Russian Naval Shipbuilding Industry: News

Do you understand, 650,000 tons

And they say Russia cannot build aircraft carriers Laughing Laughing

It's clear Russia doesn't consider the navy a priority at the moment

And can easily rival any shipbuilder for displacement

If the MOD wanted, 3 aircraft carriers could be built with all the tonnage

But why? Is Russia trading with many countries which are only accessible by sea? Not yet

But projects like these will eventually lead to such requirements

The point is that the capacity to build a carrier is not enough, you need to have a design finalised and checked, but there is no point in building it if you don't have destroyers and cruisers to operate with it, and of course the shore based infrastructure to base it and to stock it up and the support ships to keep it supplied at sea and the aircraft to go on it.

It is not just a decision the government will make one day, there is lots of planning and preparation that needs to happen before you even consider laying down a ship.

Another factor could be that if they want to make a multihull carrier with two huge carrier decks and a huge hangar and deck space between the hulls, what you could do is design it so that each of the big main hulls of the new carrier can be used for cruisers and the smaller between hull of the new carrier could be a destroyer sized hull so you could start by laying 8 cruiser hulls and 8 destroyer hulls... four of the cruiser hulls could be two each for two new carrier designs and four other hulls could be four new cruisers to operate with the carriers, while two destroyer hulls are used, one for the centre section of each of the two carriers, and the remaining 6 hulls could make 6 new destroyers to operate with the carriers.

That would mean when the hulls are finished you would have two new CVNs and four new cruisers and 6 new destroyers.

The point is that standardising the hulls means the west wont know what you are making, but making the same hulls for different roles means they get made faster too.

Support ships with destroyer or cruiser hulls would also be a good idea too.

It isn't too early to fund development of EMALS catapults though. They should create a land based test facility and have a program to develop those. They could build another set of ski jump carriers, with the Su-57K as a carrier aircraft, but this will mean reduced payload for the fighters. It will mean they will only be competitive against the F-35B carriers like the British QE class.

EMALS will be important for AWACS platforms and inflight refuelling aircraft based on AWACS platforms but I think the Su-57K with the new engines and operating most of the time without external weapon drag would not need a cat assistance. It would be interesting to design an external mounted fuel tank the sits flush with the wing like a conformal missile that is made of cheap light composite materials that could be dropped when empty leaving the aircraft fully stealthy... or maybe ejectable external weapon pylons that allow weapons carried externally to be used up and then the pylons ejected to maximise stealth.

They could just use steam catapults which they were going to implement on Ulyanovsk

That would be stupid. They have never had operational steam catapults operational on any ship so introducing them is going to take years to work them out to the point where they are reliable and effective. It would be like saying you are going to develop a new sniper rifle so lets start with a black powder flintlock muzzle loader.

EM technology is something they will be working on already, in fact I would say by 2030 they will be looking at all electric drive ships using nuclear power generation, which means EMALS technology would be even more valuable.

Developing new steam technology is a waste of resources... even though they probably have experience with steam powered heating systems heating buildings in their cities.

EMALS technology would be useful in other areas... and would result in a superior launching system.

Just one example is it can use smart launch technology.

With steam cats you enter the type of aircraft and its loadout and the weights it is carrying in terms of payload and also fuel, which sets the power and rate at which the catapult accelerates the aircraft. Set too high and it will rip the nose wheel off, too low and you will leave the deck and descend into the water because you are going too slow to fly.

The EM cat system can start accelerating the aircraft and increase or decrease power as required to ensure the aircraft gets airborne.

Steam cats are a pain in the arse in arctic regions, because the release of steam means the rapid build up of ice on the deck, which can prevent air operations... which is what an aircraft carrier is actually for.

They have been working on EM cats for a while and I would guess they have been testing it for a while too.

The main issue is what AWACS platform will it be launching.

If they can make it small enough they could put some EMALS cats on the Helicopter carriers they are building now... a 50m long catapult would allow large HALE and MALE drones to be operated from the helicopter carriers... which would actually be rather useful.

The development of just 1 carrier will take a lot of time, so they can install steam catapults

And simply implement EMALS on carrier #2 or #3

So develop and install steam cats for one ship and then develop and install EMALS cats for your next ships?

