We are building a fleet. Consequences of "uncomfortable" geography
Agreeing in the last part that we need an adequate domestic theory of naval power, we need to adapt it to geography, because Russia's position on the seas is unique.
We are accustomed to the fact that Russia quite has access to the sea. And at first glance this is actually so - our sea border has a length of 38807 kilometers, and the coast is washed directly by the Pacific and Arctic Oceans, and indirectly by the Atlantic. And we have more merchant ships under national jurisdiction than the United States.
And yet, many Western commentators, talking to each other, characterize Russia as Landlocked - literally locked or blocked by land. Here, by the way, again it is important to correctly understand the meanings: we use phrases like “land power”, and our opponents instead have it “locked by land”.
There is no contradiction. All maritime communications used by merchant fleets of different countries to communicate with our country, and our Navy, too, pass through the narrownesses that a potential adversary controls.
Moreover, the enemy’s presence of naval bases around the world, and naval groups on all oceans, gives him the opportunity to either block the Russian Navy in coastal waters, or attack him there, establishing in any case sea supremacy off our coasts, which then he will allow him to use our coastal zone for attacks of our territory from the sea.
This problem was described in more detail in the article. “There are no exits. On the geographical isolation of the oceans for the Russian Navy ". However, that article had the goal of focusing the attention of the public on something that the public for some reason forgot, replacing the process of thinking with the thoughtless eating of the informational “feed” that our “not very accurate propaganda machine” wraps into it.
However, the limitations that are on the development of our fleet the geographical factor influences, they are so important, and, with the right approach to naval construction, will have such a powerful influence on the fleet that they need to be studied as thoroughly as possible. And, most importantly, to assess the consequences of geographical factors for the future of the Russian fleet.
It is necessary to call a spade a spade: we do not have a fleet, but four fleets and one flotilla are different. Those theaters of operations in which the bases of our fleets are located differ from one another simply phenomenally. So some aviation torpedoes armed with naval aviation do not work in the Baltic - water salinity is insufficient to activate the battery. In the Pacific Ocean and in the North, storms of the same magnitude affect ships differently because of the different wavelengths during storms and waves characteristic of different regions. Opponents (except the main enemy, which is everywhere with us) are different, the coastline is different in outline, and as a result, in principle, there are different combat conditions for each fleet. And this potentially dictates a different structure and different ship composition for each of the fleets.
At the same time, maneuvering ships between fleets is extremely difficult even in peacetime - far away, and in the military it will be possible only if the United States does not participate in the war. If they participate in it, then ships from one fleet to another will not be transferred. The only exceptions are the ships of the Caspian flotilla, which can be sent to help the Black Sea Fleet (let us leave the potential usefulness of this step “outside the brackets”).
These limitations will never be overcome. And that means that the consequences that such geographical fragmentation leads to will always work, and the fleet should be built with this factor in mind.
The problem of the fragmentation of the fleets in an extremely acute form faced Russia with the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War. Then it turned out that the Japanese have a superiority in numbers over all the naval forces of the Russian Empire in the Pacific Ocean. The confrontation of the Japanese fleet against the 1th Pacific Squadron ended in a logical victory for Japan, and when the 2th Pacific Squadron arrived after a months-long transoceanic transfer to the Far East, the Japanese again had numerical superiority over it. The overall superiority of the Russian Imperial fleet over the Japanese fleet proved impossible to realize. It is worth recognizing that today the problem has not gone away.
In the fundamental doctrinal document relating to the Navy, in the "Fundamentals of the state policy of the Russian Federation in the field of naval activities for the period up to 2030," the following lines are given to the inter-theater maneuver of the Navy:
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Alas, the fundamental point was ignored - what should I do if the need for an inter-theater maneuver arose in wartime? But this is a fundamental point - after the outbreak of the global military conflict, no maneuver of naval missile defense between the theater of operations by sea will be impossible, on the other hand, it does not particularly limit anything before it begins. In the case of a local conflict, the fundamental question is that the maneuvering forces should be on time in the theater of operations in time, before the enemy establishes dominance at sea (and not as in the Russo-Japanese war).
Unfortunately, we again see the formal approach taken by the drafters of a guidance document that is important from a doctrinal point of view. The effect of the fragmentation of our fleets on the organizational and staffing structure of the fleet as a type of aircraft is not mentioned. Meanwhile, the problem of maneuver is both important and partly solvable, but the composition of the Navy and its organization should be built with such a task in mind.
However, there is a positive point in the disunity of our fleets. Our fleets are almost impossible to defeat all at once if their command will properly manage the entrusted forces and troops. In order to achieve the simultaneous defeat of all our fleets, it is necessary to assemble a coalition that would include at least the United States, part of NATO, Japan, preferably Australia.
And Russia, in turn, seeing the titanic preparations for an attack on itself by the 1 / 8 of all mankind, must fascinatedly wait for a denouement and do nothing. This is hardly possible in the real world. And for a single United States with its current military personnel, the Navy will not be able to “cover” everyone at the same time — in the best case, it will be possible to “deal” with the Pacific Fleet and carry out a heavy oncoming battle with the North. They will probably win it, but this gain will have a price.
And this factor, which works for us and directly follows from the fragmentation of the fleets, we can also use in the future.
It is curious to note that we are not alone. Another country whose fleet is divided by land and cannot quickly get together is ... the USA!
This is not customary to talk about, for some strange reasons, but our main opponent has the same exact vulnerability - his Navy is divided between the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic. And, importantly, the main striking force of the U.S. Navy - aircraft carriers, can not make the transition to the Panama Canal. Only bypassing South America and nothing more. This gives us some opportunities that we will talk about one day. In the meantime, we restrict ourselves to stating the fact that the disunity of the fleets due to their location on different sides of a large land mass does not impede the attainment of naval power and the conduct of war at sea to a decisive degree, but this disunity must be correctly circumvented. The United States resolved this issue by holding its ships for many years in dimensions that allowed it to pass through the Panama Canal.
Only the appearance of the post-war large aircraft carriers changed this state of affairs (although the Montana planned during the Second World battleship should also have been too large, but they did not begin to be built). Our solution may be and may be different.
However, it would not be entirely true to limit ourselves to purely geographical restrictions, because they imply yet another restriction, so to speak, of the “second level”.
Both to the West from Russia and to the East from it are states that are simply superior to the Russian Federation in economic power and military shipbuilding, or alliances, groups of states that, when united, will also jointly gain superiority over the Russian Federation.
