Slashdot Mirror
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.
... cos the fucking thing's invisible.
We cannot afford a stealth warship gap!
I'm not supposed to tell anyone about this, but I heard that it runs Linux.
I'd assume that Russia's intent with this craft is not to launch a war against the U.S., but to give them the ability to approach other radar-equipped ships at sea without raising the alarm, with the side benefit of being impervious to radar-guided weaponry. Very useful for drug interdiction, coastal patrol, and generally dealing with seafaring baddies who don't have minute-by-minute satellite imagery at their disposal. I think that includes 95% of the world (and most of the U.S. fleet as well.)
Just because the combined intelligence resources of the West could be brought to bear to track one of these things doesn't mean it's useless. Our carriers are pretty easy to spot, and look how handy they've been lately.
Let me see....
USA
Stealth bombers, w/ laser guided bombs.
Russia
Stealth ships, with supersonic torpedoes
Australia
Collins Class Submarine, with extremely noisy engines.
Something tells me we (AU) wouldnt win a war.
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.
Even Slashdot wants to hide some things
can be found here and here
Imperium et libertas
Autocracy and freedom
This is really interesting- could it happen to be a coincidence that this is announced the same day that Bush announced the U.S. withdrawl from the missile treaty even though Putin said it was a bad idea? On a side note, there seems to be hardly anything about this on all the top news sites, but it was on the front page of my newspaper this morning. How could something so significant be ignored so quickly?
The future isn't what it used to be.
Kirk What is it, Mr. Chekhov?
Chekhov Captain, three Russian wwessels have just decloaked and are on the main viewscreen. We are surrounded.
Kirk Arm photon torpedoes.
Checkhov I don't think I can do that, sir. Now, don't make a move or I'll vaporise this bridge. Prepare for boarding party.
First guess, this is a small(er) combatant, not a major fleet unit. (Based on previous Russian naval philosophy.) It could either be the centerpiece of a frigate navy, or the building block of a real navy. Given Russia's ongoing economic problems, don't bet on it being much more than vaporware for a decade at least.
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.
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.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
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?
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.
A visual search of even a thousand square miles (That's approx the possible area after 5 hours at 30 knots) would take a horrendous amount of time, and even then you'd have found one ship and would need the satellite to be fairly dedicated to tracking it.
Radar and sonar are still the only reliable ways to find ocean going vessels, and the technology to severely reduce the effectiveness of sonar has been around for quite a while. Adding radar mitigating tech to a ship is the last step to making it effectively dissapear, espacially with a few dozen of them around to track...
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
A strategic advantage this ship's instrumentation has over US seacraft:
On the bridge are numerous PCs, which (amongst other things) allow the ship's manuals to be read in Adobe e-Book format *and* PDF format.
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
"Ya khont" is the most offensive sounding missile I've ever heard of.
"Ask me about Loom"
There is already a stealth boat produced, and I am quite sure that it is not a secret. How do I know? Because I've seen it myself, and so has a lot of other people. Check out Smyge on google and you will know what I mean. Why aren't we then run over with these things? My guess is for the same reason as the US airforce doesn't only fly F117 (which I've also seen live ^_^) and B2s and why YF22/YF23 (dunno if they changed the designation) won't take over quite yet. Cost. We are talking about very expensive pieces of equipment with very very limited uses. It's time to sell farming equipment instead of weapons, the ones who buy need to feed their people!
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.
Pax Digitalia
"A visual search of even a thousand square miles (That's approx the possible area after 5 hours at 30 knots) would take a horrendous amount of time, and even then you'd have found one ship and would need the satellite to be fairly dedicated to tracking it."
You neglect to mention the size of the wake of a ship going at 30 knots. It's easy to find something small when you have two long lines pointing right to it.
Also, you ignored the infrared. Unless these things are nuclear, it's going to have a tail pipe and the corresponding exhaust plume.
"Radar and sonar are still the only reliable ways to find ocean going vessels, and the technology to severely reduce the effectiveness of sonar has been around for quite a while."
For underwater vessels. For an awful lot of money you can make a submarine somewhat harder to find with passive sonar, but a submarine doesn't have to slice through the surface of the water. Which brings us back to the wake...
"Adding radar mitigating tech to a ship is the last step to making it effectively dissapear, espacially with a few dozen of them around to track..."
Stealth doesn't make it impossible to find, only difficult (making it impossible would violate a thermodynamic law or two), and it becomes quite easy once you know the signature of what you're looking for. Besides, hiding from the radar on your average destroyer is one thing, hiding from an Aegis cruiser is something else.
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"]
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
We've had it for a while
Of course, our Navy won't talk about it.
We've had it for a while and talked about it quite a bit. And decided it was silly.
A large stealth vessel was part of the original stealth project, and is well documented. (It was a very fast powered twin-hull, which gave them an opportunity to absorb or redirect the microwaves that got into the space UNDER the main body of the craft.)
The problem was that it DID work.
But the rough surface of the sea also reflects radar. The stealth craft blocked this. The net result was a dark streak on the radar background, with the stealth ship exactly at the end of the streak closest to the radar antenna.
Effectively it was a big, black arrowhead on a dim green background, pointing exactly at the stealth vessel. The only thing missing was a label saying "Stealth ship HERE".
To solve this you'd need to deliberately transmit a fake of a surface reflection behind you - which means that you need active ECM for EVERY radar that shines on you. Then you risk showing up as a spotlight on PASSIVE radar.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Planes can take territory, but they can't HOLD territory, hence the requirement for Infantry and other ground pounders to go in and sit in the mud. Well, planes can damage shipping, but they can't stop shipping. Sometimes, you just need to park a big steel hull of ten on a Sea Line Of Communication and start sinking transports. And lets face it, that Aegis crusier or three in your convoy is going to pretty much prevent bombers from touching you. 4 million watts of RF energy means never having to say 'I'm sorry.'
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
"Stealth ships" are a blue-water navy idea. But there hasn't been a major blue-water naval engagement in years. Today, the U.S. Navy is mostly used to project power onshore. Stealth isn't the primary criterion for that role. Armor matters more.
There's a good argument for heavily armored battleships for shore bombardment, but the old ones took thousands of people to run, and the Navy is short on people. The U.S. Navy had an "arsenal ship" concept in the early 1990s, but never built any.
The Kursk sank on a training mission, and according to a revealing and meticulously researched print article in the October, 2001 issue of Men's Journal, the two primary reasons for the tragic death of the entire crew were: 1) faulty cheaper torpedoes, and 2) a Russian fleet chain of command that put covering their asses before the welfare of their sailors.
The Russian Navy is in dire straits. Submarine crews spend much of their time foraging for food. Their morale is terrible, training quality is low, and discipline is not what it should be.
Having the best equipment in the world is no substitute for having well-trained, motivated, sailors. Until the Russians can completely overhaul their Cold War-oriented, top-heavy, political-appointee command structure, and start spending money on training and sailors rather than on huge new weapons programs, they'll continue their rapid descent into military irrelevance.
Further reading about the Russian military from sources around the world:
BBC
India
Russia
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Two Soviet tank commanders meet in Paris. The first one asks "so, who won the air war?"
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
I know you slashdotters are gonna love this one