We are building a fleet. Special Operations: Nuclear Deterrence
Speaking about the fact that the main way the fleet solves its tasks is to establish dominance at sea in the designated areas, we should always keep in mind a few exceptions.
At first glance, landing operations are an obvious exception. They are a logical continuation of the establishment of dominance at sea, and occasionally they can be carried out before reaching it (for example, in Narvik in the 1940 year). A landing operation can serve to establish dominance at sea, for example, if the army can destroy the enemy’s fleet in the base with a land attack. But such an exception does not affect the theory of war at sea. In the end, and for a full-fledged large-scale landing operation, supremacy at sea is necessary, and the amphibious operations themselves are carried out after achieving this very domination, “according to Corbett” - as one of the ways to use this domination. And how many wars are being waged on the seas, so much they end with landings on the coast - from antiquity, if not earlier. Landing operations have never given a new dimension to war at sea in the foreseeable past.
For many centuries fleet there was only one fundamentally new group of problems arising from its fundamentally new property. Tasks requiring at least mention in theoretical constructions. Tasks, the appearance of which finally proved that, in principle, the appearance of a new kind weapons it can bring to life the emergence of a “new dimension” in strategy, its new section, if you like. We are talking about the appearance in service of fleets of submarines armed with ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads and the strategic consequences of this.
"Hotheads" among the patriotic public, as a rule, do not recall that according to the military doctrine of the Russian Federation, the prevention of nuclear war is one of the main tasks of the armed forces. It is not at all a question of arranging a “doomsday by hand” in response to any attack or during a limited war.
The task of preventing a nuclear war is accomplished by nuclear deterrence of a potential enemy, that is, by creating conditions when (at least theoretically) in case of a sudden nuclear strike against Russia the enemy’s retaliation is inevitable and either counter-attack is launched on its territory (our missiles launched after that how the enemy’s missiles launched, but before they reached the goal), or retaliatory (our missiles launched after the enemy’s missiles struck the territory of the Russian Federation) retaliation strike.
Such measures have proven effective over a long historical period. Today, experts are sounding the alarm - the number of deployed nuclear weapons in Russia is significantly less than in the Soviet period, the missile attack warning system actually came down to the radar (work is underway to restore the satellite components of the SPRN, but so far there are only three satellites in space), which makes the flight the time of the enemy’s missiles from the moment of their detection by the radar, and until the strike on the territory of the Russian Federation, is approximately equal, and for some purposes, less than the time of the transfer of the command to launch missiles through the combat control networks.
So far we are still more or less reliably protected, but further reduction of the nuclear arsenal and improvement of the enemy’s nuclear attack tools will put this security into question. The enemy creates a missile defense system, deploys its elements on surface ships in order to concentrate missile defense systems in predetermined areas near the attacked country, learns to knock down satellites from the ground and surface ships, and few people think about this among non-professionals in our country - actively improves nuclear attack facilities.
In 1997, the United States launched the development of new systems for detonating nuclear warhead detonators of the warhead of the W76 ballistic missile, which, in various modifications, was installed on the Poseidon and Trident SLBMs. In the 2004 year, work went into the pre-production batch production phase; with 2008, shipments of devices to the US Navy began. A little later, the same devices began to receive for their missiles the British Navy.
What is the essence of the innovation?
First, let’s see how the divided head parts of the “ordinary” SLBM “lie” on the target.
As you can see, when trying to attack a point target (for example, a silo launcher of ICBMs), near it, 3-5 warheads from 10 are undermined. At the same time, one should not forget about the probable circular deviation, and about the fact that it can lead to such a spread of warheads falling on the target, in which the point target will not be hit at all. For this reason, SLBMs have always been seen as a means of attacking dispersed ground targets, such as cities. This made submarine missiles suitable only for a retaliatory strike (in such exotic and partly ridiculous situations as fighting on the pier - also for retaliatory oncoming ones, if the enemy did not destroy the submarines proactively, with their non-strategic weapons, at the time of launching their missiles).
New detonator initiation devices are changing the way to detonate a warhead.
Now all warheads are detonated in the immediate vicinity of the target, and the CVO affects the probability of its destruction much less.
According to the military leaders of the US Navy, the introduction of new missile systems has led to such an improvement in missile accuracy that it is now possible to use them to strike small targets, such as silo launchers.
The same capabilities were received by the British Navy.
All this is not very good for us, and that's why.
There are two main scenarios for delivering a massive nuclear strike with strategic nuclear weapons - counter-force and counter-value.
Counterforce strike it is inflicted on the enemy’s strategic weapons and the infrastructure that ensures their use — on missile launchers, command centers, communication centers, and leaders who are able to decide whether to strike (a “decapitating” strike is a kind of counter-force strike). A successful counterforce strike reduces the enemy’s ability to retaliate to at least be tolerant in scale. Ideally, to zero.
Countervalue strike involves the destruction of protected goals - the population, cities, industry, infrastructure, not having military significance, but having economic and social. A counter-value strike is an operation to genocide an adversary’s population.
One of the problems of nuclear war is that missiles carrying nuclear warheads cannot be quickly retargeted. Changing the aiming of a ballistic missile, especially a mine rocket of a new model, is a technically complex and lengthy operation. The defending side needs to proceed from the fact that it will be able to counterattack those goals that the missiles were originally aimed at.
The only means of conducting nuclear war, which in theory can be unlimitedly redirected from one target to another, are bombers, and, in the absence of the technical ability to reload flight missions into cruise missiles placed on board, these will only be bombers with bombs. That led to the active preparation of the US Air Force Strategic Aviation Command (SAC) for the use of free-fall nuclear bombs after the first wave of missile attacks.
Missiles will fly to where they are aimed before the war.
And here the side that is defending meets a dilemma - where to aim their missiles. Should they be aimed at the enemy’s military facilities in advance as part of a counter-force strike? Or immediately on his "values" in the framework of counter-value?
Elementary logic says that the maximum orientation to the counterforce strike for the defending side is meaningless. After all, the enemy, who understands the vulnerability of his ground-based weapons of destruction, either uses them (ICBMs) or at least disperses them (bombers). The US Air Force SAK conducts exercises for the rapid dispersal of bombers on a regular basis, unlike the Russian Air Force. As well as the development of the use of free-falling nuclear bombs in the conditions of the partially surviving enemy air defense.
Emergency rise of bombers and tankers. It is usually executed on alarm from the "readiness number 2" in our terminology. The crews are in the “on-duty” barracks, take command of the aircraft, immediately start the engines and sequentially, machine by car go to the runway. In a real combat situation, they will immediately go on target with nuclear bombs
Other exercises showing exit from the parking lot
In addition, and this is the most important thing - the defending side does not know where the detected launched missiles of the attacking side are directed. What if it’s a counter-value hit right away? It is completely impossible to exclude this, if only because such a strike is technically feasible. There is also a question of the proportionality of retaliation - the losses inflicted on the enemy population in a retaliatory or retaliatory strike cannot be an order of magnitude smaller than their losses. And preferably they should not be smaller at times. And ideally, taking into account the unequal population of the warring parties, inflict comparable demographic damage on the enemy, in percent.
This means that for a party that does not consider the possibility of delivering a first nuclear strike, at least a substantial part of its forces should be aimed at a counter-value strike. This means that giving maximum accuracy to all warhead carriers is a waste of money.
In contrast, for the attacking side, the accuracy of hitting targets is crucial. Critical to her is minimizing her losses. At the same time, she does not have the opportunity to evacuate the population from dangerous places in advance, or to disperse material assets - the opposing side, having discovered this, can simply strike first, regardless of the consequences, and, by and large, will be right from any point of view. Thus, it is critical for the attacker to destroy the maximum number of forces capable of causing damage to it - mine launchers, submarines, bombers, depots with nuclear weapons ready for use (bombs, shells). Otherwise, the attack becomes too expensive, and this price makes sense of a military victory in principle.
To go unpunished, an attacker needs to use every carrier of nuclear charges. The modernization of SLBM warheads includes American SSBNs in the arsenal of means for the first counter-force strike, moreover, this modernization simply does not make sense in any other case. But it is being held. This means that the first counter-force strike is considered by the US authorities as one of the options for action in the short term, and it is for this that the United States is preparing. Otherwise, it must be admitted that the United States consciously throws money away.
It is worth noting that this program started immediately after the “victory” in the presidential election in the Russian Federation of Boris Yeltsin in the 1996 year - when all observers believed that Russia was over and it would not be restored. China as a problem for the United States was not there. And there was an old half-dead enemy, which would be nice to finish off, but who has nuclear weapons. The situation in those years was very favorable to the final solution of the “Russian question”, especially since Russia was willing to reduce nuclear weapons, reducing the number of targets for destruction.
The offensive arms reduction treaties between Russia and the United States and the mutual verification mechanism stipulated in them have led the parties to have the exact coordinates of each silo launcher against each other and periodically check them directly on the covers of the silos. Also limited were the positional areas of the PGRK - mobile ground missile systems of the Strategic Missile Forces of the Russian Armed Forces. Given the defeat of the military-political leadership of the Russian Federation, the communications and command centers of the Strategic Missile Forces and the means of communication with submarines of the Russian Navy, the United States today in theory can expect that they will be able to destroy all silos and most PGRK in the first attack. The massacre of the Russian SSBNs - missile-carrying submarines, will fall on the shoulders of the American submarine, and for the last many years it has been fulfilling this task, moreover, successfully and on a real enemy - on our submarines located on combat patrol routes.
