Aircraft Carrier Admiral Kuznetsov: News #2

hoom wrote:

The fact the propellers are off show they did not a complete engine work, you do KNOW WHY they have to take Propellers off ships right when fixing the engines?.

To do maintenance on the propellers, its far from uncommon & nothing to do with the engines.
The boilers were changed while afloat before it went into drydock, we know it because there are photos of it in progress.
Presumably the steam turbines are in good enough condition, nobody seems to have suggested any issues with them.

There is more to engines the boilers, gear shafts etc.

We can agree to disagree just when it comes out they can't fix the ship unless some radical is done.

Maybe then the issue will be understood.

In the end this could go on forever and I got things to do, so I'll leave it at that.

Big_Gazza wrote:

SeigSoloyvov wrote:
The fact the propellers are off show they did not a complete engine work, you do KNOW WHY they have to take Propellers off ships right when fixing the engines?.

I'm going to be patient with you even though you don't deserve it...  The engine repair was the replacement of faulty boilers and IIRC a refurb of steam turbines (but not sure on the scope but I have read it includes a replacement of controls equipment).  Removing the propellers isn't a related task. Not sure of the scope of works, but repairs on the prop blades to perform a rebalancing would be likely, as well as the shafts themselves. In any case, its very likely that shaft and prop refurb has a significantly longer schedule than the installation of new boilers.  Its quicker to cut holes, remove dead boilers, lift in new ones, and reclose the hull than it is to remove shafts and props, transport them to a heavy engineering shop, perform the work on these massively heavy and unwieldy items, then return and replace. It's perfectly feasible that the repair plan was to vacate the PD-50, continue repairs at dockside, then return to PD-50 when the props and shafts are ready.

You have posted NO EVIDENCE to backup your claims that the "engines are fucked".  The links you have posted don't support your contentions in this regard.

The fact that you choose to believe anonymous media sources (which include no evidence) rather than official reports says more about you and your biases/proclivities than it does about either the Kuznetsov or the Russian shipbuilding industry.  BTW I'm an electrical, instr and controls engineer who has spent 30 years working in the offshore Oil & Gas and maritime industries. You can rest assured that I know my stuff....  

Tass is no more official than anything else, you have posted no evidence.

Yes that theory is perfectly feasible, I agree with that but they didn't do that. There was a problem and the dock started sinking before they where ready. Don't get me wrong the workers who saved the ship did a good job.

The point is the deep engine repair that you need to get the ship outta water to do was left unfinished by the untimely sinking of the dock. You can argue this all you want until your blue in the face but hey believe what you want.

Yes this issue can be fixed IF they can get the ship out of the water which they do not and will not have the ability to do for the foreseeable future, the entire fact that depends whether this ship lives or dies is if they can get it out of the water within the next year or so.

Like I told Hoom you can have your view, in the end, we will see who is right won't we and I am man enough to admit when I am wrong, so if it turns out your right. I'll say so, but I know you aren't so I'll just wait for the facts to reveal themselves like always.

I hope you can do the same in that case.

SeigSoloyvov wrote:

Big_Gazza wrote:

SeigSoloyvov wrote:
The fact the propellers are off show they did not a complete engine work, you do KNOW WHY they have to take Propellers off ships right when fixing the engines?.

I'm going to be patient with you even though you don't deserve it...  The engine repair was the replacement of faulty boilers and IIRC a refurb of steam turbines (but not sure on the scope but I have read it includes a replacement of controls equipment).  Removing the propellers isn't a related task. Not sure of the scope of works, but repairs on the prop blades to perform a rebalancing would be likely, as well as the shafts themselves. In any case, its very likely that shaft and prop refurb has a significantly longer schedule than the installation of new boilers.  Its quicker to cut holes, remove dead boilers, lift in new ones, and reclose the hull than it is to remove shafts and props, transport them to a heavy engineering shop, perform the work on these massively heavy and unwieldy items, then return and replace. It's perfectly feasible that the repair plan was to vacate the PD-50, continue repairs at dockside, then return to PD-50 when the props and shafts are ready.

