Name: Augur 1,2,& 3.
*A newly bought trio of Alfa class submarines, bought at Gaia's Black Market. All information taken from Wikipedia.
General characteristics
Displacement: 2,300 tons surfaced, 3,200 tons submerged
Length: 81.4 m
Beam: 9.5 m
Draft: 7.6 m
Depth:
Usual operation: 350 m
Test depth: 800 m
Crush depth: possibly over 1300 m[1]
Compartments: 6
Complement: 27 officers, 4-18 under-officers
Reactor: OK-550 reactor or BM-40A reactor, lead cooled fast reactor, 155 MW
Steam turbines: OK-7K, 40,000 shp
Propulsion: 1 propeller
Speed (submerged):
Tactical speed: 20-25 knots
Burst speed: 44.7 knots (82.78 km/h)
Armament:
6 x 533 mm torpedo tubes:
18 SET-65 or 53-65K torpedoes (or)
20 VA-111 Shkval torpedoes (or)
21 SS-N-15 cruise missiles (or)
12 SS-N-16 cruise missiles (or)
24 mines
Systems:
Topol MRK.50 (Snoop Tray) surface search radar
Sozh navigation system radar
MG-21 Rosa underwater communications
Molniya satellite communications
Vint & Tissa radio communications antennas
Accord combat control system
Leningrad-705 fire control system
Ocean active/passive sonar
MG-24 luch mine detection sonar
Yenisei sonar intercept receiver
Bukhta ESM/ECM
Chrome-KM IFF
The initial design work began in 1957 and was highly innovative, necessarily so to meet the demanding requirements - sufficient speed to successfully pursue any ship; the ability to avoid anti-submarine weapons and to ensure success in underwater combat; low detectability, in particular to airborne MAD arrays, and also especially to active sonars; minimal displacement and minimal crew complement. A special titanium alloy hull would be used to create a small, low drag, 1,500 ton, three compartment vessel capable of very high speeds (in excess of 40 knots) and deep diving. The submarine would operate as an interceptor, staying in harbour or on patrol route and then racing out to reach an approaching fleet. A high-power liquid-metal-cooled nuclear plant was devised meaning extensive automation would also greatly reduce the needed crew numbers to just 16 highly trained men. The practical problems with the design quickly became apparent and in 1963 the design team was replaced and a less radical design was proposed, increasing all main dimensions and the vessel weight by 800 tons and doubling the crew.
The power plant for the boat was a lead cooled fast reactor. Such reactors have a number of advantages over older types:
Due to higher coolant temperature, their energy efficiency is up to 1.5 times higher.
Lifetime without refuelling can be increased more easily, in part due to higher efficiency.
Liquid metal can't cause an explosion and quickly solidifies in case of a leak, greatly improving safety.
LCFRs are much lighter and smaller than water-cooled reactors, which was the primary factor when considering power plant choice for Lira.
Even though 1960s technology was barely sufficient to produce reliable LCFRs, which are even today considered challenging, their advantages were considered compelling. Two power plants were developed independently, BM-40A by Hydropress in Leningrad and OK-550 by the OKBM design bureau in Nizhny Novgorod, both using a eutectic lead-bismuth solution for the primary cooling stage, and both producing 155 megawatts of power.
Burst speed in tests was between 43 and 45 knots for all vessels, and speeds of 41-42 knots could be sustained. Acceleration to the top speed took one minute and reversing 180 degrees at full speed took just 40 seconds. This degree of maneuverability exceeds all other submarines and most torpedoes that were in service at the time. Indeed, during training the boats proved to successfully evade torpedoes launched by other submarines, which required introduction of faster torpedoes such as the American ADCAP or British Spearfish. However, the price for this was a very high noise level at burst speed, as for any body moving through water at high speed. The tactical speed, where the noise would be similar to other submarines, is about 20-25 knots.
Propulsion was provided by the main screw with 30 MW steam turbines, and two 100 kW electric-powered screws served as an additional propulsion for maneuvering and a backup. Backup power systems included a 500 kW diesel generator and a set of zinc-silver batteries.
The OK-550 plant was used on Project 705, but later, on 705K, the BM-40A plant was installed due to the low reliability of the OK-550. While more reliable, BM-40A still turned out to be much more demanding in maintenance than older pressurized water reactors. The issue is that the lead/bismuth eutectic solution solidifies at 125 degrees C. If it ever hardened it would be impossible to restart the reactor, since the fuel assemblies would be frozen in the solidified coolant, so whenever the reactor is shut down it must be heated externally with superheated steam. Near the piers where the submarines were moored, a special facility was constructed to deliver superheated steam to the vessels' reactors when the reactors were shut down. A smaller ship was also stationed at the pier to deliver steam from its steam plant to the Alfa submarines.
