Future russian aircraft carriers. #1

In 1992, Ul'yanovsk, Minsk, and Leningrad were scrapped; Novorossiysk followed in 1993, and Kiev finally went in 1994. Moskva remained as the nominal flagship of the Black Sea Fleet until late 1995, when she was towed to the scrappers, as well. Admiral Gorshkov has been sold to India in 2004or conversion into a STOBAR carrier to be named INS Vikramaditya.
Varyag has been sold to China.
So the Admiral Kuznetsov is the only russian aircraft carrier in service. USA has currently 12 aircraft carriers and Great Britan 3. Russia showed no interest in aircraft carriers. The future of Russian aircraft carriers, at least in the near-term, looks rather bleak. The temptation to focus on submarine development, an area in which the Russian Navy has considerably more experience, must be great. the mission of the aircraft carrier has changed; no longer does it fulfill the Soviet mission of fleet support, but rather is intended to provide "'political presence' in forward areas
So what will be the place of the aircraft carrier in the Russian navy? will the Kutznesov continue to be russia`s only aircraft carrier?

The future of Russian carriers doesn't look so bleak. We are buying Mistrals so we can get the shipyard upgrades to build them.

I don't think Moskva was scrapped..

hmm I heard Kuznetsov aircraft Carrier's electronic suites includes some form of "AEGIS system" centered on a phased array RADAR named "Mars Passat" or Sky Watch ...anybody know the fate of this RADAR now ? is it removed as what i heard on internet forums like keypublishing or did it stil on service ?

Brazil built a carrier?? You mean bought a French carrier...

Whatever. Point being is that they where able to afford it, so anyone is capable of affording one.[/quote]

Yes, every G20 member with an GDP of 1.994 trillion dollars.

sepheronx wrote:

Whatever. Point being is that they where able to afford it, so anyone is capable of affording one.

Whatever? The point being is they were getting ready to scrap it, and Brazil decided to buy it for a prestige piece. Its combat value is nill.

sepheronx wrote:

Vladimir79 wrote:
Whatever? The point being is they were getting ready to scrap it, and Brazil decided to buy it for a prestige piece. Its combat value is nill.

As long as it can transport aircrafts to proper designation, then it isn't useless.

I have to agree with that.

Russian aircraft carrier blueprint to be ready by yearend - Navy chief

RIA Novosti

14:15 02/08/2010

MOSCOW, August 2 (RIA Novosti) - A technical design for a new-generation aircraft carrier will be ready by the end of the year, the head of the Russian Navy said on Monday.

In an interview with RIA Novosti, Adm. Vladimir Vysotsky said several organizations were working on the warship's design, including the Severnoye and the Nevskoye design bureaus.

He said it was too early to say what the new aircraft carrier will look like or what its specifications will be.

"Not even with regard to its displacement. The designers have been given a number of requirements. If they manage to pack everything into a matchbox, they are welcome," he said.

Some Navy experts believe the future aircraft carrier will be nuclear-powered with a displacement of 50,000-60,000 tons.

The admiral said the Russian Navy needs carrier battle groups.

"If, for example, we do not have an aircraft carrier in the North, the battle capability of the Northern Fleet's guided-missile submarines will be reduced to zero after Day One because the submarines' principal adversary is aviation," he said.

Vysotsky stressed that a special state program was needed for an aircraft carrier to be built.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/russia/2010/russia-100802-rianovosti03.htm

Russian Patriot wrote:
The admiral said the Russian Navy needs carrier battle groups.

"If, for example, we do not have an aircraft carrier in the North, the battle capability of the Northern Fleet's guided-missile submarines will be reduced to zero after Day One because the submarines' principal adversary is aviation," he said.

I am pretty sick of these relic flag officers left over with nothing but CCCP ideas. An aircraft carrier's primary purpose is not to provide air cover for submarines a few hundred km off the coast. It is for power projection. Admiral K will be out of commission for five years, so we better get used to the idea of not having a carrier and come up with one that has power projection in mind.

