While the authorities are actively communicating about the Ocean-2024 naval exercise, which, according to the Russian Navy, would bring together 400 ships, 125 aircraft and 90.000 men, it seems, as mentioned in the first part of this article, that it suffers from certain major weaknesses, casting doubt on the figures announced by Moscow.
After having studied, in detail, the VMF submarine fleet, this second part will concentrate on the high seas fleet, the coastal fleet, as well as on the major industrial programs, supposed to allow the renewal of the means of the Russian Navy.
In this section:
Russian High Seas Fleet Rapidly Losing Resources and Skills
While the Russian submarine fleet remains a significant threat, including to NATO, this is no longer the case the high seas surface fleet. This is, in fact, today composed of a disparate and ageing assembly of ships, mostly inherited from the Soviet fleet, laboriously modernised by Russian shipyards, with poor availability and sometimes obsolete operational capabilities, while new units are still awaited.
Concretely, the Russian High Seas Fleet is composed, today, of an aircraft carrier, the Kuznetzov, whose status is so uncertain that its crew has been partly deployed in Ukraine as a marine infantry unit, of a single nuclear cruiser, the Piotr Veliky, whose modernization has been postponed for eight years, as that of its sister-ship, the Admiral Nakhimov, drags on, and of two cruisers of the Slava class, ships whose operational effectiveness has been seriously compromised after the loss of the Moskva, third unit of the class, during the first months of combat in Ukraine.
These three classes, however, formed the spearhead of Russian naval power in the early 90s, driven by the reforms undertaken in the 60s by Admiral Gorshkov to provide the Soviet Union with a high-seas fleet capable of opposing the US Navy, following what was felt to be a defeat by the VMF during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.
This transformation would lead to the creation of several iconic classes of the Soviet Navy of the 80s, such as the Kirov nuclear cruisers, the kyiv helicopter-carrying cruisers, the Slava missile cruisers, the Udaloy and Sovremenny destroyers, and the Krivak frigates.
It is clear that these ships still form the bulk of the Russian high-seas surface fleet today. Thus, in addition to the ships mentioned above, the Russian Navy has 10 destroyers, including 8 Udaloy anti-submarines and 2 Sovremenny, all of which entered service between 1982 and 1993, with the exception of the Admiral Chabanenko, the last Udaloy delivered in 1999, while the ship's completion had been interrupted several years after the fall of the Soviet Union.
The situation is significantly different with regard to the 10 frigates in service, although they include a Krivak I (pr 1135 Burevestnik), the Ladny, which entered service in 1980, and a Krivak II (Pr 1135M), the Pilivyy, which entered service in 1981.
There are 75% of this article left to read, Subscribe to access it!
The Classic subscriptions provide access to
articles in their full version, and without advertising,
from €1,99. Subscriptions Premium also allow access to archives (articles over two years old)
Russian submarines? The same ones that are housed by the Atlantics 100 km away? Or by the FREMM fighters with the famous Captas?
Let's be serious for two minutes, during an imaginary exercise: how long can these Russian SSNs hold out against the Suffren?
When you think that the Ruby ruined the Americans in training and that it is not very young... I can't even imagine a class attack.
Thank you for this very good summary. Let's hope that China will not one day allow Russia to benefit from its naval production capacities to allow it to quickly re-equip with modern frigates and destroyers. The renewal of the submarine threat and the need for overseas protection/surface groups/supply routes/maritime approaches call for the rapid commissioning of a large volume of standardized, inexpensive and reduced-crew light corvettes, but with good ASM capacity and reasonable self-defense means. (produced by the dozen for European countries and export, I imagine that the cost/efficiency ratio would be very interesting).
There is no indication of this to date. Until recently, it was Russia that sold ships to China, some of which are still in service (Sovremenny, Kilo). I think that Moscow will not "lower" itself to ordering Chinese ships any time soon...
China manufactures aluminum boats and needs support from French pilots like ATE CHUET to move forward and progress.
Their planes, both military and civilian, are made from Western parts in large proportions. So before they teach the Russians how to make boats, they will first have to learn how to make their own. Do not forget that it is the crew and their training that makes the boat, not the hull.