There are reports that the 22350M that will be assigned to the Amur shipyard in the Far East are actually a downsized pr.22350 Gorshkov "Lite" version for Pacific Fleet only.
I know, I know it is confusing as we are led to believe that the 22350M is the upsized version of the pr.22350 class.
Wouldn't make sense to be giving the west ultimatums with the threat of turning their back on them if they are going to shrink down into a tiny navy based on submarines.
Might be good for WWIII but not good for peacetime economic expansion around the world.
And here is another source that contradicts the above:
The trend with their other boats seems to be going bigger.
Considering how standard 22350s went from 16 UKSK launchers to 24 with associated tonnage without getting a new letter, and Lider cruiser not exactly getting much interest from MOD, I think it can be safely assumed that 22350M is gonna be 12k or more in terms of displacement.
I am not so sure... the air defence of even the bigger proposed vessel simply does not have enough surface to air missiles to do anything more than defend itself.
I think this upgraded Gorshkov will just be that.... a slightly larger heavier frigate but not destroyer design.
The real destroyers will be over 12K ton and nuke powered which is going to require a more radical redesign internally than scaling up the existing boat and adding a few extra launchers.
I suspect the eventual new cruisers will be lighter and smaller than the Kirovs but carrying much heavier and more capable armaments.
Why bother going all out on nuclear powered destroyer design to replace Kirov that at most is getting built in numbers of four or at BEST 6?
They will likely make 30+ frigates and most will likely be the increased size models if it goes to plan.
Any destroyers they make they will likely make 18-24 of them and have a couple in the Black Sea and a couple in the Baltic Fleet and the rest split between the Pacific and Northern fleets... probably 6-8 in each of these two because they will be the ones escorting other ships like helicopter carriers and other vessels around the world.
They will likely make 8-12 cruisers but as I mentioned I suspect they wont be as big or as heavy as the Kirovs but they will be exceptionally well armed and equipped.
Kirovs got built during "we don't want carrier" thinking of USSR, and it's associated size were due to massive missile size and command/control facilities for the rest of the fleet, which doesn't take up much for an aircraft carrier due to their natural shape and volume but is sizable for a cruiser.
The Kirov was their AEGIS class cruiser... it needed aircraft carriers to make sense.
Zircons are vastly more capable than Granit's and take up three times less space, and digital computing has vastly decreased the need for enormous command and control centers in the way they were implemented on Kirovs, it's like replacing a Commodore 64 with a modern laptop, but thinking that since the Commodore was a certain size and weight, then the replacement must also be just as heavy.
Very true, and the Slava class were also full of electronics for the command role in case the Kirovs turned out to be dogs.
The point is that the new missile systems are vastly more compact and efficient and effective, but the challenges have grown as well.
Their new destroyers will likely be over 12K ton only because they will be nuclear powered, I don't think their new cruisers will be more than 18-20k ton, but they will be up to the job of defending themselves and anything around them.
Gorshkov's ocean fleet would have been good to support allies but when you see how those allies turned their back on soviets after being gifted planes, boats and civilian products for their failed states for no money it's good they didn't build it. Would have been pretty useless.
Now they don't have an ideology to push they wont be using a big navy for war, but to ensure they get fair access to the global market, which the west would use their superior naval capacity to thwart and isolate and contain both Russia and China.
That ally support fleet would have been yet another (thick) layer on the USSR's wasted money cake
They were trying to defend themselves from the mortal threat that the west represented... these days Russia has layers of defences for which their navy is irrelevant, but defence isn't everything. North Korea and Cuba can be said to be well defended, but their isolation means the price of defence might not be considered worth the benefits.
The west is trying to isolate and contain both Russia and China and if both continue to think and act defensively they will likely succeed.
Power came from subs and still does
Beyond a certain number and it gets absurd.
Having a good number of tanks makes sense but the 40,000 odd they had at the end of the cold war was a waste. The 350 Whiskey class subs they were going to build would have been a waste too.
They don't need hundreds of subs and they don't need ten carrier groups... but if they want to operate safely world wide then they need fixed wing carriers.
British experience shows you can go with tiny carriers and VSTOL fighters but you lose ships and the tiny carriers and VSTOL fighters are not that cheap either so on balance I would say spending a little more on decent carriers and decent carrier aircraft that can be upgraded land based aircraft that are neither expensive toys needed in tiny numbers making them even more expensive than they should be, nor useless fragile bits of crap, and you end up actually getting much better value for money.
The earliest SSG/SSGN's had to surface in order to launch any attack against a carrier task force. Basically a sure way to commit suicide.
