Future Russian Aircraft Carriers and Deck Aviation. #2

Tsavo Lion wrote:Compared with Indian & Chinese exports, the Russian non-arms/mil. /nuclear energy related exports that r mostly oil, gas, raw materials & agricultural, r that of the 3rd World. Now Russia is also a transit point between W. Europe & Asia.
Not much changed since the time when the Kievan Rus' rivers were used for trade between Scandinavia, Byzantium & Persia.

So Canada , Australia and Norway are 3rd world countries. Yeah.

@LFMS

Yeah a 76k ton version of the Kryov catermeran style would be the ticket. It says that a Yasen class nuclear powerplant could be used with a turbine engine as well.

SeigSoloyvov wrote:

Backman wrote:

Tsavo Lion wrote:Compared with Indian & Chinese exports, the Russian non-arms/mil. /nuclear energy related exports that r mostly oil, gas, raw materials & agricultural, r that of the 3rd World. Now Russia is also a transit point between W. Europe & Asia.
Not much changed since the time when the Kievan Rus' rivers were used for trade between Scandinavia, Byzantium & Persia.

So Canada , Australia and Norway are 3rd world countries. Yeah.

Amusing ain't it, but this is the level of "intelligence" you can expect from a guy who thinks building a CVN without propulsion is a good idea

Canada , Australia and Norway don't have 20M below poverty line among their populations, even if put together.
A NP icebreaker could provide propulsion to any ship/barge; even if its reactors can't handle warm water, a special refrigeration unit could be used to cool it before supplying it to reactors.
But I doubt they'll need CVNs that bad & ASAP to do any of it.

But compared to others, the Russian economy is 11th, below Canada & above SK, with Mexico 15th. Also, 1 EUR=89.1591 RUB, while 1 EUR=32.9661 UAH; so the Ruble is almost 3x cheaper than Hryvna.
https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/russia/ukraine

OTH, RF compared to PRC is even more contrasting than RF compared to Ukraine:
https://www.csis.org/analysis/china-and-russia-economic-unequals

https://statisticstimes.com/economy/projected-world-gdp-ranking.php

Tsavo Lion wrote:But compared to others, the Russian economy is 11th, below Canada & above SK, with Mexico 15th. Also, 1 EUR=89.1591 RUB, while 1 EUR=32.9661 UAH; so the Ruble is almost 3x cheaper than Hryvna.
https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/russia/ukraine

OTH, RF compared to PRC is even more contrasting than RF compared to Ukraine:
https://www.csis.org/analysis/china-and-russia-economic-unequals

https://statisticstimes.com/economy/projected-world-gdp-ranking.php

Bah. You are using Nominal GDP. Even the CIA and the World Bank know better than to use that as a main metric.
If you use GDP in PPP then Russia is 5th, below Germany, and above the United Kingdom and France.

The Japanese Yen is also worthless. Would you rather live in Japan or Ukraine?

lyle6 wrote:Ukraine has virtually all of its population behind Russia's poverty line. That should make them super duper third world then.

Ukraine has virtually all of its population behind Albanias poverty line.

LMFS wrote:

Backman wrote:Is there an article or pic about the carrier you are talking about ?

The information about this proposal has been confusing to say the least. This is from Flotprom:

The premiere of the" medium " aircraft carrier with a displacement of 76 thousand tons was postponed to the mvms-2019
June 28, 2019 at 19: 27 Subject: IMMS, Industry

The concept design of the third aircraft carrier in the line of the Krylov state scientific center is planned to be presented to the General public at the international naval salon IMDS-2019 in St. Petersburg. The premiere was announced in an exclusive interview with Mil.Press FlotProm head of KSCI Pavel Filippov.

The creation of the concept of a "medium" aircraft carrier with a displacement of 76 thousand tons was announced during the Army-2019 forum. The ship itself has not yet been presented.

At the stand of the Krylov center, they showed the only model of an aircraft carrier with a total displacement of 44 thousand tons. The ship received the code "Storm-KM". It was first presented during the Army-2018 forum.

As the head of the KGNC Pavel Filippov told the publication, the" medium "aircraft carrier occupies an intermediate position between the" heavy "multi – purpose" Storm "of the 23000e project (displacement-95-100 thousand tons) and the multi – purpose aircraft carrier" Storm-KM " (displacement-44 thousand tons). It is planned to be equipped with a combined power plant: the main power plant will be a nuclear power plant, similar to the power plant of the project 855 Yasen submarine, and the afterburner will be a gas turbine based on the M90 engine.

The designers also reported Mil.Press FlotProm reports that the "medium" aircraft carrier model has already passed a number of tests in the Krylov center basin.
Background of the issue

On the r these developments now?

I will clarify: technical and detailed design is the lot of design bureaus. The purpose of science, led by the Krylov Center, is the creation of concept projects and ideas. We say: this is how today's science sees the ship of the future.

