Future Russian Aircraft Carriers and Deck Aviation. #2

If you moved you ass a little and actually read Russian relevant documents and interviews with the actual professionals we would not be discussing this.

keep it civil; don't know about u, but I use my eyes & brains to read. 

They are not doing or saying anything that contradicts their plans for the further development of the blue water navy, which obviously includes carriers.

the USSR had plans for them before 1941 too. In the 1960s ASW TAKRs appeared, & they were enough for A2D; by all indications, they won't built new CVNs w/o heavy missile & defensive armaments, i.e. they'll be multirole. Now, what will make them so indispensable to the otherwise blue water VMF? The ability to carry AWACS & fighters? EW&C/ASW helos, tiltrotors, UAVs & UCAVs can fly off CGNs, DD/FFGs & UDK/LHAs, while their AD is provided by S-300/500/500s. If they have plans for 4 CVNs, it'll be overkill & overspending. 

Yeah, why going to bed with your wife when your neighbour is already taking care?

the size & skills matter in the economy too. The RF economy= Spain's; at best, PRC's is 2nd only to the US now. Spain has 2 small LHAs & is allied to the US. Russia better follow her example or ruin her other developmental plans. 

You justifying they don't need blue water navy because they don't use it ..

they had such VMF before 1991, & now it's as blue water as it'll be even with 10 more CVNs. I agree that it's not well rounded yet- what they really need r more corvettes, DDG/FFGs & UDKs in their surface fleet. 

Where are those A-100 in the middle of the ocean going to be operating from, ..
What use does any asset have on a foreign land if you cannot keep it operational because of a naval blockade? 

they have IRPs, IL-78s & MiG-31s as escorts to cover mid-oceans from Russia & overseas bases; Zircon armed FF/DDGs, CGNs & SSGNs &/ MiG-31Ks/Tu-22M3s/160Ms with Kinzhals just need to show their flag/presence to prevent/lift any blockade. 
Besides, bases in Vietnam, Syria, Sudan, Cuba, Venezuela, & Nicaragua will have forward deployed units & ensure permanent presence in/above all warm oceans. In the Arctic, no1 can beat the Russian icebreaker fleet that also allows them to avoid chokepoints, while saving time & $ on fleet transfers.

Isos wrote:Any ship coming close to a well armed country is dead meat.

Navy is good to protect your coast and SSBN or attack weak countries.

Only good ships to have are subs and ships that can launch cruise missiles more than 2500km away.

The rest is useless when you see weapons they will face.

You just need an airforce which is much cheaper to have than a large navy and some 20 SSGN of yaseb class.

Carrier's aviation already made useless surface ships during WW2. Now missiles make pretty much all surface ships including carriers outdated and defenceless when fighting far away from their country.

Ok understood... no more questions

Tsavo Lion wrote:keep it civil; don't know about u, but I use my eyes & brains to read.

Yes, 100% civil, but have you read those documents that we have been discussing? I mean 2030 and 2050 strategic development roadmaps? What do you think of them, are they lying, they cannot count or what is your take?

by all indications, they won't built new CVNs w/o heavy missile & defensive armaments, i.e. they'll be multirole.

Most probably they will have serious AD capacities on their own. As to offensive weapons, it remains to be seen. Design bureaus do not favour such solution.

EW&C/ASW helos, tiltrotors, UAVs & UCAVs can fly off CGNs, DD/FFGs & UDK/LHAs, while their AD is provided by S-300/500/500s

So you accept air power is needed. But oddly you seem to think that the fleet can be defended vs. a CVN air wing with UAVs and helos, single units of them per hull BTW. Do you equally advocate for VKS to renounce to Sukhois and substitute them with Orlans? And of course no Voronezh, no Konteyner and no Nebo-M, those are overkill too.

Also, why do you think a LHA is a great idea and a carrier is not? I mean, a LHA is a tool for amphibious operations but people here keep confusing them with "no bullshit" carriers, when they don't even have the speed to keep up with the rest of the fleet at sea. And if you develop them to he point of matching carriers' capability, well, they will most probably cost like carriers...

The RF economy= Spain's; at best, PRC's is 2nd only to the US now. Spain has 2 small LHAs & is allied to the US. Russia better follow her example or ruin her other developmental plans.

Oh boy the GDP... I will not even start the comparison between Spain and the RF in terms of military potential, should I?

As to what Russia can and cannot allow itself to do, I proved you already in the past that you could not be actually bothered with facts. What are the concrete costs inherent form the carriers that VMF cannot pay? If you don't have them, you should consider stopping your trolling.

they had such VMF before 1991, & now it's as blue water as it'll be even with 10 more CVNs.

They never had a complete blue fleet navy, their plans were scraped with the fall of the USSR. And today's VMF is just a shy attempt of rebuilding a decent navy, they don't even have frigates...

they have IRPs, IL-78s & MiG-31s as escorts to cover mid-oceans from Russia & overseas bases;

just need to show their flag/presence to prevent/lift any blockade.

No, those can be shot down trivially once an enemy fleet is in place and cannot defend themselves in the way to the deployment, plus have no way of actually reaching that far with any combat potential or sustain operations there. A fleet has a presence at a theater of months, do you plan to keep the Tupolev in the air waiting for something to happen? Do you plan to have 20 exchange crews living on onboard or what? How many hundreds of Il-78 are necessary and how you avoid all of them crashing? I mean, it is so absurd I don't know if you are even being serious.

