Future Russian Aircraft Carriers and Deck Aviation. #2

Backman wrote:

lancelot wrote:I can sort of guess what it will be.
AI assistance to the pilot, optionally manned aircraft, variable cycle engine, electric mechanical actuators, fly-by-light i.e. fiber optics connections.
GaN AESA radar perhaps.

None of that would require a new airframe like stealth did compared to 4th gens.

The newest thing to do is the all-moving verticals like the su 57 and J-20 already have. But the F-22 is showing its age and doesnt have it. when the US builds something with it they will call it a 6th gen

The EUpeons are attempting to develop 6th gen without even developing 5th gen lol! The whole generation fetishism is nothing more than asinine claptrap. A country like Russia with vast aerospace industrial experience, and pioneering stealth implementation (Petr Ufmitsev) is constantly attacked while countries with largely inferior aerospace industrial engineering capability in comparison (Japan, South Korea, Turkey) are either praised or never questioned. It's nothing more than politicized bullshit lacking substance such as empirical scientific merit.

the USN CV/Ns carried 4 of them in my time, with only max 2 ready or flying at any given time. I doubt there will be room for more than 4 fixed wing AWACSs on VMF CVNs.

With their new generation radars being mms thick and skin surface designs, they could put fixed arrays on the wing of a flying wing aircraft that could just be a flying fuel tank... the inflight refuelling planes and the AWACS aircraft could be the same aircraft... so four AWACS and four Tankers means 8 tankers and 8 AWACS aircraft... being the same aircraft... Transport planes are not so important to normal operations as AWACS and tanker aircraft so I wouldn't bother with a transport version.

They can be very creative going forward if they want...

The F-18E/F is a lot more capable than legacy C/D model, so it's not a failure. Both models were/r also good enough for many AFs- don't tell me the Swiss & Malaysians were forced to buy them too.

The Aussies bought them too, but then the Malaysians had a choice (unlike the Aussies or Swiss) and bought Hornets to replace their MiG-29s to keep favour with the US... having Su-30s and MiG-35s was never going to happen... even India didn't go for Su-30MKI and MiG-35s for purely political reasons.

The Su-33 is out of production in favor of MiG-29K/35, so as the video says, it's a failure

F-14 and F-22 are out of production... failures too?

its Chinese J-15 copy was also a failure, until they made the improved J-16, or so they claim- we will see if it holds true.

The fact that they tried to produce a copy suggests it isn't a failure... when you copy you don't just copy anything... you copy something that already works.

The Su-27 is the F-15 counterpart; if the US tried to navalize the earlier F-15 instead of navalizing the F-16 to make the F-18, it too would be a failure

If the Americans had navalised the F-15 there would not have been an F-14. The F-16 has nothing at all to do with the F-18, they are not even made by the same company...

They had to put the F-15 back into production because the F-35 is too expensive so that means both the F-15 and the F-35 are failures doesn't it?

A good land based fighter never made it to be a good deck fighter, unless it was designed from the start with navalization in mind like the MiG-29 & Rafales were. It's worth noting that the F-4 started as a deck fighter before the USAF fell in love with it & many of them were used by other AFs.

Naval versions of the MiG-29 are made... the original MiG-29K which lost to the Su-33, and the current MiG-29M and MiG-29KR and MiG-35s, but the original MiG-29 was never intended for operations on ships.

The F-4 shows fighters can be land and ship based easily enough.

The article I posted before showed that the F-111B was rejected for political/business reasons; towards the end of carrier trials it was improved & was at least no worse than the F-14.

The F-15 could have been improved and modified to make it carrier capable too... but like with the F-111B it just did not make sense to do so.

The Su-34 could also be improved for CVN use to be on a par with the Su-33 as an interceptor, w/o losing any of its strike specs.

No it can't. That is a stupid thing to say. You might as well say an A-4 Skyhawk could be upgraded to F-35 level but much much cheaper so stop making F-15s and just make A-4s and upgrade them... dumb.

Russia does not have a CVN, and wont have one for quite some time... there is plenty of time and the Su-57 would need less modifications to do the job.

Who knows if the VMF won't need to do more power projection ashore in 10-15-20 years than it's being projected now?

They are coming out with all sorts of new air launched land attack missiles and weapons, but equally they could make ship and sub launched versions easily enough and now the INF treaty is gone they can save a lot of money by combining land attack naval missiles launched from ships with land attack missiles launched from trucks or trains from the land with ranges of Intermediate range weapons.

A 3,000km range Iskander would be awesome on the back of a truck or a train carriage... or a ship or sub launched model.

Sure, the fact that the medium carrier was not shown makes me think that is the real deal.

The Soviet and Russian Navy have been down the road of light and medium aircraft carriers... essentially they have a medium aircraft carrier now and they want something able to carry more planes and heavier planes (ie AWACS via cats).

Yes, to me that reads like you are forced to a certain level of complexity, and increasing it without a solid reason makes no sense.

Size makes that easier to deal with... if you have a helicopter carrier based CV with 6 VSTOL fighters you don't want two types of them with different engines and parts.

A big ship with a 90 aircraft capacity that normally operates with 36 aircraft can carry the spares and support equipment for 90 aircraft.... and also the fuel and ammo for 90 aircraft so it could get away with two types of fighters plus various different drone types... support ships with extra parts and extra complete engines could follow it around if needed...

The essence of this is hardly going to change so it makes sense to take this serial approach.

Do you not think such a thing is already in place?

Or do you think the do things as they remember.... oops... that plane that just launched... we forgot to take the safety pins out of the ordinance...

The preparation cycle of a take off is ca. 2 hours.

Article posted on a Ukrainian thread talked about Ukrainian Flankers and their pilots... and one of the pilots who flew an F-15 in the US said the check list before takeoff with the F-15 took an enormous amount of time... 40 minutes or more... with the Flanker you jump in and start her up and go he said...

There will be aircraft prepared and ready for immediate use in case of surprise attack...

The design I proposed had the workshop in the middle (center hull) while the plane reception would be on one side hull and the preparation for TO on the other. So planes can always be taken from any point of the line to the workshop for repair

I would think most routine maintenance could be done where ever the aircraft happens to be while in the hangar... more serious work might require moving to a workshop, but that would be because of damage or faulty parts or whatever... they wouldn't perform overhauls...

As said, the cycle of preparations for a TO takes two hours normally

Is this Russian numbers or American.... they are quite different.

Certainly in the case of surprise attack a few steps in the preparations can be skipped or reduced.

so at that time you already need to know what weapons are needed and take them from the magazine, fuze them, carry them to the plane, prepare the crew to load them, depending on the size also machinery is needed, a specialist needs to prepare the weapons systems accordingly etc.

During peace time only the bare minimum weapons would likely be carried, and on a Russian carrier most of the time it will be four R-73s, a couple of R-27Es and a couple of R-77s most of the time for a normal mission.

It cannot be improvised. And in any case it does not mean you don't have some space at the deck for already prepared planes or to arm them, if you consider it better to do it at an open space.

Aircraft never get armed below deck... it is a safety thing. Most planes don't sit in the hangar until needed.... most aircraft sit on the deck and go to the hangar for maintenance if needed.

The substitute for EMALS is EMALS? Not getting it.

Your suggestion was to be a substitute for EMALS. I am saying the best substitute for EMALS catapults would be actual EMALS cats and not some rocket powered sled substitute.

For the Krylov carriers, the proposal was an electromechanical catapult. Not everything in this life needs an Elon Musk type of solution you know...

EMALS has more potential and would be the most useful... on carriers and in other areas when the technology is working.

The mentions to this were quite marginal, I am not sure there was anything real to it to be honest.

So you think they were making shit up?

Lying?

So a portable system to assist aircraft takeoff is impossible and there are no alternatives to what the US is currently pursuing?

Ok I would think it fits here, if you see it differently it can be taken somewhere else. There is not much more to it that the basic idea regardless...

My understanding of your previous explanation is that it is a sled based system that aircraft sit on and are accelerated to flight speed, but it was unclear where the energy comes from and why a sled is used and reused when they are already fitted with wheels to move around already.

The main reason I suggest you use a separate thread is because this is your idea and unless you have submitted it to the Russian Navy as a prospect it may not be relevant on a thread about the future of Russian aircraft carriers and deck aviation.

What is long range to you? An E-2 can stay four hours at ca. 300-400 km of the carrier, while an Helios-RLD could stay 1 day at 1000 km and cover 500 km of airspace and sea surface en every direction with its radar.

The new Russian AWACS platforms are looking for threats to the carries... not hunting for fresh meat.

Equally if plans regarding new radar types their range of vision should be double existing types at least so how far do they need to operate away from the ships they are supposed to be providing protection for?

In a Falklands type engagement the British were afraid of the vulnerability of their small carriers so the carriers sat back... delaying the arrival of air support if ships near the islands were attacked. A Russian carrier would operate with those ships and its purpose would be defending the ships... no long range missions to strike land targets would be common... except perhaps an initial attack to destroy any airfields on the islands.

You might operate a few fighters in the direction of Argentina looking for threats coming from there, but your AWACS and most of your planes will be defending your fleet and your landing forces.

If your AWACS is operating 400km away from you ships what happens if an enemy detects your AWACS aircraft by its radar emissions... should be visible from thousands of kms... and flys around it to avoid being detected and comes across your ships... will a Hawkeye detect an Su-57 flying at low altitude from 400km?

If that Su-57 launches a Zircon missile 500km away from the ships, the Hawkeye wont see it... it is supposed to be managing the air defence... it is not just airborne warning... AW... it is all about control... otherwise it might as well be a much smaller and lighter and cheaper AEW platform like a Ka-31...

Considering the range of new anti-ship weapons, the size of the bubble around the fleet expands massively and big UAV with very long endurance are needed.

So a huge aircraft carrier will be needed if you want more than one AWACS aircraft up at once providing 360 degree protection for your group of ships...

Small UAV have low flight altitude an low flight range and contribute nothing useful once you have HALE and powerful fighters onboard

What?

So what you are saying is that Russia should stop wasting its time with small short range SAMs because they contribute nothing useful... just have S-500s... long range powerful missiles.

A jammer or decoy is rather more use than you seem to give it credit for and putting it on a big heavy long range platform is stupid... what enemy is going to be fooled by a decoy or jammer 500km away from your ships?

The jammer signal will attract their attention but when they look and just see one platform they will likely ignore it... when they do locate your ships however and all your big fighters and drones are 400km away they are going to be useless and meaningless to the missiles he is going to launch at your ships.

Short range small drones with jammers near your ships might help to keep a few afloat.

British experience in the Falklands was that jammers and decoys often worked well when properly deployed... the problem was civilian ships for transport that didn't have jammers or decoys or other protections that would be hit by missiles decoyed away from their armed warships.

Having some small drones to distract those missiles would have saved some ships and some lives...

You are not hunting Toyotas on the cheap here but trying to avoid being hit by long range hypersonic AShM from peer rivals

That is the point... against ISIS short range jammer and decoy drones would be pointless, but against a peer enemy who will spot your ships via satellite you need something that operates near your ships that confuses the guidance of incoming weapons.

Big heavy long range drones 400km away are of little use in such situations.

Practical range of SAMs is a fraction of that, actually

It is the range where engagement of some targets becomes an option.

With that "I don't agree" I was expecting you to counter my point instead of reinforcing it, but ok...

If a large enemy force of large aircraft appear on radar with AWACs aircraft and long range fighters a carrier group can send platforms to investigate, but during normal operations how many AWACS platforms do you think one carrier will be carrying... and how many do you think it can keep in the air at one time?

