10 foot sphere, is basically all foam to make the sphere able to float
fr no cap
A cursory google seach leads me to believe titanium is less susceptible to metal fatigue than steel
Nta but... wouldn't steel have the advantage of easy replacement?
Titanium work hardens in fact. One of the reasons it's such a b***h to machine.
Work hardening and fatigue mechanics are two different phenomena (although I think they're both related to defect migration ; t. Not a material scientist).
Steel work hardens too, just not to the same extent as titanium. And likewise, steel suffers from metal fatigue just like any other alloy.
>t moron
Titanium isn't aluminum you gigaBlack person moron. Titanium is the material of choice for all DSVs.
>bathysphereis the same as a submarine designed for war
its a good thing everyone uses titanium alloys then
>pic
Modern Russian technology has barely moved since then, look like 60s/maybe 70s tech. Are the Alfa still in service? Feel like a logistic mess to keep them around considering their unique problems and ages meanwhile America is sending Nimitz and LA SSN to get scrapped which are as good or better than anything russia ever produced.
I will admit, it's a cool ship but you can't just look at some stats and ignore the reality.
pretty much all alfa have been retired
the lead class ship was retired very early on due to the reactors liquid solidifying
it influenced subsequent submarine designs like the akula which proved to be very successful and saw service until recently
60s/70s were the time the captured German started to die off. Russia invented nothing before the Germans did it for them and nothing after they were gone.
>the Alfa could also use its own weapons freely at that depth however which meant in theory it could be out of the grasp of enemy ASW weapons and attack with impunity
This is actually only true for surface-launched weapons. The answer to that problem has always been nukes, as a submarine test depth still falls well within the kill radius of a nuclear depth charge, or a Mk45 torpedo warhead.
US shit their pants at the news anyways and instead of just upgrading MK37s they developed MK48 torpedoes which can chase down and reach any submarine ever designed without trouble.
>any submarine ever designed
except the Mike class which could go 200 meters deeper than the mk48s max depth
ADCAP can do it.
even the estimated range of the adcap is 800 meters
the mike could submerge up to 1000 meters comfortably
800m is the depth of the original MK48. I bet my ass ADCAP can do more.
sir, the Wikipedia officially released numbers disagree with you. I'm sure the Ford can only do 25kts and the max depth of the Ohio is 100m.
Calling K-278 the “Mike Class” is just pentagon budgetary fear mongering.
It’s one boat and they never going to make a second boat.
I also wouldn’t bet on an ADCAP imploding before reaching Kosmolets. It wasn’t like they rated them by testing them at progressively deeper depths until they didn’t work, they tested them at one target depth, successfully, and called it a rating.
>also owing to its titanium hull it could operate at depths which other submarines would consider test depths
Alfa-class has 350m test depth, less than Thresher/Permit class 400m depth and LA-class 450m depth, that's before getting into the lower safety margin of test depths russians have.
looks comfy
Titanium is just Russian carbon fiber, not some stupid wunderwaffe unobtanium
It'll crush like a tin can or the Titan if it keeps pushing those depths because titanium is weaker than steel
its discovery by the US also rung a lot of alarm bells and is an interesting story in it of itself
owing to the fact titanium is hard to work with the soviets had to use a lot of it in building submarines of this size and it resulted in a big titanium shortage which could even be felt in the west
the first tip off to the existence of the Alfa is owed to metal workers discovering scrap pieces for the construction of the submarine
pic related is the liquid metal reactor
The real fun fact is that the west lacked torpedos which could catch it due to lack of speed, so an alfa going full speed was pretty much impossible to destroy.
Multiple countries started high-speed torpedo developments as a result.
ASTOR could go 40 knots and was in service before the first Alfa was even laid down. Mk48 was in service the same year as the first, and for the next 6 years, only, Alfa went on patrol.
the sub isnt going in a straight line away from the torpedo so that doesnt really matter
You can intercept it going somewhere other than away from you by sending it onto a collision course, especially if you have the freedom allowed by a 1 mile kill radius.
nuclear ""weapons"" arent made for war and theyll never be used tactically ever
they are deterrents not fricking toys
Actually they would be in the 60s, especially when there's no alternative other than to just blast it.
Not like the soviets would find the wrecked sub either.
>theyll never be used tactically ever
>NOOOKS have been around for 80 years
>out of 10 000+ years human civilizations have existed
>including the hunter-gatherer nomad phase hundred of thousands of years for modern human monkey races
>all which spent constantly physically fighting each other to death
when the first limited nook-ook clubberings get used after WW2 the doomposting will be glorious. Last time a particularly large ukranian ammo dump exploded in the night we had one doomer here quoting non stop bible verses as he thought it was the big, scary bomb.
at this point the psychological barrier from overhyping is far greater then what the actual bombs itself could do
>he thought it was the big, scary bomb
He was worried that Russia nuked Ukraine?
yea
What would that change outside of perhaps encouraging the Pakis and the Pajeets?
