Does the Kuznetsov still have a future?

Article published on the Air et Cosmos website in February 2022

The jack of all trade aircraft carrier

The Russian vessel Admiral Kuznetsov is not an aircraft carrier like those used by Nato navies. Laid up in the early 1980s, she is now at the end of her life. 

Flagship of the Red Banner’s fleet led by Sergey Gorshkov, this ship is a good example of the disproportionate projects of the Soviet era, the result of budgetary, technical and political compromises that instilled admiration and astonishment from their opponents!

To avoid being associated with the symbol of imperialist aggression, the aircraft carriers, the Soviets had to call them heavy cruisers. This also enabled them to comply with the Montreux Convention, which prevents any aircraft carrier over 15,000 tons from crossing the Bosphorus Strait.

Ukraine owns the only docks in the Black Sea large enough to build ships of this size. Once built, they had to cross the Strait, always without aircraft, to join their respective fleets never to return, which was bound to cause major problems for their maintenance.
To justify her designation as a heavy cruiser, the Kuznetsov's offensive armament is built around a battery of 12 P700 Granit anti-ship missiles, each weighing 7 tons with a range of 500 km, rightly nicknamed aircraft-carrier killers. The Kuznetsov's air group is much smaller than that of its Western contemporaries (maximum 15-20 aircraft) and is primarily for air defence. 

The Red Fleet of the 80s

It's impossible to talk about the Red Fleet without mentioning the monumental work of Sergey Gorshkov, who, from 1955 until his forced retirement in 1985, gave Russia the most powerful fleet in its history. A skilful politician, strategist and a man of science, he quickly realised that the Red Fleet could only challenge the supremacy of the American Carrier Battle Group by relying on new types of disruptive weaponry.
These were embodied by nuclear submarines (SSN and SSGN) operating in deep waters, as well as in long-range bombers capable of launching several hundred heavy anti-ship missiles towards NATO ships in coordinated attacks. 

As the Soviet Union was primarily a continental power, the primary mission of its surface fleet was to protect its nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), which were essential to the mission of nuclear deterrence. Attack submarines and long-range naval aviation were responsible for driving the enemy out of the North Atlantic.

Typhoon class SSBN equipped with twenty 84 tonnes SLBM for a total of 200 nuclear warheads, about 2000 times more powerful than Hiroshima’s bomb!!

In the early 1980s, the Soviets had highly sophisticated surveillance systems at their disposal, based on radar, optical and navigation satellites updating NATO’s fleet position for its long-range bomber force (150+ ) and the dozens of Soviet submarines potentially present in the area. 

Life for NATO sailors must have been particularly interesting in those days...

The Soviets had a very mathematical approach to solving a problem. To sink a 100,000-ton aircraft carrier, you need a large quantity of explosives flying at very high speed. So they designed a 7-ton missile, the size of an aeroplane, which flies between Mach 2 and Mach 4, depending on the model. To go through anti-missile defences, at least 5 missiles had to be fired at each target, for a minimum of 100 missiles to attack a carrier group...  maths be damned!!

Only an aircraft carrier stood a chance of surviving the impact of a missile of this type; any other vessel would have been vaporised by the combined effects of speed and 700 kg of explosives.  

By way of comparison, the payload of the famous Exocet missile is just 150kg, just enough to neutralise a frigate.

Tom Clancy's book Red Storm Rising, published in 1986, is still the best description of a combined attack by several Tu22 backfire regiments on a group of aircraft carriers. 

Nato officials, who didn't sleep well every time a new type of Russian submarine was launched, would all have had strokes if they'd known the true capabilities of Russian weapons at the time:

• Titanium armour to protect against explosive charges from SAM missiles and CIWS shells. 

• Wolfpack attack capability of certain missiles, which could exchange information on targets to optimise the attack.

The Kuznetsov and older Kievs were therefore relegated to the role of command ships. Thanks to their air defence capability (10-15 fighters and, several hundred anti-aircraft missiles), they could defend a Kirov-type nuclear cruiser, an anti-submarine surface group, or an invasion fleet not too far from the Russian coast.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 brought the construction of the Ulyanovsk, the first true nuclear-powered aircraft carrier with catapults, to a halt, as did the Varyag, the 2nd example of the Kuznetsov class, which was sold by Ukraine to China, which has since commissioned it.

From 1995 onwards, the new Russian navy deployed the Kuznetsov on several gunboat policy missions, ultimately very similar to those of its Nato colleagues. 

Thanks to well-controlled media coverage in Russia, these cruises had a positive impact on the prestige of the sailors and the Russian government, but they were often painful for their crew. 

Kuznetsov's characteristics

Smokey

Sergey Gorshkov and his political allies constantly pushed for the construction of real aircraft carriers with catapults, but this technology was not available in the Soviet Union either in the 1960s during the construction of the Kiev, or in the 1970s for the Kuznetsov.
The Kiev class could only count on almost useless Yak 38s for its air group, which left its pilots with very few good memories.

