Future Russian Aircraft Carriers and Deck Aviation. #2

I agree. China, India and Algeria would for sure buy 3 or 4 each if not more.

It is hard to emphasise too much how an AWACS platform effects the performance of air defence... they are very very expensive... but there is a reason why they are called force multipliers.

Without airborne radar you need to fly aircraft around a lot to make sure no one is sneaking below your ground radar or in places like mountains where your ground radar is not so good... that means lots of sorties and tired pilots and planes being used when they don't need to be.

Having a few AWACS platforms means much better coverage of your airspace... linking it in with your air defences makes you air defences much better... but it is also an aircraft so if you move out side of your territory near someone elses you can take them with you and use them there too.... NATO does this all the time on its wars of liberation...

Smaller aircraft would of course have less capability than the bigger types, but even just AEW which is what the Ka-31s are is valuable to prevent surprise attacks... like the ones on that Saudi Oil Refinery...

Having a view of the battlespace and being able to use it to coordinate attack and defence means it is much more likely that you will shoot down any incoming missiles, but it also means you should be able to coordinate an on the fly attack against some of the platforms that launched the attack too.

I would add Iran and probably Syria to the list of countries interested in this... the latter would best be able to use it with their IADS , meaning they would be best able to take advantages of all its features, but even a country with no unified air defence system would benefit from such resources...

However I would do the same as they did with their ASW system that has many version for light, medium helicopter or patrol aircraft.

I agree... scaled versions for different needs means better flexibility and better pricing for their own use... the Russian Army has bought several Ka-31s for monitoring battlefields... I suspect they would also be interested in a Yak-44/Il-112/114 sized model... but I would expect the full sized A-100 is probably too big and too expensive for the Army... but of course the Air Force might consider an Il-96 based version with surface mounted antenna for photonic radar... or perhaps even a flying wing type based on the PAK DA even...

One for a new yak-44 for carrier based awacs but also a much lighter one like for exemple based on sukhoi su-80 and for helicopter based radar pickets and also one for Zepplins and ballons.

They have a lot of options... from drones and light helos and planes through airships and much larger aircraft... I always liked the look of the Su-80... they had some awesome air to ground models armed with rocket pods and missiles like Hermes etc... but then probably the most capable COIN version would be a bomber which bombs from 10km altitude using G&T systems...

You don't need an AWACS to assist the air defence. Most of the time a radar and a datalink with the command post of s400 with 1 operator will be enough.

Awacs are used with fighters and needs more systems making them expensive.

Indeed... the Ka-31 is basically an airborne early warning aircraft... ie just a flying radar... with all the processing and communications via a ship that processes the data and generates commands etc.

For fixed wing AWACS for carriers it makes sense to have a full AWACS capability because in terms of locating the fleet having an aircraft flying around scanning for targets means you detect one target... if it processes the data and generates its own commands to control the aircraft in the air as well as pass target data to surface ships then that can all be one way digital traffic so an enemy listening in will just detect the AWACS platforms emissions.

With an AEW aircraft like Ka-31 they are going to detect its radar too but it will be volume transmitting enormous amounts of data to a nearby ship for processing... so effectively the ship becomes the C&C centre that finds targets and tells the Ka-31 where to look and coordinates any aircraft in the air and passes target data to aircraft and other ships... so for an enemy listening they will detect one helicopter and at least one ship... not the end of the world because you have no idea what else is there and if you think just because you know where one helo is and one ship is that you can take them on... what happens if that single ship is a Corvette... how many other ships are there there? How many other aircraft?

Russia has more heavy helos than China, & she needs to produce her own airframes which will differ from what China needs.

The whole point of a joint venture is because both parties want something so similar they can save money by making it together. It is perfectly sensible and practical and should lead to both parties getting a good product at a reasonable price...

The USSR operated both Mi-6s & Mi-26s it needed a lot more heavy helos than Russia today. Still, the niche of Mi-6 needs to be filled by a helo with better performance

Russias problem is distance and time... big helicopters are not particularly fast and don't have massive flight ranges. In comparison light transport types can have flight ranges of several thousand kms and travel that distance in a few hours.

If you look at it from the point of view of a hub system... in the far east you will have a major airfield that can land the heaviest aircraft... An-124s... and later Slon etc. So moving materials by air would generally go to that air field first. Near that airfield there will be a significant population base so the majority of what was transported doesn't go very far... by road or by rail or by smaller aircraft. Some material needs to go further away so smaller lighter aircraft are used to distribute cargo and people to smaller airfields around the place.

