by Marina KHALIZEVA, Science in Russia observer At the end of 2013 an important event in the development of the national fleet took place, i.e. the Russian Navy received for trial exploitation the Severodvinsk head atomic submarine of the fourth generation with winged missiles aboard under Project 885. Versatility is its key feature, i.e. it can be used not only against enemy ships and submarines but also coastal facilities. Being equipped with the sophisticated communication and navigation complexes and a modern nuclear power plant Severodvinsk will enhance substantially Russian grouping of under-water missile carriers and strengthen positions of our country in the World Ocean. Another seven atomic submarines of this series will be launched from assembly jigs of the defense shipyard "Northern Mechanical Engineering Enterprise" before 2020. FATE'S SHARP TURNS Atomic submarines under Project 885 are one of the main constituents of national fleet's re-equipment program. Specialists started to form their appearance back in the Soviet times, i.e. in the 1970s. At that time it was planned to launch several types of submarines, namely, an anti-submarine (Lazurit Central Design Bureau, Gorky), an anti-aircraft (Rubin Central Design Bureau of Marine Engineering, Leningrad) and a multipurpose submarine (Leningrad Design Bureau of Submarine Shipbuilding, today--St. Petersburg Malachite Bureau of Marine Machine-building)*. But later on due to prob- * See: G. Gladkov, "A-Fleet Pioneers", Science in Russia, No. 3, 1999.--Ed. стр. 36 lems in development of new weapons and equipment, the naval authorities decided to abandon narrow combat specialization and concentrate on a project of a single multipurpose submarine capable of solving the widest range of problems. The Malachite Design Bureau which had a substantial surplus of promising atomic submarines at that time became a designer of a new submarine under the code name Yasen. Earl ... Читать далее