Aircraft Carrier Admiral Kuznetsov: News #2

The discussion was about ship launched Tsirkons vs. air launched ones, the difference being the smaller booster and everything else remaining the same, which is the fair comparison.

The issue is that he Zircon will be designed with the size and weight and length limitations of the UKSK and UKSK-M launch tubes in mind and not so much about the space and dimensions and weight issues on an Su-33 on the Kuznetsov.

Just taking the large solid rocket booster off the end might not be enough to make it capable of being air launched from the K.

A customised model specifically designed to be carried by medium and heavy fighters (Mig-29KR and Su-33) would make it rather more flexible and capable for shipboard use... especially a model that could be carried by a naval Su-57.

Of course we know there are other air launched missiles being developed, among them a hypersonic one compatible with internal carriage for the Su-57

Because of the size dimensions and weight limitations we can probably assume such a weapon could be carried centrally by an Su-33 and as long as it weighs less than 3 tons it should be able to be carried on the Kuznetsov by an Su-33... 3 tons would equate to a full AAM payload for that aircraft... so it should be able to operate fine.

One of those to the bridge, mission control systems or VLS of any vessels and it is game over for them, no need to blow them to pieces.

Indeed the speed and manoeuvrability is more important because it enables it to get a better chance of a hit, so even with a light warhead it will do some serious damage which makes it more vulnerable to the next weapon headed its way... even if that next weapon is slower and less capable.

The conventional deterrence is based in actual capabilities of conventional forces, not considering nukes. This is necessary to settle disputes among superpowers in the international arena, where existential threat is out of question and only influence and economical interests are at stake. Nobody will end the world over such issues.

You say that, but when there are five US carrier groups bearing down on you and your radar shows hundreds of aircraft and thousands of missiles inbound, the launch of a single nuke to meet them half way with an airburst in their midst could make them stop their attack and rethink their strategy.

They wont need to sink the entire enemy fleet most of the time to get their message across.

In fact a single submarine laid mine in the path of the enemy forces could change the mood of the enemy completely.

So back to the topic, of course naval strike is one crucial mission of the carrier air wing, maybe the main one.

Read the quote above... if naval strike is so damn critical why is the K getting an upgrade to remove its twelve Granit anti ship missiles?

The Russian carrier wing till the last few years has been the Su-33 which has had air to air capability only for 90% of its operational life.

The K is an air defence carrier, it is not a US strike carrier.

It is absurd to talk about fighters taking care of the defence of the fleet if they cannot down the attackers, what kind of BS is that?

WTF are you talking about... of course the fighters will defend the airspace over the ships... but what sort of long range force can you have with less than two dozen fighters? Any long distance flights away from the ships means they are on their own in the middle of the ocean... why do you see that as a good thing?

Will they also have to abstain from performing DCA missions and shoot enemy fighters down because of fears of "starting a big conflict"?

Well obviously in peace time they can't go flying around shooting down planes in international airspace... only the americans and the Israelis are allowed to do that...

Rules of engagement apply.

What is the fundamental difference between shooting n enemy fighters down and sinking their carrying vessel?

An aircraft that launches an attack against your ships can be fired upon in self defence. Going on to then try to sink the ship that aircraft operates from is an escalation that would need approval from a higher level.

It is not necessary for the ship that was attacked to be the ship that sinks the enemy ship, a friendly sub could do the honours... to use carrier based aircraft for the revenge attack would require an aircraft to be loaded up with a suitable missile and then launched to fly all the way to the enemy ship... something that will take quite a bit more time than one of the aircraft that shoots down the enemy aircraft scanning the sea in the direction the enemy aircraft came from to look for the ship to sink and then passing that information to the nearest ship or sub with a Zircon.

In naval as much as in land domain, the main role of the air power is strike, while attaining air superiority is just a means to that end.

Tell that to the Russian Army... the airpower component of the Russian Navy is TINY... having maybe a half dozen Su-33s and a dozen or two MiG-29KRs... what sort of air dominance will they be achieving over any foreign navy or land based sea power?

The K and her aircraft are there to protect the ships from enemy air power and enemy submarines.

Second, if air power is not used for strike and also not for AD, then why on Earth do you propose Russia to have carriers??

The Russian Navy does not have a Su-34 or Tu-160 equivalent and does not need either...

The K is for air defence.

Well, they did not on Shaposhnikov, and it was an obvious candidate for testing.

Maybe decided that the Udaloys don't need more TORs and in order to save money.

Maybe an upgraded system planned for land and sea based platforms might be in development that could incorporate the new mini missiles for short range anti drone use might be in the works.

Maybe the much smaller 9M100 from the redut system are cheaper and smaller and lighter and easier to carry in large numbers in a launch system that is already standardised to take larger missiles (9M96) too which makes them more flexible.

The fact that they have external deck mounted launch tube versions suggests they want to keep using them... but can those deck mounted launchers be recessed into the deck after the old much larger rotary launchers have been removed?

