Russia is adding warships to its navy faster than the US. The reason for that is simple, while the US is pouring $14 billion into the USS Gerald Ford carrier the Russians are building corvettes. A class of warships between 500 and 1,000 tons.
Not only are they small, they are cheap. The newest class, Karakurt, sets back the Russian budget 2 billion rubles or just over $30 million at the exchange rates.
These sound like puny vessels, except here is the thing: they can hit an enemy surface ship from four times the distance a US destroyer (Arleigh-Burke) or cruiser (Ticonderoga) can.
Four different classes of corvettes are being built. Buyan-M-class of which 15 are planned and 10 are already serving. Steregushchiy-class of which 24 are planned and 6 are serving. Karakurt-class of which 18 are planned and one is already serving. And Gremyashchiy-class of which 4 are planned and 1 is already serving.
Except the Steregushchiy-class all these vessels may fire the Kalibr and the P-800 Onyx anti-ship missiles with the respective range of 660 and 600 kilometers. Steregushchiy carries a lighter Kh-35 missile with the range of “only” 300 kilometers.
Arleigh-Burkes and Ticonderogas fire the Harpoon anti-ship missile with the range of just 130 kilometers. Even if the US had heavier anti-ship missiles ready its primary “surface combatants” could not fire them because their multi-functional weapons cells would be too small to accommodate them. An Arleigh-Burke costs $2 billion, the older Ticonderogas cost $1 billion at the time they were built. Both classes displace around 10,000 tons....On the cheap. And the corvettes are chiefly relatively short range (brown/green water) and defensive in perimeter rather than long range (blue water), offensive vessels like destroyers and cruisers, a chief mission of which is to serve in carrier groups to protect carriers.
The development of these vessel and missile types was one meaning of what Russia meant by "asymmetric response to threats."
China is using a similar strategy and so is Iran.
Check point Asia
Russia’s $30 Million Missile Corvettes Have Four Times the Weapons Range of US $2 Billion Destroyers and Cruisers
Marko Marjanovic
I saw this documentary about 40 years ago about the latest American tanks. They were very high tech and very expensive and on paper the specs looked fantastic. They showed you footage of the American tanks going all over rough ground and terrain with all the wheels moving up and down independently keeping the tank stable. These tanks were incredible, but one problem they broke down every 5 miles and were virtually useless. The Russian tanks weren't flash at all but they never broke down and just went on and on.
ReplyDeleteThe US military industrial complex had sold the American public a pup, and this racket still goes on today.