Russian Military News, Reports, Data, etc.
- Thread starter tphuang
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Truth Is the First Casualty in War and propaganda is king, they will never tell the truth, they will portray the countries that they don't like impossible strong when they want induce fear but impossible weak when they want to demoralize them. That is the reality.
The Chinese had been dealing with that for a long time.
No memes please.
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RUSI is a British think-tank and the author was at least Indian ancestry. I would hope/expect US DoD would have more up to date analysis. Anyway I am considerably more educated on the state of Russian shipbuilding now than I was just after reading that article! In retrospect, it should have been obvious that a country that can turn out near state of the art submarines should have better shipbuilding technology than the article suggests.
Sorry. Wrong Anglos then. I saw the DNS and since it wasn't org.uk I assumed wrongly. They still got Petraeus on the board. Both US and UK think tank establishments are kind of incestuous to begin with.
The Russian shipbuilding industry passed through some really hard times in the 1990s. And the Russian government tried all sorts of ways to organize it. The privatization binge in the 1990s proved to be a disaster. Most Soviet naval shipyards were geared for military production. The Soviets ordered most of their civilian ships, like fishing boats, abroad in Finland or Norway. Part of the Soviet naval industry also ended up in Ukraine, like the gas turbines and diesel engines, since that was where the largest shipyards were. Because of the "peace dividend" military ships stopped being ordered in series and started being ordered in single units. This was not enough to sustain the industry. And moving the industry towards building civilian products proved to be a disaster since they did not have the technical expertise in designing or building such highly specialized vessels. These were wholly different products. While there were some limited exports of military ships abroad, India, Vietnam, etc, this was not enough either. Unlike with aviation where Sukhoi got the brunt of exports and hence managed to raise capital to continue development this never happened in the naval industry. At best they sold half a dozen ships a piece and every time in different shipyards.
When the Russian state finally had the money to build more military ships in the early to mid 2000s the shipyards were more dead than alive. Orders were made but ships took forever to be built. Projects failed all the time. There was also the problem the naval engine technology was now abroad in Ukraine. And it was obsolete too. So in desperation the Russian government decided to import Western engines, Western ship designs, etc. Against the advice of the Russian industry. That was how the deal to buy the Mistrals was done. Large orders of German diesel engines for patrol ships and corvettes were also done. To throw a bone to the Russian industry they used some maritime versions of railway engines for diesels in the larger corvettes and frigates. Then 2014 happened and the annexation of Crimea. So with the sanctions everything was thrown in chaos.
The Russian shipbuilding industry passed through some really hard times in the 1990s. And the Russian government tried all sorts of ways to organize it. The privatization binge in the 1990s proved to be a disaster. Most Soviet naval shipyards were geared for military production. The Soviets ordered most of their civilian ships, like fishing boats, abroad in Finland or Norway. Part of the Soviet naval industry also ended up in Ukraine, like the gas turbines and diesel engines, since that was where the largest shipyards were. Because of the "peace dividend" military ships stopped being ordered in series and started being ordered in single units. This was not enough to sustain the industry. And moving the industry towards building civilian products proved to be a disaster since they did not have the technical expertise in designing or building such highly specialized vessels. These were wholly different products. While there were some limited exports of military ships abroad, India, Vietnam, etc, this was not enough either. Unlike with aviation where Sukhoi got the brunt of exports and hence managed to raise capital to continue development this never happened in the naval industry. At best they sold half a dozen ships a piece and every time in different shipyards.
When the Russian state finally had the money to build more military ships in the early to mid 2000s the shipyards were more dead than alive. Orders were made but ships took forever to be built. Projects failed all the time. There was also the problem the naval engine technology was now abroad in Ukraine. And it was obsolete too. So in desperation the Russian government decided to import Western engines, Western ship designs, etc. Against the advice of the Russian industry. That was how the deal to buy the Mistrals was done. Large orders of German diesel engines for patrol ships and corvettes were also done. To throw a bone to the Russian industry they used some maritime versions of railway engines for diesels in the larger corvettes and frigates. Then 2014 happened and the annexation of Crimea. So with the sanctions everything was thrown in chaos.
