Russia’s Creaky, Old Aircraft Carrier Is Up to Something Strange | Hacker News Reader

Russia’s Creaky, Old Aircraft Carrier Is Up to Something Strange

warisboring.com

59 points_of49 comments

I usually like warisboring, but they've gone off the deep end lately on Russia.

If they weren't so busy hyperventilating, they'd notice the obvious fact that this is a Mig-29/35 training mission. The Mig-35 evolution on the '29 is being rolled out, and the Miyokan design bureau is in something of a bind, as they haven't have been as successful as Sukhoi. So, this is an opportunity for Miyokan to show off some of its unique capabilities.

These gizmos can be (have been) sold to China and India for their own aircraft carrier ambitions.

This ship, in huge seas, under tow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33DyawPG-hw

Some deck footage of some rather sad flight operations. (skip to 15:00)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNtyHKR6saI

Previous article for perspective:

https://warisboring.com/your-aircraft-carrier-is-a-piece-of-...

One interesting case of using "lawfare" to compensate for less-sophisticated military technology is the designation of the Kuznetsov-class carriers as "missile boats with aircraft capability." Under the terms of the Montreux Convention, carriers are not allowed to transit the Straits(1), so this bit of definitional legerdemain gives the Russians the ability to move carriers in and out of the Black Sea, which is denied to the US.

(1) It's a bit more complex than that, having to do with tonnage limits and the exclusion of carriers from the definition of a "capitol ship," but the effect is essentially the same.

My understand is that Black Sea states do not have a tonnage limit, which is how they get around it.

If France loaded some anti-ship missiles on the Charles de Gaulle carrier, it could be called a missile cruiser (with planes) but would violate the tonnage limit (its about 50% heavier than the tonnage limit of the treaty).

The treaty is doing what it was designed to do, I think, by limiting non-Black Sea ships through the strait.

If I recall correctly (it's been a while since I looked at the Convention and the specific implementation verbiage), aircraft carriers are explicitly verboten, but, as you say, non-riparian states also have a tonnage limit on capitol ships which further limits freedom of transit. (Plus some further restrictions on submarines, but those aren't germane here.)

In addition, if the US, NATO or France attempted to unilaterally redefine a carrier as a non-carrier capitol ship for purposes of navigation, it would be considered a hostile diplomatic act by Russia, so that also sets limits of its own sort. During the Cold War, of course, it wasn't as important an issue, Turkey being the only NATO Black Sea state (note: since I'm not looking at a map right now, that might not be completely correct). No NATO carrier was going to transit the straits except in a case of war, at which point the Convention would be the least of our problems.

No, aircraft carriers are not specially excluded. But the tonnage limit excludes them in practice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreux_Convention_Regarding_...

Aircraft carriers are specifically excluded from the "capital ship" category, and said category does not have the tonnage limit for Black Sea states. Hence why USSR created this thing - because it is a missile cruiser (that just happens to double as a carrier), it's a capital ship, so it can be as large as it needs to be.

It's called "missile cruiser with aircraft capability" because it is a missile cruiser, which also has some aircraft on board. The difference between a carrier and a cruiser is that the cruiser can sink a capital ship without flying any aircraft at all while a carrier without its aircraft is quite benign.

Germany played similar games heading into WWII to build battleships and otherwise circumvent Treaty of Versailles / WWI treaty obligations on maximum size of navy / ships / numbers, etc.

"Since the USSR and Russia has had little opportunity to build these skills, and none to test them in combat, any strike missions from the Kuznetsov would be limited and mostly for show."

This fact impacted the Sino carrier program [0] so much that it the Sino scrapping of the RAN, HMAS Melbourne (R21) [1] in 1980, was delayed to study the steam catapult system. It was launched as a Majestic Class in 1943 and retro-fitted to launch the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk.

Uncle served on the Melbourne and I got to take a look around the Melbourne just before RIMPAC78. Two years later it was scrapped. and towed off to China.

Reference

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Chinese_aircraft_carrie...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMAS_Melbourne_(R21)

I'm not a carrier suitability expert but I have directly participated in flight testing for carrier suitability, including TC-7 steam catapult testing. The basic idea behind the steam catapult is really simple, but building and operating one is not. I'm not surprised that any nation who hasn't built a steam catapult would need to do some research to make their fist working catapult.

" The basic idea behind the steam catapult is really simple, but building and operating one is not. I'm not surprised that any nation who hasn't built a steam catapult would need to do some research to make their fist working catapult."

I'd agree, the point I was hinting at was the limitations of the Russian Carriers impact on the Sino effort.

India has a similar problem, cf the second hand Vikramadity [0] (chain supply and re-fit problems) and even the new INS Vikrant shows the inability to build a steam-catapault based design instead opting for a ski ramp. As a result the choice of jet is the MiG29 K instead of the Su33.

The complexity and cost of building a carrier with a steam catapult capable of launching aircraft the size used in the USN appears, to be beyond both China and India.

[0] https://warisboring.com/this-old-aircraft-carrier-is-a-damne...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:A_MiG_29K_aircraft_lands_...

https://warisboring.com/this-old-aircraft-carrier-is-a-damne...

