Shipbucket

Well... Here is my first ship design for my AU... The Argentinian People's Navy flagships



As part of the aid in the reconstruction of the navy, the USSR authorized the transfer of two Krivak-I frigates to replace some of the WW2 US-built destroyers. These were modified upon new user's request before being handed over, being finally commissioned by the APN in 1978-1979... Modifications were basically:
_ Deleting of one 76mm Gun
_ Adding a Helipad
_ Replacing the aft SA-N-4 and its associated radar with two AK-230 CIWS (mounted side-by-side) and a Drum Tilt FC radar respectively
_ Replacement the SS-N-14 system with four P-15 Termit anti-ship missile launchers
With these modifications, a more balanced and multirole design was obtained, instead of the strongly ASW oriented original Krivaks

I know that only two of them can seem few for the, at that time, blue-waters Argentinian Navy, but the new People's Navy will be a much more modest coastal sea-denial force... Anyway, there are many ships yet to come, yeap, mostly corvettes... , but maybe also even a frigate...

Sorry for the outdated drawing ... but the basic design was done in 2009, and it has been hibernating until today that, with minor changes, I finally decided to publish it ...

I hope you like it! And as always... Any questions, suggestions, comments or criticism will be welcomed!!!

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WIP:
Argentine Socialist Republic AU

That seems downright reasonable! P-15 seems awfully long in the tooth by 1980, but I guess that's still what the Soviets were selling.

Hi Progress:
An intresting ship, more balanced than the original soviet ship. May I ask something: Anything for an embarked COAN? Cheers.

Thanks for your comments!!!!
Unfortunately, the aircraft carrier, and cruisers, will be decommissioned... Politically speaking, the new leftist government considers those ships "imperialist power projection tools" (oddly, don´t seems to think the same about the amphibious force that keeps in service ) Personally, I don´t think it worth keeping it anyway... There are not many non-US options available to effectively equip it. (could it be converted in a helicopter carrier, but I see that just a waste of resources), and last but not least, these vessels consumes a lot of resources due to their heavy escorts requirement, so I prefer a more modest "Sea-denial" navy, than to have the bulk of the fleet dedicated to defend a single (underequipped & underused) capital ship... So there will be no embarked naval aviation, besides some helicopters. Altough there will be some land-based anti-ship aircraft, but probably being part of the Air Force...

With most of the US-built equipment affected by an embargo, Navy's Skyhawks will join the Air Force ones to keep as many as possible operative, and form the bulk of the Ground Attack/CAS force during the early years, until they can be replaced by a new model (licence-built J-22 Oraos ).

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WIP:
Argentine Socialist Republic AU

Nice work Progress,

In the AU world maybe the Argentine Socialist Republic has some future as a peer adversary for my Democratic Commonwealth of the Falkland Islands???

Do you have any thoughts on it's Pre-Cold War history?

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DCFI (Falkland Islands) AU Nation

Thanks Oberon_706!!!

Honestly, the hypothesis in this AU is that the rest of the world continue more or less as in real life, but I don´t rule out making another AU in the future taking in consideration yours... Could be interesting ... As a curiosity, my first AU was one where the British invasions of the River Plate succed and they become a British colony (actually in the AU they managed to conquer the current provinces of Buenos Aires, Cordoba, and souther half of Entre Rios and Santa Fe, not the entire viceroyalty...) (This is what happens when you divide your country with friends during a boring psychology class during High school... )

The ASR was born in 1974, so no pre Cold War history, you can read more general concepts of this AU in the related FD Scale Topic... http://www.shipbucket.com/forums/viewto ... =27&t=6268, and if you want, check out the designs there...

Also, I take this opportunity to post another "old & outdated" design ... Although this has undergone several mutations in these years ... It's the first locally designed and built ship of the ASR, the Orca (Killer Whale) Class:


Two of these units were commissioned in 1986 and 1988... Based on the hull of the prolific Koni frigates, they have a redesigned superstructure and weapons fit, their propulsion being two-shafts Diesel only, so its maximum speed is reduced compared to the original Koni, in exchange for a slightly greater range and autonomy... Different developments, as improved series with new sensors and weapons and a variant for the Prefectura Naval (Coast Guard)* were canceled after the crisis following the collapse of the USSR...

*maybe an unfinished under-equipped hull will end there, i´m thinking about it...