Unlimited western support is the biggest practical effect. maybe even limited intervention like a no fly zone over portions of ukraine. Like everything west of Dnieper or something like that. Strategic forces would be on high alert ofc but not immediate full scale attack like some doomers like to wank over. At the end of the day gay theories are fit for academia and its up to the dodgy politicians to make the final orders.
Militarily on ground it would not have big effect as ukranian units are dispersed and entrenched enough not to be concentrated. knowing vatniks they would bomb something like kherson however which would brun out the city center into rubble. By far biggest effect would be the psychological shock which pisses the ukranian further off to never stop giving up on hounding ziggers
>Unlimited western support is the biggest practical effect
That isn't worth much if there's no one to use the supplies.
one tactical nuke wouldn't take out the entire country dipshit. it would bearly be enough to exterminate a 2000 population town in the midwest
>not immediate full scale attack like some doomers like to wank over
This is plain wrong and could only come from a position of extreme ignorance. The people who are saying that a Russian nuke would result in a belt of green glass from St Petersburg to Kamchatka don't say it because they're doomers, they say it because it would be the only way to avoid a doomsday scenario.
In fact, any Russian nuke would almost certainly be immediately answered by a full strategic strike. This has been wargamed so extensively and thoroughly that it's beyond any question. It is the world's only chance of avoiding every single middle power and most minor powers becoming nuclear states within a decade and inevitable preemptive nuclear strikes against neighbours cascading Archduke Ferdinand style into certain annihilation for the human race. America's nuclear umbrella is the only thing that prevents xenocidal proliferation, and the Ukraine is an even stronger special case since they gave up their nukes post Cold War in return for a security guarantee not to do what Russia has now done that was underwritten by the US and China.
American nukes would be out of their silos before there was even fallout and almost simultaneously the oceans would echo with the sounds of Russian pressure hull implosions as the tails they have continuously had and been unable to shake or detect since the 1960s finally emptied their blue balls out the front tubes. Behind closed doors China would be clapping for it, because that fricking umbrella is the reason that the US was able to stop Taiwan proliferating and ending Russia's violation of China's security guarantee saves them major face. The rest of the world would be aghast, but fundamentally and overwhelmingly would support putting down the rabid dog that the Russian Federation had become.
>the rabid dog that the Russian Federation had become
You should have used "Putler" in your essay to make it credible.
Stay mad mindbroken shill. Empty threats of nukes aren't going to stop your revanchist dreams from being ground to dust on the steppes.
Post USSR and Warsaw Pact, pajeet.
>In fact, any Russian nuke would almost certainly be immediately answered by a full strategic strike.
Moscow & Beijing routinely dogwhistle very casual nukings of US cities, and it's not simple Crazy Ivan bullshit. It's what they would LIKE to do IF they wouldn't totally be wiped from history in response. The average age of apparatchiks is frickign spetuagenarian for good reason -- they're Soviet diehards, and those early 90s agreements with Red China bout divying up the lower 48 in a prospective joint strike and occupation are still on their wishlists.The Berlin Wall 'falling' settle absolutely frick all, and the frickass champagne socialists in the pinko west are going to have their come to Jesus moment of "oh frick, it's not cynical, they really want to Zero Sum Game eat our lunch" or invite something terrible upon themselves.
>almost simultaneously the oceans would echo with the sounds of Russian pressure hull implosions as the tails they have continuously had and been unable to shake or detect since the 1960s
We have spent the past 70s years NOT COLONIZING THE FRICKING STARS because of cargo cultists shitheels of the Sino-Soviet block waiting to stab the civilized world in the back. Mountains of treasure and centuries of time/labor have been wasted deterring these inept homosexuals subsiting on gibs and tech transfers a la the likes of Kissinger's Bi-National Research Foundations and shitheels like Jonathan Pollard. Patience is wearing radically thin, and push come to shove they are going to eat world historic shit unparelled since the 2nd Temple's destruction. Their only supposed out is those Cobalt jacketed drone torps radioactively salting the earth of port ciites, and that's about it.
>this point the psychological barrier from overhyping is far greater then what the actual bombs itself could do
While this is true, it is also true that the first monke to nook-ook will be torn apart by every other ape in this jungle. Especially by those with their own nook-ook clubs.
not him
You can't intercept a running submarine moving at almost the same speed as your torpedo.
