Historical Russian Weapons question

[SandyCaesar]

I've done a bit of research, and I wanted somebody to confirm my results regarding (conventional) ASuW doctrine during the Cold War.

As far as I can tell, the West focused on arming their attack subs with torpedoes (WWII straight-runners, Mk37, Mk48 for US; Mk8, Tigerfish, and Spearfish for UK, and others) and missiles (i.e. Harpoon, TASM). On the other hand, your everyday Russian attack submarine was armed almost exclusively with torpedoes for ASuW (53-65, SET-65, TEST-71, USET-80, and 65-76 for those who can carry it), with ASW cruise missiles that wouldn't be very helpful in a convoy strike. Instead, ASuW missiles were regarded as the sole territory of dedicated SSG/SSGNs (SS-N-7/9/19), or nuclear variants like the SS-N-21; Harpoonski and Sunburn apparently never entered service with submarines.

Am I correct here? And regarding the torpedoes--since the torps were all short-ranged (except the jumbo 65-76), did that mean that SSNs lacked a standoff ASuW weapon? What would be their doctrine, then?

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Originally Posted by SandyCaesar

I've done a bit of research, and I wanted somebody to confirm my results regarding (conventional) ASuW doctrine during the Cold War.

As far as I can tell, the West focused on arming their attack subs with torpedoes (WWII straight-runners, Mk37, Mk48 for US; Mk8, Tigerfish, and Spearfish for UK, and others) and missiles (i.e. Harpoon, TASM). On the other hand, your everyday Russian attack submarine was armed almost exclusively with torpedoes for ASuW (53-65, SET-65, TEST-71, USET-80, and 65-76 for those who can carry it),

Don't forget the SET-53. The TEST-71 actually is antisubmarine in its role, and the USET is universal.

with ASW cruise missiles that wouldn't be very helpful in a convoy strike. Instead, ASuW missiles were regarded as the sole territory of dedicated SSG/SSGNs (SS-N-7/9/19), or nuclear variants like the SS-N-21; Harpoonski and Sunburn apparently never entered service with submarines.

The SS-N-25, no. the SS-N-22 ... sources in the 90s have often mentioned that in the 80s, a P-100, which is a variant of the early P-80 (one of TWO types of missile NATO called "Sunburn", the other being the 3M80/P-270 series) for submarines.

Am I correct here? And regarding the torpedoes--since the torps were all short-ranged (except the jumbo 65-76), did that mean that SSNs lacked a standoff ASuW weapon? What would be their doctrine, then?

According to Milan Vego's Soviet Naval Tactics, which AFAIK is the best single open-source discussion of Russian naval tactics in English, the Soviets will basically use cooperative tactics whenever the target (for example, a CVBG, but maybe not a single ship) warrants it and such an attack is possible. So ideally, there will be both a SSGN and a SSN (or several) in range of the target that needs attacking, and the two's attacks will be coordinated. If there are any planes and surface ships in range, the Russians will try to coordinate their attack as well.

First, to put it into perspective, the Soviet torpedo ranges weren't that short. Only the Mk48 and Spearfish (the latter didn't have such a great start) with their Otto-fueled engines started to eclipse those ranges.

For the missiles, it is more the reverse. After a brief flirtation on both sides with land-attack cruise missiles, it was the Soviets who really continued to play with SSMs for awhile. At that time, it was quite impossible to make a SSM that will fire from a torpedo tube, so basically SSGNs with dedicated missile tubes were the only way to go if you wanted SSMs on subs. The Americans only started putting missiles onto subs when the late 70s managed to refine turbojets to the point they can fit onto missiles with bodies no wider than 53cm.

[Kapitan]

Problem with russian ASM missiles is most are very heavy large bulky chunks of metal take the SS-N-19 to put it into context its like a very mini ballistic missile (it is a cruise misile) the thing is huge it would dwarf a harpoon or tomahawk which is why you see only the Oscar class SSGN carry them in special tubes and they only carry 24 of them, also to note larger surface warships the kirov class and kuznetsov carry the shipwreck known as P-700 Granit.

The SS-N-22 Sunburn (latest one) is again very large you find these on sovremenny class DDG's but are too large to go into a submarine also factor in some of these missiles are not the standard 1000lb wieght you may get with a harpoon SS-N-19 wieghs some where in the region of 7 tonnes of which 750kg of that 3/4 of a tonne is a warhead thats if it is fitted with a conventional H.E warhead.

The soviets normaly paired thier SSGN and SSN's in co-ordinated waves you would find that should an attack happen the SSGN would fire off all thier missiles in one hit leaving the SSN to pick of straglers while they run back home to re arm.

