World War 2030s. What should we prepare for and what will be the role of the Navy
The American Ohio-class SSBNs are the only force capable of completely and guaranteed to destroy our country. We may have to face this challenge in the 30s
What will the upcoming war be like and will there be at all?
And do we need a fleet in it?
Without at least an approximately definite appearance of the conflict of the future, it is very difficult to build effective forces capable of victoriously resolving this conflict.
Of course, the range of threats for the near future for Russia is very wide. However, if you prepare for the worst options, then conflicts of less complexity and intensity will be much easier to handle.
What will be the next big war we need to be prepared for?
The answer is that it will be naval and nuclear. Everything in the world goes exactly to this.
Growing threat
The growing military tension is clearly felt in the world. The United States is ready to extend its technologies for building nuclear submarines to third countries, to Australia.
In Japan, the creation of nuclear submarines has been discussed for a long time, and this topic rises again, and fighters, albeit American ones, have already flown from the first Japanese post-war aircraft carrier.
South Korea experienced submarine-launched ballistic missile and is going to massively arm themselves with such means. Why - you can see, for example, here.
And so it is all over the world.
Americans facing a crisis in naval shipbuilding are struggling to figure out how to get out of it. Not working yet. And in the end, they cannot build ships at the desired pace, and their situation with repairs is somewhat similar to ours. But they have a reserve. The rise to power of the Democrats led to a rollback of Trump's gains in the economy, which is sinking again. And this will give rise to unemployment. And the crowds of still more or less trained workers from the former "rusty belt", being organized in the coastal areas, will be able to breathe new life into American shipyards.
You just need to organize all this.
Why do Americans need all this?
War is on the doorstep. And the reason is the same as the previous times: too many insoluble contradictions have accumulated in the world. They can only be resolved by force.
The main contradiction is obvious - the United States can no longer unconditionally rule the world, but strongly wants to preserve this opportunity. Other countries are ready to resist, if necessary, then by force. Nobody wants to retreat. This contradiction is irreparable.
Or rather, not so. This contradiction can only be resolved with the help of a world war, which will destroy all independent decision-making centers and leave only the United States at the top of the pile of debris of human civilization, in its current version.
Americans have a lot of incentives just for such a brutal solution to their problems.
A simple example - China is actively trading with African countries in its currency. This undermines the turnover of dollars in the world, and with it the dollar "recycling", which is hardly understood by the domestic man in the street, which is one of the foundations of American power.
Will Americans accept this?
After all, it is thanks to this fraudulent trick that they maintain a negative trade balance with the rest of the world for decades, today it is about a trillion dollars a year.
Not bad, isn't it?
And this directly gives rise to the same "American way of life" with a level of well-being that was once unthinkable for non-Americans. It is as if a certain person would receive 40% of the money spent on leaving the store for their entire life. They don't just refuse such bonuses.
But the Chinese "break off" these bonuses to the Americans, as well as Russia with its stupid and clumsy, but still ongoing de-dollarization. And this affects Americans today, and will affect even more.
Another example is the finite nature of the earth's resources, suitable for relatively cheap development.
Before that, the Americans simply blew up those regions from the inside that could become not exporters of energy and resources, but their consumers, preserving the situation of oil rigs there, surrounded by machine guns, and literally naked locals who cannot claim this energy. As a result, neither Libya nor Iraq will ever turn into something like an industrial Iran. Anyone can name the countries that were simply destroyed by the United States, as well as the following candidates for "resource optimization".
But this is not enough, the consumption of other countries needs to be cut.
Besides, there are also irrational motives.
In articles “Russia and the hostile environment. We understand the problem " и “Russia and the hostile environment. The direction of the main blow " the author showed how monstrous and perverse is the attitude of Americans towards the existence of strong and independent cultures.
This factor should not be underestimated - there are always real people behind political decisions, who sometimes simply cannot think rationally. For many in the American establishment, the existence of strong and independent "others" is a pain that we cannot even imagine, but it drives them.
So the Americans' fear of China's rise and their dislike for a Russia unwilling to submit to them are also significant factors in world politics.
