On the comparative value of Russian and American warships, or Arly Burke against our corvettes
In this article we will try to deal with the comparative cost of building warships in the Russian Federation and the United States using the example of the 20380 and 20386 corvettes, as well as the latest version of the American destroyers Arly Burk - the IIA + series, which the Americans started to build on after as it was decided to abandon the further production of the Zamvolt destroyers.
Let's start with the domestic ships, for which we use the bmpd blog information, which, in turn, gathered them from the annual report of PJSC Shipbuilding Plant Severnaya Verf (St. Petersburg) for 2016 a year. The 1007 order is a corvette of the 20380 project "Ardent", the order of 1008 - the corvette of the same project "Strict", but the "Brash", built on the project 20386, takes place in the document as "Order 1009".
So, we see that the estimated cost of the "Reactive" is 17 244 760 thousand rubles., "Strict" on 85 thousand rubles. more expensive, but the "Bold" is an astronomical 29 080 759 thousand rubles. That 1,68 times more than the "strict". It seems to be a stunning difference ... but let's take a closer look at it.
The first thing that catches the eye is the difference in the “age” of the ships, because both 20380 corvettes were contracted under the 2014 State Defense Order, but the “Daring” corvette within 20386. The total difference between orders is 2016. , and this is quite significant in view of domestic inflation, which in the period 2-2014. was just colossal. According to Rosstat, in 2015 g, inflation was 2014%, and in 11,36 g - 2015%. Thus, the rise in prices from 12,91 January 1 g to 2014 January 1 g amounted to unbelievable 2016%.
Let us take as a basis the cost of the “Strict” corvette, since it is closer in its terms of construction (delivery in 2021 g) to “Daring” (2022 g) than “Retive” (2020 g). In 2014, the ship cost a little more than 17,3 billion rubles, but if we convert it to 2016 prices, then, taking inflation into account, its value will be 21 789 951,55 rubles. That is, in comparable prices, the cost of the corvettes of the project 20380 and 20386 differ not in 1,68, but only in 1,33 times. Anyway a lot? Well, let's take it further.
Let us ask ourselves the question - how correct is the price in 17,2-17,3 billion rubles. for corvettes project 20380? It seems to be strange to ask about this, but in fact, with a high degree of probability, these figures are lower than the real price of the corvettes. The fact is that the pricing for military products is calculated using the good old-fashioned cost method: that is, the company first "incites" the planned costs of creating the product, "winds" on it the allowed rate of profit of the Russian Defense Ministry and coordinates the resulting cost estimates with representatives of the Ministry of Defense. And in several instances, each of which seeks to reduce something in the presented calculation (otherwise they will think that people do not work!).
But the price is finally agreed, the contract is approved and concluded. However, if the product has a long (long-term) production time or many products are ordered to be produced within a few years, then the RF Ministry of Defense has an “excellent” way to optimize its costs. It looks like this.
The fact is that the prices of materials that are accepted in the calculations, enterprises are obliged to confirm the primary documents showing that they actually buy materials for such a price. That is, at the time of the calculation of the pricing of materials in it is quite adequate, but, of course, in the case of a long-term construction of the ship (especially a series of ships) over time, these same prices will increase - inflation. So, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, of course, will allow the enterprise to increase the cost and price of the product, taking into account the increase in the price of materials for its production ... but not by the sum of the actual costs caused by the increase in prices, but only by the official inflation rate. Strangely enough, for some reason all the time it turns out that the cost of raw materials and materials grow in price much faster than the official inflation figures. That is, to put it simply, suppliers raise the price for materials by 7%, and a representative of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation says: “I'm sorry, dear, I understand your difficulties, but the official statistical bodies are sure that inflation on this type of materials is only 5%, but Who am I against Rosstat? Here on 5% I will allow you to raise the cost of these materials in the next product, and the rest is your problem. ” And it turns out that the company is forced to pay the specified 2% of the difference in the cost of materials from its own pocket.
Therefore, it turns out that for the first product (if the costs of its production are planned well, and the production workers didn’t disrupt the output), the company will receive the profit laid down by the law, but for the next ones it will not, because the real cost will be higher than that Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. Worse, it may well turn out that the enterprise will produce the last products almost at a loss. So the corny "Strict" is the sixth ship of this type for the manufacturer ("Severnaya Verf") and it can be assumed that the price tag in 17,3 billion rubles. not quite correct, and that an honest recalculation of the cost estimate would have given a substantially higher price for this corvette. This means that the price of the ship, adjusted for inflation, may turn out to be more than the 21,8 billion rubles we have calculated.
But that's not all. The fact is that comparing the cost of "Strict" and "Daring" directly ... is not that it is not entirely correct, but, quite frankly, completely incorrect, and the point is this. The Strict is a serial ship of the 20380 project, while the Daring is the lead (and possibly the only) ship of the 20386 project. What is the difference? In the cost of manufacturing equipment and pre-production.
During the construction of a ship under a new project, often the manufacturing enterprise is required to seriously upgrade its fixed assets, purchase some new equipment, rework old ones, etc. which he does not need to fulfill current orders and will be operated only in the manufacture of a new ship. In this case, such costs are fully included in the cost of products for which these costs are incurred. And so it turns out that the cost of producing the 20380 project corvettes carried out by the Northern Shipyard was distributed to at least 6 contracted ships (“Guarding”, “Smart”, “Boyky”, “Resistant”, “Retivy” and “Strict "), Which this enterprise built and is building, but the costs of preparing for the production of 20386 corvettes have completely" boomed "into the cost of the lead ship - after all, no other 20386 corvettes have been ordered! And, it must be said that there are quite a few constructive differences between 20386 and 20380, so it is quite possible that the cost of a head corvette of this type has greatly increased due to preparation for its production. Of course, if the construction of ships of the 20386 project is continued, then they will be much cheaper - once the costs of pre-production are completely “laid out” in the first ship of the series, then they will not fall into the cost of serial corvettes.