You have posted NO EVIDENCE to backup your claims that the "engines are fucked".  The links you have posted don't support your contentions in this regard.

The fact that you choose to believe anonymous media sources (which include no evidence) rather than official reports says more about you and your biases/proclivities than it does about either the Kuznetsov or the Russian shipbuilding industry.  BTW I'm an electrical, instr and controls engineer who has spent 30 years working in the offshore Oil & Gas and maritime industries. You can rest assured that I know my stuff....  

Tass is no more official than anything else, you have posted no evidence.

Yes that theory is perfectly feasible, I agree with that but they didn't do that. There was a problem and the dock started sinking before they where ready. Don't get me wrong the workers who saved the ship did a good job.

The point is the deep engine repair that you need to get the ship outta water to do was left unfinished by the untimely sinking of the dock. You can argue this all you want until your blue in the face but hey believe what you want.

Yes this issue can be fixed IF they can get the ship out of the water which they do not and will not have the ability to do for the foreseeable future, the entire fact that depends whether this ship lives or dies is if they can get it out of the water within the next year or so.

Like I told Hoom you can have your view, in the end, we will see who is right won't we and I am man enough to admit when I am wrong, so if it turns out your right. I'll say so, but I know you aren't so I'll just wait for the facts to reveal themselves like always.

I hope you can do the same in that case.

Tass is government website

Plus if you are going to make a claim about something but provide no evidence other than a link that doesn't actually state anything you claimed only about the dock sinking, well, that doesn't help you now does it?

Big_Gazza wrote:

SeigSoloyvov wrote:
The fact the propellers are off show they did not a complete engine work, you do KNOW WHY they have to take Propellers off ships right when fixing the engines?.

I'm going to be patient with you even though you don't deserve it...  The engine repair was the replacement of faulty boilers and IIRC a refurb of steam turbines (but not sure on the scope but I have read it includes a replacement of controls equipment).  Removing the propellers isn't a related task. Not sure of the scope of works, but repairs on the prop blades to perform a rebalancing would be likely, as well as the shafts themselves. In any case, its very likely that shaft and prop refurb has a significantly longer schedule than the installation of new boilers.  Its quicker to cut holes, remove dead boilers, lift in new ones, and reclose the hull than it is to remove shafts and props, transport them to a heavy engineering shop, perform the work on these massively heavy and unwieldy items, then return and replace. It's perfectly feasible that the repair plan was to vacate the PD-50, continue repairs at dockside, then return to PD-50 when the props and shafts are ready.

You have posted NO EVIDENCE to backup your claims that the "engines are fucked".  The links you have posted don't support your contentions in this regard.

The fact that you choose to believe anonymous media sources (which include no evidence) rather than official reports says more about you and your biases/proclivities than it does about either the Kuznetsov or the Russian shipbuilding industry.  BTW I'm an electrical, instr and controls engineer who has spent 30 years working in the offshore Oil & Gas and maritime industries. You can rest assured that I know my stuff....  

The powerplant was the problem (Boilers). It has been replaced more than once. As for our so called in Syria commando over here, I don't think a soul actually believes him.

Oh noes another "Russia can't do for sh*t" debate foisted on this board by NATO fanboi trolls. Does anyone who is not a troll here think that Russia does not have the capacity to completely replace the drive-train of the Kuznetsov with 100% new components? I am not asserting that this is the repair menu. But anyone claiming that Russia can't do this and can't do that is utterly full of NATO MSM propaganda BS. Given that the prices for even custom industrial and military parts in Russia are actually sane, there is nothing stopping
any overhaul of this carrier.

If there are surprises and thus additional costs along the way, then the only interest would be in what they were. Instead we have every
fricking issue turned into a sky is falling doom prophesy for Russia. GTFO and GFS.

