Death from nowhere. About the mine war on the sea. Part of 3
A lot of bad things can be said about the various forces of the Russian Navy, and not a lot of good things, but on this background, the anti-mine forces stand out in particular. The fact is that this is the only kind of force in the Navy, whose capabilities are equal to zero - strictly. Not more.
Yes, the submarine fleet does not have modern torpedoes, does not have hydroacoustic countermeasures, the level of training of personnel is low, and so on, but still it can do a lot, for example, against different countries of the “third world”. And against NATO in some cases and with a certain luck.
Yes, the surface fleet almost died, but even in its current state it is capable of inflicting losses on the majority of potential opponents, especially from its shores, and Syria has gathered a good grouping this summer, and then played its role by one hundred percent.
Yes, from the sea aviation there were horns and legs left, but still six planes, somehow capable of fighting modern submarines, we type, there are assault aviation regiments, there is a Tu-142M for long-range reconnaissance - and they conduct it well.
And so everywhere, except for mine forces. There is a zero. Full. Starting from senior officers who still believe in towed trawls, and brushing off modern Western mines from TTX, and ending with ships unfit to perform tasks for their intended purpose. Zero.
At the same time, injecting money into new minesweepers was simply in vain. The question of why this happened is multifaceted, complex and its full disclosure is impossible within the framework of one article. Let's just say - in conditions where the Navy has not been participating in hostilities for a long time, a whole class of military bureaucracy has grown around it, seeing navy only fin.flow, which must be saddled, and no more. The combat readiness issues with this approach do not interest anyone at all, nobody deals with them, and as a result, there is no combat readiness.
We are not so much interested in the question “who is to blame?”, But in the question “what to do?”, Which is worth concentrating on.
Consider how the situation in the Navy differs from what it should be.
Basically, the tasks of mine forces can be divided into the detection of mines and their destruction. Once upon a time, mines, if they were discovered, were only visually. Since the second half of the twentieth century, hydroacoustic stations, specially designed to search for small objects in the water column at shallow (first) depths, have been used as a means of detecting minefields. Such GUS, installed on minesweepers, allowed to detect the minefield directly along the course. In the future, GAS became more and more perfect, later remote-controlled uninhabited underwater vehicles were added to them - TNPA equipped with sonars and television cameras, crewless boats equipped with GUS appeared, side-scan sonars appeared, allowing the underwater situation to open, moving along the edge of the minefield.
In the future, the emergence of accurate positioning systems of the ship and the TNPA, the growth of computer capabilities, the increase in sonar resolution, made it possible to survey the bottom and water column in the protected area, detecting changes, new objects at the bottom and in the bottom layers of the water, which were not there before. Such objects could be checked immediately with the help of TNLA, making sure that it was not a mine.
Low-frequency HAS appeared, the signal of which, without providing a good resolution of the received “picture”, could, nevertheless, reveal silted bottom mines, which was a huge step forward. Now it has become hard to hide mine in that rubbish that is present in abundance on the seabed in the area of intensive economic and military activity of man, in silt, in algae, among various large debris, drowned boats and boats, tires, and everything else there at the bottom. The silt inflicted by undercurrents was a separate problem, it could hide a mine from other search methods, but the low-frequency signal helped to “figure it out” with it. All these tools are effectively combined with each other, providing, if necessary, the so-called "continuous sonar illumination." High-frequency HAS give a good picture, allowing, for example, to detect a mine-torpedo installed at a depth, a low-frequency HAS makes it possible to look under the silt. It, plus computers and the perfect software, help to "cut off" the natural hindrances created by undercurrents. There are more advanced and able to control the situation - so technically it has long been possible to implement the so-called continuous sonar monitoring, when monitoring the underwater situation is carried out continuously using a wide range of sonar facilities that detect both the appearance of foreign objects (min) at the bottom and in the water and combat swimmers, for example.
On the approach, mass introduction of parametric antennas even in the Navy of small and weak countries — when beams of powerful sound waves with similar frequencies emitted in an aquatic environment parallel generate a zone in the water, a sort of “virtual” antenna, which is a source of powerful secondary oscillations, much more powerful than it can to give an ordinary sonar antenna of a reasonable size. This increases the efficiency of mine search by orders of magnitude. Such equipment is already coming into service in some countries.
In cases where complex hydrology does not allow the “view” of the entire water column, TNPA are used. They also provide a classification found minopodobnyh objects, if it is difficult for the signals GUS.
Naturally, all of the above is reduced to one complex using automated mine action control systems that transform various means of detection (and destruction) into a single jointly operating complex, and form an information environment for operators and users in which the diversity of underwater is visually and simply displayed. environment, and is given the target of both forces and means of destruction.
It is not difficult to guess that our Navy has almost none of this.
