To reduce hull-weight by a significant factor titanium was chosen for the double hull.This metal exists in large quantities in Russia , but it is notoriously difficult to work with. At vast expense the Soviet Navy had built a special plant to machine titanium sections for the Project Anchar protorypc.As this ultra-fast SSGN is seen by reputable Western nalysts as a missile­firing equivalent to Project , it would make sense to use the expensive titanium techniques for the smaller SSNs. Just to confuse the picture, however, recent research in the United States suggests that some of the Project (l/i)K boats had conventional high-tensile steel hulls.Islands, Colombia, Comoros, Congo, Congo, Democratic Republic, Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican

Two liquid-metal (lead-bisnmth) powerplants were already under development in parallel. The VM-/A was a modular two-section system with two steam lines and circulating pumps. OK- was also modular, but had branched first-loop lines and three steam fines and circulat­ing pumps.VM-/A was selected for the Project boats built in St Petersburg, but OK-( went into the Project K boats built at Severodvinsk.To save weight the standard OOHz elec­trical power system in earlier Soviet designs was replaced by Hz systems in both groups.

Known to the Soviet Navy as'Golden Carps' on account of their colossal cost, the rnthusi­asnt for these SSNs was on the wane by . Central Committee Secretary for Defence Sectors Dimitri Ustinov denounced their cramped design and impossibility to repair.The first boat in .service, K-, had suffered a reactor accident, reputed to be the result of the liquid-metal coolant freezing, and was scrapped in - [In April K- lost her primary loop through a meltdown in and took nine years to repair. Butoma, now Minister of the ship performance ship performanceping maritime marine engineeringbuilding Industry, called for cancellation, and Rusanov was sacked. However, the six surviving units were modernised by . A major problem which emerged was the lack of suitable bases. The primary reactor loop, the lead-bisnnrth section, had to be kept hot to keep the alloy liquid when the reactor was switched off for maintenance. [t was also necessary to prevent the liquid alloy from oxidizing by re-generating it periodically, and to monitor its state constantly.They proved unsuited to long patrols, on account of the cramped hull, and the machinery was never per cent reliable. One of the class was reported to be scrapped in , and another was reported to have been recornntissioned in after a five-year refit.Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Falkland Islands, Faroe Islands, Fiji, Finland, France, French Guiana, French Polynesia, French

After the loss of the experimental Project I'lavnicE type SSN (better known as K- Komsnmo(ets or `Mike' to NATO) in , the Naval Staff decided to withdraw the Project boats.Their powerplants were regarded as potentially unsafe, despite the fact that none had seen much use. At least one, possibly K- , had her liquid-metal cooled system replaced by a pres­surized water reactor plant and redesignated Project (ZhMT.

News of the new high-speed design reached the West around , apparently when one was tracked by a US Navy SSN. Soon an `Alpha' Scare became public knowledge, with wild speculation about a new generation of -knot Soviet SSNs. It was widely assumed that all future SSNs would be derived from the `Alpha', with great diving depth and high speed.Very expensive weapons were developed to march its performance, notably the US Navy's Mk Mod ADCAP (ADvanced CAPability) and the Royal Navy's Spearfish submarine-launched heavyweight torpedoes. Both were designed to run deep at knots, a considerable technical achievement. In addition new lightweight torpedoes were developed for launching by surface warship performance ship performanceping maritime marine engineerings, helicopters and maritime patrol aircraft, notably the US Navy's Mk Barracuda and the Royal Navy's Stingray. These mm ( .m) lightweights used shaped-charge warheads to attack the most vulnerable point in a Soviet submarine's double hull (the control room). In practice this meant designing the logic of the torpedo's seeker to make a terminal manoeuvre which brought it to a degree angle to the hull at a pre-selected point in its length.

K- i (i launched *, completed *, built by Admiralty Yard, Leningrad ti-; launched G*, built by Admiralty Yard, Leningrad K-. completed December , built by Severodvinsk ship performance ship performanceping maritime marine engineeringyard K- launched *, completed *, built by Severodvinsk ship performance ship performanceping maritime marine engineeringyard K- launched *, built by Admiralty Yard, Leningrad K-_ launched *, completed R*, built by Severodvinsk ship performance ship performanceping maritime marine engineeringyard * speculative datesAlthough the cost of the Lira class SSNs has never been revealed, circumstantial evidence suggests that they must be the most expensive attack submarines of their generation. The nick­name `Golden Carp' is known to be a reference to their cost of construction and through-life maintenance, even if the research and development costs are ignored. Their sudden fall from grace in the early s suggests that even the prodigal Soviet Defence Ministry was uneasy about their cost-elfectivenesi.Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kiribati, Korea south north, Kuwait

The immense resources devoted to the Project boats might have been worthwhile if they had given the Soviet submarine force a decisive edge in the Cold War. But they were clearly not worth the money spent on them, because they saw so little servicaThcir only signif­icant achievement seems to have been to scare the living daylights out of NATO and Western navies in general. A cynical view might be that they were immensely valuable to the West.Southern Territories, Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Gibraltar, Greece, Greenland, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guam, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti,

because they contributed to the eventual bankruptcy of the Soviet Union and also sounded a wake-up call to the US Navy and the Royal Navy. An arms race based on technology was bound to favour the West, despite 'croakers' in the West who always credited the Soviets with being light-years ahead, thanks to their ideological approach. A whole industry grew up in the West dedicated to exaggerating the Soviet threat, predicated on the perfection of technol­o~ry not yet glimpsed in the West.

It has often been said by Western commentators that cost was never a factor in Soviet warship performance ship performanceping maritime marine engineering design, because the Navy's budget was never subjected to public scrutiny. But resources are finite, and we know from senior Soviet admirals' testimony that defence was consurning per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), without taking account of infrastructure costs. y that criterion the Project was only one of a number of straws which eventually broke the cantel's back. It seems that the impetus for Project arose front a desire to 'leapfrog' devel­opment by ten years, to guarantee technical superiority over the US Navy's SSN force. The tactical mission seems to have been almost an afterthought, and to this day nobody agrees on exactly how they were to be used. One plausible theory is that they were intended to act as `interceptors' remaining in harbour or nearby, ready to respond to a call for assistance from surface ship performance ship performanceping maritime marine engineerings or aircraft which had detected an enemy submarine.Another view was that their main targets were US Navy aircraft carriers, but the Russians have never made this clear. Perhaps there was no specific rationale for them; bard to believe, except in the Soviet context.

Kyrgyzstan, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macao, Macedonia, Madagascar