Russian Navy. Sad look into the future. Missile cruisers
It must be said that in the USSR this class of ships was given the closest attention: in the post-war period and until 1991 45 ships of this class (including artillery, of course) came into operation, and by December 1, 2015, 8 cruisers remained. (To the heavy aircraft carrier "Admiral fleet Soviet Union Kuznetsov ”we will devote a separate article, because, regardless of the characteristics of the domestic classification, this ship is an aircraft carrier. Today we will limit ourselves to missile cruisers.)
Missile cruisers (RKR) project 1164. 3 units
Displacement (standard / full) - 9 300 / 11 300 t, speed - 32 knots., Armament: 16 PKR "Basalt", 8 * 8 ZRK C-300F "Fort" (64 ZR), 2 * 2 -MA ”(48 ZUR), 1 * 2 130-mm AK-130, 6 30-mm AK-630, 2 * 5 533 torpedo tubes, 2 RBU-6000, hangar for Ka-27 helicopter.
All three ships of this type: "Moscow", "Marshal Ustinov", "Varyag" are in the ranks of the Russian Navy, the first of which is the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet, and the last - the Pacific.
Heavy nuclear missile cruiser (TARKR) project 1144.2. 3 units
Displacement (standard / full) - 23 750-24 300 / 25 860 - 26 190 t. (Data in different sources differ greatly, sometimes the total displacement of 28 000 t. Is indicated.), Speed - 31 knots, weapons - 20 CRP XRUMX t.), Speed - 6 knots, weapons - 8 CRP XRUMX t. ", 48 * 46 ZRK" Fort "(16 ZUR)," Fort-M "(8 ZUR), 128 * 6 ZRK" Dagger "(144 ZUR), 1 ZRAK" Kortik "(2 ZURK), 130XXXXX -mm AK-130, 2 * 5 533-mm torpedo tubes with the ability to use PLUR of the Vodopad-NK complex, 2 RBU-12000, 1 RBU-6000, hangar on the 3 helicopter.
It was assumed that all three ships of this type, "Peter the Great", "Admiral Nakhimov" and "Admiral Lazarev", would be built according to one project, but in fact they were not identical and had some difference in the nomenclature of weapons. The “Fort-M” air defense missile system is installed only on Peter the Great, on the remaining ships there are two Fort air defense missile systems, their total ammunition is 96 missiles, not 94, as on Peter the Great. Instead, the Dagger and Dagger ZRAK on Admiral Nakhimov and Admiral Lazarev set up Osa-M SAM systems (2 per ship) and eight 30-mm AK-630. "Peter the Great" and "Admiral Nakhimov" have 2 RBU-12000 and one RBU-6000, but on the "Admiral Lazarev" - on the contrary, one RBU-12000 and two RBU-6000.
"Peter the Great" is currently serving in the Northern Fleet of the Russian Federation, "Admiral Nakhimov" is being modernized. “Admiral Lazarev was withdrawn from the fleet.
Heavy nuclear missile cruisers (TARKR) project 1144.1. 1 units
Displacement (standard / full) 24 100 / 26 190 t., Speed - 31 knots, armament - 20 PKR "Granit", 12 * 8 ZRK "Fort" (96 ZUR), 2 * 2 ZRK "Osa-M" 48 ZUR), 1 * 2 PU PLUR "Blizzard", 2 * 1 100-mm AK-100, 8 30-mm AK-630, 2 * 5 533-mm torpedo tubes, 1 RBU-CHNXX12000-2, 6000, 3, XNUMX * SNNXX * XNUMX hangar on XNUMX helicopter.
The firstborn of the TARKR class in the domestic fleet, in the USSR received the name "Kirov", in the Russian Navy - "Admiral Ushakov". Dismissed from the Russian Navy in 2002, but not yet utilized.
Needless to say, all the missile cruisers that we have are inherited from the USSR by the Russian Federation. Only Peter the Great was under construction in the Russian Federation, but it was launched in 1989 and by the time of the collapse of the Union was in a fairly high degree of readiness.
