On June 17th, the four Russian navy vessels that had been on visit to Cuba since june 13th finally departed. For Russia, parading its latest naval offensive weaponry in a part of the Caribbean that close to the coast of the United States could not have been interpreted as anything other than a timid reply to the massive military support the US has provided to Ukraine.
Described by the Russian Defense Ministry as a friendly visit, the presence in Cuba of the nothern fleet flotilla composed of the Kazan nuclear-powered submarine, the Admiral Gorshkov frigate and two accompanying ships: the Pashin oil tanker and the Nikolai Chiler tug in such a close proximity to potentially numerous US naval monitoring assets could only better serve the US Navy expansive need to gather signals relating to the accoustic, communication and electronic systems aboard the Russian ships.
After all, the Kazan and Admiral Gorshkov deploy formidable and state-of-the-art weapon systems that have yet to have come into close contact with any of Russia’s potential adversary.
Categorized as a nuclear-powered cruise missile submarine belonging to the Yasen-class, the Kazan was commissionned in 2017. With one hundred and thirty (130) meters in length, it is manned by a crew of sixty four and reportedly armed with the P800 Oniks supersonic anti-ship missiles and the 3M54 kalibr cruise missiles. Both missiles can be launched underwater using torpedo tubes prior to reaching the surface and igniting their boosters to begin their ascending cruise towards a target. The P800 Oniks share commonality with the BrahMos air-delivered anti-ship missile developped by Russia for the Indian Air Force in collaboration with India’s Defense Research and Development Organiztion (DRDO).
Powered by a ramjet, the P800 Oniks is expected to cruise at a speed approaching mach 4 and has a range of six-hundred (600) kilometers. The 3M54 Kalibr cruise missile is also another battle-tested cruise missile that can be delivered from a submarine also using a torpedo tube before reaching the surface of the sea. The Kalibr offers exceptional range estimated to reach out in excess of 1,500 kilometers cruising at various speed profiles varying from Mach 0.8 to Mach 3. In order to avoid detection, the Kalibr provides sea-skimming flight profile and is guided by an active radar homing onto the target or an inertial navigation system.
These two differing cruise missiles models offers the Kazan submarine great flexibility in engaging ground-based as well as sea based targets in a variety of tactical scenarios typically mixing different missile types in order to effect a maximum impact onto a target, all while remaining submerged underwater.
Also deployed aboard the Amdiral Gorshkov frigate, the Oniks and Kalibr cruise missile can be fired directly from the ship’s deck using Vertical Launch System similar to the Mk41 found on most US comabattant surface ships. The vertical launch systems are fed canisters which themselves house the ready-to-fire cruise missile round hence facilitating their transport and loading.
Yet most frightening of all weaponry deployed by the flotilla aboard the Admiral Gorshkov is the 3M22 Zircon hypersonic cruise missile. Capable of reaching a maximum cruising speed of Mach 9, the Zircon has found a suitable deployment platform with the Admiral Gorshkov which was Russia’s first warship to field it. Considerable speculations surround the employment of the Zircon due to its extreme speed and the fact that, due to its excessive speed, it is essentially a kinetic energy weapon: it carries no warhead but instead only needs to crash onto a target at hypersonic speed in order to neutralize it. A brand new type of weapon, the Zircon presents significant and unknown challenges to the US defensive systems as the characteristics of its flight envelope is not well known. A better understanding of the Zircon flight navigation and control systems would have been garnered at least superficially by observing a test-firing using adequate telemetry equipment. Yet during all its transit to the western hemisphere, the Russian northern flotila did not engage into actual firing, opting instead for simulated tests, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.
Recognising the potential danger that these weapons systems may present to, for instance an aircraft carrier strike group, the US Navy has been keen to, aided by the Royal Canadian navy, shadow the Russian vessels as they first made their ingress into Cuba.
Getting first look, the Canadian navy HMCS Margaret Brooke patrol boat. Also making an invited stop in the port of Havana on friday june 14th, she was able to get very close to the nuclear-powered Kazan cruise missile next to which was also docked the Admiral Gorshkov frigate.
Yet, the HMCS Margaret Brooke patrol boat could only be a small part of an armada of US and Canada ships tasked with shadowing the Russian vessels the moment their mission to Cuba had been confirmed. To most accounts, these included the Canadian frigate HMCS Ville de Québec, the US destroyers USS Truxton and USS Donald Cook and the U.S. Coast Guard cutter USCGS Stone. Air assets that had also joined in included a Canadian CP-140 surveillance plane (similar to a US Navy P-3 Orion) flying out of Jacksonville, Florida.
While US and Canadian navies have been quick to highlight the presence of surface ships alongside aircraft to monitor the Russian ships activities, no words had been issued regarding the presence or not in the area of US Navy nuclear-powered attack submarines. Always operating under a veil of secrecy, the nuclear-powered Virginia Class attack submarines have, without the slightest doubt been operating around the Kazan submarine and the Admiral Gorshkov for quite some time. Adept at lurking underneath the oceans hunting down potential ennemy subs, one of their mission, as during the cold war is to conduct visual surveillance. In some cases this has been done using their periscope to silently scrutinize another submarine hull; a maneuver requiring to remain submerged at a depth of only a few meters underneath the target vessel. Adding to that mission, the imperious necessity to capture all and every electronic and accoustic signals emitted from the Kazan. From thses intense intelligence gathering missions, the US Navy con only learn to identify the most precious operational tell tale signs emitted by Russian submarine during their operations.
The cold war it seems has started again.