As I said earlier, this design underwent numerous changes during its conception, so I'm not as convinced of it as with the Krivaks, so any comments and/or criticism will be welcomed!!!

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WIP:
Argentine Socialist Republic AU

Interesting design, such a configuration might even be sorta workable as an upgrade on the existing Konis. May I ask why the bridge and forward deck are so different from the Libyan Pr.1159TR version? If you stick to that baseline and replace the aft weaponry with your helipad and hangar, the re-design costs will go down that much.
About the removal of the third shaft, I can't say I am convinced that it would be that straightforward, but I'm no expert at that kind of things. Feels like the hull has been optimized for high speeds, and also that with such a multi-role frigate profile, you might want to keep the high dash speed. Just, you know, turn off the turbine most of the time.

Regarding your AU, you mentioned in your FD thread that your ASR would be mostly unaligned like Yugoslavia. I like the idea of tying in to the Yugo/Romanian cooperation of that era, and can't wait to see your localized Orao variants
Besides the USSR, have you considered Chinese assistance as well? The way you have modified Soviet designs remind me of the 80s-90s experiments around the Type-053 hulls. Some co-development might make sense here.

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Hmmm...are you really sure you'd want to have these fairly low freeboard, shortlegged and extremely cramped vessels? Mind you, even Gorshkov, while advocating for a Soviet blue-water navy had to be content with ships that best could be described as more of "brown-water" type naval units rather than truly blue-water types. Personally, I think your Socialist government is showing an incredible degree of incompetency by accepting these second-rate Soviet vessels! They certainly doesn't compare with the Type 42s, the Gearings or the much later Meko 360.

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My Avatar:Петр Алексеевич Безобразов (Petr Alekseevich Bezobrazov), Вице-адмирал , царская ВМФ России(1845-1906) - I sign my drawings as Ari Saarinen

Thanks for your feedback!!!

@citizen lambda

While studying the 1159TR design, ASR Navy Officers complained about the disposition of the RBU, which in their opinion, severely limited it's usefulness... On the other hand, the ASR government believe that the Koni was affordable enough to use it as basis for a local development, as a measure to promote industry, not only by building them, but also to acquire know-how in the design of modern warships...

Cooperation with China is one of the possibilities, but although theoretically the ASR is a non-aligned country, his main partner is the USSR, and cooperation with China would be limited to second-level programs with low technological content ... Moreover, in those years China still had little to offer in the naval field... Later, especially after the collapse of the USSR, and the improvement of QC on Chinese products, cooperation was increased significantly ...

About the powerplant, I'm also not 100% sure of the viability of the conversion, I am not a naval engineer, although I have seen more rare and complicated ones. The idea is that inside the APN there is still a mixture of Western influences, and I tried to reflect that in the design... (adding a light shipborne helo, for example, AFAIK almost unseen on other "eastern" navies) and when comparing other corvette designs ( as the Khukri, Tetal II, A69 or Joao Coutinho classes, among others), the vast majority used a 100% diesel propusion... Yes, a gas turbine engine will give few extra knots, but I think most of the time would be dead weight and wasted internal volume. The idea behind this design is that the Orca frigates would patrol acting as leader of other ships like Nanuchkas or other FACs, using its longer ranged sensors and helicopter for scouting (I modified the Alouette with an ORB-31 surface search radar to emphasize its role...), so I prefer to sacrifice some knots in behalf of a greater autonomy, but I will think more about it... I never went to something even close to a school of naval warfare, and my doctrines are totally homemade, based on what I read in books and internet... So probably are totally wrong... As I said earlier, this particular design has mutated a lot, and probably will keep doing it ...

@bezobrazov

I agree, but based on what I have seen and read, unfortunately for me (well.. I already knew, and had to assume it in this AU), in the socialist bloc the Navies have always been the "poor cousins"... At the same time, the Argentine rearmament program of those years was quite ambitious, even too much I would say... The Type 42 was at that time an state-of-the-art air-defence destroyer, and many top tier countries would have dreamt of having something like that on their navies... so I think the bar is set too high to compare it with a "socialist" navy...

The USSR, as I said, unfortunately for me, never exported anything bigger than a light frigate in quantity... A few Skoryy destroyers (already outdated in mid 70's), a single Kotlin, and (excluding India, that plays in a different league...) a single Kashin... that, I must said, I don't think it suit the needs of the ASR better than a modified Krivak... which, inexplicably to me, beyond a deliberate lack of intention of doing so, were never exported... And they even made less to promote local development of such vessels ... The only exception has been the Romanian Marasesti, and as far as I know, it has been proven itself very troublesome and a not very successful design...

