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Posted on 07/16/2008 2:43:48 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Why Russia lacks aircraft carriers
17:05 | 16/ 07/ 2008
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Andrei Kislyakov) - Soviet military policies never called for building full-fledged aircraft carriers operating multi-role warplanes. Nor did Russia draft any clear carrier construction program at the turn of the century.
On July 4, Admiral Viktor Kravchenko, former chief of the Russian Navy's Main Headquarters, said the country had to build a carrier fleet in the near future. This call is a reaction to reports of two aircraft carriers being built for the British Royal Navy. As before, Russia is reacting slowly to Western naval successes.
In the early 1970s, the Soviet Union could have built a real prototype aircraft carrier. The Project 1160 carrier design would have balanced the Soviet-U.S. naval strengths. The United States had more surface warships and long experience of carrier operations.
Under Project 1160, the U.S.S.R. was to have built three nuclear-powered aircraft carriers with catapult-launched Sukhoi Su-27K Flanker warplanes. The projected carrier force was supposed to operate in conjunction with naval strategic bombers and attack submarines for the purpose of hindering the deployment of enemy carrier task forces.
However, Project 1160 was opposed by an alternative program for building heavy air-capable cruisers (Russian acronym TAVKR), supported by Dmitry Ustinov, secretary of the Soviet Communist Party's Central Committee in 1965-1976 with oversight of the armed forces, the defense industry and security agencies.
TAVKR was an unviable hybrid warship combining the specifications of a heavy cruiser and an aircraft carrier. The government decision to build TAVKRs also heralded the beginning of a program to develop VTOL/STOVL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing/Short Take-Off and Vertical Landing) aircraft.
This was an ambitious task. Such aircraft are notoriously difficult to develop, and the British Aerospace Sea Harrier remains the only effective VTOL/STOVL aircraft to date.
The Soviet VTOL/STOVL aircraft program was a complete failure. In the fall of 1991, a Yakovlev Yak-141 Freestyle plane turned into a fireball after crashing on the deck of the air-capable cruiser Admiral Gorshkov. Fortunately, the program was cancelled in 1992.
In the mid-1970s, the government discarded project 1160, focusing on the TAVKR program instead and impeding the development of VTOL/STOVL aircraft. However, conventional fighters cannot be converted into carrier-borne aircraft because the latter experience 100-200% greater loads during landing. Consequently, such planes must be designed from scratch.
Nevertheless, Ustinov carried on with the TAVKR program and supervised construction of the Admiral Gorshkov, the fourth warship in the series. She is now being refitted as the Vikramaditya for the Indian Navy, highlighting the fiasco of the TAVKR concept, because nobody in the world is willing to pay for such hybrid warships.
Russia's only aircraft carrier currently in service was laid down in Nikolayev, Ukraine, in 1982. Originally called the Riga, the carrier was subsequently renamed as the Leonid Brezhnev, the Tbilisi, and the Fleet Admiral Kuznetsov.
However, the Admiral Kuznetsov features a steam-turbine power-plant with turbo-generators and diesel generators, while all modern carriers are nuclear powered. She has a limited range and endurance and lacks the steam catapult necessary for carrier fighters. The warship does have a ski-jump in her bow section, but numerous experiments have revealed that catapults are the only way to ensure safe take-off in any weather conditions, regardless of the plane's weight.
Moreover, the Russian carrier has just a few navalized aircraft and only about 20 experienced carrier pilots.
This year, the United States Navy will commission its tenth Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. There are plans to launch the new-generation carrier CVN-78 with electromagnetic catapults and about 100 aircraft, including unmanned aerial combat vehicles, by 2013.
"The state rearmament program until 2016 stipulates no allocations for carrier programs," Kravchenko said. In 2009, the government will approve a concept for expanding the Russian Navy until 2050. Hopefully, the document will call for building new aircraft carriers.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
I thought they didn’t build them because they didn’t have any warm water ports and the only thing they could do was build thousands of subs to float underneath the ice that continually blocked them in.
> This year, the United States Navy will commission its tenth Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. There are plans to launch the new-generation carrier CVN-78 with electromagnetic catapults and about 100 aircraft, including unmanned aerial combat vehicles, by 2013.
China better keep up with us (sarc/)
because they put all their money into Submarines.
