Project 11711: "Ivan Gren" class

Speed is critical for many of the tasks a naval helicopter must fulfil, so to me it is fully justified to include that feature even at the expense of higher complexity and price. And the gained know how would be very valuable also in the international market and open good sales prospects, so it would make clearly make sense to do the effort. It is to note, that the declared Kamov philosophy is to dilute the difference between fixed and rotatory wing aircraft, so this falls squarely in their development roadmap too.

PapaDragon wrote:
Possible ''on the fly'' revision of new Ivan Gren ships:

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Looks like I was right about this one

Yes it's an impressive upgrade but being a "principal" ship I would like to see much improved air defense.

Something like this would do nicely for me >>

They would then need to replace the deck gun and a coastal fire support gun would be more important for troops then AD. The top spot has an open area below it nowhere to put AA.

That said this ship looks much better than a standard Gren, this look to be copying the Type 071. which is like three times the tonnage.

So more delays and longer construction times, not a good idea IMO, their current landing ships are getting on in age.

SeigSoloyvov wrote:They would then need to replace the deck gun and a coastal fire support gun would be more important for troops then AD. The top spot has an open area below it nowhere to put AA.

That said this ship looks much better than a standard Gren, this look to be copying the Type 071. which is like three times the tonnage.

So more delays and longer construction times, not a good idea IMO, their current landing ships are getting on in age.

The "deck gun" you refer to is not anywhere near intended to be a coastal fire support gun - it is the ak630 Mod2 CIWS - mainly used for air defence.
Installing something like I suggested would require minimum modification. The Russians actually tried to copy the Bonhomme Richard, but they lost the blueprints in the fire.

Ak-630 is sometimes just a manned deck gun. Some ships have it but not the radars and the FCS to use it for air defence.

Then it become just a normla machine gun operated by a man with a basic iron scope.

Yes they are also used to destroy mines at sea and can be used for delivering suppressive fire etc but as a coastal fire support gun? There are definitely other weapons at hand that will do a much better job. For example those Ka-29's sitting at the back with a couple of rocket pods would do nicely thanks!

SeigSoloyvov wrote:They would then need to replace the deck gun and a coastal fire support gun would be more important for troops then AD. The top spot has an open area below it nowhere to put AA....

If your landing ship needs to use the main gun during landing in this day and age you done fucked up

It's not the 50s anymore

SeigSoloyvov wrote:...So more delays and longer construction times, not a good idea IMO, their current landing ships are getting on in age.

They streamlined the superstructure not changed propulsion type

Timeline stays the same

The change in superstructure shape is trivial, not sure why such a change would require a huge amount of time to implement.

The whole point of designing and then building and then testing and then redesigning is slow and expensive but it is still the only known way to make ships.

I am sure the quicker easier way is the way the US built 3 Zumwalts and 16 odd LCSs before they had fully tested them and made sure they did what they expected.... they just essentially put them into serial production and were testing them as soon as they were ready but by the time they realised there were problems they had already made 3 Zumwalts and 16 LCS ship... now for all their speed in getting them made all that money is wasted and they need to decide what to with these useless ships that even their allies likely wont take or can't have because they don't want to share their secrets with.

That front gun looks like a Duet twin barrel 30mm cannon and that is indeed used for both air defence and attacking surface and land targets... and by the way lack of radar is not a huge drawback for such systems as they often have an optronics package that includes a laser rangefinder and can be very accurate in automatic engagement mode against air and surface targets.

I do agree that more air defence weapons would certainly be an improvement... even just TOR missile launchers deck mounted around the place and perhaps a Pantsir system sitting on the top deck...

It does not need to be covered in weapons, but even just replacing the Duet with a 57mm gun mount would increase effective range coverage from the front and a couple of Duets on either side of the hangar roof... unlike the Pantsir/Kashtan, the Duet does not have a huge underdeck magazine and infrastructure taking up space several decks down... it is almost like a RWS for ships.

