Landing without ships. Navy is not able to conduct large-scale amphibious operations
The last big war in which the Navy participated was the Second World War. Neither the Germans nor the Japanese have engaged any significant naval forces against the Soviet Navy. This created the conditions under which the weak and small Navy was able to conduct dozens of amphibious operations, some of which had a decisive influence on the course of the war as a whole, and we are now obliged to the Kuril operation because the shelf of the Sea of Okhotsk went to Russia, and along with Primorye, "fenced off" from the ocean and any opponent in it defensive chain of islands.
The Great Patriotic War and the war with Japan gave and the fleet, and the country is a very important lesson. It consists of the following: landing from the sea, landed at the right time in the right place, has an impact on the enemy that is disproportionately large in comparison with its size.
Do not land a brigade of marines in the lip of the Western face in early 1941, and it is not known how the German attack on Murmansk would end. Murmansk would have fallen, and the USSR would not have received, for example, half of aviation gas, every tenth tank, a quarter of all gunpowder, almost all aluminum, from which during the most difficult period of the war aircraft engines and diesels for the T-34 were made, and much more ...
And if it were not for the Kerch-Feodosia landing operation, and it is not known from what position the Germans in 1942 would then begin to attack the Caucasus, and where this attack ended up in the end, it is unknown in which part of the front 1942 would appear at the beginning of 11. I am the army of Manstein, and where it would have become the very “straw that broke the back”. But it would be absolutely accurate.
Landings of sea and river landings became the basis of the activities of the Navy, despite its absolute unavailability for this type of military operations. The marines had to be recruited from the seafarers, there were no special amphibious ships, there was no amphibious technology, the troops had no special amphibious training or experience, but even in these conditions, the Soviet amphibians caused enormous harm to the Wehrmacht, having rendered strategic progress during the war ) influence and greatly facilitating the Red Army waging war on land.
Material and technical means to ensure amphibious operations must be prepared in advance. - This is the second important lesson from the experience of the past. Otherwise, the victory begins to cost too many human lives - those who drowned on the way to the shore due to inability to swim or because of the wrong choice of the landing site, who died from frostbite, walking along the neck in icy water, before going on trapped shore, those who were forced to attack the enemy without artillery support from the sea, because the enemy aviation did not allow large surface ships to operate, and small ships with artillery were not in the right quantity.
It makes sense to consider how today the Navy is ready to help the ground forces, if this is again required.
Currently, the Russian Federation has a well-trained and motivated marines. With all the skepticism that elite troops can recruit, staffed by conscripts, the MPs are very capable troops, possessing, among other things, high morale, which any non-overwhelming adversary will cope with extremely difficult, if possible at all. Marines are quite consistent with the reputation that their predecessors of the war times earned by blood. There are various disadvantages for the Marine Corps, but who has none?
However, all this relates to the situation when the marines are already on the ground. However, she is called “sea” because first she needs to land on the ground from the sea. And here questions begin.
To understand the current situation, it is necessary to turn to the practice of using amphibious assault forces in modern warfare.
During World War II, the main method of the naval landing operation was the landing of airborne detachments from small ships and boats. If the Americans had special landing boats, then, for example, the USSR basically had mobilized ships, but the principle was the same - the landing units on small ships and boats approach the shore and land the first echelon on the coastal line accessible to infantry. we will call it for brevity the non-military word “beach”. In the future, the landing of the second echelon took place already in different ways. The USSR somewhere had to unload the transport, as a rule, this required the seizure of moorings. To which large ships could approach. The United States had several hundred tank landing ships LST (Landing ship, tank) from which they could land mechanized troops, both directly from the ship to the shore and from the ship to the shore via a pontoon bridge discharged from the ship itself.
If the landing ports were far from the landing zone, then the transfer of paratroopers from large transports (in the Navy of the USSR - from warships) to small landing craft directly into the sea was practiced. The Americans, in addition, used special tracked amphibious transporters LVT (Landing vehicle, tracked), their armored and armed versions, wheeled amphibious trucks, infantry assault ships LSI (Landing ship, infantry). The USSR occasionally practiced a combination of parachute and amphibious assault forces. Also, the USSR successfully practiced landings to the port, in contrast to the Anglo-Americans, who considered landings to the port to be unjustified.
After WWII, paratroop formations of developed countries survived the crisis caused by the emergence of nuclear weapons. In the USSR, the Marine Corps was disbanded, in the US Truman did not have quite a bit of the same thing, but there the Marines were saved by the War in Korea. To its top, the Marine Corps was in a terrible state, caused by underfunding and general disregard for its existence, but after the war, the issue of the liquidation of the marines had never risen.
With 50-x - 60-s in the practice of amphibious assault revolution occurs. Amphibious helicopters and amphibious assault carriers emerge, and a landing technique such as “vertical coverage” is born, when an airborne assault landing, usually helicopter landing, is sent to the rear of the forces defending the coast, and numerous naval forces are landing on the beach. In the United States, the LVTP-50 transporter, a very ugly machine, began to arrive in the US from the middle of the 5-x, which, however, gave the marines the opportunity to go ashore under the protection of armor, and immediately pass through the sweep-through coastal zone. In different countries, floating tanks appear.
The USSR participated in this revolution. The marines were recreated. For the landing of numerous amphibious units, many small, medium and large amphibious ships were built. To give the marines high mobility and the ability to act in shallow water, small air-cushion assault ships began to arrive in the Navy from 1970. The situation was worse with the air component - in the USSR there were no helicopter carriers, and the airborne forces had to land in the rear of the enemy from An-26 airplanes by parachute method. Parachute training was and remains a kind of "calling card" of the Soviet and Russian parts of the marines.
This method of landing has a number of drawbacks compared to helicopter landing landing. The plane flies higher, and for this reason it is much more vulnerable to the fire of enemy air defense systems. Without helicopters, the evacuation of the wounded is extremely difficult. Supplies can only be delivered by parachute. And in the event of the defeat and evacuation of the landing force, the airborne detachment is most likely doomed to ruin - it is almost impossible to take it out of the enemy's rear without helicopters.
However, it was a working way.
But the second revolution of the USSR missed.