We offered the aircraft carrier in two versions. The light aircraft carrier, which we demonstrated at Army-2018, was highly controversial.

Some even wrote that the Krylov Center does not own the theory of shipbuilding. But at the same time, no one noticed that with a limited displacement, this ship possesses the main weapon of an aircraft carrier: a balanced air wing.

It includes almost all types of aircraft. How is this achieved? First of all, due to the rejection of the traditional shape of the hull, which made it possible to increase the deck area, to solve the problems of aircraft placement. Secondly, this project has resolved the issues of hydrodynamics. According to model tests, we are not talking about a 1.5-2% reduction in resistance to movement, which lies within the margin of error, but in principle, up to 20%. That is, we could have a greater power reserve with equal power and speed.

https://flotprom.ru/2019/КрыловскийЦентр1/

Another source:

https://tass.ru/interviews/6584440

The LMA Kryov carrier is also meant to be an export item. When you look at it that way, it makes sense. Maybe they could build a nuclear version for Russia. There would have to be a study on what the feasibility of an export carrier is. Maybe countries like Turkey or Brazil would jump on it.

I think they were just trying to offer other options to the VMF mainly. The new hull is pretty advanced and would allow a smaller power to have a carrier with many of the capabilities of a CVN. But as they explain, their work is not to design final ships, just to point possible development paths. When you have a 20% advantage in propulsive performance and 30% in air wing capacity, I don't think it takes a genius to figure out that is an awesome breakthrough...

Anyway, our very own Navalny is dragging this thread off topic.

To get back on topic , if anyone has any more info on this medium 76k ton carrier from Krylov then post it. There isn't much out there on it.

This is a pic of the 40,000 ton version. The bigger one would be similar. The deck looks roomy

lyle6 wrote:Also why is exporting natural resources something that nations should be shamed for?

it's not about being ashamed; manufactured goods cost more to buy & that's how the Brits & Dutch got rich, plundering their colonies & selling them finished goods. That's why Stalin started industrialization & Putin import substitution.

Its not the Russians fault they were so damn good at conquering that they ended up with the biggest piece of real estate on the planet. Blame your shit ancestors for not conquering a bigger slice.

There r Eastern Slavs/Scandinavians, Jews & Italians among them; the last 3 conquered, explored & settled most of the lands worth living on. Now I can say that I conquered the US, as my veteran's benefits cover all my expenses & I don't have to work for any1 or anything to make a living.
DON'T BOTHER TO REPLY.

This is a pic of the 40,000 ton version. The bigger one would be similar. The deck looks roomy

Such a large deck would be useful... most of the time most aircraft sit on the deck... deck lifts are relatively slow and having all your aircraft in the hangar means very little room for things like maintenance, so most of the time, especially during operations or exercises, most aircraft will be on deck ready.

Loading weapons occurs on the deck for obvious safety reasons too.

it's not about being ashamed; manufactured goods cost more to buy & that's how the Brits & Dutch got rich, plundering their colonies & selling them finished goods. That's why Stalin started industrialization & Putin import substitution.

The Brits and Dutch also had to invade and murder and rape and steal to get those colonies and keep them... Japan started the war in the Pacific during WWII because all the ability to make stuff means nothing without the energy and raw materials you need to make things.

Russia has both... the ability to make stuff and the raw materials and energy to do so.

Russia has both... the ability to make stuff and the raw materials and energy to do so.

But she doesn't have the legal & political systems to avoid rule by decrees that may or may not be carried out. Free market society is still a distant dream there.
Moreover, she been catching up with the West in technology & know- how ever since Peter I learned shipbuilding in Holland, if not before.
The minimum income there must be at least 25-27K rubles.; 1/2 of the population gets less than that, so actually ~72.5M of Russians r now below the poverty line.

Backman wrote:This is a pic of the 40,000 ton version. The bigger one would be similar. The deck looks roomy

Exactly, the ratio deck surface / displacement or air wing / displacement is unmatched on those designs, because of the very much increased width of the hull:





For the 44 kT Storm-KM:

"The project is distinguished by the underwater part of a semi-catamaran form. Catamaran actually means two hulls united by a platform. It has a wide deck which is important for an aircraft carrier. The design adds flight deck space on which the number of aircraft depends. As a result, a medium-displacement ship can carry a full-fledged air wing," he said.

Such a design has never been used for aircraft carriers. "The zest of the carrier is below the waterline," the representative said.

https://www.navyrecognition.com/index.php/news/defence-news/2018/september-2018-navy-naval-defense-news/6509-russia-s-krylov-light-aircraft-carrier-project-features-semi-catamaran-hull-design.html

They could probably fit some light hangers on the tower side to park some aircraft under a roof

lyle6 wrote:Also why is exporting natural resources something that nations should be shamed for? Its not the Russians fault they were so damn good at conquering that they ended up with the biggest piece of real estate on the planet. Blame your shit ancestors for not conquering a bigger slice.

