Russia's naval doctrine and strategy

kvs wrote:Syria was dredged up as an example of why Russian needs these dinosaurs.    But clearly Russia did not need them in Syria and
this applies to most of Russia's security regions of interest which includes the Middle East and Asia.

Blue water navies are of application far from the own territory. In the case of Russia that would mean, in my understanding, outside of the range where Russian land based sensors, weapons and aviation can be used effectively and with security. Russia does control the airspace of Middle East with their radars, it was not blocked from supplying their land forces in Syria and their long range aviation, transports and even tactical aircraft were able to fly unimpeded there.

Declaring that there are no relevant interest outside of the restricted geographical realm of Eurasian territories close (1000-2000 km) to Russia means (please do not take this personally because is not meant that way):

- To fall in the group I addressed as denying the very need of a navy proper, since most of the functions you need for land commerce and defence of your homeland can be supported by land and air forces based on the Russian territory.
- Being in contradiction with the naval development strategy of your country that foresees the development of Russian interests across the world oceans and to defend them by means of the navy
- Following the West's preferred path for Russian policy. As a matter of fact, one of their main goals vs Russia is to delay and if possible impede their naval development.

We have the USA sending a carrier task groups to North Korea and not actually getting there.   So that would be a fail.
No way in Hell is the USA going to send its carriers to terrorize shipping off of Russia's coasts in the Arctic.  So another fail.
Terrorizing China is not panning out for the yanquis so that is another fail.

I have tried to show with references to professional military sources how these ways of using navy / carriers are doctrinal distortions practised by US because they grew so dominant after WWII that they have ended up thinking that for them anything goes. Classical naval doctrine would never be so foolish to confront advanced land based forces with sea based ones. That is also the reason why I am saying that the problem US faces when they try to pretend their navy is still relevant against Russia or China is not of a military nature but of a psychological one.

Where do the advocates for the white elephants known as carriers see Russia actually using them?  In Latin American, African,
and Indonesian waters?    This really is a show stopper question.   Hypothetical needs are not a valid argument.    Russia has
no policing objectives in parts of the world where carriers could be worth something.    It also has no plans for running colonies
in those regions.  

See above. Naval planing is done long term (a strategy to 2050 was planed in Russia) and in that time they expect to become a world power with as many partners and interests abroad as they can. I personally think they are right, since Realpolitik does not bother with ideology or qualms and if Russia does not strongly develop its economy it will not be capable to keep up with other powers and will end up being subjugated or harmed in one way or another.

Yes, Russia is like a hermit kingdom and that is a good thing for Russia and the world.   It is not trying to replace the Anglo
imperialists and carriers have no value against those targets.   Latin America and Africa have to liberate themselves before
Russia can help them.   There is no scenario in which Russia will install bootlick regimes in those regions.

At the risk of stating the obvious, the involvement of Russia with those countries does not need to be built on the basis of colonialism. In order for those countries to liberate themselves one critical thing they need is powerful allies that deter other powerful and not so fussy countries to meddle in their issues. Think of Venezuela now, or Syria, without allies ready to commerce or militarily cooperate with them they would be besieged to starvation or simply killed.

Since the utility of the US carriers is in clear decline, why would Russia invest in them. To prove it is a power?

We don't need a bit of USN doctrine. VMF currently has a way better planing and means to become a modern and effective navy with a balanced composition, one that actually includes carriers both existing and of new construction. Your military sources are rather unanimous, from what I know, in this regard. Of course, none of them is demanding to emulate the USN, but they are acutely aware of the vulnerabilities a carrier-less navy faces.

So to make it clear, I am not trying you (or anybody for that matter) to agree how fancy carriers are, but I feel compelled to dispute some arguments that keep repeating and to me are clearly the result of misconceptions about the use of air power at sea. It would be great if we could at least build a common ground for the discussion, based on actual military thinking, from both proponents and detractors of carriers, even if each one keeps their own opinion...

This one isn't a dinoraurs. No catapult, no expensive design. 40 kt. 32 mig-29k. Only cheap pantsir for protection with why not 4x12 shtil. No UKSK. No expensive AESA radars. Cost will be almost the same as the heli carrier they are making. Propulsion could be 2 borei's nuks reactors but increase cost.

Can provide air support for the fleet during high sea deployment, radar coverage to detect any ship at more than 1000km away, support land operations, support landings, use as a deterrance with some kh-59mk2 on board and patrol high tension areas like Mediteranean right now. They also have the Kuznetsov so 1 for northern fleet and one for pacific fleet.

Drawback is the lack of real AWACS but that can be solved with some light jet (sukhoi su-80) with AESA pannels on the fusalage.

Personally I'm not a big fan of the 100kt Shtorm which is a fantasy or the 70kt Lamantin which is way too big. Carrier are not meant for WW3.

The unit price ratio between the two ships is about 1:60 not 1:70, anyway i understand perfectly that this example could appear simplicistic or even absurd; in reality i obviously do not advocate the procurement of 60 FREMM frigates for the financiary resources that US Navy allocate for the procurement of a single Ford class with its air wing complement

It ignores the facts of reality that bigger ships are often better equipped and protected than smaller ones.

For the price of one Cold War Kirov class cruiser you could probably buy hundreds of Corvettes... which on paper would be even better equipped... those corvettes could carry four Granits each so five corvettes have the same anti ship fire power as a Kirov for a fraction of the price and it would take a guaranteed five missiles to sink five corvettes whereas maybe three missiles would take a Kirov out of action and limping back to base fighting to not sink...

But honestly that might be economically true but how many T-26 tanks would it take to overwhelm a single Panther.... if the Panther crew resorted to simply ramming them they can keep destroying them after they run out of ammo... the T-26s might get a lucky shot and take out a track or jam the turret or damage the gun, but I think we would all agree the extra cost of building a bigger better tank is worth it most of the time.

Again, I am not advocating big for the sake of big... they don't need 150K ton carriers and 40K ton Cruisers and 20K ton Super Destroyers... and I really don't think fitting them with thousands of missile tubes is a good idea either... they need to be balanced sensible designs that are used in large groups when more missiles are needed.

With land based artillery you don't make it more powerful by fitting more guns... if you need more fire power get extra vehicles and use them in larger numbers... same result with out big heavy unwieldy bohemouths that are terrible to operate and transport because they are so heavy and bulky they don't fit in anything...

This power projection capability would be impossible to exert against enemies employing theirs resources in ways much more efficient for a peer-level conflicts and just this awareness has generated among US Navy's admirals in the latest years the idea of "distributed lethality".

Against Russia their game doesn't work any more but against most of the countries of the world it still would except perhaps China.

Russia has no interest in playing their games and the benefits of air cover are clear in any potential conflict whether it is against Fiji or all of HATO.

Obviously against all of HATO a Russian surface fleet will struggle but the use of hypersonic anti ship missiles and the addition of air power would put them in a much better position to survive and do some damage than they would without air support.

Again it is not so they can fight WWIII that is pointless because the result would not matter either way, but for operations away from Russian support it effectively extends Russias air power reach around the planet to anywhere it is needed.

The point would remain the sea control capability exerted by a single Ford Class carrier with its air wing complement wouln't come even only near to that of 38 FFGX (even employng those tax payer's moneys in a so inefficient way) and wouldn't never be capable to confront in any condition a similar enemy at sea constructed with the same resources.

But those FFGXs would be rather more vulnerable to attack without CAP and air cover than if they were on their own.

That carrier air wing will surely still shine in employing JDAMs and Paveway LGBs against insulated third world enemies with beginning of '60 years AD systems, but would be literally obliterated against an peer enemy employing even a fraction of the resources in a less outdated way.

A Russian air wing with Su-57 would probably do rather well against most current and near future enemies including near peers... especially when they will mainly used to provide air cover for the ships and subs within the group.

it can be done fast with mini-UAV atop a missile- once a target of interest is detected by ship's radar, fire it into its vicinity, separate from it, & investigate it. Tilt-rotor AWACS & MPA been mentioned already. High speed attack/SAR helos may also be used. There r more than 1 way to do things.

There are but spending 10 billion dollars developing tilt rotor technology AWACS would probably cost about the same as the cost to build to CVNs and yet offer rather less performance and value.

Tu-95/142/160s can attack more air bases,etc. with their standoff weapons, creating a huge safety bubble around VMF SAG.

The Vulcan struck an airfield on the Falklands Islands miles away from Argentina and miles away from their fighters and air defences.

To protect the British ships from attack they would have to attack all the dozens of air fields on the Argentine mainland including civilian air fields... and no strategic bomber would last long repeatedly bombing those operating from an air base 10,000km away.

because Venezuela has land borders to circumvent a hypothetical US naval blockade.

They could simply say that any country that accepts goods to bypass the Blockade will be subject to the same sanctions and blockade that Venezuela is... those borders will close... not out of friendship to the US but fear.

in a tit for tat.

When have they ever done that?

no1 country can control the entire planet.

Tell that to Pompous and Trump.

all passenger planes must periodically check in with their controllers, even over the open ocean. The VMF will have no reason to hide & will be warning them to stay away at short intervals, in English.

Unlikely.

Old subs can be converted to carry them as well.

Most old subs are small and sleak and designed to be quiet... their capacity for cargo would be pathetic.

Then, USN ships, subs & planes will be put in reserve, scrapped, or sold to the highest bidder.

Or used to attack and lash out in the hopes of starting a war they can profit from... China and Japan own about a billion dollars in US debt... start a war with both those countries and start the war by declaring the debt void they are not going to pay it back and instantly saved two billion dollars. There are countries they could invade to steal their money.

They could simply declare all the US held gold from international countries to be American property... the UK already did that with Venezuelan gold.

tankers will be convertible to cargo planes;

Which is fine if they had a use for them, but with no navy to support global trade alliances they would spend most of their time on the ground doing nothing...

MiG-31/Su-30/57s have enough range already.

No they don't. None of those three planes could reach anywhere near the middle of the Pacific let alone anywhere they would be needed.

Recently PLAAF flew tanker assisted 10hr mission on Su-30s in the SC Sea from the mainland- the Su-34 has more cabin space & its crew can fly for 20hrs with more refuelings.

What sort of payload were they carrying and would it be enough to fight off an entire air force and defend themselves and the inflight refuelling planes that were supporting them?

they'll have oil platforms with helo decks that can be used by the CG/military. A few converted big tankers joined at anchor in shallow waters will create a cheap mobile base. They can also be towed by NP icebreakers, making them de-facto CVNs, with $Bs saved on their construction, maintenace & use.
In the 21 century, these "ice plows" can be converted to swords & these same swords can be converted to "ice plows" again.

You do know much of northern Russia is inside the arctic circle so they can build airfields and bases on land...

Syria was dredged up as an example of why Russian needs these dinosaurs. But clearly Russia did not need them in Syria and
this applies to most of Russia's security regions of interest which includes the Middle East and Asia.

If the terrorists had been better equipped with TOWs and Stingers having land based airfields and air power might not have been so easy... and the conflict in Syria proved that air power made a significant contribution to the result... particularly bombers with dumb bomb hitting point targets but keeping the costs down.

We have the USA sending a carrier task groups to North Korea and not actually getting there. So that would be a fail.

