Project 2038.0: Steregushchy Corvette

marcellogo wrote:It seems me that all the discussions about 2038 start from a colossal misjudgement/forgetfullness of the basics  of modern naval warfare.

The basics of a Navy is it being able to go where you need it. Brown water ships cannot travel in rough waters which is very bad when most of our coast touches the Arctic.

Just compare the average quantity of weapons carried by a typical Green water Navy (to cut it short: YOUR'S and MINE's own) in theCold War era when compared to the others, Blue and Brown water alike.

The weapons are of little use if they cannot reach a target.

There is a reason because ours FREMM cost 30% more than a French one.

The French have 32 VLS, yours only have 16. Why would Italians cost 30% more? I never did understand why you would build a large ship and not put enough weapons on it.

The same reasons behind that fact that our and yours naval artillery and CIWS systems are orders of magnitude better than anything else in the world (and Thank to God, they were sold accordingly well).
Our navies, being green water ones really need them to just operate in their own environment, not "just in case".

Naval artillery will always have its place but the role for CIWS is becoming obsolete. Most of the navies have switched to missiles and soon the point defence weapon will be lasers.

A blue water ship can see enemy incoming from afar, a blue water ships is usually not alone but it is part of a fully fledged fleet almost always disposed in an optimal formation, a blue water ship in its environment could just be targeted by large and capable systems.

A blue water ship traveling with other blue water ships usually has a strong multi-layer defence. Brown water vessels would be easily picked off.

A green water navy has none of this luxuries, menaces pop ups all of a sudden and can be of any type, a pocket submarine, a sea skimming missile launched by a coastal defence system, explosive motor boats coming by a nearby island , even coastal artillery pieces or mine fields.
Even if part of a fleet, they would be engaged in choke points, so no way relying on a system carried on a nearby ships.

You don't think NATO has the capability to spot all of those little pop ups long before they have a chance to "pop up"? The last country who tried this was Iran and the US wiped them out in Op Praying Mantis. Missile boats are only effective if you maintain air superiority over them. If you are spending the money on fleets of fighters to keep that air dominance you might as well arm them with ASMs which makes the brown water boats redundant.

Only total suckers in this type of warfare could have developed the colossal fiasco that LCS were, relying on stealth and speed, two things almost useless in such an environment or better said in the tactical posture that green water is.

Which is another example of why brown water centric is a waste of money.

Green water ones needs an hundred of things more.

All the more reason not to waste money on them.

The point is these vessels are too big for being a classic corvette and lack space and endurance for being truly vessels operating alone far from their base.
Furthermore, to be truly multipurpose vessels they need to compromise on something, as there is not enough place to host every single sensor and or weapon that could go on a bigger ship.

As we said before, the main difference in price is made by weapons and sensors. Having the same kind and amount of radars, sonars and sensors it's very expensive, if then the ship does not have the space to fit enough weapons.

A 22385 corvette costs more than a grigorovich class.

I would like more the idea, for the brown/ green water operations, of smaller ships optimized for one role, e.g. anti-air, anti-sub, etc, maybe based on the 800 tons 22800 missile ship, or on the 1300 tons 22160 patrol ship.

Furthermore, a 800tons or 1200 tons vessel could be made by many of the smaller shipyards, a 22380 is often too big for them and will be occupying the limited space and resources in the shipyards capable of building frigates and destroyers.

20380 is a great ship , its what they need for the immediate countries on the border, I think the Russians need a green water navy basically look at the immediate potential threats in the region:

Japan- They can deal with Japan with a Green water Navy
China- If hostilities broke out at most they need a Green/Blue navy
Mongolia- no need for blue navy
Kazakhstan- no need for blue navy
Turkey- Fighting in black sea and mediterranean would require Green navy, semi blue capable ships like 11356
Georgia- Green Navy, like tarantul and nanuchka
Azerbaijan/Armenia - Green navy like buyan-m , buyan, gepard
Ukraine - Green Navy needed , not really, but basically can be dealt with current russian black sea fleet
Baltics- Green navy, 20380, 22800, tarantuls, nanuchkas, maybe gorshkov or 11356 at some point basically baltic green fleet
Poland - Green Navy, 20380, 22800, tarantuls, nanuchkas, maybe gorshkov or 11356 basically baltic green fleet
Arctic- Blue going Ice capable ships icebreakers, ivan gren, gorshkov-m, submarines

Rest of the world- small sized blue squadrons including 2-3 carriers and 7 arsenal ships to show flag and to respond to crises, but no point in having huge blue water fleet like USA, its not the same threats, not the same doctrine, not the same strategy just a waste of money and exposing Russia to active threats in the near abroad.

As for engines, the Russians designed M90FR, M70FR-2, M70FRU, as analogues of UGT16000,UGT15000R, and other turbines. They are great engines, but the Russians want a 15% + efficiency rating over Zorya mashproekt counterparts, as stated by UEC. This is why they are taking so long, not because they are "shitty" engines, a gas turbine cannot be shitty by design, its not some 2.0 liter honda vtec motor you put oil in and be on your way, The UGT 15000 is a three-shaft gas turbine using an axial nine-stage LP compressor and a 10-stage HP compressor. The combustion chamber is a can-annular 16-liner counter-flow chamber, and the compressor turbines are axial single-stage engines. The power turbine is an axial three- or four-stage engine. The turbine start-up uses two AC electric starters of 30-kW continuous power. The UGT 15000 is available in a number of versions that deliver between 14,700 kW and 17,650 kW at an efficiency of 35.4 percent. The UGT 15000+ version delivers 20,000 kW at an efficiency of 36 percent. This science verges on rocket difficulty.