In short personally the SS-N-19 and SS-N-22 missiles in my opinion leave the harpoon and tomahawk veriants behind a great distance they are larger faster and could easily take out a DDG or a CG and two or three maybe a CVN.

If you notice at the time of the cold war russia developed diffrent types of submarine you had the diesels which despite all belief were never ment to be hunting around the atlantic they did only because at the time nuclear submarines were quite unreliable this is first and early second generation here.

You had in development early on the november class attack submarine the hotel class Ballistic missile submarine and also the echo class guided missile submarine but each did have a diesel counterpart not as a back up but mainly to also boost numbers and also have a more provoking presence at sea in numbers.

The echo was counterparted in diesel form by the juliette class Hotel counterparted with the golf class and the novembers with the foxtrots.

Most of the torpedos used buy the russians are pretty nifty bits of kit 65-76 although it has atributed i believe to the most major disaster in submarine history still is used today and is pretty good for what it does however;

The USN uses only the MK48ADCAP as thier main torpedo the british use spearfish they are multi role units can attack ships or submarines easily and to me that is the way forward why have 6 types of torpedo to do 2 jobs when you can build just one type that can do both not only save money but the simplicity involved, also british and american submarines are all fitted with 21inch torpedo tubes another great achievement that simplyfies things.

The russian just make it complex although thier akulas have 14 torpedo tubes great wonderful a massivly armed vessel 6 of the 14 tubes are useless as you cant re load them at sea.

Another 4 of the tubes are 65cm tubes made specificaly to carry and fire weapons like the 65-76 again a big handicap here a larger torpedo takes more space and i dont know if you can fire a 21inch torpedo out of a 25inch tube (aint 100% about that)

So what are you left with once you fired all the 65cm torpedos and the outer 6 tubes ? four just four tubes to squeeze 21inch torpedos down to me waste of effort and money.

You find that they have 3 torpedos that can do anti submarine warfare another 3 that can do anti surface warfare 1 torpedo while is great on paper is utterly useless (yes i refer to the skhval) and another 3 that is multi role can do both.

now each has diffrent specs and ranges and performance capabilitys and what ever then we get into the ASW Rockets SS-N-16 stallion great weapon the USN abandoned subroc many years ago why because it wasnt really fesable uhha now this is where the americans handicapped themselves.

maybe a russian sub got the drop on that 688i 40 miles away he can fire on that 688i but the 688i cant fire back out of range one handicap but on the other hand launching either the SS-N-16 or 27 makes a heck of alot of noise so he will know a rough area of where you are and my humble opinion is western torpedos are acctually better than russian its the one good development they made.

The biggest handicap for the USN was the ceased production of TASM which is the anti ship missile tomahawk version it means they have to rely on the very slow 510knot harpoon which to be honest is a bit of a pathetic excuse of a missile im sorry i just dont like harpoons you would be better off with exocet, but the russians excelled in ASM weaponry (missiles) the SS-N-19 is 7tonnes yes far larger the harpoon can reach 80nm the SS-N-19 can go to 250nm the harpoon can travel at 510knots about the speed of a 747 the SS-N-19 travels at mach 2+ (some sources reported upto mach 4.5)

To give a good insight into the shipwreck SS-N-19 the missile is some 30feet long and has a diamiter of nearly 2.5 feet which is why only three types of vessels can carry them and they dont carry them in great numbers.
Kirovs only carry about 24 of them the kuznetsov about 12 and the oscars 24 they have a great target data and guidence systems if you fire them in swarms one climbs to 20,000 feet gives updates to every other missile if its shot down another takes its place untill it hits target

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-700_Granit This is for the SS-N-19 more reading

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moskit This is about the SS-N-22 Sunburn another good missile smaller than the shipwreck found on the sovvys and can be air launched also.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VA-111_Shkval This is for the VA-111 Shkval in my own opinion this torpedo is more of a propaganda stunt than something of any major importance simply because when fired its not wire guided its a dumb torpedo it has no guidence and is fired in the general direction of the enamy in the vain hope to shoe it away, in many ways this torpedo is a bit like you with a slipper trying to stop a dog urinating on the carpet of your lounge its a nifty toy to "scare" the west but in fact its little more then a lump of metal that goes bang somewhere near an enamy submarine, this i do believe was more to scare than to actually fight in a war but give it time it may change.

In all the russians i do believe have the upper hand when it comes to having a good missile to take down a ship but the americans and british have thee best torpedos in which to sink ships one day we will be intelligent enough to combine the two.



My take on world weapons is as follows

britian creates something its great it works its practical.

America sees the british sucess and says we will have that and do this to it and its all flash but still practical.

