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Brigadier

gelgoog

Brigadier
Registered Member
I see the Russians sent all their best ships in the Pacific. Not that they are all that great. 3 corvettes, which by other European country classifications would be light frigates, and one destroyer which is mostly for anti-submarine combat. Russia needs to build more large frigates.
 

Tam

Brigadier
Registered Member
I see the Russians sent all their best ships in the Pacific. Not that they are all that great. 3 corvettes, which by other European country classifications would be light frigates, and one destroyer which is mostly for anti-submarine combat. Russia needs to build more large frigates.

That destroyer in particular is the first of the Udaloys to be modernized. Refit of the rest of the Udaloys are planned and underway. This particular one, should be Marshal Shapashnikov, is capable of Kalibration. In addition, it has eight Urans, which is a low flying subsonic 300km antiship missile. This isn't very ASW now. All the other three large frigates are also capable of Kalibration. So this combined fleet alone has tremendous antiship firepower when combined with 101 and the 054A frigate.

The fact that the Russian portion of the fleet did not include a replenishment ship of their own suggests to me they maybe replenishing from the Chinese ship. There are no customary ocean going large tugs seen, suggesting a growing confidence in the RuN, to leave their requisite tugs this time. Missing is the EW ship which usually shadows Russian fleets, but that can be operating from a much farther distance.
 

Temstar

Brigadier
Registered Member
Those 20380 corvettes run diesel, surely they couldn't have gone that far into the pacific without replenishment. Would this not indicate PLAN diesel is now rated for Russian use?

I was thinking maybe one of those Marshal Nedelin class ship (usually I think it's Marshal Krylov in the pacific fleet that goes on these long trips) would accompany that group and act as the replenishment ship for the Russians but:
  • not really sure if Marshal Krylov is equipped to act in this role, it's first and foremost an EW ship
  • it hasn't been spotted yet
Previously when the combined fleet transited one of Japan's strait they kept that EW ship close:
211025031852-china-russia-naval-exercise-japan-1018.jpg
That's her in the foreground.

Could the Russians have pre-positioned a ship in the pacific for replenishment? If Russians really did use PLAN fuel that's a big step forward for cooperability.
 
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para80

Junior Member
Registered Member
The best ships for the Russians remain with Northern Fleet. The Pacific Fleet is probably second in blue water hulls, given Baltic and Black Sea have less demand in that regard. Either way the Russian fleet in large combatants has been falling apart for decades now. The only new hulls they dispatch are frigates and those go first to the European theatre due to obvious demand. Sorry for mild OT.
 

ACuriousPLAFan

Colonel
Registered Member
The best ships for the Russians remain with Northern Fleet. The Pacific Fleet is probably second in blue water hulls, given Baltic and Black Sea have less demand in that regard. Either way the Russian fleet in large combatants has been falling apart for decades now. The only new hulls they dispatch are frigates and those go first to the European theatre due to obvious demand. Sorry for mild OT.
At this point, the Russian Pacific Fleet should just serve as:

1. A coastal defense force for the Russian Pacific coastline; and, at most
2. An auxiliary component for the PLA Navy that would attach themselves to the naval task forces of the PLA Navy in case of confrontation or conflict with the US and her allies in the Pacific.

Other than that, apart from their SSNs and SSBNs, I don't really see how the Russian surface fleet is still capable of sailing across the high seas in the Pacific (or oceans elsewhere) and conduct power projection as a formidable fighting force on their own anymore.
 
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charles18

Junior Member
Registered Member
At this point, the Russian Pacific Fleet should just serve as:

1. A coastal defense force for the Russian Pacific coastline; and, at most
2. An auxiliary component for the PLA Navy that would attach themselves to the naval task forces of the PLA Navy in case of confrontation or conflict with the US and her allies in the Pacific.
......
Thanks to an accident of geography, Russia is sitting on 50,000 bcm (billion cubic meters) of natural gas. Assuming the Russians keep half the gas to themselves for internal consumption while exporting the rest, in theory there is enough gas to build the capacity equivalent of Ten Nord stream gas pipelines. Now that the relationship with Europe and the pipeline is "damaged" Russia has few options left.

Maybe China can make an offer the Russians cannot refuse, a once in a 100 year opportunity for its energy supplies.
China "needs" Russia's help, but not for its navy.
If there's going to be a confrontation with the USA the biggest help the Russians can offer the Chinese is access to energy.
 

AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
Thanks to an accident of geography, Russia is sitting on 50,000 bcm (billion cubic meters) of natural gas. Assuming the Russians keep half the gas to themselves for internal consumption while exporting the rest, in theory there is enough gas to build the capacity equivalent of Ten Nord stream gas pipelines. Now that the relationship with Europe and the pipeline is "damaged" Russia has few options left.

Maybe China can make an offer the Russians cannot refuse, a once in a 100 year opportunity for its energy supplies.
China "needs" Russia's help, but not for its navy.
If there's going to be a confrontation with the USA the biggest help the Russians can offer the Chinese is access to energy.

But China is planning to end hydrocarbon imports in the next 10-15 years.

There is currently a huge ramp of solar polysilicon plants in China to about 3 million tonnes per year, which should be completed by 2025.
That would be enough for 1000+ GW of solar panels annually, producing 1000+ TWh of electricity.

China currently consumes 8000 TWh of electricity per year. Realistically half of this could be covered through solar. And this solar would be used to displace coal and gas mainly.

Now, the solar electricity should be cheaper than coal and definitely gas. But the problem is ramping up energy storage.
However, if all vehicles in China became electric in 15 years time, we'd be talking about say 300 million vehicles.
If those vehicles have an average battery pack of 50 KWh, that's 15 TWh of batteries on the roads.
That would be enough to balance current electricity demand of 22 TWh daily.
 

CMP

Senior Member
Registered Member
But China is planning to end hydrocarbon imports in the next 10-15 years.

There is currently a huge ramp of solar polysilicon plants in China to about 3 million tonnes per year, which should be completed by 2025.
That would be enough for 1000+ GW of solar panels annually, producing 1000+ TWh of electricity.

China currently consumes 8000 TWh of electricity per year. Realistically half of this could be covered through solar. And this solar would be used to displace coal and gas mainly.

Now, the solar electricity should be cheaper than coal and definitely gas. But the problem is ramping up energy storage.
However, if all vehicles in China became electric in 15 years time, we'd be talking about say 300 million vehicles.
If those vehicles have an average battery pack of 50 KWh, that's 15 TWh of batteries on the roads.
That would be enough to balance current electricity demand of 22 TWh daily.
Even if we assume full scale up of renewables that covers 100% of domestic energy needs, oil/gas/coal are still needed in the strategic reserve. Oil is also still needed for chemical manufacturing on top of that.
 
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