Soviet missile cruisers are unique in their own way. weaponcreated in the framework of the concept of combat use of the Navy of the USSR. We will not analyze in detail today. history their creation, because both the RNR of the 1164 project and the TARKR project of the 1144 project are worthy not even of a separate article, but each of a series of articles, but we confine ourselves to the most general milestones.
For some time (after the Second World War), NATO carrier groups were considered the main adversary of our fleet, and during this period the concept of the USSR fleet suggested combating them in our near sea zone, where surface ships would work together with the missile carrier aviation. Although it is worth noting that even then we built completely ocean-going ships, such as Sverdlov-type artillery cruisers (project 68 bis) - apparently, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin well understood that the ocean fleet is an instrument not only of war, but also of the world.
However, after the appearance in the composition of enemy fleets of nuclear submarines (carriers of ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads, SSBNs), they became a priority goal for our Navy. And here the USSR has, we will not be afraid of this word, insoluble conceptual difficulties.
The fact is that the range of even the very first ballistic missiles of a SSBN was several times greater than the combat radius of deck aircraft, respectively, enemy SSBNs could operate at a greater distance from our shores. In order to counteract them, they had to go to the ocean and / or remote sea areas. This required fairly large surface ships, with powerful sonar equipment, and they were created in the USSR (BOD). However, the BOD, of course, could not successfully operate in the conditions of the overwhelming domination of the United States and NATO in the ocean. In order for the USSR PLO groups to successfully carry out their functions, it was necessary to somehow neutralize the American aircraft carrier and shipboard attack groups. On our shores, this could have been done by the MRA (naval rocket-carrying aircraft), but its limited radius did not allow it to operate in the ocean.
Accordingly, the USSR needed a means of neutralizing the NATO AUG away from its native shores. Initially, this task was assigned to submarines, but it soon became clear that they would not solve this problem on their own. The most realistic way - the creation of its own carrier fleet - for a number of reasons turned out to be unacceptable for the USSR, although domestic sailors really wanted aircraft carriers and eventually the USSR began to build them. However, at the end of 60 and the beginning of 70, aircraft carriers could only be dreamed of, the NPS could not independently destroy the NATO fleets in the ocean, and the country's leadership set the task of destroying the SSBNs.
Then it was decided to shift the focus on the creation of new weapons - long-range anti-ship cruise missiles, as well as the space target designation system for them. The carrier of such missiles was to become a new, specialized class of ocean surface strike ship - the missile cruiser.
What exactly it should be, there was no clarity. Initially they thought about the unification based on the BOD project 1134 and 1134B, so that using the same hull to create ships PLO (that is, BOD), air defense (with accommodation on them the air defense system "Fort") and percussion - carriers of anti-ship missiles. Then they abandoned this in favor of the 1165 rocket cruiser Fugas, which carried both the PKR and the Fort, and then it was closed due to too high a cost - the ship was supposed to be made nuclear. As a result, they returned to the BOD of the 1134B project, but decided not to do unification in a single hull, but a significantly larger missile cruiser based on it.
The idea was to create a flagship of the PLO group, equipped with powerful attack and anti-aircraft weapons, the latter was supposed to provide not object, but zonal air defense (that is, to cover the entire group of ships). So there was a missile cruiser project 1164.
At the same time, and in parallel with the development of a new missile cruiser, domestic design bureaus designed a BOD with a nuclear power plant. They started in the 8 000 tonnage, but later the sailors' appetites grew and as a result, the ship turned out to be a standard displacement of the order (or even higher) 24 000 ton, equipped with almost all the weapons nomenclature existing at that time. Of course, this is a heavy nuclear missile cruiser project 1144.
The fact that the 1164 project was originally created as a missile cruiser, and the 1144 project as a BOD, to some extent explains how in the USSR at the same time, in parallel, two completely different ships were created to perform the same tasks. Of course, such an approach cannot be called sound in any way, but it must be admitted that as a result of this, the Russian Navy received two types of extremely beautiful ships instead of one (forgive me, dear reader, such a lyrical digression).
