Russia's submarine mission to Cuba backfires, exposes secrets to US

The voyage of the Russian naval team to Cuba was a vital propaganda success for the Kremlin. Widely publicized, it became an opportunity for an acoustic "hunt" for the Kazan submarine of project 885M. Russian commentators argue that sending one of Russia's most advanced submarines on this mission was a mistake.

The Kremlin's propaganda presented the Russian squadron's visit to Cuba from June 12 to 17 as a significant success. However, the real importance of the voyage of just two warships—the Kazan submarine and the Admiral Gorshkov frigate—accompanied by a tugboat and a tanker is debatable.

Especially since the price Russia paid for a few days of propaganda glory may prove to be very high.

Western and Russian commentators like Alexander Tymochen from the Topwar.ru service note this point. With the information about the Russian ships' voyage, a specific "hunt" began in the Atlantic.

Knowing the Russian ships' destinations, the United States made efforts not only to track their location but—above all—to gather as much data as possible about the Kazan submarine.

This was enabled by continuous patrols of American and Canadian maritime reconnaissance aircraft, such as the P-8 Poseidon or the P-3 Orion, which, apart from radars, had a set of hydroacoustic buoys. These sensors (both active and passive) are dropped from the aircraft and used to detect submerged submarines.

For years, Americans risked sailing their submarines very close to Russian ones to gather as much data as possible, which led to numerous collisions. In this case, there was no such necessity.

Strict surveillance of the Kazan aimed not only to track the submarine's movements but, above all, to create the most accurate acoustic and behavioral profile – a database containing the sounds emitted by the Russian submarine and its movement patterns in water.

In the future, this will make it easier to trace the Kazan and its sister units, partially negating the critical advantage of these submarines, which is their exceptionally high level of silencing. Why is the ability to listen to the sounds emitted by a Russian submarine so important to Americans?

Kazan, along with the other project 885/885M submarines (five completed, others in various stages of construction), are unique units. The submarine represents project 885 (Yasen class) – the last one developed during the USSR era and produced in Russia. Only one submarine of Project 855 was built; the rest of the series, including Kazan, are units of the modified, improved Project 855M.

Unlike submarines designed after the dissolution of the USSR, such as the units of Project 955 (Borei class) and especially Project 677 (Lada class), project 885/885M is more refined, surpassing newer designs in certain respects, including silencing levels.

The design work began in the 1970s, carried out by the Malachite bureau, which is responsible for many successful Soviet submarine projects. The submarine designers focused on tackling the greatest flaw of nuclear-powered units—the high noise level, especially at higher speeds.

For this reason, the Project 885M submarines were very carefully soundproofed, surpassing all other submarines from the USSR and Russia in this respect, and also most American designs, except for a few Seawolf and Virginia class submarines.

Technical advancements come with a cost—project 885M submarines are almost twice as expensive as the much larger project 955 units (the cost of construction and equipment can reach up to $2 billion). Due to their specificity, they are also designed for different tasks than nuclear "boomers." What was their purpose in design and construction?

Due to the range of their weaponry, Russian nuclear-powered submarines with intercontinental ballistic missiles currently serve as coastal submersible launch platforms.

They don’t need to be extremely quiet, as their purpose is to operate near their coast, under the protective umbrella provided by their navy and coastal anti-ship missile launchers like Bal or Bastion.

The project 855M units have a different specificity—they are attack submarines (SSGNs). Although they are equipped with nuclear propulsion, ensuring unlimited range and the ability to stay underwater for extended periods, these submarines are armed with cruise missiles. Their purpose is to carry out conventional attacks on sea and land targets without causing a global conflict. This capability is enabled by the 32-container VLS launcher, which can launch missiles like Kalibr, Oniks, or Tsirkon.

For this reason, the Project 885M submarines must operate much closer to the enemy without the protection of their own forces. Therefore, soundproofing plays a primary role in their case, allowing for covert operations and survival far from their own support.

Besides soundproofing the propulsion, the hull of Project 885 submarines was coated with a special anechoic coating. This solution, first developed by the Germans during World War II and refined by the Soviets in the 1970s, is an external layer of plastic and rubber tiles.

Its role is to absorb and scatter the signal emitted by enemy sonars. In practice, this is equivalent to the stealth features known from aviation designs and reduces the sonar signature by up to 20 decibels, translating to a 50% smaller chance of detecting the submarine.

An additional benefit of using the anechoic coating is that it muffles the sounds coming from inside the submarine. Although Russians pioneered this solution in modern times, it is now widely used worldwide.

The feature that makes the Project 885M submarines particularly dangerous to the opponent is their ability to sail fast while remaining silent. In submarine specifications, maximum underwater speeds often reach 30 or more knots.

Maximum underwater speed is essential, but a submarine sailing at that speed makes so much noise that it’s easy to locate and destroy. Therefore, the ability to sail as fast as possible without generating a high noise level is more important than that.

This value is probably around 20 knots for project 885 submarines (unverified sources report even 28) and is the highest among all nuclear-powered submarines in the Russian fleet. Thanks to the Americans gathering an accurate sonic "business card" of Project 885M submarines, this significant advantage of the Russian submarine has partially lost its significance.