JonesyEcho,
All the Russians did was announce they are taking a specific measure to counter the system. Is there something wrong with this?
Of course not. If they actually perceive a threat they are entirely within their rights to take steps to put a counter in place. My point is that the counter is not difficult for the Russians to make. As you said – a few batteries of SS-26’s in Kaliningrad would do the trick very handily.
The problem is with that perception of threat which links in quite nicely below:
It’s also hard to say the Americans wouldn’t try to use the system against Russia, since that’s POSSIBLE – even if the ICBM and especially SLBM trajectories may be a little out of the Polish system’s reach.
You agree that the ICBM’s, SLBMs go nowhere near Poland from Bastion waters, are out of reach from GBI’s based in Poland. So precisely how can the Americans even try to use the system against Russia?. So how are they a threat against Russia?.
JonesyIt’s a normal procedure for factory trials. Industry tells how much they want on board, military how much they can sustain, the final lists are not closed till the last minute. The point of factory trials is that you have production/industry specialists with you when a system does not fulfil the military requirements, as you have a lot of new equipment after full mod. It’s a procedure that is at least 50 years old.
You have specialists aboard, but, the reason you train naval personnel ashore and familiarise the handover crew with the boat as she is finishing out….ie before sea trials…is so that only the crew, with limited yard personnel assistance, are aboard for the more dangerous shakedown runs. i.e anything that involves a dive in open water.
Like I said I understand having a large number of yard staff aboard for certain aspects of the trials, but, during a deep dive trial?. I’m quite happy to accept that Russians have their own ways of doing things…..but that simply makes no sense whatsoever…unless the handover crew were incapable of handling the boat or the emergency procedures drafted were not sufficient for the Capt to have confidence in. After the number of Akula’s that have been built I cant imagine there could be a lack of proper procedures.
They have both: PBU-2 are short-timed (up to 40 min) personal regenerators (acid triggered, closed breathing), boat-wide breathing systems are present also since the 2nd generation, plus you have special CO2 and gases standard masks, plus surfacing systems.
The cannisters of the PBU-2’s would have a distinct shelf-life it could be possible that the ones the yard staff had were not so thoroughly inspected and expired?. If there was an emergency air manifold in the effected spaces its hard to understand how anyone died at all. Even IF as you suspect they were all asleep you dont stay asleep very long when you take your first lung full of one of these oxygen starvation gasses. Having had a short blast of Halon in the face I can assure you that its not something you would be unaware of. It should not have taken those men longer than a minute to get a mask on and plug into the emergency air line.
Naturally none of this changes the tragic facts and we’ll have to wait and see what the inquest turns up, but, you have to think about that chain of events and be a little sceptical.
JonesyRSM,
I just say that the mere notion of “threat”, in a classical MAD environment, necessitates a response. The Russian response is, imho, logical and quite restrained.
It is logical if there is a valid perception of a threat. Unfortunately that cannot be the case here.
This is for the very simple reasons that the forum members here have concluded. Predominantly, from the Russian perspective, this site is non-surviveable. I repeat myself as no-one has yet answered my question – how is there a threat, to Russia, from a site that exists at Russian sufferance.
You threaten me by, say, 10% of my potential, then I negate your 10%. Period.
Russia has a fielded and mature limited BMD system though.
Again it doesnt take the proverbial rocket scientist to see that the E.Europe GBI installation does not have the scope for intercepting CONUS-bound strikes so the 10% attrition of the Russian strike potential is coming from US based interceptors. Lets not muddy the waters here – we are talking about US basing in Europe for BMD and NOT BMD as a whole. Russia has no grounds for disputing BMD in general because of the existence of its own ABM systems.
The simple fact is that Russia has no voice here. Even IF Russia were to make substantive concessions over its own BMD it would be a complete irrelevance because the purpose of the missiles has nothing to do with them…they are there for the deterrence of Iranian ICBM development and deployment.
(the russians have already signalled that: in the words of their Min.foreign affairs, they are ready to trade missiles in Kaliningrad for BMD in Europe plus more leverage on Iran).
Seeings as the purpose of the exercise is to make the Iranians see further development of ICBM’s as a futile waste of resource what bearing do missiles in Kaliningrad have on that. Those missiles are only there for Russian political reasons in the first place. What does it matter to the US if they are there or not?. That being the case why should the US care if they are left there or withdrawn?.
JonesyEcho
Nothing complicated about getting a bunch of SS-26 in Kaliningrad and a bunch of space or ground jammers that can be used if the need be.
Agreed. Thats quite the point. The system is vulnerable to Russian strike. Its not sited there to counter the Russians so there is no need for it to be protected against them!. How threatened do you honestly need to feel by a system you can obliterate at a whim?.
RSM,
You have to admit how far you are stretching credibility RSM.
The issue of siting 10 GBI’s in Eastern Europe has caused a gigantic furore…100 would be a colossal leap sufficient to redefine the whole purpose of the site. Plus it does nothing to alter the fact that, on the bizarre possibility that the US got away with the augmentation unnoticed, the missiles are in the wrong place to intercept a CONUS bound strike.
