The mainstream media has got a good time with jocking on the old and rusty Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov since it has started a travel for an operation in Syria in October 2016.
Let’s look at Russia’s Admiral Kuznetsov in comarison to other Western aicraft carriers and remember for a minute that it is not an aicraft carrier but a heavy aicraft-carrying missile cruiser:
Basically it is armed to the teeth.
Writing things like “remember its really a heavy aicraft-carrying missile cruiser:” Is pointless, its being used as a CV, not much else. Not to mention classifications of warships are problematic politically, does anyone really think the Japanese Izumo is a “Helicopter Destroyer”? Of course not!
And what about the late British class of “Through deck Cruisers” did anyone think of them as something other than carriers…
Its also important to keep in mind that a Carrier is and alway have been relying on its battlegroup for AA fire, and in todays world of Intergration, it simply does not tell us much that a CV do have more than point defence.
As for the Kuzentsov being obsolete or “rusty old hulk”, wouldnt know much more than that ammount of smoke points to very worn engine..
It can also be its a very crude design or something wrong with the fuel, does it impact combat effectiveness? Who knows.
no it’s not used as a CV. CVs are used to project power to the shore as primary objective, the Kutsnezov is not. CVs don’t have antiship missiles, the Kutsnezov has them. CVs, like the articel describe, are unable to perform the AAW mission if not with their embarked air wings, the Kutsnezov is able, at least the inner AAW. CVs are meaningless without their planes, the Kutsnezov could actually be employed for taskings even without aircraft. As you say, carriers rely on their battlegroup while the Kutsnezov could perform independently, under certain conditions. All these benefits have the cost of having smaller air wings than CVs, which means that there are very few if not zero offensive planes on it (strange isn’t it, since big bad Russia is always the offender, these days). Also, only ignorant and brainwashed people keep repeating the bullshit on the smoke. Take three or four US destroyers, channel their smoke through one pipe and you have the same exact result. It’s a conventional diesel engine, that has always have technical problems because the ship needs exceptional power to move. Look at the Pyotr Veliky, a nuclear missile cruiser, and as you can see it makes no smoke at all, like US CVNs.
The Kutznesov is just a CV, it was envisiogned as having need for Anti-Ship missiles to function as a CV, just like the heavy artillery installed on the Graf Zeppelin to make her function as a CV. There are a red thread between the needs of both the Soviet Navy and the Kriegsmarine in that lacking escorts they needed to cram some of the escorts arnaments onto the carrier itself.
And in extention, the carrier with main arnaments are older than the Cv as a purpose buildt concept, the Furious of world war fame was completed with both a flight deck and a 18inch rifle, without that making her less of a CV. Navies have allways experimented with the capabilities it bakes into each hull. Saying that the Kuznetsov could work without planes is nothing short of stupid. Why only 12 launchers in an enormous hull? Its not significantly more than a frigate, only a lot jucier target.
So there are NO circumstance that thsi Carrier would go unescorted, shes almost blind to submarines alone. Does she have enough AA-launchers? Early warning aa pickets?
I am certain that if she lost her escorts she would run for home in any war scenario, nothing wrong with that. Its the sensible thing to do.
As for the smoke, the Kutznesov uses some sort of turbine arragement, so just look at the old Hermes, the Old Ark, they all produced less smoke. Heck just look at the Kutznesov in the early 90’s a lot less smoke. This is a sign of egine trouble of some sorts, can they manage it, probably. But its still there.
And as Ted allready said, the reason this ship is deployed is a shortage of Hulls, i highly doubt the ship would have been deployed to Syria if Russia had gotten their Mistrals.
Wow this is really important to you
I belive honesty is a important virtue, so yes it is.
We are dealing with a regular (somewhat small) carrier with a shot engine.
And your country has no democracy because it is run by Zionists. Good luck with that.
Run by Zionists?? Do you even know the meaning of the word?
There are currently 37 “Friends of Israel” in the Norwegian parliament, that leaves a huge majority indifferent or even downright hostile to Zionism.
As the political climate are increasingly hostile to Israel and in extention zionism, I higly doubt your assertion.
In real life you might be a decent human being, but online you are not much more than a antisemitic bigot
How many carriers has your country got?.
The point being? Relevance?
My country has 19 of them. How about you, sport? LMAO
They will make some nice corral reefs one day.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d6aaf9fbecbcdb5f65276049606024dad0db883f7946b739a8dacc29a1a12a54.jpg
In your mind, who’s funding terrorism in the Middle East? What is the reason and the goal?
Far too broad of a question, as contrary to what some people believe – there exists more than one type of Muslim, with more than one type of motivation.
If the Kuznetsov was in the active US carrier fleet, it would be the 3rd newest of them all. And unlike the 10 USSA carriers, its paid for. Its not on the China MatserCard.
“New” is meaningless. The USS Midway is a museum ship, and at the time of its retirement, was still more capable than the Kuznetsov in literally every metric of what makes an “aircraft carrier”.
Trash. If Russia allocated the same % of funds to operating the Kuznetsov as the US does did to Midway, the Kuz would beat it.
