Mobilization ship for the Navy under sanctions
Multi-purpose ship in small dimensions, with anti-submarine weapons and a towed hydroacoustic station - this is the maximum that can be built without an extensive program for real, and not fake, import substitution. Such a program will require many years, which are not
It would be foolish to assume that since the sanctions for Ukraine hit even the production of cars, as cargo, and cars, then they bypass shipbuilding. This is absolutely not true, and could not be true. And it didn't. It is worth taking a look at what these sanctions can turn out to be, and figure out what can be done. To do this, we will analyze the key programs in surface shipbuilding, which are guaranteed to be affected by the sanctions, and see if something can be done about it all.
It was - became
Let's say right away - the volume of the article does not allow to fully cover the issue, taking into account the state of affairs in the surface navy, and underwater. The submarine fleet is a special case and should be considered separately. This article is about the main projects of surface warships for the Navy, about what awaits them and what they will have to change to if we want to save the fleet.
The most important projects in military shipbuilding are project 22350 frigates and project 20380 and 20385 corvettes. In addition to them, small missile ships of project 22800 "Karakurt" armed with Caliber missiles should be in mass construction, a series of RTOs of project 21631 "Buyan-M" is being completed with the same "Caliber", but with virtually no air defense. Large landing ships of the improved project 11711 (in fact, a new project) are being built, and theoretically two universal landing ships of project 23900 should be built in the amount of two units. The last two are now also better to “bracket” and consider the situation around them later.
Everything else that the Navy is building is either non-combat ships, or auxiliary fleet vessels, Project 22160 patrol ships, or some boats, minesweepers, etc. - necessary, but not the main striking force of the Navy. Let's leave them aside for now.
Let's leave both series of RTOs for now, and focus on large ships by Russian standards - frigates, corvettes and landing ships.
First, what unites them all.
They all have something in common - diesel engines produced by the Kolomna Plant. Not the worst diesel engine, albeit inferior to Western counterparts, could be the main engine for the mass of warships, but ... turbochargers and parts of the cylinder-piston group are imported there and cannot be replaced by domestic counterparts.
And yet, according to informed comrades - forging the crankshaft and fuel equipment (mostly). Alas, like many other domestic engines, the Kolomna D49 is not entirely domestic.
What ships are they on? Project 22350 frigates use 10D49 with a maximum power of 5 hp each. s., in the amount of two units, one for a diesel-gas turbine unit, on corvettes - four 200D16 of 49 liters each. with., working through two reducers on two valoliny. The same "Corvette" power plant should stand on a couple of new BDKs.
But now Kolomna, apparently, will no longer be able to provide engines, at least for a while. Illusions that it is possible to replace foreign turbochargers, pistons and rings with our own must be discarded immediately - in Russia there is simply no technical ability to provide the required level of machining of products, there are no necessary alloys, automation and precision mechanics. In order for these problems to be solved, a separate state program is needed, in which there will be no place for all sorts of traditional Russian cuts, kickbacks, and most importantly, incompetence. But our state machine cannot get rid of incompetent personnel even in war conditions, so you just need to forget about Kolomna, period. With luck, some of them will be assembled from the available stock of components.
The unit, consisting of two 16D49 diesel engines and a gearbox, is half of the main power plant of the corvettes of projects 20380 and 20385. Now we have to say goodbye to them. Figure: JSC "Kolomensky Zavod"
An attempt to replace foreign components in diesel engines with those that can be manufactured in Russia will lead to a very significant decrease in power and reliability, and an increase in fuel consumption to values when it will be necessary to significantly increase its stock on the ship.
Of course, Kolomna has some backlog, there are reserves on which one can work for some time, but sooner or later they will run out, and then the question of buying the necessary components will come up in all acuteness. But they do not circulate on the free market, in some cases there is only one manufacturer, and he will not allow mass sales of his products to the left.
Will the Kolomna Plant be able to ensure the import of the necessary products during the sanctions period in the required quantities? The question is open, rather no than yes.
And this problem closes the prospects for frigates, corvettes, and landing ships. They will be built as many as diesels will be received - a multiple of the number of engines required for each hull.
Most likely, most of the ships that are already in a high degree of readiness will receive their engines, but those that will need to mount a power plant in three or four years are already in question. As for the newly laid down ships, these will most likely have to be cut on the slipway, just later, when everything is revealed.
