Early history On 4 January 1901 the Marine Ministry of Russia assigned the task of designing a combat submarine for the Russian Navy to three officers: Lieutenant
M.N. Beklemishev, Lieutenant
I.S. Goryunov and
naval architect Senior Assistant
I.G. Bubnov, an employee at the Ministry's
Baltic Shipyard where the construction of the vessel was planned to take place. The men submitted their design to the Marine Ministry on 3 May 1901; it was approved the following July, and the Baltic Shipyard was then awarded the order for construction of Torpedo Boat No. 113 (later renamed combat submarine
Dolphin). Bubnov was appointed Head of the Construction Commission for Submarines. It was this Construction Commission that after multiple transformations and name changes became the Rubin Central Design Bureau for Marine Engineering. '' Construction of the
Dolphin was completed in 1903, and its success in subsequent tests was the impetus for the creation of newer, more advanced types of submarines. By 1918 seventy-three submarines of classes , , , , and
Vepr had joined the Russian Navy, and four more of the new class
Major-General Bubnov were still under construction. Thirty-two of these were built to the designs of I.G. Bubnov, who had become
Major General of the Naval Architect Corps and Honoured Professor at the
Nikolayev Marine Academy.
Pre-World War II In 1926 the Construction Commission for Submarines became Technical Bureau No. 4, and six years later was renamed the Central Design Bureau for Special (Military) Shipbuilding No. 2, headed by
B.M. Malinin. He designed submarines of the , , and classes. Another milestone of the era came in 1935, when Central Design Bureau engineer
S.A. Bazilevskiy proposed an air-independent propulsion system which allowed engine operation based on the closed cycle REDO in both surface and submerged submarine conditions. Experiments on this cycle implementation were carried out on board submarines of Series XII M-92 (S-92, R-1). More change came in 1937, when the Bureau was given the new name Central Design Bureau No. 18 (or TsKB-18), and furthermore became an independent economic organization directly subordinated to the Second Chief Department of People's Commissariat of Defence Industry.
World War II By the beginning of
World War II, 206 submarines were built to 19 different TsKB-18 designs. 54 more submarines were constructed at the Bureau during the War. During the
Siege of Leningrad TsKB-18 was evacuated from
Leningrad to
Gorkiy.
Cold War In 1947 TsKB-18 completed the development of Project 613 (designated the in
NATO classification) – a torpedo
diesel-electric submarine of medium displacement which took into account the combat experiences of Soviet and German submarines from the War. Commissioned by the Navy in 1951, the 215 unit series built to Project 613 was the largest in the Soviet Union. Approximately 25 to 30 of the submarines were built in
People's Republic of China, and the design was handed over to Chinese technicians.
P.P. Pustyntsev (
:ru:Пустынцев, Павел Петрович), who headed the Bureau from 1951 to 1974, created the design for Project 641 (NATO classification: ), which began development in 1955. 75 units of this class were commissioned to the Navy in 1963. The same year the , which had begun development in 1956 as Project 658, was redesigned to enable underwater launching of D-4 ballistic missiles. In 1965 the
Lenin Prize was awarded for works related to the underwater launch of ballistic missiles. In 1963 Project 667A (NATO classification: ), a second-generation nuclear missile submarine, was developed. Joining the
Soviet fleet in 1967, the Project 667A submarine became the first ship of the largest series of nuclear missile submarines (34 units). Later known as "nuclear missile submarine cruisers," improvements to the Yankee-class submarines would include the installation of longer-range and multiple-warhead missiles. The success of submarine Projects 667A and 667B (s) would be rewarded with
Lenin Prizes in 1970 and 1974, respectively. The Yankee-based ballistic missile submarine family comprises: Project 667A Yankee, Project 667B Delta I, Project 667BD Delta II, Project 667BDR Delta III, and Project 667BDRM Delta IV. TsKB-18 was renamed
Rubin in 1966. The started development in 1971, and followed by the
Typhoon class (Project 941) in 1976. In 1974
Igor Spassky succeeded Pustyntsev as head of the bureau and remained in the position until the 2000s (decade). was director of the Rubin Design Bureau|thumb ==Present day==