Russian Navy: Status and News #6

The salary in the Petersburg area for a welder starts up with 160k rubels a month.
In Russian realies, it is a hell of a money.
Welders are always well paid, that thing never changes in this business
Yet they are still lacking 6k labor in Peter as we speak, and more than 22k vacancies in the whole business.
Soon they will start to import North Korean labor, and I am pretty sure about that. NK was exporting skilled yard workers for decades. What I find the most funny considering the official bullshit, is a fact that Hyundai hires NK pipers and welders to use them in the EU constructions they are making
Funny, isn't it?

Edit : seems confirmed. St. Petersburg 677 type submarine was withdrawn from service and is set for dismantling.

Welders are always well paid, that thing never changes in this business

They need a good insurance for all the stuff they set on fire.

Hole wrote:

Welders are always well paid, that thing never changes in this business

They need a good insurance for all the stuff they set on fire.

... talking of which, here is a news I have stepped by lately, that can give you some hint of how complex the situation and business structure we are talking about.
Rezky will be the first 20380 corvette, where Russian made textile materials will be used.
To this very moment, Russia used to import fireproof textiles for its navy ships.
Imagine that it took a special project to design, test, accept, and produce needed materials, and the case is important enough that Manturov addressed it especially as a great achievement ...

Yup.
We are being focused on major milestones, like turbines of engines.
But the truth is, tons of other materials are needed, and effective production can be hammered by things that are well under the radar of most observers.
Every ship needs furniture. Every single one. The fact that for navy ships all must be made of fireproof materials is clear, but most of the people miss that quite the same applies to civilian vessels because of insurance and register acts. If any of those will be imported, embargo placed on a piece of textile works same as lack of turbine.
Soviet Union lacked tons of specialized products and imported them. Cables from East Germany and Poland. Furniture from Poland, and so on. This is why all WarPac countries used to have quite impressive shipyard clusters, sometimes lacking any serious fleet itself. It all worked for the Soviet Union orders. For example, Bulgaria was a known supplier of shafts&propeller blades. Of bad quality but available
A giant production cluster was located in Ukraine and other republics.
Russia after 1992 has lost an enormous part of SU potential. Some of the subcontractors were simply bankrupt. Some were liquidated as an organized effort to complicate Russia's operations.
It is all being carefully reconstructed, bottom up.
I suspect that Russia already is much more import independent than the Soviet Union has ever been.
Construction cap is obviously bigger than it was in the SU, only Zvezda outmaches a whole SU yards production.

ALAMO wrote:Rosatom plans to have 17 nuclear icebreakers by 2030. So you can easily add some more after 2027.

They have just floated a new 220m drydock in Turkey, not sure when it will be finally towed to the Baltic
But only by watching the planned cargo traffic on the NSR, it requires crazy expansion of the ice class carriers of a different types - just to imagine, this year they plan a 80mln T of cargo, 150 mln by 2030, and 220 mln by 2035 ...
This is what the Russian shipyards will be busy with in the next decade.
Only in 2023, the number of job offers in Russian shipbuilding increased by 23%, and they lack more than 22k personnel, 6000 of them in the Petersburg cluster. This rate is really insane.

17 nuclear icebreakers by 2030 is basically impossible. It is 7 Project 22220 and 1 Project 10510. It used to be 3 Project 10510.
I have also seen no evidence they will be building Project 10510 anywhere else but in Zvezda.

The dry dock they ordered from Turkey also can only lift 30,000 tons.
https://rosatomnewsletter.com/2022/04/26/turkish-start/

Project 10510 has like twice that displacement. This floating drydock is meant to be used to repair and maintain Project 22220 ships in the Arctic. Not in the Baltic. And not Project 10510.

The 7 Project 22220 ships will replace the 5 Project 10520/1, plus the other 2 nuclear icebreakers (Taymyr, and Vaygach).
Project 10510 is supposed to be used for breaking deeper ice to enable all year round travel in the Northeast Passage.

