Why Are Russian Nuclear Attack Subs Firing Torpedoes At Each Other?

By Dave Majumdar,The National Interest

Back in May of 2016, the Russian nuclear-powered attack submarine Obninsk fired a torpedo against one of Moscow’s newest nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, Yuri Dolgoruky.

The massive Project 955 Borei missile boat in turn launched a torpedo back at Obninsk, a smaller Project 671RTMK Schuka-class vessel more commonly known as a Victor III in NATO parlance. But unlike in the Tom Clancy’s classic novel The Hunt for Red October, Dolgoruky’s skipper was not planning to defect to the United States along with his crew; rather the torpedo duel was part of a Russian naval exercise.

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“The crews of the strategic missile cruiser Yuri Dolgoruky and the multipurpose nuclear submarine Obninsk performed this exercise in a duel option,” the Russian Northern Fleet’s press office told the TASS news agency. [6]

According to TASS, the torpedo shootout was conducted using inert weapons with each vessel launching one weapon. The two torpedoes were later recovered after the exercise.