Russian submarines are to be layered with specialized 'masked' coatings, rendering it indistinguishable from whales and orcas.

Arms maker Tecmash, which is part of Rostec Corporation, said it’s going to be busy producing the state-of-the-art submarine rubber coating for the next five years in accordance with the state order.

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“We’ve launched new high-tech lines for manufacturing special rubber plates in September 2016. Today we already have an order for its production for the next five years. The main feature of this coating lies in its high noise-damping ability,” Sergey Rusakov, Tecmash CEO, said as cited by the company’s press service.

The lines will allow the production of specialized coating of various acoustic parameters from diesel, diesel-electric and nuclear submarines.

The plates were developed by JSC ‘Cheboksary production association n.a. V.I. Chapaev,’ which said they were able to bring down the noise level to the values of the marine background.

The specialized coatings will make it difficult for radars to distinguish Russian submarines from large sea creatures like whales and orcas.

“Due to its special design, they effectively absorb noise of different frequencies and at different depths, thus making it difficult for the submarine to be detected," Aleksandr Livshic, the developer’s CEO, told Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

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The program for the development of the Russian submarine fleet provides for the supply of noise-damping plates for Russia’s newest Borey and Yasen nuclear submarine class as well as Varshavyanka diesel-electric vessels.