Posted on 12/08/2016 5:32:45 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
Russia's only and therefore mightiest carrier by default, the Admiral Kuznetsov, transited the Mediterranean last month to great controversy. The ship was accused—rightly so—of moving into position to support the bombing of the Syrian city of Aleppo. Aircraft from the carrier were spotted over Aleppo the first day it began air operations over Syria.
Since then Kuznetsov has lost two of fifteen fighters of its assigned air wing to accidents, and flight operations have been suspended at least once. A Russian television news report shot on the carrier itself attempts to portray the ship as a hive of activity but raises more questions than it answers.
Let's look at Kuznetsov's flight deck. There are only a handful of aircraft on deck in any particular shot, and in some shots there are no planes at all. Many of the airplanes are completely unarmed, their wings devoid of missiles and bombs. In still other shots the Kuznetsov's helicopters—Kamov Ka-27 anti-submarine helicopters—are tied down on the middle of the flight deck in broad daylight, making fixed-wing air operations impossible.
Almost all of the footage is of the carrier's nine remaining Su-33 Flanker air superiority fighters. The Flankers were recently upgraded with a navigation and targeting system designed to deliver unguided bombs with precision. Regardless, no actual air-to-ground weapons are shown on any of the Flankers. The Flankers are instead shown equipped with R-27 "Alamo" air-to-air missiles that are useless in a bombing campaign. The actual workhorses of Kuznetsov's air campaign, the remaining three MiG-29Ks, are only seen a handful of times.
Bombs or any sort of air-to-ground ordnance at all are shown just three times. In the first instance, what appear to be 500 kilogram unguided bombs are being wheeled across the flight deck. Where those bombs are really going is anyone's guess, since the news report doesn't show them being attached to an airplane. In the second and third instances, MiG-29K fighters are seen equipped with a KAB-500Kr-F electro-optical bomb. The MiGs are shown in the air but there's no sign of any air-to-ground ordnance.
What does all this mean? Kuznetsov just doesn't look very busy. Contrary to what the news report meant to show, there's very little evidence the carrier is actually involved in a bombing campaign. Late last month, the bulk of the carrier's air wing was sighted at Humaymim Air Base in Syria. As one senior military officer told Jane's, "We don't think the Russians are flying as many sorties off their carrier as they would want the world to think." This video makes that seem all the more likely.
In WWII, there were over 100 operational carrier, 28 of which were attack carriers. During Vietnam, there were 27 attack and anti-submarine carriers.
Now we have 10! Three more are in mothballs.
Has it really been that long?
I do agree with you though, our carrier expertise is based on decades and decades of experience. Probably at least 75 good ones.
If you are counting ‘attack’ and ASW carriers you have to count LHAs and LHDs. We have another 11 of those.
Ok couple things:
1) Hadn’t heard that they had 2 planes down only the one.
2) It could very well be that they have bombers positioned in syria proper and that they are only flying protective CAP from the carrier for those when they are airborne.
3) I don’t care who is shooting the video, those in charge aren’t going to allow anything out that they don’t want to allow out regarding operations and op-tempo. What they are showing they want to show - what they aren’t they don’t want to show.
4) Nothing they stated precludes the ability of the other aircraft to support forces on the ground through other means including target id, strafing, communications, reconnaissance, etc
concur with both of you
John Paul Jones was the father of both the US and Russian Navy, unfortunately the Navy leadership and traditions were hit significantly in the communist “revolution”.
While they ended up recovering to some extent in the cold war, commanders lost a huge amount of their independence due to onboard political officers.
This independent thought is crucial to maneuver warfare in naval combat, moreso than in infantry as the number of units are limited and cannot be as easily replaced as raw infantry.
The last 10-15 years has seen such little real operations tempo that they have lost a generation of experience and are now knowledge gapped again for the second time in 100 years.
I bet there’s a good story behind that photo.
An An-2 biplane on a ferry which is powered by paddle wheel driven by a belt attached to a tractor.
They must be investigating the arresting cable incident. They had better be thorough about that.
Actually not. Attack and ASW carriers can both handle jet aircraft; LHAs and LHDs can’t. Even the three Essex class carriers - Boxer, Princeton and Valley Forge - converted to LPHs retained arresting gear and catapults. It was too difficult and costly to remove.
You were counting ‘ASW’ carriers. Just how is one of those different than and LCA? Because they still had cats? So what if they aren’t using them? And they were too weak to launch the modern jets of the time.
Hate to break it to you but jets fly off our LHAs. “but but those are VTOL”. Who cares? Argentina learned to respect them the hard way.
Here’s a comparison of capabilities between Russian and USA CSG. The Russians focus more on short range SAM, anti-ship missiles and close-in weapons, while the USA focus more on long range SAM and projecting air strike capability (almost 3 times as many fixed wing fighters).
Most people don’t know about John Paul Jones and the Russian Navy. He died in Moscow.
The Russian Navy was never much to speak of. Their defeat at the Battle of Tsushima (1905) by the Japanese finished any naval aspirations of the Czar.
True it eliminated their Pacific aspirations. But their overall strength still was recognized as the 6th largest in the world behind the US, UK, Germany, Japan and I forget the other, I think France. They did a big rebuild mainly in the baltic in the early 1910s. But the divisions during the revolution are what really killed them from a traditions stand point.
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