The return of surface raiders. Is it possible?
In the West, however, they saw basically the last option - accommodation on merchant ships. And it was just such an option that in the Anglo-Saxon countries the concern of military experts. This is quite understandable.
During both world wars, the survival of Britain depended on whether communications were maintained between the British Isles on the one hand, and the colonies, allies, and the US on the other. The British understood this, the Germans understood it.
During World War I, the latter, in addition to conducting unrestricted submarine warfare, massively used auxiliary cruisers, raiders, civilian vessels, hastily armed with artillery of small and medium caliber, whose task was to destroy the shipping - banal sinking of the enemy's merchant ships. Raiders were very hard to survive - sooner or later the Allied Navy, consisting of more or less "real" warships, found and stoked the raiders. But before that, they had time to cause serious damage. And, of course, there were exceptions, for example the most successful German raider for the whole history - “Mowe” was never caught by the allies.
During the Second World War, the situation repeated itself, only now the former civilian raiders were better prepared. They had not only guns, but also torpedo tubes, sea mines, and even reconnaissance aircraft on board.
The most successful raider of this type (not to be confused with special warships performing raiding tasks) during World War II was Atlantis, sinking 16 and seizing 6 allied merchant ships, putting 92 sea mines and carrying out two refueling submarines in the Atlantic. It is worth noting that the raider was “caught” precisely because of them - the British intercepted a radiogram on board the submarine, in which the coordinates of the meeting point with Atlantis were indicated. If it were not for this, it is still unknown how many cases this former cargo carrier would have done.
Another raider, the Cormoran, was able to attack fewer ships - the 11, but then sank the cruiser Sydney in battle.
In total, Germany during the Second World War threw ten auxiliary cruisers-raiders into the communications of the allies:
Orion (HSK-1)
Atlantis (HSK-2)
Widder (HSK-3)
Thor (HSK-4)
Penguin (HSK-5)
Stir (HSK-6)
Comet (HSK-7)
Cormoran (HSK-8)
Michel (HSK-9)
Coronel (HSK-10)
And although they could not inflict fatal damage to shipping, they caused a lot of problems to the allies. They drowned or captured 129 ships, including one warship - the cruiser "Sydney". Two of them even survived!
Advertising Russian container launchers seemed to have raised the ghosts of the past from the depths of Anglo-Saxon consciousness. After all, now any container ship could suddenly bring down on any other ship a volley of rockets, which the latter simply could not repel. And this any container ship has the possibility of the first rocket volley.
An example of what impact on the brains of the Anglo-Saxons had the appearance of container launchers, should consider the article by Chuck HillRETURN OF THE CLANDESTINE MERCHANT RAIDER?"(" Return of the secret armed merchant raider? "). Hill is a US Coast Guard veteran who also underwent special tactical training in the US Navy, a graduate of the Naval College in Newport, and one of those cohorts of Coast Guard officers who would have had to fight against the Soviet Navy in the eighties, do not provide any auxiliary functions. In general, it is one of the most militarily competent officers of the Coast Guard of the eighties of the last century.
Briefly the essence of the article for those who do not speak English.
In 1943, the Allies achieved such a level of sea control that raiding by surface ships became impossible.
But the emergence of such means as satellite reconnaissance, container launchers for anti-ship missiles, UAVs and non-crewed boats, made the revival of auxiliary cruisers-raiders real.
Now it’s not necessary for the raider to approach the attacked ship - the range of the anti-ship missiles is hundreds of kilometers.
UAV will provide an opportunity to conduct reconnaissance in the required volume and go unnoticed.
The raider can also attack ground targets, while he cannot be identified until the launch of the missiles.
AIS (automatic identification system of trading vessels), on the one hand, can help find a raider, but on the other hand, it can help the raider choose targets in advance, plan an attack, or even the entire raid, starting from knowing the real position of the targets, and then deliver a strike.
Unmanned boats or even ships managed by a raider can help him hunt on the wrong track and leave.
The raider can pre-stage quite large minefields, including with the help of uninhabited underwater vehicles (NPA), or self-transporting mines.
China seems to be the main candidate for the creators of future raiders - its merchant fleet is under strong state control and it has sea irregular forces disguised as fishermen (other authors, by analogy with the Crimean events, call these Chinese sailors "blue men").
If China gets too tight with military pressure on its neighbors, then they will do the same.
If the missiles fall into the hands of terrorist groups, they will be able to resort to attacking ports and infrastructure on the coast, using carrier ships.
In 2017, container launchers for missiles placed on the deck of any vessel successfully tested Israel, ahead of the Russian Federation, which did not go beyond throwing tests and mockups.
The Israelis fired, however, with the machine on the deck. And then just showed PU. But here is the case when everything is clear.
And in 2019, news agencies reported that China had experienced container launchers.
From the point of view of the Anglo-Saxons, it looks like a slow creep of gin from a bottle. They are just not ready for such a problem and do not know yet what to do with it. They have no panic, and not a single country has yet got into the program documents on military construction, but alarmism reigns in the expert small parties. And it is not just like that.
Consider whether it is realistic with the help of a secretly armed merchant ship. To cause serious harm in the war at sea. As we know, last time (the Germans) decisive harm did not happen.
In order to bring the situation “to the limit,” we consider the attack of the strongest rival - the United States, some weak country, for example, Iran.
So, the introduction: the United States began concentrating troops on the Arabian Peninsula, Iranian intelligence clearly believes that this is about the beginning of preparations for the US invasion of Iran by land. Can raiders "smooth out" such a problem, for example, reducing it to a series of air raids on Iran, but without a land invasion?
