Aircraft Carrier Admiral Kuznetsov: News #2

The problem is why the fires starts in the first place.

Combination of heat, fuel, and oxygen...

Yes it happens to everyone, but Russia seems to be most troubled by this. Agian and again and again.

By definition it happens to everyone again and again and again... or are you saying China and America will never have a navy related fire ever again because they learned their lesson?

More likely what the US will do is ban reporting of any fires or incidents and pretend everything is fine... because that is what nazi state do... that is how they achieve utopoia... drugs and denial.

They have just upgraded it and fixed its propulsion system and members think it should be scrapped.

The power of western propaganda.

Russia does not need carriers... of course they would want that... but if Russia does not need them why do so many western countries have aircraft carriers?

And the difference is that western carriers are rather more horribly vulnerable to being sunk than any Russian carriers because western military forces don't have the powerful anti ship systems the Russians have.

Russia needs to expand its reach to the world and the easiest and best way to do that is via its navy. The improved merchant fleet will cover the costs and more.

Getting more than a little fed up with people in this forum constantly pissing and whining about the Kuz.  Her problems, such as they are, were always due to a lack of money for maintenance and upgrade, and yet even though that is being resolved, the nay-sayers still repeat the BS, even while she is still in drydock and the results of the modernisation are yet to evaluated.

What the %#& do you people want?

New boilers, steam turbines refurbished, new electronics, marinised Pantsir CIWS, plumbing problems fixed...  probably much more too.  How about people simply withhold judgement and wait until she is in back in service.?

FLOT.COM
January 25, 2023 at 08:02 Subject: Industry

Sources: the withdrawal of "Admiral Kuznetsov" from the dry dock will be completed only in February


The operation to withdraw the heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser Admiral Kuznetsov from the dry dock will be completed in February. On Wednesday, January 25, TASS reports, citing two sources in the military-industrial complex.

"The operation to withdraw the aircraft carrier from the dry dock of the 35th Shipyard (SRZ), which began approximately on December 20, continues and will be completed in February," one of the agency's interlocutors said, finding it difficult to give an exact date, since weather conditions could not affect it.


TAVKR "Admiral Kuznetsov" on the territory of 35 SRZ after an emergency with a floating dock PD-50
Air Base Forum

The press service of the Zvyozdochka Ship Repair Center, of which the 35th Shipyard is a branch, did not comment on this information to TASS.
Previously, it was assumed that the operation to withdraw the aircraft carrier from the dry dock would last about a month.

TAVKR "Admiral Kuznetsov" was brought to the modernized dock of the 35th shipyard in May 2022. Later, the head of the United Shipbuilding Corporation, Alexei Rakhmanov, specified that dock repairs would take three months and last until September, after which the ship would be transferred to the outfitting wall of the plant. In fact, according to media reports, preparations for dock repairs lasted until the end of June.

Recall that the contract for the repair and modernization of the heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser Admiral Kuznetsov, which entered service in 1990, was signed in April 2018. The cost of the work is estimated at 60 billion rubles.

In November 2021, TASS sources reported that the return of the Admiral Kuznetsov to service was postponed to 2023. At the beginning of June 2022, information appeared that the commissioning of the ship would take place only in 2024.

https://flot.com/2023/%D0%9C%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B7%D0%B0%D1%86%D0%B8%D1%8F1/

Flot.com
6 February 2023 at 10:06 Subject: Industry

The source clarified the timing of the withdrawal of "Admiral Kuznetsov" from the dry dock

The heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser Admiral Kuznetsov, which is undergoing overhaul and modernization at the 35th shipyard in Murmansk, will be taken out of the dry dock on February 16–17. This was reported to TASS by a source in the military-industrial complex.


TAVKR "Admiral Kuznetsov" towed for repairs
"35 SRZ" OJSC "CS "Zvezdochka"

Earlier, agency sources reported that the operation to withdraw the aircraft-carrying cruiser from the dry dock, which began in late December, continues and will end in February.
Previously, it was assumed that the operation to withdraw the aircraft carrier from the dry dock would last about a month.