At the same time, the neutralization of combat control networks will not allow surviving PGRK to timely receive a launch command. This will give the United States an opportunity to try to destroy the PGRK that were not destroyed by the missile attack. For this, B-2 bombers previously raised in the air can be used. In other conditions, their inconspicuity would not have helped them avoid the defeat of Russian air defense and fighter aviationbut after a missed massive nuclear strike, the ability of air defense and aviation to bring down all American planes will be a big question. Of fundamental importance for the success of such a plan, if it exists, is the most severe blow to the Russian strategic nuclear forces, which they cannot survive. The inclusion of SSBNs in forces capable of delivering such a strike makes it absolutely real.
That, however, is not all.
PGRK, who left the position area, or disguised in it, still needs to be detected. Currently, Americans are working on ways to detect mobile missile systems. In addition to Russia, China and DPRK have such complexes, and this makes the search for methods of their detection very popular. Being true to themselves, Americans are looking for a cheap, "budget" solution to the problem. At the moment, their task is to “teach” military computers to detect anomalies on satellite photos that may indicate the presence of a masked launcher on the ground. Most likely, they will achieve their goal sooner or later.
So, in the early nineties, they managed to find a way to identify railway missile systems on combat duty. One of the signs of such a complex was the discrepancy between the number of locomotives in the train and its length - if a certain train, when observing from space, “shone” the locomotives as if it were a freight train, and if it was passenger in length, then it should be examined visually in the photo. If by the composition of the wagons it became clear that this is a complex (that is, along with several passenger and freight wagons there are also refrigerators with a short length of the train as a whole and two or more powerful locomotives), then the place where it is located became the object of a nuclear attack . Then, however, they lacked the computing power to cover everything. Now there are enough of them, but camouflaged PGRK is a more difficult target. Until.
Separate mention deserves the development of US MTR US nuclear sabotage. Despite the closed nature of information on this subject, it is known that theoretical research on the combat use of "nuclear backpacks" in the United States does not stop. The satchels themselves, however, have been removed from service and disposed of, which, however, is inaccurate in the first place, and can be quickly corrected in the second. The Americans announced the withdrawal from service of those models that they had previously, nothing more. There is nothing in open sources about works on modern ammunition of this type, but there are a number of episodes with blabbed military men, from which it follows that such possibilities are being discussed.
There is one more argument in favor of the fact that knapsack charges are not completely gone. In the wake of the post-Soviet "detente", the US Congress banned the creation of nuclear weapons with a capacity of less than 5 kilotons. This immediately made impossible the development of "nuclear backpacks." However, in 2004, this ban was lifted by Congress. Some military experts are even considering the possibility of nuclear sabotage against state leaders who will be able to decide on a retaliatory strike and the destruction of communication centers and command posts, which can slow down the passage of missile launch teams in the Strategic Missile Forces. Also, their objects can be, radar SPRN, naval bases of the SSBN. It must be recognized that the deployment and undermining of such charges can indeed "decapitate" Russia and disorganize the combat command network for a time that is enough for ICBMs and submarines. It is impossible to mark such a threat.
And finally, ongoing work to create an American missile defense system. For a long time, American officials claimed that anti-missile defense work was not directed against Russia. After the 2014 year, everything changed, and now no one really hides against which country, ultimately, the American missile defense is being created. And again the question arises - in which case will such a system make sense? Indeed, a priori no missile defense will repulse a massive first or retaliatory strike from Russia.
And if it is a weak retaliatory strike with a few surviving missiles? Then it turns out that the missile defense system is working, and all investments in it are not in vain and justified.
Moreover, for some strange reason, the USA’s technical ability to equip some missiles with a nuclear warhead is ignored, which will increase their effectiveness by an order of magnitude. In addition, some missile defense components themselves can quickly be converted to shock.
All of the above makes us consider nuclear aggression by the United States quite real. At least, preparation for such aggression is the only consistent explanation of why the Americans need such a modernization of the W76-1 warhead fuses and at the same time what they count on in the case of missile defense, which, as it turns out, is still not against Iran.
There is another consideration related to the Royal Navy of Great Britain and their Trident missiles.
Combat patrol areas of British SSBNs are much closer to the Russian Federation than the American patrol areas. They are close enough to launch a salvo of their SLBMs on the so-called “flat” trajectory - an arc with a low apogee, when a rocket rises up to a much lower height than with an energetically advantageous flight to a maximum range.
This method of shooting has a minus - the range decreases and decreases very much. But there is a plus - for a short flight distance, the missile spends significantly less time to overcome the distance. Flight time is reduced, and by a significant amount compared with the "normal", that is, energetically profitable flight at the same distance. Reduction of time can reach 30%. And taking into account the fact that the boats themselves are closer to the target, that is, the distance to it is relatively small, the flight time is even less, and there are risks that with this method of launching an attack on Russia will be delivered before it is possible to give a command to reciprocating. It is not in vain that there is an opinion that, in the “American-British” combination, the latter are responsible precisely for the first strike.
An important factor is the prevailing morality in American society. At first glance, a typical American is a calm, even good-natured and friendly person. As a rule, he does not want his country to intervene in all sorts of wars. Reality is tough and cynical
The first problem is not Americans are the origins of American culture. The American nation began to form during the gigantic military force expansion of the colonists throughout the North American continent, which was accompanied by a mass of fierce clashes and wars, the massive expulsion of Native Americans from their land, and individual acts of genocide. It was during these events that the American archetype, partly culture and epic, was formed.
This birth trauma has led to the fact that the average American does not feel internal protest when his society conducts military captures and massacres somewhere, moreover, sometimes he cannot perceive them otherwise than an act of heroism, because these are its roots and origins. This phenomenon is still waiting for detailed researchers, while it is worth recommending the work of an American sociologist and concurrently executive director of the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology John Tyrman, "Death of Others: The Fate of Civilians in the Wars of America" (The Deaths of Others. The Fate of Civilians in America's Wars. John tirman. You will need knowledge of English and a few dollars), or his article "Why do we ignore the civilian population killed in American wars" (Eng.)where this question is considered in more detail and with examples.
The second problem is the so-called "Ideology of American Exclusivity." A very controversial teaching for non-Americans and indisputable for the mass of Americans, upon closer examination, is a completely banal and even boring subspecies of fascism. But the idea of the superiority of Americans over non-Americans, this doctrine drives hard into American heads. Alas, the followers of this quasi-religious teaching are in our country, which is why many problems of the Russian Federation are caused.
The most striking example of how these features of the American mentality are manifested in wars is the Second World War. We used to have a positive attitude towards the Americans in that war, because they were our allies, but in fact their methods of war were much more brutal than those of the Japanese and not much milder than Nazi Germany. Only one example - at the end of the war, in 1945, the United States launched operations to destroy Japanese cities, which were a commonplace burning of thousands of residential neighborhoods in dozens of cities with the population. Several hundred aircraft appeared over the city and bombarded its densely populated areas with a “carpet” of incendiary bombs. There were many such episodes, and, as usual, the Americans were not even puzzled by calculating the losses of the enemy, identifying them today as part of the 240-900 thousand people, almost all civilians.
Studies of American mentality should be left outside the scope of this article; we only indicate the conclusion - a significant proportion of US residents have the idea that their government will attack a country and kill millions of innocent people there does not cause any internal protest. They are indifferent at best. This is true for a hypothetical nuclear war.
But what excites US citizens is their own losses. All American protests against the Iraq war revolve around the dead US soldiers. The fact that they, generally speaking, are aggressors and attacked a country that did not threaten the United States, albeit with an ugly regime in power, is simply not remembered by anyone. The fact that Iraq has turned into a large cemetery is also, in general, not of interest. Similarly, Libya.
It cannot be assumed that the Americans cannot bear military losses - this is not so; they can endure a lot, no matter how much more than we. The question is that they categorically do not want to do this, and today it is precisely potential losses that are an effective deterrent to American aggression. But without this deterrent, they are, in principle, capable of almost everything that, for example, is well remembered in the vicinity of the Vietnamese village of Song Mi.
And it cannot be denied that a certain proportion of US citizens, mainly from the upper layers of American society (but not only) are obsessed with truly pathological hatred towards the Russian Federation, its culture, population, stories, and, in general, dissatisfied with the very fact of our existence.
This resonates with the work of the Western propaganda machine, which has achieved serious success in anti-Russian propaganda, including the “inhumanization” of the Russian population in the eyes of many ordinary people in Western countries.
Thus, the degree of danger from the United States for our country is constantly growing, and the danger in its extreme embodiment is in the form of a threat of a sudden destructive nuclear strike.
Does the US have rational reasons to do this to us if it is possible to do so with impunity or almost with impunity? There is.
