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The future of the Russian fleet.

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  • The future of the Russian fleet.

    Pulled this from Strategy page.

    "March 18, 2006: Russia recently did a study of their navy and found that, because of the age of their ships, and the lack of maintenance since the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, the fleet would be reduced to sixty seaworthy warships and submarines in ten years. Because of its geography, the Russian navy is divided into four widely separated fleets (North, Pacific, Baltic and Black Sea). Assuming that the fleet is divided equally into four parts, in a decade, the Baltic Sea Fleet would be inferior to the nearby Swedish and Finnish fleets. The Black Sea fleet would be inferior to the nearby Turkish navy.



    The study backs what the admirals have been saying since the late 1990s. Without a lot more money spent on ship construction, the mighty Russian fleet will soon disappear. At the moment, Russian legislators are not willing to buy the large subs and warships built by the Soviet Union. However, cheaper, and smaller, coastal defense, ships are under construction. These include corvettes and patrol boats. Fortunately, this is a worldwide trend that even the United States is into. But there is still some support for nuclear submarines, which the Soviet Union spent hundreds of billions of dollars developing the technology for in the last half century. But building new nuclear boats is going to cost the Russians at least a billion dollars each. Russia has never had great need for a powerful fleet high seas fleet, and has never done very well with the warships it did have. So getting the money to rebuild a large fleet will be a tough sell, and unlikely to succeed."

  • #2
    The Strategy page is always highly suspect especially anonymous articles like this.

    I could point out the glaring errors but its not worth it to me to point out the obvious.

    As always there is also a kernal of truth.

    It is very difficult to get reliable, timely and accurate info on the Russian Navy and the same goes for the Chinese Navy.

    They Russians are now building a ~2000 ton fl frigate, 26kts the first to be commissioned this year. The Project 20380 was originally a program of 25 units reduced to 10 and raised again to 20.

    A recent report from Russia says they are building a 40 unit 3000 ton fl, 35kt frigate(corvette they are calling them) class the first to be commissioned in 2007.

    In the same report it says the first is be to in-service this year.

    That these two programs are one and the same is highly probable but the details remain confused as you can see.

    Both programs have been described as the replacements for the Grisha class light frigates of some 1000-1100 tons full load.

    They have also reportedly started constrution on a 20 unit, Project 22350, 4500ton fl destroyer(They are calling it a frigate) program. The first planned to be operational in 2009. This program may take 20 years to see 20 units built.

    The Russians are aggressively pursuing new submarine construction.

    With a new SSBN project(Borey) already underway, new SSGN and SSN projects are soon to be started reportedly, along with the new, ongoing SSK(Lada) construction project.

    This is my short version.

    If anyone has better or different info Im all ears.
    Last edited by rickusn; 20 Mar 06,, 00:53.

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    • #3
      Heres a good site that is reasonably up-to-date, reliable and accurate:

      http://www.warfare.ru/?lang=&catid=243&linkid=1720

      My analysis of existing major surface ships:

      Kirov class CGN 3 units only one operational

      Slava class CG 3 units all operational

      Sovremmnenny class DDG 10 units as few as four fully operational/some others in overhaul

      Udaloy class DD 8 units

      Udaloy II class DD 1 unit

      Kara class DDG 2 units old and neither operatonal but reported to be in overhaul. Combat value is considered low in any event.

      Kashin class DDG old but in relatively good condition. May not be fully operational. Some Russians call it little more than an operational museum piece.

      1 Neustrashimyy FF 1 unit

      1 Gepard class FFL 1 unit

      6 Krivak class FF Old ships. All should be retired in the near future.

      The Black Sea fleet is nominally made up of one Slava cruiser, the Kashin class unit, the two Kara class units and two Krivak class units plus one Kilo class SSK.

      As you can see it doesnt really compare favorably with the Turkish Navy even now.

      Again my short version.

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      • #4
        Yah, I heard the fleet is in really rough condition at the moment. Plus I'd assume the uncertainty of the operational status of some of the ships would make any significant operation fairly hazardous.

        Most of the issues seem to largely be with their nuclear power ships. Which is looks like their trying to repopulate with smaller gas turbine driven ships. The exception to this is the balistic missile boats which are apparently being made a priority for upkeep.

        The Russians have apparently been trying to sell some of their larger ships off without much luck due to mechanical problems and poor maintence of the ships themselves.

        The last (I assume reliable) source I had one some of the major issues was:
        http://mdb.cast.ru/mdb/2-2004/rat/sfd/
        http://mdb.cast.ru/mdb/1-2004/raf/sfcc/
        http://mdb.cast.ru/mdb/1-2004/raf/tfotrsf/
        Last edited by canoe; 20 Mar 06,, 02:15.

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        • #5
          Mdbcast is quite reliable but a little dated.

          The new surface combatant construction is to replace the Grisha FFL class up to 40 corvettes and twenty new frigates to replace ten each of the Sovremmenny(Conventional Steam-powered) and Udaloy(Gas Turbine powered) class destroyers.

          The three Slava(Conventional Steam powered) class cruisers and three Kirov class(Combination Steam or Nuclear powered) cruisers do not yet have a replacement program. If indeed they ever are replaced.

          I forgot to mnetion the Russians plan on building new carriers during the next decade.

          The ships that deploy are in good mechanical shape although I dont know how well their electronic systems hold-up. I doubt if they are particularly unsafe.
          Last edited by rickusn; 20 Mar 06,, 04:05.

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          • #6
            The Russians do have a competitive reason to keep up with their Naval research and contruction, since the PLA-N seems pretty much incapable of building a decent fleet of their own warships any time soon, so there'll be a lot of money to be made by the Russians in selling ships and expertise to the PRC.

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