Besides, bases in Vietnam, Syria, Sudan, Cuba, Venezuela, & Nicaragua will have forward deployed units & ensure permanent presence in/above all warm oceans

Don't you understand that without a serious navy you cannot ensure the safety and operability of those bases?? Don't you see that the navy is the basis of the US network of bases?

Tsavo Lion wrote: If they have plans for 4 CVNs, it'll be overkill & overspending. 

USN operates on a 3:1 ratio. ie you need 3 carriers to have 1 operating at all times. With their huge fleet they can surge to 6-8 maybe even as many as 10 carriers in some operational windows.

Russian zone of interest for the next 20 years is the arctic.

There is no need for carriers for Russia.

So Russia is only allowed to look at areas near its borders?

It would not need helicopter carrier and destroyers and cruisers if it is focusing on the arctic for the next 20 years... why are they upgrading the Kuznetsov and two Kirovs and Slavas if their only interest is the Arctic?

Why bother with port facilities in the Sudan if they are focused on the Arctic?

LMFS Why do you think Russia may be the most powerful military in this world? What arguments speak for Russia and not the US or China? Russia has the most modern nuclear power, but the US has more air force, power projection beyond CONUS, etc.

Possibly the fact that Russian missiles currently in service can't be stopped by western defences and the new missiles on the way are five times faster...

China doesn't have nuclear powered carriers right now. It would be so easy for UK to destroy China.

How?

A British task force going to Hong Kong is going to be well within reach of land based air power from Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland... how would the UK destroy China exactly?

Reality is that long range missiles dominate the seas today.

Based on what?

And even assuming they do... ships on their own are terribly vulnerable to surprise attack... having a carrier with AWACS means you are much better protected... not less protected.

Carriers are only good against unarmed countries or CIA invebtion like ISIS.

Carries are not much good for WWIII, but if you want to operate surface ships in international waters they will be much much safer with the air support provided by a fixed wing carrier.

Russia does not need to use them as US uses theirs, also because they do not need to attack and destroy a third world country every few years just to show that they mean business...

Russia needs more global access to the world than the Soviet Union did because most of the Soviet trade partners were eastern europe and therefore on Soviet borders. For the rest of the world access and trade was limited by its naval focus on dealing with US carrier groups.

Currently Russia has most of these lethal long range missiles you say make carriers obsolete, but even they are continuing to upgrade the K.

Nevertheless they can also have an important use for deterrence (e.g. sending one off the coast of Venezuela) and also to show that the military industry and shipbuilding of Russia is not inferior to what the Soviet union had.

They are going to be spending large amounts of money on oil tankers and gas transports not to mention destroyers and cruisers... all of which will be much better protected and safe if there are aircraft nearby to offer support and protection.

Russia does not try to conquer CONUS so no point in comparing power projection capacities to such extent.

Indeed for all Americas superiority in carrier numbers it is intended for land strikes that will bring those ships within the attack range of some very capable anti ship missiles and air defence systems which will largely negate and even defeat such forces.

In comparison Russian carrier groups will be for defending Russia and will likely be based in the Northern and Pacific Fleets essentially operating in the arctic ocean countering US ABM cruisers trying to intercept Russian ICBMs... Ironic because their new ones will be heading over the south pole rather than the north pole anyway...

So all of Russia's security issues are land based and not on remote shores.

Agree regarding current security issues, but tell me... if Russia decides to improve relations with countries around the world and Biden out of spite decides to start a regime change campaign to over throw all the countries that try to improve relations with Russia... up to and including mercenary invasions and overthrows... and even naval blockades... is Russia going to make speeches in the UN... will they send a strongly worded letter to the US government?

If you want to have international trade partners you need to be able to get to them with force... not to invade them, but to support them and help them... even just exercise with them so they know someone has their back.

Even though Russia has been helping Venezuela keep the yanqui wolves at bay, it is not going to go to war with America
on its behalf. If it was going to secure itself for a war with the US in Latin America and Africa, then it would have been
making more effort to build up some sort of carrier fleet.

The purpose is not war with the US, but having carriers operating with cruisers and destroyers makes them much more capable and effective in almost every role they might perform.

Of course, it is possible that Russia is making a strategic mistake. Having large carrier fleets which it can afford since costs
are not insane like in the corrupt USA, would be a useful deterrent to the yanquis in their conventional colonial adventures.
But there must be a reason why Russia is not willing to counter the yanquis this way.

Russia is not the worlds police and it does not want the costs or responsibility to counter the evil US influence in the world, but then some countries want the kool aide and don't want to be saved from US culture. there are however, some countries around the world that don't want to be oppressed by a 1% that robs and steals from the public to make themselves richer while the majority slowly go backwards trying keep up the payments to the banks and credit card companies...

Russia needs carriers for Russia... not to look as cool as the US and certainly not to have the biggest ship or whatever bullshit.

The aircraft need to be the best they can make... ie right now Su-57s for fighters, but also an AWACS platform that can be land based for smaller countries or to fill gaps in big countries like detecting targets in mountains etc and manage smaller fighter groups to make them more effective...

They should both sell rather well internationally too.