If we compare the Atlanta (ships of the 1164 project) and the Orlans (the 1144 project), then, of course, the Atlants are smaller and cheaper, and therefore more suitable for high-volume construction. But, of course, the “Orlany” is much more powerful. According to the views of those years, in order to “pierce” the AUG air defense and inflict unacceptable damage to an aircraft carrier (to completely disable or destroy) it was necessary to carry 20 heavy anti-ship missiles in one salvo. Orlan had 20 Granites, the 949A Antey nuclear missile-carriers launched 24 such missiles (to guarantee, so to speak), but Atlanta carried only 16 Basalt. On the Orlans there were two “Fort” air defense missile systems, which meant there was an 2 post for the tracking and target-tracking radar “Volna”. Each such post could direct 6 missiles to 3 targets, respectively, the ability of Orlan to repel massive raids were much higher, especially since Atlanta located in the stern radar "does not see" the nasal sectors - they are closed by the cruiser superstructure. The closest air defense of the Orlan and Atlanta was comparable, but on the Peter the Great, instead of the outdated Osa-M, the Dagger was installed, and instead of the metal cutter AK-630, the Kortik was installed. At Atlanta, due to their smaller size, such a modernization is hardly possible.
In addition, the Atlantov PLO was deliberately sacrificed: the fact is that the placement of the powerful Polynom at that time increased the ship’s displacement by about one and a half thousand tons (the GAK itself weighs about 800 tons) and this was considered unacceptable. As a result, “Atlant” received a very modest “Platinum”, suitable only for self-defense (and even then not very much). At the same time, the capabilities of the Orlan underwater search are not inferior to those of specialized BOD. The presence of an entire air group of three helicopters, without a doubt, provides the Orlan with far better opportunities for PLO, as well as search and tracking of surface targets, rather than one Atlanta helicopter. In addition, the presence of a nuclear power plant provides the Orlan with far better opportunities for escorting enemy carrier groups than Atlanta with its conventional power plant. Atlas, unlike Orlan, has no constructive protection.
An interesting aspect. For a long time it was argued that the weak point of our heavy ships was the BIUS, which was unable to combine the use of the whole variety of weapons installed on cruisers. Perhaps this is true, but the author of this article came across in the network description of the exercises, in which a heavy nuclear missile cruiser, having received airborne target data from the DRLO A-50 aircraft (the target was not observed from the cruiser), issued target designation to the anti-aircraft missile system of a large anti-submarine ship and that without observing the air target himself, and using exclusively the target command received from TARKR, he struck her with an anti-aircraft missile. The data is, of course, completely unofficial, but ...
Of course, nothing is given for nothing. The size of the Orlan is amazing: the full displacement in 26 000 - 28 000 t makes it the largest non-aircraft ship of the world (even the cyclopical SSBN of the 941 "Shark" project is still smaller). Many foreign reference books call the “Peter the Great” a “battlecruiser,” that is, a battle cruiser. No doubt, it would be right to adhere to the Russian classification, but ... looking at the impetuous and formidable silhouette of the Orlan and recalling that combination of speed and fire power that the battle cruisers showed to the world, one wonders: there is something in it.
But such a large and heavy-armed ship turned out to be very expensive. According to some data, the cost of TARKR in the USSR was 450-500 million rubles, which brought it closer to heavy aircraft-carrying cruisers — the TAVKR project 1143.5 (hereinafter “Kuznetsov”) cost 550 million rubles, and the atomic TAVKR 1143.7 - 800 million. rub.
By and large, the Soviet missile cruisers had two fundamental flaws. Firstly, they were not self-sufficient, because their main weapon, anti-ship missiles, could be used for over-the-horizon only by external target designation. To this end, the Legend reconnaissance and target designation system was created in the USSR, and it did allow the use of anti-ship missiles at full range, but with significant restrictions. Passive radar reconnaissance satellites could not always reveal the enemy’s location, and there were never many satellites with active radar in orbit, they did not give 100% coverage of sea and ocean surfaces. These satellites were very expensive, they carried a powerful radar, which allowed NATO warships to be monitored from orbit 270-290 km in height, a nuclear reactor as an energy source for the radar, and a special accelerating stage, which, after the satellite has exhausted its resources , had to withdraw its reactor to orbit 500-1000 km from Earth. In principle, even from there in the end, gravity will pull the reactors back, but this should have happened no earlier than in 250 years. Apparently, in the USSR it was believed that by this time the spacecraft would already be plowing the spaces of the Galaxy and with numerous reactors rolling into the atmosphere we would somehow figure it out.
