There is no more secrecy: submarines of the usual kind are doomed
The submarine, which found itself in the zone of operation of the Western anti-submarine forces, is almost guaranteed to be destroyed. Source: Raytheon
The main tactical property of submarines is stealth. However, in modern conditions, this can be provided for submarines only through the interaction and support of other forces (including ships and aviation). Independently submarines against a deployed modern anti-submarine warfare system are doomed.
There is a harmful superstition that allegedly submarines can become the backbone of the Navy, the most important means of warfare, and all other forces are purely auxiliary. The most extremist point of view says that it is enough to have a large submarine fleet and some coastal defense forces, consisting of corvettes and minesweepers, and supposedly this is enough for us.
De facto, it is this extremist theory that is being embodied in the real (actually implemented) plans of the Navy.
And, unfortunately, politicians and decision-makers, by the time they get "into power", already have a set of beliefs formed in our country largely by the unbridled PR of the underwater fleet.
Boats, alas, are not just ineffective. In modern conditions, they are practically helpless without strong surface forces and aviation. Moreover, they, apparently, will have to change a lot. Just so as not to disappear. To understand this, let's take a look at the evolution of anti-submarine warfare systems in the past years.
But first, it is worth remembering the time when submarines could really become the decisive means of victory in the war.
When submarines almost won the war: conclusions and consequences for the USSR Navy
The U-boats came close to being the decisive instrument of victory only once.
Such an episode was really in stories... In 1917, when the actions of German submarines on communications put England on the brink of starvation and military defeat. However, the “peak moment” of such a threat was localized, later overcome, and not so much by technical as by organizational measures (primarily by the introduction of a convoy system).
However, these temporary and partial successes of the German submarines were extolled by the so-called "young school" of the RKKF in the early 30s. (which was the reason for the massive construction of submarines), and without an objective consideration of the capabilities of anti-submarine forces (in fact, the times were such that it was simply dangerous to object, the "old school" of the RKKF was liquidated, including physically).
The next entry into the subject of mass construction of submarines was after the Great Patriotic War. But then it was part of a large shipbuilding program (including surface), the development and presence of a powerful naval aviation.
The meaning of the massive construction of submarines then was: yes, they could not interrupt the Atlantic communications, but to ensure the defeat of the very first (and critical for the United States and NATO) military convoys - quite. That is, our 613 and 611 projects were a kind of "anvil" for the "tank hammer" of the USSR. Given the huge lag at that moment in strategic weapons (and especially delivery vehicles), the decision was quite logical. At the same time, it must be emphasized that then there was no significant bias towards the construction of submarines (that is, what they received today) against the background of the general military budget (and the costs of the Navy in it).
In principle, the decisions on the development of the Navy, made by the highest military-political leadership of the USSR in 1955 in the Crimea, were generally logical (the possibility of building several light aircraft carriers was still being considered).
But then "the party policy began to exert a direct influence on the range of the hydroacoustic means."
The ideological cliché "aircraft carrier is a weapon of aggression" for many years blocked the creation of a balanced fleet in our country.
More details about this in the article by M. Klimov "Once again about the myths of post-war shipbuilding".
The same ideological clichés about the allegedly "absolute secrecy" of the PL, about "black holes", etc. still influence and determine our military-technical policy.
The already cited phrase (from an article by A.M. Vasiliev, Head of the Advanced Design Department of the Central Research Institute of Krylov), Deputy Chief of the USSR Navy, Admiral Novoselov, is worthy of repeated repetition:
... At the meeting, he did not give the floor to the head of the institute, who was eager to tell about experiments to detect the surfaced trace of a submarine using a radar ... Much later, at the end of 1989, he asked him why he dismissed this question. To this Fyodor Ivanovich replied: "I know about this effect, it is impossible to protect oneself from such detection, so why upset our submariners"?
And today the position of the “underwater lobby” resembles “an ostrich sticking its head in the sand” and does not want to see the capabilities of modern anti-submarine weapons (with simply colossal material costs for our submarine, moreover, at the expense of “crushing” other and really critical defense issues). Opportunities that de facto have already called into question submarines in their traditional appearance and models of use.
Acoustics: from noise direction finding to low-frequency illumination
Ships could detect submarines using the first sonars (with an operating frequency of tens of kHz) even before World War II. But this required finding the anti-submarine ship very close to the boat.
