Future Russian Aircraft Carriers and Deck Aviation.

LMFS wrote:Was thinking of posting that article but I found it way too weak Gunship, good ideas do not need so much whitewashing

LMFS wrote:
By now CTOL vs STOVL is rather like two competing athletes, one of which carries a backpack full of rocks. Should we discuss who will win?

But what features would make the carrier so extremely expensive and the LHD so cheap? Why would a light carrier like the one presented in Army 2018 be so many times more expensive than a big LHD with space for two squadron STOVL + well dock + VLS + helos + advanced systems? Displacement similar, similar systems... similar costs me thinks. I am an ignorant, so please explain to me!

One more question: any guess what is the exact status of this STOVL development? Funds approved? For what exactly? It is not clear to me whether they have decided that they definitely want the STOVL or are just saying "we may want them". Any evidence they are already doing preliminary design of the plane itself? Since no design bureau has been named I have to doubt it.

GarryB wrote:The thing with the MiG-1.42/1.44 and the Yak-43 is that the former failed because Sukhoi offered something better, and the latter never got off the drawing board, while there are already aircraft with likely better performance already in service in the form of the MiG-29KR, that is related to a land based aircraft of the same design and many of the same parts... that is entering service too... paid for by the Air Force.

skijump can be on 20k too. Invincible could take 18 Harriers and had skijump and 22ktons

A ship replaced by a new carrier similar in size to the Kuznetsov by a country well known for only spending money on absolute essentials... and even then cutting budgets after conflicts..

useles to what? to your requirements of solving real ltaksks?

To provide adequate air cover for a group of Russian ships beyond land based aircraft range.

so you didn notice that currently there is netcentric warfare? and drones? you still live in 90s?

Of course... everyone uses drones instead of AWACS... can you name them?

Describe the drone the Russians would use...

I suspect the same for AWACS platforms... you need a huge radar and lots of computing power to process the enormous raw volume of data, so that information can be used to generate commands and controls to direct your forces... it is the difference between AWACS and AEW... and of course you need humans in the loop to make decisions and issue those commands... so it will end up being an unmanned aircraft with 4 crew and probably 2-4 guys operating consoles sending commands to ships, other aircraft, and via satellite HQ.

not true, 1 is enough to send anywhere. besides Midway. For 1/4 of costs.

If you are wrong, your surface fleet will get wiped out... costing lives and perhaps a trillion dollars worth of hardware... not to mention a political and likely economic defeat Russia might not recover from.

It wont let Russia take on the US or NATO, but that would never be a consideration... use Kinzhal and Kh-32 and Onyx and soon Zircon...

Unliely 40-50ktons has it all, and if she needs more supplies that's wny are supply ships for right?

Supply ships that might be banned from various choke points around the world... so no Panama canal, no suez canal, no bosphorus straight... who knows how far this supply line might have to go... and in some places it will need protection too.

I am saying if it was for home defense then a MiG would be fine but the intention of these carriers is to support operations well away from Russian territory so the extra capacity is useful and worth the extra money.

OK denial of existing and approved plans. Next I expect aggression. Acceptance comes later.

The call for a new VSTOL aircraft design does not mean the Yak-43 would be involved...

But they are not going to need enormous numbers of new ships anyway... the Russian Navy is not going to be as big as the Soviet Navy, but the Russian navy is going to be more mobile and likely more active than the Soviet Navy was... the Soviet Navy was all about facing off against the enormous US and powerful French and British navies... the future Russian navy will be about supporting free and open commerce with Russias trading partners around the world...

no there are plans for CVNs the question is not if but whenm, And yes they are persistent since last year

There are no plans for mini CVNs... ie helicopter carriers, that you seem to be endorsing...

Nuclear propulsion and EMALs and the new larger ship designs seem to suggest several things... first a shift from single used optimised ship design, to more multirole modular approach, but such a change means an increase in cost per vessel, despite an increase in flexibility within the fleet... instead of having 6 air defence missile destroyers and 6 anti sub destroyers and 6 anti ship destroyers, they could have 8-12 destroyers able to carry anti ship, anti sub, and land attack, plus all with serious air defence capability... those 8-12 ships might cost more than 18 of the older ships but they will also be more useful, more flexible... and cheaper to run and man and maintain.

And no country would fuck with Russia who has global reach with either bombers + cruise missiles of closer to shores missile ships.

The US is screwing with Russia now...

But who on the planet is as arrogant as an Israeli... perhaps an American? If America decides to blockade Venezuela for whatever reason do you think they will back off because a ship is there... when fighter aircraft are inbound then they will listen...

