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Russia Declassifies "Stealth" Warship

krez writes "Today's RFE/RL Newsline states The Russian Navy has declassified Project 20380, a warship designed with stealth technology. The ship has a range of 4000km, clips along at 30 knots (55 km/h). The ship has both offensive and defensive roles, and comes armed with the supersonic Yakhont first strike missiles, and the Medvedka 400mm anti-submarine missiles. This is a big step in Russia's attempt to re-establish itself as a world naval super-power, after a decade of budget cuts." Technical details are very very scant on here - if you know more, please post below.

17 of 327 comments (clear)

  1. We've had it for a while by Proud+Geek · · Score: 5, Informative

    Of course, our Navy won't talk about it. I've a friend in the Singapore navy, though, and he says that the American Navy is very arrogant, and likes to show off by steaming close by, but being completely invisible on radar.

    The article says this is the first ship of its kind in the world, but they note the distinguishing factor is that it is a stealth ship armed with supersonic anti-ship missiles.

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    Even Slashdot wants to hide some things

  2. more info by SevenTowers · · Score: 5, Informative

    can be found here and here

    --
    Imperium et libertas
    Autocracy and freedom
  3. Russia's Navy by Guybrush1 · · Score: 5, Informative

    From the submission:"This is a big step in Russia's attempt to re-establish itself as a world naval super-power, after a decade of budget cuts."

    Well I wouldn't exactly say that Russia isn't a navy super-power. They countinue to produce the best submarines in the world. Right now their first fourth generation (Borey class) strategic missile sub is being built, and they're making a new attack sub also.

    This Corvette is not just Russia's idea. Smaller ships with more powerful weapons are simply a better idea then putting personal and resources into a valuable, highly concentrated target. There are about 200 Corvettes in the world right now, and the production of them is a billion dollar a year industry. Russia uses these things for sub detection, coastal patrol, and escorting. They've got first rate anti-sub and ant-ship missiles, a helicopter, surface to air missiles, and a 55 million dollar price tag.

  4. If you're interested in the Russian Navy by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 5, Informative

    check out the Bellona foundation's page : their Northern Fleet page is superbly detailed and they have tons of technical details about Russia's subs and surface ships. They even have some information about projects such as the Severodvinsk-class 4th-generation submarine class that got canned when the Berlin wall collapsed, or never got finished due to lack of funding.

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    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  5. Links don't work? Try this... by djrogers · · Score: 3, Informative

    They appear to be not allowing direct linkage to the information on the Yakhont and Medvenka missile systems. You can still get to the info though - from the homepage click on Export Products, then click on Navy. Halfway down are links to the Yakhont and Medvenka.

    --
    Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
  6. Some older info by FleaPlus · · Score: 4, Informative
    Here's a Jane's article with a little bit of info from earlier this year:

    http://www.janes.com/defence/naval_forces/news/jdw /jdw010417_3_n.shtml

    Here's the tidbit of interest: "The admiral also told reporters that the navy was launching the construction of the new Project 20380 corvettes, which will be used for coastal patrol, escort and antisubmarine warfare operations. The first of class is scheduled to be laid down at the Severnaya Verf shipyard in St Petersburg later this year. The design of this 1,900t stealthy corvette was developed by the Almaz Central Marine Design bureau."

    Note that this article uses the term "stealthy corvette," which I suspect may have a different connotation from the 'stealth' technology we're generally used to.

  7. Re:How's it compare to Sea Shadow? + links by C_nemo · · Score: 3, Informative
    Sea shadow is a experimental ship where the goal was to see how "stealth" a ship could become (radar, sonar, wake and thermal), it's not in production.. there are more sealth ships in the world than Sea Shadow and this russian vessel. you've got frances la fayette(or something), swedens visby class they've also got a smaller stealth vessel, Norways skjold (bottom of page, sorry only in norwegian),50kn, wich the US is considering to buy.
    and to the one who talked about seeing the ship from space: good luck targeting those missiles, on a moving target, with images from space.
    Nemo
  8. Re:Hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Hmmm, so there was this Joint fleet excersise a few years ago, and the aussie diesels managed to surface inside the radius of a us carrier battle group, the captain took a picture of the layout of the ships around him with periscope and faxed the data to the flag on the battle group.. the us were not impressed... sure these were not collins class, they were 30 year old diesel's......

    The moral is just becuase you have the best toys doesnt mean your the best, it all depends how you use your assets

  9. How apropos by Digitalia · · Score: 3, Informative

    Bush uplls out of the ABM treaty with Russia & Co. and now they declassify a project to send the point that they haven't been sitting idly for the last few years. This craft is hardly anything to worry about. As others have said, its uses are limited and it is still detectable by some craft. But it is a sign that the Russian R&D is still going strong. And that's even more scary than anything else, because Russian military tech becomes global tech quicker than nothing. Russia is not likely to just ignore Bush's slap, but they wouldn't dare actually increasing their nuclear armaments so they're probably going to begin a more conventional arms race. And since China has the money, they'll be the sole beneficiaries from this race.

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    Pax Digitalia
  10. Medvedka Re:stick it in yakhont yawhore! by StandardDeviant · · Score: 3, Informative

    I took a little Russian in college (or rather, I took 13 credit hours worth and remember little ;^) ). "Medved" (prounounced a little more lik Myedvyed) is "bear", so "medvedka" is a diminutive form, i.e. a cute nickname* like "cute little bear". Check out this nifty online dictionary for things like this (type in "medved", hit "transliterate input", and away you go (if your machine and browser can handle cyrillic anyway).

    *similarly "vod" is water, so "vodka" is "little water that we all know and love" ;^) [not to single out the Russians as heavy drinkers, iirc whiskey (the english mangling of the original gaelic anyway) meant "water of life"]

  11. Re:US stealth craft by Jburkholder · · Score: 2, Informative
  12. The US allready got a stealth ship (if they want). by espenss · · Score: 2, Informative

    The ship is in the Skjold class, and is developed in Norway. The US Navy is thinking about buying, several of these. Take a look at
    http://www.knmskjold.org/

    And yes, some of the test systems are running Linux (because I, together with others, developed one of them.) We used RealTime Linux and Qt to make a distributed failsafe system for analyzing payload from optical sensors on the hull.

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    -- ess
  13. Re:Hmm by shocking · · Score: 2, Informative

    In the recent US/Australia exercises, the Collins class subs got close enough to US warships a number of times to be able to score a kill without being detected. Much of the hooha about their noise is disinformation.

  14. Re:This is stupid... but you said it anyway. by speederaser · · Score: 2, Informative
    How does even a fly-every-minute detect object under clouds and fogs? In those conditions such a ship could be useful even against the US.

    Radar bounced off the sea from space can detect a ship's wake, which happens to point right at the ship. The process used is similar to decryption, where the natural ocean waves are the random noise and the wake is the message. Navigation radar and radio transmissions can be detected and triangulated. Infrared detectors in space can not only see plume from the smokestack, they can also see the wake from a large ship from space when cooler water is churned up to the surface.

    Below the water, the US has very sensitive listening stations scattered about to detect submarines. US submarines can track a ship from quite a distance due to noise alone. Even when not underway, waves slapping up against the side of a ship make a distinctive noise (a problem submarines don't have). I suspect those "secret" ships have been followed by US submarines wherever they went for quite some time.

  15. Don't forget Sweden! by Gathers · · Score: 2, Informative

    Eh, don't forget we in Sweden also are working on a stealth ship..

    http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/visby/

    /Gathers

  16. Sepaking of Aegis Cruiser... by hyoo · · Score: 3, Informative

    I know you slashdotters are gonna love this one