In addition to power projection a carrier adds range both in sight and claw.
It means there is another ring around a naval group so that that naval group can see and attack if necessary at long range.
Look at any land based air defence, you have short range guns and missiles, medium range missiles and long range missiles. With radars/sensors you have short, medium, and long range sensors too. Lifting those sensors and missiles into an aircraft greatly increases effective range of sight and reach and the further from you that you can engage a threat the safer you are.
The earlier you detect incoming missiles or aircraft or both the easier it is to defeat them.
The biggest threat is always the mass attack to overwhelm a strong defence.
The best response to a mass attack is to layer the defence and add as many effective layers as possible.
Airpower adds a huge layer of detection and response.
As you mention Vlad, airpower also adds a strike capability option in addition to just firing cruise missiles you can also send in aircraft, but it is also about having aircraft to defend the battle group when in hostile waters.
Vlad you are quite right that what this guy said was stupid... a missile sub... a boomer will be hiding and waiting for a launch signal and most can remain in Russian waters to deliver their weapons to targets. Anti ship subs with missiles will likely seek out surface vessels and launch their weapons ASAP so the threat of airpower will be minimal unless they get things very wrong.

Vladimir79 wrote:

Russian Patriot wrote:
The admiral said the Russian Navy needs carrier battle groups.

"If, for example, we do not have an aircraft carrier in the North, the battle capability of the Northern Fleet's guided-missile submarines will be reduced to zero after Day One because the submarines' principal adversary is aviation," he said.

I am pretty sick of these relic flag officers left over with nothing but CCCP ideas. An aircraft carrier's primary purpose is not to provide air cover for submarines a few hundred km off the coast. It is for power projection. Admiral K will be out of commission for five years, so we better get used to the idea of not having a carrier and come up with one that has power projection in mind.

Well you can use an Aircraft Carrier for power projection ,Air Defence for CBG as part of defensive and a 500 km CAP.

What the Admiral means is without a CAP deterrent an enemy ASW like P-8 will be able to hunt down his submarine in co-ordination with the enemy submarine more effectively.

Offensive Power projection is one of the role of Aircraft Carrie , Defensive CAP and long range Aircover is another.

By DMITRY ZAKS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Published: 10 Dec 2010 13:24


MOSCOW - The Russian military admitted Dec. 10 that it lacked the funds to deploy a powerful new armada of aircraft carriers as promised and that no more would be built for at least another decade.

"The state armaments program for 2011-2020 does not envision the construction of aircraft carriers," an unnamed senior official in Russia's defense ministry told the Interfax news agency.

He said current funding plans allowed the military to come up with new designs but not proceed with actual construction.

"Only then - after completing the advanced designs - can we examine the expediency of building aircraft carriers," the official said.

The comments represent a rare public admission that the military was struggling to keep up with President Dmitry Medvedev's commitment to modernize an outdated Soviet-era force that has lost its dominance on the high seas.

The Interfax dispatch seemed to produce initial confusion among the top commanders. It was denied by one unnamed official and received with blanket silence by the defense ministry itself.

But Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov later conceded that the Interfax report was true.

"No, there are no plans" to build carriers by 2020, Serdyukov told the state-run RIA Novosti news agency.

The former Soviet Union had five aircraft carriers at the height of its power but Russia currently only has one, Admiral Kuznetsov.

This compares to the United States' 11 operational and six reserve aircraft carriers, and the U.S. has another three under construction, according to the U.S. Congressional Research Service.

Medvedev made his country's re-emergence as a naval power one of the planks of a new military policy that he announced with much fanfare in October 2008.

"We are not going to spare our financial resources," Medvedev said while attending exercises in the Barents Sea.

Navy Cmdr. Adm. Vladimir Vysotsky said that same year that Russia intended to build six new aircraft carriers - three each for its Pacific and Northern Fleets.

Various commanders at the same time suggested that Russia may expand its naval presence to the Red Sea and perhaps even deploy a new base in Libya.

But naval concerns appeared to be put on the back burner as Russia entered a heated round of nuclear arms negotiations with the United States that hinged on a U.S. proposal to deploy a new missile defense shield in Europe.

Russia fears that the systems could either be turned into an offensive weapon or expanded to neutralize the country's existing arsenal of nuclear arms.

The military has therefore focused on new missile development and testing of its next-generation ICBM.

Medvedev unexpectedly returned to the issue last month by conceding that Russia remained at a tremendous disadvantage to Western powers because of its lack of foreign bases.

He admitted that Russia was forced to follow the "very expensive and completely inefficient" system of supporting all major sea operations with a fleet of refueling ships.

An unnamed defense ministry official said Dec. 10 that Russia needed to have at least four aircraft carriers to be considered a truly functioning power at sea.

"The defense ministry will not give up on this idea," the official told RIA Novosti.

http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=5208837&c=EUR&s=SEA

I must say I am pleased.

