Future Russian Aircraft Carriers and Deck Aviation. #2

Isos wrote:And the image that goes with the article.

They really need to stop those fantasy designs. That's like the 5th in 3 years and russian admirals clearly said they don't want a new carrier.

That's 2 totally different things. They designed the 5 fantasy carriers that you were talking about just because, well, to prove that they can. It's sort of a marketing strategy, and it obv doesn't take a lot of time to design (compare to the real ones that will be ordered ofc).

On the other hand, the designs that are ordered by the Navy will actually depend much more on the specifications that the Navy and strategy planner give, not on what the design bureau wants to put on the carrier.

In fact, I believe this has always been the case. There's a reason for some exhibitions, those set up by the Army and Navy for example, you only see normal designs, but in others, you can sometimes see odd designs like the catamaran above.

LMFS wrote:

They really need to stop those fantasy designs. That's like the 5th in 3 years and russian admirals clearly said they don't want a new carrier.

What? They have said they want new carriers n times, where are you taking those claims from?

They clearly said no carrier will be order for the years to come.

Top admiral said that when they presented the refurbished Ulyanovsk 1 or 2 years ago.

Their armement program also doesn't include any carrier project.

They designed the 5 fantasy carriers that you were talking about just because, well, to prove that they can. It's sort of a marketing strategy, and it obv doesn't take a lot of time to design (compare to the real ones that will be ordered ofc).

Lol.

Making a 70cm model at an exhibition doesn't mean you can build it.

They still don't have any shipyard for a supercarrier, neither do they have any modern jets to put on it neither do they have catapult technology neither the awacs nor the support ships.

They lack everything for a carrier. No one would order them a carrier on the export market. Their marketing is useless since they lack all the above.

Anyone would rather oreder from India or China since they are more advanced in that field.

Isos wrote:

Lol.

Making a 70cm model at an exhibition doesn't mean you can build it.

They still don't have any shipyard for a supercarrier, neither do they have any modern jets to put on it neither do they have catapult technology neither the awacs nor the support ships.

They lack everything for a carrier. No one would order them a carrier on the export market. Their marketing is useless since they lack all the above.

Anyone would rather oreder from India or China since they are more advanced in that field.

I'm talking about the ability to design . They are design bureaus, not shipyards.

And actually 1 carrier is to be ordered for the next GPV (or the next next, I can't remember).

Also believe it or not the Kuznetsov (and the Indian carrier) has one of the most if not the most sophisticated, fully automated carrier landing system. The US one still requires input from pilots and only until recently did they develop the fully automated one. But that's about the only tech that the Russian really excel.

They are developing carrier aircraft based on the Su-57 I believe, won't be here for the next 5 years tho. And, just saying, catapult actually does not have that many advantages over ski jump, especially the aircraft payload. I've seen a fully loaded Su-33 (with Kh-31) took off from the Kutnezsov. As for awacs, they haven't even finished the A-100, a carrier one wont be here soon.

The biggest problem right now, apart from cash, is actually the lack of training for carrier pilot actually, not tech.

Isos wrote:They clearly said no carrier will be order for the years to come.

Top admiral said that when they presented the refurbished Ulyanovsk 1 or 2 years ago.

Their armement program also doesn't include any carrier project.

Not really.

They have said, in fact they have never said anything different, that carriers are needed and newer projects will be developed. This is in essentially any recent statement and strategic document you can find. But they need first to see how the rebuild of the oceanic fleet pans out, before ordering carriers, as it is logical. The preparation of the TTZ for the carrier has been already a known ongoing task for some years, design and construction will come later. It does not make sense to build the roof before the foundations

Lennox wrote:That's 2 totally different things. They designed the 5 fantasy carriers that you were talking about just because, well, to prove that they can. It's sort of a marketing strategy, and it obv doesn't take a lot of time to design (compare to the real ones that will be ordered ofc).

On the other hand, the designs that are ordered by the Navy will actually depend much more on the specifications that the Navy and strategy planner give, not on what the design bureau wants to put on the carrier.

In fact, I believe this has always been the case. There's a reason for some exhibitions, those set up by the Army and Navy for example, you only see normal designs, but in others, you can sometimes see odd designs like the catamaran above.

