“Yury Dolgoruky” – Russia’s first 4th generation missile submarine has been waiting for her armament for a year and a half. The troubled Bulava nuke missile was supposed to be approved last year, but a failed test-launch in September put another delay to the final commissioning.
It is still unclear when the Bulava missile will be finally approved. As previously reported by BarentsObserver, the next two test-launches will be conducted this summer from the exercise area in the White Sea with targets at Russia’s far eastern Kura range on the Kamchatka Peninsula.
It is the military newspaper VPK that writes about arming “Yury Dolgoruky” with Bulava missiles in late June. Unlike previous new missile-submarines that have been armed before sailing out from the Sevmash shipyard in Severodvinsk, the arming of “Yury Dolgoruky” will this time take place in Severomorsk, north of Murmansk. Across the bay from Severomorsk, in Okolnaya, the Russian navy has its main weapons depot where a new storage for 100 Bulava missiles now is under construction.
The Borey class submarines will, like the older Delta-IV class, have Gadzhievo on the Barents Sea coast as their home port.
The “Yury Dolgoruky” – and the other Borey-class submarines – can carry 16 Bulava missiles, each able of carrying up to ten nuclear warheads.
Russia will build eight Borey class nuclear powered missile submarines. “Yury Dolgoruky” was handed over to the Northern Fleet in Januar 2013. “Vladimir Monomakh” and “Alexander Nevsky” are soon expected to start this season’s test sailings in the White Sea, while the fourth sub in the class, “Knyaz Vladimir”, is still under construction at the Sevmash yard. Construction of the fifth Borey class sub, to be named “Knyaz Oleg”, will start on June 19th, reports Murmanski Vestnik.
