What is wrong with the “newest” PMK of the 12700 project?
Questions on the status of minesweepers for the Navy’s combat personnel and the causes of the PMO crisis are discussed in "What is wrong with our minesweepers?"
The command of the Navy "hoped" to get out of the "PMO crisis" by building a series of new anti-mine ships (PMK) of the 12700 project. Alas, there was no reason for it (in the existing look of the 12700 project).
The current state of the mine (mine) war
Speaking of new PMK, models and "technologies" of software, it is necessary to identify the current conditions for solving problems of software.
“Thin processing” of physical fields of targets and the appearance of “mine defenders”
The key problem of modern mine action is the appearance in the 90 of the last century of highly sensitive multi-channel proximity fuses (HB) with “thin” digital signal processing of the target. The ability to tune such HBs in the “mine defender” mode (to act on the physical fields (FP) of unmanned underwater vehicles (NPA), primarily acoustic, discrete components (DC) noise), called into question the whole “classical” concept of mine action ( with hydroacoustic stations (GAS) of mine detection and forward-looking NPA (TNPA) minesweeper-mine-searching mine scavengers (minesweepers) for additional exploration and mine destruction).
Taking into account the sharply increased "intelligence" HB mines (and, accordingly, a high probability of undermining specialized pumping facilities), the cost of modern anti-mine weapons, and the possibility of their effective use in the case of a massive mine setting, became acute.
It is necessary to emphasize that this technical revolution of non-contact mines abroad passed long ago, in 90-x and the beginning of 2000-s (and even in the third world countries in 2000-ies, mines with fine-tuned fuses appeared in service).
Visual confirmation of this is information about the Pakistani bottom mine, which was put into service at the very beginning of the 2000-s.
We in this matter have catastrophically lagged behind and are still lagging behind.
Example: “new” (in quotes) non-contact mines of the APM fuses, in which the old analog signal processing is preserved (the end times of 50-x - the beginning of 60-x).
The reasons for this are set out in the article (2008 g.) Proshkin (former director general of the Central Research Institute Gidropribor, a major Russian mine expert) and B.G. Kalminsky:
Of course, new things are starting to come in, but this process is not easy and long (especially if it is actively helped by “experts” and “specialists” of the Navy, who think that we have “everything is fine”).
Stealth mines
The appearance in the middle of the 80-s of the last century in the armament of the naval forces of foreign countries hardly noticeable mines sharply increased the requirements for mine detection hydroacoustic stations and the positioning accuracy of detected targets (min-like objects).
It should be noted that in the Navy of foreign countries (as opposed to the Russian Navy), subtle mines have long become a typical goal in the development of calculations of the software.
The problem of unobtrusive bottom mines is especially acute on weak (with weak bearing capacity) and soils “clogged” by false targets.
The ability of the enemy to use unobtrusive mines places extremely stringent requirements not only on mine detection, but also on the accuracy of determining the coordinates of each target (with an error of no more than 1 m).
Very high demands are placed on sonar mine detection stations.
Moreover, the Only the PMK, equipped with a powerful specialized mine detection service, high-precision means of navigation and mine action management and a complex of destruction facilities (underwater vehicles and means of non-contact trawling), is able to provide an effective fight against the threat of mines.
The AUV against its background plays mainly a supporting role, although in a number of conditions, for example, in the presence of ice, they can take the first place.
Work in conditions of serious mine risk requires specialized ships that have not only reduced physical fields and a modern mine complex, but also specially trained crews. A “universal ship” can be built, but it is good to prepare a “universal crew” for all tasks — no.
The cost of mine action and quantitative parameters of the mine threat
Obviously, one of the key requirements for the Navy's mine action forces is the ability to solve problems in conditions of massive use of mines by the enemy. This is true not only for world wars, but also for local ones. For example, when mining ("mine blockade") aviation US ports of Vietnam US aviation delivered more than 12 thousand mines!