TAVKR "Admiral Kuznetsov" was brought to the modernized dock of the 35th shipyard in May 2022. Later, the head of the United Shipbuilding Corporation, Alexei Rakhmanov, specified that dock repairs would take three months and last until September, after which the ship would be transferred to the outfitting wall of the plant. In fact, according to media reports, preparations for dock repairs lasted until the end of June.

Recall that the contract for the repair and modernization of the heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser Admiral Kuznetsov, which entered service in 1990, was signed in April 2018. The cost of the work is estimated at 60 billion rubles.

In November 2021, TASS sources reported that the return of the Admiral Kuznetsov to service was postponed to 2023. At the beginning of June 2022, information appeared that the commissioning of the ship would take place only in 2024.

https://flotprom.ru/2023/%D0%9C%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B7%D0%B0%D1%86%D0%B8%D1%8F2/

Don't think they ever intend to use it in the Black Sea and besides it would not be allowed to enter in the current situation.

People complaining about the K should look at current British experience with their brand new state of the art carriers... which are not problem free either.

The fact of the matter is that aircraft carriers are very big ships with lots of complex interactions going on all the time at the same time... getting rid of the carrier will leave an enormous gap in Russias capability... thinking you can just not have an aircraft carrier for ten years and then build a new one that is perfect... cheap small, never has any problems is delusional to the point of being childish.

All the amazing new ideas to make it work have already been tried and were failures... 20K mini carriers with VSTOL fighters... done... and was horrible and they still couldn't afford them, using civilian ships for carriers... worse than terrible... awful waste of lives and material because such vessels don't even have basic self defence electronics and systems let alone fire bulkheads and protections to stop fires spreading...

The K will be ready when they say it is ready, but delaying it till this conflict ends would be stupid because we don't know when that might be... planning does not like unknowns.

It is not just the K but also upgraded ships that need to test their new gear and electronics in conjunction with the carrier they will be operating with.

February 18, 01:06

The operation to withdraw the Admiral Kuznetsov from the dock will be completed at the end of February
The ship entered the dock in May 2022, and dock work began in June to repair and modernize it

MOSCOW, 18 February. /TASS/. The operation to withdraw the heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser "Admiral Kuznetsov" from the dry dock will be completed in the third decade of February. This was reported to TASS by a source in the military-industrial complex.

"The operation to withdraw the aircraft carrier from the dry dock of the 35th Shipyard (SRZ), which began on December 20, continues and will be completed approximately in the third decade of February," he said.

It was previously assumed that the operation to withdraw the aircraft carrier from the dry dock of the 35th Shipyard would last approximately for a month. The ship entered the dock in May 2022, and dock work began in June to repair and modernize it.

https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/17082463

The head of the OSU announced the completion of the operation to withdraw the Admiral Kuznetsov TAVKR from the dry dock

The only Russian heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser "Admiral Kuznetsov" nevertheless left the dry dock and began moving to the outfitting wall of the 35th shipyard in Murmansk. This was announced by the head of the United Shipbuilding Corporation Alexander Rakhmanov.

Normal weather settled in Murmansk, which made it possible to complete the operation to withdraw the Admiral Kuznetsov from the dock. According to Rachmaninov, the withdrawal was completed around 17:21 today, Tuesday, February 2023. After the cruiser stands at the wall of the shipyard, work will continue on it. Transfer of the ship to combat fleet planned for the first quarter of next year. TAVKR "Admiral Kuznetsov" is part of the 43rd division of missile ships of the Northern Fleet.

The docking of the ship is completed. Today at 17.00 the ship left the dock and now stands at the wall of the 35th plant. Here, repair and modernization work will continue in order to return to service in 2024.

- leads RIA News words of the head of the USC.

Recall that the operation to withdraw the cruiser from the dry dock began on December 20 last year and was supposed to be completed in January. However, various problems with the dock itself, as well as weather conditions, stretched it out for two months instead of one. On the other hand, work continued on the ship and during the operation, there is no backlog from the schedule.

The transfer of the ship to the combat fleet is planned for the first quarter of 2024, unless something happens again. "Admiral Kuznetsov" got up for a major overhaul with modernization in 2018 and was supposed to return to service in three or four years, but after the start of work, new defects were discovered, which led to repeated postponements of the ship's return to combat strength. To this must be added the fire on board the cruiser and the sunken floating dock, which was supposed to ensure the docking work on the ship.

https://en.topwar.ru/211463-glava-osu-soobschil-o-zavershenii-operacii-po-vyvodu-tavkr-admiral-kuznecov-iz-suhogo-doka.html

She is (nearly) back, baby! 