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So the Russians had to replace the engine imports. They had to make their own large ship designs. They had to replace some kinds of engine electronics. Even some of the modern "Russian" maritime engine designs made with foreign technical assistance were a problem because of lack of production of some of the engine electronics in Russia. Much like what happened with their car industry with the current sanctions where they lost access to things like airbags, ABS, electronic injection, etc. They lost access to electronic engine injection electronics for diesel engines. Now, I don't know exactly what they did, but they did solve at least some of the problems. I don't know if they went back to prior engine designs or what, but the diesel engines for the nuclear submarines were one of the things affected by the 2014 sanctions and the submarine production never stopped.
They continue using the diesel locomotive derived diesel engines adapted to maritime use. They also developed new ones. They developed small diesel engines for maritime use. They ordered older Soviet era high speed diesel engines. Those high speed diesel engines were a major issue and their modern small corvette program is basically stalled because of that. For the older small corvette design and the patrol boats they managed to use Chinese diesel engines. They designed their own 7MW and 20MW marine gas turbines and put them into limited production. They put modern electronics combat systems, weapon systems, gun systems into production. They put modern maritime nuclear reactors like the RITM-200 and now the RITM-400 into production.
The state also became way more assertive after 2014. Companies which failed to deliver state defense contracts were sued, broken up, and those components relevant for the defense sector were folded into Rostec, with the rest sold back to the private sector. The Russian MIC is still in the middle of a major reorganization. For example they created Russian Helicopters and UAC. UAC is going to put MiG and Sukhoi headquarters and design groups under the same roof in new facilities. Older facilities will be sold out, and the top level executives will be trimmed substantially. All the factories which are executing major state orders have been modernized, are hiring new staff, for close to a decade. Some of these expansions were really long and tortuous and aren't over yet.
They continue using the diesel locomotive derived diesel engines adapted to maritime use. They also developed new ones. They developed small diesel engines for maritime use. They ordered older Soviet era high speed diesel engines. Those high speed diesel engines were a major issue and their modern small corvette program is basically stalled because of that. For the older small corvette design and the patrol boats they managed to use Chinese diesel engines. They designed their own 7MW and 20MW marine gas turbines and put them into limited production. They put modern electronics combat systems, weapon systems, gun systems into production. They put modern maritime nuclear reactors like the RITM-200 and now the RITM-400 into production.
The state also became way more assertive after 2014. Companies which failed to deliver state defense contracts were sued, broken up, and those components relevant for the defense sector were folded into Rostec, with the rest sold back to the private sector. The Russian MIC is still in the middle of a major reorganization. For example they created Russian Helicopters and UAC. UAC is going to put MiG and Sukhoi headquarters and design groups under the same roof in new facilities. Older facilities will be sold out, and the top level executives will be trimmed substantially. All the factories which are executing major state orders have been modernized, are hiring new staff, for close to a decade. Some of these expansions were really long and tortuous and aren't over yet.
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My professional background is in design/civil engineering and I can tell you that before 2000 it would be impossible for Russia to maintain a comprehensive CAD/CAM process simply because of how limited the software was and how the few solutions available were taken by proprietary solutions. CATIA was very expensive because of that. Some of the aspects needed computer modelling but not in the way that you make it seem. It was parametric modelling with numerical input and numerical output. What you suggest is a fully graphical and interactive 3d environment.
Much of the explosion in software capabilities came after 2005 or so. There was a threshold for hardware as well as the necessary open source engines for the software to grow. But even so Russia has in no way an advantage in computer-aided design. They simply have a market producing their own competitively-priced software. It was the Russian IT industry, not the shipbuilding industry, that was technologically competitive. Don't confuse tool-makers with the tool-users.
The article sounds very unprofessional for several reasons but the biggest problem that I have with it is how it completely ignores a much bigger problem facing the Russian Navy. It's not that they will lose blue-water capability but that with high probability it will lose significant portion of all of its capabilities including the submarines.
Here's a May 2018 Research Paper by Richard Connolly and Mathieu Boulègue from Russia and Eurasia Programme at Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) on the Russian 2018-2027 State Armaments Programme (GPV 2027)
It's worth reading, only 42 pages and it provides the economic and planning background to what Russia intended to achieve in terms of military modernization in the 2018-2027 period.
The report indicates that taking account of inflation and plausible (for 2018) growth rates the "inertia" scenario is most likely to take place. Now correct that for losses in real productivity as a result of the pandemic and the ongoing crisis and you will have to drastically cut these even that figure.