In open seas they add the advantage of having an aiborne AWACS and fighters that can do anti ship mission but they will also attract more enemy ships and submarines.

Actually with AWACS aircraft your surface ships will be harder to find because that AWACS aircraft can send its target information to the ships so they have a live airborne view of the airspace around the ships down to sea level which together with long range lower wave OTH radar on the larger ships that wont be detected by enemy aircraft can give information on targets 400km to 5,000km away the way the land based versions do...

If your opponent is USA or Russia, then carriers have a timelife of some hours. They will probavly not see action.

You can move them anywhere you want... if Russia is in conflict with the US then a Russian carrier with Su-57s amongst Cruisers and Destroyers effectively with the equivalent of S-500, S-400, S-350, plus BUK, TOR, and Pantsir means a pretty tough air defence to deal with... of course along with mach 9 missiles that fly at over 40km altitude in a manouvering and non ballistic flight mode with ranges of over 1,000km... they might not last more than a few hours in a shooting war but I would think the west is going to lose more men in a couple of hours than they have lost in the post WWII period.

More important during peace time an aircraft carrier means targets that appear low and fast from any direction can have a fighter scrambled to investigate... instead of the surface action group commander making a decision as to whether it is civilian or military... threat or non threat...

IMO the light carrier of 40kt presented few years ago is a perfect carrier. Just need 2 nuks reactors and one catapult for AWACS. Supercarriers are useless and will eat the money for frigates and destroyers.

Light carriers cost a large fraction of a real carrier without the benefits...

Also, your remark about VTOL's, tell me is Russia building any? You also know the two Helio carriers they are making would only be able to house less than 10.

VSTOL fighters are fools gold.... the F-35 would be a much better aircraft without the requirement for VSTOL performance in one version.

I understand the idea of standardisation... but because of the US Marines the F-35 is not the stealthy F-16 it could have been.

> Carriers are not tools of imperialism but simply tools for the use of air power at sea, that is, with missions of naval strike, ASW and AD of the fleet.
> Current paradigm of the use of carriers as per US practice:
- Is not "WWII style" since back then the carriers were used for sea control and not for land attack
- Is a doctrinal aberration caused by US imperialism and an overwhelming international supremacy, and should never be used as a reference for the development of the VMF

Carriers don't have to be tools of imperialism, they can just be there to protect the ships they operate with who perform the missions and roles you want them to perform.

The misuse by the west should not cloud your judgement of their use and function.

Exactly, USN carriers are focussed in achieving sortie generation rates and firepower to compete with land based forces, which is an absurd proposition to start with, while they don't even have a decent AShM, which would be the first step for a naval strike carrier.

Their focus on land attack means getting heavily laiden bombers airborne and then fighter and jammer escorts and AWACS and inflight refuelling aircraft as well.

The Russians just need cats to get AWACS in the air and its fighters can take off without them to operate in flights around the ships using radar information from the AWACS and their own IRST and passive radar use...

But if you face a powerfull country like Israel, France or Russia near their border your carriers are dead meat.

Bullshit. A Russian surface ship group would have an excellent IADS.... any country trying to sink them would seriously suffer rather badly... and with an aircraft carrier supporting those surface ships those countries will pay even more because the AWACS platforms will allow better managed air defence... not to mention missions to attack land targets with cruise missiles could defeat airbases from which enemy aircraft are coming from...

You seem to overestimate a carrier. It's just a a floating airport that need 1 hit to stop its operations. It's easy to spot with long range radars and its aircraft have nothing more than ground based aircraft. It carries around 48 fighters.

With the Kuznetsov it has the equivalent of 8 Pantsir air defence vehicles with gatling guns instead of twin barrel guns, plus the equivalent of about 18 TOR vehicles able to shoot down on its own 16 targets at a time.

Long range radars can be detected and targeted if an attack develops... 48 fighters operating within a Russian IADS that includes S-500, S-400, S-350, BUK, TOR, Pantsir, Tunguska, as well as jammers and EW and of course fighter aircraft and their AAMs.

With 48 su-35, an A-100 and a 12 su-34 for anti shipping supported by 3 gorshkov class in defensive position and 2 kilo subs in advance position, it won't touch your country.

If you have Yasen, Tupolevs, kinzhal and other kirovs it becomes just a practice target.

A US carrier trying to attack Russian territory would be a waste of time, but a US carrier in the Southern Atlantic or South Pacific is a huge force multiplier than increases the fire power needed to take on any group of ships.

Russia does not want Carriers to invade the US, but to keep their cruisers and destroyers safe no matter where they are around the world...

It needs that capacity so it can create solid trade links against the wishes of the west who have proven they will try all sorts of dirty shit to stop and contain Russia and China.

Having 10 billion $ carrier with 3 billion $ worth of aircraft on it to protect water of Pacific and Atlantic from US carriers ?

Except a Russian carrier might be a multi hull design of 40K tons with the capacity of an 80K ton ship.... nobody is suggesting Russia build Ford class white elephants...

Yasen are enough for that. Find and destroy instead of 24/7 defence is the answer. With the crew of 1 carrier you could man 10-15 yasen and for the price of 1 carrier + 40 aircraft you could buy some 10-15 Yasen.

How is a Yasen going to take and secure air control over a group of surface ships... how much early warning will a Yasen provide of a low altitude attack on a group of ships away from Russian airspace?

