Aircraft Carrier Admiral Kuznetsov: News #1

I think yakovlev started working on a carrier based AWACS called the yak-22but it was cancelled because the Ulyanovsk carrier stopped being constructed.

That would be the Yak-44, and it is fairly logical to stop funding and development for an aircraft that required catapult launch from an aircraft carrier when the only carrier they were planning to have a catapult launch system was cancelled.

Now, however, if they are planning to fit catapults to the Kuznetsov then it is equally logical to look at aircraft that could use that catapult launch system to add effective AWACS capabilities.

It is possible they might revisit the Yak-44, or perhaps they might look at more exotic solutions like an Aerostat, or airship, or perhaps even a UAV based system.

Here are some pics of the Yak-44 BTW:





Of course new design solutions are possible and likely... current aircraft design of 5th gen fighters seems to include the integration of radar antenna arrays within the structure of the aircraft, with fixed antennas covering 360 degrees using electronic scanning rather than moving antennas. By having the antennas as part of the air craft structure it removes the need for an external antenna with all the drag and extra weight that incurs. A low drag design should allow higher flight operations for longer periods.

Regarding UKSK launchers in carriers... they have space for them, but most of the vessels they will be operating with will also have them too, so I rather doubt there will be any shortage.

In my personal opinion I would say yes, but don't over do it... one 8 cell UKSK launcher per carrier so that no matter what they will always have the capacity to deal with enemy subs (using the ASW Klub) or enemy ships (using Klub or Onyx) or land targets (Kalibre). They were talking about 160 missiles in the SAM system tubes to be fitted to the Mistral, so I would expect 6 Pantsir-S1s, which would be 196 missiles in Pantsir-S1 alone and the 160 vertical launch tubes being the vertical launch Redut systems... lets say 14 tube Redut, which means 10-11 launchers and 140-154 actual tubes.
A lot of missiles, plus 12 30mm gatling guns... though I would also expect Duet turrets as well, but this is a large vessel, and British experience in the Falklands was that vessels with defences tended to defend themselves, whereas undefended targets were sitting ducks. Missile attacks on Frigates that were successfully jammed or decoyed often acquired targets like ex civilian transports that were very vulnerable to hits.

Having air defence systems on all military vessels is important, though you don't want it to reduce performance or change the role of the ship.

It is of course possible that what they actually meant was 160 missile tubes for the smaller Vityaz missiles, which will be like the smaller S-400 missiles, which means instead of 10-11 Redut launchers that sort of number could be accommodated in 3 Redut launchers with 4 missiles in each of the 14 launch tubes, which would mean 168 missiles of the 40km and 120km flight range. In fact you would probably use a couple of tubes for the larger missiles, perhaps 4 S-400 large missiles with a range of 250km to deal with enemy force multipliers like AWACS, or JSTARs, or even troop transports or tankers that might stray into your airspace.
Having 4 large missiles means the launcher they are in can fit only 40 small missiles, and the other two redut launchers with 56 small missiles each would result in a load of 56 + 56 + 40 small missiles, or 152 small missiles plus 4 big missiles or a total load of 156 missiles. Of course the Pantsir-S1 systems each have 32 more missiles each, so 6 systems would be 196 missiles more, plus 12 guns.

PS
I'm a bulgarian teenager and and unlike most people in my country I'm a supporter of russia and I'm very interested and respect russian weapons and dont view russian political policy as "evil" and "occupational". I also dont view NATO as the good guy. Unlike most people my age(and very often above my age) I dont go trolling and insulting anyone who points out an advantage in russian weapons and I get annoyed when I see someone do.

I am very much the same... except I am not Bulgarian of course. I had one Bulgarian lecturer at University, and quite enjoyed his lectures on artifical intelligence. Didn't hurt that his daughter was also doing the course and was stunning... if I was 10 years younger I would have asked her out.

I've always wanted to see the truth about russian military and weapons without western propaganda and russian advertisements getting in the way. I've wanted to have the most complete info about future plans and developments of the russian MIC and here some experts which are not available in other sites.

