Future Russian Aircraft Carriers and Deck Aviation. #3

Those problems can be solved in several ways. For example by using the mosquito fleet or small corvettes and latest small dimension submarines, you can move boats in between the Baltic, White Sea, and the Black Sea, all using the internal canal system. You can move Karakurt corvettes and Lada or even Kilo submarines this way. You can also put into service ships which are capable of fast and long distance deployments to be able to reinforce fleets as necessary. This can be done with nuclear attack submarines, especially ones with guided missiles. The Yasen-M can move at over 30 knots submerged under the ice for prolonged periods. It can move in between the Northern and Pacific fleets across the Northern Sea Route. wrote:

This is all true, but in the case of a small fleet, or submarines operating in the Arctic. You can't move an aircraft carrier through a system of rivers, etc. And in straits it's an easy target.

My point is that a carrier naval grouping costs about 10 submarines to both build and operate. A carrier group will be much more fragile and needs a giant resupply system based on friendly shores. The question of what is the more effective force multiplier - a few Yasen-M or a single carrier - is rhetorical. But you are carrier guys, so wrote:

The question is whether aircraft carriers and their purpose and functions can be compared with nuclear submarines. These are completely different tools. Different flexibility of defense and attack.
Although of course Russia should invest in a nuclear submarine fleet. They have excellent technologies and the production itself is currently going very well. In addition, huge experience. The USSR had the most diverse and largest fleet of submarines in the world.
Currently, with the development of maneuvering hypersonic weapons, aircraft carriers will be an increasingly easy target. Let's imagine that the Tu-22M3 or Tu-160M ​​will carry hypersonic missiles with a range of 4000 km.

My point is that a carrier naval grouping costs about 10 submarines to both build and operate.
A carrier group will be much more fragile and needs a giant resupply system based on friendly shores.

That is terrible logic.

That is the equivalent of saying a bolt action rifle is much cheaper than an assault rifle or a sniper rifle so don't bother with assault rifles or sniper rifles and just make bolt action rifles, because millions of bolt action rifles will be more powerful and cheaper to buy and maintain and simpler to operate than any assault rifle or sniper rifle.

The problem there is that submarines are peekaboo weapons... they don't have a presence, you can't board ships... most of the time they either sink a ship or do nothing... which is totally unacceptable in peace time which is going to be the vast majority of its operational life with a bit of luck.

A nuclear powered aircraft carriers does not have a supply chain any worse than a large group of surface ships would already need. The only extra would be aviation fuel which could be shipped in one ship and transferred onboard while underway.

Most of the ordinance a Russian aircraft carrier would be carrying would be air to air missiles and dumb bombs with glide kits....

Their helicopter carriers will likely need rather more in terms of ATGMs and rockets and cannon shells.

The question of what is the more effective force multiplier - a few Yasen-M or a single carrier - is rhetorical.
But you are carrier guys, so ...

I think the conflict in Syria and Ukraine has shown that air power is useful if not everything. To land troops or to control water ways air power makes things easier and simpler. Even a powerful ship like a Kirov class vessel would not be that safe on its own, but modern destroyers and cruisers would be safer with an aircraft carrier providing air support and AWACS as well as CAP with fighters.

They wont be invading countries, they are not a colonial power... most of the time it will be rescuing countries from the colonial west like they did in Syria.

Revealing the location of your Yasen SSGNs because you want to blow up some arms dumps or fuel dumps or this or that factory is not good strategy IMHO.

I would put Zircon on Yasens and have them closer to London or Washington or Paris to be honest.

This is all true, but in the case of a small fleet, or submarines operating in the Arctic. You can't move an aircraft carrier through a system of rivers, etc. And in straits it's an easy target.

You wouldn't need to. Basing their CV and any CVNs they might make in the future is going to be either in the Northern Fleet or the Pacific Fleet, which gives them access to the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean... you talk about choke points like they are something important... the Bering straight would be easily covered by a dozen MiG-31Ks with Kinzhals or surface launched Zircons from a Corvette or land based launcher.

The question is whether aircraft carriers and their purpose and functions can be compared with nuclear submarines. These are completely different tools. Different flexibility of defense and attack.
Although of course Russia should invest in a nuclear submarine fleet. They have excellent technologies and the production itself is currently going very well. In addition, huge experience. The USSR had the most diverse and largest fleet of submarines in the world.

Presenting a false dichotomy is a tactic used by the west... why not have aircraft carriers and submarines... both would be useful... and the commitment to a blue water navy would create trust in international global trade with Russia because if the naval colonial western powers try something dirty it means at least Russia could do something about it other than send a corvette... no matter how powerful its missiles might be.

