Project 20836 Mercury-class modular Corvette

Apparently this is the current state as per a recent Zvezda video:

limb wrote:Why so little progress in the last 5 years, especially since the weapons and most of the electronics are off the shelf?

With the 22350 the delay was caused principally by (a) engine supply and (b) new weapons and sensors and battle management system that needed integrating and testing.  The ship itself wasn't the problem.

With the 20386 the delay is the ship design and fabrication.  This ship is revolutionary for the Russian ship building industry (which is still in the process of being rebuilt following decades of neglect) and it won't happen overnight.  5 years seems reasonable to me considering the progress to date and the R&D cycle that was required.

They already ordered 10 Steregoushchy for the pacific fleet.

Surely you don't believe that a missile designed as a SAM can be as effective in the AShM role as a purpose designed weapon?? SM-6 as an anti-surface weapon is just a stop-gap, and the US has a long and illustrious history of ignoring the need for effective long range AShMs. They won't make up for that legacy any time soon.

Rocket powered missiles are hypersonic for a few seconds when their motor burns. But then it slow down pretty fast.

S-300 missiles have also mach 6 speed but at 500km away they would be runing at mach 0.5 and falling towards the water.

US anti ship missiles need to have at least the same range as Ru/Chinese ones. SM 6 can't reach 1000 km at hypersonic speeds, neither at any speed for that matter.

However having a SAM able to hit ships is very good for close range because they have a lot of them ready to launch and they are very fast. In a scenario of a ship shadowing another ship and war starts it gives you a big advantage of first strike.

This particular project
shows this by the removal of the CIWS since they will be rendered useless by hypersonic anti-ship missiles
that NATzO may get in the near future.

Pretty stupid to eliminate CIWS for a ship leaving it vulnerable to any low flying subsonic missile...

There wont be any hypersonic sea skimming missiles...

I disagree. They are actually modifying SM-6 to be used as a hypersonic AShM I expect it will probably be fielded in 12-24 months. Perhaps this is what you mean by aeroballistic but they are already testing an air breathing missile and doing integration flights with B-52.

Yeah, American Fanboys have been saying they have mach 6 anti ship missiles for years to counter arguments about Soviet and then Russian supersonic anti ship missiles... the problem of course is that these high speed missiles they are talking about are SAMs and are not intended to sink ships... the ones they use in the anti ship role use nuclear warheads..., but the biggest problem is that when engaging ships they engage it like they engage aircraft they lead chase... they don't jink or dodge or come in vertically and therefore essentially they are as easy to shoot down as a Scud missile... and while Patriots struggle with that mission even S-300 missiles can manage that, and the new S-350s will be especially good at taking them down.

Not to say they can't make a good missile, but right now they don't have one.

The reason the Kinzhal is an excellent anti ship missile is because the missile it is based on is the Iskander and it was designed specifically to manouver to evade air defence systems around the target like Patriot and THAAD, so as an air launched anti ship missile they probably didn't have much to change.

I am not too sure about that. There could be missiles that dive down and use ablative heat shields or some form of coolant for the terminal phase.

Yeah, it is not totally about heat, but heat is certainly a factor, but a missile flying at mach 10 at 30km altitude... it can dive vertically but it needs to pull up within 10 seconds or it will be hitting the water... a missile flying at enormous speeds at very high altitudes is easy the air is thinner and colder so going really fast is easier, but once you dive down to the thicker warmer air at sea level you will find flying fast is not so easy... most highly supersonic planes are barely supersonic at sea level and that is for very good reasons...

If a hypersonic missile gets to within 20km and then dives then you just shoot it down further away with something like S-350... once you have the tactics right and the upgraded missiles intended for the job of course... if it dives down further away than 20kms then it likely wont be going mach 10 when it reaches you.... more likely Mach 3-4 which most SAMs can already deal with.

If sustaining speed is the problem then they could use a massive solid rocket booster for the terminal stage.

Massive rockets like the rocket used on the supersonic two stage Klub missile... it manages Mach 2.9... which is likely very similar to what a scramjet would manage at the same height for any distance.

After all the Russians managed to get long range sea skimming supersonics working back in the 1970's.

Their fastest sea skimmer is about Mach 2.0 except the Klub model which has a terminal burst of Mach 2.9 with a solid rocket motor.

Seriously, what's the rush. Do it right, or don't do it at all.

They have always been Russian.... sorry... bad joke... I agree... no hurry... it is new stuff so when it is ready...

PapaDragon wrote:

They are either rearranging stuff inside before the put it back or they have gone full retard

They have probably moved it out to make space for other hulls, as inside it was just sitting idle. I would say they are waiting for ministry of defense to finalize the design changes and what to do with it, at which point they will move it back in to resume construction.

Designers can make all sorts of calculations and project potential performance and capabilities, but at the end of the day you really only know what will actually work by building it.

Technology only improves with practise... the first composite structures they made took months each to do, but they refined the process and soon it was a couple of days to make them.

The first vehicle is always going to be the one they test the concept on, but even then with experience they can improve things quite radically to the point where the first one might be not so great, but what has been learned can refine the design and so the next ships can be much better and perhaps what the first one was supposed to be.

For what mission was it designed then ?

Gorshkov, Steregushchy, Buyan/karakurt and all the coast guard ships can do any mission you can imagine.

There is no point having the 20836 which is expensive for its class, carry just one container more than other ships (for calling it multirole) and is poorly armed.