The Best Submarine You Never Knew Existed

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By Robert Jensen,The National Interest

The Sierra-class nuclear fast-attack submarines were some of the deadliest subs that no one’s ever heard of. A successor to the much more numerous Victors, and the faster Alfas, the Sierras were vastly overshadowed by the much more numerous Akulas that still form the backbone of the Russian submarine fleet.

These submarines promised to be more capable, longer legged, and more lethal than the second-generation Victors, Charlies, and Alfas that populated the Soviet undersea fleet entering the 1980s. Faster and deeper diving than the Victors and Charlies, with greater endurance and more—and better—weapons than the Alfas, the Sierra had the makings of the ultimate Soviet attack boat. Yet, today, they’re only remembered by those interested in Soviet attack submarines.

There are several reasons for the Sierra fading into obscurity, whereas the Akulas are well known and frequently in the news. The first is they were phenomenally hard to build. The fully titanium hull was labor and cost intensive, even more so than that of the high-performance Alfas. This massive cost meant that only four examples were ever built, two each of the Sierra I and II classes. By comparison, fifteen of the steel hulled Akulas were built. The second is that for all their exceptional ability, the Akulas did the same job for significantly cheaper. The third and final primary reason was the economic malaise and impending collapse of the Soviet Union.

When first being designed in the late 1970s, the Sierras were a drastic departure from previous Soviet attack boats. Critically, they were designed with only a single reactor, a design feature only previously done on the Charlie-class cruise missile submarines. However, where the Charlies were dramatically slower than the rest of the Soviet undersea fleet, the Sierra packed just one of the Typhoon-class’ massive OK-650a reactors, generating a whopping 50,000 shaft horsepower.

This reactor plant, coupled with a high-efficiency screw, gave the Sierra a world-beating estimated underwater speed of thirty-five knots. Faster than both the Los Angeles-class American subs that would hunt them, and their more conventional Akula-class cousins, the Sierra were only slower than the tiny Alfas and the world-record holding Papa. When every knot available can mean the difference between life-and-death, the Sierra may have been one of the most lethal underwater hunters ever put to sea.