But what is important is that even the USSR could not provide absolute coverage of the earth’s surface by active satellites of the Legend system, and this meant that one had to wait until the satellite passed over the necessary part of the sea or ocean. In addition, satellites in relatively low orbits, and even unmasking themselves with strong radiation, could be destroyed by anti-satellite missiles. There were other difficulties and, in general, the system did not guarantee the destruction of enemy AUG in the event of a global conflict. Nevertheless, the Soviet missile cruisers remained a formidable weapon and not a single American admiral could feel calm, being within the reach of the Kirov or Glory missiles.
The second big disadvantage of domestic RKR and TARKR is their high specialization. By and large, they could destroy enemy ships, lead and control the actions of a detachment of ships, covering them with their powerful air defense missile systems, but that's all. Such cruisers did not pose any threats to coastal targets - despite the presence of an 130-mm artillery system, it was an excessive risk to bring such large and expensive ships to enemy shores for artillery shelling. Theoretically, the heavy anti-ship missile could be used to destroy ground targets, but practically there was little point. According to some reports, the Granit PKR cost about the same, or even more than the fighter she currently has, and few coastal targets were “worthy” of such expensive ammunition.
In other words, the Soviet concept of countering enemy AUGs: the creation of long-range anti-ship missiles and their carriers (RKR, TARKR, Antey submarine-carrying missile carriers), reconnaissance and target designation systems for these missiles (Legend) and at the same time also the strongest sea ground-based missile-carrying aviation was comparable in cost to building a powerful carrier fleet, but did not provide the same broad capabilities for the destruction of surface, submarine, air and ground targets as those possessed by aircraft carrier groups and.
Today, the capabilities of the Russian Navy missile cruisers are significantly reduced. No, they themselves remained the same, and despite the emergence of newer defensive weapon systems, such as ESSM or SM-6 anti-aircraft missiles, the author of this article absolutely did not want to be in the position of the American admiral, whose flagship aircraft carrier Peter the Great launched two dozen "Granites". But the capabilities of the Russian Federation to target the heavy anti-ship missiles were greatly diminished: the Legend was in the USSR, but it self-destructed when the satellites exhausted their resources, and no new ones appeared, Lian could not be deployed. No matter how much NATO's data exchange systems were extolled, their counterpart existed in the USSR Navy (mutual information exchange station or DPSD) and the missile cruiser could use the data received by another ship or aircraft. This possibility exists now, but the number of ships and aircraft compared to the times of the USSR decreased by a factor of several. The only progress is the construction of over-the-horizon radar stations (RFED) in the Russian Federation, but whether they can provide target designation for missiles is not clear, as far as the author is aware, in the USSR they could not issue RP ZGRLS. In addition, ZGRLS are stationary large-scale objects, which, probably, in the event of a serious conflict, it will not be so difficult to damage or destroy much.
Nevertheless, today it is precisely the missile cruisers that represent the “fulcrum” of the domestic surface fleets. What are their prospects?
All three "Atlanta" project 1164 currently remain in service - one can only regret that at one time could not agree with Ukraine on the redemption of the fourth cruiser of this project, which in a high degree of readiness rots at the extension wall. Today this step is impossible, but it would be already meaningless - the ship is too old for completion. At the same time, the 1164 project was literally “stuffed” with weapons and equipment, which made it a very formidable ship, but it greatly reduced its modernization capabilities. "Moscow", "Marshal Ustinov" and "Varyag" became part of the national fleet in the 1983, 1986 and 1989 years, respectively, today they are 35, 32 and 29 years. The age is serious, but with timely repair, the RKR data are quite capable of serving up to forty-five years, so in the next decade none of them will go “retired”. Most likely, during this time the ships will not undergo any cardinal upgrades, although to exclude the installation of new anti-ship missiles in old launchers and the improvement of the “Fort” air defense missile system - however, all this is a guess.