Currently, the main concern for American strategists is the issue of subordinating China to America. It is China that Americans see as their main rival in this century. But, the question arises - why is China even able to challenge the United States in any way? After all, China is extremely dependent on imports of raw materials and resources, and in its military power it is not even close to the United States. The Americans can arrange a blockade of China in any convenient way - along the so-called "first and second chain of islands", at the entrance to the Strait of Malacca from the Indian Ocean, and even in the Persian Gulf. And this “Chinese miracle” may well end.
Naturally, this is a kind of extreme, extreme option, the USA just won’t go for it, but they have such an opportunity.
That's just behind China, there is a backup country. A country that simply provides China with land-based communications with which the US cannot do anything outside the scope of the nuclear war scenario. A country that can supply oil, gas, oil products, raw materials, and food to China. Yes, neither our economy nor the capacity of our cross-border communications will be enough to prevent China from feeling the sea blockade. But we will soften it very much to him. And, of course, the factor of military supplies should not be missed. Until Russia is neutralized, China will be able to get weapons from there; let it be in insufficient quantities, but it will be a lot. If the US can neutralize the Russian Federation, then China itself will execute the command “up to the foot” from Washington, even without pressure from the outside. With Russia, he is far less vulnerable.
Russia alone is too weak to claim global hegemony. Russia does not have an ideology attractive to a substantial part of humanity. In this regard, Russia is not in the same “league” of players as the United States. Russia does not have comparable with the Chinese industrial and, more broadly, economic potential. But Russia is that weight on the scales, which may well swing them in one direction or another. Unable to win much herself, she can determine who will do it. And this is a very dangerous moment, he is actually programming a war with that side of the US-Chinese conflict, to which Russia will take an unfriendly position. Given the events in Ukraine and Syria, it is clear that this will not be China. It will be the United States, and it may be tempting for them to remove the “weak link” from the scheme - the Russians. As Napoleon once wanted to do, and how 129 years after Napoleon Hitler tried to do.
But we have nuclear weapons, it’s so simple, in the usual way, to seriously fight Russia, apparently, not to fight, at least not to fight for destruction. But if you catch the Russians by surprise ...
If taken by surprise, the decline of American dominance over humanity will turn into its endless dawn. The dreams of American science fiction writers about a future in which there are no non-English-speaking heroes will come true, the American social model will continue to crush one culture after another, the English language will continue to supplant national languages, and the US government will continue to transform into a world at an accelerated pace. All other possible development paths for humanity will be closed.
Forever.
At the moment, the United States is modernizing nuclear weapons, which gives them the opportunity to dramatically increase the number of forces suitable for delivering a preventive massive nuclear strike, but is useless for carrying out tasks to deter nuclear aggression. At the same time, work is underway to reduce to zero the value of the strategic nuclear forces of the adversaries of the United States - by introducing into the US Armed Forces methods of detecting mobile soil missile systems, deploying anti-ballistic missile defense systems, and removing restrictions on the design of ultra-small nuclear munitions that were in force after the end of the Cold War.
These works also include the forces of the most faithful American ally - Great Britain, which are purely geographically in a position favorable for delivering a sudden nuclear strike against Russia.
All this activity bears clear signs of preparation for the first, unprovoked massive nuclear strike on the Russian Federation, using land and sea-based ballistic missiles.
Such a strike can be delivered only if the attacking party is impunity, and in case of loss of surprise, the attacking party refuses it (see the attitude of the Americans to their losses), which requires appropriate provision of surprise.
It should be especially noted that the moral paradigm prevailing in American society makes such a blow quite normal from an ethical point of view, and for some representatives of American society this is one of the most desirable options for resolving the "Russian question".
At the same time, the elimination of Russia will automatically solve the “Chinese question” for the US, which also gives rational reasons for a sudden nuclear attack. If such an attack were successful, it would be extremely beneficial for the United States of America, since in addition to neutralizing China, it also “freezes” the role of the United States as a world hegemon for an unbelievably long time.
For us, a simple conclusion is important from all of this - the role of nuclear deterrence in ensuring our security is not only decisive - it also grows and grows continuously. The growth of capabilities of our strategic nuclear forces, however, cannot keep up with the growth of their importance for the country.
This mainly concerns the navy.
In the 2015 year in the USA, the Bear Spear ("Spear for the Bear") command-staff exercises were held. According to the scenario of the exercises, the evil revanchist Russia began to terrorize its neighbors, attack them and deprive of sovereignty, the United States intervened, and the escalation began. During the ongoing escalation, the parties resorted to nuclear weapons, and the United States managed to get ahead of Russia and strike first. The population of Russia during this attack was almost completely destroyed - only at the time of the attack, one hundred million people died. However, Russia retaliated, killing tens of millions of Americans. What allowed Russia to strike back with sufficient strength? The fact that during the first yet non-nuclear battles, the US Navy missed several Russian submarines, the crews of which ultimately retaliated.
The one-goal game did not work, although the American planners provided for everything, and even were able to "neutralize" almost the entire ground nuclear arsenal of the Russian Federation.
This example very eloquently shows what role the navy should play in theory in the system of nuclear deterrence.
With appropriate types of support (anti-submarine, anti-mine, and others), with anti-submarine forces covering the deployment of boats, including aviation, with competent execution of isolation of combat areas (for example, mines), when the crew is ready to withstand enemy submarines and taking into account modern methods search by aircraft for patrol aviation, namely submarines with ballistic missiles become the most reliable means of deterrence.
First and foremost, unlike ground-based strategic nuclear forces, it cannot be quickly hit by strategic weapons, such as ballistic missiles, even if its location is known.
Secondly, it is mobile. The boat, barely creeping around on the 4 nodes, will pass 177 kilometers under water in a day. At the same time, for new submarine missile carriers (for example, Borey), especially low-noise speed can be significantly increased.
Again, in theory, at this level of mobility, it is very difficult to track. Its coordinates are unknown, as in silos. It can not be calculated by satellite photos, like PGRK. In theory, even if the satellite “catches” the surfaced wake trail or the “Kelvin wedge” or other wave manifestations, based on this information it is impossible to immediately use any weapon against the submarine.
It can be detected from an airplane by wave traces on the surface of the water. But there are some opportunities to avoid this detection method. It can be detected by secondary low-frequency fluctuations in the water column generated by the moving volume of the boat hull. But minimizing size, reducing speed, taking hydrology into account, and choosing the right depths can significantly reduce the likelihood of such a discovery. The boat, the crew of which operates correctly, the design of which meets modern requirements, and the combat campaign is carried out with all types of support, is still rather difficult to be vulnerable.
In conce, even when the enemy’s PLC outfit reaches a range of weapons against a boat, the result, in the correct version, will be a battle, and not an unrequited blow, as is the case with ground-based systems of strategic nuclear forces. And the boat, in theory, can win this battle. Unlike PGRK, which was attacked by an inconspicuous bomber in the electromagnetic chaos of the first hours after the start of a nuclear war, or even fell under the second wave of a nuclear missile attack.
Properly organized strategic nuclear forces force the enemy to reveal their intentions during the deployment of anti-submarine forces and conduct operations to search for submarines, and give time for the deployment of PGRK, eliminating their defeat by the first strike of the enemy.
However, in the case of the Russian Navy, this whole theory diverges significantly from practice.
The Navy has now adopted a system of protected combat zones - areas where all SSBNs should go during the threatened period and where they should be prepared to launch a nuclear strike against the enemy. These areas and the surrounding water areas through which the deployment of submarines is carried out, and in which the Russian anti-submarine forces are operating, with the light hand of NATO were called "Bastion". Russia has two such “bastions”.
The following should be noted.
The fighting inside these areas will be a complex of attempts by the enemy to carry out an operation within the region to destroy the SSBNs using their submarines, relying on their low noise and range of use of weapons, as well as storming the area from the outside by surface and underwater forces and aircraft. Since the task of the fleet forces in these areas will be to ensure the combat stability of submarine forces, it becomes necessary for the fleet to achieve unconditional, complete supremacy at sea in the indicated water areas. It is dominance at sea, and, taking into account the power of the enemy’s basic patrol aircraft, also in the air, that can allow the SSBN to freely leave the bases, go the route to the protected combat area and take a position there, ready to use the main weapons.
However, at this point, dilemma number two sets in — the adversary is usually stronger than us. And in fact, guarding the boats locked in the “bastions”, the Navy becomes attached to them, concentrates its forces in a small water area, where they will have to take up battle with the enemy’s superior in numbers and strength. In addition, this approach exposes the coast, making them vulnerable to the enemy. In fact, the “bastionic” approach is somewhat repeating the history of the siege of Port Arthur. There, too, the highly mobile form of forces (fleet) locked itself in a fortress, where it was later destroyed. Here a similar picture, only the scales are different.
And this is without taking into account the terrible state of the Navy regarding the presence of anti-submarine forces.
During the previous analysis of options that a weak fleet can use to defeat a strong, it was shown that the answer to the superiority of the enemy in forces at sea should be superiority in speed. And this is not about racing at the maximum power of the power plant (although this will sometimes be necessary), but about advancing in actions, in imposing the enemy on a pace for which he is not ready for one reason or another.