The clearest example is Japan. This country has not much smaller population, economic superiority, it builds ships much faster than Russia, and easily, within a few years, can hand over its Navy to an aircraft carrier. For Russia, with its economy and threat structure, even a hypothetical “competition” over forces at sea with Japan seems to be an extremely difficult task, and we are not friends in the West either. And this is another consequence of the fact that our fleets are scattered across the extreme regions of a vast land mass - we will never be able to provide a numerical superiority over our opponents in theater distant from each other. We, theoretically, can “in principle” be, on the whole, stronger than the Japanese or the British, but in order to realize this superiority, we need to bring the fleets together so that they can support each other’s operations against the same enemy. The latter, however, will understand this no worse than us, and impede us by all means, from diplomatic, to purely military.
With the United States, it’s even worse, in principle, we won’t even be able to mitigate the blow of the Americans if they catch us in the waters adjacent to the bases, without the ability to join forces, at least some of them.
So, to summarize:
- Different conditions on different fleets require, apparently, different ship composition.
- Geography requires a very quick maneuver of CC in the pre-war time, and makes it almost impossible in the war.
- At the same time, it is extremely difficult to achieve the simultaneous defeat of all Russian fleets by any one enemy, which gives Russia time, albeit small, to organize or defend in all directions, or, in the case of a local war with free to maneuver global communications, for inter-theater maneuver.
- One of the consequences of the geographical fragmentation of the fleets is the economically impossible dominance in the theaters of military operations over potential opponents - they are corny too economically powerful. It will always be so, and always the enemy will interfere with the transfer of additional naval forces by sea to “his” theater of operations.
The voiced problems can be solved. Requirements to have different types of ships on different TVDs look, oddly enough, the most easily resolved. In fact, the “special” theater of operations, where adaptation to the conditions of a theater of affairs cannot be sacrificed for universality, is the Baltic. And here we can resort to the following tricks:
1. Integration of combat missions in one platform. So, for example, a small medium landing ship armed with a pair of 76-mm guns will also be a landing ship, and will be able to fire along the coast, and will be able to hit surface targets with artillery fire, will be able to conduct mine missions and perform transport tasks. Perhaps he will be able to arm him with some small-sized missiles with a range of "to the horizon", then he will be able to attack and destroy surface targets beyond the range of actual fire of 76 graphs. Its design will not be optimal for any of these tasks, but on the other hand, the same ship can really solve them all. This will allow not to build two or three specialized ships, and confine oneself to one optimized for a theater of war with its depths, distances, enemy, etc.
2. The unification of not projects, but systems. If we assume that we urgently need a special type of warship in the Baltic, then it can be unified with other ships of the Navy not within the same project, but in terms of subsystems. For example, the same radar system, the same diesel engine, cannon, the same missiles, but different hulls, the number of engines, the number of missiles, the presence / absence of a hangar, helicopter landing sites, different crews, and so on. At the same time, you immediately need to make a version of the “Baltic project” for export too, to justify the additional costs of a separate small series of ships for one theater.
It must be understood that, unlike the inter-theater maneuver by forces and means, this problem is insignificant. Maneuvering is a completely different matter.
It must be clearly understood that the maneuver by fleets and groups of warships from "their" fleet into the required combat zone, if there is an enemy ready to fight on the communications, will be either impossible or meaningless due to the loss of time. This leads us to a simple and consistent solution - since after the outbreak of hostilities the maneuver is no longer possible or difficult, it must be carried out as much as possible ... before the outbreak of hostilities!
And here the Soviet experience from the "Gorshkov era" comes to our aid, namely the concept of the OPESK - operational squadrons. OPESK represented a group of warships and ships of the floating rear, previously deployed in the far sea and ocean zones, ready at any moment to engage in hostilities. Today, at that time, it was customary to nostalgia recalling that the Navy of the USSR was “present” in certain regions, but now ... In the same Fundamentals, the need for this “presence” is mentioned on almost every second page.
That's just the USSR Navy was not just “present”, it was deployed in important areas of the World Ocean, so that it could not be taken aback by the outbreak of war. These were forces designed to contain the war by demonstrating their readiness to immediately join it, the Soviet Union’s response to the geographical problem.
Whether we like it or not, the OPESK is an insurmountable necessity, taking into account our geographical location. We will not have time to maneuver after the war begins, but we can have deployed forces in the ocean in advance that can arrive at a potential point of conflict in a matter of days.
However, unlike the Soviet Union, for economic reasons we cannot constantly hold large forces in the ocean. Therefore, in our case, the provision of inter-theater maneuver by ships should look like the deployment of operational formations with the participation of ships of all fleets at the first signs of a threatened period.
For example, satellite reconnaissance made it possible to detect the loading of supplies on all Japanese submarines at the same time. This is an intelligence sign. And without additional expectation, the ships of the Northern and Black Sea Fleets allocated to the OPESK are preparing to go to sea, get ammunition, go to sea, meet, and if within a couple of three days after this the Japanese do not receive a clear explanation, the group begins the transition to The Indian Ocean, having the reserve task of demonstrating the flag and business calls, that is, essentially helping domestic diplomats, and the main one, is to be ready to move to the Pacific Ocean and immediately enter the war against Japan.
If during the OPESK transition the tension decreases, then the squadron’s action plan changes, its time at sea is reduced and so on, if not, it’s transferred to the area from where it can begin to act against the enemy, and in the future, it expects development events and the corresponding order.
There is no other scenario of inter-theater maneuver by surface forces, with which we would be guaranteed to be in time everywhere.
Deployment of submarines is carried out similarly, but taking into account actions to ensure stealth.
This half-forgotten response to the geographical challenge should be the basis of our military planning.
However, this is not a panacea. Firstly, events can go corny too quickly. Secondly, the previously available fleet forces in the theater of operations (in the example of Japan it is the Pacific Fleet) in total with the OPEC collected from other fleets may simply not be enough, and it may not be possible to transfer additional forces at all or on time. Under these conditions, the fleet needs a mobile reserve, the ability of which to be relocated from one direction to another could not be stopped by any enemy, and which could be in place really quickly.
The only force capable of this kind of maneuver is aviation. And here we are again forced to resort to the Soviet experience when coastal-based missile-bearing aircraft were the main striking force of the Navy. From the point of view of constructing a “classical” fleet, such a solution looks strange, but there is nothing strange - this is the only way to level our partially unsuccessful geographical position. National specificity.
Of course, all of the above applies not only to naval attack aircraft, but also to anti-submarine, which is the most dangerous and effective means of combating submarines.