Only Siemens MTU, Rolls Royce, General Electric, and Zorya Mashproekt make them. General Electric dominates with 43% of the market, Rolls Royce 20%, Vericor (Avco Lyoming) 16%, Zorya 18% (which they will lose as they have no more Russian ships to supply, Pratt&Whitney 2%, and Perm with 1%. UEC will no doubt take most of Zorya market share. But its not some overnight project you weld together.



http://mil.today/2017/Science8/

MiamiMachineShop wrote:20380 is a great ship

If you consider consistent breakdowns, fires and other assorted accidents a great ship...

As for engines, the Russians designed M90FR, M70FR-2, M70FRU, as analogues of UGT16000,UGT15000R, and other turbines. They are great engines, but the Russians want a 15% + efficiency rating over Zorya mashproekt counterparts, as stated by UEC. This is why they are taking so long, not because they are "shitty" engines,

If you consider consistent breakdowns, fires and other assorted operating problems a great engine... the problems have always been the engines. The only method of propulsion we have perfected is nuclear.

Noone else mastered MGT except for General Electric, Royce, and Zorya. There is no one else dude. MTU is a diesel engine, its glowplugs, diesel pump, stuff that is not marine gas turbine. Caterpillar, Wartsila, all make diesels for Russia and Russia has plenty of diesels it can experiment in marine. But Marine Gas Turbine is a whole other deal, the free power turbines they are making that are slower RPM can also be used at the compressor stations throughout the Russian oil network. Its not a small issue, or even a science, at that level it becomes an art. Improving the fabrication process and getting that 15% efficiency will be worth it when they have MGT's to rival General Electric when its all said and done. The knowledge could be considered divine in a modern sense

MiamiMachineShop wrote:Noone else mastered MGT except for General Electric, Royce, and Zorya. There is no one else dude. MTU is a diesel engine, its glowplugs, diesel pump, stuff that is not marine gas turbine. Caterpillar, Wartsila, all make diesels for Russia and Russia has plenty of diesels it can experiment in marine. But Marine Gas Turbine is a whole other deal, the free power turbines they are making that are slower RPM can also be used at the compressor stations throughout the Russian oil network. Its not a small issue, or even a science, at that level it becomes an art. Improving the fabrication process and getting that 15% efficiency will be worth it when they have MGT's to rival General Electric when its all said and done. The knowledge could be considered divine in a modern sense

The production of MGT is not a high profit industry. As you can see ours are not profitable. Even France got out of the business after the most successful export MGT ever produced at SEMT Pielstick. The license production of it is the backbone of the Chinese Navy and several others. They still make engines for their own use but it is under the MTU brand. If you can't break even on it then the industry will die. It is the total lack of investment in these industries for the commercial sector that has driven this downturn. Military use is not even 10% of the market.

Vladimir79 wrote:
The production of MGT is not a high profit industry.  As you can see ours are not profitable.  Even France got out of the business after the most successful export MGT ever produced at SEMT Pielstick. The license production of it is the backbone of the Chinese Navy and several others.  They still make engines for their own use but it is under the MTU brand.  If you can't break even on it then the industry will die.  It is the total lack of investment in these industries for the commercial sector that has driven this downturn.  Military use is not even 10% of the market.

The other problem is that gas turbine are used practically only in military ships, as they have obvious advantages in term of power density and starting times, but they cost more and are less efficient than the big slow diesel engines, making them less interesting for commercial operations.

A  land derivative could be used in energy generation, anyway, similar to the aero derivative gas turbines.

The yards that built Gorschkovs and Steregs. today are the same that build the Sov. and Udaloy classes in the 80´s (average 2 destroyers a year, at the end of the 80´s even 3). No problem with building capacity, only personnel. This can be fixed if the Navy would decide to order larger numbers for a given timeframe = the Yards could plan ahead and employ more workers.

Hole wrote:The yards that built Gorschkovs and Steregs. today are the same that build the Sov. and Udaloy classes in the 80´s (average 2 destroyers a year, at the end of the 80´s even 3). No problem with building capacity, only personnel. This can be fixed if the Navy would decide to order larger numbers for a given timeframe = the Yards could plan ahead and employ more workers.

Sure, and it is the same equipment that was used to build ships twenty years before that. The modernisation of the Northern Shipyards will not be completed until 2022 and the building capacity is down until it is completed.

Vladimir79 wrote:

Hole wrote:The yards that built Gorschkovs and Steregs. today are the same that build the Sov. and Udaloy classes in the 80´s (average 2 destroyers a year, at the end of the 80´s even 3). No problem with building capacity, only personnel. This can be fixed if the Navy would decide to order larger numbers for a given timeframe = the Yards could plan ahead and employ more workers.

Sure, and it is the same equipment that was used to build ships twenty years before that.  The modernisation of the Northern Shipyards will not be completed until 2022 and the building capacity is down until it is completed.  

exactly, and that means that any additional corvette laid down at the same shipyard in the meantime will be built instead of building an additional gorshkov class frigate.

Russia has instead several shipyards that can build only ships smaller than a frigate.

For that reason i would like corvettes to be built at smaller shipyards, that do not have the phisical capability to build frigates and larger ships.

Gladly for the missile ships of 22800 class they are doing exactly this.

