Project 12700 Minesweeper thread

Lets commission the first dedicated minesweeper thread in the forum   Anyway as far as I know only one has been laid so far and theres no news how much is  finished.  What will make more advanced than western minesweepers? Does the Russian navy actuallywant them? Do you think the numbers quota for minesweepers will be reached by 2020?

Name: Aleksandrit class (Project 12700)
Builders: Sredne-Nevsky shipyard
Operators: Russian Navy
Building: 1
Planned: 4
General characteristics
Type: Minesweeper
Displacement: standard 620 tons
full dicplacement 800 tons
Length: 51.75 meters
Beam: 10.2 meters
Draught: 2.68 meters
Installed power: 1x2500 h.p., diesel, 2 diesel generators x315 kW, 2 diesel generators x210 kW
Speed: 15 knots (28 km/h)
Range: 1,600 nm at 10 knots
Endurance: 10 days
Crew: 45
Armament: 1x6 30 mm AK-306
SAM system "Igla"
Mines

Of course they need these new minesweepers, a very important vessel, especially in the Baltic sea.
I did 4 months service on an old wooden minesweeper back in the 80´s, nice ship, but to close to the Captain! On a bigger vessel you seldom see them but on a small ship there´s no getting away.
I am sure they will reach quotas as these ship is easy and fast to build.

"Western"? Well in Sweden we made Landsort fiberglass hull sweepers in 80´s, but sensors and underwater robotics isnt superior nowadays.
We learned much of Soviet mines, nothing of their sweepers really.
I havent followed mines, capabilities of modern ones, only that its time consuming and dangerous to sweep them. Also they can be hard to detect, and certain ones can let a number of ships pass, then explode when you think its safe.

Name: Landsort
Operators: Swedish Navy
Republic of Singapore Navy
Subclasses: Bedok class
Koster class
Completed: 11
General characteristics
Type: mine countermeasures vessel
Displacement: 270 tonnes (standard)
360 tonnes (full load)
Length: 47.5 m (156 ft)
Beam: 9.6 m (31 ft)
Draught: 2.3 m (7.5 ft)
Installed power: Two 225 kVA, one 135 kVA
Propulsion: Four Saab Scania DSI 14 diesel engines, coupled to two Voith Schneider Propellers
Speed: 15 knots (28 km/h)
Range: 2,000 nautical miles (4,000 km) at 12 knots (22 km/h)
Sensors and
processing systems: Navigation radar: Terma Electronic I-band navigation radar
Sonar: Thales Underwater System TSM-2022 hull-mounted mine hunting sonar
EOD: Saab Systems 9LV 100 optronic weapon director
Electronic warfare
& decoys: ESM: Thales Matilda radar warning system
Decoys: Saab Systems Philax decoy launchers
Armament: Gun: 40 mm lvakan M/48
Anti-submarine: Saab anti-submarine mortar launchers
Notes:
Ships in class include: Sweden: HMS Landsort (M71), HMS Arholma (M72), HMS Koster (M73), HMS Kullen (M74), HMS Vinga (M75), HMS Ven (M76), HMS Ulvön (M77)
Singapore: RSS Bedok (M105), RSS Kallang (M106), RSS Katong (M107), RSS Punggol (M108)

Managed to dig up about the project

The project 02668 for the first time aboard Mine Defense introduced integrated navigation bridge and the main command post. Given obtained in the last years of experience, CMDB "Diamond" were developed by TTZ integrated bridge systems for trawlers projects 02668 and 12700 (a developer and manufacturer - NGO "Mars"). Currently these systems are in various stages of development and manufacturing documentation.

