The Russian Alfa-class submarine had 1 feature that the Navy cannot match

Summary and key points: The Soviet Union, which initially lagged behind the US in submarine technology, developed the Type 705 Lyra (Alfa class) to close the gap.

-The Lyra combined brute strength and risky technology. Its titanium hull and innovative lead-cooled reactor allowed it to dive deeper and move faster than any NATO submarine.

-Despite impressive performance, including speeds of 41 knots and depths of 2,200 feet, the Alfa class was plagued by high maintenance costs and reliability problems. The program’s legacy influenced future Soviet designs, but only seven Lyra submarines were built and they were decommissioned in the mid-1990s.

Soviet Alfa-class submarine: Cold War speed and depth champion”

The Soviet Union began the Cold War far behind the United States in submarine technology. Although the Soviets had acquired some of the most advanced German submarine types by the end of the war, the United States had a wealth of experience in submarine and anti-submarine warfare gained during the Pacific War and the Battle of the Atlantic. Combined with other technological advantages, the United States leapt to a significant lead in submarine technology (particularly nuclear submarines) during the first two decades of the Cold War.

Early Soviet nuclear submarines, in particular, struggled to compete with the West in terms of stealth and reliability. After the initial designs came to fruition, the Soviets decided to undertake a combination of brute force and extremely risky high-tech. The brute force part meant building a submarine that could move faster and dive deeper than any Western counterpart; the high-tech part meant innovative hull design, reactor design, and materials manipulation. The result was the Type 705 Lyra (known as Alfa in NATO), a submarine that the West saw as a major, if short-lived, threat to its submarine dominance.

How Alfa was born

The Soviets had two goals with the Lyra class. First, they wanted to produce a weapon that could change the nature of naval warfare in the North Atlantic and Arctic, a weapon that could challenge the overwhelming surface advantages of NATO navies. Unlike their Western counterparts, who favored multirole platforms, the Soviets were excellent submariners dedicated to a single mission: high-speed “interception” of NATO surface squadrons, particularly carrier-based battle groups. Second, they wanted to boost technological development by producing innovations that would incorporate future submarines, if only in a piecemeal fashion. A third goal was to force NATO navies to spend money and time adapting to the threat that the Lyras would pose.

The Lyra class certainly met the second criterion. After an interim design (the K-162 “Papa”-class cruise missile submarine), the Lyras had titanium hulls to produce the tolerances needed for high speed and extreme deep diving. To keep crew sizes small, the Lyra class employed advanced techniques for automating key systems, a decision that also improved the crew’s combat responsiveness, although it made repairs and maintenance at sea extremely difficult.

To achieve high speed, the Alfas used a remarkably innovative lead-cooled fast reactor design. This provided a tremendous amount of power in a compact space. However, it also created bewildering maintenance problems, few of which could be solved by the small crews at sea. Even in port, the Soviet Navy had difficulty keeping the Alfas in service.

Alfa-Class Performance

The Lyras could produce numbers that no class of submarine (except the “Papa” SSGN) before or since has ever matched. When submerged, they could reach a speed of 41 knots (and they could do that with an astonishing rate of acceleration). They could dive to at least 2,200 feet, far deeper than any NATO submarine of that time, or today.

The Alfa’s speed and diving depth allowed it to evade most contemporary NATO torpedoes, although in combat this would also have made it difficult for the Alfa to get into attack position. Also, because of their small size, the Alfas carried a smaller arsenal than most other Soviet boats: a mix of eighteen to twenty-one torpedoes and cruise missiles. Nevertheless, this arsenal could wreak havoc on a NATO force without the means to respond effectively.

The Alphas were not exactly silent, especially when approaching at high speed. However, their ability to dive deep gave them stealth capabilities, depending on the conditions in the ocean. More importantly, they could run and dive faster than most existing NATO weapons, making them very difficult to catch and kill.

Response

As with the MiG-25 and other Soviet “superweapons,” NATO took the Alpha threat very seriously. Existing torpedoes and other anti-submarine weapons would have difficulty catching the Alphas, or diving deep enough to destroy them. Whether out of genuine panic, or a desire to use the Alpha threat to spur innovation and funding, the U.S. Navy and Royal Navy began crash programs to develop sensors that could detect the Alphas, and weapons that could kill them.

This effort resulted in a few weapons, including the Mark 48 ADCAP torpedo, which was reported to be capable of a speed of 63 knots. The Royal Navy developed a similar torpedo, called the “Spearfish”. The United States also pursued the “Sea Lance” supersonic missile system, designed to fire a torpedo or nuclear depth charge at ranges of up to a hundred miles. The United States canceled the Sea Lance program at the end of the Cold War, about the same time that the Lyra class was decommissioned.

Issues

The USSR paid a high price for this achievement. The Alfas, nicknamed “golden fish,” even burdened the enormous budget for Soviet submarine construction. Furthermore, they generally proved unreliable in service, and required expensive and complex maintenance. Soviet ports often lacked the training and equipment necessary to keep the Lyras in working order. Unlike most other Cold War submarine projects, the USSR built only seven Lyras, one of which was more of a prototype than a usable weapon. This first boat was scrapped in 1974, after proof of concept had been achieved.

At the end of the Cold War, the Russian Federation was struggling to maintain the Soviet Union’s massive defense establishment. Ultra-expensive ships like the Lyras simply weren’t up to the task; they couldn’t perform enough critical missions to justify their maintenance. As a result, the Russian Federation quickly retired the Alphas after the end of the Cold War. By the mid-1990s, all of the boats were decommissioned and scrapped.

Legacy of the Alfa-Class

Nevertheless, the Soviets learned much from the Lyra experience, not least that the combination of a range of innovative technologies often results in an unreliable vessel. The Barracuda-class (“Sierra” in NATO) submarines of the early 1980s adopted some of the Alfa’s features, including the titanium hull, while reducing performance to levels that allowed a more manageable maintenance profile. The Barracudas operated much more quietly than the Lyras and could perform a more varied range of missions. The Shchuka-class attack submarines (NATO: “Akula”) adopted many of the automation techniques pioneered by the Lyras, allowing them to operate with relatively small crews for their size.

About the author: Dr. Robert Farley

Robert Farleya frequent contributor to TNI, teaches at the University of Kentucky. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

Image: Creative Commons.