Suitcases without handles. Navy buys a series of useless ships
In 2013, the Navy seemed to have stepped over some edge in shipbuilding programs. It was announced that production of the 20385 project’s corvettes was halted due to the high price. At the same time, work began on a much more expensive and low-capacity ship of the 20386 project, to which huge funds were spent (and which may not be handed over to the fleet). the stage of work on the creation of the first patrol ship for the Russian fleet belonging to the OPV class according to the international classification - offshore patrol vessel, sea patrol vessel. The project to create such a ship received a number 22160.
In February, 2014, on the Central Naval Portal the following message appeared:
The Commander-in-Chief does not see a prospect in the creation of ships previously designated as "Corvette OVR". One of the main tasks of the OVR is to ensure the protection and defense of naval forces in the areas of naval bases and in the territories adjacent to them. This task is now carried out by coastal surveillance equipment, stationary sonar stations and coastal missile and artillery troops, armed with anti-ship missiles of different ranges, as well as anti-submarine and shock Aviation.
Rejecting the corvette, the Navy turned to the idea of creating patrol ships - less armed, but with greater autonomy and versatility, capable, including, to go on long hikes. The design of the patrol ship will be handled by the North Design Bureau.
What the new patrol ships will be is prematurely speaking.
Hearing this from the mouth of the commander in chief of the Navy was simply monstrous. After all, even now, after nearly five years, Russia cannot produce anti-submarine airplanes, and what is there to produce, even normal can not draw pictures, and the situation with FOSS is even worse - about those organizations that make them you can safely say that it would be better they did nothing, at least the money would remain, and a zero result would be achieved for free. In such conditions, to protect the waters near the naval bases really could only be exclusively ships, with good capabilities in the fight against submarines. And they, at least, could be produced (it is possible even now), and if you use all the available domestic backlog correctly, then these will be quite good ships, really capable of providing at least PLO and giving the main forces of the fleet to leave the bases without being shot with impunity by torpedoes from submarines.
But in reality, the commander in chief was exactly the opposite - we, as Americans, could allegedly operate with arrays of reliable and efficient bottom sensors, and seemed to have modern anti-submarine aircraft. I wonder where everything went?
In late February, the 2014 lead ship of a series of six units, the Vasily Bykov, was laid at the Zelenodolsk plant. This event makes it even more strange to look at the words of Admiral V. Chirkov given in the quoted message: “What will be the new patrol ships? - It’s too early to say».
How could this be if there were weeks left before the bookmark? The commander did not know what kind of ships would be laid in a few weeks?
A little bit later, in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta, in October 2014, Chirkov clarified his position:
Generally speaking, ships of the 22160 project can be considered as a modern means of responding to new threats at sea. I am referring to the suppression of smuggling and piracy, the search and assistance to victims of marine disasters, environmental monitoring of the environment, etc.
It was an even wilder statement.
Firstly, according to the current legislation, patrolling of territorial waters and the exclusive economic zone in Russia is entrusted to the Coast Guard of the FSB, about which unequivocally indicated on the website of the FSB, with given excerpts from laws and regulations:
Why should the Navy do this? For BOHR, the FSB builds and builds ships designed specifically to perform such tasks, and the FSB itself is just a law enforcement structure, whose task is to ensure the law and order. The task of the Navy is to fight, sink enemy ships, shoot down planes, burn out coastal defenses, land assault forces, and so on.
Even in the "Fundamentals of the Naval Policy" about the protection of the exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf the same thing is said - this is the FSB case, although the need for the Navy to interact with the FSB is mentioned.
Apparently, the PR specialists of the Ministry of Defense came to their senses, and soon the ships of the 22160 project began to be positioned as "anti-piracy" and "carrying modular weapons."
But besides the “first”, there is the “second”.
These ships are constructive or incapable of doing what Admiral V. Chirkov claimed or are capable of badly. They can be limitedly used against pirates, in wartime they are almost completely useless, they cannot protect the naval bases ... frankly speaking, they can almost nothing.
