Russia's naval doctrine and strategy

Even in a purely conventional scenario (who would escalate if they think they can win) where they try to directly attack Russian or Chinese territory, USN would be whipped off the map, with the possible exception of their submarine force. No amount of alternative models and theories is going to prevent that so they better change their posture, there is no military solution to their problem.

But their carriers don't make them weaker and easier to destroy... their carriers were the whole reason Russia went of hypersonic missiles... it is not an accident that their first scramjet powered hypersonic manouvering missile is an anti ship missile... the Zircon.

In any case Rakhmanov already said the new CV will not be a reality before 15 years. They would not organize the navy in fleets revolving around a carrier probably, just assemble surface groups when needed that would comprise the carrier or not.

The point is that they don't need them now or next week or next year. A bit more experience with the Kuznetsov and building up numbers of big ships will take time too and in 15 years they will have enough destroyers and cruisers to need proper air cover for them...

But what happen if we take into account even only the financiary cost of a Ford Class carrier with its air wing and weapons on borad - more than 24-25 billions $ - against those of a modern frigate or corvette ?

Except in this case Russia would be able to build probably 10 CVs and probably 5 CVNs for that sort of money... and more to the point when the US are spending 120K per F-35, the Russians will be spending 20K for their MiG-35s which can operate on land or at sea...

I want to even avoid here a direct comparison with the domestic costs of those ships because the gap would be way too much and misleading ,but with domestic production costs of a modern western-made frigate such as FREMM- 350 millions € or 412 millions $ -, it mean that for the same costs of a single Ford Class with its air wing you can procure about 60 FREMM frigate with theirs armament !!

Russia wont be building anything like a Ford class ship... the Russian carrier will be smaller and lighter and much much cheaper, and much better armed...

It will likely have dozens of Redut launchers and launchers for S-500 SAMs too.

This is the essence and the basis of the new doctrine that US's planners call "Distributed Lethality" and that has been conceived purposely against a peer enemy, it is conceived to regain what they call "Command at sea", in substance aircraft carrier was and are partially still today a fundamental asset to gain offensive options against ground targets of largely inferior enemies at thousands of km of distance from CONUS, but against an enemy investing its resources in a fleet of relatively low tonnage dispersable ships armed with long range weapons or, worse, stand-off high end missiles such as domestic "Кинжал", "Циркон" or chinese DF-26 will become nothing more than an easy 25 billion dollar target.

Would you not agree though that for anything but a peer enemy, the US can continue to use its carriers to effectively attack who they like and operate anywhere they please within reason and it would only really be against Russia and perhaps China that they would have problems.

Considering from the Russian perspective where they don't need to dominate all 7 seas at once with a carrier group for each... Russia only needs to have two or perhaps three carriers (most likely their current CV and later a couple of CVNs... they don't need any for close in national protection and in times when WWIII looked imminent they would likely call all carriers back and have them operating in the arctic for use against any AEGIS class ships wanting to shoot down Russian ICBMs or SLBMs... in Japanese waters, Pacific waters, the Arctic ocean etc etc.

For Russia their aircraft carriers will not be intended to win or to fight WWIII, though in any naval combat aircraft carriers would improve their levels of protection and attack, in WWIII they would be more use close to shore shooting down IRBMs and SLBMS and even ICBMs with S-500s and protecting coastal Russia from enemy attack... ground based missiles and aircraft like MiG-31 and even later MiG-41 can also extend the rings of protection around the country.

I don't mean for carriers to be used to invade or attack or enact regime change, but sometimes Russia will get involved in a country where having airfields is not an option... the enemy does not have air power, or they do but it is relatively weak... but having AWACS aircraft monitoring the airspace around your ships right down to sea level so even the lowest flying threat can be seen 400km away and therefore can be engaged with SAMs if you want to... but during peace time that is considered bad manners... being able to send out four Su-57s to investigate is much quicker and easier than waiting to see if it gets closer.

As the commander of that surface group you can guess and suppose but at the end of the day you can't send a destroyer to investigate and sending a helicopter would take hours.

Honestly with the cost of modern missiles an aircraft carrier is not going to cost much more than the two missile armed cruisers and the four odd destroyers it will be operating with, yet will add to their performance and range and security that it will be worth it.

Aircraft on their own would be rather fragile, but fully integrated into the IADS of the Navy and they add information to the system and they provide weapons with amazing reach...  C4IR is critical in any battle and aircraft... not just AWACS, but also 5th gen omni role aircraft that can fly out at supersonic speed to investigate a radar return and fully defend itself if needed without any ships needing to turn on their radars and reveal their presence is a useful thing.

Without an aircraft carrier the expensive ships you are operating anyway just get a little easier to find and overwhelm because they wont be able to sit there radar silent any more and they probably wont have the DEW needed to blind enemy EO satellites as they come in to view....  

Drawback of carrier is that they are easy targets for submarines. But their fighter can try to destroy them when they are in the port by surprise and with cruise missiles.

Carriers can carry large numbers of anti sub helos, and of course Paket anti torpedo weapons make the subs a little less dangerous... but they should never be under estimated...

Anyway, just like any other ships the carrier has advantages and disadvantages. I doubt Russia will make a carrier able to fight NATO or destroy a country on its own. But one that can support a naval group in the high seas like the kuznetsov but also help friendly countries is a possible.

