Recall What I Wrote Three Years Ago.

I quote myself. 

I will comment in depth on this later but one thing which is absolutely clear--STOVL concept in Russian Navy will lead, inevitably, to some sort of a hybrid carrier akin to US Navy's LHA-6 America-class amphibious assault ships but, in Russian case, most likely with greater emphasis on the air-wing and self-defense—even most likely making it closer to HMS Queen Elizabeth carrier of the Royal Navy conceptually. I can already hear sobbing and cries of desperation from all kinds of Russian navalists still enamored with the concept of Alfa-strikes and glory of the flying decks of CATOBAR carriers. I used to be a navalist myself but with the appearance of 4^th generation submarines and weapons such as P-800 Onyx, I got cured and transferred from the shining light and inherent goodness of the Battle of Midway romanticism to a dark side of bookkeeping, cynical pragmatism and stand-off weapons. And I mean STAND-OFF weapons and we all know what they are. 

Ahem. Just to demonstrate how things are funny in Russia's naval development--and I omit now a confirmed development of Russia's STOVL aircraft--take a look at this guy. From TASS (in Russian). 

This is a universal naval complex (UMK) of Varan-class being developed by Nevskoe Design Bureau (in Russian) and it is modular, it is around 45,000 tons of displacement, carries up to 24 combat aircraft and 20 UAVs. This ship made some splash in Anglosphere. Russians do not deny a similarity in approach to LHA USS America. 

At the moment there are no similar platforms of “Varan” says Nevsky. The world’s largest shipbuilding companies produce multipurpose LHDs that designed to perform a number of tasks, but there are no multifunctional ships based on a single platform. In terms of displacement, “Varan” can be compared to the U.S. Navy’s America class LHD’s. Currently, the US Navy has two ships – America and Tripoli; another ship, Bougainville, was laid down in March 2019. These LHD’s are distinguished by their big cost, which reaches $ 3.3–3.4 billion per combat unit. 

And, when USS America LHA has been commissioned I took a keen interest in this ship since, I knew already in late 1990s that nuclear super-carriers of the US Navy were on the way out as a viable combat platform. Not least due to two major reasons of them being indefensible in the modern battle-space and being insanely expensive. 

                                      Rendering of Varan
And here is USS America. 

She is a handsome ship but she is still very expensive and STOVL F-35B never met expectations, to put it mildly. But the general trend on universality is obvious, especially in the era of a massive remaking of the global power balance and necessity to have "fire crews" out there, including by means of putting boots on the ground and having air-support for them. Obviously, Russia already builds two new amphibious assault ships and the forming of their hulls has already started at Kerch's shipyard Zaliv today, as TASS reports (in Russian). As it is typical for Russia nobody knows exactly what these two pr. 23900 LHAs will be when commissioned, at least for now, they look more like amphibious assault  ships. 

A lot depends on STOVL aircraft being ready for them, but as sources in Russia's MoD say those ships will carry S-70 UAVs. Varan, however, looks more like a universal aircraft carrier with some amphibious capability. It also is being developed as an affordable carrier for export and it already has the MiG-29K combat carrier aircraft ready if the project moves ahead. Will it move ahead? I am positive that as an export affordable universal carrier it has a future. As for the Russian Navy, it, certainly, will be building aircraft carriers for itself. If they will be based on Varan concept, for now at least, is a matter of speculations. It is clear, however, that the movement away from American CVN-type mastodons is in progress as it is away from carrier-centric navies, especially in times of hypersonic long-range anti-shipping missiles, which changed the game completely.

About Zircon (3M22) Yet Again.....

It is really becoming redundant to talk about it, but I will state it anyway, yet again: we are in the age of missiles. Yes, aircraft carriers are magnificent ships and they carry with them a certain, fairly high, level of prestige for those who operate them but they are....drum roll...not the future of the naval warfare. They stopped being that once the range of the anti-shipping missile became comparable with the range of the carrier launched aircraft. Once Soviet Union started launching these missiles from submerged submarines--the game was over. As Commanders Joseph A. Gattuzo and Lori J. Tanner (both carrier aviators with enormous experience) stated in their Naval Forces In The New Century: 

"Money spent furthering manned aircraft technologies and programs—the CVNX (proposed Nimitz-class carrier replacement) being one of them—is like polishing cannonballs so they will fly a little farther."

 Original by Gattuzo And Tanner
 

So, now Russia announced what have been known for a while: that Russian Navy is about to procure hyper-sonic 3M22 anti-shipping missile known also as Zircon.

Zirkon For Russian Navy  

A lot of rumors circulate about this missile but what is known more or less for sure is the fact that this missile has a speed in excess of Mach=5 and the range varying anywhere from 500 to 1000 kilometers. The procurement of this missile signifies two major facts:

1. Russian material science is pretty good if it ensured that this missile is capable of sustaining the extreme temperatures associated with such speed at very low profiles of flight;

2. The problem of sensors, namely radar head (seeker), operating in a plasma environment, which is the result of this speed, have been resolved. 