Russian investment in the northern sea route will mean more money going through Russian northern ports... they will need people and people need supplies and support... much of it will come to the port by ship because that is cheapest but other stuff will come via airfields near the ports. Roads and rail lines will grow from the ports south to link up with existing rail and road links and those links will expand... small towns will pop up on those rail and road lines to support the traffic going one way or another... and those people and the people moving on rail and road links will need support and servicing...

Jobs will be created and all this added infrastructure will make access to areas to mine and resources to exploit much easier and cheaper.

People doing these new jobs need to be fed and looked after... which means more jobs...

The Mi-6 is a 10-12 ton payload aircraft... the new joint Russian/Chinese helicopter programme is a 10-15 ton payload aircraft with better performance... if the Russians want to develop their own aircraft because they don't want to share new technology so cheaply then it will likely be a much higher speed design... either way Russia wins.

The Russians will have similar, if not worse, problems with EM catapults; the Americans won't share any fixes they may come up with.

Based on what?

Why would Russia want the Americans to solve their problems? Was it Americans who made Zircon ready for operations? Is America teaching Russia how to make Photonic radar systems? Is America supplying rocket motors so Russia can send people and cargo to space?

The Americans working on EMALs are the same ones who created the Zumwalt and LCS frigate alternatives and that track record is not exactly something to brag about... perhaps it should be the Americans asking the Russians or Chinese for help to get their EMALS working...

BTW why would the Russians have worse problems?

They only need EMALS to launch an AWACS platform... most of their fighters will just use the ski jump for launching... it is much less important... in fact if they go for airship AWACS as I have been suggesting they might not even use their Cats very much at all... just transport and inflight refuelling aircraft...

Of course the technology they develop to make EMALS work can be used in long range artillery guns and perhaps even a moon surface system for returning payloads from the moons surface to earth cheaply. Electric drive systems using enormous capacity to store and move large amounts of electricity from system to system would also be incredibly useful for a range of platforms from UAVs and ships and subs as well as manned aircraft, naval and land based vehicles and also spacecraft...

If there was a consensus that it'll replace & surpass the Mi-6, Kamov wouldn't be announcing work on its Ka-106.

The fact that they are announcing it suggests they lost the competition and are now looking for other international partners to help fund their programme.

Remember in the late 1980s and early 1990s it was the Havoc that was revealed first... in fact it went to western air shows to try to get funding via a foreign partner and foreign customers for the platform because it had already lost the domestic competition to replace the Hind which was won by the Hokum... which was kept secret because it was the aircraft they were planning to build. The point being later demands for night and all weather capability meant a single seat aircraft was no longer suitable so the Havoc was in fact selected and the Hokum had to look for foreign partners... eventually they took on both because each had features the other lacked so the Havoc became the attack helo... the fire support helo, while the Hokum became the recon attack platform... the equivalent of the Apache and Commanche respectively but without the stealth bullshit.... and of course they are buying both whereas the US Commanche got canned.

The Mi-6 was the fastest Soviet helo:

It doesn't matter.... the cruise speed is 250km/h and that is what matters when flying 2,000km at a time that makes for very long trips... especially if you have to make stops to drop stuff off and refuel.

A light fixed wing transport plane flys at a much higher speed...

Light transport types don't have comparable max. payload to make them feasible in the vastness of Russia & her EEZ.

The An-26 was widely used for a reason... and its flight speed was significantly higher than 250km/h... its flight range with payload means it is also rather less likely to need to stop for refuelling as often... it can also fly over weather a helicopter would be forced to fly through...

To supply a remote location, they'll still need a heavy helo to reduce the # of flights & save time. A CVN at sea will be as remote, if not more, as a small base in Siberia/FE or the Arctic coast/island from other bases &/ big airfields it may need to have transport connections with.

A small remote location in Siberia wont have 3,000 people to feed... it should be able to be serviced by relatively small aircraft.

A carrier in the middle of the ocean is much better supported by a supply ship than by helicopter.

The Barents, Bering, Okhotsk, Japan, S China, Red, Med. Seas & N. Indian Ocean don't get very big waves most of the time. W/o a NPP, such carriers won't need leghty & costly nuclear refuelings, not to mention shore infrastructure & extra personnel.

There is active hull technology that can limit or reduce the effect of bad weather on a vessel... the people of the Pacific often used outrigger canoes at sea because of their stability...