From 1965, the US Navy began to be drawn into the Vietnam War. We have it known for anything, but not the marines, but in reality during the war they planted as many as sixty-nine. Of course, the Americans did not find fame - the enemy was too weak to be beaten in the chest. However, Americans would not be Americans if they had not used the accumulated statistics sensibly.
By that time, the LST of the war was still in service with the US Navy, and the major vehicles from which soldiers had to be transplanted to landing craft were tank landing ships of the new generation of the Newport class, with an extravagant collapsible bridge instead of a forward gate. new-fashioned ships docks LSD (Landing ship, dock). The top of the amphibious capabilities were the amphibious assault carriers, both the converted Essexes of the time of WWII and the specially built Iwo Jima ships.
The landing craft also differed in a smaller variety - here were mainly landing boats, technically similar to those used in World War II, LVTP-5 transporters and helicopters.
BTP LVTP-5
An analysis of the landings of the American marines performed during the war showed an unpleasant thing: even though all the landing forces were successful, the tactics and techniques used would not allow such operations against a full-fledged enemy.
By that time, the infantry of the developed countries already had recoilless guns, rocket launchers, and small quantities of anti-tank systems, reliable radio communications and the ability to direct artillery fire, MRLS fire, and a lot of all such that the landing craft near the coast simply could not survive, Yes, and dismounted infantry would have been very bad. The firepower of potential adversaries would not allow marines to run along the beach in a landing style on Iwo Jima and in general could have made amphibious operations impossible, and for tank landing ships and subunits that they delivered, they are also fraught with huge losses, including ships.
This challenge had to be answered, and such an answer was given.
From the first half of the seventies in the US Navy and the marines begins the transition to a new way of landing. We are talking about over-the-horizon landing in its modern sense. Now the forward echelon of the naval assault forces was to descend on the water at a safe distance from the coast, where the enemy can neither see the landing ship visually nor shoot at it with the weapons available to the ground forces. The landing force had to go straight into the water in their combat vehicles, be able to walk towards them, even with significant agitation, be able to maneuver along the water's edge, and go ashore even along “weak” ground. The composition of the troop squad was supposed to be uniform — identical combat vehicles, with the same speed and range on the water. The landing of second echelons with tanks was to be a task for tank landing ships, but they had to come ashore when the airborne and navy amphibious detachments, with the support of aviation from ships, had already cleared the shore to a sufficient depth.
For this, special equipment was needed, and in 1971, the world's first UDC, the universal landing ship Tarawa, was laid. The ship had a huge landing deck for armored vehicles, which could get out of it into the water through the docking chamber in the stern. In turn, amphibious boats were located in the docking chamber, which were now intended for the landing of rear units with their equipment. The huge ship carried helicopters, in a quantity sufficient for “vertical coverage,” later Cobra drums were added to them, and after some time, the Harrier ATV in their American version.
Cumbersome and cumbersome LVTP-5 were not suitable for such tasks and in 1972, the military rolled out the first LVTP-7 - a car that was to become epoch-making in terms of influence on the tactics of naval landings.
Early version LVTP-7
The new conveyor with aluminum armor for security surpassed any of the Soviet BTR, and in many ways the BMP-1. The 12,7 caliber machine gun of millimeters was weaker than that of Soviet armored vehicles, but at a distance of visual detection could effectively hit them. The armored personnel carrier could go on water up to twenty nautical miles at speeds up to 13 kilometers per hour, and carried up to three detachments of soldiers. The car could move on a wave to three points, and kept buoyancy and stability even at five.
A new way of "run-in" on the teachings and he immediately showed that he justifies himself. The length of the coastline accessible to the tracked all-terrain vehicle is much greater than the available coast for the approach of a tank landing ship, which means that the enemy is more difficult to build a defense. In addition, the presence of seaworthy machines allowed for maneuvers on the water, aimed at misleading the enemy. The appearance of shock aviation on board the UDC helped to level the lack of assault firepower. Old ships were adapted to the new method. Armored personnel carriers could get on the water from the Newports through the aft lazport and from the ships of the docks.
The only unresolved issue was the line of dismounting. Fought two points of view. According to the first, the marines crowded “like sardines in a bank” in large and visible armored vehicles were an excellent target for heavy weapons, therefore, immediately after the passage of the coastline, the landing forces had to dismount and attack on foot, with the support of onboard weapons of the armored vehicles. According to the second point of view, heavy machine guns, the massive spread of automatic weapons in infantry, automatic grenade launchers and mortars would have destroyed dismounted marines faster than if they were inside armored vehicles.
By the mid-eighties, according to the results of the exercises, the Americans came to the conclusion that supporters of the second point of view are right, and the passage of the beach on the caterpillars at the fastest pace possible is better than deploying to rifle chains immediately after landing. Although it is not a dogma, and commanders can, if necessary, act according to the situation.
In 80, the United States improved tactics even more. Armored vehicles and soldiers received night-vision equipment and the ability to land at night. LCAC (Landing craft air cushion) boats appeared. Having a through deck, through which the cars could move from one boat to the dock chamber to another, they allowed the first wave of the landing to take with them tanks, up to four units, or heavy engineering vehicles for fencing. This made it possible to resolve the issue with the landing of tanks after the cancellation of "Newports". New landing ships appeared - landing helicopter-carrying LPD (Landing platform dock) docking ships carrying less landing than UDC and up to six helicopters, and new “Uosp” class UDC, more efficient than “Taravy” and able to perform without discounts as a command and logistics center of the landing operation, which deployed a rear battalion, a supply of weapons and logistics equipment and supplies for four days of hostilities, an operating room for six places, a powerful command center, an air group of any composition. The amphibious ships of the US Navy gave the marines the necessary flexibility - now it could be landed from the same ship as a mechanized battalion group, with tanks, cannons, and support for attack helicopters and airplanes, and as an airborne formation of up to the regiment , fighting after disembarking on foot, and simply carry out military transport from port to port.
To consider those theories and concepts that the United States spawned after the end of the Cold War does not make sense - they are untenable against a strong adversary and now the United States abandons them, returning to itself the previously lost skills of over-horizon landing with vertical coverage.
