Military Forum for Russian and Global Defence Issues
ExBeobachter1987 wrote:sepheronx wrote:Russia has third largest defense budget.
Not anymore thanks to ruble devaluation.
Dima wrote:Really?Militarov wrote:Sevmash and Zvezda in terms of pure labor, got no clue how to build carrier, let alone super carrier with catapult, at least not at this moment.
What do you base you opinion on?
Adapting already existing hull is one thing, building it from scratch is totally different type of job. Can Russian marine engineers in general do it?
You are mixing things. Sevmash is a shipyard with a limited/in-house design team not covering the entire spectrum of ship design. There are dedicated design houses in Russia and they design subs and ships. A shipyards main business is to built ships according to the documentation/spec supplied by design house/customer.
Sevmash can barely handle Kuznetsov since its around its maximum projected weight and size of its docks.
You are kidding my dear!
The only obstacle Sevmash is having w.r.t to Kuznetsov or new carrier construction is the entry/flood gates to Sevmash basin!!!
Get this little but very very important fact right!!!
Once you understand this little stuff you will understand why Sevmash cannot built an aircraft carrier in its basin.
By God's grace, Project 11430 was lucky as the aircraft carrying cruiser managed to squeeze through the narrow flootgates of Sevmash yard into the basin with barely 1m clearance on either side. It was equally laborious while exiting but it was navigated/tugged in and out by highly skilled/experienced personals without any incident, not even a slightest scratch on the hull.
Just for info, Pr.1143.4 Kiev class has a max waterline beam of nearly 32 meters where as Pr.1143.7 Kuznetsov has a max waterline beam of nearly 36 meters. Unless the entry is widened there is no chance for Kuznetsov to enter the basin or a new carrier with similar or wider beam to be constructed inside the yard permises. Crane capacity is secondary here as they can even do with piecing together small sections.
Sevmash with current cranes cant even lift some of the carrier segments, in Mykolaiv they had 1000t cranes, in Russia biggest ones to my knowledge are 550t, lack of docks, lack of skilled workers, lack of cranes
Hope you meant Nikolayev South Shipyard. Do you really think lifting capacity of a 1,000t is the baseline capacity that a shipyard needs? Its good to have such a capability, but its not the end of world. The heaviest block that I have seen those cranes lift are the huge superstructure of Pr.1143.4 Baku/Admiral Gorshkov. The large superstructure that we still see on INS Vikramaditya was installed on the deck as a single pre-fabricated block/module during its construction by those two cranes.
lack of certain (modern) shipbuilding technologies, they slept for 20 years due to bad financial situation, get real and stop chanting "Russia is building carriers in 2018."
Do you mean to say that Russia cant start constructing a carrier by 2018?
Hopefully Zvezda will be able to take some segments for carrier in future, some Sevmash but they will still need very big outfitting quay.
Sevmash have plenty of outfitting space.
Dima wrote:Take the dimensions I earlier posted and check once more and you will see a solution. Its just a bottle neck.
Check slipway and cranes in major shipyards, they can manage averagely sized tankers at the best.
I will explain.
1) Widen the entry to Sevmash basin/yard. This will be cheaper than constructing a new 400m x 70m dry dock which was earlier planned.
2) See the capacity of Sevmash 302 x 44m. Its the covered slipway on which n-subs are constructed. Two lines in parallel with common rail for cranes. Downside being obstruction in N-sub construction.
3) Utilize this installed capacity to built hull sections which will negate the need for heavy lift cranes in the basin or on floating docks.
4) Float them out into the basin for final assembly, preferrably on a floating dry dock which can be fabricated in Sevmash itself. Each time basin will need to be flooded.
5) Float the completed hull out of the basin for outfitting to free up the basin.
All these will depend on the entry/exit, coz we have not advanced enough to see a flying carrier.
In my humble opinon, its doable and in Sevmash itself but depends on three things - Plan, Resolve & Funds. Everything else comes into place automatically.
And? Sevmash's work shows that they could not do it without severe delays and cost overruns.
The PRC has more money to burn and shipyards which did not experience decay in the last decades.
I think that you should stop beating around the bush.
Russia has had other commitments in countries like Georgia and Tadjikistan in the last decades.
Mate, we are not talking about light carriers (<30,00 tonnes displacement).