A certain breakthrough in the late 50s - early 60s was the "low-frequency sonars" with an operating frequency of the order of several kHz, the detection range of which, in favorable hydrological conditions, could reach several tens of kilometers.
In the case of nuclear submarines, secretly leaving their bases and moving on unpredictable courses to the combat service area, which also evade contact with surface ships, this was ineffective.
But in this case, passive noise direction finding in a low frequency range (up to infrasound) became a breakthrough - acoustic waves from a noisy submarine diverged over huge distances, especially when it turned out to be near the axis of the underwater sound channel.
The record range of detecting a nuclear submarine from its own noise by a bottom hydrophone exceeds 6000 kilometers. But an important point - here we are talking about our own unmasking acoustic signs of the PL-target, they were detected and passively.
For many years, the US Navy's anti-submarine warfare system was based on the SOSUS (SOund SUrveillance System).
Approximate coverage of the SOSUS system based on open data in the Western press. Points - underwater stations, a zone in a horizontal strip - coverage of base patrol aircraft with Orion aircraft, a zone in a vertical strip - theoretical limits of the detection range of a submarine system
I must say that the USSR Navy slightly "played along" with the Americans, without wanting to - not knowing about the capabilities of their detection systems, the command set the submarines leaving for combat service in the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean too high speeds during the transition, which, accordingly, generated very high level of discrete components of underwater noise (DS USS) of our submarines.
As a result, base patrol aircraft (BPA) were sent to the area where our submarine (tracked by SOSUS) was located, which clarified the contact or only then transferred the contact either to the American submarine or to the surface forces. In the waters adjacent to the USSR, not covered by the SOSUS detection zone, NATO and Japanese submarines (including the US Navy submarines) operated. And this is not episodic (as in the Soviet Navy). It was precisely a permanent system.
However, sometimes the surface forces worked themselves.
Below is an example from the combat service of the SSBN K-258 in the Pacific Ocean in 1985 - it can be seen that the American surface combat groups (NBG, translation of the American term Surface Action Group - SAG) went exactly to the "undetectable" boat and gave it a full heat ... Fragment:
Further easier ... Raised on a tip from the SOSUS BPA ZP USA (base patrol aircraft of the west coast of the USA) takes us for F ...?!
And we find out THIS at the most inopportune moment, when our "Yalda" (the head part of the lifting-mast device) of the ROS "Saiga" at KU = 40 deg. to the starting position ... We dive ... YALDA ... TATTED ... How the cover of the mine was closed ... even the mechanics did not understand !!!
Well, okay ... It was not so, on the second day we break away from the foe, diving under one transport, and then changing it to another oncoming one, paddling in the opposite direction.
We sighed deeply with cutoff air ... And we decided to float up, fill the VD air through PVP (air intake under water), and at the same time look around ... at the periscope, ... how did the assistant, my former one, go from the combat to the navigator's intercom same navigator cap. 3rd rank Alexander Sholokhov, asks a backfill question: "... Navigator, is it far from the coast?" ... I, without hesitation: "Miles 400 to Hawaii, well, 600 miles to the US ZP." Question number 2: "... And what does a VESSEL TOWED and REDUCED WITH MANEUVERABILITY do in the middle of the ocean?"
... So the 28-day struggle began, read "war", RPKSN k-258 with two KPUGs (8 NK) equipped with AN / BQQ-14 (-17) GAS to provide ship helicopters, UAVs and support vessels. This was the FIRST US Navy's use of the TAKTASS system at the Pacific Fleet in the course of the "operation to oust the USSR Navy RPKSN from their combat patrol areas."
And we find out THIS at the most inopportune moment, when our "Yalda" (the head part of the lifting-mast device) of the ROS "Saiga" at KU = 40 deg. to the starting position ... We dive ... YALDA ... TATTED ... How the cover of the mine was closed ... even the mechanics did not understand !!!
Well, okay ... It was not so, on the second day we break away from the foe, diving under one transport, and then changing it to another oncoming one, paddling in the opposite direction.
We sighed deeply with cutoff air ... And we decided to float up, fill the VD air through PVP (air intake under water), and at the same time look around ... at the periscope, ... how did the assistant, my former one, go from the combat to the navigator's intercom same navigator cap. 3rd rank Alexander Sholokhov, asks a backfill question: "... Navigator, is it far from the coast?" ... I, without hesitation: "Miles 400 to Hawaii, well, 600 miles to the US ZP." Question number 2: "... And what does a VESSEL TOWED and REDUCED WITH MANEUVERABILITY do in the middle of the ocean?"