This is where I want to remember the lost years between 2016 and 2021 - the period in which the fleet did not order a single corvette, because it was politically impossible to recognize the failure of the 20386 project, which, like any trough being built in our country, was advertised as superweapon. Five lost years that we will remember in the next war, when it turns out that there are simply no ships in the Navy.
At the same time, the responsible leaders did not bring possible problems with diesel engines to the country's leadership. Here is what, for example, the head of Rostec Sergey Chemezov told the president:
“We have created a new marine diesel-gas turbine unit M-55R, this is a new engine that is installed on our frigates. This is our first Russian such engine. We are already mass-producing it."
Link.Diesel 10D49 is part of this unit. I wonder what Mr. Chemezov will say when Kolomna has problems with imports?
Project 22350 frigate. The laid down frigates, apparently, will be completed, but in general it is better to say goodbye to them. Photo: Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation / Wikipedia
Someone may say that all these concerns are nonsense, since the D49 series has long been produced for railways, and was once completely domestic. So it is, but look at the power. 16D49, used on corvettes, with 16 cylinders produces a maximum power of 6 liters. With.
When Kolomna diesel engines were completely domestic, to remove 6 hp from one engine. With. it had to be made with a 000-cylinder, with a rather complex two-stage supercharging. Due to the thorough check of the build quality required to obtain such power, and the mass of non-standard parts, starting with the cylinder block, the engines were produced piece by piece. And the massive 20-cylinder 16D5 produced 49 hp. With. power instead of 4 for 000D5 or 200 for 10D49. These engines simply do not have enough power, a corvette with such engines will not be able to accompany a container ship, nor will it be able to catch up.
So there is a problem, but there is no solution. Kolomna will continue to be able to supply railways with diesels, current fleet projects - only as long as there is a stock of components or if, by some miracle, sanctions are not imposed on their supply to the plant.
But this is what amphibious assault ships, frigates and corvettes have in common.
Corvettes also have their own problems. One of them is a radar complex. The number of inaccessible imports there is such that against its background, both the submarine, and the Polyment-Redut, and everything in general, fade. If for military electronics it is usually possible to extract components using the methods described above, then with a product from Zaslon JSC story completely different, they managed to overcomplicate their really idle radar complex so much that the supply of components for it became a problem even before the start of the operation in Ukraine.
About what constitutes a multifunctional radar complex from "Zaslon", Maxim Klimov perfectly described in his article Leaky umbrella of the fleet. Technical analysis of the "Thundering" firing. For obvious reasons, Zaslon does not disclose what difficulties the company encounters when obtaining components for its complexes, but they are really great. We can safely guarantee that Zaslon will not supply any complexes to those ships that have been laid down relatively recently. By and large, it will not bet on the majority of those currently under construction.
How then can one evaluate the laying of the new corvette of project 12 "Reasonable" on June 20385? And just like the lead ship of this project, the Thundering, where the key factors in the huge delay in deadlines were not only the “golden tower” of the IBMK “Barrier”, but also the imported power plant. At the time of the planned contractual delivery of the Thundering corvette (2015), if it were not for the refusal to supply the German power plant, the Barrier simply had nothing to even pull out to the coastal range. The delay in reworking the ship for domestic engines saved Zaslon and gave it time. It is obvious that they are hoping the same way now - the failure to meet the deadlines for the already supposedly "domestic" diesel engines will be inevitable, in the shadow of which they are going to hide all the problems of the IBMK.
In this situation, how to assess the actions (or rather, complete inaction) of responsible officials of the Russian Navy and Defense Ministry? Do they still think there won't be a war?
But that's not all.
As you know, the corvettes of projects 20380 and 20385 are equipped with a composite superstructure. It was she who melted so “greatly”, and the glass flew into the hull of the corvette “Agile” during the fire, about this in the article "On the alleged loss of the Provorny corvette during the fire on 17.12.2021/XNUMX/XNUMX". I don't want to panic ahead of time, but there is reason to believe that not all the components of the composites from which the superstructure of any of the corvettes is made are made in Russia and can now be obtained from abroad.
It takes at least several years to develop the right chemistry and test it to replace the right materials. It's time, money and some risk of failure. Let it be low.
As a result, the corvettes “arrive” from the diesel manufacturer, and from the Barrier with its wonderful masts, and from the Sredne-Nevsky shipbuilding plant.
Project 20380 and 20385 corvettes will also be impossible to build.