Let us analyze the correspondence of the declared functionality of these ships to their real capabilities (with the exception of the activity of replacing the forces of the FSB, which is a priori so meaningless that it is not worth mentioning it - the FSB itself may well carry out the tasks of the FSB).
Let's start with the anti-piracy functions, which are supported by the propaganda machine of the Ministry of Defense.
So, at first glance, everything is fine - there are two boats on the right and left on the board and cranes for their descent. This is enough to have an inspection group or a capture group on two boats - one with a fire cover group, the second is an inspection / assault group, whose task is to climb aboard under the cover of the first one. There is a place for a helicopter, which is usually used for aerial reconnaissance, and fire suppression "from above", as well as for disembarking on high-ship ships in the absence of resistance. A helicopter and two boats are a standard anti-piracy set of forces for any Navy.
The US Navy's Arleigh Burke-class ship dispatches a search team to a boat whose crew is suspected of piracy. The helicopter provides insurance.
There is even a third boat - a low-profile air assault boat (XSL) of the 02800 project, high-speed and armored, located in the aft slip.
Here it is necessary to make a reservation. In fact, the Navy plans to use helicopter + DSL tactics with an inspection / assault group. This is wrong and dangerous, and life will force the Navy to "be like everyone else" and not reinvent the wheel, since there is a possibility. But about DSL later.
Anti-piracy actions can be divided into main groups:
- Ship escort.
- Inspection of suspicious vessels (usually pirate ships-queens) and the arrest of suspects on board.
- Delivery of suspects to the nearest country for trial.
- Reflection of attacks by pirates before they penetrate the attacked ship.
- The release of the vessel seized by pirates in the absence of hostages ("classics of the genre" - tanker "Moscow University").
- The release of the vessel seized by pirates in the presence of hostages on board.
- Sinking of pirate ships and boats.
- Rescue people from the water and various boats.
At the same time, depending on the place and time, these actions are performed under different weather conditions and waves.
How adequate is the 22160 project to these tasks?
Regarding escort ships, no questions. The course of the “merchant” in the Gulf of Aden 10-13 knots is fully within the power of the new “patrolman” in any unrest. However, when leaving the Gulf of Aden to the east, into the open ocean, nuances begin.
The fact is that outside the Gulf of Aden, just along the Somali coast, strong monsoons almost always blow, only in the winter period the wind is almost always northeast, and usually accelerates the waves to a height of 3-4 meters. This happens from October to March.
Then there is the off-season, and from April to the end of October south-western monsoons blow, and the specificity is that from August to October the wind is stronger and the wave height is higher than the average for the year, the latter is often in the range from four and a half to six meters
So, whatever “unlimited” was not the seaworthiness of the patrol vessel, and nature is not fooled, and on such a wave it will chat. Pirates, who in this region are acting quite well, will also (and chatter), but firstly they are not so long at sea to lose their fighting capacity from long rolling, and secondly, they are dealing with unarmed people and ships. But the patrol personnel will have to deal with precisely armed people, and a long stay in the exhausting roll will have a very negative impact on the ability of the same marines to conduct combat operations. In addition, taking off and landing a helicopter with such a wave from a small ship causes serious doubts. We look how it looks in reality. Danish Navy.
That's about 22160 will behave on the waves, maybe a little less pitching and a little higher tank fillability due to the specific shape of the body.
Here we must understand that, firstly, the helicopter shown is lighter than the Ka-29 or 27 PS, and it is much easier to “catch” the amplitude of the deck rolling, and secondly, the attack by NATO anti-submarine pilots is much higher than the future ones anti-piracy "crews of naval aviation naval. And we still do not consider the fact that NATO has and uses quite massively different assistance systems for landing on a rocking deck, which the helicopter crew cannot count on from our new patrol vessel. And okay, if the helicopter could not lift, and if it can not be put? Who is there in the ocean to help and how?