Programme cost read again please, This time with understanding. lol1 lol1 lol1
R&D + 3 ships =37 blns

And what was the unit cost of the F-35 before they were built?  ... I seem to recall statements of $50 million each... because they are buying 2,300 of them... now it is more like double and when Turkey gets S-400... the numbers might change again...

According to Borisov, we are talking about the creation of a new aircraft, and not about working out on the basis of some existing machine.

Because the Yak-41M was a failure and the Yak-43 was an untested paper plane...

At the same time in the mid-1990s work was already underway on the Yak-201 design sketch, which was to be the further development of the Yak-141. It was envisaged that it would already be implemented using stealth technologies.

Read was going to be enormously expensive...

If they want STOVL they could use the AN-2 prototype... with a carrier sailing into the wind at 10 knots and a wind of say 20 knots the An-2 could hover over the deck and land vertically... and it is already made....

GarryB wrote:

Then VSTOL is perfectly fitted. Glad you agree withme on this.

Sorry to give lessons in English, but you cannot describe something as perfect if there is another solution that suits the problem better.

My first guess it would be Fregat

Where would you put a 360 degree radar antenna on that?

can be shipborne OTH radar

OTH radar is not good enough to detect and track low flying missiles... the primary weapon of the US Navy ATM.

can be new Russian tiltrotor

So piss away money on VSTOL AND TILTROTORS... the Russian Navy must have US Navy level funding...

or perhaps nothing better to spend their money on...

did you ever hear C4I? you know drones can transmit data to control center on the ship. You have same abilities just different approach. Depending of course how conservative military

trillions hardware?! surface fleet wipped out - we didnt talk about III WW. In this case again large CVN make no sense. US o far never dared to attack Russian ship or airplane. Why they start with CN?

WTF are you talking about the Americans for.... what has this got to do with them?

that's the ides why to build large and expensive ships if they dont solve tasks better then smaller and cheaper ones?

Can you please name such case of blockade you are talking about?! Im not sure what kind of situation you are talking about here. Seriously

Well rather recently, when Russia was sending ships to Syria the countries of the EU basically closed their ports to Russian ships for refuelling... do you think it would be impossible for them to do something to prevent the use of the Suez or Panama canals to prevent Russian flagged vessels getting somewhere they didn't want them to go?

True but well away to me means mean away form Russia borders. Even with small fighters you have ~800km radius. IT just fine for fleet defense and Syrian campaign.

If the problem is in Syria then a carrier is not necessary as shown by the fact that not much changed after the K left.
The real test would be in a conflict where the carrier is critical and really makes a difference...

unless in 2050s aircraft carriers will be rendered obsolete by new tech development.

You mean like an anti ship missile of some kind?

Anyway large or small doesn't matter if war starts in conventional scenario (what I seriously doubt) having 50 fighters or 25 fighters doesnt make much of difference when you face 2 Ford carriers with 150 fighters

You are not listening... who gives a fuck what America has... but lets say we go with your example... 150 F-35s up against 50 Su-57s, with Zircon Mach 8 hypersonic scramjet powered anti ship missiles... what makes you think Russia would be at a disadvantage?

Those subsonic Harpoons and Tomahawks probably have those Russian cruisers shaking in their shoes... NOT.

But I agree, 50 Yak-41s vs 150 F-35s would be in the shit...

I am just convinced that to have light CVN is much better then to havenone

I agree light CVNs are better than none, but 80kt CVNs are better than light CVNs.

That's precisely my idea universal ships - small displacement a bit like Soviet TAKRs

But the new ships CAN'T be small displacement... they are combining the firepower of 3-4 of the old vessels they are replacing... to be fully multi role they need a variety of weapons for a variety of roles... you can't fit a decent warload of anything on a small ship.

Now they have committed to developing STOVL aircraft... I very much doubt that will mean Hermes class carriers... it is more likely to be what they had already decided... a carrier bigger than the K, but with STOVL aircraft to operate on it together with CATOBAR fighters with better performance...

where?!

Economically punishing them... and any country they sell S-400s to...

it want failure at all. It was killed like many military programmes after Soviet Union was killed.

The design was fundamentally flawed and was a total dead end... yes it was a failure...

Ka-31 radar can see 250km in every case. Just duration sucks. That's why tiltrotor  suggestion. More efficiency.

Yet vastly better than nothing... even the Russian Army are apparently buying some for battlefield surveillance...

GarryB wrote:

After Brexit we Europeans dont take lessons from loyel subjects of Her Majesty

Yes... the Americans don't respect rules either... from the language they speak to the countries they invade/occupy/bomb/bully.

