Russian Navy: Status & News #1

As far as I know the latest models of BUK have a range of 70kms or so and have a much more significant warhead than the TOR which should make it more effective against heavier targets.

Not all engagements occur in open ocean and not all aircraft have long range anti ship missiles all the time.

The British experience in the Falklands showed that their tracking radars were not so good at targets coming from land and there were several cases where British warships had to move close to land for their mission... either fire support for land forces or to protect shipping dropping off cargo. In these situations they were very vulnerable to low flying aircraft carrying dumb bombs. A missile like BUK would have been more useful than TOR in such a scenario because the BUK can engage targets at extended ranges.
A serious threat to Argentine shipping was British helicopters like the Lynx armed with Sea Skua missiles which have a range to allow launches at standoff ranges outside short range SAMs.

Of course when not operating alone... and operating in a group the BUK would allow the ship that carries it to cover other ships as well as itself whereas with all vessels armed with short range weapons each has to protect itself. BUK offers more flexibility... and to be quite honest the sooner a target can be dealt with the better.

Rosonboronexport says 32 km for naval BUKs.

No such thing as Naval BUK.

Uragan is the Russian model of the exported Shtil, and Ezh is the vertical launched Russian version of the for export Shtil-1. The BUK-M3 which is the land based missile I was referring to has a reported range of up to 70km, though that has not been confirmed from multiple sources.

It would not be talked about by Rosonboronexport because it is for Russian use like Oniks as opposed to Yakhont which is for export and has reduced performance parameters. The Russian military have said they don't want old stuff so I think it is fair to assume they will want the latest model in the Uragan/Buk family for their vessels.

I knew you were referring to the BUK-M3, but there's no confirmation that it's been deployed for Naval Defense.

They are only buying new stuff now...

Nazi's dreamed of making space based weapon to be used on Earth. Cheap
to make.

You mean cheap to dream. Enormously expensive to make and put up and incredibly vulnerable once in place.

Maybe telescopes in space also have military use if used to
magnify sun and direct energy to Earth?

The focal length of hundreds of kms would make them useless for anything else. Take a magnifying glass and focus the sunlight onto a piece of paper. The distance the sun is concentrated into its smallest size is called the focal length... where the paper burns the most readily. The problem is that the shape (curve) of the magnifying glass determines its focal length so as a space telescope to use a focal length to concentrate the suns rays on something on the ground would mean the sensor used to take photos of deep space would need to be at ground level too because that is where the image is focussed.

A more likely use for such telescopes is to locate and carefully examine the satellites of other nations... especially the top secret ones.

By looking at the type and size of the antennas and equipment it will make it possible to work out potential performance and capabilities of enemy satellites. It might also reveal potential defence mechanisms too.

Excellent news.

Imagine how many USUK bins you could fit in an Orlan class vessel!!!

I wonder if the new 152mm guns the navy is working on will be ready to fit to these vessels?

It will be decades before they will be able to make Kirov sized vessels again... very simply because vessels this size tie up the limited number of ship yards that can handle this size vessel.
Now these shipyards will also want to build other vessels as well like large gas carriers and oil tankers so by greatly reducing the amount of effort to get big ships you ease pressure in other production areas.
Frigates and destroyers are simply not good enough to support a carrier... you need a cruiser... in the US case that is an AEGIS class cruiser, and for Russia that is either Slava or Kirov... or both.

It is easier and cheaper to rip the guts out of a Kirov and upgrade it than to build it from scratch... very simply to upgrade all you need is space to sit it for a few years while workers work on it. Building from scratch requires bigger cranes and larger facilities.

Very simply if you scrap the Kirovs and Slavas now there is no point in looking at carriers. And if you are not thinking about carriers then you don't even need frigates because they will be dead meat.
Ships are vulnerable to air attack and the only solution that is worth a damn is to have your own air power with your ships at all times.

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the Kirov or Slava designs... they were excellent vessels and still are.