The US is also making light 5th gen fighters so I assume using your logic that the new twin engined MiG light 5th gen fighter will cost 1.5 trillion and be a total dog too...

Where do the advocates for the white elephants known as carriers see Russia actually using them? In Latin American, African,
and Indonesian waters? This really is a show stopper question. Hypothetical needs are not a valid argument. Russia has
no policing objectives in parts of the world where carriers could be worth something. It also has no plans for running colonies
in those regions.

Let me ask you what are they wasting time upgrading the Kuznetsov and the Kirov class cruisers and the Slava class Cruisers... what would they possibly use them for?

They have landing ships building right now, so there are going to be some 20K+ Russian ships... that simply can't be helped now because they will need destroyers and cruisers and carriers to operate with them.

They have the Kuznetsov... which colony has it been used to maintain in the last 30 years?

[qutoe]Yes, Russia is like a hermit kingdom and that is a good thing for Russia and the world. It is not trying to replace the Anglo
imperialists and carriers have no value against those targets. Latin America and Africa have to liberate themselves before
Russia can help them. There is no scenario in which Russia will install bootlick regimes in those regions.[/quote]

Those countries have the potential to grow and develop just like Russia is trying to and the West is doing its damn best to stop it all... they hate Russia and China because they are both developing and growing and risk taking other countries with them on a development and growth path that the west does not control.

The west will not sit there and do nothing... we have already seen they will take action to ruin or damage anything they can... Brazil puts the B in BRICS and strangely a Trump like leader wins and pulls back from Brazils BRICS commitments... accident?

Venezuela reaches out to Russia and China for help with development they never get from the west because it is not in the interests of the west for them to ascend to the big boy table so they keep them down... and all of a sudden US attention is on Venezuela and there are coup attempts and kidnapping attempts... just watching from the sidelines how many other government in central and south america or africa want to be regime changed by the US for improving ties with Russia to grow and develop as a country.

Russia is not the worlds policeman and I am not suggesting they buy the 10-12 CVNs they would need to take on that role, but they do need a world wide presence and they can only get that with ships, so they need destroyers and cruisers... smaller ships don't have the endurance or level of self protection to operate for long periods away from base, so if you are going to build destroyers and cruisers you will need a certain number of them for them to be useful and available in numbers to be useful. Using the existing CV and adding in time perhaps a couple of CVNs makes the investment in those big ships safer because they are much better protected and safer from potential hostile forces.

Since the utility of the US carriers is in clear decline, why would Russia invest in them. To prove it is a power?

It is not about proving anything... it is about being able to go where they need to and to be safe and secure when they get there.

Russian soldiers in Syria didn't just go with assault rifles and pistols... they took an enormous range of all sorts of weapons and equipment, much of which is secret... but it keeps those soldiers safe while they do their job.

If you had asked me in the mid 1990s where Russian soldiers would be deployed I never would have thought of Syria and to be honest I was worried when they did go in to Syria because Putin has avoided sending in the troops to lots of places despite being asked.

They had the right gear and used it well... you could say the shootdown of the Su-24 was a mistake and Putin underestimated the Saakashvili in Erdogan... and it cost a plane and people, but overall considering it is a real war with terrorists supported with the best equipment super powers can provide without exposing themselves for the hipocrites they are... it has gone rather better than I expected and I suspect a lot of nutters are now dead that would have been heading back to Russia after Assad was gone and causing trouble there... so job well done.

This one isn't a dinoraurs. No catapult, no expensive design. 40 kt. 32 mig-29k. Only cheap pantsir for protection with why not 4x12 shtil. No UKSK. No expensive AESA radars. Cost will be almost the same as the heli carrier they are making. Propulsion could be 2 borei's nuks reactors but increase cost.

Can provide air support for the fleet during high sea deployment, radar coverage to detect any ship at more than 1000km away, support land operations, support landings, use as a deterrance with some kh-59mk2 on board and patrol high tension areas like Mediteranean right now. They also have the Kuznetsov so 1 for northern fleet and one for pacific fleet.

Drawback is the lack of real AWACS but that can be solved with some light jet (sukhoi su-80) with AESA pannels on the fusalage.

Personally I'm not a big fan of the 100kt Shtorm which is a fantasy or the 70kt Lamantin which is way too big. Carrier are not meant for WW3.

Well that is another point... we seem to have worked out that the Redut system with 12 launch tubes should be able to carry either 48 9M96 missiles (of the 60km or 150km range variety) or 192 9M100 short range anti missile missiles... so the potential to make a carrier a heavily protected vessel is pretty easy really... Pantsirs at each corner and a Redut launcher in each corner means 160 Pantsir missiles (8 missiles on the mount and 32 reloads below deck for 40 missiles each mount) plus 768 short range IIR guided missiles like SEA RAM but much better... or a combination of short range missiles and medium and long range missiles with four 12 tube launchers and four deck mounted AA systems... perhaps 6 Duet guns for filling the gaps.... plus an air compliment of 50-60 Su-57s.

Instead of EMAL cats they could use an Airship based AWACS that operates at 40K metres and is unmanned... like thunderbird 5 but inside the atmosphere... it could go up and down and use the trade winds to move really fast if need be and could have radar antennas hundreds of metres long... a laser datalink that you would have to get between the sender and receiver to intercept...

there is no reason a Russian aircraft carrier needs to cost anything like a Ford class... all it needs to do is provide airborne radar and fighter combat air patrol... a few dozen helicopters that could be used for anti sub roles is just a bonus.

Well that is another point... we seem to have worked out that the Redut system with 12 launch tubes should be able to carry either 48 9M96 missiles (of the 60km or 150km range variety) or 192 9M100 short range anti missile missiles... so the potential to make a carrier a heavily protected vessel is pretty easy really... Pantsirs at each corner and a Redut launcher in each corner means 160 Pantsir missiles (8 missiles on the mount and 32 reloads below deck for 40 missiles each mount) plus 768 short range IIR guided missiles like SEA RAM but much better... or a combination of short range missiles and medium and long range missiles with four 12 tube launchers and four deck mounted AA systems... perhaps 6 Duet guns for filling the gaps.... plus an air compliment of 50-60 Su-57s.

Redut would need the Gorshkov's expensive radars to be effective and it's totally useless. Unless you use the less effective radars from steregouchshy.

The threat it will face is low flying missiles against which 150km AD is useless. 50km buk + pantsir is a cheap combination. Fighters will intercept the enemy aircraft trying to launch the missiles.

No space for 50-60 jets. It is said 12-14 mig-29k + 12-14 su-33 + 12-14 ka-27 + 4 ka-31.

IMO Ka-27 can be replaced by 4-6 mig/sukhoi for 34 jets max. But they are good for anti sub protection.

Redut would need the Gorshkov's expensive radars to be effective and it's totally useless. Unless you use the less effective radars from steregouchshy.

The first few AESA radars are not going to be cheap, but as they get produced the costs will go down and the dud units will become rarer which will further reduce costs...

But besides that... they are active radar missiles and IIR guided missiles they barely need a radar at all... they could be launched based on target data from other platforms if you wanted... obviously a decent radar would be best.

Why would you want a blind aircraft carrier?

The threat it will face is low flying missiles against which 150km AD is useless. 50km buk + pantsir is a cheap combination. Fighters will intercept the enemy aircraft trying to launch the missiles.

The short range 9M100 missiles for CIWS self defence are IIR guided with a range of probably between 10 and 15km with lock on after launch capability.

The 150km range SAMs can hit missiles at 2m altitude... a Tomahawk missile launched from 750km away that is shot down at 150km from the carrier based on target information from a Ka-31 helicopter that happened to be in the air at the time is the ideal intercept I would say... or do you think shooting it down closer makes the carrier group safer?

No space for 50-60 jets. It is said 12-14 mig-29k + 12-14 su-33 + 12-14 ka-27 + 4 ka-31.

I doubt the design is set in stone and in any case would likely be operating the twin engined light 5th gen fighters they are developing anyway...

IMO Ka-27 can be replaced by 4-6 mig/sukhoi for 34 jets max. But they are good for anti sub protection.

The Helix helicopters will likely be replaced by high speed Minoga helicopters, and who knows what sort of radars they will be fitting to aircraft by then... for all we know a tethered blimp that is 50m long and trails a supporting cruiser with fibreoptic data and also power via the tether with it permanently at 5,000m providing unmanned 24/7 all year round target information...

The design of this carrier is 40K tons so a 70K ton version could be developed to carry rather more aircraft when needed, but in normal operations will carry less.

Why would you want a blind aircraft carrier?

Carrying a L band radar on the top and buk missiles doesn't really make it blind.

Buk-m3 has ARH missiles with 70km range which is more than enough for protection.

The 150km range SAMs can hit missiles at 2m altitude... a Tomahawk missile launched from 750km away that is shot down at 150km from the carrier based on target information from a Ka-31 helicopter that happened to be in the air at the time is the ideal intercept I would say... or do you think shooting it down closer makes the carrier group safer?

The safest is use the fighters with 300km range anti-ship missiles to destroy the enemy ship before it fires.

Frigates/destroyers will provide long range AD. The carrier needs only to defend itself against a potential missile that pops up on its radars. The more missile you put on it the more expensive it will be.

9M100 can be mounted in any VLS with some software changes. Or they can just mount Igla/verba turrets.

GarryB wrote:For the price of one Cold War Kirov class cruiser you could probably buy hundreds of Corvettes... which on paper would be even better equipped...

Obviously not, the cost of a пр. 1144 "Орлан" and that of a пр. 22350 "Адмирал Горшков" in 2014 rubles (third unit procurement of пр. 22350 ) are in a ratio of about  5,6 : 1; in CCCP times and partially also today domestic research and development and procurement of military hardware are executed following computation of index of military value for each particular mission of the system to be acquired.

Therefore criminal procurement of horribly underperforming systems ,under a cost-effectiveness parameter, with overinflated price ,to enrich some lobbying MIC firms, is almsot impossible to happen.

GarryB wrote:  those corvettes could carry four Granits each

No corvette at world could have hosted ,and even less employed, something like П-700.

Already the implementation of 3C-14 in corvette displacement ships is considered almost a miracle ,at today without foreign counterparts and representing the unique example at world of realization of the new concept that western planners call "distributed lethality".


https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2015/10/11/is-caspian-sea-fleet-a-game-changer/

Integrate a missile like  П-700 would be also today absolutely impossible.

GarryB wrote:But those FFGXs would be rather more vulnerable to attack without CAP and air cover than if they were on their own.

If this air cover at sea would come free of charge (a kind gift by a foreign nation ?) it would be surely well accepted, but because instead it come at the cost of the corrispective of 60 FREMM frigates your Navy would be immensely more vulnerable and significantly less covered just at cause of the procurement of this CAP cover.

I repeat : the entire stock of future stand-off antiship missiles -like LRASM - (the other weapon options would mean envoy your air wing literally to scrap) on board of a Ford Class would be incapable to confront not 60 FREMM ,but even only a quarter of them.  

Practically while carrier's airwing would ,2 missile at time for aircraft, wasting in vain its entire stock of LRASMs on the integrated EW/long  range and close range defenses of 15 modern FREMM frigates, the enemy would have at its disposition other 3 strike/defense groups of 15 FREMM each with way higher anti-surface and anti-submarine capabilities and defences to take control of sea and this would represent a very ineffcient employment of the resources !!!

