College of Military and Political Basic Education, National University of Defense Technology: Qin Tianming, Liu Yiao, Wang Zhili
In the early eighties, the lead ship of the Project 941 strategic nuclear submarine "Dmitry Donskoy" officially entered service with the USSR Navy. Over the next few decades, the submarine was involved in the important development of the country's strategic nuclear deterrence and maritime nuclear forces. However, in 2022, Russia announced the official retirement of the ship and began to plan the next step for the disposal of the ship. However, the Russian Ministry of Defense has not yet replied to the question of where this behemoth will go.
"Dmitry Donskoy" in the base
1. The Behemoth of the Cold War: A Review of the Glorious Journey of the Service of the "Dmitry Donskoy".
During the Cold War, in the fierce confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union, in order to benchmark the Ohio-class strategic nuclear submarines of the US military, the Soviet Union began the construction of six nuclear submarines of the 941 type in 1977.
On December 12, 1981, the first boat of the project "Dmitry Donskoy" was put into service in the USSR Navy. The boat is 172.8 meters long and has a full underwater load displacement of 48,000 tons, which is almost twice that of an ordinary nuclear submarine. With its unique pin-shaped pressure-resistant shell design and a large number of high-strength materials, it can break through the 2 to 3 meters thick ice in the Arctic region. At the same time, the large space also allows the "Dmitry Donskoy" to be equipped with two independent propulsion units and power supply systems, and the stability of the submarine's operation is very strong. Not only that, but it can dive to a depth of 400 meters and sail for 120 days in a row, quickly projecting devastating nuclear weapons onto enemy territory from under the hidden Arctic ice. With all these advantages, the world's largest nuclear submarine has made its opponents fearful as soon as it was launched.
Since its commissioning, the Dmitry Donskoy has sailed a total of 110,000 nautical miles, which is equivalent to more than five times around the Earth. After several decades of service, the ship still maintains a high sailing rate, and has participated in the St. Petersburg Navy Day parade many times, as well as the Russian Navy's actual combat training activities held in the Barents Sea and the White Sea, making great contributions to promoting the development of national strategic nuclear deterrence and maritime nuclear forces.
In recent years, the "Dmitry Donskoy" has been converted into a "Round Hammer" missile test boat, which has witnessed the gradual maturity of the missile technology and continued the glory of the Typhoon-class nuclear submarine in more diverse ways.
Until July 20, 2022, according to a source in the military-industrial department, "Dmitry Donskoy" was withdrawn from the combat group of the Russian Navy. This shows that this Cold War "behemoth" has completed its mission.
2. Successful retirement: analysis of the multiple factors of the retirement of the "Dmitry Donskoy".
The decommissioning of "Dmitry Donskoy" is an inevitable consequence of the times. Generally speaking, this result is due to the fact that the upgrading of weapons and equipment is an inevitable process of development. But focusing on the 941 program itself, the decommissioning of the "Dmitry Donskoy" also had its own special reasons.
The most important of these is the physical wear and tear of the frame of the submarine, the internal fittings. Not every badly worn submarine is suitable for reconditioning and service, especially for the Dmitry Donskoy, which does not have standardized parts, which can be difficult to repair. Therefore, it is even more difficult to guarantee the ordinary operation of submarines for the "Dmitry Donskoy", which has problems in infrastructure support.
At the same time, the difficulty of repairing the "Dmitry Donskoy" was not only in the unique dimensions of the accessories, but also in a more complex design. This makes them difficult and expensive to maintain and repair. Therefore, without a strong economic reserve, or when the country's economy is in trouble, it is almost unrealistic to finance such a huge project.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the supply and renewal of equipment to the "Dmitry Donskoy" was interrupted. With the development of the times, its internal facilities are still at the level of the 80s of the 20th century, and the defects of the R-39 ballistic missile's poor penetration ability and low hitting accuracy have gradually been revealed, and all of them have been decommissioned. Without ballistic missiles, "Dmitry Donskoy" is like a tiger that has lost its minions, and it is only a matter of time before it is decommissioned.
It is worth mentioning that the idea of keeping the "Dmitry Donskoy" in service has always been held in history. Many officials and media personalities have also proposed various ways to continue the boat's combat effectiveness, such as recustomizing new missiles or modifying part of the boat's internal structure, and the Russian Navy also planned to upgrade the "Dmitry Donskoy" so that it can carry the "Round Hammer" missile to carry out combat readiness duty tasks, but in the end it was not done. After a comprehensive assessment by the Russian Ministry of Defense, the Russian Navy's funds could not even cover the maintenance costs of the boat, and it was finally decided to decommission it.
3. Where to go: to find a suitable final destination for the "Dmitry Donskoy".
As for the disposal of the "Dmitry Donskoy" after its decommissioning, the official has never given a clear answer. Unofficial sources say that the "Dmitry Donskoy" will be discarded and cut into metal for recycling. But soon after the news broke, it was opposed by a large number of people, and some suggestions also appeared.
One of the most popular was the idea of transforming the Dmitry Donskoy into a museum and installing it in the Patriot park in Kronstadt in the summer of 2022. According to recent information, the organization published an open letter in which it once again proposed to build a museum with submarines and mentioned the possibility of modernizing and rearming the ship, hoping to give it a new lease of life.
Given that there is no possibility of returning to the battlefield with the Dmitry Donskoy, the idea of turning such a submarine into a museum seems quite reasonable. And the positive impact of this decision is even more obvious, it will help to preserve the country's heritage, inspire national pride, and also contribute to the patriotic education of young people.
However, transforming a combat submarine into a museum is also not an easy task. To do this, nuclear power equipment and some potentially dangerous installations must be removed from it to make the interior space more accessible and easy to set up. At the same time, it was necessary to find suitable areas for the museum submarine and solve other problems such as infrastructure.
In addition, once again taking into account economic factors, the reconstruction of "Dmitry Donskoy" for the museum will be extremely expensive. We can learn from the recent "museumization" works of the K-3 submarine "Leninsky Komsomol". Earlier it was reported that the completion of its entire work will cost 50 million rubles. And compared to this, the workload of the "Dmitry Donskoy" is much larger, and some media even estimate that its cost will exceed 1 billion rubles. Therefore, it is still unknown whether it will be possible for the relevant authorities to raise sufficient funds for this purpose.
"Dmitry Donskoy" docked at the pier
The development of the times and the progress of the military are advancing in the continuous iteration and updating of science and technology and equipment. After decades of service, the retirement of the "Dmitry Donskoy" is a reality, and the era that belongs to it is over, so there is no need to be optimistic or pessimistic. Although its next fate is still unknown, the new generation of Russian strategic nuclear submarine "Boreas-A" will take over from the Typhoon-class submarines to maintain Russia's maritime deterrence capability, and the "Dmitry Donskoy" will continue to exist with its recorded history, memories and written glory.