Lets be generous and say at a time of high tensions they might have two AWACS aircraft airborne... if they are operating over the ships they are protecting they can see sea skimming threats out to what... 3-400km... so if that AWACS aircraft ROUTINELY operates 500km away from the ships it is supposed to be protecting it can't see small sea skimming targets approaching the ships it is supposed to be protecting.

The US could easily attack from any direction... sending your eyes and ears down to sea level away to look for a potential attack force is stupid... an AWACS platform wont be fast enough to rush out to 500km away to monitor an air operation and then zip back and protect the ships.

A Russian AWACS platform will operate within 200km of the ships it is protecting to ensure it can protect them... remember the naval S-400s can be directed by AWACS so it is not super vulnerable... a group of ten aircraft attacking an AWACS plane are detected 400km away and closing... the AWACS could simply get a ship 200km away to launch 10 x 400km range SAMs... they likely wont all hit, but some will and they move damn fast so follow up shots should be pretty quick too.

The point is that a threat is detected 800km from the ships... 600km from the AWACS platform a flight of 6 x C-130s are approaching... a flight of four Su-57 are sent to investigate... they wont take the AWACS with it... they have the sensors and speed to look after themselves...

The focus is protecting the ships and carrier... not invade new countries, or hunt down the USAF.

OK I see. That is what I would consider EW and AD means, no need for the UAV tag on that but ok.

They are unmanned flying vehicles... what should I call them?

You expect the flying jammer to fool AShM that are looking for a huge, slow floating target that is being seen by satellite already?

You saying new Russian ships don't come with EW equipment because obviously computers and missiles are too smart?

It might be fitted with a jammer which could attract a missile with backup home on jam capability... a few corner reflectors and even a small target can look enormous.

19 x 14 m plane is not big you say? You would need a hangar with 17 - 20 m height to store them in vertical Garry... talk about the 5 m tall Kamovs

What are you talking about? what is the wingspan of a Kh-101... theres no way you could fit 6 in the weapon bay of Blackjack because it is not wide enough for the wingspans of 6 Kh-101...

Folding. And obviously store vertically drones that are not long and thin like a HALE or MALE DUH!

A long narrow body with long narrow wings suggests rotating the wings 90 degrees back like helicopter blades to lie along the fuselage... it is still long but relatively compact and could be placed side by side rather easily... more so if they were designed from the outset to do so.

Such a redesign could allow four to be carried in a standard shipping crate for land, sea, and air transport.

Who says that? Why would they waste the VLS space with a triangular shaped missile?

Stealth?

That shape is intelligent in the six-missile revolver of the Tu-160, in a VLS it makes no sense.

Already designed and ready to go.

But if you are right and the new missile has nothing to do with Kh-101 then why do they describe its range as 4,500km.

If they can make it round they could also make it rather longer than 7.4m because the tubes are closer to 10m... so making it round and longer they should manage 6-7k kms range.

Besides the air launched range of the Kh.101 has nothing to do with the corresponding range when launched from the surface.

Have you seen a ship launched cruise missile?

The rocket motor launches them from the tube and climbs to a decent launch altitude and significant speed... it might be slightly slower and lower than the launch speed from a Blackjack or Bear... but not significant at all.

Who says the fighter cannot take off with full fuel on its own?

They probably can with an air to air loadout... most normal Flanker operations are performed with half tanks or less fuel on board...

Plus refuelling means easily 10-15 minutes lost, if there is no queue and if the refuelled amount is like 5 t, a time that of course the tanker and the plane needs to be flying too. Hardly this saves resources compared to fighters that can fulfil their mission without refuelling. The more you need refuelling, the more you need to use the tanker and the more time you lose and more planes you have in the air, because you attack in salvos, so all the planes composing the air wing need to be attended and detract all the time for queueing at the tanker from their useful flight time.

All valid points but fighters being able to take fuel from an AWACS platform means they can be near the AWACs to help protect it... the AWACS aircraft will occasionally need refuelling too anyway, and most of the time when a fighter needs more fuel it might also need more weapons... being flexible is a good thing.

Once a fighter is in the air its sensors add to the picture of the airspace around the fleet even if they launch with no weapons they could target threats which can then be fired upon using ship based missiles out of line of sight of the threats.

By its design and performance, the Su-57 can take on the intruder directly by launching first from long range while still not in range for being attacked itself. This would likely work even vs F-22, vs, F-18 or F-35 it would be overkill.

I agree, but in the 10-15 years to get it on ships I rather suspect the USN will have upped their game... but that is OK... you can plan but nothing is set in stone.

On the deck you need to save space too, the more planes ready for launching there, the faster you are. As said, without weapons hanging from the wings you have a change at overlapping them, maybe. And even with this idea you would not be more compact than a Su-33, so to increase numbers on board you would keep more planes on the deck normally.

Well that is an important consideration being a clever bugger raising or lowering aircraft so wings can overlap in a hangar... with loaded weapon pylons you wont be able to overlap them so you suddenly get a log jam on deck.

With folded wings you can keep them folded to reduce areas needed when they are not lined up ready for takeoff:

Now you are stretching it. I am talking about regular attacks vs land targets in absence of AD or air force, like in Syria.

SO AM I.

Russian carriers are air defence carriers, their anti ship and land attack strike capability are based on ship and sub based missiles.

They have added some strike capacity for Syrian type action, but if they wanted strike capacity during WWIII then they would not have Su-33s and MiG-29KRs, they would have Su-57s and LMFS aircraft only, so such a thing is not going to be an option for quite some time.

No, that is pure USN doctrinal rot, not what VMF should or seem keen to do.

That is what I am saying to you... Russia does not do and has no interest in regime change desert storm type land invasions.

If there is a target inside a country they need to destroy it will be a cruise missile attack and not a manned mission, unless like Syria they already have air bases in operation... Russian carriers are for the Russian Navy to protect Russian ships...

Of course, that is substituting an expensive jet strike plane (which is cheaper in turn than a CM) with an even cheaper UCAV. The total opposite of doing your bombing with CM...

A cruise missile might not be free, but UCAVs are generally more than a few million dollars each and operational costs over the years would not be free.

A Russian cruise missile might be a million dollars in US... more likely a quarter of that because they don't gouge and can make things affordably... so it sits in its container for free after it is made and is used once... if it is never used then it is always available... you can put it on a truck or train or fixed land position and use it in the future... it is amazing value for money.

In many situations a UCAV makes sense too but it wont be as fast or low flying or difficult a target as a cruise missile, but will be cheaper in situations where there is no enemy air defence.

You just don't want to see the su 57 on a Russian carrier because it would be like the F-22 on a US carrier. Which is never going to happen. Advantage Russia.

The su 57 on a carrier would be a nightmare for everyone else. It would be by far the most capable jet on any carrier in the world.

Which is why it makes sense. The result will likely be the US spending an enormous amount of money for a naval equivalent and they might get it right or might waste another trillion.

Wont matter to Russia, they will have the best carrier plane they can have.

I can sort of guess what it will be.
AI assistance to the pilot, optionally manned aircraft, variable cycle engine, electric mechanical actuators, fly-by-light i.e. fiber optics connections.
GaN AESA radar perhaps.

Or even a new type of radar....

The Su-57M probably will already have those...

The medium carrier I mean would be 60 kT, but have the air wing of a US CVN. That is why it is the real deal.

Not really... I would argue a couple of squadrons of Su-57s supported by S-70 drones and LMFS types would be rather superior to any US carrier group air wing for some time potentially.

For instance skids that move automatically to prefixed positions and also anchor themselves to the floor.

These skids have to work for 2 ton drones, 10 ton helicopters, 20-25 ton fighters, and probably 30 ton AWACS and Tanker aircraft... they need to move almost anywhere on the deck, but they also need to hold such weights in place anywhere they happen to be at that time... what advantage are we talking about over a small electric towing vehicle that moves things around the deck?

These skids need to accelerate things from 2 tons to 30 tons to a flight speed of over 150km/h to reliably get them airborne... some more... helicopters obviously less...

Helicopters would need something to move them around the deck even if they don't need assisted takeoff, so they would need these skids anyway.

No aircraft engine needing to be started up, no additional pushers and crew for them, no maneouvering of the planes, just tell the skid the final position. That is a lot of work. They would also allow to raise or lower the planes as suggested, without modifying the landing gear.

So these skids are like flatbed electric cars that the various aircraft sit on and are delivered around the place.

You call them skids, so they slide like skis on ice... but what actually makes them move?

And why skids instead of wheels?

Or are they like Musk hovertrains and they start out with anti grav levitation and end up using... wheels.

But what powers them... what makes them move and how do they manouver without tracks everywhere.

And that power supply would need to be amazing to accelerate a 30 plus ton AWACS aircraft to flight speed in the space available.

The friction of the skids on the deck would do damage and the wear and tear would be enormous... how to you make a deck surface that is slippery enough to allow deck skids to operate, but not slippery so men loading and fuelling aircraft or just traversing the deck don't fall over and the skids don't just slide off the edge of the deck into the water?

Yes of course, that is why I said that you need planes on the deck.

Operationally most planes spend most of their time on the deck, but a percentage will be fuelled and armed in case they are urgently needed... the rest can be armed and fully fuelled in the time the other aircraft are launching...

Even in a supercarrier, more than 20-30 planes at the deck and it starts getting congested and burdensome to organize operations, losing exponentially more time the more congested it gets. So you need a regular flow of planes to and from the hangar.

During peace time, but an operational carrier in a war zone has a crowded deck... there is plenty of deck space out of the way of landing and taking off operations for aircraft to be parked and tied down... fully fuelled and ready to arm...

Maybe, that was just an idea in case EMALS was really that expensive. I have no references outside of US and we know how they work.

The purpose of a measuring stick is for estimation... but when you know your existing measuring stick is biased... like costs for American military gear... then you can adapt and compensate to get a more realistic idea of costs.

Russia is very good at theoretical physics and seems to be becoming independent of materials technology too with high temperatures metals, and long range artillery with microwaved propellent and plasma expertise.

The Russians have the enormous advantage that not every single fixed wing aircraft needs to use their cats... just AWACS and Tankers based on that AWACS design most of the time, so it likely wont get an enormous amount of use all the time.

More importantly it is worth investing in because the technology and materials can be used in a range of other areas to improve performance... superconducting magnets and more efficient capacitors and electric systems able to divert and control enormous amounts of electrical current would all be useful in a range of areas...

No way of knowing what solution is better for a carrier, without having any level of detail don't you think?

Currently the only actually competing options would be liquid or solid rocket boosters, steam cats, and EMALS.

I would say over use the rocket boosters will be expensive and dangerous, and create far too much smoke on the deck for normal operations let alone high tempo operations.

Steam is obsolete and inferior to the potential of EMALS which they have been working on for some time now... for all we know they might have something ready soon for full scale testing.

Journos have a tendency to exaggerate or mix up unrelated things indeed.

Exaggeration or making up would be the K will be tested with fully operational EMALS system to launch aircraft.

As said above, just an idea in case cats are indeed a problem. High TWR carrying sled may help and be attachable to the plane handling skid I mentioned too. But no need for big further discussion, it is just an idea.

Can I suggest I am not against thinking outside the box, but in this case I think a sled replacement would be even more complex and risky and expensive than an EMALS cat system for heavy aircraft.

Not sure I get your point here. The better, longer ranged and faster the AShM, the further you need to look for their carriers, be it surface ships, subs or planes. You need longer ranged, probably unmanned AEW planes and in relatively big numbers.