Article "On the need to restore naval missile aircraft" approaches were announced that allowed Russia to quickly and not very expensive compared to the USSR restore basic attack aircraft. Briefly - the Su-30СМ platform with a more powerful radar and the Onyx missile as the "main caliber", in the future, the addition of cheap and small-size AWACS and refueling aircraft, when it will be possible to develop and build them.
Such aircraft will be able to relocate from fleet to fleet within a few days and stepwise increase the power of surface ships and submarines deployed in the sea, increasing their missile salvo or even allowing them to dispense target designations by surface forces.
In the same article, the justification was made that it should be naval aviation, and not just an outfit for the air forces.
And no matter how large-scale the reorganization of maritime aviation would be needed to provide such opportunities, it will have to be done.
Today, many have already forgotten that in the USSR, most long-range bombers were not part of the Air Force, but part of the Navy. So, in 1992 in the long-range aviation there were 100 Tu-22M missile carriers of all modifications, and in the Navy aviation - 165. Aircraft with their mobility proved to be an indispensable means of increasing the mass and density of a missile salvo in a naval battle.
By the eighties, Americans came to the same conclusion.
In the second half of the eighties, in response to the appearance in the USSR Navy of aircraft-carrying cruisers of the 1143 ave. And missile cruisers of the 1144 ave, as well as an increase in the number of naval personnel as a whole, they began to equip the Harpoon anti-ship missiles with the B-52 strategic bombers. It was assumed that the B-52, modified for the ability to perform low-altitude (500 m) flights for a long time, possessing perhaps the world's most powerful aircraft-based electronic warfare system, with trained pilots and six anti-ship missiles each, could play an important role in naval battles with the USSR Navy that the U.S. Navy was preparing for in the eighties. So it, apparently, would be.
The Americans well understood that planes with anti-ship missiles would be a force multiplier in a naval war — they would allow for many small-sized strike groups of ships with insufficient missile salvo power, but widespread coverage, and, before the battle, to quickly increase the firepower of such small groups with their missiles . It was precisely the fleet’s mobile reserve, although it was subordinate to the Air Force, not the Navy.
Now that the growth of the Chinese Navy is already threatening Western dominance in the world, they are doing the same. At the moment, the training of the personnel of the 28 air wing of the US Air Force and their B-1 bombers for the use of LRASM missiles has been completed.
With our geographical location, we cannot avoid the same thing, only, of course, adjusted for the "economy".
However, having introduced preliminary deployment as a basic strategy of the pre-war (threatened) period, and creating a mobile reserve capable of transferring from fleet to fleet, we run into a “stopper” on the way to effectively manage such forces and their actions — the existing command system.
Article “Destroyed management. There is no single command of the fleet for a long time. ” it described what the naval command and control system turned into during the ill-conceived reform of Serdyukov. It is worth quoting from there explaining that fleet management must again be returned to the fleet.
In order to ensure a quick (this keyword) maneuver by forces and means between hazardous directions, these forces and means must be controlled centrally, so that the Navy General Staff does not have any delays in terms of withdrawing forces from one direction and transferring them to others. This requires the restoration of a full naval command and control system. Surprisingly, geography also reached here, and if we want it to not prevent us from defending our country, then we will have to “adapt” to it on the command “front” as well.
There is, however, something else that the fleet can maneuver through its territory without restrictions.
Personnel.
Once, relatively recently, the fleet had not only ships in combat, but also those on mothballing, which were supposed to replenish the military personnel of the Navy in the threatened period or in the event of war. The ship got up for mothballing after undergoing the necessary repairs, and its withdrawal from mothballing with a return to the combat personnel could be carried out very quickly.
Usually these were not the most modern ships. But, any ship is better than no ship, especially since the enemy would also put into operation far from the latest units. However, the enemy had much more.
In those years when the fleet was large enough, it also had a significant mobilization resource, of those who had previously served in the Navy, and there was a mechanism for the quick return of these people to military service through the military commissariat system.
Today the situation has changed dramatically. There are no ships that could be put on conservation, the fleet is not enough in the combat structure of the ships, ship repair does not work as it should, and the terms for repairing the ships are almost higher than the terms for their construction. The situation with the reservists has also changed - the number of people serving in the Navy has decreased after the Navy, the country's demographic indicators and its economy do not give reason to believe that the mobilization resource of the fleet can grow significantly in the foreseeable future. Yes, and military registration and enlistment offices now do not consider people so densely, and a former sailor who has left for a better life in the neighboring city will have to look for quite a while. All this makes the possibility of a rapid increase in the fleet in case of war impossible.
Meanwhile, the availability of reserve ships quickly put into operation, and the ability to mobilize crews for them, is a critical component of naval power for a country whose fleet is divided as it is in Russia.
Yes, it is impossible to create more powerful naval groups in each of the directions than hostile or dangerous neighbors have. But to have "spare" ships, which in peacetime require a minimum of money, and before the war are quickly put into operation - in theory it is possible. Not now, of course, but the country does not live one day, and the correct principles of sea power live long.
On the other hand, even if (or when) common sense and strategic clarity prevail, and the development of the Russian Navy goes the normal way, the question remains with the number of reservists. They simply will not be in the right amount, and will not be very long.
And here we come to another solution.
Since our neighbors from the West and the East are stronger than us, since we cannot have fleets comparable with them in number (for the West, they are comparable with the total number of military units opposing us in total), then one of the answer options is the availability of combat-ready ships for conservation on each theater of operations. And, since we may find it difficult to call on a sufficient number of reservists, it is necessary to provide for maneuvers by personnel.
Suppose, during the threatened period, the Pacific Fleet is withdrawn from conservation, for example, a corvette. Formed with the involvement of mobilized sailors, the crew takes him out to sea, undergoes combat training, passes course tasks, adjusted for how actively the enemy behaves.
And when the strategic situation changes, nothing prevents a part of the same crew from being transferred to the Baltic, where they will commission the same corvette and will perform military service on it. As a result, personnel will be transferred to places where the situation is more dangerous at the moment and where ships are needed more. Only some officers will remain in the field, for example, commanders of combat units.
This idea may look exotic in someone’s eyes, but in fact there is nothing exotic in it. The ground forces have repeatedly worked out the deployment of units by transferring personnel and at the same time receiving military equipment directly on the theater. Why shouldn't the Navy do the same in the long run?
