Russian Navy: Status and News #5

It is common to sink some ships to essentially create something divers can go down and explore, but a huge ship like this the potential for divers getting trapped inside a huge dark maze makes you think it would cause more harm than good.

I am sure in 50 years time you can have the experience of virtual museums where you can tour using VR goggles to explore any ship you like... perhaps even launch some missiles and fire the guns...

Computer games like War Thunder already have detailed models of armoured vehicles... including many that never really existed... Imagine a wacky races type game where you start off in one of the oldest slowest weakest armed and armoured vehicle and you had to drive cross country on an open map... say from one side of America to the other, or one side of Europe to the other... say like one of those rallys except set in the 1920s to start with. You could start with each vehicle 5km away from any of the other vehicles but as you progress your paths will converge and you can slow the competition by destroying their current vehicle, or damaging it... save amphibious types for crossing rather large rivers etc Obviously considering the distance you could not play it in one sitting, so there would have to be stages... and challenges in each stage to add resources or upgrade your vehicle or whatever...

I am posting this here, since the corresponding thread was closed:

A couple of analysis about the pause / stop in the program Lider and the reasons behind it.

https://navy-korabel.livejournal.com/195066.html
https://navy-korabel.livejournal.com/231990.html

The author considers it is unquestionable that a big vessel of such characteristics is needed and that VMF is focusing at the time in the 22350M following their logical development logic of growing step by step.

PapaDragon wrote:

LMFS wrote:I am posting this here, since the corresponding thread was closed:

A couple of analysis about the pause / stop in the program Lider and the reasons behind it.

https://navy-korabel.livejournal.com/195066.html
https://navy-korabel.livejournal.com/231990.html

The author considers it is unquestionable that a big vessel of such characteristics is needed and that VMF is focusing at the time in the 22350M following their logical development logic of growing step by step.

Traditional Russian Naval disease inherited from Sovs of always chasing some future bigger superships while completely ignoring present problems

They desperately need more standard Gorshkovs to replace diminishing fleet of obsolete vessels and yet they still insist on boutique approach to Naval warfare

Well, it is already important that, since the first article of 2018, 4 additional 22350 frigates have been laid down.

Probably after the upgrades in severnaya verf also 22350M will be laid down there too.

I agree that leader class destroyers cruisers
are currently less important than 22350 and 22350M.

As written many times, i would also welcome the building of 22350 and 22350M in additional shipyards.

It depends also on the production capabilities for all associated equipment, including propulsion  (gas turbines, reduction gears), but not only.

If the half built ships must sit idly in the shipyard because some of the internal systems cannot be produced at the needed pace, then it is better to invest on the supply chain first, and use the shipyards for building other ships.

Anyway,  provided that propulsion, weapon systems, radars sonars, internal systems etc are not the bottlenecks, the first option for laying down additional 22350 and 22350M is of course Yantar, as soon as they finish building the 11356 for India (and they previously build there Udaloy class destroyers which have the same size as 22350M).

Also Zaliv in Kerch is an option, provided that they do not need to use the dry dock (already full for the next few years) for the frigates (I remember reading that they could build several 1135 frigates from the boathouses there... 22350 is a bit bigger than 1135, but maybe it is not a problem.

Admiralty shipyard and Baltic shipyard in saint Petersburg have the infrastructure and the trained manpower for building both 22350 and 22350M (and in case of Baltic shipyard also leader destroyers/cruisers) but they have already a full order book for the next few years.

I do not know if moving some of the diesel submarine construction to krasnoe sormovo in Nizhny Novgorod (that previously built both diesel and nuclear attack submarines (like the 945 barracuda class with titanium hulls)) could free some of the capacity in the admiralty shipyard.

By the way, recently some representative from krasnoe sormovo expressed interest in building improved kilos...

Rodion_Romanovic wrote:Well, it is already important that, since the first article of 2018, 4 additional 22350 frigates have been laid down.

Probably after the upgrades in severnaya verf also 22350M will be laid down there too.

I agree that leader class destroyers cruisers
are currently less important than 22350 and 22350M.

As written many times, i would also welcome the building of 22350 and 22350M in additional shipyards.

It depends also on the production capabilities for all associated equipment, including propulsion  (gas turbines, reduction gears), but not only.

If the half built ships must sit idly in the shipyard because some of the internal systems cannot be produced at the needed pace, then it is better to invest on the supply chain first, and use the shipyards for building other ships.

Anyway,  provided that propulsion, weapon systems, radars sonars, internal systems etc are not the bottlenecks, the first option for laying down additional 22350 and 22350M is of course Yantar, as soon as they finish building the 11356 for India (and they previously build there Udaloy class destroyers which have the same size as 22350M).

Also Zaliv in Kerch is an option, provided that they do not need to use the dry dock (already full for the next few years) for the frigates (I remember reading that they could build several 1135 frigates from the boathouses there... 22350 is a bit bigger than 1135, but maybe it is not a problem.

Admiralty shipyard and Baltic shipyard in saint Petersburg have the infrastructure and the trained manpower for building both 22350 and 22350M (and in case of Baltic shipyard also leader destroyers/cruisers) but they have already a full order book for the next few years.

