GollevainenFinnish Navy unveils ‘Squadron 2020’ concept
After long incubation process, requirements for new combat vessels to replace existing minelayers and Rauma-class missile boats have been set. ROI within a year, ships ordered 2019, all ready for service 2024. Requirements for “MTA2020” (Multi-Role Vessel 2020) are pretty broad: minelaying, ASW, escort, support of coastal operations, international operations, SAM system of “25km range or more”.
Ships are going to be “corvette type”, 90 to 100+ metres long with maybe 2000 to 2500 ton displacement.
Four ships are planned for total cost of 1.2 billion euros: cost-cutting measures include recycling systems from retired ships wherever practical.
The “Monitoimialus2020” has floated around quite long now in Finnish maritime circles, and only this year something solid has been starting forming as tenders have been send to domestic yards, with small uproar of leaving the Russian owned Helsinki yards out of the competition completely… but sofar this is the first time any pictures (even if still conceptional) of it starts appearing
GollevainenRemember that you don’t fight anti-ship missiles with anti-ship missiles. Against the anti-ship missiles you have the close-in AA weapon system, albeit in the pr.1134A & B its (AK-630’s and OSA-M in 1134B) dated back to days before the Harpoon was fielded.
All these ships are designated BPK = Large anti-submarine ships. Their task is to hunt and fight submarines, not surface combatants.
GollevainenYeah no props.
Refits where the Rastrub was included to Project 1134A (Kresta II):
Admiral Makarov: 1983-1985 (Murmansk)
Admiral Isachenkov: 1982-1986 (Kronshtadt)
Admiral Oktyabrskiy: 1982-1986 (Dalzavod, Vladivostok)
Admiral Isakov: 1986-1990 (Murmansk)
Aside those, in the individual section of each ship of the project 1134A it also mentions that following ships also recieved the Rastrub;
Marshal Voroshilov: 1980-1986 (Dalzavod, Vladivostok)
Marshal Timoshenko: 1988-1992 (Kronshtadt)
Of the Project 1134B (Kara):
Kerch: 1984-1989 (Sevastopol)
Petropavlovsk: 1986-1990 (Dalzavod, Vladivostok)
As for the pr. 1155 (Udaloy) class, there is no mentioning of when the Rastrub was fitted but Udaloy was refitted between 1988-1990 in Kronshtadt so it might have recieved it then. There is no mentioning of any refits for Admiral Zaharov tough.
GollevainenHello
The ASW missilesystem which the western world calls SS-N-14 Silex is called RPK-3/4 Metel in the Soviet Union/Russia. The orginal system, fitted in Project 1134A (Kresta II) and Project 1134B (Kara) as well as Project 1135 (Krivak). It was solely a ASW missile, similar in concept as the British Ikara. It’s guidance radars and launchers varied slightly as the pr.1134A/B used quad launchers KT-106 and the guidance system of the Grom-M (SA-N-3 Goblet SAM) where as pr.1135 used KT-100 launchers and specialised Musson FCR.
The basic Metel was followed by URPK-3/4/5 Rastrub which was an dual role missile with fixed warhead accompanied with smaller torpedo (the Metel only carrier the torpedo). It uses same launchers and same guidance radar. According to J.V. Apalkov in his book “Protivolodchnie Korabli” of the Pr.1134A, following ships were modified to use the Rastrub: Admiral Makarov, Admiral Isachenkov, Admiral Oktyabrskom and Admiral Isakov. Of the Pr.1134B; Tallin from the begining, In Kerch and Petropavlosk aftern modernisation.
On the project 1155, in the first two, Udaloy and Admiral Zaharov were fitted with Metel at the begining but were later modernised to use the Rastrub. Others of the class used Rastrub from the start.
Hope that helped
GollevainenI just can’t resist any more (tough it’s been like 3 years since I’ve taken part of these kind of “discussions”)
To counter the orginal assumptions and assertions, has anyone given tought how well USA and it’s “allies” perform themselves in fight/conflict which they would be dragged in if fighting china despite what the performance of PLA is? I mean even if all the mentioned factors of Chinese performing poorly on the “human factor” point of view, none can claim them being so demoralized and unwilling to fight for their own country that they would simply just thrown down the sword after few days of USA aircampaign?
What happens when USA is forced to bring all it’s might into question? I mean you can’t beat up present-day PRC with force and invested capabilities which USA has done is all it’s 1900’s wars. The sheer size of China as nation and land and the sheer numbers of their military is way out of the scale even of Iraq in 1991. Remember this time there wouldn’t be no Soviet Union actually doing the job like it was in WWII. In this scenario USA would have to do the work which it hasn’t done ever. Or when has USA invaded and actually brought down a country of Chinese caliber? (With nukes it can do it, but with nukes the whole scenario or judging the chinese performance is pointless as USA has more nukes than China.)
