65 centimeters of death. Refusal of 65-cm torpedo tubes - error
In April 1972 of the year, the Krasnoye Sormovo plant laid the head submarine of the 671РТ Salmon project - K-387. At the end of December 1972, the ship went into operation. This boat became the first carrier of the new weapons: torpedoes and anti-submarine missiles in caliber 650 millimeters. Of the six torpedo tubes on board, only four had an 533 caliber. And two were 650-millimeter, designed for huge anti-ship torpedoes with a caliber of 65 centimeters or comparable in size anti-submarine missiles (PLUR).
From that moment on, large torpedo tubes and ammunition for them were firmly registered on Soviet "cruising" submarines. It is understandable: a more powerful warhead, more fuel and oxidizer, a more powerful engine providing greater speed were placed in a large torpedo. For Soviet submarines, which also required the ability to attack surface ships as part of strong enemy battle groups, the presence of long-range and high-speed torpedoes was very important. It was 650-mm torpedoes that became the "main caliber" when working on surface ships in our submarine.
Also, in the case of PLUR for the 650-mm torpedo tube (86P), a significantly faster delivery of weapons to the target was provided than in the case of PLUR for the 533-mm TA (83P). The reason is the best flight performance of the “big” rocket, directly related to the size of its engine.
The following samples of weapons launched through the 65-cm TA were in service with the Navy:
- 65-73: uncontrolled torpedo with a nuclear warhead TNT equivalent in 20 kilotons;
- 65-76: torpedo with a non-nuclear warhead and homing system on the wake of the track. Later, an improved version appeared - 65-76А;
- PLUR of several types from the RPK-7 "Wind" PLRK (86Р, 88Р).
Already in the early eighties, there was a more advanced than the 65-76, DST torpedo, but it didn’t get into service, although on many boats, by the early nineties, it even had a modified BSI. The torpedo was distinguished by greater safety, the presence of remote control, less noise and was generally much more advanced than the 65-76A, and much safer to use.
Its pilot operation in the North navy in 1991-1992 was quite successful. Alas, for some strange reason, the well-proven torpedo was never adopted, which later had fatal consequences: it was the explosion of the 650-65A torpedo that led to the disaster of the Kursk submarine K-76 and the death of its crew and seconded specialists. More about all this in article by M. Klimov “DST: torpedo, which was not on the“ Kursk ”.
After the Kursk disaster, the 65-76A were withdrawn from service, and the 650-mm torpedo tubes were left without weapons. But even earlier, long before this, a trend appeared to reject “large” TAs. The first "swallow" was the titanium submarine of the 945A project. It used 8 torpedo tubes of the traditional caliber 533 mm. This allowed on the one hand to increase the ammunition to 40 torpedoes and PLUR. On the other hand, the boat lost its long-range torpedo.
But the main event that put an end to the further development of such a weapon system as the 650 mm TA was the development of a submarine of the 885 Ash project, which was positioned as a submarine of the future and also did not have an 650 mm TA. In the future, such torpedo tubes were not installed on new boats. "Ash-M" also does not have them; the "strategists" do not have them either.
A few years later, under completely insane circumstances, the corresponding test benches were destroyed. This is best illustrated in the book:
At the time when the decision was made to abandon the 650-mm torpedoes, he had certain sound arguments. So, a surface ship inside a protected warrant could be hit with a cruise missile, and the abandonment of the 650-mm TA made it possible to increase the ammunition of torpedoes of the 533 mm caliber and cruise missiles of the S-10 Granat complex (the Soviet "ancestor" of the Caliber with a nuclear warhead )
Today, however, the situation has changed dramatically, and we can firmly be sure of the following - a refusal to develop the 650-mm torpedo line and SLTs for them is a mistake. And that's why.
The new reality of submarine warfare.
At the end of the 80's - the beginning of the 90's of the XX century, the anti-submarine forces of the US Navy made a revolutionary breakthrough in their development. A jerk similar to that made during the Second World War during the Battle of the Atlantic. Or, we use a different analogy - the situation in submarine warfare for submarines changed the same way it changed for airplanes in the sky when massive air defense radars appeared - this did not lead to the disappearance of aircraft, but the nature of the war in the air completely changed.
So, the means of low-frequency acoustic search were put into operation en masse - now a submarine that reached a long wavelength from an external low-frequency source - “backlight” returned it back to the water column and was detected regardless of its level of low noise and stealth. Computing systems have appeared that are capable of working with any array of sensors and emitters as a single unit, which turned the field of buoys into a huge single antenna of many collaborative elements.
Non-acoustic methods for detecting submarines by wave manifestations on the surface of the water have powerfully entered into practice. High-performance towed GAS appeared, capable of tracking low-frequency water oscillations generated by a moving submarine.
Significantly increased the efficiency of torpedoes. Combining with the experience gained in the NATO countries in anti-submarine defense, all this dramatically, by orders of magnitude, facilitated the work of anti-submarine forces and made it difficult for submarines to maintain stealth.