Currently, the Navy has several dozens of minesweepers, one of which, Vice Admiral Zakharyin, has not the best, but adequate GAS mine detection, and the Mayevka STIUM, to search for and destroy mines under water. There are a couple of sea-sweepers of the 12260 project, who have high-frequency HAS, and in theory are capable of carrying ancient mine finders, KUU mine -1 and 2 (in practice these systems are “alive” now, it’s difficult to say. There is evidence with the Gyurza system, which has not reached the “series”), there are nine raid minesweepers of the 10750 project, possessing, so to speak, relatively acceptable GAS mine detection, and also capable of using mine seekers.
There are newest minesweepers of the 12700 Alexandrite project, conceived as carriers of modern mine action sonar stations, but few of them, and they are characterized by such a huge mass of flaws, which reduces the significance of these ships to zero. Until.
There are certain developments on the ACS, significantly inferior to the Western ones.
And that is all.
All other road, base and sea minesweepers are completely outdated, and for something more complicated than removing self-made anchor mines made by some self-taught militants in the garage is unsuitable. Old-time GAS, towed trawls and memories of old Soviet mine seekers — there is nothing else there.
The Navy does not have systems that fully possess the functionality described above, and it doesn’t even try to get anything close. From time to time, on the pages of specialized military publications, there are articles of middle-level officers or not very high-ranking officers of the relevant design bureaus or scientific research institutes, where thoughts are expressed about the need to bring opportunities to search for mines in accordance with the requirements of the time, but these appeals usually remain a voice crying the wilderness. It is possible that some kind of research and development work on these topics is sluggish, but they will never reach the “series”.
At the same time, the Russian industry has all the necessary potential to quickly remedy the situation. There are no technical problems in order to "grow together" maps of the seabed in areas that are supposed to be mined in the first place, protected computers, which would display information from the GUS. There is no technological impossibility to make a BEC with the HAS or a side-scan sonar (HBO) and to ensure the transfer of data from it to the command post, where they would be “superimposed” on the bottom maps. All this can be done, tested and brought to a series within about five years. Well, a maximum of seven years.
Moreover, the domestic minesweepers previously supplied abroad underwent modernization there, and it turned out that the old domestic MAS of the Ministry of Investigation completely “reach out” to a level more or less adequate to the threats even without replacement, simply by updating the peripheral equipment. This fact suggests that the same sea trawlers of the 1265 project, which are still the basis of domestic mine-sweeping forces, like the 266M, and the projects listed above, may well be upgraded in terms of hydroacoustics, get on board ACS terminals, and equipment conjugation of automated control systems and their own search hydroacoustic complexes.
It will take some time and some money. The downside is only the age of 1265 minesweepers. Their wooden hulls are already seriously worn out, and for some ships, repair will be impossible. But it is still much better than zero.
The situation with the destruction of mines is no better than the search. As mentioned earlier, modern mines will not allow themselves to be wiped in the usual way - towing a trawler with a minesweeper over a minefield. It is no longer possible, a mine that reacts to a combination of acoustic, electromagnetic and hydrodynamic fields will explode even under a quiet and non-magnetic trawler, destroying the ship and killing the crew. Alas, there is no other means of the Russian Navy. The old KIA-1 and 2, and various experimental seekers and destroyers, have long been in the know. stories, somewhere there are no pictures left, more or less lively “Mayovka” the corrupt officials from the fleet nailed, the foreign equipment was under sanctions, and not that our Ministry of Defense wanted to buy. If tomorrow someone mines us exits from the bases, then they will have to be punched by ships, there will be no other options.
If the majority of fleets do not have the means of speed clearance, but there is at least a point means - STIUM, TNLA-seekers, destroyers - then we have nothing.
And, as in the case of mine exploration, we have all the necessary technologies and competencies to fix everything in about seven years.
We analyze demining tasks deeper.
It is necessary to separate the tasks of demining in general and the “breakthrough” of a minefield, for example, for emergency withdrawal from the impact of surface ships. The first, when it is a question of “having time on time” can be carried out on a limited scale (“breakdown of the corridor”), but must be carried out quickly.
In the old days, the breaker ship was the fastest way to break through a minefield. Such ships were specially hardened vessels capable of surviving a mine explosion. They were sent to the minefields so that they, moving along them, initiated the detonation of the mines along the course, “breaking through the corridor” in the minefield for the passage of normal ships and ships. Until now, there are several radio-controlled breakthroughs in the Navy ranks (eg 13000).
Time, however, does not stand still. Americans use helicopter-dragged trails instead of breakthrough ships, but there is a far more rational solution - a self-propelled trawl.
Currently, self-propelled trawls are manufactured by SAAB. Its product SAM-3 is the most advanced similar product in the world, and the most mass-produced. Even more correct to say - the only fully serial.
The trawl is an unmanned catamaran that is retained on the water thanks to floats of high-strength soft material filled with air.
The catamaran is regularly towing a combined acoustic-electromagnetic trawl. In most cases, SAM-3 is able to really simulate a surface ship and make the mines work.
The soft material of the floats is capable of absorbing a sufficiently powerful shock wave. In the photo below, for example, undermining a trawl explosive charge equivalent to 525-ti kilograms of TNT.
A very important point - the trawl is thrown through the air, and requires four people and a crane with a lifting capacity of 14 tons to assemble and launch into the water.