Although the actions of strategic submarines during nuclear deterrence operations or during an ongoing nuclear war are radically different in nature than the main way to solve problems by the fleet (seizing dominance at sea), the principle itself is true here. The enemy should not have time to react, he should be late.
The grouping strategy in the “bastions” cannot lead to such an effect. The fleet, regardless of what task it performs, is an offensive tool. They cannot be defended, technically impossible, they can only advance, and any defensive task can be effectively solved only by offensive actions. Thus, there is a conceptual error - instead of turning the whole world into an arena for a real or conditional battle with the USA, we ourselves do the enemy a service, gathering in a small area, breaking the defenses of which with the enemy’s superior power is quite possible. We drive ourselves into a corner.
This is especially evident in the example of the Sea of Okhotsk. The conditions in it are very favorable for the American submarine that has slipped into it to conduct long and covert surveillance of our strategic submarines. It is difficult to take refuge in it; this is a problematic water area under all conditions. But for some reason it is considered safe.
This state of affairs arose in the mid-eighties, when the United States, sharply, abruptly raising the effectiveness of its anti-submarine forces, were able to demonstrate to the military-political leadership of the USSR the absolute hopelessness of attempts to deploy strategic nuclear forces in the open ocean without adequate support. And there were already problems with security. The answer to this challenge should have been the same revolutionary increase in the secrecy of the submarine forces of the USSR, and their closer interaction with other types of forces, but the USSR could not give such an answer.
The technological backwardness of Soviet industry and the lack of imagination among the people who determined the naval strategy ultimately led to the banal flight of the USSR Navy from the battlefield and the departure of submarines into the notorious "bastions", which even during the Cold War were really completely permeable to the enemy.
Thus, the task of the future construction of the strategic nuclear forces will be to expand their presence in the oceans. The exit from the “bastions” and the resumption of an active offensive in spirit strategy is a vital measure to ensure that the strategic nuclear forces in terms of their combat effectiveness do not lag behind the enemy’s growing strike capabilities.
Positive examples were most recently by historical standards. So in the mid-80-ies, a submarine detachment of the 25th Pacific Fleet division carried out a military campaign in the western part of the Pacific Ocean and launched combat patrols near the Galapagos Islands. The detachment was covered by surface ships.
Today, such a change is facing a huge problem.
The fleet is simply not ready to conduct them, neither psychologically, nor financially, nor organizationally. For example, there is not enough aviation to provide such military campaigns, and the one that is substantially outdated. The fleets themselves are subordinate to the military districts, and it will be very difficult to explain to the land general that offshore is more dangerous than somewhere far in the ocean. The command staff of the Navy is already used to doing what it does (although voices demanding to return to the ocean in the fleet are heard, and very high). There are questions about submarines.
Our submarines are truly huge. And this is a vulnerability to radar search by surface wave disturbances and a high level of secondary low-frequency oscillations.
The self-defense means of our submarines are ineffective, on board or not at all, or almost no anti-torpedoes, torpedo weapons are outdated, and in some conditions not applicable.
This is superimposed on the training of the SSBN crews, which for many years have been passively circling in the areas designated for patrol, technically unable to detect the American or British "hunter" attached to them.
Perhaps, having established the interaction between multipurpose submarines and the SSBN, having worked out the tactics of detaching from tracking, exploring in detail the methods of avoiding non-acoustic searches, and avoiding tracking from enemy submarines, one could try to "go beyond" the supposedly safe "bastions" and begin to learn to “get lost” in the ocean, forcing the enemy to spend time, nerves and money on the search for countermeasures.
In the future, it will be necessary to reconsider the approaches to the creation of new boats, so that they correspond to the new offensive strategy and in their design features.
In the meantime, it is critically important to restore the power of anti-submarine forces to values that would establish dominance at sea (and in fact under the sea) in the "bastions". This should be the very first and most important task of the Navy. From this should begin its restoration as an effective fighting force. Both at the stage of the withdrawal of the boat from the base, and at the stage of its transfer to the combat patrol area (and in the future, to the separation area from tracking), the Navy anti-submarine forces should completely exclude the presence of foreign submarines nearby, and together with naval aviation ensure continuous readiness for the destruction of anti-submarines enemy aircraft. Since we want the fleet to fight for supremacy at sea, it is logical to start with the communications used by domestic strategic submarines.
Now there is nothing like that.
It would be logical to see the evolution of the strategic nuclear forces in the form of successively achieving the following stages:
1. The restoration of anti-mine and anti-submarine forces to a level that provides the SSBN with a safe exit from the bases and transfer to the designated combat patrol area. This will require the establishment of supremacy at sea in each of the “bastions,” which in turn will require an increase in the number of anti-submarine surface ships, and modernization of diesel submarines, and the creation of a new anti-submarine aircraft, at least small, and seriously improve the tactical training of commanders and crews ships. Just one performance of this task would be a huge success.
2. Modernization of the SSBN with the elimination of critical shortcomings for their combat capabilities.
3. Beginning of operations to transfer combat patrols to the open ocean.
4. Development of the concept of the submarines of the future, optimized for the new ocean strategy of nuclear deterrence. The beginning of the construction of boats according to a new concept.
5. The final transition to the deployment of strategic nuclear forces in the open ocean.
The latter will not only make deterrence more effective on our part, but, by pulling a significant part of the enemy’s anti-submarine forces to search for SSBNs, will indirectly contribute to the rapid and relatively safe deployment of the remaining fleet forces - which will ultimately help protect the strategic nuclear forces.
Nuclear deterrence, operations to disrupt the enemy’s nuclear deterrence, and to prevent them from nuclear attack, as well as the hypothetical conduct of nuclear war - the first fundamentally new even from a theoretical point of view, the tasks of the fleet, which appeared over many centuries. The advent of ballistic missiles launched from under the water led to the emergence of a “new dimension” in the war at sea, irreducible to the traditional and basic for any normal fleet actions to establish supremacy at sea.
For a long time, submarine missiles were not accurate enough to be used as a means of delivering a first strike. However, starting from 1997 of the year, the US Navy is modernizing its missile arsenal, after which American SLBMs can be used to deliver such a strike.
At the same time, the United States is working on the deployment of anti-ballistic missile defense systems, lifting the ban on the development and production of ultra-low-power nuclear weapons, including those that can be used for sabotage in the rear of the enemy and equipping the naval forces of their British ally with modernized nuclear missiles.
The US missile defense systems are mounted around the Russian Federation, although in words they have not been directed against it for a long time (now it is argued that elements of missile defense in Japan are directed only against the DPRK).
The only consistent explanation for all these actions is the secretive preparation of the United States for delivering a sudden unprovoked massive nuclear strike against the Russian Federation.
An extremely intensive propaganda campaign is being conducted against the Russian Federation, one of the goals of which is the so-called dehumanization of the enemy.
Ethically, such actions are completely acceptable to most American citizens.
From a rational point of view, the destruction of the Russian Federation will bring the United States a lot of benefits, allowing it to actually colonize the entire planet on its own terms, without encountering any resistance anywhere.
Thus, it must be recognized that the risk of a sudden and unprovoked nuclear attack on the Russian Federation is growing.
Under such conditions, the importance of nuclear deterrence is also growing, and its effectiveness should grow after the threat.
The ground components of the strategic nuclear forces are extremely vulnerable due to their location known to the adversary, the ability to continuously observe them with reconnaissance satellites, the possibility of their destruction by strategic weapons from a long distance, and the very nature of the sudden strike, which may turn out to be faster than passing the command to strike back counter strike.
Under such conditions, the role of the marine component of the strategic nuclear forces is growing, due to the reasons for its difficult tracking and the inability to destroy strategic submarines deployed in the sea.
However, the Navy uses a deployment scheme inadequate to modern threats of the deployment of strategic nuclear forces in the form of their presence in protected areas of military operations - the air defense missile system. This is due to the inability of the Navy to withstand the antisubmarine forces of a potential enemy, which must be overcome.
A transition is necessary to the ocean deployment of strategic nuclear forces, which will prevent the enemy from destroying all strategic nuclear forces with a concentrated submarine attack on an air defense missile system, and will seriously increase the tension of its anti-submarine forces.
To do this, you will have to reconsider not only the usual methods of combat employment of submarines, but also approaches to their design. With the highest possible degree of probability, other submarines than there are now will be required for the “oceanic” nuclear strategic nuclear forces.
In the transition period from “bastion” to “oceanic” deployment, the Navy's NWFM should be able to establish absolute supremacy at sea both in the “bastions” as a whole, and especially in the air defense missile systems inside them.
Otherwise, the population and the leadership of the Russian Federation will have to come to terms with the ever-increasing risk of a nuclear attack, which does not counter this risk by anything truly dangerous.
The task to which it is necessary to prepare, in order to never fulfill it.
At first glance, landing operations are an obvious exception. They are a logical continuation of the establishment of dominance at sea, and occasionally they can be carried out before reaching it (for example, in Narvik in the 1940 year). A landing operation can serve to establish dominance at sea, for example, if the army can destroy the enemy’s fleet in the base with a land attack. But such an exception does not affect the theory of war at sea. In the end, and for a full-fledged large-scale landing operation, supremacy at sea is necessary, and the amphibious operations themselves are carried out after achieving this very domination, “according to Corbett” - as one of the ways to use this domination. And how many wars are being waged on the seas, so much they end with landings on the coast - from antiquity, if not earlier. Landing operations have never given a new dimension to war at sea in the foreseeable past.
