Russian Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

Russia has more population than the UK, France, or Germany. The UK has two carriers and the French entertained that idea for some time as well. Heck Italy has two carriers. So I do not see how the argument that is impossible for Russia to have carriers holds water. Heh. But, like I said, the entire Russian naval program is delayed. If they did have a carrier program right now I think they would use a variant of the MiG-29K instead of the Su-33. Because it is in production, and you can fit more of them in a small carrier. It also suits their naval doctrine, where carriers are fleet escorts, better. In practice, what might happen, is that by the time the carrier is in production they will have some kind of stealth lightweight fighter in production. The Storm class is IMHO a pipe dream. But something the size of the Kuznetsov is not.

Russia manufactured Mistral sections at St. Petersburg. So it is not like they have zero experience with LHD construction:


So, like I said, I think the LHDs will happen sooner rather than later. We have seen the models more than once. Contrary to the carrier models I have seen the LHD design seems to be more or less static. They have the dry dock facilities to build them. They had tech transfer from France. They also have all the support systems and attack helicopters designed and in production already. The carriers, I don't see them happening any time soon. Maybe in a decade.
I expect that, much like China, their Kuznetsov upgrade activities will enable them to better design their next carrier class.

In naval terms I expect the Russians to build more destroyers and frigates, the ones that should have been built already, the Admiral Grigorovich and Admiral Gorshkov classes.
I also think it is inevitable the Russians will adopt some kind of universal VLS system like everyone else has done eventually in later variants of those classes.

The Su-57 will only enter mass production after the new engines are developed. The Russians do not want to do "concurrency" like the USA does. They do not have the money to waste on mistakes. Like building a hundred "fighters" which are limited to act as single-seater trainers with no upgrade path possible. So I predict that maybe around 2020-2021 the Su-57 will enter mass production. I still remember when a lot of people claimed the Su-34 would never be built beyond a token dozen planes. Yet look at the production total at this time.

gelgoog said:

Russia has more population than the UK, France, or Germany. The UK has two carriers and the French entertained that idea for some time as well. Heck Italy has two carriers. So I do not see how the argument that is impossible for Russia to have carriers holds water. Heh. But, like I said, the entire Russian naval program is delayed. If they did have a carrier program right now I think they would use a variant of the MiG-29K instead of the Su-33. Because it is in production, and you can fit more of them in a small carrier. It also suits their naval doctrine, where carriers are fleet escorts, better. In practice, what might happen, is that by the time the carrier is in production they will have some kind of stealth lightweight fighter in production. The Storm class is IMHO a pipe dream. But something the size of the Kuznetsov is not.

Russia manufactured Mistral sections at St. Petersburg. So it is not like they have zero experience with LHD construction:

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So, like I said, I think the LHDs will happen sooner rather than later. We have seen the models more than once. Contrary to the carrier models I have seen the LHD design seems to be more or less static. They have the dry dock facilities to build them. They had tech transfer from France. They also have all the support systems and attack helicopters designed and in production already. The carriers, I don't see them happening any time soon. Maybe in a decade.
I expect that, much like China, their Kuznetsov upgrade activities will enable them to better design their next carrier class.

In naval terms I expect the Russians to build more destroyers and frigates, the ones that should have been built already, the Admiral Grigorovich and Admiral Gorshkov classes.
I also think it is inevitable the Russians will adopt some kind of universal VLS system like everyone else has done eventually in later variants of those classes.

The Su-57 will only enter mass production after the new engines are developed. The Russians do not want to do "concurrency" like the USA does. They do not have the money to waste on mistakes. Like building a hundred "fighters" which are limited to act as single-seater trainers with no upgrade path possible. So I predict that maybe around 2020-2021 the Su-57 will enter mass production. I still remember when a lot of people claimed the Su-34 would never be built beyond a token dozen planes. Yet look at the production total at this time.

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I never understood why people always equates the population of a specific nation to its economical strength. While Britain, French and Italy has smaller populations than Russia, their economies are much more larger and stable than that the latter which relies much on oil exports which fluctuates wildly. And Italy's carriers's size and capabilities are much more limited compared to that of the Royal Navy and the De Gaulle.

If populations is all that counts than India with its 1 billion population would had rocketed ahead of the US in terms of its armed forces ages ago, same goes to China.

It is doubtful that French had ever gotten around to transfer the entirety of their tech to Russia, because standard business practices dictates that the goods (IE: The ships) should be delivered first to Russia and payment accepted before any transfer would be done. A few piece maybe but enough to start an entirely independent project ? That is doubtful.