... So the 28-day struggle began, read "war", RPKSN k-258 with two KPUGs (8 NK) equipped with AN / BQQ-14 (-17) GAS to provide ship helicopters, UAVs and support vessels. This was the FIRST US Navy's use of the TAKTASS system at the Pacific Fleet in the course of the "operation to oust the USSR Navy RPKSN from their combat patrol areas."
Rest here.
It can be seen that SOSUS had sufficient efficiency to target the target boat with a UAV. In the course of a real war, this would be the end. But it was a cold war. And as a result, the Americans gave the surface watermen to "frolic".
However, there were antidotes against those old systems. By the end of the 70s, the Americans were searching primarily for discrete components of the USB. The latter together formed the so-called "hydroacoustic portrait" (HAP) - a characteristic set of discrete frequencies characteristic of each particular boat. The GAP was unique and each boat had its own. This made it possible not only to determine the type (project) of the boat, but also to understand which of them specifically came under observation.
Accordingly, the solution was, firstly, to reduce the noise, moving in small optimal moves, and most importantly - masking in the near-surface layers. And secondly, to change the "portrait" of the boat before an important operation, having worked with mechanisms that give characteristic "discrete". As a result, the computer analyzing the spectrum of the acoustic background of the World Ocean did not extract characteristic sets of frequencies from it. And he could not notify about the presence of the boat, although there were technogenic "discretes" in the spectrum.
This, alas, was done by individual proactive commanders, not by the "system."
This is how K-492 Dudko in 1982 was able to covertly penetrate the Juan de Fuca Bay, near the Bangor naval base.
The persistent work of Soviet engineers led to the fact that the UPSh of submarines was significantly reduced. In the first half of the 80s, it became clear to the Americans that the days when it was possible to rely only on noise direction finding in detection were numbered. Soviet boats became quieter, the Soviet commanders' knowledge of the enemy's capabilities grew. There were, of course, failures of the Atrina type. But there were also operations, from which our future "partners" were thrown into a fever. Maybe someday they will tell us about them.
But one way or another, the United States needed to respond to future challenges, when the noise level of Soviet submarines would drop almost to the natural background of the ocean, and there would be no “discrete”.
The answer was the use of such a principle as low-frequency illumination in underwater lighting systems (here, the technical groundwork of the US Navy on multi-position, optimally distributed systems in the search area, for example, the GAS of a surface ship and the RGAB of a helicopter, became extremely useful).
1990 year. "The process has begun."
First, about the physics of the process.
As you know, the lower the frequency (the longer the wavelength), the further the signal propagates and the less it attenuates. In the case of active sonar, the factor of internal reflections from submarine structural elements begins to play an important role (which is especially acute for double-hull submarines typical of the Russian Navy).
An important point - noisiness is absolutely not important - a low-frequency wave will "illuminate" even an acoustically "dead" object.
What is actually required of a submarine hunter?
Immerse a low-frequency emitter in water, "give a wave", and then receive the waves reflected from different objects with your antenna. Taking into account the optimal low-frequency range, it is necessary to use GPBA, a flexible extended acoustic antenna, as the most effective antenna for such a scheme.
It was this method of detecting submarines that became the main one in the US Navy and in all countries allied to the Americans.
The use of special hydroacoustic reconnaissance vessels with very powerful emitters provides a range of "illumination" from the Norwegian Sea of almost the entire Barents Sea (with the reception of the reflected signal from the GAK PLA or RGAB aviation), and the USSR Navy first encountered this back in the mid-80s (SGAR with NCHI examined the head "barracuda" with Vice-Admiral Chernov, heading for a deep dive in the Norwegian Sea).
A single surface ship with a GPBA and a low-frequency emitter (of lower power), as well as a pair of anti-submarine helicopters, is capable of completely "illuminating" a strip many tens of kilometers wide. And if there is a boat in it, then it will be immediately detected at any noise level.
On the issue of the detection range and "illumination" of modern LF BUGAS
But this is its own GPBA. The "illuminated boat" gives a secondary wave IN ALL directions - and if there is some tactical unit on the side opposite to the hunter ship that can detect the reflected wave (submarine or helicopter), then the width of the strip in which any underwater target is detected, from tens of kilometers turns into hundreds. The worst part is that on the opposite side there might just be a buoy dropped from a patrol plane.