They were cutting the hull wide open anyway, so why not just make another cut? scratch As long as all the radars and wiring are already there, it was quite easy to upgrade.

The upgraded destroyers were called Frigates, so perhaps they decided a frigate didn't need any more TOR missiles.

I would think a cell based system would be cheaper in terms of operations with little to no maintenance and all missiles ready to fire.

In any major naval battle the Russian carrier(s) and the air components (even the Mig-29K's) would most likely have to do a lot of defending at first. This is exactly why the Kirov's and the Kuznetsov have these unprecedented amount of air defense assets on board. The fighters would probably only switch to the strike role once they survive the pew pew from the other side.

The core of the issue is that as carrier based fighters, the Su-33 and MiG-29KR are optimised for air to air, and AFAIK the Su-33 can't even carry air to ground ordnance except the anti ship version of the Kh-31 which would be something they carried to deal with a troublesome frigate or corvette rather than a carrier group.

Anti ship weapons tend to be enormous and heavy and not something aircraft will be flying around carrying just in case they need them.

Even if an Su-33 could take off with a 2-3 ton Zircon between its engine nacelles... odds are it would have to use it or dump it because it would likely not be able to land with it.

Edit: The initial strike from Russia will be air assets, but in the form of the Tu-22's and Mig-31K's.

Carrier groups attacking Russia will be dealt with using land and sea and air based assets including but not limited to Kh-32 and Kinzhal and Iskander, but for Russian surface ships coming under attack they have no ocean they have to hold and protect, they are free to manouver to their own advantage.

Shaposhnikov is a more of a prototype ship. It's even "downgraded" as a frigate atm. Expect some more stuff on the follow up Udaloy ships - and all this would eventually benefit the new destroyers.

Well that raises another possibility... they might have different grades of upgrade and that one was a cheap one. The next grade up might change the rotary TOR for recessed fixed cell TOR like Shtil-1 replaced naval BUK with its single arm launcher.

Yeah, that is why replacing obsolete drum magazine 9K95 with upgraded Tor modules, sounds tempting.
It would not double, but rather quadruple the number of missiles on hand scratch
Why they did not?

Perhaps their calculations showed the number of guidance channels would mean the extra missiles would not be able to be fired in time before the ship got overwhelmed... hard to say...

Maybe they think the new 9M100 missiles might offer superior performance in a missile launch system standardised with larger SAMs... would certainly be interesting to see if they could integrate TOR and new TOR and also mini anti drone TOR missiles into the Redut system in an efficient way.

Shapo modernization was actually a big one, including cutting the hull, making the wiring for Ch-35, installing USKS, replacing the gun with the whole magazine ... That is why I see no consistency there. There was no better option for it.

Maybe it was already expensive and they didn't want to spend more?

Maybe they didn't want the extra weight of much more densely packed missiles on the ship...

Well, this "downgrade" brought up a ship with much better parameters, this kind of degradation is always warmly welcomed Very Happy
This would actually benefit mostly the existing fleet.

Its size should allow it to be a comfortable ship to operate for longer periods than smaller ships further from home base.

They have Kuz and Nachimov in a dock, PtG warming up for same after N refit. Two 1154, several 1155. Those would benefit from a 9K95 modification.
For new models, I would expect rather Redut to fill that gap, combined with Pancyr

That could be the crux of the problem... why develop and make new upgraded deck penetrating cell launch tubes for new TOR missiles if it is eventually going to be replaced with Redut with 9M100 missiles?

Developing a recessed deck mounted fixed cell TOR launcher only to upgrade existing ships that already have TOR... because the deck space is there when the old TOR is removed, or surface deck mounts for a TOR launcher that sits on top of the deck for other ships that didn't previously have TOR but have space on deck.

Shaposhnikov got a few new radars, the "new" UKSK and the "simple" Uran-M. It´s air defence was not changed because the navy wanted to keep some proven systems. The Vinogradov will receive more Uran-M´s, more UKSK modules and the Shtil-1 air defence system. Maybe the third ship will get Redut. Or the new radar mast. The third ship could be the "standard" for the rest of the modernisations.

Is the Shtil-1 replacing the TOR in the Vinogradov? Maybe the third ship will get a fixed cell revised TOR system and then they will have one of each to compare maybe?

Sovs are gone which means Udaloy are outdated and weak. Their short range AD isn't enough and their missiles were not the best for antishiping.

Actually their subsonic IR guided anti ship missiles would be interesting in terms of their anti ship performance, though pretty poor compared with the Sovs Moskit, they are pretty potent compared with Harpoon and Exocet.

Without modification they are not really capable ships. And with the slow production of Gorshkov they kinda had to upgrade them.

Their more reliable propulsion system made them better than the Sovs.

Zircons are D&D level fantasy for this hulk

Zircons would be a waste of space, but UKSK launch tubes would allow anti sub rockets to be carried to protect the ship, and of course the UKSK-M might add S-500 level SAMs to the mix if that is what that upgrade is for of course.