Vladimir79 wrote:

The basics of a Navy is it being able to go where you need it.  Brown water ships cannot travel in rough waters which is very bad when most of our coast touches the Arctic.

Vladimir 79, seriously , who has ever said anything about Brown water navy?

Green Water Navy is a way different thing from both Blue than Brown. And it's the one that have the most compelling task between the three.

The weapons are of little use if they cannot reach a target.

Ant THATis what make the Green waters (Adriatic, Red Sea, Persian Gulf, Baltic, Black Sea, Aegean) a most compelling environment than Oceans.When a fleet enter in such spaces it puts itself in the condition of being targeted by a greater array of menaces of the ones that would face in the Oceans.
And this will became worst as time go by as actual range of sea skimming missiles keep on growing.

The French have 32 VLS, yours only have 16.  Why would Italians cost 30% more?  I never did understand why you would build a large ship and not put enough weapons on it.

WHAT? French Fremm has only 16 A43 launchers than can just employ Aster 15, only the two FREDA (still to be consigned) would have A50 launchers.
Italian FREMM has an high performance AESA radar, French ones has a way weaker Heracles PESA radar, Italian FREMM has hangars for two helicopters not one, Italian FREMM has a 127mm and a 76 mm or two 76mm guns, not just one. Italian ASW variant carry MILAS ASW missiles and both OTOMAT i.e.the most capable anti-ship missile in Nato inventory.
Our onboard command and control system, not just in FREMM but in almost all the fleet, is of federated type meaning single weapon system can still operate independently even if the main control room is blown off.
Above all, every military ship we built from sixties onward is made along a proprietary standard, way more stringent of the standard Nato one for what it come to damage and fire control, hull resistance and possibility to operate whan damaged.
And no, we don't like to have silver-plated items, we just consider this as just the minimum to be able to operate in our usual, green water environment.

Naval artillery will always have its place but the role for CIWS is becoming obsolete.  Most of the navies have switched to missiles and soon the point defence weapon will be lasers.

I think this is a problem of denomination, not of substance.
May I remember you that while the 57mm Boford of the LCS is considered as their naval artillery piece, our actual CIWS system is made of a(lmost one, usually more) 76mm OTO Melara Super Rapido with STRALES guided shells (and russian actual ones are Kasthans and Pantsirs)? How I have said earlier, a clear proof of how much the USN is such a total sucker in what comes to littoral and green water operations.

A blue water ship traveling with other blue water ships usually has a strong multi-layer defence.  Brown water vessels would be easily picked off.

AGAIN, Green water =/=from Brown water

There is not specific Green Water vessels, as opposed to brown water ones.
We consider all our fleet from Minerva to the same Cavour as built in order to operate mainly in a Green Water Environment: we cannot put our main ones in the right middle of Tyrrhenian sea i.e. the only place of our national waters in which they could assume a typical blue sea defensive position while the rest of fleet operates in the Adriatic or in the Strait of Sicily. Same problem would arise in Baltic and Black Sea.
So our Carriers/ASW cruiser has more artillery, short range missiles and CIWS systems onboard than a Nimitz (in the case of Vittorio Veneto and Garibaldi we put even OTOMAT lauchers on them, Leningrad and Kiev did the same).

You don't think NATO has the capability to spot all of those little pop ups long before they have a chance to "pop up"? The last country who tried this was Iran and the US wiped them out in Op Praying Mantis.  Missile boats are only effective if you maintain air superiority over them.  If you are spending the money on fleets of fighters to keep that air dominance you might as well arm them with ASMs which makes the brown water boats redundant. 

No, in many cases they don't have such capability, most of such systems are elusive and the increment of ASM ranges is actually making things much more complicated. Almost all of Persian Gulf and of Strait of Hormutz could be covered by land launched missiles.

Which is another example of why brown water centric is a waste of money.

AGAIN with this brown water centric, you seems not to differentiate between the two.

A brown water navy is one having almost no ships, just fast patrol boats, coastal submarines or minelayer/minesweppers. Think to the Swedish or Finn ones

20380 carry an anti-air system with a range equal if not superior to the ASTER30 + a full sized helicopter, nothing to do with a Brown water Navy.

All the more reason not to waste money on them.

So nothing between Leaders and Karakurts then?

Naval artillery will always have its place but the role for CIWS is becoming obsolete. Most of the navies have switched to missiles and soon the point defence weapon will be lasers.

On land they are shifting to 57mm cannon because the fire density to hit small targets like UAVs on incoming small tactical missiles or bombs means a smaller calibre gun needs to fire too many rounds to assure a hit. Air burst or guided 57mm shells offer the potential of sending a shower of fragments in the direction of the target and greatly increase the PK with much fewer rounds fired at the target and therefore more targets effectively engaged.

I would expect larger calibre shells could use guided projectiles with proximity fuses and could be used at much greater ranges against incoming threats... especially if their muzzle velocities could be increased dramatically. (most large calibre HE shells don't move very fast and nor do large calibre guided shells but high speed is rather useful for an interceptor...)

The other problem is that gas turbine are used practically only in military ships, as they have obvious advantages in term of power density and starting times, but they cost more and are less efficient than the big slow diesel engines, making them less interesting for commercial operations.

A land derivative could be used in energy generation, anyway, similar to the aero derivative gas turbines.

This will change with the introduction of electric drive vehicles.