Not if Obambi has anything to say about it.
Cost of a carrier pier side: $250,000 per day.
Cost of a carrier underway doing real operations: $23,000,000 per day.
Any questions?
The reason they never built a carrier fleet is that they could never afford to build an effective one. While they might have been able to build a few carriers, they never could have built enough escort and logistic ships to effectively support and protect them. Carriers are big, vulnerable targets, have huge crews, and use up a mess of aviation fuel.
Furthermore, Russia has never been a maritime power; its strategic interests have always been better-served by dominant land power. To build a true blue-water navy would have invested them in a head-on struggle with the United States for control of the world’s oceans - one they never could have won.
Rather than build carriers for sea control, they made more cost-effective investments in sea denial weapons like attack submarines and cruise missiles. Now that the Russian Navy’s mission is not centered on direct conflict with the U.S. Navy, a limited carrier force for power projection purposes makes sense.
They had no money to put into anything till a few years ago-most of the ships(incl. subs) they are inducting now were launched at the time of the Soviet Union.
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They were more orientated to homeland defense than the power projection of the USN. Toward that end they built many attack subs and hundreds of Backfire bombers to provide a credible defense against US Carrier Battle Groups.
The Kusnzov
It is conventionally powered, but so will both new Royal Navy carriers, and the next French carrier (their second).
The Italians, the Spanish, the Brazilians, the Indians, and Thailand all operate at least one carrier, albeit all of them are relatively small in comparison. The Chinese are refitting the newer, sister ship to the Kuznetsov.
But, next to the US carirers, and the Frnech nuclear carrier, the Russian Kuznetsov is probably the next strongest and most capable carrier alfoat at this time.
Of interest Ping!
Ah, I see that you saw the article a few minutes before I did.
Man, thats one Fugly Ship........
Funny. Some of our first CVs (the USS Lexington, among others) were designed with 8 inch guns so THEY could serve as CAs after their air wing was expended... We got over this and replaced the 8” guns with 5” DP guns for AA defense...
Land power. Nough said.
Lingering echoes of the Russo-Japanese War
Russia also has a widespread land mass that would allow air ops over most of the Northern Hemisphere without need of a carrier.
Yeah but the screws stay on the American carriers.
our officers never {almost never} drink alcohol when they are on duty, ruskie officers never {almost never} have a blood alcohol content of less than 2.5%.
Being stoned is a natural for a ruskie officer as is being stoned in our inner cities.
The ruskie military would be an even match against the bloods or the crips but the Michigan Militia would kick their ass.
Maybe they can use it for the X games’ future long distance events.
Thanks for the interesting articles.
One says aircraft carriers are becoming obsolete.
The other says lots of countries are building new aircraft carriers.
Hmmmmmmmm....
Didn't the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor with their latest state-of-the-art carriers, which suddenly became "obsolete" six months later, at Midway?
I suspect that sometimes "obsolete" can get a little tricky to define.
Seems there was a significant safety problem because the flight deck was too short.
But, having said that, all of that has been worked out and the De Gaulle group has since provided very helpful and needed support in the war against Islamic Jihad, particularly in Afghanistan.
Here's a rare shot of four carriiers, two US, the French De Gaulle, and a British jump jet carrier.
Wikipedia says it's "endurance" is 45 days, or about 4,000 miles, whichever comes first, I'd suppose.
I doubt if that will win it any "long distance events." ;-)
I’ve read that 85% of the world’s land surface, and 95% of the world’s population is within striking distance of a US Navy carrier battle group. I know that factoid enrages many Democrats but it makes me feel all warm inside.
CV = Cruiser aViation
Ever notice how Soviet/Russian naval ambitions wax & wane in concert with the price of a barrel of oil? When the Soviets were flush in the ‘70s, they were trying to design & build carriers. When the price of oil collapsed in the 80s, the ships that were build were laid up. Others were never finished. Now the price of oil is again at historic highs, and the Russians are yet again dreaming of carrier aviation.
Carriers have a lot of utility in downscale conflicts, which is all we really face. Against a first-class opponent they probably would be held back until the enemy subs could be swept & our own cruise missile’s (from subs) took out the other guys land-based launchers.