In the USSR, everything remained as in 60's. New landing ships appeared, which conceptually repeated the old ones and demanded the same approach to the coast for landing troops. The armored vehicles were the same BTR, only not -60, but -70. The 11780 project - the Soviet UDC, cynically nicknamed by its contemporaries "Ivan Tarava", did not go beyond the scope of modeling - it simply turned out to be no place to build, the plant in Nikolaev was loaded with aircraft carriers. And he was not very successful.
UDC of the 11780 project
And this is in conditions when the British on the Falkland showed the viciousness of the concept of a tank landing ship in modern war. Of the five ships of this type used in the operation, the Royal Navy lost two, and this is under conditions when there was no Argentine soldier on the coast at all. Hardly anyone of this type of ships, including the Soviet BDK, could have shown better, especially against a stronger enemy than the Argentines were. But the USSR had no alternative. And then he himself was gone.
The collapse of the fleet, following the collapse of a huge country, affected the landing ships. Their number decreased, the “Jarana” hovercraft were massively decommissioned, and not replaced by anything, KFOR left - medium landing ships, ineffective and ugly Rhinos did not become - the BND project 1174, the result of an absurd attempt to cross a tank landing ship with a ship docking and DCCD . And of course, there was no maritime armored vehicles for the marines. Well, and then the war began in the Caucasus, and everyone was sharply not up to landings in general ...
Let us briefly list what is necessary for a successful landing of troops from the sea in a modern war.
1. The landing force must go on water on armored vehicles, at a safe distance from ships for ships.
2. By the time the visual range of the land reaches the range, the landing party should be built into battle order - even on the water.
3. It must be possible to land part of the landing forces from the air in order to intercept communications of the enemy defending the coast and isolate it from reserves; You must be able to land from the air of a third of the forces allocated to participate in the first wave of the landing.
4. The preferred means of disembarking paratroopers from the air is a helicopter.
5. Also preferred means of fire support of the landing force at the stage of approaching the water's edge, coming ashore and attacking the first echelon of enemy troops defending the coast are combat aircraft and helicopters.
6. The first wave of the assault force should have tanks, demining and lashing vehicles.
7. A quick landing of second echelons with heavy weapons and rear units should be ensured immediately, as soon as the first wave of the assault forces has a success.
8. Uninterrupted delivery of supplies is necessary even in the face of opposition from the enemy.
Of course, all of this refers to some kind of “average” operation, in fact each operation must be planned on the basis of the real situation, but without the possibilities listed above, landing operations will be extremely difficult, and even if successful, will be accompanied by heavy losses.
Let us now consider what resources the Navy can allocate for amphibious operations, and how they meet the requirements listed above.
Currently, the Navy has the following ships classified as amphibious: fifteen ships of the 775 project of Polish construction of different series, four old Tapira of the 1171 project, and one new BDK Ivan Gren of the 11711 project.
Of this number, five ships are part of the Northern Fleet, four are part of the Pacific, four more are from the Baltic and seven are from the Black Sea.
Also at the disposal of the Black Sea Fleet remains the Ukrainian BDK Konstantin Olshansky, which in a hypothetical emergency situation brings the total number of BDK to twenty-one. A sistership of “Ivan Gren” - “Peter Morgunov” is under construction.
Много это или мало?
There are calculations thathow many Soviet BDK is needed to transfer a certain number of troops.
Thus, four BDK project 775 can land one battalion of marines, without reinforcement, without additional attached units and rear. Instead, you can use a couple of ships of the project 1171.
From this follow the ultimate capabilities of the fleets: the Northern can land one battalion, reinforced by a subunit of about a company, by anyone. His troops can be supported by a pair of helicopters from the "Ivan Gren". One battalion can land the Pacific and Baltic fleets. And up to two - the Black Sea. Of course, boats are not counted, but the fact is that they have a very small carrying capacity and an even shorter range. In addition, there are also a few of them - for example, all Baltic Fleet boats can land less than one battalion if we are talking about disembarking with equipment and weapons. If you land purely foot fighters, then another battalion. Black Sea Fleet boats are not enough even for a full company with equipment, as well as boats of the Northern Fleet. There will be enough boats for the TOA, but no more. And a little more company can land boats of the Caspian flotilla.
Thus, it is obvious that none of the fleets except the Black Sea can use their marines on a scale larger than the reinforced battalion, in principle. The Black Sea Fleet can land two, and even with some amplification.
But maybe some of the forces will be landed in a parachute way? Without discussing the likelihood of a successful parachute assault against an adversary with full-fledged air defense, we will nevertheless count aircraft that the Navy can use for such an operation.
The Navy has the following aircraft, capable of parachuting marines: two An-12BK, twenty-four An-26 and six An-72. In total, all these aircraft make it possible to throw out about one thousand one hundred soldiers. But, of course, without military equipment and heavy weapons (delivery of 82-mm mortars, automatic grenade launchers, NSV machine guns with 12,7 mm caliber, portable anti-tank systems, MANPADS is possible by parachute method). It is not difficult to see that, firstly, between how many troops of any fleet can land from the sea and how much naval aviation can land from the air, there is a big imbalance, it is also obvious that still none of the fleets can enter in the battle all of their marines at the same time, and even half can not, too.
If we assume a hypothetical offensive "expeditionary" operation of the Marine Corps, then the amphibious capabilities of the Navy make it possible to land about one brigade tactical group of just over four battalions.
Now let us return to the requirements that the landing forces must meet in order to be able to discourage the more or less serious enemy, at least on a small scale, corresponding to the presence of ships.
It is easy to see that the capabilities of the Navy and Marines do not correspond to any item. There are no naval armored vehicles, there is no possibility to use helicopters outside the combat radius of ground aviation, it is likewise not possible to deliver tanks to the shore except by bringing the ship close to it, which with high probability means a repetition of the British “success” on the Falklands. Means of fast delivery to the unequipped coast of the second echelon, reserves, means of logistics in a sufficient number of the Navy does not possess.
In this way, the capabilities of the full naval amphibious operations of the Navy does not possess. This is an important point, if only because in some cases, the task of landing an amphibious assault force to the fleet will be set. And, as was the case during the Great Patriotic War, the fleet will have to carry out its obviously worthless means, paying for the performance of the combat mission with excessive and absolutely unnecessary losses in the composition of the marines and at the risk of suffering defeat.
