Aircraft Carrier Admiral Kuznetsov: News #2

Now that we know they are going to knock the wall between the two 200m dry docks we are left with the reduced capacity of cannabalising important repair capacity of USC. That will only take two years and then she can rejoin the fleet in 2023. The dry dock will now be unable to accept two ships at a time and becomes uneconomical for working on smaller vessels. It is not a long term problem for capacity as long as we build two new equal dry docks somewhere else to the ones we are reclaiming.

Can't it still fit two ships inside at the same time ? 2 rooms for 2 persons each transformed into 1 room still has enough place for 4 persons

Now that we know they are going to knock the wall between the two 200m dry docks..

If they r parallel or tandem to each other, what would be the resulting dock length & width?

The dry dock will now be unable to accept two ships at a time and becomes uneconomical for working on smaller vessels. It is not a long term problem for capacity as long as we build two new equal dry docks somewhere else to the ones we are reclaiming.

They could fit several small ships/subs in it &/ send them to other docks on the Baltic/Black Seas or even to Vladivostok. They could also buy a few big floating docks to save time & $ instead of building them.

Tsavo Lion wrote:Now that we know they are going to knock the wall between the two 200m dry docks..
If they r parallel or tandem to each other, what would be the resulting dock length & width?

They are going to have to dig it out an extra 100m and tear up a roadway.  It needs to be 305m long.  I couldn't tell you how wide they are but it will be wide enough for the biggest of vessels.  

They could fit several small ships/subs in it &/ send them to other docks on the Baltic/Black Seas or even to Vladivostok. They could also buy a few big floating docks to save time & $ instead of building them.

You can only work one ship at a time.  The flooding schedule varies for each ship and you can't tie down two ships in the same dock that doesn't have equidistant rigging.  If high winds come it could knock one over into the other one.

Well, at least they have this option & still complete the refit on schedule or, in the worst case, not too long behind it. Better later than never!

Tsavo Lion wrote:Well, at least they have this option & still complete the refit on schedule or, in the worst case, not too long behind it. Better later than never!

Well, it means that they will be able to do work also on kirov class and future lider class battlecruisers in that dock.

In the meanwhile they could look for places nearby where to build 2 medium drydocks.

Vladimir79 wrote:

Tsavo Lion wrote:Now that we know they are going to knock the wall between the two 200m dry docks..
If they r parallel or tandem to each other, what would be the resulting dock length & width?

They are going to have to dig it out an extra 100m and tear up a roadway.  It needs to be 305m long.  I couldn't tell you how wide they are but it will be wide enough for the biggest of vessels.  

They could fit several small ships/subs in it &/ send them to other docks on the Baltic/Black Seas or even to Vladivostok. They could also buy a few big floating docks to save time & $ instead of building them.

You can only work one ship at a time.  The flooding schedule varies for each ship and you can't tie down two ships in the same dock that doesn't have equidistant rigging.  If high winds come it could knock one over into the other one.

Btw, i read that the rosneft shipyard with the 2 x 200m drydocks was the Shipyard No 82 in Roslyakovo district of Murmansk, while in the article above they were talking about building the new drydock in the Sevmorput Naval Shipyard No. 35, in the Rosta district of Murmansk, where Kuz has been towed.

So this means that the two drydocks in Roslyakovo district will not be touched...

Btw, there are three shipyards controlled by Zvezdochka in the area (and the norwegians would also want to build a civilian shipyard there)

https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/industry-and-energy/2018/08/norwegians-consider-establishing-shipyard-murmansk-region

(...)
State owned United Shipbuilding Corporation runs the Zvezdochka Shipyard in Severodvinsk by the White Sea, which again has three major yards in the Kola Bay within its structure. Those are  Sevmorput-yard No. 35 in Murmansk, the Shipyard Shkval No. 10 in Polyarny and the Nerpa yard in Olenya Bay.

Well if they are going to keep using the K and plan to have CVNs in the longer term future then they will need a dock that can handle them.

This solution reduces capacity for handling slightly smaller ships by removing two docks and replacing it with one large dock, but is much quicker and cheaper than other alternatives I guess. Building more docks to make up for the one lost in making one big one should not be a huge problem as there should be other similar sized docks around the place, but it does make sense to increase the number of available docks simply because they will be needing more and more bigger docks to make and to upgrade newer larger ships... both military and civilian.

