Shipbucket

Hello everyone,

After going through the IRL Project 956 series and the few documented unbuilt variants, I've been wondering how the latter could have been made to work at the time.
The Project 956U variants I described previously had some unexpected features, which were not all retained when the IRL development that was the Pr.956EM built for China entered service.
This suggests that the documented Pr.956U configurations were less than ideal.

So, in order to try my hand at tweaking real-life designs to my liking* I gave a shot at a "workable" Pr.956U configuration:

This is still mostly consistent with the drawings available, with the following alterations:
- The second Fregat radar array has been replaced with the same Pozitiv(?) used on the Pr.956EM, with the platform merging into the topmast to support the weight and diameter of the cover. Added a pair of Spektr-F laser/missile warning receivers for good measure.
- The little platform on top of the hangar now carries a Pal-type navigation radar for helicopter control. The Yagi antenna has been moved to the rear of the topmast where it it often found on earlier variants.
- The Kortik CIWS have been moved to a position similar (but not identical) to that on the Pr.956EM ships. The platforms are more directly derived from the ones for the legacy AK-630s, obviously widened to the Kortik plan-form and deepened to take the missile magazines. Plan views suggest that this fit would be tight but workable, with the notable exception of firing missiles when a helo is being pulled into/out of the hangar. This has the added advantage of restoring gangway around the helipad as well as the RBU-1000 that had surreptitiously disappeared from the Pr.956U drawings, leaving the "upgraded" variant devoid of all close-in ASW self-defenses.
- The Oniks VLS pad has been densified to carry 8 triple launchers. Sources are unclear in the first place, but I originally considered this layout unrealistically packed. This new version provides a clean +300% increase in SSM load-out, and I'm not sure that underway maintenance inside the casing would have been feasible anyway.
- Reworked central superstructure for more working space, added cradle for third boat and some more chaff/flare launchers.


Secondly, here is a try at the more radically modified Project 956.2.
This hasn't been included in the original thread on account of being even less documented than the Pr.956U. It's never a good sign when you have to scale up your reference drawings to match SB scale...
Still, this version is based on Alexei Sokolov's Alternativa, with a ladleful of interpretation and some personal modifications to taste.
The original concept replaces the consistently unreliable compact steam boiler-turbine assembly of the original Pr.956 design with a COGAG layout, at the price of a new 12m-long hull section amidships.
In addition to the second stack, Sokolov outfits this ship with:
- The CIWS layout from the VLS-armed Pr.956U variants (2 Kortik pairs)
- A second solid mast between both stacks, carrying a large 3D radar (tentatively identified as the Podberyozovik-ET1)
- A larger VLS array for UKSK cells replacing the Oniks VLS array
- Launchers fir RPK-9 Medvedka light ASW missiles amidships

There's no accounting for personal taste (and source quality), so I added or moved the following:
- Added the original Pr.956A mainmast, absent from Sokolov's drawing
- Aft CIWS pair on same position as in reworked Pr.956U above
- Forward CIWS pair moved forward of the bridge and inwards, central superstructure narrowed down, in order to remove the extra sponsons visible under the Kortiks on Pr.956U
- EW fit moved to a more central position, Monolit missile uplinks moved up to the new radar mast for better range, added a pair of SATCOM bubbles.
- The new structures are slightly better integrated than on the Pr.956U, but hopefully little enough that it still looks like a Soviet ship


This is a fairly conservative upgrade with most of the original equipment still in place, but I plan on adding more versions to re-trace a tentative evolution of the project, both for new-builds and mid-life upgrades.

In both cases, nothing revolutionary so far, but I'd appreciate feedback from more experienced designers on the modifications.
Go wild!

*I'm planning more of these post-90s Soviet designs, as well as for other countries in the same context of the surviving USSR. More non-derivative designs feel necessary before I can expand on that topic in good conscience, which means, don't wait up on me!

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Soviet Century/Cold War 2020 Alternate Universe: Soviet and other Cold War designs 1990-2020.
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They look good to me (as designs - as drawings they are excellent), and I guess that judging from the quality of Your work so far You wouldn't overlook anything obvious.

Fabulous. I do wonder, though: doesn't super-duper-new-built Sovremennys imply that somebody is unhappy with how the Udaloys turned out? It seems like it'd be easier and more sensible to build new variants of the latter.

You have a point, but I'm not giving up on the Udaloy, since there are a lot of reasons why both classes would keep building well into the 90s:
- In a competitive environment where money is tight, every program keeps a shipyard afloat, and I can't see Zhdanov voluntarily renouncing one of their major programs without a replacement.
- Both Udaloy and Sovremenniy classes are designed for different requirements, the former for high-seas ASW with a major sonar fit and helo facilities and a dense if compact AAW bubble added, and the latter for landing support and medium-range air defense of amphibious forces. Both would be further upgraded around their respective roles, but...
- No true multipurpose destroyer would emerge from any of these two classes. Not that no-one has tried. The way I see it, you can't easily shoehorn a full ASW suite in a Sovremenniy hull, and an Udaloy would lack space for a more escort-oriented AA fit.
- A real multirole destroyer would be in the pipeline at the time the Pr.956.2 above would be built, but wouldn't emerge until several years later, as a clean-sheet design on a new hull. In the meantime, there are capability gaps to fill and old hulls to replace.
- New systems are coming down the pike which can be used to make both classes more versatile (which is what happened with the Pr.1155.1 Udaloy-II), and after a while the VMF is bound to refuse unimproved ships designed 20 years ago.