Will be interesting to see what upgrades and changes they have made to her based on experience in Syria.

They mentioned mechanisms to boost launch performance but they didn't go so far as to describe them as catapults.

They were vague, which is frustrating.

Article on the Kuz - Rearmed and dangerous: the flagship of the Russian Navy is building up firepower

Apart from the already known weapon upgrades (Pantsir-M to replace the Kortik CIWS), the Kuz will receive facilities to store and handle advanced air-surface munitions including ALCMs and guided bombs.  A nice boost to the teeth of her air wing.

"In general, the modernization of the cruiser is that all systems are removed from it and the most modern ones are installed instead."

Nice.     I would have liked P-700s Granits replaced with UKSK unified VLS (Zircons   ) but I won't sob into my Shiraz if it hasn't come to pass.

source

Would be nice to see what they have done with a new naval TOR missile system.

The old system had a rotary launcher that wasn't very efficient in terms of using up the available space, and it had the old big heavy TOR missiles instead of the slightly newer missiles with better range and accuracy (15km vs 12km range) and 16 missiles to a launch vehicle (TOR) compared with 8 of the original bigger missiles.

Would be good if they mount some 57mm guns too just to extend the range of CIWS.

its a very interesting topic this thread is, i have taken a few days here and there to get up to date.

edit: there is to be honest a lot of western garbage going on in this thread i removed my comment about the other countries as its off topic, there is 50 of this thread concentrated on anything but the Kuznetsov.

The British ships are not terrible, though if I was paying the bills I would have looked into making four ships where three were made into cruisers and only one was an aircraft carrier.

(I pointed out the British and the US have problems with their ships not to suggest they are bad or should all be scrapped too, but to point out that ships of this size are essentially floating small towns with water and sewerage and power and communication and transport and other needs that need to operate 24/7 all year round... they are complex things that not just anyone can manage to operate let alone build.)

They got their first carrier cheaper by buying two and the cost of cancelling the second carrier would have been almost as expensive as finishing both ships so that is what they did.

I also would have gone for Rafales instead of F-35s despite their price... they are at least combat proven and are fully operational... unlike the F-35.... and worse they seem more interested in hiding problems than with dealing with them and making the plane good.

They planned to have 12 new destroyers that they could use to escort these carriers but then they cut the budget and only got 6 and it turns out they have lots of problems too, meaning they have more carriers than they need and not enough other ships to operate with them.

A carrier is not cheap and if you try to make it cheap you end up with something less able to do a good job which means often you can't do the job properly or you have to use two and two smaller carriers often end up more expensive than one really big one that can do the job in the first place.

The Kuznetsov is no where near perfect... it was always a stopgap for the Ulyanovsk nuclear powered ship with cats and rather more aircraft.

This current upgrade of the Kuznetsov will have to include a lot more aviation fuel and lots of new guided aircraft ordinance because the old Kuz was designed as a carrier of fighter aircraft and helicopter AEW Ka-31s, but with new multirole aircraft the new Kuz needs all sorts of air to ground and air to air ordinance.

Having two types of fighters is good... right now it is Su-33s and MiG-29KRs which can perform different missions and compliment each other where the Su-33s are long range and can carry lots of air to air missiles, while the MiGs have a shorter range but good air to air weapons and are just as fast as the bigger aircraft while being smaller so more aircraft can be carried.

In the future perhaps the Su-33s might get replaced by Su-57Ks and the MiG-29KRs replaced by the new MiG light fighter designs.

Will be interesting to see what version of naval TOR they are going to carry and if they have modified the launchers to increase their capacity.

GarryB wrote:The British ships are not terrible, though if I was paying the bills I would have looked into making four ships where three were made into cruisers and only one was an aircraft carrier.

(I pointed out the British and the US have problems with their ships not to suggest they are bad or should all be scrapped too, but to point out that ships of this size are essentially floating small towns with water and sewerage and power and communication and transport and other needs that need to operate 24/7 all year round... they are complex things that not just anyone can manage to operate let alone build.)