I don't know about Nevskoe (which in any case has actual experience designing carriers and cannot be dismissed so lightly) but Krylov's job is not to design the actual thing but to make suggestions that the military leadership can evaluate. Among them the three carrier versions, none of which is fantasy but actual layouts for which hydrodynamic tests and propulsive, air wing and payload calculations were performed. The catamaran above looks pure fan art and does not look at all like the actual models presented these years, one in 40 kT and the other in 60 kT versions. Those had a hybrid hull, the bow looks exactly like the conventional design but then the stern is wider and separated by a middle channel that allows to reduce drag, displacement and propulsive needs, while at the same time increasing substantially the internal volume by roughly one third.

That "cat" is clearly fan art, as no competent marine architect would ever design such a silly ship. No deck between the hulls??? What, we are supposed to belive that the navy doesn't want deck space to park equipment, aircraft, stores etc etc???

Just absurd.

Big_Gazza wrote:That "cat" is clearly fan art, as no competent marine architect would ever design such a silly ship.  No deck between the hulls???  What, we are supposed to belive that the navy doesn't want deck space to park equipment, aircraft, stores etc etc???

Just absurd.

That's like 2 kuznetsov size carriers togather. But it's clearly a stupid fanart. It would break in two in a storm.

Damn just when I thought the cataract carrier looks cool some here suggest it should belong in the cyberpunk 2077 meme video image colleague

Making a ship that wide would create lots of problems... like getting through international canal systems like Suez and Panama, and of course just navigating near Russian military ports.

But if you did you would not make it by putting to conventional carriers side by side with a few attachment points... if you are going to have that sort of width then you might as well have a huge hangar and surface area that no one could fall off the middle of...

Equally if you have two complete decks with angled landing decks on both sides and fronts that aircraft could take off from than a unified single hangar deck would mean being able to transfer aircraft from one side to the other without having to takeoff and land on the other side to transfer them.

Active hull technology should allow improved performance in rough conditions, but it can only do so much... I would expect ski jump launch positions simply because the fighters they will operate from a much larger carrier should be able to get airborne without a lot of help most of the time.

The source article you guys are arguing about is from Feb 2020.
https://www.russiadefence.net/t8410p150-future-russian-aircraft-carriers-and-deck-aviation-2#277922
Its clearly referencing the Krylov light carrier with the catamaran stern
https://www.navyrecognition.com/index.php/naval-news/naval-news-archive/2018/september-2018-navy-naval-defense-news/6509-russia-s-krylov-light-aircraft-carrier-project-features-semi-catamaran-hull-design.html

Sevmash has also been officially mentioned but they will most probably need to expand the yard to be able to do so?

@hoom

It is a serious stretch to call that a "semi-catamaran" hull. No overhead photos at all and the gap is very shallow. Looks more like some sort of
link from the lower decks to the upper deck.

Anything to lift ship hull out of the water to reduce drag is worth the effort... by making the ship wider... which is normally a very bad thing for a ship because width is drag and magnifies the amount of power needed to move it around, but width for a carrier is good... more deck space and more hangar space, both of which are valuable... a non operational carrier might have a couple of planes on the deck and a few more in the hangar, but an operational carrier will have its deck covered in aircraft and only a few in the hangar for repair because raising and lowering aircraft is very slow and inefficient... if they don't need repair having them on deck means it is quicker to get them airborne and in use.

A very wide front would certainly be interesting but work flow would be very complicated.

The angled deck design means you can have planes landing at the same time you are preparing aircraft for takeoff... but with two full decks side by side you can improve on that with two angled decks allowing two aircraft to land at the same time and aircraft on the left and right deck and also in the middle perhaps a ski ramp in the middle for normal fighters to all take off rapidly.

Being able to use both sides for takeoffs and landings at the same time would greatly increase the carriers ability to put aircraft into the air and also to recover them... though an inflight refuelling aircraft would reduce the pressure on landing aircraft so urgently of course.

Sevmash has gained some invaluable experience with large ships like the Indian Vikramaditya and now Nakhimov as well. I am hoping that they would expand Sevmash and they should - and Zvesda is already a future option. Even that new dry dock in Murmansk has some potential esp if they could construct another one.

