Aircraft carrier myths
I see no reason to write a long introduction: all regular VO readers are already aware of the battles around aircraft carriers. So let's get straight to the point.
Answer to A. Timokhin's article A few questions to the opponents of aircraft carriers
The arguments of the authors usually boil down to three or four theses of the "target-trough" type, "you can't hide from satellites", "we can't master it, there is no money" and the like.
They are not limited to this, their list is much more extensive.
It would be more correct to say this: besides 100 others, arguments include these.
Why target?
Alexander wrote a number of publications on naval topics, in which he revealed the issues of "tracking weapons».
What is the advantage of this tactic?
We take one inexpensive ship and assign it to keep track of a more expensive and powerful enemy ship, or a whole KUG. We keep our forces safe. It turns out that, firstly, we are aware of the movement of the KUG, and secondly, we can attack all their ships, and they are only our "small and cheap".
When an aircraft carrier is in the ocean, the situation looks like this. First, it still needs to be found. Secondly, the ship sailing behind it must have a high speed and range, and there is a problem here. If we are monitoring a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, it can maintain sub-maximum speed for an unlimited amount of time.
And a non-nuclear ship burns fuel much faster at these speeds. Therefore, it is difficult to apply this tactic in the ocean.
What happens when an aircraft carrier enters the waters of our interest? Black Sea, Mediterranean, etc.
Firstly, we will not even be able to get there unnoticed, everyone will know in a week that our AV is sailing past Norway. And from that moment on, any small ship or a cheap drone sticks to AB. And 24/7 in SuperHD broadcasts everything that happens on the deck.
Alexander's argument on this topic, expressed by him in one of our
conversations - they say, the aircraft carrier there will be watching someone. He will, of course, follow, but the point of tactics is to follow a CHEAP ship, keeping the main strike forces safe, and not under attack. And it turns out that our aircraft carrier is under a potential attack from the entire coastal infrastructure of NATO, and "tracking with weapons" is possible even at the stage when it is only
sails to the Mediterranean Sea, that is, "a week before". Actually, that's why the target.
Driving AV into a "puddle", we deprive it of operational space. And the tactical advantages that he could have in this very open space, including the main thing - the ability to attack enemy ships aviationoutside of the retaliatory strike zone.
This fact naturally affects its real combat effectiveness in this region, with a constant price tag. And this, in turn, affects its ability as a combat unit to compete with other combat units for funding.
And the trough ... The main criterion of truth is experience. What happened in Syria allows us to say that what he saw is really closer to the concept of "trough" than to the wording "strike aircraft carrier".
Such wars do not shine for us; interests outside our borders must be abandoned.
The fact is that in reality there are many instruments for promoting one's interests. While Timokhin (and in his person among the supporters of AV) has only one such instrument - an aircraft carrier. Only in such a paradigm of thinking, rejection of AB automatically means rejection of interests. In the future, I will analyze this issue in detail.
Arms competition
That is, denying aircraft carriers the right to exist, the supporter of this point of view declares the following de facto.
If only everything was as simple as Alexander wants to show. In all his articles devoted to the "advantage" of aircraft carriers, the respected A. Timokhin makes the same fatal mistake: he compares the effectiveness of aircraft carriers with ... emptiness.
While the arguments of many opponents are based on the understanding of the fact that the world is much more complicated. And, consequently, the resources used for the construction of AB can be used more effective.
Therefore, as an example, I propose in the future to compare the effectiveness of two aircraft carriers with what can be built for the same amount. For example, with the same money, you can make 8 submarines, built like Borei, but with Caliber tactical missiles in the mines. Each such boat will carry 14 * 7 = 98 Caliber, which will make this ship the most powerful strike weapon on navy... Or you can also build as many as 8 helicopter carriers with a displacement of 10-15 thousand tons. And I am not saying that this is what needs to be built. There are many options. My task is only to demonstrate possible alternatives.
For example, you can optionally consider another option - the renewal of the Tu-22M3M series, for which there are already updated engines. So, for example, having estimated an aircraft carrier at 280 billion, we can say that 34 Tu-22M3M can be built for the same amount, if we assume that this aircraft will cost half the price of the Tu-160.