Exactly.... who cares if the aircraft carrier is not invincible.... none of the ships in the Russian Navy will be invincible either... but the fact is that with a carrier and with aircraft a surface group of ships and submarines is much harder to deal with for any enemy...

And in peace time less mistakes are made by nervous ship commanders...

To begin, the position of an aircraft carrier group and in particular that of its flat top unit -the aircraft carrier itself - is always a well known data for any advanced enemy mostly to its constellation of LEO radar satellites , instead that of modern relatively low tonnage ships such as freigate and corvettes that have enough low draught to mask its signature with the geomorphical returns of any coast's inlets/gulfs or inslands formations or within other ships signatures is not

But 99% of the countries that Russia will actually have naval battles with are no stronger than the countries the US attacks with their carriers...

You can bet your right arm, without any risk, that in an hypothetical limited conflict some пр. 22350/22350M would deliver its attack against an attacking CVBG, with Калибр or Циркон missiles, much before even a warning would be received in the bridge of the carrier and the best those CVBG ships could hope (if surviving to the attack.....)  is to discover and maintain the contact with those пр. 22350/22350M for enough time to mount a counter attack before them would disperse and disappear from remote sensors.

Which makes it a problem for US carriers of colonial invasion, but for Russian support carriers that provide air protection for Russian surface groups it is not so important.

In fact a mass attack on a Russian surface action group of Harpoons and Tomahawks is the ideal situation for a Russian aircraft carrier to first detect at long range and then deal with... the flight of CAP could deal with perhaps a dozen of the missiles with the AAMs they would be carrying and the carrier would send further fighter groups fully armed with more suitable missiles to join them but in the mean  time the CAP fighters can track the incoming missiles and look for any enemy aircraft or surface vessels that might be worth engaging too with ship based long range SAMs and of course very long range ship and sub launched anti ship missiles.

The RAF Vulcans bombed airfield on Falklands that helped the RN which had an 1 old small CV with STOVLs & helos.

There was nothing old about the Hermes... it was new and largely untested.... if the Argentines had an aircraft carrier or more modern aircraft with any sort of BVR missile they would have been in serious trouble. Even Phantoms would have made the British force too vulnerable to continue.

If they had Phantoms on the islands and proper radar to detect the Vulcan they could have shot it down rather easily... none of their ship board fighters would have had much of a chance against a real fighter with BVR missiles. Even if they had MiG-23s the British would have been in serious trouble.

having Tu-22M3/95/142/160s &/ MiG-31s supported by IL-78s in the air 24/7 would still cost le$$ than building & sending a CBG to patrol the SLOCs to Africa & L. America.

All the Vulcan was able to do was drop some iron bombs on the airfield on the Falklands Island to prevent them from basing their Mirages there.
The result was that the Argentine fighters had to operate from the Argentine mainland which limited their time over the islands to about 5 minutes before they would have to head back and refuel.

Even if the Vulcan attacked 100 times they wouldn't be able to stop the Argentinian fighters from sinking all the British ships they sank and without the carrier and those harriers they probably would have lost all their ships and the landing would have failed.

You say the British SSN scared away the Argentinian carrier... the Argentinian fighters scared the UK carrier so it was sitting so far out away from the islands they could not protect the ships performing the landing... which made it effectively worse than useless becuase it still cost money but they were too afraid of losing it to properly use it...

If the invasion had happened ten years earlier the British would have had the Ark Royal... they could have used the Buccs to obliterate the airfield while the Phantoms kept any Mirages away, and those Phantoms could have shot down any Mirage or other Argentine type like their A-4 skyhawks from their carriers or from land, and they likely would not have lost a single ship.

It was a little sad they sank the Belgrano... it was one of the few ships to survive the attack on Pearl Harbour... so the Japs didn't get it but the Brits did... with their stiff upper lips...

By the time it happens, there'll be a new regime in Brazil & perhaps Colombia- will the USN blockade all of S. America?

Do you think the US will ever let Brazil or Colombia free?

Why do you think the US would need to blockade the entire region at once?

Did the US blockade countries other than Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis?

Russia & China together can blockade India, Japan &/ Australia- what will the US do?

See... there you go... why would Russia blockade anyone? How many times do you need to be told... Russia ~= US.

they need to stay in touch with traffic control even while in the middle of the Pacific- so, they better listen when there's known naval ops below. If they don't, it's at their own risk.

There is no traffic control in the middle of the Pacific, and why would they be aware of any naval ops below.

the VMF has enough supply ships, & crews can be rotated.

Supply ships will be targeted at the best of times, making your navy weak and vulnerable to save a few bucks is very short sighted....

let's wait for the proper economic conditions before a proper solution can be realized. Russian NP icebreaker fleet is supported by the Arctic energy resources; the USN has a lot less in Alaska & its shelf- thus no NP icebreakers so far; but it has 11 CVNs supported by the rest of the economy. Likewise, China gradually builds up her navy as her economy grows.

When countries stop accepting US dollars as legal tended and demand euros or gold then the US economy will burst like a supernova.

she will need it, if only to escort cargo planes across the oceans & intercept intruders. sorry, but u r not going to outwit me with ur skewed logic- don't try to fit a square into a hole.