For many centuries fleet there was only one fundamentally new group of problems arising from its fundamentally new property. Tasks requiring at least mention in theoretical constructions. Tasks, the appearance of which finally proved that, in principle, the appearance of a new kind weapons it can bring to life the emergence of a “new dimension” in strategy, its new section, if you like. We are talking about the appearance in service of fleets of submarines armed with ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads and the strategic consequences of this.
The possibility of a nuclear war and its premises
"Hotheads" among the patriotic public, as a rule, do not recall that according to the military doctrine of the Russian Federation, the prevention of nuclear war is one of the main tasks of the armed forces. It is not at all a question of arranging a “doomsday by hand” in response to any attack or during a limited war.
The task of preventing a nuclear war is accomplished by nuclear deterrence of a potential enemy, that is, by creating conditions when (at least theoretically) in case of a sudden nuclear strike against Russia the enemy’s retaliation is inevitable and either counter-attack is launched on its territory (our missiles launched after that how the enemy’s missiles launched, but before they reached the goal), or retaliatory (our missiles launched after the enemy’s missiles struck the territory of the Russian Federation) retaliation strike.
Such measures have proven effective over a long historical period. Today, experts are sounding the alarm - the number of deployed nuclear weapons in Russia is significantly less than in the Soviet period, the missile attack warning system actually came down to the radar (work is underway to restore the satellite components of the SPRN, but so far there are only three satellites in space), which makes the flight the time of the enemy’s missiles from the moment of their detection by the radar, and until the strike on the territory of the Russian Federation, is approximately equal, and for some purposes, less than the time of the transfer of the command to launch missiles through the combat control networks.
So far we are still more or less reliably protected, but further reduction of the nuclear arsenal and improvement of the enemy’s nuclear attack tools will put this security into question. The enemy creates a missile defense system, deploys its elements on surface ships in order to concentrate missile defense systems in predetermined areas near the attacked country, learns to knock down satellites from the ground and surface ships, and few people think about this among non-professionals in our country - actively improves nuclear attack facilities.
In 1997, the United States launched the development of new systems for detonating nuclear warhead detonators of the warhead of the W76 ballistic missile, which, in various modifications, was installed on the Poseidon and Trident SLBMs. In the 2004 year, work went into the pre-production batch production phase; with 2008, shipments of devices to the US Navy began. A little later, the same devices began to receive for their missiles the British Navy.
What is the essence of the innovation?
First, let’s see how the divided head parts of the “ordinary” SLBM “lie” on the target.
The yellow circles are the places where the warheads were detonated; a gray arc delineates the silo strike area
As you can see, when trying to attack a point target (for example, a silo launcher of ICBMs), near it, 3-5 warheads from 10 are undermined. At the same time, one should not forget about the probable circular deviation, and about the fact that it can lead to such a spread of warheads falling on the target, in which the point target will not be hit at all. For this reason, SLBMs have always been seen as a means of attacking dispersed ground targets, such as cities. This made submarine missiles suitable only for a retaliatory strike (in such exotic and partly ridiculous situations as fighting on the pier - also for retaliatory oncoming ones, if the enemy did not destroy the submarines proactively, with their non-strategic weapons, at the time of launching their missiles).
New detonator initiation devices are changing the way to detonate a warhead.
The affected area is almost the same, but the probability of guaranteed destruction of a point protected target is much higher.
Now all warheads are detonated in the immediate vicinity of the target, and the CVO affects the probability of its destruction much less.
According to the military leaders of the US Navy, the introduction of new missile systems has led to such an improvement in missile accuracy that it is now possible to use them to strike small targets, such as silo launchers.
The same capabilities were received by the British Navy.
War Block W76-1
All this is not very good for us, and that's why.
There are two main scenarios for delivering a massive nuclear strike with strategic nuclear weapons - counter-force and counter-value.
Counterforce strike it is inflicted on the enemy’s strategic weapons and the infrastructure that ensures their use — on missile launchers, command centers, communication centers, and leaders who are able to decide whether to strike (a “decapitating” strike is a kind of counter-force strike). A successful counterforce strike reduces the enemy’s ability to retaliate to at least be tolerant in scale. Ideally, to zero.
Countervalue strike involves the destruction of protected goals - the population, cities, industry, infrastructure, not having military significance, but having economic and social. A counter-value strike is an operation to genocide an adversary’s population.
One of the problems of nuclear war is that missiles carrying nuclear warheads cannot be quickly retargeted. Changing the aiming of a ballistic missile, especially a mine rocket of a new model, is a technically complex and lengthy operation. The defending side needs to proceed from the fact that it will be able to counterattack those goals that the missiles were originally aimed at.
The only means of conducting nuclear war, which in theory can be unlimitedly redirected from one target to another, are bombers, and, in the absence of the technical ability to reload flight missions into cruise missiles placed on board, these will only be bombers with bombs. That led to the active preparation of the US Air Force Strategic Aviation Command (SAC) for the use of free-fall nuclear bombs after the first wave of missile attacks.
Missiles will fly to where they are aimed before the war.
And here the side that is defending meets a dilemma - where to aim their missiles. Should they be aimed at the enemy’s military facilities in advance as part of a counter-force strike? Or immediately on his "values" in the framework of counter-value?
Elementary logic says that the maximum orientation to the counterforce strike for the defending side is meaningless. After all, the enemy, who understands the vulnerability of his ground-based weapons of destruction, either uses them (ICBMs) or at least disperses them (bombers). The US Air Force SAK conducts exercises for the rapid dispersal of bombers on a regular basis, unlike the Russian Air Force. As well as the development of the use of free-falling nuclear bombs in the conditions of the partially surviving enemy air defense.
Emergency rise of bombers and tankers. It is usually executed on alarm from the "readiness number 2" in our terminology. The crews are in the “on-duty” barracks, take command of the aircraft, immediately start the engines and sequentially, machine by car go to the runway. In a real combat situation, they will immediately go on target with nuclear bombs
Other exercises showing exit from the parking lot
In addition, and this is the most important thing - the defending side does not know where the detected launched missiles of the attacking side are directed. What if it’s a counter-value hit right away? It is completely impossible to exclude this, if only because such a strike is technically feasible. There is also a question of the proportionality of retaliation - the losses inflicted on the enemy population in a retaliatory or retaliatory strike cannot be an order of magnitude smaller than their losses. And preferably they should not be smaller at times. And ideally, taking into account the unequal population of the warring parties, inflict comparable demographic damage on the enemy, in percent.
This means that for a party that does not consider the possibility of delivering a first nuclear strike, at least a substantial part of its forces should be aimed at a counter-value strike. This means that giving maximum accuracy to all warhead carriers is a waste of money.
In contrast, for the attacking side, the accuracy of hitting targets is crucial. Critical to her is minimizing her losses. At the same time, she does not have the opportunity to evacuate the population from dangerous places in advance, or to disperse material assets - the opposing side, having discovered this, can simply strike first, regardless of the consequences, and, by and large, will be right from any point of view. Thus, it is critical for the attacker to destroy the maximum number of forces capable of causing damage to it - mine launchers, submarines, bombers, depots with nuclear weapons ready for use (bombs, shells). Otherwise, the attack becomes too expensive, and this price makes sense of a military victory in principle.
To go unpunished, an attacker needs to use every carrier of nuclear charges. The modernization of SLBM warheads includes American SSBNs in the arsenal of means for the first counter-force strike, moreover, this modernization simply does not make sense in any other case. But it is being held. This means that the first counter-force strike is considered by the US authorities as one of the options for action in the short term, and it is for this that the United States is preparing. Otherwise, it must be admitted that the United States consciously throws money away.
It is worth noting that this program started immediately after the “victory” in the presidential election in the Russian Federation of Boris Yeltsin in the 1996 year - when all observers believed that Russia was over and it would not be restored. China as a problem for the United States was not there. And there was an old half-dead enemy, which would be nice to finish off, but who has nuclear weapons. The situation in those years was very favorable to the final solution of the “Russian question”, especially since Russia was willing to reduce nuclear weapons, reducing the number of targets for destruction.
The offensive arms reduction treaties between Russia and the United States and the mutual verification mechanism stipulated in them have led the parties to have the exact coordinates of each silo launcher against each other and periodically check them directly on the covers of the silos. Also limited were the positional areas of the PGRK - mobile ground missile systems of the Strategic Missile Forces of the Russian Armed Forces. Given the defeat of the military-political leadership of the Russian Federation, the communications and command centers of the Strategic Missile Forces and the means of communication with submarines of the Russian Navy, the United States today in theory can expect that they will be able to destroy all silos and most PGRK in the first attack. The massacre of the Russian SSBNs - missile-carrying submarines, will fall on the shoulders of the American submarine, and for the last many years it has been fulfilling this task, moreover, successfully and on a real enemy - on our submarines located on combat patrol routes.
