Old but unreported here

19:3122/01/2009
MOSCOW, January 22 (RIA Novosti) – The Russian Navy is to receive two corvettes equipped with stealth technology in 2010 and 2011, a spokesman for the United Shipbuilding Corporation said on Thursday.
St. Petersburg’s Severnaya Verf shipyard started construction of the Soobrazitelny in 2003 and the Stoiky in 2006.

Designed by the Almaz Central Marine Design Bureau, they will be the second and third in the Project 20380 series, after the Steregushchy, which was put into service in 2007.

Russia plans to have up to 20 vessels of this class to ensure the protection of its coastal waters, as well as its oil and gas transportation routes, especially in the Black and the Baltic seas.

Each corvette has a displacement of 2,000 metric tons, maximum speed of 27 knots, crew of 100 and is equipped with stealth technology.

The radar on this new batch of Russian vehicles doesn’t have the domed appearance of the original version, so it’s probably the new MRLS (Mnogofunktsionalniy radiolokator soprovozhdeniya) passive phased-array fire-control radar. This operates at a frequency of about 40 GHz.

That’s the milimetric band. So it should have been designed considering the anti-PGM as one of its main tasks.

Nested with S-400 batteries will be a real nightmare for aerial attackers.

Considering the average speed mentioned is ~ M 2.3 and Top Speed as ~ M 4 , does the top speed represent that of the killer dart ?

This is a two stage missile , the larger booster and the 2nd stage is the killer dart

It’s is fine to assume 1.3 km/s is the sustained dart speed considering that acceleration is done via the first stage and the dart just sustain kinematics. Anyway the top speed is really impressive because is in the order of much bigger missiles es i.e Patriot “big missile” (1.5 km/s) and early S-300 missiles like 5V55 (1.7 km/s).

It is an awesome system that may replace older Tor and Buk systems as point & medium range defense. Iran should consider a dozen Tunguskas.

So, right. The PAK-FA frontal RCS is no as small as the Raptor one. The question is, what’s the estimated PAK FA frontal RCS?

What about missile length? Any idea if they’re already looking at how to fit it to the subs?

Sineva is taller and slimmer than Bulava.

Russian Navy always had plans to maintain a submarine force of 40 – 50 SSBN/SSGN/SSN.

These are long term plans ~ 2050 and funds permit and there is political will they will get those numbers.

In the next two decade will will see the construction of SSBN and SSGN go in full swing and post 2020 we will see new small SSN coming into being.

Consider the money constraints. More realstic numbers go from 36 to 48 nuclear subs of all types, acording funds availability. I.e 9-12 SSBN, 9-12 SSGN and 18-24 SSN.

Note in the Figure of Project 21956 attached to Page 12 of the Russian Navy News & Discussion, Part III that 40N6 is reported with a mass of 2.000 kg and a top speed of 2.3 km/s. Another source claim the 40N6 mass is around 2.200 kg. So, in the end the “Big Missile” is likely an evolution of the 48N6 family rather than a 2-stage weapon, as it was speculated some time ago.
The evolution on the top speed seems also to confirm this hypothesis. From 2 km/s of the 48N6E (S-300PMU1) to 2.1 km/s of the 48N6E2 (Favorit system), to 2.2 km/s of the 48N6DM (early S-400 system) to 2.3 km/s of the 40N6.

So the replacement of older 48N6E missiles by 40N6 in Russian cruisers should not be difficult at all since 40N6 is a stockier 48N6 with an active seeker likely carried in the same canister type.