A quantum or photonic or whatever radar that allows a fighter to see targets to 500km should allow the much bigger antenna on an AWACS see 1,000km or more...

The AWACS and Fighters on Russian carriers are to detect threats to Russian ships including the carrier... enemy carriers and ships will be hunted by Yasens and MiG-31Ks... the purpose of the naval AWACS and Russian carrier fighters is to hang around the carrier and ships and protect them from air attack.

They might mount a mission 3,000km away to launch a 1,500km range attack on an enemy carrier but that might be an inflight refuelling aircraft or two flying 1,500km from the Russian carrier... and four Su-57s with Zircon missiles the 1,500km to the inflight refuelling aircraft and topping up and flying another 1,500km to detect and launch its Zircon a further 1,500kms to hit the enemy carrier, and then fly back topping up at maybe 1,200km where they meet the tankers who are also returning to their carrier... the aircraft can then all return to the carrier together...

But most of the time the carrier will be defending the ships it operates with rather than hunting enemy carriers.

At ca. 1000 km from the carrier (actually less), you would need at least 6 UAV like the Helios flying 10 km high with 500 radius radar coverage to create a surveillance bubble without gaps. If you know the direction threats may come from you an reduce these numbers but at your own risk.

Any radar operating will indicate to the enemy where you are looking so in skirting around them may stumble on the ships you are supposed to be protecting if you have your radar emitting aircraft deployed forward in the suspected direction of attack.

Using drones for that is fine, but keep your actual AWACS and air defence fighters over your ships where they can actually help fend of an attack.

If you don't detect the enemy you are screwed regardless of what you do.

Very true, but new types of radar will render many types of stealth useless and in a duel an Su-57 launching their new long range AAMs might be able to attack a Hawkeye without being detected at all... remaining 400km away at all times and being able to track the location of the Hawkeye because of its radar scans.

Yes see above. UAVS have way higher range and persistence, with current AWACS it will be impossible, because of the amount of planes needed to cover rotations.

Unless you use one AWACS for over your ships and UAV long range drones with radar but operating in active or passive modes and circling the group of ships at a radius of 2-3,000km... who knows which direction an attack will come from... passive and active give you the best chance of detecting... along with satellite and civilian fishing fleet.

In the long term you would need indeed quite a few of them onboard to cover the fleet properly, so better to make them very compact.

Fitting them into standard shipping crates you could load them onto container ships equipped with cranes that could transfer a few extra crates at sea if they lose a few.

Side aspect is rather irrelevant. Look Kalibr or new Tomahawk

Both round to fully fill the torpedo tubes they are launched from and very old designs that originally relied on flying low to evade radar and were not stealthy at all... in the modern sense.

Because it can have that range, independently of what Kh-101 achieves

Given the increase in length and diameter/volume it should manage rather better performance.

Current figures suggest you are exaggerating "a bit"...

The 4,500km is for a strategic flight across Canada and into the US, which means half the flight will be at low altitude.

If fired from offshore and only requiring a much shorter period at low altitude and evading radar its range is probably already 6,000km with an all medium to high altitude flight with a terminal dive and explosion on target.

Some sources even mentioned a 10,000km flight range if lower throttle settings were used and it did not fly at low altitude and top speed to penetrate defences.

I don't think the numbers I am giving are exaggerated at all.

Yes, and it takes some (substantial) additional length and weight.

Extra weight is irrelevant... a 1.4 metre increase in length and a 20cm increase in calibre almost doubled the range... making it fully circular would not effect drag very much at all but would massively increase volume...

Standard load is 60%

Which would include a reserve so it lands with fuel left in the tanks after a normal mission...

Well we will see... they don't seem to have a clear picture, then the budget starts making problems, hey make statements about new 4.5G fighters, but in the other hand they claim they are flying 6G demonstrators already. I don't believe them anymore. But substituting the current carrier air wings is going to take ages.

Look at Russia... you can replace an idiot with someone who knows what they are doing who can completely turn things around... obviously the people actually in power in the US (neither democrat or republican) are going to have to be convinced and for a long time they will likely fight him so with only two terms they are not going to get much of a chance to make a real difference... and what are the odds of getting two Putins in proximity of each other...

I am not saying it is likely but I don't think Russia should lower its bar just because the US is incompetent... the EU might man up and start being a threat too... France might manage a decent replacement for the Rafale...

No, that is the idea. 5G planes normally don't use wing carried stores so this is not an issue anymore.

But there will be times where payload is more valuable than stealth and with overlapping wing storage it is removed as an option... which might be OK for a big plane like the Su-57, but the LMFS might normally carry a lot of external stores with AAMs being the internal weapon bay loaded weapons under and above the wing and body structure. The ability to perhaps carry bundles of 20 to 30 MANPADS sized missiles in pod bundles under the wing stations for swarm attack defence could be compromised if aircraft with underwing stores can't be used... I would say that would be more of an issue than the cost of folding wings.

I think you are mixing things here. Russian FLEET is not a land attack fleet. Means, they are not going to bomb a country to smithereens. It does not mean that they don't carry CMs or that their naval fighters cannot drop bombs, whatever is more convenient in every occasion. As you say, being flexible is good.

The carriers they are looking at are not 100K ton ships dedicated to strike roles, strike missions on occasion could be performed... out of the packaging an Su-57 is more capable as a strike platform than most western strike aircraft, the new weapon options it will have will be amazing and pretty comprehensive... but 95% of the time they will be fighter and interceptor and combat air patrol aircraft... high speed AWACS and recon aircraft to spot targets and mark targets for surface attack missiles and surface to air missiles.

Then you are using a 1 million CM instead of paying say 20k for the flight time of your UCAV and a couple dumb bombs which are dirt cheap (and strike twice as many targets in the same go BTW). No planer in this world is going to give a second thought to going the first way if the second is available.

The Cruise missile relies on sneaking and would catch the enemy air defences unaware. UCAVs generally rely on flying over ground based fire and having air control to avoid enemy air interference... if you are not sending dozens of fighters and EW aircraft to support that UCAV then the enemy might launch a super Tucano (spelling) armed with MANPADS and shoot it down before it bombs anything.

Fighter, UCAVs, and Cruise missiles are all very different things that offer different performance with different advantages and different features.

A CM about to have its certified time in storage expire that has to be used will have to be used whether it hits a target or not.

You might need to launch CMs before it is safe to send UCAVs... the ship based missile you fire might not be a Kalibr... it might be Zircon to penetrate enemy air space and hit their biggest SAM site including major radar stations... it might degrade the defences to allow manned aircraft to go in and shoot down their airforce, or it might be OK to send UCAVs.

The point is that UCAVs and cruise missiles will be navy stuff the navy prefers to use.

The Su-33 is out of production in favor of MiG-29K/35, so as the video says, it's a failure

F-14 and F-22 are out of production... failures too?

they would be if there weren't any other modern/newer planes on CVNs & in AF squadrons. The USN/MC/AF has/will have F-18E/Fs, F-35s & F-15E/Xs.

its Chinese J-15 copy was also a failure, until they made the improved J-16, or so they claim- we will see if it holds true.

The fact that they tried to produce a copy suggests it isn't a failure... when you copy you don't just copy anything... you copy something that already works.

but there was no other plane they could get their hands on then & in the end it wasn't working as they expected.

The Su-27 is the F-15 counterpart; if the US tried to navalize the earlier F-15 instead of navalizing the F-16 to make the F-18, it too would be a failure

If the Americans had navalised the F-15 there would not have been an F-14.

50-50. the F-14 didn't stop the F-18 development.

They had to put the F-15 back into production because the F-35 is too expensive so that means both the F-15 and the F-35 are failures doesn't it?

yes, but the F-15X vs. F-15E = F-18E/F vs. F-18C/D- the legacy fighters r failures now & that's why they r being repaced by their deeply modernized successors. The F-35 didn't live up to expectations, so it's a failure. If, as u said, the Su-34 isn't suitable for navalization, & since it's related to Su-33 & has some of its features, then the Su-27's navalization into the Su-33 is also a failure; in fact, the VMF prefers the MiG-29Ks instead. China doesn't have that option.

..but the original MiG-29 was never intended for operations on ships.

during its design phase, it was intended that it would be also suitable for operations on ships.

The F-4 shows fighters can be land and ship based easily enough.

it was designed as a naval deck fighter, but came out so good that the AF wanted & got it too.

The Su-34 could also be improved for CVN use to be on a par with the Su-33 as an interceptor, w/o losing any of its strike specs.

No it can't. That is a stupid thing to say. You might as well say an A-4 Skyhawk could be upgraded to F-35 level but much much cheaper so stop making F-15s and just make A-4s and upgrade them... dumb.

there is a lot less difference between Su-33 & Su-34 than between F-15 & A-4. Pl. kick the habit comparing apples & oranges!

Russia does not have a CVN, and wont have one for quite some time...

if at all; she may have a civil war &/ break up before a CVN could be built & fielded, repeating the Ulyanovsk CVN fiasco.

they would be if there weren't any other modern/newer planes on CVNs & in AF squadrons.

The MiG-29KR is a newer and more modern aircraft... it is nothing like the MiG-33 (Mig-29K)... which was a single seat aircraft the same as the Su-33 .

The F-14 remained in naval service long after the machinery and tools to make them was destroyed and served along its replacement the Hornet for quite some years... just like the Su-33 is served with its replacement MiG-29KR.

I have seen no information suggesting when the K goes back to sea that they wont continue to use both aircraft.

The introduction of the MiG-29KR which can be converted to two seat easily enough as needed also replaced the Su-28 carrier training aircraft.

The USN/MC/AF has/will have F-18E/Fs, F-35s & F-15E/Xs.

F-22s were supposed to replace the F-15 but turned out to be a failure so the F-35 was developed to replace them instead and it was too expensive and not actually good at anything so they put the F-15 back into production.

The F-14 was replaced by the F-18 which was supposed to replace both the intruder and the F14 and it had to because all the tooling and production for the F-14 was destroyed, but then the F-35 was going to replace everything including the Hornet and Harrier and the it was going to be used together with the Hornet as a stealthy strike platform while the Hornet was the fighter... if the F-15 is replacing the F-35 on land then there is nothing to replace the F-35 at sea, but it is pretty clear that the F-35, and F-22 are failures at the very least...

In fact the F-35 is the biggest failure, they are supposed to be making 3,500 of them and they are already making F-15s to replace them?

The were originally going to make 1,500 F-22s, then it got cut in half to 750, then 189.

    but there was no other plane they could get their hands on then & in the end it wasn't working as they expected.

Wouldn't be the first time a customer bought a product super cheap from a customer and had problems that the customer could not help them with and the maker had received no money for the purchase... why would they help?

50-50. the F-14 didn't stop the F-18 development.

The F-16 and F-18 are a generation after the F-15 and F-14 and were intended to be used together with their previous gen stablemates.

That is why the F-16 and F-18 were specifically designed as multirole fighter bombers.

   
yes, but the F-15X vs. F-15E = F-18E/F vs. F-18C/D- the legacy fighters r failures now & that's why they r being repaced by their deeply modernized successors. The F-35 didn't live up to expectations, so it's a failure.

You are misunderstanding failure.

A Failure is... lets make 1,500 F-22s and 3,500 F-35s, but not make anything like that of either aircraft and replace them.... they are failures... they need to be replaced.

The Su-33 is not a failure... it was only ever intended as being a naval fighter... which is what it achieved.

They didn't make a lot, but they didn't need a lot and never intended to make a lot.

They made what they wanted and stopped.

