The Northern Sea Route under the gun of the U.S. Navy submarine fleet. Cats and Mice in the Barents Sea
Preparations for the confrontation for control over the Arctic region and the Northern Sea Route are gaining momentum. Bet on the multi-purpose submarine component of the U.S. Navy
In addition to the development of the tasks typical for MAPL crews, consisting of finding submarines of a conditional enemy and delivering torpedo strikes against them using “practical” modifications of heavy American torpedoes Mk-48 Mod 5 ADCAP / Mod 7 CBASS and British Spearfish, in front of multipurpose sonar operators The nuclear submarines of the 3 and 4 generations of the Los Angeles classes (in the improved version of 688i / Flight III), Sea Wolf, Virginia, and Astute are more often tasked with much more specialized tasks. They consist in careful monitoring of the underwater space for the presence of ultra-low-noise submarines of the conditional enemy, operating on the “low speed” (in the “creeping up” mode), when their level of acoustic noise barely reaches 50 — 55 dB.
Even under favorable hydrological conditions (calm or minimal sea waves), this operation allows crews of modern ultra-low-noise MAPL Virginia Block I / II / III to evaluate in detail the capabilities of the AN / BQQ-10 intranasal sonar systems and the AN / BQG- side wide-aperture passive ASNs 5A on conditional direction finding of the most advanced Russian multi-purpose nuclear submarines at 885 Ave., Ash, the first of which (the lead K-560 Severodvinsk) was adopted by the Northern Fleet on 17 on June 2014 of the year, and the second, K-561 Kazan, about goes factory trials and is preparing to take up combat duty in the 2020 year. The same skills are also being worked out by the crews of the British MAPL Estuit, checking the limits of capabilities of the Type 2076 nasal sonar systems.
All of the above testifies only to one thing: the underwater components of the NATO Joint Naval Forces intensified the active phase of preparation for the upcoming cat and mouse game, and possibly the power dive with Russian multipurpose nuclear submarines of the Northern Fleet in the waters of the Norwegian and Barents Seas, as well as other seas of the arctic region. And the catch here is the only thing: the establishment of comprehensive control over the Northern Sea Route, as well as over the distant approaches to the strategically important Lomonosov Ridge. This is indicated by two more September large-scale naval exercises, “Cutlass Fury-2019” and “Arctic Expeditionary Capabilities Exercise-2019”, held in the North Atlantic region (near the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland), as well as the Aleutian Islands and South Alaska respectively. The most piquant moment is that the basis of the fundamentals in all the above maneuvers is precisely the multipurpose nuclear submarines, on which the main bets are made in the Pentagon and the British defense department. Why?
The answer here is obvious. Even the numerous surface component of the NATO Joint Naval Forces, represented mainly by the US Ticonderoga missile cruisers, Arleigh Burke Flight I / II / IIA class URF destroyers, the Daring Class 45 air defense destroyers and the Type 43 Duke highly specialized anti-submarine frigates, it will not be able to “break through” the echeloned anti-ship lines of the A2 / AD Murmansk, North-Yakut and Chukchi zones. These lines will be formed:
- dozens of batteries of coastal anti-ship systems “Ball”, K300P / S “Bastion-P / S”, multi-functional Su-30СМ fighters, which are part of three squadrons of the 279-th air regiment at the “Severomorsk-3” airfield and which are carriers of anti-ship missiles X- 35U "Uranus", as well as the supersonic anti-ship missiles X-31AD "Krypton", capable of performing anti-aircraft maneuvers at a speed of 2,1M and an overload of about 20G;
- long-range Tu-142М3 / М4 anti-submarine aircraft and Tu-22М3 long-range bombers, quickly deployed to the restored Tiksi Arctic airbase and equipped with X-35U and X-32 anti-ship missiles of many of the largest X-class missiles of the latest X-winged missile systems of the latest complex "Storm"; have a hypersonic speed of 22 km / h on the marching section of the trajectory, passing at heights from 5400 to 35 km);
- MiG-31K interceptors, also redeployed to Tiksi and carrying the latest X-47M2 Dagger anti-ship aeroballistic missiles with a range of about 2000-2500 km.
As you can see, for surface naval strike groups of the US Navy and the Royal Navy of Great Britain, access to the Barents, Kara and East Siberian seas, as well as the Laptev Sea is completely closed, which indicates the impossibility of establishing comprehensive control over the Northern Sea Route according to the concept implemented for example, in the waters of the Omani and Persian gulfs. For this reason, the four-star admirals of the American and British fleets consider multipurpose submarines of the Virginia and Estuit classes as the “strategic asset” in the erupted “Arctic race”.
Due to the extremely low acoustic signature (50 — 60 dB) achieved by the use of water-jet propulsion systems, the placement of a steam generating unit, the main turbo gear unit and a steam turbine installation on multi-tier damping platforms - “shelves”, as well as the use of a modern “anechoic” (sound-absorbing) coating of the submarine of classes “ Virginia Block I / II / III ”and“ Astute ”will become very serious opponents for the multipurpose nuclear submarines armed with the Northern Fleet, 885 Ave., 971 Pike-B Ave. , pr. 945 "Barracuda", pr. 945А "Condor" and pr. 671РТМК "Pike". And the root of the problem here lies not so much in the fact that almost all of the above classes of domestic multi-purpose nuclear submarines (except MAPL pr. 885) are significantly inferior to Virginia and Estuity in terms of acoustic stealth, as in the small number of multi-purpose nuclear submarine component of the Northern Fleet.
The acute shortage of ultra-low-noise multipurpose nuclear submarines of the 4 generation remains.
Regular patrolling of the Arctic seas by anti-submarine aircraft Il-38Н and Tu-142М3 of naval aviation of the Russian Navy will contribute to the temporary relief of this gap.
To date, the number of MAPLs of the above types that are in service with the Northern Fleet and are on combat duty is only 12 units; more 5 — 7 boards are at various stages of repair and updating of the electronic components of onboard electronic equipment (including the modernization of sonar equipment and terminals for displaying tactical underwater conditions and power plant operation parameters). Against this background, the US Navy and the British Navy can transfer about 15 Virginia MAPLs, more than 25 — 30 Los Angeles class MAPLs (including 10 — 15 upgraded aircraft, 688 Improved airplanes to the waters of the North Atlantic, the North Seas and the Arctic Ocean). ), 3 submarines “Seawolf” and 4 — 5 submarines “Estuity”.
As a result, we have a very disappointing 1 / 3 ratio. As a result of this, even the high sensitivity of the MGK-540 Skat-3 and MGK-600 Irtysh-Amfora-Yasen sonar systems (installed on the Yaseny and Pike-B), providing detection of American and British submarines in the first distant the acoustic illumination zone at a distance of 35 — 50 km will not allow us to compensate for the numerical superiority of enemy submarines, because in difficult hydrological conditions the effective range of these sonar stations will decrease to 5 — 10 km (in relation to m loshumnym enemy submarines 4-th generation).
Regular and intensive patrolling of the northern seas by several links of the IL-38Н and Tu-142М3 / 4 aircraft, which have several hundred passive directional and non-directional radio-acoustic buoys of RSL-48N-RSE-RSL and RSL-RBG will allow to partially cover this critical “gap”. 41 and active emitting buoys GB-36. Tactically calibrated and “tight” placement of even a few dozen of these buoys on the most unpredictable underwater sections of the seas of the Arctic region will allow to maintain fairly reliable control over the Northern Sea Route, minimizing the likelihood of the entry of ultra-low-noise American and British submarines even if the required number of multi-purpose submarines of the Ash class is temporarily absent and "Ash-M", located at various stages of construction.
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