The cherry on top is the dubious status of the United States as a serious nuclear power after the 30s. Readers in English should definitely read the report of the US Government accountability office (GAO) on the state of the US nuclear arsenal and its prospects. The report is called “Nuclear triad. The US Department of Defense and the US Department of Energy are facing challenges in mitigating the risks to US [nuclear] containment efforts. "
The conclusions are simply devastating - the United States is practically on the verge of losing its nuclear status. A number of technologies and industries required for the production of new nuclear weapons have simply been lost. For some time, the Department of Energy will be able to maintain the current level of equipment of the US Armed Forces with nuclear weapons, but miracles do not happen. They have five or six years to start correcting the situation before it's too late.
A short commentary in Russian is available here... The report itself in English - here.
As a result, in the near future, the United States will face different elections such as "lose the status of a nuclear (economic) superpower or the whole world to dust." They will simply have to choose - either to strike or to withdraw from the position of the world hegemon, at the same time facing hundreds of millions of people in dozens of countries eager to take revenge on the Americans.
All these "forks" will be in front of the Americans somewhere in the early thirties, if they do not strike, then they will merge "in a prior art", as it is no longer a nuclear power. Worse than the USSR in the 90s.
And what will they choose?
Self-rejection and economic collapse?
Or maybe "the whole world is in dust" after all?
And is it not for this that they are driving both us and the Chinese into one military bloc?
So that later it would be possible to strike at both countries as one hostile force?
Is it not within the framework of ensuring this all this wild intensity of anti-Russian and anti-Chinese propaganda in the Western media, which cannot be called anything other than "pre-war"?
All this also does not take into account the fact that it is much better to overcome the split existing in the United States by having a common enemy, and at the same time “writing off” a part of the “unproductive” population.
The Americans, as you can clearly see, understand everything about the timing. The same construction of eight nuclear submarines for Australia is scheduled for 2036. This is somewhere near the deadline when they need to start... The expiration dates of the American nuclear arsenal also go somewhere in 2035-2036.
And the most important thing is the carriers.
"Ohio" is already not in the best condition, the series is already being written off, the terms of repairs are at least much higher than the normative ones, and the prospects for the new Columbia are more than vague.
Everything hits this point, in the early thirties they will have a situation "now or never."
And no behind-the-scenes negotiations of American generals with the enemy, such as, for example, negotiations between the chairman of the OKNSH General Mark Milli and the Chinese, should not deceive anyone - there just not everyone understood what was at stake, and of those who understood, many know that until America is ready. Then they will have to admit that she will not be ready, and they have to hit like that, unprepared.
Fleeing from Afghanistan is also not an example - the USSR was pressed to death in the 80s exactly after the American flight from Saigon. As it has been written more than once, Americans are almost impossible to demoralize.
The world war has ceased to be something unreal. Of course, anything can happen, but so far everything is going exactly in this direction. Maybe, of course, they will choose to merge, like the USSR. But planning will have to start from bad options.
American Dream, latest version.
And here everything is very bad for us.
Geopolitical triangle
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the main content of European politics was the confrontation between Napoleonic France and its overseas enemy - Great Britain.
Unable to defeat Great Britain, Napoleon decided to knock out from under her a support weaker than her - Russia, which had emerged from the Continental blockade. Napoleon made a mistake in his calculations, but he hit the "support". The result was the devastated European part of Russia and the burned down Moscow, and this is not counting the combat losses, which were considerable for the beginning of the nineteenth century.
Before that, Napoleon tried to act diplomatically, but did not achieve anything and relied on strength.
In the late thirties of the next, twentieth century, the main issue in Europe was the rise of Germany. After a successful blitzkrieg against France and the allies, the Germans were faced with the question - what to do? Due to a number of factors, both Hitler's specific view of the world and the work of the British special services, Hitler became convinced that Great Britain's stubbornness was connected with the hopes that the Bolshevik USSR would enter the war, which Hitler began to regard as a support for the British.
The situation is similar today.
There is a rising China. There is the United States that wants to prevent its rise. And there is a support (from the point of view of the Americans, of course) - with a corrupt state administration controlled by the fifth column in power, an openly brainless state apparatus and near-zero economic development rates - Russia.
If it were not for nuclear weapons, then the Russian Federation with its small population and vulnerable geographic location would have long been dismembered into several protectorates, which would also be at war with each other. But nuclear weapons made it, no, not impossible, but simply very difficult and dangerous. But you can take a chance and try.