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WIP:
Argentine Socialist Republic AU

Sure, the Chinese are not forward in ship development and quality at this point in time, that's why I mentioned co-development instead of import. If your Argentine yards and designers have good ideas and experience about how to outfit ships, and their concepts match the PLAN's, maybe China can make use of the ASR's development capability, while the ASR relies on China's material stocks and sheer building rate. But as you said, if quality is more of an issue than quantity, this is probably not happening in the first years. Another way is joint development with second-tier unaligned countries (Romania, Yugoslavia, Iraq? Vietnam?), like for the Orao.
Understood. Turns out you end up close to where the Project 1124.0 started before turning into a full-fledged frigate (then known as the Novik): a large missile ship with its load of anti-ship missile, and enough hull to carry its own helicopter. Mind you, the Soviets never went anywhere with the concept, which always ended up as a complete 4000-ton multi-role frigate. Between Projects 1244, 1154 and 1166, this is a textbook example of unchecked feature creep
About propulsion, I don't doubt that your pure-diesel model makes sense for the mission; I was mostly concerned with the engineering involved in tearing out the turbine and a shaft (if you start with a complete), or the usability of the extra engine room for additional fuel for a new build. As in, as opposed to building a new hull from scratch around two large diesels.
Agree with you here, that the navy would not necessarily have been priority n°1 for the ASR. On the other hand, Bezobrazov has a point, and Argentina used to have significant blue-water big-ticket items (cruiser, carriers...), and it would be a bad decision for the country to let all that go, whatever the politics behind. However (again...) were these high-end capabilities anything more than white-elephant status symbols for Argentina? Were they actually useful in their national doctrine? But then we come back full circle...
To summarize, you have to decide two things:
1) What are the naval ambitions of your ASR? Pure survival, i.e. coastal defense against invasions? Control of its EEZ and sea lanes, where you need more OPVs and light frigates? Or regional hegemony where you absolutely need to keep an edge over your neighbors and intimidate larger powers?
2) What are the remaining capabilities after the revolution? Have any major ships been lost/scuttled/exiled? Are the crews and training centers still operational? Is your country embargoed and can you still get fuel for your ships? I have to go out on a tangent here to keep in mind that in most revolutions, the Navy is among the most conservative branches (See Britain, France, Russia, Iran...), and at least the officers might not get along with the plan. Means most of your HQ staff and best ship commanders will live the first day of the Glorious Regime of the Socialist Republic either a) on the first flight to Madrid or Miami, b) rotting in a prison cell, or c) tied up to a pole with a blindfold on, for a last cigarette in the sun
If it turns out that way (which depends on the social and political layout of your naval officer class), it will take years and lots of foreign assistance to rebuild capability, and in the meantime, as you suggested, it will be in the political interest of your regime to officially renounce their blue-water capability, which may then never come back.
Don't rule out India as an example either. Remember that they were nominally non-aligned (with other weapons suppliers than the USSR) and pretty much cash-strapped, but they had a lively shipbuilding industry, a strategically interesting location and regional ambitions. So the example of the Kashin Mod might not be as exotic as that for your ASR.

Regarding the other small-scale exports (to Poland and the like): in my understanding, the Warsaw Pact forces were pretty closely integrated with the Soviet forces, so that the single Polish destroyer (which makes no sense in a stand-alone navy) would be one more destroyer in a common WP squadron made up to 90% of Soviet ships. This cannot apply to your case, obviously, so even as a Soviet ally, you need your own green-water fleet, like India. Otherwise, open a large naval base to an officially non-existent rotating squadron of Soviet ships and airplanes, and fall back on coastal defense, like Vietnam. Depends on your naval ambitions and what's left of your capabilities, for which see above.

Edit: forgot to mention, but there is one class that you can order from the Soviets in the 80s to rebuild a nascent blue-water fleet: Project 1135.1 Nerei/Krivak-III.
Larger hull, good sea-keeping, built-in helo hangar, low-cost low-density middle-range multirole weaponry, decent sensors.

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Soviet Century/Cold War 2020 Alternate Universe: Soviet and other Cold War designs 1990-2020.
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