If you look at the T-80 tank it burns enormous amounts of fuel because the tank is heavy and most tanks don't cruise along flat roads on nice flat open terrain all the time... normally they accelerate at max acceleration from cover to cover from firing position to firing position which is excessively bad in terms of fuel consumption for a gas turbine.... and the problem is that the gas turbine is connected to the transmission so to accelerate the GT needs high revs at inefficient speeds.

If you remove the transmission and replace it with a dynamo and then put electric motors on each powered wheel then the GT can continuously run at an efficient speed generating power... you need a bank of capacitors that can be charged up and batteries to hold power too... once everything is fully charged you can turn the GT off. You can shut down a GT or start it up pretty easily, whereas with most diesels it makes sense to just leave them running... wasting fuel.

When you need to rush around the battlefield the GT will be running providing power to the wheels which will be supplemented by the capacitors and the batteries to maximise speed and acceleration... when the vehicle stops the GT keeps running and powering up the capacitors and batteries for the next rush.

The point is that the GT is small but very high power... it is efficient when there is no load on it... just running as a power generation system a GT is more efficient than any diesel.

The problems are capacitor capacity, electrical power management and transfer, and battery storage and performance and electric motor performance... once you perfect those you can put the system in a truck or a tank or a ship or an aircraft and it just comes down to what sort of power supply you want to use to generate energy... pretty soon that could be a nuclear battery that will last for 20 years, but for now it will be a GT in a tank or bus or truck or car or ship or train...

EMALS technology will also benefit such electrical power systems development...

Green Water Navy is a way different thing from both Blue than Brown. And it's the one that have the most compelling task between the three.

It is the Russian Navy... they actually need all three... as you and others mention a blue water navy ship would be a total waste on a river in Russia, just as a green water ship would not be very useful in Venezuela at the moment.

Russia needs boats for its rivers and ships for its seas and it also needs ships for the oceans.

It doesn't need nor can afford a US navy, and does not need to recreate the Soviet navy, but modern ships are much more capable and much better armed than previous model vessels so she might get away with 20K ton Destroyers instead of new cruisers because those 20K ton destroyers will probably be much better armed and equipped than even the kirov class vessels.
They could use modern day corvettes for many of the roles they used to use Frigates or even destroyers for during the cold war... in fact with a support ship you could probably send a modern corvette to operate off Somalia to deal with the pirate problem, or perhaps a frigate, but you certainly would not want to have to send a destroyer or cruiser like the have so far (Udaloys and Sovremmenies and Kirovs being sent in the past AFAIK).

The presence of capable modern corvettes and frigates that are actually multirole because of their electronics and weapon systems frees up larger more powerful vessels for duties that suit their capabilities better... using a frigate to deal with Somali pirates frees up destroyers for missions like showing the flag or training with allies... which is not to say you can't use them to deal with the pirates for experience, but during the cold war a corvette of the time would have been terribly unsuited for the anti pirate role lacking the sensors or the weapons suitable...

How I have said earlier, a clear proof of how much the USN is such a total sucker in what comes to littoral and green water operations.

The USN didn't bother replacing the Phalanx because as an anti missile system it is not effective against supersonic anti ship missiles and actually performs poorly against very low flying threats, so they went for Sea RAM, which is a mishmash of Stinger and hellfire and other components... along with ESSM which is an updated Sparrow...

marcellogo wrote:

Vladimir 79, seriously , who has ever said anything about Brown water navy?

Green Water Navy is a way different thing from both Blue than Brown. And it's the one that have the most compelling task between the three.

20380 is green, but 80% of our Navy is brown.  A handful of corvettes and a fleet of missile boats and harbour patrol is not what we need.

The weapons are of little use if they cannot reach a target.
Ant THATis what make the Green waters (Adriatic, Red Sea, Persian Gulf, Baltic, Black Sea,  Aegean)  a most compelling environment than Oceans.When a fleet enter in such spaces it puts itself in the condition of being targeted by a greater array of menaces of the ones that would face in the Oceans.
And this will became worst as time go by as actual range of sea skimming missiles keep on growing.

In order to get there they must cross blue water so what is the point?  They don't have the autonomy to operate for any length of time so again, what is the point?

WHAT? French Fremm has only 16 A43 launchers than can just employ Aster 15, only the two FREDA (still to be consigned) would have A50 launchers.
Italian FREMM has an high performance AESA radar, French ones has a way weaker Heracles PESA radar, Italian FREMM has hangars for two helicopters not one, Italian FREMM has a 127mm and a 76 mm or two 76mm guns, not just one. Italian ASW variant carry MILAS ASW missiles and both OTOMAT i.e.the most capable anti-ship missile in Nato inventory.
Our onboard command and control system, not just in FREMM but in almost all the fleet, is of federated type meaning single weapon system can still operate independently even if the main control room is blown off.
Above all, every military ship we built from sixties onward is made along a proprietary standard, way more stringent of the standard Nato one for what it come to damage and fire control, hull resistance and possibility to operate whan damaged.
And no, we don't like to have silver-plated items, we just consider this as just the minimum to be able to operate in our usual, green water environment.

All French versions of FREMM have 32 VLS cells, the ASW variant has 16 Aster and 16 Scalp MdCN.  The FDA has 16 Aster 15 and 16 Aster 30.  The Italian FREMM only have 16 Aster launch cells. Both types have 8 anti-ship missiles either being 8X Exocet Blk 3 or 8X MILAS.  The French ships have nearly twice the firepower.  

