Surface Forces: January 28, 2002

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The Russian Navy is planning for the future, but its future will be mainly as a coastal defense force. The first of a class of ten new coastal defense corvettes has been laid down. In theory, a decade from now, Russia will be in better financial shape and can build a class of ocean-going destroyers to maintain some oceanic capability. The new frigates are known as Project 20380. Each is 1,900 tons and carries a single 100mm A190 cannon. The design includes two Kashtan-1 inner-layer defense systems, a bow sonar, a Positiv-MAE surveillance radar, a Garpun-B missile targeting radar, and space for a Ka-27 helicopter. The main armament will be either six vertically-launched Klub missiles or eight horizontally-launched Uran missiles. The ten ships will be built one per year; the keel of the first (Stereushchiy) has been laid and it will be delivered in 2005. There is considerable doubt that the ships will be built on schedule; another "coastal corvette" (the Project-12441 Novik) was started in 1997 at Kaliningrad but little work has been done on it.--Stephen V Cole

 

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