The Russian Navy

[Herr_Pete]

I am curious. What is the actual State of the Russian Navy.
What is it like compared to the US Navy and the Royal Navy?


Cheers lads

[Mush Martin]

I didnt nail it on the first search but its quite likely here.

http://www.globalsecurity.org

[TarJak]

It may take some reading but when I search for Russian Navy comparison I get 395 hits:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/cgi-bi...er=r&cq=&jump=

The quoted para in the first hit, whilst more a comparison of the US navy against everyone else, says that the US Navy although smaller than previous versions, is the most powerful of any navy in the world currently by a long way.

The first section of this document says why the author thinks so and by the metrics he uses you would be hard pressed to disagree:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...&id=4866d53f13

Russia is a distant second on aggregate tonnage, looking at surface vessel over 2,000 tons Russia is an even more distant 5th with 30 to the US 101 vessels and his 3rd metis is even more telling in that the US has 1.5 times the number of vertical missle launch cells than the next 17 navies in the world. He neglects to mention the order of even the top 5 however.

You would then have to look inot state of logistics, repair, funding, readiness, manning etc. to get a fuller evaluation of the comparison, however it is clear that the US currently has a major edge over everyone else, but is also attempting to project its power into more places at once than anyone else so it would need to be that large in order to do so.

[Mush Martin]

its not the size of the wand its the magic thats in it.

you dont need a superior number to fight a superior fight.

[Jimbuna]

In terms of quality and capability the US is way ahead of it's nearest rivals.

The British Navy has been savaged by cuts over the past few decades but I would be interested to read how people compare the Russian and British navies :hmm:

[AntEater]

Currently, the russian navy has managed to make operational the remaining ships of the soviet navy. The Kuznetsov and the remaining Kirovs and stuff are operational again, and regularly putting to sea.
Also, the Black Sea fleet was able to sortie a large number of vessels and fulfill its (relatively easy) missions in the georgian war.
Given that the Black Sea fleet is the oldest on average, this must mean that readiness really improved. Especially since the same fleet was only able to send one intelligence trawler to the Adriatic during the Kosovo war. All other ships were down or broke down in the black sea in 1999.
However, newly build ships are rare yet, and those that are relatively new are mostly one-offs with the remained of the class cancelled.
Serviceability must not be great. Most ships, except for the black sea fleet, are not that old (mid-late 1980s mostly) but the years of neglect in the Yeltsin era were certainly not good for them.
Warships, especially with turbine propulsion, are complicated machines, even with the russian talent of keeping things fool-proof and simple.
On the other hand, the russians were able to sail a mid-1960s Kashin class destroyer from Sevastopol to the georgian coast on a day's notice, so things are looking up for older ships as well.

New ships are slowly becoming available, like the Steregushy class corvettes/frigates.
A new class of guided missile destroyers (called frigates), the Gorskov class, is apparently authorized and under construction. Those will be based on the ships build for the indian navy. With 20 planned, they will not represent a real increase in ship numbers, as they will replace both destroyers and frigates.
But these will be highly modern DDGs with very good missiles (and typically russian, lots of them!).
There's no program to replace the larger ships yet, but apparently the russians are considering to build new carriers in about ten years.

Re submarines, I don't know how their readiness, but things seem to have improved much since the Kursk. New submarines are actually being build instead of just being announced.
Interestingly, the priority is SSBNs, with new SSNs coming second only.
The russians will not go all-nuclear like the french and british, most likely due to the value of the SSK for coastal defense but also because SSKs are a lucrative export market.

So today, I think the picture is:
The russians have an active navy again, which cannot be compared to the soviet navy in size but still dwarfs many regional navies in capability and retains all major types of combat ships.
The replacement program of the russian navy seems to aim at preserving the current size of force while replacing the cold war era ships with modern ones.
Russian shipbuilding managed to survive the cold war relatively intact due to exports to India, Vietnam etc. In fact, thanks to globalization, LBOs, bancrupcies, idiotic defense policies and cutbacks, the russian shipbuilding industry is in no worse shape than its european or US counterparts.

[TarJak]

Originally Posted by Mush Martin

its not the size of the wand its the magic thats in it.

you dont need a superior number to fight a superior fight.

Agreed which is why I said you need to look at the other aspects than size to do a comparison.

Add to the list I started you need to consider fit for mission, regional vs global goals and capabilities etc.

Just saying the US Navy is yea much bigger than anyone elses is merely a comparison of size and the other factors should be a major part of any comparison.

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

In terms of quality and capability the US is way ahead of it's nearest rivals.

You can't say that. If anyone in congress hears you, they will cut the programs. We have to maintain a delicate balance where on one side

We have spent the taxpayer's money wisely and have a Navy sufficient to protect ourselves

and the other side

Our potential advisories are building naval forces that will threaten us so we must have more taxpayer's money to build more Navy ships to be able to protect ourselves.

A delicate balancing act indeed.

[Happy Times]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

In terms of quality and capability the US is way ahead of it's nearest rivals.

The British Navy has been savaged by cuts over the past few decades but I would be interested to read how people compare the Russian and British navies :hmm:

Your carriers alone make the difference even if they still dont have F-35, your training and maintanence is probably superior so theres not much to compare.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Happy Times

Your carriers alone make the difference even if they still dont have F-35, your training and maintanence is probably superior so theres not much to compare.

I'm not so sure they've been kept at a ready to sail status.

What we desperately need are the two planned QE ships:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_E...rcraft_carrier

[Steel_Tomb]

About the Kirov's, there is only one sea worthy (peter the great), the others are all mothballed and tied to a dock somewhere, most of them were cancelled before they were fininshed after the collapse of the Soviet Economy. The Russian Nay recently stated it wanted to get another Kirov ready for active service by 2010, but with the amount of work required they will be lucky to get it out of port again by 2016. A Russian Admiral also recently stated that the reactor on board the Peter the Great is in such a state of disrepair that it could fail at any moment, this was retracted by other Naval officials at a later date, but its quite a statement by any stretch of the imagination. I believe that the Russian Navy is quite simply knackered, its subs are rusting at their ports whilst their surface fleet isnt fairing much better. Inflation is also crippling the Russian defense budget, so even though money is being put in they are getting substantially less back in real terms due to the soaring inflation. Hell, they can't even afford to get rid of the old reactors, they have to get other people to get rid of them for them!

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/0...ment-130384870

http://www.janes.com/news/defence/jd...0811_1_n.shtml