Well the billions they save in ships is going to be spent on inflight refuelling aircraft and very very very long range fighters if that is the case...

if there is shortage of ships in the VMF, they can build more islands in the shallow areas of the Arctic, even outside the EEZ, to better defend it, like China did in the SC Sea. Let the court in Haaghe enforce a verdict against it.

It would be cheaper to built ten Ford class white elephants than one island in the Arctic big enough for an airfield and military base big enough to matter...

There was some snarky post trying to fob off those who think air craft carriers are obsolete except for colonial policing operations.

Syria was dredged up as an example of why Russian needs these dinosaurs. But clearly Russia did not need them in Syria and
this applies to most of Russia's security regions of interest which includes the Middle East and Asia.

We have the USA sending a carrier task groups to North Korea and not actually getting there. So that would be a fail.
No way in Hell is the USA going to send its carriers to terrorize shipping off of Russia's coasts in the Arctic. So another fail.
Terrorizing China is not panning out for the yanquis so that is another fail.

Where do the advocates for the white elephants known as carriers see Russia actually using them? In Latin American, African,
and Indonesian waters? This really is a show stopper question. Hypothetical needs are not a valid argument. Russia has
no policing objectives in parts of the world where carriers could be worth something. It also has no plans for running colonies
in those regions.

Yes, Russia is like a hermit kingdom and that is a good thing for Russia and the world. It is not trying to replace the Anglo
imperialists and carriers have no value against those targets. Latin America and Africa have to liberate themselves before
Russia can help them. There is no scenario in which Russia will install bootlick regimes in those regions.

Since the utility of the US carriers is in clear decline, why would Russia invest in them. To prove it is a power?

The unit price ratio between the two ships is about 1:60 not 1:70, anyway i understand perfectly that this example could appear simplicistic or even absurd; in reality i obviously do not advocate the procurement of 60 FREMM frigates for the financiary resources that US Navy allocate for the procurement of a single Ford class with its air wing complement

It ignores the facts of reality that bigger ships are often better equipped and protected than smaller ones.

For the price of one Cold War Kirov class cruiser you could probably buy hundreds of Corvettes... which on paper would be even better equipped... those corvettes could carry four Granits each so five corvettes have the same anti ship fire power as a Kirov for a fraction of the price and it would take a guaranteed five missiles to sink five corvettes whereas maybe three missiles would take a Kirov out of action and limping back to base fighting to not sink...

But honestly that might be economically true but how many T-26 tanks would it take to overwhelm a single Panther.... if the Panther crew resorted to simply ramming them they can keep destroying them after they run out of ammo... the T-26s might get a lucky shot and take out a track or jam the turret or damage the gun, but I think we would all agree the extra cost of building a bigger better tank is worth it most of the time.

Again, I am not advocating big for the sake of big... they don't need 150K ton carriers and 40K ton Cruisers and 20K ton Super Destroyers... and I really don't think fitting them with thousands of missile tubes is a good idea either... they need to be balanced sensible designs that are used in large groups when more missiles are needed.

With land based artillery you don't make it more powerful by fitting more guns... if you need more fire power get extra vehicles and use them in larger numbers... same result with out big heavy unwieldy bohemouths that are terrible to operate and transport because they are so heavy and bulky they don't fit in anything...

This power projection capability would be impossible to exert against enemies employing theirs resources in ways much more efficient for a peer-level conflicts and just this awareness has generated among US Navy's admirals in the latest years the idea of "distributed lethality".

Against Russia their game doesn't work any more but against most of the countries of the world it still would except perhaps China.

Russia has no interest in playing their games and the benefits of air cover are clear in any potential conflict whether it is against Fiji or all of HATO.

Obviously against all of HATO a Russian surface fleet will struggle but the use of hypersonic anti ship missiles and the addition of air power would put them in a much better position to survive and do some damage than they would without air support.

Again it is not so they can fight WWIII that is pointless because the result would not matter either way, but for operations away from Russian support it effectively extends Russias air power reach around the planet to anywhere it is needed.

The point would remain the sea control capability exerted by a single Ford Class carrier with its air wing complement wouln't come even only near to that of 38 FFGX (even employng those tax payer's moneys in a so inefficient way) and wouldn't never be capable to confront in any condition a similar enemy at sea constructed with the same resources.

But those FFGXs would be rather more vulnerable to attack without CAP and air cover than if they were on their own.

That carrier air wing will surely still shine in employing JDAMs and Paveway LGBs against insulated third world enemies with beginning of '60 years AD systems, but would be literally obliterated against an peer enemy employing even a fraction of the resources in a less outdated way.

A Russian air wing with Su-57 would probably do rather well against most current and near future enemies including near peers... especially when they will mainly used to provide air cover for the ships and subs within the group.

it can be done fast with mini-UAV atop a missile- once a target of interest is detected by ship's radar, fire it into its vicinity, separate from it, & investigate it. Tilt-rotor AWACS & MPA been mentioned already. High speed attack/SAR helos may also be used. There r more than 1 way to do things.

There are but spending 10 billion dollars developing tilt rotor technology AWACS would probably cost about the same as the cost to build to CVNs and yet offer rather less performance and value.

Tu-95/142/160s can attack more air bases,etc. with their standoff weapons, creating a huge safety bubble around VMF SAG.

