Future Russian Aircraft Carriers and Deck Aviation. #2

Oh yes!! The oligarchs have been robbing them blind, they know they will get bailed out .

What oligarchs?

The Russian MIC is largely state owned so the only oligarchs that could possibly make any money out of them are the ones that own banks that the MIC companies borrow from to produce their weapons.

The profit markup on Russian weapons is strictly managed at about 4-5%... there is no room for graft or grease...

As you say for gas carriers but those are about 80-100K tons.

The ones the Russians intend to build will be ice capable so will likely be slightly heavier than existing types so they can sail them through their North Sea Route to deliver to the Pacific or Atlantic.

Maybe they will build a larger carrier, but that does not mean they may do something interesting with these ships so they can get naval avaiation running faster.

350K tons is the max weight they can build... I would suggest 99% of the ships they ever build there will not be 350K ton ships... they will be much smaller and all sorts of lengths and weights...

They take as much as 7 years to build a corvette from keel to commision,

They have never made a corvette like that before... it is a fully multi role vessel able to attack ship, sub and land based targets with its primary weapons... they have never had any ships at all with such capabilities... they have never had a conventional land strike capability with missiles before.

These Corvettes have an electronics system comparable to AEGIS and are just as complex... but once they get it right they can mass produce them in numbers because of their modular design and construction. Even more valuable is that larger ships like Frigates and Destroyers and even Cruisers use the same multirole electronics... they will use the same weapon launchers... just carried in much greater numbers and of course larger calibre guns (ie 152mm guns) and of course their sensors will be based on much bigger sensor arrays like radar and sonar and EO systems.

Experience in making Corvettes directly helps with larger vessels, though the scaled up weapons and enlarged sensors like the huge AESA radars they will carry on their Cruisers to allow them to use S-500 SAMs against Satellites and ballistic missiles will need to be developed and tested too but most of the basic ground work has been done with the Corvettes.

Before they were put on these corvettes they have not had AESA radars on ships and UKSK launchers on surface ships... it was all new and ground breaking and needed thorough testing.

More importantly these ships need to operate in every fleet in the Russian navy so the Caspian Sea, Black Sea, Baltic Sea, Pacific Ocean, and Northern Fleet and at different times of the year too... so they have more than one type of Corvette, but should be able to get away with one Frigate and one Destroyer and one Cruiser design...

Perhaps if the US Navy were as thorough then their Ford class carriers and Zumwalt class destroyers and LCS class frigates would actually be useful and working right now.

The thing is that once these designs are working the Russians can simply make as many as they need, which should be straight forward with their modular design and sharing weapon and sensors across all the types of vessels.

a nuclear carrier will take a looooooooong time.

Of course it will, but they already have the Kuznetsov in the mean time and they can learn from production of probably four 40K ton Helicopter landing ships and the destroyers they will need to build to escort any global reach ships like helicopter carriers, destroyers and cruisers.

Especially since its the first one in decades.

Not as big a problem as you might think... they don't make new ships the same way they used to and the new Zvezda shipyard was made by the South Koreans which are expert ship builders too, though China is starting to out pace them in terms of military vessels and numbers.

Once the Mistral deal was cancelled, it took years to actually get the Russian ships designed and laid down.

The Mistrals took billions and years to design and get right.... that is why Russia ordered them because the ground work had already been done and full scale ships had already been built and tested.

The French bailing on the deal means they got their money back, they learned a thing or two about building Helicopter landing craft and they got to sell stuff to Egypt in the form of most of the electronics and equipment they were going to use themselves which has now been fitted to the Egyptian Mistrals... including the helicopters...

There were things with the Mistrals they didn't like but didn't want a complete redesign, so they just would have used them as is... this way they can redesign the ships to exactly what they want... and later on could sell the design to other countries too no doubt.

I rather suspect if there are no serious faults they will build the four they intended to buy from France... two in the Northern Fleet and two in the Pacific Fleet... to cover the Atlantic and Pacific and the North Sea Route in between.

6 years pretty much. Now at least a 6 year buildout. (that is optimistic considering how they build corvettes and destroyters let alone nuclear subs. )

It is going to take 6 years to get decent Destroyers into production and probably another 4-5 years to get them right so they can start producing them in decent numbers for all the fleets so taking 10-12 years to build a CVN is a good thing... get it right and then make a second one later on too.

They have to set up the infrastructure to take the CVNs and their escorts which will also take time and money.

What they need is a ship that can operate away from Russia for several years... that can carry large numbers of aircraft... even though most of the time it wont... the extra space from not carrying a full compliment of aircraft means longer endurance and performance.

They could be clever with the design and perhaps make a 50K ton ship with double hull that is super wide with enormous hangars that can run at very high speeds and carry enormous loads of stores and aircraft... it doesn't have to be a 100K ton ship... but it needs to operate big planes like Yak-44s and Su-57s or their equivalent and carry enough fuel and weapons stores to actually be useful.

I am not in the VTOL camp, it will take too long, too risky and too expensive.

Glad to hear that... I am old enough to have heard all the promises and I know the results... the MiG-29 was better than the Yak-141 and the Su-33 was even better. The Yak-141 was a flawed fragile aircraft that would have a very high attrition rate and be flaky and not be faster or longer ranged than a much more conventional model.

Being able to operate from small carriers dooms you to be restricted and limited to weak tiny carriers that the UK has already rejected and the Soviet Union did too.

Modern 5th gen fighters have supercruise which means astounding levels of dry thrust jet engines... which should mean with after burner they should already be no external stores low drag in air to air configuration... they wont need cats to get airborne... it will only be AWACS platforms that do... whether they are Yak-44s or some drone based aircraft... I don't care... the purpose of a Russian carrier is 360 degree long range radar that will detect sneak attacks from low flying missiles and fighter planes that can investigate and intercept in peace time without needing to shoot targets down like a SAM requires.