I think this is a problem of denomination, not of substance.
May I remember you that while the 57mm Boford of the LCS is considered as their naval artillery piece, our actual CIWS system is made of a(lmost one, usually more) 76mm OTO Melara Super Rapido with STRALES guided shells (and russian actual ones are Kasthans and Pantsirs)? How I have said earlier, a clear proof of how much the USN is such a total sucker in what comes to littoral and green water operations.

I think it is a problem of guidance, with missiles altering trajectory you need a round that can follow it after launch.  That is best accomplished by a guided missile and why Panstir and Kashtan also have missiles on it.  

The US already learned the LCS was a mistake which is why they cut it off and have an order for a proper frigate.  

There is not specific Green Water vessels, as opposed to brown water ones.
We consider all our fleet from Minerva to  the same Cavour as built in order to operate mainly in a Green Water Environment: we cannot put our main ones in the right middle of Tyrrhenian sea i.e. the only place of our national waters in which they could assume a typical blue sea defensive position while the rest of fleet operates in the Adriatic or in the Strait of Sicily. Same problem would arise in Baltic and Black Sea.
So our Carriers/ASW cruiser has more artillery, short range missiles and CIWS systems onboard than a Nimitz (in the case of Vittorio Veneto and Garibaldi we put even OTOMAT lauchers on them, Leningrad and Kiev did the same).

As I said, most of the fleet is brown water with no air defence.  The 20380 would not last long against an air assault itself.  That is why we need more capable Gorshkovs acting in a battle group to protect themselves.  Anything less is just easy pickings for an air strike.  The Cavour has 32 Aster 15s, that is a credible defence against a surprise attack but it needs better escorts than Italian FREMM that are half as armed as the carrier.  The Nimitz is protected by half a dozen AEGIS cruisers and destroyers, it doesn't need its own weapons.

No, in many cases they don't have such capability, most of such systems are elusive and the increment of ASM ranges is actually making things much more complicated. Almost all of Persian Gulf and of Strait of Hormutz could be covered by land launched missiles.

If they had the capability in 1988 I dare say they have the capability now.

A brown water navy is one having almost no ships, just fast patrol boats, coastal submarines or minelayer/minesweppers. Think to the Swedish or Finn ones

That is what we have.

20380 carry an anti-air system with a range equal if not superior to the ASTER30 + a full sized helicopter, nothing to do with a Brown water Navy.

It only carries up to the 40km Redut.  

So nothing between Leaders and Karakurts then?

It should be nothing but Gorshkovs.  We have enough corvettes and missile boats.

Isos wrote:
Missile boat are very good when you have Kalibr family to launch from. Under the treaties with US they couldn't be launch from ground so it was either more bomber which production was stop or naval missile boats which are easy and cheap to build.

The platform is only as good as its range and endurance.  Missile boats cannot be replenished at sea nor would their crews want to be tossed around for weeks on those unseaworthy hulls.  By the time they have taken their stations they already have to return to base.  A Gorshkov can maintain a patrol for weeks or even months if need be.  The crew would be far more comfortable on a proper warship than a boat meant to cruise around a harbour, of which you would need 5X as many to keep them on station.  A missile boat is only on patrol a few weeks out of the year.  A proper frigate is at sea for half of the year.  It is the same concept for a 20380, it is better than a missile boat but still suffers similar endurance problems.  

Frigate building was a problem since fall of USSR. But now they are geting them. They got 3 Grigorovitch, 3 more waiting for engines, 2 Gorshkov finished and 4 more in production (which should accelerate). Nakhimov should come back in a year or two.

I am not a fan of Grigorovitch, but it is better than ordering 20380s that have little to no endurance and cost the same.  The Kirovs might be old, but their endurance is UNMATCHED.  I want 24 Gorshkovs and 6 nuclear Leaders centered around two CVNs.  The CVNs would require extra funding outside of the armaments plan, but well worth it.

Steregoushchy and variants are big corvettes more armed than NATO frigates. Fremms like you said carries only 16 aster for 3 times the displacement. In terms of anti shipping kalibr >>> subsonic old antiship missile in nato.

The FREMM can protect itself in a low threat environment as their ASTERs are certified to hit super sonic sea skimmers.  In a high threat environment they will be escorting the CdG that will include a Horizon and other FREMMs to increase the multi-layered defence.  The CdG has 32 Asters itself.  Even in the strike against Syria they had a surface action group of three FREMM providing a multi-layered defence and a flight of M2000s overhead while the Rafales went deep.  The two new FDAs have 32 Asters which makes them a credible AAW ship.  20380 is more like a Gowind 2500 with short legs.  At least the Gowind can stay on station twice as long.        

In 1 vs 1 in can take on any ship from nato as most of them have 8 antiship missiles and 76mm gun.

Why do you think the USN decommissioned the Tomahawk SSM?  Why are NATO ships not stacked with 16-24 ASMs?  They will always have an American, a French, a British, an Italian carrier to come and provide air support.  When the French carrier is down they use their tankers to keep a MiG-CAP over their assets 3500km away from their base.  A 20380's Redut might be a threat to NH-90s trying to fire ANL but anything carrying Exocet will wipe it out.  There is a new generation of air launched missiles coming that will be even deadlier.  

You compare it to a carrier group which is stupid. No ship in the world can fight a carrier group. To destroy a carrier group you either use SSGNs or aviation. No one would sebd a corvette to fight alone.

Guess what, that is how NATO operates... overwhelming firepower.  You either play on their level or get out of the game.