In case the mine situation is complex and a complete imitation of a large surface ship is required, the SAM-3 can tow non-self-propelled mass simulators of the TOMAS ship. These devices are large and heavy floats, with sources of electromagnetic waves that can imitate, with their volume and mass, the hydrodynamic effect of the ship’s hull on the mass of water along which it moves. At the same time, for the “fit” of the impact, it is possible to form a “train” of floats. Acoustic trawls are suspended under the necessary floats, and one can imitate the sounds from the engine room, the second noise from the steering wheel. In fact, this is the ideal means of breakthrough, a sort of super-breaker that can fool almost any modern mine.
After the self-propelled trawl has punched a corridor in a minefield, unmanned boats with hydroacoustic stations are sent behind it, the task of which is to detect unexploded mines in the “corridor”. The mined-like objects found can classify the TNLA, and destroy the STIUM - since all the mine defenders will explicitly explode when they pass over what was defined as a surface ship for all parameters, it will not be a problem for the STIUM to approach the mine and use a blasting charge against it.
Left past, right now. Now do not trawl.
It is possible that mines, including defenders, will be adjusted to an underwater object. In this case, you have to massively use destroyers. On the other hand, a precise determination of the location of the mines and their classification will help to use such old means as a corded charge of explosives, and to finish off only those mines that survived with the help of destroyers.
Thus, for the Navy the following solution would be ideal.
Mine action units are being created at naval bases. They are armed with self-propelled trawls and physical field simulators, similar to the SAM-3, skidless boats with sonar stations, carrier boats TNPA and STIUM, as is done by the Americans, who do not build new minesweepers. Such a unit works according to the scheme described above - trawling of a water area by a self-propelled trawl, output following the trawl of the BEC group with search tools, using TNPA for classifying detected min-like objects, and using STIUM to destroy mines that did not blow up during trawling. As a backup, they should have disposable destroyers, but due to their high price, this will be the last resort. Which, thanks to the self-propelled trawl, will be needed in not very large, and therefore tolerable quantities.
Once again, there are all the technologies necessary for this in Russia, and with a competent formulation of the problem, such a scheme can be deployed in five to seven years. In the future, it is necessary to switch to continuous hydroacoustic observation, in order to completely eliminate the casting of self-transporting mines into the waters in the intervals between checks and combat swimmers.
At the same time, all minesweepers with significant residual resources need to be upgraded. It is necessary to equip them with different types of TNPA, equip them with new GAS with integration systems in the ACS, it may be worthwhile to equip these ships with diving equipment so that diving units can be used to neutralize mines from their side (one more , but from what our fleet refuses categorically).
We should also speak about the future of the ships of the project 12700 "Alexandrite".
These ships today have a huge displacement for the minesweeper - up to 890 tons. At the same time, a regular crewless boat - the French “Inspector” doesn’t fit into these ships and it’s not at all clear how to use it (the boat, frankly, unsuccessful with poor seaworthiness). Also what is called “failed” underwater vehicles being developed for it, moreover by the mass of parameters. Thus, the ship's full-time TNPA has a weight of about a ton, which in itself will not allow it to be used when searching for mines. And the fact that he has some rumored incredibly high price, and at the same time has to destroy the mines himself, simply takes him completely out of the brackets. However, the ship has a modern SAS and command center on board.
It is necessary to complete all the pledged ships of this project, but in a slightly different capacity. Admittedly, sending such a huge ship to the trawling is insane, with criminal insanity. Mines will be undermined by the “Alexandrites” simply because of their mass and the water they are moving, they “don't care” that these ships have a fiberglass hull. This ship should not be used as a minesweeper or even LEADER, but as new for us, but long ago introduced in the West into a separate class “mine hunter” - mine hunter, which under the conditions of the Navy can receive some kind of Russian traditionally “gray” name, for example, just "ship-seeker min." The main armament on board should be abandoned, but at the same time, on board the ship, unmanned boats to search for mines, remote-controlled NLA to classify them, are only normal, but not those idle and “golden” at the price prototypes that now, STIUMs, stock of disposable destroyers . It is worth exploring the issue of towing a lightweight combined (acoustics and electromagnetic fields) BEC trawl from a ship.
In the future, it is necessary to rethink the requirements for the anti-mine ship so that the replacement for existing minesweepers is fully consistent with the task at hand.
What other equipment is not enough to consider the mine threat question closed?
First, helicopters are still needed - trawl towers. The enemy can suddenly undertake a mining so large-scale that the standard anti-mine forces at the naval base simply will not be enough to quickly ensure that the ships reach the sea. Then it will be necessary to urgently transfer the reserve there. Helicopter parts may well claim to be such a reserve. They also provide the highest possible performance trawling, inaccessible to other means. At the same time, since we have our own anti-mine forces at the bases, such helicopters will have to be few. Today, the only realistic platform for such a helicopter are Mi-17 helicopters. The example of the old tugs - the Mi-14 - shows that such a helicopter will cope with the towing of the trawl, and it does not need amphibiousness.
