We’ve gotten a glimpse of what could be Russia’s next attack submarine.

A Russian state-owned T.V. network in December 2019 broadcast a report that includes, in a fleeting shot, what appeared to be an official model of new submarine design.

The design in question might be the planned Laika class of nuclear-powered attack submarine.

At least that’s what H.I. Sutton, an American writer and submarine expert, believes. Sutton has written about Laika at Forbes and Naval News.

“The Laika-class sub has until now been shrouded in secrecy,” Sutton explained. “It is generally analogous to the Virginia-class attack submarine in service with the U.S. Navy.”

Laika could fill a gap in Russia’s future undersea force structure.

There are 62 submarines of all classes in commission with the Russian navy. Fifty-five are front-line vessels and the rest are test and research vessels. There are 10 nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines, nine nuclear cruise-missile submarines, 14 nuclear attack submarines and 22 conventional attack submarines.

Moscow already is buying 10 new nuclear-powered cruise-missile submarines of the Yasen class as well as 10 nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines of the Borei class.

The Yasens replace existing Oscar-class boats. The Boreis replace Delta-class boomers. But what will replace the fleet’s aging Akula- and Sierra-class attack boats?

The Laika design could fit the bill, Sutton explained. It’s similar to the Yasen but lacks some of the more advanced features.

“The submarine model shows a relatively conventional layout with hints of both the Akula and [Yasen] classes,” Sutton wrote.

Like Akula it will revert to the traditional Russian double-hull convention. And also appears, like Akula, to have a chin-mounted sonar. The first [Yasen] boat had introduced a spherical array, taking up the entire bow much like older U.S. Navy designs.

That appears to have been dropped in favor of a conformal array in subsequent [Yasen]-class boats. But they were left with flank torpedo tubes angled outward to go around the ghost of the spherical array.

Laika starts life with the conformal array so the torpedo tubes can, logically, be accommodated above the sonar like on the Akula. This will have some advantages, allowing faster torpedo shots and simplifying the torpedo room.

The tubes themselves are likely to all be 533 millimeters [in diameter] as there has not been investment in the larger 650-millimeter range of weapons for many years. Added to this, none of the weapons listed on the information board accompanying the model were 650 millimeters. The most likely arrangement is … eight 533-millimeter tubes. There are also likely to be some external tubes for countermeasures.

It’s an open question whether and when the Kremlin might buy the first Laika and how many it might acquire.

It’s also an urgent question. The Russian submarine fleet, despite a recent surge in patrols, is in trouble.

Most of the front-line submarines date from the 1980s and ‘90s. “There are still quite a few old, Soviet-era vessels carrying a major part of the burden, both attack submarines and ballistic-missile boats,” Iain Ballantyne, editor of Warships International Fleet Review, told The National Interest. “For how much longer such elderly vessels can be sent to sea while waiting for more new ones to enter service is debatable.”

By the late 2020s or early 2030s, the Russian navy could lose all but 12 of its existing subs. If Moscow succeeds in producing all the new submarines it currently plans to acquire, the total undersea fleet could top out at just 28 boats.

The Russian navy is working its submarines hard while it has them. In mid-October 2019 the fleet sortied eight submarines in the country’s biggest undersea exercise since the Cold War.

The eight submarines, including six nuclear-powered ships, sailed from their bases in northern Russia into the cold waters of the Barents and Norwegian Seas. At the same time, an additional two boats -- the nuclear-powered Sierra-class attack submarines Pskov and Nizhny Novgorod -- sailed into roughly the same waters for tests and training.

David Axe serves as Defense Editor of the National Interest. He is the author of the graphic novels  War Fix, War Is Boring and Machete Squad.