Project 22800: "Karakurt" class missile ship #2

I've been scrolling back through the Google Earth history & hadn't realised that the new Pella is actually brand new,
Its unused empty ground in Sept 2011, in-build May 2013, still finishing touches but looks like first 2 fishing boats in the water (possibly moved from old Pella?) April 2015.

Old Pella looks like it had been probably a Soviet yard, looking pretty unused in March 2000, 2007 image missed the area but there is a new/rebuilt facility by June 2011 & looks active since.

SNSZ is clearly an old Soviet yard, looking pretty idle in March 2000 but seems to have been at least doing some maintenance.
Some small new buildings started & I think first section of main building rebuilt in June 2011, then starting July 2014 -> April 2019 a progressive rebuilding of the main building, a whole new large building started in April 2015, nearly complete June 2016, new concrete apron & launch ramp/dock underway in March 2017, finishing off in May 2018 after launching a 12700 into the incomplete dock.

Burya being towed to Otradnoye (old site) earlier this month:
Ship looks almost ready. Hopefully it will be completed soon, finish the state tests and enter service.



In related news:

Garegin Tsaturov appointed CEO of Pella JSC

https://portnews.ru/news/325758/

Continuation of tests on TZIKLON.
She has passed the Kerch straights and went into the Azov sea
????

TZIKLON being demagnetized

Fresh photo of the Karakurts at the old Pella site:

BURYA at the far back is ready.
It needs to go on sea trials soon so that it enters service during the last quarter of the year.
It needs a crew (send in the sailors of the MOSKVA)

Something I had not noticed before:
SHTORM (at the back) has a 76 mm gun installed. While the other 2 don't.

Video about the Zvezda engines used in the Karakurt among other ships.

The engineer who invented these engines was not Yakovlev, but Charomskiy. During WWII he constructed ACh-30 airplane diesel engines, used in some YER-2 and Pe-8 bombers. After the war, production was handed over to Zvezda bureau of Leningrad during the fifties, now Zvezda JSC. Firstly as M-501 then as 42 cyl. M-503, 56 cyl. m-504 and so on. The official russian designation is 42CHSPN 16/17 or corresponding. These engines have unprecedented power to weight ratio, but are rather complicated, they don`t like slow revving, and TBO is lower than in corresponding western engines.

kumbor wrote:The engineer who invented these engines was not Yakovlev, but Charomskiy. During WWII he constructed ACh-30 airplane diesel engines, used in some YER-2 and Pe-8 bombers. After the war, production was handed over to Zvezda bureau of Leningrad during the fifties, now Zvezda JSC. Firstly as M-501 then as 42 cyl. M-503, 56 cyl. m-504 and so on. The official russian designation is 42CHSPN 16/17 or corresponding. These engines have unprecedented power to weight ratio, but are rather complicated, they don`t like slow revving, and TBO is lower than in corresponding western engines.

So wierd how state of the art corvettes have engines from the 1940s.

It is basically late 1940s technology. That was the peak of radial engines basically.
After that they were mostly replaced with turboprops and turboshafts.

Each of these coupled units has roughly the same power level as the M70FRU2 gas turbine.
Each engine has like 3 MW power and each coupled unit has two of them. The Karakurt uses three coupled units I think.
The M70FRU2 has 7 MW power.

The main issue with replacing the coupled units with these gas turbines would be fuel consumption at low power levels.

In the long term Russia needs to make high speed diesel engines to replace this engine. In particular it will be important for the minesweeper ships and other similar classes.

lancelot wrote:It is basically late 1940s technology. That was the peak of radial engines basically.
After that they were mostly replaced with turboprops and turboshafts.

Each of these coupled units has roughly the same power level as the M70FRU2 gas turbine.
Each engine has like 3 MW power and each coupled unit has two of them. The Karakurt uses three coupled units I think.
The M70FRU2 has 7 MW power.

The main issue with replacing the coupled units with these gas turbines would be fuel consumption at low power levels.

In the long term Russia needs to make high speed diesel engines to replace this engine. In particular it will be important for the minesweeper ships and other similar classes.

Why did the USSR keep using primitive radial diesel engines for ships instead of modern turboshafts?

limb wrote:Why did the USSR keep using primitive radial diesel engines for ships instead of modern turboshafts?

Probably because they were more fuel efficient especially while moving at slow speeds. This is important for mining ships or anti-submarine warfare ships.

lancelot wrote:

limb wrote:Why did the USSR keep using primitive radial diesel engines for ships instead of modern turboshafts?

Probably because they were more fuel efficient especially while moving at slow speeds. This is important for mining ships or anti-submarine warfare ships.

These engines make very much tar on low revolutions, and they can even clog and break down. They are made for fast ships with low loads, they like full throttle. During decades they were constantly upgraded, but nothing can last forever.

Rumors that BURYA will soon start sea tests in the Baltic.




While the other 3 are still at the old Pella site awaiting completion.
Only one of them has received the 76mm gun.

Krepost wrote:Rumors that BURYA will soon start sea tests in the Baltic.




