Project 11356: Admiral Grigorovich

owais.usmani wrote:

Are these both for Russia or India?

They are both for india. India is buying the engines from the ukraine and delivering them to Yantar shipyard in Kaliningrad.

What is not clear is instead the fate of the third ship (admiral Kornilov) as I was asking in my previous post.

Grigorovich is on a bit of a long range trip, has docked at Colombo.
https://charly015.blogspot.com/2020/06/la-grigorovich-en-sri-lanka.html

It's tempting to suggest its a slant-launcher for Oniks (& Calibre/Zircon?). We know that Oniks can be launched from slant tubes instead of the usual vertical launch and flip-over (as tested on the Nakat and deployed on Indian frigates) but the RuN has not yet adopted them.

More likely another active homing Shtil test I'd say.
That was tested on Essen & using a similar mount.

I'm also pretty sure thats too small to be a Kalibr/Onyx tube.

hoom wrote:More likely another active homing Shtil test I'd say.
That was tested on Essen & using a similar mount.

I'm also pretty sure thats too small to be a Kalibr/Onyx tube.

Ah.. well... yes of course

I noted that it was installed directly over the Shtil bin, and it looks a lot like a tube from the Buk-M3.  Shoulda realised...

It is a missile tube sitting on a metal frame that is resting on a vertical launch missile system.

It looks like the sort of metal framed stands they use to display missiles at airshows and weapon displays... it is certainly not a launch set up for testing or anything else.

If you wanted to launch from the tube at that angle mounted on that frame you would use a barge platform... it is cheaper and not doing anything else so it is available.

They would learn nothing at all trying to launch that missile from that frame in that location, it would be dangerous and pointless... what if the missile launch made the frame fall over and the launching missile left its tube straight into the deck of the ship?

What could they possibly learn from such a launch even if it worked?

This is nothing... I would ignore it.

Pic of Essen from 2016 showing similar angled object on the foredeck

Remember Essen commissioning was delayed quite a long time?
There were a bunch of photos showing this angled object on the foredeck & it was later revealed that the commissioning was held up by tests of ARH missile.
They never actually confirmed that it had passed the last tests, just that the tests were completed, then the ship got commissioned.
Would seem that they're doing another round of tests.

A barge doesn't have the equipment for testing a missiles.

They have barges especially designed and equipped for testing naval equipment in sea conditions (ie on waves instead of solid ground).

I didn't mean just any old barge.

And new ships don't have equipment for testing missiles fired off their decks either...

The missile is angled because it is used only on buk-M3 as of now so they still didn't modify it to use VLS.

What on earth would be the point of testing a missile on a brand new ship that that ship can't carry?

And even if they did want to test it... a test from a metal frame sitting on the deck will tell them what exactly?

That ship has UKSK launch tubes... which the BUK-M3 would actually fit in to... they would probably need liners or adapters but physically it would fit... there is no point in putting a 76.2mm shell on the deck in its own short tube barrel and firing it for testing before deciding whether to replace the gun with a 76.2mm gun mount... they wouldn't learn anything useful from that either.

Those tests probably are made to see if the equipment on the ship is enough to use ARH missiles.

Sitting the ship next to the testing barge so it can use its radars and missile directors to control the missile would make rather more sense would it not?

A land based BUK battery has Search radars that can be hundreds of metres away from the TEL vehicles...

Also it's not dangerous because old version had a single arm launcher which launched missile at the same angle as this one.

A couple of problems there... first it was a different missile... the new one hasn't got the large stabiliser fins and when testing from a launch tube you need to be sure it clears it properly without damaging the missile or tail fins... launching on rails on an arm launch guides the missile as it accelerates... by the time the rear portion of the missile is clear it is already well on its way.
Arm launchers also have a clear area around them and blast protectors to stop the rocket blast from damaging anything near by... like the door hatches to other missile tubes of vertical launch systems...

So they will get a 70km ARH missile. It was expected. Nice improvement.

AFAIK the 11356 has UKSK and Redut launchers... BUK-3 wont fit in Redut unless I am right and LMFS is wrong regarding the missile capacity of the system (if it can fit S-300 and S-400 full sized missiles in the space under each hatch... and therefore fit four S-350 missiles per hatch, then they should be able to carry a BUK-M3 missile under each hatch too... but the 36 tube Shtil launcher is probably a better bet.

What might be happening is that they are testing it but the missile is resting there out of the way rather than blocking the helicopter pad, so they will sail out to where it will be tested but it wont be launched from there it will be lifted off there onto the barge by crane most likely as they wont launch it from that metal frame with will likely have a vertical launch tube test frame set up for testing.

This would enable them to use the ships existing and operational systems to launch and guide the missile with the missile being launched from a barge... if it works out well they can then offer the ship for export with BUK instead of Redut, and if they want a future ship upgrade... because I really don't think the BUK-M3 vertical launch system will fit in the space of the Redut one used currently.

If it works properly the BUK might because an option for Redut or for UKSK launch.

The radars on it and weapon systems of shtil launcher are made for the SARH. They can't use the updated radars/computers of buk-M3 directly so they need software changes to use ARH missiles with the older stuff found on the ship.

That can take some time.

Surely the problem would be going the other way.... a system designed to find targets and launch missiles to fly to a location close to them is something a SARH system can already do... and instead of illuminating the target for the attack it can look for the next target while monitoring the engagement to see if it needs to fire again at the same target...