I do not know if moving some of the diesel submarine construction to krasnoe sormovo in Nizhny Novgorod (that previously built both diesel and nuclear attack submarines (like the 945 barracuda class with titanium hulls)) could free some of the capacity in the admiralty shipyard.

By the way, recently some representative from krasnoe sormovo expressed interest in building improved kilos...

The Baltic Shipyard in St. Petersburg which would be used to build the Lider battlecruisers is currently building Project 22220 nuclear icebreakers. Same shipyard which built the Kirov battlecruisers.
To be honest I was not that impressed with the original design for Lider. Considering the huge size it was supposed to have it was not that capable in terms of total available missile tubes.
Lider was to have more or less the same amount of cells as conventionally powered cruisers from the US or China which have smaller displacements.
After the order for the icebreakers was expanded with at least two more hulls to be in construction it was quite clear Lider was "put on ice".

I agree that they should increase the amount of Project 22350 and 22350M frigates. The Project 22350M in particular should be able to replace the Sovremenny and Udaloy destroyers with ease.
This ship should be a lot more cost effective than the nuclear powered battlecruisers and would have export potential. I agree that Yantar should be also building this class of ship. They should double the amount of ships in construction.
I doubt the gas turbine production would be a major bottleneck. Each Project 22350 ship will only use four gas turbines (2x boost and 2x cruise). A single Il-76 has four gas turbine engines.
A lot of people don't realize this but Russia had been researching marine gas turbine engines prior to the Ukraine gas turbine embargo. That is one reason why it developed alternative designs so quickly.
It takes between 5 years to a decade, usually a decade, to design a novel gas turbine engine.

The nuclear powered battlecruisers still make sense in the longer term but I would not be surprised if it took them another 3-5 years until they enter the construction phase.
By that time the RITM-200 reactor will have been proven, the RITM-400 reactor might be available, the Project 22220 icebreakers will have been launched, so there will be dry dock space for the battlecruisers.

The Zvezda shipyard will basically prove Russia has the facilities and workers which can build even larger ships like aircraft carriers. Without Ukraine.
Once the RITM-400 reactor has been proven with the larger icebreakers then the aircraft carriers can be built. I expect the aircraft carriers will start construction in like 8-10 years.
This time will also allow for the design and testing of an EMALS catapult system. Russia shouldn't do like the US did where they started construction of a carrier (Ford) before they had a ground based test catapult which met design specifications.

I hope Russia won't build something like the Shtorm carrier. Russia needs two or three carriers with a size between the Charles de Gaulle and the Admiral Kuznetsov. Shtorm is just obscene and does not make much sense.
For the price of one Shtorm you could build two Charles de Gaulle class carriers. For the types of scenarios Russia finds itself in that is more than enough.

This could all have happened faster if the oil price hadn't come down and state revenues decreased but I think it would have been less efficient.
It would have required double the naval shipyard facilities. The facilities would be hard pressed to find work once the state naval program was complete.
The naval facilities would still have taken time to upgrade and it still would have taken time to train staff so I doubt it would have happened much faster either.
Had the Ukrainian embargo never happened I think at best Russia would have had twice the amount of modern frigates. i.e. instead of 5 they would have 10.
That is significant but not that important. What is more important is Russia now will have the facilities to build all the major components itself thus improving self-reliance.

Welcome to the forum Lancelot, it is a forum rule that new users post an introduction in the rules and introductions section.

Please take the time to read the rules and post an introduction thread for yourself.

I agree they don't need or want huge 100K aircraft carriers, but the current Kuznetsov is not big enough.

There were comments and hints that part of the upgrade of the K include an experiemental system for assisting takeoffs with some sort of catapult system... it will be interesting to see what it actually is.

Russia has tested a new anti-submarine missile

MOSCOW, October 28-RIA Novosti.
Russian sailors from the frigate " AdmiralKasatonov" tested a new anti-submarine missile in theThe Barents sea, the press service of the Northern fleet reported on Wednesday.
What exactly "product" was tested, it is not specified.
"The newest frigate of the Northern fleet, Admiral of the fleet Kasatonov, fired an anti-submarine missile at the fleet's combat training grounds in the Barents sea. The shooting was carried out as part of the qualification serial tests of the product and was recognized as a success," the release says.
One of the nuclear submarines of the Northern fleet was already watching the torpedo that separated from the rocket. An Il-38 anti-submarine aircraft, a Ka-27 helicopter and a torpedo boat of the Kola flotilla also provided fire.
"When performing rocket firing, the frigate's combat crews demonstrated confident command of combat equipment, high professionalism and naval training," the press service added.

https://ria.ru/20201028/ispytanie-1581927559.html

It was launched from the Kasatonov

One of the nuclear submarines of the Northern fleet was already watching the torpedo that separated from the rocket.

It clearly states the torpedo separated from the rocket, which means it is a 91ER1/2 type weapon... perhaps using a bigger torpedo, or more likely a bigger rocket to provide better range.

91ER1/2 are not new weapons so most likely more powerful rocket motor with better range performance...