March 29 in the newspaper "Independent Military Review" published an article of your humble servant "There will be no ground invasion"dedicated to US logistics capabilities for the transfer of troops to Europe in the event of a major war. It will be quite interesting to those interested in the naval theme, but we are interested in the following: currently, the United States has very few transport vessels that could be used for military transport. Currently, the Shipping Command has only 15 large transports suitable for mass troop transfer. 19 ships are the so-called forward deployment vessels, that is, to put it more simply, vehicles that carry equipment, fuel and ammunition for a particular compound. The personnel of such a compound is transferred through the air, and then receives military equipment and supplies from such a vessel for entry into hostilities.
The disadvantage of such vessels is that they are too versatile - there are tanks for bulk cargo, and places for containers and decks for equipment. This is good when it is necessary to supply the expeditionary brigade of the Marine Corps with all necessary equipment, but it is very inconvenient to supply when it is necessary, for example, to load only with shells or only tanks.
46 ships are still in reserve and can be released on the line within a short time. And 60 ships are in the hands of private firms that have the obligation to provide them to the US Navy on demand. Total we have 121 normal transport and still 19 of ships-warehouses, limitedly suitable for shipping. This would not be enough even for Vietnam, and very much so.
This is a little more than the primitive German raiders found and sank in the ocean during the Second World War. At the same time, the Germans had to look for their victims, and the services of our “Iranians” have AIS and they can simply see every merchant ship. They know in advance where to hit.
Also, the United States does not have enough people - with a six-month transport operation, even for the rotation of crews, there is not enough, there is no talk about compensation for losses.
Now we look at the merchant navy. The US has the national flag of the entire 943 vessel with a displacement of more than 1000 tons. Is it a lot or a little? This is less than the "land" Russia. At the same time, a significant part of large ships under the US flag is already included in the list of 60 ships that are available to the Pentagon at any given time (see the article in IEE). Frankly speaking, there is nothing special to “rake up” there; many small vessels of the weather will not do.
And there is nothing to escort available transport - the times when the USA had a mass of simple and cheap Oliver Perry class frigates are long gone.
Thus, in order to deprive the United States of the ability to transfer troops, it is necessary to damage or sink just a few dozen merchant ships, which, firstly, go without an escort, and secondly, whose location in the world's oceans is known in advance. And that are defenseless, even the machine gun is not on board (mostly). And all this is in conditions when no one will touch the raider before the first salvo.
Iran is one of the world leaders in the production of UAVs, they also do something rocket, and they won’t have a problem buying the same X-35 after lifting the sanctions, recruiting motivated crews who are willing to risk desperately to save their country - also never no problem.
Iran’s large ocean-going merchant ships have hundreds of units, if you count together the neutral flag and the Iranian flag, where they have to tie the container PUs.
So are the fears of Americans justified?
Obviously, yes.
Indeed, a dozen and a half “traders” with PKR and UAVs follow the route that allows intercepting the transport of interest at a point where there is no accumulation of targets, and there will be no one to take the PKR apart from the object of attack to instantly reduce the tonnage used in military transport to which will make any large-scale use of ground troops simply impossible, at least for a long time.
The same applies to the hypothetical strike on the shore. Currently, Iran is not able to deliver such a blow to the United States. However, it is widely known that Iran conducted a reverse-engineering of the Soviet X-55 cruise missile, created its modification with a non-nuclear warhead for launching from the surface and set up small-scale production. The secret placement of such missiles on raiders will allow them to be brought to the launch line sufficiently close to the United States, and to keep there under the guise of containers on a container ship under a neutral flag for an arbitrarily long time without revealing themselves until the launch of the missiles. In a sense, such an arrangement is even more secretive than on submarines.
Yes, all these raiders will not survive for a long time. They are quickly, within a few days, reheated. But the damage inflicted by them in the concretely described situation will be irrecoverable - everything necessary for an overland invasion will simply not be transferred - even if it’s urgent for any money to buy all the necessary ships in the world (and there are fewer in the world than they need, and it is too). Yes, and the Americans in the merchant fleet after such a bloodletting will not recruit.
So our Iran seems to have won (If you don’t like Iran as such, replace it with anyone).
Does the West have an antidote against such tactics?
More recently, a retired US Navy officer (and now an analyst at CNA (“Center for Naval Research”, private think tank) Stephen Wilz wrote an article “MERCHANT WARSHIPS AND CREATING A MODERN 21ST CENTURY EAST INDIAMAN"(" Trade warships and the creation of "East Indian" 21-th century "." East Indian "- slang name of a well-armed and high-speed merchant ship of the sailing era, working on lines in Southeast Asia).
Briefly, the essence of his proposal is the following: it is necessary to create well-armed transport ships, in terms of cargo capacity and dimensions approximately the same as container ships of the Panamax or Super-Panamax class, and armed at the level of a light frigate, mainly containerized (to reduce the cost of the ship) systems weapons, but not only them.
Such a decision makes sense. A speeding ship that can protect itself will not need an escort. But there are a lot of minuses - in peacetime such a ship is completely inefficient, and it will not be able to enter most of the ports. Or you have to place ALL weapons in containers.
Most likely, such decisions will go into action after the first organized act of maritime raiding.
However, if we assume that our raiders carry missiles to strike the coast, and combat swimmers, for sabotage in the harbors, where they go under the guise of merchant ships (and even unload something there), and self-transporting mines, and and all this can be hidden in containers or constructions from containers), and even that they rely on full-fledged naval forces deployed in the World Ocean (even if they are weak), and they themselves, for example, serve to supply submarines, even here in theory.
Hill, mentioned above, ends his article as follows: “I do not believe that we will see the end to the offensive use of merchant ships”.
It remains only to agree with him.
- Alexander Timokhin
- Concern Morinformsystem-Agat, V. Kuzmin, IAI, Marine traffic application
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