Of course, we cannot know exactly what amounts for the above needs were included in the price of “Daring” and how correct the price of 2014 g is for “Strict”. And even if they knew, this information is no longer for open press - but it is more or less reasonable to assume that if the Northern Shipyard would have ordered equal series of corvettes of the 20386 and 20380 projects, subject to simultaneous construction, then the cost of a serial ship of the type “Daring” would exceed that of the serial ship of the 20380 project by no means by 33%, but by 25 percent, but maybe less.
That is, we can justifiably assume that the cost of the corvettes of the 20386 project is not at all 68%, but only a quarter higher than 20380. But what do we get for this extra money spent?
Quite a lot.
First, the corvette 20386 is a much larger ship, its full displacement reaches 3 400 (according to other data - 3 500) t. That is, it is almost a third larger than the corvettes of the project 20380. The size advantage gives the ship an advantage in seaworthiness and autonomy: for example, the 20380 project corvette has a 3 500 range for miles on 14 nodes, and the 20386 project corvette is 5 000 miles, and although the economic speed of Daring, unfortunately, is unknown, apparently no lower than Strict.
Secondly, this is a new type of power plant. As you know, project 20380 corvettes are equipped with diesels, and, since the whole world normal ship diesels (we are talking about surface ships, not submarines) are obtained, perhaps, only from Germans and Finns, it was supposed to put German MTU diesels on corvettes. However, then the era of sanctions came, and the Germans refused to supply them to us, so that the Russian Ministry of Defense had no choice but to use the import-substituting products of the Kolomensky Zavod. And the Kolomna plant, it must be said, is unique in terms of ship diesel engines. The fact is that this plant has already promised 107 (one hundred and seven!) Years to give the fleet normal diesel engine: for the first time, he swore that he would deliver efficient engines of this type for battle cruisers of the Izmail type in January 1911. Alas, to this day his words remain words. More recently, by the way, the diesel engine of this honored manufacturer on the frigate "Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Gorshkov" broke down - it was okay to even fix it without dismantling and cutting the side. And the corvettes on these diesels without tugs in the sea is better not to let go - does it matter? In addition, it should be noted that, even putting aside the issues of reliability, a pure diesel power plant raises big questions on the ship, one of the most important functions of which is anti-submarine defense. Still, a diesel engine is a fairly noisy engine.
So, the corvettes of the 20380 project received a diesel power plant with 23 320 HP power. Well, the 20386 corvette has a fundamentally different power plant, which is based on two gas turbine engines M90FR with a total power of 55 000 hp, that is, more than twice as many as the corvettes of the 20380 project. It must be said that these engines are being installed today on the 20350 frigates, in Russia their production is mastered by the ODK-Saturn, that is, on this issue the 20386 corvettes do not depend on foreign suppliers or on the Kolomna plant, but I must say that the school gas turbine engines, inherited from the USSR is extremely strong - this is the type of marine engines that we get very well.
But what is interesting is that for the economic course, the 20386 Corvette of the project uses electric motors, which, in matters of capturing enemy submarines, look much more preferable than diesel engines. Thus, there is no doubt that the “Daring” power plant is much better suited to the domestic ship of the corvette class - it is safer, more powerful and, most likely, quieter than a diesel one. Well, do not forget that the corvette of the 20380 project has a maximum speed of 27 nodes, while the 20386 project has 30 nodes, this is also a significant advantage.
Thirdly, the composition of the 20386 corvette armament is significantly "more interesting" than that of the 20380 project counterparts. Most of the publications indicate that the "main caliber" of the newest corvette is represented by two quadruple UCR robots, and most likely this and Yes, some other sources (for example, Military Russia) indicate the presence of more powerful and, of course, more expensive Caliber family rockets. Perhaps this is still an erroneous opinion, and the Daring one hosts the 8 PKR “Uranus” "(This is exactly the opinion of the author of this article), but also in this case, its strike armament is in no way inferior to the 20380 project corvettes carrying the same UNANs 8, since the Gauges have appeared on them since the 20385 modification, and it already has a completely different price tag.
The ship's air defense system is represented by 2 * 8 launchers of the Redoubt (16 PU) air defense system against a dozen PU on corvettes of the 20380 project and a pair of six-barrel “metal cutters” AK-630М.
The other weapons of the “Bold” also correspond to what was installed on the 20380 project corvettes - a single-barreled 100-mm artillery mount (apparently, the “Bold” received an improved version of what was put on the “Stereguschie”) and two four-tube torpedo small-sized torpedo tubes “ Package-NK ", which, basically," sharpened "on opposition to enemy torpedoes, but on occasion can" work out "and the submarine.
I foresee the bewilderment of a respected reader - what is so interesting about the armament of the 20386 corvettes, if it is almost the same with ships of the “Guarding” type? Surely four additional missile launchers for Redut missiles are so important?
In fact, there is a difference, and it is enormous, except that it consists not in the number of barrels or missiles, but in the fire control systems.
We have already said many times that the “guardians” took the wrong path. For ships with a displacement of one (or two, the second - instead of the Ak-630M pair), the SIGNATURE, like the Pantsir-M, would be more than sufficient protection against an air attack, but where there! Give us all the battleships in the displacement of the ship's boat, so that after the “Watchman” the ships began to install the Redut air defense system. All would be nothing if it were not for the peculiarities of its missiles - to control the shooting, the Redoubt needs a Polyment radar, which was supposed to work in conjunction with the Redoubt, and which, apparently, has not been brought to this day, despite the fact that the first ship with the "Polymente", the lead frigate of the 22350 "Gorshkov" project was nevertheless adopted by the fleet.
But it was absolutely impossible to put the “Polyment” on a corvette, so we went the other way, deciding to train the Reduta standard-made radar of the General Review “Furke-2” to control the Missiles. Naturally, nothing sensible from the “union” of a modern air defense system with a weak general overview radar could not have turned out and, as far as the author knows, directing missiles to AGSN “Furke” never learned (except in range, absolutely ideal conditions). The only way to effectively use this SAM system in combat is possible only when used for targeting the Puma artillery SMS, which seems to be able to send missiles in difficult jamming conditions, but due to its artillery specifics, creates a number of restrictions on the use of SAM "Redoubt". In other words, they installed an air defense system on 20380 corvettes, the capabilities of which simply cannot be realized by the existing radar equipment.