That said, the Krylov light concept is only semi-catamaran & the stern isn't much wider at waterline than a pure monohull would be, combined with a maximised deck it might actually be relatively unstable.

As the US has found with its Zumwalt and LCS ships... often you really don't know how a model will perform until you make one... which is expensive of course... but the only way to know for sure...

They were also talking about multihull carrier designs with wide hulls creating large internal spaces for hangars for aircraft and of course wells for armour and landing craft...

But the thread in Yeysk is a simulator of a promising ship. There is the same springboard, but new brake machines are installed. Now mount booster devices for aircraft. We hope to introduce this simulator into trial operation by the end of the year.

Springboard is the ski jump. Brake machines is arrester gear and cabling to stop aircraft landing conventionally. Booster devices for aircraft... would be catapults... trial operation the end of this year...

Take off from Ramp and recovery on arrestor means it is not VTOL at all... it will use rolling takeoffs using the ski jump ramp and it will land conventionally using cable gear to assist stopping them on landing roll.

I will say that I am pleased with the intention to create a promising marine aircraft carrier complex. It will be an efficient ship with ample opportunities. Also, work is underway to create an aircraft with vertical take-off and landing. What is not the plane of the future? Take-off will be made from the springboard, landing on the aircraft finisher.

So he is talking about VSTOL fighters for a marine carrier. Not the same as the promising ship with cat launchers.

VSTOL aircraft are only relevant to small carriers as bigger carriers like the Kuznetsov don't need VSTOL aircraft to operate from.

Unless they mean VSTOL AWACS... like an Airship...

I am reading it as: "what is not the future? To take off on the ramp and to land on the arrestor" The guy seems very convinced of VTOL then. But then all the carrier models that we have seen have the ramp and arrestors

VSTOL aircraft have poor performance with vertical take offs and vertical landing. Payload and fuel load are significantly increased with a rolling takeoff from a ski jump... and arrested landing is probably safer than vertical landing especially if there is a lot of fuel left on board the aircraft or payload...

I think the proper translation is the one I put above. But then, what sense makes to be training your pilots with systems for a new carrier with ramp, arrestors and catapult?

The point is that on the new full sized fixed wing carrier all the fighters will use ramp and arresters, but really the only aircraft that will need a catapult will be fighters with a heavy ground attack payload and full fuel and maybe a fighter acting as refueller that might have full internal fuel and external fuel tanks, but the primary user will be an AWACS type and perhaps an inflight refuelling aircraft based on that type too.

Most of the time fighters will take off and operate from the ramp.

no, he means "maritime aviation complex". To him, STOVL fighter is the plane of the future.

You mean they will end up in the water a lot...?

why not be able to do both STOVL & rolling takeoffs/arrested landings? VTO/Ls consume more fuel, esp. when loaded with unused ordinance.

That would be STOBAR... short takeoffs but arrested landings... which is the most efficient way of using such aircraft... but that makes you wonder why bother with a VSTOL like design when essentially they would be using it the way they currently use their MiG-29KR and Su-33s...

Once they get some experience and practise they will realise the best future marine fixed wing fighter will be either the new stealthy 5th gen MiG or the Su-57.

The fact that MiG have unified the design of the MiG-35 with the MiG-29KR naval model suggests they will likely do the same with the new aircraft, which will probably make it a more attractive solution for naval fighters...

Future more advanced STOVL fighters doing rolling TO/Ls may be able to carry/bring back more weapons/fuel than MiG-29/35s & Su-33s.

Unlikely.

A STOVL fighter might be MiG-29 sized but it certainly wont be Su-33 size... just too big and heavy...

A ramp may then not need to be as big, thus increasing deck space to park more planes/helos/UAVs.

It would be bloody stupid to park aircraft or drones on the takeoff runway... that is converting an aircraft carrier to a helicopter carrier like the Ford.

Pics speak lauder than words- look at the ramp size vs. on the Adm K.:

And how many extra aircraft would a small take off ramp allow the K to carry?

The space saved with the smaller ramp is pissed away with the two control islands that take up far more "deck space".

More aircraft carried=more mission capabilities.

Yeah, I keep telling you that but you think dinky little 20K ton carriers with stupid short ranged VSTOL fighters is a better solution to a real carry with real fighter planes that would mop up your little may flies in a second.

I said from the start it sounds like they're doing STOL rather than VSTOL & I think thats the right thing.

Anybody who has ever had VSTOL fighters in service knows they are STOL if you want any useful performance with them... and really with TVC engine nozzles, high thrust to weight ratio fighters and arrested landing equipment honestly you have to wonder why they would bother with the V in any part of its description.