While the other 3 are still at the old Pella site awaiting completion.
Only one of them has received the 76mm gun.

What's the hold up? Engines?

So wierd how state of the art corvettes have engines from the 1940s.

The An-2 is still a popular aircraft and does what it needs to do better than most other things on the market.

Newer designs with more modern materials and more complex engines and avionics have so far failed to replace the aircraft because they were too expensive or could not be fixed in the field, or a combination of all of those things.

Often the improvement in performance was not enough to warrant the extra costs and complexity and the problems of not being able to fix something yourself in the middle of nowhere in Siberia is pretty self apparent...

These engines do the job and resumably are affordable and the right price... you could spend millions developing new engines that might be a few percent more powerful and a few percent more fuel efficient but it appears no one has bothered...

There was talk of a new airliner with ramjet propulsion and for the turbojet engine to get it airborne they didn't bother with a brand new super modern super efficient and super expensive engine... they picked an old reliable unit that would give the least problems because it would only be used to take off and climb a little to where the ramjet engines could be started and they would take over. The vast majority of the flight they would be shut down so their fuel efficiency was not as important as their reliability.

What's the hold up? Engines?

Could be all manner of foreign bits that need to be replaced, or maybe it is the guns because most other vessels have 100mm or 130mm gun mounts...

Aren´t there legal issues between the old and new owner of the yard?

limb wrote:So wierd how state of the art corvettes have engines from the 1940s.

Common cutlery, such as a knife, fork and spoon have not changed for more than 300 years. Your clothes probably have zippers that were invented more than 100 years ago. I mean - engines are far from the oldest designs that are used on ships - and that's not bad, as long as it works.

No. This engine is obsolete crap and should have been put out to pasture by now. Too difficult to manufacture and unreliable.
It was a magnificent piece of engineering for its time but there are better solutions now.

They refined the other engines they put into service for use for themselves, I would expect new build engines would be better made than previous models.

At some stage in the future the goals will be electric motors for propulsion and perhaps efficient gas turbines generating the electricity supply as needed... but who knows how long that would take.

I wonder how much different the engines for the Tu-95 currently are and what sort of issues there would be to marinising those engines and any penalty or perhaps even advantage they might offer in terms of volume and weight and energy output and fuel consumption...

GarryB wrote:They refined the other engines they put into service for use for themselves, I would expect new build engines would be better made than previous models.

At some stage in the future the goals will be electric motors for propulsion and perhaps efficient gas turbines generating the electricity supply as needed... but who knows how long that would take.

I wonder how much different the engines for the Tu-95 currently are and what sort of issues there would be to marinising those engines and any penalty or perhaps even advantage they might offer in terms of volume and weight and energy output and fuel consumption...

NK-12 turboprops for TU-95 are dating from late 40s, but they were constantly modernised. Marine gas turbines now in production are much younger and more modern.

The new engines in the Bears are likely very different from the original engines and have been benefiting from new materials and design technology all this time to improve their performance.

At about 15K hp they are in the same ballpark in regards to power but I was told they are not gas turbine engines (turboprops) as such, ie not jet engines but also not piston engines either... but then aircraft engines have been widely used in boats... sounds like something that could be explored.

Who cares what they are... they are a modest size and the right power range for the job and are already in production for Bears... if they could be more reliable or just more compact or more fuel efficient then why not?

The alternative is trying to design a new engine that might not be used for anything else, which seems to be a waste.

It must do something right to continue to be used for the job... so it can't be an enormous pain in the arse to use, though it might be a hangar queen and fussy.

Maybe the existing engine saves money on the fuel type it uses and that is why they use it... we don't really have all the facts... but a new turboprop engine would be interesting if the VDV want a turboprop Il-476 to replace the AN-70 they are not getting... perhaps a PD-25 modified into a low bypass turboprop design for low speed parachute drops... just thinking out loud really...

New small rocket ship "Burya" in preparation for sea trials....

Big_Gazza wrote:Why are Zvezda having issues with producing the M507s for the Karakurts when it seems (at least to the casual observer) that there are no similar delays with the M520s for the Buyan-M?

The Buyan-M AFAIK is using Chinese CHD622V20 diesel engines.
http://mil.today/2018/Business2/

There were some teething issues with the Chinese diesels but the situation seems to have been solved.

Ships being built with Zvezda engines include the Karakurt corvette and the Alexandrit minesweepers.

This article talks about the issue with the Karakurt propulsion.
https://www.navyrecognition.com/index.php/news/defence-news/2018/october-2018-navy-naval-defense-news/6556-russian-navy-rejects-switch-to-chinese-engine-for-project-22800-corvettes.html

It seems there were considerations about using the Saturn M70FRU gas turbine or the Chinese diesel V20s instead of the Zvezda diesel radials but these proposals were shot down as they would require a redesign of existing ship hulls.

The Project 22800 state-of-the-art missile corvette Burya carrying Kalibr cruise missiles and built at the Pella Shipyard for the Russian Baltic Fleet is undergoing shipbuilders’ sea trials at Baltic naval ranges, the Fleet’s press office announced on Monday.

https://tass.com/defense/1523855