Propellers probably were removed to inspect the bearings and rings and to rebalance them if vibrations started appearing. I am not sure if you need to remove them to work on the powerplant, it shouldnt be connected directly onto the propulsion but via the gearbox so i assume you can "clutch" out the shaft. I am however unaware how it was solved on Kuz.

There is more to engines the boilers, gear shafts etc.

We can agree to disagree just when it comes out they can't fix the ship unless some radical is done.

Steam plant = boilers, turbines, gearbox.
Shaft & props aren't really part of the engine any more than rear tyres on a car are part of a car engine.
Certainly if you take the wheels off a car while doing maintenance you can't drive it until you put them back on but you wouldn't say of a wheel-less car that 'the engine is fucked', you'd say 'its got no wheels'.


There isn't anything radical about needing to prepare a new drydock.
A replacement for PD-50 was already overdue, they just need to actually start & allocate proper resource/non-graft management -> make good progress on it.
While a lot of projects go slow/money 'runs out' Russia is certainly capable of making rapid progress on major projects when they really want to, the drydock should become one of those.

Tass is no more official than anything else, you have posted no evidence.

Govt Official news agency quoting Deputy Minister of Defense isn't official? Lol OK good on you, nameless 'inside sources' in private media is definitely more official

The point is the deep engine repair that you need to get the ship outta water to do was left unfinished by the untimely sinking of the dock

Because apparently they expected to take it out of the water again in a couple of years at the end of everything else.
Thats still the plan.
They just need to build a large drydock first

FUN FACT IS THE ENGINES DON'T WORK THEY ARE FUCKED.

Wow... thanks for that excellent advice... I will be an expert too and tell my mechanic friend that because he has taken the wheels off his car to change the brake pads that his engine is now fucked and he should just take it to the wreckers... I am sure he will appreciate my expertise.

BTW after I explained why I gave him that advice we laughed and laughed and then went and had a beer at the pub...

well I mean honestly... you try it for size...

A bloke I have never met who claims to be American special forces who is in Syria fighting Assad and occasionally ISIS when he absolutely has to (but probably not), told me that because the propellers have been taken off the Admiral Kuznetsov while it was in dry dock that the engine/propulsion system is clearly fucked and it is a gone burger... because although they have a big aircraft carrier and have spend a small fortune on one new shipyard in the far east (Zvezda via South Korean expertise) and are investing in another shipyard in the Far East (via Chinese shipyard expertise) that they will never have any capacity to fix the ship ever again...

what do you expect if Ukrainians built it ….

read somewhere the boilers on board run on low quality "Mazut" ….basically unpurified diesel
so you get lots of smoke when you hit the accelerator ….

lets face it Ukrainians despite all this twaddle about being "ethnically different" are just a bunch of poor Russians with "country boy accents"
"Ukraine" literally means "border land" ….

and the Mazut is probably what Ukraine used most of the time … being poor country hicks ….

probably the refit is to tune it to use better quality fuel ….. it would make sense

Considering there is no record of him saying that yes, I will question if he made the statement.

I would also question the legitimacy of an article coming straight from a government mouthpiece, mean to paint a better picture then what it is.

Anything government ran has oversights, in case of the media that is highly controlled, so now I don't take Tass has fact because they are run by the government, who would easily have them lie to cover something up.

This would be like me taking an article from a DOD ran a website, using that to say someone is wrong about something.

"Well the Government media said so, that makes it true and everything is wrong" I assure you if I did that most people would say "BS". Double standards buddy, matter has fact I will do that and then when people react in that predictable manner. I will reference how you guys take Tass for fact which is no different.

A negative incident will always be brushed over by any government controlled Media, I have called out fake stories made by US government ran Media and you can be dam sure I will hold Russia to that standard.