>fun facts
Here's one that doesn't get talked about much:
It turned out that titanium was a terrible choice in materials, the US first thought it was a bad idea due to the extra work needed to make a hull out of titanium would make it extremely expensive. While true, the real problem with titanium is that it doesn't compress and and return to shape after diving like steel, instead it deforms slightly each time until you eventually have sections of the hull that are out of shape which hampers acoustics, water flow and can damage internal components. Repairing deformed sections was time intensive, difficult to repair and expensive. This is why the USSR returned to steel construction with later designs, sacrificing tonnage and depth for serviceability.
Plastic deformation just means you're under-dimensioning your parts. Making them thicker would solve the problem.
It could also be creep. It's a plastic deformation that happens within the yield point of the material, due to the rearranging of the cristalline structure.
Isn't creep typically limited to high temperature applications? Reading the Wikipedia page shows that low temperature creep is limited to "some pure metals." Not enough of an expert in titanium to know if it creeps at 4C.
High temperature creep is what I know about too, and I know that at ambient temperature polymers do suffer from creep, but considering the extreme pressures at depth I wouldn't exclude low temperature creep either. We all love making fun of soviet tech, but I don't think their engineers were THAT bad, I believe they were actually quite good in being able to work within the constraints of the Soviet Union.
Well so far the only source I have for permanent deformation of the alfa class at depth is an unsourced post on a Mongolian basket weaving forum, and it doesn't make a whole lot of sense if we assume that they properly dimensioned the hull. It's in vogue at the moment to denigrate exotic materials because they're "not muh solid American steel," due to reasonably well characterized failure mechanics that are different from steel.
>just make 'er thiccer
Thus ruining the point of using titanium in the first place
Does Germany still make the best submarines?
no that used to be the ussr and now the us
ussr never made the best subs, only the loudest
quietest doesnt automatically equate to best
case in point take the narwhal which was exceptionally quiet but had a pitiful amount of weaponry and couldnt move or dive very deep
It literally does for subs. USN shit on soviet subs, tracking them for months on end completely undetected without soviets even knowing in how deep shit they were until John walker leaked it to them. It wasn't enough and they couldn't match US tech even after that, only managing to get close after Toshiba sold them top of the line CNC tech.
The only reason Narwhal wasn't revolutionary is because existing US subs were already so far ahead of soviets that it didn't really bring many advantages to the table. Its armament was better than anything soviets ever fielded considering the massive disparity in the torpedo quality and it was diving deeper than any soviet sub at the time, just like Sturgeons and Permits did.
Soviet subs were complete, utter backwardly designed trash and deathtraps.
you sound biased
you speak vatBlack personish
>Now US
China
>china
Lmao no. Their subs are not much more than modernized Soviet designs
How many things have modern american subs sank? That's right nothing.
Meanwhile the murderous spirit of the noble chinese subs couldn't be contained allowing them to claim yet another victory. Truly impressive
>the murderous spirit of the noble chinese subs
>That's right nothing.
Wrong
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehime_Maru_and_USS_Greeneville_collision
Meanwhile, China sinks their own subs with nets
I think you're a moronic Black person who lack reading comprehension, either way go back.
reeee harder ching chong
and how many subs has american sank in the last decades?
chinese century confirmed
>Meanwhile, China sinks their own subs with nets
In sight of port. lol lmao.
Chink subs are noisy trash you frickin Wumao
Didn't a Chinese sub just fall into its own trap like some kind of cartoon?
The USSR went from making shitty submarines to stolen German submarines to nukes that kill their crewmen
The USA made the first nuclear submarine, and we've lost two since then.
The Soviet navy managed to lose five of them, several of which caught on fire.
>ussr
as long as the front doesn't fall off
>kursk.jpg
Best non-nuclear, yeah.
The Swedish are far ahead due to Sterling mechanism and French are cheaper
Impressiev
May we see it?
Yes, Russkie trash excels at heading to the sea floor at maximum speed before it implodes.
here's another couple of fun fun facts:
the russians can't afford to keep very many of them in working order
the ones that are actually capable of leaving the dock they can't afford to keep at sea
of the ones they can keep at sea, they can't afford to train very much with
so, if the alpha class is still actually relevant, there are about 2 that can be used at any given moment.
obvious cope is obvious
the alfa class was retired long ago
i was being generous...noblesse oblige, right? or are we beyond that now?
from what i can tell the thread was about the actual boat and you came in with the standard anti-russia stuff which albeit true is completely unwarranted for this thread
>take the narwhal
you mean one of the most highly decorated submarines in the world? subs do way more than fight, they serve an extremely important role during during peace time
>had a pitiful amount of weaponry
the frick are you even talking about? it had space for 20 torpedo launched weapons
>couldnt move or dive very deep
you quite literally have no idea what you're talking about
dude the first post is pretty frickin aggressive. like the USN should be seriously worried about the threat from titanium hulled russian subs. my point is (and was) that though the russians are good at science, they tend to be too broke to properly leverage it.
i think you're kinda buthhurt about that fact.