Then admirality shipyard would be the one to do it since they have the capacity to do upwards to 70,000DWT. Maybe it would take them long and expensive for first inital build for shipyard upgrades and training, but once done, its done. Rather buy it locally produced and expensive rather than paying someone else.
How realistic would a "stopgap" 2nd Kuznetsov be, does anyone know?
1) Steam turbines (no need for change even if N-propulsion is opted instead of the KVG-3D boilers)
2) Gear assembly (no need for change)
3) Propellers & shafts (no need for change)
Sevmash's work was supposed to be finished in 2008.
The Vikramaditya was delivered in 2013.
The conversion was supposed to cost 0,8 billion US-dollar.
In the end, India had to pay 2,35 billion US-dollar.
Is that supposed to be good work?
Well aware of that however you need production engineers with experience on spot to advise and overlook production and assembly, Russia atm got no such engineers to my knowledge, maybe some guys that worked on Uljanovsk class are still around but its quite possible they are old, retired or live in Ukraine. Also carrier is not comparable to any other type of ship at all, its complex beyond anything else that floats around.
USS Ford carrier is modular as it gets with carriers and still i see some HUGE cranes working on it and moving its sections that are probably heavier even than 1000t, i am not saying it couldnt be done by welding smaller compartments on spot but this way its far more convinient.
Well aware of that however you need production engineers with experience on spot to advise and overlook production and assembly, Russia atm got no such engineers to my knowledge, maybe some guys that worked on Uljanovsk class are still around but its quite possible they are old, retired or live in Ukraine. Also carrier is not comparable to any other type of ship at all, its complex beyond anything else that floats around.
So how can carriers exist if you can't build any if you have not built any before?
That is just stupid.
USS Ford carrier is modular as it gets with carriers and still i see some HUGE cranes working on it and moving its sections that are probably heavier even than 1000t, i am not saying it couldnt be done by welding smaller compartments on spot but this way its far more convinient.
A bit of reality... the US has plenty of super carriers and other large vessels... russia is not going to build 30 large carriers that require such facilities so there is no value in upgrading Sev for the one or two or three ships it might actually build that would require such a building capacity... that is just DUMB.
They are upgrading Zvezda with the help of the South Koreans to build large tankers and LNG carriers of very large physical sizes and weights, it makes rather more sense to build the one or two or three carriers they might want there in between commercial products.
Sure there is an issue with security and putting military systems, but I am sure they can deal with that.
If you look up a thread I posted a few years ago about the new shipyard it states that they will have the capacity to make large and very large vessels and the capacity to make military vessels too.
They make spaceships... another large carrier is not that big a deal.
The new drive for modular construction and modular design should make things rather easier, not harder.
Just look at their experience with the Sidewinder missile... they found out... when they captured the first examples that the IR seeker was no better than their own, and that the rocket motor was no better than their own... the two critical things they learned was the modular design... the AA-1 by comparison was a complex mish mash of parts and wires and bits and pieces... the sidewinder was totally modular... seeker at the front, guidance system behind then warhead and then front control surface servos, then rocket motor and rear fins... the other thing was the rolleron gyros were tiny compared with their own.
the design of the sidewinder was so simple they were able to copy it and put it into production faster than they could retrain their engineers designing AAMs to use the modular design principles, but once they got it they took it rather further than the US did... with SARH and IR guided Sidewinders in Soviet service, followed eventually by the ultimate modular missile... the R-27 which included several dozen different seeker heads, two motor options... resulting in an enormous number of combinations...
We have seen it with Armata... they are trying to move to state of the art in all areas... why would they settle for K2? There is no enormous rush. It is better to get it right than to get it right now and below par.
Rmf wrote:wait a second now that you mention it i remembered they built a large ice breaking tanker , with thicker hull plates and reinforced structure ah here it is.
http://barentsobserver.com/en/node/21009
70.000 tonns
Rmf wrote:well now that it belongs to russia - zaliv shipyard on east crimea built 181.000t displacement supertankers in 80s largest in soviet union.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zalyv_Shipbuilding_yard
,and it has big dock
http://zalivkerch.com/index.php/o-nas/nashi-vozmozhnosti/38-dokovyj-kompleks
354x60m , with 2x 320t cranes that can work in tandem for 600t combined.