The Sukhoi 33 and Mig 29K designed at the end of the 80s have engines powerful enough to take off from a ship with a ramp. The configuration chosen for the Kuznetsov generation, however, does not allow them to take off with heavy loads, limiting them to air-to-air missions.
This lack of strike capability is compensated for by the presence of 12 anti-ship missiles (a kind of single-use kamikaze squadron), stored below the flight deck, but which limit the capacity of the aircraft hangar (around 20-25). 

At sea, it's all about compromise!

For his close defence, she benefits from all the excesses and expertise of the Soviet Union:

- 196 short-range missiles.

- 4* 30 mm turrets coupled with 32 very short-range missiles

- And 60 anti-submarine rockets

What a formidable firepower!

It's interesting to compare it with the French Charles de Gaulle designed during the same period, she is only protected by 44 medium- and very short-range missiles, but which in return boast a highly capable air group (multi-role fighters + AWACS aircraft and helicopters). A little cock-a-doodle-doo to remind the French that, alongside the United States, we're the only country to have a catapult-equipped aircraft carrier today.

The Chinese are coming...

Operational career

“The value of a navy is measured by its ability to last," said the French naval chief of staff a few years ago. The number of days at sea is the key criterion for measuring the quality of a navy; it is the result of the quality of equipment, training and the country's ability to maintain its fleet.
The Soviet fleet still impresses when at sea, but maintaining it in operational condition has always been a major problem due to the lack of sufficiently qualified shipyards. The more modern equipment was put into service, the longer the periods of unavailability. Maintaining the 3 million tons of ships afloat in 1985 was becoming an unsolvable problem. 

The shortage of skilled labor, which was already a problem before the collapse of the Soviet Union, has become dramatic over the last 30 years, as the Kursk tragedy shows. 

It explains the low number of days at sea since the Kuznetsov was commissioned, and the many incidents it has suffered.

According to the Pentagon, its operational record is very poor, with only 154 air sorties in 2 months of operations in Syria in 2016, that's 3 sorties a day, or 10 to 15 times less than a modern aircraft carrier!

The problems encountered during his career can be grouped as follows. 

• Propulsion

Although nuclear propulsion was considered, the Nikolaiev yard lacked the necessary equipment, so poorly maintained oil-fired boilers were eventually installed. They spat out a black trail visible from dozens of kilometres away when they didn't stop working altogether, as in 2012 in the Bay of Biscay, where the ship ended up returning to port in tow!
Following this inglorious incident, an oceanic tug always accompanied the ship on its missions.

• Aircraft recovery problem

Arresting wire problems have led to the loss of 3 aircrafts, including two in 2016 during the Syrian campaign. The entire air group had to be transferred ashore during the repairs.

It's interesting to note that during this period, aircraft were far more useful, as they could take off from a runway on land and carry far more fuel and ammunition. This argument is used today by admirals who wish to use the money from the refurbishment program for other, more useful programs.

• Pilot training 

The ice pack and lack of light prevented regular training of the air group from their home base in the Arctic, so qualified pilots were in short supply. One of the lost aircraft could have been diverted ashore if the crew had had a little more experience in air operations.

• Ageing air group of questionable utility 

The Su33s are now at the end of their service life and only had limited air defence capability during their prime. Only around thirty were produced. Their under-performing avionics played tricks on their pilots during interceptions by Israeli F15s, which they were unable to detect.

Mig29Ks are modern multi-role aircraft, financed by Indian orders for their indigenous aircraft carriers. However, the Russians have only procured 15 of them, just enough to keep 10 operational.

A small number of Su 25UTGs were also produced as training aircraft.

The Russian navy has several Kamov helicopters, which seem to be well suited to naval operations; in 2016 an anti-tank version was also taken on board.

With no air-to-air refuelling capability and no real radar watch, the air group is only effective in the limited detection bubble of surface ships and helicopters.

But massive hats off to the Russian sailors and pilots who have been working in these conditions for 30 years on behalf of their country.

Present and future?

Since her last cruise in 2016, the ship has been awaiting the opening of a new dock in 2022 for her modernisation. Unable to use the shipyard where she was built, the Soviets bought 2 100,000 T floating docks from Sweden in the early 1980s, one for the Pacific fleet and one for the Northern fleet. The latter unfortunately sank in 2018.

Some reports do mention of a possible training of Russian pilots in China on the Liaoning, the little brother of the modernised Kuznetsov commissioned by the Chinese. If true, what a humiliation for the Russian bear!!

The next stage in Russia's aircraft carrier adventure will depend on the budgets available in the coming years. Despite numerous announcements of future projects, a very limited modernisation of the Kuznetsov will begin in June 2022, with a view to her return to service at the end of 2023. Some 8 years after her last mission. This is probably a symbolic refit, for a navy that is condemned to look at its Chinese neighbour with jealousy. 

This year, the Chinese navy is commissioning its first true catapult-powered aircraft carrier, the new flagship of a blue water fleet that now far outguns the Russian fleet. 

Ironically, China's 21st-century naval air force is an almost direct heir to the Soviet fleet of the 1980s. The ships are now built locally and are allowing China to contest US Navy supremacy in the Pacific.

Could the Russian Navy ask China for help in modernising its fleet? Technically possible, but politically difficult to accept.

Author Thibaut Mallet