The germans see the americans and go yes ve vill have this and make it bigger and more reliable, again practical.

Then the russians come along they go hmm lets take that away but make it massive to out do america then show them what we got, reality they got something flash that doesnt work and is useless (some of the time) because sometimes they do get it right oddly enough!


I hope you enjoyed that little short or as i call him ASH !regards hope you liked the brief over view of stuff here, hope it helps kinda sorta.

[SandyCaesar]

Definitely, Kapitan and KZ II. Thanks loads.

Mainly I was wondering about the differences in weapon loads between the Russians and the Americans. And there's really no doubt today that the Russians are ahead in the ASM/ASW missile game; although I have to say the Tactical Tomahawk program looks pretty promising. It's still a subsonic seaskimmer, though, no match for one of the Russian giants--or a Klub, if they've worked out its reliability issues. Still, supersonic seaskimming swarm from nowhere...(shudders)

The only problem I could see is that, AFAIK, the Soviets/Russians never did work out the noise issue with their SSGNs. (By the 1970s, I think that Juliets and Echos wouldn't have really been a significant threat to American carrier croups; surfacing against those helicopters and aircraft to try to fire missiles equals dead meat.) And the SSGNs (Charlies and Oscars) were usually noisier than their SSN/SSK counterparts, right?

And come to think of it, I find it hard to believe that wakehomers are really worth all the hype. Hard as hell to use properly, and just as you've set up a shot on a juicy CVN some twerp in his FFG decides to play the hero and cross the carrier's wake, messing up the wakehoming sensor and maybe sacrificing a frigate to save the carrier, since everybody to that point will have heard the torpedo. Yeah, I know, purely theoretical, but it's a way to waste your 65-76 shots, besides the inefficient search pattern (then again, with the Kit you don't need fuel efficiency).

But regarding some of those torpedoes...why didn't the Sovs just settle on a standardized model? Maybe it's the packrat mentality and that, but why would anyone keep SAET-50/60s and SET-53s around when they have the newer torps?

BTW, another piece of info on Russian weaps, their 76mm gun here.

Of particular note:

Originally Posted by NavWeaps

This weapon is considered effective against missiles and during trials it consistently shot down Falanga ATGMs (AT-2 Swatter) simulating Harpoon ASMs. On average it took 25 rounds per missile.

That's pretty good for a 76mm, although I remember the Italians doing the same thing with specially adapted sabots for their Oto-Melaras. However, this is particularly interesting: the most advanced version of the Falanga (AT-2 Swatter-C) had a max range of 4000m, a bit like a radio-guided subsonic version of the TOW. Someone behind the missile has to launch and guide it, and trying to guide a missile while some Navy madman is spewing 76mm in your direction at 4000m... You might be able to get around that with a remote platform, but that's a pretty good performance for a 3-inch gun!

And thanks for the worldview, kinda helps me understand the situation with all those Russian weapons.

[MBot]

Regarding the Shkval. The way I understand it, in order to judge the weapon one has to look at the nuclear variant and compare it to the SUBROC and SS-N-15/16, not to torpedos. I think it was meant to quickly put a nuclear blast on a target.


The information bellow on the 76mm is pretty interesting. Anyone got similar info on the AK-130 130mm gun? This thing looks pretty badass.

[Kapitan]

AK-130 is pretty big and very powerful, it would ruin most ships days in a dozen shots one of the brit type 42s would only take a few hits before it would be inoprable due to damage, it is a good bit of kit.

The AK-130 is one of the most powerful gun systems used in the world today and is a fully automatic, dual-purpose weapon. Design work was started by the PO Arsenal in 1967 on a single gun version designated as A-217. However, the required rate of fire of 60 rounds per minute was not reached during trials, so it was decided to switch to a twin mounting. The new system with a factory designation ZIF-94 used the same barrel and large number of components from the A-217.
The mountings are controlled by MP-184 Fire Control Radar Systems, which include a 2-band radar, low light TV, laser designator, system for selecting moving targets and an ESM system. This system has a range of 75 km (41 nm). The system provides the integration of all of the shipboard radars, exact measurement of all parameters of movement for all air, sea and land targets, exact bearing to the target, correction of shooting by splashes and automatic tracking of shells. The mounts are triaxially stabilized and the barrels are liquid cooled.

Source incliding discriptive pics: http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNRu...1-70_ak130.htm


What we got to realise with the russians is that they do have a large export market for weapons so many types of weapons gives the customer more choice more choice means more sales, its like if you walked into a shop and instead of that nice cake you wanted they replaced it with a eccles cake and said thats it all you got to choce from.