Also with FFGX US Navy for the same cost of its aircraft carrier could procure 3 strike groups of 13, 13 and 12 FFGX; good luck to LRSAM at penetrate the defenses of: Standar Missile-2, ESSM, Rolling Airframe Missiles, 57 mm MAD-FIRES corrected anti-air rounds, Mk53 Nulka or worse Sylena MK2 decoy launch systems and SEWIP Block 2 EW installations ......all of that for 13 networked frigates each capable to absorb several hits from those subsonic missiles with very imited warhead potential !!!!


I leave out of this debate domestic frigates -at times better armed and defended than FREMM/FFGX - because it would be absolutely unfair.

Reality is that WWII times are long gone: aircraft today MUST attack enemy ships (if ,to begin, managing to obtain theirs position mostly by space-based assets, that with not flat-top ships of limited tonnage with reduced radar signature is all except trivial...) with few very long range missiles forcing them at enormous distances and integrated defenses of each modern ships can ,contrarely of WWII times, engage an enormous amount of them with much less costly interceptors from long to medium to short range before recurring to CIWS or to twarting with EW systems .

The unique solution possible to attack in a cost efficient way modern ships is to employ attacking means that those defences are incapable to intercept (and this is just the basis behind domestic developments since '60 years).

spending 10 billion dollars developing tilt rotor technology AWACS would probably cost about the same as the cost to build to CVNs and yet offer rather less performance and value.

they'll very likely develop them anyway for other uses, & they don't need to match the E-2's performance. They will be built at aviation plants while in the meantime shipyards can be building & repairing/upgrading other warships.

To protect the British ships from attack they would have to attack all the dozens of air fields on the Argentine mainland including civilian air fields...

no, taking out hangars & aprons housing fighters would eliminate most of the threat. USN/AF done it in Libya, Iraq & Afghanistan.

They could simply say that any country that accepts goods to bypass the Blockade will be subject to the same sanctions and blockade that Venezuela is... those borders will close... not out of friendship to the US but fear.

Iraq still smuggled oil,etc. during sanctions over its borders with Jordan, Syria & Turkey. Brazil has hard time controlling her own long border areas in the Amazon Selva.

When have they ever done that?

they may in a hypothetical scenario u suggested.

Tell that to Pompous and Trump.

they can try all they want- like a fly on the window glass. It looks like the Philippines, a former colony, is lost for good as well: https://asiatimes.com/2020/08/duterte-bans-exercises-with-us-in-south-china-sea/

Unlikely.

not if they r to avoid another KAL 007-like shootdown.

Most old subs are small and sleak and designed to be quiet... their capacity for cargo would be pathetic.

there were plans to use the Typhoons as tankers in the Arctic. A submerged SSN escorted by another SSN can also tow a big barge on the surface with cargo, a few UAVs/ASW helos & missile containers, combining a supply ship with DD/CG, saving on fuel & personnel. If enemy subs r detected, a towing cable is released & the sub is engaged.

They could simply declare all the US held gold from international countries to be American property... the UK already did that with Venezuelan gold.

or just print/shift $ from other services. I suspect many nations will stop storing their gold in London & NY.

Which is fine if they had a use for them, but with no navy to support global trade alliances they would spend most of their time on the ground doing nothing...

they won't need too many of them.

No they don't. None of those three planes could reach anywhere near the middle of the Pacific let alone anywhere they would be needed.

they all have IRPs & train to use them. Multiple tankers can also refuel each other, just like the RAF done during that Vulcan raid.

What sort of payload were they carrying and would it be enough to fight off an entire air force and defend themselves and the inflight refuelling planes that were supporting them?

most probably just AAMs & recon gear. I doubt "an entire air force" would get close enough undetected before their CVN/bases r engaged by ships, subs, & bombers.

You do know much of northern Russia is inside the arctic circle so they can build airfields and bases on land...

but some here worry that the VMF/VKS isn't prepared to defend the NSR & the EEZ in the Arctic.

Buk-m3 has ARH missiles with 70km range which is more than enough for protection.

BUK is a very big expensive missile to be used for CIWS use... it probably can't engage targets closer than 5-6km either...

The much smaller and much more compact 9M100 missiles intended for use as CIWS missiles on ships and also as a self defence AAM for fighters and bombers with internal carriage... and able to engage incoming AAM and SAMs would be much better suited to carrier defence... especially when used together with the super cheap small and compact TOR missiles they already carry on their aircraft carrier.

The safest is use the fighters with 300km range anti-ship missiles to destroy the enemy ship before it fires.

Not really... operating your fighters with loadouts of enough anti ship missiles to be effective reduces their flight speed increases their fuel burn and reduced operational flight radius of the fighters. Equipping them with AAM dramatically improves flight performance and speed and range and they can use their radars to detect missiles and surface vessels at long range where ship based missiles can engage them safely and easily.

Frigates/destroyers will provide long range AD. The carrier needs only to defend itself against a potential missile that pops up on its radars. The more missile you put on it the more expensive it will be.

The carrier is there to provide air protection for the ships... not vice versa... you are thinking of American carriers.

Every Russian ship needs to be able to defend itself, and a combination of Redut and fighter aircraft any Russian carrier should be fine most of the time.

9M100 can be mounted in any VLS with some software changes. Or they can just mount Igla/verba turrets.

9M100 will likely be vastly more potent than Igla or Verba... and with vertical launch tubes should be easier... with no need to point at the target and get a lock before launch...

Obviously not, the cost of a пр. 1144 "Орлан" and that of a пр. 22350 "Адмирал Горшков" in 2014 rubles (third unit procurement of пр. 22350 ) are in a ratio of about  5,6 : 1; in CCCP times and partially also today domestic research and development and procurement of military hardware are executed following computation of index of military value for each particular mission of the system to be acquired.

I was talking about cold war Kirovs and cold war corvettes... because while we know the price of modern corvettes we have no idea what a modern cruiser will cost.

Integrate a missile like  П-700 would be also today absolutely impossible.

Then four Moskits.... and use the small corvettes to swarm the enemy.

Remember I am the one advocating the bigger ships... and bigger ships benefit from having air cover to improve their defence and capability.

If this air cover at sea would come free of charge (a kind gift by a foreign nation ?) it would be surely well accepted, but because instead it come at the cost of the corrispective of 60 FREMM frigates your Navy would be immensely more vulnerable and significantly less covered just at cause of the procurement of this CAP cover.

It is not the case that they will get aircraft carriers and then not get anything else... even if they lay down a CVN hull in 2025 by the time it is ready for service Russia should already have made as many corvettes and frigates that it needs and should be making destroyers and cruisers by that stage too.

And when they do those ships are going to benefit from air cover no matter where they operate.

I repeat : the entire stock of future stand-off antiship missiles -like LRASM - (the other weapon options would mean envoy your air wing literally to scrap) on board of a Ford Class would be incapable to confront not 60 FREMM ,but even only a quarter of them.  

And I repeat a group of 60 enemy ships operating with no air cover will be easy meat for a Russian surface action group with aircraft and ship launched long range anti ship weapons... a single Su-57 with its radar in listen mode could locate all the ships in the group and their position and transmit their locations back to the ships... some 4,500km range Kalibres could then be launched off on a tangent and fly around the ships and attack them from the opposite direction at very low altitude... that attack could be timed to cross the horizon just as Zircons fired directly at the ships came over the horizon at 50km altitude at mach 10... all while keeping the carrier and the ships with the carrier over 700km away from those 60 frigates...

Note it is also why I am suggesting Russia should build destroyers and cruisers as well as frigates... the new ones are quite powerful, but not invincible...

Practically while carrier's airwing would ,2 missile at time for aircraft, wasting in vain its entire stock of LRASMs on the integrated EW/long  range and close range defenses of 15 modern FREMM frigates,

Why would a Russian carrier send aircraft to sink ships?

Also with FFGX US Navy for the same cost of its aircraft carrier could procure 3 strike groups of 13, 13 and 12 FFGX; good luck to LRSAM at penetrate the defenses of: Standar Missile-2, ESSM, Rolling Airframe Missiles, 57 mm MAD-FIRES corrected anti-air rounds, Mk53 Nulka or worse Sylena MK2 decoy launch systems and SEWIP Block 2 EW installations ......all of that for 13 networked frigates each capable to absorb several hits from those subsonic missiles with very imited warhead potential !!!!

Why are you talking about US weapons and equipment? Russia wont be buying their carriers from the US and are under no obligation to use them the way the US uses theirs...

Reality is that WWII times are long gone: aircraft today MUST attack enemy ships (if ,to begin, managing to obtain theirs position mostly by space-based assets, that with not flat-top ships of limited tonnage with reduced radar signature is all except trivial...) with few very long range missiles forcing them at enormous distances and integrated defenses of each modern ships can ,contrarely of WWII times, engage an enormous amount of them with much less costly interceptors from long to medium to short range before recurring to CIWS or to twarting with EW systems .

Russian aircraft carriers are to stop attacks on Russian ships... their primary anti ship missiles are all sub and ship launched and are too big to be carried any reasonable distance by their aircraft.

The purpose of Russian aircraft carriers is to add depth to the air defence of their ships and to create air defence for their subs. They can have a recon and AEW roles too to make the ships even better able to defend themselves, but they are not to sink enemy fleets and they are not to invade and colonies weak countries for their resources.

they'll very likely develop them anyway for other uses

High speed helicopters render tilt rotors redundant.

& they don't need to match the E-2's performance.

It will likely be more than ten years from now that they are operational so I would expect they would use brand new photonic radar technology that blows the E-2s performance away.

They will be built at aviation plants while in the meantime shipyards can be building & repairing/upgrading other warships.

Well of course... you don't think Yak-44s would have been built in a shipyard... the hint is the Yak in the description...

no, taking out hangars & aprons housing fighters would eliminate most of the threat. USN/AF done it in Libya, Iraq & Afghanistan.

They had thousands of planes based in neighbouring countries.... Britain has a Hermes aircraft carrier with 20 Harrier jump jets that are incredibly slow with poor weapon loads... I mean there is a reason they sent the Vulcan to hit the airfields on the Falklands... the Harriers probably would have gotten shot down... the Vulcan did the standard relatively small sized bombs dropped in a string across the airfield... the Harriers would have had to launch dozens of attacks with multiple aircraft to get the same result which would mean air defences that were ready... in other words lots of shot down Harriers.

There was absolutely no chance of doing that on main land Argentina... the harriers would have been slaughtered and they know it.

The USN and USAF used ground based aircraft mostly for the attacks, but when they used carrier aircraft they did not use Harriers.

Iraq still smuggled oil,etc. during sanctions over its borders with Jordan, Syria & Turkey. Brazil has hard time controlling her long border area in the Amazon Selva.

The amount smuggled successfully would not have made much difference over all.

not if they r to avoid another KAL 007-like shootdown.

The KAL007 flew over a secret air based and secret missile sites... if it was over UK or US airspace it would have been shot down earlier.

It was no where near international waters... the Soviets had every right to shoot that plane down.

there were plans to use the Typhoons as tankers in the Arctic.