Shoot anti-ship missiles at the "illumination" source? What if it is just a dropped buoy or a helicopter?
A vivid example of the compactness of modern low-frequency OGAS and their ranges in favorable conditions (the scale of operation reaches 60 miles - 111 km!)
You can read about the details of this search method in the article Anti-submarine defense: ships against submarines. Hydroacoustics" In chapter “Fourth generation. Post-Cold War "... In it, the question is disclosed from a technical point of view, but ranges are important to us now.
In order to understand how much NATO members have progressed, it is worth giving an example. At the end of the 80s, the USSR was able to create GPBA applicable on warships. Using such an antenna, the Centaur hydroacoustic complex was created, which, as an experiment, was installed on the GS-31 experimental ship of the Northern Fleet. The results are described in the article Anti-submarine defense: ships against submarines. Hydroacoustics". We will only announce here that the detection range of quiet western submarines, including quiet diesel-electric Norwegian "Uly", was hundreds of kilometers.
But this complex did not have "illumination", just a good antenna and computational potential. The systems that any British frigate has today are significantly superior to those carried by the GS-31. And in terms of the presence of the emitter, and in terms of signal processing, and the antenna is better there.
An example of the work of a single ship is shown in the video. First, the British frigate lowers the GPBA into the water, by the way, at a very good speed. A drop-down low-frequency driver is then released with automatic depth control. With the help of this equipment, the ship "takes contact" - a submarine, judging by the radio exchange, with a helicopter taking off, 12 miles (22 kilometers) from the ship.
The GPBA definitely does not give a place and, apparently, the best anti-submarine helicopter in the world - "Merlin", is sent there. The crew decides to carry out additional search for the target with the help of its lowered GAS, also low frequency. Its illumination power is low, and the target boat does not try to dodge - it simply does not know that it is being "highlighted". And the helicopter pilots, having determined the elements of the target's movement (course, speed, depth) and having worked out the data for aiming, attack the boat with a torpedo (the "Merlin" can have up to four of them).
But most importantly, they know how to turn any of their tactical units into an element of a multi-positional system, each part of which works in conjunction with all the others.
The principle of its operation is shown in the figure.
This is all, however, part of the problem.
Non-acoustics: from magnetometers to radar detection
In addition to acoustic detection methods, non-acoustic ones are playing an increasingly important role. The main problem of submarines here is aviation. The following picture takes place with aviation.
Once upon a time, during the Battle of the Atlantic, the main means of searching for submarines by American and British patrol aircraft was radar - German boats, before the invention of the snorkel, were forced to move on the surface.
Nevertheless, the need to detect submerged boats also existed. And even during the Second World War, the first aircraft equipped with a magnetometer appeared in the US Navy - patrol airships. From these aircraft, magnetometers migrated to aircraft.
After the Second World War, when the Soviet diesel-electric submarines already had RPD devices (diesel engine operation under water), the magnetometer became one of the main tools of the American patrol aircraft. For a long time, patrol flying boats Martin P5M Marlin flew in search of Soviet submarines on their long 10-12 hour flights, literally weeding the ocean expanses with a magnetometer, the detection range of which in those years was calculated in hundreds of meters.
The Marlin could also detect radar devices with radar, but the range of such detection did not exceed 10 miles. And only having found the submarine with the help of a radar or magnetometer, the crew of the "Marlin" used radio acoustic buoys. A little later, explosive sound sources (VIZs) were added to the acoustic means, which "illuminated" the target boat with a shock (low-frequency) wave. This increased the detection range of the boat by the buoys. Diesel exhaust gas detectors were added to the non-acoustical means, which made it possible to detect diesel operation.
In the 70s, already onboard the Orions, the first infrared detection systems appeared.
The mid-seventies also marked a turning point in the development of radar-based non-acoustic detection systems. Both the USSR and the USA in the 70s finally came to the conclusion that it is technically possible to detect a submarine under water, based on the anomalies it forms on the water surface, using radar. For some time, the USSR was ahead of the United States, but then the enemy took the lead. The Americans consistently and purposefully mastered the radar search. Their first detection of a submarine in a submerged position by the SEASAT satellite from space was carried out back in 1978. And the aviation received serial complexes capable of working in this way in the early 90s, after the end of the Cold War.