Russia is supposed to build a new large shipyard either in the Baltic or in the Arctic to compete with Zvezda. After the kerfuffle with NATO I expect it to be built in the Arctic.

I will try to find where the 17 number came from. I guess it was some interview with the Rosatom chief or something
The answer can be, that we are talking about non atomic icebreakers, too. Only Rosatom would be a question mark for a case.
And they are already building a yard complex at Kotelny Island, so yes, there will be one more giant to assist Zvezda.

GarryB wrote:They don't need that many and they don't need them that fast, so why bother with any Chinese built warships at all?

if they order some soon, they may be needed later anyway for their Adm. K, 2 CGNs, 2-4 UDK/LHA/LHDs groups. Also, their fleets r videly separated, so up to 2-3 weeks r needed to transfer ships between them, if needed, so extra ships in each will add flexibility & sustainabality, besides saving on long transit time.
Besides, it takes time to train crews to man them & work out all the kinks & bugs that may come up while at sea.

Nothing happens fast in navy matters, many of their new systems will be untested... they will have new radar arrays for upgrading their cruisers, but equally they will likely be designing new AESA radars for their new destroyers and new cruisers too, and obviously new sonar and other systems as well as an entire ESM suite of jammers and spoofers and distractions that don't interfere with sensors they will be carrying, and of course new systems like optical dazzlers and even directed energy weapons and EM guns.

There is no rush, no blind hurry... upgrade shipyards and expand existing and build new shipyards, there is plenty of domestic production demand for the moment and the foreseeable future... and on top of that there are drones of all types.

A ship is a complex system with millions of parts all interacting and working together, and many of those parts are generic and were bought off the shelf, but the current situation means domestic production is becoming essential, but then they need orders to make it work... it is one thing to day you need to produce a fire proof fabric for seat covers to replace the ones you used to pay a high price for from a western company that mass produced them, but if you only need a few hundred a month then it might not be profitable... equally you are just setting up a new business making a product and a queue forms with military and civilian customers all demanding thousands of products, each by deadlines they set so they don't have to delay getting that ship off the slipway and delaying the next production you are making.

If you can't meet demand then other alternatives will be sought that might make more sense and render all your work and effort pointless.

It is not simple and straight forward.

The F-35 had lots of expensive components but when they decided that 150 million per aircraft was too much and they looked at ways to make it cheaper they changed a lot of material in the cockpit to save money but found the cheaper stuff doesn't last as long and tends to be brittle and substandard and ends up reducing performance and being replaced more often actually works out no saving at all.

ALAMO wrote:I will try to find where the 17 number came from. I guess it was some interview with the Rosatom chief or something
The answer can be, that we are talking about non atomic icebreakers, too. Only Rosatom would be a question mark for a case.
And they are already building a yard complex at Kotelny Island, so yes, there will be one more giant to assist Zvezda.

17 won't happen, but 13 is a possibility

Proj 22220 x 7
Proj 10510 x 1
Proj 10520 x 2 (50 Let Pobedy & Yamal)
Proj 10580 x 2 (Vaygach & Taymyr)
Proj 10081 x 1 (Sevmorput)

I don't see the last 5 on this list being decommisisoned in the next 6 years, especially 50 & Sevmorput.

If you add the 4x decommissioned but not scrapped 10520s (Arktika, Sibir, Rossiya, Sovietski Soyuz) then that makes 17. These ships look mothballed (for financial reasons?) rather than destined for cutting up anytime soon. Not exactly an active fleet of 17 but technically correct if one considers the feasibility of reactivation should the need arise.

Like I said:
"The 7 Project 22220 ships will replace the 5 10520/1, plus the other 2 nuclear icebreakers (Taymyr, and Vaygach)."

The Soviet Union and Russia built 6 Project 10520/1 nuclear icebreakers: Arktika, Sibir, Rossiya, Sovetskiy Soyuz, Yamal, 50 Let Pobedy. But they never had more than 5 in active service simultaneously.

