Upgraded Kirov class: Project 11442 [Admiral Nakhimov]

Firebird wrote:

SeigSoloyvov wrote:Nothing we didn't already know.

But looks like they are finally moving to scrap the non-usable Kirov's.

https://lenta.ru/news/2019/04/18/lom/

I wonder if that means they will feel forced to start construction of the Lider class nuclear cruisers?

No. The nuclear cruisers are not priority for Russia. Currently the priority is getting their frigate forces up before going for something larger.

They will likely start work on those 7K ton Gorshkov models as they would equate to destroyers and be the minimum sized vessel for global operations... I am not sure they will want to make too many more Frigate types.

They wont be able to afford to have hundreds and hundreds of medium to large ships, and the frigates they have made so far are useful but not as useful as a dozen 7K ton destroyer versions of the Gorshkov design... just expanded with more weapon modules and bigger sensors and perhaps bigger main gun.

24 Gorshkovs with 4-6 being the current model and the rest being 7K ton destroyers, plus perhaps 8-12 20K ton cruisers and two CVNs and perhaps 4 Helicopter carriers for interventions would be a relatively balanced well armed fleet by 2060.

Of course it is ambitious and they certainly wont get those force levels over night, but if they want to trade with countries beyond their land borders then they need to be a sea power... they might go for 12 (7K) destroyers based on the first 6 (Gorshkov) frigates, and 8 Cruisers, plus the six carriers... two for air support for operations beyond Russian based air support, and two to four heavy helicopter carriers for a range of roles including disaster relief and naval infantry operations where needed.

During Soviet times in the 80s they had four aircraft carriers of the Kiev class and were building three more... two Kuznetsov types and one bigger one, and they had the Ivan Rogov landing ships and who knows what might have replaced that, yet they never had the appearance of being a global power the way the USN or even UK or French navies with their colonial issues around the world did.

Being such a large vessel could we speculate that if they are working on a new larger UKSK launcher called UKSK-M that it would make sense to fit it to an upgraded Kirov class ship?

Perhaps they will fit UKSK-M launchers to their new and upgraded ships of destroyer size and bigger, with frigates and corvettes using the smaller UKSK launchers?

Of course the U in UKSK is universal which means everything gets it... so maybe all UKSKs will be upgraded to UKSK-M, but existing Frigates with UKSK and Redut... is UKSK-M going to replace both or just UKSK?

Will be interesting when we get some real answers...

What is Otvet? Any info pls.

Not heard of it myself, but according to Yandex, Otvet means Response or Answer...

The refit ship is slated to feature a whopping 174 vertical launch tubes—more than any other surface combatant or submarine in the world. 80 of these tubes will be filled with modern Russian cruise missiles, such as the subsonic Kalibr, supersonic Onix, and supposedly the hypersonic Zircon. Additionally, the ship's air defense capability will be adapted from the S-400 system and will have the rest of its tubes stuffed with the family of missiles associated with it (40N6, 48N6, 9M96).

Wow, so what they are saying is that the 20 Granit launch tubes will be replaced by ten UKSK launchers with 8 tubes each, so with 174 launch tubes suggests 94 remaining launch tubes, which if the missiles are going to be S-400 types then one has to assume these will be Redut launch tubes, but 94 is a pretty strange number... the original launch tubes for the S-300F naval missile were 96 missiles...

Also they had TOR missile batteries on those ships for close in defence are they counting those?

The Kuznetsov had about 196 TOR missiles alone so with the new upgraded missiles they should be able to double the numbers of missiles at the very least without taking any more space. The K also had Kashtan systems but their missiles would not be counted as they weren't vertical launch weapons... but still...

But the future belongs to modular warships, isn't it? A common hull design adaptable to multiple missions.

Britain is planning to purchase modular warships as is the US

Not so much the ships as the weapons and sensors...

During the Cold War I, the Soviets built optimised ships for specific roles... so the Udaloy and Sovremmeny were a similar size with totally different propulsion and weapons and sensors... Udaloy was anti sub so had sonar and anti sub weapons as its primary armament with secondary armament so it could do other things and defend itself. Its engine arrangement is optimised for sub chaser ops. The Sovremmeny is optimised to hunt US Carrier groups and its main armament of SS-N-22 is designed specifically to fly under the AEGIS air defence system leaving US Navy ships with only 20mm gatlings to protect them.

The Sov also has torpedoes and anti sub depth charger launchers and air defence missiles so it could defend itself and go most places.

The Metel missile the Udaloy carries is fully dual purpose so it can destroy enemy ships too, but being a very slow subsonic missile with a torpedo attached it is not ideal for penetrating enemy air defences on ships.

Today you can have a much smaller Corvette sized vessel with a two UKSK launchers that could carry the full main missile load of a Sov in the form of lighter faster longer ranged Onyx missiles, AND the full main missile load of a Udaloy class ship with 91ER2 ballistic missiles... the 91ER2 missiles deliver a torpedo to a similar range to the Metel but it does it at mach 2.

More importantly this Corvette can carry a mix of those types but the Onyx has a backup land attack capacity which is something Soviet Surface ships never really had... in the 1980s even a Kirov class would not have been able to launch a Calibr attack on targets in Syria...

Now of course to be fully multirole you need the sensors, but by networking everything together... ships, subs, aircraft, satellites, sea bed sonar arrays, and of course drones in the water, on the water, and in the air means the ship might carry a helicopter or amphibious aircraft for the job of detecting subs.

Modular is more like having a set of pieces and fitting the pieces together to build what you want, modular in this context however is forming features and capabilities into modules and then working out how to fit all the available modules into every vessel... with big ships that is easy... the Kirov is large enough to carry enormous missiles and big SAMs that defend not just the ship itself but also the ships around it, and it can have SS-N-19 Granit anti ship missiles and also SS-N-14 Metel missiles to also kill subs, but destroyer sized ships with big heavy missiles had to have one and not any others, while corvettes were even more limited... well with Redut and UKSK and soon UKSK-M they can all choose the missiles they need for any job and their loadout can be decided at the pier instead of the drawing board where it is set in stone and is expensive to change.