Taking into account that the life of an aircraft will be half that of an aircraft carrier, we get 17 aircraft. We base them in Engels. Proceeding from the fact that in any given period of time we can count on 1/3 of this fleet during the first two days, we have 6 aircraft.
Note. At the moment we already have these aircraft, but their flight life is gradually coming to an end, and in the next 10 years we should expect the resumption of production.
Let's immediately try to throw some of this into battle, using the example proposed by Timokhin, and answer his question, formulated as follows:
Or simply imagine the aggravation of the situation in Sudan, fraught with attacks on our PMTO in Port Sudan. What if air support is needed to protect or evacuate PMTO personnel? To Khmeimim, after all, 1800 kilometers along a realistic route. How will we work from there on requests from the "ground"? But an aircraft carrier, at the first signs of a threatened period, moved from Tartus to the Red Sea is quite a solution to the problem. And not only the question of the PMTO.
1800 km you say?
Combat radius of Tu-22 (hereinafter I will simply write Tu-22: it is clear what is at stake) with a load of 12 tons ... * drum roll * 000 + missile range 2400.
Each aircraft carries 8 missiles (X-50, aka X-SD, aka product 715, aka Goga, aka Zhora), the mass of all this ammunition is slightly more than 12 tons. We will reduce the range to 2000 due to the greater mass and two missiles on the external sling.
More than enough in range. Let's see what the quantity is.
From the number of missiles, we can conclude that the Tu-22 is equivalent to four Timokhin's carrier-based aircraft at once. We have 6 of these machines.
6 * 4 = 24.
And how much did Timokhin have?
And we gave the URO ships a head start with the number of missiles in the cells, overestimating them from the really possible and setting them a speed at the transition of 20 knots, although in reality it will be lower. We also have only 8 attack aircraft, not 16, for example. But it could have been 22!
In fact, the estimated price of the aircraft carrier was taken not as Kuznetsov, but as a somewhat larger aircraft carrier.
It was about the following configuration.
For this money, it is quite possible to get a nuclear catapult ship capable of providing basing 36 heavy multifunctional fighters. 4 specialized AWACS aircraft, 4 electronic warfare aircraft and 10 helicopters.
But we have two aircraft carriers. And, consequently, we still have unallocated money from the second aircraft carrier. We will take 8 helicopter carriers for them.
This means that we can choose four areas for constant patrolling with tasks:
1) Kamchatka - monitoring of the underwater situation of submarines by helicopters (cover for strategists), an additional deterrent from a limited conflict a la Falklands.
2) SF - monitoring software / covering strategists.
3) Mediterranean Sea.
And suddenly
4) Red Sea.
This means that we will have at least one helicopter carrier in this area. Moreover, since this is an MTO point for the fleet, and the fleet also uses helicopters, it is logical to assume that hangars for servicing and rotating helicopters from frigates and corvettes should also be equipped there.
I will also remind you that since we are cooperating with Egypt, we have already developed a version of the KA-52 for this region and we have already produced them.
Attack helicopters of the Egyptian Air Force have a number of differences from those supplied to the Russian Aerospace Forces. Due to the harsh environmental conditions, anti-corrosion materials are more widely used in the Nile Crocodile, additional cooling systems are installed, the fuselage structure is reinforced, and the chassis weight is reduced to reduce take-off weight in hot climates. The helicopter is equipped with the OES-52 optoelectronic aiming system, the President-S anti-missile system and the Crossbow-52 radar for navigation, reconnaissance and detection of ground targets at a distance of up to 25 km, and air targets up to 15 km.
These helicopters have already passed the baptism of fire and their combat use has been worked out. In the video below, two Ka-52s organized a carousel.
Moreover, how does Timokhin plan to rotate ship crews in Sudan?
By sea? So that the sailors spend an additional couple of weeks at sea and, during the transfer, arrive in Sudan in this state?
Is the rotation of the rest of the staff the same?
I mean, there is the second largest airport in Sudan next to the port. From where planes can take off, up to TU-22. And it is obvious that the fastest "bombing" the territory of Sudan will be able to planes that took off from the airfield ... Sudan.
Therefore...
Answer to question number 1 "How are you going to fight without aviation in principle?" such is: "We are not going to fight without aviation at all - we have a lot of it without AV."