The Vulcan struck an airfield on the Falklands Islands miles away from Argentina and miles away from their fighters and air defences.

To protect the British ships from attack they would have to attack all the dozens of air fields on the Argentine mainland including civilian air fields... and no strategic bomber would last long repeatedly bombing those operating from an air base 10,000km away.

because Venezuela has land borders to circumvent a hypothetical US naval blockade.

They could simply say that any country that accepts goods to bypass the Blockade will be subject to the same sanctions and blockade that Venezuela is... those borders will close... not out of friendship to the US but fear.

in a tit for tat.

When have they ever done that?

no1 country can control the entire planet.

Tell that to Pompous and Trump.

all passenger planes must periodically check in with their controllers, even over the open ocean. The VMF will have no reason to hide & will be warning them to stay away at short intervals, in English.

Unlikely.

Old subs can be converted to carry them as well.

Most old subs are small and sleak and designed to be quiet... their capacity for cargo would be pathetic.

Then, USN ships, subs & planes will be put in reserve, scrapped, or sold to the highest bidder.

Or used to attack and lash out in the hopes of starting a war they can profit from... China and Japan own about a billion dollars in US debt... start a war with both those countries and start the war by declaring the debt void they are not going to pay it back and instantly saved two billion dollars. There are countries they could invade to steal their money.

They could simply declare all the US held gold from international countries to be American property... the UK already did that with Venezuelan gold.

tankers will be convertible to cargo planes;

Which is fine if they had a use for them, but with no navy to support global trade alliances they would spend most of their time on the ground doing nothing...

MiG-31/Su-30/57s have enough range already.

No they don't. None of those three planes could reach anywhere near the middle of the Pacific let alone anywhere they would be needed.

Recently PLAAF flew tanker assisted 10hr mission on Su-30s in the SC Sea from the mainland- the Su-34 has more cabin space & its crew can fly for 20hrs with more refuelings.

What sort of payload were they carrying and would it be enough to fight off an entire air force and defend themselves and the inflight refuelling planes that were supporting them?

they'll have oil platforms with helo decks that can be used by the CG/military. A few converted big tankers joined at anchor in shallow waters will create a cheap mobile base. They can also be towed by NP icebreakers, making them de-facto CVNs, with $Bs saved on their construction, maintenace & use.
In the 21 century, these "ice plows" can be converted to swords & these same swords can be converted to "ice plows" again.

You do know much of northern Russia is inside the arctic circle so they can build airfields and bases on land...

Syria was dredged up as an example of why Russian needs these dinosaurs. But clearly Russia did not need them in Syria and
this applies to most of Russia's security regions of interest which includes the Middle East and Asia.

If the terrorists had been better equipped with TOWs and Stingers having land based airfields and air power might not have been so easy... and the conflict in Syria proved that air power made a significant contribution to the result... particularly bombers with dumb bomb hitting point targets but keeping the costs down.

We have the USA sending a carrier task groups to North Korea and not actually getting there. So that would be a fail.

The US is also making light 5th gen fighters so I assume using your logic that the new twin engined MiG light 5th gen fighter will cost 1.5 trillion and be a total dog too...

Where do the advocates for the white elephants known as carriers see Russia actually using them? In Latin American, African,
and Indonesian waters? This really is a show stopper question. Hypothetical needs are not a valid argument. Russia has
no policing objectives in parts of the world where carriers could be worth something. It also has no plans for running colonies
in those regions.

Let me ask you what are they wasting time upgrading the Kuznetsov and the Kirov class cruisers and the Slava class Cruisers... what would they possibly use them for?

They have landing ships building right now, so there are going to be some 20K+ Russian ships... that simply can't be helped now because they will need destroyers and cruisers and carriers to operate with them.

They have the Kuznetsov... which colony has it been used to maintain in the last 30 years?

[qutoe]Yes, Russia is like a hermit kingdom and that is a good thing for Russia and the world. It is not trying to replace the Anglo
imperialists and carriers have no value against those targets. Latin America and Africa have to liberate themselves before
Russia can help them. There is no scenario in which Russia will install bootlick regimes in those regions.[/quote]

Those countries have the potential to grow and develop just like Russia is trying to and the West is doing its damn best to stop it all... they hate Russia and China because they are both developing and growing and risk taking other countries with them on a development and growth path that the west does not control.

The west will not sit there and do nothing... we have already seen they will take action to ruin or damage anything they can... Brazil puts the B in BRICS and strangely a Trump like leader wins and pulls back from Brazils BRICS commitments... accident?

Venezuela reaches out to Russia and China for help with development they never get from the west because it is not in the interests of the west for them to ascend to the big boy table so they keep them down... and all of a sudden US attention is on Venezuela and there are coup attempts and kidnapping attempts... just watching from the sidelines how many other government in central and south america or africa want to be regime changed by the US for improving ties with Russia to grow and develop as a country.

Russia is not the worlds policeman and I am not suggesting they buy the 10-12 CVNs they would need to take on that role, but they do need a world wide presence and they can only get that with ships, so they need destroyers and cruisers... smaller ships don't have the endurance or level of self protection to operate for long periods away from base, so if you are going to build destroyers and cruisers you will need a certain number of them for them to be useful and available in numbers to be useful. Using the existing CV and adding in time perhaps a couple of CVNs makes the investment in those big ships safer because they are much better protected and safer from potential hostile forces.