Currently, with the development of maneuvering hypersonic weapons, aircraft carriers will be an increasingly easy target.

And with an escort cruiser carrying a 200 megawatt laser that can hit targets at 100km a manouvering hypersonic missile is not perfect either.

Not to mention jamming or decoys... if the missile can't find the target it can't hit it... high energy radar weapons to blind or overwhelm any radar sensor on the incoming missile... the AESA radar the carrier would be carrying could be designed to concentrate the power of hundreds or thousands of its TR modules to transmit in a coherent beam... what is the power of Irbis... imagine the power a nuclear powered aircraft carrier or cruiser could pump through its AESA elements?

They already have lasers to dazzle optical satellites in orbit.

A hypersonic missile will be hot so pointing a laser at it will heat it further... get it hot enough and its own speed destroys itself.

There is no such thing as a perfect weapon that can't be defeated... when the tank was first introduced only mines and artillery could deal with them, but of course new types of small arms ammo was developed... armour piercing... and of course heavy calibre machine guns and automatic cannon... the Russians clearly have the worlds most powerful air defence system... while it is not perfect and could be overwhelmed it is going to take an enormous effort and a lot of planning to try to do so... and while you are trying to defeat it it can be fighting back... in this case with aircraft spotting where you are launching drones and missiles from and facilitating a counter attack with long range hypersonic missiles.

The west does not have hypersonic anti ship missiles and by the time Russia has new CVNs no doubt they will have a range of solutions to such threats... they have several missiles of their own they can train and practise against while they work on it.

Let's imagine that the Tu-22M3 or Tu-160M ​​will carry hypersonic missiles with a range of 4000 km.

Even if they have a range of 12,000km you can't replace proper air support with strategic aircraft with long range cruise missiles.

Submarines are without any doubt the principle naval combat machine in times of conflict. It's very different in "peace" time though.

In times of war submarines will sink ships and cause nightmares for the enemy. In peace time they are next to useless.

Carriers wont make a hell of a lot of difference in WWIII because the results will be determined by strategic weapons, but in small conflicts having air power and air support can make an enormous difference and reduce the power of enemy submarines too.

Equally, it cannot perform the tasks a surface group with air power can.

Not to mention a Russian SSGN is going to be more powerful as part of a carrier group than on its own with nothing to protect it...

As to the hypersonic weapons, the obvious question is why would a country possessing AD systems like S-500 and soon S-550 consider it impossible to defend against such missiles?

One of the problems of drones is that to be effective you need large numbers all the time constantly finding and hitting enemy targets 24/7, and that is rather difficult for most armies because their recon attack system is not designed to find thousands of targets and engage them thousands at a time... the management task is enormous... Overwhelming.

Except the Russians seem to be using a mixture of recon drones and suicide drones and AI to automatically find and attack enemy targets... and I suspect using a combination of jammers and decoys and even smoke as well as lasers and directed energy weapons and guns firing airburst shells and of course the full variety of SAMs small and huge, that the Russians... with a bit of AI will be able to manage hypersonic manouvering targets better than anyone else.

I also think the scramjet engine gives rocket speed with jet engine fuel economy so intercontinental cruise missiles will be making a comeback and they are going to be much smaller and lighter and cheaper than current ICBMs and Russia will likely be able to make them in enormous numbers... and the best bit is that they can fit them with conventional warheads to hit any target anywhere on the planet from Russian territory or international waters...

And they will likely be cheaper than the Thunderbird nuclear powered cruise missile they are also working on.

To clarify, a chokepoint only makes sense if you have effective systems for an ambush.... for instance HATO ships approaching the Bering straight is a choke point for the west because the Russians could cover the entire width of the straight with Kinzhals and MiG-31Ks... the only way to block the straight for Russian ships would be for the west to send lots of ships, which would be sitting ducks to all the Zircons the Russian destroyers and cruisers would be carrying...

t is not a either/or decision, the same as tanks do not exclude fighter jets. What is true is that there is an evolution in the missions of the VMF, as the country recovers its status, from purely defensive close their shores to power projection ones far from their territory. wrote:

Yes, that's true. Just look at the USSR. In the 80s, they were developing their fleet very quickly and wanted to create a blue fleet. In the late 80s, they laid the keel for the 80,000-ton nuclear aircraft carrier Ulyanovsk, but as a result of the collapse of the USSR, the project was canceled. The ship was 40% ready and the second unit was being prepared for construction. After the collapse of the USSR, Ukraine scrapped the hull. If it weren't for the collapse of the USSR, several Ulyanovsks would probably be floating by now. Admiral Gorshkov's dreams of a large ocean fleet with several full-size CVNs were ruined. If it weren't for the collapse of the USSR, their fleet would look completely different now.