To replace something it has to be better... that does not imply that what is being replaced is a failure... it just means there is something better.

If, as u said, the Su-34 isn't suitable for navalization, & since it's related to Su-33 & has some of its features,

It is in no way related to the Su-33.

The Su-33KUB was a potential upgrade that used side by seating as used in the Su-34, but it was not an Su-34 in any way or form... it was over ten tons lighter for a start and was actually a similar weight to the Su-33... hence the same undercarriage is used.

then the Su-27's navalization into the Su-33 is also a failure;

The navalisation of the Su-27 and use as the only fighter on the Admiral Kuznetsov for the last 30 odd years is a success... it was only in the last 5 years that a replacement has been introduced and used... in many ways the MiG-29KR is a multi role fighter bomber like the Hornet, and the Su-33 has been their F-14, but the Su-33 does not need the missile performance of a Phoenix, nor the radar capacity of the MiG-31 because the west has nothing like the Backfire or the Kh-22M missiles... Just Harpoon... which R-27s and R-73s are just fine.

in fact, the VMF prefers the MiG-29Ks instead.

What is not to like... smaller, lighter, cheaper, and shorter ranged, which means less likely to be out of range when needed.

Cheaper to buy with India paying for production and tooling to be set up.

during its design phase, it was intended that it would be also suitable for operations on ships.

No it wasn't.... otherwise they would not have needed to develop the MiG-29K (MiG-33) for the job which was based on the MiG-29M of the time that were both fixed single seat aircraft of 1980s design and not related to the current MiG-29M and MiG-29KR which are completely new designs.

    it was designed as a naval deck fighter, but came out so good that the AF wanted & got it too.

The naval versions of the MiG-29 and the Su-27 show the F-15 could probably have been navalised too... if they knew what they were doing.

there is a lot less difference between Su-33 & Su-34 than between F-15 & A-4. Pl. kick the habit comparing apples & oranges!

The idea that you can take an old design and just keep upgrading it with new stuff is stupid is what I was point out and the A-4 clarified that point best... it was a very good little naval strike aircraft... in many ways the naval equivalent of the F-16, but without the digital internal structure.

if at all; she may have a civil war &/ break up before a CVN could be built & fielded, repeating the Ulyanovsk CVN fiasco.

Or the pirates inc. company of the United States of America might have a civil war and break up and in destroying itself the rest of the world wont need armies and navies and air forces any more and the rest of the world can live in peace and harmony as brothers and sisters.

Probably it only makes sense for big aircraft. To what extent they can be common to several types would need to be seen at the time of designing.

Wheels already work well for all aircraft on Russian carriers, and also become useful if they have to land elsewhere on conventional runways that don't have skid based support systems.

Much faster, automatized, automatic fixing of the plane, able to go in any direction (360 deg) and turn on the spot

Much faster... must have enormous amounts of power to accelerate such large heavy objects on skids... the friction would be enormous in terms of turning in any direction...

Every plane would have one and they could coordinate their "traffic" to save a lot of time and labor by moving many planes in parallel without crew.

But they presumably stay with the ship when the aircraft gets airborne... what do they do... line up near the landing area for the plane to be lifted onto them after they land via cable arrest system?

The handling of the aircraft and the TO aid are not necessarily related.

You suggested the idea as a replacement for EMALS... wouldn't a couple of small electric towing vehicles and everything having a tow bar or shoe make more sense and be easier and cheaper and simpler?

Yes pretty much. Sorry if the word skid was not properly chosen, I am not a native speaker. They have electric motors and wheels (yes wheels!) and Li-ion batteries, no big energy needs. They need to navigate, that is already a reality in many industrial facilities by means of beacons and other navigation aids.

So what you are suggesting is just some unmanned versions of what they already use except you want one for every aircraft...

Sure, within the given limits. In wartime you want fast sortie generation, not a total chaos on the deck.

You do understand they have rules and ways of doing things that apply during peace time and in war.

If they change the rules for a war type situation then things can become more confusing rather than less confusing...

All the activities at the magazine, hangar and deck are working full speed.

That is all they can hope for.

Electromechanical is the other option, I don't exactly know the details but it is meant in contrast to electromagnetic.

Possibly stored energy in a fly wheel type set up.

Have seen such a system in a bus for inner city use.

The biggest problem for a bus is that they are always accelerating and stopping all the time and it is very energy intensive, so what they do is they put a very very heavy flywheel in the vehicle together with an engine, so when they are accelerating they take energy from the fly wheel and the engine, but when they slow down they put energy into the fly wheel and use braking systems.

It means they transfer energy to the fly wheel during braking that they can recover during acceleration taking the load of the engine... improving acceleration and reducing the strain on the engine.

For an aircraft carrier a fly wheel could be accelerated by the propulsion system of the carrier, or just electrically and that could help drag and aircraft to get it airborne... you could take as little or as much energy as you need... the propulsion system of the ship can spin it up to full speed while the next aircraft is being attached.

That is quite possible indeed...

You need to really go through an idea before you can get an idea of whether it is a good idea or not... and ironically even bad ideas that don't work can often lead to solutions to totally different problems where their bad features don't matter and their advantages make a real difference... in fact make something that wouldn't work normally suddenly quite viable...

Don't know until you try and fully flesh things out though.

Up to you.

Main limit of the radars at the ships and the reason for the existence of the AWACS is radar horizon. That is 500 km for a plane flying at ca. 10 km altitude, there is no way of going around that unless with ionospheric reflection for very long wavelength radars like Konteiner.

But a new radar might be able to synthesise its frequency from a much broader band range... with the antenna built into the leading edge of a wing and the trailing edge of a flying wing it might be able to operate rather higher up than 10km.

Besides super long range radar could be used to detect long range aircraft and missiles flying at medium altitude to extend their flight range, plus high flying hypersonic threats where early detection is important. Its primary use will remain detecting threats down to sea level near the carrier group and any threats to ships and carriers that are present.

MiGs play no role in a typical CBG engagement. The detection of the enemy carriers, ships, aircraft and subs depends on AWACS/AEW/ASW aircraft, otherwise the fleet is blind beyond radar horizon and extremely vulnerable to enemy air power or long range AShM.

Wasn't it you that once suggested that with the amazing new radars their ship based fighters have that there would be no need for AWACS platforms on their carriers in the future because they could see with their radar just as well as an AWACS aircraft could...

A MiG-29KR has a good radar... soon to be perhaps replaced with the new AESA radar developed for the MiG-35, plus it has IRST and potentially a range of targeting pods, and unlike the AWACS the ability to dash out to 1,000km range from the carrier to inspect a blip on a radar if needed.

It sensors can provide full target information to all the other friendly aircraft operating there along with all the ships and subs too, which might use that information to target threats too.

Defending in its practical, working interpretation means sinking the enemy before it attacks.

Given the opportunity, but if the surface group has a job and the carrier is spending all its time wandering off in different directions hunting carriers, it might end up failing at its primary job.

Same happens in land, that is why a continuous barrier of radar detection is created, in which the needed overlapping is created so that no enemy can get through or launch before being detected.

Those radar outliers at sea would be vulnerable to attack or just being bypassed, and don't add a huge amount to the defence... but would be a warning that an attack might be in progress... sending platforms to investigate might be a distraction to weaken your defence and the real attack might be coming from a different direction... essentially what I am saying is that long warning times are good but having your assets all projected forward towards the threat means a smart enemy can bypass you forces and attack from another direction while getting you to send away your fighters on a wild goose chase.

Having shorter ranged fighter that hang around your carrier make sense... having some long range fighters makes sense too of course.

Fighters overflying the fleet cannot effectively fend off a massive salvo of hypersonic AShM. That is the type of future threat the VMF needs to prepare for.

Massive salvos of hypersonic threats will be deal with using S-400 and S-500 missiles and perhaps lasers and directed energy weapons.

Fighters will deal with manned and unmanned enemy aircraft and standoff munitions as well as being airborne radars that can pass a remote air picture to ships who can add their missile resources to the battle via the eyes of the aircraft.

It would not be bad if the kinematics of AWACS and AEW were better than what they are, but the option of not having those planes is worse.

Even if the Russians are conservative and only have Hawkeye type aircraft themselves... the enemy being able to attack it from 400km range with new AAMs.... say Meteor-M that is not to say the incoming missile wont be detected and could be jammed, decoyed or simply shot down.

Wing folding is a disadvantage without any further reason that the footprint on board, if it can avoided it would be great.

The MiG-29KR is an 8.5g fighter... is half a g really a problem?

Would think if there is a turning dogfight and naval carrier aircraft has made a mistake or the enemy is beating his missiles meaning a gunfight is going to happen...

I would think making the wings too small so more aircraft can fit on a carrier could lead to worse consequences than a slight reduction in g resistance.

The comment is that, as said above, the airwing allows to attack beyond the reach of your surface launched missiles and has a flexibility missiles do not have. Naval strike is therefore a crucial mission, not only A2A roles.

CAP can be routine, but strike missions normally need a lot of planning and to provide a useful loadout of relevant weapons you need to know what you are hunting...

No, UCAV will sneak in the same way, be it low level or not, as deemed best. The only thing that interests from the weapon in the end is the warhead, the rest (propulsion, airframe, electronics) is an enabler that you have no need to destroy in every attack.

Tracking a UCAV will lead your enemy to your carrier... not something likely to have with a cruise missile.

Of course, the first wave is high risk, against AD and to degrade military capabilities of high level vs highly protected targets. Missiles are fully justified in that case. Afterwards, cheaper approaches are used. And given that Russia is not thinking mainly in decapitating regimes abroad, the high end land strike weapons are even less necessary for the kind of missions a carrier group would engage in. Good to have, but to be used sparingly.

Cruise missiles can carry cluster munitions too... cratering munitions for runways, anti armour and anti personnel... I would expect they could programme them to attack a few targets if needed... they have a cluster bomb with 10 x 50kg HE cluster munitions... a 400kg warhead with 8 x 50kg cluster munitions that can be launched upwards and come down by parachute could be used against multiple targets if needed.

A cruise missile using optical guidance to fly straight down a runway at 800km/h at 4m height throwing up cratering munitions as it flys.... would have saved a Vulcan mission in the Falklands war.... even if you use 4 at once in two waves of two side by side down the runway... one starting at the start and the second starting half way down... to ensure good coverage.

F-22s were supposed to replace the F-15 but turned out to be a failure so the F-35 was developed to replace them instead..
..if the F-15 is replacing the F-35 on land..

not completely replacing; they'll be flying together on some missions & augmenting each other for years to come. The US is in a race with itself; by trial & error, they constantly develop & field many types of planes, just like the soviet VMF was with many classes of ships, subs & planes, some successful & some not.

..there is nothing to replace the F-35 at sea,..

there r Block III F/A-18E/Fs, & besides the F-35Bs that can fill in for the F-35Cs on CVNs, if need be.

The Su-33 is not a failure... it was only ever intended as being a naval fighter... which is what it achieved.

it would be better utilized on bigger Ulyanovsk or Storm CATOBAR CVN; on the smaller STOBAR Adm. K, it can't realize its full potential due to its size & weight. That's why smaller & lighter MiG-29Ks r now given preference. To quote u: "What is not to like... smaller, lighter, cheaper, and shorter ranged, which means less likely to be out of range when needed."

It is in no way related to the Su-33.

it is, as both r derived from the Su-27.

No it wasn't.... otherwise they would not have needed to develop the MiG-29K..

wrong, it was mentioned in the documentary I saw; at that time, they were unhappy with TAKRs carrying only STOVLs & were planning to build the Adm K. class.