It’s not nonense, it’s hypothetical – and technically feasible, and technically feasible without anyone noticing. The BMD component in Poland is technically speaking an IRBM on steroids.
Point 1 – IF the GBI field in E.Europe is so vital to the defence of CONUS why are they going to take the GBI’s out and secretly put IRBM’s in?. They will surely need all the GBI’s they could get. After all even 100 GBI’s….even if they could reach and catch an outbound Russian strike…would be barely enough to scratch the surface.
Point 2 – What does a land based IRBM in Poland give the US that it doesnt have already. Decapitation strike?. They’ve got that already with Trident.
JonesyIt was final factory trials. It’s normal procedure: full complement (73) plus factory representatives and specialists (more than 100).
Its not the numbers I find strange RSM. Its the fact they were dived with that many onboard undertaking testing serials.
All guys are supposed to be trained in normal emergency procedures, doesn’t mean that they really can handle that. The death and injured toll figures tell us the contrary (3 mil vs 17 civilians, same proportion in injures).
Again see above point. They shouldnt have been aboard if they don’t know the procedures backwards and, if the Capt doesnt think the people he has aboard are up to the job, he shouldnt have permitted the dive.
The skipper probably did not know it was not a REAL fire, therefore no emergency surfacing. The sub was running deep at the time of the incident. All crew and service members had PDUs.
Basic DC procedure. The victims in the flooded spaces would have had time to make a report. Dont Akula’s have heat sensors in their compartments?. All crew and service members plainly hadnt had the lecture about keeping your PBU on you at all times. Do Russian subs still use PBU’s with air cannisters or have they moved to the boat-wide emergency air manifold system that NATO boats use?.
JonesyThats something of a low blow there Lawrence. The ship was on sea trials so systems failures are nothing strange in that environment.
Procedures here seem to be the overriding question mark. If she was dived why did she have so many civilians aboard, seemingly, without emergency equipment, emrgency procedures training or both. If she was running on the surface how come the skipper couldn’t/didn’t ventilate to outside air immediately the fire suppression system triggered.
Regardless though 20 men have just lost their lives. Let the subsequent inquiry deal with questions such as the above. Personally I’m trying hard not to imagine what those lads last few minutes of life were like.
JonesyIt’s my firm belief that the RN will return to a mixed SS fleet in the not too distant future, ordering a class of SSK’s so the MoD doesn’t have to fork out for enough SSN’s to cater for the RN’s needs
No real chance whatsoever of that happening. We dont have a mission for Patrol subs anymore. The RN would rather have 2 additional Astutes rather than 10 ‘formidable’ SSK’s simply as the SSN’s will offer value in return.
while the RN ideally would require a formidable yet cheap to operate SSK.
For what purpose?. They cant self-deploy over long ranges and need expensive tenders or local base-in if they try it. They are too slow for fleet work. They dont have SSN-comparable sensors for deep water sub hunting and we dont have a local mission like GIUK that fits any more?. Hard to see why an SSK would be a practical solution for any RN requirement.
JonesyTragic. Proof that today, of all days, thoughts should go to all those lost wearing their countries uniform and not just those fallen in battle.
Respects to those still on patrol.
JonesyWhats the whinge about the Missile Defence site now?. Isnt there 5 brigades of heavy rocket artillery just waiting to flatten the installation if it looks at Russia even slightly funny?.
Presumably a Tu-160 squadrons worth of Kh-55’s would be sufficient to saturate any US defences on the site and blast it into tiny pieces all from very comfortably within Russian airspace.
If the site is, as the US (and several very good mathematical laws) state, intended to deter Iranian IRBM/ICBM development and deployment it is no threat to the good old Rodina. If it is intended to defeat a massive Russian nuclear first strike on the US (with a dozen interceptors nowhere near the course track for Russian ICBM’s heading to the US) it can be easily flattened early in the tactical escalation phase.
Hard to see quite what Russia’s problem is here?
JonesyGot to go with Tinwing here….what would you modernise this monster into?.
Its a non-fun answer I’m sorry, but, Kirov was designed to do one job and that was to sit in the middle of the Atlantic and be a bloody nuisance to NATO vessels. It doesnt really make sense doing much else with the thing!.
Some kind of self-supporting arsenal ship perhaps?. I’d have to do the calculations but at a thumb-in-the air guess you’d get a couple of hundred 3s-14 Klub cells in the space occupied by the P-700 tubes. Filling those with LACM variants could make it a hugely powerful strike asset and I’d worry a LOT more about a ship with upwards of a hundred 3M-54E’s than I would 20 P-700’s in the antiship role.
Hugely expensive vessel to perform those kinds of missions in support of a real taskgroup centrepiece – a carrier – though.
JonesyYou know what though….if sticking mockups of ‘our sexy new fighters’ on the carriers gets little Johnny and Jenny to be excited by a future career in the Royal Navy…where is the harm in that?.
Personally I’m made up that the RN is taking this kind of PR ‘photo opportunity’ seriously these days.
JonesyTruth be told Steve there’s probably no need to go anywhere near such lengths. The rather simpler expedient of resurrecting Storm Shadow integration with GR9, at the rush, would give the carrier force a precision, hard target engagement capability with 4-500km standoff range.
