The Russian Navy has grounded its MiG-29K carrier fighters after one crashed during operations off Syria, and the Sukhoi Su-33 air superiority fighter has had to step in to fly ground attack missions. (RussianPlanes.net photo)
Posted on 11/24/2016 5:36:10 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
MOSCOW --- The Russian Naval Aviation’s planes and helicopters on board the Admiral Kuznetsov (NATO reporting name: Kuznetsov-class) aircraft carrier have been unable to learn full-fledged combat employment lessons from the military operation in Syria, expert Sergei Ishchenko writes in an article published by the Svobodnaya Pressa online news agency.
A week has passed since Russian carrier-borne aircraft joined the fighting in the Syrian provinces of Idlib and Homs. The intermediate results produced by the Admiral Kuznetsov’s carrier air wing have been not what the top brass expected dispatching the huge ship and her impressive strike group to the Mediterranean Sea.
As of November 22, the Sukhoi Su-33 (Flanker-D) fighters taking off from the Russian carrier clobbered the targets of Islamic radicals twice - on November 15 and 18. In the latter case, they did it in conjunction with upgraded Tupolev Tu-25MSM (Bear) strategic bombers operating out of an air base in the Volga area of Russia. The bombers had had to circumvent Europe en route to Syria. Judging by the statements of the Defense Ministry, the targets were destroyed.
This is the first time for the Russian Navy to deploy its Su-33 fighter jets on combat operations and the first time for the type to attack ground targets to boot. This is of special importance, because the Su-33 is an air superiority fighter designed to provide air defense to friendly naval forces far away from home shores.
Nobody was going to use it against land targets from the outset. This is a recent capability that has emerged after some of the Su-33 fleet had been equipped with the Gefest & T SVP-24-33 special navigation computer subsystem allowing the employment of 500-kg and 250-kg gravity bombs with the accuracy typical of ‘smart’ munitions. According to the designers, the SVP-24-33 offers a three-to-fourfold increase in ground attack accuracy.
However, it is not the Su-33s that the main part in strikes against Islamic radicals in Syria from aboard the Admiral Kuznetsov was assigned to from the outset. The carrier’s air superiority fighters were designed to complement the Mikoyan MiG-29K (Fulcrum-D) and MiG-29KUB - the Kuznetsov’s main assets for strikes against land targets in Syria.
The advantage the MiG-29K and MiG-29KUB have over the deck-based Su-33 on air-to-ground attack missions lies not so much in the number and lethality of the munitions making up their weapons suite, as their N010 Zhuk-M multirole radar acquiring ground targets at a range of 110 km and mapping the terrain at the same time. The Su-33’s Mech radar can handle air targets only, as an air superiority fighter’s radar should. The Mech is unable to pick up low-contrast targets on the ground.
Equipping some of the Admiral Kuznetsov’s Su-33s with SVP-24-33s seems to have made up for their drawback to a certain degree, but has not negated it completely. Nevertheless, only these aircraft of the Kuznetsov carrier air wing have to fight in the Middle East war now.
A MiG-29K suffered an incident and sank on landing approach to the Admiral Kuznetsov on November 13. The pilot punched out and was plucked out of water by a search-and-rescue (SAR) helicopter 4 km away from the carrier.
The Russian Defense Ministry issued a statement almost immediately that the crash had been caused by a malfunction and that an error by the pilot was out of question. They say he is a most experience aviator, flight safety chief of the Northern Fleet’s air arm with about 200 carrier landings under his belt, which, certainly, is an excellent record.
Nonetheless, the aircraft of the type were grounded right away until the cause of the crash is pinpointed, as required by aviation rules. The Su-33s had to shoulder the burden of attacking the militants.
Who knows how quickly the cause of the MiG-29K’s crash will be investigated. According to the pilot, both engines died suddenly. Specialists presume that the fuel supply ceased, but why? The remaining MiG jets can hardly be cleared for resuming the operations until the question is answered.
Full-fledged investigation is impossible, unless the ‘black boxes’ of the sunken fighter are retrieved from the bottom of the Mediterranean. Then, the key question is how deep is it there and whether the crew of the Black Sea Fleet’s KIL-158 lifting-and-mooring vessel is able to operate down there.
It is possible that the grounding of the Admiral Kuznetsov’s MiG-29Ks and MiG-29KUBs may be long enough, if the top brass takes the risk to lift the ban in coming months at all. However, the Admiral Kuznetsov will have fought in Syria until mid-January at the most. The carrier is due by the quayside in Severomosrk, where is will be heavily upgraded.
Thus, a month at the most is what is available for probing into the crash and fixing the problem in the remaining MiG fighters, otherwise the latter will simply have no time to see action. In such a case, the worth of the Admiral Kuznetsov’s current cruise will diminish by far.
The carrier was dispatched to Syria’s coast for its air crews to learn lessons from a real war. This kind of lessons is vital for designing and building the future Russian aircraft carrier that has been much spoken about by Russian top brass and industry.
