About "Rooks", "Marlins" and old minesweepers
Another outrageous military news was published January 14, 2022 in the Izvestia newspaper.
The Ministry of Defense decided to arm the Navy minesweepers with Marlin-350 submersibles. It was decided to rearm the minesweepers after the successful campaign of the ships of the Baltic fleet last summer in the Gulf of Finland, during which large-scale demining work was carried out ... minesweepers of the Baltic Fleet "Alexander Obukhov" of project 12700 code "Alexandrite" and "Leonid Sobolev" of project 1265 code "Yakhont" with the help of "Marlin-350" found and destroyed by blasting about 20 anchor and bottom magnetic mines ... not far from the island of Gogland.
As will be shown below, in reality everything was "... and not in preference ... and did not win, but lost." However, to reinforce any news (especially those that are not related to reality), there are “famous experts” in our popular mass media:
“The Russian Navy has several minesweepers still of Soviet construction, but they are already outdated,” military expert Dmitry Boltenkov explained to Izvestia. - The appearance of the Marlins will significantly expand the capabilities of these ships ... Unfortunately, the rate of arrival of new ships is insufficient. The minesweepers of the Alexandrite project should replace the veterans ... To search for and destroy mines, there is a Diamond system on board - these are two ... unmanned boats with special underwater robots, outwardly resembling torpedoes. Thanks to the plastic case and low-noise engine, mines do not react to these devices, which allows them to calmly comb sea areas. Boats detect mines using sonar systems and magnetometers. After that, underwater robots are lowered into the water from them or from the side of the minesweepers, which destroy the deadly "gifts". Submersible vehicles of the Alexandrite-ISPUM system help to search for objects at great depths.
I am glad that the “well-known expert” nevertheless noticed the insufficient pace of construction of new anti-mine ships, despite the fact that everything else in this “expert opinion” is nothing more than a product of a wild imagination, aggravated by a special predilection for an organization that received for imported (and fact incompetent) the DIAMAND complex is very generous budget funding, for more details - "Fake shine" of "glass" DIAMANDa.
The main thing is that until now the minesweepers of old projects, which have not received any modernization, and in fact are not combat-ready, are still the basis of the anti-mine forces of the Navy. For example, the largest Northern Fleet has only old minesweepers of Soviet designs, the second largest fleet, the Pacific Fleet, today has only “one” new “Alexandrite”, everything else is non-operational junk ...
Returning to the demining work at Gogland, given the number of mines located there, their results demonstrated precisely the poverty and weakness of the Baltic Fleet's mine action forces, and the real work on the destruction of mines was carried out exclusively by the STA apparatus of the ISPUM complex (for "diamand" apparatuses could only solve civilian survey tasks) . Officials of the Ministry of Defense about it:
30.09.2021 (05: 15)
The minesweepers of the Baltic Fleet "Alexander Obukhov" and "Leonid Sobolev" neutralized about 20 mines from the times of the Great Patriotic War in the waters of the Gulf of Finland. Since August 10, 2021, the crews of the base minesweepers of the Baltic Fleet have been performing tasks to eliminate the residual mine threat in one of the areas of the Gulf of Finland.
The crews of the ships, using standard equipment, discovered about 20 galvanic-impact anchor and bottom magnetic mines of the Great Patriotic War, which were subsequently destroyed by detonation right on the spot.
Most of the dangerous finds were discovered and destroyed with the help of modern equipment, which is in service with the base minesweeper "Alexander Obukhov" - the Alexandrite hydroacoustic station, the Sea Scan remote-controlled apparatus and one of the self-propelled remote-controlled vehicles located on the ship.
“For the third year in a row, we have been eliminating the residual mine threat,” said the commander of the minesweeper Alexander Obukhov, Captain 3rd Rank Sergey Pozhidaev. “We lower the apparatus on which the bomb is attached, approach the mine, plant this bomb, then retreat to a safe distance and the mine is detonated,” he added.
The minesweepers of the Baltic Fleet "Alexander Obukhov" and "Leonid Sobolev" neutralized about 20 mines from the times of the Great Patriotic War in the waters of the Gulf of Finland. Since August 10, 2021, the crews of the base minesweepers of the Baltic Fleet have been performing tasks to eliminate the residual mine threat in one of the areas of the Gulf of Finland.
The crews of the ships, using standard equipment, discovered about 20 galvanic-impact anchor and bottom magnetic mines of the Great Patriotic War, which were subsequently destroyed by detonation right on the spot.
Most of the dangerous finds were discovered and destroyed with the help of modern equipment, which is in service with the base minesweeper "Alexander Obukhov" - the Alexandrite hydroacoustic station, the Sea Scan remote-controlled apparatus and one of the self-propelled remote-controlled vehicles located on the ship.
“For the third year in a row, we have been eliminating the residual mine threat,” said the commander of the minesweeper Alexander Obukhov, Captain 3rd Rank Sergey Pozhidaev. “We lower the apparatus on which the bomb is attached, approach the mine, plant this bomb, then retreat to a safe distance and the mine is detonated,” he added.