@vladimir 79

We seem to agree to disagree but now we argument it in better way.

I would so just contest a pair of your affirmation, the rest is not so radically different between one another, it seems me.

First , the French Fremm has not the double of firepower, they still have just 16 tubes for SAM and in their standard version they are limited to ASTER 15 only, other 16 tubes are for Scalp Naval, so they add nothing to their own self defence capability.
Above all their radar, a small PESA Herakles cannot handle ASTER 30 and also its advanced version, thought for the FREDA, will be still inferior to the AESA KRONOS 3D that is standard on all our own.
Just having  chosen such a radar more than compensate for the price of adding 16 A70 launch tubes.
Our ships also had the fittings for installing the same launchers, but we went for installing an 127mm OTO Melara and the "Pharmacy" instead i.e. an additional automated fast recharge ammo depot able to host about 400 ready to use VULCANO rds instead.
So, let's at the Cousins the illusion of playing the Great Power game with their 8 frigates instead of the planned 17 and a nuclear powered  CV that has passed way more time in repair than in service , we got our planned 10 and we have already passed at the next stages ordering seven PPA that would have a four faced two-band Kronos radar instead, something that just China (with Type 55) and partially the USN (with their ludicrous Zumwalt) actually have (waiting the Lider, obviously).
And they would have the land attack version of OTOMAT also.

Same for the "green water" making only the 10% of your fleet.

Let's repeat, it's not Green Water = Corvettes and Light Frigates, Blue water= Destroyer and Cruiser, only in the case of Brown water we could talk of specific class of ships or better boats (but in this case it depend by the absence of certain capabilities).

There are cruisers designed specifically to operate in a Green water environment and Corvettes than can escort convoys through not just the Mediterranean but even the Atlantic (they were actually born with that role).
As rule of thumb if they devote an average larger amount of their available space to armaments, above all artillery and have multilayered system dedicated to the same mission than to the one dedicated to fuel depots, spare munitions and crew accomodation we could talk of a Green Water specializations or a.t.c. of a Blue Water one.
Old soviet navy was extremely Green Water specified in that regard and I would dare to say that all the ships actually in acquisition above the Karakurt are following the same pattern.

The LCS fiasco stem instead by a confusion between Green and Brown Water: wanting a ship able to operate safely  in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormutz they designed a sort of 3000tons RHIB orminesweeper or ASW ship (i.e. typical brown water ship classes) with about nothing dedicated to self defence/counter attack against conventional menaces.

They missed also a fourth type of ships class that is actually springing forth with a bang: the dual capacity presence and surveillance ship/armed OPV: Danish Absalon, german F-125, our PPA and in a smaller version, your Bykov class and another from Netherlands I didn't remember the name.
Modular ships able to pass from combatant to non-combatant roles.

Isos wrote:Everything you said is wrong.

This should be interesting...  

Missile boat will operate near the shores where the patrol missions are made by the coast guard being reequiped with new ships. They will only go intercept and destroy intruders. They also have air force to patrol around there. They will be covered by sukhoi in the air and kilo under the sea.

When the intruder is a NATO carrier strike group wtf are they supposed to do?  You will have Super Hornets, Rafales, F-35s or whatever it may be shooting down the Sukhois and bombing the shit out of defenceless patrol boats.   The carriers will be launching air strikes so far away you will never be able to engage them accept by Backfires.  With Aster and Standard missiles qualified to shoot down super sonic sea skimmers, shooting down Radugas is child's play.  You have to keep them under the S-400 umbrella and without the 400km missile, it is not very far from shore.  

Gorshkov patrols will be further away. For that I agree they need them and bigger ships. But smaller corvette were bought to secure coast not to fight in the pacific.

Gorshkov is the only thing that can take the fight to the enemy and hold its ground against that enemy.  Smaller corvettes are just targets.  

Aster is just as capable as redut missiles. Go check data. And they can't even intercept BM which are becoming anti ship missiles. 12 redut will intercept any exocet and they also have ak 630. Gowind is just as good as la fayette. Totally useleess. Destroyers with 32 missiles are a jock. Su-34 can carry 6 anti ship missiles. A group of 10 will carry 60. 20 of them will carry 120. French carrier without US support couldn't last long against an oponent that has sukhoi, kilo subs and some awacs. If it get destroyed France can't keep territories with few tanker and 4 rafales. We have nothing to replace it.

Aster is actually the most capable SAM ever produced.  Thanks to its pif-paf system it has an accuracy unmatched by anything before it.  Our SAMs are not as accurate so carry larger blast frag warheads to try to get the kill.  Aster will hit the target dead on.  

La Fayette has much longer endurance than a Gowind, up to 50 days it can stay on patrol.  Singapore built the Formidable class on it and is the most powerful warship in SE Asia.

How would a strike package of Su-34 fair against Rafale Ms equipped with Meteor?   They would not fair very well.  If they got through that they would have to penetrate a barrier of Aster 30 missiles.  Not likely to get through that either.   Aster is more than capable of shooting down their missiles if they managed to get them off not to mention MICA of any Rafale flying CAP over the fleet.  That is why a carrier strike group is so powerful, it has multiple layers of defences and can take out the threat before it becomes a threat.  

Putting all our eggs in one carrier is a bad strategy. It could even have an accident a sink like the nato frigate some months ago.

Which is why we should have two.  

Against libya maybe. They overwhelming force was a total disaster when they attacked Syria 1 grigorovitch and two kilo chased away british nuclear sub and french FREMMs.
US missiles were destroyed by old syrian air defence forces...