Today, the Navy is able to conduct a successful landing of a very small number of tactical assault forces only in conditions of complete, absolute absence of opposition from the enemy in the landing zone.
Fans of the mantra about the fact that we are a peaceful people and do not need overseas landings should remember dozens of landing operations during the quite defensive WWII, one of which, for example, exceeded the operation “Torch” - landing of the allies in North Africa, and in terms of the number of the first wave of the assault, albeit slightly, but surpassed that on Iwo Jima.
What are the components necessary for conducting amphibious operations that are not at the disposal of the Russian Navy?
First, there are not enough ships. If we assume that the number of marines in each of the fleets is justified from the operational point of view, it is necessary to have enough ships so that each of the fleets could land its own marines in full.
The idea of using mobilized civilian ships as amphibious in our time is no longer working. Modern amphibious units require too much heavy military equipment; it is impossible to ensure its combat use from aboard a merchant ship; in the case of mobilized ships, we can talk only about military transport.
Secondly, there is a shortage of air components - helicopters are needed in sufficient for the landing of that very one third of the forces from the air, and combat helicopters capable of supporting the landing. As a last resort, it is necessary to have at least as many helicopters as necessary to evacuate the wounded, and deliver ammunition and weapons to parachutists, and also a minimum of attack helicopters.
Thirdly, in order to deliver helicopters to the landing site, we need ships capable of carrying them.
Fourth, you need to have floating rear vessels capable of organizing cargo delivery to an unequipped coast.
Fifthly, it is necessary to have naval combat vehicles of the marines (BMMP), or at least naval armored personnel carriers, specially built for movement in conditions of excitement.
Sixth, it’s necessary not to overstrain the budget.
It is fair to say that the Navy and the military-industrial complex tried to do something.
Everyone remembers the epic with the "Mistrals", however, from the mass of observers, incompetent in matters of carrying out amphibious operations, slipped the meaning of the purchase. Moreover, the stupid debate on this topic continues to this day.
Meanwhile, the “Mistral” is the possibility of over-horizon landing of at least one fully equipped battalion of marines, with a minimum landing of a company from its composition in the form of an airborne assault, with the release of a separate helicopter unit for fire support, with an operating and command post on board. These ships closed the very lacuna in the Russian amphibious capabilities described above. To the Mistrals, only BMMPs were needed in order to land the landing with one wave, and not with small detachments on the landing craft. And then domestic BDK would turn into what they may well be - carriers of the first-tier BHMP and second-tier divisions. For this “Mistrali” ships were supposed to be bought, and anyone who disputes the decision made then, or, as they say, “not in the subject line”, or tries to promote deliberately false attitudes.
Can the domestic industry create on the fly, without experience, a decent ship of this class? It is doubtful. On the example of the “Avalanche” UDC project that has become public, this is seen just fine.
It is difficult to find such a crazy project. For some reason, this ship has a gate in its nose, although it’s quite obvious that it doesn’t go to the shallow shore because of heavy precipitation (the authors apparently want the gate to be knocked out in a slamming wave), it has an extremely irrational form of the flight deck, rectangular plan could get another starting position for the helicopter - and their number in the landing operation is critical. The real horror is that the landing chamber floor is level with the floor of the docking chamber - this means either flooding the landing deck along with the dock chamber each time it is used, or the presence of a giant insulating pressure vessel between the dock chamber and the deck, which eliminates the landing of the landing on the water otherwise than docking boats. Or use the gate in the nose, which for such a ship gives madness. There are other, less significant disadvantages.
The longitudinal section shows the position of the dock chamber and the landing deck.
Obviously, the project stillborn.
More interesting are the perspectives of another project, the PWCD Priboy. Unfortunately, apart from the silhouette, and the design characteristics there is no information about this ship, but it is hard to imagine that it is worse than the Avalanche.
The project "Surf" - everything we know
One way or another, the industry has not shown itself ready to independently design analogs of the French Mistral, even if it is assumed that under the conditions of sanctions thereto it is possible to produce all the necessary components. Perhaps something will come from "Surf", but for now you can only hope for it.
A great success is the creation of the Ka-52K Katran combat helicopter, the carrier of which was planned to be made the Mistral. This machine has enormous potential, and can easily become the main attack helicopter in the naval aviation of the Russian Federation, one of the "pillars" of amphibious assault forces of the future. Unfortunately, this is the only relatively completed project in our fleet that can be useful in building effective landing forces.
And, finally, it is impossible not to mention the draft marines marines - BMMP.
Project Omsktransmash considered in the article by Kirill Ryabovthose interested should study it, and this is exactly what the marines should ideally be armed with. Unfortunately, the project “in metal” is very far away, and in the light of new economic realities, it’s not at all a fact that they will be given a turn. Nevertheless, there are chances to realize the project.
At present, Russia economically, as they say, will not “pull” the creation of a modern amphibious fleet. At the same time, the requirements for amphibious forces applied near its territory, or, as during the Second World War, on it, are very different from those that will be presented for expeditionary actions - and the situation may require a war near the house, and somewhere far away From him. At the same time, it is also impossible to leave the situation "as is" - the BDK uses the resource in the Syrian Express very intensively, and the repair of ships built in Poland is currently difficult. Soon these ships will have to be changed, and for this you need to understand what. All this is superimposed on the apparent lack of command of the navy and marines of the concept of landing operations of the future.
This can be seen even in the teachings where armored vehicles leave from ships to shore, where bulldozers and other roads are laid for it, and the airborne troops look like three or four fighters landed right on the edge of the water from an antisubmarine helicopter (which looks very strange in fact). As a result, today Russia is inferior in its amphibious capabilities even to small countries, for example, in its amphibious ships, the Russian Pacific Fleet is inferior even to Singapore, and it is not worth mentioning about larger countries.
The continuation of the current trends will lead to the complete loss of landing opportunities - this moment is not far off. And to reverse the trends "in the forehead" by building all the necessary will not give the economy. Such is the dilemma.