So how would USA perform themselves if they actually would have to fight a real country with big army (despite how modern or capable the army is)? How would they perform if they realise that they can’t bomb the enemy to surrender but they would actually have to go down and engage the enemy in land? Enemy who outnumbers them in 10:1?
Thobbels did quite simplistic generalisations of the “human factor” of non-USA/west nations so if we follow that logic, look what happened in WWII. Germany had pretty much the same type of situation with the Soviets. Everyone assumed that Soviets were a papertiger, big in numbers but so paralysed with their outdated doctrines and a far greater turmoil with the office purges and atmoshphere of terror than China could be counted for today. And Germany had the balls to try out how their superior military machine worked. And it did…for a while. Then the human factore kicked in, persistent and toughness of Soviet people. And rest is history.
GollevainenHaving asbestos insulation on newly build/reufurnished boilers seems odd as in here asbestos has been a curseword even before I was born!
Working in a powerplant, we constantly get in touch with asbestos but at least its said to us that its not dangerous unless you break it and cause it to pulverize to the enviroment. Despite its healthproplems, its still the best insulation material there is. We have parts of our powerplant now almoust unreachable due heat after the asbesto insulation was removed and replaced with modern substitutes.
GollevainenWhich is too be expected for FACs – does not matter how modern, well equipped or well used tactically a FAC is. It would have no chance against a stronger navy with bigger ships (and therefore much better sensors).
Well, I think my point was that unless you don’t even try to do something intiative with them (proven that the military enverioment and “infrastructure” where you operate is otherwise ok) you cannot really drawn conclusion wheter such operations would succeed or not can you? None of the mentioned engagements here have included any serious attempt of the defender to actually manouvre against the aggressor.
Also the concept of “stronger navy with bigger ships” comes really down to wheter its against USN carriers+(with or without their lackeys) or against something else.
In all other naval wars post the missle age (minus Falklands where neither navy posessed good FAC fleets) have been good show cases of flexibility of missile boats, in all middle eastern wars, in 1971 Bangladesh indepency war, and curiosly in the 2008 Russian-Georgian war, it was Old Russian Pr.1234 class vessels that destroyed the few odd Georgian FACs, not the big cruisers or so.
There are only handfull of navies in the world that are to be expected to use their navy against USN carrier task forces and they are generally either posessing other assets (china and Russia) as their main force, or too poor to have anything worthwhile in any case. Against all other opponents, people shouldn’t make too hasty conclusions of FACs suitability from USN’s battle reccord against the FACs of Iraq and Libya.
GollevainenLot of these comments decimenting the valuability of FACs seems to focus solely on the penny detailed differences between older FACs against numeriocal comparision bigger platforms, and the ill-fated Iraqian and Libyan experiences against the most powerfull naval component of all times, the USN carrier task forces.
We can propably all argue that:
1. FACs cannot carry same ammount of ordanance as cruisers.
2. Against USN carrier task groups with modern C4 features, full airdominance and sea denial, you need to little bit more with the missile boats, than just sail them to the direction of the enemy.
I don’t claim to be that knowledgable of the Libyan nor Iraqi navies from late 80’s and early 90’s in regard of their operationality and so on, but all sparse sources I’ve read, neither of those conducted any serious manouvres againgst the enemy forces but were mostly picked by the enemy air, off guard and sunked down. Of the forces available to Libya and Iraq, only the Pr. 1234Es of Libyan navy would have had any change against the modern air dominance and situation controll (I don’t know what fancy english term to be used 😮 ) of the USN forces. AFAIK, the sunked down Libyan corvette was destroyed it even having its full Airdefence sensors on and without expecting to be engaged.
Rest of these navies FACs were either warbooty of no real figthing value, or pr.205 class boats that (do remember) reflect Soviet 50’s coastal defence doctrines and hugely uncapable to face modern (1980’s) naval warfare. As far as I know, neither did Libya nor Iraq have any sort of proper cordinated, multilayered and echeloned coastal defence forces that old Soviet doctrines called in for and to where boats like the pr.205’s were designed to work. And if 1980’s technology USN carrier task forces would have attacked against those 1950’s era soviet coastal defence forces, I wouldn’t have betted my money on the soviets;)
Does it makes FACs useless? Certainly if you plan to loose air cover, your command and communication capacities, lack of intiative and start picking figth with USA, yea, …. FACs (as well as basicly all other hardware you can afford) are pretty useless.
GollevainenAdmiral Gorshkov!