Secondly, the trawl towing helicopters must have lowered anti-mine ground. This will dramatically increase the search performance of anti-mine forces.
Thirdly, we need teams of specially trained divers, sappers.
Fourthly, it is necessary to conduct a scientific research work on determining the methods and means of searching for mines under the ice. If the clearance of such minefields can be carried out by various LAs and divers through artificial polynyas and ice holes in the ice cover, then there are a lot of questions regarding the detection and search of mines in such conditions. However, they are solvable.
Fourthly, it is necessary to place anti-mine weapons on warships. At a minimum, BEC with GAS, Stock of TNPA, STIUM and destroyers on ships is necessary. Apparently, it is necessary to have the cord charges, wind up with the same BEC. As part of the warhead-3 should be experts on the use of all this technology. If necessary, the actions of warheads-3 warships will be controlled by the commander in charge of mine action, or in other cases, the ship will ensure its passage through the minefields independently.
Fifth, it is necessary to integrate the command of both mine action and anti-submarine defense. A commonplace example - if there is an enemy submarine near the area cleaned of mines, then nothing will prevent it, determining the places where the mines have already been eliminated, guide the self-transporting mines there again. Even if continuous hydroacoustic monitoring is established on the defending side, and these mines are detected in time, this will at least mean a loss of time. If the factual re-mining of the “cleaned” zone remains unknown ...
PLO is vital both in its own right and in the context of mine action.
Sixthly, it is worth looking at supercavitating projectiles for conventional ship guns - most likely, they can be used for firing at anchor mines at a small depth.
Sixthly, it is necessary, after the Americans, to create laser means of detecting mines, both airborne and ship-based.
In general, in the Navy it is necessary to create a structure that will be responsible not for the underwater weaponas it is now, and for waging mine warfare in general, including both mine action and offensive mining.
It is not difficult to guess that all of the above in the foreseeable future will not be done.
Let us give a concrete example - a few years ago, one of the Russian design organizations came very close to creating such a desirable product for any fleet of the world, such as super-cheap STIUM. The reusable apparatus, capable of effectively searching for mines in most conditions, turned out to be so cheap that they could be painlessly sacrificed if necessary. The price was promised to be so low that it would be possible to have dozens of such devices on any warship — the budget would not be particularly burdensome. Of course, the functionality of the device was somewhat trimmed to reduce the price, but so let's say, uncritically. A number of subsystems have been brought to the metal.
Persons in whose power to give or not to give way to such works slammed the project even faster than at the time "Mayovka". The author will not make it difficult to give the code OCD and contacts to officials if they are interested in the issue. However, the author is confident that officials will not be interested in this issue.
It is worth noting that the collapse of anti-mine forces in the Navy takes place in conditions when, firstly, the international situation around the Russian Federation worsens, and secondly, when the risks of being hit at sea are several times higher than on land, and thirdly, when our enemy is the US , already has experience in anonymous terrorist mine warfare (Nicaragua) and setting its vassal states on our country (Georgia in the year 2008).
At the same time, the vassals have quite a mine and the means of their delivery.
Take at least Poland. All its landing ships of the Lublin class in the West are classified as “landing ship minelayer”. On the one hand, any tank landing ship is a minelayer, on the other hand, the Poles are not holding them for landing operations. These ships - first barriers, then landing ships. If we recall the Great Patriotic War, then the enemy began to mine the Baltic Sea before inflicting the first military strike on the territory of the USSR, on the night from 21 to 22 June. The lesson we seem to have forgotten.
Neutrals also give reason to think. For example, neutral Finland seems to be, within the framework of military cooperation within the EU, spying on the movements of the Baltic Fleet ships. Nothing special, they are simply spying on the mine layers of the Hamienmaa. Their future Pohjanmaa class corvettes regularly have compartments for placing mines and guides for dumping them into the water. Now minzagi - the largest Finnish ships. The Finns have the most specialized barriers in the world. However, while the Finns are mostly for neutrality, but to change this attitude is the business of one well-conducted provocation. In provocation, the United States and the British know how, when they want. The main thing is to choose the right moment.
The apogee of the development of modern mine layers gives us South Korea. Her new minelayer Nampo (which is the ancestor of the new class of ships) carries 500 mines, and has eight guides for dumping them astern. This is arguably the most powerful minzag in history.
Again, on the one hand, South Korea hardly sees Russia as its opponent. Now. But let's not forget that they are American allies, and allies, historically showing their ability to self-sacrifice for the sake of their American masters. Yes, the DPRK, China and Japan are among them far more likely enemies than we are. But intentions change quickly, and opportunities slowly.
Against this background, even the refusal of the Americans to set up mines (temporary) from submarines and the withdrawal of the “Kaptorov” from the combat strength (perhaps also) somehow does not please them. After all, the US, NATO and its allies still have hundreds of thousands of mines.
And we are left with only prehistoric towed trawls and unpleasantly shrill military propaganda, not supported by real military force.
One can only hope that we will not try for strength.