If your landing ship needs to use the main gun during landing in this day and age you done fucked up

It's not the 50s anymore

Very true, but if you have fucked up then you really want to be able to do something about that... and a heavy artillery gun on a ship that can deliver an accurate shot of HE out to 70km to land a 40kg HE bomb within 10m of a machine gun or sniper or enemy position that you didn't notice when you started your landing but has opened fire and is causing you problems would be very very useful.

Of course one of the attack helicopters you are carrying could also deliver such a blow too and indeed a UCAV could also do the same... but a ships gun can do it 24/7 in any weather conditions rather faster than an attack helo or drone could manage... once they had the target coordinates of course.

This ship is probably too small to carry a really heavy calibre gun to reach deep inland for that sort of thing though... an Alligator class landing ship has a 57mm gun and at most a 76mm gun would be used... a new 57mm gun would be more useful for air defence and general duties IMHO.

The ship looks bigger with this modification Papa, if it's alright then.

Also no if you are sending a ship right up to the coast that means you already have air cover making AD pointless and Helios are very easy to take down and they aren't that reliable against a foe of equal equipment.

A gun would be better to support the actual landing operations against dug-in enemy forces at that point

The Russians traditionally mount air defence systems on their ships... after the Falklands war they started mounting 12.7mm on pretty much all their ships to protect from targets close by the ship that might be hard to engage with heavier guns... and patrol boats often have 14.5mm HMGs too for similar purposes.

There is actually a low rate of fire AK mount that only fires at 1,000 rpm and is optimised for warning shots at ground targets... AK-306.

I would expect for a ship like this it would have at least a Duet which seems to be the weapon shown.

Also during the Falklands war the experience of exocet missiles being fired at British military ships and those ships deploying jammers and decoys only to have the missile lock on to the converted civilian ships with no such defence or protection led to the loss of some ships... so Russian ships will have EW and decoys and other defences and a light gun. The cost is tiny and it might never be used... but having it and not needing it is not that big a deal, but not having it and needing it would be problem.

SeigSoloyvov wrote:The ship looks bigger with this modification Papa, if it's alright then.

A gun would be better to support the actual landing operations against dug-in enemy forces at that point

For that particular purpose I personally would like to see a TOS mounted on a ship

GarryB wrote:The Russians traditionally mount air defence systems on their ships... after the Falklands war they started mounting 12.7mm on pretty much all their ships to protect from targets close by the ship that might be hard to engage with heavier guns... and patrol boats often have 14.5mm HMGs too for similar purposes.

There is actually a low rate of fire AK mount that only fires at 1,000 rpm and is optimised for warning shots at ground targets... AK-306.

I would expect for a ship like this it would have at least a Duet which seems to be the weapon shown.

Also during the Falklands war the experience of exocet missiles being fired at British military ships and those ships deploying jammers and decoys only to have the missile lock on to the converted civilian ships with no such defence or protection led to the loss of some ships... so Russian ships will have EW and decoys and other defences and a light gun. The cost is tiny and it might never be used... but having it and not needing it is not that big a deal, but not having it and needing it would be problem.

An AK-306 won't have the penetration power and by the time you try to call in a missile strike lots of damage can be done and you assume it would be missiles.

Helios are also easy pickings for MANPADS as shown in Syria when the Jhads downed Russian birds easily with them. Also what if the enemy can jam your missiles?.

You cannot Jam a Gun, so IMO a support gun is better than AD on a ship whose job is to deliver troops to a beach. head

SeigSoloyvov wrote:The ship looks bigger with this modification Papa, if it's alright then....

It's been bigger from the get go and first hull segments are already rolled out

This latest modification is just a tweak on the upper superstructure, nothing changes mass wise

SeigSoloyvov wrote:...A gun would be better to support the actual landing operations against dug-in enemy forces at that point

If there is a dug-in enemy that survived all the aircraft, drones, missiles and all the artillery fire from the rest of the fleet then a single gun on a landing ship is pointless because you already screwed up the landing long before that landing ship approached the beach

An AK-306 won't have the penetration power and by the time you try to call in a missile strike lots of damage can be done and you assume it would be missiles.

