Russian Naval Build Up in Med

[gazzzwp]

Russia to expand Mediterranean fleet to 10 warships – Navy chief — RT News

Ten warships in the Med? What on earth is their intention given the already sizable US presence in the region?

I also read on RT that Russia have been conducting anti-cruise missile tests in the far east. Could the intention be to intercept US cruise missiles in the event of an attack on Syria?

I'm not sure that people are generally alert to the potential that this build up has for a major disaster. It seems pretty serious to me.

I would also like to get some idea of how prepared the US fleet would be to counter the Russian Hypersonic anti-ship missiles? How good actually is the Aegis system and could it cope with a saturation attack by such weapons?

Is the Russian Navy now a match for US technology? Have these Russian missiles levelled the playing field and found a successful counter measure to the US Carriers or is it shear bravado by the Russians in making such an apparent show of force?

 

[RobWilliams]

Show of force, neither Russia nor the US want to go to war over Syria. Not particularly dangerous either, the political track vis a vis handing over stocks of CW seems to be progressing well, threats of an imminent American strike have died down so less tense fingers on the trigger.

I'm not bothered about it, not one bit. The public media coming out about the region now is much more benign than it was a matter of weeks ago.

Don't forget the presence of Western SSN's in the area either, both US, British & probably French too.

 

[Feanor]

The article is misleading. It's calling BDKs warships, which is technically correct, but not very helpful. There are 4 actual warships. 1 cruiser, 1 ASW destroyer, and 2 frigates. Not much of a show of force, though to be fair it's probably one of the largest such deployment in a long time. Another thing to remember all of these ships are very old.

A BDK (Большой Десантный Корабль) is a large landing ship, with relatively few armaments, most of them meant for bombarding coastal defenses, immediately prior to the landing. It's primary purpose is to carry detachments of marines to beaches.

 

[RobWilliams]

Indeed.

It's very easy to read "10 warships" and have images of major surface combatants running through your head. Frankly, I find it interesting hearing about Russian surface deployments.

 

[CB90]

Holy crap! When did Russia get hypersonic missiles!?

 

[Feanor]

Holy crap! When did Russia get hypersonic missiles!?

Never. What are you talking about? The latest news are that an experimental platform was able to achieve hypersonic speeds for iirc roughly 1 minute of flight.

 

[gf0012-aust]

Never. What are you talking about?

see the opening post

 

[Feanor]

see the opening post

Oh. I misread that as supersonic. Well the answer is still the same.

 

[CB90]

Yeah I was being snarky at a bit of hyperbole from the OP.

Sorry.

 

[gf0012-aust]

Yeah I was being snarky at a bit of hyperbole from the OP.

Sorry.

I had worked that out....

 

[Blackshoe]

Don't forget the presence of Western SSN's in the area either, both US, British & probably French too.

Not to mention Turkish SSKs. Might even be Greek ones, though I would think budgets and not wanting to risk messing around with the Turks would have more impacts on their deployment.

I see RT follows RIA in using the word "battleships" for naval vessels (which I'm guessing is a very literal translation). Surprising considering RT is a primarily English channel.

 

[Feanor]

Not to mention Turkish SSKs. Might even be Greek ones, though I would think budgets and not wanting to risk messing around with the Turks would have more impacts on their deployment.

I see RT follows RIA in using the word "battleships" for naval vessels (which I'm guessing is a very literal translation). Surprising considering RT is a primarily English channel.

I'm guessing they translated the word боевые корабли which literally means battle ships. I.e. ships used in battle. In Russian the word корабль refers to a warship, while the word судно refers to all other ships. That's probably the root cause of the confusion. That and an active desire to make the VMF look better then it is.

 

[gazzzwp]

Holy crap! When did Russia get hypersonic missiles!?

Supersonic; my bad.

In particular the Yakhont and it's variants:

P-800 Oniks - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[gazzzwp]

Supersonic; my bad.

In particular the Yakhont and it's variants:

P-800 Oniks - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This link may also be of interest.

I couldn't see any successful interception or any sign of a huge Russian fleet so whether or not it is all just more propaganda I'm not sure:

Russian Pacific fleet conducts anti-cruise missile drill — RT In motion

 

[Bonza]

Supersonic; my bad.