The Soviet Union also built 2 smaller nuclear icebreakers: Taymyr, Vaygach in Finland. These can travel in shallow waters. They are operated exclusively for Nornickel. So they can export nickel by boat the whole year around.

Project 22220 is able to operate in all scenarios including in shallow waters. So it is no longer required to have two different icebreaker classes.

The huge Project 10510 is meant to provide new capabilities. Year around travel over the Northeastern Passage breaking through deep ice even in the middle of winter.

The Taymyr and Vaygach are about as old as the 'Sovetskiy Soyuz'. Which has already been retired. I think they will be put to pasture as soon as their replacements are available. The Yamal is probably going to get shitcanned next since it is only a couple years younger. The '50 Let Pobedy' has been in service for 15 less years. So I doubt it will be taken out of service anytime soon.

As for Sevmorput it is so old I suspect it will be retired sooner rather than later.

Several reasons. Basically the lead ship of Project 10510 is taking longer to build than initially projected. They are taking longer to create the blocks for the hull than expected. There was also a report that they were building some castings for the ship (ice tooth, rudder blade brackets and external propeller shaft brackets) in Ukraine at Kramatorsk at some company called Energomashspetsstal of all places. You can guess what happened to that. They will need to order them at some other place and they will take time to be built.

https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/5900679

The other two units were delayed to be built in like a decade. The money used to build the second ship will basically be used to cover cost overruns in the first ship and to help build the remaining two Project 22220s.

Yeah, we heard you, but you're thinking that the 22220 are replacements for existing breakers instead of an expansion of the nuclear breaker fleet in preparation for the anticipated & greatly expanded tonnage travelling the Northern Sea Route. The older breakers won't necessarily be retired just because they are long in the tooth. Even old ships can last many decades beyond their expected life as long as they are well maintained and a need still exists for their services. Consider Kommuna, launched back in 1913... still going strong today.

The new vessels may be intended to be the primary workhorses, with the older vessels relegated to secondary duties or for surge requirements?

BTW Sevmorput is a unique vessel, and unlike any other nuclear-powered ice class she is a cargo carrier. Since its refurb in 2016 it has been used by the MoD to support Arctic military bases and new infrastructure. Personally I'm not convinced by rumours that Atomflot will retire her in 2024 but we will find out I guess...

The new Project 10510 ships supposedly can break the thick ice that is formed in the middle of the winter on the Northeastern Route. The Project 22220 ships cannot break ice as thick, so they only can ensure safe travel for the summer period or something.

lancelot wrote:The new Project 10510 ships supposedly can break the thick ice that is formed in the middle of the winter on the Northeastern Route. The Project 22220 ships cannot break ice as thick, so they only can ensure safe travel for the summer period or something.

It is not even as much the ice thickness, as two other factors. Icebreaking speed and the width of the canal.
Speed is needed to make a convoy economy, while the width is to get there bigger and more economic ships.
There would be no real gain for a shorter route if it can not be used by a big vessels and a speed is in a range of 5-6 knts. It will kill the economy, because there would be no gain for armators. They can use bigger ships at faster routes.
Lider icebreaking speed is set to hit 12 knots if I remember.

Rezky will be the first 20380 corvette, where Russian made textile materials will be used.

To be clear there is no reason why Russian companies couldn't have been making all the materials and equipment and systems their navy and armed forces needed... it is largely a case that when the Soviet Union was going they wanted everyone to contribute and to have jobs so things were spread across the country and the economic group, which was very generous of them but ended up biting them in the arse.

When the music stopped and everyone sat down most of Russias allies ran across to the other side of the room and sat with the enemy because they could see the enormous banquet that was laid out. (it is only now they realise that banquet is for the US and nobody else eats till the US has eating as much as it can and taken a single bite out of everything... even things it doesn't like so their underlings know their position).

This means Russia suddenly had to pay US dollars for products coming from Ukraine and Belarus and Georgia, and most eastern European countries didn't want to even talk to them let alone sell things to them... they thought the west would buy their crap at western prices and they will become rich.