Hunter and victim - "Orion" and Soviet submarine pr. 671RTM
It is strange, but in our country outside the circles of "narrow specialists" who, of course, know everything, some strange "unwillingness to believe in the inevitable" is still in progress. And this is not only despite the fact that the USSR itself massively and successfully carried out such experiments, but also despite the fact that today the "Chinese comrades" themselves are massively conducting such experiments and publish many open works on this topic.
A couple of illustrations. In both cases, the Chinese launched an ellipsoid under water and then watched what kind of waves it generates on the surface.
"Kelvin excitation" or, in our opinion, "ship waves" on the water surface from an ellipsoid moving at a depth of 20 meters, with velocities and Froude numbers a - 6 m / s and 0,19; b - 9 m / s and 0,29; s - 15 m / s and 0,48; d - 20 m / s and 0,64.
Source: Wake Features of Moving Submerged Bodies and Motion State Inversion of Submarines, FUDUO XUE, WEIQI JIN, SU QIU, AND JIE YANG
MOE Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Imaging Technology and System, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China, Corresponding author: Weiqi Jin ([email protected])
"Kelvin excitation" or, in our opinion, "ship waves" on the water surface from an ellipsoid moving at a constant speed of 12 m / s (Froude number - 0,38), at the following depths: a - 6 m, b - 10 m , s - 20 m and d - 30 m.
Source: Wake Features of Moving Submerged Bodies and Motion State Inversion of Submarines, FUDUO XUE, WEIQI JIN, SU QIU, AND JIE YANG
MOE Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Imaging Technology and System, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China, Corresponding author: Weiqi Jin ([email protected])
All of this is detected by the radar.
Not only that - here's a slightly earlier chart of ripple effects from Americans. The question arises - why did they study these effects? And then.
The fact that a submerged submarine generates waves on the surface has been known to the Americans since 1944, to us since the sixties. It would be naive to think that no one will take advantage of this effect to detect submarines. And they took advantage of it.
By the way, an example "from the other side." From the memoirs of Admiral John Woodward, commander of the British forces during the war for the Falklands:
“However, we had to solve an additional problem - the Bourdwood Bank problem. It is a large, fairly shallow ocean area that comes close to the edge of the South American continental shelf.
It stretches for more than two hundred miles from east to west, passing one hundred miles south of East Falkland, where it is about sixty miles wide from north to south. Further south, the Atlantic is more than two miles deep, but around the Falkland Islands and off the coast of the continent, the seabed rises to the continental shelf to a depth of about three hundred feet. On the bank, the ocean is about one hundred and fifty feet deep.
This shallow water is accurately mapped, but it can be deadly for a submerged submarine, which seeks to keep up with a cruiser cruising in shallow water at a speed of more than twenty-five knots. A submarine needs to sail at least two hundred feet to maintain this speed to avoid a clear trail of "moving fish" coming to the surface. At a depth of one hundred feet, where they had to cross the shallow water, they would leave a clear trail. "
It stretches for more than two hundred miles from east to west, passing one hundred miles south of East Falkland, where it is about sixty miles wide from north to south. Further south, the Atlantic is more than two miles deep, but around the Falkland Islands and off the coast of the continent, the seabed rises to the continental shelf to a depth of about three hundred feet. On the bank, the ocean is about one hundred and fifty feet deep.
This shallow water is accurately mapped, but it can be deadly for a submerged submarine, which seeks to keep up with a cruiser cruising in shallow water at a speed of more than twenty-five knots. A submarine needs to sail at least two hundred feet to maintain this speed to avoid a clear trail of "moving fish" coming to the surface. At a depth of one hundred feet, where they had to cross the shallow water, they would leave a clear trail. "
Yes, here we are talking about twenty-five nodes. Well, the wave on the surface at such a speed can be seen even with the eyes. The speed will be less, it will be visible only with the help of the radar. And it is not always possible to go to the depth. The British could not, we in our Arctic basically also have nowhere to go - the seas are shallow.
Now the approximate algorithm of the BPA operation is as follows. On "tip-off" from other types of reconnaissance (for example, bottom hydrophones, surface ships or satellite reconnaissance, or RTR detected a connection, etc.), the UUV receives a point where contact was detected or lost. Further, an assessment is made of how far and in which direction the target can go during the flight time of the patrol aircraft. Based on this, the search area is assigned. Then the plane takes off for the area.