The territory into which old Muscovy expanded was mostly uninhabited wilderness, and such inhabitation that existed was indiginous peoples ekking out a living by hunting and fishing. They didn't need to make war on their neighbours like Europeans or exterminate the natives like the Americans did. Sure, they inevitably bumped up against China and Japan, but unlike in the US, the Russians didn't cut a bloody swathe across the continent looting, stealing & killing to get what they wanted (even if some professional Russophobes regularly try to trot out their BS narratives to the contrary).

But she doesn't have the legal & political systems to avoid rule by decrees that may or may not be carried out.

The legal and political systems in Russia seem rather more balanced and stable and non political than US or EU legal systems... ask Maria Butina or Julian Assange...

Free market society is still a distant dream there.

The US pressure and sanctions on North Stream II shows free market doesn't exist anywhere... the west is more protectionist and anti free market and pro monopoly than any other country or political groupings of countries on the planet.

Moreover, she been catching up with the West in technology & know- how ever since Peter I learned shipbuilding in Holland, if not before.

Many of the areas they are behind in are not worth catching up on and many problems are being created because of trying to follow the western consumerism bullshit that might still ruin this planet.

The minimum income there must be at least 25-27K rubles.; 1/2 of the population gets less than that , so actually ~72.5M of Russians r now below the poverty line.

And yet they have jobs and healthcare and education... is the 73 million poor people like the 100 billion people stalin killed?

Made up.

Exactly, the ratio deck surface / displacement or air wing / displacement is unmatched on those designs, because of the very much increased width of the hull:

Hooray... on topic.

I think this design is clever because it combines a multihull to reduce drag which is the biggest penalty of a wide hull, but a wide hull is desirable for a wide deck surface and a large internal hangar space.

Very clever... I wonder if it could be scalable... perhaps a 60K ton ship with an even bigger deck and bigger hangars and more space for aircraft and fuel and weapons etc and drones and helos etc etc.

The Russian Navy wants something with more capacity than the Kuznetsov, and with a much wider hull and even half a dozen EMALS cats... four for full sized aircraft and perhaps two for drones... and of course naval Su-57s and some sort of upgraded Yak-44 with new engines and new radars that improve performance...

"The project is distinguished by the underwater part of a semi-catamaran form. Catamaran actually means two hulls united by a platform. It has a wide deck which is important for an aircraft carrier. The design adds flight deck space on which the number of aircraft depends. As a result, a medium-displacement ship can carry a full-fledged air wing," he said.

Such a design has never been used for aircraft carriers. "The zest of the carrier is below the waterline," the representative said.

With a conventional design such a wide vessel would only be capable of 16 knots or worse, or would need about 12 nuclear power plants to run it which would make it much much heavier and fill in a lot of space.

By making it a cat and perhaps allowing it to rise out of the water under way it should be capable of very good speeds using smaller propulsion systems...

An all electric drive with pod mounted electric motors would be interesting if they had vertical movement to allow trim angles to lift the boat out of the water and allow it to skim in a low drag speed boat type mode...

It would make air operations easier with operating at higher speeds into the wind for take offs and safer recoveries.

GarryB wrote:Hooray... on topic.

Sorry for deviating the discussion  

I think this design is clever because it combines a multihull to reduce drag which is the biggest penalty of a wide hull, but a wide hull is desirable for a wide deck surface and a large internal hangar space.

The Storm-KM has a flight deck just little smaller than a US CVN. It is a breakthrough and highly significant not only in terms of number of aircraft on board but also in regards of staging / sortie generation capabilities.

Very clever... I wonder if it could be scalable... perhaps a 60K ton ship with an even bigger deck and bigger hangars and more space for aircraft and fuel and weapons etc and drones and helos etc etc.

That was precisely the size under discussion in the news from 2019 I linked above. With that layout such carrier would not fall behind a supercarrier in terms of airwing by a big margin, but with much smaller displacement, building effort, propulsive needs and therefore probably cost too. The issue is the risk of the design, I am pretty sure that can be seen as too advanced / untested for such a big and crucial project. Maybe they should start building some smaller demonstrators to learn a bit about the new layout in practice.

Scaling things up and down is not such a big deal, what really changes the qualitative advantages of some systems above others are the technologies and design decisions that alter the proportions between military value and size/cost. Exactly like this semicatamaran hull, where internal space increases, air wing gets reinforced, flight deck is way bigger, but displacement, cost and propulsion is lowered. The capability/cost relation changes massively and that is something no rational planer can let go

The Russian Navy wants something with more capacity than the Kuznetsov, and with a much wider hull and even half a dozen EMALS cats... four for full sized aircraft and perhaps two for drones... and of course naval Su-57s and some sort of upgraded Yak-44 with new engines and new radars that improve performance...

