reading material on the state of the Russian air force

[Maior]

Hey guys, the current T-50 thread made me look further into the current state of Russian air force and I ran across this pretty nifty website:

 

http://www.saunalahti.fi/~fta/ruaf-3-7.htm

 

Lot's of info here. Good readings.

 

Also, good sensor information in this page:

http://www.deagel.com/Aircraft-Warners-and-Sensors.htm

Edited March 31, 2013 by Maior

[Invader ZIM]

Nice finds, it's amazing to read just how bad it was for Russian aerospace in the 90's.

 

Even today, when you see a system out of prototype and being fielded, you usually find the numbers of available aircraft are very low when compared to Western air forces.

[RIPTIDE]

Hey guys, the current T-40 thread made me look further into the current state of Russian air force and I ran across this pretty nifty website:

 

http://www.saunalahti.fi/~fta/ruaf-3-7.htm

 

Lot's of info here. Good readings.

 

Also, good sensor information in this page:

http://www.deagel.com/Aircraft-Warners-and-Sensors.htm

I saw that site a long time ago. While it's a good read, it's 2003/4 at the very latest. It's almost 10 years old in short terms.

[Maior]

I saw that site a long time ago. While it's a good read, it's 2003/4 at the very latest. It's almost 10 years old in short terms.

 

Yeah but it gives a great background to the old days. I was surprised to discover that in real numbers, due to the lower GDP and lower budget allocations to the defence sector, funding lowered 70% between 1990 and 1999. Just incredible.

 

Nowadays, it's better but still they face problems. Especially in the navy. recently, they delayed their new destroyer project and decided on updating existing frigates and destroyers to compensate. Smart spending. But it begins to show that the Russian objectives lined up to 2020 were more than they can chew. New Aircraft carriers are no where to be seen. I believe their recent Mistral agreement with full tech transfer has something to do with it since it'll lower the costs of further platforms considerably. Just the amounts you spend on R&D usually mean a lot of the overall price (heck, look at the F-35).

 

I think that corruption (even though it's being fought) and a lack of economic diversification (somewhat happening but not at the pace needed) can spell an early end to the Russian rearmament.

[vanir]

I think the state of their navy is more a reflection of shifting perspectives than purely economics, until the very latest NATO air defence refits undertaken within the last ten years they were well ahead in that area with the kinshal/kashtan system and navalized P300/400.

 

The classification of destroyers, cruisers and frigates underwent confusion and reclassification in the cold war period as it was, blurring the lines since earlier convention was based on gunfire armouring and displacement as much as it was intended roles. Gunfire armouring for one was made obsolete by the 60s, which brought reclassification into the realm of intended roles and equipment (in the US for example some destroyers under construction were reclassified as cruisers and frigates took over the job of destroyers). Of course and Russian military conceptions and conventions vary from US/NATO ones, the US naval force is built largely around force projection whilst the Russian is submarine action and fortification of ports (hence it only recently stepped up as a blue water fleet in the 80s, a kiev class carrier can't even venture reliably from coastal areas and shallow seas due to poor seakeeping qualities but that was never an issue in the soviet strategic philosophy).

 

The blurred lines and recreation of earlier naval conventions placed the Russian navy in a position to economise during the 90s and current period. The modern destroyer is really a dinosaur, a kind of pocket battleship among contemporaries designed for air warfare screening, ASW and surface action roles, but not quite large enough to be highly specialised for any (due to individual magazine capacities and deck space) and within these roles redundant among ASW and escort frigates, surface action/air warfare defence/command ship cruisers and ASW and air warfare dedicated Kuznetsov or kiev cruisers in range of land based air cover.

 

The type of surface battlegroup the Russian navy is designed for and geared towards needs only a couple of frigate types in a total of 3-4 screening for a handful of high value central units like a kirov and kuznetsov in the northern navy say, plus tenders. The only elements a frigate adds to this group in terms of equipment is an extremely limited antishipping capability that pales in comparison to the central units and either land based air cover or fire directors from the kuznetsov under the protection of sea flankers.