And, having answered this question, I want to ask a counter one.
Aviation is represented by:
Tu-160
Tu-22
Su-34
Katrans
Mi-24 N airfield
Orion
Altair
The air tanker IL-78, with the help of which the same Su-34 could be withdrawn to Sudan.
Each type of aviation has its own niche. After all, it's not for nothing that they exist in the world in general? This means that there are tasks with which the UAV copes better than the Su-34, and the Tu-22 is better than the Katran, and the Katran is better than the deck aircraft.
I understand that Timokhin, declaring one thing in words:
Apparently, you will have to return the discussion to a rigid conceptual framework,
in fact, "rigidly" formulated these frameworks as follows:
Or simply imagine the aggravation of the situation in Sudan, fraught with attacks on our PMTO in Port Sudan.
That is, no specifics. Aggravation? Attack? Who attacked? Why attacked? By what forces?
But what type of aviation will become the most effective will depend on this very specifics (again the question arises: whose approach is more limited). But, verbally appealing to a rigid framework, the respected A. Timokhin shies away from this specifics, like the devil from incense.
And why exactly aviation?
So, the question is: Where did all aviation go, and not only aviation (all of the above and not only)?
Here I will go straight to question number 5.
Question 5. Why do you not want to use aircraft for strike missions, even when this is the best option?
The fact is that, without knowing the "clear" conditions, it is impossible in principle to formulate what type of aviation is optimal.
But, since in the CAB thinking paradigm there is only a deck, then this question does not arise in their root. Well, look at the topic as a whole - aviation in bulk. Use it - I don't want to. Moreover, taking into account the speed of movement of AB from the base point to the Northern Fleet in the Mediterranean Sea, it is much inferior in time to conventional aircraft and, moreover, to the means available in the region itself.
Ballad of Time
"Where our aircraft from the shore cannot be in the minimum necessary time."
Leaving the Northern Fleet base, the aircraft carrier reaches the point from which it can begin to “bomb Egypt” (our main partner in Africa, which accounts for almost 40% of the trade turnover), in about 6 days. Something tells me that the Tu-22 will fly from Engels to an operational airfield (for example, Khmeimim) and strike much earlier.
But maybe I'm biased?
The criterion of truth is experience. Let's turn to the experience of France. On the 13th, terrorist attacks were carried out. On the 15th it was decided to send De Gaulle. On the 18th he sailed and on the 23rd the first blows were struck. Eight days. Three of them are for the aircraft carrier's fees. Draw conclusions.
Question 2. How are you going to fight without aviation with those who have it?
The question has two parts.
The answer to the first part was given above: we have a lot of aviation, especially in the case of Turkey. The second part was answered by here.
Then Timokhin concretizes the question.
And now a question for the opponents of aircraft carriers - how can all this be ensured without an aircraft carrier? I'd like to hear the answer. Will we hear?
How to ensure what? Sitting in the bushes of an aircraft carrier?
Our aviation will strive to suppress enemy air defenses before they do it with us. Then he will destroy the airfields. After that, Turkey will already be forced to go to the world. Because further - only the total destruction of a multitude of expensive and technological objects: "rubbing into the Stone Age." Therefore, oddly enough, but the shortest way to save the base in Syria is through ignoring it and focusing on the announced goals: to suppress the air defense as quickly as possible.
The Turks will have a similar situation, by the way: in order to prevent us from doing this, they will also need to concentrate in one direction, without dispersing their forces on secondary goals.
For an aircraft carrier, the most effective use is: active, that is, attack, attack. What happens if the Turks ignore the convoys? The aircraft carrier will remain sitting in the bushes. A wonderful plan from Marshal Timokhin.
And yes, it will all end much earlier. And there won't be any convoys.
The uselessness of aircraft carriers: bombing in the Syrian scenario
Let us recall the favorite tactic of the Westerners: wait until we invest in the country properly, and when it comes to the return on these investments, just arrange a coup there, and that's it.
And for this, at the first stage, it will be necessary to provide air cover for their forces. And then after their withdrawal - to bomb all those who disagree "according to the Syrian option", supporting local friendly forces, as in Syria.
It turns out that in Ukraine it was necessary to bomb the Maidan according to the Syrian scenario?
