Russian Navy: Status and News #6

Scorpius wrote:
You should clarify that you are talking about a fleet that would satisfy the occasional screaming little drama queen on the internet.

It still won't impress, if compared to the Klingons Vth Imperial Star Fleet, so the drama can be endless.

French Navy is 180 ships and 37k personel.
UK Navy is 70 ships and 32k personnel.
Italian Navy is around 100 pcs of ship worth a name, and 30k personnel.
Three combined, have military allocations more than double that of the Russian, represent 3x the economy, and have some 200+ mln inhabitants.
WMF is 370 ships and 160k personnel.
Two first consider themselves a naval powers, with a waste of colonial heritage and condominiums scattered along the entire globe.
The last is a landmass civilization, binding by its borders three centers of power, two of them called continents.
Have a cold one on me, and chill  

Podlodka77 wrote:Nobody normal drinks that beer in Serbia, Alamo...  
It's disgusting...

My bad

Have a really good one, straight from my fridge!

The fraction Bigger Is Better is strong in force here
And Pod is a proud member of a clan!
I guess we all already figured the thing out, at some point

Podlodka77
When it comes to nuclear submarines, you have to include SSBNs, because they consume a lot of resources.
So add 7 new SSBNs to this 4 Yasen and Belgorod built from scratch. That's 11 new nuclear submarines in the last 20 years.
Only the USA built more Virginias of one type.Further SSBNs and SSNs are under construction, including Poseidon carriers.

I know that, but is it necessary to completely melt the fleet of SSN/SSGN submarines (at the expense of building 885M) to have 12 or 14 955/955A submarines ? wrote:

Nuclear potential is a priority for Russia. They want to gain an advantage over others in this matter. Apparently, they also pay a lot of attention to the maritime triad. Therefore, the 955A probably has a higher priority than the 855M.
Thanks to hypersonic weapons, Russia can hit many enemy ships at a distance of over 2,000 km. There will be terrestrial Tsirkon, there is Kinzhal. Missiles with even greater range for strategic aviation are being developed. They didn't have something like this even in the times of the USSR. Perhaps that's why they don't invest so much in a typical navy.

I think that the current 5 units of 667BDRM will be in service until at least the 2030s. They will slowly be phased out in the 2030s.

Kilo are very good but lack nuclear endurence for long range patroling.

The Kilos are good for defensive operations near Russia, they are quieter than SSNs and cheaper too, plus the Lada class that replaces them is lighter with a smaller crew and better armament.

The concept of arsenal vessels makes sense... if you want every sub to carry hundreds of missiles they are not going to be very good for most roles.

Having a few older subs converted to the role of carrying large numbers of land attack cruise missiles that can be sent to a region where a conflict might occur makes a lot of sense. Something like a Delta IV sub which is still quite modern but has large volume of space that could be used for different things makes sense in that specific role.

I don't think commercial cargo ships should be used, though a special military cargo vessel that can transfer weapons and ammo and equipment while having the top most crates carrying ready to launch missiles would make some sense.

The US has a fleet of brand new P-8s while the Russians fly 50+ year old Il-38s as the last one was produced in 1972, along with all the other classes of ships and submarines they build far faster than Russia.

Any Russian Corvette with Redut could take out western MPAs over 100km away using 9M96 missiles very easily.

It does not matter when an aircraft was built, it matters if it has been upgraded in the last 30 years, and they have.

Now they are mass producing Tu-214s for the civilian airliner market it makes obvious sense to use surplus Tu-214s to replace the Ilyusions they are currently using like the Il-20/22/38, as well as the Tu-154M and Yak-30s etc etc.

They could also make AWACS versions of the Tu-214 and inflight refuelling tankers as well... and I think the Tu-330 transport plane based on the Tu-214 now makes sense too.

With what will you defend those SSBNs since the 949A submarines are not really suitable for that purpose, while Russia has less active submarines of project 885 and 971 than man's fingers on both hands.. .

Honestly with scramjet technology I could see modern SLBMs being replaced by 8,000km ranged cruise missiles that fly at very high altitude at mach 8 to mach 12 or so... they would be a fraction of the weight of an SLBM and not very easy to intercept either.

No aircraft carriers under construction, no destroyers, barely 2 landing ships being built by Yantar.

