Auxilliary vessels, Special-purpose and minor naval ships

Project 22980, support vessel for underwater technical works

Water trends: marine all-terrain vehicles will be built for the Navy. What tasks will the promising landing boats perform?


The Russian Navy will receive water all-terrain vehicles. The Ministry of Defense has decided to develop an amphibious assault ship on an air cushion. According to the plan of the military department, the new vehicle for the delivery of marines and equipment should be able to take on board up to 60-70 tons of load. It will be able to transport including tanks, as well as missile systems "Bal", "Bastion" and "Iskander". The peculiarity of this class of ships is that they hover above the surface, and this is not necessarily a body of water: the ship will deliver troops and equipment through swamps, ice, shallow water. Experts note that the new vessels will not only radically increase the capabilities of the Navy in the island and coastal zones, but will also be indispensable for providing assistance in natural disasters.
Tanks will appear over the horizon

Sources in the military department told Izvestia that the issue of building a series of new light amphibious ships is now being considered. The new items will be equipped with air cushion systems. Thanks to this solution, boats will be able to move both on water and on land. It is planned that they will carry cargo weighing up to 60-70 tons. According to the interlocutors of the publication, several technical projects of new landing boats are currently being worked out.
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The peculiarity of hovercraft is that their hull is raised above the surface due to the compressed air injected under the bottom. Actually, they do not float on the water surface, but hover above it. This allows such structures to develop much higher speeds than conventional ships. Hovercraft can move not only on the water surface, but also in shallow water, swamps, freeze-up and even on land. They do not depend on the navigation period and can be operated all year round.

New ships will operate in the coastal zone. They will be able to transport cargo hundreds of kilometers at high speed. When carrying out amphibious operations, for example, the ship will be able to take on board one tank or several infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers, as well as an assault group. Also, the new ship will be able to quickly transfer operational-tactical complexes "Iskander" and coastal anti-ship complexes "Bal" and "Bastion", the interlocutors of the publication explained.

Hovercraft are needed for over-the-horizon landing of troops on an unequipped coast or in places where the enemy was able to establish engineering barriers, military expert Viktor Murakhovsky told Izvestia.

- The Soviet backlog is over, and now our fleet is in short supply of such ships, - the expert noted. - They can provide surprise and deliver to the shore not only strike units, but also equipment. Not so long ago, helicopters were used in exercises in Crimea for the over-the-horizon landing of advanced reconnaissance and assault groups. Military equipment and the main forces were already delivered to the shore by large landing ships.
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Hovercraft will be especially useful in the island zone, for example, in the Kuril Islands, the expert believes.

- All garrisons are isolated on them, - Viktor Murakhovsky explained. - In favorable weather, hovercraft can transfer equipment and equipment between them. It will be in great demand.

Hovercraft will also be useful in emergency response. A ship with a carrying capacity of 60 tons will be able to transport a lot of machinery, cargo and equipment at once. Moreover, such a transfer will take much less time than conventional vessels, the expert noted.

Hovercraft of this class are operated by the US Navy. More than 70 LCAC hovercraft are in service there, which can be operated on modern universal amphibious assault ships. They were produced from the late 1980s to the early 2000s. Such a boat can carry up to 68 tons of cargo. The deck can accommodate one heavy tank "Abrams", or several units of light armored vehicles, or 180 troops. Boats can cover up to 300 miles, their speed is over 40 knots.
In the footsteps of "Zubr"

30 years ago in the Navy there were only 20 small amphibious air-cushion ships (MDKVP) of Project 12321 "Jeyran". They could take on board two medium tanks or five armored personnel carriers and move at a speed of 50 knots - more than 90 km / h. All of these ships were decommissioned in the mid-1990s.
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Why did they decide to finalize the project of the ships?

In total, several models of landing ships and boats were mastered at Soviet shipyards, but in the 1990s they stopped building. The most advanced in terms of firepower, maneuverability and speed were considered eight hovercraft (DKVP) project 12322 "Zubr". After the collapse of the Soviet Union, two representatives of the series remained in the Russian Navy - "Mordovia" and "Evgeny Kocheshkov". They are still part of the Baltic Fleet.