They got their first carrier cheaper by buying two and the cost of cancelling the second carrier would have been almost as expensive as finishing both ships so that is what they did.

I also would have gone for Rafales instead of F-35s despite their price... they are at least combat proven and are fully operational... unlike the F-35.... and worse they seem more interested in hiding problems than with dealing with them and making the plane good.

They planned to have 12 new destroyers that they could use to escort these carriers but then they cut the budget and only got 6 and it turns out they have lots of problems too, meaning they have more carriers than they need and not enough other ships to operate with them.

A carrier is not cheap and if you try to make it cheap you end up with something less able to do a good job which means often you can't do the job properly or you have to use two and two smaller carriers often end up more expensive than one really big one that can do the job in the first place.

The Kuznetsov is no where near perfect... it was always a stopgap for the Ulyanovsk nuclear powered ship with cats and rather more aircraft.

This current upgrade of the Kuznetsov will have to include a lot more aviation fuel and lots of new guided aircraft ordinance because the old Kuz was designed as a carrier of fighter aircraft and helicopter AEW Ka-31s, but with new multirole aircraft the new Kuz needs all sorts of air to ground and air to air ordinance.

Having two types of fighters is good... right now it is Su-33s and MiG-29KRs which can perform different missions and compliment each other where the Su-33s are long range and can carry lots of air to air missiles, while the MiGs have a shorter range but good air to air weapons and are just as fast as the bigger aircraft while being smaller so more aircraft can be carried.

In the future perhaps the Su-33s might get replaced by Su-57Ks and the MiG-29KRs replaced by the new MiG light fighter designs.

Will be interesting to see what version of naval TOR they are going to carry and if they have modified the launchers to increase their capacity.

look to be quite honest i really dont care about what the US or the UK are doing this thread is really more or less about the Admiral Kuznetsov, i will have to remove my last comment about the QE class garbage so it dont seem like im being contradictory. half of this thread is garbage comments about the west and how much better the west is to Russia when its more or less about the aircraft carrier i think this thread should really concentrate on whats going on with the carrier not everything else, if people want to bash on about how good the west is then make a new thread that goes on about it.

Western fools sneer at the Kuz (who has received a deep upgrade), even while UK carriers are becoming a laughing stock

The British Royal Navy’s largest and most costly warship the aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales is currently being stripped for parts, after multiple performance issues culminating in incidents of flooding and major mechanical failures forced the new ship into a long period of repairs. Not only have items such as oil and fuel filters been stripped from the ship, but flight deck lifts used to carry aircraft up from hangars have also been removed entirely. Among other issues, the Prince of Wales’ propellers are currently being replaced in dry dock in Scotland, although its period out of sea may be extended considerably as parts are used to replace those which have broken on the carrier’s similarly troubled sister ship HMS Queen Elizabeth. The Prince of Wales had set out to the United States in August 2022 when technical issues forced it to return to port just 24 hours into its voyage, by which time it had only reached as far as the coast of the Isle of Wight. The cost of repairing the ship are estimated at over $30 million, with the Royal Navy’s goal of returning it to service in the Autumn of 2023 considered unlikely to be reached.

Preceding the ship’s failure in August 2022, in December 2020 HMS Prince of Wales suffered serious flooding which was expected to take at least six months to repair. The floods occurred while the warship was in dock in Portsmouth and resulted from faulty pipes, with footage of flooding below decks, including water pouring down concrete stairs and submerging electrical cabinets, and filling an engine compartment with at least three feet of water, having been released by local media. The Sun reported that “thousands of gallons of seawater poured into an engine room and submerged electrical cabinets for over 24 hours,” with necessary repairs expected to be highly costly. HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Queen Elizabeth have hardly been isolated in the issues they have faced, with ships across the British surface fleet proving similarly problematic. The country’s sole class of destroyer the Type 45 Class, which are heavily relied on to provide air defence to carrier groups, has proven among the most problematic with issues affecting almost all areas of performance and particularly their availability rates. Five of the six ships having been out of service in 2021 as a result for an availability rate of just 17 percent. British carrier air wings built around the F-35B fighter have also proven highly problematic, both due to the major performance and availability issues the aircraft continues to face, as well as due to delays to production and Britain’s inability to finance acquisitions on the scale previously considered necessary to furnish two aircraft carriers. An F-35B operating from HMS Queen Elizabeth fell into the sea in an accident near Cyprus in November 2021 - a major loss considering the class’ cost of over $130 million per airframe.