So is there a way out? Surprisingly, there is. However, it will require non-standard approaches on the one hand and competent concepts on the other. Innovations, such as we have not yet resorted to, and thoughtful reflection of traditions. A thorough analysis of modernity and deep understanding stories. It will require a level of planning actions and an understanding of the issues somewhat higher than in Russia, as is customary to demonstrate. But this is not impossible, and about this - in the following material.
The Great Patriotic War and the war with Japan gave and the fleet, and the country is a very important lesson. It consists of the following: landing from the sea, landed at the right time in the right place, has an impact on the enemy that is disproportionately large in comparison with its size.
Do not land a brigade of marines in the lip of the Western face in early 1941, and it is not known how the German attack on Murmansk would end. Murmansk would have fallen, and the USSR would not have received, for example, half of aviation gas, every tenth tank, a quarter of all gunpowder, almost all aluminum, from which during the most difficult period of the war aircraft engines and diesels for the T-34 were made, and much more ...
And if it were not for the Kerch-Feodosia landing operation, and it is not known from what position the Germans in 1942 would then begin to attack the Caucasus, and where this attack ended up in the end, it is unknown in which part of the front 1942 would appear at the beginning of 11. I am the army of Manstein, and where it would have become the very “straw that broke the back”. But it would be absolutely accurate.
Landings of sea and river landings became the basis of the activities of the Navy, despite its absolute unavailability for this type of military operations. The marines had to be recruited from the seafarers, there were no special amphibious ships, there was no amphibious technology, the troops had no special amphibious training or experience, but even in these conditions, the Soviet amphibians caused enormous harm to the Wehrmacht, having rendered strategic progress during the war ) influence and greatly facilitating the Red Army waging war on land.
Material and technical means to ensure amphibious operations must be prepared in advance. - This is the second important lesson from the experience of the past. Otherwise, the victory begins to cost too many human lives - those who drowned on the way to the shore due to inability to swim or because of the wrong choice of the landing site, who died from frostbite, walking along the neck in icy water, before going on trapped shore, those who were forced to attack the enemy without artillery support from the sea, because the enemy aviation did not allow large surface ships to operate, and small ships with artillery were not in the right quantity.
It makes sense to consider how today the Navy is ready to help the ground forces, if this is again required.
Currently, the Russian Federation has a well-trained and motivated marines. With all the skepticism that elite troops can recruit, staffed by conscripts, the MPs are very capable troops, possessing, among other things, high morale, which any non-overwhelming adversary will cope with extremely difficult, if possible at all. Marines are quite consistent with the reputation that their predecessors of the war times earned by blood. There are various disadvantages for the Marine Corps, but who has none?
However, all this relates to the situation when the marines are already on the ground. However, she is called “sea” because first she needs to land on the ground from the sea. And here questions begin.
To understand the current situation, it is necessary to turn to the practice of using amphibious assault forces in modern warfare.
During World War II, the main method of the naval landing operation was the landing of airborne detachments from small ships and boats. If the Americans had special landing boats, then, for example, the USSR basically had mobilized ships, but the principle was the same - the landing units on small ships and boats approach the shore and land the first echelon on the coastal line accessible to infantry. we will call it for brevity the non-military word “beach”. In the future, the landing of the second echelon took place already in different ways. The USSR somewhere had to unload the transport, as a rule, this required the seizure of moorings. To which large ships could approach. The United States had several hundred tank landing ships LST (Landing ship, tank) from which they could land mechanized troops, both directly from the ship to the shore and from the ship to the shore via a pontoon bridge discharged from the ship itself.
If the landing ports were far from the landing zone, then the transfer of paratroopers from large transports (in the Navy of the USSR - from warships) to small landing craft directly into the sea was practiced. The Americans, in addition, used special tracked amphibious transporters LVT (Landing vehicle, tracked), their armored and armed versions, wheeled amphibious trucks, infantry assault ships LSI (Landing ship, infantry). The USSR occasionally practiced a combination of parachute and amphibious assault forces. Also, the USSR successfully practiced landings to the port, in contrast to the Anglo-Americans, who considered landings to the port to be unjustified.
After WWII, paratroop formations of developed countries survived the crisis caused by the emergence of nuclear weapons. In the USSR, the Marine Corps was disbanded, in the US Truman did not have quite a bit of the same thing, but there the Marines were saved by the War in Korea. To its top, the Marine Corps was in a terrible state, caused by underfunding and general disregard for its existence, but after the war, the issue of the liquidation of the marines had never risen.
With 50-x - 60-s in the practice of amphibious assault revolution occurs. Amphibious helicopters and amphibious assault carriers emerge, and a landing technique such as “vertical coverage” is born, when an airborne assault landing, usually helicopter landing, is sent to the rear of the forces defending the coast, and numerous naval forces are landing on the beach. In the United States, the LVTP-50 transporter, a very ugly machine, began to arrive in the US from the middle of the 5-x, which, however, gave the marines the opportunity to go ashore under the protection of armor, and immediately pass through the sweep-through coastal zone. In different countries, floating tanks appear.
The USSR participated in this revolution. The marines were recreated. For the landing of numerous amphibious units, many small, medium and large amphibious ships were built. To give the marines high mobility and the ability to act in shallow water, small air-cushion assault ships began to arrive in the Navy from 1970. The situation was worse with the air component - in the USSR there were no helicopter carriers, and the airborne forces had to land in the rear of the enemy from An-26 airplanes by parachute method. Parachute training was and remains a kind of "calling card" of the Soviet and Russian parts of the marines.
This method of landing has a number of drawbacks compared to helicopter landing landing. The plane flies higher, and for this reason it is much more vulnerable to the fire of enemy air defense systems. Without helicopters, the evacuation of the wounded is extremely difficult. Supplies can only be delivered by parachute. And in the event of the defeat and evacuation of the landing force, the airborne detachment is most likely doomed to ruin - it is almost impossible to take it out of the enemy's rear without helicopters.
However, it was a working way.
But the second revolution of the USSR missed.
From 1965, the US Navy began to be drawn into the Vietnam War. We have it known for anything, but not the marines, but in reality during the war they planted as many as sixty-nine. Of course, the Americans did not find fame - the enemy was too weak to be beaten in the chest. However, Americans would not be Americans if they had not used the accumulated statistics sensibly.