At the 2nd International Maritime Defence Show (IMDS-2005) in St. Petersburg NGO "Mars" from Ulyanovsk to install on the marine and coastal minesweepers provided automated control system for Mine actions (ACS PMD) "Diez-E." It is designed to enhance the combat effectiveness of the ship and the ship's group in the planning of mine action, deploying ships in the area of operations, search and destroy mines and minefields, mine protection, and defense of ships, vessels and submarines in transit and in combat areas.

equipment "Diez-E" interfaces with the following systems: control system contact and influence sweeps, sonar, underwater vehicle control systems, central winch sonar underwater communication, navigation radar "Pal", and satellite radio - navigation systems, lag and sounder finder, VSC "Sandal-In", the engine management system and the steering wheel, etc.
Sonar mine-detector "Livadia-ME" was presented now "Aquamarine" at IMDS-2005. It consists of the following main parts: a low-frequency antenna, underwater unit with dual-frequency antenna, built-in electronic devices underwater unit, power supply units and switching input signals, generator device, hardware analog and digital processing of information, the operator panel. The remote control NGOs "Mars" and power devices - JSC "Taganrog factory" Surf ".

Do today's minesweepers have mine cutting trawls or just electronics used to remotely detonate mines?

Modern mine sweepers will have a range of options including trawling gear as well as diving equipment and under water unmannned vehicles.

During the cold war the west had rather more sophisticated Mine sweepers but tended to have them in small (often insufficient) numbers.

The Soviets had plenty of them and most were very well equipped.

I rather suspect the quality and digital nature of Russian vessels will be every bit as good as western vessels, while numbers wont reach the same levels as they did during the cold war.

Why do they need trawling gear when the horned contact mines are already completely obsolete and all we have today are torpedo mines and magnetic ones?

Also the Bulgarian fleet had until recently 4 project 1275 yakhont minesweepers. How was their gear compared to western ones in taking down mines in the cold war and the early 2000s?

KomissarBojanchev wrote:Why do they need trawling gear when the horned contact mines are already completely obsolete and all we have today are torpedo mines and magnetic ones?

Horned contact mines are maybe obselete in certain parameters, but they still fill a task if you want to seal of an area for enemy shipping.
If you use new and old mines in for example moon sound in the Baltic, it will prevent an enemy using the sound until a long and difficult clearing operation is done. Meanwhile, the force doing the sweeping has to be protected against attack, drawing resources.

In deep water magnet mines and torpedo mines must be anchored 4-8m below surface to have effect, hence they can be sweeped.
Only in harbours and very shallow waters you can lay magnetic mines on the ocean floor, where they are very hard to locate and destruct.

About torpedo mines, they are very expensive, few in numbers and will not be used in large numbers to seal of areas, they are "special mission" mines.

Project 12700 Aleksandret ready to be launched

Video made on the 26th of March 2014

Nice   

Contract for another three minesweepers project 12700

Russian Navy to Receive Four New Minesweepers by 2019 – Defense Ministry

MOSCOW, June 26 (RIA Novosti) - Russia’s Navy is to receive four new minesweepers by 2019 under Project 12700, with the first to be put into service in late 2015, the Russian Defense Ministry said Thursday.

A ceremony is to be held at the Sredne-Nevsky Shipyard in St. Petersburg on Friday to introduce the lead mine countermeasures vessel of the project, the Alexander Obukhov, named after a famed Soviet fleet boat commander and hero (1917-2009).

“The Alexander Obukhov minesweeper is the lead vessel in the series, and in April 2014, the Sredne-Nevsky Shipyard signed a contract with the Russian Defense Ministry to build three [additional] ships for the project. Under the contract, the ships are due to be delivered in 2016-2018,” the ministry said in a statement.

The 890-ton Alexander Obukhov minesweeper is 61 meters in length and ten meters in width, with a maximum speed of 16.5 knots and a crew of 44. The vessel, designed by the Almaz central marine construction bureau, searches for and destroys mines in the waters surrounding marine bases at a safe distance. The Alexander Obukhov is to join Russia’s Northern Fleet.

Viktor,

Your first picture of the minesweeper is incorrect.

here is the Alexander Obukhov.

http://www.wrk.ru/forums/attachment.php?item=394617

June 27, 2014. TASS TV. Russia, St.Petersburg. Sredne-Nevsky Shipyard (part of Russia’s United Shipbuilding Corp.) today held a launching of the Alexander Obukhov, flagship of a series of JSC Almaz-designed new generation minesweepers of project 12700.

only 4 by 2019? This is ridiculous! Its unacceptable that such much simpler ships are to be built at nearly the same rate as the new state of the art corvettes. If these minesweepers are so important and easy to make we should be seeing at least 4 per year, not 4 per 4 years and at least 30 minesweepers by the next decade, not 4 decades.