Thus, we find the first limitation - the patrolman, when performing tasks on escorting ships, will not always be able to use the helicopter, and the personnel will wear down the pitching, undermining its combat capability. Or, you will have to stay inside the Gulf of Aden, without going to the ocean, even when you receive a signal for help (which may not be possible).
Precisely for this reason, even countries that have OPV class patrol vessels do not use them in anti-piracy operations far from bases! These ships are in use in countries where the Navy performs the tasks of the Coast Guard! They are not used on long hikes. We look, that in the course in anti-piracy activity.
Singapore uses amphibious ships - Endurance Class DKKD with a displacement of 6500 tons.
Denmark - Absalon class multipurpose ships6600 tons.
US - or naval warships (for example, the destroyers "Arly Burke") or Coast Guard ships (for example Legend-class). The latter are larger and heavier than our Project 11356 frigates and have several dozen reserve seats for special forces, medics, translators, rescued people, etc.
Spain - multipurpose class ships Buque_de_Acción_Marítima. Displacement 2860 tons.
The list can go on and on. Here are the old "sea wolves" - the British. A huge ship of complex supply was used as a floating base, with three helicopters, huge areas of internal premises and a cruising range. RFA Fort Victoria. 31000 tons.
The Chinese are more modest, and chase ordinary frigates project 054A, with a displacement of 3900 tons.
Indians have special-built patrol vessels - Saryu-class / class "Saryu". Displacement - 2900 tons.
Ships operating in the ocean are made large and heavy. This is not from stupidity or whim. This is because the personnel during the months-long anti-piracy operation must always be combat-ready, and even if the storm does not allow the boats to be lowered into the water, then he must not lift the helicopter into the air and take it back. And for this the ship must be large.
It is worth noting that all examples weapons aboard more than one cannon and several machine guns.
Again, pay attention to the fact that in Britain, the OPV is quite possible for itself - the River-2 class / ships of the River-2 class. But for some reason no one thinks of sending them somewhere further on the English Channel, the coast of Ireland and the western part of the North Sea. There, near their native shores, they work as “frontier guards” and this is what such ships exist for.
An interesting example is provided by Malaysia, in which the problem of piracy is very relevant right in the domestic waters. In order not to overpay on the one hand, and to have an effective means of dealing with the other, the Malaysians converted several bulk carriers into floating special forces bases. The head vessel of this type, Bunga Mas Lima, was even engaged in rescuing Malaysian students from Egypt during the Arab spring, although it mostly fights with the feast of the “house”.
And only the Russians turned out to be the most “smart” and plan to use OPV where they simply cannot effectively and in all cases be used.
No, in calm weather, in the depths of the Gulf of Aden, everything will be fine. But it is somehow strange to rely on the fact that you are lucky with the weather and the enemy (pirates) will not wield where we cannot act. Especially since in fact he is wielding there.
Regarding the inspection of suspicious boats - then everything will turn out if you use inflatable boats on the sides and do not play superheroes at DSL. We look again at what it looks like - a group on the same boat insures - if in a crowd of potential pirates someone tries to throw a grenade at an inspection party, then the shooters from the insure boat will be able to kill such a person faster than he does something.
British with "Fort Victoria". One of the boats does not moor, the shooter is ready to shoot a crowd of pirates with a machine gun with tape feed.
This is a standard tactic, so they do everything, from a helicopter a grenade, clamped in the hand of a gangster, cannot be seen, hidden under the rags of Uzi, too. At the same time from the open top of the boat can start shooting all who are on board. DSHL with its housing closed on top here is only to the detriment, and an attempt to use it alone, without a second boat, is fraught with the very grenade thrown over the side, or several. Watching pirates on deck while mooring from a moored boat does not always work because of the high side of the "womb".
The military takes the "pirate" on board. The second boat covers the landing group, the helicopter is in the air.
Also, do not use DSHL because of its dubious ride quality on a high wave - the boat is flat, the hull inside is low, people on board just beat the armored ceiling with unpredictable health effects. This is approximately how the passage of a fully seaworthy boat over a wave of 4,5 meter height looks like.