In the future, when order will be put in place in naval construction, it will be necessary to take up the formation of such reserves and development of their actions - conscription, formation of crews, withdrawal of ships from conservation, accelerated combat training, and the entry of mobilized ships into combat structure. And then - again, with the same people on 80-90%, but in a different fleet.
Naturally, such a "fire" mode of functioning of personnel should be a temporary measure, and be used to accelerate the increase in the number of combat personnel of the Navy, which would outstrip the speed of mobilization of people, and would allow maximum strength "here and now."
Another consequence of the need to have a mobilization reserve of ships is the need for the future to lay in the design of the ship the need for several decades to keep it on conservation. If the service life and the number of some scheduled repairs for this service life is now set, then it must be set that having served 75-85% of the service life, the ship will have to be repaired, mothballed and then another fifteen to twenty years with some interruptions for re-conservation, stand at the pier. Keeping both combat readiness and the ability to return to duty with minimal costs.
Russian fleets are fragmented and are located at a great distance from each other. The conditions on the fleets are very different, up to serious differences in the composition of water. Different coastlines, weather, excitement, neighbors and opponents.
In such conditions, it is required to have ships slightly different from each other in different fleets. In this case, it is necessary to continue to adhere to inter-ship unification. This contradiction is resolved by unifying various ships according to subsystems as much as it is possible in principle without loss of combat effectiveness and irrational rise in price of ships.
A special problem is the inter-theater maneuver. This is due to the fact that there are countries or their alliances to the east and west of Russia, with an economy at least not inferior to the Russian one, and it is impossible to surpass them all in strength, which means that it will have to go there to create a favorable balance of forces on one theater of operations transfer forces from another.
In wartime, this, depending on the nature of the conflict, may be impossible, or impossible in time. Therefore, maneuver by ships should be carried out in advance, by deploying at sea units of ships from other fleets that would advance, even during the threatened period, to the transition to the desired theater of operations. The beginning of the threatened period should be considered the appearance of the first intelligence signs of an aggravation of the military-political situation that is being prepared by one or another country. The difference between this practice and the Soviet concept of operational squadrons - OPESK - will be only a smaller number of deployed formations, and their deployment only during the threatened period.
As a mobile reserve, which can be quickly transferred to any of the fleets and vice versa, naval aviation, both anti-submarine and strike, is used. Specialized naval aviation can increase the striking capabilities of fleets and naval formations in operations against an enemy that is superior in numbers. There are no other means that could equally rapidly strengthen the fleets in one direction or another. The need to have a powerful basic naval aviation stems from the geographical features of Russia.
In order to quickly and without spending a lot of money change the balance of forces between the enemy and the Russian Navy, the latter must have a reserve - ships for conservation and a mobilization resource that must be mobilized to the fleet. To accelerate the mobilization of the naval fleet, the same personnel can be transferred from fleet to fleet, if the situation requires it.
To manage such global actions by territorial scope, it is necessary to restore the Commander-in-Chief and the General Staff of the Navy as full-fledged and full-fledged combat command and control agencies capable of simultaneously and in real time managing operations of all fleets and naval formations at sea, including inter-naval groups, operational squadrons, and so on . Highly effective reconnaissance will also be required, capable of obtaining in advance information about the brewing dangerous actions of the enemy, necessary for the preliminary deployment of operational squadrons at sea.
These measures will minimize the negative impact of the geographical fragmentation of all the fleets of Russia, preserving the advantages of their position in the form of the impossibility of defeating them simultaneously in all military operations.
In the future, when understanding of naval issues will become the norm in Russia, all these provisions should be consolidated doctrinally.
Otherwise, the repetition of the problems of 1904-1905 is inevitable, it is only a matter of time. Knowing that everything ultimately depends on us, we will always remember the geographical factor and how it affects our domestic theory of naval power.
To be continued ...
The Soviet Navy partially solved the "geographical problem." And the Russian Navy will also have to solve it
We are accustomed to the fact that Russia quite has access to the sea. And at first glance this is actually so - our sea border has a length of 38807 kilometers, and the coast is washed directly by the Pacific and Arctic Oceans, and indirectly by the Atlantic. And we have more merchant ships under national jurisdiction than the United States.
And yet, many Western commentators, talking to each other, characterize Russia as Landlocked - literally locked or blocked by land. Here, by the way, again it is important to correctly understand the meanings: we use phrases like “land power”, and our opponents instead have it “locked by land”.
There is no contradiction. All maritime communications used by merchant fleets of different countries to communicate with our country, and our Navy, too, pass through the narrownesses that a potential adversary controls.
It can be seen that the exits of all fleets to the ocean pass through narrownesses. In the Far East, almost the same thing.
Moreover, the enemy’s presence of naval bases around the world, and naval groups on all oceans, gives him the opportunity to either block the Russian Navy in coastal waters, or attack him there, establishing in any case sea supremacy off our coasts, which then he will allow him to use our coastal zone for attacks of our territory from the sea.
This problem was described in more detail in the article. “There are no exits. On the geographical isolation of the oceans for the Russian Navy ". However, that article had the goal of focusing the attention of the public on something that the public for some reason forgot, replacing the process of thinking with the thoughtless eating of the informational “feed” that our “not very accurate propaganda machine” wraps into it.
However, the limitations that are on the development of our fleet the geographical factor influences, they are so important, and, with the right approach to naval construction, will have such a powerful influence on the fleet that they need to be studied as thoroughly as possible. And, most importantly, to assess the consequences of geographical factors for the future of the Russian fleet.
Not a fleet, but fleets. On isolated theater
It is necessary to call a spade a spade: we do not have a fleet, but four fleets and one flotilla are different. Those theaters of operations in which the bases of our fleets are located differ from one another simply phenomenally. So some aviation torpedoes armed with naval aviation do not work in the Baltic - water salinity is insufficient to activate the battery. In the Pacific Ocean and in the North, storms of the same magnitude affect ships differently because of the different wavelengths during storms and waves characteristic of different regions. Opponents (except the main enemy, which is everywhere with us) are different, the coastline is different in outline, and as a result, in principle, there are different combat conditions for each fleet. And this potentially dictates a different structure and different ship composition for each of the fleets.
At the same time, maneuvering ships between fleets is extremely difficult even in peacetime - far away, and in the military it will be possible only if the United States does not participate in the war. If they participate in it, then ships from one fleet to another will not be transferred. The only exceptions are the ships of the Caspian flotilla, which can be sent to help the Black Sea Fleet (let us leave the potential usefulness of this step “outside the brackets”).
These limitations will never be overcome. And that means that the consequences that such geographical fragmentation leads to will always work, and the fleet should be built with this factor in mind.