That's a very expensive undertaking for virtually no tactical value. Support strike forces will be in the form of submarine action and land based air.

 

Force projection just isn't a role the Russian navy needs. Now if it did and wanted to go around attacking Mexico or something like the US in the central asia, well then it'd want destroyers and strike-craft bearing carriers and its cruisers would want to be screening ships for the carrier rather than command ships with surface action emphasis. But then it would look like the USN and not the Russian navy.

 

It's a matter of the right tools for very different naval philosophies. Not about comparative equivalence, it's like comparing a Ferrari with a tank and asking which is better...well it depends on the job you've got in mind.

[Kaktus29]

@vanir... agree with you..

 

from what i get the Russian navy is to get modernized, the biggest problem is not so much money as other issues like expanding the shipbuilding docks to enable construction of 300+m capital ships-mostly carriers..

 

right now they have refused the design of the carrier that was presented to them and officials said they don't like it because the carrier design looked like either an improved kuznecov or american CVN-70 or smth.. they want more advanced design in the range of 60-70 thousand tons of displacement ..

 

4 carrier groups are to be formed, and of course the goal of this carrier groups are different than american carrier groups.. USN is about power projection and doing that somewhere in asia, latin america, africa.. Russia is about making sure they can ensure safer sub operation in arctic, border of atlantic and arctic and pacific/arctic... this will be very important especially in the next 2,3 decades when ice recedes and oil cravings from uncle Sam intensifies ..

 

so, right now they are designing the carrier on paper only, until they will be satisfied with the paper concept only then will the building commence.. how long before the thing is made is different problem.. if relations with ukraine warm up they could rather use the nikolay shipbuilding complex that would ensure 365 days per year warm waters access and easier building conditions but in any case substantial investment is needed to make sure the infrastructure supports building such big ships.. after they do this, i don't see how they couldn't launch a carrier in 4-6 years .. but even in this scenario it would mean by 2030 RN could have about 2 carriers at best, and at worst none-but close to completion ..

 

i do wonder what are chinese doing also.. especially since their shipbuilding abilities are accelerating like crazy, their DDG price will drop below 120 million per unit after they build 30 of them and the time between each one built is reduced substantially, so by 2020 china could be launching ships especially destroyers per unit in 3 months or less.. with such a tempo by 2030 they could field the biggest navy the world has ever seen..

 

it all depends how will the economic picture look like of course..

 

if US dollar gets dumped US could face USSR catastrophe and we could be witnessing all kind of US carriers being cut for scrap in the next 10 years, or it could be otherwise, China goes belly up economically and dreams of having a modern navy goes to the bottom-i doubt this scenario though..

 

any long-term projection is difficult of course, but some lines can be drawn today.. RN is to increase the number of surface ships considerably by 2030, China as well, US pretty much leave the fleet at same numbers as it is(modernizes the fleet of course to keep up-to date with tech), UK maybe reducing a bit, JAP increasing a bit but not too much, Australia i think definitely increase, especially in acquiring helo-carriers, India by 2030(if economic growth is okei) i guess also increasing their navy substantially and carrier force should number 3 carriers-the russian one they will be getting soon, plus 2 home-made.. so 3 carrier groups..

 

all in all by 2030 if nothing major happens US will have (if we can count India, China and Russia as opposite to US) 11-13 carrier groups facing Russia-2-4 carriers+China (who knows but at least 4 carriers considering their expanding shipbuilding industry), and maybe Brazil 3 carriers, India 3-4 carriers, ..so all in all about 10-15 carriers.. a totally different world than now..

 

if we count other nations like italy, france, uk, thailand, .. US vs. the world and 2030 could be the year the world will finally muster more carriers than US ..i'm not saying this means the world could sink the US carriers in battle, just putting the numbers out..

 

so far, US has a supremacy not rivalled by anybody, with 10 carriers(talking about carriers with fighter,bomber wings and with more than 12-24 fighters onboard) vs. the world with 10(counted in non-operational Chinese one, non-effective Thailand, Brazil,Italy)so its more like 10 vs. 4..