The latter is now critical not only at the stages of a boat going out to sea, moving to a given area and searching for a target, but also at the moment of using a weapon and even after it. And here the bet on missiles turns out to be a problem - launching missiles from the underwater position of the enemy’s acoustics will be detected from such a distance that the fact of a missile attack will be known long before the first Caliber or Onyx is detected by the enemy’s radar. Moreover, the number of missiles in the salvo will be known.
That is why, for example, American submariners do not like to use Harpoon anti-ship missiles - it unmasks the fact of being in the submarine area and can show the enemy where it is located exactly. And the Mk.48 torpedo, although it is distinguished by a high level of noise, but due to the launch range on remote control and the ability to bring it to the target from the direction from which it was launched (giving the enemy a false bearing), the boat has a chance to remain undetected even when the use of torpedoes, "showing" to the enemy only the torpedoes themselves, but not their carrier.
At the same time, hitting a torpedo with a modern surface ship is much more difficult than hitting a missile, and the destructive force of a torpedo is incomparably higher.
In the conditions of a jump-like increase in the combat effectiveness of anti-submarine forces, not rockets, but torpedoes again become the main weapon, and torpedoes used at the maximum distance with remote control, in the case of surface ships, are used from outside the zone of acoustic illumination that takes place around every western ship group, like on remote control, and with guidance on the wake of the wake.
Size matters
And here it suddenly turns out that in the dimensions of the 650-mm torpedoes, you can create a much more effective means to attack surface ships than the 533-mm torpedo of a normal size. Whatever level of perfection power plants of torpedoes reach, and in the 650-mm case you can put a much more powerful propulsion system than in the 533 millimeter, unless of course we are talking about engines that are at the same technical level.
This makes it possible to increase the speed of the torpedo. But it’s even more interesting to use the reserves of its internal volumes not so much for speed (for 533-mm torpedoes it is mainly sufficient), but to increase the range. Modern remote control systems allow you to shoot at a range of tens of kilometers, so the length of the fiber optic cable on the best German telecontrol coils reaches 60 kilometers. The ranges of modern torpedoes at speeds in 35-40 nodes reach up to 50 kilometers - and the old 650-mm 65-76 had the same at 50 nodes.
If one day it comes to creating new torpedoes in this caliber, then, combining the 650-mm torpedoes with an economical travel mode with the speed of 35-40 nodes, a large supply of unitary fuel or powerful batteries, a smooth set of speed (and a slow increase in noise) after exit from the torpedo tube, the presence of remote control to control the torpedo until it is detected by the homing system of the wake of the target ship and the homing system of the wake after switching off the remote control and separating the optical fiber horse cable, you can achieve truly “missile” ranges of torpedoes against surface ships and their groups, while the boat will not need to take risks and take a position too close to the attacked warrant, and the presence of remote control will allow for additional reconnaissance of the wake track with the arrival of the submarine information that the trace was actually found.
The enemy is aware of the fact that an attack is taking place only when his sonar speakers hear a torpedo coming to the ship, that is, a long time after launch, which will give the boat enough time to escape - and this is the cardinal difference between a torpedo attack and a missile one.
On a torpedo with an 533 mm caliber, all this is also possible to realize, but providing the same “missile” range is incomparably more difficult, firstly, and in this parameter the 650-mm torpedo will still win, all other things being equal - secondly.
Another important factor is the power of the warhead. It is extremely unlikely that one torpedo with an 533 mm caliber is capable of incapacitating, for example, an aircraft carrier. A large 650-mm torpedo is quite capable of this.
Thus, of all the available options, when developing a torpedo to attack surface targets, an 650 millimeter caliber is preferable.
An important point - in the thick case of 650-mm torpedoes it is much easier to implement certain measures for acoustic protection of the torpedo - the layout of the 533-mm torpedoes is too dense for this, it’s not at all a fact that it will be possible to provide them with the necessary secrecy in the near future - Americans with their Mk.48 of this can no longer provide it. A large 650-mm torpedo can be much less noisy than an 533-mm torpedo made at the same technological level.
The disadvantage of this caliber is the size, due to which the presence of such torpedoes limits the ammunition for conventional 533-mm torpedoes. However, a small number of such torpedoes on board and a pair of torpedo tubes (or one at all) will not limit the ammunition load of 533-mm torpedoes to a critical degree. At the same time, 533-mm torpedoes can be the "main" weapon for most situations, and 650-mm torpedoes can be for the most difficult targets, which are too dangerous to approach.
In addition, the option of “double ammunition” is possible and effective - when short torpedoes are received in the caliber 650 mm, which significantly reduces the severity of the problem. According to the estimates of domestic experts, the 650-mm torpedo in its transport characteristics will surpass the 533-mm torpedo even with a body length of 6 meters (65-76 had a length of more than 11 meters), (see Dr. A.S. Kotov , A. Yu. Krinsky, "There is an alternative to the 65-76 long-range anti-ship torpedoes", Scientific and technical collection "Underwater marine weapons" Concern MPO "Gidropribor").
And for the fight against submarines caliber 650 mm can give a lot.