By that time, the LST of the war was still in service with the US Navy, and the major vehicles from which soldiers had to be transplanted to landing craft were tank landing ships of the new generation of the Newport class, with an extravagant collapsible bridge instead of a forward gate. new-fashioned ships docks LSD (Landing ship, dock). The top of the amphibious capabilities were the amphibious assault carriers, both the converted Essexes of the time of WWII and the specially built Iwo Jima ships.
The landing craft also differed in a smaller variety - here were mainly landing boats, technically similar to those used in World War II, LVTP-5 transporters and helicopters.
BTP LVTP-5
An analysis of the landings of the American marines performed during the war showed an unpleasant thing: even though all the landing forces were successful, the tactics and techniques used would not allow such operations against a full-fledged enemy.
By that time, the infantry of the developed countries already had recoilless guns, rocket launchers, and small quantities of anti-tank systems, reliable radio communications and the ability to direct artillery fire, MRLS fire, and a lot of all such that the landing craft near the coast simply could not survive, Yes, and dismounted infantry would have been very bad. The firepower of potential adversaries would not allow marines to run along the beach in a landing style on Iwo Jima and in general could have made amphibious operations impossible, and for tank landing ships and subunits that they delivered, they are also fraught with huge losses, including ships.
This challenge had to be answered, and such an answer was given.
From the first half of the seventies in the US Navy and the marines begins the transition to a new way of landing. We are talking about over-the-horizon landing in its modern sense. Now the forward echelon of the naval assault forces was to descend on the water at a safe distance from the coast, where the enemy can neither see the landing ship visually nor shoot at it with the weapons available to the ground forces. The landing force had to go straight into the water in their combat vehicles, be able to walk towards them, even with significant agitation, be able to maneuver along the water's edge, and go ashore even along “weak” ground. The composition of the troop squad was supposed to be uniform — identical combat vehicles, with the same speed and range on the water. The landing of second echelons with tanks was to be a task for tank landing ships, but they had to come ashore when the airborne and navy amphibious detachments, with the support of aviation from ships, had already cleared the shore to a sufficient depth.
For this, special equipment was needed, and in 1971, the world's first UDC, the universal landing ship Tarawa, was laid. The ship had a huge landing deck for armored vehicles, which could get out of it into the water through the docking chamber in the stern. In turn, amphibious boats were located in the docking chamber, which were now intended for the landing of rear units with their equipment. The huge ship carried helicopters, in a quantity sufficient for “vertical coverage,” later Cobra drums were added to them, and after some time, the Harrier ATV in their American version.
Cumbersome and cumbersome LVTP-5 were not suitable for such tasks and in 1972, the military rolled out the first LVTP-7 - a car that was to become epoch-making in terms of influence on the tactics of naval landings.
Early version LVTP-7
The new conveyor with aluminum armor for security surpassed any of the Soviet BTR, and in many ways the BMP-1. The 12,7 caliber machine gun of millimeters was weaker than that of Soviet armored vehicles, but at a distance of visual detection could effectively hit them. The armored personnel carrier could go on water up to twenty nautical miles at speeds up to 13 kilometers per hour, and carried up to three detachments of soldiers. The car could move on a wave to three points, and kept buoyancy and stability even at five.
A new way of "run-in" on the teachings and he immediately showed that he justifies himself. The length of the coastline accessible to the tracked all-terrain vehicle is much greater than the available coast for the approach of a tank landing ship, which means that the enemy is more difficult to build a defense. In addition, the presence of seaworthy machines allowed for maneuvers on the water, aimed at misleading the enemy. The appearance of shock aviation on board the UDC helped to level the lack of assault firepower. Old ships were adapted to the new method. Armored personnel carriers could get on the water from the Newports through the aft lazport and from the ships of the docks.
The only unresolved issue was the line of dismounting. Fought two points of view. According to the first, the marines crowded “like sardines in a bank” in large and visible armored vehicles were an excellent target for heavy weapons, therefore, immediately after the passage of the coastline, the landing forces had to dismount and attack on foot, with the support of onboard weapons of the armored vehicles. According to the second point of view, heavy machine guns, the massive spread of automatic weapons in infantry, automatic grenade launchers and mortars would have destroyed dismounted marines faster than if they were inside armored vehicles.
By the mid-eighties, according to the results of the exercises, the Americans came to the conclusion that supporters of the second point of view are right, and the passage of the beach on the caterpillars at the fastest pace possible is better than deploying to rifle chains immediately after landing. Although it is not a dogma, and commanders can, if necessary, act according to the situation.
In 80, the United States improved tactics even more. Armored vehicles and soldiers received night-vision equipment and the ability to land at night. LCAC (Landing craft air cushion) boats appeared. Having a through deck, through which the cars could move from one boat to the dock chamber to another, they allowed the first wave of the landing to take with them tanks, up to four units, or heavy engineering vehicles for fencing. This made it possible to resolve the issue with the landing of tanks after the cancellation of "Newports". New landing ships appeared - landing helicopter-carrying LPD (Landing platform dock) docking ships carrying less landing than UDC and up to six helicopters, and new “Uosp” class UDC, more efficient than “Taravy” and able to perform without discounts as a command and logistics center of the landing operation, which deployed a rear battalion, a supply of weapons and logistics equipment and supplies for four days of hostilities, an operating room for six places, a powerful command center, an air group of any composition. The amphibious ships of the US Navy gave the marines the necessary flexibility - now it could be landed from the same ship as a mechanized battalion group, with tanks, cannons, and support for attack helicopters and airplanes, and as an airborne formation of up to the regiment , fighting after disembarking on foot, and simply carry out military transport from port to port.
To consider those theories and concepts that the United States spawned after the end of the Cold War does not make sense - they are untenable against a strong adversary and now the United States abandons them, returning to itself the previously lost skills of over-horizon landing with vertical coverage.
In the USSR, everything remained as in 60's. New landing ships appeared, which conceptually repeated the old ones and demanded the same approach to the coast for landing troops. The armored vehicles were the same BTR, only not -60, but -70. The 11780 project - the Soviet UDC, cynically nicknamed by its contemporaries "Ivan Tarava", did not go beyond the scope of modeling - it simply turned out to be no place to build, the plant in Nikolaev was loaded with aircraft carriers. And he was not very successful.