Nuclear option
If you try to "play" for the Americans, then the most profitable strategy of confrontation with China is as follows - you need to knock out a weak support, Russia, and then just dictate an ultimatum to China. Destroying China completely is undesirable, it is an important trading partner of America. He must be put on his knees. Russia is not an important partner; you can do anything with it.
But strategic Russian nuclear weapons need to be neutralized.
Unlike the Americans themselves, neither the USSR nor Russia could make a long-range Aviation - you can read about how the Americans did it in the article Bombers and Nuclear Retaliation... Our planes, on the other hand, require hours to prepare for a flight, to maintain such combat readiness as the Americans do, we do not know how and basically just do not believe that such a thing can be in principle.
The Strategic Missile Forces and the strategic submarines of the Navy remain. About the second - later, but for now we will deal with the Strategic Missile Forces.
There is still an opinion that the presence of a missile attack warning system (EWS) and working communication systems makes it impossible to deliver a successful disarming nuclear strike against Russia. At first glance, this is true - spacecraft of the Tundra system and radar stations as part of the early warning system provide early warning of a missile attack from the United States.
However, this is true only for some "standard model" of conflict. And she doesn't have to be like that in reality.
Obsessed (the only suitable word here) by our land and continentality, the citizens and the military do not want (the only suitable word here) to see that there is a way to launch a missile strike not from the territory of the United States. The Americans have nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) of the Ohio class. And the first blow is quite possible with them. The options for such a strike can be calculated in different ways, but in any case, it is hundreds of warheads almost simultaneously.
"Trident". If we continue to do stupid things, then, with some probability, our death will look like. Photo: US Navy
Why do this specifically from submarines?
The answer is extremely simple. A ballistic missile can fly not only on a ballistic, but also on a so-called flat trajectory, low. In this case, its flight the entire route is provided by the thrust of the engines and the lifting force on the hull.
The technical aspects of such a strike are very well understood in the work of American scientists Lisbeth Grönlund and David Wright. "Flat Trajectory Sea-Based Ballistic Missiles: Technical Assessment and Control Capabilities"... Unfortunately, you can still find points of view about the impossibility of such a blow. This work reveals the question well.
The advantage of such a launch is speed - the rocket needs to fly a much shorter distance along the combat path than when flying along a ballistic trajectory. When striking from the Mediterranean Sea, from the region of the Ionian Islands and Crete by the 60th missile division of the Strategic Missile Forces in the Saratov region and the long-range aviation airbase in Engels nearby, the missile's flight time from the moment of launch will be no more than 8,5 minutes or less. A ballistic missile at its speed just travels a short distance very quickly.
Without disclosing any numbers, let's say nevertheless that this is significantly less than what is needed to make a decision and pass a command to a retaliatory strike through the combat control networks.
And a similar picture arises when attacking the rest of the divisions of the 27th Guards Missile Army in the European part of Russia and the 31st Missile Army. There the flight time can be increased to 7–8 minutes. And this is too fast.
When delivering a series of tactical nuclear strikes with the help of future American MRBMs or hypersonic missiles of the Air Force with a nuclear warhead in Moscow, it is also realistic to completely disrupt the control of all the RF Armed Forces for a period of tens of minutes.
Explanations: 1 - an approximate area from which a nuclear missile strike is delivered from the northwest direction. 2 - an approximate area from which the strike is delivered from the southwest direction. The boundaries are conditional, within the limits of ensuring the required impact time, they can shift. Targets: 3rd - 42nd Tagil Missile Division of the 31st Missile Army, 4th - 8th Melitopol Red Banner Missile Division of the 31st Missile Army, 5th - 14th Kiev-Zhitomir Missile Division of the Order of Kutuzov, 27th Guards Vitebsk Red Banner Army , 6 - 7th Guards Missile Rezhitskaya Red Banner Division of the 27th Guards Vitebsk Red Banner Army, 7th - 60th Taman Missile Order of the October Revolution, Red Banner Division of the 27th Guards Vitebsk Red Banner Army and long-range aviation base in Engels, 8 54th Guards Missile Order of Kutuzov Division of the 27th Guards Vitebsk Red Banner Army, 9th - 13th Orenburg Red Banner Missile Division of the 31st Missile Army, 10 - command posts and communication centers in Moscow and the Moscow region and the 28th Guards Red Banner Missile Division 27th Guards Vitebsk Red Banner Army.