This factor requires a significant limitation of the cost of destroying a single mine to provide the necessary amount of anti-mine weapons in the Navy. This factor is extremely important, but not only many lobbyists of domestic and foreign enterprises, but also the Navy itself often “forget” about it.
Project 12700
History The PMK of the 12700 project is very similar to the “zigzags” with the history of the BDK “Ivan Gren”, and taking into account all these twists and turns (the project replaced the 8 chief designers!), The Almaz Central Design Bureau and the builder of the Srednenevsky plant turned out, in general, not bad.
The key problems of the 12700 project are not the problems of design and construction (although there is something to work on here), but a consequence of the long-obsolete concept and models of the use of the PMC from the Russian Navy.
Practically all previous PMK Navy had either steel low-magnetic hulls or wooden ones. Mass composite hulls for the PMK in the USSR "did not go." However, for the promising PMK of the Navy, their use was virtually uncontested: low-magnetic steel did not meet the requirements for the fields, and the era of the tree was gone.
As the main complex, it was planned to install an integrated system from the GAS mine detection, which includes a towed towed antenna (towed body, BT) and an antenna on a self-propelled underwater vehicle (SPA, this abbreviation is adopted in the national documentation on the complex). The same SPA was supposed to solve the problem of classifying and destroying mines.
The point of using a GAS antenna for mine detection at the SPA is to provide a guaranteed search in difficult hydrological conditions.
But in the West it was implemented differently: SPA from the expensive GAS of mine-detection was exactly the means of search, and the hammers for the destruction of mines were much simpler PAP-104 devices (massively supplemented today by small technical regulations of the software).
For example, there were two TNP- “destroyer” PAP-450 and one TNP- “seeker” Double Eagle on the 2009-ton minersweepers of the type “Tarpapit” that visited the IMMS-104.
Regarding the general structure and model of using the ISPUM complex, you can cite the report for 2012 of one of its co-contractors: OJSC “Arzamas Instrument-Making Plant”:
In the overwhelming majority of currently existing vehicles, the scheme of the propulsion and steering complex consists of thrusters, a hydraulic pump station feeding the thrusters' hydraulic motors, and thrusters control equipment.
The task of ensuring the fulfillment of the requirements for the speed of movement of the SPA is reduced to an increase in the efficiency of the energy-power installation of the apparatus through the use of electric motors in propeller-driven units.
The SPA searches for a target while moving together with the carrier, for which it is necessary to take the SPA to the course angle and distance from 100 to 150 m from the ship’s nose, transfer control from the portable control panel to the main control and deepen the SPA to a predetermined depth system.
After that, one should bring the SPA with the maximum speed to the initial point - the starting point of the search for the hydroacoustic module (GAM) and search and direct the SPA to the underwater object according to the GAM data.
Further operation mode of the SPA is associated with the solution of a tactical task on the ship: search for the next underwater object or completion of work.
The increase in the performance characteristics of the SPA ISPUM from “Mayevka” was planned to be achieved due to the rejection of the propulsion drive from the hydraulic drive with the transition to electric motors. The technical solution is correct, but the price turned out to be much higher than Mayevka.
As a result, despite the very large displacement (for 1000 tons), we received only one extremely expensive searcher-destroyer (actually a piece of a tonne sonar complex), due to our physical fields, at the very first “Mine defender”.
The published results of measurements of the physics field of underwater vehicles, even with low drive power, show the full possibility of implementing the “mine defender” mode even in simple modern non-contact min fuses.
Moreover, the possibility of an explosion at the “mine defenders” was indicated by the competent domestic experts as the main drawback of the previous complex “Mayevka”!
There is nothing surprising here: this is a common serious shortcoming of all “severe” SPA software. Strictly speaking, this caused the appearance of “small” TNLA - “one-timers”.
If you don’t go into details, then for the modernization of “Mayevka” a number of solutions were worked out to eliminate this drawback, however, SPA ISPUM has the same drawback! Certainly, the problem was reported by experts to the management of the SNNP "Region", but it, being well aware of it, took the unprincipled position of concealing this shortcoming.