That didn't stop the French from launching their Scalps undetected...

To destroy a carrier group you need an air force of at least 50 su-35, 24 su-34 with big jamers, 2 or 3 il-38NM, 2 awacs and a navy of 12 steregoushchy and 2 or 3 gorshkov plus 8 or 10 kilo.

I don't see the value of 20380s or Kilos in that orbat.  The Kilo is not fast enough to intercept a CSG and with the downrated engines, neither is the 20380.  We need fast attacks and frigates that can keep up with them to get within range.  Operating that far out the missile boats would capsize, even though they have the speed.  The aircraft have the speed but do they have the range?  The attack would need to be simultaneous for a saturation to work, but AEGIS and Aster can launch and guide all of their missiles at once so even saturation is ruled out.  If we are doing air battles with Meteor equipped Rafale, what would even be left to attack them with?  

Argentinian even almost torpeded the british carrier in Malvinas but the torpedo failed because it wasn't properly used. British didn't even detected the launch.

The damage to the Royal Navy was caused by Exocets, the French fleet has hundreds of them and being launched at 20380s would not take much to sink it.  The Gorshkov is the one with the missiles to shoot down the aircraft before they can launch it.  

Carriers are just one big base moving at 30km/h. Once you know where it is and where its escort ships are you only need good pilots which knows the caracteristics of enemies missiles and the job is done. Air defence system are always affected by radar horizon. Amramm won't help in a jammed environement and they can intercept theorically more than 40 jet since they only have 40 of them onboard. In reality they can't launch 40 jet like that.

When a carrier is launching its aircraft it turns into the wind and goes at flank speed to provide the most lift for the aircraft increasing payload.  It will be doing 27+knots.  20380 and Kilos cannot keep up with that.  Air defence systems are affected by its data links.  In the French and American fleets all sensors are connected giving a full picture of the battle space.  With the different generations of equipment we use, such a picture is rarely available.   Their carriers will operate outside the range of shore batteries or missile boats or land based air defences.  The only thing we have are whatever has the combat radius to get within firing range and get out before they are shot down.  If we get more Gorshkovs we would at least have something that could take the fight to them and hang in that fight extending air defences well out into the sea.

Vladimir79 wrote:...Aster is actually the most capable SAM ever produced. Thanks to its pif-paf system it has an accuracy unmatched by anything before it. Our SAMs are not as accurate so carry larger blast frag warheads to try to get the kill. Aster will hit the target dead on.

So if Aster is so awesome why aren't Chinese, Indians, Turks and God knows who else buying them?

I don't think any of them is short on cash so why waste time on overpriced inferior junk they are buying currently?

Vladimir79 wrote:

MiamiMachineShop wrote:Noone else mastered MGT except for General Electric, Royce, and Zorya. There is no one else dude. MTU is a diesel engine, its glowplugs, diesel pump, stuff that is not marine gas turbine. Caterpillar, Wartsila, all make diesels for Russia and Russia has plenty of diesels it can experiment in marine. But Marine Gas Turbine is a whole other deal, the free power turbines they are making that are slower RPM can also be used at the compressor stations throughout the Russian oil network. Its not a small issue, or even a science, at that level it becomes an art. Improving the fabrication process and getting that 15% efficiency will be worth it when they have MGT's to rival General Electric when its all said and done. The knowledge could be considered divine in a modern sense

The production of MGT is not a high profit industry.  As you can see ours are not profitable.  Even France got out of the business after the most successful export MGT ever produced at SEMT Pielstick. The license production of it is the backbone of the Chinese Navy and several others.  They still make engines for their own use but it is under the MTU brand.  If you can't break even on it then the industry will die.  It is the total lack of investment in these industries for the commercial sector that has driven this downturn.  Military use is not even 10% of the market.

Not high profit, because they have 0 market share. As I said, General Electric has 43% of the industry. LM2500 Turbines power dozens of ships in different navies. If Zorya Mashproekt had ships to put those UGT15000 in, they would also be top in the industry, that being said, Zorya still has 18% of the industry. That is close to Rolls Royce 20% market share. In any case, MGT is a highly profitable industry, the tooling, and experience alone will pay off when Russia is selling MGT and ships it is exporting, and can displace Rolls Royce, and gain second position in MGT industry.

Old ships are always sold to others, and upgrades are needed, M90FR can power anything depending on the combination used for propulsion. MGT will always be needed as market dynamics determine the demand of consumers. Lower LNG prices means MGT is always desirable to diesel. LM2500 accounts for over 90% of all General Electric profit in MGT, one design (M90FR) and NPO Saturn is also leading the game. MGT is superior to Diesel in power to weight ratio, full electric drive will not be producing 40,500 ship Horsepower anytime soon. Once MGT is available in the form of M90FR, 20380/5, 11356, and 22350 will be selling like hotcakes and produced in numbers.

Isos wrote:

Well wong again. Their ranges are pathetic especially when full loaded with cruise missiles and bombs and missiles. Mostly it will be under 1000km and buddy to buddy refueling won't help as they would need all their fighters to attack. And lets not forget that they can't launch all the fighters at once so the first ones will spend their fuel waiting the others.

Rafales take off with 3X 2000L drop tanks which gives them a combat radius over 2000km.  Even with two tanks they are 1850km radius.  That gives them plenty of range for the CdG to stay outside of most threats.  With the ability to super cruise with a drop tank they would be out of range of most of our fighters trying to chase them on their way out.