In contrast to the 20380 project, “Daring” instead of “Furke” received a qualitatively different system - the multifunctional radar system (MF RLC) “Zaslon”, using radar with phased array. At the same time, it looks more like the American AN / SPY-1 (fixed grilles), but the principle of operation more closely resembles the British “Daring” - due to the combination of radars operating in the decimeter and millimeter ranges, the IFC ZLK Zaslon can perfectly control both high and low flying aerial targets. This complex can conduct not only active, but also passive search in a non-emitting mode - in this case, Barrier is able to detect and track more than 100 targets at a distance of up to 300 km. The complex is able to put active radar interference and manages passive interference, and in addition, it is able to issue target designation not only to the missile, but also to the artillery of the ship - nothing like that, of course, “Furke-2” did not know how. In other words, MF RLC Zaslon provides a qualitative superiority in the management of the corvette’s armament, which ensures a significant increase in the combat potential of the Daring in comparison with the corvettes of the 20380 project.
Although the author can not boast of absolutely reliable information, but according to some sources, the sonar equipment of the 20386 corvettes of the project also surpasses that which is installed on the “Guarding” and ships of the same type, and the same applies to the REP and EW facilities. Also, apparently, the “Daring” is more automated than the corvettes of the 20380 project - the number of the crew of the latter is 99 people, and on the “Daring” - only 80 people.
Thus, we can state that for 20-25% increase in value (hardly more) we get a ship, which in its reliability, seaworthiness, combat potential significantly exceeds the corvettes of the 20380 project. On a scale of "cost / efficiency" "Daring", apparently, have an advantage. Based on the above, the author of this article is inclined to suppose that four “Brash” are capable of doing much more than five “Guardians” in battle, and at a price they will be quite equivalent. Therefore, it is not necessary to see in the corvettes of the 20386 project any kind of “mistake”, “cut”, “budget deriban”, and so on. Rather, the construction of “Daring” is a kind of safety net in case “Polyment-Redoubt” will not be brought to mind and the frigates of the 22350 project will not justify the hopes placed on them - well, and the fact that 20380 project corvettes obviously did not justify those, today perhaps no longer requires additional evidence.
That is, in the event of the failure of the Gorshkov construction program, the fleet management remains, literally, at the bottom of the trough. The 20380 and 20385 projects are unsuccessful, the “Admiral” 11356 series frigates are, in principle, reliable and could be good if they were equipped with modern equipment (which, alas, is not present). But there are no power plants for them in the Russian Federation, so building frigates of the 11356 project serially for our fleet will fail. And if at the same time the frigates of the 22350 project turn out to be a “paper tiger”, then the fleet will literally have nothing to build. And here, like a little devil from a snuff box, the 20386 corvette suddenly appears - having an intermediate displacement between the corvette and the frigate, it is capable, in principle, of performing the functions of both, working on the power plants mastered in the Russian Federation. Instead of a non-working "Polymente", it is quite sane, although it is much inferior to it in characteristics "Barrier", which nevertheless allows you to effectively use short and medium-range missiles, well, and probably cheaper ... On the one hand, the ship seems to be “ neither a candle of God nor a devil of a poker ”, but on the other hand it could well become an analogue of the 1135 TFR, which had a similar displacement and was deservedly considered the“ working horse ”of the Soviet fleet, and that’s what we need today.
In general, the corvette of the 20386 project is very similar to such straw, which is spread where you can slip, and besides, at the same time, also a "testing ground" for working out the idea of electric propulsion - it’s not that we had no ships that went to electricity, but on military surface ships it was not used.
Well, now let's try to compare its cost with the cost of the newest Arly Burk type IIA + destroyers.
Just in 2016, when the corvette of the 20386 “Daring” project was laid, the Americans allocated funds for the construction of two ships of this type with a total amount of 3 470,1 million dollars or 1 735,05 million dollars per ship. The lead destroyer of the IIA + series, according to some data, cost the US $ 2,2 billion (but this is not certain). However, the comparison of the “Daring”, the lead ship of the 20386 corvettes series, is not entirely correct with both.
In theory, we should compare our lead ship with the lead American, but this will not be a correct comparison. The fact is that, according to the practice adopted in the USA, the cost of the lead ship is “invested” not only in the costs of preparing for production (like ours), but also a substantial part of the R & D costs associated with the creation of this ship. At the same time, such works are financed and paid separately by the Defense Ministry of the Russian Federation. That is, according to our defense order scheme, the Ministry of Defense first orders research, pays for it, and studies the result — if it is unsatisfactory, the Ministry of Defense either continues to fund research “until the bitter end”, or pays the contractor for the work actually completed and finishes the topic. Well, if the result is positive - then the order for the head and serial "products" should be, but R & D is not included in their cost - why, if they are carried out and paid for separately? So it turns out that it is impossible to compare the cost of the “Daring” with the head destroyer of the IIA + series, because the cost of the American ship is R & D, which are not taken into account in the cost of our ship. On the other hand, it is also incorrect to compare the cost of the “Daring” with the cost of a serial destroyer, because in our ship the costs of pre-production are taken into account, while in the US it is not. And what to do?
To begin with, we will determine the value of the “Daring” in US dollars. There are two methods for this. If we use the current dollar rate at 2016 g (in July it was 64,34 rubles / dollar), then we will see that the cost of the 20386 head corvette is almost 452 million dollars. That is, if a foreign customer had appeared at Severnaya Verf for this corvette, then the company would have received exactly the same revenue and profit as from the construction of “Daring” for the RF Ministry of Defense, selling this corvette at the price of 452 million dollars, for example, of the same India.
Obviously, the comparison of the “price tag” of a domestic ship even with the serial “Arly Burk” is extremely beneficial for the domestic manufacturer, because as of the 2016 g, one serial “Arly” of the IIA + series stands almost like 4 head corvettes of the 20386 project.
But in order to evaluate the effectiveness of our economy, it makes sense to use not the dollar exchange rate, but the dollar rate at purchasing power parity (PPP). What it is?