There were plans because the Typhoons are huge and actually could have had reasonable space, but it still would not have been cost effective.

A submerged SSN escorted by another SSN can also tow a big barge on the surface with cargo, a few UAVs/ASW helos & missile containers, combining a supply ship with DD/CG, saving on fuel & personnel. If enemy subs r detected, a towing cable is released & the sub is engaged.

Tying up valuable SSNs for barge towing duties sounds like a very silly way to save money...

or just print/shift $ from other services.

When foreign countries wont accept dollars then printing more is a waste of paper... it only makes sense to print them if you can spend them and if no one accepts them then the paper is probably more valuable.

Knowing the Americans they would probably start printing Euros..... hahaha...

they won't need too many of them.

To use them they would need one tanker per fighter at least because a long flight would require several refuellings and of course they will be burning fuel themselves...

For a bomber or transport type you would need two to three tankers per aircraft...

they all have IRPs & train to use them. Tankers can also refuel each other, just like the RAF done during that Vulcan raid.

I don't think you know much about that Vulcan raid to be suggesting Russia banks its future global power plans on using their bombers in the same way...

It was a very risky business that could have gone tragically wrong in dozens of different ways... they were very very lucky.

Look at Operation Eagle Claw... doing something with long range helicopters and C-130s....

most probably just AAMs & recon gear. I doubt "an entire air force" would get close enough undetected before their CVN/bases r engaged by ships, subs, & bombers.

So you think Tu-160s with AAMs and recon gear can support a group of Russian Cruisers and Destroyers operating in the South Pacific... really?

but some here worry that the VMF/VKS isn't prepared to defend the NSR & the EEZ.

Their NSR and EEZ are all well within 500km of their land, so an airfield and an Su-35 or MiG-35 or Su-57 or MiG-31 could do that fine... no need for carriers or ships, though ships and land based missiles and guns and radars etc would make the defence more comprehensive...

Aircraft carriers will be based on the Northern Fleet and the Pacific Fleet so they can readily access the Atlantic and the Pacific if needed... they will need to cope with ice and cold, which will help with operations in the Arctic and Antarctic, but a lot of time will also be spent on visits to warmer places too.

The USN and USAF used ground based aircraft mostly for the attacks, ..
It was a very risky business that could have gone tragically wrong in dozens of different ways... they were very very lucky.

the VKS bombers alone can reach coastal air bases with their LACMs; they'll need refuelings on the way back.

The amount smuggled successfully would not have made much difference over all.

to help Venezuela with NP, smuggling big amounts of materials/gear isn't needed. Iran & Pakistan did it already.

The KAL007 flew over a secret air based and secret missile sites... if it was over UK or US airspace it would have been shot down earlier.

I used it as an example of jumbo jet shot down by the military. It flew over naval bases as well; ships at sea r monitoring the skies 24/7 just like the PVO did on land on that night.

There were plans because the Typhoons are huge and actually could have had reasonable space, but it still would not have been cost effective.

Mil. ops r never cost effective compared to commerce.

Tying up valuable SSNs for barge towing duties sounds like a very silly way to save money...

see above. In the Russian context, overspending on large CVNs is even sillier.

When foreign countries wont accept dollars then printing more is a waste of paper... it only makes sense to print them if you can spend them and if no one accepts them then the paper is probably more valuable.

the MIC will accept them.

Knowing the Americans they would probably start printing Euros..... hahaha...

or start a new currency, maybe even at least partially backed by gold.

To use them they would need one tanker per fighter at least because a long flight would require several refuellings and of course they will be burning fuel themselves...For a bomber or transport type you would need two to three tankers per aircraft...

All the places Russia will trade with will have airfields to host bombers, fighters, AWACS, & tankers; most tankers will need to be used only in the middle of oceans. There, large barges or converted oil tankers with embarked MiG-31s/Su-30/34s & ASW/MPA helos & planes can be kept to cover those gaps. Aircraft can be based on floating platforms other than CVNs, & for a lot le$$.

they all have IRPs & train to use them. Tankers can also refuel each other, just like the RAF done during that Vulcan raid.

So you think Tu-160s with AAMs and recon gear can support a group of Russian Cruisers and Destroyers operating in the South Pacific... really?

why not, if MiG-31s/Su-34s r not going to be good enough? Some Tu-95/142s could also be modified for that- they have enormous unrefueled range.

Their NSR and EEZ are all well within 500km of their land, so an airfield and an Su-35 or MiG-35 or Su-57 or MiG-31 could do that fine... no need for carriers or ships, though ships and land based missiles and guns and radars etc would make the defence more comprehensive...

ditto.

What I do not understand is why people here do not realise that ships get more efficient the larger they are, 5 light carriers would be inferior and more costly to run than a single Shtorm class.

Russia does not seem to be effected by the liberal mindset of hating large military objects and thus will likey produce even bigger carriers than the pindos once they have destroyers and missile cruisers in sufficient numbers.



What a carrier needs to be able to do is sustain air presence for a long duration and for that they need a lot of aircraft, I would say a minimum of 60.

Though Russia would probably need only two or three Shtorm class carriers, it is not really likey that there will be more than 3 wars
that demand the presence of a carrier going simultaneously in the foreseeable future.

The-thing-next-door wrote:What I do not understand is why people here do not realise that ships get more efficient the larger they are, 5 light carriers would be inferior and more costly to run than a single Shtorm class.

Russia does not seem to be effected by the liberal mindset of hating large military objects and thus will likey produce even bigger carriers than the pindos once they have destroyers and missile cruisers in sufficient numbers.



What a carrier needs to be able to do is sustain air presence for a long duration and for that they need a lot of aircraft, I would say a minimum of 60.

Though Russia would probably need only two or three Shtorm class carriers, it is not really likey that there will be more than 3 wars
that demand the presence of  a carrier going simultaneously in the foreseeable future.  

Bigger ship is better than 2 or 3 smaller ones but you can deploy it just at one place at a time. Also when it is in maintenance for a long peruod like the Nakhimov you can't replace it.

3 carrier means 1 at sea. 1 in maintenance and 1 for training. Deploying all of them at a same time is impossible, just like 3 Shtorm carrier for Russia is impossible right now and for the near/medium future. And it's totally useless. They would also need more destroyer than they currently have to protect all the three (because destroyer also would have training phase, repair phase, modernuzation...).

Small carrier with decent number of fighters like the one I shared is perfect for them.

GarryB wrote:Why would a Russian carrier send aircraft to sink ships?

In order to keep the fleet safe they would need either to use bigger weapons with longer range than an eventual distributed enemy fleet, which does not seem to be the trend either for USN or VMF, or use air power. Highly effective missiles onboard smaller ships and submarines will have the same range as the ones launched from a carrier-equipped fleet. He is talking about distributed command and space assets doing the targetting, so there would be a similar situation in regards of offensive potential between both fleets, if air power is not considered.

Americans do not even have supersonic AShM so it is true that the effectiveness of their attacks even against smaller vessels is questionable, but I suspect they would rather use other weapons like anti-radiation missiles in order to crack the ship's AD open, and then once its radars have been put out of operation, use subsonic weapons to finish the job. Russian aircraft could use air launched Kh-31 against those smaller vessels, and we know that internal carriage hypersonic missiles are being developed as we speak for Su-57. Indians are using the Su-30 to launch Brahmos. Any weapon launched from an aircraft has many times the range of the surface launched equivalent. For instance ship launched version of NSM has 185 km, while air launched reaches to 555 km. Also the no-scape zone of the ship's AD will be relatively small against a fast and manoeuvrable jet. Aircraft do not need to carry massive weapons to be of application in naval attack.

The-thing-next-door wrote:What I do not understand is why people here do not realise that ships get more efficient the larger they are, 5 light carriers would be inferior and more costly to run than a single Shtorm class.

That is true and in fact applies not only to carriers but to any kind of vessel. They are restricted to use their weapons depending on the state of the sea, so bigger ships can use their missiles when smaller ones cannot and big carriers can operate their air wing when smaller ones cannot. Blue fleet vessels are not big for no reason. This is in fact an issue for instance for Northern Fleet due to average states of sea where they operate.

My two cents re. the scenario proposed by Mindstorm, knowing it is a simplification and just in order to see the issue from another perspective:

- The use of a fleet of numerous small vessels that use the coast to hide resembles some defensive use of that fleet rather than the kind of deployment for which a blue fleet navy is intended. In case a fleet composed of small ships would need to cross oceans and sustain themselves there, its shortcomings would become apparent, not having real places to hide in the high seas and not being able to create a defensive/intelligence bubble around them in the same way a carrier group does. Blue fleet navies are not meant to stay in the middle of the oceans, but they need to be able to cross them even in the presence of strong opposing forces, both sea and land based.

- The offensive / defensive balance of the vessels in the scenario is skewed by the really poor anti-ship potential of the US weapons, probably a result of the mentioned land-attack specialization of the USN and lack of true competitors. The FREMM frigates could well be capable of repelling the attacks of the subsonic Harpoon / JSM missiles, but what is their capability to threat the carrier group, only armed with 16 x subsonic, 185 km ranged NSM? What would be the proportion of SAMs and offensive weapons in the Mk41 VLS, considering the limitations in number and capacities of the RAM?

- Cost: without making a point of contention the data proposed, there are other options that don't change the substance of the comparison but produce less exaggerated values. The FREMM is estimated to cost USN an average of $800 million per unit, limit set is $950 million. $1.28 billion for the first unit, including design modifications. Data diverge from others presented in the original post, I have not dug deeper to check which ones are better.

https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2020/05/05/5-things-you-should-know-about-the-us-navys-new-frigate/

A CVN like Nimitz would offer no practical difference in performance for this example and USN reports them as costing $4.5 billion. Wiki reports 8.5 billion though.

https://www.public.navy.mil/airfor/cvn71/pages/factsandfigures.aspx

4 squadrons F-18 would be around $2.46 B, plus $700 million for 4 x E-2D

https://news.usni.org/2019/03/21/42021

The proportion if we use these values would be between ca. 10 and 15 FREMM frigates per carrier, which is surprisingly low, but even so the costs of a carrier group are way higher as we know, due to the whole escorting ships involved. I have not calculated them, since in the scenario only attacks by air power were considered for the carrier fleet.

- In a situation where a big USN fleet engages in combat with a peer fleet is questionable whether the reliable participation of space-based assets could be counted on. It cannot be simply dismissed either and it will be highly dependent on the specific situation, but I think it should not be taken for granted. In case space assets start being jammed or destroyed, the tactical information available to the side without air assets would be seriously affected, while the side counting on AWACS etc. would still be in conditions to monitor the tactical situation. Eventual airborne assets of the distributed fleet, like surveillance UAVs, would be very useful but enormously vulnerable to carrier fighters.

- The assumption that the carrier group would need to stay within range of the weapons carried by the distributed fleet is also not a given. In fact currently USN not only has a bigger flexibility in terms of range to their targets (because of the presence of air power) but is taking steps to further increase that flexibility by means of creating purpose built carrier borne tankers and conceptually devising a long endurance UAV/UCAV fleet capable of performing surveillance and/or strike roles at enormous distances from the fleet. We have seen recently how the CSGs have stayed clear of areas of potential danger (Iran during the recent crisis) and I think it would be naive to think they are going to station their fleet in places where they know they are clearly vulnerable.