UDC of the 11780 project
And this is in conditions when the British on the Falkland showed the viciousness of the concept of a tank landing ship in modern war. Of the five ships of this type used in the operation, the Royal Navy lost two, and this is under conditions when there was no Argentine soldier on the coast at all. Hardly anyone of this type of ships, including the Soviet BDK, could have shown better, especially against a stronger enemy than the Argentines were. But the USSR had no alternative. And then he himself was gone.
The collapse of the fleet, following the collapse of a huge country, affected the landing ships. Their number decreased, the “Jarana” hovercraft were massively decommissioned, and not replaced by anything, KFOR left - medium landing ships, ineffective and ugly Rhinos did not become - the BND project 1174, the result of an absurd attempt to cross a tank landing ship with a ship docking and DCCD . And of course, there was no maritime armored vehicles for the marines. Well, and then the war began in the Caucasus, and everyone was sharply not up to landings in general ...
Let us briefly list what is necessary for a successful landing of troops from the sea in a modern war.
1. The landing force must go on water on armored vehicles, at a safe distance from ships for ships.
2. By the time the visual range of the land reaches the range, the landing party should be built into battle order - even on the water.
3. It must be possible to land part of the landing forces from the air in order to intercept communications of the enemy defending the coast and isolate it from reserves; You must be able to land from the air of a third of the forces allocated to participate in the first wave of the landing.
4. The preferred means of disembarking paratroopers from the air is a helicopter.
5. Also preferred means of fire support of the landing force at the stage of approaching the water's edge, coming ashore and attacking the first echelon of enemy troops defending the coast are combat aircraft and helicopters.
6. The first wave of the assault force should have tanks, demining and lashing vehicles.
7. A quick landing of second echelons with heavy weapons and rear units should be ensured immediately, as soon as the first wave of the assault forces has a success.
8. Uninterrupted delivery of supplies is necessary even in the face of opposition from the enemy.
Of course, all of this refers to some kind of “average” operation, in fact each operation must be planned on the basis of the real situation, but without the possibilities listed above, landing operations will be extremely difficult, and even if successful, will be accompanied by heavy losses.
Let us now consider what resources the Navy can allocate for amphibious operations, and how they meet the requirements listed above.
Currently, the Navy has the following ships classified as amphibious: fifteen ships of the 775 project of Polish construction of different series, four old Tapira of the 1171 project, and one new BDK Ivan Gren of the 11711 project.
Of this number, five ships are part of the Northern Fleet, four are part of the Pacific, four more are from the Baltic and seven are from the Black Sea.
Also at the disposal of the Black Sea Fleet remains the Ukrainian BDK Konstantin Olshansky, which in a hypothetical emergency situation brings the total number of BDK to twenty-one. A sistership of “Ivan Gren” - “Peter Morgunov” is under construction.
Много это или мало?
There are calculations thathow many Soviet BDK is needed to transfer a certain number of troops.
Thus, four BDK project 775 can land one battalion of marines, without reinforcement, without additional attached units and rear. Instead, you can use a couple of ships of the project 1171.
From this follow the ultimate capabilities of the fleets: the Northern can land one battalion, reinforced by a subunit of about a company, by anyone. His troops can be supported by a pair of helicopters from the "Ivan Gren". One battalion can land the Pacific and Baltic fleets. And up to two - the Black Sea. Of course, boats are not counted, but the fact is that they have a very small carrying capacity and an even shorter range. In addition, there are also a few of them - for example, all Baltic Fleet boats can land less than one battalion if we are talking about disembarking with equipment and weapons. If you land purely foot fighters, then another battalion. Black Sea Fleet boats are not enough even for a full company with equipment, as well as boats of the Northern Fleet. There will be enough boats for the TOA, but no more. And a little more company can land boats of the Caspian flotilla.
Thus, it is obvious that none of the fleets except the Black Sea can use their marines on a scale larger than the reinforced battalion, in principle. The Black Sea Fleet can land two, and even with some amplification.
But maybe some of the forces will be landed in a parachute way? Without discussing the likelihood of a successful parachute assault against an adversary with full-fledged air defense, we will nevertheless count aircraft that the Navy can use for such an operation.
The Navy has the following aircraft, capable of parachuting marines: two An-12BK, twenty-four An-26 and six An-72. In total, all these aircraft make it possible to throw out about one thousand one hundred soldiers. But, of course, without military equipment and heavy weapons (delivery of 82-mm mortars, automatic grenade launchers, NSV machine guns with 12,7 mm caliber, portable anti-tank systems, MANPADS is possible by parachute method). It is not difficult to see that, firstly, between how many troops of any fleet can land from the sea and how much naval aviation can land from the air, there is a big imbalance, it is also obvious that still none of the fleets can enter in the battle all of their marines at the same time, and even half can not, too.
If we assume a hypothetical offensive "expeditionary" operation of the Marine Corps, then the amphibious capabilities of the Navy make it possible to land about one brigade tactical group of just over four battalions.
Now let us return to the requirements that the landing forces must meet in order to be able to discourage the more or less serious enemy, at least on a small scale, corresponding to the presence of ships.
It is easy to see that the capabilities of the Navy and Marines do not correspond to any item. There are no naval armored vehicles, there is no possibility to use helicopters outside the combat radius of ground aviation, it is likewise not possible to deliver tanks to the shore except by bringing the ship close to it, which with high probability means a repetition of the British “success” on the Falklands. Means of fast delivery to the unequipped coast of the second echelon, reserves, means of logistics in a sufficient number of the Navy does not possess.
In this way, the capabilities of the full naval amphibious operations of the Navy does not possess. This is an important point, if only because in some cases, the task of landing an amphibious assault force to the fleet will be set. And, as was the case during the Great Patriotic War, the fleet will have to carry out its obviously worthless means, paying for the performance of the combat mission with excessive and absolutely unnecessary losses in the composition of the marines and at the risk of suffering defeat.
Today, the Navy is able to conduct a successful landing of a very small number of tactical assault forces only in conditions of complete, absolute absence of opposition from the enemy in the landing zone.