Or the pirates inc. company of the United States of America might have a civil war and break up..

don't worry about us, we r discussing Russia & her problems!
even if the US breaks up, new states will divide up CVNs, LHAs & LHDs among themselves, with some going to reserve fleets.
The USN fleets r not so widely separated like the VMF fleets; we have
the Panama Canal & ice free Drake Strait, guarded by Chile & UK owned Falklands, to transfer ships between them. But Russian big ships must go via choke points or use the NSR at the cost of using the NP icebreaker fleet that merchant marine traffic needs.

not completely replacing;

Original plan was for the F-22 to completely replace the F-15C.

Just like the US Navy replaced all SSKs with SSNs... the 3,500 F-35s is supposed to replace all other non stealthy fighter aircraft in the US inventory and most of the HATO inventory.

they'll be flying together on some missions & augmenting each other for years to come.

No. It was get rid of the old unstealthy and in with the new stealthy stuff.

Replacement.

The US is in a race with itself; by trial & error, they constantly develop & field many types of planes,

Not at all. There was no trial... they didn't decide to start off with 200 F-22s to see how they went and then decide from there. They were fully planning to build 1,500 of them till the cold war ended and they halved the number to 750, and then down to what had already been made.... 189.

Of course they have had plenty of error.

They used a method of making something cancel proof... it worked well on the C-17 but it made the programme and the aircraft horribly expensive.

The F-35 was supposed to be affordable, but they used the cancel proof tactics that made the C-17 super expensive which... surprise surprise... made the F-35 super expensive.... who was expecting that?

just like the soviet VMF was with many classes of ships, subs & planes, some successful & some not.

A ship or a sub is a different matter... you make one and test it and if it does what you expect you build it serially with a few tweaks and improvements you worked out during development... Lada class SSK, Ivan Gren class landing ships are good examples of products that did not immediately live up to their potential promise and needed work, but are now ready for serial production ready to do what they were supposed to do.

In comparison the F-35 and the LCS and the Zumwalt class... they started making them before they were working properly... 500 F-35s made with over 900 problems including a dozen serious life threatening ones, they made about 16 LCS ships and they are useless so they are buying a replacement vessel that is very much like an Italian Gorskov frigate, and they built three Zumwalts of the 30 odd they were planning to make before they realised most of the useful technologies didn't work and could not be made to work very easily...

The US has adopted the Microsoft method... designing stuff is so hard we let our customers beta test our new products for problems and faults...

It is not working.

there r Block III F/A-18E/Fs , & besides the F-35Bs that can fill in for the F-35Cs on CVNs, if need be.

The F-35 was supposed to replace the Hornets, if you want to use the Hornets going forward instead of the brand new replace everything super stealth 5th gen fighter then that makes the F-35 a failure.

it would be better utilized on bigger Ulyanovsk or Storm CATOBAR CVN;

It worked on the Kuznetsov... for a bigger carrier a Su-57 would make more sense.

on the smaller STOBAR Adm. K, it can't realize its full potential due to its size & weight.

Seems just fine on the K.

That's why smaller & lighter MiG-29Ks r now given preference.

They ordered MiG-29KRs because they were put into production for the Indian order. By tacking their order on the back of that they saved the costs of tooling up and starting production themselves, which saved a bit of money.

The MiG-29KR would likely interact better with the Sigma-M naval communication and battle management system too.

To quote u: "What is not to like... smaller, lighter, cheaper, and shorter ranged, which means less likely to be out of range when needed."

Very true, but if you already have Su-33s it would make sense to carry some of each. The Su-33 is rather longer than the MiG-29, but its wings fold further in so its width when folded is smaller than a MiG-29 with its wings folded.

it is, as both r derived from the Su-27.

Not blood related... they both have Su-27 characteristics but that is all... all the things that make the Su-34 different from the Su-27 also make it different from the Su-33, so derived is not the correct word.

If we are cousins and you have a big nose from your grand dad and I have a big nose from our shared grand dad and he had a big nose that would be one thing, but if you were a 2 metre tall 90kg fine specimen of an Olympic Sprinter, and I was also 2 metres tall but weighed 200kg and was a pie eating champion by profession... could we switch jobs?

Would we be interchangeable because we both have grand dads big nose?

It is about weight and about purpose... being able to run fast means very little in a pie eating competition because you sit at a table and the pies come to you, and being able to eat large amounts of pies at one sitting has never been useful at any Olympic track or field event... getting down into the start position would be a problem and getting up and actually running would be a bigger problem... by the time I collapse in a heap 10m from the start line my competitors will be crossing the finish line thinking they recognise the big nose but you have put on weight...

The sled for handling would detach prior to the TO sequence,

So it isn't a cat replacement?

They already have small electric vehicles to tow aircraft around the deck... having a custom or adjustable sled design that fits every type of aircraft would be complex wouldn't it?

I would think tow bars are easier.

after the landing the plane typically would get away of the landing strip on its own power and then a sled would pick it up.

Sounds like an unnecessary complication over what they do now... which seems to work already.

The idea makes full sense when you have several positions in the hangar and a serial production line like way of handling planes.

I would strongly suspect they already have a very standardised and regimented way of handling all aircraft... an every man for himself method would be chaotic and would not work even with small volumes of traffic.

Basically yes, with the advantages y explained.

Eventually they might make them unmanned, but I suspect they will need cameras and all sorts of sensors for autonomous vehicles could do that sort of thing on their own... I would think a human would be better most of the time.

I mean I think a few mistakes could create a real log jam... but I would think AI based drivers would be less able to free up such a jam and would be just dumb enough to create such situations all the time.

Despite the I in artifical intelligence... it is programming and training... there is no actual thought processes involved.... it can't come up with unique solutions on its own.

Yes, that was my guess too, because of the high levels of power involved in accelerating the planes. The good part is that it could be loaded with the arresting gear and use up a good part of that energy for TO. Planes are heavy and the amount of energy involved is not small, you could even think this was an old idea to improve the arresting gear operation

Combining it with the arrester gear might be a problem as they wont be located very close to each other, and while in theory takeoffs and landings can be done together due to the angled deck, it might be useful capturing and storing landing aircraft energy in a different way perhaps.

Energy efficiency makes sense and they should not waste any chance at free energy...

The ship borne radars take care of any high flying target much better than any AWACS, they have way more power and space for antennas and mission systems available. The value of the airborne means of radiolocation is to extend the radar horizon as much as possible beyond the fleet, therefore to remain close to the ship is not contemplated in any concept of operations for AWACS you can find out there. The current standard is ca. 200 nm and the trend is to push that way beyond as new unmanned platforms appear.

The radars needed in the future for systems like the S-500 will need to detect targets at enormous range, and at high altitude including outside the atmosphere in space. Radar ranges for the S-500 radar might be 2-3 thousand kilometres.

Current radar technology and systems for ground SAMs includes lots of different band antennas working together combining results with some computer processing to combine andvantages of the different radar types while minimising their weaknesses.

The new ships will be operating with naval versions of these same radars so I would expect a variety of antenna to be used... lots of networking and that would likely include a ship based equivalent of Container et al...

The Russians take air defence seriously.

You said MiG-31, which is a land based platform and not relevant to the oceanic deployments where the carriers would be central to the defence of the fleet.

Apart from speed do you think the Su-57 is going to be in any way inferior to the MiG-31 in terms of long range AAMs or anti ship hypersonic missiles?

As known, the AWACS and AEW are normally very easy targets, a fighter is far from being one.

Russia has said its PAK DA will be able to carry its entire range of AAMs... do you think a naval AWACS would be left defenceless?

VMF is already doing this, networking all their assets including fighters, ships and so on.

I mentioned the MiG-31 because it networks with other MiG-31s in the air and doesn't just share information but can actually link radars to create synthetic radar antenna that are huge.

With the right processing power the performance of these radar with this link could be increased many times over... instead of just stitching the views from each radar together in a mosaic, it could extend and improve the view of all the radar working together including nearby ship or ground based radar information.

What is the primary mission you want to take care of, when you are under attack from one or two USN CBG?

Protect the ships you are operating with... the SSGNs with your group can sneak forward and sink those enemy carriers and then come back and look for SSNs...

You need to stay at distance and use your planes, ships and subs to hit the guys attacking you, or, in a more realistic approach focused in deterring capabilities, be in conditions of doing so.

If you are launching attacks on US carrier groups, what ever the Russian ships were doing is probably cancelled and its priority would probably to get to Russian waters and try to help protect Russian Air space from enemy attack.

Are you trying to propose "Airborne Late Warning" as a better version of AEW? I mean, it is not only against logic, it is also against all analysis and trends.

Detecting western missiles or ships within 250km of the Russian ships should provide more than adequate warning of an attack, with plenty of time to direct fighters and ships defence systems to deal with it.

Hypersonic threats would need more warning but will be flying at high altitude and should be detected at much greater range with ship based radar.

the S-400 and S-500 radars would be ideal as they would be the weapons of choice to deal with such a threat until directed energy weapons are perfected for the job.

Better even if they can thin out the salvos far from the ships based on early warning and even better, if they can shoot down the carriers launching the missiles or sinking the ships from where they operate. Every step later you take action, your effort and the probability of leakers increases massively and therefore your risk / effectiveness of your enemy.

Detection of enemy ships has to happen first... there is no way even with Su-57s that you are going to have CAP 1,000km away from your ships armed with anti ship missiles. Once the enemy ships have been detected and shown to be the source of any attack a strike mission can be launched to engage... either aircraft or SSGN based... or there might be another platform operating as part of a different Russian group of ships that might be able to attack them from behind.... communications and working together is important...

Is it a problem for the French to have 11 g capable, non folding wing planes on board their carriers?

R-73 can already deal with 12 g targets and so can R-77 so it is not a problem as far as I can see.

The whole point of 5G is to make it clearly better than 4G, but putting a wing fold places a road block to that intent and, equally detrimental, reduces a lot the fuel in the wing and increases weight and complexity, probably it is not good for RCS either.

The point of 5g is stealth. Neither the F-22 nor F-35 can pull 11 g either.

AFAIK the Su-57 can't either... do you think that makes a difference?

If you have a huge deck because your semicat hull allows it and you get your planes stored equally efficiently in the hangars with the adjustable landing gear or the sleds I mentioned above than with wing fold, what is the problem?

Aircraft with wings that fold have been shooting down aircraft with wings that don't fold for a very long time... if you think the plane with the highest g tolerance always win then you have not been paying attention.

Get your head out of the Rafale sales brochure.

What is the sense of making planes like a Su-57, that rely on capacity overmatch to oppose USN, and make them mediocre because of the navalization?

Of course... the only useful thing about the Su-57 is its ability to pull 9g...

The exchange rates are modified disproportionately with the capability differences between the fighters, so you need to hold dearly to any gap you can find, to make your quality work vs. numbers.

All fighters have advantages and disadvantages baked in to the design, the purpose of the pilot is to understand his own aircrafts strengths and weaknesses and to maximise the strengths and minimise the weaknesses, but to also know a bit about the enemy aircraft he is fighting and how he can make the strengths of his fighter maximise the weaknesses of the fighter he is fighting.

Talking dogfighting in the 1990s when HATO was training against German MIG-29s... old model MiG-29Bs with centreline fuel tanks that limited g to 5g, they found the 62% of the time the F-16 managed to get on the tail of the MiG from a variety of starting positions and speeds etc etc... but 100% of the time the MiG had already launched an R-73 that was deemed to have been a good shot and therefore likely to have shot down the F-16 before it got into a firing position.