They can attack undetected from hundreds of km. Cruise missiles are the answer.

Every Russian ship will have launch tubes for cruise missiles... the Kalibr M will have 4,500km range missiles...

You do realize Russian interests go beyond the coastline?

Russian interests have to go beyond their coastline... EU and US sanctions and pressure mean business with them will never be normal... they have to look elsewhere and there is the rest of the world to trade with who don't have massive chips on their shoulders...

Any ship coming close to a well armed country is dead meat.

During times of open war.... which will be about 0.001 percent of its operational life span...

Besides with hypersonic and long range subsonic missiles... Russian ships don't need to go anywhere near enemy countries coastlines unless they want to.

Only good ships to have are subs and ships that can launch cruise missiles more than 2500km away.

Which is all Russian ships... and if they replace the Granit launchers with UKSK then that also includes the Kuznetsov.

In fact what you are describing is the Russian Navy... it is the US Navy that needs to get close so its planes can enter enemy territory and attack ground targets supported by inflight refuelling aircraft and jammer and fighter escorts.

The Russian carrier remains with the ships and offers air borne early warning and also air defence of the ships.

If it wants to the Russian ships can launch 4,500km range land attack cruise missiles to hit targets from 2,000km offshore to reach targets 2,500km inland.... any enemy air force going 2,000km offshore to engage those ships will then have to take on enemy fighters operating over their own airbase with full SAM support with full AAM loadouts with no external fuel tanks needed...

I would say the only air forces that could challenge such a Russian force would be HATO forces in which case those missiles would be nuclear armed.

Even US and its 20 carriers can't protect its interest 24/7.

That is true, but US ships around the world are much safer when operating within flight range of a nearby US land air base or US aircraft carrier...

The Israelis attacked the USS Liberty for hours after misidentifying it as an Egyptian freighter... but when they intercepted a call from a nearby US carrier saying Tomcats were inbound they suddenly realised the stars and stripes flag on the main deck...

Carriers and carrier aircraft support greatly increase identification performance all round...

If the AEGIS cruiser that shot down that Iranian Airbus had asked for Fighter support an F-14 could have flown over and visually identified the target as an Airbus and not another F-14 and just under 300 people would not have been murdered in cold blood.

the size & skills matter in the economy too. The RF economy= Spain's; at best, PRC's is 2nd only to the US now. Spain has 2 small LHAs & is allied to the US. Russia better follow her example or ruin her other developmental plans.

Russias economy will not grow if she is land locked in terms of trade partners, she needs international trade to sell her products and buy goods she can use.

they have IRPs, IL-78s & MiG-31s as escorts to cover mid-oceans from Russia & overseas bases;

All of their MiG-31s will be defending Russian airspace... not pissing away fuel operating over empty sea that is just stupid.

USN operates on a 3:1 ratio. ie you need 3 carriers to have 1 operating at all times. With their huge fleet they can surge to 6-8 maybe even as many as 10 carriers in some operational windows.

They also have plans to dominate every ocean area on the planet so they need 10-12 carriers to ensure they can have 6-7 carriers always available.

Russia does not need that... she has two main naval bases... Pacific and Northern so having 2-3 new carriers... CVNs along with an upgraded Kuznetsov would be fine...

Before Russia begins building aircraft carriers, it must rebuild its fleet. Even the amount they are building now is very little. The Pacific Fleet needs a lot of corvettes and frigates to offset the enormous advantages of China, Japan, and South Korea at least a little. The single-class 22350 ships cannot make up for this, where Japan itself has much greater forces than the Russian VMF in the Pacific.

Very true, but before they start mass producing enormous numbers of corvettes and Frigates they need to make sure the designs work in the different locations all year round and for a variety of different roles and missions.... the designs themselves are modular and use standardised weapons and sensors and systems and equipment... so once the layouts and designs are finalised they should be able to mass produce them rather rapidly and in decent numbers... and once that is achieved then scaling up the design to make destroyers and cruisers is the next obvious step.

Obviously destroyers and cruisers are not simply scaled up vessels, they need larger volumes of defensive and offensive weapons and they need to operate much further from port for much longer periods...

Plus all the infrastructure in home ports to support all these ships and the support ships they need to operate with them.

I must say that I am pleased they are getting the basics right and making mine sweeper ships and other types many modern navies neglect.... without them a navy can be trapped in port till the enemy mines are dealt with....[/quote]

The major shift in naval vessels and weaponry is underway. At this moment it is difficult to get real answers whether carriers are to become obsolete or not! We must wait for the next twenty years for the answer.

GarryB wrote:So Russia is only allowed to look at areas near its borders?

It would not need helicopter carrier and destroyers and cruisers if it is focusing on the arctic for the next 20 years... why are they upgrading the Kuznetsov and two Kirovs and Slavas if their only interest is the Arctic?

Why bother with port facilities in the Sudan if they are focused on the Arctic?

Check this:

Russian Navy Seen Escorting Iranian Tankers Bound for Syria

https://news.usni.org/2020/10/21/russian-navy-seen-escorting-iranian-tankers-bound-for-syria

The misuse by the west should not cloud your judgement of their use and function.

Exactly. But since the USN example is so dominant, it ends up misleading people.

