A obtenção das características operacionais do submarino nuclear brasileiro: um mergulho muito além da Amazônia Azul

Abstract

The Brazilian Navy has long been trying to developits nuclear program since the seventies, although it lacked political priority, in part due to budgetary problems. Since 2008, however, after issuing the National Defense Strategy and signing a cooperation agreement with France, Brazilian President Lula has set the conditions for the Navy to resume the projects related to the design, construction and operation of nuclear attack submarines. But, with no experience in this particular branch of submarine expertise, there may be significant difficulties for brazilian designers in providing this asset with adequate operational characteristics, which comprise the problem to be resolved. The accomplishment of this goal was derived from the assumed straight relation between these characteristics and the tasks a nuclear attack submarine can perform. As a consequence there was a study of the experience of the navies which went through the process of developing and operating such submarines, i.e., the United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France and China. The identification of the tasks issued to these fleets and the comparison of their capabilities and limitations provided a wide spectrum of employment possibilities for nuclear attack submarines. The next step consisted of submitting this set of tasks to the objectives and guidelines of brazilian National Defense Policy and National Defense Strategy, which has resulted in a subset of prioritized tasks for the Brazilian Navy nuclear attack submarine. Finally, the submarine operational characteristics were depicted fromthe analysis of these set of tasks. The results achieved are expected to provide valuable data for the brazilian designers, based on real world project parameters.