The fact is that the exchange rate of the dollar is largely a speculative figure, depending on the conjuncture in the market, supply and demand for currency, etc. But the dollar exchange rate for PPP is formed differently. A certain set of goods and services is selected. It is then estimated for how many dollars they can be bought in the USA, and for how much a similar set can be bought for rubles in the Russian Federation. The ratio of these amounts will be the dollar / ruble rate at PPP.
The easiest way to determine exchange rates for PPP is the so-called “Big Mac Index”.
In this case, only one type of product is compared - the very big Mac produced by McDonald's. So, in 2016 g in the Russian Federation, a big mac cost 114 rubles, in the USA - a 4,93 dollar, respectively, the dollar exchange rate at PPP was 23,12 rubles / dollar. These figures are taken from the weekly The Economist, which publishes the Big Mac Index on the Internet as well - you can see this by going through this link.
State statistical services determine PPP indices with much more complicated calculations that can be made only at the end of the year (the “Big Mac Index” is calculated by The Economist magazine on a weekly basis). Oddly enough, according to national statistics in 2016, the dollar rate is not too different from the Big Mac Index and is 23,67 rubles / dollar. Official data of federal statistics of the Russian Federation on the rates of currency PPP by year can be viewed here.
Here, however, a respected reader, who closely follows the publication of “VO” devoted to the fleet, may have a question, because in his recent article “It's time to learn from the enemy” the respected A. Timokhin brought a completely different exchange rate of the dollar at PPP - about 9,3 rubles ./dollar. Alas, a mistake has crept in here with a respected author - such a course (9,27 rub / dollar) really existed, but ... in 2002, and it, of course, has long been outdated and cannot be used to compare the cost of military equipment produced in 2016. Exchange rates for PPP change annually, and of course, it is necessary to apply the current rates, and not those that once existed.
So, according to our statistics, and “adopting” the dollar rate at PPN 23,67 rubles / dollar, then we get the cost of the 20386 head corvette at 1 228,6 million dollars, that is, the serial destroyer of the Arly Berk type , standing, as we said above, 1 735,05 million, more expensive than our head corvette by about 41%. However, in reality, the ratio is more profitable for our ship, because, as we have said, it is incorrect to compare a serial American ship with our lead ship.
And what will happen if we compare the serial corvette of the 20380 project with the serial “Arly Burke”? As we have said, the cost of the sixth corvette of this series, contracted in 2014 (“Strict”), was 17 329 760 rubles, taking into account inflation, that is, in 2016 prices, this will be 21 789 951,55 rubles. that is, at the dollar rate at PPN 23,67 rubles / dollar, the value of the “Strict” in dollars will be 920 572,52 dollars.
Thus, the cost of a serial "Arly" is 1,88 cost of a serial corvette of the project 20380. And if our assumption that the cost of a serial corvette of the 20386 project on 20-25 exceeds the cost of a serial ship of the 20380 project is true (and most likely the way it is), the American destroyer will be more expensive than the serial “Daring” 1,51-1,57 times. Or, roughly speaking, for the resources that Americans spend on Arly Burk on 2, we can either build an 3 corvette of the 20386 project, save some money, or build an 3 corvette of the 20386 project and bring the fourth building to about 80% of readiness .
However, we have to admit that neither the 3 “Daring” or the 4 “Strict” in their combat capabilities and alongside stood in two destroyers of the type “Arly Burk” of the IIA + series. And this suggests that we are not rationally using our resources, since on the “cost-effectiveness” scale, American ships obviously outperform ours. But the problem here is not that our shipbuilding works inefficiently, but in the depravity of the concept of building the surface forces of the domestic fleet.
The fact is that in the cost of a modern ship a large proportion is occupied by weapons and combat systems. In the case of Arly Berkov, it turns out that the cost of a ship (hull with add-ons and equipment) is approximately 35% of its total cost, the cost of an information system is 20%, and the cost of weapons and equipment for it is the rest of 45%. And now we will try to imagine how much a corvette, similar to the “Daring”, would cost if the Americans took over its construction.
When we are trying to shove into the corvette a nomenclature of destroyer weapons (medium-range air defense systems, anti-ship missiles, torpedoes, artillery, rapid-fire "metal-cutting", helicopter, etc.) we are forced to install a BIUS equivalent to the destroyer. Total - 20% of the cost of the destroyer will be worth the BIUS corvette.
The hull will be almost three times smaller. But in this case, a threefold reduction in size does not provide a threefold reduction in cost - for example, the power of the Arly Burk power plant exceeds the power of the Daring one less than twice, and, moreover, the need to “maximize” the maximum of weapons to the minimum of space will entail additional expenses (we simplify the hull - we spend more expensive materials), so we will be happy if the corvette hull with the equipment costs us half the cost of the destroyer. Total - 17,5% destroyer cost.
Armament. Suppose we miraculously managed to stuff a third of the destroyer’s armament into the ship, which is one more feat - as we have said above, the hull is three times smaller, and the EC is twofold, and the same will apply to many others. units and assemblies, that is, designing a ship three times smaller than a destroyer, we can’t expect that its payload will be only three times smaller - rather, it will be less than four to five times less. But let's say we managed to cram a third into the corvette weapons The destroyer is 15% of its value.
And here is the result. In the best case, we get a ship that carries a third of the destroyer's weapons ... for 62,5%, that is, almost two thirds of its value. And if someone wants to accuse us of bias, then let him compare the corresponding indicators of the American LCS with the American Arly Berks of the last series (according to a rough estimate, the author of this article is littoral kombat spike, if 15% of Berk’s combat effectiveness , but at the same time - 40% of its value).
In other words, the domestic bet on “supercorvets” and “superfrigates” is completely unjustified economically. If instead we designed and built a light PLO ship (within 2 000 t full displacement, a good sonar complex, 533-mm torpedoes as the main weapon, a helicopter, a SPARK for self-defense), which would be very cheap and extremely important for to ensure the safety of our SSBNs, and the gas turbine destroyer-station wagon (“Redut” air defense missile system or C-400 rifle, UKKS for Kalibr / Onyx / Zircon missiles, etc.) with a total displacement of the order of 8 thousand tons - there would be no sense in example more than from a bunch of “corvette about KTA 20380 - frigate project 22350 ».