First of all I support the idea of the Russian navy having carriers and for them to be genuine power projection tools there is a minimum of 6 needed. A carrier operates in cycles and a carrier in service needs overhauls, training, and to be operational and when it is doing one it is not ready for the other two. Russia having 6 carriers will mean two carriers operationally ready all the time... one in the Pacific and one in the Northern fleet say.
Of the other four carriers two will be in routine overhaul, with either maintainence or upgrade every few overhauls and two will be in training. In an emergency the two in training could be deployed for short periods too.

To operate carriers however you need a capable navy with a good logistics chain and bases all over the place to support operations and Russia really doesn't have that yet.

By 2020 however they will be in much better shape to look into such things.

Why carriers?

Airpower, whether manned or unmanned have huge advantages at sea. It exponentially extends the eyes of the fleet and exponentially extends the claws of the fleet too.

Any group of ships can be overwhelmed if you fire enough missiles at them. The defence at sea against that is the same as on land... layered defences of short, medium, and long range SAMs, plus fighter cover as well. A fighter aircraft can approach an unknown and identify it as friend or foe and can escort it from the area. This is not something a radar or SAM can do. If the contact turns out to be an enemy aircraft then that fighter can alert the fleet and attempt to deal with the problem itself. If it turns out to be a Boeing in civilian markings then that is important too.

Aircraft not only extend the sight and reach of a naval group they also add a layer to the air defences that extends beyond even the new generation of missiles like the 400km range S-400 models.

By 2020 Russia will have decided what to do with its older large vessels like the Kirov class and Slava class vessels and also decided about new large vessels too.

I am certainly not surprised by the announcement. I knew the state of USC was nowhere ready to begin building such structures. It is another of a long line of announcements made that goes undone. GOZ also has no mention of funding new missile cruisers so Kirovs will undoubtedly be upgraded. Unless of course we really are headed for a brown water navy.

Hopefully they use the extra time well and fully explore what their needs and wants in carriers are.
The Russian Navy itself needs a lot of resurrection so that when it gets some carriers it will have a better idea of what it wants to do with them.

There is supposed to be a huge upgrade of the Kuznetsov shortly that might help answer some of these questions and a lot of the changes and improvements applied could also be applied to upgraded older large ships.

By 2020 Russia will know if it is at the forefront of new technology or if it is stuck in a time loop where 5 year plans keep failing and nothing really changes.

Military development has often as much to do with fashion as anything else... for some companies a delta wing is what they do. For a while it was swing wings that solved all the problems. Now it is stealth. In 20 years time the aircraft carrier we know today might have been replaced with aerostats at 40,000m as AEW and AWACS roles and UCAVs that can be stacked up in boxes on ships that look more like container ships with a top flat deck where land and sea targets are attacked by cruise missiles with multiple warheads that can be dropped on targets as it overflys them and for the last target it uses the built in warhead to crash into the target. For air targets it can do much the same with internally carried AAMs or wing mounted AAMs with the last target chased down and rammed.

Peter the Great has already been modernised. They know how to upgrade Kirovs, we are just waiting on them to get off their hands and do something.

The Kuznetsov is supposed to be getting a major upgrade and will probably have a C4IR system installed, I believe the current system is called Sigma and it combines air, sea surface, and underwater information into an integrated view to help manage a fight against a variety of threat types at once.

Right now they are working on the design of new carriers that will likely have the role of defending the ships they operate with.
They wont be Nimitz like carriers, though they will likely be conventional take off but arrested landing carriers. They will likely be nuclear powered and it would make sense for them to develop EM catapults for the simple reason that steam cats are obsolete. Steam cats take up a lot of space and require a lot of personel to operate and there are limits on how they work.
EM cats are smaller and simpler and require fewer crew to operate, they place less stress on the aircraft they are launching and can be programmed to give more control during aircraft launches by changing the rate of acceleration during the take off.
They should also be easier to maintain and operate.
And finally having lots of very high pressure steam pipes all over your ship is asking for trouble with regards to battle damage.
A steam cat is easier to damage and when out of action you are very limited as to what you can launch.
Needless to say different aircraft with different fuel and weapon loads need different accelerations which need to be carefully calculated before launch and if you get it wrong with a steam cat the wheels get ripped off or the plane ends up in the water. With an EM cat the acceleration can be measured as it is happening and the system could compensate by increasing the acceleration to get the aircraft airborne. You could probably add weight sensors to the deck and just have the controller type in the aircraft type and it could do it itself.