At the same time, the neutralization of combat control networks will not allow surviving PGRK to timely receive a launch command. This will give the United States an opportunity to try to destroy the PGRK that were not destroyed by the missile attack. For this, B-2 bombers previously raised in the air can be used. In other conditions, their inconspicuity would not have helped them avoid the defeat of Russian air defense and fighter aviationbut after a missed massive nuclear strike, the ability of air defense and aviation to bring down all American planes will be a big question. Of fundamental importance for the success of such a plan, if it exists, is the most severe blow to the Russian strategic nuclear forces, which they cannot survive. The inclusion of SSBNs in forces capable of delivering such a strike makes it absolutely real.
That, however, is not all.
PGRK, who left the position area, or disguised in it, still needs to be detected. Currently, Americans are working on ways to detect mobile missile systems. In addition to Russia, China and DPRK have such complexes, and this makes the search for methods of their detection very popular. Being true to themselves, Americans are looking for a cheap, "budget" solution to the problem. At the moment, their task is to “teach” military computers to detect anomalies on satellite photos that may indicate the presence of a masked launcher on the ground. Most likely, they will achieve their goal sooner or later.
So, in the early nineties, they managed to find a way to identify railway missile systems on combat duty. One of the signs of such a complex was the discrepancy between the number of locomotives in the train and its length - if a certain train, when observing from space, “shone” the locomotives as if it were a freight train, and if it was passenger in length, then it should be examined visually in the photo. If by the composition of the wagons it became clear that this is a complex (that is, along with several passenger and freight wagons there are also refrigerators with a short length of the train as a whole and two or more powerful locomotives), then the place where it is located became the object of a nuclear attack . Then, however, they lacked the computing power to cover everything. Now there are enough of them, but camouflaged PGRK is a more difficult target. Until.
Separate mention deserves the development of US MTR US nuclear sabotage. Despite the closed nature of information on this subject, it is known that theoretical research on the combat use of "nuclear backpacks" in the United States does not stop. The satchels themselves, however, have been removed from service and disposed of, which, however, is inaccurate in the first place, and can be quickly corrected in the second. The Americans announced the withdrawal from service of those models that they had previously, nothing more. There is nothing in open sources about works on modern ammunition of this type, but there are a number of episodes with blabbed military men, from which it follows that such possibilities are being discussed.
There is one more argument in favor of the fact that knapsack charges are not completely gone. In the wake of the post-Soviet "detente", the US Congress banned the creation of nuclear weapons with a capacity of less than 5 kilotons. This immediately made impossible the development of "nuclear backpacks." However, in 2004, this ban was lifted by Congress. Some military experts are even considering the possibility of nuclear sabotage against state leaders who will be able to decide on a retaliatory strike and the destruction of communication centers and command posts, which can slow down the passage of missile launch teams in the Strategic Missile Forces. Also, their objects can be, radar SPRN, naval bases of the SSBN. It must be recognized that the deployment and undermining of such charges can indeed "decapitate" Russia and disorganize the combat command network for a time that is enough for ICBMs and submarines. It is impossible to mark such a threat.
Knapsack container for carrying a portable nuclear bomb saboteur paratrooper
And finally, ongoing work to create an American missile defense system. For a long time, American officials claimed that anti-missile defense work was not directed against Russia. After the 2014 year, everything changed, and now no one really hides against which country, ultimately, the American missile defense is being created. And again the question arises - in which case will such a system make sense? Indeed, a priori no missile defense will repulse a massive first or retaliatory strike from Russia.
And if it is a weak retaliatory strike with a few surviving missiles? Then it turns out that the missile defense system is working, and all investments in it are not in vain and justified.
Moreover, for some strange reason, the USA’s technical ability to equip some missiles with a nuclear warhead is ignored, which will increase their effectiveness by an order of magnitude. In addition, some missile defense components themselves can quickly be converted to shock.
All of the above makes us consider nuclear aggression by the United States quite real. At least, preparation for such aggression is the only consistent explanation of why the Americans need such a modernization of the W76-1 warhead fuses and at the same time what they count on in the case of missile defense, which, as it turns out, is still not against Iran.
There is another consideration related to the Royal Navy of Great Britain and their Trident missiles.
Combat patrol areas of British SSBNs are much closer to the Russian Federation than the American patrol areas. They are close enough to launch a salvo of their SLBMs on the so-called “flat” trajectory - an arc with a low apogee, when a rocket rises up to a much lower height than with an energetically advantageous flight to a maximum range.
This method of shooting has a minus - the range decreases and decreases very much. But there is a plus - for a short flight distance, the missile spends significantly less time to overcome the distance. Flight time is reduced, and by a significant amount compared with the "normal", that is, energetically profitable flight at the same distance. Reduction of time can reach 30%. And taking into account the fact that the boats themselves are closer to the target, that is, the distance to it is relatively small, the flight time is even less, and there are risks that with this method of launching an attack on Russia will be delivered before it is possible to give a command to reciprocating. It is not in vain that there is an opinion that, in the “American-British” combination, the latter are responsible precisely for the first strike.
An important factor is the prevailing morality in American society. At first glance, a typical American is a calm, even good-natured and friendly person. As a rule, he does not want his country to intervene in all sorts of wars. Reality is tough and cynical
The first problem is not Americans are the origins of American culture. The American nation began to form during the gigantic military force expansion of the colonists throughout the North American continent, which was accompanied by a mass of fierce clashes and wars, the massive expulsion of Native Americans from their land, and individual acts of genocide. It was during these events that the American archetype, partly culture and epic, was formed.
This birth trauma has led to the fact that the average American does not feel internal protest when his society conducts military captures and massacres somewhere, moreover, sometimes he cannot perceive them otherwise than an act of heroism, because these are its roots and origins. This phenomenon is still waiting for detailed researchers, while it is worth recommending the work of an American sociologist and concurrently executive director of the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology John Tyrman, "Death of Others: The Fate of Civilians in the Wars of America" (The Deaths of Others. The Fate of Civilians in America's Wars. John tirman. You will need knowledge of English and a few dollars), or his article "Why do we ignore the civilian population killed in American wars" (Eng.)where this question is considered in more detail and with examples.
The second problem is the so-called "Ideology of American Exclusivity." A very controversial teaching for non-Americans and indisputable for the mass of Americans, upon closer examination, is a completely banal and even boring subspecies of fascism. But the idea of the superiority of Americans over non-Americans, this doctrine drives hard into American heads. Alas, the followers of this quasi-religious teaching are in our country, which is why many problems of the Russian Federation are caused.
The most striking example of how these features of the American mentality are manifested in wars is the Second World War. We used to have a positive attitude towards the Americans in that war, because they were our allies, but in fact their methods of war were much more brutal than those of the Japanese and not much milder than Nazi Germany. Only one example - at the end of the war, in 1945, the United States launched operations to destroy Japanese cities, which were a commonplace burning of thousands of residential neighborhoods in dozens of cities with the population. Several hundred aircraft appeared over the city and bombarded its densely populated areas with a “carpet” of incendiary bombs. There were many such episodes, and, as usual, the Americans were not even puzzled by calculating the losses of the enemy, identifying them today as part of the 240-900 thousand people, almost all civilians.
Studies of American mentality should be left outside the scope of this article; we only indicate the conclusion - a significant proportion of US residents have the idea that their government will attack a country and kill millions of innocent people there does not cause any internal protest. They are indifferent at best. This is true for a hypothetical nuclear war.
But what excites US citizens is their own losses. All American protests against the Iraq war revolve around the dead US soldiers. The fact that they, generally speaking, are aggressors and attacked a country that did not threaten the United States, albeit with an ugly regime in power, is simply not remembered by anyone. The fact that Iraq has turned into a large cemetery is also, in general, not of interest. Similarly, Libya.
It cannot be assumed that the Americans cannot bear military losses - this is not so; they can endure a lot, no matter how much more than we. The question is that they categorically do not want to do this, and today it is precisely potential losses that are an effective deterrent to American aggression. But without this deterrent, they are, in principle, capable of almost everything that, for example, is well remembered in the vicinity of the Vietnamese village of Song Mi.
And it cannot be denied that a certain proportion of US citizens, mainly from the upper layers of American society (but not only) are obsessed with truly pathological hatred towards the Russian Federation, its culture, population, stories, and, in general, dissatisfied with the very fact of our existence.
This resonates with the work of the Western propaganda machine, which has achieved serious success in anti-Russian propaganda, including the “inhumanization” of the Russian population in the eyes of many ordinary people in Western countries.
Thus, the degree of danger from the United States for our country is constantly growing, and the danger in its extreme embodiment is in the form of a threat of a sudden destructive nuclear strike.
Does the US have rational reasons to do this to us if it is possible to do so with impunity or almost with impunity? There is.
Currently, the main concern for American strategists is the issue of subordinating China to America. It is China that Americans see as their main rival in this century. But, the question arises - why is China even able to challenge the United States in any way? After all, China is extremely dependent on imports of raw materials and resources, and in its military power it is not even close to the United States. The Americans can arrange a blockade of China in any convenient way - along the so-called "first and second chain of islands", at the entrance to the Strait of Malacca from the Indian Ocean, and even in the Persian Gulf. And this “Chinese miracle” may well end.