Let's start with the domestic ships, for which we use the bmpd blog information, which, in turn, gathered them from the annual report of PJSC Shipbuilding Plant Severnaya Verf (St. Petersburg) for 2016 a year. The 1007 order is a corvette of the 20380 project "Ardent", the order of 1008 - the corvette of the same project "Strict", but the "Brash", built on the project 20386, takes place in the document as "Order 1009".
So, we see that the estimated cost of the "Reactive" is 17 244 760 thousand rubles., "Strict" on 85 thousand rubles. more expensive, but the "Bold" is an astronomical 29 080 759 thousand rubles. That 1,68 times more than the "strict". It seems to be a stunning difference ... but let's take a closer look at it.
The first thing that catches the eye is the difference in the “age” of the ships, because both 20380 corvettes were contracted under the 2014 State Defense Order, but the “Daring” corvette within 20386. The total difference between orders is 2016. , and this is quite significant in view of domestic inflation, which in the period 2-2014. was just colossal. According to Rosstat, in 2015 g, inflation was 2014%, and in 11,36 g - 2015%. Thus, the rise in prices from 12,91 January 1 g to 2014 January 1 g amounted to unbelievable 2016%.
Let us take as a basis the cost of the “Strict” corvette, since it is closer in its terms of construction (delivery in 2021 g) to “Daring” (2022 g) than “Retive” (2020 g). In 2014, the ship cost a little more than 17,3 billion rubles, but if we convert it to 2016 prices, then, taking inflation into account, its value will be 21 789 951,55 rubles. That is, in comparable prices, the cost of the corvettes of the project 20380 and 20386 differ not in 1,68, but only in 1,33 times. Anyway a lot? Well, let's take it further.
Let us ask ourselves the question - how correct is the price in 17,2-17,3 billion rubles. for corvettes project 20380? It seems to be strange to ask about this, but in fact, with a high degree of probability, these figures are lower than the real price of the corvettes. The fact is that the pricing for military products is calculated using the good old-fashioned cost method: that is, the company first "incites" the planned costs of creating the product, "winds" on it the allowed rate of profit of the Russian Defense Ministry and coordinates the resulting cost estimates with representatives of the Ministry of Defense. And in several instances, each of which seeks to reduce something in the presented calculation (otherwise they will think that people do not work!).
But the price is finally agreed, the contract is approved and concluded. However, if the product has a long (long-term) production time or many products are ordered to be produced within a few years, then the RF Ministry of Defense has an “excellent” way to optimize its costs. It looks like this.
The fact is that the prices of materials that are accepted in the calculations, enterprises are obliged to confirm the primary documents showing that they actually buy materials for such a price. That is, at the time of the calculation of the pricing of materials in it is quite adequate, but, of course, in the case of a long-term construction of the ship (especially a series of ships) over time, these same prices will increase - inflation. So, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, of course, will allow the enterprise to increase the cost and price of the product, taking into account the increase in the price of materials for its production ... but not by the sum of the actual costs caused by the increase in prices, but only by the official inflation rate. Strangely enough, for some reason all the time it turns out that the cost of raw materials and materials grow in price much faster than the official inflation figures. That is, to put it simply, suppliers raise the price for materials by 7%, and a representative of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation says: “I'm sorry, dear, I understand your difficulties, but the official statistical bodies are sure that inflation on this type of materials is only 5%, but Who am I against Rosstat? Here on 5% I will allow you to raise the cost of these materials in the next product, and the rest is your problem. ” And it turns out that the company is forced to pay the specified 2% of the difference in the cost of materials from its own pocket.
Therefore, it turns out that for the first product (if the costs of its production are planned well, and the production workers didn’t disrupt the output), the company will receive the profit laid down by the law, but for the next ones it will not, because the real cost will be higher than that Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. Worse, it may well turn out that the enterprise will produce the last products almost at a loss. So the corny "Strict" is the sixth ship of this type for the manufacturer ("Severnaya Verf") and it can be assumed that the price tag in 17,3 billion rubles. not quite correct, and that an honest recalculation of the cost estimate would have given a substantially higher price for this corvette. This means that the price of the ship, adjusted for inflation, may turn out to be more than the 21,8 billion rubles we have calculated.
But that's not all. The fact is that comparing the cost of "Strict" and "Daring" directly ... is not that it is not entirely correct, but, quite frankly, completely incorrect, and the point is this. The Strict is a serial ship of the 20380 project, while the Daring is the lead (and possibly the only) ship of the 20386 project. What is the difference? In the cost of manufacturing equipment and pre-production.
Figure Corvette Project 20386
During the construction of a ship under a new project, often the manufacturing enterprise is required to seriously upgrade its fixed assets, purchase some new equipment, rework old ones, etc. which he does not need to fulfill current orders and will be operated only in the manufacture of a new ship. In this case, such costs are fully included in the cost of products for which these costs are incurred. And so it turns out that the cost of producing the 20380 project corvettes carried out by the Northern Shipyard was distributed to at least 6 contracted ships (“Guarding”, “Smart”, “Boyky”, “Resistant”, “Retivy” and “Strict "), Which this enterprise built and is building, but the costs of preparing for the production of 20386 corvettes have completely" boomed "into the cost of the lead ship - after all, no other 20386 corvettes have been ordered! And, it must be said that there are quite a few constructive differences between 20386 and 20380, so it is quite possible that the cost of a head corvette of this type has greatly increased due to preparation for its production. Of course, if the construction of ships of the 20386 project is continued, then they will be much cheaper - once the costs of pre-production are completely “laid out” in the first ship of the series, then they will not fall into the cost of serial corvettes.
Of course, we cannot know exactly what amounts for the above needs were included in the price of “Daring” and how correct the price of 2014 g is for “Strict”. And even if they knew, this information is no longer for open press - but it is more or less reasonable to assume that if the Northern Shipyard would have ordered equal series of corvettes of the 20386 and 20380 projects, subject to simultaneous construction, then the cost of a serial ship of the type “Daring” would exceed that of the serial ship of the 20380 project by no means by 33%, but by 25 percent, but maybe less.