But that's not all. Here's a table of confirmed Russian equipment losses from Oryx and numbers of vehicles in service (active and reserve) based on IISS' The Military Balance 2021:
Even if we consider that some of the vehicles belonged to DPR and LPR it still is a massive loss that is likely to be greater in reality as some data indicates that what Oryx lists represents ~80% of actual Russian losses.
But even that is not all. The most fundamental factor is the service life of military equipment which is not designed for long-term performance. Consider that almost entirety of Russian ground forces and VDV is active in Ukraine and currently we've had 3,5 months of fighting. Armored vehicles of Soviet make, and armored vehicles in general are not designed for such performance which means that considering the economic impact of the war in terms of procurement we have to consider not just the "lost vehicles" but all vehicles that have to be rebuilt and renovated to continue service. And that includes all tanks, most of IFVs, most of SPHs and many other military vehicles. They simply are past their lives after 3-4, let alone 6 months of combat. That's their underlying design.
Consider that instead of the two thousand Armata tanks as planned in the previous plan (GPV2020) Russia had to make do with economy modernization of T-72Bs which involved the retrieval of preserved T-72B, modernizing them and using them to replace active T-72Bs in service. That's how the T-72B3/B3M were modernized - with maximum savings and at a technical loss to UVZ. That happened because the money planned in GPV2020 was insufficient for the intended modernization - that is introduction of T-14, T-15, Bumerang etc. GPV2027 commits even more limited funds to Ground Forces procurement and now almost entire vehicle fleet will have to be overhauled just to stay in active service. This was precisely the problem that US Army ran into in the second half of 2010s when they needed additional funds just to retain fighting capability because of how used up the equipment was following over a decade of wars.
Furthermore Russia will have to replenish its missile stocks, overhaul its helicopter fleet, modernize its aircraft, continue funding for necessary programs like new AWACS, transport and tankers... Neither the ground forces nor the air force can be considered for significant savings since they are the foundation of Russian defense. So what will be the natural sacrificial lamb? The navy.
The same navy that was designated as lowest priority in the very same GPV2027 before the pandemic and war.
The problem? All of the planned naval modernization that was initially slated for 2010-2020 decade was delayed and according to plans would be realized in the current 2018-2027 period. One condition: provided there is no disruption to funding. And the disruption to funding will be comparable to that in the aftermath of the 1998 crisis. That crisis resulted in 10-15 years delays to all naval projects.
So it's not a question of whether Russia will no longer have it's Shtorm aircraft carriers, Lider destroyers, Priboy LHDs etc but what it will have at all and in what condition at the end of the current planning period in 2027 or around 2031-32.
Here's my post from 20th of April providing some numbers for context:
Russian Military News, Reports, Data, etc.
Doesn't change the fact that the Satellites can and in-fact capable of tracking IR Emission from aircraft. Which seems hard for you to believe. https://missilethreat.csis.org/defsys/sbirs/ If you do the math however, you will notice one variable namely "Specific detectivity" or "D*" This is...
www.sinodefenceforum.com
And here are some updated tables listing: name of vessel, dates of laying down, launching and commission, age, fleet, status and time of overhaul (last column). Green are active, purple are in refit/overhaul, blue are launched and under construction, yellow are under construction but before launch. The numbers in first column indicate ships that are likely to enter into service.
Submarines:
5 Boreis are in service and being a priority 3 more will be built, but it is likely that there won't be more built after that. Deltas are going to be retired at the end of this decade. Of 9 Yasens ordered only 3 are active and one is being trialed and 5 have not been launched. Yasens are so expensive that they were reduced in order and Laika was intended as a lower cost alternative. Oscars are almost overhauled and will be extended by 10-15 years so no pressure on Yasens. Khabarovsk will most likely be delayed or shelved. Akulas will return to service despite their age and Sierra and Victor boats will be retired because they are too obsolete.
There are no plans to upgrade Improved Kilos with better batteries and no AIP available so they will be the same obsolete under-performing coastal SSK with cruise missiles for posturing.
Large surface vessels:
Surface fleet looks even worse. Kuznetsov is a joke without an air wing. Kirovs are being refit into posturing cruisers, fitted with invincible missiles but without the corresponding sensors. Slavas are the same but without the missiles. Both classes are completely outdated as concept and are as much of a joke as Kuznetsov.
