Russian Navy: Status & News #1

TR1 wrote:

Nice size comparison between the Gepard and a 671RTMK.

Victor III class next to Acula class?

According to the article, the propulsion assemblies from the Burnyy have already arrived at Kirovenergomash (who overhauled the Vikras turbines, which functioned flawlessly during trials). They will be repaired and delivered to Dalezavod, where the Burnyy has been tied up since 2005. The factory is planning to carry out similar work on another one of the Pacific's 956s.

Excellent news... with the engines fixed up the Sovremmeny class were a handsome well balanced ship. I wonder if they might take the opportunity to replace the arm launchers with vertical launch tubes for Shtil-1? Probably too much effort to replace the Sunburns with UKSK tubes because of the problems of replacing an externally mounted missile system with an internally mounted system, but I would think the VLS for Shtil might actually take up less space than the arm launcher with its ammo handling system below deck.

Victor III class next to Acula class?

Akula and Victor III are the western codenames for those vessels, though the Russian Akula is called Typhoon in the west.

Might be none planned, but during overhauls they often fit new stuff, and the old launchers require a lot more maintainence than the new bin launchers.

Plus with the introduction of the new tube launched missiles for the Army the old rail launched models might go out of production.

The focus for the Russian Navy is standardisation and unification of systems, weapons, sensors, and propulsion. It wont happen over night but it is certainly something that will have enormous benefits in the long term making these sorts of changes well worth it when possible.

I don't think a full upgrade with UKSK VLS and other major upgrades are needed or even possible and for now even if it just has the engines fixed it will be a useful ship.

I do think that over the next decade of its service it will make sense to replace the obsolete parts... certainly new model Moskits with extended flight ranges can be fitted... perhaps even 32 Uran launchers installed to replace them in above deck angled launchers as the below deck UKSK launchers would be tricky to fit on such a design because of their depth and width.

The CIWS and the medium range SAM on the other hand should just be a drop in unit... the under deck space for the Shtil would be enormous as it had rotary magazines with missiles plus an automated missile handling system that would allow missiles to be taken from the rotary magazines and raised up through a hatch to the single arm launcher ready to be launched. Equally there would need to be room for crew to get inside such a structure to monitor the state of the missiles and to perform maintainence, so removing all of that and replacing it with vertical launch bins that don't require access from below decks should actually allow a significant increase in ready to fire missiles and a significant reduction in weight and complication/maintainence.

As such it would make sense to replace the older system during a routine overhaul and replace all the arm launchers on Russian boats when the replacement is ready to go to sea.

I was reading about the various destroyers in reserve/decommissioned from the Ru Navy.

It was amazing, how many are actually pretty new - even a number launched in the 1990s.
Ofcourse they arent up to the level of the nuclear 12k tons stealth destroyers being planned. BUT, they are still pretty good ships. I wonder how far from combat operability most of them are.

Ofcourse, with no Cold War, maybe some should be kept in reserve. Maybe some could be sold for use by other navies.

Its a tricky situation. Maybe one issue is, cost of having them on the open seas. Maybe, if Russia needs a large navy, its time to think... how can it be used in peacetime?
Maybe also an alternative to NATO? I'm not sure..

Many of the older ships are still very servicable, but the main problem can be gauged with this Sovremminy class destroyer... even replacing the main missiles with new missiles you are putting the level of firepower on an older destroyer that is half that you are putting on new Corvettes!

The much larger older vessels can be fitted with larger more powerful sensors like radar and sonar, but the irony is that their main weapon capacity will be less than a new corvette.

Used together with a modern corvette gives you long range sensors and long range weapons, but with the range and speed and endurance limitations of a corvette.

Having said that, ships get upgrades during overhauls and replacing old systems and weapons that might not be in production any more means greater unification of modern systems and weapons which makes training and use and support much cheaper and easier, while making the vessel more effective.

With ships like the Sov and the Slava that had very large externally mounted main missiles it becomes quite a problem to install the new UKSK launchers, mainly because the internal space they require needs to be freed up and the old missiles tended to be mounted near the sides of the ship, whereas bin launchers for VLS tend to fit better near the centre of the ship where the hull space is the deepest, but in the Sov and Slava there is superstructure there. The Kirvak was chosen as the basis for upgrading (Talwar) because its large quad launcher was mounted in the centre of the deck so removing it and the systems below it allowed the fitting of vertical launch bins for missiles.