Edited April 3, 2013 by Kaktus29

[Maior]

Well, be it as it may, their original naval procurement for the 2020 scenario was overambitious and got cut. It was inevitable. You may talk about what Russia needs but, what Russia wanted was quite different. The economy is not diversified enough to counter the fluctuations of natural resources prices. They had cuts since they couldn't afford it all. Russia has a lot of problems still and money is definitely one of them.

 

Also, your carrier math is a bit off. there are more carriers than that. Smaller ones but still carriers. Also, if you go into LCS ships like the mistral class, you have some light carriers capable of some strike capabilities. With 200 meter decks, they can be converted to some strike roles. Also, the spanish have one of these lcs with a bigger ramped deck than their carrier counterpart.

 

I'm still banking on part of the delays of the new carrier designs being related with technology transfer of the Mistral class ships. Also, cost. They were supposed to build new carriers for the 2020 window, now it's 2030 window. Let's see how things go.

Edited April 3, 2013 by Maior

[Kaktus29]

not really, there was never a plan of actually owning and having a carrier by 2020.. the mistral will not contribute nothing in design of modern ships and carriers.. many in russia fume at this idiotic purchase and are quite right..

 

mistral is a system needed for nation that has colonies and needs it-like france today in mali, africa.. what will russia do with a giant ass helicopter carrier that needs a whole battle group of ships to protect her?.. its totally retarded purchase..maybe some russians thought if we make french contractors big money we will get them to give us what we really want-..

 

its a stupid idea, one way or another..

 

about the small carriers i know, i don't count them since they don't stand a chance against a real carrier.. what will a small carrier that affords 20 planes be able to do against a 60-90 planes carrier?.. it will loose the air battle, and then it will be sunk.. will not even mention the amphibious heli-carriers.. they can operate ONLY if you already have some semblance of naval superiority ..otherwise they are one big ass drone target practice for the enemy..

 

about russian economy.. am, diversification has no meaning, unless you think oil and gas will plummet in the future.. which is hard to imagine..

 

it is nice to not reliant on oil as revenue as fluctuation can disrupt some plans but russia always builds a sovereign fund that it uses during those fluctuations to correct them and ride out the storm-which they did in 2008-2009 beautifully..

 

about how much can they afford has nothing to do with oil.. their economy is the size that is, and you can afford according to the GDP not wether your economy is diversified or not.. you somehow are implying if they diversify the economy the GDP will increase 20 fold)) lol..

 

 

edit: So far they can afford a 70 billion USD budget for the army which is what it is, its better than the 90's but still needs to be doubled at least in the next 10 years to be okei.. will it happen, of course yes, why not, Russian economy is growing about 3.5 % per year which is much more than i can say about EU or US 0.2 %.. with China becoming Russia's biggest trading partner in the future this can easily accelerate to 5-7% where it is optimal for Russian growth.. the budget for Defense will i think in 5-7 years come into the 140 billion range,making all the vital needs of the navy provided for.. of course Russian navy will not be in shape to wage war on american shores but that is not the intended goal for Russia...only to secure her shore's and enable her subs to operate freely in the vicinity (2000km from its shores) of Northern, Eastern Russia.. for this the goal seems realistic..

 

 

to diversify you need market..to have markets you need good economic partners that desire your economic strength, now tell me, will germany desire that? will they desire to accept russian dishwashing companies entering their market? and taking the german share of german companies? as you can see, trade is all politics.. south korea was ALLOWED to enter US and EU markets for this was the strategic goal, i'm not saying south korean's are thick or something, but if EU and US would blockade the deals and impose tariffs there is no way south korea would develop economically..

 

economy is intertwined with geo-politics.. russia can only diversify as much as the west allows it..which under the still active "containment" policy is very hard to do so..

 

Russia as it is is almost forbidden to sell oil and gas to europe, and we in europe listen to daily complaint from uncle Sam how unhappy he is that russia fills her coffers by selling gas and oil to europe even if the price is cheaper for europeans than if they buy canadian tar sand oil or usa energy..

Edited April 3, 2013 by Kaktus29