I mean if you are serious about a blue water navy then you will need perhaps 6-10 very large ships that are destroyer/cruiser sized, and quite a lot of Frigate sized vessels that would be considered destroyers in the 1980s... 20-30 or so, and in addition to the K over the next 15-25 years you are going to need to build two CVNs, and probably 2-4 helicopter/landing ships like the Mistral, but nuclear powered.

They can't make that sort of force over night, but over the next few decades they will need to expand their docks and berthing facilities to handle that sort of a fleet probably either in the Northern Fleet or the Pacific fleet and make them enough ice capable that they can sail between the two via the NSR so they can head to most places fairly rapidly.

Sorry Garry, but as I wrote above, I believe we are talking about two different shipyards.

The  shipyard that will later be managed by Rosneft with the two 200x 200m drydocks (and which was controlling the PD-50 floating drydock was the Shipyard No 82 in Roslyakovo district of Murmansk,

https://thebarentsobserver.com/cn/node/4227

https://thebarentsobserver.com/cn/node/4227 wrote:

Navy gives way to oilmen in Murmansk shipyard
State oil company Rosneft says it intends to build two major dry-docks for Arctic oil platforms in Shipyard No 82 in Roslyakovo.

while in the article above they were talking about building the new drydock in the Sevmorput Naval Shipyard No. 35, in the Rosta district of Murmansk, where Kuz has been towed.

http://wikimapia.org/13848521/Rosta-Sevmorput-Naval-Shipyard-No-35



http://tass.com/defense/1057257

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

https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/security/2018/10/aircraft-carrier-damaged-dry-dock-sinks

the barents observer wrote:
It was early morning Tuesday in Roslyakovo, near Murmansk, when Russia’s biggest floating dry dock experienced serious technical problems reportedly triggered by a power outage.

The accident started as aircraft carrier «Admiral Kuznetsov» was to be taken out of the dock and into the nearby waters, Interfax reports. The vessel was damaged as a large crane fell over the ship deck, sources tell the news agency.

There has not come any official comments from Zvezdochka, the company that operates yard No 82 in Roslyakovo". However, regional Governor Marina Kovtun has issued a video report about the incident.

(...)
The aircraft carrier has now been towed to the nearby Sevmorput Yard No 35, yard press spokesman Yevgeny Gladyshev told Interfax. He makes clear that the power outage was what caused the accident.


(...)
The floating dry dock at the Yard No 82 in Roslyakovo is Russia’s biggest and the only place where the Northern Fleet can conduct repairs and upgrades of its largest ships like the «Admiral Kuznetsov» as well as battle cruiser «Pyotr Veliky». The 330 meter long dock was built in Sweden in 1980 and few years later bought by the Soviet Union and taken to the Kola Bay.

So this means that the two drydocks in Roslyakovo district will not be touched...

kvs wrote:

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.

That is all changing for commercial shipping. New rules are coming in to ban "mazut" as it is bad for the climate. This could cause a worldwide shortage of diesel.

while in the article above they were talking about building the new drydock in the Sevmorput Naval Shipyard No. 35, in the Rosta district of Murmansk, where Kuz has been towed.

http://wikimapia.org/13848521/Rosta-Sevmorput-Naval-Shipyard-No-35



http://tass.com/defense/1057257

http://tass.com/defense/1057257 wrote:
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 is not clear how they propose to upgrade their dock facilities to accommodate the K... any existing dock will need to be made rather longer so no matter where it is done the length will need to be increased and possibly also the width... either way it is high time they started doing it because they plan to have larger military and civilian ships so it makes sense to spend the money now to work with them, whether it is the ability to overhaul or just to berth them properly.

That is all changing for commercial shipping. New rules are coming in to ban "mazut" as it is bad for the climate. This could cause a worldwide shortage of diesel.

Yeah, the Russians need to design a new propeller that automatically plants a tree with every rotation to make the west happy... of course NPPs will be the best option in terms of emissions and the environment... the new breeder reactor designs create much less waste and recycle spent fuel rods greatly reducing unwanted nuclear waste and all the issues of safely disposing of it...

Btw, i read that the rosneft shipyard with the 2 x 200m drydocks was the Shipyard No 82 in Roslyakovo district of Murmansk, while in the article above they were talking about building the new drydock in the Sevmorput Naval Shipyard No. 35, in the Rosta district of Murmansk, where Kuz has been towed.