Their focus on land attack means getting heavily laiden bombers airborne and then fighter and jammer escorts and AWACS and inflight refuelling aircraft as well.

The Russians just need cats to get AWACS in the air and its fighters can take off without them to operate in flights around the ships using radar information from the AWACS and their own IRST and passive radar use...

Instead of several thousand tons of bombs and the huge amount of personnel needed to ensure 200 land attack sorties per day, you may carry a few dozens AShM and according staff. The same goes for the astronomic amounts of fuel a supercarrier needs to sustain high-tempo land attack operations. In A2A or naval strike, a single squadron Su-57 with hypersonic AShM is worth more than 4 squadrons F-18 or F-35 with the USN equivalent weapons. 8-10 Helios-RLD type UAV have way more range and endurance than the normal AWACS wing on an USN CVN and are probably way cheaper and with smaller footprint. And so on. Using the carrier against land turns it into a aberration of a ship.

kumbor wrote:The major shift in naval vessels and weaponry is underway. At this moment it is difficult to get real answers whether carriers are to become obsolete or not! We must wait for the next twenty years for the answer.

The shift is never going to stop and in the meantime the rest of the pack is not sitting idle:

Arrow wrote:

Russia has the most advanced missile technologies in the world. Yes, but this is only one element of military power. To become the greatest military power in the world, you need to dominate almost every field of military technology. We need a huge fleet, which Russia does not have and will not have for the next two decades, an adequate projection of power to react militarily with the military in every corner of the world, etc. Russia does not have that. The USA and soon China have it. These two countries are superpowers today. Russia can destroy any country with nuclear weapons, but it still has a weak navy and air force that could operate in many regions of the world.

Russia does not have the population to compete against US and China when it comes to conventional military power. China has 10 times the population of Russia and is expected to field 10 heavy carriers by the 2030s. US population is projected to be 500 million by the 2030s and expected to field 10 heavy carriers by then. No other country comes close to China and US by the 2030s. By the 2030s Russia won't have any heavy carrier but I think will have 2 LHDs which are currently under construction.

LMFS wrote:

The shift is never going to stop and in the meantime the rest of the pack is not sitting idle:

The shift is not constant. But disruptive technologies arrive form time to time that cause massive change. In modern history we can see a few. The dreadnought class battleship, which was a 30 year trend. Then the carrier which has dominated until now. Also the nuclear submarine. The question is, are we at another disruptive stage now. The trends that are converging to cause this are a) Drones b) hypersonics and c) unmanned ships. These 3 may combine to completely obsolete the entire global fleet.

mnztr wrote:The shift is not constant. But disruptive technologies arrive form time to time that cause massive change. In modern history we can see a few. The dreadnought class battleship, which was a 30 year trend. Then the carrier which has dominated until now. Also the nuclear submarine. The question is, are we at another disruptive stage now. The trends that are converging to cause this are a) Drones b) hypersonics and c) unmanned ships.  These 3 may combine to completely obsolete the entire global fleet.

My point is there is a constant struggle between offensive and defensive means, but I concede there are moments when the balance between them is lost for a while. The technologies you mention are relevant, but I assume they will be integrated in the fleets instead of eliminating warships or carriers specifically:

> Drones can be integrated in carriers without further issues. And of course, the ones operating from a frigate or a destroyer will be smaller and less capable that the ones a carrier can operate. Advantage for the carrier.
> Hypersonics: currently there is an advantage for some weapons that are not apparently stoppable by the AD, but they are very recent and the SAMs to counter them are in development or in the case of Russia, they have been probably already. A system of airborne radiolocators will have always a massive advantage to detect and react to such attacks vs. the ones carried by ships, that is advantage for the carrier again
> UUV/USV: if they have the capabilities, weapons and sea keeping to rival surface fleets then they are probably not smaller. In a first step they will probably be used as intelligence assets, for ASW and as intelligent mines. To find and destroy them airborne surveillance means will be the most efficient way, that gives again the advantage to the carrier.

The carrier is the most flexible way of deploying air power at sea and most of its capability depends on the air wing more than on the ship itself, so I think it is a more future safe platform than probably any other surface vessel. As said I don't see anybody closing their carrier programs, quite the contrary, and what is happening instead is that SAM interceptors are improved, newer better AShMs are created, plans are made to include long range UAVs in the naval aviation etc., so I assume those technologies you mention are not really being seen as substitute but as an improvement.

The major shift in naval vessels and weaponry is underway. At this moment it is difficult to get real answers whether carriers are to become obsolete or not! We must wait for the next twenty years for the answer.

Very true, but you wont see any country giving up air power on land or at sea.

Drones might become a more significant component but that goes for both sides.

The recent conflict in NK shows a weak force with drones can have a surprising effect against a country that neglects its military defence in all aspects.

Experience in Syria should not be ignored where a minor super power (Russia) faced terrorist forces supported and supplied by the west and Saudi Arabia who tried to use drones to attack Russian forces and have failed miserably... because Russia has taken drones very seriously and has been improving all their air defence systems to deal with the threat... the critical component is to detect the damn things in the first place which no one else has even come close to doing.

No surprise Russia is very good at air defence... and a bit ironic because it was the threat of western attack that made them so... and with scramjet technology they are probably leaders in attack too... with Iskander hypersonic manouvering ground launched missiles... an air launched version and various hypersonic anti ship missiles in service or in the verge together with a range of missiles designed to penetrate ABM systems too....