And this is already enough not only for a strike by Pacific submarines of the US Navy on the 33rd Missile Army in Siberia, but also for the inclusion of the surviving Minutemans in the attack, if at least one of them can still take off by that time (with which there will be obvious problems and what is an incentive for Americans to resolve the issue with competitors radically).
However, there are chances that the issue of replacing the "Minutemans" will still get off the ground, and then everything will be even worse.
Thus, the destruction of most of the Strategic Missile Forces before the units and formations receive a launch command is quite real, albeit difficult. The same applies to the entire composition of long-range aviation.
At the same time, the surviving crews of mobile missile systems will not be able to fire immediately - if the control is disorganized, the launch order with the corresponding commands (sign of a flight task, sign of unlocking, etc.) for missiles may not be transmitted. For some time they will be hunted from the air by American B-2 bombers or, possibly, B-21 bombers with nuclear bombs, which there will be no one to stop in the electromagnetic chaos of a thermonuclear war.
But even with the regular development of the Perimeter system and the rapid transfer of all commands to the surviving launchers, the retaliatory strike will turn out to be very weak, a few dozen warheads, abandoned haphazardly on US territory, partly in cities, partly in military bases. These losses will not stop the American war machine.
Will the nuclear charges on the Tridents still be alive by that time?
And the Tridents themselves?
Will they not rot just like the Minutemans (not now, but by the 30s, of course)?
No.
It is the Tridents that are the most reliable component of the American strategic nuclear triad; these missiles have relatively recently been undergoing work to extend their service life, and they also receive modernized and renewed nuclear charges. The Americans have just announced the number of their nuclear weapons - 3.
If this is true, then the question arises - what carriers were these warheads on?
And can you quickly return them to them?
It is very possible that some of these charges are intended for the Tridents.
Also, it is impossible to exclude the massive use of Tomahawk cruise missiles in the nuclear version. They use the same W80 warhead, which is placed on nuclear bombs, the Americans will find a certain number of charges, especially since among these 3 units are clearly not only strategic ones.
What else will be critical for the United States, besides the covert deployment of its SSBNs and, possibly, SSBNs of the Royal British Navy?
It will be critical to "shoot" our strategic submarines - SSBNs. Much has already been written about how this is possible, so for now, let's just dwell on the fact that the Americans can do this, if necessary.
You should not, of course, think that such an operation can be performed playfully, no. And a lot of things can fail, and go wrong, and instead of losses in the range from zero to a couple of million civilians, the United States can lose twenty, but the problem is that this option is technically possible for them, and for the "elites" it is also ethically acceptable , and closer to the thirties, it will become politically desirable.
The decisions they will make there may be unpredictable, which means that we must take this risk into account.
Let's see what the actions of the Americans can be after a successful attack.
Success development
With a successful disarming strike, the Americans will face the following situation.
Russia has lost the ability to attack US territory. It is useless to attack NATO countries, since this will not stop the American attack, but it will involve other countries, at least formally neutral for the time being.
The Russian Strategic Missile Forces, SSBNs, the bulk of tactical nuclear weapons and most of the leadership have been destroyed.
The economy has been thrown back decades, but it must be admitted that the losses of the population of the Russian Federation in such a blow will not exceed even a third. Many cities will remain unaffected by the war at all, and along with them, tens of millions of people who will learn about this horror from the means of alerting the Ministry of Emergency Situations.
Theoretically, Russia as such will remain, and psychologically one-time high losses do not lead to a breakdown of the will to fight. It will be necessary to somehow build on the achieved success, preventing us from coming up with any tricks with the remaining tactical nuclear weapons.
History tells us what methods the Americans will use.
During the Second World War, trying to break the will of the Germans and Japanese to resist, at a certain moment they began to destroy the cities. The most striking examples of such strikes are the bombing of Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and if we take into account the British, then, of course, Dresden. The latter, by the way, was bombed in many respects so that the advancing Red Army did not receive a surprise on the left flank, so we must reproach the allies for this, but the principle is worth noticing.
After that, strikes against the civilian population became the hallmark of the Americans. They did not resort to them as long as it was possible to do without it, but if this was not possible, then they did not hesitate to resort to this practice.