What's the difference between an aircraft carrier and an aircraft cruiser?

Basically an aircraft carrier that pretends it could be useful without planes. Russia is allowed to move aircraft cruisers of any tonnage through the Dardanelles, but not large aircraft carriers.

And that's why the Russian fleet has aircraft cruisers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreux_Convention_Regarding_...

the cruisers don't have catapults. This is why they aren't aircraft carriers and thus allowed through the straits.

The fact that these restrictions still exist which make Russia an defacto land locked country is one of the reasons why there is so much tension with Russia.

EU/Nato on the West, and south - south west (caspian), China and India in the south - south east, Japan/US in the east/north east and a bunch of ice in the north.

With the sea ice melting Russian might actually get a warm water port in Vladivostok and stop trying to invade manchuria/korea every 50-60 years, but at that point we'll be screwed any how.

> The fact that these restrictions still exist which make Russia an defacto land locked country is one of the reasons why there is so much tension with Russia.

Since its founding by Vikings almost 1300 years ago Russia has been a pretty aggressively expanding empire through all its history (it was slowed down only for a couple centuries by the more aggressive Mongol empire), so i'd say the tension have pretty good foundation :)

Technically, all aircraft carriers are aircraft-capable cruisers — that's what the C in CV stands for (not 'carrier'; the V stands for fixed-wing aircraft). An aircraft cruiser is, as idlewords notes, a nice term of art.

Wikipedia has an interesting article which doesn't note the legal consequences of the term: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_cruiser

CV stands for Cruiser Voler or "Aviation Cruiser", N denotes if it's nuclear or not. Since most if not all of the modern classifications were initially defined during the San Remo conference a lot of the naming convention rely on french roots. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hull_classification_symbol

> Admiral Kuznetsov has never seen combat, nor would she be of much practical military use.

As a Russian speaker, I find this sentence grating. Is it normal to refer to a ship with a male name as "she"? Would this be right?

> USS George Washington has never seen combat, nor would she be of much practical military use.

(For those that don't know, Russian last names are slightly different depending on the gender. So Admiral Kuznetsov's wife's last name would be Kuznetsova.)

> As a Russian speaker, I find this sentence grating. Is it normal to refer to a ship with a male name as "she"? Would this be right?

Yes. I don't know the history behind it but ships and vessels are generally referred to using female pronouns in English. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_in_English#Ships

> (For those that don't know, Russian last names are slightly different depending on the gender. So Admiral Kuznetsov's wife's last name would be Kuznetsova.)

e.g. From Wikipedia - "USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) is a Nimitz-class nuclear-powered supercarrier in the service of the United States Navy. The ninth ship of her class,[2] she is named in honor of former President Ronald Reagan" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Ronald_Reagan

It sounds antiquated and kind of icky to native speakers, so you don't ever have to do it yourself.

It's a throwback to an earlier time, when societal norms dictated social roles, and lonely sailors sought any reference to their opposite gender.

Probably not true. Are we to assume that the English/German navy was composed primarily of homosexuals? And can this difference be attributed to the comparatively longer voyages made by English sailors?

Presumably you'd say the same things about other traditionally gendered inanimate objects in english such as countries or the moon?

Yes.

I thought your first language was Polish. Which would make your comment other-than-first-person?

I will take Pepsi challenge on being native speaker of English any day of week.

Dobrze grał, sir.

Ładnie rozegrane!

The latter version doesn't sound so bad, because the USS is a dead giveaway "this here is the name of a ship." The former, on the other hand, would seem rather strange. It would sound a bit like this:

> General Patton has never seen combat, nor would she be of much practical military use.

(given Gen. Patton is a widely known character thus those familiar know he's a "he")

When referring to things with a name, it's usually preceded by 'the', I.e, the General Patton. It's perfectly clear that the name isn't referring to the person.

But correct usage is never to use the definite article with a ship: it's always just 'HMS Indefatigable,' never 'the HMS Indefatigable.'

AFAICT, that's not actually a statement of "correct" vs. "incorrect" usage generally, so much of practice of certain organizations (including, inter alia, the US Navy.)

And, IME, its fairly common even in formal writing -- but, again, not from particular entities, like the USN -- to use the definite article when no prefix (HMS, USS, etc.) is used.

As a non native speaker too - it is weirder with battleships. You will be hard pressed to find anything more phallic than Iowa Class. And yet it is a she ...

> Is it normal to refer to a ship with a male name as "she"? Would this be right?

Isn't it a bit the same as the Russian classic Avrora -- it is a female name, but the ship (Крейсер) referred to as a male? Same thing as Diana (a sister, ... brother? ship) to Avrora in the same class. Just because it is called Diana and battleship are male in Russian, it doesn't change its name to Dionis, Denis or something silly like that.

Exactly this. There are also types of ships that are feminine gender in Russian (yacht, schooner, boat, submarine etc) and they follow the same gendering as in English. E.g the famous Putin's phrase "Она утонула" (She has drowned) is in reference of the submarine Kursk (a masculine gender proper name).

