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They represent the madness of the Cold War and are also considered engineering feats: the Russian Typhoon-class nuclear submarines, as they are called in NATO jargon. The Soviet Navy commissioned six of the mighty ships in the 1980s and now their time is up. With the “Dmitry Donskoy”, the flagship of the fleet, according to the Russian Navy, the last of its kind is now being dismantled.

“The submarine cruiser ‘Dmitry Donskoy’, along with two other submarines of this project, will await removal at the Severodvinsk naval base,” navy spokesman Vladimir Maltsev told state news agency TASS. The other two submarines are Arkhangelsk and Severstal, which have already been decommissioned. Rumors about the imminent demise of “Dmitry Donskoy” appeared in July. Another submarine, still under construction, will be named Dmitry Donskoy – a 14th century Russian hero.

The Taifun class was conceived in the 1970s in response to the US Ohio class nuclear submarines. However, with a displacement of 48,000 tons, the Taifun boats have more than twice the mass of the American boats with a displacement of almost 19,000 tons. “The Taifun class is so powerful that it cannot be compared to any other submarine,” writes British naval expert HI Sutton. “She’s much bigger and wider than the Ohio class and is more similar to the battlecruiser ‘Bismarck’ than any other submarine. That’s probably what makes the Typhoon class so fascinating.”

At the time, however, the new Soviet submarines were more of a concern in the West. The “Dmitry Donskoy” and her sister ships were intended to ensure that the Soviet Union could still launch a nuclear counterattack after a devastating nuclear attack. In addition to several torpedoes, the 175-meter Typhoon submarines could carry 20 ICBMs with nuclear warheads. The nuclear submarines lurked with their payload beneath the Arctic ice, where they were relatively safe from detection by NATO submarines.

In the event of a nuclear war, however, the “Dmitry Donskoy” would first have to break through the meters-thick layer of ice in the Arctic Ocean before she could launch her missiles. Its sheer size helped here too – the predecessors of the Taifun class had to search for even thinner spots in the ice before they could surface. With a swimming pool on board, the Taifun class boats, thanks to their size, were even able to offer their crew a certain comfort. They obtained the energy for months of diving under the ice from two nuclear reactors.

Even Hollywood was inspired by the new Soviet superboats: the “Red October” from the 1990 movie starring Sean Connery was based on the Taifun-class boats. “No matter where you stand politically, military pundits have always respected the mighty Russian submarines,” HI Sutton writes. “The Taifun class is one of the most famous submarines of all. She will be missed.” Incidentally, the boats are called the Akula class in Russian, after the Russian word for “shark”.

The Russian Navy has endured several setbacks since the invasion of Ukraine. In April, Ukraine sank the Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. And Russia’s only aircraft carrier, the “Admiral Kuzsenov”, is ready for the scrap heap, according to Ukrainian sources. With the Belgorod class, Russia still has the largest submarines in the world. Recently, the Kremlin claimed to have ordered a high-efficiency nuclear torpedo for Belgorod-class boats. This cannot be verified independently.

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(t-online, mk)