To use the Su-34 as a evidence is rather problematic, because the thing is production started in the 2006s when Russian economy was booming (their GDP per capita was actually nearly twice their current size. And 116 units built over the course of a decade is hardly evidence of any serious production.
Even their LHD models can vary wildly, but to be fair the only model we had ever seen as till now is the Priboy model. And that is nearly 2 years ago iirc.
If anything their current state of naval building can be seen clearly in the near torturous progress of the Admiral Gorshkov, 8 years passed after its launch for it to be actually commissioned, and 4 years for it to be actually built.

PS: I never doubt that Russia has the innate ability to construct large naval amphibious ships, we have seen that in the Kiev, but that was in a different time and age. And Russia literally bankrupted itself maintaining such ships.

Well, the Kiev AFAIK was built in the shipyards in Ukraine. Much like the Kuznetsov. With the fall of the Soviet Union those production facilities were lost. The largest existing Russian dry docks at this time AFAIK are in St. Petersburg and are too small to build something like the Kuznetsov but large enough to build the Mistral. They were used to build the Peter the Great battlecruiser for example.

I wouldn't say it's just a matter of Russia being an oil exporter like they're some kind of Saudi Arabia. This year, for example, Russia had the world's largest wheat production. They also export advanced military hardware as we well know. Their shipyards are comparatively less advanced than their aviation industry. But they are trying to solve that issue. Also, world oil prices have been rising ever since the US threatened to impose sanctions on Iran. With the new pipelines (Nord Stream 2, TurkStream, Power of Siberia) and new gas fields Russia will also vastly increase its gas exports.

Also Russia has a well developed nuclear industry. They are building several civilian reactors nuclear in Russia and abroad. Just recently one went operational in St. Petersburg. Their nuclear submarine program is one of the most advanced worldwide. They also have some expertise in railways and high power electric systems. Enough to build their own EMALS system if they wished so I think. For example the Soyuz rocket is transported to the launch platform via a rail system and the Russians have built two of those in the past decade. One in Kourou and another in Vostochny. They used a Russian company which designs roller coasters to build those. Seriously. A couple decades back the Russians also supplied Linear-Transformer-Drivers to the USA to use in the Sandia Z-machine fusion reactor. Basically it's a device which can store large amounts of electricity in a bank of capacitors and release it in a high power pulse. Theoretically you can use something like that on a railgun or plasma gun. It's even overkill for something like EMALS.

The Admiral Gorshkov class was delayed for two reasons. One was the lack of turbine engines because they used to be sourced from Ukraine. With the War on Donbass and the annexation of Crimea that is not possible anymore. The other reason was that they had issues with getting the electronics suite working properly. That has been traditionally a weakness in the Russian technology sector. Even China has a much more advanced semiconductor industry. Russia simply does not have a large enough internal market to make advanced semiconductor manufacturing facilities economically viable. However the Admiral Gorshkov has since entered service which likely means the issues with the systems on the ship were fixed. Also Saturn NPO has designed Russian turbines for the next construction batches of ships. The Admiral Grigorovich had much less issues with introduction into service but it also had issues with gas turbine engine supply. With the gas turbine issue fixed I expect more ships to be launched in like 2019-2020.

gelgoog said:

... The Admiral Grigorovich had much less issues with introduction into service but it also had issues with gas turbine engine supply. With the gas turbine issue fixed I expect more ships to be launched in like 2019-2020.

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LOL what "more ships" exactly do you expect them to launch in your time frame,

and

you just mentioned??

The ships listed as "under construction" because they were basically waiting for the engines to be put into them. Until those ships leave the dry dock they can't build more ships. That's what has been stalling the entire ship building program. Basically 3x Admiral Grigorovich frigates and maybe 2x Admiral Gorshkov frigates. That would basically double the number of ships they have of those classes. Their navy will never be the size of the Chinese navy in terms of surface ships. At least not in the foreseeable future. But it can still be competitive with either the UK or French navies if they want to.

Also I have heard reports that the total order for Admiral Grigorovich frigates is much higher than what is listed in Wikipedia. Wikipedia says 6 ships, while I have heard numbers ranging from 12 to 24 total orders.

The three last "launch" dates for the Admiral Grigorovich in Wikipedia are when they floated those ships from the dry docks without the engines installed to clear the dry dock space. At that time it was expected those hulls would be sold to India, which would then install Ukrainian gas turbine engines in them, while the Russians would use whole new construction hulls with their new Saturn NPO gas turbine engines once those became available. But the latest news I have is that the Russian Military ordered them to install Saturn NPO gas turbine engines in those hulls and that they won't be sold to India.

gelgoog said:

Well, the Kiev AFAIK was built in the shipyards in Ukraine. Much like the Kuznetsov. With the fall of the Soviet Union those production facilities were lost. The largest existing Russian dry docks at this time AFAIK are in St. Petersburg and are too small to build something like the Kuznetsov but large enough to build the Mistral. They were used to build the Peter the Great battlecruiser for example.