And then everything is simple. Both Orion and Poseidon can detect characteristic surface anomalies using their radar at a distance of tens of kilometers from themselves in any direction. The search performance of the aircraft is very high. Then simply dropping a pair of buoys to clarify the classification and determine the elements of target movement (EDC - course, speed, depth) And from the very first turn, a torpedo is dropped on the target.
At the same time, the UAV, of course, can survey the designated areas without preliminary information about the submarines there.
Today, unmanned aerial vehicles with a long flight duration are powerfully included in the PLO system of the West. Their massive use allows for continuous coverage of truly gigantic areas in the oceans. The effect "boat in the sea, fly on glass" becomes global.
And this, of course, is not all.
Although the passive hydrophones of the old SOSUS system (later IUSS) were mostly mothballed, due to the decrease in the noise level of our submarines, the bottom systems not only did not disappear, but received a new development.
Underwater bottom lighting systems in our time
We are talking about rapidly deployable (from submarines and aircraft) systems. Their key problem in the past has been classification. At SOSUS, the task was carried out onshore, which required expensive high-tech cables from antennas to onshore centers.
An example of an autonomous deployable detector is our buoy MGS-407. However, targets were detected in the medium frequency range, and the classification was the most primitive - by exceeding the threshold level. Accordingly, the detection ranges of such buoys were very small.
The use of low frequencies (and the DS of the “target portrait”) led not only to a sharp increase in cost, but also to the need to download actually secret intelligence data, which, provided they were exposed in enemy waters, was a direct prerequisite for their disclosure to the enemy.
Switching from passive detection to "backlighting" has solved this problem. The minimum information is loaded into the "brain" of the floated buoy, which ensures only operation (synchronization) with the "illumination".
Thus, the enemy was able to deploy a fixed detection network near our bases. And, moreover, integrating them with mines deployed in the same place (for example - Hammerhead is not a Poseidon killer, he is a host killer).
These are the components of the theater anti-submarine warfare system, organized according to American standards. Whether we have a separate conflict with Japan or Turkey, the United States, even without participating in the war against us directly (as, most likely, it will), will provide any of our adversaries with all available information about the underwater situation in the theater of operations. And somewhere the boat will be "quietly" sunk, if then everything can be denied.
It is worth considering a real and recent example of how this works.
Search for the "disappeared" Russian diesel-electric submarine pr. 6363 in the Mediterranean in March 2021
In the third decade of March 2021, Russian media began to appear en masse news about the successful separation from tracking diesel-electric submarines of project 6363 in the Mediterranean Sea. Let's quote the publication "Lenta.Ru":
As the interlocutor of the agency said, the anti-submarine forces of the North Atlantic Alliance have been trying to find the Russian submarine for a week. However, as it became known, they still have not been able to do this, despite the "great opportunities" in the Mediterranean. “They used large forces to search for the Russian submarine, but to no avail. This means that in conditions of hostilities they are at gunpoint, which annoys them very much, ”the source explained.
Admiral Viktor Kravchenko, who served as Chief of the Main Staff of the Russian Navy in 1998-2005, explained the situation by the fact that the Varshavyanka submarines are among the quietest in the world. “Well, let them look. She just justifies her noiselessness ... These individuals operate secretly, ”he said.
Admiral Viktor Kravchenko, who served as Chief of the Main Staff of the Russian Navy in 1998-2005, explained the situation by the fact that the Varshavyanka submarines are among the quietest in the world. “Well, let them look. She just justifies her noiselessness ... These individuals operate secretly, ”he said.
Well, now let's return from the blissful hurray-patriotic messages into reality.
The figure below shows the departure track of the US Navy's anti-submarine Poseidon in search of this Varshavyanka. We do not pay attention to the inscription on top, the person who wrote it does not understand what he sees.
What is interesting for us in this case?
First, in all cases, the Poseidons, many hundreds of kilometers before our boat, already had an accurate bearing to it. That is, the Americans just knew where she was now. This could be for various reasons. For example, they were brought up for a search immediately after the loss of contact by other forces. Or after our boat swam up for communication, and it was discovered by someone (for example, RTR). Maybe the boat got into the range of some kind of bottom FOSS systems, or under low-frequency illumination from some of the ships: it doesn't matter whether it is American or Israeli. That is, in any case, the place where the boat is is known with some error in advance.
