"Military and Military Sub-Plane" Author: Lu Zhi
The recent discussion about Chinese and Russian aircraft carriers is still a hot topic among military fans. One of the more interesting topics is Russia's current Kuznetzo Because the technology of the aircraft carrier is too old, the carrier-based aircraft is not advanced enough, and its service life is relatively long. Even after this maintenance and upgrade, it is impossible to serve for a long time. Russia has always considered itself an opponent of the United States and needs aircraft carriers to support its appearance. So is it possible and necessary for the two ski-jump aircraft carriers , Liaoning, and Shandong ship of the Chinese Navy to be sold back to Russia? What kind of problems are there?
▲Picture source: Internet.
Since the United States has the largest number of aircraft carriers in the world and the experience in using them, its aircraft carriers are more useful as a reference. In addition, because the Nimitz class aircraft carriers are all in service, we will take a look at the Kitty Hawk class aircraft carrier that preceded the Nimitz class. There are a total of four Kitty Hawk-class aircraft carriers, namely Kitty Hawk, Constellation, United States and Kennedy. They were in service from 1961 to 1968 and retired from 1996 to 2009. The shortest service time is 30 years, and the longest service time is 48 years. Under normal circumstances, large-tonnage aircraft carriers tend to be in service for about 40 years. For countries like the United States, which generally have 10 aircraft carriers for rotation, the service time is basically more than 40 years.
▲Picture source: Internet.
Judging from the current situation, the Liaoning ship still has at least 20 years of service, and the Shandong ship can directly serve until about 2060. The advantage of this is that these two aircraft carriers can wait for other more advanced aircraft carriers to enter service during their service. If the construction speed and scale of aircraft carriers can catch up with the United States in the past ten or twenty years, then these two aircraft carriers are likely to be Consider retiring or taking a back seat after 20 years. Therefore, in terms of time, it is basically unrealistic to sell to Russia at this stage. We are strong, but we are not yet wealthy.
▲Picture source: Internet.
During the Cold War , aircraft carriers were actually of little significance to the Soviet Navy . The core of the Soviet Navy is a variety of nuclear submarines, which pose a considerable threat to the United States. The Soviet Union's surface ships are obviously inferior to those of the U.S. Navy. Although the Soviet Navy has super nuclear-powered cruisers like the Kirov , the United States has 100,000-ton nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and 10,000-ton escort warships. , plus dozens of various amphibious landing ships and assault ships. Therefore, the Soviet Navy places great emphasis on anti-ship capabilities. The naval aviation is even equipped with a large number of bombers, and its first mission is to conduct anti-ship operations.
▲Figure 22M3 bomber mounted with anti-ship missile . Image source: Internet.
However, the Soviet Union also realized that it had obvious problems in developing its navy in this way, so it also began to pay attention to the construction of aircraft carriers after the 1970s. In addition to the early Moscow-class helicopter carriers and Kiev-class aircraft carriers, the first type that can truly be called an aircraft carrier is the Kuznetsov-class, and after the Kuznetsov-class there is the Ulyanov Sksk-class aircraft carrier. On the surface, it seems that the Soviet Navy will develop in the direction of the U.S. Navy, but the problem is that after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russia was unable to build new aircraft carriers, and the size of the navy shrank significantly. This makes Russia's current aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov into a facade aircraft carrier. Whether it is the previous Su-33 or the later MiG-29K, its combat effectiveness is very limited. This aircraft carrier has no impact on The impact of the strength of the Russian Navy is very small.
▲Picture source: Internet.
Of course, Russia is not unaware of this situation. It once planned to purchase the Mistral-class amphibious assault ship from France. This kind of attack ship is smaller in tonnage and costs less, but its actual combat capabilities are not inferior. It can use armed helicopter and transport helicopter for landing operations, which is what the Kuznetsov aircraft carrier lacks most.This kind of warship is very common in Europe. Countries such as Italy, Spain, and even Turkey all use multi-purpose aircraft carriers similar to amphibious assault ships . At present, the only countries in the world that are still developing purely offensive aircraft carriers are China, the United States and India. The United Kingdom mainly uses vertical take-off and landing fighter jets, while India's tonnage is too small. If Russia can have two decent amphibious assault ships at this moment, such as our country's 075, then Russia does not need Kuznetsov at all. Therefore, it is basically a fantasy for the Liaoning and Shandong ships to enter service in Russia. Those who have money will look down on them, but those who have no money will not need them.
▲Picture source: Internet. This discussion among
netizens can turn into another question, that is, when will Russia build an amphibious assault ship. As mentioned earlier, the Soviet Union has been lacking advanced aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships during its development process, but this does not mean that Russia lacks the ability to build amphibious assault ships. Although amphibious assault ships are lower in level than aircraft carriers, they are also biased toward multi-purpose operations. But the actual design complexity is not much lower than that of the aircraft carrier, and the two also have many similarities. In addition, Russia also has tank landing ships, so once Russia has enough funds, it wants to build something similar to A 20,000-ton amphibious assault ship like the Mistral is not a big problem.
The reason why Russia has not given up on the Kuznetsov aircraft carrier is very simple. That is, this aircraft carrier is a medium aircraft carrier with a displacement of about 60,000 tons, and it can use fixed-wing carrier-based aircraft. Compared with rebuilding other warships, this aircraft carrier is ready-made, and the maintenance cost is more cost-effective than building a new warship. If we really have to wait until Russia has the strength and funds, and has the idea to build a aircraft carrier fleet , then with Russia's technical reserves, it will not be a problem to build a better aircraft carrier than the Shandong ship.
▲Picture source: Internet.