US Coast Guard training.
DSL in such conditions will be very bad. So innovations here do not justify themselves.
But with the delivery of suspects somewhere, questions begin. Is the "anti-piracy ship" equipped with a prison? This is not an idle question, the number of those arrested may exceed twenty people. To kill them in the same way as they did with the gang that seized the "Moscow University"? This should not be done all the time - this is very bad for the country's image, and, even more important, for the morale of the personnel. And it's not a fact that, for example, arms smugglers should immediately go to feed the fish, any person should have the right to a fair trial. Or at least some. Due to the small size of the patrol vessel, the possibility of having a full-fledged prison block on it is extremely doubtful.
The patrol vessel can beat off a pirate attack with its cannon and machine guns, there are no questions here. To conduct an operation in the image and likeness of the liberation of the “Moscow University”, too - there is a helicopter for fire suppression, there are boats.
But with the release of hostages everything is bad.
The fact is that the combination of the height of the board and the speed of the vessel captured by the pirates may prevent them from disembarking from the boats. And then there will be one way - landing from a helicopter. But such a landing should either occur at the poorly guarded tip of the vessel, where the helicopter will not be immediately shot by pirates, or take place under fire cover.
The speed with which the hostage operations should be carried out does not leave a chance for the first option - such penetration into the ship will be too slow. There will be only one option - while the pirates are being crushed by fire from one helicopter, the second immediately, in a matter of seconds, the anti-terrorist unit disembarks, which, preventing the pirates from recovering themselves, destroys them at full speed, moving to the intended location of the hostages. Then the helicopters change, and the second helicopter is landing, while the first one “insures” it from above.
And here our patrol is useless - there is only one helicopter on it. And this is a serious disadvantage, given that right now the pirate threat is changing to a terrorist one, and very quickly. Since 2014, when the “ingenious” decision to build these “ships” was made in the Russian Federation, the number of attacks by pirates in the sea has seriously decreased, while the strength of terrorist groups, their technical equipment, and the training of combat units, on the contrary, have increased. And to solve this problem, a completely different force is needed, rather than a pair of marine units, even from contract soldiers.
With the rescue of people at the patrol, too, "not very" - where on a small vessel to place the crew of a ship set on fire or undermined by pirates? And how to make a surgical operation to a wounded hostage or a fighter in a storm that has begun?
What should be a modern ship adequate to the tasks of ensuring the safety of navigation against piracy and terrorism? It should provide for the basing of a pair of Ka-27PS / 29 helicopters, with the possibility of their simultaneous rise into the air, there should be the possibility of launching a pair of seaworthy boats capable of lifting soldiers by separation. On board there should be not only a gym and a bathhouse, but also a gunsmith for storing various types of weapons and equipment (for example, shields for entering doorways during an assault, large-caliber rifles with a caliber of 12,7 mm, special carbines of the KS-23 type for breaking doors, and firing non-lethal ammunition, various silent pistols and machine guns for different conditions of combat use), with opportunities for minor repairs, a medical unit in which a complex operation could be carried out to a wounded soldier or hostage, a prison for delivering captured pirates to the shore, additional rooms for persons rescued from sinking or burning ships capable of accommodating the crew of an average tanker or bulk carrier). There should be a morgue on it - alas, anything can happen.
A special unit on board should, at the maximum, be equal to four squads - one for each helicopter and boat. One of them must be trained as combat swimmers, and the ship must have the equipment they need - space for storing rebreathers and scuba gear, for refueling scuba gear with breathing mixture, etc.
Dimensions, hull lines and displacement of such a ship should allow helicopters to be raised into the air under conditions typical of the Indian Ocean and North Atlantic.
Need drones for reconnaissance. Naturally, you need a weapon that allows you to fire at targets attacking the ship from any course, preferably remote-controlled machine guns of 14,5 mm caliber with television sights, for day and night use. Naturally, the sectors of their shelling should overlap. As the main caliber, a 76 mm gun will do.