This is all true, but in the case of a small fleet, or submarines operating in the Arctic. You can't move an aircraft carrier through a system of rivers, etc. And in straits it's an easy target.

The arctic is a significant area but Russia already has a lot of airfields up there and is building more all the time.

The US has threatened to base Cruisers in the Arctic ocean for the express purpose of carrying lots of SM-6 missiles to try to shoot down Russia ICBMs on their way over the pole.

The Russians have responded with new heavy missiles that go over the south pole to reach US targets... which renders all of the US ABM systems obsolete because they are all focused on an attack coming from the north over the north pole.

Obviously any Russian carrier will be based in the Northern Fleet or Pacific fleet because that would give them access.... using icebreakers, to the Pacific or Atlantic Oceans... they might use them near the pole in summer as a forward deployed airbase they could launch attacks at US ships in Canadian waters trying to swat down Russian ICBMs and SLBMs on their way to targets in the US... a naval heavy fighter with an air launched missile that replaced the Zircon... perhaps with a 3,000km flight range and a nuclear warhead to make it lighter and faster would be a quick and potent way of defeating US defences in the Arctic and in Alaska, but primarily these carriers are not going to stay in the arctic... they will be operating in the Atlantic and visiting countries in central and south America as well as Africa and in the Pacific the countries of central and south America on the other coast and of course Asia.

That is terrible logic. wrote:

Russia will not lay the keel for a new CVN for the next 20 years anyway. These discussions about how much it is needed and how much are currently not very sensible. In addition, after 2022, priorities have changed, Russia will invest more in the land forces and air forces than in the navy.

Forget about that shipyard in Nikolayev. There's no telling whether Russia will get there at all, given their pace in this war and the fact that Putin will make more idiotic peace agreements in the meantime if Kiev decides to do so. They'd better invest in shipyards on Russian territory.

Off topic, but if they do not get Nikolaev and Odessa with access to the Danube and to transnistria / gagauzia/ Moldavia, (and to Romania) after all the effort and resources it will be a very negative outcome for Russia. It will mean that the only thing they get is a Minsk3.0 wrote:

Prepare for such a scenario. With Putin in power it is very likely. It is doubtful that Russia will ever take Odessa. Sooner there will be another peace agreement. For now, Russia is very far from taking over the 4 regions of Ukraine that they declared belong to Russia.

Anyway, as I wrote several times, in that area there is not only the black sea shipyards. There were 2 other large shipyards in Nikolaev (now destroyed but they are still premium location for rebuilding shipyards) + at least Kerch shipyard and a very useful ship repairing yard in the Danube (Ismail). wrote:

They plan to build more large shipyards on Russian territory. They don't need the bankrupt Ukrainian ones. They're not the same shipyards that built CVN for the USSR.

Russia will not lay the keel for a new CVN for the next 20 years anyway.

You can throw out any number you please, but I would ask if they don't want fixed wing carriers carrying fighter planes and AWACS platforms then why are they building two helicopter carriers... and if you think a CVN wont be safe why would you think they will be building two 40K ton helicopter landing carriers and wont be building destroyers and cruisers to support and protect them?

Corvettes and Frigate and 40K ton helicopter carriers simply don't make sense on their own.

Things take time when it comes to naval things... the fact that they have upgraded and repaired the Kuznetsov and are building helicopter carriers suggests they are serious about a blue water navy... unless you think these two helicopter carriers will be operating in the Black Sea and Baltic Sea.

Think about the use and roles of a Helicopter landing ship... we are talking about a landing ship for landing a thousand naval infantry with full helicopter support... are they going to do that in the arctic? Doubt it. The Helicopter carriers are 40K ton because they are designed to be able to operate for 3 months, which means they want to be able to land troops anywhere on the planet. They would also be valuable for situations like hurricanes or floods or other natural disasters where large numbers of helicopters and boats and trucks will be valuable.

Even if they go and visit Mir in South Africa, the fact of the matter is that they will need destroyers and cruisers and aircraft carriers for them to perform their mission types, so that makes it rather certain that CVNs will get laid down and not in 20 years time.

They will likely want to test the upgrades and improvements to the Kuznetsov, but they will also want to test the upgraded heavy frigate too, but destroyers will be next, and once they have started making those the Cruisers will be next.