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That may be true, but it must also factor in how much of those docks are actually in a functional state.

gelgoog said:

I wouldn't say it's just a matter of Russia being an oil exporter like they're some kind of Saudi Arabia. This year, for example, Russia had the world's largest wheat production. They also export advanced military hardware as we well know. Their shipyards are comparatively less advanced than their aviation industry. But they are trying to solve that issue. Also, world oil prices have been rising ever since the US threatened to impose sanctions on Iran. With the new pipelines (Nord Stream 2, TurkStream, Power of Siberia) and new gas fields Russia will also vastly increase its gas exports.

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A total of 55% of Russia's annual federal budget depends on the oil-gas sector, as well as 16 percent of it's GDP. That is more than enough indicator to show that Russia is pretty much a oil dependent country like the ME, and lets not forget that Russia is also under Western sanctions so the only major oil export they have is that to China. Sure they export weapons as well but how much of it is "advanced" depends on who is the buyer. With customers like Serbia, Iran and the Central Asian states, it is a given that things like the Su-30, the Kilo and others will appear pretty advance when they only have Su-22s and 70s area Mig-27s. Russia of course sells top line equipment like the S-400, but only in small batches. (Though we will have to see how the recent India deal pans out). But even with that all said and done, the bottom line is that other military exports and production cannot be translated into naval building. A land factory cannot be converted to build ships and it's laborers are not automatically experts in the area of ship building. "Trying" to "solve that issue" it is pretty much an excuse, until Russia actually shows some credible evidence.

gelgoog said:

Also Russia has a well developed nuclear industry. They are building several civilian reactors nuclear in Russia and abroad. Just recently one went operational in St. Petersburg. Their nuclear submarine program is one of the most advanced worldwide. They also have some expertise in railways and high power electric systems. Enough to build their own EMALS system if they wished so I think. For example the Soyuz rocket is transported to the launch platform via a rail system and the Russians have built two of those in the past decade. One in Kourou and another in Vostochny. They used a Russian company which designs roller coasters to build those. Seriously. A couple decades back the Russians also supplied Linear-Transformer-Drivers to the USA to use in the Sandia Z-machine fusion reactor. Basically it's a device which can store large amounts of electricity in a bank of capacitors and release it in a high power pulse. Theoretically you can use something like that on a railgun or plasma gun. It's even overkill for something like EMALS.

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Good in submarine building ? Yes. Good in nuclear reactors ? Yes (unless we count Chernobyl). But does it translates automatically into building large scale LHD and carriers ? No not really, for one thing the energy requirements and safety levels for a nuclear carrier far outstrips that of both nuclear submarines and civilian nuclear reactors. And what made you think that a EMALs system is the combination of a traditional railway system and electrical systems ? A EMALS is basically a railgun and don't let that name fool you. It uses electrical magnets to literally shoot planes into the air, that is as far away from a simple railway + electricity equation as Mars is from Earth. And you can't just take a LTD and say that it can used as a EMALs. You still need to find a reliable way to generate power for it on the tight confines of a carrier.

gelgoog said:

The Admiral Gorshkov class was delayed for two reasons. One was the lack of turbine engines because they used to be sourced from Ukraine. With the War on Donbass and the annexation of Crimea that is not possible anymore. The other reason was that they had issues with getting the electronics suite working properly. That has been traditionally a weakness in the Russian technology sector. Even China has a much more advanced semiconductor industry. Russia simply does not have a large enough internal market to make advanced semiconductor manufacturing facilities economically viable. However the Admiral Gorshkov has since entered service which likely means the issues with the systems on the ship were fixed. Also Saturn NPO has designed Russian turbines for the next construction batches of ships. The Admiral Grigorovich had much less issues with introduction into service but it also had issues with gas turbine engine supply. With the gas turbine issue fixed I expect more ships to be launched in like 2019-2020.

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Hate to break it to you but the Gorshkov is still having teething problems even as of now. And the lack of Ukrainian engines does not apply to the first 2 ships of the class as they receive their engines and tranmission systems before the Ukrainian crisis. So the problem lies with the Russian shipyards instead.

gelgoog said:

Also I have heard reports that the total order for Admiral Grigorovich frigates is much higher than what is listed in Wikipedia. ...

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link:

(to at least topwar.ru which still might be a fairy tale)

S300 is now in Syria

However check this

4 x SLBM from one SSBN