The problem of the fragmentation of the fleets in an extremely acute form faced Russia with the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War. Then it turned out that the Japanese have a superiority in numbers over all the naval forces of the Russian Empire in the Pacific Ocean. The confrontation of the Japanese fleet against the 1th Pacific Squadron ended in a logical victory for Japan, and when the 2th Pacific Squadron arrived after a months-long transoceanic transfer to the Far East, the Japanese again had numerical superiority over it. The overall superiority of the Russian Imperial fleet over the Japanese fleet proved impossible to realize. It is worth recognizing that today the problem has not gone away.
Possible routes. Northern - almost not suitable for submarines and requires at least US neutrality. South is closed to nuclear submarines, they need to go around Africa
In the fundamental doctrinal document relating to the Navy, in the "Fundamentals of the state policy of the Russian Federation in the field of naval activities for the period up to 2030," the following lines are given to the inter-theater maneuver of the Navy:
38. The main objectives of naval activities to prevent military conflicts and strategic containment are:
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e) performing inter-theater maneuvers, as well as regular under-ice navigation of nuclear submarines of the Navy;
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e) performing inter-theater maneuvers, as well as regular under-ice navigation of nuclear submarines of the Navy;
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51. Indicators of the effectiveness of measures to implement state policy in the field of naval activities are:
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d) the ability of the Navy to build up a naval group in a dangerous strategic direction due to inter-theater maneuver by naval forces;
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d) the ability of the Navy to build up a naval group in a dangerous strategic direction due to inter-theater maneuver by naval forces;
Alas, the fundamental point was ignored - what should I do if the need for an inter-theater maneuver arose in wartime? But this is a fundamental point - after the outbreak of the global military conflict, no maneuver of naval missile defense between the theater of operations by sea will be impossible, on the other hand, it does not particularly limit anything before it begins. In the case of a local conflict, the fundamental question is that the maneuvering forces should be on time in the theater of operations in time, before the enemy establishes dominance at sea (and not as in the Russo-Japanese war).
Unfortunately, we again see the formal approach taken by the drafters of a guidance document that is important from a doctrinal point of view. The effect of the fragmentation of our fleets on the organizational and staffing structure of the fleet as a type of aircraft is not mentioned. Meanwhile, the problem of maneuver is both important and partly solvable, but the composition of the Navy and its organization should be built with such a task in mind.
However, there is a positive point in the disunity of our fleets. Our fleets are almost impossible to defeat all at once if their command will properly manage the entrusted forces and troops. In order to achieve the simultaneous defeat of all our fleets, it is necessary to assemble a coalition that would include at least the United States, part of NATO, Japan, preferably Australia.
And Russia, in turn, seeing the titanic preparations for an attack on itself by the 1 / 8 of all mankind, must fascinatedly wait for a denouement and do nothing. This is hardly possible in the real world. And for a single United States with its current military personnel, the Navy will not be able to “cover” everyone at the same time — in the best case, it will be possible to “deal” with the Pacific Fleet and carry out a heavy oncoming battle with the North. They will probably win it, but this gain will have a price.
And this factor, which works for us and directly follows from the fragmentation of the fleets, we can also use in the future.
It is curious to note that we are not alone. Another country whose fleet is divided by land and cannot quickly get together is ... the USA!
This is not customary to talk about, for some strange reasons, but our main opponent has the same exact vulnerability - his Navy is divided between the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic. And, importantly, the main striking force of the U.S. Navy - aircraft carriers, can not make the transition to the Panama Canal. Only bypassing South America and nothing more. This gives us some opportunities that we will talk about one day. In the meantime, we restrict ourselves to stating the fact that the disunity of the fleets due to their location on different sides of a large land mass does not impede the attainment of naval power and the conduct of war at sea to a decisive degree, but this disunity must be correctly circumvented. The United States resolved this issue by holding its ships for many years in dimensions that allowed it to pass through the Panama Canal.
Iowa class battleship at the Panama Canal lock
Only the appearance of the post-war large aircraft carriers changed this state of affairs (although the Montana planned during the Second World battleship should also have been too large, but they did not begin to be built). Our solution may be and may be different.
However, it would not be entirely true to limit ourselves to purely geographical restrictions, because they imply yet another restriction, so to speak, of the “second level”.
Both to the West from Russia and to the East from it are states that are simply superior to the Russian Federation in economic power and military shipbuilding, or alliances, groups of states that, when united, will also jointly gain superiority over the Russian Federation.
The clearest example is Japan. This country has not much smaller population, economic superiority, it builds ships much faster than Russia, and easily, within a few years, can hand over its Navy to an aircraft carrier. For Russia, with its economy and threat structure, even a hypothetical “competition” over forces at sea with Japan seems to be an extremely difficult task, and we are not friends in the West either. And this is another consequence of the fact that our fleets are scattered across the extreme regions of a vast land mass - we will never be able to provide a numerical superiority over our opponents in theater distant from each other. We, theoretically, can “in principle” be, on the whole, stronger than the Japanese or the British, but in order to realize this superiority, we need to bring the fleets together so that they can support each other’s operations against the same enemy. The latter, however, will understand this no worse than us, and impede us by all means, from diplomatic, to purely military.
With the United States, it’s even worse, in principle, we won’t even be able to mitigate the blow of the Americans if they catch us in the waters adjacent to the bases, without the ability to join forces, at least some of them.
So, to summarize:
- Different conditions on different fleets require, apparently, different ship composition.
- Geography requires a very quick maneuver of CC in the pre-war time, and makes it almost impossible in the war.
- At the same time, it is extremely difficult to achieve the simultaneous defeat of all Russian fleets by any one enemy, which gives Russia time, albeit small, to organize or defend in all directions, or, in the case of a local war with free to maneuver global communications, for inter-theater maneuver.
- One of the consequences of the geographical fragmentation of the fleets is the economically impossible dominance in the theaters of military operations over potential opponents - they are corny too economically powerful. It will always be so, and always the enemy will interfere with the transfer of additional naval forces by sea to “his” theater of operations.