"Zubrs" can deliver marines, three tanks or 10 armored personnel carriers with a total weight of up to 150 tons to an unequipped coast. They are still considered the world's largest amphibious air cushion ships. These vessels are capable of speeds over 110 km / h.

Two rocket launchers of the Grad-M multiple launch rocket system and 30-mm automatic artillery mounts AK-630 are installed on board the Zubrov. Such a set of weapons makes it possible to fight not only against surface and ground targets, but also against air targets at close range. If necessary, these vessels can mine the water area.
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Due to the cloud of spray that they raise, hovercraft have a quality that is important for a modern military ship - it is hard to see on enemy radar monitors. This gives the boat a serious trump card when conducting landing or covert operations.

30 years ago, the Navy also had dozens of hovercraft. The boats of the project 12061 "Murena" were considered one of the most perfect. Each of them could take on board a tank weighing up to 48 tons, or two or three infantry fighting vehicles, or armored personnel carriers. Now almost all of them were scrapped, leaving one for conservation.

At the same time, domestic ships and air cushion boats are still in demand abroad. Greece bought three former Soviet Zubrs in the 1990s, and they are still part of the country's navy. China has four more landing ships of this project. The South Korean Navy has three Mureny-E, which were built specifically for this republic in 2005-2006 in Khabarovsk.

https://iz-ru.translate.goog/1228151/bogdan-stepovoi-roman-kretcul/vodnye-tendentcii-dlia-vmf-postroiat-morskie-vezdekhody?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=nui,elem

I was hoping they would restart production of the Zubr but it looks like they are set on the LCAC type? Or maybe both?

The LCAC type is definitely a lot cheaper to produce but is pretty defenseless and can give no support to the troops.

They land troops from over the horizon so often support ships are not even visible... so having two 30mm gatling guns and two rocket launchers for 140mm rockets you can fire at targets on the beach and nearby and of course Igla and Verba missiles fired from positions on the deck would be the bare basics for a landing ship like this.

Actually... thinking about it... the new AU-220M 57mm gun turret could be used which would allow them to engage a variety of targets without being super heavy... and the unguided rockets would be useful.... even if half of them are smoke....

Optronic turrets with a huge system like that Quarry system they used for their new armour that can lase enemy optics and dazzle optical sensors in IR and IIR guided missiles as well as CLOS missiles and laser homing missiles... to find and blind recon devices on the beach during the landing...

A-750, the possible successor

PapaDragon wrote:
They don't really need weapons

Weapons on Zubr are there just in case something survives naval bombardment and gets spotted by crew before troops do (very unlikely scenario)

Total overkill

In any advance, on any scale, and I'd imagine this goes for amphibious landings too - you need what's called fire superiority

Basically to be able to lay down enough fire on enemy positions to suppress them and disable their ability to fire, co-ordinate, counter-attack, etc...

You'd have that after the naval infantry is fully deployed, but that can take a while, and on the beach there is minimal cover, apart from the armoured vehicles themselves

Similarly for a defender, in order to effectively stop an advance they need to have fire superiority too, keep the enemy pinned and don't allow them to maneuver or stick their heads out

Naval bombardment and pre-landing strikes will only do so much. If the enemy has ATGMs, mortars, HMGs they aren't that visible and won't be any more likely to be hit than defending troops themselves.
SO I'm thinking it's rather a good idea to have firepower available during that vulnerable window of the landing craft coming in and beggining to deploy troops. Otherwise said troops can be pinned and targeted before they even exit the craft.

The US hovercraft don't have weapons because Americans expect air superiority so they expect attack helicopters and Harriers to be pounding the hell out of the beach during the landing... but then any landing craft should have some ability to fire on enemy... especially a hovercraft as it is not limited to where the water meets the sand... they enemy might have placed landmines on the beach so travelling up over the waterline and several hundred metres up the beach would allow a real surprise attack to take place, though obviously any landing will hopefully be unopposed... the whole idea of using hovercraft is to free up your choices of landing locations... imagine landing in an estuary and dropping the troops off in hip deep mud they have to struggle through... even just 10m of that and your troops would be sitting targets let alone hundreds of metres of that in a normal estuary... whereas a hovercraft could zip right over the mud...