The point is that most of the stuff they needed was not top secret but had features most makers starting from scratch didn't fully appreciate.

When there are bolts and nuts on the international market for 1 ruble a dozen it does not really make sense to set up an industry for billions of rubles to make them... unless you need something very specific because most countries can make bolts so it is too hard to sanction.

Sanctions, however, have made Russia realise quite a few things... first the west is at war with them and really want to hurt or kill them and crush their economy and make them suffer... second that it is only the west that is the problem and that the rest of the world is actually quite open and interested in trade and actually many countries have a lot of respect for the Soviet Union and Russia... countries that the soviets helped escape colonial occupation... helped... those countries did most of the work, but the Soviets helped... and Russia continues to help.. and third... that that table yonder is a myth that the west is not the american dream... the american dream isn't even for all americans... it is for the few and they are greedy and wont share. Jeff Bezos was worth 120 billion at one point... why does anyone need to control and hoard that much money... especially in a country where people are forced to live in trailer parks despite working several jobs...

It is clear the western dream does not work for the majority... it is like a lottery where one person wins big a few dozen others get a nice consolation prize and everyone else pays the money that those few receive... It is essentially a pyramid scheme... but most things are in business.

Back on topic, the good news is their new ship designs are modular so if they have all the components and production needed to make their corvettes now then that can be applied to their Frigates and destroyers and cruisers and aircraft carriers because the systems and components and equipment is all standardised.

With the really big ships there will be extra systems the smaller ships don't carry, like S-500 and perhaps laser based system to dazzle EO guided weapons or satellites or to shoot down targets at closer ranges... or heavier calibre guns like 152mm (which are known) and 203mm (which is my speculation), not to mention the propulsion for the larger ships being nuclear powered, and of course the AESA radars and sonar equipment on the bigger ships being much bigger and more capable.

It is only countries that are forced to via sanctions that bother producing everything they need for domestic consumption... North Korea and Iran and Cuba leap to mind and they pay an economic cost and a social cost for the gaps that creates for them... fortunately they can get things on the black market and now with BRICS they can buy things without needing US dollars... which I suspect made things much more expensive for them...

Making all your own stuff is expensive and it takes time, but western sanctions have made it necessary but for the Russian economy, when they want to sell Russian products over seas they don't need to scramble to find substitute material when a western manufacturer objects to their products being sold...

The sanctions cost western companies a lot of business at a time when they could probably use the work, but it also slowed Russian production while they developed alternatives, but the end result is that Russia is going to make all the stuff that the west sold to them and it will probably make it much cheaper and sell it to other countries for rather less than the west sells it for so they lost Russian business and now they will compete in the rest of the world with Russian products that should be every bit as good as theirs for a fraction of the price...

Sanctions backfire unless you take your time and make sure they are precisely targeted... but even then a smart victim of your bullying can still inflict pain on you like Putins food sanctions against the EU in response to the EUs sanctions against Russia... it revitalised the Russian food production industry and created a massive food export option for the rest of the world.

To this very moment, Russia used to import fireproof textiles for its navy ships.

More importantly did they check every single textile and then randomly check them... the test samples might have been up to spec but the material in the orders might have included rejected stock they sell to the Russians to make more money because they really don't care about Russians...

Corruption in the west is endemic... and they all do it... it is like drugs in sports... everyone else does it so you have to or you can't compete... it is like norwegian skiiers who have a schedule when they get sick so the medication they take that boosts their performance is out of their system by the time it comes to take drug tests...

GarryB wrote:
To be clear there is no reason why Russian companies couldn't have been making all the materials and equipment and systems their navy and armed forces needed...