With the Sovremmeny class the single arm launcher is not the entire system unlike the Moskits sitting in their tubes above a deck that might have all sorts of things below it not related to the Moskits above. The Single arm launchers for the SA-N-7 system will be sitting directly above several rotary magazines holding SA-N-7 missiles in a large mechanism designed to rotate missiles to a lift to raise them up to the single arm launcher ready to fire. This means that at least one deck below the single arm launcher is also part of the system that needs to be replaced, so taking all that out would leave lots of room for bin launchers and the required wiring. With no moving parts the sealed launchers should be much easier to maintain and offer a much better rate of fire and of course use new longer range more capable missiles that are standard amongst other vessels in the fleet.

It doesn't need to be changed yet, but in 5 years time when the Shtil-1 is in service and all the bugs are worked out you can swap the single arm launchers out during overhauls and reduce maintainence costs for those ships that use them.

Well first the Shtil has to even enter service.

PAK FA isn't in service either but its service entry is likely.

Obviously PAK FA is a clear priority but as we have seen the models of it for both land and naval forces... I rather suspect that naval Shtil will be used to upgrade existing vessels using the single arm launchers, while new ships will likely get Redut VLS.

I would expect at the very least they will get radar and sensor upgrades and a bit of rewiring as well as the engine upgrade now, and in 5 years time or so new CIWS and Shtil-1 missiles and new radars to take advantage of the new missiles.

If they knew what they were doing... and I think they do, the design will be modular and will fit in the space of a Shtil single arm launcher so one can be removed and a VLS bin dropped in.

It is very much a case of "they have developed a new T-90AM... except the new T-90AM is simpler and cheaper to maintain and operate and is made of new parts instead of parts from the 1980s that might no longer be in production in Russia any more.

The new Shtil-1 missile will likely go into production and the production of the older missiles will cease... which will leave existing ships that use it... which is only the Sov class anyway with no choice but to use the new missile.

Unless they have some real problems with Redut I suspect the Shtil-1 will be for the Sov class and export related vessels.

We might end up with arm-launcher on 11356 ships, and that would seal the fate of the Shtil VLS.

VLS systems offer plenty of advantages over the single arm launcher and would be seen as a desirable goal for all users of vessels currently using single arm launchers.

All the VLS missiles are ready to launch, are protected in sealed launchers. There are only hatches as moving parts with no machinery or ammo handling systems that need to be maintained. In terms of use of space a VLS is vastly more efficient than any rotary magazine system, so it is smaller, lighter, cheaper, simpler, and offers no limit on rate of fire with all missiles ready to fire.

Anyways the issue with the 956s has always been their propulsion, first and foremost.

Exactly, so with the engine upgraded it should be a useful vessel for some time to come. Further upgrades can make it cheaper and easier to operate while improving its capabilities.

...another Sierra... awesome.

No need for that sort of range with unguided rockets.

Many gunboats and landing vessels like Zubr have the standard 140mm unguided rocket used by naval forces to saturate a beach.
Vessels like the Ivan Rogov class landing ship, the Zubr hovercraft and small patrol vessels often carry them with both HE and incendiary rockets.

Would 140mm unguided rockets be useful for the Mistral?

Mistral is a huge target and would not operate within 50km of a defended beach, so no the unguided rockets would not be useful for Mistral, though a few land attack cruise missiles might be useful for hitting comms centres or enemy troop concentrations with cluster warheads.

Are 122mm and 140mm lazer guided warheads existing and if yes how prevalent are they on these gunbouts and landing craft?

In the case of a landing it is very unlikely they would need or want laser guided rockets. Keep in mind that in terms of precision targets they will likely have the naval version of Coalition with twin 152mm guns firing GLONASS guided shells up to 70kms for point targets. Rockets would not be fired as small targets, it would be fired into an open area that enemy forces might be gathering in and its job is to scatter large amounts of shrapnel, or to start fires.

Laser guided rocket artillery is like a solid slug for a shotgun... in terms of accuracy and range... you are better off with an assault rifle. Rockets delivering HE or Fire or smoke don't need precision, their virtue is lots of HE/Fire/Smoke arriving all at once with no time to take cover and covering a wide area at once.

And why cant external silos for the brahmos be developed? Can the sovremennys get equipped with a large amount side by side harpoon-like AshM silos?

There is no reason why the Sovs couldn't have their Moskits replaced with Onyxs', but it is still only 8 missiles ready to launch. New Russian corvettes with two UKSK launchers can carry double that.

You could probably fit 16 URANIUM missiles... it all comes down to what the Russian Navy wants.

Against many ships the Kh-35 is still a very deadly missile. For a target protected with AWACS and other layered defences you might want something more potent... not suggesting for a second that Uran is rubbish.