I think VMF is more inclined to your (mine too) position than to mini carriers and the like, so they will probably develop full blown solutions with complete air wing, other approach is simply not enough to stand their ground far from Russia and cannot be used at those times where military capability is actually needed. Having said that, high TWR fighters like Su-57 with 2nd stage engines and A2A loadout may not need cats at all, which is very good because wear and maintenance, lack of reliability, needed crewing, spares etc etc plus reduction of sortie rate are hardly something you want to be forced to use to operate your airwing. But AWACS / tankers / low TWR attack aircraft may indeed need those. In that case, having maybe a couple of them at the angled deck while the bow keeps the ramp for fighters would be a quite solid compromise.

With a conventional design such a wide vessel would only be capable of 16 knots or worse, or would need about 12 nuclear power plants to run it which would make it much much heavier and fill in a lot of space.

Exactly, displacement and drag would be monstrous. Krylov reported -20/30% propulsive needs, means less cost, volume, displacement, crew and crucially fuel, that can be used for other more useful purposes.

It would make air operations easier with operating at higher speeds into the wind for take offs and safer recoveries.

If it is capable of making 15-20 kt on nuclear power without range limits and 30 kt with the GT booster, then it is quite ok I guess, and the saved space can be used for aviation fuel, that is crucial for a carrier. I think they would not need 2 kT of bombs on board as US CVN, they would manage with a fraction of that and a composition of capable AAM and AShM, plus of course a better and deeper SAM storage.

Regarding the electric propulsion you mention... I am not sure pods are a need in this type of vessel, but indeed an all electric propulsion would be interesting coupled with NPP and the associated electrical conversion ancillaries would help implement catapults, radars, DEW and all increasingly electrical equipment onboard. Using the power conversion equipment developed for aircraft can be very advantageous too, since Russia is leading the way in using superconductivity to remove weight, volume and losses from those devices. For instance, the Yak-40 with superconductive engine or the new AC rectifier developed by MAI:

https://aviation21.ru/v-mai-razrabatyvayut-sverxprovodnikovyj-vypryamitel-peremennogo-toka/

The Storm-KM has a flight deck just little smaller than a US CVN. It is a breakthrough and highly significant not only in terms of number of aircraft on board but also in regards of staging / sortie generation capabilities.

There is risk involved but the potential pay off should be enormous... a lighter ship means cheaper more effective propulsion which means more space for aviation fuel and weapons and aircraft... and that is what an aircraft carrier is about... it is not about weight... they talk about weight because that means aircraft capacity and it is aircraft capacity that is what it is all about.

It is better to have the capacity and not need it than not have enough... they can have a 60K ton carrier with a smart cat design that is designed for 90 fighters and 6 AWACs sized fixed wing aircraft and 10 anti sub and support high speed helicopters, as well as a dozen drones for various purposes and never actually operate it with all those vehicles. Operationally it might go to sea with 24 fighter aircraft.... or perhaps 36... where 12 will be Su-57s and 24 are MiG-35s and later LMFS fighters, plus 10 helicopters because they are just useful, and maybe 3 AWACS aircraft and a few dozen drones to round it out... with full onboard aircraft fuel loads the smaller number of aircraft can be operated for two or three times as many flights and there will be plenty of room for all sorts of munitions, but most will be AAMs...

A lighter carrier operating with reduced aircraft loads should be rather cheaper to operate yet still effective when needed.

Maybe they should start building some smaller demonstrators to learn a bit about the new layout in practice.

I was hoping the new helicopter carriers would seem rather too light as that might suggest they were cat based designs but being 40K ton I suspect they have gone for a heavy more capable Mistral design... which is safe and should result in a good ship.

As I keep saying they don't need enormous numbers of CVN fixed wing carriers... together with the Kuz two should be enough most of the time because I doubt they would have an operational fleet big enough for more than two independent carrier groups and I rather suspect they will add extra ships and subs to such groupings to make them more powerful anyway... as opposed to having more separate groups.

I think VMF is more inclined to your (mine too) position than to mini carriers and the like, so they will probably develop full blown solutions with complete air wing, other approach is simply not enough to stand their ground far from Russia and cannot be used at those times where military capability is actually needed.

It is not just Soviet/Russian experience with small carriers.... the French and UK are not buying mini carriers... the French have the CdG which is about 40K ton and everyone claims would be good for Russia but the replacement is planned to be 75K ton and nuclear powered and with cats, and the British carriers are bigger than 40K ton too and neither France nor the UK can afford to piss away money either... no one can except the US and even that might change simply because everything they make is too expensive even for their pockets.

Having said that, high TWR fighters like Su-57 with 2nd stage engines and A2A loadout may not need cats at all, which is very good because wear and maintenance, lack of reliability, needed crewing, spares etc etc plus reduction of sortie rate are hardly something you want to be forced to use to operate your airwing. But AWACS / tankers / low TWR attack aircraft may indeed need those. In that case, having maybe a couple of them at the angled deck while the bow keeps the ramp for fighters would be a quite solid compromise.