The russian export market is huge on average it sells 7.4 million AK47's a year it also seels fighters such as Mig 29 and SU33 submarines the kilo class is a favorite in the world it costs just $125million per unit ! compaired to the $800 of the type 212 and close to the $1bn for the scorpene.

main export countries for russia are India China North Korea Iran Vietnam Most if not all african states bar south africa latin america countires such as brazil and venezuala.

Thing is when you buy the $125 million kilo submarine your going to need to arm the thing all great when you got the submarine but it does need weapons to defend after all thats its purpose so you see a 53cm for $1million a skhval for $4million 53-65KE for $1.5 million the government will buy each type in drouges to create a stockpile so in the advent of war they have surpluss torpedos and missiles.

Then you go the upgrades its a bit like a PC really the tubes that take normally torpedo tubes can be upgraded for i think it was $12million a submarine to fire missiles so now they will stock pile klub missiles at $3mill a pop got yourself a very nice earner.

And if that submarine is in service 30 years chances are it will need a refit atleast twice in its life again it makes money in all your probably spending on one submairne close to $50 billion in its life !

So export market yes it does make sence to have a wide range of torpedos but on home turf it doesnt, if you notice the USA has only ever sold the MK48 to australia and britian has only sold spearfish to canada they dont make much in the line of export there offering just one unit no choice.

[Kapitan]

Skhval has a range of just 6nm a nuclear blast 6nm infront of you would probably take your submarine down or do a lot of damage its main role was to hit carriers not submarines the idea behind the Skhval is fire it into or near the CVBG detonate and it takes most of the fleet with it armed with a 250Kt warhead it would have been easy.

great weapon alot of thought money and effort went into it and it was a succsess in the fact it was first deployed and tested openly by the russians and that the skhval has no comparison in the west, german is about 5 to 10 years away from a similar concept and the russians have already started work on the replacement product for Shkval.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Originally Posted by Kapitan

The USN uses only the MK48ADCAP as thier main torpedo the british use spearfish they are multi role units can attack ships or submarines easily and to me that is the way forward why have 6 types of torpedo to do 2 jobs when you can build just one type that can do both not only save money but the simplicity involved, also british and american submarines are all fitted with 21inch torpedo tubes another great achievement that simplyfies things.

Well, the "all-21 inch" thing was the default, so how was that an achievement?

The Mk48 is one thing, but the Spearfish had so many problems by the time they actually got it to work well, it was past the end of the Cold War. In the Cold War, they relied on Mk8s and Tigerfish.

The russian just make it complex although thier akulas have 14 torpedo tubes great wonderful a massivly armed vessel 6 of the 14 tubes are useless as you cant re load them at sea.

But with that logic, you will have to blast the Americans and their VLS tubes, which are equally unreloadable. Worse, they can only accomodate missiles, so if what you needed that mission were torpedoes you were plain out of luck.

Another 4 of the tubes are 65cm tubes made specificaly to carry and fire weapons like the 65-76 again a big handicap here a larger torpedo takes more space and i dont know if you can fire a 21inch torpedo out of a 25inch tube (aint 100% about that)

IIRC, there was supposed to be a liner you can use for those times.

So what are you left with once you fired all the 65cm torpedos and the outer 6 tubes ? four just four tubes to squeeze 21inch torpedos down to me waste of effort and money.

Four is as much as an American has total. I suppose another factor here is the whole "Battle of the First Salvo" thing, so the Russians decided that a one-time salvo of 14 tubes was a good idea. If the salvo works, the remaining shots are mopup and can proceed at a slower pace.

You find that they have 3 torpedos that can do anti submarine warfare another 3 that can do anti surface warfare 1 torpedo while is great on paper is utterly useless (yes i refer to the skhval) and another 3 that is multi role can do both.

Which 3 of each are you talking about?

The biggest handicap for the USN was the ceased production of TASM which is the anti ship missile tomahawk version it means they have to rely on the very slow 510knot harpoon which to be honest is a bit of a pathetic excuse of a missile im sorry i just dont like harpoons you would be better off with exocet, but the russians excelled in ASM weaponry (missiles) the SS-N-19 is 7tonnes yes far larger the harpoon can reach 80nm the SS-N-19 can go to 250nm the harpoon can travel at 510knots about the speed of a 747 the SS-N-19 travels at mach 2+ (some sources reported upto mach 4.5)

To give a good insight into the shipwreck SS-N-19 the missile is some 30feet long and has a diamiter of nearly 2.5 feet which is why only three types of vessels can carry them and they dont carry them in great numbers.
Kirovs only carry about 24 of them the kuznetsov about 12 and the oscars 24 they have a great target data and guidence systems if you fire them in swarms one climbs to 20,000 feet gives updates to every other missile if its shot down another takes its place untill it hits target[/quote]

