During the Cold War, they lurked under the Arctic with nuclear missiles and inspired Hollywood. Now Russia is also dismantling the flagship of its Typhoon submarines.
They stand for the madness of the Cold War and are also considered technical masterpieces: Russia’s Typhoon-class nuclear submarines, as they are called in NATO jargon. The Soviet Navy put six of the mighty ships into service in the 1980s, and now their time is up. With the “Dmitry Donskoy”, the flagship of the fleet, the last of its kind is now to be dismantled, according to the Russian Navy.
“The submarine cruiser ‘Dmitry Donskoy’, together with two other submarines of this project, will await disposal at the Severodvinsk naval base,” said Navy spokesman Vladimir Maltsev of the state news agency TASS. The other two submarines are Arkhangelsk and Severstal, which have already been decommissioned. Rumors about the imminent demise of the “Dmitry Donskoy” appeared back in July. Another submarine, which is still under construction, is to be named Dmitry Donskoy – a Russian hero from the 14th century.
“Comparable with the battle cruiser ‘Bismarck'”
The Taifun class was conceived in the 1970s as a response to the US Ohio class nuclear submarines. With a displacement of 48,000 tons, however, the Taifun boats have more than twice the mass of the US boats with a displacement of almost 19,000 tons. “The Taifun class is so powerful that it cannot be compared to any other submarine,” writes British naval expert HI Sutton. “It’s much taller and wider than the Ohio class and is more comparable to the battle cruiser ‘Bismarck’ than to any other submarine. That’s probably what makes the Taifun class so fascinating.”
At the time, however, the new Soviet submarines were more of a concern in the West. The “Dmitry Donskoy” and her sister ships were intended to ensure that the Soviet Union would still be able to launch a nuclear counterattack after a devastating nuclear attack. In addition to various torpedoes, the 175-meter-long Typhoon submarines had room for 20 ICBMs with nuclear warheads. The nuclear submarines lurked with their cargo under the Arctic ice, where they were relatively safe from detection by NATO submarines.
Model for “Hunt for Red October”
In the event of a nuclear war, however, the “Dmitry Donskoy” would first have to break through the meter-thick layer of ice in the Arctic Ocean before it could launch its missiles. The huge size also helped here – the predecessors of the Taifun class had to search for even thinner spots in the ice before they could surface. With a swimming pool on board, the boats of the Typhoon class could even offer their crews a certain comfort thanks to their size. They obtained the energy for the months of diving under the ice from two nuclear reactors.
Even Hollywood was inspired by the new Soviet superboats: The “Red October” from the 1990 film starring Sean Connery was based on the Taifun-class boats. “Regardless of where one stands politically, military experts have always respected the massive Russian submarines,” writes HI Sutton. “The Taifun class is one of the most famous submarines ever. It will be missed.” Incidentally, in Russian, the boats are called the Akula class, after the Russian word for “shark”.