The perfection of wide scale use of vertical launch missiles... which the Kirov pioneered BTW, will make it a much more potent vessel.

It will be able to operate as an anti carrier vessel with Brahmos and Oniks, or become a long range danger with 5,000km range cruise missiles. Its air defences will likely be formidable with the potential for enormous numbers and types of SAM including sea based versions of SAM systems based on the S-400, S-500, Vityaz, Morfei, and Verba.

... there is no point in building a 60 ton carrier right now without a navy big enough to support its operations. New support network needs to be built to enable the full capability of a carrier force to be realised and part of that support network will include foreign bases and also more capable large support vessels.

On paper the Mistrals are just helicopter carriers, but in the Russian fleet their command and communications suite actually makes them good solutions as flag ships to lead battle groups.

How sad is that...

It will be much better to have Kirov and Slava class vessels tooled up for that role because their size and capacity makes them better suited to the role.

If the US simply decided to spend the money needed to start a little insurrection in Venezuela to get another puppet into power that will spend money on US military products instead of Chinese and Russian stuff... right now... apart from a little verbal complaining there is actually little the Russians could do about it.

Being able to send a carrier group on the other hand for an impromptu visit sends a message... the important thing is that it sends a message to the US, but also to Hugo himself that there was extra value in buying products from Russia. It is like offering better after sales support. It means he knows that if there is an earthquake or tsunami in Venezuela that he wont have to rely on the embarrassment (for him) to accept US help... a couple of Mistrals arriving offshore with trucks to distribute aide and Helos to search for the missing etc will make a greater difference than all the positive media releases of talk about support.

The problem with old hulls specially rusty hulls is that they tend to be
less sea worthy as time passes by , metal takes its wear and tear and a
15-20 years old ship over the period of next 15-20 years would be
spending a lot of time in maintenance in the yards then out at sea
compared to a new ship build today.

The wear and tear is on systems not hulls.
The Kirov and Slava class vessels were well designed, capable and popular vessels.
Much of the older systems required relatively large crews, so a significant upgrade will greatly improve performance.
These are not Iowa class battleships we are talking about where 50 men are required to operate each gun turret. The gun turrets of the Kirov were largely automated modern guns and any new guns will be even more automated. The old vertical launch systems on the Kirov had rotating magazines that allowed below deck access and maintainence on the missiles, but the new USUK launch cells will store and monitor the missiles automatically so they will be sealed systems... which will greatly reduce the maintainence work of the crew.

There were actually 5 Kirov class hulls laid down, with the last vessel completed as a command ship, but with very little money making it to the armed forces it was laid up to save on operating costs.

They will spend massive huge amounts in making these ships sea worthy by
adding new weapons , sensors , perhaps refueling its core and changing
its machinery and spending billions of dollars and as she ages he hull
will wear and tear much faster making it less sea worthy.

The money they spend will make the Kirovs in many ways much more similar to other vessels that will enter service in the next few years and that commonality will actually reduce costs for all the vessels.
Any new propulsion system to be fitted to the Kirovs will likely also be fitted to the Kuznetsov when it gets its upgrade/overhaul, and also likely will be used in Russias future carriers after about 2020-2025.
Again commonality within the fleet is a good thing.

The main difference will be in numbers of weapons and types of weapons used and also propulsion, but being able to fit a standard vertical launch system from most naval SAMs and a vertical launch system for pretty much all other weapons on every Russian vessel and the minimising of types of sensors that can launch and control the entire range of weapons is a huge step forward for the Russian navy that will lead to much cheaper operation, simpler maintainence... because spares and support for a destroyers systems will be the same as for a frigates systems for example. It will also make Russian vessels much more flexible with a wide range of choices for load outs for different missions.

