Russia's Nuclear Battlecruiser Ambitions

This National Defense Magazine article discussing Russian nuclear powered warship ambitions for the future is interesting.

The Russian navy recently announced plans to build either a nuclear powered destroyer or cruiser — depending on translation — by 2016.

The pronouncement, made at the 5th Maritime Defense Show in St. Petersburg, caused an uncomfortable surprise in many naval circles.

A move to build a nuclear surface ship would give Russia a capability that is not currently possessed by most navies around the world. These potential nuclear powered surface ships would be faster, not as dependent on supply ships for refueling, and have the ability to traverse greater distances. In terms of future technology capacity, it could also provide greater energy resources to charge directed energy weapons.

The Russian navy’s ambition is worth examining because it suggests that the Russians have a different view of the cost versus benefits of fulfilling their evolving mission needs. These developments, further, should be analyzed in the context of planning and designing future U.S. combatant warships.

I believe we are past that point considering recent laws that have been passed related to nuclear power for surface vessels, laws that require nuclear power for ship types over a certain tonnage absent a waiver. One would imagine that the waiver for nuclear power for future Navy vessels includes a cost-benefit analysis.

Either way, nuclear power is already part of the future US Navy, indeed the new laws are one of many reasons the US Navy is calling the AMDR warship a DDG-51 Flight III instead of DDG(X). By using an old warship program to move forward, the Navy is avoiding Congressional requirements of new ship classes; requirements like nuclear power but also to leverage previous success of the DDG-51 program to avoid any potential Nunn-McCurdy issues. Maybe that isn't the intent by the Navy, but with a complete redesign for the AMDR ship, it sure looks like it.

Still, the NDM article goes on to make several interesting points about nuclear power in the Russian fleet. Worth reading in full.

Meanwhile, the Russian Navy is reportedly showing the flag off Syria. While it represents a show of support for Assad, via naval diplomacy, it is noteworthy in the regional media Russia is getting a lot of political mileage out of an old Kashin frigate .

Naval diplomacy - in the words of my teenage daughter, it's so underrated. Except, when naval diplomacy comes in the form of those large nuclear surface combatants, it isn't really overrated at all.