MOSCOW, April 3 (AVN) - The St. Petersburg-based Malakhit design bureau of engineering has developed projects of export variants of multirole small non-nuclear coastal submarines with displacement ranging from 160t to 1,000t, the Military News Agency learned on Tuesday.
The P-130, P-170, Piranha-T, P-550 and P-750 variants are designed to patrol seashores, combat vessels, single enemy surface ships and submarines, set mine obstacles, conduct intelligence and special operations. Although called small, each of them has powerful torpedo and mine weapons, moreover, P-750 is equipped with four cruise missiles in vertical launchers.
The crew number of the submarines in question varies from four to nine men. Moreover, they can house up to six divers. Air-independent power plants considerably increase the continuous underwater range. Such submarines can allow any fleet quickly increase its defence and attack potential and with no big expenses, say Yuri Mineyev, Malakhit's main designer, and Yevgeni Masloboyev, deputy main designer, in the second edition of the Military Parade magazine that is to be published soon.