I notice it distinctly, how often Russians seem to be emotional about the topic. It is not a normal discussion about another weapons system, but something else, frequently perceived as "the" tool of imperial ambitions they openly despise.
Western use has made it so, but reality is that air power cannot be ignored... the Russian Army have the air defence capacity to operate without their air force, yet they used air power in Syria because it just made sense.
Lifting radar into the air just makes sense too, and fighter aircraft can roam around the air space intercepting threats in peace time and war to identify threats and targets but also friendlies as well... imagine a cat launched S-70 that could be launched and fly 2,500km out to a potential threat at 950km/h at medium to high altitudes with optical and radar targeting pods on board as well as missiles... without risking any people... the enemy can't ignore it... when they respond you know there are hostiles there.... but you know when they are over 1,000km away... without any air platforms you see a radar blip and wonder what it is...
Thanks for the full quote. I don't understand that he refers to cheaper carriers, he mentions other ocean going vessels as capable of doing the same functions.
I suspect he means they wont be competing with the US to make the biggest and heaviest and most expensive aircraft carriers... so they wont be 100K tons... I personally think they might come up with a clever design that maximises hangar size and aircraft space with minimal ship weight... but I still think the French are right with their estimates of 70-80K tons, nuke powered, EM cats...
He is smart enough, though, not to collide with the VMF decision power, but it is clear IMHO, that his opinion is contrary to carriers.
I don't think he appreciates that Russia is on its own now and needs to bypass the west and trade with the rest of the world directly instead of via western intermediaries who screw it and take profit from their trade, and limit their trade in other ways.
Russia claims to have already the AD to counter potential US hypersonic weapons, but they at the same time declare their fleet to be defenceless against them, now and in the future? The whole argument makes no sense whatsoever.
They are talking about aircraft carriers but I think they are mentioning that they need to be careful because they are not invulnerable. Ironically in Russian service they will be primarily air defence carriers, so their primary purpose will be to boost the air defence capacity of ships they operate with, but that is not what western carriers are for. Western carriers rely on air defence optimised cruisers and destroyers to defend them while they penetrate into enemy air defences... either land based or sea based to destroy ground or surface ship forces of the enemy.
VMF better get the Su-57 into their carriers as soon, in as big numbers and with the smallest performance loss due to navalization as they can.
Just like on land they need two aircraft types... one for long range air superiority, for which the Su-27 was their best plane in the 1980s and their Su-57 is their best plane now, so it needs to be their big plane.
For their lighter plane the range and speed requirements are not so important, but I still think a STOL fighter makes the most sense... that twin engined MiG model would be my first choice obviously... especially if a land based version could also be used too so numbers make it cheaper.
A VSTOL fighter would be more expensive to develop and more limited in its performance and its primary advantage of being able to land or take off vertically will almost never be used in combat because of the performance limitations it imposes and the greater risk it entails.
The New MiG looks to me to be a better 5th gen Rafale...
> Devaluates any surface fleet without the means to deal with such weapons
Makes air defence even more critical which actually makes air defence carriers more important, not less important... more necessary.
We preach a defensive strategy, therefore (for Russia, the construction of aircraft carriers. - RT ) is a very controversial issue
Even from a pride and ego perspective... Venezuela would feel safer choosing Russia and China as allies over the US if Russian and Chinese carriers could come and visit and train and exercise in their waters whenever the US starts to threaten...
Not having carriers would make rest of the world countries hesitate to establish trade relations against the west... if you can back up your words then your words mean nothing. Ask Serbia over Russian verbal support all these years, or ask Georgia over US verbal support all these years...
That is not to say an aircraft carrier would have made any difference in Serbia and US carriers were impotent in Georgia too... it is no perfect system that fixes everything... the US spends over three quarters of a trillion dollars a year on defence and how often does it get its way without extra bribes and the use of the CIA and NSA.
Expensive yes. In what measure, depends on what you references are. If you want to emulate the nonsensical USN approach, yes, it will be a bloody expensive and ultimately failed endeavor
Trying to emulate the US Navy would be stupid and I also think trying to get VSTOL fighters to a practical level is also a dead end until you have electric engines that blow air that has not been super heated and has not had the oxygen consumed from its exhaust... one day something practical might be developed but I have not seen anything that comes close to a more conventional design like a MiG-29K.
There you have the reference to ocean going vessels as substitutes for carriers. It is a totally flawed analysis, no matter that it comes from a guy as competent as Borisov. And certainly VMF specialists have made it clear, once and one million times, that they need and want carriers, period.
They went down the mini carriers with the Kiev class together with the British, and they went for a middle sized carrier with the Kuznetsov and their direct real world experience is that it is much better than a Kiev class ship, but still not big enough... they know they don't want a full sized American strike carrier like a 100K ton Nimitz or Ford class CVN, but they need a decent amount of space on their ship which is going to include more and more drone types.
I would like to see them experiment more with airships.... the core of making carriers big is to allow decent sized AWACS aircraft to operate from them safely... the EM cats are primarily for AWACS platforms to operate with decent levels of fuel... having an airship based AWACS platform which could have an enormous antenna array and even perhaps an onboard nuclear reactor to give unlimited electrical power which could be used to transition water to hydrogen and back and also power the radar and computing power needed... with powerful electric motors it should be able to keep up with and operate with any group of ships... perhaps with EMP weapons and directed energy weapons to protect itself (ie beams to disrupt electronics rather than blow things out of the sky.
You could design it so it can land on the sea surface with some sort of catamaran type hull with lots of optics and ports looking downwards that could allow it to be tethered in battlefields for observation at 20km altitude or higher with high power optics and radar to scan the ground and the airspace for targets.
The enormous internal volume of an airship would allow enormous radar antenna to be fitted... and the heat they generate when used will help make the airship remain buoyant. Hydrogen fuel cells and electrical current would allow the transition of water to hydrogen and back as needed for balance and lifting force respectively.
Modern strong lightweight materials that are fire proof and are not highly flammable like the paint and materials used in old airships would make it much safer.
The entire internal envelope could be purged with nitrogen so fires cannot even start where the hydrogen is stored.
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Broski
haven't simply appeared from nowhere, ie Sarmat heavy ICBM, Avangard HGV, Poseidon UUV, Burevestnik nuclear-powered LACM, Peresvet mobile laser, Zircon & Khinzhal hypersonic AShM/LACM, Armata, Su-57, S-75, PAK DP, PAK DA, Tu-160M2.
