Bofferbrauer2 said:
I think the real reason is to circumvent sanctions by making the transports harder to trace and follow, and potentially even docking at the oil port while submerged, thus allowing the russian-oil-buying nation some amount of discretion. Btw, it's not the first time something like this has been tried. During WW1, Germany was under a severe marine blockade by the Royal Navy, and they couldn't manage to go through it - just under it with their U-boats. So they also developed a sub that could be used for freight transportation, but only two of them being built before the US entered the war they had very little effect on the war. Edit: Just found out that there's absolutely nothing new about this in terms of Russian plans. In fact the Malakit design Bureau already advocated for the development of such merchant submarines since the early 1990's. The reasoning is because the oil fields are close to the arctic sea, and that one is frozen shut most of the year - but a submarine could travel below the ice shelf to reach it's destination, which would make much more sense than building a giant pipeline through the country from the Urals all the way to Vladivostok to be able to ship their oil all year long. Later suggestions even went with transforming the Typhoon attack submarines in merchant submarines and even just before the war started, there were plans floating (pun not intended) about building LNG-transporting submarines, which if realised would have become the biggest submarines ever in existence. Also, the US had plans from the 70's onwards to cross under the arctic sea, though on a more modest scale - hence why it didn't really go somewhere.
That's Trump's Art Of The Deal™, giving in the other's side demands to get a deal. Looks like Putin isn't the only one who found that out now... I'm not even kidding, Trump is cratering left and right just so he can say he's done something, even if the end result is a catastrophe for the US. Which he'll promptly somebody else with, as he's already doing with the start of an US recession. |
Ok, perhaps so. But either way, whether this is from attacks or from wanting to avoid sanctions as you say, the fact that they have to do things the hard and inefficient way is going to cut into any kind of profit that they would hope to make. Nuclear subs? Lmao, they must cost a fortune. It seems like a rediculous project and expense when this war probably won't last past two years
Last edited by shavenferret - on 01 May 2025