It is a landing ship... an AK-306 would only be there as a sort of HMG type set up on a US ship.

The actual gun appears to be a duet which has two 5,000 rpm 30mm six barrel cannon with the same ammo so the same penetration... but much more effective against small fast targets.

Helios are also easy pickings for MANPADS as shown in Syria when the Jhads downed Russian birds easily with them. Also what if the enemy can jam your missiles?.

Tactics and the right equipment can make them effective... besides the current missiles that will be carried by Russian helicopters like the Izd 305 have a range of 25km... which MANPADS can cope with that?

Drones will be used to monitor the landing and any resistance to the landing will be deal with using naval gun fire support no doubt... helicopters could be used to support the attack which could include dropping forces behind the beach defences to attack them from the rear and destroy their support lines and rear areas.

You cannot Jam a Gun, so IMO a support gun is better than AD on a ship whose job is to deliver troops to a beach. head

The only calibre gun that would be useful would be a 152mm gun which would take up an enormous amount of internal space on such a small ship.

A 40K helicopter landing ship might have a 152mm gun mount to support operations but these little ships will just have air defence guns and missiles I suspect.

If there is a dug-in enemy that survived all the aircraft, drones, missiles and all the artillery fire from the rest of the fleet then a single gun on a landing ship is pointless because you already screwed up the landing long before that landing ship approached the beach

If a landing is screwed up because there are living defenders opposing the landing then there have not been many successful landings that weren't screwed up.

I seem to recall a US landing on the Alutien islands in about 1942 or 43, where they only lost about 30 men, but there were no Japanese on the islands they landed on so it was a totally unopposed landing which by your criteria makes it not a screw up.

Thing is that you don't need landing ships if the landing is going to be unopposed... just transport ships and floating piers...

Some dug in troops can't be defeated with air or naval gun power... but it keeps their heads down while you fight your way onto the beach and spread inland and take those positions with ground forces...

I wonder about the construction progress at Yantar regarding the upgraded project, but they made a new Ep talking about the program and it has some pretty cool views inside the ship, sad to see the amount of comments suggesting the need for a landing ship to have air defense-high caliber guns and even RBU's as if it's operating on it's own .

During the interview with the Yantar employee, he stated that the volume of the vessel doubled, pretty impressive.

Kind of interesting to see how quickly Russian Navy demanded new designs and refinements to the vessels it was procuring and operating, first Ivan Gren expanding impressively, then the new helicarriers going from 20k to 40k tons(at what was reported to us, it could have been the plan all along), plus along with Mercuriy class and now we will see what will happen when SevVerf finishes construction of it's covered boathouse, they will laid down Super-Gorshkov immediately, it's reported to be 8k displacement but that too will likely increase as RuNavy desires to operate further and more effectively from Russian shores.

x_54_u43 wrote:During the interview with the Yantar employee, he stated that the volume of the vessel doubled, pretty impressive.

Kind of interesting to see how quickly Russian Navy demanded new designs and refinements to the vessels it was procuring and operating, first Ivan Gren expanding impressively, then the new helicarriers going from 20k to 40k tons(at what was reported to us, it could have been the plan all along), plus along with Mercuriy class and now we will see what will happen when SevVerf finishes construction of it's covered boathouse, they will laid down Super-Gorshkov immediately, it's reported to be 8k displacement but that too will likely increase as RuNavy desires to operate further and more effectively from Russian shores.