Yeah, and don't forget its active jammer and evasive functions. It sounds like it is smarter than a computer game AI today

Still, even some Russians, such as a Captain 1st Rank, Candidate of Science Kuzmin, would much prefer the American missiles, since to him they are relatively small and standardized in size. Of course, what the guy really is doing in that essay is a general strafe on Soviet naval strategy. He's a pro-carrier type, which does make sense in the power-projection sense, but as far as anticarrier work goes, if the Soviets made Orel in the 70s, the best they'll be able to stick on it might be some shipboard versions of MiG-23s and MiG-27s. When you count in the low-level flight part, they won't even convincingly outrange say the P-500 Bazalt, nor the American carrier airgroup anyway, which means it is a dead ship even one on one. Might as well try something else, if you ask me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VA-111_Shkval This is for the VA-111 Shkval in my own opinion this torpedo is more of a propaganda stunt than something of any major importance simply because when fired its not wire guided its a dumb torpedo it has no guidence and is fired in the general direction of the enamy in the vain hope to shoe it away, in many ways this torpedo is a bit like you with a slipper trying to stop a dog urinating on the carpet of your lounge its a nifty toy to "scare" the west but in fact its little more then a lump of metal that goes bang somewhere near an enamy submarine, this i do believe was more to scare than to actually fight in a war but give it time it may change.

If it is a propaganda stunt, they might have been more public about it.

My take on world weapons is as follows

britian creates something its great it works its practical.

Then what was the SA-80?

Originally Posted by SandyCaesar

The only problem I could see is that, AFAIK, the Soviets/Russians never did work out the noise issue with their SSGNs. (By the 1970s, I think that Juliets and Echos wouldn't have really been a significant threat to American carrier croups; surfacing against those helicopters and aircraft to try to fire missiles equals dead meat.) And the SSGNs (Charlies and Oscars) were usually noisier than their SSN/SSK counterparts, right?

Ironically, according to Russian sources, the Charlie was actually the quietest of their subs when they first pushed it. It is actually believable considering it does only have one reactor.

To be fair to the Echos, granting they weren't detected until they surfaced, they are effectively a submerged rocket cruiser; if they prepared for launch fast or they had help from a distraction (say a closer Charlie shooting missiles or a Backfire strike) they might get at least part of their warload off. Even if the protecting antisubmarine aircraft were armed with Harpoons, at the extreme range for Shaddock or Sandbox they might still have to do some maneuvering (time; every 8-9 miles they have to fly before getting into range means at least 1 minute for the submarine to get its shots off) from their screening position before they are in range to get off their shot. Then shooting at maximum range, it'll take another 7-8 minutes for the Harpoon to traverse the entire range to hit. That's quite a few minutes added up, and as long as the submarine gets off its salvo, with Sandbox the submarine can dive - it has a Front Door guidance system if necessary, but a missile with an INS and the ability to scout for 7 other missiles can probably find the way to the carrier itself. Whether it can then evade the furious antisubmarine revenge hunt is dubious, but the missiles are shot.

Even TASMs on the ship won't improve the situation greatly. Suppose the submarine was detected the moment it surfaced, ~200 miles from the nearest escort ship. Even if there was no delay b/w acquisition and launch, the missile still takes close to 30 minutes to swim out to 200 miles - plenty of time for the submarine to get ready.

And come to think of it, I find it hard to believe that wakehomers are really worth all the hype. Hard as hell to use properly, and just as you've set up a shot on a juicy CVN some twerp in his FFG decides to play the hero and cross the carrier's wake, messing up the wakehoming sensor and maybe sacrificing a frigate to save the carrier, since everybody to that point will have heard the torpedo. Yeah, I know, purely theoretical, but it's a way to waste your 65-76 shots, besides the inefficient search pattern (then again, with the Kit you don't need fuel efficiency).

Well, the American admirals thought it was a big threat. If the best counter to a weapon is a whole frigate (which may or may not work - the torpedo might still find the correct wake edge) instead of a chaff cloud or a Nixie decoy, that's already really good - since I don't see that frigate surviving the 65cm hit, so it might well go down with nearly all hands.

But regarding some of those torpedoes...why didn't the Sovs just settle on a standardized model? Maybe it's the packrat mentality and that, but why would anyone keep SAET-50/60s and SET-53s around when they have the newer torps?

Probably for the older subs, while the new subs got the new weapons. You have to remember that a lot of control stuff is hardwired back then, so it isn't like now when attaching a new weapon means loading some software to its launching platform.

Also, all those old torps are a nice reserve for when they run out of the newer torps.