A full VSTOL plane can be flown as STOL & will get more range that way but a plane designed from the start for only operating as STOL should be able to do STOL even more efficiently without the sacrifices for Vertical operation.

You get a cookie... a STOL fighter like a MiG-35 or a Su-57 will be vastly more capable than any warmed over Yak-141... with rolling takeoffs and landings the Yak did not even approach the performance of the MiGs or Sukhois , which is why it was canned.

STOL in the form of STOBAR would enable it to fly with the existing carrier/planes/training facilities.

Indeed and the 10 billion spent developing and perfecting vertical takeoffs so they can operationally never use it and just take off the same way they take off now they can save 1 billion dollars on each fixed wing carrier they make by making small cramped little carriers that are not much use for anything at all.

Instead the 10 billion dollars could be spent on two new carriers and flight groups of Su-57 fighters and a decent AWACS platform that also has an inflight refuelling version, and they can have 90 kilo ton aircraft carriers with plenty of room for lots of aircraft of all types on deck and in the hangars.

Most of the time they wont have anything like their full compliment of aircraft, because in peace time they wont need it and the stores and resource capacity to operate with more aircraft than you are carrying means longer endurance missions most of the time.

But the guy in the article said "vertical takeoff & landing plane".
It's better to have full STOVL capability for extra margin of safety & operational flexibility.

Cable assisted landings are actually much safer than vertical landings. The only exception is when there is a problem with the mechanism but they should have fixed that by now.

Vertical landing on a ship does not make it flexible... the blast from a huge fighter jets engine means you need to clear a very large area around the landing spot... you can't just roar up and then carefully slip in between two other aircraft parked there like a parallel parked motorcycle between two cars...

Aircraft have been operating from the K for decades and only two aircraft were lost due to arrester gear failure and they were both lost in the same incident.

In comparison the Yak-141 that crashed on landing on a carrier deck crashed because hot air from the exhaust went in to the air intake which stalled the engine... at 5m or so above the deck there was nothing the pilot could do... it dropped like a rock and the belly internal fuel tank ruptured causing a huge fire.

A carrier will generally be sailing in to the wind while landing aircraft but even so turbulence over the deck is normal so such things are going to continue to happen.

The solution to the problem was a large engine driven fan to replace the two vertically mounted turbojets that work as lift jets... but they never got to implement that.

The Americans have and they have found a huge bulky high volume fan just behind the cockpit seriously effects performance in many areas... it reduces acceleration and fuel capacity...

And yet a similar plane of more conventional design with no wing tip or tail or nose mounted puffer jets connected to high pressure engine sourced air to give some sort of control in the hover, can be made lighter and cheaper and quicker and with better all round performance... it can carry all the same radar and electronics and even engine but does away with big empty cavities through its main fuselage area for fans and extra jets and airflow... the air to ground payload could be vastly better...

Smaller UDK/TAKR hybrids could be the solution to the VMF carrier req's:

But smaller and cheaper means less fuel and armament and space for aircraft so it doesn't matter how many planes and drones and helos you can fit on the deck there wont be enough fuel or weapons to operate them...

The Russian military has said it will be working on VSTOL fighters, but they have done this before and they never lived up to the promised hype because certain failings mean there is no free lunch.

VTOL has costs... only really skinny guys with big muscles can hand climb vertical cliffs and don't expect them to carry a 60kg backpack while doing it...

They are going to have to have a serious technology breakthrough if they want to achieve it, and until they do the conventional MiG-35 and Su-33/57 options just make more sense.

Carrier aircraft are never going to be cheap, but spending money making the carriers bigger and more capable is much more sense than spending money making planes in to helicopters so you can save money buying smaller less capable ships to operate from.

If they can't/won't build large CVNs yet anytime soon, smaller QE-2 like hybrids with STOVLs will be enough for the kind of missions they'll be tasked with- i.e. not like Western navies' power projection ashore.

But the QE-2 is 10K tons heavier than the Kuznetsov so why not just use Flankers and Fulcrums... they already work...

UDK hulls they'll build anyway can be later modified for extra aircraft, making them CVs, &/ more bigger hulls can be built based on them.

Helicopter/landing ships are better used for their intended purpose because as proper aircraft carriers they are shit.

If Argentina had decent fighters in 1982 the British would have been screwed.

Most of the time Russia will have land bases close enough from which CTOLs can/will be assisting STOVLs.

