Project 641B Som [Catfish] / Tango class
The Tango Class was the Soviet Navy’s successor to the Foxtrot Class boats in the Northern and Black Sea fleets. Construction began in 1971 and a total of 18 were built. The Tango class submarine was designed to engage enemy surface forces and submarines and to protect friendly convoys. The Tango has a more streamlined hull than the prior Foxtrot class, making the Tango more suitable for submerged operations. The Tango also has a greater battery storage capacity and more advanced electronic systems than the Foxtrot. The Tango's greater battery capacity allowed them to remain submerged for over a week.
The Tango's six 533 mm torpedo tubes can also be used to deploy mines. It was equipped with a new sonar system fitted with a large passive array, a storage battery of a larger capacity, powerful torpedo armament, including quick-loading gear, automatic fire control system and other improvements. But actually, it was no more than an improved version of the diesel submarine of Project 641.
Modification of project 641 - a large torpedo submarine, Project 641B, was designed at the Central Design Bureau of MT Rubin and represented the third generation of Soviet post-war submarines. The chief designer was Z. A. Deribin, the chief observer from the Navy, captain of the 2nd rank V.A. Marshev, and then captain 2nd rank I.A. Kotsyubin. It was classified as a large submarine and was intended to deal with surface ships and enemy ships during operations on ocean and sea lanes. Belonged to the intermediate type between second and third generation submarines. The twentieth century went not only along the path of creating new projects, but also the modernization of previously created and well-proven during operation. An example of such a modification can be the project of a large diesel-electric submarine, developed on the basis of previously built boats of this type, pr.641. The modification consisted of increasing the combat effectiveness of the ship by installing new radio-technical weapons, increasing the ammunition of torpedo and mine weapons, as well as increasing the level of automation of control of military technical means. On this project, the living conditions of the crew of the submarine were improved. The entire personnel of the ship is provided with permanent berths - the officers and foremen are placed in cabins, private - in cockpits. These boats had a hull more suitable for swimming under water than the DPS of project 641. Project 641B submarines were created using the power equipment of the previously built project 641 submarines, which are characterized by a diesel-electric power installation scheme (with diesel engines on the shaft line, as on post-war submarines). At the same time, for the first time on domestic submarine submarines, the project 641B submarines installed a modern REV (NK, SAC complexes, and also BIUS). The submarines are equipped with automated ship control systems and its technical means. Acoustic protection means and measures were introduced on the submarine (the outer casing was lined with anti-sonar coatings, soundproof coatings were applied to the foundations of the mechanisms, etc.). The living conditions of the submarine crew were improved. The entire personnel of the ship is provided with permanent berths - the officers and foremen are placed in cabins, and privates in cockpits. These boats had a hull, more adapted to swimming under water than the Project 641 DPL. Otherwise, they differed from the basic project 641: high-capacity batteries, better habitability conditions and more modern radio-technical weapons. Horizontal bow rudders retracted into the hull. Project 641B submarine was a two-hulled boat, with a developed superstructure that had an elevation in the bow tip (which served as a fairing for a number of HAC antennas, provided better seaworthiness in the surface position and reduced the noise level in the underwater position), with a chewing tip of the light hull. A robust cylindrical body with extremities in the form of truncated cones was made of steel with a thickness of 22–35 mm and was divided by solid bulkheads into seven compartments. The main ballast was located in ten tanks, a significant part of which was equipped with kingstones and was used as fuel-ballast tanks. Project 641B submarines, unlike the previously built domestic submarines, had only bow torpedoes, increased torpedo ammunition, a fast-loading device and an automatic fire control system. There were two slightly different versions – later boats were several meters longer than the original design. This may have been due to a later equipment fit. The more modern equipment fit together with their ability to remain submerged for longer and acoustic coating on the outer hull made the Tango Class idea for ‘ambush’ operations. There are several natural ‘chokepoints’ in the oceans and in war it would have been the Tangos who would have laid in wait for Western submarines as they tried to pass through these restricted areas.
In the period from 1973 to 1982, the Navy of the USSR transferred 18 ships of Project 641B. All of them were built at the Krasnoye Sormovo Shipyard in Gorky. After launching the boats, they were put into transport docks and transferred to the permanent duty station by inland waterways, where they passed state tests. In the process of carrying out an average repair, two submarines were equipped with the Pelamida GPBA (one of them was B-437). The Soviet Navy had begun to withdraw Tango Class boats from service before the end of the Cold War but some remained in notional service into the 21st Century. Most units of this class were retired starting in 1995. As of early 2000 perhaps four units were thought to in the Northern Fleet, though largely inoperable, with another six units believed remain in reserve though unlikely to be returned to service.