That is, we can justifiably assume that the cost of the corvettes of the 20386 project is not at all 68%, but only a quarter higher than 20380. But what do we get for this extra money spent?
Corvette Project 20380
Quite a lot.
First, the corvette 20386 is a much larger ship, its full displacement reaches 3 400 (according to other data - 3 500) t. That is, it is almost a third larger than the corvettes of the project 20380. The size advantage gives the ship an advantage in seaworthiness and autonomy: for example, the 20380 project corvette has a 3 500 range for miles on 14 nodes, and the 20386 project corvette is 5 000 miles, and although the economic speed of Daring, unfortunately, is unknown, apparently no lower than Strict.
Secondly, this is a new type of power plant. As you know, project 20380 corvettes are equipped with diesels, and, since the whole world normal ship diesels (we are talking about surface ships, not submarines) are obtained, perhaps, only from Germans and Finns, it was supposed to put German MTU diesels on corvettes. However, then the era of sanctions came, and the Germans refused to supply them to us, so that the Russian Ministry of Defense had no choice but to use the import-substituting products of the Kolomensky Zavod. And the Kolomna plant, it must be said, is unique in terms of ship diesel engines. The fact is that this plant has already promised 107 (one hundred and seven!) Years to give the fleet normal diesel engine: for the first time, he swore that he would deliver efficient engines of this type for battle cruisers of the Izmail type in January 1911. Alas, to this day his words remain words. More recently, by the way, the diesel engine of this honored manufacturer on the frigate "Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Gorshkov" broke down - it was okay to even fix it without dismantling and cutting the side. And the corvettes on these diesels without tugs in the sea is better not to let go - does it matter? In addition, it should be noted that, even putting aside the issues of reliability, a pure diesel power plant raises big questions on the ship, one of the most important functions of which is anti-submarine defense. Still, a diesel engine is a fairly noisy engine.
So, the corvettes of the 20380 project received a diesel power plant with 23 320 HP power. Well, the 20386 corvette has a fundamentally different power plant, which is based on two gas turbine engines M90FR with a total power of 55 000 hp, that is, more than twice as many as the corvettes of the 20380 project. It must be said that these engines are being installed today on the 20350 frigates, in Russia their production is mastered by the ODK-Saturn, that is, on this issue the 20386 corvettes do not depend on foreign suppliers or on the Kolomna plant, but I must say that the school gas turbine engines, inherited from the USSR is extremely strong - this is the type of marine engines that we get very well.
But what is interesting is that for the economic course, the 20386 Corvette of the project uses electric motors, which, in matters of capturing enemy submarines, look much more preferable than diesel engines. Thus, there is no doubt that the “Daring” power plant is much better suited to the domestic ship of the corvette class - it is safer, more powerful and, most likely, quieter than a diesel one. Well, do not forget that the corvette of the 20380 project has a maximum speed of 27 nodes, while the 20386 project has 30 nodes, this is also a significant advantage.
Thirdly, the composition of the 20386 corvette armament is significantly "more interesting" than that of the 20380 project counterparts. Most of the publications indicate that the "main caliber" of the newest corvette is represented by two quadruple UCR robots, and most likely this and Yes, some other sources (for example, Military Russia) indicate the presence of more powerful and, of course, more expensive Caliber family rockets. Perhaps this is still an erroneous opinion, and the Daring one hosts the 8 PKR “Uranus” "(This is exactly the opinion of the author of this article), but also in this case, its strike armament is in no way inferior to the 20380 project corvettes carrying the same UNANs 8, since the Gauges have appeared on them since the 20385 modification, and it already has a completely different price tag.
The ship's air defense system is represented by 2 * 8 launchers of the Redoubt (16 PU) air defense system against a dozen PU on corvettes of the 20380 project and a pair of six-barrel “metal cutters” AK-630М.
The other weapons of the “Bold” also correspond to what was installed on the 20380 project corvettes - a single-barreled 100-mm artillery mount (apparently, the “Bold” received an improved version of what was put on the “Stereguschie”) and two four-tube torpedo small-sized torpedo tubes “ Package-NK ", which, basically," sharpened "on opposition to enemy torpedoes, but on occasion can" work out "and the submarine.
I foresee the bewilderment of a respected reader - what is so interesting about the armament of the 20386 corvettes, if it is almost the same with ships of the “Guarding” type? Surely four additional missile launchers for Redut missiles are so important?
In fact, there is a difference, and it is enormous, except that it consists not in the number of barrels or missiles, but in the fire control systems.
We have already said many times that the “guardians” took the wrong path. For ships with a displacement of one (or two, the second - instead of the Ak-630M pair), the SIGNATURE, like the Pantsir-M, would be more than sufficient protection against an air attack, but where there! Give us all the battleships in the displacement of the ship's boat, so that after the “Watchman” the ships began to install the Redut air defense system. All would be nothing if it were not for the peculiarities of its missiles - to control the shooting, the Redoubt needs a Polyment radar, which was supposed to work in conjunction with the Redoubt, and which, apparently, has not been brought to this day, despite the fact that the first ship with the "Polymente", the lead frigate of the 22350 "Gorshkov" project was nevertheless adopted by the fleet.
But it was absolutely impossible to put the “Polyment” on a corvette, so we went the other way, deciding to train the Reduta standard-made radar of the General Review “Furke-2” to control the Missiles. Naturally, nothing sensible from the “union” of a modern air defense system with a weak general overview radar could not have turned out and, as far as the author knows, directing missiles to AGSN “Furke” never learned (except in range, absolutely ideal conditions). The only way to effectively use this SAM system in combat is possible only when used for targeting the Puma artillery SMS, which seems to be able to send missiles in difficult jamming conditions, but due to its artillery specifics, creates a number of restrictions on the use of SAM "Redoubt". In other words, they installed an air defense system on 20380 corvettes, the capabilities of which simply cannot be realized by the existing radar equipment.