Coastal facilities were treated with much less attention than the submarines and often turned out unable to heat the submarines reactors. Consequently the plants had to be kept running even while the subs were in harbour. The facilities completely broke down early in the 1980s and since then the reactors of all operational Alfa submarines were kept constantly running. While the BM-40A reactors are able to work for many years without stopping, they were not specifically designed for such treatment and any serious reactor maintenance became impossible. This led to a number of failures, including coolant leaks and one reactor broken down and frozen while at sea. However, constantly running the reactors proved better than relying on the coastal facilities. Four vessels were decommissioned due to freezing of the coolant.
Both the OK-550 and the BM-40A designs were single-use reactors and could not be refuelled as the coolant would inevitably freeze in the process. This was compensated for by a much longer lifetime on their only load (up to 15 years), after which the reactors would be completely replaced. While such a solution could potentially decrease service times and increase reliability, it is still more expensive, and the idea of single-use reactors was unpopular in the 1970s. Furthermore, Project 705 does not have a modular design that would allow quick replacement of reactors, so such maintenance would take at least as long as refueling a normal submarine.
[edit] Hull
Like all Soviet nuclear submarines, Project 705 used a double hull, where the internal hull withstands the pressure and the outer one protects it and provides an optimal hydrodynamic shape. However, unlike almost all other submarines, the hulls of the Lira had variable diameters. The shape is optimized for minimal active sonar signature and minimal water resistance and, although it complicated the design, it was essential for providing required maneuverability.
Apart from the prototypes, Project 705 and 705K submarines were built with titanium alloy hulls, which was revolutionary in terms of submarine design at the time due to the cost of titanium and the technologies and equipment needed to work with it. The difficulties in the engineering became apparent in the first submarine that was quickly decommissioned after cracks developed in the hull. Later metallurgy and welding technology were improved and no hull problems were experienced on subsequent vessels. American intelligence services became aware of the use of titanium alloys in the construction by retrieving metal shavings that fell from a truck as it left the St. Petersburg ship yard.
The internal pressure hull was separated into six watertight compartments, of which only the third (center) compartment was manned and others were accessible only for maintenance. The third compartment had reinforced spherical bulkheads that could withstand the pressure at the test depth and offered additional protection to the crew in case of attack. To further enhance survivability, the ship was equipped with an ejectable rescue capsule.
The hull was designed for extreme depths, below the deep sound layer (at 1 km), but complete redesign of the plumbing and other inter-hull systems was delayed. According to some information,[1] one of the submarines was tested on depths up to 1300 meters but submerging to such depths and returning caused permanent damage to equipment, which in a few cycles would make the vessel very unreliable. This test may have been conducted just prior to decommissioning.
[edit] Control system
A suite of new systems was developed for these submarines, including:
Accord combat information and control system, which received and processed hydroacoustic, television, radar and navigation data from other systems, determining other ships, submarines and torpedoes location and speed and predicted trajectory. Information was displayed on control terminals, along with recommendations for operating a single submarine, both for attack and torpedo evasion, or commanding a group of submarines.
Sargan weapon control system controlling attack, torpedo homing and use of countermeasures, both by human command and automatically if required
Ocean automated hydroacoustic system that provided target data to other systems and eliminated the need for crew members working with detection equipment
Sogh navigation system and Boxite course control system, which integrated course, depth, trim and speed control, for manual, automated and programmed maneuvering
Rhythm system controlling operation of all machinery aboard, eliminating the need for any personnel servicing reactor and other machinery, which was the main factor in reducing crew complement
Alfa radiation control system
TV-1 television system for outside observation
All the systems of the submarine were fully automated and all operations requiring human decision were performed from the control room. While such automation is common on aircraft, other military ships and submarines have multiple, separate teams performing these tasks. Crew interference was required only for course changes or combat and no maintenance was performed at sea. Due to these systems, the combat shift of Lira submarines consisted only of 8 officers stationed in the control room. While nuclear submarines typically have 120 to 160 crew members, the initially proposed crew number was 14 - all officers except the cook. Later it was considered more practical to have additional crew aboard that could be trained to operate the new generation of submarines and the number was increased to 27 officers and 4 under-officers. Also, given that most of the electronics were newly developed and failures were expected, additional crew was stationed to monitor their performance. Some reliability problems have been connected with electronics, and it is possible that some accidents could have been foreseen with more mature and better developed monitoring systems. Overall performance was considered good for an experimental system.