I would think Russia needs about 4 carriers evenly spread in the Northern and Pacific Fleets. That would mean that at least one carrier would be operationally available in each Fleet. Ulyanovsk sized carriers with about 60-70 aircraft would be good enough for me. Like in Soviet times these ships would need exceptional air defense capabilities and a couple of on board UKSK launchers would be great as well.

It is a serious stretch to call that a "semi-catamaran" hull. No overhead photos at all and the gap is very shallow.

There are plenty of photos of it & we discussed it a lot in previous carrier thread.
Its got a conventional single bow & catamaran sterns with a tunnel going a fair way forward.

As announced it had a flight-deck area only slightly smaller than a Nimitz but on only a 40-45kiloton displacement.

I like the idea but I doubt the practicality particularly because that kind of single-bow, twin-stern setup has been tried a bunch of times in smaller boats and never worked out as intended.
I favour either a new-build improved K like China did or an air-dedicated version/mode of the new LHD things.

I think the picture above is the Krylov design. It has quite a large deck but has no hangar space hence the low displacement.

It is the Krylov design.
Posted to help jog some memories in conjunction with my previous post.

A far more promising design for me would be the Lamantin which is basically an enlarged and heavily modernized Ulyanovsk. It's a huge ship but the Shtorm is even larger! The Lamantin looks like a nicely balanced option.

There is also this unknown monster size carrier that was shown briefly on Combat Approved!

Mir wrote:There is also this unknown monster size carrier that was shown briefly on Combat Approved!

If the Russian Navy turned down Project 23000 then that monster carrier has no chance of being built.

Broski wrote:
If the Russian Navy turned down Project 23000 then that monster carrier has no chance of being built.

Yes personally I don't see the need for any monster size carriers for the Russian Navy. The two island structure of the Shtorm also takes up unnecessary deck space. Currently the Lamantin design makes a lot of sense to me.

Mir wrote:There is also this unknown monster size carrier that was shown briefly on Combat Approved!

That is Darth Vaders flagship, the Executor. Stay away from the Death Stars gravity-well if battle damage causes your anti-grav drives to become disabled...

I like the idea but I doubt the practicality particularly because that kind of single-bow, twin-stern setup has been tried a bunch of times in smaller boats and never worked out as intended.

Testing with scale models is important, but at the end of the day the only way to really know if a design will work properly or not is to actually test it in metal... which can be very expensive... but equally sometimes it pays off...

The US Navy has some real dogs... Zumwalt and LCS and the F-35 aircraft... but they also have some excellent ships as well... you don't know until you build it and test it... which is why testing is so important...

Regarding shipyards... they are getting to the point where they are going to be building bigger ships for the navy so upgrading shipyards for handling bigger ships makes sense... civilian and military shipyards...

As announced it had a flight-deck area only slightly smaller than a Nimitz but on only a 40-45kiloton displacement.

This is very important too... size is important and if you can get the aircraft capacity of a 100K ton ship in a ship less than 60K ton it makes the ship cheaper and easier to operate... it reduces the requirements of propulsion and has lots of circular weight and cost savings.

Note they don't need to sail around all the time full of aircraft most of the time, but being able to carry say 80 fighters means carrying 80 fighters and fuel and ordinance and spares and equipment for 80 aircraft... so when it is peace time you can carry 30 fighters and operate more than twice as long on the same stores... or carry stores and fuel for 30 aircraft and carry more of something else in the extra space left by not carrying the spares for the 50 aircraft you aren't carrying.

You could take on extra anti sub helos or extra drones...

It is Russia... they might modify their EMALS cats to launch cruise missiles directly from the deck...

The two island structure of the Shtorm also takes up unnecessary deck space.

The idea of the two island structure is to separate landing ops from ship sailing ops... ie a separate control tower for landing and takeoff, and a tower for ship operations and sailing.

Each tower is generally slim and allows aircraft to be parked between them... the air control tower benefits from being further back while the ship control tower benefits being further forward. By splitting them the AC tower can be further back and the SC tower benefits from being further forward. Having one tower means a long island or the AC less far back and the SC further back from ideal too.

It is Russia... they might modify their EMALS cats to launch cruise missiles directly from the deck...

this I want to see