Video of the work itself:
It is obvious that this information was, let's say, habitually and usually "creatively interpreted" (although other, much cruder, but precise expressions are asked here) by Izvestia. What can you do, such are their "standards of journalism" (in quotation marks). More about the new "alexandrites" and their problems - “What is “wrong” with the “newest” PMK project 12700”?
At the same time, simply "enchanting news" about the second participant in the work at Gogland - the base minesweeper (BTSH) "Leonid Sobolev", was brought by the officialdom of the Ministry of Defense "Red Star" - "Movement towards a high goal" (28.02.2020/XNUMX/XNUMX):
To get the right to go to sea, the crew of any ship must pass the course task K-1 ... For each of us, these were difficult weeks, - recalls the commander of the Leonid Sobolev, Captain 3rd Rank Denis Senkevich ... Due to the lack of due experience at combat posts and as part of the calculations, the emphasis was placed on the practical component of training - as far as, of course, this is possible when the ship is moored at the quay wall. When working out the actions of the ship's combat crew, for example, the hydroacoustic mine detection station was lowered into the water only conditionally ... The crew passed the course task K-1 successfully. Soon, the ship went to sea for the first time after a factory repair. A week spent away from the coast contained a lot: setting, selecting trawls and adjusting their elements, searching for training mines with various types of trawls, detonating a floating mine, artillery firing at sea and air targets ... the second course task is sailing and combat by a single ship - The Leonid Sobolev MTS closed with a rating of "good" ... says the commander of the ship, Captain 3rd Rank Denis Senkevich, - there will be even more tasks, and we are ready to complete them. We will compete for the title of the best ship in mine defense - in order to move forward, you need to set high goals for yourself.
What is being discussed in the text is, in fact, minesweeping junk from the Second World War, hydroacoustics in the "out", about the searchers and anti-mine vehicles that originally had the BTSC of this project during the Soviet era, the "valiant Navy" safely forgot ( although the word here is much rougher). But there is a “good” rating (for the actual inability to solve tasks as intended), and, moreover, despite all the “mine countermeasures”, claims are publicly claimed for the status of the “best anti-mine ship” of the Baltic Fleet ...
Now about "Marlins"
"Marlin-350" is a pretty good survey remote-controlled underwater vehicle (ROV), developed by "Tetis-Pro" for import substitution of one of the world's most popular light survey ROV Saab Seaeye Falcon ROV, which was part of the "Tetisovsky" (actually "designer" from imported components) of the search and survey complex (POK) "Kalmar" of anti-sabotage boats (PDRKA) of the Grachenok project.
For survey tasks, the Marlin turned out to be quite good, significantly surpassing the Falcon.
ROV "Marlin-350"
The problem, however, was that the previous leadership of Tethys-Pro, the Kalmar POK and the Marlin-350 ROVs, were declared, among other things, to solve mine action tasks, for which, in their current form, they were not only not adapted, but there was also an extremely high probability of undermining their carriers on mines.
At one of the events of the Army-2017 forum, in the Tethys-Pro presentation, the possibility of equipping promising raid minesweepers (RTShch) of project 10750E POK Kalmar was announced (which was really actively lobbied at that time).
The discussion that followed at the event was (primarily on the part of the author) extremely tough, and the reason for this was that in the past (the emphasis on imports cost the company dearly in recent years and led to a change in leadership), the management of Tethys was well aware that in this variant, RTS have an extremely high probability of self-detonation on mines - that is, their crews were deliberately sent to slaughter by lobbyists.
And this was well recognized because a year before all these issues were discussed in detail with the past bosses of Tethys with the involvement of specialized specialists.
Below are pages from the notebook of the author of this very discussion.
The main thing is that due to the deliberately limited radius of the working zone (rOZ), the Marlin-350 ROV does not provide the necessary “safety delta” of the carrier from the danger zone of the mine.
To achieve the radius of the working area necessary for mine action tasks, for light ROVs, an especially thin information communication cable is used, while the ROV receives power from its own battery.
One of the most common examples of such ROV is SeaFox, more "SeaFox: Killer Little Sea Fox".
In contrast, both Falcon and Marlin-350 are powered by a fairly thick cable, which begins to “sail” during the course, sharply limiting the radius of the working area.
The only solution for mine defense tasks for such ROVs is the use of an intermediate unmanned boat (BEC) of the carrier, which was implemented for the Falcon ROVs in France.
BEC C-Sweep / Halcyon, tested with Saab Seaeye Falcon ROV with Ballista mine neutralization system, 2013
Test video:
But what about the old minesweepers?
This was discussed in detail in a 2019 article. “What is wrong with our minesweepers?” Not much has changed since 2019...
The most massive in the Navy BTShch of project 1265, in the foreground - the BTShch with the now lost Luch-1 ROVs of the KIU-2 complex (1973)
Planned for modernization and successfully tested, the container "Maevka" (the only domestic container anti-mine complex) was struck out of the State Defense Order and actually destroyed.