The main reason behind the small crew complement and high automation was not just to allow a reduction in the size of the submarine, but rather to provide an advantage in reaction speed by replacing long chains of command with instant electronics, speeding up any action.
Martin Spiralwave Community Member 
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* An exact Replica of the Type 212, bought by Solomon from the Black Market. He only has managed to obtain production capabilities and so is capable of now producing thirty more.
General characteristics
In dock at HDW/KielDisplacement: 1'450 tonnes surfaced, 1'830 tonnes submerged
Length: 56 m (183.7 ft), 57.2 m (187.66 ft) (2nd batch)
Beam: 7 m (22.96 ft)
Draft: 6 m (19.68 ft)
Propulsion:
1 MTU 16V 396 diesel-engine[1]
9 HDW/Siemens PEM fuel cells, 30-40 kW each (U31)
2 HDW/Siemens PEM fuel cells 120 kW (U32, U33, U34)
1 Siemens Permasyn electric motor 1700 kW, driving a single seven-bladed skewback propeller
Speed: 20 knots (37 km/h) submerged, 12 knots surfaced[2]
Depth: over 700 m (2,296 ft)[3]
Range:
8,000 nautical miles (14'800 km, or 9'196 miles) at 8 knots (15 km/h)
Endurance: 3 weeks without snorkeling, 12 weeks overall
Armament:
6 x 533 mm torpedo tubes (in 2 forward-pointing asymmetric groups of left 4 + right 2 ) with 12 torpedoes or 24 tube mines [7]
IDAS missiles
24 external naval mines (optional)
Countermeasures:
Torpedo defence system Tau, 4 launchers, 40 jammers/decoys Sensors:
STN Atlas DBQS40 sonar suite:
TAS-3 passive low-frequency towed array sonar (deployed from sail)
FAS-3 passive low-, and medium-frequency hull-mounted flank array sonar
MOA 3070 mine detection sonar
Periscopes:
Carl Zeiss SERO 14, with FLIR and optical rangefinder
Carl Zeiss SERO 15, with laser rangefinder
Riva Calzoni periscope masts and snorkeling systems
Kelvin Hughes Type 1007 I band navigation radar
EADS FL 1800U ESM suite
WASS hydrophones
Avio GAUDI autopilot and hydraulic systems
Kongsberg MSI-91 combat system
Crew complement: 23-27 (incl. 5 officers)
Design
Partly owing to the "X" arrangement of the stern planes, the Type 212 is capable of operating in as little as 17 metres of water, allowing it to come much closer to shore than most contemporary submarines. This gives it an advantage in covert operations, as SCUBA-equipped commandos operating from the boat can surface close to the beach and execute their mission more quickly and with less effort.
A notable design feature is the prismatic hull cross-section and smoothly faired transitions from the hull to the sail, improving the boat's stealth characteristics. The ship and internal fixtures are constructed of nonmagnetic materials, reducing significantly chances of it being detected by magnetometers or setting off magnetic naval mines.
[edit] AIP propulsion
U32Although hydrogen-oxygen propulsion had been considered for submarines as early as World War I, the concept was not very successful until recently due to fire and explosion concerns. In the Type 212 this has been countered by storing the fuel and oxidizer in tanks outside the crew space, between the pressure hull and outer light hull. The gases are piped through the pressure hull to the fuel cells as needed to generate electricity, but at any given time there is only a very small amount of gas present in the crew space.
[edit] Weapons
Currently, the Type 212A is capable of launching the fiber optic-guided[4] DM2A4 Seehecht ("Seahake" wink heavyweight torpedoes, the WASS A184 Mod.3 torpedoes, the EuroTorp BlackShark torpedoes and short-range missiles from its six torpedo tubes, which use a water ram expulsion system. Future capability may include tube-launched cruise missiles.
The short-range missile IDAS (based on the IRIS-T missile), against air threats, but also against small or medium-sized sea- or near land targets, is currently being developed by Diehl BGT Defence to be fired from Type 212's torpedo tubes. IDAS is fiber-optic guided and has a range of approx. 20 km. Four missiles fit in one torpedo tube, stored in a magazine.[6]
A 30 mm auto-cannon called Muräne (moray) to support diver operations or to give warning shots is being considered too. The cannon, probably a version of the RMK30 built by Rheinmetall, will be stored in a retractable mast and can be fired without the boat emerging. The mast will also be designed to contain three Aladin UAVs for reconnaissance missions.