I think they should spend money in buying capital ships like more
Gorshkov , 6-8 mistral and build new aircraft carrier , buying old ships
like Ukraina or spending billions in resurrecting is not worth the
money if you compare the investement made versus its sea worthy
capability in next 20 years

The Gorshkov is not a capital ship... it is a Frigate!
They don't need more than about 4 Mistrals. Mistrals are too big for the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea, and would really only be of use in the Pacific to protect the Kuril Islands and support operations in the Pacific, and in the Northern Fleet to support arctic operations.
They are not able to perform a carrier role in the sense that they offer air cover for a naval force... they are good for what they were designed for.
There is no point building a new carrier or class of carriers till you have the ships they will need to support them... and to be honest the shipyards making the new carrier would the the shipyard making the new large ships to support the carrier. Which comes first the chicken or the egg. Well it is not rocket science. A large ship is useful on its own... a Carrier on its own is vulnerable. A carrier with large ship support is the full tool set... not invincible, but far more powerful than any of its parts on their own.

A full upgrade and overhaul of the Kirovs and Slavas will mean they will be able to operate fine for the next 40 years... as long as they are looked after and like any other system gets regular upgrades and overhauls.
Brand new scratch build vessels would need a lot more testing and fitting out to make sure there are no design flaws and even when proven they will also need to be looked after and get regular upgrades and overhauls.

Only problem with old ships is that they demand a very large crew, as they are little automated.

The problem with the Iowa class vessels is that they were WWII designed battleships with enormous guns with little or no automation in their operation. This meant huge numbers of sailors were needed just to man each gun turret. The upgrades applied to them were largely cosmetic like some SAMs, CIWS, and some tomahawk launchers and new comms etc. Overall it was basically kept as a gunfire support vessel so they really just wanted those guns so a major upgrade was not warranted.

The Kirov and Slava class vessels were already modern vessels and upgrades and overhauls for these ships could automate most systems to the point where their crews are a small fraction of what they were, which at about 700 was not exactly enormous for a ship this size. During Korea and Vietnam the Iowa class vessels had 2,000 more sailors than the Kirov and even after an upgrade it had 1,100 more sailors.

The difference of course is that the Kirovs and Slavas are getting complete changes from relatively large and bulky old systems and sensors with new much more modern compact systems and sensors and equipment.

The real question to ask is how many times do they spend at sea in a
year and how many months at the docks , if you look at old ships around
you will see at the year passes by they would spend more time in the
dock then at sea , hence practically they tend to be less useful for
operation purpose and have more maintenance issues.

It is like the Mig-29. If you don't upgrade it you will find the parts for the old systems are hard to find because no one makes them any more. Upgrade to new systems and you can use modern parts which are easier to get and cheaper. I would agree the old Kirov would be difficult to put into service now because for a start the Granit is no longer made in Russia AFAIK. They would have to substitute the Vulkan instead... or if there is a replacement in the works whatever that might be.
The point is that the upgrade for the Kirov will likely include weapons and sensors that will be used by most other new Russian navy vessels so maintaining the Kirov will only be more expensive because instead of 2 USUK vertical launch bins fitted to frigates the Kirov vessels might have 50 or 100.
Go to your local electrical appliance shop and ask for a VCR so you can watch video tapes. You might be surprised how hard it is to still find such things.
The upgrade and overhaul of the Kirov and Slava and for that matter the Kuznetsov should deal with the problems of supporting old out of production systems.

Another thing I didn't cover is that even US carriers are high maintainence and operate on a three role schedule.
Operational, training, and overhaul. 6 Carriers for Russia would enable 3 in the Northern Fleet, and 3 in the Pacific Fleet, and of each of those three one carrier will be at sea, one will be in training and one will be in overhaul. Their support ships will operate in the same cycle.
This will mean that for each carrier you will need a big ship... so it is not a case of banging out 2 large new ships and then banging out 2 carriers and problem solved... you will need rather more big ships to support each carrier. When you have Kirovs and Slavas available... that were designed for the battle group role in the first place... no disrespect meant Austin, but you would be a fool to just scrap them and throw them away.
They might cost 5 billion to upgrade them all in the next 10 years, but in 20 years time that is probably how much each new big ship will cost to build with no guarantee they will get the new design right first time.