The Russian Navy is on the verge of collapse

The Week ^ | 04/01/15 | David Axe

[Hugin]

Today the Russian navy possesses around 270 warships including surface combatants, amphibious ships, submarines, and auxiliaries.

On paper, that is. But that count includes many ships that are inactive and in poor material condition plus scores of small patrol vessels with very limited combat capability.

Of the 270 ships, just 125 or so are in a working state. And of those 125, only around 45 are oceangoing surface warships or submarines that are in good shape and deployable.

All the above figures come from Dr. Dmitry Gorenburg of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University.

By comparison, the U.S. Navy possesses some 290 warships. Pretty much all of them are well-maintained, deployable, oceangoing vessels.

.............................

"Russia's shipbuilding industry is not in good shape," Gorenburg explains. He estimates that the industry could build somewhere between half and 70 percent of the vessels Moscow wants by 2020. "The earliest that Russia could build a new aircraft carrier is 2027, while new destroyers are still on drawing board, with the first unlikely to be commissioned for 10 years."

..................................................

Meanwhile, the U.S. and Chinese navies continue to grow and modernize. The American fleet is working hard to expand to around 306 large ships by the 2020s. And Washington is already deploying more of its vessels overseas.

[okie01]

‘The Japanese Kicked the Russian fleets ass in World War Two. Bite Me Putin!’

The Japanese kicked the Russian fleet's ass in the Russo-Japanese War...but they haven't confronted each other since.

[Paid_Russian_Troll]

As a prince before being crowned Russian czar Nicholas II has toured Far East with his friends.
On April 1991 in a town of Otsu, Japan Nicholas was beaten by local cop named Tsuda Sanzo, allegedly infuriated by disrespectful behavior of foreigners. Ironically, Nicholas’s shirt which was an evidence in a case againt Tsuda, was kept long enough to be used as a DNA source and was useful to identify his remains (Nicholas and his family were shot by Communists in 1917, their remains were put in a truck and dumped in an abandoned mine), fond exactly a century later.
In is rumored Nicholas hated the Japanese since the incident and it has largely contributed to an idiotic decision to send Baltic Fleet to Korea across half the World to fight the Japanese on very uncomfortable terms.
Quite a predictable outcome has also added to a Japanese pride a lot and it might be one of reasons why they went with further expansion in Pacific.

[okie01]

Ironically, Nicholas’s shirt which was an evidence in a case againt Tsuda, was kept long enough to be used as a DNA source and was useful to identify his remains

Now, that is an interesting story. I was also unaware of Nicholas' tour of the Far East.

Thank you.

[Desron13]

Agreed, the Russians are tenacious fighters on land. Smart fighters, not so much. Stalin himself said that quantity has a quality all it’s own. If that’s what you think of your soldiers lives you understand why so many people died under this dictators leadership.

[Paid_Russian_Troll]

Otto Scorzeny - a notorious Nazi military leader and a founding father of modern special operations disagree. He said individual Russian soldier is superior to the German and so does the leadership up to a regimental level. Overall, he believed Soviet military in general were inferior because higher command were toadies fearing civilian politicians and pursued inferior strategy developed by said civilian politicians and the Soviet generals were butchers more cruel toward their own troops than to the enemy.