I do not rule out EMALS as it is doable, and requires tech the Russians have been working on for a very long time and need to perfect for the future.

They have been working on it for some time now and I would rate the Russians to be better able to solve the problems than the Chinese... no disrespect meant... and it sounds like the Chinese have systems ready for testing.

The article somewhere about the Kuznetsov upgrades talk about mobile cat launch systems though it is not very specific.

Rocket assisted takeoffs are expensive and dangerous to other things on the deck and you are limited by how many rockets you can carry as to what can take off, but in the case of the Kuznetsov the MiG and teh Sukhoi should be able to take off normally... it would only be a much heavier aircraft that would require assistance so I am hoping to see a new fixed wing AWACS platform they are testing that needs cat launches.

I am not in the VSTOL camp, I think its not a good investment, there is no reason they cannot operate an SU-57 from a 40K ton carrier.

That 350 metre cat hull design they showed looked rather interesting... with cats heavier aircraft could operate from smaller vessels, but I think these helicopter carriers will be too small for normal aircraft operations... they already have Ka-52K "fighters" which would be very limited in terms of actually fighting but probably good enough to launch missiles as needed... and spot low flying threats.

Drones are the future, manned planes are gonna be dogmeat in very short order

Agree, but only in the longer term... for now there are no operational drones that are fighters.

To keep one carrier available you need 3, so from that perspective smaller carriers make sense.

With smaller carriers you need more carriers to offer the same number of fighters and AWACS...

It is like saying Corvettes are little cruisers so instead of having cruisers you could just make thousands of corvettes and link them together... but corvettes are small and have limited armament and sensors and even if you link them together in a network they wont be as effective as bigger vessels.

Smaller ships make sense near home waters and indeed corvettes and frigates are home water destroyers and cruisers, but you need a bigger ship for further afield.

For air cover for Corvettes in Russian waters I would think you would agree land based MiG-31s with Kinzhals offer much better protection against any enemy surface ship than any small carrier and would be much cheaper too.

For air cover for destroyers and cruisers 10,000km away from Russia a big carrier could do the job of two or three smaller carriers because it could carry big fighters and big AWACS aircraft with long range radar, and it could carry large sensor arrays and long range missiles like S-500 to defend itself from hypersonic missiles... and the huge cruisers that operate with it can shoot down air threats with high power lasers while still carrying hundreds of SAMs and land attack missiles and anti sub and anti ship weapons to defend itself and the ships around it.

A proper fleet like this will enable Russia to trade with anyone which will help the Russian economy grow and develop and the countries they trade with to grow and develop too.

The Russians skill base is now in a foreign country, so they have to reconsitute this and it will take a long time and be painful.

The Russians paid the South Koreans to build their shipyards and to train their workers to make ships in new modern ways... they have spent the money and produced the parts of the mistral to spec and on time too with no problem.

When there is no delay in engines or problems with new guns (I might add a 100mm gun the size and weight of a 76mm gun but the range and performance of a 100mm gun) and also new missiles (Redut) a brand new SAM system that is only just entering service on land (S-350) then there are no production problems.

A carrier is not the same as an LNG ship and those are not exactly flying off the dock even with the help of the Koreans.

They will not be building two every three years like the Chinese are, but they don't need to either.

They have an aircraft carrier that will be back in the water next year probably or the year after and they are working on producing corvettes and Frigates and will soon be working on destroyer and are upgrading a few old destroyers and cruisers too.

They have two helicopter carriers in production and will likely follow them with two more of the same.

They don't have the infrastructure for two CVNs any time soon so it is good that they will take time to design and build... they will learn a lot from the Helicopter carriers they are building and even more with larger radar and sonar arrays for destroyers and later cruisers.

The nuclear power plants for the bigger ships also need testing and will likely get testing in Destroyers and then Cruisers before being used in carriers... but for all we know these helicopter carriers might be nukes.

Assuming the dock is ready on time...we shall see.

What dock... the work that needed to be done on that floating dock was done already.

Operate fighters from the 40K ton carrier.

They are too small and being helicopter carriers they wont have ski jumps or cats so conventional fighters wont be able to operate from them...

Should be fine to operate all sorts of drones from though.

VTO drones could be used... they make sense...

Russia has China and India and the eurasian continent. It will be fine.

Russia needs to trade with the world... it can't limit itself to just China and India as both those countries are trying to develop too and wont need a lot of products that Russia produces... Russia will need to find markets for those other products if they wish to keep making them.

The alternative is to give in to the west and stop making things and just sell oil and gas and raw materials like a good little poodle.

A Russian commander will have his ships deployed in a wide area and will have radar pickets with drones.

Radar picket ships give away their position with their radar... drones carry tiny radars that are not good for detecting other drones or low RCS targets at useful ranges. Having a decent big radar on a fixed wing aircraft at altitude flying orbits gives its position away to the enemy but being an AWACS platform it transmits to aircraft and ships all the target information they need.... the planes and ships don't need to respond... giving away their position but receiving that information from the AWACS that is spewing out radar signals anyway means the enemy sees one target but does not see all the radar and radio silent ships and aircraft operating with it. The airborne radar means even sea skimming missiles can be seen from enormous distances... using the A-100 technology in the AWACs means the AWACS aircraft itself could find and lock incoming targets and ships and planes can launch missiles using target data from the AWACS only so without emitting an S-400 missile or R-77 or RVV-BD missile could be launched at targets 400km or 220km or 300km away and engaged with only the AWACS revealing its position.