As a result, in its present form ISPUM and PMK of the 12700 project - “a ship before the first mine” with a modern non-contact fuse.
"French complex of software" on the project 12700
For the first time, the possibility of installing French PMO systems on domestic PMK was announced in an interview with A. Zakharov on the results of EuroNaval 2012.
The author is not a tough proponent of the “only domestic” principle. There is a sense in the purchase of certain types of weapons and military equipment abroad. However, this should be what we do not have, and really worthy samples. And such purchases should in no way become a “stranglehold” for domestic developments.
In the situation with the "French systems" it turned out the opposite. Instead of purchasing effective western mine action systems, products of the ENA company were purchased that had extremely low combat effectiveness at high cost. The choice for ECA cooperation was made without serious justification and analysis of the effectiveness of their proposals. It is obvious that the determining factors were completely different factors.
A number of statements in the Russian media:
The statements given by the author are not only completely incompetent and have no basis, they are also obviously “biased”.
Real situation:
1. The allegedly “domestic” Diamand complex is the French DIAMAND complex, which is installed in addition (instead of) to ISPUM.
2. Tests of the complex showed its extremely low efficiency.
3. The unmanned boat (BEC) Inspector, whose modification Mk2 appeared in 2008, the company ENA, despite an active advertising campaign, could not sell to anyone except the Russian Navy. The “features” of the contract were such that in the process of “executing” it and delivering boats to the Russian Federation, they “grew significantly” (in mass and length) and simply did not “fit” into the 12700 design station first-aid station.
4. BEC Inspector is not just extremely low TTH. Big problems with seaworthiness (for at least a partial solution of which the developer placed ballast tanks in the forepic) of the Inspector led to a number of officials having serious doubts about the possibility of using onboard BEC to solve special problems!
5. The search speed of the BEC Inspector is extremely low (several times less than that of any other BEC CMP), and the high-frequency HBO used for advertising purposes (for “beautiful pictures”) do not provide reliable detection of mines, for example, on algae-grown soil.
6. The K-Ster disposable disposals that were originally planned for delivery (as opposed to, for example, the German Sea Fox) are extremely expensive, very difficult to operate, and do not provide use at sub-zero temperatures (!). Instead, they were put "civilian" inspection TNPA SeaScan, which are generally unable to solve combat missions.
The reasons for all this lies not only in the “specific situation” around this contract, but also in the fact that its executor from the Russian side was involved in the work of the former employees of the Central Research Institute of Shipwreck, who are completely incompetent in the subject and have long become an object of harsh jokes among specialists.
The structure and ideology of building the DIAMAND complex with BEC Inspektor2 was focused on an “advertising demonstration” rather than on the actual solution of the MIP tasks, and has a number of fundamental errors that limit the capabilities of the Diamand complex to extremely simple conditions.
Triton’s DIAMAND’s automatic target classification software provides a satisfactory opportunity to work only on simple mines recently laid on the sand. Work in any difficult conditions for Triton and DIAMAND is not guaranteed.
Domestic BEC for PMK project 12700
To replace the BEC Inspector developed domestic BEC.
An unconditional and huge plus of this development is the implementation of the domestic noise-resistant high-speed data exchange channel, which is extremely important for work on the subject of the Navy’s robotic systems.
However, our BEC has limited performance characteristics, due to the initial drawbacks of the BL-680 submarine (on the basis of which it was made), which is in fact simply unsuitable for an efficient solution of the PMO task.
A seaworthy logboat onboard boat (and BEC) of reduced weight is required (with a payload of at least BL-680) and a “free stern”, which has a reliable marine engine designed for professional work at sea.
In addition, there are questions about the very concept of the BEC finder.
Or a single “expensive high-speed” BEC (with an expensive search complex) or a “group (“ comb ”) of low-speed boats”? Everything went according to the first version, but the submarine of such a boat on a mine is certainly not guaranteed!
