Submarine St. Petersburg to continue trials in 2011

(Rusnavy) : Being commissioned into Russian Navy early May, diesel electric submarine St. Petersburg will continue trial operations in 2011, said director general of Rubin design bureau Andrei Diachkov at the press conference.

He reminded that in 2010 the sub had taken part in a naval parade and an exercise.

Answering the question about batch production of such submarines, A. Diachkov said that "the talks on new contracts with Russian Navy are in progress". "It will be possible to talk on further construction of Lada class subs only after completion of trials program in 2011", he said.

Diachkov said that the Navy ordered three Project 636 Varshavyanka submarines to be built at Admiralteyskie Verfi shipyard, which "does not mean that Russian Navy gives up the Lada project", he underlined.

According to him, Rosoboronexport conducts marketing work on Amur project which is the export variant of Lada. "Now we have two requests from potential orderers", added A. Diachkov.

Diesel submarine St. Petersburg was laid down in Dec 1997 at Admiralteyskie Verfi. This is a lead sub of Project 677 Lada (export variant – Amur-1650) developed by Rubin Central Design Bureau for Marine Engineering. The launching ceremony was held in Oct 2004.

The sub's displacement is 1,765 tons; length is 67 meters; beam is 7.1 meters; submerged speed is 21 knots; surface speed is 10 knots; test depth is 300 meters; endurance is 45 days.

The submarine is armed with six 533-mm torpedo tubes (combat load is 18 torpedoes), and covered with new hydro-acoustic coating which provides higher silence. Power of main motor is 4,100 kW.

According to experts, the sub's features are high combat power, improved silence, long endurance and fuel range. Comparing to the previous projects, the sub's noise level has been significantly decreased. St. Petersburg is the world's first submarine equipped with environmental security systems making her ecologically safe.