MiG-29KRs operating closer to the target could use IRST passively to also gather target information to share with the group too... and of course the ships could be fitted with all sorts of OTH radar systems of the new types being introduced in Russia these days.

They don't need a much larger ship to use SU-57s, a 40K ton ship can do it, just fewer then Mig-35s.

A 40k ton helicopter carrier would need cats to operate MiGs and Sukhois... the Russians have already said the Kuznetsov is too small and the Ulyanovsk is bigger and with cats for that very reason...

A newer design obviously makes sense but not a smaller one.

That was then, Russian spy ships probably have some pretty nasty weapons these days. A koronet with Themobaric warhead will ruin anyones day.

Russian ships are always better armed, and they don't ignore the experience of rivals... after UK experience in the Falklands where rifle calibre machine guns fired from ships were found to put off incoming fighters with bombs the Soviets introduced 12.7mm HMGs on the bridges of most of their ships to boost firepower against all types of targets including small boats in the water and sea mines as well as aircraft.

And Turkey was quickly brought to heel.

I wouldn't say they were brought to heel.... the Russians never tried to shame them... but Turkey soon realised what sort of friend the US is when it wont sell them Patriot missiles to defend themselves and then bans them from the F-35 programme they were part of when they bought S-400s instead... not to mention supporting a coup to overthrow Erdogan... always an eye opener.

Just a calling card, poke the bear, poke the eagle. The Americans were never gonna risk a shooting engagement.

Testing their resolve and surprise surprise they defended themselves... a bit like sanctions really... thinking maybe this time they might fold and do as they are told... but the never seem to do that... odd really. Odd that Americans are that dumb.

@Mindstorm

Do you think that Russia should build new Aircraft carriers, or with the actual technology in building them, and with the future American hypersonic cruise missiles (2030's), it's useless to have one? Can they bring something against advanced enemy's or they are a liability?

What has this discussion got to do with this thread???

This carrier yes/no big/little discussion seems to be some kind of ghostly plague that spreads.

Isos wrote:If they can make heli carriers of 40kt then they can make this 40kt carrier too with nuk reactors taken from Borei or icebreakers programs.

They can add a catapult for AWACS.

Small but effective and possible.

I agree, 40K ton does not really define the size of the deck, you can still have a pretty large deck, and almost as long as Kuz

JohninMK wrote:What has this discussion got to do with this thread???

This carrier yes/no big/little discussion seems to be some kind of ghostly plague that spreads.

Thats the point of the thread isn't it? There is a lack of info from the Russians so they are intentionally being coy here. First the ship is 20K...oops now its 40K our bad lol. LPD? Oh actually CVN our bad...Point is, why should they tell anyone until its obvious. Why give anyone time to react? this ship will take shape over the next 4-5 years and until then we will have to read the tea leaves.

I think UDK have enough substance to be discussed without turning them into carriers, but we are a democratic forum

dino00 wrote:@Mindstorm

Do you  think that Russia should build new Aircraft carriers, or with the actual technology in building them, and with the future American hypersonic cruise missiles (2030's), it's useless to have one? Can they bring something against advanced enemy's or they are a liability?

There is a long discussion with him in the naval doctrine thread about that issue, IIRC he said there he prefers a distributed fleet rather that one built around carriers.

LMFS wrote:I think UDK have enough substance to be discussed without turning them into carriers, but we are a democratic forum

The thread was quote dead until they announced the displacement increase then kaboom. But I agree a lot of this should be in the deck aviation thread, and this thread should be specific to what we KNOW about this project, which is not very much lol

GarryB wrote:
What oligarchs?

The Russian MIC is largely state owned so the only oligarchs that could possibly make any money out of them are the ones that own banks that the MIC companies borrow from to produce their weapons.

The profit markup on Russian weapons is strictly managed at about 4-5%... there is no room for graft or grease...

Ok so govt owned entities are 100% free of graft and fraud lol. The Russian MIC relies on a VAST ecosystem of suppliers and contracts. Like the MIC in all nations, these are owned by politically connected individuals... and so all the same stuff happens.

The ones the Russians intend to build will be ice capable so will likely be slightly heavier than existing types so they can sail them through their North Sea Route to deliver to the Pacific or Atlantic.

Yes I know about the Yamal gas project, still not carriers.

They have never made a corvette like that before... it is a fully multi role vessel able to attack ship, sub and land based targets with its primary weapons... they have never had any ships at all with such capabilities... they have never had a conventional land strike capability with missiles before.

I agree the Russian corvettes are very powerful little ships, but so far, like you, I have been very disappointed at their build rate. The one private yard seems quite fast however, able to spit  one out in just over 2 years.

Of course it will, but they already have the Kuznetsov in the mean time and they can learn from production of probably four 40K ton Helicopter landing ships and the destroyers they will need to build to escort any global reach ships like helicopter carriers, destroyers and cruisers.

I contradict myself here a bit, these 40K ships can easily be built as nuclear powered as the Russians have easy access to the Arktika propulsion that can work quite nicely

Not as big a problem as you might think... they don't make new ships the same way they used to and the new Zvezda shipyard was made by the South Koreans which are expert ship builders too, though China is starting to out pace them in terms of military vessels and numbers.

This project will be very telling to see what they have learned, as it should incorporate a lot of the methods of Mistral. If they can get the hull in the water in under 2 years the I am a beliver.

It is going to take 6 years to get decent Destroyers into production and probably another 4-5 years to get them right so they can start producing them in decent numbers for all the fleets so taking 10-12 years to build a CVN is a good thing... get it right and then make a second one later on too.6 years pretty much.