How will all this end? This will end with a whole bed of empty hulls on stocks, which will either not turn into ships in a reasonable time, or will never be completed at all.
With frigates, the situation is simpler, there the problem mainly rests on diesel engines, they are likely to receive them, for all the laid-down ships for which diesel-gas turbine units have not yet been manufactured, 8 engines are needed, two per ship.
For the BDK, again, most likely, they will also be able to hand over the power plant, but the corvettes from the totality of sanctions problems receive a specific blow in the stomach.
A prophetic picture - the hull of project 20386 was then "Mercury", the date of the formal laying was autumn 2016, and a small building nearby - "Strict" of project 20380, has been under construction since February 2015. The photo was taken at Severnaya Shipyard in mid-2021. Now with the filling of the buildings, everything will be much more complicated. Photo: Curious, forums.airbase.ru
And together with the corvettes they get NSNF under the breath.
The state of the existing OVR ships in the fleets is close to emergency, not to mention their complete obsolescence and actual loss of combat capability - even against a very weak enemy in the NVO, the use of the MPK pr. 1124M and MRK 1239 turned out to be impossible (and this with an extreme lack of ships).
If during the delivery of most of the corvettes in some more or less reasonable time, there was at least a technical possibility to deploy several shipborne search and strike groups at sea that could cover the deployment of SSBNs and protect strategic submarines from foreign hunter boats, now she won't be.
Yes, corvettes have limited anti-aircraft missile systems, they cannot repel air strikes and shoot down missiles, but they can somehow fight with submarines - there is a bulbous and towed sonar, an anti-submarine helicopter, torpedoes and anti-torpedoes, project 20385 has anti-submarine missiles. Everything - with different restrictions on use, everything - is significantly worse than Western counterparts (except for anti-torpedoes and torpedoes of the "Package" complex), but everything somehow works.
And now they just won't. There will be empty boxes.
Protection of the water area and the war of the near future
As has been said an infinite number of times, the most important from the point of view of the physical survival of the country is a reliable nuclear deterrence, and the main component of nuclear deterrence is to ensure the inevitability of a nuclear retaliatory strike.
For the inevitability of a retaliatory (not retaliatory, namely retaliatory) nuclear strike in Russia, the Navy, and specifically the nuclear submarine fleet, is responsible with its strategic missile submarines (SSBNs).
The author wrote in detail in the article how the roles are distributed within the strategic nuclear forces to ensure nuclear deterrence, as well as how important anti-submarine ships of the near sea zone are for ensuring the deployment of strategic submarines. Anti-submarine ships and nuclear deterrence. The issue is fully disclosed in it, and the need to have an inexpensive and mass-produced corvette that could be built in a large series and would become the basis of the anti-submarine forces of the Navy is justified there.
An explanation was also made there as to why such corvettes, and not aviation, should become the basis of domestic anti-submarine forces. Then such a corvette was understood as a rationally designed version of the corvette of project 20385 or, in extreme cases, 20380. Now you can forget about them.
In the Northern and Pacific Navy, at least four brigades for the protection of the water area are urgently needed, which, as in Soviet times, would include minesweepers and corvettes (under the USSR, there were MPKs instead of corvettes), the latter should have a strength sufficient for continuous patrolling on routes for the deployment of submarines to combat services, control of bottlenecks, and for an emergency exit to the sea to search on call and strengthen already deployed anti-submarine forces.
Another brigade is needed on the Black Sea. There are no strategic submarines there, but there is the Mediterranean Sea, Tartus nearby, there is Turkey with its powerful submarine.
A separate issue is the Baltic, which in the event of any war is guaranteed to become the most difficult of our theater of operations, as it always has been.
The approximate number of ships of the near sea zone that are capable of fighting submarines should be (excluding the Baltic, where you first need to decide on the shape of a future war and the forces for it) in the Northern, Baltic and Black Sea fleets of about 30-40 units. A certain number of ships should be in the Baltic.
For comparison: at the moment, the fleet has received 7 corvettes of project 20380 of various modifications (all of them are limited combat-ready, the last ones are equipped with a radar from the Barrier, almost incompetent), 2 more are being tested and one is being completed, and now - its fate is already in question.