It is no secret that American and English submarines have a huge superiority in the range of detection of the sonar system in a passive, covert mode over domestic submarines. However, domestic submarines are equipped with SOKS - a wake track detection system, which makes it possible to detect the passage of a foreign submarine at a distance large enough so that it does not detect a Russian submarine or if it could detect, but could not immediately use a weapon because of the long distance.
In open water, the commander of an atomic submarine, upon detection of a wake trace of a foreign submarine, sometimes it is possible to immediately use the launcher launched through the torpedo tube. This method of attack allows you to prevent a foreign submarine from approaching the domestic range of weapons
But a significant part of our underwater confrontation with the West passes under the ice. And there it is impossible to do.
A hypothetical torpedo guided by an underwater wake trail could follow a foreign submarine, and at low speed, without revealing itself - this mode of movement is quite feasible on electric torpedoes at a modern technological level. And here we again come to the conclusion that the 650-mm torpedo in performing such a task may turn out to be better than the 533-mm. A boat that performs the task of covertly searching for an enemy underwater can loop, change course, in order to detect self-tracking. Given the fact that the torpedo-pursuer must move behind the scenes, it may take a long range to go after the target repeating its trajectory. And the dimensions of the “head” of the torpedo will make it possible to place a larger-sized homing system in it, which, in light of the size of our electronic equipment, may also be necessary if the necessary functionality cannot be realized in a normal 533-mm caliber.
Naturally, such an anti-submarine bulky torpedo should be electric, not thermal. And even when following the wake trail, it should have remote control to evaluate what is happening on board the Russian submarine that launched it.
All of the above unexpectedly makes 650-mm torpedo tubes in demand even on strategic submarines - after all, if hunting surface ships is not their regular task, then fighting with an enemy hunting boat is almost inevitable for them in the event of a real war.
Another advantage of a large-caliber torpedo tube is the ability to launch a larger uninhabited underwater vehicle through it than the 533-mm TA provides. Such UUVs, as well as torpedoes controlled or guided through a fiber optic cable, can be used for reconnaissance in a wide variety of conditions. They can even be used to issue target designation to weapons. Moreover, it is technically feasible to create a “remote periscope” on such a NPA, with the help of which the submarine commander could visually assess the surface situation tens of kilometers from the submarine itself. And again, the dimensions of suchdrone"turn out to be useful - it is possible to install more powerful batteries and more voluminous and heavy electronic systems in it, which, alas, is still in demand in our conditions.
Another important advantage that gives the 650-mm torpedo tube on each multi-purpose submarine is the ability to create and combat use of large-sized cruise missiles and, accordingly, range.
It is no secret that the Navy 3M14 Caliber cruise missile in its performance characteristics is significantly inferior to the X-101 cruise missile used by the VKS. This is due precisely to the size of the missiles - the X-101 is corny more, which makes it possible to place more fuel on it, an engine with more traction, more explosive in the warhead, if it is ever needed, and so on. The possibility of increasing the size of the Kyrgyz Republic "Caliber" is limited precisely by its diameter, which is the same for the surface and underwater versions. "Large" torpedo tubes allow you to create and use and underwater version of the increased size of the Kyrgyz family "Caliber". This will increase the importance of any torpedo submarine in the system of strategic nuclear and non-nuclear deterrence and ensure the launch of missile strikes at a great range from safe waters.
One of the advantages of deploying long-range missiles on marine carriers is that they allow you to "push" the launch line of the Kyrgyz Republic to any enemy. The presence of cruise missiles of particularly long range in the arsenal of submarines will make this much easier and safer. In addition, they, like a large torpedo, may have a more powerful warhead.
It was for similar purposes that Israeli-built Delphin-type German-built submarines installed 4 650-mm torpedo tubes. According to the US Navy, they are used to launch Israeli cruise missiles with Rafael Popay Turbo with a range of up to 1500 kilometers. It is believed that some of these missiles may be equipped with a nuclear warhead.
In the case of Russia, a hypothetical large missile will have a range of many thousands of kilometers.
Conclusions
At the end of the eighties, an underestimation of the potential of 650-mm torpedoes arose in the Navy and the military-industrial complex. Partly this was due to objective reasons, and partly it was just a mistake.
But today, in the new changed conditions, the need to resume the development of torpedoes in this caliber and the use of such torpedo tubes in future submarines is obvious. The presence of such weapons is one of the very few potential (not yet real) advantages of Russia in submarine warfare, which can become real in a few years (from seven to eight with the right approach). And the opportunity to realize such an advantage should not be missed.
At the moment, in Russia there is OCD "Laika" - a program for the development of the next generation submarine. It will be correct if 650-mm torpedo tubes reappear on board. In the same way, it will be right if, with the modernization of the third generation nuclear submarines starting now, the 650-mm torpedo tubes will not only remain in their armament, but will also receive new torpedoes and cruise missiles in their ammunition.
If we do not do stupid things, “65 centimeters of death” will still say their weighty word.
- Alexander Timokhin
- Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, warcyb.org.ru, GVP of the Russian Federation
Information