But with the TARKR situation is not so rosy. As we said above, work is currently under way on the Admiral Nakhimov, and its modernization is quite global. It is more or less reliably known about the replacement of Granit with anti-personnel missiles at 80 of modern missiles, such as Caliber, Onyx and, in the long run, Zircon. As for the air defense missile system, initially there were rumors in the press about the installation of the Polimet-Redut system on TARKR. Perhaps, initially such plans existed, but then, apparently, they were abandoned, or perhaps it was originally the speculation of journalists. The fact is that Redut is nothing more than medium-range air defense systems, while C-300-based complexes have a much longer arm. Therefore, the most realistic look is information that the "Admiral Nakhimov" will receive a "Fort-M", like the one that was installed on "Peter the Great". It can also be assumed that the complex will be adapted to use the latest missiles used in the C-400, although this is not a fact. The AK-630 “Metal Cutters” will be reportedly replaced with the “Dagger-M” SIGNATURE. In addition, the installation of the package-NK anti-torpedo complex was planned.
On the timing of repairs and upgrades. Generally speaking, the Admiral Nakhimov TARKR was located at Sevmash from 1999, and in 2008, spent nuclear fuel was unloaded from it. In fact, the ship was sludge rather than under repair. The contract for modernization was concluded only in 2013, but preparatory repair work began earlier - from the moment it became clear that the contract would be concluded. It was assumed that the cruiser would be handed over to the fleet in 2018 g, then in 2019, then the date was again called 2018, then 2020, and now, according to the latest data, it will be 2021 year. In other words, even if we assume that the timeframe does not “leave” again right, and to count the start of repair from the moment the contract is concluded (and not from the actual date of the start of repair), it turns out that repair of Admiral Nakhimov will take 8 years.
A little about the cost. In 2012, the head of the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) State Defense Order Department, Anatoly Shlemov, said that the repair and modernization of the cruiser would cost 30 billion rubles, and the acquisition of new weapon systems - 20 billion rubles, that is, the total cost of work on Admiral Nakhimov »Will be 50 billion rubles. But you need to understand that these were only preliminary figures.
We have long been familiar with the situation when the time needed to repair ships and the cost of repairing them significantly increases from the original. Usually shipbuilders are reproached for this, they say they have forgotten how to work, and appetites are growing, but such a reproach is not quite true, and anyone who worked in production will understand me.
The fact is that a full assessment of the cost of repair can be made only when the unit being repaired is disassembled and it is clear what needs to be repaired, and what needs to be replaced. But in advance, without disassembling the unit, to determine the cost of its repair is akin to fortune telling on the coffee grounds. So-called schedules of preventive repairs help a lot with this “fortune telling,” but under one condition - when they are executed in a timely manner. But with the repair of ships of the fleet, there was a problem back in the USSR, and after 1991 g, one might say, it disappeared - due to the absence of any repair.
And now, when a decision is made to modernize this or that ship, a kind of “cat in a bag” arrives at the shipyard and immediately guess what needs to be repaired and what is not, it is almost impossible. Real repair volumes are already being identified in the course of its implementation, and, of course, these “discoveries” increase both the repair timeframe and its cost. The author of this article is not trying, of course, to portray shipbuilders "white and fluffy", there are enough of their problems there, but the displacement of terms and cost has not only subjective, but also quite objective reasons.
Therefore, it should be understood that 50 billion rubles, voiced by Anatoly Shlemov in 2012, is only a preliminary estimate of the cost of repairs and upgrading of Admiral Nakhimov, which will significantly increase in the process of work. But even these 50 billion rubles. in today's prices, if we recalculate through official data on inflation (and not real inflation) make 77,46 billion rubles, and taking into account the “natural” increase in the cost of repairs, perhaps no less than 85 billion rubles, and maybe even more.
