Russian Project 23550 Icebreaking Patrol Vessel in Sea Trials

By Chuck Hill on July 7, 2024

"The Project 23550 Ice-class patrol ship "Ivan Papanin", built for the Russian Navy at "Admiralty Shipyards", went to sea for factory sea trials.
https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/21229221

We have a couple of reports that the first of four Russian Project 23550 ice class patrol vessels is conducting sea trials. Two are expected to go to the Russian Navy and two to the Russian Coast Guard.

From The War Zone, "Russia's New Combat Icebreaker Starts Sea Trials"
Frome Army Recognition's Naval News, "Russian Navy's new Ivan Papanin Project 23550 combat icebreaker begins sea trials with Kalibr missiles"

We have talked about this class many times going back to 2016, most recently in a post, "Arctic Patrol Cutter, State of the Art–Revisited."

Perhaps too much is made of the fact that these ships can carry two containers that might contain cruise missiles. The real story is that just about anything that can carry containers can also carry a variety of containerized weapon systems, offensive or defensive. The US has fired Tomahawk and Standard missiles from their Mk70 containerized launchers. Even Iran has fired ballistic missiles from shipboard containers.

Russia already has a host of cruise missile launchers in the Arctic, aircraft, submarines, surface ships, and ground launchers. Should these ships receive containerized cruise missiles, they will only marginally improve Russian offensive capability.

Alternately, two containers on the stern might be used to house a towed array and torpedoes to give the ships an ASW capability.

These are probably excellent Arctic Patrol Vessel, but they are not impressive as warships, their defensive capabilities are lacking, having no AAW or anti-surface capability beyond a single medium caliber gun.

Any reporting you may see to the contrary, these are not the first "combat icebreakers" in the Russian Navy or Coast Guard. They are just the latest in a long string including eight Ivan Susanin class, three American built Wind class, and the Puga laid down in 1938 but not completed until 1957. Even the icebreaker Krassin, completed in 1917, and now a museum ship, was armed with four 76mm during WWII.

The Russians may take advantage of these ships to more widely distribute their cruise missiles, but that is secondary to their primary purpose as patrol vessels.