Yes, the submarine fleet does not have modern torpedoes, does not have hydroacoustic countermeasures, the level of training of personnel is low, and so on, but still it can do a lot, for example, against different countries of the “third world”. And against NATO in some cases and with a certain luck.
Yes, the surface fleet almost died, but even in its current state it is capable of inflicting losses on the majority of potential opponents, especially from its shores, and Syria has gathered a good grouping this summer, and then played its role by one hundred percent.
Yes, from the sea aviation there were horns and legs left, but still six planes, somehow capable of fighting modern submarines, we type, there are assault aviation regiments, there is a Tu-142M for long-range reconnaissance - and they conduct it well.
And so everywhere, except for mine forces. There is a zero. Full. Starting from senior officers who still believe in towed trawls, and brushing off modern Western mines from TTX, and ending with ships unfit to perform tasks for their intended purpose. Zero.
At the same time, injecting money into new minesweepers was simply in vain. The question of why this happened is multifaceted, complex and its full disclosure is impossible within the framework of one article. Let's just say - in conditions where the Navy has not been participating in hostilities for a long time, a whole class of military bureaucracy has grown around it, seeing navy only fin.flow, which must be saddled, and no more. The combat readiness issues with this approach do not interest anyone at all, nobody deals with them, and as a result, there is no combat readiness.
We are not so much interested in the question “who is to blame?”, But in the question “what to do?”, Which is worth concentrating on.
Consider how the situation in the Navy differs from what it should be.
Basically, the tasks of mine forces can be divided into the detection of mines and their destruction. Once upon a time, mines, if they were discovered, were only visually. Since the second half of the twentieth century, hydroacoustic stations, specially designed to search for small objects in the water column at shallow (first) depths, have been used as a means of detecting minefields. Such GUS, installed on minesweepers, allowed to detect the minefield directly along the course. In the future, GAS became more and more perfect, later remote-controlled uninhabited underwater vehicles were added to them - TNPA equipped with sonars and television cameras, crewless boats equipped with GUS appeared, side-scan sonars appeared, allowing the underwater situation to open, moving along the edge of the minefield.
In the future, the emergence of accurate positioning systems of the ship and the TNPA, the growth of computer capabilities, the increase in sonar resolution, made it possible to survey the bottom and water column in the protected area, detecting changes, new objects at the bottom and in the bottom layers of the water, which were not there before. Such objects could be checked immediately with the help of TNLA, making sure that it was not a mine.
Low-frequency HAS appeared, the signal of which, without providing a good resolution of the received “picture”, could, nevertheless, reveal silted bottom mines, which was a huge step forward. Now it has become hard to hide mine in that rubbish that is present in abundance on the seabed in the area of intensive economic and military activity of man, in silt, in algae, among various large debris, drowned boats and boats, tires, and everything else there at the bottom. The silt inflicted by undercurrents was a separate problem, it could hide a mine from other search methods, but the low-frequency signal helped to “figure it out” with it. All these tools are effectively combined with each other, providing, if necessary, the so-called "continuous sonar illumination." High-frequency HAS give a good picture, allowing, for example, to detect a mine-torpedo installed at a depth, a low-frequency HAS makes it possible to look under the silt. It, plus computers and the perfect software, help to "cut off" the natural hindrances created by undercurrents. There are more advanced and able to control the situation - so technically it has long been possible to implement the so-called continuous sonar monitoring, when monitoring the underwater situation is carried out continuously using a wide range of sonar facilities that detect both the appearance of foreign objects (min) at the bottom and in the water and combat swimmers, for example.
On the approach, mass introduction of parametric antennas even in the Navy of small and weak countries — when beams of powerful sound waves with similar frequencies emitted in an aquatic environment parallel generate a zone in the water, a sort of “virtual” antenna, which is a source of powerful secondary oscillations, much more powerful than it can to give an ordinary sonar antenna of a reasonable size. This increases the efficiency of mine search by orders of magnitude. Such equipment is already coming into service in some countries.
In this diagram, a parametric ultrasound antenna. In hydroacoustics, the range will be very much shifted “to the left”, but the principle of forming an “antenna” from the medium volume is the same.
In cases where complex hydrology does not allow the “view” of the entire water column, TNPA are used. They also provide a classification found minopodobnyh objects, if it is difficult for the signals GUS.
Naturally, all of the above is reduced to one complex using automated mine action control systems that transform various means of detection (and destruction) into a single jointly operating complex, and form an information environment for operators and users in which the diversity of underwater is visually and simply displayed. environment, and is given the target of both forces and means of destruction.
It is not difficult to guess that our Navy has almost none of this.
Currently, the Navy has several dozens of minesweepers, one of which, Vice Admiral Zakharyin, has not the best, but adequate GAS mine detection, and the Mayevka STIUM, to search for and destroy mines under water. There are a couple of sea-sweepers of the 12260 project, who have high-frequency HAS, and in theory are capable of carrying ancient mine finders, KUU mine -1 and 2 (in practice these systems are “alive” now, it’s difficult to say. There is evidence with the Gyurza system, which has not reached the “series”), there are nine raid minesweepers of the 10750 project, possessing, so to speak, relatively acceptable GAS mine detection, and also capable of using mine seekers.
