Russia's navy is falling apart

[Onkel Neal]

http://theweek.com/articles/572496/r...-falling-apart

They're outdated, prone to mechanical breakdowns, and wickedly uncomfortable for their crews — especially compared to the latest U.S., European, and Chinese ships. Washington alone builds roughly eight new warships a year, including a brand-new nuclear carrier every four or five years.

[Archibald]

Yes, that incident I remembered last year.

[CCIP]

I think it's overstating things a bit, particularly as far as dependence on Ukraine for heavy machinery (there is some truth to it, though). The real problem is the scope of the Russian government's ambitions, which is at odds with the resources they have and the infrastructural problems they face. Geography makes Russia's navy incredibly complicated to keep up by default. But truthfully, the numbers of big ships are not really a measure of effectiveness. Russia doesn't need ships like the Kuznetsov, for one. The recent announcement that they're looking to build direct replacement for the Kirovs is madness and for their own good, it better not actually happen. The order of Mistrals was a smart one, but then they had to go and mess up the politics.

In truth, things are not universally bad. The Northern Fleet's infrastructure has gradually improved and it seems like they're gradually getting submarines back to where they need to be. The Black Sea fleet, relatively speaking, is probably at its strongest ever - and in that sense, the annexation of Crimea has only helped. In the Pacific, I think Russia resigned to not having to be a player for the moment. They do have a few things to work out in the Baltic though. Otherwise, it's not a big change from Soviet times. Russia never had an effective blue water navy, and this remains true today. All their attempts to correct it have been expensive and incredibly flawed.

What Russia needs is a reality check. They need to stop trying to play the role of empire and temper their military ambitions to their actual resources. Then they would be doing more than fine. But it would also be foolish for anyone to assume that the Russian navy has no bite left.

[ikalugin]

Well those articles come out every so often. In reality the situation is not as grim (or optimistic). The question is - would Navy receive all of its money allocated under GPV2020, or would it suffer cuts?

Russian Navy however does face challenges with ocean going major surface combatants, which cannot be replaced before 2020. That said, our priorities were always deterence->coastal defense-> power projection, hence SSBNs (and relevant supporting assets), close in area ships (frigates, corvetes, ssks) have a priority in short to medium term.

You could see that in borei construction, refurbishment of Black Sea Navy. Overall GPV2020 gives us an adequate minimal force, in 2020-2030 timeline we may build major ships.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by CCIP

What Russia needs is a reality check. They need to stop trying to play the role of empire and temper their military ambitions to their actual resources. Then they would be doing more than fine. But it would also be foolish for anyone to assume that the Russian navy has no bite left.

Aye, totally agree

[ikalugin]

What Russia needs is a reality check. They need to stop trying to play the role of empire and temper their military ambitions to their actual resources. Then they would be doing more than fine. But it would also be foolish for anyone to assume that the Russian navy has no bite left.

The view is that should we do it, we would loose the "empire" and get reduced to a small failed state in Europe. Hence having strong armed forces, capable of projecting power beyound our border is viewed as matter of physical survival.

However, in a way I do agree, we should prioritise some things over others and that is what we are doing in reality (ie we were not actually trying to build major surface combatants such as cruisers and carriers), even though rhetoric is going about all the nuclear powered cruisers and carriers.

[Kapitan]

Personally I think Russia needs to down size, I know it is a bitter pill to swallow however the thing that makes them break the bank is the fact they have multiple types of different warships doing the same jobs.

If you look at the Russian navy you have 2 or 3 types of frigate / corvette doing ASW work and 3 or 4 types of warships doing ASUW work.

The current budget for the Russian navy is $86bn due to rise to $96bn next year.

My view is this and I know its drastic and I know it would upset a lot of people in the kremlin:

Scrap the overhaul of the Kirov class cruisers and lay up peter the great,
Scrap the slava class cruisers and also scrap the kuznetsov

Focus on building more Gorshkov frigates then proceed to finalise a single DDG design to complement the gorshkov.

Scrap the tranutul and nanchuka's scrap the Oscar II the Victor III Delta IV and early akulas replace with the Yasen and Borei

mine warfare units replace with a single design and utilise them as patrol craft for coastal patrol also

Reality is Russia could do with a fleet size like this (don't forget spread over 5 fleets)

25 DDG's
40 FFG's
40 Corvettes
50 submarines (both nuclear and conventional including 12 SSBN's)
10 LPD / LPH

Don't need a carrier pay the debts off scrap the older vessels save some money then come back to it in the future

[ikalugin]

Oscar IIs (with the AM refit) and Delta IVs are critical assets that could serve for years, as without those we would loose critical capabilities (ie at sea deterence which is not possible with 3 Boreis split between 2 fleets).
Same goes for other major combatatants - the build rate of new ships is not limited by funding, it is limited by the industrial capacity, so by decomisioning you can't reinvest those savings into new platforms, you just get a loss in capabilities. Building the specific (by you) number of new platforms would take forever, even if we are optimistic.

Carrier is an example of such capabilities, with MiG29Ks it could now project our airpower abroad, just like we are doing now in Syria.

[Kapitan]

I think I haven't explained it too well, I was meaning projected over a period of time I understand the building designing and testing would take many years and you can't just scrap them over night I was meaning more in a decade time.

As for an aircraft carrier I think it's a lost cause Russia's campaign in Syria is done by land based aircraft kuznetsov is no where to be seen while not detracting that she isn't a valuable indeed she is her role would be some what limited.

If you look at the UK France United States they have a network of support world wide so they are never far from a friendly port should the need arise, unfortunately Russia does not have such a world wide support network thus it would hinder future operations globally for them.

