The Oscar-class nuclear-powered cruise missile attack submarine is one of Russia's largest and most capable submarines whose primary role is to attack aircraft carriers in battlegroup formations.

Project 949A (NATO codename OSCAR-II) K-141 (Kursk) was designed by Rubin Central Design Bureau, whose principal designer is I. L. Baranov. She was laid down in 1992 at Sevmashpredpriyatiye (Severodvinsk), and subsequently launched in 1994 with her commissioning in 1995. Kursk was assigned to 7-th SSGN Division of 1-st Submarine Flotilla of the Northern Fleet. Her home basewas at Vidiayevo settlement in Ura-guba Bay. sheDesigned primarily to attack Aircraft carrier Battle Groups.

The Kursk has a double hull - an inner pressure hull and an outer hydrodynamic hull - with 3.5 meter separation between the inner and outter hulls providing significant reserve buoyancy and improved survivability against conventional torpedoes. There are eight inches of rubber between these two hulls to muffle sounds.

Her displacement is approximately 14700 tonnes surfaced and 24000 tonnes submerged. Her Length is 155m, beam 18.2 m, draught 9.2 m. Full speed is more then 30 knots. Kursks main propulsion is Nuclear - two OK-6506 reactors (2x190 MW), two OK-9 turbines (2x49000 hp), 4 turbo generators (4x3200 KW), 2 Diesel generators (190 KW). 2 propellers. The Oscar-I's four-bladed propeller has been upgraded in Oscar 2 with a quiter seven-blade propeller. These large submarines are said to be slow to dive and maneouver, however they are credited with a submerged speed of about 30 knots - more than sufficient to keep pace with their targets. The improved Oscar II is about 10 meters longer than the Oscar I, making room for a quieter propulsion system, and feature upgraded electronic systems "Molniya-M" communicational complex, "Medveditsa-949M" Navigation system, "Tobol" Radar station, "Skat-3" Sonar station, "Antey" combat command system. . The Oscar II is also characterized by a substantially enlarged fin, which improves underwater manueverability.

The Submarine is equipped with 24 P-700 ("Granit") with conventional or nuclear warheads with a range of 550-kilometers, three times as many anti-ship cruise missiles as earlier Charlie and Echo II class submarines. The missiles, launched while submerged, are fired from tubes fixed at an angle of approximately 40 degrees. The tubes, arranged in two rows of twelve, are covered by six hatches on each side of the sail, each hatch covering a pair of tubes. The launchers are found between the inner pressure hull and the outer hydrodynamic hull. The torpedo tubes fire both torpedoes and short range anti-ship missiles.

Complement: 107 men (including 48 officers).

These submarines have a total of at least ten separate compartments, which can be independently sealed off from each other in the event of accidents. The compartments are sequentially numbered from fore to aft, with the two separate reactor compartments numbered V and V-bis [which accounts for the fact that there are ten compartments, though the numbers only run through nine].

• Torpedo Room
• Control Room
• Combat Stations and Radio Room
• Living Quarters
• V and V-bis - Reactors
• propulsion engineering
• main propulsion turbines
• main propulsion turbines
• electric motors

Access hatches are located in the 4th and 9th compartments they are reported to also have an emergency crew escape capsule located in the sail.