Project 20385 corvettes were delivered - 1, laid down with minimal (for "Reasonable" - zero) chances for completion - 2, and the last 4th is "Agile", which burned down and, as they promise, will be restored sometime in the future. Apparently, when all the components for the superstructure and components for the 16D49 can be produced in Russia, and Zaslon will be honored to fulfill the terms of the contract for the supply of its miracle complex.
In total, 10 corvettes are guaranteed to go into operation and will go into operation (without air defense or with problematic air defense), 4 will freeze on the stocks with monuments, along with the project 20386 monument, and if some more newly laid corvettes join them, they will also join the ranks monuments. That is 10 instead of 40.
Against the background of the realization of such a prospect, someone in the bowels of the Main Command came up with the idea of another trick - to set up unarmed "patrol ships" of project 22160 for the OVR and, based on the number of pennants (without mentioning what kind of pennants they are), report upward that forces enough for operations in the near sea zone. There is no strategy behind this, it is a simple “drank” mixed with the protection of their chairs from the introduction of more competent bosses into them, and an obligatory part of this “set of measures” is lying to the top political leadership, which has long and effectively cut itself off from any sources of information, except for reports in folders, in which it is clear what.
True, just a few days ago, however, there was a "drain" in the media that the Project 22160 patrol ships had not justified themselves and would not be built anymore. It took a war for this easy-to-understand fact to finally be recognized by someone.
Let's just say that nothing has been decided on project 22160 yet, this "sawmill" has too strong support, and everything can be. But even there there is a “bottleneck” - the same Kolomna 16D49 diesel engines (moreover, they were installed contrary to the requirements for naval warships in one compartment - that is, the only hit of even a small Brimstone-type missile leads to a complete loss of progress by such a ship), which are needed and for corvettes, and no one can get around this moment today.
So at least the corvettes are in order, at least the “patrolmen”, and the empty hulls on the stocks will be all the same.
At the same time, the need to ensure the combat stability of the NSNF has not gone away, and, in truth, there are not enough ships for other tasks, the same carriers of cruise missiles need more, and convoys, if something needs to be guarded, and landing units, and other tasks didn't disappear either.
All of this comes with budgetary constraints. Now the leadership of the country is definitely not up to the fleet. Before the fleet, he will be right after Ukraine, when the next enemy looms in front of the country. And it will be necessary to urgently take somewhere a lot of ships that can be built under sanctions and feasible for our future meager budget, and which will have sufficient combat capabilities.
This is what the Americans call the "perfect storm" - a combination of all possible adverse factors at their extreme. For fellow admirals, this storm is even more dangerous - among other things, the war in Ukraine could end the current culture of impunity. And for the state of the fleet they can take and suddenly ask. And what will they do then?
Let's give a hint.
Mobilization ship
We need a mobilization project that can meet the urgent needs of the Navy, which can be built right now. What should it be?
First. Since there are many tasks, and they are different, the ship must be multi-purpose. This implies the presence of both anti-submarine capabilities and air defense systems, offensive missile weapons, and artillery. So, the ship should be able to use cruise missiles of the Caliber family, anti-ship missiles Onyx and Zircon, anti-submarine missiles 91R / RT. This automatically requires the use of UKKS ships with 3S14 launchers.
Second. Since diesels are our bottleneck, the ship must have fully localized diesel engines. Gas turbines dramatically increase the cost of both the ship itself and its life cycle, and require an increase in fuel reserves on board. Nevertheless, the option using turbines will be discussed below, while we dwell on diesels.
Third. All ship systems must be serial or require minimal upgrades.
Fourth. Since quantity will be needed, factories located on inland waterways, for example, Zelenodolsk, which, after the delivery of the last ships of projects 21631 and 22160, will be left without work, should be able to build it.
The last factor requires to have a small draft. Small draft with the need to ensure seaworthiness in the Barents, Norwegian, Okhotsk and Bering Seas requires limiting the size of the ship to ensure seaworthy contours. The same is required by the condition to provide the ship with high speed.
Now we begin to define the shape. The only plant in Russia that produces marine diesel engines, the production of which is almost not affected by sanctions, is Zvezda PJSC in St. Petersburg, with their line of 56-128-cylinder (we will leave the rest for now) engines.
This fact immediately leads us to a ship in the dimensions of projects 21631 and 22800. The latter is generally equipped with these diesel engines, and specifically the M507D in the amount of three units operating on three shaft lines. Diesels on project 21631 are imported (Chinese on the last hulls), we ignore them.