Naturally, this is a kind of extreme, extreme option, the USA just won’t go for it, but they have such an opportunity.
That's just behind China, there is a backup country. A country that simply provides China with land-based communications with which the US cannot do anything outside the scope of the nuclear war scenario. A country that can supply oil, gas, oil products, raw materials, and food to China. Yes, neither our economy nor the capacity of our cross-border communications will be enough to prevent China from feeling the sea blockade. But we will soften it very much to him. And, of course, the factor of military supplies should not be missed. Until Russia is neutralized, China will be able to get weapons from there; let it be in insufficient quantities, but it will be a lot. If the US can neutralize the Russian Federation, then China itself will execute the command “up to the foot” from Washington, even without pressure from the outside. With Russia, he is far less vulnerable.
Russia alone is too weak to claim global hegemony. Russia does not have an ideology attractive to a substantial part of humanity. In this regard, Russia is not in the same “league” of players as the United States. Russia does not have comparable with the Chinese industrial and, more broadly, economic potential. But Russia is that weight on the scales, which may well swing them in one direction or another. Unable to win much herself, she can determine who will do it. And this is a very dangerous moment, he is actually programming a war with that side of the US-Chinese conflict, to which Russia will take an unfriendly position. Given the events in Ukraine and Syria, it is clear that this will not be China. It will be the United States, and it may be tempting for them to remove the “weak link” from the scheme - the Russians. As Napoleon once wanted to do, and how 129 years after Napoleon Hitler tried to do.
But we have nuclear weapons, it’s so simple, in the usual way, to seriously fight Russia, apparently, not to fight, at least not to fight for destruction. But if you catch the Russians by surprise ...
If taken by surprise, the decline of American dominance over humanity will turn into its endless dawn. The dreams of American science fiction writers about a future in which there are no non-English-speaking heroes will come true, the American social model will continue to crush one culture after another, the English language will continue to supplant national languages, and the US government will continue to transform into a world at an accelerated pace. All other possible development paths for humanity will be closed.
Forever.
Denote threat
At the moment, the United States is modernizing nuclear weapons, which gives them the opportunity to dramatically increase the number of forces suitable for delivering a preventive massive nuclear strike, but is useless for carrying out tasks to deter nuclear aggression. At the same time, work is underway to reduce to zero the value of the strategic nuclear forces of the adversaries of the United States - by introducing into the US Armed Forces methods of detecting mobile soil missile systems, deploying anti-ballistic missile defense systems, and removing restrictions on the design of ultra-small nuclear munitions that were in force after the end of the Cold War.
These works also include the forces of the most faithful American ally - Great Britain, which are purely geographically in a position favorable for delivering a sudden nuclear strike against Russia.
All this activity bears clear signs of preparation for the first, unprovoked massive nuclear strike on the Russian Federation, using land and sea-based ballistic missiles.
Such a strike can be delivered only if the attacking party is impunity, and in case of loss of surprise, the attacking party refuses it (see the attitude of the Americans to their losses), which requires appropriate provision of surprise.
It should be especially noted that the moral paradigm prevailing in American society makes such a blow quite normal from an ethical point of view, and for some representatives of American society this is one of the most desirable options for resolving the "Russian question".
At the same time, the elimination of Russia will automatically solve the “Chinese question” for the US, which also gives rational reasons for a sudden nuclear attack. If such an attack were successful, it would be extremely beneficial for the United States of America, since in addition to neutralizing China, it also “freezes” the role of the United States as a world hegemon for an unbelievably long time.
For us, a simple conclusion is important from all of this - the role of nuclear deterrence in ensuring our security is not only decisive - it also grows and grows continuously. The growth of capabilities of our strategic nuclear forces, however, cannot keep up with the growth of their importance for the country.
This mainly concerns the navy.
Nuclear Deterrence and the Navy
In the 2015 year in the USA, the Bear Spear ("Spear for the Bear") command-staff exercises were held. According to the scenario of the exercises, the evil revanchist Russia began to terrorize its neighbors, attack them and deprive of sovereignty, the United States intervened, and the escalation began. During the ongoing escalation, the parties resorted to nuclear weapons, and the United States managed to get ahead of Russia and strike first. The population of Russia during this attack was almost completely destroyed - only at the time of the attack, one hundred million people died. However, Russia retaliated, killing tens of millions of Americans. What allowed Russia to strike back with sufficient strength? The fact that during the first yet non-nuclear battles, the US Navy missed several Russian submarines, the crews of which ultimately retaliated.
The one-goal game did not work, although the American planners provided for everything, and even were able to "neutralize" almost the entire ground nuclear arsenal of the Russian Federation.
This example very eloquently shows what role the navy should play in theory in the system of nuclear deterrence.
With appropriate types of support (anti-submarine, anti-mine, and others), with anti-submarine forces covering the deployment of boats, including aviation, with competent execution of isolation of combat areas (for example, mines), when the crew is ready to withstand enemy submarines and taking into account modern methods search by aircraft for patrol aviation, namely submarines with ballistic missiles become the most reliable means of deterrence.
First and foremost, unlike ground-based strategic nuclear forces, it cannot be quickly hit by strategic weapons, such as ballistic missiles, even if its location is known.
Secondly, it is mobile. The boat, barely creeping around on the 4 nodes, will pass 177 kilometers under water in a day. At the same time, for new submarine missile carriers (for example, Borey), especially low-noise speed can be significantly increased.
PLA pr. 955 "Northwind." Relatively low-noise future
Again, in theory, at this level of mobility, it is very difficult to track. Its coordinates are unknown, as in silos. It can not be calculated by satellite photos, like PGRK. In theory, even if the satellite “catches” the surfaced wake trail or the “Kelvin wedge” or other wave manifestations, based on this information it is impossible to immediately use any weapon against the submarine.
It can be detected from an airplane by wave traces on the surface of the water. But there are some opportunities to avoid this detection method. It can be detected by secondary low-frequency fluctuations in the water column generated by the moving volume of the boat hull. But minimizing size, reducing speed, taking hydrology into account, and choosing the right depths can significantly reduce the likelihood of such a discovery. The boat, the crew of which operates correctly, the design of which meets modern requirements, and the combat campaign is carried out with all types of support, is still rather difficult to be vulnerable.
In conce, even when the enemy’s PLC outfit reaches a range of weapons against a boat, the result, in the correct version, will be a battle, and not an unrequited blow, as is the case with ground-based systems of strategic nuclear forces. And the boat, in theory, can win this battle. Unlike PGRK, which was attacked by an inconspicuous bomber in the electromagnetic chaos of the first hours after the start of a nuclear war, or even fell under the second wave of a nuclear missile attack.
Properly organized strategic nuclear forces force the enemy to reveal their intentions during the deployment of anti-submarine forces and conduct operations to search for submarines, and give time for the deployment of PGRK, eliminating their defeat by the first strike of the enemy.
However, in the case of the Russian Navy, this whole theory diverges significantly from practice.
The Navy has now adopted a system of protected combat zones - areas where all SSBNs should go during the threatened period and where they should be prepared to launch a nuclear strike against the enemy. These areas and the surrounding water areas through which the deployment of submarines is carried out, and in which the Russian anti-submarine forces are operating, with the light hand of NATO were called "Bastion". Russia has two such “bastions”.
"Bastions." Inside them, periodically replaced air defense missile defense systems are protected areas of military operations. Borders artificially “roughened”
The following should be noted.
The fighting inside these areas will be a complex of attempts by the enemy to carry out an operation within the region to destroy the SSBNs using their submarines, relying on their low noise and range of use of weapons, as well as storming the area from the outside by surface and underwater forces and aircraft. Since the task of the fleet forces in these areas will be to ensure the combat stability of submarine forces, it becomes necessary for the fleet to achieve unconditional, complete supremacy at sea in the indicated water areas. It is dominance at sea, and, taking into account the power of the enemy’s basic patrol aircraft, also in the air, that can allow the SSBN to freely leave the bases, go the route to the protected combat area and take a position there, ready to use the main weapons.
However, at this point, dilemma number two sets in — the adversary is usually stronger than us. And in fact, guarding the boats locked in the “bastions”, the Navy becomes attached to them, concentrates its forces in a small water area, where they will have to take up battle with the enemy’s superior in numbers and strength. In addition, this approach exposes the coast, making them vulnerable to the enemy. In fact, the “bastionic” approach is somewhat repeating the history of the siege of Port Arthur. There, too, the highly mobile form of forces (fleet) locked itself in a fortress, where it was later destroyed. Here a similar picture, only the scales are different.
And this is without taking into account the terrible state of the Navy regarding the presence of anti-submarine forces.
During the previous analysis of options that a weak fleet can use to defeat a strong, it was shown that the answer to the superiority of the enemy in forces at sea should be superiority in speed. And this is not about racing at the maximum power of the power plant (although this will sometimes be necessary), but about advancing in actions, in imposing the enemy on a pace for which he is not ready for one reason or another.