I guess you are going to tell me that that is not possible because a 9g capable fighter vs a 5 g capable fighter with an external fuel tank adding drag and g limits would be totally one sided the other way right?

Or think of unmanned platforms capable of 12 g but saddled by the wing fold... it would an unambitious self defeating design decision.

If the focus was high g performance I would expect it would be fairly straight forward to design a wing fold where there are lots of heavy pins and structures along the depth of the wing fold that would make that wing very very strong.

But it is like being able to fly at mach 2... it sounds much more useful than it actually is... a pilot pulling 11 gs is not a pilot... he is a non functioning entity probably unable to move his hands till he eases up on the turn and the gs drop... Russian planes have thrust vectoring missiles that can turn hard off the rail and chase targets much more efficiently than a fighter aircraft can... the design of the R-73 is to allow it to see targets out turning the launch platform and the ability to turn hard on launch to follow those targets and hit them as close as 300m away.

Is there anyone expecting to hide a fleet and less even a carrier in the surface of the sea?

Many Americans think it is possible... emission control they say... it seems the US carrier group is all seeing but also invisible to all.

Regarding the F-15EX vs. F-22/35s: https://youtu.be/Vrn-PRCSBkA?t=502

The F-18E/Fs would play the same role to the F-35C/Bs.
The VMF's MiG-29K/35s r not F-35 counterparts, neither r the Su-33s=the F-15EXs.
But the navalized Su-34 could become F-18E/F counterpart, possibly with even better specs.

The F-18E/Fs would play the same role to the F-35C/Bs.

But the F-35 was supposed to replace the F-18 in both strike and fighter interceptor missions, but it is a failure so they will have to rely on the Hornet for a bit longer.

Not the end of the world, but certainly not what they planned to do...

The VMF's MiG-29K/35s r not F-35 counterparts, neither r the Su-33s=the F-15EXs .

Actually in many ways they are, they are fully integrated into the Russian Sigma system which is their equivalent of AEGIS, meaning targets the MiGs detect can b e passed on to ships and other aircraft to attack, or the MiG can guide SAMs launched from ships hundreds of kms away at targets they are tracking.

The MiG is faster than the F-35 and neither are actually stealthy, but the MiG will carry its weapons externally of course... it probably has a better radius of action too.

The point is that by 2030 the LMFS will be going to sea on new CVNs and eventually on the Kuznetsov too... will the F-35 still be around, or will it have been cancelled and replaced with legacy fighters put back into production and drones.

But the navalized Su-34 could become F-18E/F counterpart, possibly with even better specs.

The Su-34 is too heavy to operate from a carrier... to make it lighter would reduce its performance.

The Su-33 is already the best compromise for weight and size and range and payload from a carrier. It will improve if launched with cat assistance, but the Su-57 will always have better performance than either an Su-33 that could be used but needs replacing anyway, or the Su-34 which is not an option anyway.

But the F-35 was supposed to replace the F-18 in both strike and fighter interceptor missions, but it is a failure so they will have to rely on the Hornet for a bit longer.

with so many F-35s ordered, they'll keep them on CVNs & LHAs, so not only F-18E/Fs will be relied on.

The Su-34 is too heavy to operate from a carrier... to make it lighter would reduce its performance.

with EMALS, it could be even heavier & still suitable for carrier flight ops.
The lightly armed Su-33 is 9Ts (GW) & 12.1Ts (MTOW) lighter:
Gross weight: 29,940 kg (66,006 lb)
Max takeoff weight: 33,000 kg (72,753 lb)

As is, the Su-34 is 16.6Ts (GW) & 17.8Ts (MTOW) heavier than the C-2A that the USN CV/Ns been carrying for years, with steam CATs:
C-2A Gross weight: 49,394 lb (22,405 kg)
Max takeoff weight: 60,000 lb (27,216 kg)

Su-34 Gross weight: 39,000 kg (85,980 lb)
Max takeoff weight: 45,100 kg (99,428 lb)

The F-111B was too heavy for steam CATs:
Gross weight: 79,000 lb (35,800 kg)
Max takeoff weight: 88,000 lb (39,900 kg)

with so many F-35s ordered, they'll keep them on CVNs & LHAs, so not only F-18E/Fs will be relied on.

The two naval versions are the most expensive to buy and to operate... if the USAF says the cheapest F-35 is not working and is too expensive, what is the Navy going to say... any reductions in orders for the naval models will ratchet up the price dramatically and will likely have a snowball effect because every country that cuts orders or just cuts numbers... and all of the ones with orders will cut numbers... that is just normal... order extra to get the price down but cut numbers when it turns out more expensive than anticipated so buying fewer for slightly less money means a tiny amount saved.

Stupid as it is, that is normal in the west.

with EMALS, it could be even heavier & still suitable for carrier flight ops.
The lightly armed Su-33 is 9Ts (GW) & 12.1Ts (MTOW) lighter:
Gross weight: 29,940 kg (66,006 lb)
Max takeoff weight: 33,000 kg (72,753 lb)

There is no advantage to the extra weight, it makes more sense to convert the Su-57 than the Su-34.

As is, the Su-34 is 16.6Ts (GW) & 17.8Ts (MTOW) heavier than the C-2A that the USN CV/Ns been carrying for years, with steam CATs:
C-2A Gross weight: 49,394 lb (22,405 kg)
Max takeoff weight: 60,000 lb (27,216 kg)

Russia wont be using C-2s on their carriers either.

The F-111B was too heavy for steam CATs:
Gross weight: 79,000 lb (35,800 kg)
Max takeoff weight: 88,000 lb (39,900 kg)

It had a starting weight of that... over time as features are added it would only have gotten heavier and it was already not safe for takeoff or landing.

Using your numbers the Su-34s normal takeoff weight is about the same weight as the maximum weight of the F-111B an aircraft programme the US Navy cancelled because it was too heavy even with catapult launch assistance...

That in itself tells you they wont even bother.

The Su-57 makes vastly more sense, as its abilities as a fighter and interceptor make it ideal, and its stealth is far superior to the Su-34 already without spending hundreds of millions of dollars to make it stealthy... and it has strike capabilities and can carry all sorts of air to ground ordinance in the strike role... with inflight refuelling its range could be just as good as the Su-34 from a land based airfield, let alone a reduced weight half plane neutered for carrier ops.

There is no advantage to the extra weight, it makes more sense to convert the Su-57 than the Su-34.

but there is advantage of multirole fighter-bomber that can perform better than the Su-33, & save many Su-57s for other missions & export.

Russia wont be using C-2s on their carriers either.

true, but they may be using similar COD, tanker & EW planes. The last 2 will be heavier; the Yak-44E was supposed to have MTOW of 40,000 kg (88,185 lb), 100kg more than the Su-34 & F-111B!
If their EMALS or some other catapult system is successful, they could even navalize some of their MiG-31s:
Gross weight: 41,000 kg (90,390 lb)
Max takeoff weight: 46,200 kg (101,854 lb)

Those planes could escort land based bombers, carry Kinzhals, conduct long range interceptions/interdictions, CAPs, recons/EW, & shoot down HS AshMs/LEO satellites.

Backman wrote:https://twitter.com/5thSu/status/1390317984468537347?s=19

Deadlines for delivery of new ground based test training complex - the second ground based aircraft carrier analogue - have been postponed to at least 2022 with start of operations in 2023.- TASS

With a second training complex , this pretty much guarantees that Russia is going to put the refitted Kuznetsov into continuous operatios. And the new carrier will have a ski jump.

They said they are delaying it not fast tracking it

Continuous non-functionality is what awaits this barge

but there is advantage of multirole fighter-bomber that can perform better than the Su-33, & save many Su-57s for other missions & export.

The Su-33 is essentially an Su-27UB, but it has had some upgrades, but right now they are in the process of upgrading their Su-30s to effectively Su-35 level meaning they have Su-30 based two seat Su-35s...

Having naval Su-35s would be a good step forward because it massively improves performance without the enormous weight increase of trying to use a strike aircraft in the form of the Su-34.

The intention with the Su-57 is air superiority fighter and interceptor... two roles that would be very useful for the navy as well as the air force...

The amount of modification would not be huge... essentially the same changes they applied to convert the Su-27 into the Su-33.

It wasn't hard or super expensive because the Su-27 was still in production and the Su-57 is still in production too...

Extra naval models could be made for future carriers, but until those carriers are ready they could use them as shore based aircraft.

Added production of Su-57s is a good thing and its price seems very very good for what it is.

India wants bigger carriers... being able to fly 5th gen stealth fighters from her carriers might swing them to buy Russian.

The last 2 will be heavier; the Yak-44E was supposed to have MTOW of 40,000 kg (88,185 lb), 100kg more than the Su-34 & F-111B!

They were proposed for the heavier larger Ulyanovsk carriers with catapults and with larger subsonic wing profiles could have lower takeoff and lower landing speeds compared with supersonic jets.

If their EMALS or some other catapult system is successful, they could even navalize some of their MiG-31s :
Gross weight: 41,000 kg (90,390 lb)
Max takeoff weight: 46,200 kg (101,854 lb)

The MiG-31 has a very thin low lift wing and would take over 1km to get airborne... they operate in the far north and far east on runways generally 3-5km long... no type of cat would get them airborne from an aircraft carrier.

The takeoff and landing speeds would be too high... the cat would get them going fast enough and the cables would not be able to slow them down in the available space.

We can't do that either

I have been at a log jam in an open field at the end of an airshow where everyone was trying to leave at once so nobody was going anywhere... traffic was coming from three directions and trying to go through one gate. A guy parked his car and got out and started directing traffic... two cars at a time and he changed which direction the cars could come from to make it fair so the traffic started moving again. He was being fair and sensible so everyone was happy to follow his directions even though he had no authority or means to force us to do what he directed.

Without automated skids, but with electric towing vehicles if there is gridlock the human operators can sort out a solution and implement it and get things moving again quickly.

As simple as using a properly sized cable linking the arrestor with the flywheel.

That would not be simple at all. The cables that slow down aircraft as they land are geared, so when you first hook them they are relatively loose but then pull up rapidly to slow the aircraft down quickly but safely... if one end is attached to a fly wheel then that would have to be set up to absorb exactly half the energy of the landing plane, and as the tension in one side increases the tension in the other side would have to increase at exactly the same rate or the cable will be off centre and the plane would veer one side or the other...

I read something about ship based OTH radars that could be very relevant, but I am not aware of any practical implementation as of now.

No great surprise because modern SAMs haven't required that level of visibility before... US ABM systems like PAC-3 and THAAD generally use satellite support.... which makes them rather expensive to use as well as to buy.

As to the different radars in the new ships, have you seen the pagoda on top of the Lider proposal? You get the idea...

I am not reading too much into current or past models... I rather suspect surface based antenna and new generation radar types might transform what the new radars look like and how they work.

I still think Airships would be ideal AWACS platforms for naval groups... even the heat output of the powerful radar antenna would help it to remain at very high altitude. Some sort of nuclear battery for propulsion as well as solar panels with electric motors and synthetic high tech modern materials... it wont be super fast but should be able to keep up with any naval grouping of ships...

APS is indeed an option, we still need to see them implemented.

The size of the antenna you could fit in a rigid airship means its viewing range would be enormous... operating over the cruisers would be the equivalent of operating above 20 odd S-500 batteries and 200 S-400 batteries as well as S-350 batteries and BUK batteries and TOR batteries and Pantsir batteries... not to mention 30mm gatlings and 57mm AA guns and up to 152mm gun batteries all with AA potential.

