The Russian Navy Report

A New President (well kind of)

       The news out of the Russian Navy this week has been slow. I'm guessing that this is because of the elections and protests dominating the news. In case you hadn't heard Vladimir Putin was elected to a third term as president of the Russian Federation. That means for the next six years he will be the head of the Russian military.

Putin

     So in light of that here are a few of the stories that I found from the past week: 

Typhoon at sea

       The Russian Navy has said that it will not modernize the Typhoon class submarines (the picture in the article depicts an Akula class submarine, which the Russian call the Typhoon. Akula is the NATO reporting name for submarine pictured in the article.) The main reason for not wanting to modernize lies in the fact that a full refit of one of the Typhoons could pay for two new Borei class submarines. The reports on whether or not these submarines will stay commissioned with the fleet vary widely. With some sources saying that they will remain in service until 2019. In my opinion besides the Dmitri Donskoy, which is being used to test the Bulava missile, the ships will be scrapped.  For more information about the Typhoons see my earlier blog post here. 

      

IL-38 May

      The Northern Fleet now has a modernized version of the IL-38 May. The aircraft were upgraded and fitted with a new system called Novella. Here are some of the new capabilities:

"The Novella system includes a digital computer manned by two operators. The system also has a new high resolution thermal imaging system, a magnetic anomaly detection system, an optical detection system (including laser, TV and thermal channels), gravitational anomaly detector and other equipment."