Upgraded Kirov class: Project 11442 [Admiral Nakhimov]

Big_Gazza wrote:I find it hard to fathom how there no publically available images of the Nakhimov in her current state. Security will be very tight but surely someone has taken a snap or three?

Just like you, many things are not clear to me, but what to do.
A few days ago they wrote that the tests could start in September, while now they are already writing about December or May.

An extremely expensive proposition if SAMs are used to intercept Russian artillery shells. They might choose to install the Sea Ram missile to engage Russia artillery shells, but even then that too would be quite expensive.

Ironically the Russians are already developing a cure for something that isn't a threat yet... they are developing 10kg mini SAMs for convoy defence designed to engage individual artillery shells and rockets for defending logistics forces operating on the battlefield... such missiles would be ideal at sea too for a range of threats from tiny ships to their biggest ships and could be carried in enormous numbers because of their low weight.

The British have nothing like that available AFAIK.

A Russian ship will fire 4-5 shells in a volley. So to intercept these 5 shells a British destroyer will fire an equal number of SAMs.

A target 150km away the 152mm Coalition on a naval vessel is going to be a twin barrel system and likely have a rate of fire of something like 80 rounds per minute plus so it will probably fire a dozen shells just to be difficult because even if you have enough missiles dealing with that number of threats at once will be a problem for most western ships... and it would only take a couple to get through to do some real damage.

The US had developed a naval version of the Javelin for exactly this purpose.... to engage enemy artillery shells. Even that is an expensive proposition.

Sea Ram was a frankensteins monster of bits and bobs... they used bits from Stinger and Hellfire and Javelin and sidewinder I believe to create this missile.

lancelot wrote:The ship is parked right outside Sevmash for the refitting.

This is old imagery, and I don't expect she will look like that any more.  Her decks are seen as festooned with containers, weldling habitats, ventilation ducts, cable/hose ways, all the various paraphenalia once would expect from a major refit, but if she is performing mooring tests as currently claimed (and sea trials at years end) then all of this would have been removed by now.  Her main radar array isn't fitted, so same comment applies.

I expect she would be in a fairly clean configuration yet the only pics are representative of mid-refit.

Admiral Nakhimov may enter sea trials in December 2023 or May 2024, depending on whether the necessary work is completed in time. Now the ship is finishing the cabins and setting up the onboard equipment, the ship is preparing for the crew's settlement. Up to 3 thousand people are involved in the work at the same time.

She may still surprise us in September - I hope

Sea trials of the heavy nuclear-powered missile cruiser Admiral Nakhimov will begin in May next year.

I guess better late than never.

I don't know about that. If Russia is serious about it's new naval doctrine then this ship should be one of the cornerstones of the future Russian Blue Water Navy.

ALAMO wrote:I have a feeling, that they are consistently losing interest in the whole project, and experience from the UkroWar is one of the nails to the coffin.

I would say that the military experience from a land war at Russia's doorstep never had anything to do with the requirements of an ocean going navy, which fulfills completely different roles in advancing the interests of the country. Of course the direct defence of the motherland takes precedence over international commerce and influence, but at day's end the empire needs to be prevented from freely looting the resources in 3rd word countries, or they will use them to keep bringing war to their enemies. So both are necessary sides of the same problem and both need to be addressed to reach a long term solution for the security and sustainable development of Russia.

ALAMO wrote:To begin with, it is Russia's position to deal with everybody other than Americas ON LAND.
Or using closed and small seas where this behemoth is simply oversized.

And since most Russian enemies are American vassals, the statement above implies Russia will need to deal with America beyond their own territory, one way or another. Victory will not come only through defensive actions

ALAMO wrote:I have a feeling, that they are consistently losing interest in the whole project, and experience from the UkroWar is one of the nails to the coffin.

It is a mammoth job to restore and modernize a ship like this.

What does experince from the Ukraine war have to do with it ?

Backman wrote:

ALAMO wrote:I have a feeling, that they are consistently losing interest in the whole project, and experience from the UkroWar is one of the nails to the coffin.

It is a mammoth job to restore and modernize a ship like this.

What does experince from the Ukraine war have to do with it ?

Nothing. The problem with the Nahkimov modernisation is the usual problem that affects any (very) large ship undergoing a deep "mid-life" upgrade - an under estimation of the costs, difficulties and time requirements to achieve the desired result. Its only when work begins in the yard that the "niggers in the woodpile" ( ) become fully apparent. Hull corrosion losses are found to be greater than expected, and electrical cabling is found to be in a poorer condition than believed. Marine systems and general equipment OEMs are no longer in business and alternatives need to be sourced with sub-contrators unable to meet the pre-award cost/schedule budgets. I'm disappointed that the Nahkimov isn't finished yet, but I'm not surprised. Given the sterling performance of many Russian weapon and sensor systems in the Ukropian cleansing campaign, I have no doubt that the end result will be worth the wait.

I would say experience has shown that only old non upgraded ships of the Russian navy seem to be the vessels that get hit or suffer damage... the Moskva was considered useful enough for them to use it, and regardless of what happened to it the fact that it was armed with OSA and perhaps the fire fighting systems on board were not properly functioning suggests that perhaps a proper upgrade might have led to it still being on the top of the water.

Edit: Plus if they wanted to use it for its large long range sensors then imagine how much more useful it would have been with upgraded long range sensors as well as better defences and onboard equipment.