Constructing the scenario with Russian equipment:

> Distributed fleet composed of 22350 frigates
> Carrier based fleet with a 60-70 kt CVN for 3 squadrons of combat jets
> Tsirkon operational
> AD vs hypersonic weapons still not reliable enough

- The distributed fleet would count on an incomparably superior offensive potential to the example with USN units, against salvos of Tsirkon and until some countermeasure is developed only keeping a distance bigger than ca. 1000 km is an option. This reduces the effectiveness of the fleet with a carrier, but does not completely neutralize it. Su-57 + internal hypersonic weapons being developed for it should be capable of piercing the defensive shield of the frigates even with small salvos and theoretically capable of attacking at those ranges (estimated combat radius of 1500-1800 km, of course dependant on profile and load). Given the configuration of the weapon bays, most likely a single plane will be capable of carrying 4 missiles. The whole air wing of the carrier would mean 36 x 4 = 144 missiles, since there is no air opponents to be fought, no AAM load is needed in a simplified scenario. For a salvo size of 2/4/8 missiles, 72/36/18 targets can be attacked. Other configurations like Su-33 or Mig-29K with Kh-31 missiles are also thinkable.

- The costs would be:
Carrier 100-250 billion rubles, depending on the type and size
Air wing 2 x 24 - 3 x 36 billion rubles, first case would be two squadrons with Flanker price, second 3 squadrons of a 50% more expensive fighter (i.e. Su-57)
22350 RUB16 - 30 billion (could not find a better value interval, solid sources are welcome)

The proportion would be between 5 and 23 frigates per carrier, depending on the data taken. That would allow even in the worst case to attack 18 of them simultaneously with a salvo of 8 missiles while keeping the fleet out of their reach.

So the carrier force would still have the possibility to counter the opposing distributed fleet, given their intelligence gathering is advanced enough.

As far as I can see, the above described balance of forces should lead to the following future developments:

- Its critical disadvantage in AShM technology vs. Russia is already being perceived by USN and both the defensive (upgrade of SM-6) and offensive potentials (funds and focus surge for all kinds of hypersonic weapons) will lead in the medium term to a relative rebalancing of such situation, that would also force the VMF to look for another improvement vectors of their capability, and would easily lead them to create bigger, more capable ships and relying more in the use of air power.
- Smaller vessels will gain much more punch and independence by means or autonomous air or underwater vehicles to help them increase their range of action and reconnaissance, improved offensive missiles and use of distributed command.
- The land-attack use of carriers will progressively be reduced, as well as their role as central element of the fleet. A balanced fleet like in the example above would include several vessels capable of acting on their own but probably a carrier offering air cover over a wide area by means of HALE UAVs, and long range UCAVs and fighters.

EDIT: this is relevant to this topic, new hypersonic anti-ship missiles for Sukhois:

https://www.russiadefence.net/t1489p925-su-30-for-russian-air-force#290697

the VKS bombers alone can reach coastal air bases with their LACMs; they'll need refuelings on the way back.

If they are only delivering cruise missiles then the Russian Navy has plenty of ships and Subs that can do that, and over time the number of missile tubes is going to increase massively.

I used it as an example of jumbo jet shot down by the military. It flew over naval bases as well; ships at sea r monitoring the skies 24/7 just like the PVO did on land on that night.

It was shot down by an aircraft, not a ships SAM nor a land based SAM...

Mil. ops r never cost effective compared to commerce.

They still have to make sense... carrying tiny volumes of cargo in a massively expensive submarine requires serious justification when much much cheaper options are available.

see above. In the Russian context, overspending on large CVNs is even sillier.

After spending hundreds of billions of dollars on new cruisers and destroyers you think spending half a billion a year for perhaps 6-7 years is a waste of money if it magnifies the defence of your ships and subs when operating far from home.

When was the last time the Russian military overspent on anything?

the MIC will accept them.

When foreign countries wont accept US dollars how many components from overseas can you buy with US dollars?

Money only has a value if it is worth something to others...

or start a new currency, maybe even at least partially backed by gold.

Would be much cheaper to start backing up the currency they do have with gold but that ship has probably sailed.

All the places Russia will trade with will have airfields to host bombers, fighters, AWACS, & tankers; most tankers will need to be used only in the middle of oceans.

Love the confidence but if that is the case, then why, with over 800 military bases world wide, does the US see the need for them?

Russian ships will operate in places where there might be ground based radar and airfields and fuel supplies really close, but considering experience like when HATO decided that no HATO members can provide fuel stops for Russian ships heading to Syria I don't know how you can make such a silly claim...

Without deploying bombers and fighters and AWACS aircraft and tankers around the world you basically have to take them with you... ie supply ships and aircraft carriers.

There, large barges or converted oil tankers with embarked MiG-31s/Su-30/34s & ASW/MPA helos & planes can be kept to cover those gaps. Aircraft can be based on floating platforms other than CVNs, & for a lot le$$.

If that were possible the Brits would already be doing it.... every time they go to war their bean counters decide their military is over funded and cut a whole lot of new programmes... soon they will have patchy air cover with flaky F-35s but no ships to operate with them...

I understand not wanting a US type setup... no one can afford that... especially not the Americans... but don't tell them that.... if they fix it they might never collapse, but don't copy the Brits.

why not, if MiG-31s/Su-34s r not going to be good enough? Some Tu-95/142s could also be modified for that- they have enormous unrefueled range.

Because it would take them days to organise the tankers to fly down there and would have a few minutes on station and then they would have to leave because there are not enough inflight refuelling tankers in the Russian AF to keep them flying around a group of ships as top cover.

That is why countries use aircraft carriers so they can land when they are not needed to save fuel.

What I do not understand is why people here do not realise that ships get more efficient the larger they are, 5 light carriers would be inferior and more costly to run than a single Shtorm class.

More importantly you would need three light carriers for each real carrier you wanted, which actually makes them more expensive to man and to keep operational, and three light carriers would not give the same performance as one big one.

What a carrier needs to be able to do is sustain air presence for a long duration and for that they need a lot of aircraft, I would say a minimum of 60.

I agree, but during normal operations it might only carry say 48 aircraft, which means better endurance and smaller compliment of air crew during peace time...

Bigger ship is better than 2 or 3 smaller ones but you can deploy it just at one place at a time.

They wont have enough escort cruisers and destroyers and support ships to need to operate more than one surface action group in one hotspot at a time... having two or three carriers is about ensuring at least one and probably two are available when needed... not about dominating the globe by having one in the Atlantic ocean and one in the Pacific...

If they have a crisis where naval power is needed and two carrier are available it would be likely they will send both or send one and prepare the other to join it if needed or to replace it on station in 3 months time if they don't need two carriers on site at once.

Also when it is in maintenance for a long peruod like the Nakhimov you can't replace it.

Which is why we are talking about one CV and two CVNs....

Having five small carriers will basically tie up one shipyard 24/7 because when one comes out of refit and upgrade the next will be needing some work...

Small carrier with decent number of fighters like the one I shared is perfect for them.

I like the concept, but the execution doesn't work... they have already said the K is not really big enough... they need more capacity... more fighters and capacity for AWACS aircraft too... which are going to take up significant space... if they could come up with a multihull design that has a very wide body for enormous hangars but structurally was light so they could have 70 fighters plus AWACS in a 50K ton ship that would be perfect.... but equip it properly... it will have S-500 missiles, it will have large numbers of SAMs and will have some UKSK launchers too, because that is what a Russian carrier is....

Americans do not even have supersonic AShM so it is true that the effectiveness of their attacks even against smaller vessels is questionable, but I suspect they would rather use other weapons like anti-radiation missiles in order to crack the ship's AD open, and then once its radars have been put out of operation, use subsonic weapons to finish the job.

But they will have the problem that the 9M100 missile is intended as a self defence weapon against incoming missiles... and Soviet SAMs since BUK and TOR were designed to shoot down HARMs and other standoff weapons... so it comes down to trading numbers... except Russian hypersonic missiles are much more likely to get through...

Russian aircraft could use air launched Kh-31 against those smaller vessels, and we know that internal carriage hypersonic missiles are being developed as we speak for Su-57. Indians are using the Su-30 to launch Brahmos. Any weapon launched from an aircraft has many times the range of the surface launched equivalent. For instance ship launched version of NSM has 185 km, while air launched reaches to 555 km. Also the no-scape zone of the ship's AD will be relatively small against a fast and manoeuvrable jet. Aircraft do not need to carry massive weapons to be of application in naval attack.

I appreciate what you are trying to say, but what you are suggesting is the equivalent of saying to the Army that attack helicopters can go much further and faster than tanks and can kill from much greater distances so why don't you forget about this driving around in armoured vehicles and just replace tanks with Helicopters...

A ship with a 57mm gun could... once the 57mm AA gun systems and ammo is further developed offer all the protection they might need from any sort of drone or subsonic anti ship missile. Soon only very high speed missiles are going to be a problem... and lets be honest... the US is going to run out of money building long range anti ship missiles before the Russians run out of the SAMs they have now let alone will continue to produce...

When the Russian Navy starts trading missiles with the US Navy then I wouldn't worry too much who is going to win because it is very likely that any nukes will be used at sea first.

GarryB wrote:I like the concept, but the execution doesn't work... they have already said the K is not really big enough... they need more capacity... more fighters and capacity for AWACS aircraft too... which are going to take up significant space... if they could come up with a multihull design that has a very wide body for enormous hangars but structurally was light so they could have 70 fighters plus AWACS in a 50K ton ship that would be perfect.... but equip it properly... it will have S-500 missiles, it will have large numbers of SAMs and will have some UKSK launchers too, because that is what a Russian carrier is....

The multihull part I agree wholeheartedly, the part about making it a cruiser like the Kuznetsov not so much. I don't see evidence that Russians are thinking like that this time over. The guy from Nevskoe said the old ones were done like cruiser because of Montreaux, but newer designs both from them and from Krylov and their statements point clearly towards much purer carrier concepts. The reason is that the added value of the carrier is its air wing, the rest can be done by other vessels, so it is only logical to maximize their capacity to carry aircraft and their fuel and weapons. OF course Russian military coming from where they come they will demand it at least to de a SAM fortress and I think that makes sense, but missiles for surface and land attack roles are IMHO clearly out of scope.

But they will have the problem that the 9M100 missile is intended as a self defence weapon against incoming missiles... and Soviet SAMs since BUK and TOR were designed to shoot down HARMs and other standoff weapons... so it comes down to trading numbers... except Russian hypersonic missiles are much more likely to get through...

I was referring to US weaponry because that is how the original scenario was proposed. Of course Russian AShM will have more chances than US ones and I would tend to trust their AD also quite a bit more. HARMS are dangerous weapons, US is even testing the SM-6 in AShM role, they know speed helps a lot to go through the defences.

I appreciate what you are trying to say, but what you are suggesting is the equivalent of saying to the Army that attack helicopters can go much further and faster than tanks and can kill from much greater distances so why don't you forget about this driving around in armoured vehicles and just replace tanks with Helicopters...