The Airship itself could have hundreds of self defence close range missiles and it could be operating at 30km altitude where most current missiles wont even reach it... the only missiles that could reach it would be big heavy easy to spot and shoot down missiles....

But even if they hit it at 30km altitude even a huge warhead can't start a fire... the fragments will pop a lot of internal hydrogen bags... but the instant after the impact emergency bags can be inflated with hydrogen to compensate... electric current can be used with fuel cells to turn water ballast into lifting hydrogen gas to fill emergency bags... once they are full the remaining ballast can be dumped... I doubt the airship would lose much altitude at all let alone stop operating.

What sort of AWACS fixed wing or helicopter based aircraft do better than that?

That is how VMF can keep USN in a deadlock at a global scale and enable Russia to develop their relations with any country they please.

Russia needs to be able to sail anywhere it pleases and project power anywhere it pleases. I don't mean invasion forces, but if there was a massive flood or earthquake in Mayanma or Venezuela, or even Iran... you can bet the west will not lift a finger to help... Russia sending Ivan Rogov Landing ship with helicopters and marines to support as well as trucks to deliver aid to isolated areas, to provide medical assistance, or just transport heavy vehicles to isolated areas to help dig people out of the ground or clear roads blocked with debris.

Such operations would be good for military forces to practise some of what they need to do, and it is great publicity and soft power.

The same force could be used in failed regime change attempts by the west to help stop countries collapse into chaos like Libya, or Cuba or Vietnam.

A low flying Su-57 could approach to the fleet, climb and launch an hypersonic missile, giving ca 1.5 minutes for doing anything against it. Not enough time for sending any fighter.

In such a case the threat would be the hypersonic missile... I would think the S-350 missiles in the Rif replacement Redut system would be used to engage such a threat.

Only Russia has Su-57s and hypersonic manouvering missiles... so safe for now.

The more you play the leaker lottery, the more likely you are to win, since you don't test your AD with the weapons of the enemy but with targets according to your assumptions of what the enemy will do. That is freakin risky. You want to shoot down the carrier first and foremost, and even better, not allow it to take off by sinking the ship from where they operate.

I agree but what you want and what you might be able to achieve can often be quite different.

Russia is in the excellent situation of having excellent air defence systems and their new ships and upgraded ships are only going to get better and better in that regard.

But obviously any air defence system that operates without aircraft is not as good as it can possibly be because air borne radar and airborne fighters and interceptors greatly strengthen any air defence even if their runway is vulnerable to being targeted.

With fighters like MiG-35s and Su-57s and later LMFSs as well as the new and upgraded ships they will likely be operating with I would say Russian carriers will be pretty safe most of the time.

I mean looking at that floatation device they used to allow the Karakurt to be transited through their canal network... a super sized one designed to expand around the carrier like a torpedo net that can be deployed like super cage armour when the ship is operating and not needing to move could completely protect it from anything except nuclear armed torpedoes... and it can use its PAKET anti torpedo torpedoes to engage those anyway.

That is why you have space based assets, passive OTH detectors and also why you need to send your AEW UAV as far as you can.

Modern fighters are faster than UAVs and have excellent radar and IR and optical sensors...

Nothing to do with what I say

A 12g capable Rafale cannot outturn those missiles...

The F-35 only has stealth over many of the aircraft it replaced...

You insist with dodging missiles and I have already explained that such event is only relevant when the missile is already very close to being defeated kinematically and flying at a speed close to that of its target.

If you can't dodge the missiles then nothing else matters.

Get your head out of Falklands and learn a bit of aerodynamics, it is much more useful.

Real world experience is worth more than all the theory in any book.

Even a MiG-35 could defeat a Rafale simply by luring said aircraft close enough that a Russian ship launched S-400 missile could be launched and terminally guided by the MiG-35 at a distance the Rafale wont be expecting to be engaged... it wont be till the last few seconds before the S-400 missile goes active that the Rafale will realise it is under attack...

BS. What I stated is a fact, the relation between performance difference and exchange rate is non linear and that is a crucial reality for any planer that, like Russia, will not have numbers on their side. As you said yourself, your naval fighter needs to be the best you have.

The whole point of an IADS it managing what you have to make more efficient and effective use of it... AWACS means you don't need fighter patrols constantly scanning for enemy, which means most of your fighter pilots can be relaxed and ready for combat at any time.... it also means even a sneak attack will be detected early and a suitable response can be used to stop such an attack... ie you know what to send and don't have to send too much, while looking for other attacks in other directions... it is much easier for aircraft to go to meet a threat and then return and be ready for another threat than to send ships which might be surprised from any direction as threats pop over the horizon... perhaps from low flying aircraft or submarines operating nearby.

On a carrier you should have the best you can afford and right now that means a navalised Su-57 and MiG-35 equivalents. Later the LMFS will replace the latter hopefully. Having two types means you can have slightly more aircraft because of the smaller type hopefully fitting better... its shorter range wont matter too much most of the time because an air defence carrier would benefit from shorter ranged fighters operating near the ships with likely 360 degree radar arrays and the ability to detect low flying threats and engage targets quickly. The mix of long range Su-57 and medium range LMFS would be ideal as the best they could manage.

So lots of weight and no fuel in the wing, brilliant

Which is probably why they accept the loss in g tolerance perhaps?

No free lunches... pick your poison.

They said they are delaying it not fast tracking it

Continuous non-functionality is what awaits this barge

Delaying is not cancelling.

A pushback is no great surprise considering the effect Covid has had on production and manufacture not to mention budgets.

Cruising approach: can Russia build new aircraft carriers?
May 22, 2021

According to Izvestia sources, three projects of "floating airfields" are currently being considered.

Russian engineers have developed several versions of a promising "floating airfield" for the Russian Navy. According to Izvestia sources in the Ministry of Defense, three projects of the aircraft carrier are currently being considered. On May 18, Vladimir Pospelov, a member of the board of the Military-Industrial Commission under the Government of the Russian Federation, said that when preparing a new state armament program for 2024-2033, it would be necessary to assess the feasibility of creating such ships, as well as their cost.

Sources in the defense department told Izvestia that so far all projects are in the form of blueprints. According to the interlocutors, two of them have high chances of implementation. The third is still under study, but is not considered a priority. In any case, the sources noted, work on any of the developed projects will require significant efforts to create infrastructure. The final choice depends not only on the characteristics of the ship, but also on whether it will be possible to create production facilities for its construction, the interlocutors of the publication said.

Difficult story
The aircraft carrier topic today remains painful for the Russian fleet, whose path to a full-fledged aircraft carrier was long and thorny. The first aircraft-carrying cruiser "Admiral Kuznetsov" - this is how aircraft carriers are called according to the Russian classification - was built shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union.At that moment, the readiness of another similar cruiser "Varyag" was 70%. At a meeting in 1993 with the participation of the Prime Ministers of Russia and Ukraine Viktor Chernomyrdin and Leonid Kuchma, director of the Black Sea Shipyard Yuri Makarov said that the completion of the Varyag needed the Soviet Union, the Central Committee of the CPSU, the State Planning Committee and nine defense ministries. After that, the Russian government finally refused to complete the construction of the ship. Later it was sold to the PRC. The Chinese made a real technical feat and managed to put the cruiser into operation.

During the Soviet period, aircraft-carrying cruisers were built in Nikolaev at the Black Sea shipyard. By 1990, this enterprise had reached the technological level of the American Newport News Shipbuilding and was ready to make nuclear aircraft carriers. By the way, by this time the cruiser "Ulyanovsk" was already on its stocks. But in the early 1990s, its body was cut into metal.

To date, the Russian fleet has one aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov. The Navy is making every effort to maintain it in the ranks. Thanks to this ship, deck aviation pilots appeared in Russia. Before that, vertical take-off and landing aircraft were based on cruisers. Conventional ship-based aircraft fly from Kuznetsov. But the aircraft carrier is already 30 years old and sooner or later the question of its replacement will arise.

In general, aircraft carriers are needed as the back-up ships of combat strike groups capable of striking enemy sea and coastal targets, conducting combat operations, and ensuring the security of the defended basing zones of naval strategic missile carriers.

Currently, a state armament program for 2024-2033 is being developed. It is supposed to include the creation of three ships with a nuclear power plant and a displacement of 70-80 thousand tons. Most likely, they will be based on the deck version of the Su-57 fighter. This was recently announced by a member of the board of the Russian Military-Industrial Commission, Vladimir Pospelov. At the same time, he found it difficult to give a direct answer about the specific cost of creating such a ship, having named only the amount (starting from 500 billion rubles) and the creation period (at least 10 years). Also, the Russian military-industrial complex believes that three ships should be built - presumably, one each for the Northern and Pacific fleets, while the third aircraft carrier will be permanently located in the Mediterranean Sea.

The question arises: who and where will build such large ships?

Expensive, but necessary

Currently, the Russian shipbuilding industry is represented by two major players: the state structure United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) and the private holding Ak Bars from Tatarstan. USC includes most of the large Russian shipyards: Sevmash, Admiralteyskie Verfi, Baltiyskiy Zavod. At the same time , USC does not have slipways or dry docks sufficient for the construction of such large ships. The maximum that Baltiysky Zavod can build is Project 22220 Arktika-class icebreakers. The largest ship built at the St. Petersburg plant is the Ural nuclear reconnaissance ship 265 m long and 36.5 thousand tons displacement.

The Sevmash enterprise will require serious reconstruction, and this plant is also loaded with the most important programs for the construction of nuclear submarines. If the USC receives a contract for the construction of an aircraft carrier, the enterprise will have to negotiate with Zvezda Shipbuilding Complex JSC. This complex is currently being formed in the Far East in the city of Bolshoy Kamen. In particular, a 500 m long dry dock is under construction at this plant. At the same time, doubts about the correctness of the current technical concept of its construction are known. For the construction of a large ship 300 m long and more than 50 thousand tons displacement, it is likely that a serious revision of the dry dock project will be required.

The Ak Bars holding has a shipyard in Zelenodolsk, and since 2014 has been closely cooperating with the Kerch Zaliv shipyard. The company has the only one in our country dry shipbuilding dock length of 360 m and a width of 60 m. At present, two amphibious assault ship of the project 23900 displacement are being built in the 40 th. Tons and a length of 220 m. Of course, the "Gulf", especially after the construction of the Crimean bridge, the logistics are better, but the plant itself will clearly require further technological re-equipment.

Thus, in the near future the state will need to decide which aircraft carrier to build and where. A lot depends on this decision. And, of course, the most difficult issue is the price of the issue.

A modern aircraft carrier is a very expensive item. But the creation of such large facilities has a cumulative effect on the development of the shipbuilding industry. The Russian fleet, receiving a new powerful warship, is becoming stronger, and the country's economy is reaching a new level of development.

https://iz.ru/1167371/dmitrii-boltenkov-roman-kretcul/kreiserskii-podkhod-smozhet-li-rossiia-postroit-novye-avianostcy

After that, the Russian government finally refused to complete the construction of the ship. Later it was sold to the PRC. The Chinese made a real technical feat and managed to put the cruiser into operation.

The Russian government didn't have the funds to complete her and to leave her till today would cost money in maintenance and result in a relatively obsolete design even if they finished her now.

