Russian Navy retains all ships
In the 90-ies, the Russian Navy did not lose a single valuable ship.
All combat units that could solve tasks at the level of the best world analogues were equipped and armed with the most modern weapons - remained in the ranks and well and good health today.
Horror stories about how “damned enemies under cover of night drove the ships to a groove in Alang” or “sold the cruisers to the Chinese for a penny”, or “cut the newest boats for the sake of American“ friends ”, do not correspond to reality.
If you do not agree with this statement, check out the list of the Navy. Key facts, specifications, dates of commissioning and decommissioning fleet.
Now name at least one modern at the time, really combat-ready ship that would just be sent for scrapping.
The main reason for write-off is absolute moral obsolescence. As a rule, associated with physical deterioration caused by decades of service.
What tasks could the destroyers of 56 and 57 projects deal with in the middle of the 1950s?
Why do the fleet include dozens of patrol boats of the 159 Ave. and small anti-submarine ships of the 204 Ave? By the time of the cancellation, most of them did not go to sea for ten years, simply “hovering” on the balance of the Navy.
Why did over two hundred diesel submarines of post-war projects rust at moorings?
For what? Right, what a question! To blow up the number of personnel and, consequently, increase the number of admiral posts.
For the same reason, the service of conditionally combat-capable 1-2 submarines was extended.
With all due respect to the creators of these vintage masterpieces, as of the beginning of 90, no real problems could be solved. Any technique has its limits.
Writing off obsolete ships was a natural process, regardless of the political situation in the country.
All of the above is true for missile cruisers and BOD 60-70-ies.
The large anti-submarine ships of the 61 project, the RNR of the 58 “Grozny” projects and the 1134 “Berkut” were over 30 years in service. Some insisted on their modernization and extension of service life. Are you seriously?
Helicopter "Leningrad" and "Moscow" from the 1960-s. By the end of the century, they were completely outdated from keel to dung, and the capabilities of their wings were inferior to any Mistral.
Actually, I'm not going to look for all the flaws in the ships of the cold war era. Suffice it to say that even relatively modern ships that were sent for scrapping had major problems.
Therefore, it was decided to write them off.
Those combat units with which there were no questions, continued service and still survive with us.
Among those less fortunate:
Destroyers Ave 956. The ships were destroyed by an unreliable boiler-turbine installation.
The world's largest submarine "Shark". The series was created for solid propellant rockets with a mass of 90 tons (like the three modern Bulava). The industry could not at that time ensure the fulfillment of the TK requirements with smaller rockets.
With the advent of more compact weapons, the need for “Sharks” simply disappeared. Doubtful achievements of the giants leveled quite real flaws. Two reactors, two propellers, maximum dimensions - max. disturbances in the Earth’s magnetic field, the maximum area of the wetted surface. More noise - less secrecy. In combat it is deadly.
Reconnaissance ship CER-33 “Ural”, which since the entry into service had a constant list of 2 hail. to port side.
Its creation is proof of the great possibilities of science and industry of that time. But still, at the stage of issuing the TK, someone had to think: could such a complicated ship be operated in real conditions? Will proper l / s training and equipment be provided with the necessary specialists? Will the compatibility and performance of countless radio-electronic means and systems be ensured in practice?
Probably not thought. Hence the result. In 1989, the intelligence officer "Ural" made the transition to the duty station on the Pacific Fleet, after which it was permanently out of order. All the "nineties" and "zero" ship stood on the roads, now decided to dispose of the "Ural".
Aircraft-carrying cruisers “Kiev”, “Minsk”, “Novorossiysk”, “Baku”.
The hybrid of the missile cruiser and the aircraft carrier turned out to be ineffective as a cruiser, and completely inefficient as an aircraft carrier.
One fact is enough: their main weapon, an aircraft with a vertical takeoff of the Yak-38, had no radar. The appearance of the supersonic Yak-141 could not be corrected: compare its characteristics with the ship’s Su-33, with which they were born at the same time.
The composition of the weapons TAVKR corresponded to a large anti-submarine ship, despite the sixfold difference in their displacement! With the appearance of the RKR “Glory”, the comparison generally lost all meaning due to the incomparable capabilities of the TAVKRs and “normal” cruisers armed with 16 “Basalt” and the long-range anti-aircraft system C-300.