Udaloys are being modernized but without Gorshkovs to provide AAW they will be vulnerable but only 4 of the 22350 are likely to be built unless there are cuts to other programs to maintain production. But the cuts can only come to submarines (unlikely), capital ships (require retirement for savings) or smaller vessels like Steregushchiy and Gremyashchiy classes which are already delayed. Those have to fill a number of roles currently served by obsolete 35y.o. Grishas.
The biggest weakness of Russia is its electronics industry. In theory if it had radars it could modernize old hulls with VLS and update the systems for new weapons. But even if it could do it then the hulls are too old and too obsolete - most being designed in late 70s.
Here's my prediction for the upcoming decade: the Great Extinction Event of the Russian Navy. Not the blue water part. All of it. Whatever survives will be like the mammals after the Cretaceous meteorite - tiny and unsure if it's safe to come out. It might not seem so obvious but this forum doesn't make it easy to post long lists of large resolution images and that's where I have my historical analysis of Soviet navy and Russian navy in the 90s that shows how insufficient funding and institutional attrition eliminates fleet numbers. I feel a bit like a mad scientist saying this but this is really my reading of the data. The only thing that could save Russian navy - at its current weakened state - is if old ships were retired and excess facilities closed. But that's undermining institutions and people, and that leads to revolts which is why it won't happen in a politically precarious moment like this one. Consider that Serdyukov was too much in 2012 when times were good and Serdyukov is not enough in 2022 when times are awful. I might be off in my assessment but I don't think that I am by much.
seems to me like the only way to really save the long term potential of the Russian navy is to just scrap every older surface ship bigger than Udaloys and all their older frigates/corvettes from pre-1990. That means losing 1x Kuznetzov, 2x Slava, 2x Kirov, 2x Krikav, 1x Neustrashimyy for major surface combatants and losing 31x pre-1990 corvettes. This also means reducing some fleets dow to
They should also drop their Baltic fleet and Black Sea fleet down to coast guard, missile boats and ground based aviation, and focus on the Arctic and Pacific fleets which have more room to maneuver. This should allow them to save enough money to keep the real heart of the fleet - the subs and their support assets - at a world class level. In exchange they lose a few ships that are due to retire anyhow, and have to correspondingly reduce their geopolitical ambitions.
Russian subs are world class and are their way to project power. With 4500 km+ range Kalibr-Ms and Zircons on their Yasens and Oscars, they can project devastating naval firepower from their subs. What do they need 1980's destroyers and a near obsolete carrier for??
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This is not impossible. A large part of the current Russian fleet is approaching almost 40 years of age.
Almost all the Sovremennys have been retired at this point. The escort carriers are gone. A lot of the Russian Navy is made up of smaller ships like the Grishas but most of them are hopelessly obsolete.
And that is assuming the current Ukrainian conflict will be the only one the Russians will be involved in near term. But I am less concerned with this than you are. Land vehicles are the cheapest of all the weapon systems. Also after the initial campaign where the Russians sent vehicles considerably away from supply lines I doubt the amount of vehicle losses is the same. They have a couple thousand vehicles they can take out of storage. Refurbishing a T-72 or T-90 to latest spec is around 1.5 million. That is peanuts in terms of their budget. Rebuilding vehicles after their use in the war should cost even less since to a large degree the extra cost is in electronics and things like that.
You keep saying these sorts of things. The delays had nothing to do with budget.
The T-14 platform was not ready for mass production. There were issues with the engine having sufficient lifetime. And the electronics it uses needed to be simplified and improved. Back then Russia probably didn't even produce the necessary latest generation thermal systems in the required numbers and was still doing it in small batches. It is one thing to make older generation thermal systems for the T-72B3M in numbers similar to the ones they used to import from France, that problem was probably solved in like 2016, but quite another to make the latest generation thermals. The T-14 won't perform properly without proper electronics since the crew is all sitting inside the crew capsule. You do not have even have ordinary vision blocks and optics.
The Bumerang was sent back to redesign to make it larger because the current level of infantry equipment means you can't fit the originally specified amount of fully equipped soldiers inside it. I personally think the Bumerang is way too big and expensive for what was supposed to be a replacement for a glorified battle taxi, the BTR series, but whatever.
Given that the next conflict won't be expected to be a skirmish against a minor country but a full blown conflict against NATO or a NATO supported proxy I expect the Russians to focus on T-14 production to the detriment of tank upgrades over the next decade.
Well take the Su-34 or Su-30. They already had a plan to completely replace the engines and electronics with the Su-34M and Su-30SM2. So nothing new here really. If it was me I would do the Su-34M upgrades but replace the leading edge fighters with the Su-57M and switch production to that.