I am making it the center of my message that force composition must be balanced. Air power can attack and defend with great advantage because of mobility and altitude, but it cannot take and hold the position. Land and surface forces are a must.

A ship with a 57mm gun could... once the 57mm AA gun systems and ammo is further developed offer all the protection they might need from any sort of drone or subsonic anti ship missile. Soon only very high speed missiles are going to be a problem... and lets be honest... the US is going to run out of money building long range anti ship missiles before the Russians run out of the SAMs they have now let alone will continue to produce...

Of course, and adding long range SAMs to the picture only forces US to put more and more range onto those subsonic AShMs, that will be downed easily by low cost SAMs or even guided rounds as you say. They will develop hypersonic AShMs, it is a given.

When the Russian Navy starts trading missiles with the US Navy then I wouldn't worry too much who is goiAShng to win because it is very likely that any nukes will be used at sea first.

I differ a bit:

- The battle between big powers is most of the time purely theoretical, that is, the idea is to "win" the conditional fight in order to get deterrence. For blue navies deployed far from home, the idea would be to avoid US side from declaring naval blockades of allies or outright attacking them with some CSG, protect the own commerce, keep open ways of navigation and so on. If you have the Russians deploying the Nakhimov in theater with potentially 80 Tsirkons and several batteries of S-400 onboard and god knows how many SSGNs lurking around it, you are going to be much more polite than if you can crush anyone at will, that is for sure. So in the end you need to have the real capabilities, in order not to use them. Much like nukes.

- The fight for foreign influence and expansion is not going to be computed in the same way in terms of nuclear escalation as direct threats to the home territory. So I think but I cannot prove, that actually limited conflicts of this sort can develop and even reach kinetic confrontation levels and still stay contained in theater. Nobody will want to be nuked because of influence on some far away land, at least if it does not represent a critical national interest.

If they are only delivering cruise missiles then the Russian Navy has plenty of ships and Subs that can do that, and over time the number of missile tubes is going to increase massively.

true, but they must stay out of range of US forces when sailing to contested waters w/o a CVN.

It was shot down by an aircraft, not a ships SAM nor a land based SAM...

in our scenario, ships can & will do it when they feel threatened.

carrying tiny volumes of cargo in a massively expensive submarine requires serious justification when much much cheaper options are available.

they may carry critical cargo, gear & personnel. With their empty missile compartments, old SSBNs can be converted to supply roles.

When was the last time the Russian military overspent on anything?

The Soviet military did: w/o proper shore facilities & maintenance & with over/underuse, many ships & subs were sold for scrap early & languished in yards. 1 unfinished Slava CG is still in Nikolaev. Russia better be careful not to repeat that. She needs to modernize & expand her internal waterways canal system that requires $Bs in investment- doing so will raise their cost effectiveness,while strengthening her national security:
https://jamestown.org/program/volga-don-canal-last-great-stalin-project-desperately-needs-updating-or-replacement/

When foreign countries wont accept US dollars how many components from overseas can you buy with US dollars?

Japan, Taiwan & SK can pay for her protection with electronics. Their manufacture may also come back to the US. Everything else can also be produced here. If not, we may pay for it with our grain, meat, oil & gas.

Love the confidence but if that is the case, then why, with over 800 military bases world wide, does the US see the need for them?

we constantly transfer fighters & haul cargo overseas besides supporting local & naval ops.

Russian ships will operate in places where there might be ground based radar and airfields and fuel supplies really close, but considering experience like when HATO decided that no HATO members can provide fuel stops for Russian ships heading to Syria I don't know how you can make such a silly claim...

as soon as any of them deny transit rights/access to bases, then they r not worth to be traded with & can be sanctioned like Turkey was.

Without deploying bombers and fighters and AWACS aircraft and tankers around the world you basically have to take them with you... ie supply ships and aircraft carriers.

even US & UK friendly India granted Russia access to her bases. With others, if they want to keep the wolves away, Russian S-300/400s, etc. will be a good way to ensure access. Super bombers conducting diplomacy r cheaper than super carriers.

If that were possible the Brits would already be doing it.... soon they will have patchy air cover with flaky F-35s but no ships to operate with them...

Adm. Nelson's time when Britain ruled the waves is over; the RN will sail & operate with her allies from now on. Russia has only 4 allies: her Army, VMF, Atomflot, & the VKS.  

Because it would take them days to organise the tankers to fly down there and would have a few minutes on station and then they would have to leave because there are not enough inflight refuelling tankers in the Russian AF to keep them flying around a group of ships as top cover.

Tankers may be stationed at forward bases/overseas, & there will be more of them later. AN-22/124 &/ future IL-106 tanker versions could carry a lot more fuel than IL-478s. Tu-22/95/160 armed with lighter AAMs won't be burning as much fuel as with ASh/LACMs. http://geimint.blogspot.com/2007/07/russian-strategic-aviation-imagery.html
https://www.ng.ru/news/686850.html?print=Y

Nobody will want to be nuked because of influence on some far away land, at least if it does not represent a critical national interest.

exactly; China can nuke the US but the US is still itching for a fight in the SC Sea:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/11/asia/china-taiwan-guam-military-exercises-intl-hnk-scli/index.html?utm_term=1597141290248c17de2953455&utm_source=Five+Things+for+Tuesday%2C+August+11%2C+2020&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=234332_1597141290250&bt_ee=AFPbSuWFw7I1A646wAkrz3XLP6Y%2FEGDfew84%2FyHaVN5y7nOEHLTizyVpdIyrF5eO&bt_ts=1597141290250

The multihull part I agree wholeheartedly, the part about making it a cruiser like the Kuznetsov not so much.

The fundamental difference between a Soviet or Russian carrier and a US carrier is that the Soviet or Russian carrier is there to protect the ships it is operating with and to do that it needs its own airdefence as well as aircraft. A US carrier has ships that operate with the carrier to protect the carrier, but they are called carrier groups because the carrier is the offensive power.... the aircraft deliver bombs and missiles to the target.

In the Russian/Soviet Navy a Corvette can defend itself, and a Frigate can too, against a reasonable attack. A Destroyer has better area defence weapons and could probably defend itself and ships it is operating with. A Cruiser is basically a command ship that is never intended to be alone... and is designed to defend the ships it operates with using short, medium, and very long range SAMs.

A fixed wing aircraft carrier should operate with Cruisers, and therefore benefit from their super long range missiles, but it is a big vessel which can be equipped with the enormous radars needed to track objects in space and therefore use S-500 missiles. And of course its aircraft will defend both while offering the option of CAP where aircraft can fly out to a contact and check to see if it is hostile or not making it vastly more flexible than if they had not bothered with a fixed wing carrier and just decide to buy a few extra cruisers instead.

OF course Russian military coming from where they come they will demand it at least to de a SAM fortress and I think that makes sense, but missiles for surface and land attack roles are IMHO clearly out of scope.

The launch tubes that carry the attack missiles can also carry EW rockets and anti sub weapons too... and how long before PAKET comes in a model that can be carried in a UKSK launch tube?

HARMS are dangerous weapons, US is even testing the SM-6 in AShM role, they know speed helps a lot to go through the defences.

Yeah, every time the Russians talk about hypersonic weapons the US Navy guys say their SM-6 missiles are hypersonic too, but it really is not the same... as it manouvers the SM-6 is unpowered and bleeds speed rapidly... and can't actually manouver very well at all... whereas the Iskander is powered and uses thrust vectoring for vastly more efficient and effective manouvering... and Zircon and their other high speed missiles are powered during the terminal attack phase...

I seem to remember they tried using SM missiles on an Iranian ship but it missed... the ship was too small and it blew over the top or something...

Just like the failure of Patriot in Desert Storm... the Yanks think because the S-300 can shoot down ballistic weapons that Patriot can too... the difference is that the S-300 and later Soviet missiles were designed to shoot down high speed ballistic targets whereas original Patriot was not.

They will develop hypersonic AShMs, it is a given.

And in the time it takes to do so the Russians will have had years of experience and have probably a few hypersonic drones for testing air defence systems and developing tactics to defeat such targets...

- The fight for foreign influence and expansion is not going to be computed in the same way in terms of nuclear escalation as direct threats to the home territory. So I think but I cannot prove, that actually limited conflicts of this sort can develop and even reach kinetic confrontation levels and still stay contained in theater. Nobody will want to be nuked because of influence on some far away land, at least if it does not represent a critical national interest.

Russia being navally blocked from all trade with central and south America would be a national interest issue I would think...

in our scenario, ships can & will do it when they feel threatened.

A commercial aircraft flying straight and level emitting the IFF codes that it should be to identify it as a commercial flight should not be threatening to anyone.

The KAL007 was over territory it never should have gone anywhere near and the US radar trackers in Japan and South Korea should have signalled them that they were an enormous distance off course... instead they just let them continue into the fire and be killed.... hope they got valuable data because it was at the cost of those peoples lives.

they may carry critical cargo, gear & personnel. With their empty missile compartments, old SSBNs can be converted to supply roles.

Not realistic at all. Those missile compartments are designed for missiles and not much else.

If it is urgent then aircraft are much much faster.

If it is secret... that is fine too because the plane is not going to get searched on the way...

The Soviet military did: w/o proper shore facilities & maintenance & with over/underuse, many ships & subs were sold for scrap early & languished in yards. 1 unfinished Slava CG is still in Nikolaev.

That was not cases of overspending... those were cases of changes of circumstances and scrapping ships and subs prevented over spending on vessels that were no longer needed or useful.

The Slava in Nikolaev is not Russias problem.

Russia better be careful not to repeat that. She needs to modernize & expand her internal waterways canal system that requires $Bs in investment- doing so will raise their cost effectiveness,while strengthening her national security:

The fact that the Jamestown institute suggests it makes me think it is not worth it at all.

Upgrading internal waterways might be of benefit but is redundant really because they don't have their main large shipyards in the Black Sea any more so building large ships and moving them via internal waterways makes little sense, though it is an asset that should be kept and maintained there is little need to upgrade it... new large ships will be built in the far east.

Rail and road expansion across the country make rather more sense and would be a better use of available funds.... especially high speed rail...

Japan, Taiwan & SK can pay for her protection with electronics.

Protection from what? If most countries are not accepting the US dollar as payment why would Japan or Taiwan or SK accept it?

It will be a game of last man standing... no one will want to get stuck with useless US dollars... and any country that accepts them will end up with bits of paper that no one else will want to touch...

we constantly transfer fighters & haul cargo overseas besides supporting local & naval ops.

Cargo goes by sea.

Desert Storm... the ground component was delayed for the 6 months it took to transfer all the armour and resources that were needed for the ground component.... if Saddam had struck against them as they were sending stuff over it would have been sheridan tanks defending US bases, not Abrams tanks.

as soon as any of them deny transit rights/access to bases, then they r not worth to be traded with & can be sanctioned like Turkey was.

Any country Russia decides to trade with will immediately become a pariah and be subject to sanctions and perhaps even regime change from the US which means hostile neighbours who wont cooperate with the country or Russia... the country Russia is trading likely wont have an IAD as effective as one Russian Corvette let alone a whole surface group of ships... most countries don't have such a thing.

even US & UK friendly India granted Russia access to her bases.