They still have a few existing minesweepers in service so there is no real urgency to get 30 into service right now or in the next 5 years.

As far as I can tell the closest US equivalent is the Osprey class and the US currently has about 12 in service...

KomissarBojanchev wrote:only 4 by 2019? This is ridiculous! Its unacceptable that such much simpler ships are to be built at nearly the same rate as the new state of the art corvettes.  If these minesweepers are so important and easy to make we should be seeing  at least 4 per year, not 4 per 4 years and at least 30 minesweepers by the next decade, not 4 decades.

The problem is, that its body is a plastic monolit and not welded together as classical body and need to be a long time in its form.

GarryB wrote:They still have a few existing minesweepers in service so there is no real urgency to get 30 into service right now or in the next 5 years.

As far as I can tell the closest US equivalent is the Osprey class and the US currently has about 12 in service...

Even if this is true the US navy doesn't need a lot of these ships so much because the US's main area of action is in blue water with very little possible chokepoints to pass(except the striat of hormuz) .

While the russian navy is stuck all around with a lot more areas suitable for much vaster opposing force minefields; the bosphorus, the white sea, the gulf of finland, the sea of okhotsk, thus it needs a much larger and state of the art minesweeper force than the NATO blue water navies for it to maneuver properly in its area of operations.

The soviets understood and experienced it in WW2 when the RKKF's horrible mine losses on all fronts, however with the current rate of construction of russian minesweepers, these lessons seam to be forgotten

Even if this is true the US navy doesn't need a lot of these ships so much because the US's main area of action is in blue water with very little possible chokepoints to pass(except the striat of hormuz) .

Pretty much any ship can lay mines and in addition to enemy laid mines there is enormous amounts of UXO in the sea that was either dumped or left to rot that is still very dangerous.

the US navy has to operate globally and therefore needs to be able to clear minefields anywhere... and therefore would need 10 times the number of modern mine sweeper vessels... if it took such things seriously... according to Hazegray they are sophisticated vessels but are being neglected at a time of cutbacks.

While the russian navy is stuck all around with a lot more areas suitable for much vaster opposing force minefields; the bosphorus, the white sea, the gulf of finland, the sea of okhotsk, thus it needs a much larger and state of the art minesweeper force than the NATO blue water navies for it to maneuver properly in its area of operations.

Every navy needs to be able to deal with minefields... the Russian Air Force has a standard bomb fuse that will allow standard bomb types to be used as sea mines.

An aircraft like a Tu-22M3M could carry a war load of 69 x 250kg with sea mine magnetic detection fuses so that they could be dropped like a standard bomb but settle on the bottom and detect large metal objects that pass close by. A target that matches a specific signature and boom.

A Tu-160M could carry 45 tons of bombs with the same fuse...

The soviets understood and experienced it in WW2 when the RKKF's horrible mine losses on all fronts, however with the current rate of construction of russian minesweepers, these lessons seam to be forgotten

The Russians don't have a global empire to protect so their ships can remain largely near port and defend Russian territory as a first priority.

The numbers cited for 2020 of just 4 is low. They need to concentrate in faster construction for all class of ships and also promote the 12700 to international customers. The start could be for Indian Navy who is looking out for mine sweepers and have not yet signed contract with South Korea.

On 26 February 2015 they have started works on the hull of the second ship, it will be officially laid down in the end of April.



snsz.ru/?p=1799

The first serial mine defense ship of project 12700 was laid today in April 9, 2015.

Third minesweeper of the project 12700 haid down today.

The name is: Georgy Kurbatov

http://sdelanounas.ru/blogs/61342/

Project 12700 Mine countermeasures vessel is now on trials.

And a fresh photo of the Alexander Obukhov, first of the Pr. 12700 "Alexandrit" class mine warfare vessel.
It has docked to the pier at the St. Petersburg Naval Show.

Why isn't there any news on whether the new minesweepers are in service? Are there any more decade long problems there with ubernew untested technology even with these these ships?