You can recall the carpet bombing of North Vietnam, which destroyed all life on 26% of the country's territory, as well as Agent Orange ...
By the way, if in Vietnam it was used to destroy vegetation in which partisans were hiding, then in Laos it was used to destroy rice fields and deprive the population of food. According to American strategists, this deprived the Pathet Lao front of its mobilization resource, since the population was forced to leave the war zones under the threat of starvation. And this, by the way, is already the 70th.
They, in the end, always begin to destroy the "peace" directly.
But in the course of the coming world war, the scale will be completely different.
What can be used for the same actions against Russia?
Of course, the United States will have bombers, but it must be admitted that there will not be many of them. B-1 will be written off completely by that time. The B-52 will still be in service, as will cruise missiles for them, but, perhaps, in a smaller number than today, they will be over 70 years old by this time.
B-2 and B-21 will be busy with the defeat of important military targets with not precisely known coordinates, and this will be an uncontested means, they will have already suffered losses by that time, and, apparently, they will not risk them for the sake of cities, at least they will try not to risk. In addition, there are doubts that the degrading American military-industrial complex will produce a sufficient number of "Raiders" by the required date. But this, in fact, does not matter.
The Americans can use aviation, but they are not the only tool.
The second tool for a truly devastating, genocidal strike will be the same SSBNs that went to the base for missiles.
Theoretically, this could be tactical aviation from neighboring countries, but it is unlikely - they would be better off staying out of the war until the final clean-up of already completely defeated Russia begins, when the risk of a tactical nuclear strike on their territories becomes minimal.
That is, the United States will cope here without allies.
But at sea, where, far from our shores, it will be necessary to deploy anti-submarine lines and naval search and strike groups in order to suppress the actions of our submarine, the allies will quite help - but quietly, without attracting attention.
Subtotals
Let's draw brief conclusions from all of the above.
First. By the mid-thirties or earlier, the United States will have to choose between destroying its rivals in a world war or de facto self-destruction as the world hegemon.
Second. The cultural characteristics and mentality of Americans makes the choice of the extermination option possible.
The third. The most rational and beneficial for the United States would be a military defeat of the Russian Federation, followed by forcing the PRC to surrender on relatively benign terms.
Fourth. For such a defeat, it is critically important to destroy the Russian strategic nuclear forces, and the United States still has the technical ability to do this with the Strategic Missile Forces and long-range aviation, and will have it for some time.
The main striking force of the United States in such an operation, without which it is, in principle, impossible, will be the fleet.
Thus, a world nuclear war will be naval. No chains of enemy infantry among native aspens, no tank columns near Volokolamsk. If only later, when everything has already been decided - in the sea, in the air and in space.
Options to survive
Living people are fighting, and they make decisions based on their personal attitudes. We do not know to what extent Americans will be deterred by the risk of losses in retaliation.
Approximate estimates of the consequences of various strikes against the United States are in the article “Nuclear illusion. It will not work to "glaze" the enemy ", and it is clear that we cannot completely destroy the United States - there will not be enough charges. But we will inflict huge losses.
What if fear of these losses remains a significant deterrent for the American leadership?
Then, in conditions when all our defense systems are bypassed with a nuclear missile strike from a short distance, it is necessary to ensure the absolute inevitability of a retaliatory strike.
This is the task fleetincluding underwater.
It is SSBNs, whether their combat stability is ensured, and their numbers are sufficient for a powerful strike, and can become such an instrument of inevitable retaliation. But for this, the boats themselves, the forces that ensure their deployment, and the training of personnel must correspond to the complexity of the task.
What if fear of loss is not a deterrent?
Then the only way would be to disrupt the blow inflicted by the enemy. And this is also the task of the fleet.
Once again, the future world war, if it does come to it, will be predominantly naval, and not some other. And it's not for nothing that all developed countries are investing in fleets.
Looking into the abyss
And here it is time for us to look into the future and answer the question: "What kind of fleet will we have in 2030"?
It is clear that we are not ready and are not preparing.
But, firstly, it is of interest that exactly how unprepared we are - and there is something to see.
And secondly, it would be unfair to criticize the current state of affairs without proposing any urgent measures to remedy the situation here and now.
This will be done in the next few articles. We will see what kind of fleet we will have in 2030, if we do everything as it is done, and what kind of fleet we can have in 2030, if we do it a little differently.
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