They would be useful just for safety to ensure safe operations of aircraft at any weight... certainly Su-57s with full fuel and an air to air payload should be able to operate from a ski jump without cat assistance, and any MiG-35 or LMFS should be able to manage the same... it should only be tankers and AWACS aircraft that should require cats, but I think drones would benefit from their own cats too... design the drones to be very strong to allow high g acceleration takeoffs and their cats could be relatively short and compact and yet get quite heavy drones airborne efficiently too.

I think technology in terms of electric propulsion and electric motors and super magnets and superconductor materials and EM technology is well worth developing and progressing and putting real money into because it is not just useful in land and sea and air and sub sea and space vehicles... the coaxial main rotor of a Kamov helicopter makes it excellent for use on ships because with no swinging tail rotor it is much safer... but with electric drives controlling each rotor there is no need for the 5 ton gearbox the Helix needs to transmit the power to the two sets of main rotors... you get the huge boost in lift... all the engine power goes to lifting and flying the aircraft instead of just keeping the nose pointed where you want it, without the weight issues...

Exactly, displacement and drag would be monstrous. Krylov reported -20/30% propulsive needs, means less cost, volume, displacement, crew and crucially fuel, that can be used for other more useful purposes.

For a nuclear powered vessel it means fewer plants that take up less room on the ship freeing up space for other things... using azipods would also make it very manouverable and able to handle itself without support, and as I said an innovation could be to add trim angle to the pods to allow planing at speed which should further improve performance.

If it is capable of making 15-20 kt on nuclear power without range limits and 30 kt with the GT booster, then it is quite ok I guess, and the saved space can be used for aviation fuel, that is crucial for a carrier. I think they would not need 2 kT of bombs on board as US CVN, they would manage with a fraction of that and a composition of capable AAM and AShM, plus of course a better and deeper SAM storage.

I agree, but I think nuke power should allow them excess electrical power, so GT would be limited to emergency electricity generation... it could be designed to operate using the same fuel the aircraft use so you don't need multiple different types of fuels on board... the propulsion system could be nuclear electric, with Azi pods for propulsion.

Agree regarding ordinance... in situations with landing forces perhaps the LMFS might be unified with the PAK light fighter and PAK light CAS replacement for the Su-25, or if they are separate aircraft they could make a naval carrier based version of the latter that could be operated on big CVNs for landing operations with the helicopter carriers carrying helicopters and drones.

I am not sure pods are a need in this type of vessel,

They would be useful and would also allow the carrier to maintain station efficiently with the main runway pointing into the wind in absence of tugs for air operations even if the wind direction moves a bit.

The pods are also compact and don't take up the room or have the enormous weight of the drive shafts and enormous propellers normally used and of course the reduction gear and gearbox is in the pods which means you can place the nuclear reactors anywhere in the ship.... they don't need to be physically attached to the transmission which has the drive shafts coming out of it.

The centre of a ship is often a target for many types of weapons... having your NPPs separated and properly spaced limits the chance of one instance of battle damage taking down the entire power generation potential of the ship.

The gas turbine auxiliary emergency power source could be in the top of the island itself...

but indeed an all electric propulsion would be interesting coupled with NPP and the associated electrical conversion ancillaries would help implement catapults, radars, DEW and all increasingly electrical equipment onboard. Using the power conversion equipment developed for aircraft can be very advantageous too, since Russia is leading the way in using superconductivity to remove weight, volume and losses from those devices. For instance, the Yak-40 with superconductive engine or the new AC rectifier developed by MAI:

They have time to further develop these technologies and use them in a system where they would actually make a real difference and improve performance.

I would think a high speed helicopter with electric motors and coaxial rotor design would hugely benefit from new all electric technology...

GarryB wrote:There is risk involved but the potential pay off should be enormous... a lighter ship means cheaper more effective propulsion which means more space for aviation  fuel and weapons and aircraft... and that is what an aircraft carrier is about... it is not about weight... they talk about weight because that means aircraft capacity and it is aircraft capacity that is what it is all about.

Yes, exactly.

they can have a 60K ton carrier with a smart cat design that is designed for 90 fighters

90 fighters is almost twice as much as the air wing of a US CVN... 2-3 squadrons would be more than enough, specially if the planes are Su-57.

I was hoping the new helicopter carriers would seem rather too light as that might suggest they were cat based designs but being 40K ton I suspect they have gone for a heavy more capable Mistral design... which is safe and should result in a good ship.

I was hoping for a more advanced design too, but it seems they really are in a hurry and just looked for the industrial capabilities (Zaliv) to get a basic project done, there was some talk about potential newer revisions of the project in the future. I am not so happy about AK Bars doing this on their own, but we will see what is the result.