So this means that the two drydocks in Roslyakovo district will not be touched...

82nd Shipyard in Roslyakovo is where PD-50 was.
Shipyard 35 in Rosta is where K is docked & the 2 parallel drydocks are.

I'll draw peoples attention back to the BMPD article about the dock expansion https://bmpd.livejournal.com/3578074.html and my post of it back here https://www.russiadefence.net/t7140p350-aircraft-carrier-admiral-kuznetsov-news-2#251197

Also regarding recent discussion of 'official statements', from this new Tass article

The Admiral Kuznetsov was damaged in a night-time incident on October 30, 2018 during a launch operation in Murmansk. The floating dock PD-50 sank under the ship in emergency. The fall of a crane damaged the carrier’s flight deck.

Shipbuilding corporation president Alexei Rakhmanov told TASS the aircraft carrier suffered 52 defects, which would cost 70 million rubles to eliminate. He said The Admiral Kuznetsov would have to be docked for a second time. Originally the operation was scheduled for the summer of 2019.

This is consistent with the official line from the start: that it was a planned undocking gone wrong, damage is minor & re-docking later was part of the original plan.

Hmm I wonder if the shipyard deliberately sank the floating dock so it would get funds for the drydock, thus securing its future for large ship construction...nicely played comerade lol

mnztr wrote:Hmm I wonder if the shipyard deliberately sank the floating dock so it would get funds for the drydock, thus securing its future for large ship construction...nicely played comerade lol

It sank because of neglect.

Vladimir79 wrote:

mnztr wrote:Hmm I wonder if the shipyard deliberately sank the floating dock so it would get funds for the drydock, thus securing its future for large ship construction...nicely played comerade lol

It sank because of neglect.  

How so? It was just supporting a huge carrier shortly before it sank....someone screwed up. The dock itself was not in perfect shape but it takes quite a lot for it to lose bouyency with many isolated tanks.

mnztr wrote:

How so? It was just supporting a huge carrier shortly before it sank....someone screwed up. The dock itself was not in perfect shape but it takes quite a lot for it to lose bouyency with many isolated tanks.

When it lost power the water pumps went out, the back-up generators had no fuel in them.

It was not the newest structure and anything that big and likely neglected for long periods of time during the last 40 years... it would seriously be relying on pumps to keep those ballast tanks empty enough to keep it stable and level... especially with the 60K tons of the Kuznetsov on its back...

It didn't need to totally sink... just roll to one side and then sink.

Vladimir79 wrote:

mnztr wrote:

How so? It was just supporting a huge carrier shortly before it sank....someone screwed up. The dock itself was not in perfect shape but it takes quite a lot for it to lose bouyency with many isolated tanks.

When it lost power the water pumps went out, the back-up generators had no fuel in them.  

they normally need power to add or remove water. A power failure should not have been an immediate emergency. In any case its all very convenient. Now they get govt $$ for a proper drydock. hmmmmmmm

There is no way the shipyard management did it intentionally while K was in dock.
They'd be facing a purging that'd make Yezhov & Beria blush.

hoom wrote:There is no way the shipyard management did it intentionally while K was in dock.
They'd be facing a purging that'd make Yezhov & Beria blush.

They did it when the ship was already untied and was already floating..then things went horribly wrong lol

hoom wrote:There is no way the shipyard management did it intentionally while K was in dock.
They'd be facing a purging that'd make Yezhov & Beria blush.

They had a purging four months before it happened. The dock captain and his crew were removed for some reason.

By govt or by management?

There was no guarantee that a new dock would be installed at that yard. They could have done it after Adm K left the dock, if that was intentional. IMO, it was just the classic Russian hope that "nothing bad would happen".
USC has promised a new ADS on Admiral Kuznetsov after repairs
https://www.rbc.ru/politics/17/05/2019/5cdeae479a794788459f780d

The easiest and cheapest upgrade would be to upgrade the naval TOR system with the newest models with smaller lighter longer ranged missiles that they could carry twice as many of in the existing space, plus the AK turrets could be replaced with Duet turrets, and Kashtan-M replaced with Pantsir-SM...

Replacing some of the propulsion should allow a speed increase

More speed will create a stronger wind over the deck & heavier laden fighters may be able to take off it.