The USs anti sub capability wasn't that great at that time... and even if it was a suicide mission losing one sub to take out an entire carrier group with nuclear armed anti ship missiles would probably be a trade they would be happy to take.
Hitching a tow back to Sevmash from the middle of the Atlantic must have been quite embarrassing!
Their subs were about national defence.... that sort of pride really didn't come in to it.
In the history of naval warfare, it never pays to be second. Second tier surface fleets like Germany in both WWI and WWII are money and resources misspent. Submarines are always a better option if you are not the top dog.
All very true but even if their entire navy... subs and all disappeared over night Russia is currently in a position to defend itself from all the worlds navies at once, because as those ships get killed the next ships are not going to move forward to take their place... especially as ICBMs are heading to their home countries to kill their loved ones.
Russia does not need a surface fleet for war, they need it for peace.
The US navy in surface warfare is in a traditional sense top dog, but technology calls into question the whole value of surface ship warfare.
Correction: The US navy in surface warfare is in a traditional sense top dog, but Russian technology calls into question the whole value of HATO surface ship warfare.
Russias hypersonic anti ship and land attack weapons call in to question western naval doctrine, but Russian anti ship missiles but also their IADS technology and expertise also offers the best defence against any sort of attack... they offer the counter and the solution to the problems... which is no huge surprise... no anti x technology ever held x back for very long...
Hypersonic long-range weapons may render the whole concept of capital ships obsolete.
After WWII especially in the pacific they said the aircraft from an aircraft carrier had dislodged the battleship and capital ship from its position of power... Russia is developing hypersonic weapons of about 1,000-1,500km range for internal carriage on an Su-57... I would therefore assume they will likely be carrying four of them in its two weapon bays... doesn't that make Russian carriers more desirable?
The combination of AWACS platforms, immense radars and fighter aircraft like Su-57s would make any Russian surface group a rather much harder nut to crack than a group of ships without a carrier.
If carriers are sitting ducks aren't cruisers too?
Yet they persist in upgrading Kirov class and Slava class and Kuznetsov class vessels...
Sounds like they want to be a global power.
Not take over the world... but have the option to go where they please.
The current unbalance between weapons like Tsirkon and any known AD system renders any surface fleet obsolete. Future capital ships will most likely be the first surface assets to be able to defend against hypersonic missiles, but of course in the meantime the subs are crucial, specially for the USN which would be otherwise practically ineffective vs VMF. Pretty significant development taking place right now...
The obvious best solution to hypersonic weapons is lasers or some other energy weapon, but they are going to be enormous and require enormous amounts of power... which means very very big ships.... ironically.
They have been for a long time. Ever since I heard about the Granit missile in the 1980s I realized surface ships were pretty much obsolete as a weapon of war between superpowers.
And that is the key point.
Russia does not need carriers to fight the US or HATO, they need them to avoid being isolated and contained by the west which would allow the west to suffocate Russia and dictate terms.
But you do need something to patrol sea lanes against pirates and enforce your maritime policy on the merchant marine. For this submarines are pretty much useless. They are a sea denial platform but cannot provide the merchant patrol role properly. Of course this is only relevant if you depend on international trade. Which is why you see China spending these huge sums on their navy. Russia does not need to do this.
China is building a huge navy so it can independently trade with the rest of the world after the west really turns on her if she invades Taiwan or something.
Russia needs a significant Navy for the same reason.. to trade with the rest of the world... they don't need to invade or bomb or kill but they do need to be able to turn up and defend a trade partner being put under pressure by western navies not wanting to loose a customer to Russia.
When the west is attempting regime change in Venzuela having a dozen SSNs in the water offshore means bugger all.
* Now is the time for the Russians to turn completely to building 20380/5 corvettes and 22350/M frigates. Its time to finish those 21631 and 22800 already in construction and to focus only on 20380/5 (20386 for my favorite Northern fleet) and 22350/22350M (9 to 12 for NF).
These ultimatums to the US and HATO and EU suggest to me that Putin and Russia have had enough and if the west is not going to treat them with respect and as an equal then there is nothing more to discuss... in other words you can do as you please and we will also do as we please... which is an enormous shift because the US and west are used to doing as they pleased but Russia didn't... they normally just reacted and did damage control...
I honestly think if the west is stupid enough to reject Russian security concerns out of hand that Russia will increase funding of their Navy first and foremost because they are likely to lose any real ties they have with the west and their western neighbours and they will have to start looking further afield for trade...
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