It may be worthwhile to have small-sized ground vehicles for special operations on the coast - for example, motorcycles, ATVs or buggies that a helicopter could bring to the shore on an external sling.
It is clear that to have many such ships would be irrational and expensive, so Russia should finally go for the legalization of PMCs, so that such organizations could take over the security of merchant ships, and legally cooperate in this field with the fleet, which would allow no more than one special "anti-piracy" ship in combat service at any given time. Then there could be no more than four for the entire Navy.
In the course of the war with a real enemy, such a ship could be used as a network and minelayer, in addition, it should be provided with retrofitting with anti-aircraft weapons and conversion into military transport.
It is not difficult to see that the ship of the 22160 project is very far from these requirements, as well as the idea of fighting pirates with one boat of one helicopter and a couple of marine units, and still well, if not enlisted.
But the fleet is building exactly 22160, which, by their anti-piracy functionality, are simply poor.
But maybe then these ships and other functions will be able to perform? No, they can not. The ship cannot protect merchant and transport ships - if only because submarines or aircraft will strike them, and this technology miracle cannot be used with them, in the case of submarines there is even nothing to hear, there is no sonar equipment (except anti-sabotage) nor anti-submarine weapons. And even if the towed GAS “Minotaur” takes place in the compartment of modular equipment, the question remains with the weapon. A helicopter cannot be in the air forever. In the case of an air attack, the crew will have an excellent opportunity to see its death - there is nothing for this aircraft to shoot down planes, it is so silly to count on the 76 millimeter cannon that you don’t even want to discuss it - experienced pilots will try to enter the stern where this ship doesn’t have weapons in general. However, in the case of a strike on a patrol ship of the 22160 project, you can simply drop a guided bomb from a great height.
Similarly, to protect the naval bases with the help of these ships also fail, for the same reasons - they are “deaf” and unarmed.
Against this background, even the fetish of domestic shipbuilders is a modular weapon, it does not look. What is the use of having a container-launcher launcher with Uran missiles, for example, if aviation and submarines are now the main means of attacking ships? To even the container with the missiles was drowned? In principle, domestic shipbuilders and in such logic, probably, can already be reproached, but to the military something to drown on these "edinichka", where are they looking?
As a result, for the ship, in fact, there remains only one reasonable application - to carry in itself the modular PU “Caliber” for striking ground targets. But then it was necessary to put the same container on the landing craft - the same thing, and the price is less at times, and there is more confusion. The landing craft can at least land the landing ...
And, most importantly, with rocket modules - they are not there yet. No serial rocket module. The experience of Americans with modules for LCS says that the list of modules in the series usually “ripens” by the time when the head carrier of these modules should already be deducted from old service. There is a trend. Someone thinks that we can work out a modular theme better than they?
These ships are also miserable from a constructive point of view. So, for example, the stern slip, the one from which the descent of DSL is to occur on the water, is not suitable for solving practical problems. Let's compare the slip on our ship and its analogue, made by Damen.
Ours - visible narrow hatch under the compartment of modular weapons and equipment.
Dutch.
As you can see, the Dutch have a height significantly higher. Why is that? Because in the pursuit of the deployment of modular weapons, domestic designers had to “slaughter” this very height. Where it leads?
This will lead to the fact that on a typical wave for the Arabian Sea (east of the Gulf of Aden), a boat entering a slip will be hit by a wave - the pitching amplitude of the boat at the moment it is dragged onto the ship can be quite large, and it is necessary that there is headroom for this pitching. But he is not, at all. This is another reason why you will have to give up playing games with DSL. But I want the engineers who invented this miracle to ask the question - what did they think when they invented it?
Naturally, the unsuccessful design of the feed slip is not limited to everything.
The patrol ship was built according to "civil" technical requirements. It does not provide for such redundancy of systems that a warship should have, solutions for survivability have not been implemented in the proper volume. For example, both diesels are in the same engine room, and if the engine room is hit by enemy fire or in the event of a fire, the ship will lose speed immediately. In response, one can argue that the ship is not a combat one, but a patrol ship, but isn't it too bold, with the beginning of the Ukrainian events, after the Crimea, after the West began to spin the sanctions flywheel, build a series of non-combat patrol ships? Maybe it would be better to build combat ones?