The LHDs are in the process of being built so barring some sort of disaster I expect them to enter service. The carrier and cruiser programs will likely be delayed for the better part of a decade yes. The current situation actually makes the nuclear icebreakers and the Northeast Passage more necessary instead of less. If the largest icebreakers were in service already then you could send the larger oil tanker ships via the Arctic.
There is something else Russia can do to cut costs with defense programs. The Yars ICBM is already close to full deployment. But they could just cancel the introduction into service of the Sarmat. Now, I kind of doubt it will happen, they will likely just produce it even if it at a snail's pace. The fact is the Russian space program launch rate has decreased a lot over the past decade. So they likely have more than enough spare production capacity. But it could be cut.
I think the Deltas and the Victor IIIs need to be retired because they are just too obsolete and different compared with the rest of the submarine fleet and are a drain on resources. But there are 5 Borei under construction not 3. So at least 10 will be built.
Now, I think having parity with the US Navy is just plain impossible for the Russian economy. But being able to keep parity with UK and France together or Japan in isolation is a way more likely objective. Just let China bother keeping parity with the US. France and the UK will only have 8 SSBNs put together. The US is supposed to have 12 once the Columbia comes out. So I think the 10 Borei already either produced or under construction are kind of overkill as is. One program which might be sent to the chopping block, I think, would be the Poseidon carrier submarines. Two are currently under construction. But this is such a niche weapon I do not think it makes sense to built it in series.
Right. The Poseidon carrier submarine program might be delayed or completely cut.
I actually heard some people say the Sierras will be refurbished so count that as a possibility. Supposedly the titanium hulls last a really long time. It also uses the OK-650 reactor so has a lot more commonality with the rest of the submarine fleet. The electronics need to be upgraded. But these boats provide a leading edge capability since they can dive deeper and move faster than the other attack submarines.
The US has a massive disparity with regards to attack submarines. And this is an area China also has a weakness in. So I think the Russians have little choice but to upgrade at least some Akulas and Oscars. Personally I would retire all the Oscars and the sole Typhoon. The more modern hypersonic cruise missiles are small enough something the size of the Yasen is viable as a carrier group killer platform. The huge expensive twin reactor Oscars are a waste of resources. They were designed as dedicated fleet killer ships but have outlived their purpose. At best you could use them as massive cruise missile arsenal ships for shore bombardment but that would be hideously expensive.
Like I said before they need to switch to attack submarine production. If it is a further cost reduced 885M or the Laika it is anyone's guess. But I doubt they bothered upgrading the Sevmash shipyard for block construction without making some sort of new design to take advantage of it.
Actually they ordered two more Lada boats and they are already building those. Between the three already previously ordered and under construction that would be five of them. The Russians do have lithium ion battery technology available to their industry so they could use it if they wanted to.
It does have an air wing. The MiG-29Ks. And there were plans to upgrade the Su-33s with a similar package to the Su-30SM2 upgrade. Or even make a carrier version of the Su-57 if they had money for it. Which I doubt will happen any time soon.
Maybe but we don't even know which sensors they will use yet. Considering they made a radar just to use on the Marshal Ustinov they might actually put a different sensor just on that ship. AESA and PESA technology makes it easy to make a modular radar anyway.
I would replace the Slavas with the Admiral Gorshkov frigates on a one by one basis once those become available. I know it sounds like a joke but look at the specs of both ships in terms of VLS cells.
The Udaloy is an anti-submarine warfare ship that they changed to a multi-role frigate with the Marshal Shaposhnikov upgrade. But without even putting a naval Buk in it this is just too weak in terms of air defense. They did not even switch the cells for the SAMs from revolver to VLS configuration.
I doubt the Project 22350 will be cut. There is a high likelihood that NATO will continue to do blockades on Russian cargo ships. They already arrested a Russian crewed ship carrying Iranian oil near Greece. So Russia will need more long range ships capable of doing patrols than what they have at this time.
The Steregushchiy and Karakurt need to be replaced with different ship designs which can be produced more easily. But I would not be surprised if the Steregushchiy and Gremyashchiy were actually ordered in even higher numbers. Because of their cost effectiveness.
I doubt it. But It will shrink. The number of ships in service will come down.
You can't show the flag against NATO pirates with submarines. Only sink them.