This is probably why we have not seen a deployment of kuznetsov to areas like the Pacific region I can't even recall a trip beyond the med I'm aware she has indeed been mid Atlantic but probably no further then Venezuela.

Russia has the 3rd largest defence budget in the world yet they spend more and more maintaining older and older equipment they need to invest in building more shipyards and a new destroyer programme

Ukraine has the facilities to build carriers and indeed they did build kuznetsov there but Russia atm lacks the facilities to build such a vessel

The above numbers I've proposed is a idealist fleet size naturally won't happen over night the bulk of the numbers would go to the northern and Pacific fleet the old equipment is draining funds more and more each year

Out of the budget the navy probably gets just under one third of that figure as you have to also include Air Force army and border force plus the intelligence services so maybe only around $20bn goes to the navy

[ikalugin]

There is only a point to scrap a ship when it is no longer usefull or cost effective. If you look at Kirov class modernisation programs and compare those ships, in terms of armament, to other options (ie building new Frigates) you would notice that those refits are very cost effective.

Same goes for the Oscar-II, 3rd generation SSNs (with AM refit turning them into Oscar-IIIs), those are not only critical for a number of old missions (conventional deterence, AShM strike) but also for a bunch of new missions (land attack strikes in case of Oscar-IIIs, as those carry 72 rounds in their launchers, making them very cost effective when compared to Yasen class).

Again, Russian shipbuilding programs are not limited as much by funding, but rather by the industrial capacity, which in turn is limited by the economy and workforce sizes. Even now various industries fight for their workers and decisive expansion is simply not possible.
That said, there is a new shipyard being built (Zvezda-DSME), but that won't begin building anything of note untill 2017 and, chances are, won't get into big time naval construction till later (unless we decide to lay down carriers there). As you would understand a shipyard that becomes availiable in 2 years won't begin releasing large, serial production ships to Navy till well after 10 years into the future.

Nikolaev shipbuilding cluster is dead, as a number of other old soviet shipyards. We are trying to reanimate stuff in Crimea with ordering construction of auxilaries there, but we would see how it goes.

Kuznetsov indeed did not participate in Syrian events, however it is the only way to project power Russia has that does not require air bases. Thus carrier is another important capability to have, especially if Russia plans to operate outside of it's borders. Without that carrier LHDs have very little value.

As to the old equipment. That equipment allows Russian Navy to conduct critical missions today, such as:
- deterence SSBN patrols.
- control of the economical area.
- maintaining the Navy's skill base.
- global show of flag/counter piracy/armed intervention (cruiser Moscow off Syria) missions.

If those ships can be replaced with new ones, then we should do so, but the rate we could replace ships is limited. For example - the true workhorses of Russian Navy - pr.1155 Large ASW ships require to be replaced with atleast one pr.22350 Frigate each (would still lead to a loss of capability in ASW department, as pr22350 operates one helicopter vs 2), with requirement of atleast 8 such ships. While it is possible to produce 8 22350s in 10 years (and we would probably do that), keeping the 1155s (with some form of refit) would allow us to expand our operations untill we could build 8 more 22350/22350Ms.
Replacing the core ships of surface action groups - cruisers would be even more difficult, as we didn't even lay down the first ships of those classes. Thus cruisers are here to stay for more than 10 years, cutting them earlier would lead to loss of critical capabilities.

[ikalugin]

TLDR - existing old ships have to stay for a while because we can't replace them quickly enough even if we did pour money into shipbuilding, plus they are cost effective with refits and thus some of them (ie Kirovs) do not need replacement.

[ikalugin]

You also may like this:
http://navy-korabel.livejournal.com/89704.html
View of Russian Navy.

[Kapitan]

While i understand fully that the Russians are unable to at a stroke clear the entire fleet and make way over night for a new fleet i just feel a lot of money is being wasted on projects that are of little use value or importance.

For example the main replacement for the Sovremenny class destroyers the project 956 ships have not yet even left the drawing board nor have they been granted any sort of follow up, i believe that this one project alone is the major project that should have the immediate focus on.

Russia currently has to my knowledge a total of just 5 of these vessels still in active use that means at least 10 have been laid up, these vessels are the main ASUW AAW escort platforms without these it leaves the entire fleet wide open, and its something the Kirov and Slava cannot fill.

as for the carrier they need to revisit this after they sort out the ships needed to escort it i think plus the funding issue right now isn't the best.

Also brought to my attention is the fact that Sevmash is the only place really that can repair or refit a carrier and to my knowledge they are not able to build one there given that the kievs and kuznetsovs were built in ukraine and they dont have the facilities to do so, so you will require new facilities which is going to take a long time to build and also even longer to build this carrier it reminds me of ulyonsk.

on a lighter note im off to see the fabulous red army choir in lyon in two weeks time.

[ikalugin]

By the looks of it Leader class would be more of a Slava class replacement, with the Gorshkov class (and Gorshkov class follow ups) replacing Sovremeny's and Udaloys.

In total we have 8 operational Udaloys and 3 operational Sovremenys. This means that we have a requirement for 8 (replacement of Udaloys 1 for 1), 11 (replacement of both the Udaloys and Sovremenys 1 for 1) or 22 (replacement of both classes 2 for 1).
The first option appears to be within the GPV2020. In my opinion the fist and second options would be complete by 2025 (including Gorshkov class follow ups) and the 3rd could be complete by 2030.

[ikalugin]

3K22 weapon is confirmed for ther ЗS-14-11442М and modified 3S-14-22350 launchers. My guess is that it would be integrated to all 3S-14 (aka UKSK) launchers.

The integration assumes tests with the 3М22GММ mock ups complete by the end of December, 2016. This implies that the desighn is fairly advanced.