Weird cope
4 torpedo tubes and 20 torpedos total is pitiful
The seawolf has around 48 torpedos
The Alfa had an even smaller weapons load as the conditions were so cramped they would only go out with 16 items in inventory so the crew had more space to easily manipulate weapons.
Again, you're a fricking moron.
i didnt say the alfa was better i dont know why u feel like insulting me for no reason
the whole argument started because some vatBlack person(you) got butthurt about loud soviets being the trash they were and are.
ive never in this thread said anything about the subs being good or anything i made this thread to showcase the neat abilities the alfa had but obsessed homosexuals like u cant comprehend something so simple
die mad gay
You're a moron if you think 24 weapons on a boat designed in the 60s is bad. Especially when you compare it to a Seawolf class boat.
Sub combat isn't some game where you're spamming torpedoes at targets hoping one will get through and hit
24 weapons in the 60s is bad considering ww2 subs had about that much too
You're moronic.
>go out on a test run from Murmansk for the first time
>listening stations in greenland and iceland can hear your underwater sports car WROOOMING out of dock
what did they mean by this
Iceland? Try Bermuda
>44 knots underwater
Imagine the noise. Submarines are built for stealth, not for speed. What's the matter of even 88 knots underwater when you shine like a Christmas tree on all sonars and get escorted by drones, jets and helis 24/7?
The soviets figured out after awhile that they couldn't make subs quieter than the US so they weren't going to try to make them quiet at all. Instead, they'd try to make them fast enough or well armed enough to inflict damage before being destroyed themselves. The soviets (and now, Russians) planned to use their numbers and ordinance to blunt the initial maneuvers enemy and draw them into a protracted war of attrition... One they would surely win because no one on earth has less respect for themselves or human life than russians
>The soviets figured out after awhile that they couldn't make subs quieter than the US
Actually they just haven't figured out low frequency noise that can be used for detecting subs at long ranges, which in turn requires advanced sonar which they didn't have, creating a negative feedback where they can't hear how loud they are so they can't fix the noise they're making.
>nuclear carrier
>vaporwave speedy titanium submarine
>protracted war of attrition
I can't believe that was a real war doctrine and not a Bollywood scenario.
>The soviets figured out after awhile that they couldn't make subs quieter than the US so they weren't going to try to make them quiet at all. Instead, they'd try to make them fast enough or well armed enough to inflict damage before being destroyed themselves.
when the first nuclear sub did sea trials with the US its massive advantage was its speed and underwater endurance. it was running rings around convoys and carrier groups and basically unstoppable.
the pure speed and capability of SSN are a massive advantage not just stealthyness
It would be exceptionally hard to kill a 44 knot submarine with a conventional torpedo and virtually impossible with conventional depth charges. Screening a carrier strike group from such a threat was thought to be very difficult.
In reality the Alfa was obsolete before it was commissioned. It was so loud and western sensors were so far ahead of the Soviets that an Alfa could be heard from far further away than it could launch an attack, and weapons already existed that could easily destroy it, most interestingly rocket launched nuclear depth charges like ASROC with W44 or Ikara with WE.177A, but more importantly such nuclear depth bombs could also be deployed by aircraft and helicopters. If there ever were a hot war, serving on a Alfa would be a death sentence, since you'd die to a 10kt depth bomb hundreds of kilometers from your target.
The only enduring effect of the Alfa was the development of longer range and faster conventional torpedos by NATO, which ironically fricked over all the other Russian subs as well. A true Mig 25 moment.
It was also about as loud as dozens skeletons gangbanging a tin man on the roof of a corrugated metal shed,
They did limit the speed to 39 knots as that was the fastest speed you could run the submarine without ripping hatches and damaging drive planes. The papa class had quite the runs ripping it's missile hatches off.
I hear she was maneuverable too. Turning very tight circles, though I suspect those were not at high speeds.
Though there were a bunch of problems with these subs. only 20 crew, she could rush out to station, but could only stay there 2 weeks. Problematic reactors. The first one bricked herself because of it. Still one of my favourite crazy design subs from the USSR.
Noise for Soviet SSNs started peer level, then degrades after a year or two, becoming VERY as in unmistakably noisy thereafter.