Yes and no.
There is no point in producing a different sort of materials if you can't use those.
Any marine-grade product goes with register certificates, which are obligatory if you want to certify a whole ship. Armators have to do so, because other way ships will be restricted from insurance and can have issues arriving at certain ports. Nobody will send his cargo with a ship that is not registered and insured, because, again, won't be safe.
I have spent millions $ in this business (but two decades ago indeed), and never purchased a thing with no Lloyds certificate, just as an example.
It is enough to hamper or block any material from certification, and you have a perfectly working stigma.
Sure, Russian producers can make things that are the same or better as the usual supply, but nobody would buy it anyway.
It is not important for navy ships, and becoming less crucial as Russian insurance companies took over a lion's share of the business for the Russian registered cargo fleet, but will still apply to the ships that are offshored.
Luckily, in the last three decades, this business shifted heavily to Asia, and European certification has become less and less relevant.

Just like in the old days. Russia can basically build its own ships with a full cycle for river transport, and for defense purposes. And ships which need to be used for commercial travel to foreign ports can be made with licensed components.

Something like that.
Or can be certificated and registered with some other system.
I am pretty sure that the Chinese have their own by now, not sure about Koreans.
Japanese used to have one, and that was an issue with Japanese-originated components for European shipbuilding. They didn't care much for European registers, so even if it was a widely known fact that they produced the best water mist fire fighting systems out there, nobody was keen to build them here in Europe. So we were forced to buy inflated-priced Semco or Novenco, even if there was a much more effective and compact Japan made, for 70% of the price ... But niet bumagi ...

Yes and no.
There is no point in producing a different sort of materials if you can't use those.

I was referring to military standard stuff, in the civilian sector you get stuff like VW cheating on engine emission tests as an example, but then the steel making companies that make the steel for building submarines in the US also break the rules and slip substandard sub standard steel to their customers (sorry for the pun).

Western certificates were important for western insurance companies, but they are destroying themselves with their silly rules and sanctions, they have actually rendered their own future void with their silly antics...

It is enough to hamper or block any material from certification, and you have a perfectly working stigma.

Which is what will undermine the system... the system doesn't choose who to block, western politicians do and they are fucking idiots... so when they try to damage Russia by blocking their shipping and exports, they are effectively actually destroying the control mechanism they use to make lots and lots of money out of international trade.

Alternatives will be required, but even if that starts out as a BRICS only system that will be good enough for Russia especially as BRICS expands and grows.

Sure, Russian producers can make things that are the same or better as the usual supply, but nobody would buy it anyway.

Russian ship makers will be under sanctions and have no other choice, and BRICS and other trade partners need the same things and if the Russians make them better and cheaper and it increases trade between the BRICS countries and Russia then it is also a good thing too.

Luckily, in the last three decades, this business shifted heavily to Asia, and European certification has become less and less relevant.

Luck has nothing to do with it... the west is an authoritarian bully and if a countries does not have to deal with them it wont.

Or can be certificated and registered with some other system.
I am pretty sure that the Chinese have their own by now, not sure about Koreans.

The Russians will already have their own certification and registration system, and even if they didn't I am sure they have already talked to China and South Korea and the countries in BRICS about a new BRICS based standard that is more about safety than protecting European and American companies from competition which most western laws and rule making organisations are most interested in.

Renewal of the Russian Navy from 2014 to 2023 (part 1 - surface forces)

Since 2014, the Russian Navy has included 42 warships of eight different types (with a total displacement of over 500 tons).

FULL ARTICLE and Video: https://sdelanounas-ru.translate.goog/blogs/157296/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en


Renewal of the Russian Navy from 2014 to 2023 (part 2 - submarine forces)

Since 2014, the Russian Navy has included 11 diesel-electric and 11 nuclear submarines.

FULL ARTICLE and Video: https://sdelanounas-ru.translate.goog/blogs/157297/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en

Not sure where to put this

If my memory is correct this is a Pacific Fleet frigate showing the flag in the Med. Maybe on a 'Round the EuroAsian landmass' tour.

Russian frigate Marshal Shaposhnikov equipped with 3M22 Zircon missiles entered the Mediterranean Sea - War News 24/7
https://warnews247-gr.translate.goog/diethnh/rwsia/