source

  Keep laughing you feckless NAFO inbred idiots.   Infantile snark won't change the reality of UK military collapse in all service sectors or similar decay in the Murkan Hegemony.  

look to be quite honest i really dont care about what the US or the UK are doing this thread is really more or less about the Admiral Kuznetsov,

I agree that this thread is about the Kuznetsov, but a bit of comparison and context are needed.

A member can complain that the Russian Navy is ancient cold war subs and ships with the only really new stuff being a very few new subs and some corvettes and a few frigates, but in context most modern navies have problems too and remembering that can help members coping with the fact that navies are expensive and complex and need serious management and design skills to keep running.

Russia did not need its navy in the recent past but now with the need for trade routes with the rest of the world that don't go through western shipping and insurance companies, well all of a sudden ship production is becoming important and in fact quite urgent and they are going to have to be rather clever and skilled to get the needed ships and subs into production and service without making the mistakes or taking gambles that have failed them in the past.

Fortunately the increasing trade with the rest of the world should help fund an increase in navy spending and get more ships and more subs and eventually more carriers onto the slipways and in to the water.

Their new ships are modular and their new carriers will likely be the same, so upgrades of the Kuznetsov in terms of electric drives and new radar and sensors and electronics packages... and even lasers to deal with drone attacks at close range would be useful starting points to lead to improved systems on newer ships.

Perhaps testing out some new helicopters and helicopter type drones could be interesting too... ready for the new helicopter carriers which are supposed to hit the water in about 5 years or so.

GarryB wrote:The British ships are not terrible, though if I was paying the bills I would have looked into making four ships where three were made into cruisers and only one was an aircraft carrier.

(I pointed out the British and the US have problems with their ships not to suggest they are bad or should all be scrapped too, but to point out that ships of this size are essentially floating small towns with water and sewerage and power and communication and transport and other needs that need to operate 24/7 all year round... they are complex things that not just anyone can manage to operate let alone build.)

They got their first carrier cheaper by buying two and the cost of cancelling the second carrier would have been almost as expensive as finishing both ships so that is what they did.

I also would have gone for Rafales instead of F-35s despite their price... they are at least combat proven and are fully operational... unlike the F-35.... and worse they seem more interested in hiding problems than with dealing with them and making the plane good.

They planned to have 12 new destroyers that they could use to escort these carriers but then they cut the budget and only got 6 and it turns out they have lots of problems too, meaning they have more carriers than they need and not enough other ships to operate with them.

A carrier is not cheap and if you try to make it cheap you end up with something less able to do a good job which means often you can't do the job properly or you have to use two and two smaller carriers often end up more expensive than one really big one that can do the job in the first place.

The Kuznetsov is no where near perfect... it was always a stopgap for the Ulyanovsk nuclear powered ship with cats and rather more aircraft.

This current upgrade of the Kuznetsov will have to include a lot more aviation fuel and lots of new guided aircraft ordinance because the old Kuz was designed as a carrier of fighter aircraft and helicopter AEW Ka-31s, but with new multirole aircraft the new Kuz needs all sorts of air to ground and air to air ordinance.

Having two types of fighters is good... right now it is Su-33s and MiG-29KRs which can perform different missions and compliment each other where the Su-33s are long range and can carry lots of air to air missiles, while the MiGs have a shorter range but good air to air weapons and are just as fast as the bigger aircraft while being smaller so more aircraft can be carried.

In the future perhaps the Su-33s might get replaced by Su-57Ks and the MiG-29KRs replaced by the new MiG light fighter designs.

Will be interesting to see what version of naval TOR they are going to carry and if they have modified the launchers to increase their capacity.

Yes its a good choice to increase the weapons for the airwing, in fact i hope they cut out the SSN-19 altogheter to make more room for aditional planes and or airwing weapons.
No usuks is needed on a carrier.
Or drones of course.