It is not just Soviet/Russian experience with small carriers.... the French and UK are not buying mini carriers... the French have the CdG which is about 40K ton and everyone claims would be good for Russia but the replacement is planned to be 75K ton and nuclear powered and with cats, and the British carriers are bigger than 40K ton too and neither France nor the UK can afford to piss away money either... no one can except the US and even that might change simply because everything they make is too expensive even for their pockets.

Same old shit of always, do what I say but not what I do... they can GTFO

but I think drones would benefit from their own cats too... design the drones to be very strong to allow high g acceleration takeoffs and their cats could be relatively short and compact and yet get quite heavy drones airborne efficiently too.

I would use the same cats, why not? A long range naval U(C)AV is going to be scarce, big and heavy as any other manned plane. They can use the same existing equipment and avoid complicating even more things onboard. They will have, many of them, big wings and lots of fuel, they win nothing by making them very tolerant to overloading, because they will not use that in flight. I am thinking a Helios RLD for instance, those things have 30 m wingspan, folding wings that size cannot be very strong but will have very low min take off speeds, they can use the normal cats with a low force setting for prolongued, moderate acceleration.

I think technology in terms of electric propulsion and electric motors and super magnets and superconductor materials and EM technology is well worth developing and progressing and putting real money into because it is not just useful in land and sea and air and sub sea and space vehicles... the coaxial main rotor of a Kamov helicopter makes it excellent for use on ships because with no swinging tail rotor it is much safer... but with electric drives controlling each rotor there is no need for the 5 ton gearbox the Helix needs to transmit the power to the two sets of main rotors... you get the huge boost in lift... all the engine power goes to lifting and flying the aircraft instead of just keeping the nose pointed where you want it, without the weight issues...

It is still too soon for that, passing all that power from the turbine to electricity back to motion, being the engine so close to the rotor and the gearbox so efficient makes not much sense, but it may in the future. I would imagine the tail propeller on a high speed helo could be a better application as a first step.

For a nuclear powered vessel it means fewer plants that take up less room on the ship freeing up space for other things... using azipods would also make it very manouverable and able to handle itself without support, and as I said an innovation could be to add trim angle to the pods to allow planing at speed which should further improve performance.

I think azipods are delicate, cannot be protected and of marginal use on a carrier. But I may be wrong.

I agree, but I think nuke power should allow them excess electrical power, so GT would be limited to emergency electricity generation... it could be designed to operate using the same fuel the aircraft use so you don't need multiple different types of fuels on board... the propulsion system could be nuclear electric, with Azi pods for propulsion.

The problem of full nuclear propulsion is the overdimensioning needed to get the propulsion for full speed that is never going to be used normally, hence the proposal by Krylov of the combined layout.

Agree regarding ordinance... in situations with landing forces perhaps the LMFS might be unified with the PAK light fighter and PAK light CAS replacement for the Su-25, or if they are separate aircraft they could make a naval carrier based version of the latter that could be operated on big CVNs for landing operations with the helicopter carriers carrying helicopters and drones.

Yeah who knows, they have several options by now. The new light fighter could be naval, too. They have the plans for the STOVL, which could operate from the UDKs too. And then, the high speed helo concepts as the jet propelled one from Kamov. I would tend to maximum simplicity. CVN with 3x sqd Su-57K and that's it, the plane should be able to do any mission required. Then, choice between the Kamov or the STOVL for the UDKs. My own proposal was an unmanned LMFS STOVL version based on the advantages we already discussed, but the likelihood that happens that way is very low, given the complexity of the industrial and military issues involved. I would try to have as few different types as possible, that is clear.

The pods are also compact and don't take up the room or have the enormous weight of the drive shafts and enormous propellers normally used and of course the reduction gear and gearbox is in the pods which means you can place the nuclear reactors anywhere in the ship.... they don't need to be physically attached to the transmission which has the drive shafts coming out of it.

That is why I think the electric propulsion can make sense, because shafts can be much shorter and weight can be distributed better. And you will need big generation capacities regardless, maybe with the NPP and GT you can save some additional generating equipment.

90 fighters is almost twice as much as the air wing of a US CVN... 2-3 squadrons would be more than enough, specially if the planes are Su-57.

How many are enough... the US does not care because if they need more they can always send two or three carrier groups.... Russia is not in the same position and should be looking at maximum number of aircraft per boat... as I said I am not suggesting they sail everywhere with 90 planes filled to the limit... that will almost never happen... it is better to have the extra capacity and not need it than not have the extra capacity and need it.

Certainly it might be 90 fighters with no helicopters or drones or some such thing... which of course means they would never actually have 90 fighters because helicopters are important and drones will likely be important too.

It could be that the 90 fighters includes S-70 drones that are stacked vertically with their engines pointing vertically down in the hangar area so you can squeese 20 in a very small space...

I would use the same cats, why not?