In contrast to the 20380 project, “Daring” instead of “Furke” received a qualitatively different system - the multifunctional radar system (MF RLC) “Zaslon”, using radar with phased array. At the same time, it looks more like the American AN / SPY-1 (fixed grilles), but the principle of operation more closely resembles the British “Daring” - due to the combination of radars operating in the decimeter and millimeter ranges, the IFC ZLK Zaslon can perfectly control both high and low flying aerial targets. This complex can conduct not only active, but also passive search in a non-emitting mode - in this case, Barrier is able to detect and track more than 100 targets at a distance of up to 300 km. The complex is able to put active radar interference and manages passive interference, and in addition, it is able to issue target designation not only to the missile, but also to the artillery of the ship - nothing like that, of course, “Furke-2” did not know how. In other words, MF RLC Zaslon provides a qualitative superiority in the management of the corvette’s armament, which ensures a significant increase in the combat potential of the Daring in comparison with the corvettes of the 20380 project.
Although the author can not boast of absolutely reliable information, but according to some sources, the sonar equipment of the 20386 corvettes of the project also surpasses that which is installed on the “Guarding” and ships of the same type, and the same applies to the REP and EW facilities. Also, apparently, the “Daring” is more automated than the corvettes of the 20380 project - the number of the crew of the latter is 99 people, and on the “Daring” - only 80 people.
Thus, we can state that for 20-25% increase in value (hardly more) we get a ship, which in its reliability, seaworthiness, combat potential significantly exceeds the corvettes of the 20380 project. On a scale of "cost / efficiency" "Daring", apparently, have an advantage. Based on the above, the author of this article is inclined to suppose that four “Brash” are capable of doing much more than five “Guardians” in battle, and at a price they will be quite equivalent. Therefore, it is not necessary to see in the corvettes of the 20386 project any kind of “mistake”, “cut”, “budget deriban”, and so on. Rather, the construction of “Daring” is a kind of safety net in case “Polyment-Redoubt” will not be brought to mind and the frigates of the 22350 project will not justify the hopes placed on them - well, and the fact that 20380 project corvettes obviously did not justify those, today perhaps no longer requires additional evidence.
That is, in the event of the failure of the Gorshkov construction program, the fleet management remains, literally, at the bottom of the trough. The 20380 and 20385 projects are unsuccessful, the “Admiral” 11356 series frigates are, in principle, reliable and could be good if they were equipped with modern equipment (which, alas, is not present). But there are no power plants for them in the Russian Federation, so building frigates of the 11356 project serially for our fleet will fail. And if at the same time the frigates of the 22350 project turn out to be a “paper tiger”, then the fleet will literally have nothing to build. And here, like a little devil from a snuff box, the 20386 corvette suddenly appears - having an intermediate displacement between the corvette and the frigate, it is capable, in principle, of performing the functions of both, working on the power plants mastered in the Russian Federation. Instead of a non-working "Polymente", it is quite sane, although it is much inferior to it in characteristics "Barrier", which nevertheless allows you to effectively use short and medium-range missiles, well, and probably cheaper ... On the one hand, the ship seems to be “ neither a candle of God nor a devil of a poker ”, but on the other hand it could well become an analogue of the 1135 TFR, which had a similar displacement and was deservedly considered the“ working horse ”of the Soviet fleet, and that’s what we need today.
In general, the corvette of the 20386 project is very similar to such straw, which is spread where you can slip, and besides, at the same time, also a "testing ground" for working out the idea of electric propulsion - it’s not that we had no ships that went to electricity, but on military surface ships it was not used.
Well, now let's try to compare its cost with the cost of the newest Arly Burk type IIA + destroyers.
The destroyer "John Finn" - the lead ship series IIA +
Just in 2016, when the corvette of the 20386 “Daring” project was laid, the Americans allocated funds for the construction of two ships of this type with a total amount of 3 470,1 million dollars or 1 735,05 million dollars per ship. The lead destroyer of the IIA + series, according to some data, cost the US $ 2,2 billion (but this is not certain). However, the comparison of the “Daring”, the lead ship of the 20386 corvettes series, is not entirely correct with both.
In theory, we should compare our lead ship with the lead American, but this will not be a correct comparison. The fact is that, according to the practice adopted in the USA, the cost of the lead ship is “invested” not only in the costs of preparing for production (like ours), but also a substantial part of the R & D costs associated with the creation of this ship. At the same time, such works are financed and paid separately by the Defense Ministry of the Russian Federation. That is, according to our defense order scheme, the Ministry of Defense first orders research, pays for it, and studies the result — if it is unsatisfactory, the Ministry of Defense either continues to fund research “until the bitter end”, or pays the contractor for the work actually completed and finishes the topic. Well, if the result is positive - then the order for the head and serial "products" should be, but R & D is not included in their cost - why, if they are carried out and paid for separately? So it turns out that it is impossible to compare the cost of the “Daring” with the head destroyer of the IIA + series, because the cost of the American ship is R & D, which are not taken into account in the cost of our ship. On the other hand, it is also incorrect to compare the cost of the “Daring” with the cost of a serial destroyer, because in our ship the costs of pre-production are taken into account, while in the US it is not. And what to do?
To begin with, we will determine the value of the “Daring” in US dollars. There are two methods for this. If we use the current dollar rate at 2016 g (in July it was 64,34 rubles / dollar), then we will see that the cost of the 20386 head corvette is almost 452 million dollars. That is, if a foreign customer had appeared at Severnaya Verf for this corvette, then the company would have received exactly the same revenue and profit as from the construction of “Daring” for the RF Ministry of Defense, selling this corvette at the price of 452 million dollars, for example, of the same India.
Obviously, the comparison of the “price tag” of a domestic ship even with the serial “Arly Burk” is extremely beneficial for the domestic manufacturer, because as of the 2016 g, one serial “Arly” of the IIA + series stands almost like 4 head corvettes of the 20386 project.
But in order to evaluate the effectiveness of our economy, it makes sense to use not the dollar exchange rate, but the dollar rate at purchasing power parity (PPP). What it is?