Russia has a multitude of systems to defeat drones and is creating more all the time and actually integrating them into their air defence network from airburst 30mm and 57mm shells to jammers and EMP weapons to small sized missiles optimised for the task to modified ATGMs that might be obsolete in their original role but fine for anti drone work... they are also introducing new drones themselves along with a range of custom designed drone launched weapons....

All this means surface action groups away from Russian waters needs more air protection... not less.

Using the carrier against land turns it into a aberration of a ship.

The way the Russians work... it is only a matter of time before they have an EMALS cat system modified to launch 100kg and 250kg bombs to 500km to 250km range for shore bombardment accurately and cheaply...

Russia has the most advanced missile technologies in the world. Yes, but this is only one element of military power. To become the greatest military power in the world, you need to dominate almost every field of military technology

They have a few core technologies under their belt that makes them well protected... I would say their air defence technology is second to none, and with scramjet and high temperature materials for aircraft (MiG-41) and mach 10 plus long range missiles (Zircon etc etc) means their attack ability is impressive too, but they have no goals to become the greatest military power... they are not trying to crush the west and China and dominate the world on their own terms by their own rules... they just want to be treated with respect and not be ignored or walked over. They don't need to dominate every field of military technology... the US has never done that yet that has been their position for some time now... 30 years... they have of course squandered the opportunity and just wasted the chance to make some real progress and become an actually leader the world might actually consider following... you know the bullshit they preach rather that the dirty dastardly things they actually do in the shadows....

We need a huge fleet, which Russia does not have and will not have for the next two decades, an adequate projection of power to react militarily with the military in every corner of the world, etc. Russia does not have that.

No, they don't need a huge fleet... just like they don't need a 5 million man army or a 10,000 plane airforce... any of which would bankrupt them and cripple them economically.

The focus needs to be on progress for the sake of the Russian people... and the world as a byproduct. It is in Russian interests to be able to trade globally and only a Navy can ensure that.

The USA and soon China have it. These two countries are superpowers today. Russia can destroy any country with nuclear weapons, but it still has a weak navy and air force that could operate in many regions of the world.

You don't have to dominate the whole world at once to be a super power... the US could crush Serbia because Russia was too far away to really help, but the US was impotent with all its carriers and its nuclear weapons when Russian troops entered Georgian territory to clean up artillery units that were causing them problems.

Super power is not as powerful as it actually sounds... the US and the Soviets have been that before and were not really able to do much with it to further their ideologies... communism and democracy are both in the toilet right now because of mistakes made by both sides.

Russia does not have the population to compete against US and China when it comes to conventional military power.

Russia does not need to have an enormous conventional military power... good enough backed up by nukes is all they can ever need.

HATO forces didn't even want to go into Kosovo till the Serbs signed a surrender... how powerful do you think the yanks are on their own when they wont go into Kosovo with ground forces with allies. (not that I blame them of course...)

I also think you might be over estimating the power of Chinese conventional military power....

China has 10 times the population of Russia and is expected to field 10 heavy carriers by the 2030s.

Ten missiles and those carriers and about 20,000 of those Chinese are on the sea floor... numbers don't equate directly to military power... I doubt China has any use for 10 aircraft carriers in the 2030s anyway.

US population is projected to be 500 million by the 2030s and expected to field 10 heavy carriers by then.

So by 2030 Russia needs to have made 10 Zircon missiles to sink 10 US carriers... I am pretty sure they can manage that...

No other country comes close to China and US by the 2030s. By the 2030s Russia won't have any heavy carrier but I think will have 2 LHDs which are currently under construction.

Helicopter carriers are no use without air support from a fixed wing carrier. The construction of two helicopter carriers to replace the first two Mistrals requires the future development of CVNs to protect them in operation. As long as they are not dogs two more helicopter carriers will be laid down... two will be based in the Northern Fleet and two in the Pacific Fleet... and likely 2-3 CVNs will be built later on which together with upgraded Kuznetsov will be two fixed wing carriers for the Northern and Pacific fleets too.

The question is, are we at another disruptive stage now. The trends that are converging to cause this are a) Drones b) hypersonics and c) unmanned ships. These 3 may combine to completely obsolete the entire global fleet.

Hypersonic drones would need large ships to operate from... with flat open decks and under deck storage or hangars, and they will need slower fighter drones to protect the ships it operates with... lets call it an aircraft carrier shall we?

Trying to make it too small just makes it useless... like a two man tank from early WWII... two men overloaded with too many jobs.

Of course with remote Armatas perhaps with a two man crew it might come full circle but with auto loading there is a gunner and a loader and a driver and a commander with computer and robotic automation support.

It won't make sense to build Hypersonic drones. You would build drones that can launch hypersonic missiles. For a drone that can carry 2 hypersonic ASMs you can probably operate 10-30 of these from the new Amphibous ships they are building.

Isos wrote:

A British task force going to Hong Kong is going to be well within reach of land based air power from Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland... how would the UK destroy China exactly?

Well he says carriers are better than ground aviation and a must have to be powerfull. UK has two of them armed with f-35. China has a K with j-15 prototypes. UK should be able to control China and chinese sea roads.

They should also go and destroy russians in the arctic. Russia is not a great power since it lacks carriers.