In other words, the repair and modernization of the TARKR project 1144 “Atlant” is an extremely long and costly thing. If we try to express its cost in comparable terms, then the return to operation of the Admiral Nakhimov will cost us more than three frigates of the Admiral series or, for example, more expensive than building a Yasesen-M submarine.
The next “candidate” for modernization is TARKR “Peter the Great”. For a cruiser that went into service in 1998 and has not undergone major repairs since then, it is time to make a kapitalku, and if so, then at the same time it is also worth modernizing it. But "Admiral Lazarev", obviously, will not be modernized, and for several reasons. First, as mentioned above, the cost of modernization is extremely high. Secondly, to date, only Sevmash can repair and modernize such a level of complexity in the Russian Federation, and in the next 8-10 years it will be occupied by Admiral Nakhimov and Peter the Great. And thirdly, “Admiral Lazarev” was put into operation in 1984, today “34” already “knocked” him. Even if you put it in the shipyard right now, and taking into account that there it will stay at least 7-8 years, then after upgrading it is unlikely to last more than 10-12 years. At the same time, "Ash", built around the same money and in the same time frame, will last at least 40 years. Thus, even the immediate installation of Admiral Lazarev in repair is a rather dubious event, and even undertaking to repair it in a few more years will not make any sense at all. Unfortunately, all of the above applies to the head TARKR "Admiral Ushakov" ("Kirov").
In general, we can say the following: for some time the situation with the missile cruisers in the Russian Federation has stabilized. In recent years, we had three ships of this class ready for the march and battle: Peter the Great, Moscow and Varyag were on the move, Marshal Ustinov was undergoing renovation and modernization. Now “Ustinov” has returned to service, but it’s time for the “Moscow” to be repaired, then the Varyag will probably be repaired. At the same time, “Peter the Great” will be replaced by the “Admiral Nakhimov”, thus we can expect that in the coming 10 years we will have two cruisers of the 1164 project and one - of the 1144 project. But then “Atlants” will have time to gradually retire - after a decade their lifespan will be 39-45 years., But the Admiral Nakhimov will perhaps remain in the fleet until the 2035-2040.
Will they be replaced?
This may sound seditious, but it is completely unclear whether we need missile cruisers as a class of warships. It is clear that today the Navy of the Russian Federation needs ANY warship, because their numbers have long broken the bottom and, in their current state, the fleet cannot even perform such a key task as covering the deployment areas of SSBNs. In addition, it should be understood that in the future, with the economic policy that the country's leadership is pursuing today, there are no rivers of abundance in our budget foreseen, and if we want to get sometime capable and to some extent respond to our naval objectives , then ship types should be selected taking into account the cost-effectiveness criterion.
At the same time, it is extremely doubtful that the class of missile cruisers satisfies this criterion. For ten years now there has been talk of creating a promising destroyer, and after the start of the HPN 2011-2020, some details about the future project appeared. It became quite clear from them that, in essence, it was not a destroyer that was designed, but a universal missile-artillery surface combatant ship equipped with powerful attack weapons (cruise missiles of various types), a zonal air defense system, the basis of which was to become the S-400 air defense missile system, if not C -500, anti-submarine weapons, etc. However, such universalism obviously does not fit into the dimensions of the destroyer (7-8 thousand tons of standard displacement), respectively, from the very beginning it was said that the displacement of the ship of the new project will be 10-14 thousand tons. In the future, this trend continued - according to the latest data, the displacement of the Leader-type destroyer is 17,5-18,5 thousand tons, while its armament (again, according to unconfirmed rumors) will amount to 60 anti-ship cruise, 128 anti-aircraft and 16 anti-submarine missiles. In other words, this ship, occupying an intermediate position between the modernized Orlan and Atlanta and having an atomic power plant, is a full-fledged missile cruiser. According to the plans announced in the open press, it was planned to build 10-12 of such ships, but the more modest numbers of 6-8 units in the series also “slipped”.