India is a significant Russian ally and client and not really very representative... but even with Indian bases having a pirate patrol off Africa is too far away from Indian bases for air power to be support. A base in Yemen would be much more useful but not really possible with Saudi Arabia blowing the shit out of it...

With others, if they want to keep the wolves away, Russian S-300/400s, etc. will be a good way to ensure access. Super bombers conducting diplomacy r cheaper than super carriers.

Most countries can neither afford or need such systems... which on their own are actually still vulnerable to attack. It would also be subject to regime change too so you can't just equip any country willing to trade with Russian IADS systems...

Adm. Nelson's time when Britain ruled the waves is over; the RN will sail & operate with her allies from now on. Russia has only 4 allies: her Army, VMF, Atomflot, & the VKS.

The UK, like the US is not what it used to be and are both contracting in power and influence, but Russia is growing and developing and should not limit herself in terms of trade and cooperation...

Tankers may be stationed at forward bases/overseas, & there will be more of them later

Who is going to pay for all these forward deployed tankers and provide all the fuel they will use and transport when needed?

AN-22/124 &/ future IL-106 tanker versions could carry a lot more fuel than IL-478s.

The Navy does not have any inflight refuelling tanker aircraft and not Blackjack or Bear bombers either...

Tu-22/95/160 armed with lighter AAMs won't be burning as much fuel as with ASh/LACMs.

Tu-22M3s and Tu-95s, and Tu-160s armed with AAMs would be under the control of the Aerospace Forces... not the Navy... and could certainly not operate safely globally.

exactly; China can nuke the US but the US is still itching for a fight in the SC Sea:

To the Americans being able to sail where they like is a national interest... what if they start building islands in other strategic places... they can't stand for that.... it might give China an advantage... China should invade the island and remove all the people from the island and build a big runway and claim it as being theirs like the US and UK does... anything else is cheating.

A commercial aircraft flying straight and level emitting the IFF codes that it should be to identify it as a commercial flight should not be threatening to anyone.

USAF cargo & probably other planes used commercial air routes before to mask their presence. War is deception..

That was not cases of overspending... those were cases of changes of circumstances and scrapping ships and subs prevented over spending on vessels that were no longer needed or useful. The Slava in Nikolaev is not Russias problem.

the result is the same: $ spent=$ wasted. many of those ships incl. Slava in Nikolaev could still be used, reducing the need for new ships.

The fact that the Jamestown institute suggests it makes me think it is not worth it at all.

others suggest it, they r just reporting z& elaborating on it.

Upgrading internal waterways might be of benefit but is redundant really because they don't have their main large shipyards in the Black Sea any more so building large ships and moving them via internal waterways makes little sense, ..

it has nothing to do with shipyards in the Black Sea & building of large ships. It's about being able to move more cargo & transfer larger ships between Black & Caspian Seas more efficiently which will help the economy of S. Russia, Transcaucasus & C. Asia, adding stability.

Rail and road expansion across the country make rather more sense and would be a better use of available funds.... especially high speed rail...

even if $Bs r spent, water transport is the cheapest & will pay for itself in time. Otherwise, there would be only railroads across the isthmuses of Panama & Suez now.

Protection from what? 

perceived threat from China, RF & NK.

Cargo goes by sea.

some goes by air; C-5/17s r not sitting idle.

Who is going to pay for all these forward deployed tankers and provide all the fuel they will use and transport when needed?

the host country, if it wants the trade & mil. aid to continue. Btw, IL-62s can carry 40T of cargo each; a cargo/tanker version can fly on 2-3 engines to save fuel & act like VC10 Vickers
https://www.aircharterservice.com/aircraft-guide/cargo/ilyushin-russia/ilyushinil-62
http://www.airvectors.net/avvc10.html#m4

The Navy does not have any inflight refuelling tanker aircraft and not Blackjack or Bear bombers either...Tu-22M3s and Tu-95s, and Tu-160s armed with AAMs would be under the control of the Aerospace Forces... not the Navy... and could certainly not operate safely globally.

interoperability isn't only for NATO, Japan & Australia to practice. When protecting the VMF, they may be operationally controlled by admirals instead of generals. Recently there was talk about transferring some to the VMF.

To the Americans being able to sail where they like is a national interest... what if they start building islands in other strategic places... they can't stand for that.... it might give China an advantage...

yes, it's about containing China & preventing her further rize.

GarryB wrote:A Destroyer has better area defence weapons and could probably defend itself and ships it is operating with. A Cruiser is basically a command ship that is never intended to be alone... and is designed to defend the ships it operates with using short, medium, and very long range SAMs. A fixed wing aircraft carrier should operate with Cruisers, and therefore benefit from their super long range missiles

Agree here. That is why the carrier can and must use its high-value space for the air wing and leave the missile launching to the other ships. So, long range SAMs and land attack are not needed IMO.

Yeah, every time the Russians talk about hypersonic weapons the US Navy guys say their SM-6 missiles are hypersonic too, but it really is not the same.

Not the same at all, but since they don't have anything better they at least get the chance to actually hit the enemy...

and Zircon and their other high speed missiles are powered during the terminal attack phase...

Are you sure?

And in the time it takes to do so the Russians will have had years of experience and have probably a few hypersonic drones for testing air defence systems and developing tactics to defeat such targets...

Having an advantage is good, the problem is that eroding it is easier than building it up, specially now that US still has money.

Russia being navally blocked from all trade with central and south America would be a national interest issue I would think...

National interest for sure, only maybe not critical security issue at the time being. I would think that allowing Venezuela to fall would come close to that level in the long term though

USAF cargo & probably other planes used commercial air routes before to mask their presence. War is deception..

Yeah, but during peace time in international waters you can't just go blasting aircraft out of the sky because you think they are flying too close to you... I mean honestly with KAL007 if it was a recon plane it just flew over very secret areas of the Soviet Union so they had to stop it from leaving. In the case of the USS Vincennes that shot down an Iranian Airbus... it did so from inside Iranian waters where it was illegally firing on boats of the Iranian Navy... a single aircraft would not be used to mount an attack on an AEGIS class cruiser... the very idea is just silly, so shooting down that single aircraft was also unjustified... it had done nothing to indicate it was hostile... it was steadily climbing to cruise altitude and made no manouvers at all... and it was flying at subsonic speeds... it was not flying very low and fast like a real attack would... the commander that ordered it be shot down was a criminal.

the result is the same: $ spent=$ wasted.

No it is not. Mass producing cold war era ships today would be wasting money.

Getting rid of unneeded and unwanted ships and subs makes a lot of sense... Russia has no current use for the Soviet Navy... it would just bleed funds that are better spend on other things.

many of those ships incl. Slava in Nikolaev could still be used, reducing the need for new ships.

No matter what upgrades they decide upon for their Kirovs and Slavas both will need to be replaced anyway... there is no current urgent need for cruisers right now. Frigates and Corvettes for coastal patrol are more use as well as a few ships for the moment that can go further afield for longer.

Gradually they will need more and more longer ranged ships but by that stage they will likely have new destroyers and cruisers in production and they can retire or sell off the older ships.

others suggest it, they r just reporting z& elaborating on it.

They wouldn't suggest it and republish it if they thought it was good for Russia...

They don't want a strong Russia, they are not the first place Russia should go for advice... in fact they are the second last... the Clinton Foundation would be last.

it has nothing to do with shipyards in the Black Sea & building of large ships. It's about being able to move more cargo & transfer larger ships between Black & Caspian Seas more efficiently which will help the economy of S. Russia, Transcaucasus & C. Asia, adding stability.

Why would they want bigger ships on the Caspian?

How much material do you think they need to move between the Caspian and Black Seas?

even if $Bs r spent, water transport is the cheapest & will pay for itself in time. Otherwise, there would be only railroads across the isthmuses of Panama & Suez now.

Water is not an option in most places in Russia because for half the year it is frozen.

Material from ships can be easily transferred to trucks and trains for cross country high speed transfer to where it is needed.

perceived threat from China, RF & NK.

Then they are idiots... the US has done them more damage over the last few centuries than China, the RF and NK have done combined.

In fact the most destructive and abusive power in the region after the US was Japan.

But now it seems it needs its ass wiped...

the host country, if it wants the trade & mil. aid to continue. Btw, IL-62s can carry 40T of cargo each; a cargo/tanker version can fly on 2-3 engines to save fuel & act like VC10 Vickers

So what do you say to the host country... we are too tight arsed to pay for aircraft carriers so we are going to spend enormous amounts of money on aircraft and fuel and you get to pay for it... that is a situation where a stupid solution eliminates the problem... Russia wont need carriers or transports because no one will trade with them in that situation...

interoperability isn't only for NATO, Japan & Australia to practice. When protecting the VMF, they may be operationally controlled by admirals instead of generals. Recently there was talk about transferring some to the VMF.

Don't be silly.... what is Putin going to say if he decides to call a surprise test of Russias strategic deterrence and wants all strategic bombers in the air fully armed to test how long it takes and the commander of the force says sorry... no planes are available because they are stretched around the world with Air to Air missiles loaded on them because you are too tight to pay for aircraft carriers... give us 5 days and we can have them all flown back here ready for your exercise... whoops... Tsavo just managed what the US was unable to do... knocked out one leg of the Russian strategic triad of defence...

Not going to happen.

So, long range SAMs and land attack are not needed IMO.

But they are talking about 400km missiles in Redut so even if they don't mean 48N6 missiles can be loaded at the very least it means Redut will have long range missiles.

UKSK tubes will be carried... I doubt they would have land attack missiles... more likely anti sub missiles would make rather more sense and perhaps a couple of Zircon missiles for self defence.

Are you sure?

Zircon is a scramjet powered missile why would it not use fuel during the terminal phase to manouver?

Do you think the Russians are stupid enough to target enemy ships beyond the effective range of their missiles and just glide their missiles into the targets and hope they don't slow down too much that they can be shot down like much slower missiles will be?

What is the point of developing a mach 10 missile and then having it attack targets pulling enormous g and rapidly slowing down in close proximity to the target...

Having an advantage is good, the problem is that eroding it is easier than building it up, specially now that US still has money.

What good has their money done them?

While the US is trying to get hypersonic missiles right, Russia will be working on making them better and working out how to stop them...

Working out how to stop something you can actually test a fully working IADS against makes things more concrete and solid.

National interest for sure, only maybe not critical security issue at the time being

There is no difference... national interest to keep Russia and China out is because Russian and Chinese bases there are a security threat, and the risk that other countries in the region might also become interested in Russian and Chinese trade and weapons would be catastrophic...

Of course Russia has no say in Georgia or Ukraine or Belarus or the Arctic or the Baltic States, just because that is a region where Russia is and has territory, but of course the US has to protect its backyard because it is its backyard... central and south america is america.... didn't you know... it is unique...

Agree here. That is why the carrier can and must use its high-value space for the air wing and leave the missile launching to the other ships. So, long range SAMs and land attack are not needed IMO.

The Kuznetsov has CIWS like Kashtan and AK-630 turrets and about 192 Naval TOR missiles...

Notice short range air defence.