There are newest minesweepers of the 12700 Alexandrite project, conceived as carriers of modern mine action sonar stations, but few of them, and they are characterized by such a huge mass of flaws, which reduces the significance of these ships to zero. Until.
There are certain developments on the ACS, significantly inferior to the Western ones.
And that is all.
All other road, base and sea minesweepers are completely outdated, and for something more complicated than removing self-made anchor mines made by some self-taught militants in the garage is unsuitable. Old-time GAS, towed trawls and memories of old Soviet mine seekers — there is nothing else there.
The Navy does not have systems that fully possess the functionality described above, and it doesn’t even try to get anything close. From time to time, on the pages of specialized military publications, there are articles of middle-level officers or not very high-ranking officers of the relevant design bureaus or scientific research institutes, where thoughts are expressed about the need to bring opportunities to search for mines in accordance with the requirements of the time, but these appeals usually remain a voice crying the wilderness. It is possible that some kind of research and development work on these topics is sluggish, but they will never reach the “series”.
At the same time, the Russian industry has all the necessary potential to quickly remedy the situation. There are no technical problems in order to "grow together" maps of the seabed in areas that are supposed to be mined in the first place, protected computers, which would display information from the GUS. There is no technological impossibility to make a BEC with the HAS or a side-scan sonar (HBO) and to ensure the transfer of data from it to the command post, where they would be “superimposed” on the bottom maps. All this can be done, tested and brought to a series within about five years. Well, a maximum of seven years.
Moreover, the domestic minesweepers previously supplied abroad underwent modernization there, and it turned out that the old domestic MAS of the Ministry of Investigation completely “reach out” to a level more or less adequate to the threats even without replacement, simply by updating the peripheral equipment. This fact suggests that the same sea trawlers of the 1265 project, which are still the basis of domestic mine-sweeping forces, like the 266M, and the projects listed above, may well be upgraded in terms of hydroacoustics, get on board ACS terminals, and equipment conjugation of automated control systems and their own search hydroacoustic complexes.
The old man could still serve.
It will take some time and some money. The downside is only the age of 1265 minesweepers. Their wooden hulls are already seriously worn out, and for some ships, repair will be impossible. But it is still much better than zero.
The situation with the destruction of mines is no better than the search. As mentioned earlier, modern mines will not allow themselves to be wiped in the usual way - towing a trawler with a minesweeper over a minefield. It is no longer possible, a mine that reacts to a combination of acoustic, electromagnetic and hydrodynamic fields will explode even under a quiet and non-magnetic trawler, destroying the ship and killing the crew. Alas, there is no other means of the Russian Navy. The old KIA-1 and 2, and various experimental seekers and destroyers, have long been in the know. stories, somewhere there are no pictures left, more or less lively “Mayovka” the corrupt officials from the fleet nailed, the foreign equipment was under sanctions, and not that our Ministry of Defense wanted to buy. If tomorrow someone mines us exits from the bases, then they will have to be punched by ships, there will be no other options.
STIUM "Mayovka". It was better than nothing, but “nothing” won.
If the majority of fleets do not have the means of speed clearance, but there is at least a point means - STIUM, TNLA-seekers, destroyers - then we have nothing.
And, as in the case of mine exploration, we have all the necessary technologies and competencies to fix everything in about seven years.
We analyze demining tasks deeper.
It is necessary to separate the tasks of demining in general and the “breakthrough” of a minefield, for example, for emergency withdrawal from the impact of surface ships. The first, when it is a question of “having time on time” can be carried out on a limited scale (“breakdown of the corridor”), but must be carried out quickly.
In the old days, the breaker ship was the fastest way to break through a minefield. Such ships were specially hardened vessels capable of surviving a mine explosion. They were sent to the minefields so that they, moving along them, initiated the detonation of the mines along the course, “breaking through the corridor” in the minefield for the passage of normal ships and ships. Until now, there are several radio-controlled breakthroughs in the Navy ranks (eg 13000).
Time, however, does not stand still. Americans use helicopter-dragged trails instead of breakthrough ships, but there is a far more rational solution - a self-propelled trawl.
Currently, self-propelled trawls are manufactured by SAAB. Its product SAM-3 is the most advanced similar product in the world, and the most mass-produced. Even more correct to say - the only fully serial.
The trawl is an unmanned catamaran that is retained on the water thanks to floats of high-strength soft material filled with air.
The catamaran is regularly towing a combined acoustic-electromagnetic trawl. In most cases, SAM-3 is able to really simulate a surface ship and make the mines work.
The soft material of the floats is capable of absorbing a sufficiently powerful shock wave. In the photo below, for example, undermining a trawl explosive charge equivalent to 525-ti kilograms of TNT.
A very important point - the trawl is thrown through the air, and requires four people and a crane with a lifting capacity of 14 tons to assemble and launch into the water.