Sounds expensive and pointless.

Even if the EMALS cats on helicopter carriers are not amazing and can't launch 40 ton AWACS aircraft, that is OK because they could launch HALE and MALE types that might operate over the beachhead observing enemy positions and providing information.

Cats wont be critical on full sized carriers for fighters or for helicopter based AEW like Ka-31s, but eventually getting decent sized AWACS platforms is important... even if they are airship based.

When I heard Putin greenlit the project for a jump jet, guess a replacement for the Yak 141 project, I have a theory they may not aim for a traditional aircraft carrier but something more economical and a helicopter carrier or ship to be able to launch such helicopters and jump jets.

A smaller carrier is not economical, it cost a massive fraction of a real carrier with much less capacity... they already have two helicopter carriers under construction.

If they can come up with some super genius idea that solves the problem of hot gas ingestion stalls on landing, like an electric lift engine... perhaps inside the wing so it can pivot from vertical mode to horizontal mode so it isn't dead weight for the flight of the aircraft then that would be great, but pissing away money when conventional aircraft designs can do the job better and safer is stupid.

Supporters of vstol fighters make all sorts of claims and promises, but at the end of the day Britain would have been better off with Phantoms and Buccaneers than with Sea Harriers. The Sea Harrier had a good radar... put it into the Phantom and the Buccs...

Makes sense to me. More multipurpose.

Smaller carriers are not multipurpose, they are less capable with shorter ranged fighters less able to defend the fleet from enemy ships, they make the group of ships they operate with less safe and more vulnerable to attack... they are better than nothing, but not cheaper than nothing, and might get you into a fight you can't win.

There was a recorded test of EMALS filmed from bypassing passenger plane a few days ago.

But Russia quite clearly has the means and technology to build carriers. Just look at the specifications of size, displacement, and propulsion of the Leader nuclear icebreaker. wrote:

However, an aircraft carrier is more complicated. There is all the infrastructure there for about 4,000 people, full of electronic equipment, etc

Russia will reportedly build only one Leader icebreaker. Two more canceled?

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Arkanghelsk wrote:It's M507, zvezda can't make them, and Pella cunts are just launching hulls when they know full well there is a bottleneck with the engines

I don't know much about this, in particular, who placed the contract for the engines? If it was Zvexda/Pella then you have a point but if it was say the MoD then Pella may well be within their rights to honour the terms of their contract, unless engine supply delays were written into it, it not being their problem and there may be penalty clauses on them

The Russians couldn't make hypersonic scramjet motors work... until they did... I would say the Russians have been working... not just on EM cats but also on a range of new electronic and electric components for a variety of uses... they supply components for international particle colliders for goodness sake.

The Americans claim superiority in technology in every field, but if their EM cats are like the 5th gen fighters I would want a second opinion in that regard.

The Chinese have invested a lot in electronics and it would not surprise me if they had working cat equipment, but it will take a few years of operational use and testing before it becomes a mature reliable system they can trust.

Keep in mind Russian carriers and Russian carrier aircraft are primarily fighters and interceptors so the heaviest operational weight they are most likely to require would be full fuel and an air to air missile load... which is never even close to their maximum weapon load normally.

That means that a Russian carrier would use EM CATs for heavy aircraft operations like AWACS or inflight refuelling aircraft, and the use would not be intensive except in combat situations where some lighter aircraft might take advantage of being able to carry extra fuel for a flight.

Regarding Pella wanting more time... Russian military contracts are strict and difficult... the MIC usually makes between 3% and 4% profit on the products they produce which is not a lot of margin to play with really.

Put the US MIC in that position and not only would it collapse but most companies would go into voluntary liquidation... like a company making reading glasses being told their new main customer only works with Blind people... or companies that make luxury items being told they can only sell their products to the poor.

Trying to sell a $10K watch to a homeless person is a tough gig.

Not that the Russians are poor.

But the US deals with corruption by throwing more money at them than they can steal... and it is not a good solution.

They need a lot of ships, both military and civilian, so building ships in shipyards that used to be in the Ukraine makes sense as the more shipyards producing the less pressure on other yards and the more ships can be produced.