In concert with SSN launched TLAM the RN taskgroup could be reducing fixed targets such as C3 nodes, airfield HAS’s, radar installations, port facilities, POL/ammo dumps etc from the kinds of stand off range that would give even a moderately advanced opponent extreme difficulty in localising and fixing the CVS group. That says nothing about the extra issue of coordinating a strike against it!.
The concept being to attrite opposing theatre-entry denial forces with stand-off LACM strikes until such a point as the CVS group could safely move closer inshore for more tactically focused missions.
JonesyGR9 are less effective than FA2 Sea Harriers. No AMRAAM, no Blue Vixen radar….so no BWR capability…
That would only be a handicap against an opponent fielding BVR fighters with AWACS to direct the fight. Either that or we’d have to be sat very close to their shore without, for some reason, TLAMing shore-based radar stations.
Against inbound strike aircraft laden with antiship missiles and therefore, decidedly, subsonic even GR9 has a significant chance. More so if you consider we’re able to put the Harriers in an environment of total radar coverage from the sea surface to high altitude for 200km or more radius around the carrier group. An opponent operating outside his own radar coverage will be sorely disadvantaged. Then you have the possibilty of ASRAAM integration with the GR9 that adds to the air-air potential of the airgroup.
Not enough to face off against a major military power….but then we wouldnt have been able to with the few dozen FA.2’s we could have embarked on a pair of CVS’s anyway. The GR9/ASAC7 combination gives us enough, with clever manoeuvre, to operate against nations with very modest numbers of late-gen combat types or larger inventories of older, non-bvr, types. It should be pointed out that there are a LOT more nations in those categories than in the former.
T42’s still have the Sea Dart launcher, but do they still have the missiles? Read they were not fitted with to save money…
The missiles are easily replenished on the few batch 2 ships that sail without them. The real reason they arent aboard is that there arent all that many OM’s and Tiffs about with GWS30 rating and they are concentrating them on the newer ships. Seeings as Aster should be pretty much operational in the fleet this time next year its easy to see why the GWS30 course at Collingwood has been drawn down.
That’s why I said I hoped RN would not have to face such problems from 2009 to 2015….
The RN is still more than capable of facing up to anyone that you would practically choose to with the combined airgroup of a pair of CVS’s!.
JonesyRodolfo,
An interesting option will be the replacement of 8 x P-500 by 8 x P-1000 and the remaining 8 x P-500 by 12 x P-800 Yakhont leading to a mixed configuration of 8 long range and 12 “short range” AShM.
I’m curious as to what would you be trying to achieve with this configuration though?. P-1000 is an anticarrier weapon….no other target warrants the extreme standoff range. Leaving aside the organic targetting problem what chance do you give 8 weapons of breaching a carrier group’s AEGIS based AAW screen?. You alert the carrier group to your presence firing the P-1000’s then find yourself left with 12 SSM’s that lack the range to hit the target thats launching an airstrike to kill you?!.
You would accept that even a full load of 16 P-1000’s, by themselves, have scant chance at breaching the defences of the only target that it makes any sense for it to be used against?. Also that a Soviet-syle coordinated strike with a group of SSGN’s and a goodly few additional RK’s is not a practical option with the Russian Navy as it is.
Why bother then trying to prolong this long-range missile capacity?. Even the Russian Navy itself has accepted the inevitable, that it needs aircraft carriers, and is no longer trying to develop new heavy supersonic antiship missiles or the support infrastructure to employ them.
16-24 Yakhont missiles is still a powerful antiship punch with minimal changes to the design and the benefit of freeing up of lots of useable deck space. Personally I might have been tempted down the Klub route in order to get the multirole capable VLS, but that could mean very significant changes in the hull down to 2deck. Still a 64 cell VLS capable of mission tailoring with competent AShM, LACM or ASW weapons, backed by the existing 64 tube area SAM fit would go a long way to maximising the usefulness of the hull.
JonesyConcurred – very interesting. Initial thoughts would be for a bit more of a dramatic series of mods than Wan has put forward too.
Agree on removal of the P-500 tubes entirely. Yakhont seems the logical replacement and there is certainly space for inclined launchers in place of the forward couple of SSM launcher banks.
I’d want to shift the RBU’s to port and starboard of the bridge superstructure though – installed on raised deckhouses to handle the magazine space requirement. Every time I see those launchers in superfiring position over the bloody great SSM tubes it gives me a shudder just thinking of what a misfire might just touch off. Removing the 630 gatlings and FC set from the foredeck extension would also be an early change. Depressed firing arcs never seemed too clever from those positions.
Clearing the foredeck gives siting position, and reasonable arcs, for a forward TOMBSTONE director servicing the S-300 fit. I’d remove the reload crane and have port/starboard platforms built up for another TOMBSTONE on each beam just aft of the funnel group.
Aft TOP DOME would be removed and the aviation fit enhanced beam and hangar roofline mod should give addtional capacity. 2 Helix sized airframes should be absolute minimum on a hull this size.
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