In case the mine situation is complex and a complete imitation of a large surface ship is required, the SAM-3 can tow non-self-propelled mass simulators of the TOMAS ship. These devices are large and heavy floats, with sources of electromagnetic waves that can imitate, with their volume and mass, the hydrodynamic effect of the ship’s hull on the mass of water along which it moves. At the same time, for the “fit” of the impact, it is possible to form a “train” of floats. Acoustic trawls are suspended under the necessary floats, and one can imitate the sounds from the engine room, the second noise from the steering wheel. In fact, this is the ideal means of breakthrough, a sort of super-breaker that can fool almost any modern mine.
TOMAS
After the self-propelled trawl has punched a corridor in a minefield, unmanned boats with hydroacoustic stations are sent behind it, the task of which is to detect unexploded mines in the “corridor”. The mined-like objects found can classify the TNLA, and destroy the STIUM - since all the mine defenders will explicitly explode when they pass over what was defined as a surface ship for all parameters, it will not be a problem for the STIUM to approach the mine and use a blasting charge against it.
Left past, right now. Now do not trawl.
And this is the future. And some have already arrived.
It is possible that mines, including defenders, will be adjusted to an underwater object. In this case, you have to massively use destroyers. On the other hand, a precise determination of the location of the mines and their classification will help to use such old means as a corded charge of explosives, and to finish off only those mines that survived with the help of destroyers.
Thus, for the Navy the following solution would be ideal.
Mine action units are being created at naval bases. They are armed with self-propelled trawls and physical field simulators, similar to the SAM-3, skidless boats with sonar stations, carrier boats TNPA and STIUM, as is done by the Americans, who do not build new minesweepers. Such a unit works according to the scheme described above - trawling of a water area by a self-propelled trawl, output following the trawl of the BEC group with search tools, using TNPA for classifying detected min-like objects, and using STIUM to destroy mines that did not blow up during trawling. As a backup, they should have disposable destroyers, but due to their high price, this will be the last resort. Which, thanks to the self-propelled trawl, will be needed in not very large, and therefore tolerable quantities.
Once again, there are all the technologies necessary for this in Russia, and with a competent formulation of the problem, such a scheme can be deployed in five to seven years. In the future, it is necessary to switch to continuous hydroacoustic observation, in order to completely eliminate the casting of self-transporting mines into the waters in the intervals between checks and combat swimmers.
At the same time, all minesweepers with significant residual resources need to be upgraded. It is necessary to equip them with different types of TNPA, equip them with new GAS with integration systems in the ACS, it may be worthwhile to equip these ships with diving equipment so that diving units can be used to neutralize mines from their side (one more , but from what our fleet refuses categorically).
We should also speak about the future of the ships of the project 12700 "Alexandrite".
These ships today have a huge displacement for the minesweeper - up to 890 tons. At the same time, a regular crewless boat - the French “Inspector” doesn’t fit into these ships and it’s not at all clear how to use it (the boat, frankly, unsuccessful with poor seaworthiness). Also what is called “failed” underwater vehicles being developed for it, moreover by the mass of parameters. Thus, the ship's full-time TNPA has a weight of about a ton, which in itself will not allow it to be used when searching for mines. And the fact that he has some rumored incredibly high price, and at the same time has to destroy the mines himself, simply takes him completely out of the brackets. However, the ship has a modern SAS and command center on board.
It is necessary to complete all the pledged ships of this project, but in a slightly different capacity. Admittedly, sending such a huge ship to the trawling is insane, with criminal insanity. Mines will be undermined by the “Alexandrites” simply because of their mass and the water they are moving, they “don't care” that these ships have a fiberglass hull. This ship should not be used as a minesweeper or even LEADER, but as new for us, but long ago introduced in the West into a separate class “mine hunter” - mine hunter, which under the conditions of the Navy can receive some kind of Russian traditionally “gray” name, for example, just "ship-seeker min." The main armament on board should be abandoned, but at the same time, on board the ship, unmanned boats to search for mines, remote-controlled NLA to classify them, are only normal, but not those idle and “golden” at the price prototypes that now, STIUMs, stock of disposable destroyers . It is worth exploring the issue of towing a lightweight combined (acoustics and electromagnetic fields) BEC trawl from a ship.
In the future, it is necessary to rethink the requirements for the anti-mine ship so that the replacement for existing minesweepers is fully consistent with the task at hand.
What other equipment is not enough to consider the mine threat question closed?
First, helicopters are still needed - trawl towers. The enemy can suddenly undertake a mining so large-scale that the standard anti-mine forces at the naval base simply will not be enough to quickly ensure that the ships reach the sea. Then it will be necessary to urgently transfer the reserve there. Helicopter parts may well claim to be such a reserve. They also provide the highest possible performance trawling, inaccessible to other means. At the same time, since we have our own anti-mine forces at the bases, such helicopters will have to be few. Today, the only realistic platform for such a helicopter are Mi-17 helicopters. The example of the old tugs - the Mi-14 - shows that such a helicopter will cope with the towing of the trawl, and it does not need amphibiousness.
View of the tail hatches of the Mi-14BT - towing trawls. Helicopter Navy of Bulgaria.