The voiced problems can be solved. Requirements to have different types of ships on different TVDs look, oddly enough, the most easily resolved. In fact, the “special” theater of operations, where adaptation to the conditions of a theater of affairs cannot be sacrificed for universality, is the Baltic. And here we can resort to the following tricks:
1. Integration of combat missions in one platform. So, for example, a small medium landing ship armed with a pair of 76-mm guns will also be a landing ship, and will be able to fire along the coast, and will be able to hit surface targets with artillery fire, will be able to conduct mine missions and perform transport tasks. Perhaps he will be able to arm him with some small-sized missiles with a range of "to the horizon", then he will be able to attack and destroy surface targets beyond the range of actual fire of 76 graphs. Its design will not be optimal for any of these tasks, but on the other hand, the same ship can really solve them all. This will allow not to build two or three specialized ships, and confine oneself to one optimized for a theater of war with its depths, distances, enemy, etc.
2. The unification of not projects, but systems. If we assume that we urgently need a special type of warship in the Baltic, then it can be unified with other ships of the Navy not within the same project, but in terms of subsystems. For example, the same radar system, the same diesel engine, cannon, the same missiles, but different hulls, the number of engines, the number of missiles, the presence / absence of a hangar, helicopter landing sites, different crews, and so on. At the same time, you immediately need to make a version of the “Baltic project” for export too, to justify the additional costs of a separate small series of ships for one theater.
It must be understood that, unlike the inter-theater maneuver by forces and means, this problem is insignificant. Maneuvering is a completely different matter.
Maneuver
It must be clearly understood that the maneuver by fleets and groups of warships from "their" fleet into the required combat zone, if there is an enemy ready to fight on the communications, will be either impossible or meaningless due to the loss of time. This leads us to a simple and consistent solution - since after the outbreak of hostilities the maneuver is no longer possible or difficult, it must be carried out as much as possible ... before the outbreak of hostilities!
And here the Soviet experience from the "Gorshkov era" comes to our aid, namely the concept of the OPESK - operational squadrons. OPESK represented a group of warships and ships of the floating rear, previously deployed in the far sea and ocean zones, ready at any moment to engage in hostilities. Today, at that time, it was customary to nostalgia recalling that the Navy of the USSR was “present” in certain regions, but now ... In the same Fundamentals, the need for this “presence” is mentioned on almost every second page.
That's just the USSR Navy was not just “present”, it was deployed in important areas of the World Ocean, so that it could not be taken aback by the outbreak of war. These were forces designed to contain the war by demonstrating their readiness to immediately join it, the Soviet Union’s response to the geographical problem.
Whether we like it or not, the OPESK is an insurmountable necessity, taking into account our geographical location. We will not have time to maneuver after the war begins, but we can have deployed forces in the ocean in advance that can arrive at a potential point of conflict in a matter of days.
Areas of responsibility of the Soviet OPEC
However, unlike the Soviet Union, for economic reasons we cannot constantly hold large forces in the ocean. Therefore, in our case, the provision of inter-theater maneuver by ships should look like the deployment of operational formations with the participation of ships of all fleets at the first signs of a threatened period.
For example, satellite reconnaissance made it possible to detect the loading of supplies on all Japanese submarines at the same time. This is an intelligence sign. And without additional expectation, the ships of the Northern and Black Sea Fleets allocated to the OPESK are preparing to go to sea, get ammunition, go to sea, meet, and if within a couple of three days after this the Japanese do not receive a clear explanation, the group begins the transition to The Indian Ocean, having the reserve task of demonstrating the flag and business calls, that is, essentially helping domestic diplomats, and the main one, is to be ready to move to the Pacific Ocean and immediately enter the war against Japan.
If during the OPESK transition the tension decreases, then the squadron’s action plan changes, its time at sea is reduced and so on, if not, it’s transferred to the area from where it can begin to act against the enemy, and in the future, it expects development events and the corresponding order.
There is no other scenario of inter-theater maneuver by surface forces, with which we would be guaranteed to be in time everywhere.
Deployment of submarines is carried out similarly, but taking into account actions to ensure stealth.
This half-forgotten response to the geographical challenge should be the basis of our military planning.
However, this is not a panacea. Firstly, events can go corny too quickly. Secondly, the previously available fleet forces in the theater of operations (in the example of Japan it is the Pacific Fleet) in total with the OPEC collected from other fleets may simply not be enough, and it may not be possible to transfer additional forces at all or on time. Under these conditions, the fleet needs a mobile reserve, the ability of which to be relocated from one direction to another could not be stopped by any enemy, and which could be in place really quickly.
The only force capable of this kind of maneuver is aviation. And here we are again forced to resort to the Soviet experience when coastal-based missile-bearing aircraft were the main striking force of the Navy. From the point of view of constructing a “classical” fleet, such a solution looks strange, but there is nothing strange - this is the only way to level our partially unsuccessful geographical position. National specificity.
Of course, all of the above applies not only to naval attack aircraft, but also to anti-submarine, which is the most dangerous and effective means of combating submarines.
Article "On the need to restore naval missile aircraft" approaches were announced that allowed Russia to quickly and not very expensive compared to the USSR restore basic attack aircraft. Briefly - the Su-30СМ platform with a more powerful radar and the Onyx missile as the "main caliber", in the future, the addition of cheap and small-size AWACS and refueling aircraft, when it will be possible to develop and build them.
An example of a possible future. So far not ours, but Indian - Su-30MKI and the Bramos rocket (in fact, our Onyx)
Such aircraft will be able to relocate from fleet to fleet within a few days and stepwise increase the power of surface ships and submarines deployed in the sea, increasing their missile salvo or even allowing them to dispense target designations by surface forces.
In the same article, the justification was made that it should be naval aviation, and not just an outfit for the air forces.
The last question: is it necessary to create such aircraft in the framework of the Navy, and not VKS?
The answer is unequivocal: yes. Fighting over the sea and against fleets has its own specifics, for example, the need for many hours of flying over an unoriented terrain, the need to search for and attack targets over it, including in adverse weather conditions, the need to attack compact and mobile targets protected by air defense and EW of such power , with which the pilot VKS is unlikely to meet somewhere. All this requires specific combat training, and she - time pilots. In addition, it is clear that the naval formations commanders will sometimes find it very difficult to solicit “their” aircraft from the VCS, especially if the VKS themselves find themselves in difficult circumstances. For these reasons, sea-launched missile aircraft should be part of the fleet, not the VKS. Of course, it will be necessary to train naval commanders in the combat use of aviation, to make them competent in its tactics, in order to rule out incompetent decisions of commanders who have left the crew. But in general, the need for naval subordination of this kind of troops is not in doubt.