Plus age. The head “Kiev” served almost 20 years, most of which he spent on the roadstead, developing the resource of his GEM. Creating full-fledged base sites for TAWCs was not deemed necessary.
Subsequently, one of the aircraft-carrying cruisers (“Baku, aka“ Admiral Gorshkov ”) was rebuilt into a classic aircraft carrier and sold to India at a price of $ 2,3 billion.
Now experts will definitely remember the Ulyanovsk nuclear aircraft carrier, forgetting that at the time of the decision to disassemble it, the readiness level of the Ulyanovsk was only 18%.
The only one who can sympathize with this stories, this is the aircraft carrier Varyag, which remained in Nikolaev and was sold to China with 67% ready. After 15 years, the former “Varyag” was finally completed and introduced into the PLA Navy under the name “Liaoning”.
However, even in the case of “Varyag” it is not about the current, but about the unfinished ship. And, as the recent epic with the campaign of the Kuznetsov to the Syrian shores shows, the need for ships of this class for the Navy causes more and more doubts. And where to get the planes to equip the two ships, if in the recent march on the deck of "Kuznetsov based only 8 fighters! ..
As mentioned above, all decommissioned ships were or unreliable, or redundantly complex, or not capable, or all at once.
What about those with whom there were no problems, who met modern standards and whose presence was justified in terms of the capabilities of their fighting qualities? ALL THEY STAYED IN THE STRUCTURE.
Here it is, the backbone of the modern Russian Navy
Rocket cruiser project 1164. All three project representatives built are still in service.
Large anti-submarine ship “Admiral Chabanenko” (commissioned in 1999)
The 8 of 12 ships of the 1155 family have been saved and survived to our day. One of the four decommissioned BOD was the victim of an accident (the explosion of a turbine at the Admiral Zakharov BDK, 30-hour fire). The remaining three, for technical reasons, were put into reserve and dismantled already in “zero” years.
Undergoing modernization of TARKR “Admiral Nakhimov” in the drained pool of PO “Sevmash”
Underwater strategic missile carrier pr. 667BDRM “Dolphin”. All seven units - in the ranks!
The third-generation multipurpose submarine of the 971 Avenue Pike-B. The backbone of the submarine fleet, from 13 built 11 boats kept in the Navy. By age, the two earliest representatives of the project, built at the beginning of the 80s, were written off. The hull sections of the "Shchuk" written off were used to complete the construction of the strategic "Boreyev"
Amphibious ships of 775 Ave. from the “Syrian Express”
Finale
Bulk write-off modern ships in the 90-ies. there is a figment of the public imagination.
Only the most outdated and problematic units were written off, the real combat capability of which caused doubts. And the country's economy of dubious experiments is no longer pulling. The deterioration of the economic situation is not good, but keeping hundreds of units of rusty rubbish on the balance sheet is also not a good idea.
Similar processes took place in the United States, where 300 combat ships were written off during that period, including all 9 nuclear cruisers, 7 aircraft carriers and 60 nuclear submarines. At the same time, frankly, many of the American ships were “still nothing” against the background of what our military had to write off.
Atomic cruiser type "Virginia"
Contrary to the prevailing stereotypes, the fleet in 90-s not only wrote off ships, but even managed to replenish with new ones. The Kursk, which was tragically lost, was the newest nuclear-powered nuclear-powered ship built in the 1995 year. A total of five atomic submarines were built at that time. And all modern projects also originate from the 90-x. The head "Ash" was laid in the 1993 year, and the first of the "Boreev" - in 1996.
The habit of blaming all modern problems on the “dashing nineties” seems unreasonable. First, the ships at the time were built at the very least. And if “for garlic”, they were built much faster than today. Secondly, that era has already become history.
The culprits of the scandalous "protracted" and postponement of the delivery of ships should be sought among contemporaries, and not among historical characters.
Also a myth is the lack of capacity and qualified personnel. If the shipbuilding industry really experienced such intractable problems, how would export ships be built?
Who replaced the 234 hull section and power plant of the aircraft carrier Vikramaditya?
Who built four destroyers for China and six more Indian Talvars?
Who put 15 submarines for export to the Indian, Algerian and Vietnamese Navy?
Pride takes for the domestic industry. Damn it, we can! But there is an ambiguous situation with the navy.
Returning to the title of the article ... We could not find a single clear example when modern combat-capable ships would have been withdrawn without any reason. There were no such cases in 90.
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