Although the actions of strategic submarines during nuclear deterrence operations or during an ongoing nuclear war are radically different in nature than the main way to solve problems by the fleet (seizing dominance at sea), the principle itself is true here. The enemy should not have time to react, he should be late.
The grouping strategy in the “bastions” cannot lead to such an effect. The fleet, regardless of what task it performs, is an offensive tool. They cannot be defended, technically impossible, they can only advance, and any defensive task can be effectively solved only by offensive actions. Thus, there is a conceptual error - instead of turning the whole world into an arena for a real or conditional battle with the USA, we ourselves do the enemy a service, gathering in a small area, breaking the defenses of which with the enemy’s superior power is quite possible. We drive ourselves into a corner.
This is especially evident in the example of the Sea of Okhotsk. The conditions in it are very favorable for the American submarine that has slipped into it to conduct long and covert surveillance of our strategic submarines. It is difficult to take refuge in it; this is a problematic water area under all conditions. But for some reason it is considered safe.
This state of affairs arose in the mid-eighties, when the United States, sharply, abruptly raising the effectiveness of its anti-submarine forces, were able to demonstrate to the military-political leadership of the USSR the absolute hopelessness of attempts to deploy strategic nuclear forces in the open ocean without adequate support. And there were already problems with security. The answer to this challenge should have been the same revolutionary increase in the secrecy of the submarine forces of the USSR, and their closer interaction with other types of forces, but the USSR could not give such an answer.
Photo of a Soviet atomic submarine in a surface position through the periscope of a nuclear submarine of the US Navy "Haddo." During the Cold War, the US Navy outplayed the Soviet Navy under water. To rout
The technological backwardness of Soviet industry and the lack of imagination among the people who determined the naval strategy ultimately led to the banal flight of the USSR Navy from the battlefield and the departure of submarines into the notorious "bastions", which even during the Cold War were really completely permeable to the enemy.
Thus, the task of the future construction of the strategic nuclear forces will be to expand their presence in the oceans. The exit from the “bastions” and the resumption of an active offensive in spirit strategy is a vital measure to ensure that the strategic nuclear forces in terms of their combat effectiveness do not lag behind the enemy’s growing strike capabilities.
Positive examples were most recently by historical standards. So in the mid-80-ies, a submarine detachment of the 25th Pacific Fleet division carried out a military campaign in the western part of the Pacific Ocean and launched combat patrols near the Galapagos Islands. The detachment was covered by surface ships.
Today, such a change is facing a huge problem.
The fleet is simply not ready to conduct them, neither psychologically, nor financially, nor organizationally. For example, there is not enough aviation to provide such military campaigns, and the one that is substantially outdated. The fleets themselves are subordinate to the military districts, and it will be very difficult to explain to the land general that offshore is more dangerous than somewhere far in the ocean. The command staff of the Navy is already used to doing what it does (although voices demanding to return to the ocean in the fleet are heard, and very high). There are questions about submarines.
Our submarines are truly huge. And this is a vulnerability to radar search by surface wave disturbances and a high level of secondary low-frequency oscillations.
The self-defense means of our submarines are ineffective, on board or not at all, or almost no anti-torpedoes, torpedo weapons are outdated, and in some conditions not applicable.
This is superimposed on the training of the SSBN crews, which for many years have been passively circling in the areas designated for patrol, technically unable to detect the American or British "hunter" attached to them.
Perhaps, having established the interaction between multipurpose submarines and the SSBN, having worked out the tactics of detaching from tracking, exploring in detail the methods of avoiding non-acoustic searches, and avoiding tracking from enemy submarines, one could try to "go beyond" the supposedly safe "bastions" and begin to learn to “get lost” in the ocean, forcing the enemy to spend time, nerves and money on the search for countermeasures.
In the future, it will be necessary to reconsider the approaches to the creation of new boats, so that they correspond to the new offensive strategy and in their design features.
In the meantime, it is critically important to restore the power of anti-submarine forces to values that would establish dominance at sea (and in fact under the sea) in the "bastions". This should be the very first and most important task of the Navy. From this should begin its restoration as an effective fighting force. Both at the stage of the withdrawal of the boat from the base, and at the stage of its transfer to the combat patrol area (and in the future, to the separation area from tracking), the Navy anti-submarine forces should completely exclude the presence of foreign submarines nearby, and together with naval aviation ensure continuous readiness for the destruction of anti-submarines enemy aircraft. Since we want the fleet to fight for supremacy at sea, it is logical to start with the communications used by domestic strategic submarines.
Now there is nothing like that.
It would be logical to see the evolution of the strategic nuclear forces in the form of successively achieving the following stages:
1. The restoration of anti-mine and anti-submarine forces to a level that provides the SSBN with a safe exit from the bases and transfer to the designated combat patrol area. This will require the establishment of supremacy at sea in each of the “bastions,” which in turn will require an increase in the number of anti-submarine surface ships, and modernization of diesel submarines, and the creation of a new anti-submarine aircraft, at least small, and seriously improve the tactical training of commanders and crews ships. Just one performance of this task would be a huge success.
2. Modernization of the SSBN with the elimination of critical shortcomings for their combat capabilities.
3. Beginning of operations to transfer combat patrols to the open ocean.
4. Development of the concept of the submarines of the future, optimized for the new ocean strategy of nuclear deterrence. The beginning of the construction of boats according to a new concept.
5. The final transition to the deployment of strategic nuclear forces in the open ocean.
The latter will not only make deterrence more effective on our part, but, by pulling a significant part of the enemy’s anti-submarine forces to search for SSBNs, will indirectly contribute to the rapid and relatively safe deployment of the remaining fleet forces - which will ultimately help protect the strategic nuclear forces.
Conclusion
Nuclear deterrence, operations to disrupt the enemy’s nuclear deterrence, and to prevent them from nuclear attack, as well as the hypothetical conduct of nuclear war - the first fundamentally new even from a theoretical point of view, the tasks of the fleet, which appeared over many centuries. The advent of ballistic missiles launched from under the water led to the emergence of a “new dimension” in the war at sea, irreducible to the traditional and basic for any normal fleet actions to establish supremacy at sea.
For a long time, submarine missiles were not accurate enough to be used as a means of delivering a first strike. However, starting from 1997 of the year, the US Navy is modernizing its missile arsenal, after which American SLBMs can be used to deliver such a strike.
At the same time, the United States is working on the deployment of anti-ballistic missile defense systems, lifting the ban on the development and production of ultra-low-power nuclear weapons, including those that can be used for sabotage in the rear of the enemy and equipping the naval forces of their British ally with modernized nuclear missiles.
The US missile defense systems are mounted around the Russian Federation, although in words they have not been directed against it for a long time (now it is argued that elements of missile defense in Japan are directed only against the DPRK).
The only consistent explanation for all these actions is the secretive preparation of the United States for delivering a sudden unprovoked massive nuclear strike against the Russian Federation.
An extremely intensive propaganda campaign is being conducted against the Russian Federation, one of the goals of which is the so-called dehumanization of the enemy.
Ethically, such actions are completely acceptable to most American citizens.
From a rational point of view, the destruction of the Russian Federation will bring the United States a lot of benefits, allowing it to actually colonize the entire planet on its own terms, without encountering any resistance anywhere.
Thus, it must be recognized that the risk of a sudden and unprovoked nuclear attack on the Russian Federation is growing.
Under such conditions, the importance of nuclear deterrence is also growing, and its effectiveness should grow after the threat.
The ground components of the strategic nuclear forces are extremely vulnerable due to their location known to the adversary, the ability to continuously observe them with reconnaissance satellites, the possibility of their destruction by strategic weapons from a long distance, and the very nature of the sudden strike, which may turn out to be faster than passing the command to strike back counter strike.
Under such conditions, the role of the marine component of the strategic nuclear forces is growing, due to the reasons for its difficult tracking and the inability to destroy strategic submarines deployed in the sea.
However, the Navy uses a deployment scheme inadequate to modern threats of the deployment of strategic nuclear forces in the form of their presence in protected areas of military operations - the air defense missile system. This is due to the inability of the Navy to withstand the antisubmarine forces of a potential enemy, which must be overcome.
A transition is necessary to the ocean deployment of strategic nuclear forces, which will prevent the enemy from destroying all strategic nuclear forces with a concentrated submarine attack on an air defense missile system, and will seriously increase the tension of its anti-submarine forces.
To do this, you will have to reconsider not only the usual methods of combat employment of submarines, but also approaches to their design. With the highest possible degree of probability, other submarines than there are now will be required for the “oceanic” nuclear strategic nuclear forces.
In the transition period from “bastion” to “oceanic” deployment, the Navy's NWFM should be able to establish absolute supremacy at sea both in the “bastions” as a whole, and especially in the air defense missile systems inside them.
Otherwise, the population and the leadership of the Russian Federation will have to come to terms with the ever-increasing risk of a nuclear attack, which does not counter this risk by anything truly dangerous.
- Alexander Timokhin
- Thebulletin.org, Foreignpolicy.com, US Navy, Russian Ministry of Defense, TASS
- We are building a fleet. Theory and Purpose.
We are building a fleet. consequences of uncomfortable geography
building a fleet. attacks of the weak, loss of the strong
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