It's too bad Russia chose the path - well, the path the kleptocrats chose - she's on when the USSR dissolved. At the time, it seemed like we were reaching "the end of history", as Francis Fukuyama optimistically - and incorrectly - put it.
When
Marshal Ustinov visited Halifax in 1993, they opened her up to the public for tours, although we only got to look around the upper decks. She looked quite intimidating from afar, bristling with guns and missile launchers. But, up close, I could see how crudely built she was - welds were of inconsistent quality and not a straight line to be seen. I guess "fit and finish" was a foreign concept. That said, I had no reason to believe she wasn't as deadly as she appeared.
Russian Warships Dock In Canada For First Time In 51 Years | AP News
Even though Russia isn't presently a shining example of sound fiscal management, in 1993, she was an utter basket case. Our government paid for the fuel she needed for her trip. The public was asked to donate care packages (toothpaste/brushes, shampoo, razors, chocolate, etc) for the Russian crewmembers when they came to tour the ship.
A guy I know actually took a couple of the crew home and treated them to a BBQ, then took them for a walkaround tour. They were walking past a seedy bar, when the Russians became gob-smacked by the row of Harley Davidsons parked outside. My friend had to stop the guys from sitting on them for photos - they were Hells Angels' bikes.
My initial impression is that the Slava class cruisers themselves are fairly crude, but the anti-ship missiles appear to be fairly sophisticated.
>>>[T]he P-1000 Vulkan has been a part of Russia’s effort to modernize its navy’s missile capabilities. The P-1000 Vulkan features titanium armor and parts, instead of the heavier steel components comprising its predecessor. . . . The P-1000 Vulkan is launched in a salvo, where one missile acts as a scout to discriminate targets, and can prioritize the largest ship in a fleet. The scout seeker missile flies at an altitude between 5000-7000m to identify targets, while the other three maintain mid-level altitude. All four missiles in the salvo then go silent and lower to about 10-40 meters above sea-level to avoid radar detection. Once they reach the radar horizon, the missiles lock on to their targets and attack.<<<
missiledefenseadvocacy.org
The one (operational?) Russian aircraft carrier seems to be notorious for being a floating (at least so far) breakdown looking for a place to happen. The U.S. navy was apparently more concerned about it sinking than about it attacking anything.
>>>In any case,
Admiral Kuznetsov isn't likely to survive past the 2020s—when the Kremlin is expected to
retire her. Until then, there’s little doubt the U.S. and its allies will keep a close eye, in case the aging flattop becomes a hazard to herself, her crew and anyone nearby.<<<
In December 2011, the Russian navy’s aging, poorly-maintained aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov departed from its northern base on the troubled vessel’s fourth deployment to the Mediterranean Sea. True, the full-size carrier—which displaces 55,000 tons fully loaded—has a history of mechanical...
warisboring.com
Here's a quote from the article linked to in the above link:
>>[W]hen Russia’s only aircraft carrier, the
Admiral Kuznetsov, sailed for Syria well over a year ago, a source close to the U.S. Navy told me that the American Sixth Fleet was on hand in case of an emergency. What kind of emergency? “The
Kuznetsov might sink.”<<<
As Russia plays war games on imaginary NATO targets and Putin pumps billions into the army, the country’s neighbors grow concerned about the return of Kremlin’s military muscle.
www.thedailybeast.com
The Daily Beast article (2017) is also somewhat interesting, and discusses the corruption in Russia:
>>>In 2011, Transparency International’s Bribe Paying Index ranked Russia as the worst in the world for perceived likeliness for palm-greasing. About 16 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product—$300 billion out of $1.5 trillion—is frittered away annually in corruption schemes.
It seems highly likely, then, that Russia’s military modernization program will similarly devolve into a racket. . . .
. . . Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russia’s security services . . . agrees that military
modernizatsiia is a convenient cover for greasing the palms of Russia’s already surfeited officer class. “Efforts to build a million-man army and massive new procurement programs seem to be mechanisms to keep generals in work and transfer tax money to the defense-industrial sector and corrupt managers and middlemen rather than having any bearing on Russia’s genuine security needs,” Galeotti said, citing as the most pressing security need, the rise of a domestic ultra-nationalist far right—which has taken to riots and pogroms against migrant workers in recent months—and a more muscular China. <<<
The conclusions of the Daily Beast article are, however, not especially prescient:
>>>All of this suggests that the more immediate threat that a re-energized and revanchist Russia poses to the West
isn’t advancing armies or aerial assaults but a sophisticated combination of hard and soft power plays that have become something of a Putinist stock-in-trade. These will include new trade wars, cyber attacks, acts of espionage, energy blackmails, and a more updated version of what the KGB used to term “active measures,” that is, the spreading of misinformation and propaganda, designed to make Russia’s enemies—chiefly Washington and Brussels—look bad. So while Russia’s military strives toward great-power worthiness unto 2020, Moscow’s old hostilities will be dealt with using familiar old methods.<<<