They didn't send T-72s into combat with optical rangefinders and all the gear they had in the 1970s and if they did they would expect it to not do so well.... so why would they expect anything different from any ship?

Russia wont be fighting US ships, more likely any conflict will be with US vassels... for which even the unupgraded Moskva would be a serious challenge... which western country or west aligned country could ignore 16 Vulcan missiles?

Part of the excessive costs of the upgrade of the Nahkimov will be that these systems are all new and they haven't put these things in any new ships yet... the Nahkimov is a battlecruiser so its electronics and systems wont be the same as those fitted to Corvettes and Frigates... and the sensors they are connected to will be different too, so brand new equipment for the Battlecruiser, will be the same for the next upgrade PtG and perhaps any Atlant class they decide to upgrade too, but will be related to the new stuff they are going to put into new Destroyers they will be building soon and new cruisers they will be building next.

The systems they put into the upgraded Udaloy might be related but not likely the same because the upgraded Udaloys wont be destroyers any more they will be large frigates.

ALAMO wrote:Blue water navy meaning differs from the 70s perspective bro.
By a few inches I would say

The PRC will not agree

You can also include Japan and South-Korea in the same sentence.

These are the world's premium trading countries by more than "a few inches"

Russia has recently taken a renewed interest in Africa. BRICS is going to expand to many other countries in the near future. Russia has some important trading partners in the Americas as well. Most of these countries will be trading via sea lanes. If Russia wants to be competitive in the world markets it will have to protect it's trade interests abroad.

GarryB wrote:I would say experience has shown that only old non upgraded ships of the Russian navy seem to be the vessels that get hit or suffer damage... the Moskva was considered useful enough for them to use it, and regardless of what happened to it the fact that it was armed with OSA and perhaps the fight fighting systems on board were not properly functioning suggests that perhaps a proper upgrade might have led to it still being on the top of the water.

I don't even think this is the case

I think it's safe to say that Moskva was not sunk by missiles , or mines,

We can say either it was truly an ammo detonation,

Or those surface drones came and did a surprise hit

Which all in all, is fine, because it was the first such attack which happened and caught the VMF off guard

In fact what it proved was that had Moskva had a small escort like 22160, or even 22800, utilizing ANAPA sonar module for anti sabotage,

The drone would have been picked up, although in stormy conditions maybe it would have made it more difficult,

And a machine gunner could have picked them off once the sonar crew alerted them to the incoming threat

I don't think that the situation merits a criticism of even older surface warships like Moskva, who in surface warfare could do well, but probably never expected an attack like that one

It was a situation which could catch any ship in such a situation

Look at the USS Cole during Iraq, when a RHIB boat loaded with explosives put a giant hole into the hull

The only reason it was salvaged was that it was in port, and then a heavy lift ship took it back to the US

IMO that's why people thought it was a failure of SAMs ,

But now we can safely say, it was not a AsHm attack

We have seen enough of those drones hitting the bridge, Olenegorsky Gorniak,  and other attempts on Vasiliy Bykov at relatively equal ranges, and even farther

To ascertain that Moskva was the victim of a surface drone attack





In fact the strike occurred in the same vicinity, and although pics are not clear, we can see a hole roughly the same as with Olenegorsky Gorniak, or USS Cole

Moskva is a product of bad luck, the ships technologies could still perform in surface to surface warfare

It's just at that time, who was prepared for a plastic hull small object, zooming in stormy weather, completely below hull , and exploding on contact?

It's a lesson learned, but the other Slava cruisers Varyag and Marshal Ustinov are still combat capable ships and simply should be updated with their own sonars to protect against this sort of attack

Instead of manned machine-gun posts all ships should be equipped with such devices.
Networked with the ships radars, sonars and optronics.

I agree an optical electronic system with a tracking system with option to switch to slaved sight could be an ideal solution

I don't think these older warships have an issue, s300 and OSA are still very potent

It's the surface drones which are,

Also another thing to consider are jamming systems

Unlike IZD-53 these drones are not utilizing neural networks , YET

So that means that have a man in the loop, usually remote control

So that means you can probably also install a jammer onboard, and fry the systems onboard controls

Meaning the gun could be a last effort, if the radar/sonar can pickup the drone from adequate distance and cue the jammer

Doesn't have to be a krasukha type, but something with range to at least 10km - at least until these ships are scrapped entirely

Until then, they are still needed and useful

OSA and S-300 would still be able to shoot down subsonic missiles of the type the Ukraine had...

I personally think it might have launched an S-300 SAM whose main rocket motor might have failed to fire and it dropped back onto the deck and burned and started an internal fire that the fire fighting equipment on board was unable to deal with.

HMG mounts and just sailors with small arms can put up a lot of tracer ammo to scare away manned speed boats or attack aircraft, or just hit and destroy small surface targets like floating mines or surface drones.

There was even talk of using supercavitating rounds from the 30mm gatlings to shoot into the water a few metres deep to destroy incoming enemy torpedoes.

Older ships the size of Moskva have enormous potential for carrying and operating their own drones too... there is no reason to say a drone swarm can't be dealt with using large calibre HE rounds like a 152mm airburst round set to explode amongst the enemy swarm, and of course your own drones going out to knock enemy drones down too.

Even EMP shells could be used, and of course on a large ship there is space and power and cooling potential for lasers and radar jammers... a drone swarm rendered blind is not effective either.

Crazy numbers:
The source said that the cost of repairing "Admiral Nakhimov" exceeded 200 billion rubles.

https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/18573155