It's opinion. Not mine.

Carries are not much good for WWIII, but if you want to operate surface ships in international waters they will be much much safer with the air support provided by a fixed wing carrier.

And I agree with that. But if you think one or two russian carriers will protect their interest in case nato attack them you are wrong.

They are good against less powerfull enemies.

Also, your remark about VTOL's, tell me is Russia building any? You also know the two Helio carriers they are making would only be able to house less than 10.

There were news about a project.

a land based aviation of a country with a decent military is almost always better than a carrier based aviation.
Russia in the artic is redeveloping its own aviation bases.

They grant much more options (in a fixed area) than a carrier. Their only limitation is that they cannot be moved.

Carriers are not only good for bombing third world countries and totally useless against a near peer. They are also useful to defend an area or protect an ally.
A carrier is not the only mean, by the offer more flexibility than just a couple of destroyers or cruisers (in case you cannot deploy there land based aviation).

A few years ago (before Russian direct intervention in Syria) Russia used the s300 in the Moskva cruiser to intercept some missiles against Syria.

Maybe a carrier there (or outside Lybian coasts in 2011) could have hampered the foreign intervention without even needing to shot anyone.

Of course this does not mean that Russia should use them to become another world policeman, just to defend its own interests and protect its trade.

By the way, if I had a carrier and I had to bomb some terrorists or other rogue states, I would try to do as Russia did in Syria, if I had access to a land based airfield protected from strikes and terror attack. That is I would offload most of the aircrafts involved in bombing or land strikes to the land based airfield and I would keep in the carrier only the activities related to air superiority operations, Awacs l, antisub operations and eventually also some antiship missiles (even if the frigates and destroyers in the carrier escort would have anyway good antiship missiles).

Just to make an example, if I had to actively support the Libyan national army against the turkish backed GNA, and I had support of the neighbouring states, I would deploy them (as an example mig 29k and su25) either in Sidi barrani (west part of Egypt) or in Tunisia. Alternatively, Tobruk could also be a good choice.
Here I do not mean that Russia should intervene directly in Lybia, it is just an example.

 I mean 2030 and 2050 strategic development roadmaps? What do you think of them, are they lying, they cannot count or what is your take?

that's what they think they want, but it's subject to changing circumstances. They wanted Ulyanovsk class CVNs & later An-70s too.

But oddly you seem to think that the fleet can be defended vs. a CVN air wing with UAVs and helos, single units of them per hull BTW.

the fleet can have fewer (but better armed) surface ships to be targeted & more subs for both defense & offence; no need for a CVN to launch helos & UAVs- I even suggested a few times before that, besides the LHA, NP icebreakers they now have can be armed & used to tow ships/barges with flight decks & hangars to carry dozens of them. Their AD can deal with enemy fighters & UAVs just as effectively as Su-33/57s. A few STOVLs would be enough to ID a threat before shooting it down.

Also, why do you think a LHA is a great idea and a carrier is not? I mean, a LHA is a tool for amphibious operations but people here keep confusing them with "no bullshit" carriers, when they don't even have the speed to keep up with the rest of the fleet at sea. 

they'll build them anyway, so why not use them as mini-carriers? their speed isn't that important- going a few knots slower &/ sending them ahead of time will keep the group together & under aircover at anytime.

Oh boy the GDP... I will not even start the comparison between Spain and the RF in terms of military potential, should I?

now compare the RF & PRC mil. potentials: the 1st conv. forces  r being gradually revitalized while the 2nd now has a strategic PLAAF & blue water PLAN that didn't exist just 10 years ago. Will Russian economy be able to support building & operating 4 CBGs?

They never had a complete blue fleet navy, their plans were scraped with the fall of the USSR. And today's VMF is just a shy attempt of rebuilding a decent navy, they don't even have frigates...

the blue water navy they did have was enough- the Soviet VMF became "oceanic", as they called it, in 1985, if not earlier; with overseas bases, less ships r needed for sustained presence, & 
they do have complete "white water" navy in the Arctic. 

No, those can be shot down trivially once an enemy fleet is in place and cannot defend themselves in the way to the deployment, plus have no way of actually reaching that far with any combat potential or sustain operations there.

the enemy fleet will need time to to reach the area which won't be too far from Russian bases with ships & planes already there. The USN has only forward deployed surface & SSN units in Japan, Guam, Spain & Bahrain (minesweepers).  

Don't you understand that without a serious navy you cannot ensure the safety and operability of those bases?? Don't you see that the navy is the basis of the US network of bases?

the small ships at those bases will be as serious, thanks to their armaments- recall CM strikes from the land locked Caspian on targets in Syria. In the E. Med. & Red Seas, while in port or off the coast, they can hit Bahrain or UAE & close those seas for enemy warships; do I need to what they could do from Cuba & Venezuela? There'll also be AD & AF units to defend those bases & the nations that host them.

In comparison Russian carrier groups will be for defending Russia and will likely be based in the Northern and Pacific Fleets essentially operating in the arctic ocean countering US ABM cruisers trying to intercept Russian ICBMs... 

their current assets r enough for that, CVNs r not needed. If they were, there would be plans to build CVN-icebreaker hybrids to save $.