Alas, once again the narrow views of the AV supporters are evident. The fact is that the war in Ukraine was waged with the use of weapons that you will not find on the balance sheet of the Ministry of Defense. This is the work of intelligence, agents, PR-department, bought politicians, including the opposition, bought journalists and the media. These are all "weapons" too. And we lost this war.
Moreover, the defeat inflicted on us in Ukraine is 10 times more severe than Tsushima. Simply respected Timokhin can understand defeat in a naval battle. And defeat in a war that was proceeding according to fundamentally different laws cannot. Therefore, I will allow myself to ask a second question.
Question number 2. How can AV help us "return Ukraine" in any form: as a maximum in the form of a satellite country, with a puppet government, serving not as a NATO outpost against us, but on the contrary as our security belt?
Vietnam can be considered another "successful" experience of using AB. Despite the monstrous technological advantage over the rival and the presence of several aircraft carriers participating in the DB, the bombings did not succeed in achieving their goals.
These two examples are striking proof that attempts to substitute AB in the solution to any problem do not work. At the same time, there are vivid examples when countries like Turkey achieved their goals precisely due to the correct priorities in armament.
What would have happened if all this time we had not been spending money on the "trough", but would have let them into the development of Orion, which we would have at the beginning of the operation in Syria? How much resources could you save? What if they had been deployed in Syria in limited numbers even earlier? How successful would the militants' offensive be if their equipment were destroyed in the same way as the Azerbaijanis did in Karabakh? And what would happen to Karabakh if the Armenians had not disproportionately expensive planes, but export versions of Orion?
In an extreme case, it will be necessary not to let anyone interfere with the establishment of order, at least by reliably blocking access to the country of interest: both from the sea and from the air. Moreover, the latter is without airbases, which may not exist at this time.
Well, why does Alexander add an extreme sentence? Let's take a look at the base.
When AB (hereinafter CAB) supporters talk about ... squeezing out (the original wording) of submarines, preventing a submarine from breaking through, blocking access - how do they technically represent this? Destruction of the boat? Throwing nets on her and towing her "home"?
What about blocking access? Let's take a look at Syria. We had everything there. And a ground base. And A-50. And the S-400 with full stuffing of echeloned air defense. And even we were in the country officially, unlike everyone else.
And what, how and what did we block there? Whom? Israel? France? USA?
Maybe our air defense has worked at least in the Kyrgyz Republic? But not even here. Why waste rockets designed to defend yourself? And to arrange a demonstration of the combat work of our air defense under the gaze of all reconnaissance assets of the "partners" ...
Maybe our pilots, in an attempt to block access, shot down someone besides the UAV? Not. But ours were shot down. As for me, all of the above are just words. Pshik, behind which there is nothing concrete.
But I will still ask question number 3. How does the CAB see all this squeeze-out, breakout avoidance, and access restriction for operations like Syria?
Scam with Africa
The question is not idle - let us consider the scheme of the Russian economic presence in Africa.
We look at the money invested and the turnover.
Money and turnover in the presented picture are expressed in baskets, stars, bananas and other icons. We open analytical digest.
Egypt, Algeria and Morocco (all representing CA) remain the largest African countries in terms of the value of goods purchased from Russia. These three account for 73,7% of all Russian exports to Africa.
That is, in terms of priorities, it turns out that only a few countries are of particular interest to us, and they are located in the same regions: north and east of Africa.
Again, the whole range of means - an airfield in Sudan, an airfield in Khmeimim. Consider, for example, the defense of Egypt. A submarine with 100 missiles and a MTR team with a mini-submarine is sailing in the Mediterranean Sea. And a helicopter carrier. In the east of Egypt - the same composition.
Someone will say that Katrans have a small combat radius of 200-300 km, depending on the time for the battle. But let's remember what the teacher told us stories about Egypt? The population there is located along the Nile River.
There are just 300 km.
In addition, there are obvious inconsistencies in all of these conditions. So, for example, do we plan to defend our interests in Egypt with the consent of the "host" or "in spite of"? If “contrary to”, then see the example of Ukraine. Other methods. If agreed, it implies the provision of aerodromes. Or, as Timokhin thinks - the Russians come to bomb, but we won't give the airfield? Well, nonsense! Not?
