Comments on: The Gang That Couldn’t …

By: Bryan

Bryan — Wed, 14 Oct 2015 19:17:58 +0000

Yes, they can certainly reload the Igla launcher, but the Klub launcher apparently involves a four missile ‘cartridge’ that is a unit. Eight missiles is a large capability for corvette, so I doubt reloading them at sea was ever considered. Their container system obviously isn’t intended to be reloaded on site, but at a depot.

A major problem for the Soviet military was the lack of technicians. They had extremely competent scientists and engineers, but their service technicians and mechanics are not of the quality of the West. The lack of contact with things like motor vehicles or electronics while growing up leaves them well behind the curve in the development of practical skills.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Wed, 14 Oct 2015 07:14:08 +0000

Interesting details. The advantage of reading Russian I suspect, I’m dependent upon English language sources (sigh). I suspect the Iglas can be reloaded at sea. I don’t know about the Klubs though. I would think they’d come up with *some* way of doing so, because otherwise it’s useless carrying reloads. One thing to remember is that the Russians are not averse to substituting human labor in places where we Americans would use machines because it is too frickin’ dangerous…

By: Bryan

Bryan — Wed, 14 Oct 2015 02:24:25 +0000

In reply to Badtux. If my Russian hasn't failed me the missile corvettes carry two Klub launchers with 4 missiles each, and two Igla (anti-aircraft) launchers with 4 missiles each [probably the SA-24 Grinch models] each. I doubt they could reload the launchers at sea if they had extra missiles. It probably requires a crane for the Klub, as they may be stored as 4 missile units. The Igla is the Russian counterpart of the Stinger and most are used as MANPADs.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Tue, 13 Oct 2015 05:05:21 +0000

The M-class corvettes are all new, built within the past 15 years with the best technology that Russia could buy or in some cases steal. I would suspect that things that were pickup-sized when you were in are much smaller now. That said, that’s not a very big boat, and if there were reloads aboard there wouldn’t be room for anything else given the size of those missiles…

By: Bryan

Bryan — Tue, 13 Oct 2015 01:49:43 +0000

In reply to Badtux. They can't have the room for reloads on a corvette, given the space required for the radar package that the Klub/Sizzler requires. A lot of things we can put on a moped they require at least a pick-up to carry. The Indians have done a lot of work on the Klub.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Tue, 13 Oct 2015 00:24:29 +0000

The photo of the M-class corvette that I saw has four missile launchers, two on each side, facing astern. Whether they carry reloads for the missile launchers, I doubt it. But the Russians have already demonstrated a cargo container version of the missile launcher that can be carried on a barge or anything else capable of hauling a standard cargo container. I think basically they’re telling us, “okay, you have overwhelming force compared to us, but if you try attacking us we will make your life unending misery by having missiles show up from unlikely vessels that you would never imagine are carrying missiles.”

By: Bryan

Bryan — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 19:33:20 +0000

The NATO designator is SSN for Ship-to-Ship as opposed to SS for Surface-to-Surface. When you send things by Teletype it’s all caps and minimum punctuation. The US uses AG for Air-to-Ground but NATO uses AS, Air-to-Surface. ‘Klub’ is the Russian name for the export version, NATO calls it a Sizzler. Actually increasing the range is a matter of adding an extra block of solid fuel. In the missiles that landed short in Iran, the extra fuel block probably failed to ignite.

I wouldn’t imagine that the corvettes had more than 4 missiles on board.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 05:51:38 +0000

I assume you mean the SS-N-27 Klub: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3M-54_Klub . It appears to be a modular cruise missile. The long range land attack version has an extra “range stage” compared to the short range anti-ship version. Thing is, while the Pentagon knew about this long range version, everybody thought about it in the context of the Russian submarine fleet and the fact that the Russians have outfitted submarines as cruise missile carriers in much the same way as the USS Florida (a Trident missile submarine remodeled to instead carry 154 cruise missiles). Nobody outside the Pentagon ever thought that a sub-1000 ton corvette could be outfitted with the thing. I mean, a Kilo-class is the smallest Russian sub to carry these things and it’s three times the size of one of those corvettes!

There are fishing trawlers that are larger than a Buyan-class corvette. I think Russia just announced that they now have the ability to reach out and touch someone from things that are barely bigger than a rowboat.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 04:28:55 +0000

The Klub is an anti-ship cruise missile [SSN-47] that has the range to reach Syria.

Technically the Caspian Flotilla is Russia’s oldest naval unit, as John IV founded it after taking Astrakhan. It has apparently shifted to frigates, corvettes, and patrol boats. The corvettes are new from my time when it was destroyers, frigates, and patrol boats.

[John IV, The Awesome, is usually called Ivan the Terrible in the West. He received the appellation, ‘The Awesome’, for capturing Astrakhan. His grandfather, John III, had already won ‘The Great’ for telling Mongol Horde to piss off.]

By: Badtux

Badtux — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 04:01:32 +0000

Thing is, they don’t have any destroyers left in the Caspian Sea Fleet. The biggest ships are two Gepard-class frigates at 1500 tons displacement, but the missiles were apparently fired from 900 ton displacement Buyan M-class corvettes, barely bigger than gunboats. The M-class was designed as an anti-ship missile platform, but nobody knew it could carry cruise missiles too. This is… interesting.

Of course, the Soviets were big advocate of missile-carrying ships for a long time before the US grudgingly outfitted a new generation of heavy destroyers as “Aegis cruisers” and outfitted them with the ability to fire cruise missiles. But Ticonderoga-class cruisers are literally ten times the size of Buyan M-class corvettes…