But what is the cost of implementing such a program? We have already seen that repair and modernization of TARKR according to preliminary (and obviously underestimated) forecasts in 2012 g cost 50 billion rubles. but it is obvious that the construction of a new ship would have been much more expensive. It would be completely unsurprising if the cost of the destroyer “Leader” in 2014 prices would be 90-120 billion rubles, or even more. At the same time, the cost of a promising Russian aircraft carrier in 2014 g was estimated at 100-250 billion rubles. In fact, of course, there were many assessments, but the words of Sergei Vlasov, the general director of Nevsky PKB, are most weighty in this case:
At the same time, Sergei Vlasov clarified:
The author of this article does not at all call for the next "holy war" in the comments between opponents and supporters of aircraft carriers, but only asks to take into account the fact that the implementation of the program of serial construction of destroyers (and in fact - heavy nuclear cruisers) "Leader" comparable to the program of the creation of the carrier fleet.
Let's sum up. Of the seven missile cruisers that did not go under the gas cutter before 1 December 2015, all seven have been preserved to date, but there are no chances for two TARKRs, Admiral Ushakov and Admiral Lazarev, to return to the fleet. In total, the Russian Navy has five missile cruisers, of which three non-nuclear (1164 projects) will leave the system approximately in 2028-2035, and two nuclear ones may well even live up to 2040-2045.
But the problem is that today we have 28 large oceanic non-avian ships of the ocean zone: 7 cruisers, 19 destroyers and BOD and 2 frigate (counting as such for the 11540 project TFR). Most of them were commissioned in Soviet times, and only a small number of them were laid down in the USSR and completed in the Russian Federation. They become obsolete physically and morally and require replacement, but there is no replacement: until today, in the Russian Federation, not a single large surface ship of the ocean zone has been built (from laying to submission to the fleet). The only replenishment that the fleet can count on in the next 6-7 years is four frigates of the 22350 project, but you need to understand that these are frigates, that is, ships that are inferior to the destroyer class, not to mention the missile cruiser. Yes, we can say that the armament of frigates of the type “Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Pots” is far superior to what, for example, our destroyers of the 956 project had. But you need to understand that for its time, the "nine hundred and fifty-sixths" were quite competitive with American destroyers of the Spruens type, in response to which they were created. But the frigate "Gorshkov", with all its undoubted merits, is not at all the modern version of the "Arly Burk" with its XYUM cells of the air defense system, the LRASM anti-ship missile and the anti-aircraft defense based on SM-96 SAM.
The “Leader” project destroyers were positioned as a replacement for the 1164 project missile cruisers, the 956 project destroyers and the 1155 BOD project, but where are these “Leaders”? It was speculated that the first ship of the series would be laid before 2020, but it remained well-intentioned. As for the new HPN 2018-2025 - at first there were rumors that the “Leaders” were removed from there altogether, then there was a denial that work on them would be carried out, but funding (and the pace of work) on this program were reduced. Will there be at least the first "Leader" in time to 2025 g? Riddle. A reasonable alternative to the “Leader” could be the construction of frigates of the 22350M project (in essence - “Gorshkov”, increased to the size of the destroyer of the 21956 project, or “Arly Burke”, if you like). But so far we have not the project, but even the technical specifications for its development.
The conclusion from the foregoing so far only one. The surface ocean fleet, inherited by the Russian Federation from the USSR, dies, and nothing, alas, does not replace it. We still have a little time to somehow correct the situation, but it is rapidly ending.
Продолжение следует ...
- Andrei from Chelyabinsk
- Russian Navy. Sad look into the future
Russian Navy. A sad look to the future (part of 2)
Russian Navy. Sad look into the future. Part of 3. "Ash" and "Husky"
Russian Navy. Sad look into the future. Part of 4. "Halibut" and "Lada"
Russian Navy. Sad look into the future. Part of 5. Specialty boats and this weird EGSONPO
Russian Navy. Sad look into the future. Part of 6. Corvettes
Russian Navy. Sad look into the future. Part of 7. Small rocket
Russian Navy. A sad look into the future: a mine-catastrophe
Russian Navy. A sad look into the future: domestic destroyers
Russian Navy. Sad look into the future. Frigates
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