Russia isn't rolling in cash like China is... Russia really cannot afford to make Aircraft Carriers that are duds right now... or ever... they have to get this right, so they will be wanting to get the Kuznetsov back into the water and some more operational experience under their belts, but also a chance to test the upgrades and changes they have made to make sure they solve the problems they had and improve performance and then they can decide what they need in their new carriers.

Seems like their new compact nuclear reactors for use on ships is a success and has enormous potential... that would be very good as their destroyers and cruisers should have nuclear power plants too.

And that would not be so terrible if the construction of frigates and corvettes was at the desired level, but that is not the case either. It's one thing that Russia will lay the keel for a certain ship and submarine, since the Russians have a DISASTEROUS that most important day - the day of delivery into active service.

They have produced a brand new frigate and have redesigned that frigate based on their experience... lets wait till they get that upgraded frigate into the water and properly tested before they decide which frigates to serial produce in significant numbers.

Taking some time while engine production is improved and serialised is something they didn't get much choice in, but they can use this time to upgrade their shipyards to the point where they have decided what they want and how many they can increase production to rather higher levels.

You don't just decide one day to lay down a corvette or frigate, it takes detailed planning over years to make sure you can get all the bits you need and when you need them.

There was a time when guns were the problem.... they have 100mm guns the weight of 76.2mm guns and 130mm guns the weight of the old 100mm guns... the improvements are astounding and they have AESA radar arrays all over the place. These things don't just fall from the sky, there is a lot of work in the background that makes all this happen.

The fact is that the Russian Navy has hit rock bottom.

Bullshit. They have done the ground work and are waiting for testing and trials to be completed before they start increasing production and expanding... that is not rock bottom.

The Borey class are also much quieter than the previous generation SSBNs. In Arctic seas they will be very difficult to track. The Americans even had a problem with track the 667BDRM with two screws, shafts and reactors.

Garry, no matter what you write, you cannot refute the bad state of the VMF.

Take out the word bad and replace it with promising and the word Garry and replace it with your name and that sentence is correct.

Russia has a future with limited or no cooperation or contact with most of the western world... By their choice... this means access to the worlds markets will not happen across western territory or via western airspace, which means through Asia and by sea... that has pretty obvious implications for the future of the Russian Navy... they are no longer going to be last in line, but I would also hope they will work harder at coordinating their stuff where practical with the Army and the Air Force, like guns and missiles and radar and other equipment so technology can be shared and used more widely. Obviously the Army does not need torpedoes, and the Navy does not need ditch digging machines to dig trenches, but there are lots of areas of overlap where money could be better spent more efficiently.

Russia certainly had more operational SSN/SSGN submarines at the end of 1999 than it has now.

And during that period the US had more F-15s than they will ever have F-22s... what is your point?

Russia isn't on its own any more, and you can bet if the west starts attacking Russia the number of SSNs it has wont be of massive importance.

Garry, even in 1999 Russia (desperate and miserable) had more SSN/SSGN submarines than now.

Yes, of course, in 1999 Russia was pumping out way more SSNs and SSGNs than they are now... things are bad.

Or you are not very bright... the SSNs and SSGNs they had had been built years ago and were Soviet Legacy subs they barely had any use for at all, let alone fully arming and manning them.

The technology on board was not state of the art either because computing power improved quite a bit from the 1980s to the late 1990s but electronics on Russian weapon systems didn't really start changing till after that... and mostly kit that was bought from the west.

Frigates ? Who is to blame for Russia for allowing itself to be left without gas turbines in 2014, except Russia itself?

Gas turbine propulsion systems take a very long time to develop and a longer time still to get working properly, no country on the planet could have done better than Russia and Russia was under western sanctions at the time.

If they had cut Ukraine off earlier then Maidan would have happened faster and perhaps Russia would not have been so ready.

What is important now is that they get to bomb the shit out of the factories that refused to deliver gas turbines they paid for and didn't sell to anyone else.

There was a short gap, but soon they will be able to restart serial production, and to be honest ideally they will have used this break to upgrade their shipyards for serial production and also more time to allow their new upgraded frigate to get into the water so they can assess whether they fixed the problems or created new problems with their solutions.

Corvette project 20380/20385 does not have enough number under construction either.

Weren't they waiting for Russian engines too... to replace the German and then the Chinese copies of German engines they used to use.

I hope when they put them into serial production when everything is ready that they send a letter to the German company that makes those engines and just say we are about to start making 32 corvettes in series so two engines each, we would have needed you to make 64 engines for us, but your government doesn't care about you so we are making them ourselves.