Often beliefs that Russia and Soviet equipment is rubbish is based on ignorance or misinformation. Other times the real problem is that it was being used for something it was never designed for in the first place. A good example would be the T-72. Fine for Iraq to invade Kuwaite with, or Iran. Not so good for taking on the US and most of the rest of the world on a flat open desert without air superiority.
Another example is the AK-47. Derided in the west as being inaccurate, yet it is effective enough in combat. In fact combat statistics seem to show that most soldiers can reliably hit targets out to about 75 metres most of the time and that at ranges beyond 200m the number of hits on target is actually rather low, yet the west demands sniper level accuracy out to 400m or more... ranges at which the 5.56mm round is not even effective.

Well I agree, but it becomes a problem when making your vessels carry everything and being too multi role makes them less useful in their primary roles.

For instance if they had to reduce the number of helos to 12 to make room for the UKSK launchers, then I would say it was a problem, because the Mistral class is a helicopter carrier and its job is to bring helos and landing forces to where they are needed. The more helos it can carry, the more capable it will be as a helicopter carrier.

Having said that any ship that can't defend itself is a problem... even when it is surrounded by other ships it still needs to be able to protect itself, and the information I have read suggests that it will be much better protected than the french models, which pretty much have MANPADS launchers and 50 cal HMG positions. Even just fitting 6-8 Pantsir-S1 turrets would be an enormous step upwards in firepower and self protection capability with each Pantsir-S1 system having a turret with Thermal and digital optics and MMW radar and CM wave radar plus two 30mm 6 barrel gatling guns and 8 ready to launch two stage hypersonic missiles that can engage targets from 2m above the water to 15km up in the air from about 1.5km from the ship out to about 18-20km from the ship, plus each turret has a below deck reloading system with a further 24 missiles per mount. Fitting 6-8 of these on a large Russian vessel is standard but extremely extravagant on a western vessel where even large vessels might get 4 Phalanx systems in comparison.

To be clear I think the addition of Pantsir-S1 and Redut (the vertical SAM launcher system) will take up a lot of extra space, and they might mount a couple of Duet systems which are cheap and simple and don't take up a lot of space but combine two more 30mm gatling guns. Adding one UKSK system for up to 8 missiles for land attack or anti ship or anti sub use will likely be all they can fit and all they should fit as it will give anti sub protection, which would mean there is less need for an ASW helicopter to be carried for that purpose.

In 5 years time when all these carriers are operational the Mach 6-8 Brahmos II/Onyx II should be operational, as will the new hypersonic missile (Zirconium)? they are also working on.

I think the kashtan or palma is much better than the pantsir for mistral...

The Palma is the cheap and low cost alternative to Kashtan... it has two 30mm gatling guns and 8 missiles ready to launch, but its sensors are EO and thermal only.

The Kashtan has EO and thermal plus MMW radar and CM wave radar and it has below deck magazines for a further 24 missiles (total-32), plus it has two 30mm gatling guns.

The Palma has longer barrel guns than Kashtan, but Kashtan-M has the same longer barrel gun and improved systems and electronics to speed up and improve accuracy of the laying and stabilisation systems.

The Pantsir-S1 in its naval model is the replacement for the Kashtan-M and differs mainly because it has missiles that reach twice as far (18-20km) and much higher (15km vs 5km) and can engage targets flying lower (2m above the water vs 5m above the water).

Note the naval Pantsir-S1 uses two long barrelled 30mm 6 barrel gatling guns the same as Kashtan-M and Palma.

Yak-44 is too big for a kuznetsov sized carrier. A small radar carrying drone wouldtake up less space and would be stealthier.

Would take up less space and be stealthier are the two worst reasons to pick an AWACS aircraft for an aircraft carrier.

Right now they have no AWACS fixed wing aircraft on the K and you can't get much stealthier or compact than that...

Stealthier is not a consideration for an AWACS aircraft, as it will spend much of its time transmitting radar signals to find targets.

Big means big antenna (long vision) and long endurance (more fuel).

The whole purpose of a catapult system is to allow heavier aircraft that would otherwise be too big for the vessel to operate safely.

I think antiship capability on almost all ships just is mandatory as AT capability is for almost any land combat unit.

I agree, but an aircraft carrier generally relies on its air power to provide that anti ship capability... its purpose is in its name... it is a carrier of aircraft. I agree it needs to defend itself so it needs lots of SAMs and AD systems...

I would probably go with one UKSK launcher each carrier, but most of the time I would load a mix of anti sub missiles, land attack, and anti ship weapons.

Been wanting to ask this for a while, but what are the export potential for the Kuznetsov class carrier to costumer other than China and India.