That is a general result of changing conditions&skills of Russian shipbuilding as a whole. The thing we talked aside.
And how rapid this process can be, let me put it to the perspective.
In the beginning of the 00s, Korea and Japan constituted for almost 80% of the world's market, with China being third, and with ... 5% share. The whole EU was slightly above 10% of the market share, and the mighty Murica ... 0.25%.
Yup, zero point twenty five.
00s were extremely interesting from the business perspective, because several things happened, same time.
First, due to currency ratios and PPP, Japan's shipyard industry rolled into constant unprofitability, making them less and less capable to compete. This process began a decade earlier, but gained real momentum in the 00s.
Second, some other players appear on the scene, and that was Croatia - an extremely profitable and advanced business before dissolution of the Yugoslavia, Poland - that gained the momentum in the 90s, and with some turbulances, but jumped into 00s with several shipyards, and last but not least, GDR yards were finally reconstructed, retooled, and started to operate as one organism.
But Europe was already incapable to compete with the booming Chinese.
It took the Chinese only 15 years, to become the world's shipyard, bypassing Korea and Japan. Its share tenfold.
And we face just the same result in Russia, just started with some time shift due to severe economic condition of Russia in the 90s.
We are witnessing the same momentum, and we will see more and more fleet being born, with bigger and bigger hulks.
The west did its best to paralyze the revival of the Russian Navy, and succeded for about half a decade. But seems it is a history already.

I wonder about the construction progress at Yantar regarding the upgraded project, but they made a new Ep talking about the program and it has some pretty cool views inside the ship, sad to see the amount of comments suggesting the need for a landing ship to have air defense-high caliber guns and even RBU's as if it's operating on it's own

It is not a whim or me being a fanboy that I want naval gun support for landings... even the US Navy put WWII battleships back in to service so they could provide cheap effective long range gun based fire support for landing forces... and their Zumwalt class ships were supposed to have guns that followed on with long range powerful and accurate gun fire to support landing and coastal operations... and of course they failed badly.

In the case of the Soviet Navy they put ancient Sverdlov Class ships back into service... their 152mm naval guns were much less potent or powerful than the 406mm guns of the Iowas, but they wanted them for essentially the same purposes... Naval Gun Fire Support...

And it has already been stated that the Russian Navy contributed with the development of the land based 152mm Coalition artillery system with an accurate range of over 70km and plans to more than double that range... the biggest operational calibre in the Navy is 130mm and it has much lower performance parameters.

Their new 130mm gun is smaller and lighter than the old 130mm gun and being single barrel it is clearly not designed for sustained fire.

The 152mm they plan to use on their heavier ships will be rather more suitable with excellent range and accuracy and performance compared with the 130mm guns currently in use.

It might be interesting if they develop a gun ship that is essentially a gun based support ship for use in landings with drones and lots of 152mm gun mounts to allow multiple targets to be engaged for extended periods of time...

Such a specialised ship might also have other features like command centre for coordinating air power or helicopters and drones to find targets for the guns to engage...

For a poorer navy having a ship equipped with two 152mm gun mounts (front and back) that can engage point targets out to 180km with individual artillery shells using GLONASS guidance and maybe drone with laser target markers might be a low tech cheap solution to a serious problem.

The laser target marker on the MiG-35 can mark targets 30km away... imagine such a system mounted on a very small all electric helicopter drone flying 25km away from an enemy ship that is 120km away from your ship... you get the drone to prepare to mark the target and turn sideways and open up with two 152mm turrets armed with four 152mm guns firing 30-40 rounds per minute per gun barrel... how would that ship defend itself from such an attack... I mean pop smoke to start with but the attack can be coordinated so the drone might not start lasing the target till the rounds are a few seconds out from impact.... so a 20 second burst from four barrels firing is just over 53 shells fired at the target ship... that would be tricky to stop... even with smoke obscuring the target with GLONASS guidance those rounds are going to fall very close to the target and they are all warhead...

For supporting a landing it would not be so much about the rate of fire but the all weather high accuracy potential of the weapons making up for the shell weight of perhaps 40kgs or so... accuracy really makes up for lack of HE... even if it is just suppressive fire that makes them put their heads down so they can't interfere with the landing... even smoke or jamming rounds would be useful...

Mine-laying from Morgunov

That's a mine ?

Yes.

Hole wrote:
Mine-laying from Morgunov

Appears to be a PMK-1 ASW mine. It can be launched from submarines as well.