Currently a total of 18 are either built or in the process of being built, which is not enough if each fleet gets 6. We already know that the plan is for Kamchatka to have 6 project 20385 and 6 project 20380 which will remain in Vladivostok. So we need more..

Well obviously... there is no point making 60 boats if there are no engines for them and they sit at port rusting till the engine supply is sorted out.

I'm sorry, I'm convinced that the Russians must also go with AIP propulsion if the whole world has already gone in that direction.

The only countries that have gone for AIP propulsion are countries that don't have nuclear powered subs. The west has gone homo and non binary... should the Russian Navy.... well lets not go there.

They went for AIP because they want nuclear power performance in terms of staying submerged at a high percentage of the price of an SSN, but without the nuclear symbol because nuclear is bad.

Come on, explain to us why even in December 2023, neither the K-328 "Leopard" (the first 971M) nor the K-132 "Irkutsk", which is the first submarine improved to the 949AM standard, are still NOT operational.

Look at a calendar... December 2023 is next month, why are you asking why something has not happened in the future yet?

Maybe they don't want to make it operational in winter and think a warmer time later next year might be better?

Maybe they have shifted funds to conventional land attack missiles of the anti ship and cruise missile type to kill Nazis in the Ukraine is better value for money.

Years pass and nothing gets better, except for the story "it will definitely get better".

Nothing gets better? When your head is up your own arse of course all you see is shit. Continue with the sky is falling if that makes you feel better.

It won't get better Garry and the Russian VMF will definitely be even smaller than it is now. The reason is incompetence, indifference, the absence of a serious plan and undoubtedly corruption. For the disastrous results of the modernization and construction of warships, some heads should fly off their shoulders.

Yes, of course... stalin at its best... I thought you hated the commies but you sure sound like one when you don't get your way. Everyone fired... because obviously anyone else can solve their problems and improve the situation...

Poseidon can't fly safely in such areas where there are mig-31.

Poseidon doesn't fly but agree with the rest.

The MiG-31K is a part of the navy.... a capability they have never had before. Something the Americans would call a game changer.

Excellent ISOS, then it was cheaper to build additional RS-24 and place them in the north of Russia than to build SSBN, if they will not leave Russian territorial waters. Why build Borei when they are less protected than clay pigeons. Sorry man, but VMF is useless.

Russian waters are enormous and plenty of space to hide a missile launcher so it cannot be hit before it launches its missiles.

It is funny that Pod is more concerned about winning WWIII than he is in the Russian Navy supporting commerce and trade with the rest of the world that will generate the money needed to support a decent sized navy in the first place.

He seems more upset at the progress made by China compared with Russia than with what Russia might actually need moving forward for its own interests.

How about the US Navy... it built 3 Zumwalt class destroyers... it was going to build 100 of them, it made 17 LCS frigates, it was going to make 52 of them... tens of billions of dollars spent on both programmes and both cancelled, they have already scrapped one LCS ship... scrapped because they are bloody useless... in the case of the LCS there is not enough crew to maintain the vessel...

The US Navy is massive and based all around the world and takes a significant fraction of the military budget... with the costs of the wars they have been fighting... Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine and now Israel, do you think their military has been properly funded all these years or that short cuts have been taken to spread the money around a bit...

As times get tough what is going to happen to most budgets in the US?

I see a pretty dark future for them, but you just keep whining about not enough SSNs and SSGNs.

Lyle6 Poseidon is not a system designed to destroy SSBNs, but to carry out nuclear strikes on port cities, etc. It is not suitable for destroying SSBNs. For this to make sense, you would need to monitor the movement of US SSBNs in real time. Then you can send Poseidon to the area where the SSBN sails. Currently, continuous tracking of even older SSBNs is impossible. Therefore, it is still an excellent weapon for nuclear strikes.

Excellent ISOS, then it was cheaper to build additional RS-24 and place them in the north of Russia than to build SSBN, if they will not leave Russian territorial waters. Why build Borei when they are less protected than clay pigeons. Sorry man, but VMF is useless. wrote:

Russian SSBNs have at their disposal the Barents Sea, the Kara Sea, the East Siberian Sea, and the Arctic Ocean. All close to Russia and a huge area of sea waters where SSBNs can be hidden. Additionally, the ice cover in the Arctic Ocean makes it even more difficult to detect a submarine. Perfect place for patrols.