How to use the Sun to power your submarine

Intro

Ever since 1958, the Soviet Union's scientists had been working away at the development of a practical fusion reactor, and the Soviet-developed Tokamak design remains the most promising candidate even today with the international ITER megaproject. This "Mini-AU" is based around a single question: What if, due to the Soviet Union never collapsing and the Cold War making research projects continue at heightened levels of funding, the Soviets constructed a practical Tokamak reactor?

The Prototype
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Beginning life as the Pr.667BDRM Delfin (NATO Delta-IV) class vessel K-84, Ekaterinburg would suffer damage due to a fire in drydock on the 29th of December, 2011. Fortunately, this had a silver lining, as two years prior, the Soviet Union had built the first energy-positive Tokamak reactor, and the Red Banner Fleet was seeking a submarine to convert into a testbed for submarine fusion reactors and a mothership for a midget submarine to test related electric motor developments. Beginning on May 30th, 2012, K-84 would be cut down and rebuilt into a Pr.09787B (NATO Delta Flat Top) special mission submarine, having her missile tubes removed and replaced with a dorsal housing for the Tokamak test reactor and a docking device similar to BS-64 Podmoskovye and K-329 Belgorod.

Alongside this, work on the Pr.10900 (NATO NORSUB-6) testbed midget submarine was being done, with her keel laid on the 17th of June, 2010. Based heavily on the Pr.10831 "Losharik", this vessel would feature a more conventional pressure hull layout as opposed to the pressure spheres of its' cousin. She would lack the nuclear reactor, having the space replaced with high-density batteries and a single 75 MW electric motor. It would be required to dock with a unique mothership submarine in order to recharge the batteries and to test the systems for transferring power from a fusion reactor to the electric motor.

After construction in extreme secrecy, Pr.10900 was launched on the 22nd of November 2014, with the newly reclassified BS-84 following a month later on the 29th of December. Both would be commissioned on January 8th of the following year. The pair would operate from Polyarny with Pr.10900 docked to the ventral side of BS-84 to shield the vessel from NATO satellites. From 2015 to 2021, they would perform submerged test operations in the Barents Sea and Arctic Ocean under the guise of seabed construction as part of the already known to NATO projects in the area. The Tokamak device was demonstrated to be capable of extended submerged operations, with BS-84 undergoing several minor refits to solve issues or improve efficiency in the mounting and cooling of the reactor. Alongside this, Pr.10900 would test the high voltage electric motor intended to accept the power from the Tokamak, with the vessel picking up the nickname "Sputnik" from the crews of it and BS-84, in reference to how, if successful, the program would be just as important and cause just as much panic in the West as the launch of Sputnik-1.

In the coming years, Pr.10900 AS-40's crew would be proven right.

Project 09787B BS-84 Екатеринбург (Ekaterinburg) (NATO reporting name Delta Flat Top)
Length: 167.4 m (549 ft)
Beam: 11.7 m (38 ft)
Draft: 8.8 m (29 ft)
Displacement:
11,740 tons (10,650 t) (surface)
18,200 tons (16,511 t) (submerged)
Installed Power: 2x VM4-SG nuclear reactors, 90 MW (121,000 shp), 1x T-300 Tokamak-type D-T fusion reactor, 300 MW (402,307 shp)
Propulsion: 2x steam turbines, 2 shafts 59,900 shp
Speed:
14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph) (surface)
24 knots (44 km/h; 28 mph) (submerged)
Endurance: 80 days
Test depth: 320 m
Complement: 135

Builder: Sevmash

Laid down: 17 February 1982
Commissioned: 30 December 1985 (As Pr.667BDRM Delfin K-84)
Damaged in fire: 29 December 2011
Rebuilt to Pr. 09787B: 30 May 2012 - 19 December 2014
Recommissioned as BS-84: 8 January 2015

Project 10900 AS-40 'Спутник' (Sputnik) (NATO reporting name NORSUB-6)
Length: 76.5 m (251 ft)
Beam: 8.4 m (27.5 ft)
Draft: 6.2 m (20.5 ft)
Displacement:
2,204 tons (2,000 t) (surface)
2,755 tons (2,500 t) (submerged)
Installed Power: Batteries only
Propulsion: 1x electric motor, 1 shaft 100,000 shp (75 MW)
Speed:
14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph) (surface)
34.5 knots (63.8 km/h; 39.7 mph) (submerged)
Range: 100 nmi
Test depth: 500 m
Complement: 25

Builder: Sevmash

Laid down: 17 June 2010
Launched: 22 November 2014
Commissioned: 8 January 2015

"Enigma"
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Development of Pr.980 began as soon as BS-84 and AS-40 proved the functionality of the powerplant and propulsion systems, with design and development continuing throughout the six year "first phase" of the testbed vessels, incorporating each new modification into Pr.980. Pr.980 was to be equipped with a larger, more efficient, and more powerful Tokamak reactor with a pair of dedicated passive coolant loops each with an active pump as backup. To extract power from the exhaust gases of the reactor, a Direct Energy Conversion (DEC) system would be used. The DEC would provide only a 48% efficiency at extracting power from the reactor, but this was deemed acceptable due to the fact that the system contains no moving parts. To supplement this, an array of Thermoelectric generators (TEGs) would be placed around the reactor with their own coolant loop, serving as a "boost power" that could be activated on demand. A pair of 75 MW electric motors would turn 150 MW of the submarine's available power into propulsion through a pair of shafts with tandem screws. The result of all of this was a powerplant and propulsion system in which the only moving parts were located within the motors and shafts, resulting in extremely quiet (sub-95 dB) operations. The propulsion systems of Pr.980 allowed for a maximum submerged speed of 46 knots, making her the fastest submarine ever constructed. Due to the elimination of many moving parts in the system, the vessel is also capable of silent operation at speeds of 30 knots.

