Expert: Russia Lacks Long-Term Navy Development Program

02.08.2012 Delays in construction of new Russian warships are related to several mistakes made by Navy command and government, reports Vedomosti citing Valentin Pashin, academic adviser and deputy director of the Krylov Central Research Institute which is Russia's principal shipbuilding research organization.

According to Pashin, Russia lacks a long-term navy shaping strategy and has too wide variety of classes and projects of ships to be constructed.

Meanwhile, the US has a navy development program for the next 40 years which remains the same even if naval command changes. In Russia, there are numerous short-term programs exposed to influence of "opportunistic or human factors". "Each new naval boss has own views on ships in particular and the Navy in general, and that's fair enough", said the expert. As a result, number of types and classes of warships is huge.

"Look what happens – four classes of corvettes, two projects of frigates, list of various boats is endless. As for me, that was a mistake to discontinue construction of Project 11356 frigates at Baltiysky Zavod after the first three ships were build for India. Technology and production process were mastered enough and we'd better keep on producing the series", Pashin said. Indeed, Project 11356 frigates are presently built for Russian Navy.

Nevertheless, construction of Project 22350 frigates is also in progress which causes overspending of resources. As for Pashin, to puzzle out "the reasons of unmeasured variety of projects", one should conduct a thoughtful analysis, "otherwise we will build only lead ships". Besides, Russian Navy command wants technically sophisticated ships with large number of innovations which increases technical risks, costs, and so, extends production period.

"However, world practice shows that new projects must not contain more than 30-40 percent innovations, the rest things must be well-mastered equipment", explained Pashin. According to him, construction of lead ships is financed as research and development works; that is very convenient for shipbuilders but unprofitable for the military. The point is that outcome of research and development works "cannot be predicted either from the viewpoint of deadlines, or price, or final result".

Speaking of Lada-class non-nuclear submarines, Pashin said that the project was extremely protracted. Russia has all technologies needed to build such subs; however, at first, the delay was caused by technical reasons, and then – by human ones. In particular, there were certain mistakes in sourcing as some suppliers had not appropriate experience.

"Moreover, all those talks that Russia has no technologies and we can't design are nothing but lies. I assure you, at least the Krylov institute does hold the world's top positions", added Pashin.