Selling her and using the money for other things made a lot of sense for Russia and for China it was a good deal too... a chance to have a look through the carrier design and complete her... presumably the purchase cost including information on completing her to operational standard, so it boosted their capabilities too, so it was a good thing all round.

his complex is currently being formed in the Far East in the city of Bolshoy Kamen. In particular, a 500 m long dry dock is under construction at this plant. At the same time, doubts about the correctness of the current technical concept of its construction are known. For the construction of a large ship 300 m long and more than 50 thousand tons displacement, it is likely that a serious revision of the dry dock project will be required. wrote:

What is this nonsense. Why is this dry dock going to be rebuilt? After all, it is where the Lider icebreakers with a displacement of 70,000 tons are to be built. This dock is ideal for the construction of a new aircraft carrier.

How to create a series of large aircraft carriers for the Russian Navy.
May 24, 2021.

The construction of new aircraft carriers for the Russian Navy seems to be taking shape. This is really good news - but it still raises a lot of questions. If only because we have before us a sad example of the state of the Admiral Kuznetsov, the only aircraft carrier operating in the Navy, and, most importantly, of its air wing.

The representative of the state has finally announced the specifics about the future Russian aircraft carriers. A member of the board of the Military-Industrial Commission, as well as a member of the Maritime Board under the government of Russia, Vladimir Pospelov outlined tentative plans for the construction of new ships - three units, 70-80 thousand tons each, with a nuclear power plant. Price - from 500 billion rubles per unit, production somewhere between 2024 and 2033.

Theory and practice

At first glance, everything is correct. The larger the aircraft carrier, the better: firstly, due to the lesser dependence of takeoff and landing operations on pitching, secondly, by a more powerful air group and, thirdly, the lower risk of accidents on the deck - the more space, the better and safer maneuvers planes on it. At one time, the Americans studied this issue in detail. The conclusions were unambiguous: with each "step back" the aircraft carrier's efficiency drops significantly.

And nuclear power is much more preferable for such a ship. And due to the fact that the tactics of aircraft carriers provide for transitions at high speeds, and due to the fact that for intensive military operations the need for fuel for a non-nuclear aircraft carrier will be simply enormous, which means both tankers and surface ships to protect them. And you will constantly have to go to a rendezvous with them, which creates additional vulnerability. The nuclear aircraft carrier is better in all cases. Moreover, in the long term and with intensive operation, it is also cheaper, since it does not burn fuel in the tens of thousands of tons for military service.

Actually, the fact that the Navy wants just such a ship has not been a secret for a long time. And the timing of the construction of aircraft carriers, voiced by Pospelov, fits well with the provisions of the Fundamentals of State Policy of the Russian Federation in the field of naval activities for the period up to 2030 "on the creation in Russia of a naval aircraft carrier complex (ship, aircraft and training center). It should be remembered that the "foundations" were approved by the decree of the President of the Russian Federation.

That is, everything seems to be thought up correctly. However, at the stage of translating these ideas into reality, the cruel Russian reality will stand in their way.

First and foremost, despite the need for aircraft carriers for the Navy, the Navy itself is simply not organizationally ready to dispose of such forces. And to understand this fact, you do not need to have any tolerances and super-analytical abilities. Suffice it to look at what happened and is happening with the aircraft carrier already formally in service - "Kuznetsov". The Navy clearly does not show the ability to handle such complex systems - and in fact there is no more complex organization than on an aircraft carrier in no other fleet in the world.

The second point is the sad state of individual naval fighter aviation regiments, and more broadly, of naval aviation as a whole. The regiments, firstly, are not staffed by state, and secondly, according to sources in the naval aviation itself, they have serious problems with combat readiness. It seems that the system of training flight personnel for naval aviation, chosen in the late USSR, turned out to be ineffective, it must either be completely changed or overhauled.

Another aspect of the problem is infrastructure - new ships simply have nowhere to base. Yes, this is a solvable issue. Moreover, it can be resolved very quickly, in a matter of years. But it could have been resolved very quickly ten years ago, and in 1984 it could have, and in the late seventies, when the first aircraft-carrying ships went to the Navy, it could have also. But nothing has been done and is not being done now. "Kuznetsov" is at the wall of the shipyard, and the rest where will they be? But these ships will be at least 20% larger.

There are also doctrinal problems. For example, we have, to put it mildly, a sub-optimal command structure, with the help of which an aircraft carrier and its aircraft are controlled. Who should give orders to the commander of a naval air regiment - the commander of an aircraft carrier or the commander of an aircraft carrier group? We have not worked out this moment, but it is important. There is no explicit theory of the combat use of aircraft carrier groups. Again, let us ask, for example, the question: since our main striking means are missile ships and submarines, what place does carrier-based aircraft occupy? For the Americans, it is she who attacks and destroys surface targets, we do not.

Should naval aircraft also perform strike missions over the sea? If so, in what cases? Is there a need to cover anti-ship missiles reaching the target with their own fighters? After all, enemy interceptors can shoot them down (except for the "Zircons", but there will not be many of them). Is there a need for joint use in the near sea zone or near their airfields of aircraft from an aircraft carrier and ground attack aircraft from the shore? We have never asked these questions - accordingly, there are no answers to them. But they should be by the time we start drawing the new aircraft carrier.

What should be done? The correct answer is to first maximize the combat effectiveness of Kuznetsov and both naval regiments. Conduct a series of large-scale exercises on the combat use of naval aviation against naval targets, ground targets, pairs, and large groups, strike the maximum number of aircraft at a time, strike the maximum number of aircraft per day or another period, repel a massive air raid enemy ship planes, work in small groups, aerial reconnaissance - all this needs to be tested in practice even before the first stroke of the drawings of future nuclear aircraft carriers is drawn.

It is necessary to work out the work of the deck crews as it should be, to rehearse the long-term maintenance of the technical serviceability of the aircraft without relying on the "shore", on our own. And when for the Russian Navy there will be no unclear points in the aircraft carrier business, when it becomes clear how the ship's design imposes restrictions on tactics, when all the regulations governing the combat work of naval aviation with the maximum possible efficiency will be written - then it would be possible, by laying in budget for the construction of bases for new ships, and to undertake their construction.

And all this without mentioning the fact that we do not have a catapult fighter. It needs to be developed. And it is necessary that by the time the flag is raised on the lead aircraft carrier, we would already have the first air unit on the new fighters. But nobody is developing a catapult fighter in our country now, is it? A springboard aircraft carrier (of the Kuznetsov type) is unacceptable; heavy aircraft such as early warning and control aircraft (AWACS) or transport vehicles, as the Americans do, cannot be lifted from it. Moreover, due to the lack of a catapult, even the Su-33 takes off from Kuznetsov either with incomplete refueling or with incomplete ammunition load.

But there is not only a catapult fighter, but also a machine that should direct these fighters to a target - an AWACS aircraft. It is not even in the project, and without such an aircraft, the effectiveness of the combat use of new aircraft carriers will be negligible.

But there is another problem.

Where to build?

Russia has no shipyards where it was possible to build an 80,000-ton nuclear-powered aircraft carrier without reservation. There is a shipyard SSK "Zvezda" in the Far East, but there are some design flaws that will make it extremely difficult to build the ship. In addition, the delivery of all the necessary components there is very expensive, and because of this, the ship will be 1.5-1.6 times more expensive than at a shipyard in the European part of Russia.

In Crimea, the Zaliv plant is building two huge universal amphibious assault ships, and the plant will not be able to pull off an aircraft carrier in the coming years for sure. In addition, there are political risks - in order to prevent new Russian aircraft carriers from leaving the Black Sea, our "partners" will make every effort to play off Russia and Turkey and close the straits for us for as long as possible. And the ships themselves may suffer in such a conflict.

There is a slipway "A" of the Baltic Shipyard, which will be vacated in a few years when the ordered nuclear icebreakers of Project 22220 are completed. and long - the plant is not optimal for such projects.

Theoretically, the "Northern Machine-Building Enterprise" ("Sevmash") has a boathouse with dimensions that allow building an aircraft carrier. But it cannot be launched from there; a complete reconstruction of the pool in front of the workshops is needed. But even this is not the final solution to the issue - the plant is busy building nuclear submarines and will be busy for a long time.

So what should you do? Building a new plant? But then it will need to be loaded with commercial orders, otherwise it will be very costly for the economy. Are there any orders? Are they exactly going to be? To build an entire shipbuilding complex for the sake of only aircraft carriers is ruin. In addition, there is a shortage of personnel in shipbuilding, which new factories are we talking about?

Again, in such difficult circumstances, it would be worthwhile for the sake of "training" to build a simpler ship (for example, a small aircraft carrier at the Baltic plant), and on it to work out such things as, for example, a catapult, an aviation flight control complex, perhaps some other systems. With our experience and quality of work, with our organization, throwing a series of atomic giants into construction at once is a gamble. We need to practice.

And an example of such training right before your eyes is China. The Chinese first studied the design of aircraft carriers on the Australian "Melbourne" bought for dismantling, then on our "Kiev" and "Minsk". Then they bought and completed the "Varyag", taking it into operation as "Liaoning", then "from scratch" they built its "clone" - "Shandong". And only after that they took up large projects of 85 thousand tons with catapults, two of which are now under construction. Reasonable, isn't it? But these are not all questions.

Why three?

Any self-respecting state should have a political strategy that describes the goals that the country sets for itself. Including it must have that part that regulates actions in the outside world. Its component, in turn, is the military strategy, which determines how the Armed Forces will operate within the framework of the overall strategy.

Part of this military strategy should be a naval strategy, which should describe what part of the state's military tasks and how the fleet should solve it. And it is at this stage that it becomes possible to calculate what forces will be needed for the fleet: in particular, how many aircraft carriers will be needed and on which fleets they will have to be based.

How this strategic hierarchy is built in the Russian Federation is a separate and very sad question. In the case of the announced plans for the construction of aircraft carriers, the fact that their number was announced by the official in charge of the defense industry complex, and not for the issues of military management, is eye-catching. It is clear that for the defense industry complex to master one and a half to two trillion rubles for a decade, trying to build three ships that have never been built in the Russian Federation is a nice thing. But without solving the above questions, the result may turn out to be very far from the desired one. And much more expensive than intended.

Conclusion

Aircraft carriers are certainly needed by the Russian Navy. Without them, in the event of a real conflict, the fleet will simply be driven “ashore”. Without them, it will not be possible to have aerial reconnaissance at the right time and in the right place, which means that there will be nowhere for ships to obtain target designation for firing anti-ship missiles at a long range. Without them, landing ships under construction are useless - it is impossible to land troops on an enemy coast without air supremacy.

But understanding all this, we must nevertheless recognize the facts that speak about how the Russian Navy is currently able to deal with its carrier forces, which now consist of not the smallest aircraft carrier and two naval air regiments in a very sad state. It's time to soberly assess everything that has happened to Kuznetsov and its air wing for decades. Recognize the real facts about the state of the domestic economy and shipbuilding.

And after that - to bring Kuznetsov and the existing naval aviation into a fully operational state. It is possible to re-create new air regiments and certainly change the combat training of the existing ones. It is possible to change the command structure and combat employment of naval air regiments.

Then, in the order of "training work", build a small modern ship that could be laid down and handed over without building new shipyards. To work out on it such systems that are new to us as a catapult, to work out all theoretical issues related to the use of aircraft carriers, to create a doctrine for their combat use that is adequate to state tasks, to create combat aircraft launched from a catapult. Change the control system of aircraft carrier forces - up to the appointment of pilots, and not sailors, as commanders of these ships (as is done in the US Navy). And only then take up big ships, being really ready, and build them and operate them. Having tightened up the economy before that, because there is no strong fleet without a strong economy.

We need aircraft carriers, but trying to jump over our heads, we will not get real and combat-ready ships. And the money will be spent on them.

Text: Alexander Timokhin

https://m.vz.ru/society/2021/5/24/1100320.html