I would expect better standards from colonial Europe... not the first time I have been disappointed though.

I mean you want to fly this thing high for max range so low flying targets will be blocked in the rear area by the main wing...

Missiles need carriers anyway. If they use stealth LARSM in massive salvo your AWACS wont help you much.

An AWACS platform can carry a range of sensors including EO... long medium and short range IR, as well as a large aircraft can have a variety of radar antenna sizes optimised to detect a range of targets...

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Ka-31 radar can see 250km in every case. Just duration sucks. That's why tiltrotor  suggestion. More efficiency.

2 hours 30 minutes at 3.5km altitude at 100km/h with the antenna deployed is not that bad when it can operate from any ship with a helipad... including Frigates if need be, but I agree more endurance would be much more valuable.

You really want have symmetrical answer? that's the game you cannot win  US.

You keep talking about the US... it wont be the carrier that defeats any fleet the Russian carrier group comes up against... the carrier is just for defence from external attack... land or sea based air threats and anti ship missiles.

Any enemy surface vessels or land based targets will be engaged with missiles using carrier based recon platforms, plus ship and sub based platforms, and of course space based assets as well as special forces assets on the ground...

So US is not using C4I?

The only way they can get away with inferior aircraft on their smaller carriers...

MiG-29k is paid and outta service soon too.

They have been operational about a year and a half... they will be fine for the next 20 years or so... especially with new photonic radars and next gen AAMs.

Wasent  it what Boriosv said? Su/Mig are in ~10 years obsolete ...Im not sure if VSTOL has to be stealthy or better to what weight in characteristics should stealthiness have. It's just better use of resources you got.

Stealth is not really a weight issue... more a purchase and operational cost issue...  a bit like the capacity to take off and land vertically... weight and cost issues...

nope you are talking  lol1  lol1  lol1  I am talking about Russian way - bettter use os smaller (and cheaper ) ships. More universal but for [/b] different set of tasks

A smaller carrier is not better... ever.

They went from the Kiev class to the Kuznetsov class... the next step was the bigger Ulyanovsk class with cats... so they were pretty much right all along... and no they don't and will never need a 100K ton vessel, but 70-90K ton is a good size with room for growth and extended operations...

First of all you should be able to afford it.  

If they don't develop a strong navy they will be landlocked and limited in growth to their neighbours whim...

+

The UK and US didn't get wealthy and become global powers and then build powerful navies...
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If you don't want carriers you can go for picket destroyers to operate some distance from your fleet to detect threats and targets... but the risk of losing a destroyer is expensive compared with possibly losing a few fighters... your AWACS platform can remain within the air defence ring around your ships and does not need to risk itself in combat.

Over the 15 years it will take to make these carriers it wont actually be all that expensive, yet the capabilities it adds to your navy is rather more valuable than any other option. The Russian Army is very well equipped for air defence and could operate on its own, but operating with an air force that cooperates compliments and adds capabilities nothing else could add... an Air Force is not cheap either... all those big vulnerable expensive airfields...

Second use funds efficiently within limits you have, instead of  copying US solutions and US strategy.

Who said this is US strategy or solutions?
How many fighter only carriers does the US have?

Hmm  and how does it relate to size of carrier?

A 90K ton carrier off the coast of Africa that could carry 90+ fighters plus fuel and ordinance to operate for

again where size of carrier matters? in cale of full scale war you are dead in both cases.

So you keep saying, but you show no evidence to support this claim.

A Russian group of ships with no AWACS platform would certainly be vulnerable to a mass attack, but with a large carrier able to detect that attack earlier and provide aircraft to help blunt such an attack is vastly more capable of surviving, and providing information to destroy the attackers too.

orbital bombers with global range for example?

Are you suggesting that an orbital bomber can provide the support needed for a group of Russian ships to operate in the South Atlantic or South Pacific?

The alternative is to accept US hegemony and just be the bitch of the west... a supplier of resources that has Hilary Clinton drooling...

The US likely wont accept giving up power and is going to do something really stupid... Invade Iran or Turkey or China or Russia...

Is anybody mentioning Yak-41 here ?!

Because that is currently the peak of Russian VSTOL fighters.

Im not sure about offensive armament (although it would be nice) but ~40ktons should be ok with this + 24 fighters+helos.

It is a Russian carrier... it will have UKSK launchers and Poliment-redut, and it will have S-500 too.

Hermes is unlikely I bet on ~40 isk kind of ship. But we both dont know which approach will be chosen. I am not sur w hy do they need 2 types of deck fighters on tho.