Fans of the mantra about the fact that we are a peaceful people and do not need overseas landings should remember dozens of landing operations during the quite defensive WWII, one of which, for example, exceeded the operation “Torch” - landing of the allies in North Africa, and in terms of the number of the first wave of the assault, albeit slightly, but surpassed that on Iwo Jima.
What are the components necessary for conducting amphibious operations that are not at the disposal of the Russian Navy?
First, there are not enough ships. If we assume that the number of marines in each of the fleets is justified from the operational point of view, it is necessary to have enough ships so that each of the fleets could land its own marines in full.
The idea of using mobilized civilian ships as amphibious in our time is no longer working. Modern amphibious units require too much heavy military equipment; it is impossible to ensure its combat use from aboard a merchant ship; in the case of mobilized ships, we can talk only about military transport.
Secondly, there is a shortage of air components - helicopters are needed in sufficient for the landing of that very one third of the forces from the air, and combat helicopters capable of supporting the landing. As a last resort, it is necessary to have at least as many helicopters as necessary to evacuate the wounded, and deliver ammunition and weapons to parachutists, and also a minimum of attack helicopters.
Thirdly, in order to deliver helicopters to the landing site, we need ships capable of carrying them.
Fourth, you need to have floating rear vessels capable of organizing cargo delivery to an unequipped coast.
Fifthly, it is necessary to have naval combat vehicles of the marines (BMMP), or at least naval armored personnel carriers, specially built for movement in conditions of excitement.
Sixth, it’s necessary not to overstrain the budget.
It is fair to say that the Navy and the military-industrial complex tried to do something.
Everyone remembers the epic with the "Mistrals", however, from the mass of observers, incompetent in matters of carrying out amphibious operations, slipped the meaning of the purchase. Moreover, the stupid debate on this topic continues to this day.
Meanwhile, the “Mistral” is the possibility of over-horizon landing of at least one fully equipped battalion of marines, with a minimum landing of a company from its composition in the form of an airborne assault, with the release of a separate helicopter unit for fire support, with an operating and command post on board. These ships closed the very lacuna in the Russian amphibious capabilities described above. To the Mistrals, only BMMPs were needed in order to land the landing with one wave, and not with small detachments on the landing craft. And then domestic BDK would turn into what they may well be - carriers of the first-tier BHMP and second-tier divisions. For this “Mistrali” ships were supposed to be bought, and anyone who disputes the decision made then, or, as they say, “not in the subject line”, or tries to promote deliberately false attitudes.
Can the domestic industry create on the fly, without experience, a decent ship of this class? It is doubtful. On the example of the “Avalanche” UDC project that has become public, this is seen just fine.
It is difficult to find such a crazy project. For some reason, this ship has a gate in its nose, although it’s quite obvious that it doesn’t go to the shallow shore because of heavy precipitation (the authors apparently want the gate to be knocked out in a slamming wave), it has an extremely irrational form of the flight deck, rectangular plan could get another starting position for the helicopter - and their number in the landing operation is critical. The real horror is that the landing chamber floor is level with the floor of the docking chamber - this means either flooding the landing deck along with the dock chamber each time it is used, or the presence of a giant insulating pressure vessel between the dock chamber and the deck, which eliminates the landing of the landing on the water otherwise than docking boats. Or use the gate in the nose, which for such a ship gives madness. There are other, less significant disadvantages.
The longitudinal section shows the position of the dock chamber and the landing deck.
Obviously, the project stillborn.
More interesting are the perspectives of another project, the PWCD Priboy. Unfortunately, apart from the silhouette, and the design characteristics there is no information about this ship, but it is hard to imagine that it is worse than the Avalanche.
The project "Surf" - everything we know
One way or another, the industry has not shown itself ready to independently design analogs of the French Mistral, even if it is assumed that under the conditions of sanctions thereto it is possible to produce all the necessary components. Perhaps something will come from "Surf", but for now you can only hope for it.
A great success is the creation of the Ka-52K Katran combat helicopter, the carrier of which was planned to be made the Mistral. This machine has enormous potential, and can easily become the main attack helicopter in the naval aviation of the Russian Federation, one of the "pillars" of amphibious assault forces of the future. Unfortunately, this is the only relatively completed project in our fleet that can be useful in building effective landing forces.
And, finally, it is impossible not to mention the draft marines marines - BMMP.
Project Omsktransmash considered in the article by Kirill Ryabovthose interested should study it, and this is exactly what the marines should ideally be armed with. Unfortunately, the project “in metal” is very far away, and in the light of new economic realities, it’s not at all a fact that they will be given a turn. Nevertheless, there are chances to realize the project.
At present, Russia economically, as they say, will not “pull” the creation of a modern amphibious fleet. At the same time, the requirements for amphibious forces applied near its territory, or, as during the Second World War, on it, are very different from those that will be presented for expeditionary actions - and the situation may require a war near the house, and somewhere far away From him. At the same time, it is also impossible to leave the situation "as is" - the BDK uses the resource in the Syrian Express very intensively, and the repair of ships built in Poland is currently difficult. Soon these ships will have to be changed, and for this you need to understand what. All this is superimposed on the apparent lack of command of the navy and marines of the concept of landing operations of the future.
This can be seen even in the teachings where armored vehicles leave from ships to shore, where bulldozers and other roads are laid for it, and the airborne troops look like three or four fighters landed right on the edge of the water from an antisubmarine helicopter (which looks very strange in fact). As a result, today Russia is inferior in its amphibious capabilities even to small countries, for example, in its amphibious ships, the Russian Pacific Fleet is inferior even to Singapore, and it is not worth mentioning about larger countries.
The continuation of the current trends will lead to the complete loss of landing opportunities - this moment is not far off. And to reverse the trends "in the forehead" by building all the necessary will not give the economy. Such is the dilemma.
So is there a way out? Surprisingly, there is. However, it will require non-standard approaches on the one hand and competent concepts on the other. Innovations, such as we have not yet resorted to, and thoughtful reflection of traditions. A thorough analysis of modernity and deep understanding stories. It will require a level of planning actions and an understanding of the issues somewhat higher than in Russia, as is customary to demonstrate. But this is not impossible, and about this - in the following material.
Information