The question is not idle. According to a source in the Ministry of Defense, the price of one patrol ship of the 22160 project is approximately six billion rubles. The six ships of the first series are thirty-six billion, that is, approximately two corvettes of the 20380 project.
But the 20380 Corvette is “quite another thing,” such a ship can sink patrol boats until the ammunition runs out, not very well, but can fight with submarines, shoot down planes and missiles, can fire its 100 millimeter gun to effectively support fire landing party This is just a full-fledged warship. And, evil irony, just two corvettes are not enough for the Pacific Fleet to get a full-fledged brigade of surface ships from six (and not four) ships of this class by about 2021. In the light of the sharp increase in Japan in this theater of operations, it would not be superfluous.
But instead there will be ships of the 22160 project that you can’t fight with pirates, or take part in hostilities.
Limited to new ships can be used for special operations. Long range, the presence on board of a helicopter, as many as three boats, places for mounting a container with diving equipment, gives some possibilities. But these opportunities do not justify the construction of a whole series of ships of six billion to the detriment of the construction of real warships, albeit in smaller quantities.
Soon all the patrolmen will be commissioned, and the Navy will be faced with the task of inventing their use. Exactly. After all, these ships are like suitcases without a handle. Carry inconvenient quit sorry. Nothing to do, will have to "carry."
There are already ideas - for example, to use patrolmen to guard the Nord Stream pipeline from sabotage. Anti-sabotage gas and grenade launchers that can hit combat swimmers may be the way. But here they are just redundant and too expensive, such a task could be solved much cheaper. There is an idea to re-equip them with rocket weapons, turning them into an overgrown IRA, a sort of “Karakurt”, but huge with a helicopter. However, the zero survivability of these ships will not effectively use them in combat ...
Actually do with these ships is what. To rebuild the stern part, to make a normal slip by eliminating the compartment for modular weapons and equipment, and to transfer ships that have already been built or are in a high degree of readiness to the FSB BOCHR, and those whose readiness is low, cut to metal. It would be the only correct option, all the rest are half measures. It would be much more profitable for the fleet to pay a penalty for breaking a contract than to accept these “things in themselves” that simply have nothing to use.
After all, these ships are useless precisely as ships, and if you look at the whole, then this project is not just useless, but just harmful, as it reduces the country's defense capability.
First, every ship needs a ship commander and CU commanders. In this case, the ship we have non-combat and useless, but the officers and midshipmen will have to put real ones on it. In the event of war, they will die without meaning and result. In peacetime, there will be a ballast, whose professional skills do not grow, due to the lack of tasks for ships that they can fully solve. This is a minus to combat capability, not "zero."
And, of course, the money that will be spent on the operation of these pseudo-ships could be spent, for example, on repairing a ship with a non-zero combat value. But it will be the opposite, and this is also a minus to the defense.
Well, if during the war these ships receive tasks “like real”, then, failing them (and it’s almost impossible), they can put some combat operation “in jeopardy”. This is also not useful for the country.
Such a project received a start in life when Admiral Viktor Chirkov, Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, was in existence. Chirkov is no longer in the fleet, but the ships remain, and it is not clear what to do with them.
However, this is with a conscious shipbuilding policy, we have problems, but with the scattering of money for the wind, we have not had any problems.
One can only hope that the future reduction of military budgets will stop this orgy. Because otherwise it can be stopped by some adversary who considered that the Russian naval tent gives him the opportunity to act from a position of strength. And this option is more and more likely every day.
- Alexander Timokhin
- US Department of Defense, Indian Navy, Damen, Curious / forums.airbase.ru, Singapore Navy, US Coast guard, UKRMS, Spanish Navy, Malaysian Navy, Netherlands AIFF, Artyom Balabin
Information