Rmf wrote:well now that it belongs to russia - zaliv shipyard on east crimea built 181.000t displacement supertankers in 80s largest in soviet union.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zalyv_Shipbuilding_yard
,and it has big dock
http://zalivkerch.com/index.php/o-nas/nashi-vozmozhnosti/38-dokovyj-kompleks
354x60m , with 2x 320t cranes that can work in tandem for 600t combined.
Dima wrote:Rmf wrote:well now that it belongs to russia - zaliv shipyard on east crimea built 181.000t displacement supertankers in 80s largest in soviet union.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zalyv_Shipbuilding_yard
,and it has big dock
http://zalivkerch.com/index.php/o-nas/nashi-vozmozhnosti/38-dokovyj-kompleks
354x60m , with 2x 320t cranes that can work in tandem for 600t combined.
The dry dock looks good and would facilitate the construction of 1143.7 class for sure.
http://zalivkerch.com/images/dock/dock.JPG
http://zalivkerch.com/images/dock/dock2.jpg
http://zalivkerch.com/images/dock/dok-osnova.jpg
So yet again a good option with ready infrastructure has opened up in the Black sea. So what remains?? Funds!!! For preparing the yard and for the carrier itself.
But if they are are entrusted with building 1143.5 or 1143.7 size carriers, they need to be put directly under the Sevmash supervision team that undertook the Project 11430. Russian Govt can give carrier construction as an economic incentive for Crimea.
Or instead they could also start a parallel line for Pr.22350 or other larger ships. A good start can also be with couple of large fleet replenishment ships.
Nimitz classMilitarov wrote:I have my doubts regarding actually building something of Ulyanovsk type there, from what i recall it was over 80m wide at the deck and over 40 at the beam, that is not easy to be put there.
I don't understand your space requirement for equipments on the sides. We are looking at likely future construction with large hull sections, probably 6-8 large sections (?).You need space on sides for equipment. I mean there is a reason why carriers were built in Nikolayev and not anywhere else, i guess its doable with some jungling with sections being moved and assembled in outfitting quay.
People due to some odd reasons fail to understand this. Similar stuff that comes to mind is that of production of propulsion units. Soviet Russia concentrated its premier N-propulsion units in-house where as allmost all the conventional units were put in the Ukranian basket. This as we see now have come back to bite hard.Rmf wrote:its simple- zaliv was busy with largest civilian & commercial projects. nikolaev was pure military base from historic times with 330x40 dock where largest battleships were to be constructed in ww2 but scrapped, and latter ulyanovsk carrier .
Can you name one Russian shipyard which was/is in good shape?artjomh wrote:Zaliv is not in a great shape right now.
Would you like to expand your thoughts on why the possibility of building a carrier at Zaliv is a good joke?Building a combat ship, much less an aircraft carrier (good joke!), is beyond their wildest dreams in terms of actual implementation.
Yes, an ice free area is always good to have and a yard to cater for Black sea, Mediterranean and Indian Ocean requirements would be fine. If they have no immediate plans for an a/c carrier I would like to see the monopoly on Pr.22350 being broken and start a parallel production line at Zaliv. But preparatory work needs to be funded and Russian Govt shouldnt shy away from it. It will be a good boost to the frigate/destroyer construction if the yard can be fully prepared for all classes of ships in 18-24 months.Rmf wrote:yeah ,troubled zvezda on far east that cant finish anything 5 years behind scedule and already full of surface and submarine maintenance orders is in much better state....
oh wait !
all the while zaliv (bay) is empty of orders.
then again this in black see and could be problems with turkey, so pacific ice free open ocean is logical place.
Rmf wrote:lets be honest bolshoy kamen - just east of vladivostok -was chosen like 5-6 years ago for major construction dock and upgrade, aaaand still not much is done ,and it was at a time crimea was part of ukraine.
now situation has changed workers at zaliv would love to get hands on some big project ,possibly a new russian destroyer or even carrier.
artjomh wrote:Zaliv is not in a great shape right now.
They wish they could build some auxilliary right now. Building a combat ship, much less an aircraft carrier (good joke!), is beyond their wildest dreams in terms of actual implementation.
Dima wrote:Can you name one Russian shipyard which was/is in good shape?
Would you like to expand your thoughts on why the possibility of building a carrier at Zaliv is a good joke?
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