B-380 Gorky Komsomolets was laid down at the Krasnoye Sormovo plant in Gorky in 1981, and on December 30, 1982 went into operation. In 1983, it received the name "Gorky Komsomolets." In 1990, it was part of 153 BrPL 14 DiPL KChF, based on the southern bay of Sevastopol, it required major repairs. In 1991, it was delivered to the quay wall of the Sevmorzavod (SRZ No. 91) for overhaul. In December 1991, the name "Gorky Komsomolets" was removed. In April 1996, it was planned to be transferred to Ukraine, but due to poor technical condition, the Ukrainian government abandoned the submarines. Until May 2000, stood in the southern bay of Sevastopol. In June 2000, the Russian Government decided to restore the submarine. The submarine B-380 "Holy Prince George" from 2005 was in the dock in the South Bay of Sevastopol. On 20 June 2019, the Ministry of Defense announced a tender for the disposal of several Russian ships and submarines. This submarine was built in 1982 at the Krasnoye Sormovo plant, and its original name was Gorkovsky Komsomolets. Served as part of the Black Sea Fleet. In 1991, it was delivered to the mooring wall of the Sevastopol Marine Plant for overhaul, for which no one had money. In 1996, she was offered to be handed over to Ukraine, but due to poor technical condition Ukraine refused such a gift. The boat stood and stood, and now, it seems, hopes for repairs appeared - in 2005 it was docked. But again, everything went wrong. Although a full staff of personnel was introduced to it, which, while the submarine was under repair, regularly underwent practical skills in servicing the materiel on the naval submarine Alrosa. In 2012, according to Izvestia, The Russian Navy decided to return the B-380 to the Black Sea Fleet. According to plans, the repair was supposed to begin in 2013. But it never started.
No one needed this submarine, but with its decommissioning the 247th separate submarine division remained with only one B-871 Alrosa submarine, which naturally put on the agenda the question of why the Black Sea was needed the fleet has an integral submarine division with the appropriate organizational structure and personnel, if that division has only one submarine? That's why the B-380 was "repaired" for a lot of years, and its crew meanwhile went to sea on the "Alrosa".
November 12, 2012 - the Izvestia newspaper, citing a source in the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy, reports that the B-380 "Saint Prince George" submarine is planned to be repaired in 2013 and returned to the Black Sea Fleet in a year and a half. It is planned that the boat will last until the newly built boats that will be based in Novorossiysk arrive at the Fleet. If a final decision is made to repair the B-380 submarine, repairs will most likely be carried out in St. Petersburg at the Admiralty Shipyards. During the repair, it is planned to completely replace the batteries on the submarine with newly produced and, perhaps, newly developed ones.
The situation changed only in 2014, when new diesel-electric submarines of Project 636 went to the KChF from the Baltic, which allowed the division to triumphantly deploy to the 4th separate brigade of submarines and, finally, completely forget about the B-380.
On the night of December 14 to December 15, 2019, the floating dock PD-16, where the B-380 submarine was located, sank in its regular place in Sevastopol. At the same time, the submarine swam up and capsized onto its port side. By the measures taken, the submarine’s hull was towed to the nearest sandbank on the eastern shore of the Sevastopol Bay on the same day. A subsequent examination of the hull of the racket showed the possibility of its transportation, and on December 19, 2019, with the help of ship-lifting pontoons, it was lifted from the ground, while remaining downstairs. On 20 December 2019, the hull of the submarine was towed to Inkerman for subsequent cutting to metal.
The "Submarine-museum" in the Moscow Park "Northern Tushino" is open to the public since 2006 as the main exhibit of the Russian Navy. The submarine moored to the shore of the Khimki reservoir is originally from Nizhny Novgorod. This large diesel-electric submarine B-396 "Novosibirsk Komsomolets" (project 641B) was built at the "Red Sormovo" plant in 1980. Today this museum is known and loved by many Muscovites and guests of the capital. The Day of the Navy there is traditionally planned to be held there. And once the submarines of this project made a real breakthrough in underwater shipbuilding - it was from them that the construction of submarines began in the early 1970s.
On 12 November 2012 Izvestia reported that the Main Command of the Russian Navy has decided to return to the Black Sea Fleet the diesel submarine Holy Prince George (former B-380 Gorkovsky Komsomolets, project 641B), which had been under repair since 1991 at the PD-16 floating dock in the South Bay near Sevastopol. An informed source in the headquarters told Izvestia that, according to the long-term plan for the development of the Black Sea Fleet, repairs will begin in 2013. The main problem is the lack of batteries. They are no longer produced, and without batteries a diesel boat is not capable of diving. To put in new ones, workders needed to cut the entire hull, and the repair will last a year and a half.
The B-380 was accepted into the Black Sea Fleet back in 1982. All other boats of this project have long been decommissioned, the last in the mid-1990s. But the B-380 was lucky, and in 2000, the headquarters of the fleet decided to restore and introduce a full crew, which is used as a replacement on the Alrosa. In 2005, the submarine was transferred to the 247th separate division of submarines, and three years later it was named "Saint Prince George". By 2020, the repairs had been abandoned and the boat was scrapped at the Vtorchermet cutting depot in the Inkerman Scrapyard in Sevastopol.
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