MiG is already making the MiG-35 carrier compatible... folding wings and a tailhook can be used for landing on sections of motorway... and it is a good backup in case the STOVL is shit... which it most likely will be.

like size of carrier then matters? either you have one ~24-30 fighters and helps. If not 50 wont change much wither. Their fighters will be there too. Only in bigger numbers.

Since when has having too many aircraft been a problem?

In the real world of course there is no such thing as radar invisible... and the 6 metre wide radar antenna should have very good ability to detect all sorts of aircraft and munitions... rather better than any fighter aircraft whose radar is less than one metre wide...

But ships don't need to shoot down very low flying missiles????

Isos wrote:

Yet vastly better than nothing... even the Russian Army are apparently buying some for battlefield surveillance...

A ka-31 traveling 100km/h with a radar that can see 250km away and probably for targets with 5-10 m2 rcs will have hard time coordinating fighters going almosta mach 1 against fighters it can't see with actual radar.

For battlefield surveillance it is more than enough. It can be covered by SAM and can hide from aviation in the mountains or land until the enemy fighters go away. If it has the ability to link with SAM missiles then it is a must. The thing will send s-400 missile to any approching target, even those flying very low.

you forgot - 250km is for surface targets (radar horizon) .

For fighter radar horiozn sys on 1500m - 400km. And most important question: why do you stick for 80s radar and compare rto 2020s tech? dunno dunno dunno

GarryB wrote:Indeed the proliferation of AESA radar technology, and indeed improvements in computer technology could allow a Ka-31 to be developed with side mounted AESA antenna and onboard processing to greatly reduce the amount of datalink traffic required for an AWACS role... two crew positions on board to put human processing into the loop and it could send tiny encrypted millisecond long burst transmission signals to aircraft and ships... and then the issue is really only flight duration...

To be clear... no matter what they eventually make, whether it is called VSTOL or STOVL or whatever... even if it can take off and land vertically in practice it almost never will... it will use a rolling landing and a rolling take off to increase the allowable weights it can operate at.
Vertical takeoffs and vertical landings are emergency and airshow only... even with aircraft like the Harrier.

Isos wrote:

you forgot - 250km is for surface targets (radar horizon) .

For fighter radar horiozn sys on 1500m - 400km. And most important question: why do you stick for 80s radar and compare rto 2020s tech? dunno dunno dunno

I compare what exists. Russia operates only old ka-31 and US is introducing f-35. You can compare to future project s or projects that don't exist if you want but the reality would be ka-31 against low rcs fighters like f-35 or rafale, so detection range would be very low for the ka-31 while those fighters will see it far away and will have meteor and amraam to fire aat it from very long distance.

GunshipDemocracy wrote:

Isos wrote:

you forgot - 250km is for surface targets (radar horizon) .

For fighter radar horiozn sys on 1500m - 400km. And most important question: why do you stick for 80s radar and compare rto 2020s tech? dunno dunno dunno

I compare what exists. Russia operates only old ka-31 and US is introducing f-35. You can compare to future project s or projects that don't exist if you want but the reality would be ka-31 against low rcs fighters like f-35 or rafale, so detection range would be very low for the ka-31 while those fighters will see it far away and will have meteor and amraam to fire aat it from very long distance.

Radars (after fr and ru  wiki)..........max.tracking air target.......................engaging
Rafale..............................................100km.............................................80km  

Ka-31..............................................150-100km........................................N/A


Well data says that Rafale wouldn't have chance to accomplish mission + high  chance to to return to base.
French fighter can engage at max 80km. At this distance is clearly seen and tracked by S-300F (150km range) . I wouldn't bet on Rafale there.

IMHO any attack would be standoff weapons/drones.  In both directions. That's why US is developing 1,600km stealth missiles and Russian GZURs and Kh-50. French have SCALP or something right?

Anyway I was talking about ka-31 being not well suited for AWACS role because it will face new fighters which are much faster and stealthy while its own radar is from soviet era. Having it with new radar above your fleet to extend radar coverae against missile could be usefull but not for a real AWACS role.

Isos wrote:
A rafale fighter said new aesa has 200km range against fighter size target ...Rafale is 1m2, ka-31 is huge and not stealthy at all. With meteor it will destroy ka-31 easily.
+++
S300FM is deployed only on PtG. S-300F has smaller range if I'm not wrong 90km with 5V55 missiles

Isos wrote:

But as an awacs to coordinate flankers against f-35 or rafales, it's useless. Those fighters can fly at 10km altitude  at mach 1 and launch their AAM at max range easily without being detected.