In particular the Yakhont and it's variants:

P-800 Oniks - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

From what others here have said, the USN has been training against supersonic sea-skimming threats for a number of decades now. Have a look at some of their target drones, starting with the Vandal (developed from the gigantic Talos missile). Given their advantage in situational awareness via both networking and off-board sensor feeds I think they're probably well equipped to handle such missiles. I mean of course having something the size of a P-800 pointed at you is a cause for concern, but I think it's something they are trained and equipped to deal with. Both ESSM and Standard have been used effectively against sea skimmers as I recall.

 

[gazzzwp]

From what others here have said, the USN has been training against supersonic sea-skimming threats for a number of decades now. Have a look at some of their target drones, starting with the Vandal (developed from the gigantic Talos missile). Given their advantage in situational awareness via both networking and off-board sensor feeds I think they're probably well equipped to handle such missiles. I mean of course having something the size of a P-800 pointed at you is a cause for concern, but I think it's something they are trained and equipped to deal with. Both ESSM and Standard have been used effectively against sea skimmers as I recall.

Thanks for the info. As you suggest the threat has been facing the Western Navies for some time now and I would be extremely surprised if they had not by now developed high confidence counter measures.

Until there is an engagement for real I guess we will never know. The Russians must have faith that they are not carrying obsolete weaponry; could it be that they have refined their missiles to be capable of violent end manoeuvres, or are they relying on the inability of the US Fleets to cope with a saturation attack?

Presumably the Chinese fleets possess similar weaponry to the Russian vessels?

 

[gazzzwp]

Fairly recent interview on the subject of the build up:

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ss-IPhE9i8"]Russia ready to protect Syria - YouTube[/nomedia]

 

[hellfire88]

It seems that Russia succeeded to stop the US attack , this could be added to russian diplomatic and military capabilities.

 

[Lcf]

Thanks for the info. As you suggest the threat has been facing the Western Navies for some time now and I would be extremely surprised if they had not by now developed high confidence counter measures.

Until there is an engagement for real I guess we will never know. The Russians must have faith that they are not carrying obsolete weaponry; could it be that they have refined their missiles to be capable of violent end manoeuvres, or are they relying on the inability of the US Fleets to cope with a saturation attack?

Presumably the Chinese fleets possess similar weaponry to the Russian vessels?

Successful intercepts certainly look impressive on paper but the test conditions are still just too far from realistic. They know the type of missile, the launch point, the flight path and the target they are aiming. In a realistic scenario, the missile would be far more unpredictable, some of them could include stealth features; multiple missiles could attack a target simultaneously from different directions etc.

 

[hellfire88]

From what others here have said, the USN has been training against supersonic sea-skimming threats for a number of decades now. Have a look at some of their target drones, starting with the Vandal (developed from the gigantic Talos missile). Given their advantage in situational awareness via both networking and off-board sensor feeds I think they're probably well equipped to handle such missiles. I mean of course having something the size of a P-800 pointed at you is a cause for concern, but I think it's something they are trained and equipped to deal with. Both ESSM and Standard have been used effectively against sea skimmers as I recall.

The Coyote was designed and built AFTER the US Navy bought and used Kh-31 missiles under the M-31 program for supersonic anti ship missiles in the mid 1990s.

Now in 2003 a US company gets a contract to design and make almost exactly the same missile mounted on a solid rocket booster from a USN Standard SAM and they get the missile ready by March 2007 for its first contract.

If the US has the balls to call the Kh-35 Harpoonski, then Coyote should be called койот... Koyot as it is actually a direct copy.

The problem will be when Redut/Poliment enters service their navy will enjoy the same multiple target capability as their land based Vityaz/S-400 units will enjoy so the NATO forces will require exponentially more missiles to hope to penetrate their defences.

One supersonic threat might be able to be dealt with... but when all the missiles inbound are supersonic then there is much less time to engage them.

There is no such thing as a system that can't be overwhelmed... all systems have a limit as to how many missiles they can engage over a period of time... NATO or Russian it doesn't matter.

What matters is that the Russian missiles will be moving two to three times faster making that intercept period much much shorter... so when 20 Harpoons come over the horizon the Russian ships would have rather more time to deal with them than a USN or British Navy or French navy group of ships when 20 Yakhonts come over the horizon at much higher speed.

Shooting down a target during training is one thing... British ships in the Falklands were able to shoot down individual artillery shells with their Sea Wolfs and their Sea Darts should have made pretty short work of those Exocets... but they lost quite a few ships.