The Kilo class, the NATO reporting name for a family of Soviet and later Russian diesel-electric attack submarines, entered service in the late 1980s and was designed for anti-ship and anti-submarine operations in relatively shallow coastal waters as well as open ocean patrol. Its diesel-electric propulsion and hull design earned it a reputation among Western navies for being exceptionally quiet while running on batteries, a quality that led some American observers to nickname it the black hole for how difficult its acoustic signature could be to detect. Beyond service in the Soviet and Russian navies, the class has been widely exported to a large number of foreign navies around the world, making it one of the most widely proliferated modern conventionally powered attack submarine designs and a significant contemporary naval export success for Russian shipbuilding.
Facts
Weapon ClassDiesel-electric attack submarine class 1 Introduced Year Classification
Service Status Weapon Class
Weapon Class (category)Submarine / Naval Vessel 1 Connections
Operated By
Source Wikipedia: Kilo-class submarine
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Kilo-class submarine
Wikipedialead sentence
The Kilo-class submarines are a group of diesel-electric attack submarines designed by the Rubin Design Bureau in the Soviet Union in the 1970s and built originally for the Soviet Navy.
Lead section
They entered operational service in 1980 and continued being built until the mid-1990s, when production switched to the more advanced Project 636 Varshavyanka variant, also known in the West as the Improved Kilo class.
Lead text
Since it was introduced, more than 70 Kilo-class boats have been built, and around 60 were in active service as of 2023, not only in Russia but also in Algeria, Vietnam, India, Iran, Myanmar, and Poland.
Service-status attribute (kilo-class-submarine)
Since it was introduced, more than 70 Kilo-class boats have been built, and around 60 were in active service as of 2023, not only in Russia but also in Algeria, Vietnam, India, Iran, Myanmar, and Poland.
Operated By: Russian Navy, Article text
The design was updated again by the Russian Navy in the mid-2010s to a variant called Project 636.3, also known as Improved Kilo II.
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