This needs to speed up if not you end up producing obsolete ships, yes I know Russia has had to reconstitute whole industries and frankly they have done a really impressive job. Staggering really. Equal to when they moved factories out of the reach of the Nazi. In fact this is probably harder as whole new sub industries need to be established.

What they need is a ship that can operate away from Russia for several years... that can carry large numbers of aircraft... even though most of the time it wont... the extra space from not carrying a full compliment of aircraft means longer endurance and performance.

They could be clever with the design and perhaps make a 50K ton ship with double hull that is super wide with enormous hangars that can run at very high speeds and carry enormous loads of stores and aircraft... it doesn't have to be a 100K ton ship... but it needs to operate big planes like Yak-44s and Su-57s or their equivalent and carry enough fuel and weapons stores to actually be useful.

This is not really likely, even the USA rarely send their carriers out for more then 3 months at a time. I would argue if  this is your goal you need a MASSIVE ship, at least 200K tons with its own harbour. Perhaps they should consider an oil rig type structure so they can semi permenantly base it at various locations using jacks?

Rocket assisted takeoffs are expensive and dangerous to other things on the deck and you are limited by how many rockets you can carry as to what can take off, but in the case of the Kuznetsov the MiG and teh Sukhoi should be able to take off normally... it would only be a much heavier aircraft that would require assistance so I am hoping to see a new fixed wing AWACS platform they are testing that needs cat launches.

Yes I know but what *if* they have a vehicle on rail (like a rocket sled) but powered by say 2x 50K lb turbofans, this vehicle hooks up to the arrestor hook of the plane (in the opposite way) when the plane is launched it has an extra 100K lbs of thrust, in the last 1/3 distance they deploy thrust reversers that push the plane and brake the sled then it brakes using its own arrestor cables with redundancy. Kinda ghetto but it would likely work.

With smaller carriers you need more carriers to offer the same number of fighters and AWACS...

It is like saying Corvettes are little cruisers so instead of having cruisers you could just make thousands of corvettes and link them together... but corvettes are small and have limited armament and sensors and even if you link them together in a network they wont be as effective as bigger vessels.

AWACS should already be a drone, there is no need to send out a whole bunch of guys on scopes when the data can be fed down. A dedicated heavy drone can easily do this

Smaller ships make sense near home waters and indeed corvettes and frigates are home water destroyers and cruisers, but you need a bigger ship for further afield.

I don't entirely agree with this, I think the idea of a corvette needs to be altered to be a submersible ship, not a sub, just a ship that can go deep enough to avoid heavy seas and pull along a pod for visuals. If need be it can surface to launch or launch from just below the surface.

A proper fleet like this will enable Russia to trade with anyone which will help the Russian economy grow and develop and the countries they trade with to grow and develop too.

I don't think shipping is the issue. No one would dare to physically intercept a Russian flagged ship, I think the last time that happened was the Cuban missile crisis or Vietnam war. if a country attacks a Russian ship, their ships will be attacked everywhere, including their warships. Sanctions are the new tool, and direct trading systems are the mechanism.

The Russians paid the South Koreans to build their shipyards and to train their workers to make ships in new modern ways... they have spent the money and produced the parts of the mistral to spec and on time too with no problem.

When there is no delay in engines or problems with new guns (I might add a 100mm gun the size and weight of a 76mm gun but the range and performance of a 100mm gun) and also new missiles (Redut) a brand new SAM system that is only just entering service on land (S-350) then there are no production problems.

A lot of this still remains to be seen, yes a lot of Russian weapons are very impressive.

They will not be building two every three years like the Chinese are, but they don't need to either.

They have an aircraft carrier that will be back in the water next year probably or the year after and they are working on producing corvettes and Frigates and will soon be working on destroyer and are upgrading a few old destroyers and cruisers too.

They need a drydock to put the props back on Kuz, they are building one since the floating dock sank. Hard to take Russian timetables seriously.

Radar picket ships give away their position with their radar... drones carry tiny radars that are not good for detecting other drones or low RCS targets at useful ranges. Having a decent big radar on a fixed wing aircraft at altitude flying orbits gives its position away to the enemy but being an AWACS platform it transmits to aircraft and ships all the target information they need.... the planes and ships don't need to respond... giving away their position but receiving that information from the AWACS that is spewing out radar signals anyway means the enemy sees one target but does not see all the radar and radio silent ships and aircraft operating with it. The airborne radar means even sea skimming missiles can be seen from enormous distances... using the A-100 technology in the AWACs means the AWACS aircraft itself could find and lock incoming targets and ships and planes can launch missiles using target data from the AWACS only so without emitting an S-400 missile or R-77 or RVV-BD missile could be launched at targets 400km or 220km or 300km away and engaged with only the AWACS revealing its position.

There is no reason a drone cannot loft a radar from an SU-35 for example, yes Radar pickets do give their position away, you can also use a radar helo it is a high threat zone. A drone can also carry IRST very easily and send the data to the ship.

A 40k ton helicopter carrier would need cats to operate MiGs and Sukhois... the Russians have already said the Kuznetsov is too small and the Ulyanovsk is bigger and with cats for that very reason...

A newer design obviously makes sense but not a smaller one.

They maybe be able to get it off with ramp, but of course cats would be more ideal.

Russian ships are always better armed, and they don't ignore the experience of rivals... after UK experience in the Falklands where rifle calibre machine guns fired from ships were found to put off incoming fighters with bombs the Soviets introduced 12.7mm HMGs on the bridges of most of their ships to boost firepower against all types of targets including small boats in the water and sea mines as well as aircraft.