You asked for an official quote, I gave you a link to a Tass article with a quote from a high official.
And you claim that its not official and there is no record? Yet simultaneously 'official statements are lies so worthless'

The record is Tass quoting him and the visual record supports the quote.
I'm curious what basis you claim for there being 'no record'? Its a pretty frigging weird thing to say with such confidence.

I could not find any other instance of him saying that other then on tass, or the fact this call even happened. if it was a major conference call, there would typically be more about it verse one line.

I wasn't aware Tass was government ran, something I should have checked prior but eh.

Did I ask for proof or a quote from a Russian Deputy minister, I asked for proof a quote, I don't consider media articles from a Government ran media proof. That's like me taking everything Navytimes says has fact, why the hell would I do that?.

I know governments work they aren't honest mainly when it comes to something super embarrassing.

SeigSoloyvov wrote:official statements confirm the crane caused major damage and it wasn't a planned undocking show me a statement from the MOD that supports that, a statement from people on Balancer is worthless.

I wasn't aware Tass was government ran, something I should have checked prior but eh.

http://tass.com/history

I know governments work they aren't honest mainly when it comes to something super embarrassing.

and as I said I'd expected them to be lying too, except then we got a bunch of photos that back up the official story & nothing that substantiates the 'omg K nearly sank and is basically trashed' story.

Got that all through the cold war... everything from the Soviet Union that was positive was a lie, and everything negative was absolutely true...


Use that as a guideline for picking where to visit on your next holidays overseas and you will not go anywhere.

For instance New Zealand is a nice place (must be a lie) to visit but sometimes Muslims get murdered at their place of worship (clearly NZ has an enormous problem of murdering muslim immigrants).

In comparison Australian weather is much better (must also be a lie) and the guy that killed those muslims in NZ was an Australian immigrant to NZ (clearly Australia is home to islamophobic murderers... if the plants and animals don't kill you, the people probably will...)

And what country next?

https://iz.ru/786704/roman-kretcul-aleksei-ramm/ot-kryma-do-eiska-sukhoputnyi-avianosetc-sdadut-v-kontce-goda

It apparently has steam catapults & roll imitators.
No big rush to bring the Adm. K back, they can take their time.

There was a second Kuznetsov class vessel, but the third flat top carrier, the Ulyanovsk was going to have catapults installed... they were going to be steam cats AFAIK, so it would make sense to have a steam cat system at Nitka training facility but I don't believe they actually built a steam cat there... the Ulyanovsk was not fitted with a cat system and was never finished by the Soviets (it and the other Kuznetsov class was sold to the Chinese).

It would be a waste of time developing a steam cat system now, and time and money and effort put in to developing an EMALS system would be much more useful for them.

With clever design they could use EMALS cats on any nuclear powered vessel to launch things that would otherwise be too big or too underpowered to take off from such a platform... like UAVs...

GarryB wrote:There was a second Kuznetsov class vessel, but the third flat top carrier, the Ulyanovsk was going to have catapults installed... they were going to be steam cats AFAIK, so it would make sense to have a steam cat system at Nitka training facility but I don't believe they actually built a steam cat there... the Ulyanovsk was not fitted with a cat system and was never finished by the Soviets (it and the other Kuznetsov class was sold to the Chinese).

It would be a waste of time developing a steam cat system now, and time and money and effort put in to developing an EMALS system would be much more useful for them.

With clever design they could use EMALS cats on any nuclear powered vessel to launch things that would otherwise be too big or too underpowered to take off from such a platform... like UAVs...

On a CVN steam cats make more sense as they can re-use the steam and is much cheaper than EMALs to develop. The US is spending billions on it, we could reverse engineer a steam catapult for a million.

Vladimir79 wrote:

GarryB wrote:There was a second Kuznetsov class vessel, but the third flat top carrier, the Ulyanovsk was going to have catapults installed... they were going to be steam cats AFAIK, so it would make sense to have a steam cat system at Nitka training facility but I don't believe they actually built a steam cat there... the Ulyanovsk was not fitted with a cat system and was never finished by the Soviets (it and the other Kuznetsov class was sold to the Chinese).