These are really bad news for aircraft carrier "trade-unions" (using Elmo Zumwalt's definition) both in US and in Russia. The reason being almost guaranteed inability of current and near-future air defense systems to deal with this threat. It is one thing to intercept ballistic high flying target at the ranges of 100s of kilometers, totally another is to do so in the case of a sea-skimmer which flies with the speed of about a mile a second and whose detection is effectively limited by the radio-horizon, which, depending on the height of the radar antenna and the altitude of said Zirkon, doesn't leave much time at all, if any, to develop a firing solution. Depending on these and other meteorological and radio atmospheric factors the range could vary anywhere from 20 to 40 miles. Obviously, there is always the issue of the AD screen, with ships in the task groups positioned away from the main target, which is carrier, and, of course there are patrols at the remote edges of the Carrier Battle Group. Well, doesn't matter--there are simply no means today, nor there will be any tomorrow, capable to reliably intercept this kind of weapons. Yes, I know, I know, those almighty lasers and other blasters but even they, those mythical weapons which exist mostly in the demonstration videos and the minds of enthusiasts, are not the answer. Why so, I will not discuss it here. Because after all, it is about Zircon and once the first hull capable of carrying this missile (or rather many of them), modernized Admiral Nakhimov hits the waves in 2018 after her modernization (with Peter The Great planned to do so in 2022), the naval warfare as we know it will cease to exist officially. The age of true Distributed Lethality will be upon us, while aircraft carriers will have to change drastically or be relegated to the role of the museum exhibits, for those which will survive.  Tactical, Operational, Strategic and Economic realities, when salvo of 4-8 missiles, with the total cost of about 10 million dollars can sink 20+ billion dollars of hardware, not to speak of denying it the objectives, became such that they are impossible to be ignored anymore. 

Zircons, Onyxes and Kalibrs on the move. 

  

Merry Christmas

Roger Scruton defines Western Civilization in these words:"The roots of Western civilization lie in the religion of Israel, the culture of Greece, and the law of Rome, and the resulting synthesis has flourished and decayed in a thousand ways during the two millennia which followed the death of Christ"(c)

Well, Western Civilization is Christian Civilization first and foremost. I, being an atheist, albeit of Oriana Fallaci's type, which she called Christian Atheist, understand clearly the roots of many things which I love and treasure in my life. In the end, it was Christianity which created a framework in which Western culture could flourish, including the science which, in many respects, spelled the doom to many Christian doctrines. It certainly demolished purely evangelical world-view. Yet, the message of Christ endures and so does morality which fights a desperate rear-guard battle for preserving what is left today of Western Civilization. It is the last bastion which separates our civilization from chaos and decay of gutless, self-centered world without any enduring and necessary inhibitors with which humanity managed to survive so far.

By celebrating Christmas we celebrate Western Civilization, this is especially true today and, being an atheist, today I am a christian in a full cultural sense that transcends the limits of scriptures. This day my thoughts are with persecuted Christian people of the Middle East, they are also with all decent, honest, hard working people who quietly live by 9 Commandments (unless we are talking Walter Sobchak types, if you get my drift;-). So, Merry Christmas, my friends, and let us hope that we will kick evil's ass and we should. 

Now to the Christmas presents. They are mostly for Russian Navy. 

1. Two Project 22800 Karakurt missile corvettes were laid at Pella shipyard in St. Petersburg.

Project 22800 (In Russian)

These ships named Uragan and Typhoon are two first ships of what is promised to be 18 ships class. Displacing 800 tons they are more sea-worthy than notorious Byan platforms and, of course, are carriers of no less notorious Kalibr and Onyx missiles. First two hulls, as it seems now, will carry no missile Air Defense complex, albeit further ships in class will carry what is known today as navalized version of Pantsir gun-missile AD system, which will give these ships a very respectable close-range (18-20 km) air defense capability.

All this is not good news for US Navy and its, especially so, Littoral community. For US Navy, which became a hostage of sorts of its own magnificent and, arguably, unrivaled combat history which is dominated by large combatants (traveling 1 st Class, remember?), the whole notion of a 800-ton ship outgunning, in missile exchange, its own much larger and much too expensive combatants is anathema. Russian Navy will network these ships, making Russia's littoral impenetrable and will deploy these ships, in a good ol' Soviet tradition of 5th Operational Squadron, to Mediterranean, either as a part of Ship Strike Group (KUG) centered around larger combatants with vastly superior ASW and AD, or as an autonomous group. It is clear, however, that such a platform, albeit with "degraded" electronics and sensor suite has an enormous export potential, thus opening the door to export versions of  Kalibr and Onyx missiles. This could be a game changer in many littorals, especially of the nations which do have some semblance of real air forces and AD systems. 

2. A very important news: Northern Shipyard (Severnay Verf) has started a massive modernization program.

New Facilities (In Russian) 

The centerpiece of this program is a brand new dry dock with the length of....400 meters. That means only one thing--aircraft carrier(s). Will the time be right for Russian carriers by 2020-2022? I am not in a position to judge but there never were doubts about Russia's blue water aspirations. We'll see. Judging by the tone of news, most of the programs for Russian Navy seem to be financed in full.