Since the utility of the US carriers is in clear decline, why would Russia invest in them. To prove it is a power?

It is not about proving anything... it is about being able to go where they need to and to be safe and secure when they get there.

Russian soldiers in Syria didn't just go with assault rifles and pistols... they took an enormous range of all sorts of weapons and equipment, much of which is secret... but it keeps those soldiers safe while they do their job.

If you had asked me in the mid 1990s where Russian soldiers would be deployed I never would have thought of Syria and to be honest I was worried when they did go in to Syria because Putin has avoided sending in the troops to lots of places despite being asked.

They had the right gear and used it well... you could say the shootdown of the Su-24 was a mistake and Putin underestimated the Saakashvili in Erdogan... and it cost a plane and people, but overall considering it is a real war with terrorists supported with the best equipment super powers can provide without exposing themselves for the hipocrites they are... it has gone rather better than I expected and I suspect a lot of nutters are now dead that would have been heading back to Russia after Assad was gone and causing trouble there... so job well done.

This one isn't a dinoraurs. No catapult, no expensive design. 40 kt. 32 mig-29k. Only cheap pantsir for protection with why not 4x12 shtil. No UKSK. No expensive AESA radars. Cost will be almost the same as the heli carrier they are making. Propulsion could be 2 borei's nuks reactors but increase cost.

Can provide air support for the fleet during high sea deployment, radar coverage to detect any ship at more than 1000km away, support land operations, support landings, use as a deterrance with some kh-59mk2 on board and patrol high tension areas like Mediteranean right now. They also have the Kuznetsov so 1 for northern fleet and one for pacific fleet.

Drawback is the lack of real AWACS but that can be solved with some light jet (sukhoi su-80) with AESA pannels on the fusalage.

Personally I'm not a big fan of the 100kt Shtorm which is a fantasy or the 70kt Lamantin which is way too big. Carrier are not meant for WW3.

Well that is another point... we seem to have worked out that the Redut system with 12 launch tubes should be able to carry either 48 9M96 missiles (of the 60km or 150km range variety) or 192 9M100 short range anti missile missiles... so the potential to make a carrier a heavily protected vessel is pretty easy really... Pantsirs at each corner and a Redut launcher in each corner means 160 Pantsir missiles (8 missiles on the mount and 32 reloads below deck for 40 missiles each mount) plus 768 short range IIR guided missiles like SEA RAM but much better... or a combination of short range missiles and medium and long range missiles with four 12 tube launchers and four deck mounted AA systems... perhaps 6 Duet guns for filling the gaps.... plus an air compliment of 50-60 Su-57s.

Instead of EMAL cats they could use an Airship based AWACS that operates at 40K metres and is unmanned... like thunderbird 5 but inside the atmosphere... it could go up and down and use the trade winds to move really fast if need be and could have radar antennas hundreds of metres long... a laser datalink that you would have to get between the sender and receiver to intercept...

there is no reason a Russian aircraft carrier needs to cost anything like a Ford class... all it needs to do is provide airborne radar and fighter combat air patrol... a few dozen helicopters that could be used for anti sub roles is just a bonus.

Redut would need the Gorshkov's expensive radars to be effective and it's totally useless. Unless you use the less effective radars from steregouchshy.

The first few AESA radars are not going to be cheap, but as they get produced the costs will go down and the dud units will become rarer which will further reduce costs...

But besides that... they are active radar missiles and IIR guided missiles they barely need a radar at all... they could be launched based on target data from other platforms if you wanted... obviously a decent radar would be best.

Why would you want a blind aircraft carrier?

The threat it will face is low flying missiles against which 150km AD is useless. 50km buk + pantsir is a cheap combination. Fighters will intercept the enemy aircraft trying to launch the missiles.

The short range 9M100 missiles for CIWS self defence are IIR guided with a range of probably between 10 and 15km with lock on after launch capability.

The 150km range SAMs can hit missiles at 2m altitude... a Tomahawk missile launched from 750km away that is shot down at 150km from the carrier based on target information from a Ka-31 helicopter that happened to be in the air at the time is the ideal intercept I would say... or do you think shooting it down closer makes the carrier group safer?

No space for 50-60 jets. It is said 12-14 mig-29k + 12-14 su-33 + 12-14 ka-27 + 4 ka-31.

I doubt the design is set in stone and in any case would likely be operating the twin engined light 5th gen fighters they are developing anyway...

IMO Ka-27 can be replaced by 4-6 mig/sukhoi for 34 jets max. But they are good for anti sub protection.

The Helix helicopters will likely be replaced by high speed Minoga helicopters, and who knows what sort of radars they will be fitting to aircraft by then... for all we know a tethered blimp that is 50m long and trails a supporting cruiser with fibreoptic data and also power via the tether with it permanently at 5,000m providing unmanned 24/7 all year round target information...

The design of this carrier is 40K tons so a 70K ton version could be developed to carry rather more aircraft when needed, but in normal operations will carry less.

Buk-m3 has ARH missiles with 70km range which is more than enough for protection.

BUK is a very big expensive missile to be used for CIWS use... it probably can't engage targets closer than 5-6km either...

