Things haven’t been so good for the Russian Navy, since the fall of the USSR. Under Brezhnev, the Russian navy looked pretty impressive-they were building quite modern surface ships, and were even contemplating building modern fleet carriers. Now, it looks like the ships are going to ruin…the money to maintain the ships just insn’t ther, and deterioration is setting in. I heard that the one fleet carrier they were constructing had been sold to china (it is part of an amusement park!). And, the submarines can’t be in great shape (witness the KURSK disaster of a few years back).
So, what is left of this onec-proud force? What would happen if the Northern Fleet were to sally forth to engage the US Navy? How long before most of it would be on the bottom?
Are the Russians building any advanced submarines anymore? Anything that could be a match for a seawolf-class fast attack sub?
There are some pretty comprehensive resources, online. The Federation of American Scientists has an inventory of their ships, along with some analysis and commentary. That might be your best starting point.
Seems to me that it’s smaller than before, having junked a lot of it’s older and less capable vessels. But it still is pretty formidable and has capabilities that could devastate any opponent, whether we’re talking about a “conventional” naval war or a nuclear exchange.
I don’t beleive there are any new procurements planned for the Russian fleets. The Russian Air Forces haven’t bought any aircraft in several years.
AFAIK, Russia’s later subs are quite competitive with ours. I understand their subs are often believed to have better power-to-weight ratios than ours, for whatever that is worth. I also hear that compared to ours, they have more compratments that can
be sealed off, with the idea that this makes them more “survivable” and resistant to battle damage. Of course, the Kursk incident shows how fast a submarine can sink. compartments notwithstanding.
This comes from this site which is a link from Cerowyn’s site. The page has lots of sub info which may help answer some of your questions.
IFAIK, the Admiral Kuznetsov is the only currently commisioned aircraft carrier. It should be noted that it uses a ski-jump type deck, as opposed to a steam catapult. Their was another similar carrier being built, but I believe it was recently sold (in its uncompleted condition) to India.
There was a plan to make a carrier (the Ul’yanovsk class) that was more comperable to the US CVN carriers (flat deck, steam catapult, nuclear powered) but that is on hold for the forseable future.