The most interesting thing further - in one of the drawings you can see that when approaching the place where the boat is located, the Poseidon simply made a turn in its direction. If this plane could only use acoustic means, then this would not have happened. The Americans, having arrived in the area where the submarine is located, could not have reached it so easily. They would have to work buoys, put up barriers, and only then figure out where the boat is real. The course that the plane would fly over the area where the submarine was located would be different. And then they just turned on her and that's it. How? Yes, they just saw the place under which it is.
The saddest thing is the circles that the Poseidons are describing over our Warsaw. This is not a search, no. This is a flight over a field of buoys placed above the boat, through which the Americans wrote off her "portrait", including its discrete components. Now, the detection range of this particular submarine by any NATO tactical unit that is simply technically capable of detecting submarines has increased significantly. Moreover, due to the full compatibility of all equipment and software of aircraft, ships and submarines, the data about the boat could immediately be uploaded to the computers of the surface ships of the United States and allies participating in the operation to find the boat, and a little later this information got into all the navies of the countries NATO.
Most likely, the aviation "kept contact" until it was possible to transfer it to their submarine or surface ships. This explains the loitering of successive planes.
Breakthrough attempt
For the final disclosure of the topic, we will show how difficult it will be for our submarine or a group of submarines to break through the anti-submarine warfare system deployed in the theater of operations, using the example of the Northern Fleet.
In reality, the NATO PLO line began from our bases back in the 80s. There is a well-known example of Norwegian submarines, still old "Cobbens", who carried out combat services by lying on the ground near our bases (where they could only be hit by naval minesweepers with high-frequency GAS and RBU, but even then - only from "pistol distances").
Next came the positions of the US Navy submarines, and SOSUS and BPA aircraft began in the Norwegian Sea.
Few? However, if we add "lighting", and the first fact of its use was recorded back in the mid-80s, then the low noise factor of the new nuclear submarines of the Navy is simply "zeroed out."
To this we add the capabilities of the enemy's anti-aircraft missile radar and the shallow depths of the Barents Sea, which make it extremely difficult for the covert deployment of our nuclear-powered submarines in the face of countering aircraft (and satellites) with special radars.
In such conditions, it would be difficult for a balanced fleet to ensure the deployment of its submarines, let alone unbalanced with a "roll" towards the submarine.
Imagine, however, a similar situation.
So, we have an underflot of OVR forces (minesweepers, small corvettes), larger corvettes capable of searching for submarines at a great distance from the coast, fighter aircraft are on duty at airfields to cover ships on request, there is also strike aircraft capable in theory strike at surface ships. But we do not have "floating targets" - aircraft carriers, attack missile ships of the far sea zone.
What will be the first outcome? The first result will be this: beyond the detection range of over-the-horizon radars, enemy surface forces will operate freely. This also applies to ships performing anti-submarine missions and protecting them from an air strike from missile ships. In this case, the enemy will be forced to fear only an air strike from the shore. But we will first need to find his ships, which do not enter the flight paths of our satellites, and the reconnaissance aircraft are immediately shot down. This is roughly what it will look like.
At the same time, minesweepers do not help, they are simply destroyed from the air by deck aircraft flying at low altitude, starting from an aircraft carrier east of the North Cape, somewhere in the fjords, where we cannot find it without our fleet (and hypothetical missile-carrying aircraft from the "ground" nowhere do not fly), nor, accordingly, destroy. As a result, the boats come under numerous blows several miles from the coast, and the enemy does not let go of them again.
Let's look at roughly the difference in conditions when “there is a heavy fleet.
Here our "heavy" forces are and operate. In the black circle - the zone of contested domination - there our frigates, BODs, cruisers and, in the correct version, aircraft carriers, together with anti-submarine and strike (assault or missile-carrying) aviation from the "ground" are conducting a counter battle with the enemy, providing a zone of domination in their rear and the ability for boats to turn around in theater.
Now the enemy cannot use hydroacoustic reconnaissance ships as freely as before. They will be searched for and destroyed. The enemy will not be able to conduct anti-submarine warfare on a systemic basis in the Barents Sea at all. In Norwegian - it can only by overcoming the opposition of the Navy. Of course, minesweepers with modern (including high-frequency) GAS and NSA, capable not only of detecting mines, but also enemy bottom hydrophones, would be very useful. Unfortunately, they do not exist today (including none in the Northern Fleet with the main group of NSNF). But the fact is that we need not only them and corvettes with basic aircraft.