Would be zero... the Russian Navy likely would not sell it as they have no replacement ready to go.

Another point is that the infrastructure and shipyards that built the K don't exist any more in the same sense and so carrier building facilities need to be recreated.

Very simply aircraft carriers are as useful to the Navy as they are to the Army... in fact even more so as the environment the Navy operates in is like a flat open desert that is hard to hide in.

The advantage of aircraft is an enormous increase in vision and reach with weapons, along with the flexibility of aircraft..

A case in point could be given regarding the US Navy shooting down of an Iranian Airbus... the AEGIS cruiser involved had state of the art radar and electronics yet could not tell the difference between a climbing Airbus on a marked civilian air route and a descending F-14 on an attack run which they perceived it to be.

A group of ships with no fixed wing aircraft could not get identification information till the aircraft got too close... so it would be radio warnings on frequencies that civilian airliners are not equipped to receive, and then opening fire with long range SAMs.

For a group of ships with an aircraft carrier... even a not so amazing/state of the art fighter can be sent out to investigate and would quickly realise that the single attacker was in fact an Airbus rather than an F-14 on a suicide mission.

I think it would be interesting for the Russians to experiment with a new aircraft carrier concept for UCAVs where the ship is 10-20K tons so it is not too big and expensive but has a flat deck to recover aircraft. It could store hundreds of medium and small UCAVs and also have long range cruise missiles for the land attack role. Most of the UCAVs could be highly manouverable fighter UCAVs equipped with AAMs of a range of types in an airframe able to pull 20-30g to enable it to out turn any manned aircraft.


...vertical launch with horizontal recovery so large numbers can be launched rapidly when needed and recovered as appropriate.

None of the fighters currently operational on the Kuznetsov need cats to launch, which means Mig-29K, Su-33K, and of course the naval Su-25.

I rather doubt a naval PAK FA would require cats to operate from the K as it is smaller than the Su-33K and has rather more installed thrust and its normal payloads will be relatively light internal air to air loads with very low drag.

Cats are not generally used for fighters, but more for heavy strike aircraft and AEW and AWACS type aircraft, though transport and tanker aircraft can also use them.

The benefit from a Cat system on the Kuznetsov will not be for the fighters allowing them to carry more weapons and fuel, though that would be a bonus, it would be to allow AWACS aircraft to be carried that can greatly extend the range of sight of a Russian suface group and also add radar detection of threats to sea surface level out to beyond the horizon... meaning much earlier warning of threats and targets, which makes dealing with those threats and targets much much easier.

They developed a catapult system for the Kuznetsov sister ship the Uylanov (spelling) so I don't see why they could not fit such a system to the K during its refit.

I suspect it would be an EM system as steam cats have problems with icing in cold areas and why bother making steam cats when EM is maturing technology... it would be like making a biplane for the carrier as an AWACS aircraft.

If steam cats were already mature operational equipment in the Russian navy then it might make sense, but it isn't, so it doesn't... if they are going to learn to use a new cat system they might as well learn to use EM cats rather than steam ones.

The benefit would be to allow the K to carry much more capable longer range AEW and AWACS like aircraft like the Yak-44 to greatly improve surveillance range of the fleet without needing to operate too close to the fleet and give away its position.

Air power would be better coordinated and it would be much easier to hunt subs and enemy surface ships as well as detect targets and threats at longer ranges...

Having a Navy without aircraft carriers would be like having an Army with no Air Force. Having a carrier with no AWACS would be like having an Air Force with no AWACS aircraft.

BTW if they were going to replace the propulsion then adding Cats wouldn't be that big of a job to do at the same time.

BTW adding cats could allow the Mig-29Ks to operate from the carriers at max loads with extra fuel and heavy ordinance payloads much more safely.

In the future it could allow Naval PAK FA to operate with an external Brahmos II...

The purpose of installing cats on the K is to extend its vision and reach by adding AWACS aircraft... namely fixed wing AWACS aircraft in the form of something like a Yak-44M (upgraded).

This aircraft would be able to spend much longer periods in the air and operate much higher than the Ka-31 AWACS helo and carry a much larger and heavier antenna than a UAV could carry.

Of course using an airship might also be a more interesting way of supporting carrier groups with AWACS capability much more efficiently with enormous antenna operating in a range of frequencies...