The much smaller and much more compact 9M100 missiles intended for use as CIWS missiles on ships and also as a self defence AAM for fighters and bombers with internal carriage... and able to engage incoming AAM and SAMs would be much better suited to carrier defence... especially when used together with the super cheap small and compact TOR missiles they already carry on their aircraft carrier.

The safest is use the fighters with 300km range anti-ship missiles to destroy the enemy ship before it fires.

Not really... operating your fighters with loadouts of enough anti ship missiles to be effective reduces their flight speed increases their fuel burn and reduced operational flight radius of the fighters. Equipping them with AAM dramatically improves flight performance and speed and range and they can use their radars to detect missiles and surface vessels at long range where ship based missiles can engage them safely and easily.

Frigates/destroyers will provide long range AD. The carrier needs only to defend itself against a potential missile that pops up on its radars. The more missile you put on it the more expensive it will be.

The carrier is there to provide air protection for the ships... not vice versa... you are thinking of American carriers.

Every Russian ship needs to be able to defend itself, and a combination of Redut and fighter aircraft any Russian carrier should be fine most of the time.

9M100 can be mounted in any VLS with some software changes. Or they can just mount Igla/verba turrets.

9M100 will likely be vastly more potent than Igla or Verba... and with vertical launch tubes should be easier... with no need to point at the target and get a lock before launch...

Obviously not, the cost of a пр. 1144 "Орлан" and that of a пр. 22350 "Адмирал Горшков" in 2014 rubles (third unit procurement of пр. 22350 ) are in a ratio of about  5,6 : 1; in CCCP times and partially also today domestic research and development and procurement of military hardware are executed following computation of index of military value for each particular mission of the system to be acquired.

I was talking about cold war Kirovs and cold war corvettes... because while we know the price of modern corvettes we have no idea what a modern cruiser will cost.

Integrate a missile like  П-700 would be also today absolutely impossible.

Then four Moskits.... and use the small corvettes to swarm the enemy.

Remember I am the one advocating the bigger ships... and bigger ships benefit from having air cover to improve their defence and capability.

If this air cover at sea would come free of charge (a kind gift by a foreign nation ?) it would be surely well accepted, but because instead it come at the cost of the corrispective of 60 FREMM frigates your Navy would be immensely more vulnerable and significantly less covered just at cause of the procurement of this CAP cover.

It is not the case that they will get aircraft carriers and then not get anything else... even if they lay down a CVN hull in 2025 by the time it is ready for service Russia should already have made as many corvettes and frigates that it needs and should be making destroyers and cruisers by that stage too.

And when they do those ships are going to benefit from air cover no matter where they operate.

I repeat : the entire stock of future stand-off antiship missiles -like LRASM - (the other weapon options would mean envoy your air wing literally to scrap) on board of a Ford Class would be incapable to confront not 60 FREMM ,but even only a quarter of them.  

And I repeat a group of 60 enemy ships operating with no air cover will be easy meat for a Russian surface action group with aircraft and ship launched long range anti ship weapons... a single Su-57 with its radar in listen mode could locate all the ships in the group and their position and transmit their locations back to the ships... some 4,500km range Kalibres could then be launched off on a tangent and fly around the ships and attack them from the opposite direction at very low altitude... that attack could be timed to cross the horizon just as Zircons fired directly at the ships came over the horizon at 50km altitude at mach 10... all while keeping the carrier and the ships with the carrier over 700km away from those 60 frigates...

Note it is also why I am suggesting Russia should build destroyers and cruisers as well as frigates... the new ones are quite powerful, but not invincible...

Practically while carrier's airwing would ,2 missile at time for aircraft, wasting in vain its entire stock of LRASMs on the integrated EW/long  range and close range defenses of 15 modern FREMM frigates,

Why would a Russian carrier send aircraft to sink ships?

Also with FFGX US Navy for the same cost of its aircraft carrier could procure 3 strike groups of 13, 13 and 12 FFGX; good luck to LRSAM at penetrate the defenses of: Standar Missile-2, ESSM, Rolling Airframe Missiles, 57 mm MAD-FIRES corrected anti-air rounds, Mk53 Nulka or worse Sylena MK2 decoy launch systems and SEWIP Block 2 EW installations ......all of that for 13 networked frigates each capable to absorb several hits from those subsonic missiles with very imited warhead potential !!!!

Why are you talking about US weapons and equipment? Russia wont be buying their carriers from the US and are under no obligation to use them the way the US uses theirs...

Reality is that WWII times are long gone: aircraft today MUST attack enemy ships (if ,to begin, managing to obtain theirs position mostly by space-based assets, that with not flat-top ships of limited tonnage with reduced radar signature is all except trivial...) with few very long range missiles forcing them at enormous distances and integrated defenses of each modern ships can ,contrarely of WWII times, engage an enormous amount of them with much less costly interceptors from long to medium to short range before recurring to CIWS or to twarting with EW systems .

Russian aircraft carriers are to stop attacks on Russian ships... their primary anti ship missiles are all sub and ship launched and are too big to be carried any reasonable distance by their aircraft.

