According to ARMS-TASS agency, Baltiyski Zavod has finished production of boilers for Vikram. The boilers are upgraded KVG-3D type, working on Diesel fuel. Anti-corrosion treated steel is used for tubes as well as non-asbest isolation.

“And now Nelson you are going to say that this is a picture of a pool somewhere else (videocaption from TV coverage on Severostal mentioned by dnjik)”

Do you see how the water is bubbling??? How many swimming pools have you been in where the water bubbles?? Maybe this Ruskie has terrible gas or more likely he is not in a swimming pool but a hot tub! A person is also able to swim laps in a swimming pool. The most anyone could do in this hot tub is chase their **** like my dog does!

OK, OK, it’s a hot tub, bcause it’s in a Russian sub. If that was a US sub it would have been called a pool. I got Your point. By the way, ever been to sauna? Nobody cares for hot tub after sitting in 120 Celsius hot compartment. It’s just a basin with cold water to get cooled after sauna.

And now Nelson you are going to say that this is a picture of a pool somewhere else :p (videocaption from TV coverage on Severostal mentioned by dnjik)

On the project 971 submarine sail, on the starboard side just below the cockpit, I see a swing out device when the boats are on the surface. What is the purpose??

Do You have a photo with it in the open position?

I would indeed expect the same, indeed the mentioned sonars do not provide 360° coverage, but they do have some overlay in arcs, which enhances your capability. Then comes the Alpha idea, do you have any clue how an Alpha captain would ever know where the blind arc of his opponent is??? The only way to do that is really knowing the heading of your opponent, something practically very difficult. You need your sonar for that, a tracking, but when an Alpha wants to track, he’ll have to slow down, have his sonar find the opponent at a decent range, with his crappy sonar, that is less likely than the opponent tracking him, then he would have to accellerate very rapidly, move to that proposed blind arc and then move closer? I don’t know how much experience you have with ships, but it’s quite unlikely that they could be capable of that without coming in dangerous collision courses. And that all without being heard?!
So basically they would need the luck of being behind an American sub that is sailing at high speed. It can happen once, but it won’t happen that much.
Alpha and agile? Haha, no sub is really agile, their rudders are in front of their propellor, an inherent cause for not being agile. The LA was the first sub capable of turning 180° within 4 times its own length.(as reference, even the most bulky merchant ship has to be capable of that, be it a 400m tanker or a 300m container vessel, surface warships can turn sometimes within their own length)
So being Agile for an Alpha, I doubt it and if so, it would still have to bring him quite close.

First, submariners are as famous storytellers as fishermen :p
Second, no doubt You have heard of multiple facts of sub collisions during Col War era. What makes You think that sub captains will not use dangerous manouvering if they had to in order to trail an enemy sub?
Who told You that Alpha’s Okean sonar suit was crappy? It was quite powerful and accurate in active mode and that was the mode to be most often by Alphas.
Regarding the agility of Alphas I have only the word of Russian captains, it’s Your choice whether You believe them or not :dev2: According to them Alpha was more agile than LA. I don’t know at what speed LA had the turn rate You cited but Alpha was able to make a U turn in 42 seconds at full speed and it was able to go at full power in one minute after full stop.

Exact maximum submerged speed for Projekt 661 Anchar (NATO designation Papa) was 44.7 knots. The damage was superficial and was repaired quickly, as nobody expected her to be so quick, her expected speed was around 38 knots.
Come on Neptune, You have a nice bearing and fire solution only if Your sonar is facing the right way, remember it’s 1970’s we are talking about. Lira was meant to be “interceptor” like MiG-25, using Alfa together with Shkval was rather deadly combination, at least on paper. What the Soviet Union did not manage to do was to create underwater early warning system like SOSUS, the ones they had were limited just for approaches to their bases. Thus Liras lost their advantages as they were not meant to creep silently and acquire the target on their own but rather to rely on receiving bearings from other sources and then home in on the target before it can react.

The tactics for Alpha’s was “dash, stop and listen”. It’s pretty long hope to hit a sub at standstill with a torp which has been fired away quite a long time ago, because Alpha will hear it coming.

The chamber is between the cockpit/bridge and the antenna array. That would place it roughly slightly forward of halfway along the sail. The outlines of the module are visible in photgraphs I have. I also have photographs of the module removed in close proximety.

Here it is on 971 Gepard and 945 Kostroma