The fact is that the exchange rate of the dollar is largely a speculative figure, depending on the conjuncture in the market, supply and demand for currency, etc. But the dollar exchange rate for PPP is formed differently. A certain set of goods and services is selected. It is then estimated for how many dollars they can be bought in the USA, and for how much a similar set can be bought for rubles in the Russian Federation. The ratio of these amounts will be the dollar / ruble rate at PPP.
The easiest way to determine exchange rates for PPP is the so-called “Big Mac Index”.
In this case, only one type of product is compared - the very big Mac produced by McDonald's. So, in 2016 g in the Russian Federation, a big mac cost 114 rubles, in the USA - a 4,93 dollar, respectively, the dollar exchange rate at PPP was 23,12 rubles / dollar. These figures are taken from the weekly The Economist, which publishes the Big Mac Index on the Internet as well - you can see this by going through this link.
State statistical services determine PPP indices with much more complicated calculations that can be made only at the end of the year (the “Big Mac Index” is calculated by The Economist magazine on a weekly basis). Oddly enough, according to national statistics in 2016, the dollar rate is not too different from the Big Mac Index and is 23,67 rubles / dollar. Official data of federal statistics of the Russian Federation on the rates of currency PPP by year can be viewed here.
Here, however, a respected reader, who closely follows the publication of “VO” devoted to the fleet, may have a question, because in his recent article “It's time to learn from the enemy” the respected A. Timokhin brought a completely different exchange rate of the dollar at PPP - about 9,3 rubles ./dollar. Alas, a mistake has crept in here with a respected author - such a course (9,27 rub / dollar) really existed, but ... in 2002, and it, of course, has long been outdated and cannot be used to compare the cost of military equipment produced in 2016. Exchange rates for PPP change annually, and of course, it is necessary to apply the current rates, and not those that once existed.
So, according to our statistics, and “adopting” the dollar rate at PPN 23,67 rubles / dollar, then we get the cost of the 20386 head corvette at 1 228,6 million dollars, that is, the serial destroyer of the Arly Berk type , standing, as we said above, 1 735,05 million, more expensive than our head corvette by about 41%. However, in reality, the ratio is more profitable for our ship, because, as we have said, it is incorrect to compare a serial American ship with our lead ship.
And what will happen if we compare the serial corvette of the 20380 project with the serial “Arly Burke”? As we have said, the cost of the sixth corvette of this series, contracted in 2014 (“Strict”), was 17 329 760 rubles, taking into account inflation, that is, in 2016 prices, this will be 21 789 951,55 rubles. that is, at the dollar rate at PPN 23,67 rubles / dollar, the value of the “Strict” in dollars will be 920 572,52 dollars.
Thus, the cost of a serial "Arly" is 1,88 cost of a serial corvette of the project 20380. And if our assumption that the cost of a serial corvette of the 20386 project on 20-25 exceeds the cost of a serial ship of the 20380 project is true (and most likely the way it is), the American destroyer will be more expensive than the serial “Daring” 1,51-1,57 times. Or, roughly speaking, for the resources that Americans spend on Arly Burk on 2, we can either build an 3 corvette of the 20386 project, save some money, or build an 3 corvette of the 20386 project and bring the fourth building to about 80% of readiness .
However, we have to admit that neither the 3 “Daring” or the 4 “Strict” in their combat capabilities and alongside stood in two destroyers of the type “Arly Burk” of the IIA + series. And this suggests that we are not rationally using our resources, since on the “cost-effectiveness” scale, American ships obviously outperform ours. But the problem here is not that our shipbuilding works inefficiently, but in the depravity of the concept of building the surface forces of the domestic fleet.
The fact is that in the cost of a modern ship a large proportion is occupied by weapons and combat systems. In the case of Arly Berkov, it turns out that the cost of a ship (hull with add-ons and equipment) is approximately 35% of its total cost, the cost of an information system is 20%, and the cost of weapons and equipment for it is the rest of 45%. And now we will try to imagine how much a corvette, similar to the “Daring”, would cost if the Americans took over its construction.
When we are trying to shove into the corvette a nomenclature of destroyer weapons (medium-range air defense systems, anti-ship missiles, torpedoes, artillery, rapid-fire "metal-cutting", helicopter, etc.) we are forced to install a BIUS equivalent to the destroyer. Total - 20% of the cost of the destroyer will be worth the BIUS corvette.
The hull will be almost three times smaller. But in this case, a threefold reduction in size does not provide a threefold reduction in cost - for example, the power of the Arly Burk power plant exceeds the power of the Daring one less than twice, and, moreover, the need to “maximize” the maximum of weapons to the minimum of space will entail additional expenses (we simplify the hull - we spend more expensive materials), so we will be happy if the corvette hull with the equipment costs us half the cost of the destroyer. Total - 17,5% destroyer cost.
Armament. Suppose we miraculously managed to stuff a third of the destroyer’s armament into the ship, which is one more feat - as we have said above, the hull is three times smaller, and the EC is twofold, and the same will apply to many others. units and assemblies, that is, designing a ship three times smaller than a destroyer, we can’t expect that its payload will be only three times smaller - rather, it will be less than four to five times less. But let's say we managed to cram a third into the corvette weapons The destroyer is 15% of its value.
And here is the result. In the best case, we get a ship that carries a third of the destroyer's weapons ... for 62,5%, that is, almost two thirds of its value. And if someone wants to accuse us of bias, then let him compare the corresponding indicators of the American LCS with the American Arly Berks of the last series (according to a rough estimate, the author of this article is littoral kombat spike, if 15% of Berk’s combat effectiveness , but at the same time - 40% of its value).
In other words, the domestic bet on “supercorvets” and “superfrigates” is completely unjustified economically. If instead we designed and built a light PLO ship (within 2 000 t full displacement, a good sonar complex, 533-mm torpedoes as the main weapon, a helicopter, a SPARK for self-defense), which would be very cheap and extremely important for to ensure the safety of our SSBNs, and the gas turbine destroyer-station wagon (“Redut” air defense missile system or C-400 rifle, UKKS for Kalibr / Onyx / Zircon missiles, etc.) with a total displacement of the order of 8 thousand tons - there would be no sense in example more than from a bunch of “corvette about KTA 20380 - frigate project 22350 ».
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