In terms of armament, Pr.980 would be most similar to the preceding Pr.670 Skat (NATO Charlie), Pr.661 Anchar (NATO Papa), and Pr.949 Granit/Pr.949A Antey (NATO Oscar) classes, with twelve external tubes fore of the sail for launching cruise missiles. Six 533mm torpedo tubes would form her torpedo armament, with a fully-automated torpedo room storing 36 torpedoes located aft of the tubes, between the missile launch tubes. With so much available power, the sensors systems equipped were the most advanced and extensive systems ever equipped on any Soviet submarine, with conformal bow and flank arrays, a low frequency array, a sail-mounted active array, as well as an upwards-facing array and a towed array. In addition, she mounted the SOKS nonacoustic detection system in hull blisters amidships. All of these systems were connected to a sonar computer formed out of a unique artificial neural network, allowing the computer to learn with each contact identified by the sonar operator, providing for better automated identification.

Pr.980's keel would be laid on August 24th, 2022. Construction would take 5 years and she would be launched in secret on February 18th, 2027. Following a fitting out period and a series of in-dock testing, she would be commissioned as K-600 Krasniy Oktyabr on the 7th of November, 2027, the 110th anniversary of her namesake 1917 October Revolution. The commissioning was a top secret, small event, with only top brass and party officials present, and no video or photographs taken.

She would put to sea the following morning, departing from Severodvinsk into the Barents Sea. NATO satellites would capture her reactor heat bloom as she did, with CIA analysts scrambling to figure out why the heat bloom was many times that of a conventional nuclear submarine. Western intelligence would come into possession of photos taken shortly before the submarine's launch, but these would provide no clues as to the reason behind the extreme heat bloom. The frantic activity would soon grow with the US Navy's SSN-793 Oregon sitting on patrol off the Soviet coast reported the detection of a "seismic anomaly" followed by a pair of Yasen-class nuclear submarines. Correctly, NATO intelligence would guess that this supposed "seismic anomaly" was actually the new Soviet submarine, and that it was capable of as-yet unheard of stealth. The reporting name "Enigma" began to circulate NATO intelligence organizations in the hours following these events. Krasniy Oktyabr would successfully bypass the SOSUS system undetected and enter into the Atlantic for its maiden voyage and sea trials. Not a single US submarine managed to detect her after SSN-793's initial contact. Her crew and Red Fleet officials would soon pick up on the reporting name Enigma and adopt it officially, in a similar fashion to Fulcrum and Bear.

As he is far more familiar with the Cold War and post-Cold War US, I'll let a post from DMs with rdfox76 explain the US response in the following months: "ONR and NR and NAVSEA would need multiple exorcisms per day and perhaps a visit by the Ghostbusters every couple of weeks, just to be able to get routine work done because Rickover's ghost would be raising hell until they had something better than the Russkies did."

Project 980 Красный Oктябрь (Red October) (NATO reporting name Enigma)
Length: 108.8 m (357 ft)
Beam: 10.6 m (35 ft)
Draft: 8.2 m (27 ft)
Displacement:
6,500 tons (5,897 t) (surface)
8,500 tons (7,711 t) (submerged)
Installed Power: 1x T-600 Tokamak-type D-T fusion reactor, 600 MW (804,613 shp)
Propulsion: 2x electric motors, 2 shafts 100,000 shp (75 MW)
Speed:
12 knots (14 mph; 22 km/h) (surface)
46 knots (52.9 mph; 85.2 km/h) (submerged)
Endurance: 100 days
Test depth: 1,000 m safe, 1,250 m design, 1,500 m crush
Complement: 64 (32 officers)
Armament:
6x 533mm torpedo tubes (Fizik-2, VA-111 Shkval-2, RPK-6 Vodopad, MG-74ME, 36 torpedoes)
12x SS-N-33 (3M22 Zircon) or SS-N-30A (SM14K Kalibr) cruise missiles

Systems and Sensors:
PZNS-10S Periscope
R-43M RADAR
Parus-98IP photonics mast
Apassionata-M SATNAV mast
Kora HF/VHF antenna
3Ts-30.0-M SATCOM
Conformal bow and flank passive sonar arrays
Low frequency bow passive sonar array
Sail-mounted upward-facing passive sonar array
Sail-mounted active sonar array
Upper-rudder mounted towed array sonar
SOKS nonacoustic detection system
All sonar units connected to a machine learning neural network

Builder: Sevmash

Laid down: 24 August 2022
Launched: 18 February 2027
Commissioned: 7 November 2027

Sources/Related reading:
https://www.iter.org/
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/r ... onfuel.php
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_energy_conversion

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How to use the Sun to power your submarine

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