It is not like they are not going to get new carriers, they have already made it pretty clear that they are.

The point is that they inherited a large number of ships from the Soviet Union and most of them are time expired and needing to be upgraded or replaced.

There is not point in scrapping the Kuznetsov and building a brand new CVN because they have no place to base it, no ships to operate with it, no real use for it because they don't have the ships it would operate with because the cost of building it would take money from the corvettes and frigates and upgraded ships and all the little and not so little support ships they are also building let alone all the development work they are doing at all there navy ports and shipyards.

When building a fleet you don't start with big ships, you start with the useful smaller numbers ships... especially with modular designs... the difference between a frigate and a cruiser is the size of the radar and sonar antenna and the number of UKSK and Redut launcher you can fit on. Everything else is essentially the same... but the bigger ship can carry a lot more, further, and longer.

A corvette is smaller and might give up some capabilities for better capabilities in some areas, but you don't normally use them on their own so that is fine.

If there is an enemy sub in your waters you don't send one corvette to deal with the problem so if you send three plus a frigate then between them they will have enough sensors and helicopters and anti sub weapons to get the job done.

Their new ships are multirole... in the 1980s only their cruisers were big enough to have anti ship weapons and anti sub weapons and anti air weapons so they could do any job... their destroyers had a primary capability with secondary defence weapons, so the Sovremmenys had Moskit anti ship missiles but also had RBU launchers and torpedos to defend against subs and good gun armament too and reasonable air defence capacity. The Udaloys were optimised for anti sub so it had a decent sonar but its air defence and anti ship capacity were self defence only really.

Corvettes were one trick ponies... anti ship normally.

These days a corvette with a UKSK launcher can carry a mix of anti ship and anti sub and land attack weapons at one time, and while it might not have the best sonar it will have a helicopter and would operate with other vessels with better sonars.... we have seen them operate corvettes in the Caspian Sea attack land targets 2,500km away using calibr missiles... even the Kirov couldn't do that in the Cold War.... no Soviet ship could... at best they had nukes on SLBMs and cruise missiles which is rather less useful.

The Russian ship building capacity is increasing and as they make more civilian ships, those ships will need protection and support around the world, which is what they are also building.

The Russian Navy will not be enormous, but it also wont be like the British or French Navies where they have aircraft carriers but no cruisers to support them.

The purpose of a cruiser is to defend other ships... corvettes and Frigates defend themselves.. barely... Destroyers and Cruisers have missile types and capacities to defend other ships in a group.

Aircraft carriers for the Russian fleet are there to coordinate that air defence and provide highly mobile air defence missile platforms (fighters) and aircraft carried radar that missiles and aircraft cannot fly under its coverage (AWACS). They both also provide eyes and ears to locate and identify new threats and targets... so you don't have to wonder what that blip on the radar screen is. You can launch a couple of fighters to go and have a look so you know what is around you.

It is not perfect. Aircraft can be shot down... but these aircraft are essentially operating above a Russian air defence network that is the equivalent of dozens of S-400 and S-500 and hundreds of S-350 and TOR and Pantsir batteries along with 2S38 and Tunguska and all sorts of other systems including Igla-S and Verba and large numbers of radar and EO systems.... those AWACS aircraft and fighters are well protected as well as providing protection to the ships they will be operating with.

Having aircraft and being able to quickly check blind spots like the airspace behind the radar shadow of an Island or just see down to the level of the wave tops out several hundred kms just makes your ships safer and gives you more time to plan a defence and a response to attacks.

Being able to send fighters out to investigate a single target approaching that might be an airliner or it might be an attack aircraft... it would not be the first time the US has used civilian transponder codes for an attack, but sending armed aircraft out to have a look gives you reassurance and situational awareness that no ship surface based radar can provide.

Sure, as long as you are to keep it 1500km away from ashore.

Why?

The air defence capacity over a modern and upgraded Russian Navy force would be comparable to the air defence capacity over the Crimea or St Petersberg... with an aircraft carrier with fighters it will be even better protected.... are you saying the ships of the Russian Navy will need to keep their distance from places like Fiji or Argentina or even the Falklands Islands or the Solomon Islands?

There are only a tiny number of airforces that could challenge the Russian Navy at sea, and with Onyx and Zircon missiles on board and most ships being equipped with S-350 and S-400 type missiles at the medium and long range and TOR and Pantsir at the shorter ranges I would think any enemy force wanting to pick a fight had better be prepared to lose a lot of aircraft... and those ships and subs could easily be carrying 2,500km range land attack cruise missiles as well as soon 5,000km range cruise missiles too.

You mean 2000-2500km.

Even at that distance they could use existing land attack cruise missiles to hit land bases and ports and disrupt any country that wants to interfere in their presence... pretty soon that range will double with newer model missiles of larger calibre and length being loaded into the UKSK launch tubes.