It would be a waste of time developing a steam cat system now, and time and money and effort put in to developing an EMALS system would be much more useful for them.

With clever design they could use EMALS cats on any nuclear powered vessel to launch things that would otherwise be too big or too underpowered to take off from such a platform... like UAVs...

On a CVN steam cats make more sense as they can re-use the steam and is much cheaper than EMALs to develop.  The US is spending billions on it, we could reverse engineer a steam catapult for a million.    

Vlad, I see your point.


And it would make sense anyway to reverse engineer a steam catapult and build a launching system based on it either in Saki or in Yevsk, especially to learn more about its operations and compare it with the to be developed EMALS (having maybe instead in the other site a prototype for the EMALS launcher.

Apparently there was already a steam catapult prototype in NITKA anyway, built to test the system that should have been installed in the Ulyanovsk.

It would help a lot if the two systems could be tested in parallel (and Russia could do it without a carrier, in the
two ground based training facilities).
I would not build, however, an aircraft carrier with steam catapult now, unless the development of the emals system was not possible or if there were too many problems.

They could first build another couple of STOBAR carrierslike an improved Kuznetov, maybe with provisions and space for possible retrofit with the EMALS launcher when the technology is mature.

Nevertheless, the technologies needed for such EMALs systems could be probably be of use in many other applications. And thry could fit also uav EMALS launchers in new cruisers/destroyers.

Btw last year (July 2018)

Alexei Rakhmanov, President of Russia’s United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) said that they are developing new launch systems for warplanes based on aircraft carriers.

And previously Sergei Vlasov, CEO of the St. Petersburg-based Nevskoye Design Bureau, told TASS that Russia had started work to create an electromagnetic aircraft launch system (an electromagnetic catapult) for aircraft carriers.

http://tass.com/defense/1011912

GarryB wrote:There was a second Kuznetsov class vessel, but the third flat top carrier, the Ulyanovsk was going to have catapults installed... they were going to be steam cats AFAIK, so it would make sense to have a steam cat system at Nitka training facility but I don't believe they actually built a steam cat there... the Ulyanovsk was not fitted with a cat system and was never finished by the Soviets (it and the other Kuznetsov class was sold to the Chinese).

It would be a waste of time developing a steam cat system now, and time and money and effort put in to developing an EMALS system would be much more useful for them.

With clever design they could use EMALS cats on any nuclear powered vessel to launch things that would otherwise be too big or too underpowered to take off from such a platform... like UAVs...

Wasnt Ulyanovsk scrapped while hull was 30% finished?

Worst decision ever.

Isos wrote:Worst decision ever.

It would rust away by early 2000s, there was no money... people were fighting over last pack of butter in supermarkets in the center of Moscow back then. It might look today as bad decision but at that time it was the only one...

Militarov wrote:

Isos wrote:Worst decision ever.

It would rust away by early 2000s, there was no money... people were fighting over last pack of butter in supermarkets in the center of Moscow back then. It might look today as bad decision but at that time it was the only one...

PtG and some akulas were made in the 90s.

They could have finished this one for Russia. They had all the well trained soviet workers there that could have finished the ship in three years easily. But it was in Ukrainian shipyards so who knows if they would have give it to russia. They scrapped tu-22 and tu-160 instead of giving it to Russia but also sold some.

It was possible IMO.

Gazputin wrote:what do you expect if Ukrainians built it ….

read somewhere the boilers on board run on low quality "Mazut" ….basically unpurified diesel
so you get lots of smoke when you hit the accelerator ….

lets face it Ukrainians despite all this twaddle about being "ethnically different" are just a bunch of poor Russians with "country boy accents"
"Ukraine" literally means "border land" ….

and the Mazut is probably what Ukraine used most of the time … being poor country hicks ….

probably the refit is to tune it to use better quality fuel ….. it would make sense

The vast majority of global shipping uses "mazut". No ship operator with a brain would burn premium fuels like diesel when they can
use lower grades that the giant ship "diesels" can handle. Ship diesels can burn Orimulsion without processing. Orimulsion is the
Venezuelan Orinoco basin bitumen emulsified in water. Try running that in a car or truck diesel and see what happens. Ship diesels
have low rpm and enough heat (large volume to surface area ratio compared to the small engines found in land vehicles) in the pistons
to basically upgrade orimulsion into lighter hydrocarbon grades in situ.

