• PugJesus@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    46
    ·
    23 days ago

    If only Ukraine had serviced Russia’s military after it invaded them; then Russia’s military wouldn’t have been provoked into invading them 😔 /s

  • tal@lemmy.today
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    46
    ·
    edit-2
    23 days ago

    A few more bits:

    • From a skim, aside from the one carrier (different form of conventional power) and two cruisers (nuclear) that Russia has, it sounds like pretty much all of Russia’s large warships used Ukrainian gas turbines and are affected.

    • Apparently, Russia arranged for a Russia-based gas turbine manufacturer (UEC Saturn) to make new gas turbines of this sort (D090 and DT59). It sounds like, however well their engines work, their production rate is limited, so it’s going to take a long time for them to put out enough new gas turbines for the fleet.

    • Russia apparently attacked the Ukrainian gas turbine plant in question, Zorya-Mashproekt, on March 13, 2022.

      https://www.csis.org/analysis/spotlight-russias-attack-ukrainian-marine-gas-turbine-supplier

      As the imagery indicates, Russia’s stand-off strikes damaged significant portions of the plant and caused large fires, likely crippling the plant’s ability to produce turbines in the near term.

      This is in Mykolaiv. Looking at the Battle of Mykolaiv timeline, it sounds like the strike happened at about the point that it was clear that Russia wasn’t going to be able to take Mykolaiv. On the other hand, I doubt that it had a lot of near-term military utility to Ukraine – Ukraine’s navy had no large ships at that point. It essentially just killed Russia’s chances of somehow capturing it. However, given that Ukraine didn’t have ships to use gas turbines from it in, and Russia probably wasn’t getting them in the near future, the immediate impact was on India, which operates some Russia-originating warships (including some that Russia was supposed to still be building). Ukraine had been providing India with parts, and so the practical near-term impact of Russia hitting the manufacturer was to dick over India’s navy pretty hard.

      https://indiandefenseanalysis.wordpress.com/2024/01/07/bharat-forge-to-design-and-manufacture-marine-gas-turbine-engine/

      At present, most of the Indian Navy’s warship uses the marine gas turbines from Ukraine’s Zorya as their primary source of propulsion. These warships include Veer class missile corvettes, surviving Rajput class destroyers, Delhi Class destroyers, Talwar Class frigates and newly commissioned Visakhapatnam class destroyers.

      Four more Talwar class frigates of Russian design are under construction at shipyards in Russia and Goa, also use engines from the Zorya facility. To power all these warships, Indian Navy needs more than 130 marine gas turbine engines and few spare turbines.

    On the whole, it kind of sounds to me like Russia would maybe have been better-off leaving it alone.

    Also, from a commercial note: it also doesn’t sound like the effect was to cause India to go with Russia’s UEC Saturn, winning Russia some funds and leverage with India. Subsequent to the attack, apparently, India (Bharat Forge) decided to buy a controlling interest in the Indian arm of the Ukrainian manufacturer and try to build up their own indigenous production capacity.