LMAO. And if your aunt had a wang, she’d be your uncle.
No amount of funds are going to make Ol’ Smokey bigger, or able to launch fully loaded aircraft.
There you go again ! The carrier is not old by any logical definition.
‘Don’t laugh……it’s paid for……’ Is that the argument?
Lol. It’s not a CV, it’s an aircraft carrying cruiser, that is how has been classified by its operators and you can bitch all you want abt it. Secondly, every parallel with navies from the ww2 is devoid of any sense – the kuz was designed to protect the soviet SSBN bastions in polar seas, SSBN are a concept that did not exist in WW2 or early so you can take you graf spee theory and put it in the chest marked “idiocies”. Thirdly, did I say it’s made to operate without planes? no – I did say that it can, unlike western CVs, have a slight operational significance even without planes, as its sensors and weaponry make it able to perform in ASuW roles. Fourthly, the smoke. Actually, the more power is used, the more it smokes, so you really have no point stating that in the 90ies it smoked less, to have some you should be knowing at which engine power output the pics were taken, which is outside anybody possible guess. Lastly, ASW wise, the ship can be laden with scores of ASW helicopters, which perform the ASW mission. Of course it’s got its own sonar suite, and its own antisubmarine weaponry in the form of RBU launchers.
Diesel problems are fact. After this trip Kuzya will go to planned update where his diesel will be replaced. Its announced already.
Its allways hard to argue with extremists, but I wont back down.
You can call it all you like, the fact of the matter is that its a Carrier, its probably not named as a Carrier as that would show how tiny it is compared to the American ones.
It have allways been used as a carrier, and the Russian Media describes it as one. I think the naming choice are quite comparable to the Invincible class of “Troughdeck Cruisers” wich was named as such to avoid the politicians finding out the navy was building carriers, but they have allways been known as Carriers both in the media and the Fleet. It would shock me to find out that Russian sailors, a quite straight forward and matter of fact kind of people would spend time formulating a made up word in their mouth,
I dont speak Japanese and dont care much about what they do, but again I am quite certain that “Hellicopter Carrying Destroyer” is reduced to “Helo-Carrier”
As for the ammount of smoke, it simply dont add up, there are no way that the Russian task force would go full ahead enroute to Syria, there is a reason they asked Spain for refueling. All warships travel at a much lower speed than they are capable of, they go faster than comercial shipping. But rarly at full.
As anyone with any experince with ships would tell you, a broke engine produces much more smoke than a fully functional one. Your argument is mainly made up of ignorance of shipping, if you were to muster on on to any cargo ship of some size, you wouldnt hold the views that you sprout here.
sure, i am ignorant of shipping, and you compared a nuclear era aircraft carrying cruiser (pardon, aircraft carrier) to pre WW2 battleships.
I am discussing the classifications of warships compared to their use, both intended and actual. To achive this its crucial to point out precident if there are any. Abd in case if aircraft carriers the historybook are rife with them.
The most obvious ones to think of are the Izumo and Invicible classes
the point is that different countries have different doctrines, based on geographical, social, hystorical, political and other causes. Ships classes are designed in accordance to those doctrines, and anything else. Comparing the classification of a given class in a country with another from a different country (especially if the difference is great) won’t bring much good information. For example the Russians did not call the Udaloy class “Guided Missile Destroyers (DDG)”, but “Large Anti Submarine Ship (BPK)”. It’s the western literature, which incidentially most ppl talking on the internet read, because it’s in english, that has called the Udaloy a DDG, but that brings folks, especially those more versed in shipping subjects (but not enough to put in question the analysis) to compare units on a wrong basis. So there is no really a comparison with the Kuznetsov in the west as, I already said, it’s based on doctrinal requirements the west has never had. As for Helicopter carriers ar throughdeck cruisers, one could find some parallels with the Moskva class and the later Kiev class in soviet service, but again, it’s a laymen kind of comparison that is all but misleading
It’s designation is less about doctrine and more about taking advantage of a legal loophole in international law so that it can transit the Turkish Straits…….I guess you could lump that under ‘doctrine’ but it really doesn’t grant that much significance to the term ‘Heavy aircraft carrying missile cruiser’…….
I don’t see how, since the Kuznetsov has always been in service with the Northern Sea Fleet and there never was any kind of signs that it could change to the Black Sea. That, ofcourse, because the above mentioned bastions were never supposed to be outside the Arctic areas (does not make much sense putting SLBM capable subs in the Black Sea). Your point could be valid for the old Kiev and Moskva classes, but those were never supposed to be aircraft carriers, as the former can only embark VTOL aircraft and the latter Helicopters, and anyway, Turkey had accepted the soviet designation of those ships without any kind of protests (which could have been very well possible for them, being the country that basically enforced the Montreaux convention)
If the Kuznetsov was in the active US carrier fleet, it would be the 3rd newest of them all. It is not old. Plus the Chinese said that its sister ship was in as good as new condition in 1998. That’s why they bought her.
How ships age is mostly a question of mantainance, and of course of the kind of use it has seen.
Iin the past wars one would often see ships returning from a war being scrapped as the operational requierments had affected maintaince and design parameters.