The answer is unequivocal: yes. Fighting over the sea and against fleets has its own specifics, for example, the need for many hours of flying over an unoriented terrain, the need to search for and attack targets over it, including in adverse weather conditions, the need to attack compact and mobile targets protected by air defense and EW of such power , with which the pilot VKS is unlikely to meet somewhere. All this requires specific combat training, and she - time pilots. In addition, it is clear that the naval formations commanders will sometimes find it very difficult to solicit “their” aircraft from the VCS, especially if the VKS themselves find themselves in difficult circumstances. For these reasons, sea-launched missile aircraft should be part of the fleet, not the VKS. Of course, it will be necessary to train naval commanders in the combat use of aviation, to make them competent in its tactics, in order to rule out incompetent decisions of commanders who have left the crew. But in general, the need for naval subordination of this kind of troops is not in doubt.
And no matter how large-scale the reorganization of maritime aviation would be needed to provide such opportunities, it will have to be done.
Today, many have already forgotten that in the USSR, most long-range bombers were not part of the Air Force, but part of the Navy. So, in 1992 in the long-range aviation there were 100 Tu-22M missile carriers of all modifications, and in the Navy aviation - 165. Aircraft with their mobility proved to be an indispensable means of increasing the mass and density of a missile salvo in a naval battle.
By the eighties, Americans came to the same conclusion.
In the second half of the eighties, in response to the appearance in the USSR Navy of aircraft-carrying cruisers of the 1143 ave. And missile cruisers of the 1144 ave, as well as an increase in the number of naval personnel as a whole, they began to equip the Harpoon anti-ship missiles with the B-52 strategic bombers. It was assumed that the B-52, modified for the ability to perform low-altitude (500 m) flights for a long time, possessing perhaps the world's most powerful aircraft-based electronic warfare system, with trained pilots and six anti-ship missiles each, could play an important role in naval battles with the USSR Navy that the U.S. Navy was preparing for in the eighties. So it, apparently, would be.
"Anti-ship" bomber with anti-ship missile system "Harpoon"
The Americans well understood that planes with anti-ship missiles would be a force multiplier in a naval war — they would allow for many small-sized strike groups of ships with insufficient missile salvo power, but widespread coverage, and, before the battle, to quickly increase the firepower of such small groups with their missiles . It was precisely the fleet’s mobile reserve, although it was subordinate to the Air Force, not the Navy.
Now that the growth of the Chinese Navy is already threatening Western dominance in the world, they are doing the same. At the moment, the training of the personnel of the 28 air wing of the US Air Force and their B-1 bombers for the use of LRASM missiles has been completed.
With our geographical location, we cannot avoid the same thing, only, of course, adjusted for the "economy".
However, having introduced preliminary deployment as a basic strategy of the pre-war (threatened) period, and creating a mobile reserve capable of transferring from fleet to fleet, we run into a “stopper” on the way to effectively manage such forces and their actions — the existing command system.
Article “Destroyed management. There is no single command of the fleet for a long time. ” it described what the naval command and control system turned into during the ill-conceived reform of Serdyukov. It is worth quoting from there explaining that fleet management must again be returned to the fleet.
Let us imagine an example: by the nature of the radio exchange and proceeding from the analysis of the current situation, the intelligence of the Navy understands that the enemy is going to concentrate against the Russian forces in the Pacific region the reinforced grouping of submarines, with the probable task of being ready to break the sea communications between Primorye on the one hand and Kamchatka and Chukotka on the other.
An emergency solution could be a maneuver by anti-submarine aviation from other fleets ... but now it is first necessary that the ground forces officers from the GSH correctly evaluate the information from the Navy, believe in it, so that the naval section of the GSH will confirm the conclusions made by the Navy command in of the paratroopers, military intelligence also came to the same conclusions, so that the arguments of one of the district commanders, fearing that the enemy submarines in his theater would begin to drown "his" IRC and BDK (and then he would answer for them) Not later, and only later through the General Staff, one or another USC district will receive an order to “give” its planes to its neighbors. In this chain there can be a lot of failures, each of which will lead to the loss of one of the most valuable resources in a war - time. And sometimes lead to the failure of vital action for the defense of the country.
It was here that the main striking force in the ocean areas was lost, and not only the Navy, but the Russian Armed Forces as a whole - the Navy's naval missile aircraft. She, as a branch of the armed forces, capable of maneuvering between the theater of operations, and for this reason, due to its central control, there simply was no place in the new system. Airplanes and pilots went to the Air Force, over time, the main tasks shifted to delivering attacks on ground targets with bombs, which is logical for the Air Force. That's just urgently "get" a large naval strike group of the enemy in the sea today there is nothing.
An emergency solution could be a maneuver by anti-submarine aviation from other fleets ... but now it is first necessary that the ground forces officers from the GSH correctly evaluate the information from the Navy, believe in it, so that the naval section of the GSH will confirm the conclusions made by the Navy command in of the paratroopers, military intelligence also came to the same conclusions, so that the arguments of one of the district commanders, fearing that the enemy submarines in his theater would begin to drown "his" IRC and BDK (and then he would answer for them) Not later, and only later through the General Staff, one or another USC district will receive an order to “give” its planes to its neighbors. In this chain there can be a lot of failures, each of which will lead to the loss of one of the most valuable resources in a war - time. And sometimes lead to the failure of vital action for the defense of the country.
It was here that the main striking force in the ocean areas was lost, and not only the Navy, but the Russian Armed Forces as a whole - the Navy's naval missile aircraft. She, as a branch of the armed forces, capable of maneuvering between the theater of operations, and for this reason, due to its central control, there simply was no place in the new system. Airplanes and pilots went to the Air Force, over time, the main tasks shifted to delivering attacks on ground targets with bombs, which is logical for the Air Force. That's just urgently "get" a large naval strike group of the enemy in the sea today there is nothing.
In order to ensure a quick (this keyword) maneuver by forces and means between hazardous directions, these forces and means must be controlled centrally, so that the Navy General Staff does not have any delays in terms of withdrawing forces from one direction and transferring them to others. This requires the restoration of a full naval command and control system. Surprisingly, geography also reached here, and if we want it to not prevent us from defending our country, then we will have to “adapt” to it on the command “front” as well.
There is, however, something else that the fleet can maneuver through its territory without restrictions.
Personnel.
Provisions
Once, relatively recently, the fleet had not only ships in combat, but also those on mothballing, which were supposed to replenish the military personnel of the Navy in the threatened period or in the event of war. The ship got up for mothballing after undergoing the necessary repairs, and its withdrawal from mothballing with a return to the combat personnel could be carried out very quickly.
Usually these were not the most modern ships. But, any ship is better than no ship, especially since the enemy would also put into operation far from the latest units. However, the enemy had much more.