Good point will be that India will be interested for their own frigates as an upgrade. They have around ten frigates using shtil. That will improve their defence from 45km to 70km which is even better or India because they use single arm launcher with longer launch time as it needs to relaod. The longer they shoot the better they have chance against multiple targets.

Also a failure to launch is also an issue with an arm launcher, whereas with bin vertical launch tubes open the next hatch and woosh...

Vertical cell launchers are also much more compact and allow more missiles to be carried... I seem to remember the single arm launcher on the Sovs had 24 missiles each... I suspect the vertical launcher is rather more compact and takes up less space and has 36 ready to launch missiles each.

AFAIK the 11356 has UKSK and Redut launchers

Shtil is navalised Buk, 11356 has a different VLS (3S90M) than Redut, comes in 12 cell units.

Buk-M3 uses the 9М317М missile
Shtil-1 uses the 9M317M missile

Redut is a 12 cell system isn't it?

And I am fully aware Shtil and BUK are related...

Redut on 20380 is 3* 4-cell modules, on 22350 its 4* 8-cell modules, on 20385 2* 8-cell.

According to Roscosmos the number of Redut launch tubes is from 8 to 96 per ship... they use the 3S-97.2FE honeycomb launcher...

Bosporus

Isos wrote:As of now they were more usefull than any other ship in the russian navy.

3 more would have been good since they actually use it. Being based on a well known design makes the ship far easier to use.

Yes, but they were initiated as a stop-gap measure and insurance against a failure of the then-new 22350s. Better to spend the funds on Gorshkovs (assuming they can get production happening at multiple yards and get a decent build cadence going).

Isos wrote:As of now they were more usefull than any other ship in the russian navy.

3 more would have been good since they actually use it. Being based on a well known design makes the ship far easier to use.

Yes they are decent ships, on pair with most foreign frigates. The Gorshkov class frigates completely outperform them, however. Furthermore, even if the engines were available they would not continue to produce them in the same form for long, since the internal equipment, the radars and the sensors are starting to be outdated.

I agree that 3 more such ships would have been useful for the present.

For the future, not so much, especially if now they will be able to produce Gorshkov class at more than one shipyard. The obvious choice would be Yantar, since they have the most recent experience building frigates.


Note:even if magically tomorrow the engines would be available without problem (e.g. because the ukraine attack the donbass and novorussia expands itself until Nikolaev or Odessa, including so Zorya Mashproekt) I am not sure it would make sense for Russia to build more ships of this class for its own navy (since they have a better more advanced class in production and they already signed a contract with india for the three unfinished 11356.

They could be very interesting for the export market, however.

Isos wrote:

For the future, not so much, especially if now they will be able to produce Gorshkov class at more than one shipyard. The obvious choice would be Yantar, since they have the most recent experience building frigates.

Well they are still operating a krivak 3 and Gorshkov production is still limited. Old Sovs are gone. They are starting to retire some Udaloys. Kerch is gone.

IMO Grigorovitch's future would have been very long.

In terms of technology they are at the top. Last model of Buk missiles with in the future the active seaker one and 24 cells, UKSK, last model of torpedoes, a very reliable and well known search radar with 300km range and it is integrated with all the ships of the navy.

Gorshkov is better for sure but at the speed they build them and at the speed they retire old ships the production would need to speed up and more Grigorovitch would have made their life easier.

And they could have been sold after Gorshkov replace them.

They finally finished qualifying all of the weapon systems and finally mastered production of new gas turbine engines and reduction gear for Gorshkov.  That means that the construction speed should increase.  The shipyard that should be building 11356 (yantar) could build 22350 instead, so problem solved.  The couple of krivak 3 operated are there because they already exists. No sense in retiring them now.

Of course if they had now a few more frigates of the krivak 4 class (11356) they would be useful.

The proper time for producing them was in the late 90s, early 2000s, when the baltic shipyard built the first 3 taiwar class (basically export grigorovich) for India.
Unfortunately at that time money was not available, and the navy had still a lot of Soviet ships.

Unfortunately for 20 years very few ships were produced, and this left a sort of hole in the russian navy, where many ships were kept past their useful effectiveness and others were patched to stay operative longer.

10 years later, profitng from the restart of the production of the second batch of Taiwar frigates for India (this time at Yantar) it was considered tonget 6 of them as a stop gap solution for the black sea fleet due to the delays with Gorshkov class.
It was a good idea, given the circumstances.  Unfortunately thanks to the ukraine, only 3 of the 6 planned ships could be completed for the Russian navy.

20 years later it is not the best option anymore. They are not a sea power in ww2 mode where they need as many ship as possible now. They need to properly plan which ships they are building and they better stop producing 3 or 4 different classes for each size every  few years. 22350 works well ? Then concentrate on those. It will also simplify logistics.

As far as producing 11356 for the russian navy and selling them to foreign customers once they have enough 22350, you have to remember that before doing that they should do a relatively lengthy refit in order to remove sensible equipment and replace it with export version of those systems. Normally it make sense to do it during a big overhaul anyway.

Anyway, engines for 11356 are not available at the moment. If things for Ukrainian industries continue like this by the time novorussia expands until Nikolaev, zorya Mashproekt will be no more.

If per absurd tomorrow Nikolaev should find itself again in Russian hands, then it could be a decent idea to assign production of a small batch of 11356 to one of the dilapidated shipyards there (ideally the former communara 61, that did non build any new ship for ages) to get them back on their feet before being available for more modern ships. This is the only case in which it could make sense to order more of such ships (after 2021) for the russian navy, I.e. to help a few russian enterprises and the local economy. Since Nikolaev is not in Russia now, this is not a useful option.