Accordingly, it is necessary to provide (“cover”) the BEC-seeker with the work of means of non-contact trawling and masking of the physical fields of the BEC. Need a BEC- “non-contact trawl” (BEC-NT)! It is also essential to ensure the use of SPA ISPUM (the destruction of "mine defenders" - with a reduced protivotralnym resistance).
Those. The highest priority for us is BEC-NT (including as on-board, for the 12700 project).
What is characteristic is that (the need to suppress HB mines with special interferences, “Mine jamming”) is also known and understood by the French specialists of the ENA company (while deliberately hiding it from us):
However, their attitude to the Russian Navy is like an “aboriginal” who can easily sell high-priced beads. The fact that at the same time (with the "French systems"), the effectiveness of solving the tasks of the PMO of the Russian Navy will be extremely low, - "the problems of the Russian Navy itself".
New proximity trawls
A partial solution to the problem of “fine” digital processing in non-contact equipment of mines and the appearance of “mine defenders” in the West was the “renaissance” of non-contact trawls, in a new look - in self-propelled version (BEC-NT) or towed by helicopters.
At the same time, the purpose of their use was not “just trawling” (which is absolutely ineffective against mines with “smart” fuses), but jointly integrated application in a single model with the TNPA PMO.
In this “symbiosis”, the role of non-contact trawls was to ensure the mines with low anti-thrust resistance and “mine defenders” and (or) the direct cover of the TNPA PMO with physical fields of the non-contact trawl (jamming mode).
It should be noted that BEC-NT is not some kind of “exclusive”. As an example, the German system of contactless trawling "Troika" (early 80-s).
The USSR Navy at the end of 80 received a similar system "Shuttle".
But Today, in the Russian Navy, all this is forgotten, the domestic concept of towing proximity trawls across a minefield by a minesweeper (including the newest PMK of the 12700 project) today means deliberately sending it for slaughter.
The first version of the Swedish SAM system with BEC-NT was also implemented in 80-x.
BEK-NT SAM3 (modern look of the non-contact trawling system of the Swedish Navy)
Taking into account the change in the model of use of non-contact trawls, the possibility of a significant reduction in their weight and size parameters and requirements for the power supply to the carrier, including the creation of BEC-NT, suitable for airborne-based ships.
Shock-trials explosion
This is where the extremely acute question of the explosion resistance of the PMK equipment arises. Conducting a special test (shock-trials explosion) “undermining” under the conditions of a close powerful submarine explosion is a system and norm for the western PMK of many warships of the main classes.
To ensure these requirements, not only the special execution of systems and mechanisms is applied, but also their effective depreciation. However, a comparison of them with our PMK of the 12700 project shows that we have “forgotten” about this (“they will not blow up anyway!”).
Obviously, this is one of the critical issues of the 12700 project, for which emergency modernization is necessary (with mandatory post-explosive testing, similarly to the western PMH).
Questions on innovative building
Here it is impossible not to ignore a number of flaws in the 12700 project (advertised as “unparalleled”). Opinion about the project 12700 major specialist Nazarov A.G., director of CB "Albatross Marine Design".
Why the achievements of world composite shipbuilding have not been applied to the Russian project? ... it is obvious that in the case of Alexandrite it is either about the unjustified conservatism of the customer, and / or about the unqualified design of structures made of composites implicated in obsolete approaches and technologies of construction. The question arises - where are the leading Central Research Institute and Central Design Bureau looking? In any case, the export prospects of such low-tech vessels are extremely uncertain ...
So, it is premature to present this event as a technological record and a breakthrough. This is only the first and very timid step, but so far, unfortunately, this is a step away from the world technologies of composite shipbuilding.
In the comments to the article, there was a discussion ... However, the publication of the Krylovsky State Research Center report on composite shipbuilding showed that these shortcomings by Russian experts are understood (they were probably laid at the very beginning of the 12700 design project many years ago) and should be eliminated.