Results
All of the above does not mean that submarines are outdated as a type of ship. But they will have to change (more on this in subsequent articles). Today, anti-submarine defense in the West has accomplished the same revolution as during the Battle of the Atlantic - if not more significant. But our submarines have not changed commensurately (having actually remained at the level of the end of the Cold War).
There is an opinion that the new submarine is "nonsense", because in the west they continue to build submarines. However, there is no modern PLO against them. (our PLO is pathetic, wretched and outdated a long time ago). The Chinese threat is still underestimated. And most importantly, their submarines have already begun to evolve into a "new submarine war": these are both low-noise and ultra-long-range torpedoes (because the designation of a missile launch against an ASW of a modern enemy zeroes out the submarine's secrecy), new means of communication that ensure the "inclusion of a submarine, air defense system into the network" ...
The Chinese project of a satellite with a powerful laser, capable of detecting from orbit violations of the "thin layer structure" of the vertical water column, caused by the movement of the submarine at a depth of 500 meters. One example of the Chinese approach to naval warfare in the XNUMXst century. The American helicopter analogue of this is the allegedly "anti-mine" complex RAMICS
We can no longer build submarines in accordance with traditional approaches and hope that they have a chance not even to complete the task, but simply to survive.
Unfortunately, the Russian Navy and the Ministry of Defense have embarked on a policy of deliberate denial of reality. - like an ostrich hiding its head in the sand, or a child covering his face with his palms and thinking that no one sees him either. After all, everything was clear even before the first bookmark of "Borea" or "Ash-M". Not wanting and not being able to change according to the requirements of the situation, the Navy preferred to pretend that he was "in the house."
But reality is ruthless. No submarine fleet simply can survive when faced with an integrated Western-style ASW. No wonder the former Commander-in-Chief Vysotsky said that without an aircraft carrier, all submarines of the Northern Fleet would be destroyed in 48 hours. I must say that he was still optimistic about things - "Kuznetsov" can only temporarily disperse the basic patrol aircraft over a small area. And nothing more. This, of course, is necessary and useful, but wars are not won in this way.
In fact, today, in order to deploy your submarine forces, you first need to destroy the enemy surface forces in the theater of operations and destroy his FOSS. But this is, in fact, a victory in the war. And so, one wonders, why then podlav?
It sounds funny, but today it is sometimes easier to hide "Nakhimov" than "Severodvinsk". The latter "lights up" the fact of his presence in the theater of operations even before the enemy detects him. "Nakhimov", on the other hand, must not fall under the satellite and be ready to deal with aerial reconnaissance, which is theoretically not difficult with his air defense system - how these things are done is shown in the article “Sea warfare for beginners. Putting the aircraft carrier on strike... Our ships may well act in a similar way, even though they are not aircraft carriers.
And "Ash" does not do that - to give thirty knots to slip through the observation strip of a satellite capable of detecting the same "Kelvin Wedge" on the surface, the submarine cannot without loss of stealth. It is also impossible to go to a depth where sounds spread over a huge range, and it is also impossible to hide from radar detection. After all, this is also a loss of secrecy in terms of "acoustics" And being in a couple of hundred kilometers from a detachment of enemy warships is like becoming a "fly on glass", and with any, even the lowest USS, even at the level of the natural background. Low-frequency illumination does not care about the noise level of the "illuminated object."
Change in the PL visibility over the years for the primary hydroacoustic field and the visibility for the secondary field (low-frequency illumination).
In such conditions, the ideas of some would-be theoreticians that it is possible to “bet on submarine”, that surface forces can be reduced to some coastal defense forces made of corvettes and minesweepers, and that combat missions to be solved by submarines are nonsense on the verge of crime, in which only two parties can be really interested: our enemies and local businessmen who are ready to make money even at the cost of damage to the country's defense capability. By the way, the American agents of influence on the Internet in the 2000s, it was for all-submarine navy for Russia that they actively, as they say, “drowned”, and, judging by the events taking place now, they were not unsuccessful.
And the idea that, in the words of one author, “only on submarines and you can go to the ocean without hindrance” is just a bad anecdote.
Submarines cannot be the backbone of a fleet. In the future, they will be a niche tool designed to solve specific problems in some specific conditions. And even for that, they will have to change in the same way that aviation changed after the massive proliferation of anti-aircraft missile systems.
And any ideas that with current submarines and without powerful surface forces and naval aviation it is possible to solve some problems in the ocean, in the conditions they are somewhere between nonsense and deliberate betrayal.
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