Thoughts and opinions please

[Kapitan]

Little article i wrote about the Russian Navy a while back in response to the current situation in the world, i chiefly want to see opinions thoughts and also debate facts figures are more than welcome the idea is a healthy debate exchanging views what ifs and also how they could do better, this is not a slagging match its for grown up healthy debate, if you have a fact be prepared to back it up or disprove certain fact with credible sources.

Lets see what comes about and remember this isn't the school yard of kindergarten either!


World sea power: The Red Bear Russian Navy

Money Matters

A lot of people hold the belief that in 2018 the Russian navy / country as a whole is a bankrupted failed state that can ill afford to send even a fishing boat to sea, well let’s take a look to see what the navy specifically of today is doing.

As it stands in Q1 2018 the Russian Economy take an income of $1.55tr USD and a purchase parity of some $3.3tr USD making it the 12th largest economy in the world.
While oil and gas are its main industries Russia is the largest natural gas exporter in the world it does have the largest proven gas deposits in the world also, Russia is also the second largest petroleum exporter in the world supplying all western countries including the United States.

However since 2008 the industry output has changed with bigger emphasis on heavy industry, precious metals and services, it also has a keen arms export market which in 2017 netted $15.7bn in sales these are predicted to rise in the coming years.
The Russian economy today is in growth while Q3 2017 figures pointed to a 0.3% shrinkage it still leaves 1.5% of continuing growth.

Russia currently has a public debt of 10.1% GDP (compared to 74.2% of the United States) with an external debt of $527.4bn USD (compared to the $18.35tr of the United States)
If we look at the credit rating agencies this is what the ratings look like:

Standard and Poor’s BB+ (Domestic) BBB+ (Foreign) B (T&C assessment) outlook positive
Moody’s BA1 outlook positive
Fitch BB+ outlook positive

Why is this all relevant ? well simply put your military relies on the economy to fund its projects, as we know the United states has the largest economy in the world and the largest armed forces which is to be expected and thus is termed a super power.

The current defence budget of Russia is $72bn USD (The United States has a budget of $602bn) well you may think that is some pocket change but think again with a budget of £72bn it means Russia ranks 3rd (Behind the USA and China $217bn USD)

Now to bring that down further it means an allocation of roughly $15bn USD for the Navy which is a fair chunk, to give some perspective $15bn is about what Canada spends on its entire armed forces.

The naval force is large and ranks 3rd in terms of numbers Behind China and the United States however this still means they are a force to be reckoned with.

In terms of numbers Russia lacks the large surface combatants and the ones she does have are now showing their age however they still pose a big threat.
The numbers

The Current navy operates 325 vessel that are in Active service (including ones in refit).

1 Heavy aviation cruiser (aircraft carrier Kuznetsov)
2 Kirov class Cruisers (Nakhimov to return to sea mid to late 2018)
3 Slava class cruiser
15 Destroyers (5 Sovremennyy 9 Udaloy)
9 Frigates (2 more in build with 13 more planned)
85 Large corvettes (more than 45 more building or planned of various classes)
19 Landing ships (mainly Ropucha class currently plans for 12 more of new class)
32 Landing craft (Mainly small and under 800tons)
44 Many serve with the border guard but will transfer to the navy in war time (6 more building)
48 Mine warfare vessels (many are old and currently 40 new are being built to replace 1 for 1 also double as coastal patrol craft)

67 Submarines of various types (13 of which carry Russia’s at sea nuclear deterrent numbers may reduce as older units are decommissioned with new units being phased in, currently there are plans for only 8 Boeri class SSBN’s this number may increase to 12 if the Defence ministry agrees funding by 2022)

So currently as it stands the Russian navy split into 5 fleets numbers 325 active vessels.

Doctrine

It is hard for westerners specifically the ones from the United States and United Kingdom to comprehend what Russia does with its armed forces, we often see many people laugh at the Kuznetsov for example because it seems to be incompetent at what it is doing, yet those people do not understand the doctrine of the Russian navy or the platform they are mocking.

The Russian navy is often compared derogatorily to the United States navy to showcase how bad / incompetent it is, however both navies have very different missions for their navies I will use Kuznetsov as the point in case for this.

The carriers of the United States Navy are solely for the purpose of Strike warfare with fleet defence as a secondary role, in reality any American carrier that does not have its air wing present is pretty much a sitting duck, it has limited self-defence capabilities and relies on escort ships such as the Arleigh Burke destroyers and Ticonderoga class cruisers to provide ASuW AAW and ASW protection.

Now let’s flip to the Russian side, the Russians do not have an aircraft carrier they have much like they did with the Kiev class a heavy aviation cruiser (to keep in favour of the Montreux convention even though there is no specific rule for Aircraft carriers she is the only carrier allowed to operate in the Black sea)
The Kuznetsov is designed to provide fleet defence only and thus lacks true strike capability with its aircraft although this can be done and has been done in Syria with limited and mixed results.
Her main objective is to provide air support to a fleet at sea she is also the most heavily armed carrier (once you take air wing out of the equation) in the world, she does still maintain 12 SS-N-19 Shipwreck missiles in her flight deck as well as 8 CIWS systems 6 AAA gun’s 60 ASW rockets and torpedoes 24 x 8 cell 3K95 SAM’s totalling 192 missiles.
This means the Kuznetsov is fully able to sail alone with no air wing and still pick a fight and crucially defend herself.

The Russian fleet has generally been a submarine fleet since the end of the great patriotic war (world war II) at its height submarines made up for around 550 vessels today this ethos is still present but in much smaller numbers, Russia still maintains some impressive units such as the Typhoon and Oscar classes, the entire doctrine of the Russian navy in the event of war is simply to deny access to the coast that is the main mission of its Navy and this is why we see the emphasis on smaller vessels such as corvettes being built in large numbers.

Gorshkov knew that he could not compete platform for platform with the west so he instead funded development of missiles and most notable a lot of platforms to put them on it wasn’t until the sinking of the Israeli destroyer Elait did the west realise how ahead Russian missiles were and that they had to counter it.

Today the Russian anti-ship missiles carry the most powerful warheads of any conventional missiles P700 and P1000 being among the largest anti-ship missiles created, Russia is also ahead in data link technology in terms of missile to missile data exchange, a typical flight of missiles launched from an Oscar II (24 X SS-N-19) would see one missile climb to 20,000ft and provide targeting data to the other 23 and if that gets taken out another replaces, however if multiple platforms fire this missile then one missile can provide targeting data to all of them provided they are in range, something that the West currently lacks (but is working on), Russia is also the only country to deploy a super cavitating rocket powered torpedo VA111 Skhval (and no it wasn’t the one that sank Kursk that was a 65-76)but appears the west have no real appetite to follow suite.

While it can be said Russia lacks the technology of the west it can make up for in heavy industry its metallurgy is one of the best in the world and titanium technology is far ahead of the west, typically Russian submarines dive deeper and go faster than the western counterparts but the west has the edge still in silencing and technology, but one thing is for sure don’t write the Russians off just yet!

[Mr Quatro]

*bump*

I'm to busy to respond right now, but I would like to put some thought into it ... so I'll be back.
One sad note is that even if we live through a world wide conflict like the world has never seen ...
we may still never know who had the best Navy or the best submarines.

I'm hoping for ours (USN) of course