So if the Ukranians manged to keep the engines of the Varyag in good condition during storage that might explain a lot.
And needless to say that a nuclear powerplant designed to operate for 60years with almost no moving parts have a radically different wearcyckle than any combustionengine or gas turbine you care to mention.
I would put bets on the Russian navy not training egeneers properly and relaxing mantainance during the decade of yeltsin stagnation.
You cant come in here using logical posts. Its a pretty simple forums. Anything Russian is great anything Western is bad. The desire to compare Russian Apples to American Oranges in the above article is the perfect example. However that being said there are a few nuggets and gems about if you look.
The idea that the Kuzentzov is on par with far more modern carriers because its not a carrier makes sense only in a place like this. As you said yourself its being used as a CV, reality is its being used as a CV because its all Russia has to use. The facts of deployment also speak for themselves. It was sent to Syria to use its air-wing it was not sent to blockade Syria’s coast from a rebel navy or any other Navy. It will be competent in this area because of the task that is required. Nothing more, nothing less.
you can always go read STRATFOR and drop all the russian propaganda from your read-list. The fact you’re still here trying to disprove articles seems to indicate your inclination to debunk that nasty russian propaganda. By the way the “logic post” above is all but logic, in fact if the article compares the russian kuz to other western CV, the other poster draws parallels to pre-WW2 ships.
Smart men allways read articles they disagree with, sometimes you change your view other times it cement ones own.
Its called reasoning!
of course. but for what i’ve seen so far, you’r away from changing my views on pretty much anything that’s been discussed. Also I prefer much more being an idiot and having an independent opinion than be a smart man and be convinced by CIA analysts being paid with zionist money (this refers to stratfor)
Boyoooz, the Kuznyetsov is really old and rusty. 100 years old motor conception, 2 000 persons in miniholes, really not modern ship. And you are wrong, if you thing, is good to paint in nice colors this old ship. I am sure, the russian admirality has ano´ther opinion as yours. They simply sent to Syria to for training of pilots. They know, that thos ship is godd against camelsuckers, but the Charles de Gaulle is much better. If the admirality will see, that has sence to have such tipes of warships, then will order 2-3-4 pieces of really modern version. And thi piece will go in the museum near Aurora. ;)
The old, rusty Russian aircraft carrier sailed from Russia to Syria. It will complete its intended mission and sail right back to Russia without hindrance from OTAN (because they know better). The main problem I think here is that you guys have been brainwashed to believe that for any instrument to be effective, it’s got to come sleek, costly and teeming with bells and whistles! The Russians have proven over and over again that simplicity is the mother of sophistication.
Bro, this úseidowarship is contantly in docks. Sorry, but steam engine in 21st century? :DDD Check, how many toilets are there for 2000 sailors. And how many functional. There are so poor conditions for personal, that there is no chance to keep the moral of crew on high levels.
You should change this malfunctional ship for newer with nuclear reactor.
They are building new carriers for India and Russia…….nuclear powered.
That is good! And i think, the russan navy will want also new ones.
Despite what Western newscasts would have you believe, Russian military doctrine is non-belligerent and non-imperialistic: it is and has always been defensive. As such Russia sees no value in a fleet of nuclear powered aircraft careers. Of course they’ll be more than happy to build a few for whichever nation has a need to demonstrate prestige.
Look, nuclear powered does not mean, it is offensive. Simply is not so loud and does not need fuel. Russia has long, long, long borders and shores. Movement of ships needs nuclear power. Murmansk-Vladivostok, Vladivostok Crimea, crimea- St. petersburg. And so on. :)
“…pseudowarship is constantly in docks.” I’m sure you heard this line from the same guys who told us the ship was being towed to Syria on its stern (with a couple of genuine satellite photos thrown in for effect). It’s been in docks because unlike some people we know, Russians are not in the habit of perpetually bombing weaker nations just to convince themselves they’re powerful. Anyhow, this same pseudowarship has sailed to Syria and will sail back to Russia through OTAN’s backyard, right past their sleek, stealthy tugboats and they’ll do nothing about it!
look, young padawan! i wrote dock and not harbor. ;)
Docks, harbour…Your point, I’m sure is that the aircraft carrier hasn’t done much aircraft carrying. The reason remains unchanged though.
21st century steam engine. You know, a nuclear reactor is basically a 20th century steam engine right? :P
Excellent! :) and still modern. More modern does not exist. :P
100% correct.
I was onboard the Aurora last week in St Petersburg……amazing ship.
I was also. :) I like it.
If the Kuznetsov is older than only 2 carriers in the active US fleet.
The Kuznetsov might have a lot of black smoke, but it also has 12 – P700 Granit missiles that are to be respected. Read about them and you will be surprised, especially because they were designed in the Soviet Union. Way ahead of their time.
I’d say this is less of a carrier and more of a true Battle Cruiser.
Marginally better armed than a average frigate?
If “marginally better armed” means ” with less than 30 4th-gen jet fighters” then yes.
If the Kuznetsov was in the active US carrier fleet, it would be the 3rd newest of them all.