Ironically an estuary would be an ideal place to land because the defences wont expect you to attack there because conventional landing craft like Serna would stop at the mud leaving the vehicles and men hundreds or perhaps thousands of metres of thick mud to struggle through... it would take days even if it was totally unopposed... but a mix of hovercraft and helicopter landed light vehicles and troops landed on solid ground could then form up and travel cross country and take an existing enemy port or nearby more suitable landing area which they could attack from the side and from behind and then a more conventional landing could take place there when you control the ground...

PapaDragon wrote:
They still have two Zubrs in service (and not that much to do with them in this day and age) and nothing smaller than that

Large number of smaller ones would be more useful plus it would act as refresher course for shipyard

There is probably no other country with more experience in building military hovercrafts than Russia/USSR. I don't think they need much of a refresher course. They still have a few smaller hovercrafts in Border Guard and Police service and there are also some in the Caspian Fleet if I'm not mistaken? They can probably even restart the very useful Murena pr.12061 if they want to? The LCAC type would be very useful in a unopposed landing and in the arctic, but otherwise it would be extremely vulnerable.

They don't really need weapons. Weapons on Zubr are there just in case something survives naval bombardment and gets spotted by crew before troops do (very unlikely scenario) Total overkill

You must remember the Naval Infantry is NOT the US Marines. The US Marines basically is an Army, a Navy and an Air Force on their own. The Russians is but a miniature version of that and needs all the firepower they can get, in order to survive an apposed landing. Even during the first Iraq invasion the mighty US Marines was only used as a diversion - to keep the Republican Guard in place in anticipation of a US Marine landing that never came. Any apposed landing is an extremely hazardous job.

Sevastopol

On her way trough Istanbul

Marine special vessel (training helicopter ship) of project 14400 withdrawn from the boathouse

Recall that the project 14400 naval special vessel is designed to train crews of deck helicopters, including for training flight personnel during landing and takeoff of Ka-27/29/31 and Ka-52 helicopters from helicopter-carrying ships of the Russian Navy, as well as for testing new types of shipborne helicopters, new aviation technical means of supporting flights of helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles and radio-electronic means of aviation control.

The formal customer of the project 14400 vessel is the Federal State Unitary Enterprise "Krylov State Scientific Center" (KGNTs), the project was developed by the Central Design Bureau "Baltsudoproekt" (part of the "Krylov State Scientific Center"). The development of the aircraft part of the ship was carried out by JSC "Center for Scientific and Technical Services" Dinamika "within the framework of the R&D" Razgon-VMF "funded by the Ministry of Defense of Russia. presentation of the vessel for State tests in July 2019.

https://bmpd.livejournal.com/4414985.html

Project 14400, further information.







So not a huge ship, but should make training faster and easier as well as testing...

Note English details can be found here:

https://www.gsverf.ru/morskoe-spetsialnoe-sudno-14400.html

There she is.

Yeah, I saw that image in the Blog and I thought it looked huge, but when I found the website of the company that made it and looked at the models it is actually rather small... and seems to be totally unarmed...

Second ship of Project 03182.

Photoshop ?

Testbed for Pantsir-M

Military icebreaker...

Building of Pacific fleet icebreaker Evpaty Kolovrat is going well...

Video of Kamysh- Borun (Zaliv, Kerch) showing the VOLGA Cable-layer fully painted and its sister ship VYATKA or SVYUGA (can't remember the correct name) launched but not finished yet.
Video is from late August.

Another Video from November 2021 showing:
@ 1:30 The 3rd pr. 22800 Karakurt class boat AMUR in construction on the slipway
@ 2:00 The cable layer pr. 15310 VYATKA has been now moved to dry dock together with the pr. 22160 patrol ship SERGEI KOTOV and the ferry boat PETROPAVLOVSK
@ 4:40 The 2nd pr. 22800 Karakurt class boat ASKOLD fitting out
@ 6:10 The cable layer pr. 15310 VOLGA fitting out