A Drone launching cat might exert enormous force and only need to be rather quite short like the old cat systems they had on destroyers that launched sea planes from ships that had no deck at all.... the planes landed in the water and were lifted back onto the ships with a crane...

A long range naval U(C)AV is going to be scarce, big and heavy as any other manned plane

You are not going to launch a lot of those and certainly not in large volumes, so most of the time the standard aircraft cats will be used maybe twice a day to launch AWACS platforms and tanker aircraft, for most fighter flights they wont need them at all.

Large heavy UAVs can be in the queue that the Tankers and AWACS sit and wait in... or really don't wait at all... but during war time with extra fuel and max air to air weapon payloads many of the fighters will need cat assistance... or should I say would benefit from the extra safety margin a cat assisted take off would give them... there wont be that many heavy drones you would want to launch, but they could join that queue too, while the drone launchers could launch specialist drones with jammers and chaff and IR jammers that could be coordinated by the ships EW system...

I would imagine the tail propeller on a high speed helo could be a better application as a first step.

Most of the high speed helicopter designs I have seen replace the tail rotor for a pusher set of blades with the main rotors being coaxials.

I think azipods are delicate, cannot be protected and of marginal use on a carrier. But I may be wrong.

Delicate... they use them on icebreakers... and protected from what? What protection do normal shafts and screws provide?

The problem of full nuclear propulsion is the overdimensioning needed to get the propulsion for full speed that is never going to be used normally, hence the proposal by Krylov of the combined layout.

But a design that uses if not a hydroplaning form at least uses trim to raise most of the mass of the ship out of the water to reduce power requirements should enable high speed without excessive power requirements... at least for propulsion...

The new light fighter could be naval, too.

It is being made by MiG and the MiG-35 is supposed to be naval as well. On the PAK FA/Su-57 thread is an RT doco on the Su-57 and they mention it was designed with the intention of making it a naval fighter too... so I suspect all their new aircraft will be naval capable... except obviously strategic bombers and MiG-41 and transports...

They have the plans for the STOVL, which could operate from the UDKs too.

They have already been down that path, and it leads to useless. A helicopter with perhaps 12 planes on it is bloody worthless in combat, but worse... it wont be cheap either.

They have CVs and plan for CVNs... there is no need to convert their helicopter carriers into useless bits of crap... they are much more useful carrying helicopter, naval infantry and their armour and hovercraft or other landing vessels to get them ashore. The other purpose might be hospital ship or helicopter/drone support ship, but putting fixed wing fighters on it is pointless.

Even with the US F-35 programme how many land based militaries have gone with VSTOL fighter option?

... I mean if it is so damn wonderful why do they need three different versions of the F-35?

If the VSTOL version of the F-35 can be as good as a normal fighter why is there a carrier based version designed to use cats?

It is pretty damn clear that even in that train wreck they know the VSTOL F-35 is only for countries that can't afford something better... a real fighter... or don't have Cat technology.

The point is that Russia will only be using cat technology for tankers or AWACS aircraft most of the time...

CVN with 3x sqd Su-57K and that's it, the plane should be able to do any mission required. Then, choice between the Kamov or the STOVL for the UDKs. My own proposal was an unmanned LMFS STOVL version based on the advantages we already discussed, but the likelihood that happens that way is very low, given the complexity of the industrial and military issues involved. I would try to have as few different types as possible, that is clear.

I would expect a high low mix at sea, with maybe two squadrons of Su-57s... say 24 aircraft, and five squadrons... two CTOL LMFS, and three being S-70s that can be launched on their own or operate with aircraft in support. The S-70s can be carried in big numbers because they could be designed to be stacked and held vertically till they need to be moved to the deck...

That is why I think the electric propulsion can make sense, because shafts can be much shorter and weight can be distributed better.

With electric propulsion you could get rid of shafts completely with geared electric motors in propulsion pods connected to a power supply grid network.

And you will need big generation capacities regardless, maybe with the NPP and GT you can save some additional generating equipment.

Having lots of relatively small generators makes sense... even hydrogen fuel cell generators using petroleum fuels for the hydrogen...

GarryB wrote:And yet they have jobs and healthcare and education... is the 73 million  poor people like the 100 billion people stalin killed?

most of those with jobs get paid less than they should, even if/when regularly; quality medical services, drugs & education r expensive & most can't afford them. Stalin didn't kill 100B/M people, "only" 10-20M, but he gave Mao an inspiration to kill ~70M of Chinese.
Reacting to the Forbes publication, the former first deputy commander-in-chief of the Russian Navy, Admiral Igor Kasatonov said that the lack of construction of new aircraft carriers in Russia is due to the fact that there is no need for this, and not because the country is unable to create such ships.
https://lenta.ru/news/2021/04/03/varan/

IMO, they could also navalize the old Su-24 which is similar in size & function with F-111/14; if successful, its future modernized multi-role variants with better performance could be produced instead of, or in addition to, Su-57s.

GarryB wrote:How many are enough...