US Navy ships in reserve. San Diego.
In those years when the fleet was large enough, it also had a significant mobilization resource, of those who had previously served in the Navy, and there was a mechanism for the quick return of these people to military service through the military commissariat system.
Today the situation has changed dramatically. There are no ships that could be put on conservation, the fleet is not enough in the combat structure of the ships, ship repair does not work as it should, and the terms for repairing the ships are almost higher than the terms for their construction. The situation with the reservists has also changed - the number of people serving in the Navy has decreased after the Navy, the country's demographic indicators and its economy do not give reason to believe that the mobilization resource of the fleet can grow significantly in the foreseeable future. Yes, and military registration and enlistment offices now do not consider people so densely, and a former sailor who has left for a better life in the neighboring city will have to look for quite a while. All this makes the possibility of a rapid increase in the fleet in case of war impossible.
Meanwhile, the availability of reserve ships quickly put into operation, and the ability to mobilize crews for them, is a critical component of naval power for a country whose fleet is divided as it is in Russia.
Yes, it is impossible to create more powerful naval groups in each of the directions than hostile or dangerous neighbors have. But to have "spare" ships, which in peacetime require a minimum of money, and before the war are quickly put into operation - in theory it is possible. Not now, of course, but the country does not live one day, and the correct principles of sea power live long.
On the other hand, even if (or when) common sense and strategic clarity prevail, and the development of the Russian Navy goes the normal way, the question remains with the number of reservists. They simply will not be in the right amount, and will not be very long.
And here we come to another solution.
Since our neighbors from the West and the East are stronger than us, since we cannot have fleets comparable with them in number (for the West, they are comparable with the total number of military units opposing us in total), then one of the answer options is the availability of combat-ready ships for conservation on each theater of operations. And, since we may find it difficult to call on a sufficient number of reservists, it is necessary to provide for maneuvers by personnel.
Suppose, during the threatened period, the Pacific Fleet is withdrawn from conservation, for example, a corvette. Formed with the involvement of mobilized sailors, the crew takes him out to sea, undergoes combat training, passes course tasks, adjusted for how actively the enemy behaves.
And when the strategic situation changes, nothing prevents a part of the same crew from being transferred to the Baltic, where they will commission the same corvette and will perform military service on it. As a result, personnel will be transferred to places where the situation is more dangerous at the moment and where ships are needed more. Only some officers will remain in the field, for example, commanders of combat units.
This idea may look exotic in someone’s eyes, but in fact there is nothing exotic in it. The ground forces have repeatedly worked out the deployment of units by transferring personnel and at the same time receiving military equipment directly on the theater. Why shouldn't the Navy do the same in the long run?
In the future, when order will be put in place in naval construction, it will be necessary to take up the formation of such reserves and development of their actions - conscription, formation of crews, withdrawal of ships from conservation, accelerated combat training, and the entry of mobilized ships into combat structure. And then - again, with the same people on 80-90%, but in a different fleet.
Naturally, such a "fire" mode of functioning of personnel should be a temporary measure, and be used to accelerate the increase in the number of combat personnel of the Navy, which would outstrip the speed of mobilization of people, and would allow maximum strength "here and now."
Another consequence of the need to have a mobilization reserve of ships is the need for the future to lay in the design of the ship the need for several decades to keep it on conservation. If the service life and the number of some scheduled repairs for this service life is now set, then it must be set that having served 75-85% of the service life, the ship will have to be repaired, mothballed and then another fifteen to twenty years with some interruptions for re-conservation, stand at the pier. Keeping both combat readiness and the ability to return to duty with minimal costs.
Let's summarize
Russian fleets are fragmented and are located at a great distance from each other. The conditions on the fleets are very different, up to serious differences in the composition of water. Different coastlines, weather, excitement, neighbors and opponents.
In such conditions, it is required to have ships slightly different from each other in different fleets. In this case, it is necessary to continue to adhere to inter-ship unification. This contradiction is resolved by unifying various ships according to subsystems as much as it is possible in principle without loss of combat effectiveness and irrational rise in price of ships.
A special problem is the inter-theater maneuver. This is due to the fact that there are countries or their alliances to the east and west of Russia, with an economy at least not inferior to the Russian one, and it is impossible to surpass them all in strength, which means that it will have to go there to create a favorable balance of forces on one theater of operations transfer forces from another.
In wartime, this, depending on the nature of the conflict, may be impossible, or impossible in time. Therefore, maneuver by ships should be carried out in advance, by deploying at sea units of ships from other fleets that would advance, even during the threatened period, to the transition to the desired theater of operations. The beginning of the threatened period should be considered the appearance of the first intelligence signs of an aggravation of the military-political situation that is being prepared by one or another country. The difference between this practice and the Soviet concept of operational squadrons - OPESK - will be only a smaller number of deployed formations, and their deployment only during the threatened period.
As a mobile reserve, which can be quickly transferred to any of the fleets and vice versa, naval aviation, both anti-submarine and strike, is used. Specialized naval aviation can increase the striking capabilities of fleets and naval formations in operations against an enemy that is superior in numbers. There are no other means that could equally rapidly strengthen the fleets in one direction or another. The need to have a powerful basic naval aviation stems from the geographical features of Russia.
In order to quickly and without spending a lot of money change the balance of forces between the enemy and the Russian Navy, the latter must have a reserve - ships for conservation and a mobilization resource that must be mobilized to the fleet. To accelerate the mobilization of the naval fleet, the same personnel can be transferred from fleet to fleet, if the situation requires it.
To manage such global actions by territorial scope, it is necessary to restore the Commander-in-Chief and the General Staff of the Navy as full-fledged and full-fledged combat command and control agencies capable of simultaneously and in real time managing operations of all fleets and naval formations at sea, including inter-naval groups, operational squadrons, and so on . Highly effective reconnaissance will also be required, capable of obtaining in advance information about the brewing dangerous actions of the enemy, necessary for the preliminary deployment of operational squadrons at sea.
These measures will minimize the negative impact of the geographical fragmentation of all the fleets of Russia, preserving the advantages of their position in the form of the impossibility of defeating them simultaneously in all military operations.
In the future, when understanding of naval issues will become the norm in Russia, all these provisions should be consolidated doctrinally.
Otherwise, the repetition of the problems of 1904-1905 is inevitable, it is only a matter of time. Knowing that everything ultimately depends on us, we will always remember the geographical factor and how it affects our domestic theory of naval power.
To be continued ...
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