Submarine News

Two pieces of interesting news on the Russian submarine fleet.

The Barents Observer reports that the Russian Atomic Agency (Rosatom) says it has nearly completed the decommissioning of all Russian retired nuclear submarines.

Also, the FAS Strategic Security Blog reports on the decreased patrolling activity of Russian SSBNs.

"The low Russian patrol number continues the sharp decline from the Cold War; no patrols at all were conducted in 2002 (see Figure 1). The new practice indicates that Russia no longer maintains a continuous SSBN patrol posture like that of the United States, Britain, and France, but instead has shifted to a new posture where it occasionally deploys an SSBN for training purposes."

According to Pavel Podvig of the Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces blog, "the importance of the number of patrols in Russia's case, however, should not be overestimated. The Soviet Union never really relied on constant presence of its missile submarines at sea to the extent that the United States or Britain do."