I don't think it really matters that much how many CBG US brings, in the foreseeable future they could not operate longer ranged or more capable planes than Su-57K, and they would not be armed with better AShM. Conventional deterrence is based not in that eventually you would come on top after a terrible fight, but mainly in that you cannot ensure the safety of your forces. I don't think anyone in its right mind would expect F-35C + F/A-18E/F  armed with Harpoons or JASSM, in almost any realistic quantity, to overpower 3x sqd of Su-57 with hypersonic AShM and long range AAM. Exchange ratios would not look nice for USN, as far as VMF would have decent airspace control. That is the capability gap USN needs to address asap, it is not about those ludicrous scenarios the fancy depicting themselves in, facing land based Russian or Chinese forces that would wipe them out in a matter of minutes, but actual capability to compete with the naval forces of other rivals in the not so distant future, say from 2030 onwards.

Certainly it might be 90 fighters with no helicopters or drones or some such thing... which of course means they would never actually have 90 fighters because helicopters are important and drones will likely be important too.

You would need an impossibly big carrier for that amount of aircraft.

It could be that the 90 fighters includes S-70 drones that are stacked vertically with their engines pointing vertically down in the hangar area so you can squeese 20 in a very small space...

You say that because they don't have vertical tails? But how do you expect to handle planes like that? I mean, similar approaches could be used with manned planes already, why are thy not?

A Drone launching cat might exert enormous force and only need to be rather quite short like the old cat systems they had on destroyers that launched sea planes from ships that had no deck at all.... the planes landed in the water and were lifted back onto the ships with a crane...

The human on board does not place the main burden to the acceleration on a cat

You are not going to launch a lot of those and certainly not in large volumes, so most of the time the standard aircraft cats will be used maybe twice a day to launch AWACS platforms and tanker aircraft, for most fighter flights they wont need them at all.

Yes, exactly. So the wear of the cat HW would be a fraction of that on a US CVN, and the impact of its reliability on the operations much smaller.

Large heavy UAVs can be in the queue that the Tankers and AWACS sit and wait in... or really don't wait at all... but during war time with extra fuel and max air to air weapon payloads many of the fighters will need cat assistance... or should I say would benefit from the extra safety margin a cat assisted take off would give them... there wont be that many heavy drones you would want to launch, but they could join that queue too, while the drone launchers could launch specialist drones with jammers and chaff and IR jammers that could be coordinated by the ships EW system...

The numbers I did some time ago did not indicate that a plane like a Su-57 would probably need a cat for a launch from the sort TO runs. What would actually help more for the TO cycle would be to have further positions in what is now the staging area behind the two launching points at the bow. It is not really necessary to have the third position at twice the distance of the first two, there could be many more progressively further backwards, that would be the kind of modification we would need to see if they design now for higher operational tempo, which is indeed one of the important metrics of a carrier.

Most of the high speed helicopter designs I have seen replace the tail rotor for a pusher set of blades with the main rotors being coaxials.

Yes, that means a more complex gearbox and a shaft all along the tail of the helo hat could eventually be substituted with an electric motor directly at the rotor. And that would still be a strethc, by current level of technology...

Delicate... they use them on icebreakers... and protected from what? What protection do normal shafts and screws provide?

With the azipod the propulsion is outside of the hull, and it has a rotative mechanism attaching it to the hull which can be damaged or jammed. The engines and gearboxes in vessels with shafts is protected well inside the hull. Damaging the shaft is of course a concern, but they are extremely massive and strong. I don't have a totally formed opinion on what is better, but I do see some issues with the azipod, in terms of resistance against battle damage.

But a design that uses if not a hydroplaning form at least uses trim to raise most of the mass of the ship out of the water to reduce power requirements should enable high speed without excessive power requirements... at least for propulsion...

We are talking about 60-70 kT...

It is being made by MiG and the MiG-35 is supposed to be naval as well. On the PAK FA/Su-57 thread is an RT doco on the Su-57 and they mention it was designed with the intention  of making it a naval fighter too... so I suspect all their new aircraft will be naval capable... except obviously strategic bombers and MiG-41 and transports...

Yes I don't see any technical issue, just that making a naval plane in extremely small series is already expensive enough for wanting to make even another one. But we will see.

They have already been down that path, and it leads to useless. A helicopter with perhaps 12 planes on it is bloody worthless in combat, but worse... it wont be cheap either.

I don't  see the crucial need for it either, but they seemed keen on it, I wonder what is the reason. In any case an UDK where small STOVL fighters are available is more capable than if only helos are present. Say a big UDK with 24 helos or even more, if the displacement really reaches 40 kT, could carry relatively easily 6x STOVL planes if the mission calls for it, with improved A2A and deterring capability, and still have more than enough helos for the other missions. Not saying this alone is usable in high intensity conflicts, but most of the deployments are not of that type. I don't think it is a bad thing.