The purpose of Russian aircraft carriers is to add depth to the air defence of their ships and to create air defence for their subs. They can have a recon and AEW roles too to make the ships even better able to defend themselves, but they are not to sink enemy fleets and they are not to invade and colonies weak countries for their resources.

they'll very likely develop them anyway for other uses

High speed helicopters render tilt rotors redundant.

& they don't need to match the E-2's performance.

It will likely be more than ten years from now that they are operational so I would expect they would use brand new photonic radar technology that blows the E-2s performance away.

They will be built at aviation plants while in the meantime shipyards can be building & repairing/upgrading other warships.

Well of course... you don't think Yak-44s would have been built in a shipyard... the hint is the Yak in the description...

no, taking out hangars & aprons housing fighters would eliminate most of the threat. USN/AF done it in Libya, Iraq & Afghanistan.

They had thousands of planes based in neighbouring countries.... Britain has a Hermes aircraft carrier with 20 Harrier jump jets that are incredibly slow with poor weapon loads... I mean there is a reason they sent the Vulcan to hit the airfields on the Falklands... the Harriers probably would have gotten shot down... the Vulcan did the standard relatively small sized bombs dropped in a string across the airfield... the Harriers would have had to launch dozens of attacks with multiple aircraft to get the same result which would mean air defences that were ready... in other words lots of shot down Harriers.

There was absolutely no chance of doing that on main land Argentina... the harriers would have been slaughtered and they know it.

The USN and USAF used ground based aircraft mostly for the attacks, but when they used carrier aircraft they did not use Harriers.

Iraq still smuggled oil,etc. during sanctions over its borders with Jordan, Syria & Turkey. Brazil has hard time controlling her long border area in the Amazon Selva.

The amount smuggled successfully would not have made much difference over all.

not if they r to avoid another KAL 007-like shootdown.

The KAL007 flew over a secret air based and secret missile sites... if it was over UK or US airspace it would have been shot down earlier.

It was no where near international waters... the Soviets had every right to shoot that plane down.

there were plans to use the Typhoons as tankers in the Arctic.

There were plans because the Typhoons are huge and actually could have had reasonable space, but it still would not have been cost effective.

A submerged SSN escorted by another SSN can also tow a big barge on the surface with cargo, a few UAVs/ASW helos & missile containers, combining a supply ship with DD/CG, saving on fuel & personnel. If enemy subs r detected, a towing cable is released & the sub is engaged.

Tying up valuable SSNs for barge towing duties sounds like a very silly way to save money...

or just print/shift $ from other services.

When foreign countries wont accept dollars then printing more is a waste of paper... it only makes sense to print them if you can spend them and if no one accepts them then the paper is probably more valuable.

Knowing the Americans they would probably start printing Euros..... hahaha...

they won't need too many of them.

To use them they would need one tanker per fighter at least because a long flight would require several refuellings and of course they will be burning fuel themselves...

For a bomber or transport type you would need two to three tankers per aircraft...

they all have IRPs & train to use them. Tankers can also refuel each other, just like the RAF done during that Vulcan raid.

I don't think you know much about that Vulcan raid to be suggesting Russia banks its future global power plans on using their bombers in the same way...

It was a very risky business that could have gone tragically wrong in dozens of different ways... they were very very lucky.

Look at Operation Eagle Claw... doing something with long range helicopters and C-130s....

most probably just AAMs & recon gear. I doubt "an entire air force" would get close enough undetected before their CVN/bases r engaged by ships, subs, & bombers.

So you think Tu-160s with AAMs and recon gear can support a group of Russian Cruisers and Destroyers operating in the South Pacific... really?

but some here worry that the VMF/VKS isn't prepared to defend the NSR & the EEZ.

Their NSR and EEZ are all well within 500km of their land, so an airfield and an Su-35 or MiG-35 or Su-57 or MiG-31 could do that fine... no need for carriers or ships, though ships and land based missiles and guns and radars etc would make the defence more comprehensive...

Aircraft carriers will be based on the Northern Fleet and the Pacific Fleet so they can readily access the Atlantic and the Pacific if needed... they will need to cope with ice and cold, which will help with operations in the Arctic and Antarctic, but a lot of time will also be spent on visits to warmer places too.

the VKS bombers alone can reach coastal air bases with their LACMs; they'll need refuelings on the way back.

If they are only delivering cruise missiles then the Russian Navy has plenty of ships and Subs that can do that, and over time the number of missile tubes is going to increase massively.

I used it as an example of jumbo jet shot down by the military. It flew over naval bases as well; ships at sea r monitoring the skies 24/7 just like the PVO did on land on that night.

It was shot down by an aircraft, not a ships SAM nor a land based SAM...

Mil. ops r never cost effective compared to commerce.

They still have to make sense... carrying tiny volumes of cargo in a massively expensive submarine requires serious justification when much much cheaper options are available.

see above. In the Russian context, overspending on large CVNs is even sillier.

After spending hundreds of billions of dollars on new cruisers and destroyers you think spending half a billion a year for perhaps 6-7 years is a waste of money if it magnifies the defence of your ships and subs when operating far from home.

When was the last time the Russian military overspent on anything?

the MIC will accept them.

When foreign countries wont accept US dollars how many components from overseas can you buy with US dollars?

Money only has a value if it is worth something to others...

or start a new currency, maybe even at least partially backed by gold.