It is likely that the desire to take part in the war was behind the unheard-of haste, in which the core strike force of the Northern Fleet prepared for its cruise. As is known, the carrier had been repaired from January to June 15, 2016 by the shipyard in Murmansk. Then, it had sat in the dock of the 82nd Shipyard in Murmansk’s district of Roslyakovo before August. The pilots with the 279th and 100th Separate Carrierborne Fighter Regiments on Su-33s and MiG-29K/KUBs respectively started practicing operations off the carrier only in September.
Usually, at least two to three months are spent on the investigation, because in Soviet times, a combat-unit pilot had up to three years to complete the combat training course unique to each type of aircraft, conducting hundreds of exercises in the air to get the clearance for combat operations. The pilots of the 100th Separate Carrierborne Fighter Regiment, which was activated less than a year ago, in December 2015, simply had no chance to gain such a proficiency.
However, the battle for Syria pressed for deployment much, and the Northern Fleet’s largest task force ever put out to sea as soon as October 15.
The first three MiG-29Ks had been in trial operation in the 279th Regiment since 2013, sitting side by side with the Su-33s on the flight line of the air base near Severomorsk. A number of pilots had managed to learn to fly them as well, but these pilots can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
The Russian Defense Ministry had to turn a blind eye even on the fact that the MiG-29K/KUB fighters had not passed their official tests and not entered service yet. The process is scheduled to last until 2018. Anyway, Naval Aviation Commander Major General Kozhin had said before the Admiral Kuznetsov’s departure to the Mediterranean on September 6, 2016: "I would not talk about prospects [of the fighter] while the tests are in progress. So far, so good. We have conducted quite a number of tests, but they are scheduled until 2018, in fact. The planes will be used on a limited basis for now. The testing is a long process, but we shall have passed the lion’s share of tests pertaining to the ship this year.
The command turned a blind eye also to the crashes of two aircraft of the type. The MiG-29KUB’s first flying prototype went in in the Astrakhan Region in June 2011, killing both pilots. The other MiG-29KUB crashed in the Moscow Region in 2014. One of the crewmen died of injuries in hospital.
All of the above had to be disregarded in the name of gaining precious combat experience in a real war. Unless the MiGs carried by the Admiral Kuznetsov return to flight status in the near future, the experience may turn out to be very limited in terms of quality and amount, expert Sergei Ishchenko writes in his article on the Svobodnaya Pressa news portal. -
-ends-
The Russian Navy has grounded its MiG-29K carrier fighters after one crashed during operations off Syria, and the Sukhoi Su-33 air superiority fighter has had to step in to fly ground attack missions. (RussianPlanes.net photo)
Who spray painted it with graffiti?
Commie propaganda. The deck went foul after a CDP parted when the previous aircraft landed, and the MIG ran out of gas while holding overhead.
“There is no Pravda in Tass or Tass in Pravda.”
Looks like Arctic Ocean camouflage.
To a layman it seems as if only two or three countries are proficient at carrier operations. One of those doesn’t even have any carriers right now. I really think China will find many, many obstacles in their quest to perfect naval aviation. It will be decades before they become combat proficient.
Not only decades to become proficient, but a steam powered launch system on a new carrier for the planes have greater range and bomb load. As it is now they are limited in both range and capacity. Decades or more before Russia builds a real carrier and decades, as you say, to become proficient - same for China which uses a similar Russian carrier.
These are the Chinese after all. My guess is they will astonish everywhere with how quickly they figure it out. Also they will already have the hard earned lessons we received in the Pacific so won’t have to learn that the hard way.
“... upgraded Tupolev Tu-25MSM (Bear) strategic bombers”
WTF is that, other than a typo?
There is no truth in Pravda or news in Izvestia.
????????
I guess you have not noticed the rapid improvement in manufacturing and technology by the chi~coms in the last decade? They have a talent for industrial espionage and emulation. Both skills will help.
My confusion in this is it is an issue with Russian aircraft on a Russian carrier. What does it have to do with the chinese figuring it out in your response?
The tribal knowledge around carrier ops is yuge. Can’t be learned by reading a book or briefing paper. That said the Chi-cons will figure it out pretty quickly - pilots are expensive but not a valued commodity in China, we hold them as a very expensive asset that takes time to replace.
Really? I know nothing of warfare or tactics so I assume you are being serious :)
I wonder how well it works.
Yeah sorry I was just reading an article about the Chinese training up their second hand Russian carrier. I inexplicably conflated the two stories. That’s stone cold sober no less! Oh well.
We have certainly all done that before. Have a great Thanksgiving.
You too! Enjoy your family!
I wonder how many Chinese-Americans or Chinese immigrants join the Navy and strive to get assigned to carriers, just so that they can soak up some of that tribal knowledge?
More than a few.
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