SinoDefence Forum

zaky

There was a couple of remarks about the scrapping of Varjak, even from me, but i think nobody claim this seriously.

Sczepan

mostly I agree, but I can't follwo you at this point.
There was a lot of time in the past, to cut this piece in small portions and scrap it. There was no need for safing scrap with this red primer. I'am pretty sure, they will replace this part sometimes in the future, within the next weeks. May be they added a secound bridge bevor ....

joshuatree

I agree with this. Real estate is a precious commodity on a ship so just welding shut the tubes and leaving them makes no sense. If they are going through the hassle of even redesigning the bridge, removing the tubes is not that much more work in the grand scheme of things.

Vlad Plasmius

What about the SAM version of PL-12? They're supposedly developing a VLS system for it which would give a Chinese carrier an ESSM-type weapon only with fire-and-forget capability and probably a longer range.

That and the TY-90-equipped FL-3000N would leave a Chinese carrier with air defense capabilities comparable to a modern American carrier.

tphuang

it looks like China is going with gun-based CIWS for the near future. There doesn't appear to be any plan for SAM version of PL-12.

Wolverine

Who said anything about operating without escorts? Battlecruiser carriers carry gigantic antiship missiles as part of their role/mission, of which the PLAN has none, and to which I did not refer. And you overstate the space and weight limitations of the Varyag. We are talking about using those mini-islands on the sides of the carrier which can easily be decked out with VLS modules and CIWS at the same time without sacrificing any space that aircraft would need to use. And several dozen tons worth of missiles in a ship which weighs in at over 60,000 tons is essentially a non-issue. The only reason Nimitz carriers don't have weapons like the VL ESSM is that they weren't designed with them in mind. The Gerald Ford carriers will all be carrying Mk 41 launchers loaded with these weapons in addition to RAM or SeaRAM. Even if not HQ-9's, one can definitely make a strong case for medium-range SAM's that are, as I said, capable antimissile missiles. And even HQ-9's, if they are good at sniping antiship missiles at long range, provides the PLAN an additional margin of safety in a battle group that would not even come close to the long-range air defense power of a USN carrier escort force armed with hundreds of SM-2MR/ER's.

zoolander

any large VLS SAM is ridiculous. first off, it isn't needed nor practical. it would probably require pretty big redesign of the hull. it would take alot of space. the missile isn't just the opening on the deck but also the 20 or so deck room it occupies under the hull. and lastly. even if it is cold lauched, there is still a potential it would damage the planes on deck.

a more practical suggestion might be hq-7 with the CIWS

Wolverine

You don't know what you're talking about. A long range SAM would require NO redesign of the hull because they would be located along the periphery of the ship in VLS banks. And wherever did you get a number of "20 deck rooms"? Did you just randomly come up with that number? Did you even look at the pictures or understand where these missiles would be placed? Vertically launched missiles in the location they would most likely be have little to zero chance of damaging planes. The only effects they would have is the exhaust drifting over the flight deck and being inhaled by the deck crews, but that is of minor import compared to a potential explosion inside the carrier because a SAM failed to intercept an ASCM.

Ambivalent

The trade off from the USN point of view has been to put area defense systems on escort ships and put point defense weapons on carriers. The Terrier missiles on Enterprise and the Kitty Hawks were all unshipped and replaced by Sea Sparrow and CIWS rather than be upgraded to Standard.
It's pretty simple. Anything that takes much space and weight away from flying aircraft is not carried on the CV. Missile systems like Aegis or S-300 are heavy and consume much space. Locating fire control radars on a carrier is a problem. There isn't enough room on already crowded superstructures to place these there, so they end up on the periphery of the ship, where their arcs of movement are severely restricted. Anything above the flight deck surface will get toasted by hot jet blastes. They would also be too close to personnel, creating a radiation hazard for the flight deck crew. Additionally, there is a large problem with EMI on the deck of a carrier. USN aircraft carry an awful lot of EMI shielding not found on USAF aircraft because the concentration of radars on naval vessels makes this necessary. They could be located on pylons above the flight deck, but that requires a sacrifice of precious flight deck space. Ain't happening.
I think you greatly underestimate the space, weight and stability affects of something like S-300 or Standard. A Standard SM-2 in its container/launcher is two and a half decks high. With the exhaust baffles one needs three decks. Consider the flight deck overhangs. The launch tubes would have to be outboard the flight deck edge on sponsons ( the big gun sponsons on the Forrestals were removed forward because they were a problem in heavy weather ), and this does indeed create a severe hazard for the flight deck from the blast and FOD as the missile rose above flight deck level, even if the carrier VLS vented exhaust down and out of the ship rather than up as in a destroyer or cruiser installation. There is no way the USN would give up valuable flight deck space to provide clearance for a VLS installation. There isn't enough room up there as it is. There never is actually. With high quality escorts there is no good reason to give up any flying capability on the carrier to carry area defense weapons. No extra combat capability for the strike group is gained.