> Is it normal to refer to a ship with a male name as "she"?

Yes, in English ships are always referred to as 'she,' and also never with the definite article. I.e., one doesn't write 'the USS George H.W. Bush has never seen combat, but she'll wipe the deck with any contenders,' but rather, 'USS George H.W. Bush has never seen combat, but she'll wipe the deck with any contenders.'

I'm sure that there's a reason in the mists of time, but it honestly doesn't matter: a navy which loses hold of its traditions isn't much more than an armed yacht club, and thus every navy worth its salt holds onto them.

At least there's a computer game that takes calling ships "she" to its logical conclusion:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kantai_Collection

It's odd to me, why didn't Russia/the USSR develop nuclear aircraft carriers? The USSR ran out of money before they could be developed perhaps?

No, they have nuclear submarines, so it's not a question of technology. More likely just the fact that nuclear ships are dramatically more expensive.

Yeah fascinating that they have nuclear missile ships and even icebreakers, but no carriers. Explanation above makes sense though!

Because Russia/USSR had less need to project power on the sea, being a continental empire on the largest landmass on the globe, rather than an isolated oceanic one (like UK and US).

Basically, if you have lots of land borders and not that much useful shoreline (and remember, both Black Sea and Baltic Sea are easily contained), spending money on land armies is a wiser investment. There are some exceptions to this rule - e.g. nuclear subs, as MAD deterrent - but overall, Russia never had, and will likely never have, a particularly strong navy.

For the same reason, while Russia has marines (naval infantry), they are not the "more elite" fighting forces the way USMC is treated in US, at least as far as public perception/mythology goes. Instead, VDV - the paratroopers - holds that role.

>Because Russia/USSR had less need to project power on the sea

not exactly. 19th century Russia tried. Alaska, Fort Ross in Pacific for example - SF Bay was the border between Russia and Mexico :). Active Mediterranean presence and operations since the end of 18th century and through the 19th. The history of Russian ocean faring Navy ended in Tsushima. With respect to Navy not much changed in Russia for the 100+ years since Tsushima. They just (like yesterday) removed 36 top officers of Baltic Sea Fleet (starting with the Fleet Commander) for low combat preparedness of the Fleet and corruption. I suspect they just weren't corrupt enough.

So, yes, beside nuclear subs - pure deterrent force what just happened to be in the water - Russian Navy is glorified Coast Guard. Pretty powerful Coast Guard which can harm carrier groups, yet it can't really operate anywhere in remote oceans.

Yes but that is all before the advent of modern ship technology. Alaska was part of the eastward expansion led by the cossacks in the age of discovery.

I think the parent comment in mostly right. Remember that the US and USSR were both mostly concerned about the state of Western Europe; that was the focus of attention for most of the cold war. The Soviets had an enormous land boundary and no need for ships if they wanted to invade western europe.

>Yes but that is all before the advent of modern ship technology. Alaska was part of the eastward expansion led by the cossacks in the age of discovery.

The US got California as result of westward expansion led by gold rushers and entrepreneurs. The point here isn't that Russia didn't want and didn't try. Russia tried and failed.

>I think the parent comment in mostly right. Remember that the US and USSR were both mostly concerned about the state of Western Europe; that was the focus of attention for most of the cold war. The Soviets had an enormous land boundary and no need for ships if they wanted to invade western europe.

That is the situation post-Crimean war. The point of Crimean War was Russian expansion southward, ultimately to control the straits and have the access to Mediterranean, to the soft unprotected belly of Europe, like the Osman Empire had for centuries before. Obviously Western Europe, in particular Britain and France didn't want it, as having the threat limited to land and attenuated by significant land distance between them and Russia was much strategically much more beneficial for Western Europe. And Russia lost the war (for all the typical Russian reasons - bad tech, bad management, etc.). The same way like losing Tsushima and the whole Russo-Japan war closed Russian attempts to be ocean faring state in Pacific.

So the point here is that Russia did try and failed and thus it has that land based priority that parent is talking about not by choice - it it just natural consequence of failing to make it into big Navy league with those 2 wars being the key stopping points.

You make good points. I think we are talking besides each other. Imperial Russia was an expansionist monarchy but it would never reach the level of Industrialization that the Soviet Union did. All the failures you mention are by a Pre-Soviet Russia, whose priorities were different from its successor. With the industrial capacity at hand in post WW2 Soviet Union, the question is why was it not used to manufacture a blue water navy on the same scale as the US. And the answer is: because it wasn't important to Soviet interests.

Note that the Soviet Navy was pretty formidable in itself; perhaps just not advanced as the US due to lack of investment which was arguably caused by a lack of interest.

I don't disagree with you in general - my point was also, essentially, that the failure of all those attempts was not by choice - but I think it's rather dictated by physical and political geography, and not blind luck (or lack thereof) in a couple of wars. Russia was always playing catch-up with other major European powers wrt its navy, as well as with overseas expansion.

They had a nuclear carrier on the slipway in the mid-1980s, the first of the Ulyanovsk class, but ran out of money.

The Kirov class nuclear cruisers were formidable, though.

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