The 12.7 is a BEAST, the Kornet has 10,000 m range I doubt anyone would screw with a Russian spy ship. In fact I would wager the Israelis would be more willing to mess with a US ship then a Russian ship as the Russians have a reputation of taking revenge in the most brutal manner.

Testing their resolve and surprise surprise they defended themselves... a bit like sanctions really... thinking maybe this time they might fold and do as they are told... but the never seem to do that... odd really. Odd that Americans are that dumb.

They had it there own way for 15 years after the USSR collapsed. Its hard to change.

Isos wrote:The deck of this one is way bigger than on Kuznetsov. But lacks space inside which can be solved by using light hangars/protection on the deck.

What has this discussion got to do with this thread???

There are indication they want to use their heli carriers with vtol jets so it's apropriate to talk about light carriers if they can make 40kt heli carriers.

For goodness sake, there is a carrier thread!

Backman wrote:
Russia should build one to show it can. A new carrier decked with su 57's would project power. Regardless of how useful it is in WW3. Its a waste not to. They spend that much on the best submarines anyway.

And I think they will. Putin wants a carrier.

The VMF wants it. The naval experts want it. The design bureaus say openly any surface fleet in the world ocean without air cover is dead meat. Every country wants it. It is what it is.

BTW carriers have nothing to do with WWIII in a hot, nuclear phase or any other when the territories of the US and RF are already directly involved. They play a role in the current phase of the undeclared war (well it is declared but yet not turned kinetic as they say), when every country is fighting tooth and nail for influence and the US is trying to isolate and contain Russia without any restrain. The influence outside of the immediate surroundings of Russia is dependent on navies, and those depend on air power among others, as any other fighting force.

Thats the point of the thread isn't it? There is a lack of info from the Russians so they are intentionally being coy here. First the ship is 20K...oops now its 40K our bad lol. LPD? Oh actually CVN our bad...Point is, why should they tell anyone until its obvious. Why give anyone time to react? this ship will take shape over the next 4-5 years and until then we will have to read the tea leaves.

First it was 20K because it was Mistral or going to be four... and lets be honest if it had been Mistral then they would never have made more than four so this idea of a mini CVN would not be possible.

Because the Mistral is no longer and option they had to design their own and they took advantage of this to redesign and respec it to something more useful for them as a Helicopter landing craft.

I have read a few interviews with the maker of the new ships saying hospital ships and mini fixed wing fighter carriers are possible but this is the ship maker talking not the Russian Navy, which prefers bigger ships with larger capacity.

Ok so govt owned entities are 100% free of graft and fraud lol.

Of course not but with only 65 billion in the pot and having to actually come up with hardware proven to work with no committees made up of generals and admirals looking for cushy consultancy work after they retire from the military the blatant corruption and graft in the US simply does not work in Russia.

The Russian MIC relies on a VAST ecosystem of suppliers and contracts. Like the MIC in all nations, these are owned by politically connected individuals... and so all the same stuff happens.

Of course, that is why the Russians are so backward and behind and everyone thinks they are a joke because nothing works... or are you projecting Americas problems on Russia... I would say there is corruption, but compared with the US you can't even call it corruption... America could only dream to have the MIC that Russia has in terms of cost effectiveness.

Yes I know about the Yamal gas project, still not carriers.

Russia is not the US... Russia does not need a huge shipyard to exclusively pump out aircraft carriers for their evil imperial goals of world domination... having a shipyard that can build a couple of CVNs when they are READY TO, is investing money wisely, because until they are ready to start making some CVNs they can make all sorts of civilian vessels that can earn them money and benefit their economy.

40 years ago they had a shipyard for building carriers... it is now in the Ukraine. Zvezda in the far east is their newly built replacement for that shipyard so they have the capacity but they aren't 15 year old little school girls that want CVNs right away so they can boast on the internet about them... they need to finalise the designs and make sure they have a fleet that can use CVNs first.

I agree the Russian corvettes are very powerful little ships, but so far, like you, I have been very disappointed at their build rate.

Send them a Memo... I am sure they will pull finger and impress you because obviously that is written in their charter to impress people on the internet.

What they don't need to care about is testing these small vessels in all their fleets in all potential weather conditions to make sure they know which is suitable and which is not... a ship that is bloody useless in the Caspian but great in the black or baltic or northern or pacific might be made in numbers that allow it to be used in those four fleets but a different design might be needed for the Caspian... their fleets are so different and weather conditions so different they might need two or three different types of Corvette which is also something they need to work out too... the point is that the designs use standard modular weapons and sensors and systems so one might have UKSK and another might have Uran and a third type might have both, but once they finalise each design it wont take long to start producing them in volume and in the numbers they want.

It will be the same with the Frigates and then with the destroyers and cruisers and CVNs.

The one private yard seems quite fast however, able to spit  one out in just over 2 years.

Maybe they pay their bribes on time and with extra bonuses... I mean it can only be corruption right?

I contradict myself here a bit, these 40K ships can easily be built as nuclear powered as the Russians have easy access to the Arktika propulsion that can work quite nicely

These 40K ships are designed to carry around a brigade of Naval Infantry forces for about a month with their armour and helicopter support and of course landing ships and vessels to get them ashore... we have no idea what propulsion they might be using AFAIK.

This project will be very telling to see what they have learned, as it should incorporate a lot of the methods of Mistral. If they can get the hull in the water in under 2 years the I am a beliver.

Under 2 years... would you like them to cure cancer while they are at it? Why would they even want them that fast... it would take more than 2 years to get the compliment of helicopters and armoured vehicles and landing vessels that would operate from these ships anyway.