This could make the upgraded Kuznetsov a testbed for the new carriers they are going to make after 2020.

Certainly new compact powerful nuclear reactors would be well worth designing as they could be retro fitted to the Kirovs during their major upgrades and indeed the Akula subs during their upgrade and modification.

I have said before here that a carrier is not just a command centre but its aircraft extend the eyes and the reach of a surface group.
A catapult allows for heavier aircraft to operate from carriers and also for existing aircraft to take off with heavier weapon and fuel loads.
Nuclear propulsion means a carrier is using less space to carry fuel to deploy to different areas which can be used to carry more aviation fuel and ordinance so the aircraft can operate longer without resupply.

Needless to say you spot a blip on the radar that is 400km away... having a carrier with you means you can send a couple of fighters to investigate without revealing where the carrier group even is... if they identify the blip as a civilian airliner then a potentially sticky situation is dealt with. Without the aircraft carrier the best you could probably do is send a helo which will take longer to get to an intercept point and will likely not be able to fly high enough to properly ID an airliner or threat that is flying at 10,000m. The longer it takes to properly ID the target the closer it gets and the more nervous you become.
Even a carrier with a truly awful interceptor aircraft like a Yak-38M is better than nothing as it could zip out and ID a target one way or another.

Russian Navy Command made a decision to shape aircraft carrier groups which are to expand presence zone of Russian Navy in the Pacific and the North Atlantic, writes Izvestiya referring to a source in Russian Navy Main HQ. Final decision whether to build aircraft carriers is upon the President of Russia, but currently it is expected that Russian Navy would receive two carrier groups by 2027 – one at Pacific Fleet, another at the Northern one.

At present, Russian military works on technical specifications for perspective aircraft carrier. According to preliminary estimates, the ship will be nuclear-powered with a view to economy diesel fuel. As is planned, the carrier's project will be completed in 2017 and launched in 2023. To reduce costs, the ship will be built under modular principle at two shipyards of United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) with final assembly at Sevmash (Severodvinsk).

By the time the first aircraft carrier is launched, the Navy must complete shaping of escort group. Expectedly, it will consist of missile cruisers, destroyers, attack submarines, frigates, corvettes, landing ships and supply vessels. Totally, each carrier group will comprise 15 ships except carriers. Presently, USC constructs new frigates and corvettes, designs destroyer project and plans to retrofit mothballed missile cruisers.

Apart from shaping of aircraft carrier groups, Russian Navy will have to construct new bases and a ground-based shipborne aircraft simulator in Yeisk, Krasnodar region.

President of USC Roman Trotsenko said in mid Oct 2011 that the company was developing specifications for the new carrier, and final decision would be made in 2017. Supposedly, the aircraft carrier would be laid down in 2018 and launched in five years. Earlier on, Russian defense minister Anatoly Serdiukov repeatedly stated that the ministry had no plans to lay a carrier's keel in the long prospect. Russian vice premier Sergei Ivanov also said construction of an aircraft carrier was not provided by State Arms Program 2011-2020.


Sounds logical with 2 carriergroups. And very potent ones with Mistrals, Kirovs! But they should really build at least 3 carriers, to be able to have 2 operationable at one time, as we have discussed earlier.

But first, 5 boring years with no carrier, as the K is at overhaul.

It is going to be a long wait, but hopefully the Navy uses this time to get itself sorted out regarding new weapons and systems for their new vessels.

Have heard Poliment needs a little more work... have heard that even the K is getting up to 120 VLS tubes for Redut missiles.

(note for those who have trouble keeping track Poliment is the naval version of the SA-20... which are the 40km and 120km range S-400 missiles that fit in packs of four for each full sized S-300/-400 missile.
The missiles are called Redut, but the whole system including the AESA antennas are called Poliment AFAIK.

I was doing a bit of research into the Russian navy. I found an interesting idea put forward by a former navy man. He was proposing a refined version of the reforms and procurement which is currently underway. It was a really long article, but I'll try to give the gist of it. He wanted to commission one Mistral each for the Black sea fleet and the Baltic fleet, while the second two (which are to be built in Russia) would be commissioned to the Pacific Fleet. The Kuznetsov would be with the Northern Fleet. In time, he also wanted for two or three new heavy carriers (revamped modern versions of the Ulyanovsk class), to be built to supplement and eventually replace the Kuznetsov. He reckoned that this would create a new carrier force, instead of recreating an old force.
What are your opinions on this?