I agree a CVN would not need 400km range SAMs because the cruisers and destroyers it will be operating with will be carrying large numbers of them, but a future CVN will likely be armed with close in self defence systems... the gun turrets might be 57mm guns, the air defence mounts will likely be Pantsir, though probably with the quad tube missiles and the 20km range missiles, and they will likely have vertical launch tubes for upgraded TOR missiles and probably the equivalent of S-350 on land... ie Redut with 9M100 missiles and perhaps the short range 60km range 9M96 missiles as standard in large numbers.

Carriers that size have plenty of space.

They will also likely have UKSK launchers and S-500 launchers whatever they might be... the UKSK launchers will probably be loaded with anti sub ballistic missiles and EW rockets and perhaps anti torpedo weapons... hell over time they might develop UAVs or suicide drones that look like cruise missiles that they can launch from them.

GarryB wrote:Zircon is a scramjet powered missile why would it not use fuel during the terminal phase to manouver?

Do you think the Russians are stupid enough to target enemy ships beyond the effective range of their missiles and just glide their missiles into the targets and hope they don't slow down too much that they can be shot down like much slower missiles will be?

What is the point of developing a mach 10 missile and then having it attack targets pulling enormous g and rapidly slowing down in close proximity to the target...

I honestly dont know whether they have fuel for the terminal phase. The AShM Kalibr accelerates before impact, but that is probably to cross faster the last 15-20 km where they can actually be detected, it may be just a fast burn rocket. As to the others, having fuel for the terminal attack means more range is available if they attack relying on their kinetic energy. I really don't know.

What good has their money done them?

It made them enormously rich... and stupid. It allowed them to be normally ahead in many aspects of technological development or simply its deployment. So others just had to follow their path. If the situation reverses, US money is of great help to close the gap. As a general principle, I don't know if US will be very successful with hypersonics or when.

While the US is trying to get hypersonic missiles right,  Russia will be working on making them better and working out how to stop them...

I am not denying the benefits of the military advantage, only saying widening it is more difficult than closing it, all actors being rational (big assumption in this case I know)

There is no difference...

Critical threat is the national territory or anything that is close to it. Commercial interests 10,000 km away are normally just that, interests. A setback on those can be compensated somewhere else, but if you lose your homeland it is game over.

The Kuznetsov has CIWS like Kashtan and AK-630 turrets and about 192 Naval TOR missiles...

Notice short range air defence.

Rightly so... a carrier should have an absurdly high AD saturation threshold to really discourage any attempt to attack it.

I agree a CVN would not need 400km range SAMs because the cruisers and destroyers it will be operating with will be carrying large numbers of them,

And even better, fighters at distances way longer than the range of those SAMs can cover.

but a future CVN will likely be armed with close in self defence systems... the gun turrets might be 57mm guns, the air defence mounts will likely be Pantsir, though probably with the quad tube missiles and the 20km range missiles, and they will likely have vertical launch tubes for upgraded TOR missiles and probably the equivalent of S-350 on land... ie Redut with 9M100 missiles and perhaps the short range 60km range 9M96 missiles as standard in large numbers.

I could agree on that, sure. The platforms at the four corners of carriers do have lots of space. But I would never interfere with the flight deck...

Carriers that size have plenty of space.

The space big enough to carry UKSK is better used with fighter weapons and fuel, hangar volume and so on, me thinks.

They will also likely have UKSK launchers and S-500 launchers whatever they might be... the UKSK launchers will probably be loaded with anti sub ballistic missiles and EW rockets and perhaps anti torpedo weapons... hell over time they might develop UAVs or suicide drones that look like cruise missiles that they can launch from them.

Covering all those functions better at longer ranges is the reason why the carrier has an air wing... if the escort is going to be there anyway, why not let it carry a few 91R rockets? Or do you propose the carrier to go alone?

you can't just go blasting aircraft out of the sky because you think they are flying too close to you...

they'll take measures to prevent it. Most civ. planes cross the N. Atlantic & N. Pacific oceans on the great circle route, not over their wider parts. VMF ships would be going South, SW & SE, crossing those air routes in a few hours at most. Russian intel will monitor all air traffic, esp. originating from potential adversaries long before they come close. Any suspicious aircraft would be contacted & warned away- if it doesn't, measures would be taken against it.

many of those ships incl. Slava in Nikolaev could still be used, reducing the need for new ships.

there is no current urgent need for cruisers right now.

if CGNs weren't useful, why modernize 2 of them? ! CG was even sent to E. Med. from the Pac. Fleet- if an extra Slava was active, it would be sent there instead.

They wouldn't suggest it and republish it if they thought it was good for Russia...

even a stopped clock shows correct time twice during a 24 period. The article is mostly a critique of the sorry state of their canals & waterways, not a recommendation/suggestion to course of action. The Russians know it as well as Western think tanks.

Why would they want bigger ships on the Caspian?
How much material do you think they need to move between the Caspian and Black Seas?

for trade to grow &/ relieve other modes of more costly transport, canals should be deepened for bigger ships/barges. Sooner or later a waterway to the Persian Gulf would be built, increasing the need for them.  

Water is not an option in most places in Russia because for half the year it is frozen.

no, in the W. part it's not frozen for 10.5 months: From about mid-March to mid-December, the Volga is navigable throughout most of its course, although it is subject to much flooding in May and June, when it is fed by an immense amount of melting snow. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/russia/articles/Russia-river-cruise-guide/
I never heard of the Volgo-Don canal being inoperable during winter:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga%E2%80%93Don_Canal#Operation

So what do you say to the host country... we are too tight arsed to pay for aircraft carriers so we are going to spend enormous amounts of money on aircraft and fuel and you get to pay for it...

it won't be that much expencive- they already have those planes & the fuel will be produced locally, with Russian help if need be.
Poland recognized the power of the Russian Su-30SM

what is Putin going to say if he decides to call a surprise test of Russias strategic deterrence and wants all strategic bombers in the air fully armed to test how long it takes

Even some ex-N/AF Tu-16s/M-4s (4 r on display https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myasishchev_M-4#Aircraft_on_display), if still in storage, could be bought from former operators & given that task; a few older Tu-95/142/22/160s could be converted for that AA role & not be part of their strategic bomber force, since the Tu-160M2 production has been restarted.

Most civ. planes cross the N. Atlantic & N. Pacific oceans on the great circle route, not over their wider parts.

Really.... Mr Expert... so Air New Zealand planes and planes flying from Australia flying to London fly up the Pacific coast to Japan before flying across the Pacific... what a long way to go..

Russian intel will monitor all air traffic, esp. originating from potential adversaries long before they come close. Any suspicious aircraft would be contacted & warned away- if it doesn't, measures would be taken against it.

Of course all air traffic over military ships will be monitored... but how do they contact any plane in particular?

If they had an aircraft carrier they could send up fighter planes to escort it, but without fighter aircraft their only alternative is radio and who is to say anyone on board the plane is awake... and why contact them anyway... civilian planes fly over military ships all the freaken time...

if CGNs weren't useful, why modernize 2 of them? ! CG was even sent to E. Med. from the Pac. Fleet- if an extra Slava was active, it would be sent there instead.

Right now they can't be replaced because they have no production alternative, yet they are only bothering to upgrade two out of the four.

even a stopped clock shows correct time twice during a 24 period. The article is mostly a critique of the sorry state of their canals & waterways, not a recommendation/suggestion to course of action. The Russians know it as well as Western think tanks.

Which sums it up perfectly... whining bullshit from a US bias thinktank who is not trying to be constructive or helpful, but destructive and malicious....

Which is why I didn't read it...

for trade to grow &/ relieve other modes of more costly transport, canals should be deepened for bigger ships/barges. Sooner or later a waterway to the Persian Gulf would be built, increasing the need for them.

Most of the stuff coming from Iran is probably going all around Russia rather than directly to Sevastopol or the Crimea... it simply makes more sense to offload it in a port in the Caspian and put it on a train and then they can send it anywhere they like.

AFAIK they don't build the ships that operate on the Caspian in the Caspian... which means all the Russian ships that operate there sailed there anyway so they should already fit through the canals.

Any non Russian ships in the Caspian not fitting through Russian canals... tough...

it won't be that much expencive- they already have those planes & the fuel will be produced locally, with Russian help if need be.

The cost would be immense and the effective coverage it would provide would be pathetic so I think it is a silly idea and I don't think they would waste time trying to make it work.

Even some ex-N/AF Tu-16s/M-4s (4 r on display https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myasishchev_M-4#Aircraft_on_display), if still in storage, could be bought from former operators & given that task; a few older Tu-95/142/22/160s could be converted for that AA role & not be part of their strategic bomber force, since the Tu-160M2 production has been restarted.

Older planes have even less range and would be sitting ducks that could easily be picked off... along with their refuelling aircraft... the cost of which would be as damaging as losing a lot of ships which would also happen too... just to save a few billion dollars building aircraft carriers...

Sorry mate, but that is just a silly idea.

I honestly dont know whether they have fuel for the terminal phase.

They will be flying at altitudes of 40km and above and so the terminal phase would be a dive on the target... look up any weapon manual for air to air missiles and the range of the weapon is taken into account to determine launch ranges and the launch range for Zircon will allow the missile to manage its fuel and speed and altitude to ensure it is powered to impact because that makes it more effective.

The AShM Kalibr accelerates before impact, but that is probably to cross faster the last 15-20 km where they can actually be detected, it may be just a fast burn rocket. As to the others, having fuel for the terminal attack means more range is available if they attack relying on their kinetic energy. I really don't know.

Well do you think the subsonic all the way Kalibr will have fuel all the way to the target... I mean it could extend its range by a few kilometres if it just shut its engine down before impact and just coasted into the target... the lack of engine noise would make it harder to hear... but it would also slow down... especially if it performs evasive terminal manouvers too.

The Supersonic anti ship Kalibr definitely does not hit the target with its rocket motor running but that is the thing about rocket motors... they burn fast and offer huge acceleration and then you cruise to impact... at very very low altitude a slow burning rocket motor to reduce drag and help maintain speed could be used too I guess, but it wont be powering into the target like a weapon with a scramjet could.

The space big enough to carry UKSK is better used with fighter weapons and fuel, hangar volume and so on, me thinks.

So you think being able to push a button and launch a 91ER1 missile at mach 2.5 to attack a submarine 40km away is a bad thing?

UKSK take depth but the area in front of the Island is fairly useless for parking planes... you might get two or three there at best, but having missiles there and also along the outer edge of the entire flight deck for SAMs of all types just makes sense... It is an extra reason for people and things to not get close to the edge between where the deck is and it is dry and where the sea is and you drown or lose an aircraft or vehicle forever...

Covering all those functions better at longer ranges is the reason why the carrier has an air wing... if the escort is going to be there anyway, why not let it carry a few 91R rockets? Or do you propose the carrier to go alone?

The carrier needs to be able to operate alone if need be... and a CVN might need to rush to an area perhaps with only a cruiser escort... transferring from one area to another... it makes it flexible... it doens't have to stick close to this or that ship because this or that ship has the anti sub missiles it needs for protection...

Besides being a capital ship it is going to get the attention of all sorts, which means it will need to carry S-500s and I doubt they will be fitted to Redut launchers.

Worst case scenario the UKSK launcher could carry an extra 32 9M96 missiles (four per tube and 8 tubes), while at other times other missiles of various types could be loaded.

It adds flexibility.