Thats a pr.1159 (Koni class) above her? One of the algerian modernisations I presume:confused:
Anyways, keep up the good posting. Once I find somewhere good side drawing of Ivan Gren, Im going to add it to the shipbucket catalogue
GollevainenI remember reading from somewhere that when Soviets fielded Kiev, Minks and Novorossisk they found out that those huge ships (for soviet standarts) were ill-equipted in heating systems and constantly tried keeping then out of the cold ports of Severomorsk and Vladivostok during the winter times. I quess the same proplem plagues Kuznetsov as well.
Gollevainenthe Soviets had a workable philosophy with a fleet centered on a heavy cruiser carrying aircraft, which could’ve worked better for India’s needs than a pure carrier.
The TAVKR concept was nothing near workable philosophy even with the soviets and russians own obinion. The idea of the jump-jets onboard the first four pr. 1143 was more to “look, we have shipborne aircrafts too!” than to have some workable and operationally usable airgroup. The whole TAVKR was politically oriented classification.
GollevainenThrow down the sword – by Whisbone Ash always brings me close to actually feeling like what it would be for a old soldier who has lost the feeling for killing and pillaging…
It turns nicely into some sort of metaphore to listen after a weary day or to set me for proper mood to finaly end something that has been draining my mind.
GollevainenThrow down the sword – by Whisbone Ash always brings me close to actually feeling like what it would be for a old soldier who has lost the feeling for killing and pillaging…
It turns nicely into some sort of metaphore to listen after a weary day or to set me for proper mood to finaly end something that has been draining my mind.
GollevainenOther than the fact that both have pipes I’m not entirely sure what the ‘analagous’ crossover is between civillian power generation and proper engineering design in a submarine?. Do civillian power workers have to contend with scenarios where they have to complete tracing and fault-finding, under emergency lighting within small smoke/fume filled spaces, before the space becomes uninhabitable?. Submarine crews drill on just that sort of thing with grim regularity.
Having to work in crapped rooms, heatingplants, wells or tunnels with alot of pipes and wires with zero visibility due steam, (if proces-steam, condensation or district heating pipes blows up you end up with steam everywhere) no oxigen and the severe posbility to get injured or die by basicly boiling alive? Yes sounds familiar…The similarities in the hazardious working enviroment are why I brought up the issue in the first place.
If anyone of you have ever been in real situation where there is alot of smoke/fumes or steam in small crampped interiors you know that having colour-coded stuff is pointless as you cannot see anything. Thus you need to know where everything is. Yes, one can argue that to learn the positions of vital instruments might be easier with color-codes, but with theral training and familirisation it can be done without it as well.
Distinctly marked pipes and conduits knock time spent on fault-find down dramatically. There is nothing cultural about it….its just good engineering practice….and best practice is best practice wherever you go. Yours and Golle’s contention that the Russians may just ‘not want to do it that way’ is unthinkable…the suggestion is that in their culture they actually want their submarine crews to have a harder time than necessary in operating their vessels!?. You really think that?.
Best practice is always subjective. I can again drawn analogue to our company which operates in various european countries in the same field. One could easily think that things are done the same in every nation but suprisely everyone seems to do things bit differently…and everyone is doing it better than the other;)
As I said the ONLY plausible option is that either they haven’t thought of an engineering measure so simple that every householder who has ever wired a domestic plug up is familiar with or that they weren’t bothered with it. Neither is indicative of a good design team and even ‘good’ design teams make mistakes. Poor ones, or even good ones put under ridiculous time/finance pressures, almost always put out compromised designs. As I said earlier see T42B1&2 and Type 53T for all the proof needed.
The only question I suppose, with tongue in cheek, is whether domestic wiring in Finland is colour-coded Golle….or would that go against the culture
I wont say anything about wires, I’m not an electrician. My point has been pipes all the time.
GollevainenNow either they didnt know to do this or didnt care enough to do it. Simple as that…there is no third option…you cant consider making a provision like coding and decide against it as unnecessary….because its the sort of simple, elementary, inclusion that makes ship operation so much easier and safer. To have considered that provision and decided against it you are suggesting that a professional design team has determined that it needs to make ship operation more difficult for the crew than it needs be….that is simply so absurd as to be instantly discountable.
Nope. If we follow your logic then we could easily argue that the most of Finnish energy production and supply is in horrible state, designed to be failure from the outset and bound of catasthropic accidents; raging down from life-threatining pipeline breakdowns in powerplants to nuclear holocaust…yet by some miracle we operate our systems with 99.98% operational effiency…
How absurd our world indeed is..
…or that in different cultures some things are toughted differently. Where as in example here, the emphasis is on the operational personels knowlidge and proffesionalism and elsewhere its to make sure that even the most obvious issues are hand-heldly teached to personel.
I’ve always find it somewhat interesting when comparing soviet/russian tehcnical systems to western system that people forget that the culture/design philosofy and the whole approach to the issues are so considerable different.
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