This needs to speed up if not you end up producing obsolete ships, yes I know Russia has had to reconstitute whole industries and frankly they have done a really impressive job.

That is just silly. Electronics probably change radically every 5-6 years, but to suggest a ship will ever become obsolete is just naive... they will get upgrades and overhauls through out their operational lives as a matter of course.

This is not really likely, even the USA rarely send their carriers out for more then 3 months at a time. I would argue if  this is your goal you need a MASSIVE ship, at least 200K tons with its own harbour.

Massive ships would be pointless... a large ship would need regular resupply no matter where it was... whether tied up in port or on the other side of the world... the new Russian CVNs will be no different.

Perhaps they should consider an oil rig type structure so they can semi permenantly base it at various locations using jacks?

A fixed structure is called an airfield and are already located around the world on land. The purpose of aircraft carriers is being able to move with the ships they are protecting... a fixed structure would be useless and easy to target.

Yes I know but what *if* they have a vehicle on rail (like a rocket sled) but powered by say 2x 50K lb turbofans, this vehicle hooks up to the arrestor hook of the plane (in the opposite way) when the plane is launched it has an extra 100K lbs of thrust, in the last 1/3 distance they deploy thrust reversers that push the plane and brake the sled then it brakes using its own arrestor cables with redundancy. Kinda ghetto but it would likely work.

Because rockets are relatively inefficient and also expensive and dangerous for people on the deck... steam cats and EMALS are much more energy efficient and have a lot more control. An EMAL launcher could detect the acceleration of the thing it is connected to and boost energy to get the object airborne if needed.

AWACS should already be a drone, there is no need to send out a whole bunch of guys on scopes when the data can be fed down. A dedicated heavy drone can easily do this

And yet despite pictures and concept drawings nothing like that exists anywhere AFAIK...

I don't entirely agree with this, I think the idea of a corvette needs to be altered to be a submersible ship, not a sub, just a ship that can go deep enough to avoid heavy seas and pull along a pod for visuals. If need be it can surface to launch or launch from just below the surface.

You think an entire fleet of mini subs would be safer than surface ships... well their radars would be useless so any aircraft could easily sneak up on them, and being submerged or semi submerged their ability to defend themselves would be pathetic... a few depth charges and they would be toast... against a conventional Russian corvette they would be easy meat... Otvet would sink them easy.... but most of the time without radar their situational awareness will be poor, but with radar they will be easy to locate...

Not to mention expensive.

No one would dare to physically intercept a Russian flagged ship, I think the last time that happened was the Cuban missile crisis or Vietnam war. if a country attacks a Russian ship, their ships will be attacked everywhere, including their warships.

So that footage of Somali pirates and all those Russian ships that were attacked was just made up?

How long before EU ships start trying to confiscate Russian flagged ships at sea to recover the 50 billion owed to ex oligarchs over Gasprom issues?

Sanctions are the new tool, and direct trading systems are the mechanism.

And in 10 years time when no one accepts US dollars because they are just printed monopoly money do you think US policy will change at all?

The west is failing... who knows what will happen in 5 years time.

Russia can certainly not rely even now on the west doing the right thing and keeping things fair and free...

A lot of this still remains to be seen, yes a lot of Russian weapons are very impressive.

They are not fitting proven old Soviet technology on their new ships... this is all brand new state of the art and largely untested so it has to be properly tested before committing to large scale production.... imagine of the US thought of that with the F-35 or LCS or Zumwalt...

They need a drydock to put the props back on Kuz, they are building one since the floating dock sank. Hard to take Russian timetables seriously.

Hard to take you seriously... perhaps it is corruption?

There is no reason a drone cannot loft a radar from an SU-35 for example

No reason at all... and with a pack of four or five AA batteries I am sure it will be fine in terms of powering that... I mean drone based AWACSs are already in use in.... where exactly...

yes Radar pickets do give their position away, you can also use a radar helo it is a high threat zone. A drone can also carry IRST very easily and send the data to the ship.

IRSTs are clever and capable but don't really offer the same performance...

They maybe be able to get it off with ramp, but of course cats would be more ideal.

A ship the size of the 40K ton helicopter carriers they are building would need cats to get conventional aircraft airborne with no margin for error.

The 12.7 is a BEAST, the Kornet has 10,000 m range I doubt anyone would screw with a Russian spy ship. In fact I would wager the Israelis would be more willing to mess with a US ship then a Russian ship as the Russians have a reputation of taking revenge in the most brutal manner.

Russian spy ships have 30mm gatlings and MANPADS at a minimum in addition to small arms and HMGS...

For goodness sake, there is a carrier thread!

I know, but some members are convinced carriers are obsolete but that if you have to have a carrier then your best option is to take a helicopter carrier or small carrier and try to use it as a big fixed wing carrier... you know... the way the US doesn't... and the UK doesn't... and France doesn't... but some tiny countries with small navies think they can with F-35s and helicopter landing ships.

If they can make heli carriers of 40kt then they can make this 40kt carrier too with nuk reactors taken from Borei or icebreakers programs.

They can add a catapult for AWACS.

Small but effective and possible.

Yeah, you see what has happened there is that someone has taken the deck of the Kuznetsov and made it much bigger, and they have taken the hull and made it much wider and deeper, and then what they have done is called this 90K ton carrier design a 40K ton design.

Not small, not effective, not possible and not cheap either.

The Russians have only ever talked about this new helicopter landing ship as being a helicopter landing ship... if they wanted it to also replace the Kuznetsov then they would likely make it a 50K ton design with a much longer deck.

The French can get away with a CdG sized carrier because catapults allow aircraft to get airborne from a distance even with a ski jump they would not be able to get airborne from except only with the lightest loads making them useless.