Now, regarding Timokhin's confusion with stages. If we start our report from the moment when there is a legitimate government in Egypt, then we need to proceed from the fact that at this stage the security measures look completely different: it is intelligence assistance. Consultation on the organization of operational work, identification of unreliable elements and signs of the work of hostile special services. Precise cleansing operations, arrests in a format similar to what is happening now in Dagestan and Chechnya. The war at this stage is waged by approximately the following methods. But there is no way to "attach" AB here. Therefore, Timokhin immediately proceeds from the fact that we lost the first round and immediately moved on to the second.
Wasn't it worth it, for example, in Chechnya to eliminate a dozen people in time and put your own people at the helm, so that later you would not have to fight 2 wars? Not? Direct massacre scenarios?
Leapfrog with strategists
Prevent SSBNs from deploying at the points from which a strike is delivered to the European part of Russia, because a strike only against the Siberian formations of the Strategic Missile Forces does not make sense. The disruption of a strike on the European part of Russia is the disruption of a nuclear attack as a whole.
Well, let's start with the fact that there are two such districts, which means that it is designed for four AB. Timokhin is silent about this.
Continuing with the fact that I already asked a question about what this mythical prevention looks like.
Well, in conclusion: helicopters, not airplanes, will be engaged in the detection of submarines (oh, it turns out, what Kuzya was doing in Syria ... he opened the underwater situation with fighters). This means that the same helicopter carriers will cope with the task. They will only cope with detection much better. For the simple reason that, unlike AB, we can really afford 4 helicopter carriers, for sure.
With a sudden blow to kill all the ships of the KPUGs and - home. As long as the Russians lose the planned communication, until they find out that their ships are not communicating because they are no longer there, the SSBNs will have time to pass.
It becomes more and more difficult to comment on the "arguments", since the degree of science fiction has been going off scale for a long time. Watching the video and counting the time between the event and the broadcast of the distress signal, taking into account that this is a civilian vessel.
That is, our ships will kill everything so quickly that they will not even have time to start working on any air defense? Will there be a combat alert? By the way, a question for knowledgeable people: but on our ships, no one thought of making automatic sending of messages by satellite at the beginning of air defense work?
Of course, nothing can be guaranteed in a war, but we admit that it is much easier for our aircraft carrier to evade a strike than to inflict one on the enemy. Factor of. You just need to be able to do it, train properly.
And build four aircraft carriers. And no, we don't. See the relevant paragraph at the very beginning of the article for why AB is a target in the Mediterranean. There is nowhere for him to "evade" there.
Mysticism
Timokhin in the article Sea warfare for beginners. The interaction of surface ships and strike aircraft writes:
If someone wants to fantasize about refueling in the air, then we may not even have enough tankers for bomber aircraft. So the presence of a refueling system is not essential in such a situation.
Apparently, for this reason Timokhin wondered how it is possible to bomb Sudan from Khmeimim, at a distance of 1800 km? Probably, there were just not enough tankers. Which is logical: after all, all aviation and all airfields have disappeared.
Only racially correct deck-based aircraft - super-heavy MiG-29s - have the right to refueling in the air "now" according to an extremely effective "pop-beak" scheme for AV.
How much does the fleet cost
In conclusion, I would like to comment on the article by Andrey from Chelyabinsk, in which he gave a calculation of the cost of the fleet.
Andrey's calculation, in essence, rests on the fact that the amount for the construction of the fleet is expressed in terms of a percentage of the total budget allocated to the fleet. The “advantage” of the method chosen by Andrey is that it (the method) allows calculations in today's prices without regard to inflation. But this method also has a serious drawback - the calculations only work if the mentioned percentage is a constant. And this, alas, is not so.
The general budget conditionally consists of 3 parts: expenses for maintenance, repair and modernization, construction of new equipment. Let's imagine an abstract example - we have nothing and we start building 100 aircraft. Maintenance costs 0. There is also nothing to repair. What percentage of the total budget is available for construction? 100 percent.
Next year, we already have 100 aircraft on our balance sheet, the pilot training program is designed for 100 flight hours per year, aircraft use up resources, break down, etc. As a result, not 100% is left for the construction of new equipment, but, say, 70% of the budget. Such an example clearly demonstrates how the percentage "for construction" changes depending on the amount of equipment already built.