To confirm the above, below are photos of two Mayevkas (with niello - container) and the Livadia apparatus, photos of testing the container complex on the Valentin Pikul sea minesweeper and screenshots from the documentation of the complex (from the public procurement website), confirming the existence, incl. container modification and the presence of the letter "O1" in it.
Moreover, the export of Mayevok was absolutely deliberately blocked, despite the presence of requests for its supply.
If you look at the old Rosoboronexport catalogs, then a number of minesweeper export projects are armed with the Mayevka, but she herself has never been presented at exhibitions (because the signing of her advertising and export passport was intentionally and deliberately blocked). The demonstration of Mayevka in 2009 at a closed exhibition ended in scandal and unfunny showdowns on the topic: "who allowed the demonstration of the complex to Prime Minister V. V. Putin."
Despite the fact that what happened with Mayevka was an absolutely conscious sabotage, not only did not a single official bear responsibility for this, the key persons involved and accomplices in this sabotage are still engaged in intrigues, including mine action topics. At the same time, a clear example of their absolute incompetence and technical illiteracy is the “sausage” mentioned in the article "Ruby Toys" .
I will especially emphasize - in subsequent years, "Maevka" was not the only option for the modernization of minesweepers, there were other options, but it is not advisable to talk about them publicly. However, they were all deliberately thwarted.
At the same time, no “cost savings” can be an excuse here, in the end, even extremely simple ROVs like the first RAP-104 (more details - "Anti-mine" thirty-four ": underwater vehicle RAR-104. Lessons and Conclusions ") would already make it possible to increase the effectiveness of the anti-mine forces of the Navy by an order of magnitude.
The situation with mine countermeasures is a vivid example of the absolute incompetence and irresponsibility of the officials concerned. For example, mentioned in the article “What is “wrong” with our minesweepers” head of the anti-mine and mine department of the Central Research Institute of Shipbuilding and Armament (the former "1 Institute" - 1 Central Research Institute of the Navy) still holds his position. After such examples, it is not surprising that the Central Research Institute of the VK has an unofficial name in the circles of specialists - the Central Research Institute of "shipwreck".
But what if there is a war? For example, with Japan. How will the fleet fight? A strong proletarian word? Or collective worship?
There is no doubt that the media, excitedly singing today about the alleged effectiveness of the supposedly Russian PMO systems “Diamand” (and releasing similar popular news), tomorrow will sing about the heroic self-sacrifice of the next “Varangians”. In a specific case, the crews of our outdated minesweepers that have lost their real combat capability, which the command will drive "belly on mines." In fact, for slaughter, and without any prospect of actually fulfilling a combat mission.
I would like to emphasize that specialized anti-mine ships should be armed with special vehicles. Technically, this is realistic and organizationally can be done by the industry in a year and a half (the work itself is less than a year, but the coordination of papers for a series is at least 1,5 years).
Returning to the "Marlin", we come to the "Rooks"
Returning to the Marlin, we come to the Rooks, about half of which (out of three dozen) are equipped with the Marlin-350 ROV, which replaced the Falcon (and it, in turn, is the Obzor ROV, which received an unofficial " honorary" name - "shame").
At the same time, as already mentioned, "Rooks" have extremely weak search capabilities (SOC "Kalmar"), and the point here is not so much in the "bad MBE" (multi-beam echo sounder), but in the extremely low applicability of the MBE in principle (for solving special problems )! We need a full-fledged sector survey sonar! And it is necessary to replace the "search crutch" - MBE POK "Kalmar" - with a really effective search sonar.
Today, alas, something more effectively detect (and even then at short distances) "Rooks" can only be lowered "Anapa" on the foot. At the same time, the only means of defeating saboteurs - the DP-65 multi-barreled rocket launcher - is integrated only with Anapa. That is, in fact, the means of search and destruction of the boat-hunter for saboteurs are extremely weak, at the level of their own self-defense.
The DP-65 grenade launcher itself is quite good (when working on combat swimmers).
It is also successful in the foreign market, for example, in the photo - the performances of Chinese girls at one of the bases of the disputed Spratly archipelago, it is the DP-65 in the background.
However, the extremely low mass of the warhead of the RG-55 grenade (“inherited” by the DP-65 from the DP-61 hand grenade launcher) makes it extremely difficult to hit such targets as closed transporters of divers or underwater vehicles.
The ability to destroy surface targets at the Rook is also very limited, the need to replace the Vladimirov heavy machine gun with a modern remote-controlled stabilized module is obvious weapons.
To detect such modern targets as UAVs, you need a radar with the appropriate characteristics.
The need to catch up with high-speed surface targets raises the question of replacing the old low-speed onboard boat "Favorite" with a full-fledged high-speed interceptor boat.
At the same time, given the number of Grachats already built, it seems extremely expedient to give them limited capabilities for solving mine defense tasks by equipping the Marlin-350 ROV with small-sized mine-destroying equipment and using them from unmanned boats (with the possibility of their on-board placement on " Grachatah").
And such use of "Marlins" for PMO (taking into account the new sonar POK "Kalmar") is quite justified.
But specialized anti-mine ships should carry and use not ersatz, but specialized devices.
Information