From the air there are only two methods to attack the CdG.  Tu-22M3s or Sukhois that are refueling on the way home.  The Rafale MiG-CAP would never allow a tanker to take a station within that range so only Tu-22M3s are capable.      

New anti ship missiles are getting their range increased and the su-34 has much more range tan f-18.

The Super Hornets would have buddy tankers in their strike package if they need more range. They refuel on the way there, it isn't slowing them down.

When houtis launched 2 iranian anti ship missiles at US cruiser they needed in total 2 sm-2 and 1 ESSM and jaming to counter that. Which means SM-2 missed. Against an iranian missile ...

3 rounds for two missiles, that is pretty good.  What is that supposed to prove?  They normally fire two rounds per to guarantee a kill.  It doesn't mean anything missed.  You don't play games when your life is on the line.

Not if they are covered by the air force and have enough to destroy 10 or so antiship missile by their own each. Even less if they can carry 8 nuclear kalibr to destroy the carrier or even the fighter formation coming at her.

If Meteor equipped Rafales have shot down the air cover, what is protecting them?  

Does that mean other air defence can't intercept exocet. No.

Have any air defences ever intercepted Exocet?  The British failed, the Americans failed...  the new 3C upgrade brings an imaging seeker so countermeasures don't work. It flies so much closer to the waves than the other missiles I don't know how you see it without an AWACs look down capability.  

I was talking about overwhelming attacks. Kh-35U is a unified missile that can be launched from any plateform with a range of 260km. Aster is 120km range max. They carry small amount of them and they are much more expensive than kh35. Even with a range of 130km, half of what official data say, a su-34 will be free to launch them all day. Intercepting a formation of 10 su 34 at 130km away is not easy. They are not old tu-22 bomber but fighter bombers that will know when they are targeted and can evade and jam any missiles launched them.

Free to launch them if a Rafale isn't shoving a Meteor up its ass.  Thanks to the Rafale's extreme range, the CdG would be outside of Su-34s combat radius without refueling.  With a tanker they could get there but the Rafale would just shoot that down too.  

Aster and meteor rely on their own radars which are small and not powerfull at all. A good powerful jammer will affect them. They don't even have aesa seakers.

All of the Rafale Ms are upgraded to F3R standard which includes AESA and Meteor.  It has data links to take targeting from other sources, even the Mica NG will be able to do this.

All of the Asters are connected to Link 16 including data from the AWACs.  This is used for terminal guidance and then the missile seeker goes active which is fully autonomous.

And once they use all their missile they are easy targets too.

That is the weakness of the French concept, but they make up for it with missiles on the Rafales protecting the fleet. The escort ships might run out of missiles, but the Rafales can keep reloading a dozen missiles at a time.  

30 rafale M. 2 catapults. Good luck intercepting a package of douzens of sukhoi 34 which will come with a douzen of su-35 and a bunch of tu22. Asters will first need to deal with the hundreds of missiles targeting the carrier. E-2 awacs would need to be very close to battlefront to see the missiles so in range of su-35 armed with r-37.

Each Rafale carrying four Meteors, good luck surviving that.  Without tankers the only thing getting there is Tu-22M3s and those are defenceless.  

Kilo should be used either to launch massive kalibr salvo or to wait for the carrier to pass by. A good tactic would be the kilo sailing in big 8 path and once the carrier detected they go at him and launch their torpedoes.

You don't know where the carrier will be and it is a matter of luck if get in its path.  Only a couple of the Kilos would be in range if you spread them out to guarantee an intercept.  It only carries 4X Kalibr so it would only be a nuisance to a French task force.

Steregoushchy have 12-16 redut and can intercept missiles. Carriers are not carrying such a large amount of missiles inside as you pretend. Uksk will allow use of kalibr or oniks to destroy ships at 700-800km away.

It only carries 12 and max 40km version.  The CdG can carry 150 Meteor and 600 Mica as stores.  If they are planning on attacking Russia they will be fully loaded. That also can include ASMP-A if they want to deter us from going nuclear.

Range of anti ship missile is increasing. Air def system will mostly need to intercept missiles. Forget about shooting jets. If we say CdG has 100 exocet which I doubt, it would mean 10 exocet per steregouchshy if you have ten of them. With 12-16 redut plus ak-630 plus ak176 which is very good at shooting missiles btw there is a big chance they hit nothing. It also means 80 uksk to fire at the carrier. As they are low flying frigates too far used as radar picket can't see them.

Whatever the range of an ASM, it is not greater than the range of the Rafale.  The pathetic range of corvette weapons, it doesn't match what the Rafale will bring to it nor can it shoot it down.  The only thing is Gorshkov that is effective against air strikes as it has the full range Redut to shoot down the attacker before they launch and extending the SAM shield well out to sea to cover our strike aircraft.  

Numbers play for Russia. Get over it. Carrier are totally useless if you have the right tools to destroy them and a trained army to operate them.

Range favours the French, the Rafale gives them the reach to strike our shores and to stay well away from the majority of our defences.

PapaDragon wrote:

So if Aster is so awesome why aren't Chinese, Indians, Turks and God knows who else buying them?

I don't think any of them is short on cash so why waste time on overpriced inferior junk they are buying currently?

Turkey actually has a contract with EUROSAM to develop their LRSAM which would be based on it. The Chinese are embargoed from buying it. EUROSAM never pitched to the Indians because it was out of the RFI price range.