Divers miners
Effective mine action in the western PMK is a group of divers-miners. To ensure their use, most Western PMKs have pressure chambers on board.
Alas, our 12700 project, despite the large displacement, does not have it and obviously will not have it.
The reason is the absolutely inadequate requirements of the Navy for their deployment. In fact, the PMK in this case will have to turn into a "special diving vessel."
The situation is absolutely abnormal, in the event of real combat missions, divers-miners will still have to apply, but ... already without a pressure chamber (which simply did not fit in the PMK because of the huge "burden" of bureaucratic demands on it). Alas, in an emergency situation, Russian divers can count the maximum on a small and unsuccessful “emergency” pressure chamber “Kubyshka” ...
Taking into account the use of minera divers (and already today, and in the future, BEC), ensuring the use of the AUV, a large number of boats and boats are located in the western PMK. Obviously, against this background, only one boat aboard the 12700 project PMS is “almost nothing”.
Multipurpose tasks
Speaking about the minesweepers of the Navy of the USSR and the Russian Federation, it is necessary to note the essential point - the possibility of solving the naval minesweepers of the project of the Navy of the USSR (for example, the 266M project) of multi-purpose tasks:
• Anti-aircraft (Anti-Aircraft Defense) and Anti-Bunk Defense (AMP) due to the presence of powerful weapons: 4 twin automatic guns of caliber 30 m, 25 mm (30-mm gun mounts AK-230 (630) had the MP-104 radar fire control system) and including those used with sea tumbovy installations);
• solving the tasks of anti-submarine defense (PLO) and anti-subdivision defense (EITI) due to the good (for its time) MAS mine detection and the presence of two RBU-1200 rocket launchers with RSB-12 rocket bomb bombs, with a powerful warhead and a range of use commensurate with a range of GAS mine finding on submarines.
At the same time, RBUs were not a “spare pistol” for minesweepers, but were a real and effective tool for the water area security forces (OVR), ensuring effective detection (GAS of mine detection) and destruction (RBU) even of submarines lying on the ground, as well as ultra-small submarines (SMPL), i.e. targets, the detection and destruction of which for conventional means ("big" gas and torpedoes) is difficult.
To provide access to the RBU attack and to provide anti-torpedo protection, the minesweepers had ammunition of hydroacoustic countermeasures (SGPD) such as MG-34 and GIP-1.
The capabilities of the 266М PLO and MPSV of the 266M project were highly valued not only by the Soviet Navy, but also by the navy of a number of foreign countries that had them as part of their navy (including the navy of India, where the XNUMXМ project is still in service).
It is obvious that these multipurpose tasks are still relevant today, especially when using the SEM in the far and ocean zone. The upgraded PMK of the 12700 + project requires:
• General Detection Radar and Radar Structures (radar fire control system);
• due to significant mass size and physical fields, placement of medium-caliber artillery is impossible; weapons (defeat of air, sea, land targets, submarines and saboteurs);
• EW funds.
Conclusions
The PMK of the 12700 project is, of course, critically necessary for the Russian Navy, but today they have a number of critical flaws (including for application for the main purpose). An urgent modernization of the project (and its complexes) with the revision of already built ships is necessary.
After the implementation of measures to address design flaws and increase the combat capabilities of the ship:
• BEC locations for proximity traverse carriers and carriers;
• an increase in the number of TNPA (and ensure their cover by fields of non-contact trawls);
• ensuring the solution of multi-purpose tasks (air defense, EITI, PKO, PLO);
• accommodation of a regular group of divers-miners with a pressure chamber;
• ensure high explosion resistance;
and a number of other PMK of the 12700 project may be among the best ships of their class.
At the same time, the PMK of the 12700 project, even in a modernized form, cannot solve the whole range of tasks of the naval fleet and have serious limitations on the possibility of serial production (due to problems with the release of МХNUMXД diesel engines).
It is necessary to build, in addition to them, a series of small small MVK raids and the creation of a new project - a basic PMK of reduced displacement, suitable for mass serial construction.
Information