To get catapults on these helicopter carriers would be tricky and would be much easier on a bigger ship like the Kuznetsov or larger which would also make it a much more viable ship.

I am going to move this to a future Russian carriers thread...

GarryB wrote:

...For goodness sake, there is a carrier thread!

I know, but some members are convinced carriers are obsolete but that if you have to have a carrier then your best option is to take a helicopter carrier or small carrier and try to use it as a big fixed wing carrier... you know... the way the US doesn't... and the UK doesn't... and France doesn't... but some tiny countries with small navies think they can with F-35s and helicopter landing ships....

Which is precisely what you should over this to aircraft carrier tread

People are now just ranting about aircraft carriers on a tread about helicopter carrier

Just because three other countries easily do things that Russia can't doesn't mean you should clog a tread with off-topic drivel.

LMFS wrote:The design bureaus say openly any surface fleet in the world ocean without air cover is dead meat. Every country wants it. It is what it is.

Surface fleet can be protected with unmanned surface combatants even in the absence of air power.

The U.S Navy is already deploying Unmanned Surface Combatants.

Our Navy wants to acquire these large UVs as part of an effort to shift the Navy to a more distributed fleet architecture. Compared to the current fleet architecture, this more distributed architecture is to include proportionately fewer large surface combatants (i.e., cruisers and destroyers), proportionately more small surface combatants (i.e., frigates and Littoral Combat Ships), and the addition of significant numbers of large UVs.

https://beta.documentcloud.org/documents/20437261-navy-large-unmanned-surface-and-undersea-vehicles-background-and-issues-for-congress-dec-23-2020

You can also...like if I have finite missiles and I need to salvo them to get a good hit/kill at range, I really want to save those for a worthy target like a carrier. If I have to swarm and overcome the unmanned VLS ships first, that's going to dilute my killing blows and give a lot more advanced warning at the absolute worst to the human filled ships.

Now China is following the U.S Navy's concept of Unmanned Ships.

GarryB wrote:

Of course not but with only 65 billion in the pot and having to actually come up with hardware proven to work with no committees made up of generals and admirals looking for cushy consultancy work after they retire from the military the blatant corruption and graft in the US simply does not work in Russia.

You don't understand the US MIC, of that 800B budget only about 65-75B/year actually goes to capital spending. (repairs, new machinery and weapons etc) after all they are using the M2 machine gun from 1928!!! The VAST majority goes to legacy costs and salaries. Pensions, healthcare transports and bases. Russia pays poorly, conscripts, has terrible pensions and mediocre healthcare.

Of course, that is why the Russians are so backward and behind and everyone thinks they are a joke because nothing works... or are you projecting Americas problems on Russia... I would say there is corruption, but compared with the US you can't even call it corruption... America could only dream to have the MIC that Russia has in terms of cost effectiveness.

There is a lot of corruption in the US and the West, but the pie is so much bigger, the regular folk still get enough to finance their huge trucks and TVs.

Russia is not the US... Russia does not need a huge shipyard to exclusively pump out aircraft carriers for their evil imperial goals of world domination... having a shipyard that can build a couple of CVNs when they are READY TO, is investing money wisely, because until they are ready to start making some CVNs they can make all sorts of civilian vessels that can earn them money and benefit their economy.

Ok lets not pretend Russia is some sort of white knight here, the Russian people have a great history and are a great people, but they are as self interested as anyone.

Send them a Memo... I am sure they will pull finger and impress you because obviously that is written in their charter to impress people on the internet.

I am sure my memo will carry less weight then the ones from Putin.

Maybe they pay their bribes on time and with extra bonuses... I mean it can only be corruption right?

Someone seems to be able to do it, why not learn?

These 40K ships are designed to carry around a brigade of Naval Infantry forces for about a month with their armour and helicopter support and of course landing ships and vessels to get them ashore... we have no idea what propulsion they might be using AFAIK.

Yes we have no idea about what their propulsion is, or in fact, what their configuration and capabilities are. In fact the Russians have been more cagey about these ships then they normally are about any other ship. No mockups or models etc.

Under 2 years... would you like them to cure cancer while they are at it? Why would they even want them that fast... it would take more than 2 years to get the compliment of helicopters and armoured vehicles and landing vessels that would operate from these ships anyway.

Hull in the water, not commissioned. Chinese were able to launch 3 of these things (1 commissioned and 2nd on sea trials) in less then 2 years!! Yes I know they are the gold standard in shipbuilding speed now. But 2 years in the water and 18-24 months outfitting is not unreasonable.

That is just silly. Electronics probably change radically every 5-6 years, but to suggest a ship will ever become obsolete is just naive... they will get upgrades and overhauls through out their operational lives as a matter of course.

If they are taking 6 years to work out the bugs, guess what? By the time they ramp up production all the CPUS and parts are not even available!!!

Massive ships would be pointless... a large ship would need regular resupply no matter where it was... whether tied up in port or on the other side of the world... the new Russian CVNs will be no different.T

What is the problem with resupply?

A fixed structure is called an airfield and are already located around the world on land. The purpose of aircraft carriers is being able to move with the ships they are protecting... a fixed structure would be useless and easy to target.

Its not fixed, it can move on its own or park. During high threat times it can be underway, or it can park for longer stints.

Because rockets are relatively inefficient and also expensive and dangerous for people on the deck... steam cats and EMALS are much more energy efficient and have a lot more control. An EMAL launcher could detect the acceleration of the thing it is connected to and boost energy to get the object airborne if needed.

Actually steam is terribly inefficient, about 6% efficiency for cats. EMALS OTOH is about 86% effficient.