But let's continue to consider the example further.
In the second year, we decided to increase the flight time of pilots to 150 hours a year, but we did not build new aircraft. Maintenance costs have also increased, and the amount available for the construction of new equipment has decreased again. As a result, sooner or later, a kind of "balance point" will be reached. When the number and intensity of equipment operation will not allow us to build more aircraft for the remainder of the funds than the number required to update the existing fleet.
Let me explain. As soon as Andrey "starts" building ships one more than there is now, the calculated percentage for construction will begin to decline. Due to the fact that the built "over" will start to eat the budget for maintenance. And the more ships “over”, the lower the percentage: 30%, then 28%, then 26%, etc. And since we are already close to that very equilibrium point, the limit will come very quickly.
Therefore, in my opinion, the calculation is absolutely wrong.
The only thing that can be used is rough and rough calculations of the cost of equipment.
Question number 3.
Trade turnover between the RF and all Africa $ 20 billion (digest link was above). A similar indicator between the Russian Federation and Ukraine was slightly less than 50 in the region of 2013 in prices of the same year. We have lost about 25 billion from this volume. That is, one Africa. We lost another Africa, due to lost profits from a potential increase in freight traffic through Ukraine, as well as the need to be under sanctions, to build Crimean bridges, etc.
In this connection, I want to hear explanations from Mr. Timokhin, why is he considering the issue with Africa and not proposing the issue with Ukraine: after all, in Africa no one has actively pressed us yet, but in Ukraine everything has been going on for a long time?
What is the reason for this selectivity?
When you have an example of a real war in front of your eyes, and you “fantasize” for the sake of example, what will happen if somewhere in Africa, in some distant country that supplies us with two boxes of bananas, there is an “aggravation”? And you are trying to convince us all that we urgently need to invest for the sake of these bananas in an aircraft carrier.
And, of course, they are much more versatile than the specialized base scout.
At the same time, unlike the old Tu-95RTs and its hypothetical future analogues, the aircraft carrier is much less limited by geography - if necessary, it will make the transition even to Antarctica, and will work as aviation there, even for reconnaissance purposes, even for the purpose of destroying air, surface or ground targets. It will not work like that with an airplane: the banal refusal of Iran or Afghanistan and Pakistan to let scouts through their airspace - and that's it, in the Persian Gulf or the Indian Ocean we were left without aerial reconnaissance.
At the same time, unlike the old Tu-95RTs and its hypothetical future analogues, the aircraft carrier is much less limited by geography - if necessary, it will make the transition even to Antarctica, and will work as aviation there, even for reconnaissance purposes, even for the purpose of destroying air, surface or ground targets. It will not work like that with an airplane: the banal refusal of Iran or Afghanistan and Pakistan to let scouts through their airspace - and that's it, in the Persian Gulf or the Indian Ocean we were left without aerial reconnaissance.
Of course, against the background of problems with Ukraine for the Russian Federation, it is now intelligence in the Indian Ocean that is a priority.
And 14 km doesn't bother us at all? And the fact that AB will cover this distance in almost two weeks?
So, our strike group fires at targets 96 missiles and goes to the base for new ones at a speed of 20 knots. At that moment, when the missile ships fired off, the aircraft carrier begins to move to the line of the rise of aviation and appears on it after 10 hours.
It was in 10 hours that Kuznetsov sailed to Syria. As, in fact, the French Charles de Gaulle.
At the same time, since Timokhin initially prefers to operate in an extremely uncertain situation (who attacked whom and with what composition), it remains unclear - maybe in most scenarios nothing will be needed at all, except for 10 Caliber missiles and two Katran sorties?
But everything falls into place when we remember that Timokhin's task is not at all to draw up an objective picture of the world, but to “prove” the necessity of an aircraft carrier in a certain “theoretical abstract situation in a vacuum”. In this case, certainty with the scenario only distracts from the main thing. What if it doesn't work out? For example, the cost of maintaining helipads in Egypt and the cost of an aircraft carrier. Well, what if?
PS
Aviation of Russia, according to Timokhin, is like Winnie the Pooh's honey - a very strange subject. It seems to be there. But it doesn't seem to be there. And "there is nothing to bomb".
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