Secondly, the trawl towing helicopters must have lowered anti-mine ground. This will dramatically increase the search performance of anti-mine forces.
Thirdly, we need teams of specially trained divers, sappers.
Fourthly, it is necessary to conduct a scientific research work on determining the methods and means of searching for mines under the ice. If the clearance of such minefields can be carried out by various LAs and divers through artificial polynyas and ice holes in the ice cover, then there are a lot of questions regarding the detection and search of mines in such conditions. However, they are solvable.
Fourthly, it is necessary to place anti-mine weapons on warships. At a minimum, BEC with GAS, Stock of TNPA, STIUM and destroyers on ships is necessary. Apparently, it is necessary to have the cord charges, wind up with the same BEC. As part of the warhead-3 should be experts on the use of all this technology. If necessary, the actions of warheads-3 warships will be controlled by the commander in charge of mine action, or in other cases, the ship will ensure its passage through the minefields independently.
Fifth, it is necessary to integrate the command of both mine action and anti-submarine defense. A commonplace example - if there is an enemy submarine near the area cleaned of mines, then nothing will prevent it, determining the places where the mines have already been eliminated, guide the self-transporting mines there again. Even if continuous hydroacoustic monitoring is established on the defending side, and these mines are detected in time, this will at least mean a loss of time. If the factual re-mining of the “cleaned” zone remains unknown ...
PLO is vital both in its own right and in the context of mine action.
Sixthly, it is worth looking at supercavitating projectiles for conventional ship guns - most likely, they can be used for firing at anchor mines at a small depth.
Sixthly, it is necessary, after the Americans, to create laser means of detecting mines, both airborne and ship-based.
In general, in the Navy it is necessary to create a structure that will be responsible not for the underwater weaponas it is now, and for waging mine warfare in general, including both mine action and offensive mining.
It is not difficult to guess that all of the above in the foreseeable future will not be done.
Let us give a concrete example - a few years ago, one of the Russian design organizations came very close to creating such a desirable product for any fleet of the world, such as super-cheap STIUM. The reusable apparatus, capable of effectively searching for mines in most conditions, turned out to be so cheap that they could be painlessly sacrificed if necessary. The price was promised to be so low that it would be possible to have dozens of such devices on any warship — the budget would not be particularly burdensome. Of course, the functionality of the device was somewhat trimmed to reduce the price, but so let's say, uncritically. A number of subsystems have been brought to the metal.
Persons in whose power to give or not to give way to such works slammed the project even faster than at the time "Mayovka". The author will not make it difficult to give the code OCD and contacts to officials if they are interested in the issue. However, the author is confident that officials will not be interested in this issue.
It is worth noting that the collapse of anti-mine forces in the Navy takes place in conditions when, firstly, the international situation around the Russian Federation worsens, and secondly, when the risks of being hit at sea are several times higher than on land, and thirdly, when our enemy is the US , already has experience in anonymous terrorist mine warfare (Nicaragua) and setting its vassal states on our country (Georgia in the year 2008).
At the same time, the vassals have quite a mine and the means of their delivery.
Take at least Poland. All its landing ships of the Lublin class in the West are classified as “landing ship minelayer”. On the one hand, any tank landing ship is a minelayer, on the other hand, the Poles are not holding them for landing operations. These ships - first barriers, then landing ships. If we recall the Great Patriotic War, then the enemy began to mine the Baltic Sea before inflicting the first military strike on the territory of the USSR, on the night from 21 to 22 June. The lesson we seem to have forgotten.
Neutrals also give reason to think. For example, neutral Finland seems to be, within the framework of military cooperation within the EU, spying on the movements of the Baltic Fleet ships. Nothing special, they are simply spying on the mine layers of the Hamienmaa. Their future Pohjanmaa class corvettes regularly have compartments for placing mines and guides for dumping them into the water. Now minzagi - the largest Finnish ships. The Finns have the most specialized barriers in the world. However, while the Finns are mostly for neutrality, but to change this attitude is the business of one well-conducted provocation. In provocation, the United States and the British know how, when they want. The main thing is to choose the right moment.
The apogee of the development of modern mine layers gives us South Korea. Her new minelayer Nampo (which is the ancestor of the new class of ships) carries 500 mines, and has eight guides for dumping them astern. This is arguably the most powerful minzag in history.
Nampo-class, aka MLS-II class, aka Hyundai HMD-4000
Again, on the one hand, South Korea hardly sees Russia as its opponent. Now. But let's not forget that they are American allies, and allies, historically showing their ability to self-sacrifice for the sake of their American masters. Yes, the DPRK, China and Japan are among them far more likely enemies than we are. But intentions change quickly, and opportunities slowly.
Against this background, even the refusal of the Americans to set up mines (temporary) from submarines and the withdrawal of the “Kaptorov” from the combat strength (perhaps also) somehow does not please them. After all, the US, NATO and its allies still have hundreds of thousands of mines.
And we are left with only prehistoric towed trawls and unpleasantly shrill military propaganda, not supported by real military force.
One can only hope that we will not try for strength.
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