Even during WW2 we didn’t send subs too close to land-based aviation without a lot of trepridation. Kamikaze’s were just a poor-man’s low-tech cruise missile.
Naval power has always been a luxury for the Russians. You’d think they’d have it figured out by now that a blue-water navy is a long-term investment, while the boom in oil profits is probably transitory.
It makes me wonder what they’re expecting to do with it. They can’t seriously be considering challenging the US Navy’s blue-water hegemony. The only other real application for aircraft carriers is power projection; air cover for overseas military expeditionary forces. Besides sea control and power projection, just about everything else a carrier can do can be more cost-effectively accomplished by other platforms.
It makes me wonder where they think they might be intervening in the forseeable future.
Exactly. It makes me wonder if they’re thinking of flexing their muscles in Africa, the Indian Ocean, or even South America.
The zoomies said the same horses*** back in the 40s.
Interesting post; very informative thread. Thanks to all contributors.
Very logically and succinctly put...Thanks!
Details, details.
As I’ve often said, the de Gaulle dominates the seas for hundreds of meters around its drydock.
Very well said.
We weren't alone. The Japanese contemporaries of Lexington and Saratoga, Akagi and Kaga were also armed with 8" guns. In fact although the Japanese carriers had lost the turrets they were originally built with by then, they still had 8" casement guns when they were sunk at Midway. All of these ships, both American and Japanese, were conversions battleship or battle cruiser hulls.
And then there were those hybrid BB/CVs the Japnese built that were worthless for both roles...
A carrier should be a carrier. Its main battery and first line of defense are its aircraft. It should only have defensive weaponry (extensive defensive weaponry isn’t a bad idea, though...). Otherwise some idiot will try to use it an anti-ship role...
It was an act of desperation on their part. I believe the IJN was only able to launch 1 purpose-built carrier laid down after Pearl Harbor. There might be some dispute about that, but it was an insignificant number. The IJN need aviation hulls and they tried converting just about everything -- BB's, CA's, Oilers, Tenders.
'Course they were running out of qualified naval aviators faster than they were running out of flight decks. But that's another story.
IIRC Brazil has a carrier
The Russians keep building crap. All of their hardware gets quickly dismantled when used, if it works at all. As one former Indian soldier told me “It looks good going out but you’ll have to tow it home”.
That's old, vintage WWII UK carrier that had been upgraded
.jpg/398px-NAe_Minas_Gerais_(A-11).jpg)
It was the former HMS Vengeance, a Colossus-class WWII carrier that they named the Minas Gerais and operated from 1956 until 2000 I believe when they got the Foch.
My bad and thanks for pointing it out.
1956-60 was spent being upgraded at Verolme Dock, Rotterdam.
Probably the most effective of the Brit Light Fleet carrier conversions. The earlier Australian, Dutch carriers only has a 5-6° Angled Deck. The Canadian, Indian conversions got an 8° deck, which gave a more useful deck park, but lost 50' in angled deck length - which may have meant they were not capable of operating Skyhawks.
Minas Gerais got the full 8° angle and the full lenght (by 50s Essex SBC-125 standards) deck. (Then the Brazilains didn't operate fast jets from it for the rest of the century, another 40 years - go figure)
I'm pretty sure you meant to say "carriers" above, not "subs."
Of course I agree. The question here is whether carriers have become, or are becoming, "obsolete." And, naturally, that depends on the definition of the word "obsolete."
Consider an example: the old battleships are definitely obsolete, in the role they were originally built for -- ship to ship combat with big guns. But from WWII until the first Gulf War, we still used the old battle wagons for shore bombardment. And as I understand, in that role there was nothing more fearsome.
But what about carriers? Of course they are vulnerable -- they've always been vulnerable, as the Japanese learned in 1942, especially at Midway. But "vulnerable" does not necessarily equal "obsolete," as long as reasonable counter measures can be taken against known threats.
And as far as I know, that's still the case with carriers. Indeed, I would hazard to say, it will ALWAYS be the case, especially considering that sinking a US aircraft carrier would be an act of war likely to result in some VERY heavy duty retaliation.
So I doubt if even nations who COULD do such a thing WOULD do it without first giving long and deep thought to the consequences.
Indeed I did.
As for the rest of your post, I agree completely.
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