As far as Ukrainians being Russians. The rabid Russia hating Ukrs are actually a blend of Polak, Romanian, Slovak and believe it or
not some Tatar genes. Don't even try to extrapolate a Russian from an Ukr.

Isos wrote:Worst decision ever.

No real money had been put into it yet. Steel cutting is the cheapest part. The worst decision ever was cutting R&D for engine development.

On a CVN steam cats make more sense as they can re-use the steam and is much cheaper than EMALs to develop. The US is spending billions on it, we could reverse engineer a steam catapult for a million.

But the technology developing EMALS would be useful... and AFAIK they never actually had an operational steam cat system so it is not like they just need to put it on a ship and start using it... so in that sense there needs to be serious development work to create either and EMALS offers technology in electronics and magnets and plasma... steam cats offer technology in plumbing... and the pumps for fuels etc in modern rockets means they probably already have much of that technology so no real improvements to be gained from using it.

Once Russia has a moon base... manned or unmanned... an EMALS system could be used to return material to earth orbit very very cheaply.

And it would make sense anyway to reverse engineer a steam catapult and build a launching system based on it either in Saki or in Yevsk, especially to learn more about its operations and compare it with the to be developed EMALS (having maybe instead in the other site a prototype for the EMALS launcher.

Building both systems just to test them against each other would be a waste. I am sure Concern Kalashnikov will not be starting with flintlock weapons to develop a replacement for the RPK LMG... technology can move backwards but you need a really good reason for doing so to actually do it.

Apparently there was already a steam catapult prototype in NITKA anyway, built to test the system that should have been installed in the Ulyanovsk.

AFAIK they have no aircraft able to use it... if it is even functional.

Wasnt Ulyanovsk scrapped while hull was 30% finished?

Yes, that is what I was trying to say... the Ks were design with ski jump launch only, while the U was supposed to add steam cats but was never finished and the Nitka base hasn't used steam cats even if there are some there because they don't have any aircraft that could use cat launch systems AFAIK.

EM cats have a lot of huge advantages, but also a lot of technical challenges... but these technical challenges like handling and transfering and storing large amounts of electrical energy... super magnets, plasmas, etc etc will be useful in a wide range of other areas of weapons and space and aircraft...

One of the best ways to redirect a large object in space from hitting the earth is not to blow it up... if you blow it up its gravity means most of the material would fall back and reform the same weight object that is still going to hit the earth... one solution would be to land a small mining robot with an EM cat system that digs up material from the object and launches it in the same direction as the object spins... gradually shifting it off course. Another purpose could be to put it into space orbit to capture material in orbit and accelerate things down to reenter and burn up instead of remaining in orbit as a collision risk...

Worst decision ever.

Everyone wanted money and there was very little money for anything let alone extravagances like an aircraft carrier... plus it would have been in the Ukraine so it wasn't a Russian decision to start with... what would the ukraine do with an aircraft carrier... Russia was in no condition to buy it.

http://tass.com/defense/1057257

The United Shipbuilding Corporation told TASS the 35th ship repair plant was in the process of upgrading its dock facilities, which would allow for accommodating the aircraft carrier The Admiral Kuznetsov.

"It’s a complex package of measures, so we foresee a certain postponement of the second docking of the ship, but the eventual deadline for completing the repairs and upgrade - 2021 - will remain unchanged," the corporation said.



More:
http://tass.com/defense/1057257