The whole point of aircraft carriers is to make Russian surface ships independent of land based air support... that means they need cruisers and destroyers offering area air defence, but also fixed wing carriers with AWACS and long range fighters. Being VSTOL fighters adds nothing and makes them more expensive.

I don't expect the VMF deploying them to S. Atlantic/Pacific/Indian Oceans to bomb Falklands, Reunions, Tahiti, New Caledonia, Fiji, Hawaii, American Samoa, or Australia.

If they want to bomb some place they already have long range cruise missiles... an Oscar with Kalibrs could sail in to 1,000km away from the coast and launch a dozen or more 2,500km range cruise missiles and then leave... most countries wouldn't know what was happening... including advanced western countries...

the VMF may well get a smaller ship that will be cheaper & faster to build.

The Kuznetsov is smaller and cheaper and faster to build...

If they can't afford a Storm/Ulyanovsk size CVN, that will leave them with UDK/CV/TAKR hybrid.

If you can't afford to buy a proper aircraft carrier a smaller much less effective model will cost too much and not provide the protection you want it to... you would actually be better off with nothing at all...

The Japanese r now modifying their "helicopter DDG" into a CV

Good for them, but their situation is completely different from Russia... they are focussed on China and North Korea.... they wont be sending ships to Venezuela or Africa any time soon.

True, but I bet the USN/AF &/ Chilean AF would help the UK.

But they didn't.

It was a matter of principle: if those islands were lost, US-UK alliance would go down the drain & other nations claiming islands would feel free to invade them.

America is a former UK colony, why would they care if the UK loses another colonial territory that was generally stolen anyway... The UK doesn't give a shit about the islands or the people... it is about fishing resources and oil potential...

unfortunately for them, that may not be achievable in the foreseeable future. Even the USN CSGs r not completely "independent of land based air support"- they rely on MPA to help them sail through choke points, CODs for supply, big tankers & AWACS for sustained ops.

The USNs problems are not really relevant in this case... it is about Russian surface ships operating away from Russian land forces, and is achievable...

Unlike the USN with its CVNs, SSNs & SSGNs, the VMF has not only SSN/SSGNs, but also SSKs & a TAKR/CV. UDK/CV/TAKR hybrid would fill the gap nicely even w/o any CVNs.

CVNs make rather more sense than anything they have now or have planned. These new helicopter carriers will be helicopter carriers and landing ships... they will not be CVs and would be more useful with anti sub helicopters than VSTOL fighter aircraft.

Russia can use her Tu-95/142/22M/160s to make up for lack of deck fighters.

How on earth could large heavy aircraft like that perform the CAP missions of deck fighters?

The US bombed Libya with LACMs, B-2/1Bs, F-15E/16s, A-10s & Harriers w/o any CSG: The United States deployed a naval force of 11 ships, including the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge, the amphibious transport dock USS Ponce, the guided-missile destroyers USS Barry and USS Stout, the nuclear attack submarines USS Providence and USS Scranton, the cruise missile submarine USS Florida and the amphibious command ship USS Mount Whitney. Additionally, A-10 ground-attack aircraft, two B-1B bombers,three Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit stealth bombers, AV-8B Harrier II jump-jets, EA-18G Growler electronic warfare aircraft, P-3 Orions, and both McDonnell Douglas F-15E Strike Eagle and F-16 fighters were involved in action over Libya.

That is a meaningless bullshit example... the US broke a country... big fucking deal... why would Russia ever want to do that?

Things they would want to do include landing forces to support a local government under attack like Venezuela or Cuba or North Korea or Syria or even Iran perhaps... they will have plenty of launch tubes with cruise missiles to hit fixed ground targets... what they need is air power in the form of interceptors to defend the airspace around their ships to prevent them being attacked by enemy air power.

Once enemy air power is dealt with they could send their fighters like Su-33s on attack missions with cheap dumb 500kg bombs to deal with land targets...

The RAF would bomb their air bases with Vulcan bombers &/ BMs from subs. Even if the retaking failed, the RN would blockade the Falklands, Argentina itself, rearm, & try again. Canada, Australia, S. Africa & NZ, not to mention the US, would probably help as well.

The Vulcan bomber attack was incredibly risky and probably could not be repeated... if the UK attack was repelled they could consolidate their position and extend the run ways on the islands so their aircraft could operate from the islands instead of from the mainland.

Moving military forces to the island and building up defences... Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and South Africa were in no position to help much at all...