Rodion_Romanovic wrote:Carriers are not only good for bombing third world countries and totally useless against a near peer.  They are also useful to defend an area or protect an ally.
A carrier is not the only mean, by the offer more flexibility than just a couple of destroyers or cruisers (in case you cannot deploy there land based aviation).

Even if you have a base on a remote country, if you cannot resupply it under a naval blockade it is rather a vulnerability for your enemies to exploit than an asset. Hardly surprising that Russia has no bases far from their territory, and that the only ones they have at all can be protected by assets based in Russia. There are no coincidences here.

Maybe a carrier there (or outside Lybian coasts in 2011) could have hampered the foreign intervention without even needing to shot anyone.

Maybe not the clearest situation to deploy a carrier, which is best used in open ocean and where you have no other chance to intervene, but already in an interesting grey zone. In the future I would see even UDKs doing such missions, since anyone attacking them would have good chances of receiving a visit from the long range aviation...

Tsavo Lion wrote:that's what they think they want, but it's subject to changing circumstances. They wanted Ulyanovsk class CVNs & later An-70s too.

The circumstances have changed so massively that they wrote those documents five and three years as long term roadmaps and they are already old? Good that you know better than them.

BTW, nothing in regards of the carriers has changed. They are developing the blue water navy progressively as it should be done and they have said and keep saying they will get carriers. The Ulyanovsk was not cancelled due to military or doctrinal issues but due to the disintegration of the USSR so the idea is pretty old and has changed quite little in all this time. Carriers are needed because without airpower a fleet far from your own territory is toast, that's it.

As to the rest of your post... sorry but there is such a disconnect between reality and what you say that all I can recommend is you to read a lot of doctrine, real naval doctrine, and think for a while why do navies do what they do instead of essentially assuming they are all a bunch of backward people that will sooner or later will have to follow your visionary approaches. Almost none of the options you propose make much sense and are the military equivalent of playing chess thinking you can eat up the entire board by just moving one pawn smartly enough.

IMO future carriers are fairly small drone carriers, pretty much the size of current Russian LHDs under construction.

they may change later, & with them, priorities may change as well. Many mil. programs were reduced or cancelled all over the world. Even in the US with their $ printing press, the CVN Enterprise & Seawolf SSNs classes stopped at 1 & 3 units respectively, not to mention a lot less B-2s & F-22s than originally planned. Their CGNs were also decommissioned long before their true due dates.

BTW, nothing in regards of the carriers has changed. They are developing the blue water navy progressively as it should be done and they have said and keep saying they will get carriers. 

talk is cheap; their blue water navy won't be & doesn't need to be on the same scale as the PLAN & USN to be able to deal with any blockade of their overseas bases. They can send a few non-nuke Poseidons & explode 1 as warning- if the enemy fleet isn't impressed, explode a few under it before sending Tu-22M3/95/142s to finish them off & take pics of what's left of it. 

assuming they are all a bunch of backward people that will sooner or later will have to follow your visionary approaches.

wrong: I don't assume anything of that sort, so pl. don't assume anything about what my possible assumptions.

Almost none of the options you propose make much sense

then, some of them do make sense, according to u- pl. specify which of them r not bad. Thanks in advance!

SeigSoloyvov wrote:

Isos wrote:

SeigSoloyvov wrote:It amazes me....people do not seem to understand planes are not nuclear powered....and that land-based fighter cannot follow ships out into the blue waters.

You would think a simple fact like that would be common sense but guess not.

In war time you need to destroy ships, not to follow them. The best way is aviation with space based detection tools.

With new missiles like Zirkon (1000+km range), Kinzhal (2500+km range) and all the new ones like kalibr with 4000km range and new aircrafts like su-57 (1500km range) or pak da or tu-22M3M and their huge ranges you can cover pretty much all the oceans from few airbases around the world.

A carrier to be effective need to come at 1000km from its target and few tens of guided bombs to destroy just one airport effectively while it can be put out of action with just one hit.

The more you talk the more it's clear you don't know shit and it's clear you don't know the first thing about something called DISTANCE

Kinzhal is STATED to have a range of 2000Km not 2500, that about 1.2MI. Assuming that is the truthful number and isn't a lie. I will show you a picture using google how far that is.

The lower missiles fly btw the more fuel they need to burn so the lower a missile flyes to attempt to evade detection the lower its max range is and missiles become inaccurate when they have close to no fuel. Only under the best conditions will a missile be able to uses its max range

Kaliber's are only supersonic Modern US navy defenses can deal with those and those submarines are dead meat if there are no surface ships to protect them.

This image alone shows you don't know wtf you are talking about.

If the enemy ship are approaching russiam coast that is more than enough.  I

Russia never said it should bomb the US West coast. For that IRBMs (even conventionally armed) placed in Kamchatka are probably a better option
In addition you forgot to include the range of the carrier of the missile. The mig 31 has a combat range of about 1500 km but it could be extended with drop tanks and aerial refueling, and the tu22m3 has a combat range of about 2400 Km with typical weapon loads (and the recently upgraded ones have also the possibility for aerial refueling, thus further extending the range)

Anyway the image you posted doesn't show anything. The enemy aircraft carrier needs to approach Russian coast if its airplane want to be in range. However before those carriers based F18, f35, etc will be in range, the aircraft carrier itself will be in range of Russian antiship missiles. That is not rocket science...(well maybe designing the missile is