To summarize, the existence of a second-generation Pr.956.2 does not preclude that of an improved Pr.1155 in parallel, considering that both will be interim designs built in limited quantities until a new destroyer class can take over.

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Soviet Century/Cold War 2020 Alternate Universe: Soviet and other Cold War designs 1990-2020.
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If I remember correctly, the gas turbines of the Udaloy's was their main weakness, both in quality and manufacturing output as they were only made in one factory.
If this 956.2 is based on some aborted real-world project, then I wonder if the Soviets had decided to scrap the Udaloy programme at some point (none of the more crazy class modifications like minesweepers went very far) when the planned numbers were completed (which I guess would have been around 1993-94 when the last of the Pr.1155.1s would have completed for the border guard). Otherwise running two parallel programmes might have been very hard unless low rates of production were expected.

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I had never heard anything about the Pr.1155 turbines being a weakness in terms of quality and (I assume) reliability, but it has been mentioned that the low production rate of gas turbines was one of the reasons for the Pr.956 getting steam boilers.
So, yes, building turbines for both further Pr.1155.1/1155.2 and Pr.956.2 would entail a lower production rate overall, but I don't see anything critical about that.

Again, the fact that there were new versions of the Pr.956 planned doesn't preclude further development and production of the Pr.1155, and vice versa. From the very beginning, both projects were running in parallel, because both designs had complementary rather than concurrent mission profiles. With a more-or-less intact shipbuilding industry, I can see both projects tooling along until the turn of the century, churning out low amounts of interim hulls to fill gaps in the TOE until the brand new destroyer class being designed by Zhdanov enters production. Together, both projects would have turned out some 33 hulls between 1976 and 1995 (with optimistic targets for the remaining Pr.1155.1 and 956U), so I don't think rounding that up to 40 until 2000 would be unfeasible.

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Soviet Century/Cold War 2020 Alternate Universe: Soviet and other Cold War designs 1990-2020.
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OK, for a bit of variety, I have fitted the current Project 956.2 with more modern weapon systems, to whit:
- A new A-219 single-tube 130mm gun turret, in the original non-stealthy cupola, with the associated 5P20 Puma FC radar
- A full-size VLS array for the Tornado/Shtil SAMs, with 3x8 cells fore and aft in place of the single-arm launchers. Some extra space had to be taken up on the forward block (and one saluting gun removed) but the lost internal space is more than compensated by that taken from the Moskit launch bins being faired over.
- The original DTA-53 heavy torpedo tubes have been replaced by new lightweight quad-406mm tubes for self-defense. The launchers are related to the TR-224 from the Pr.1141/1145 hydrofoil ASW boats. The torpedoes could be some Otto-fuel active-sonar cousin of the APSET-95. No reloads are carried in the current configuration.
- The Medvedka launchers are installed for side-firing and faired over.

Other than that, the layout is left untouched and the sensors conserved from the previous version:


And now we get to the tricky part: adapting the Pr.956.2 to a next-generation AAW outfit, complete with a first-generation fixed phased array radar.
Please note that this drawing is a draft version so far and therefore includes some unfinished business and the new elements used are close to standard.
Broadly speaking: The foremast has been completely removed and replaced with an octagonal housing with four rectangular radar arrays angled 45° from the centerline and about 15° upwards. Each array is associated with a smaller IFF antenna on its scan sector. The main objective of that radar array is target designation and tracking for the SAMs, rather than longer-range surveillance, for which the Podberyozovik mech-scan is retained. That being said, I don't trust a late-90s Soviet PESA to be able to handle SARH illumination in and of itself, so this version retains 4 of its 6 Orekh/Front Dome illuminators.

Full disclosure: so far, this version looks so half-baked and in-between that I can only regard it as an evaluation platform for the scanned-array radar (compared with the Project 1134BF for the S-300).

Any opinions (even incendiary) on the radar installation? The viability of the new radar fit for air defense? What else to do with the free space on the radar mast?

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Soviet Century/Cold War 2020 Alternate Universe: Soviet and other Cold War designs 1990-2020.
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Great stuff. I know so little about USSR ships it's great to see a really informative thread.

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I don't think you'd need fixed IFF antennas, since Podberyozovik would have its own array. I don't think the rear-facing phased arrays would really have much of a view aft -- maybe they could flank the helo hangar?

I think you're overly skeptical of Soviet phased arrays, at least at X-band. They were probably ahead of the West on phased-array fighter radars, which they could probably leverage here.

I echo Colo's feelings, aside from appreciating an excellent drawing I've learned quite a bit about systems from your recent works.

I've nothing substantial to add, but these look good. The first real proper post-1990s Soviet AU ships that look plausible I've seen in a long time.

Would topweight be an issue with the phased array version?

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Never-Were British Aircraft