Would be much cheaper to start backing up the currency they do have with gold but that ship has probably sailed.

All the places Russia will trade with will have airfields to host bombers, fighters, AWACS, & tankers; most tankers will need to be used only in the middle of oceans.

Love the confidence but if that is the case, then why, with over 800 military bases world wide, does the US see the need for them?

Russian ships will operate in places where there might be ground based radar and airfields and fuel supplies really close, but considering experience like when HATO decided that no HATO members can provide fuel stops for Russian ships heading to Syria I don't know how you can make such a silly claim...

Without deploying bombers and fighters and AWACS aircraft and tankers around the world you basically have to take them with you... ie supply ships and aircraft carriers.

There, large barges or converted oil tankers with embarked MiG-31s/Su-30/34s & ASW/MPA helos & planes can be kept to cover those gaps. Aircraft can be based on floating platforms other than CVNs, & for a lot le$$.

If that were possible the Brits would already be doing it.... every time they go to war their bean counters decide their military is over funded and cut a whole lot of new programmes... soon they will have patchy air cover with flaky F-35s but no ships to operate with them...

I understand not wanting a US type setup... no one can afford that... especially not the Americans... but don't tell them that.... if they fix it they might never collapse, but don't copy the Brits.

why not, if MiG-31s/Su-34s r not going to be good enough? Some Tu-95/142s could also be modified for that- they have enormous unrefueled range.

Because it would take them days to organise the tankers to fly down there and would have a few minutes on station and then they would have to leave because there are not enough inflight refuelling tankers in the Russian AF to keep them flying around a group of ships as top cover.

That is why countries use aircraft carriers so they can land when they are not needed to save fuel.

What I do not understand is why people here do not realise that ships get more efficient the larger they are, 5 light carriers would be inferior and more costly to run than a single Shtorm class.

More importantly you would need three light carriers for each real carrier you wanted, which actually makes them more expensive to man and to keep operational, and three light carriers would not give the same performance as one big one.

What a carrier needs to be able to do is sustain air presence for a long duration and for that they need a lot of aircraft, I would say a minimum of 60.

I agree, but during normal operations it might only carry say 48 aircraft, which means better endurance and smaller compliment of air crew during peace time...

Bigger ship is better than 2 or 3 smaller ones but you can deploy it just at one place at a time.

They wont have enough escort cruisers and destroyers and support ships to need to operate more than one surface action group in one hotspot at a time... having two or three carriers is about ensuring at least one and probably two are available when needed... not about dominating the globe by having one in the Atlantic ocean and one in the Pacific...

If they have a crisis where naval power is needed and two carrier are available it would be likely they will send both or send one and prepare the other to join it if needed or to replace it on station in 3 months time if they don't need two carriers on site at once.

Also when it is in maintenance for a long peruod like the Nakhimov you can't replace it.

Which is why we are talking about one CV and two CVNs....

Having five small carriers will basically tie up one shipyard 24/7 because when one comes out of refit and upgrade the next will be needing some work...

Small carrier with decent number of fighters like the one I shared is perfect for them.

I like the concept, but the execution doesn't work... they have already said the K is not really big enough... they need more capacity... more fighters and capacity for AWACS aircraft too... which are going to take up significant space... if they could come up with a multihull design that has a very wide body for enormous hangars but structurally was light so they could have 70 fighters plus AWACS in a 50K ton ship that would be perfect.... but equip it properly... it will have S-500 missiles, it will have large numbers of SAMs and will have some UKSK launchers too, because that is what a Russian carrier is....

Americans do not even have supersonic AShM so it is true that the effectiveness of their attacks even against smaller vessels is questionable, but I suspect they would rather use other weapons like anti-radiation missiles in order to crack the ship's AD open, and then once its radars have been put out of operation, use subsonic weapons to finish the job.

But they will have the problem that the 9M100 missile is intended as a self defence weapon against incoming missiles... and Soviet SAMs since BUK and TOR were designed to shoot down HARMs and other standoff weapons... so it comes down to trading numbers... except Russian hypersonic missiles are much more likely to get through...

Russian aircraft could use air launched Kh-31 against those smaller vessels, and we know that internal carriage hypersonic missiles are being developed as we speak for Su-57. Indians are using the Su-30 to launch Brahmos. Any weapon launched from an aircraft has many times the range of the surface launched equivalent. For instance ship launched version of NSM has 185 km, while air launched reaches to 555 km. Also the no-scape zone of the ship's AD will be relatively small against a fast and manoeuvrable jet. Aircraft do not need to carry massive weapons to be of application in naval attack.

I appreciate what you are trying to say, but what you are suggesting is the equivalent of saying to the Army that attack helicopters can go much further and faster than tanks and can kill from much greater distances so why don't you forget about this driving around in armoured vehicles and just replace tanks with Helicopters...

A ship with a 57mm gun could... once the 57mm AA gun systems and ammo is further developed offer all the protection they might need from any sort of drone or subsonic anti ship missile. Soon only very high speed missiles are going to be a problem... and lets be honest... the US is going to run out of money building long range anti ship missiles before the Russians run out of the SAMs they have now let alone will continue to produce...

When the Russian Navy starts trading missiles with the US Navy then I wouldn't worry too much who is going to win because it is very likely that any nukes will be used at sea first.