Ambivalent

A smart navy puts the big area defence weapons on the escorts. The raison de etre of a carrier is to launch and recover aircraft, fuel them and arm them as quickly and safely as possible. Anything that detracts from that is deleted. A carrier needs point defense weapons andECM/ESM to deal with leakers, but in the organization of a CSG, the first layer of air defence are the carrier's aircraft. It makes zero sense to give up space for aircraft to carry a big area defense missile system with all of it's associated fire control radars and computer systems. Put that on the escorts and maximize the abilities of the sole ship in the CSG that carriers the aircraft to launch and recover aircraft and to support the maximum number of these.
What gets past the carrier's fighters is dealt with by layers of missiles, beginning with SM-2, and by deception jamming. The job of coordinating that defense is not even performed by anyone on the carrier. The officer with that responsibility is on a CG. What gets through SM-2 is then engaged by ESSM from the carrier and from the DDG's and CG's. The Hummer acts as the link that coordinates the efforts of the fighters and various ships by providing all units in the fight the overhead picture.

tphuang

pictures of Varyag and especially more up close pictures of the island from recently.

Attached Images

	Varyag-Sep4.jpg (41.8 KB, 93 views)
	Varyag-Sep4-2.jpg (141.6 KB, 82 views)
	Varyag-Island-Sep4.jpg (35.5 KB, 75 views)
	Varyag-Island-Sep4-2.jpg (33.0 KB, 79 views)
	Varyag-Island-Sep4-3.jpg (32.0 KB, 90 views)

Pointblank

Hmm... they appear to be cutting away a section of the island to install something... the cut areas look too clean if they were just planning on scrapping. They've stopped the dismantling right above the bridge too... I say they've finished the dismantling, and I am guessing they will cover that area over and maybe install something, perhaps a radar or if they actually move towards a functional carrier, perhaps a CIWS.

Vlad Plasmius

Well, according to someone editing Wikipedia there is:

There needs to be some form of medium-range air defense for the carrier and having an active-guided system would provide far greater advantages than using an existing semi-active system.

Wolverine

What's "much"? Who gets to define "much"? You? A single 8-round revolver for the S-300 weighs maybe 20 tons including the missiles. Even 24 of those revolvers weighs in at 480 tons. That's 0.74% of the total weight of a fully loaded 65,000 ton carrier. Yeah that's much. And space is a non-issue. Those outboard islands can soak up three decks for the big missiles no problem. There is no need to widen them to provide safety for the crews because this is already not being done either for the Kuznetsov or the Gerald R Ford carriers.

Have you looked at the superstructures of the Varyag or the Kuznetsov, even when decked out with various radars? This is a total non-issue. You're thinking of the Nimitz carriers with their diminutive islands and trying to apply that thinking to the Varyag. Look at a photo of the Varyag's island and compare that to the Nimitz and then tell me there's no space for FCR's.

Your statements fail even on initial inspection because the Admiral Kuznetsov has VLS in exactly the positions the CGI of the Varyag places them, and it's been operating for almost two decades. Sorry, all those words, but real life says different. And please don't tell me that Russians value the lives of their crew less. In addition, pictures routinely show the USN placing ESSM inside Mk 41's in those islands for the Gerald Ford class, in addition to RAM launchers. If it was truly as hazardous as you try to portray, this wouldn't be happening. Oh, and the Ford is going to be mounting some big radars on its small island (aka VSR/MFR), just like you said they wouldn't.

The CVN 21

Finally, you fail to appreciate the differences between the USN and the PLAN as well as the Russian Navy. The USN as I mentioned already has massive air defense firepower in its Tico and AB escorts, an asset which both the other navies lack as their air defense escorts are paltry by comparison. A carrier whose role includes adding to the long range air defense of the group is not an unthinkable idea in a fleet with poorer escorts. Your error is that you are trying to apply the mission and the assets of the USN to invalidate the potential roles that a PLAN carrier may have.

Wolverine

"Concentric cylindrical launcher" suggests hot launch as the gases are vented out of the cell itself rather than diverted to an external common vent as in the Mk 41.