Hi Swerve … they have officially given up scavenging for parts … British Aerospace simply wont manufacture many of the components that they need … and they have been worried about reverse engineered components – There was a proposal to buy many Royal Navy Sea Harrier air frames but that never progressed very far … A pity in a sense because there are about 3-4 planes that remain fully ops with a very modern Elta 2032- Derby missile combo …

Too much of an effort, I am told to transfer logistics to the Vikramaditya for a second mini-air wing – I also think its safe to assume that off the 4 jets, you are not going to get more than 2 SHARs up at any one time … Just not worth it …

Yeah, wasn’t it reported that the carrier itself actually had few more years left on it, but air wing was whittled to so low level that it wasn’t worth it operationally anymore.

SHAR/MiG-29K combo operating from Vik would have looked epic…

http://fotografersha.livejournal.com/772656.html

And some pics of the Kuznetsov under scheduled repairs, before its planned deployment off Syria.

So if I read it right, after Med deployment it will be docked for modernization?

How’s MiG-29K adoption progressing? I read that they’re not going to retire Su-33 yet.

‘Howlers’ such as the Jane’s Su-35/T-50 radar story are a symptom of the gradual departure from the scene of veteran reporters who individually had 20 or 30 years of defence reporting experience, and the absence of an new generation able to replace them. The experience level in many editorial offices has shrunk dramatically, and Jane’s may have been particularly hard hit.

Three of the aviation and defence journalists of my acquaintance have retired, two have semi-retired, three have moved to better-paying jobs in public-relations, and three have died. Salaries and payment rates (never exactly lavish in the past) are not high enough to attract good people to replace them, so the problem is likely to get worse.

At Le Bourget last year I heard much talk of an associated problem – shrinking advertising budgets at a shrinking number of defence companies. Thirty years ago the UK and French industries were big enough to support national promotional magazines, something that would be unthinkable today. With Aviation Week now a fortnightly title, Armed Forces Journal closed, and at least one other title known to be in difficulties, I fear we may be seeing the gradual collapse of traditional defence publishing.

This is not just happening in aviation and defence journalism. In an article I read recently, a former newspaper journalist described how having lost their experienced reporters, papers had hired “web-savvy newbies with little or no journalism experience” to take their place.

Yes, same thing has happened in technical magazines everywhere. Quality has collapsed all over the board over last 15 years. Publication houses are increasingly owned by big conglomerates who are ever mindful of shrinking distribution and attempt to reduce cost, but the end result is that even rest of the readers are driven away as magazines become garbage.

So the first two project 22800 missile boats have been laid down @ the new shipyard Pella:

So this is uh, sixth or seventh disparate corvette/light frigate class or subclass coming to service? Doesn’t seem too economical…

Also, what about 22160’s? Is this related to that or wholly separate?

As I said before, I don’t see that this new legislation is much more than a headache for aircraft/turret restorers wishing to fit de-act weapons to them.
With all the modern weaponry most of it computerized I find it difficult to believe that terrorists or any such organizations would borrow a Spitfire or Mustang or even a Lancaster and use it as a weapon, or its weapons, because the weapons are fast becoming obsolete, admittedly there have been shootings in recent years but none have been carried out with a Browning .303 or any aircraft mounted gun, they are just too cumbersome.

Legislation doesn’t care about such distinctions. There is not going to be specific piece of legislation – “all AK-47’s are banned” (well there could, but it would be impossible to implement “so AK-47’s are banned, that does not affect AKM’s or AK-74’s then?”). No, they are looking to categorically ban all such items. In fact, almost certainly they will look to ban hunting weapons too, after all, difference is usually only cosmetic.

Anyhow, as said, Finnish ministers have already recorded serious reservations about the proposals, concerning not only shooting sports and reservists, but also gun collectors, live and deactivated weapons alike. There are tens of thousands of deactivated firearms possessed by Finnish civilians (mostly submachine guns), they are completely unregistered and if people don’t want to give them up, enforcing such a ban would be impossible because nobody knows who has them.
Only danger here I see is that to preserve most important items (reservist guns, IPSC and firearms collectors), some lesser items might be thrown under the bus ‘to reach a compromise’ and easiest thing to give up, politically, are deactivated firearms. It would be completely bass-ackwards but that’s politics for you.

Finland’s at least trying to torpedo almost entire directive. Most of the proposals would be crippling to our reservist system, our deactivation standards are already amongst the strictest in the world, also gun collecting is pretty popular here.

Theres a steady drive to bigger hulls I agree, but, even a Type23 is more than 130m and its very definitely a frigate. The two classes I mentioned….Indian and Franco-Italian….as well as the Dutch unit all identify as frigates and all fall about 10-15m short of a 956 and up to a couple of thousand tonnes lighter in the displacement. Any way you cut it they are significantly smaller vessels….

…yet in the Dutch LCF you have an eminently capable AAW platform. This being the point….if 956 is the benchmark size for a DDG in this context…then a hull roughly 20% smaller is perfectly adequate for the task.

If you want to take the argument to the zenith of silliness examine the Singaporean Formidables. Thales states Herakles is a HVU single-type sufficient MFR set needing no VSR backup. The ship sports the capability to deploy with a loadout of 24 Aster30’s and, notionally, 32 CAMM-ER. Its smaller than a Krivak yet has the AAW potential of a far more substantial unit.

You absolutely do not need a modern DDG-sized hull to do AAW….and you very certainly dont need to deploy units the size of Kirov’s to do AAW with all their associated manning and support requirements!.

Of course if that’s what you want, you can give small hulls AAW capablity (Danes have some 400 ton missile boats with Sea Sparrow).
Formidables sure are, uh, formidable, but their size limits their sensor fit. These days, AAW destroyers are expected to have theatre-level radar and missile systems (Type45, Burkes etc).

Boyevoi really looks like a derelict. I thought they gave up on Sovremenny class due to some engine or machinery issues on that class?

On the other hand, they don’t really have any new destroyer classs incoming in the near term.. Perhaps it would be simpler to just get China to sell their two Sovremenny’s back? 🙂

Sovremenny’s have been very rarely deployed as steam turbines are much more maintenance-intensive than gas turbines. Though in recent years they seem to have become bit more active, probably to reflect better funding.
I think it’s unlikely any more will be activated in addition to 4 or 5 they currently have. The ships are obsolescent and most of their abilities can be duplicated by new frigates.