And yet despite pictures and concept drawings nothing like that exists anywhere AFAIK...

Yes but Russia does not have a carrier based AWACs so why would they go with an obsolete concept when they have a clean sheet of paper?

You think an entire fleet of mini subs would be safer than surface ships... well their radars would be useless so any aircraft could easily sneak up on them, and being submerged or semi submerged their ability to defend themselves would be pathetic... a few depth charges and they would be toast... against a conventional Russian corvette they would be easy meat... Otvet would sink them easy.... but most of the time without radar their situational awareness will be poor, but with radar they will be easy to locate...

Not to mention expensive.

The ship would operate with the superstructure above water most of the time, the ability to submerge is to handle heavy seas, which small ships struggle with. Before submerging they can launch a drone and keep a small antenna on the surface to receive data from the drone. Yes the initial concept would be expensive, but I think if the plan is to only allow 10-15M of submergence the cost to build will not be that high. Most ships are already NBC  protected, they can also snorkel. This ship can sneak up on targets pretty nicely as well.  

So that footage of Somali pirates and all those Russian ships that were attacked was just made up?

Non state actors, when dried up dead bodies of the pirates washed up I am sure the pirates got the message. No incidents since then as far as I can tell.

How long before EU ships start trying to confiscate Russian flagged ships at sea to recover the 50 billion owed to ex oligarchs over Gasprom issues?

No need, Russia has massive commercial interests in Europe, this will be handled in tghe courts.

And in 10 years time when no one accepts US dollars because they are just printed monopoly money do you think US policy will change at all?

The west is failing... who knows what will happen in 5 years time.

Russia can certainly not rely even now on the west doing the right thing and keeping things fair and free...

All money is printed monopoly money

No reason at all... and with a pack of four or five AA batteries I am sure it will be fine in terms of powering that... I mean drone based AWACSs are already in use in.... where exactly...

The SU-35 radar is 20 kw peak, that is not a great deal of extra power to put on a drone. We are talking about 250HP to power the whole thing.

A ship the size of the 40K ton helicopter carriers they are building would need cats to get conventional aircraft airborne with no margin for error.

All cats have no margin for error, any failure during launch is a crash.

To get catapults on these helicopter carriers would be tricky and would be much easier on a bigger ship like the Kuznetsov or larger which would also make it a much more viable ship.

Depends if they go EMALS or not. If they can, its not that hard, if steam, its incredibly difficult. Pneumatic is another option, but not sure about cycle time. Mechanical is also another option but hard to control. They can use rotary motors with cables as well, that would be quite easy, compact and all the tech exists.

you are a retard.

More than half of Russia's military is contract.  Their wages are also one of the highest in the country.

Russia has been building military hospitals in the last 10 years in drastic numbers. To the point that it was military hospitals that has been helping in this COVID issue for the last year.

Also, Russian military education is considered some of the best in the country and from birdies in Russia itself, there is a high demand to join the military for its education and financial reasoning.

Having a couple of full sized carriers would be nice. But Russia needs to focus on deploying both missile and attack submarines.
Being able to hit key targets on US soil is by far the most important defense asset for Russia. A carrier is a 3rd world policing
tool. In that function, Russia needs to be able to counteract yanqui aggression against 3rd countries.

miketheterrible wrote:you are a retard.

More than half of Russia's military is contract.  Their wages are also one of the highest in the country.

Russia has been building military hospitals in the last 10 years in drastic numbers.  To the point that it was military hospitals that has been helping in this COVID issue for the last year.

Also, Russian military education is considered some of the best in the country and from birdies in Russia itself, there is a high demand to join the military for its education and financial reasoning.

What they pay is a joke compared to what the US pays, Russian healthcare is very low cost. My opinion on Russian healthcare came from my ex-GF when we went to visit my dad in Hospital. Shes from Moscow and her dad is a Col. so she has seen the best Moscow has. Russia has great pharma and vaccine medica tech for sure. Also many brilliant peopel. But the end result is mediocre. Yes I know Russian education is  top notch, that does not mean its expensive. What do Russian docs make? So if half is "volunteer" the USA is 100%  volunteer, they do not get 50% conscript slave labour. Lowest grade Russian soldier is paid $360 a MONTH lol!! you can make FAAAR more working part time at Starbucks. Also I would bet that death and disability benefits are a joke, while in the USA they are a scam.

Yeah, there is a thing called purchasing power parity

US soldiers are paid like shit compared to living standards.

miketheterrible wrote:Yeah, there is a thing called purchasing power parity

US soldiers are paid like shit compared to living standards.

US PPP GDP per capita is 65K, Russia 29K So whatever. 1514/month vs 360? No PPP is gonna bridge that gulf. Yes 1500 sucks, but they get board and lodging as well so its just spending money.

mnztr wrote:

miketheterrible wrote:Yeah, there is a thing called purchasing power parity

US soldiers are paid like shit compared to living standards.

US PPP GDP per capita is 65K, Russia 29K So whatever. 1514/month vs 360? No PPP is gonna bridge that gulf. Yes 1500 sucks, but they get board and lodging as well so its just spending money.

Actually, yes it does bridge the gap. I think KVS figured out by a measure of 6.

You are too stupid to even know the difference between PPP and Nominal.  I'll give you a hint - valuation based upon costs within the nation and how far it's currency takes you.  Big Mac index is a good indicator.

And they also get a lot more than you claim.

I think it's time you sit down child. You know not what you talk about

It was Awara group that figured out that what one makes in Moscow let's say is equivalent to one who makes in Chicago.

https://www.awaragroup.com/blog/russia-vs-america-real-income-comparison/