Correct me if I’m wrong, but this is a Vietnamese Gepard, the Russian one has Clubs in place of the Palma and still isn’t launched. It is under construction, almost finished as far as I know.

Well, if you could fire a Klub missile from 100 km let’s say, or at the max range of the 650mm which is even smaller, you reduce the reaction time of the escorts and you could have the missile go faster as it won’t need so much fuel + the supersonic dart covers the last 20 or 40 km. I think this is much more effective than the 650mm torpedo launched at the edge of the envelope and the carrier has less reaction time (running away, escorts launching 324mm torps), nor the ability to sacrifice a frigate or two in order to stop the torpedo if all else fails (the Klub will likely be able to differentiate the carrier from the other ships easily).
Also, the Yasen is even larger than the 971, you probably won’t use such a sub to deliver swimmers and risk it close to the shore. It is more or less a golden fish right now.

They have the short 9M96 on the 20380, its range is around 30-40 km, while Panstyr has a range of around 20 km. The thing is, if they had integrated 9M100 (the ground version of R-77) and could place 4 of these inside a single 9M96 silo, then the system would have been great. Unfortunately, as it is now it has just 12 missiles, lower kill probability than a Pantsyr, it’s more expensive, and has an unreliable radar.

On another note, the 20380 is supposed to be the principle combatant along with 22350 in the next decade, as the new destroyers are nowhere to be seen. Thus, the ship has to be able to protect itself effectively, especially when the technology is there to be used.

By the way, the 9M96 is waay too expensive for its role on the 20380, the Panstyr rocket is something like 10 times cheaper, you could place twice the number of these on the ship, and your kill probability is higher.

The thing is, Furke doesn’t work well. If they had went with the Positiv family, things would have been much better. If they had placed the Kinzhal it would have been much better, but I think that the Kinzhal is out of production and the Pantsyr system is much better. I think that placing 9M96 on a corvette is pointless, but then that is what was done. Two Pantsyr modules would have done do job much better.

The last info from insiders is that indeed the 20380 series will probably end soon, with the current 5 hulls or a little bit more produced. The Russian Navy is quite upset from the AAW performance of the corvette, as the Furke is a failure and the 9M96 integration wasn’t that successful. Also, there are a number of different design flaws in the 20380 concept. Of course, if there is some kind of a miracle with the tests of the second hull with 9M96 missiles, things may change a bit.
Also, a few days ago started the construction of the first of three submarines of project 656.3 for the Black Sea Fleet. There are rumors for 1135.6 for the Black Sea Fleet, but nothing substancial yet.

Poliment is more or less the equivalent of AEGIS.
9M96 is the small missile form S-400 with active radar seeker, 9M100 is the land launched variant of the R-77.
91R is not part of the Medvedka, Medvedka is all but forgotten. 91R is part of the Club system and fits into the universal cell UKSK.

By the way, Furke is crap, they probably won’t use it.

The text says more or less that the purchase of MiG-29KUB does not mean that the Su-33 will be phased out. On the contrary, they are undergoing maintenance. Example for this is the contract for 2009-2010 for the repair of 6 Su-33 and 12 engines. The lifetime of the Su-33 will be around 26 years (production run 92-96) and this means that they will be serving until 2022.