Yes its a good choice to increase the weapons for the airwing, in fact i hope they cut out the SSN-19 altogheter to make more room for aditional planes and or airwing weapons.
No usuks is needed on a carrier.
Or drones of course.

Welcome back... has been a while...

The thing with the SS-N-19s is that they were located in a place that isolated them from everything with heavy bulkheads to reduce the risk of fires spreading to or from the missiles to the rest of the ship, which means taking the section out and replacing it with something else would actually be rather problematic.

I thought for a bit that it could be used as a bunker for ordinance for aircraft with its own lift to bring it up on deck to load onto an aircraft, but it is well forward and not an ideal place for that.

I actually think the UKSK launcher would be the best solution because the bulkhead and isolation would be useful and they could probably fit two or three UKSK-M launchers in there.

Keep in mind that the UKSK-M is a universal carrier that can carry anti ship and land attack missiles of course, but it can also carry anti sub missiles too and could probably be used in an anti torpedo role too.

In terms of submarine use you could load it up with long range anti sub missiles so you can send out helicopters to hunt for subs and if they find something a missile can be fired from the carrier 80-100km away that splashes down into the water near the sub with a modern fast torpedo that chases down and kills the sub.

Very fast engagement because the missile flys at mach two in the air so it gets to the sub fast and with no warning, and then it is in the water within a kilometre of the sub which gives the sub very little time to react and do anything.

This means you helicopters can operate lighter without the need for carrying torpedoes and therefore operate longer further away from the ship.

Of course the other ships operating with the carrier could also launch an anti sub weapon too.

The UKSK-M can carry large SAMs which the carrier could use to defend itself too.

GarryB wrote:

Yes its a good choice to increase the weapons for the airwing, in fact i hope they cut out the SSN-19 altogheter to make more room for aditional planes and or airwing weapons.
No usuks is needed on a carrier.
Or drones of course.

Welcome back... has been a while...

The thing with the SS-N-19s is that they were located in a place that isolated them from everything with heavy bulkheads to reduce the risk of fires spreading to or from the missiles to the rest of the ship, which means taking the section out and replacing it with something else would actually be rather problematic.

I thought for a bit that it could be used as a bunker for ordinance for aircraft with its own lift to bring it up on deck to load onto an aircraft, but it is well forward and not an ideal place for that.

I actually think the UKSK launcher would be the best solution because the bulkhead and isolation would be useful and they could probably fit two or three UKSK-M launchers in there.

Keep in mind that the UKSK-M is a universal carrier that can carry anti ship and land attack missiles of course, but it can also carry anti sub missiles too and could probably be used in an anti torpedo role too.

In terms of submarine use you could load it up with long range anti sub missiles so you can send out helicopters to hunt for subs and if they find something a missile can be fired from the carrier 80-100km away that splashes down into the water near the sub with a modern fast torpedo that chases down and kills the sub.

Very fast engagement because the missile flys at mach two in the air so it gets to the sub fast and with no warning, and then it is in the water within a kilometre of the sub which gives the sub very little time to react and do anything.

This means you helicopters can operate lighter without the need for carrying torpedoes and therefore operate longer further away from the ship.

Of course the other ships operating with the carrier could also launch an anti sub weapon too.

The UKSK-M can carry large SAMs which the carrier could use to defend itself too.

Thanks, time flies as do the emerging date when the Kuz is back in service. It would be a show of force to send her to the middle east as well.
Well the hybrid cruiser/cv class is a problem so far as if you cant use the space for the SSN-19 for the airwing, its really only useful for usuks. But the escort ships have plenty of these, and launching missiles when you airwing is operating is not a great idea...

I cant see any reason whatsoever to send the Kuz into the black sea, the naval dockyards that built her are long gone and land based aircraft cover the enitre area easy. She would be a sitting duck with no value.
The Kuznetsov and Admiral Nakhimov would be of much value in the middle east now, not in docks or waiting repairs.

I know she has probably new boilers and engines, and a new catapult, arrest wires and electronics. But a CV without a good airwing is not much worth, and i havent read anything about the MiG-29K or naval SU-35. The SU-33 is a old design and the airframes have reached end of life.

We have been over this It is an Aircraft carrier and is banned from traversing the straight by Turkey as per the agreement.