We look at the composition of the weapon. Artillery - 76-mm cannon on "Karakurt", very good and optimal for such a ship. A 100-mm gun, as on the Buyan-M, is redundant for such ships.
Both projects have UKKS with a 3S14 launcher for vertical missile launch. On Buyans-M, you can’t shoot with anything other than Caliber, from Karakurt, too, but only because of the ship’s BIUS, the loads during Onyx or Zircon launches are incorporated into the design.
Air defense systems - on the Buyans they can not be considered as such, but the Karakurts have Pantsir-M, which, in fact, just needs to replace the firing radar with one operating in a different range - the standard one does not work well in rain, typhoon and and so on due to the non-optimal wavelength range for the ship. It's fixable and fast. Electronic weapons (REV) "Karakurt" allows you to fight with surface ships.
An example of weather in which Pantsir-M will not be able to shoot accurately. This is Kamchatka, and such weather is not uncommon there. The problem with the radar needs to be addressed.
Another option is the deployment of the Tor-FM air defense system (which provides both a lower cost and lower sanctions risks). And this issue should be considered, Tor-MF is ready for a series, it has a number of advantages, and most importantly, a disproportionately large localization in terms of components. In the case of Thor-MF, it will be necessary to install one 30-mm AK-630M artillery mount on the ship to defend the aft sector. You can shoot from it by aiming through the Tora-MF radar post.
A kind of multi-purpose ship is looming with REV, diesel engines and weapons, like the "Karakurt" (with a possible amendment to the "Tor-MF"), but with the addition of a sonar complex and the "Packet-NK" complex. Since we need both a shallow draft and high speed, it will not work to install a powerful bulbous or under-keel hydroacoustic station (GAS) on these ships, we will have to make do with towed and lowered ones.
The compact "Platinum-M" or its analogue can be considered as a winged one, but this question is open - the launch of the ship into production is critical, and it is not worth complicating its design. In addition, the winged GAS will reduce speed, and with it everything is not so simple, as will be discussed below. As a last resort, we need small GAS capable of giving target designation to anti-torpedoes and not spoiling the contours much, and they are also in the country.
The stern of a real MRK of project 22800 and an approximate possible location on it of launchers for torpedoes and anti-torpedoes of the Paket-NK complex.
The possibility of creating such a corvette was disclosed by M. Klimov in the article "A powerful efficient small multi-purpose corvette at the price of a fighter flight". True, it refers to a different composition of weapons on board, but then the economic prospects of the country were completely different, now we have to talk about a slightly simpler ship. Nevertheless, this article has proven the ability to pack everything you need into a small case. It also describes how the ship interacts with helicopters, the technique of refueling and supplying submarine detection equipment on board in the absence of a landing deck on the ship itself.
But here again the problem arises - these are the M507D diesel engines that the Karakurts are equipped with. PJSC "Zvezda" is in serious condition, and the maximum number of M507 engines that it can issue during the year is five. There are three of them on one "Karakurt".
This means that within two years no more than three ships can be laid down, 1,5 per year on average, and, in addition, one engine will go into spare parts every two years. This is not enough. Three ships in three years is 9-10 ships by the time when the aggravation of contradictions with the United States may approach an open conflict (2030s).
Restoring order at Zvezda is possible, and quickly, but this requires the guiding will of the state, backed up by smart management decisions, which is not yet possible in the current political conditions.
This means 5 diesels per year.
But there is a solution here too.
In February 2020, the author published an article "Karakurt" with a water cannon. Russia has every opportunity to build warships at the pace of China.” in the newspaper "VPK-Courier". From the passage below, in principle, everything is clear:
“But after all, three M507Ds are essentially six M504s, and four are already eight. M507 is, simply put, a pair of two M504s. Is it possible to get acceptable performance characteristics on the "halves" of the M507? It turns out you can.
Currently, multi-shaft water jet installations are becoming more widespread in Western countries. This is essentially a "battery" of water cannons, occupying the entire width of the vessel from side to side.
Such propellers are used so far mainly on high-speed ferries. For example, Silvia Ana, with a length of 125 meters, a width of 18, a total displacement of 7 tons and six engines with a capacity of 895 kilowatts, can reach speeds of up to 5 knots. Such a move is given to him by a multi-shaft water jet installation.
It is easy to calculate that for a ship the size of the Karakurt and the same displacement (less than 1 tons), a similar multi-shaft water jet system will provide comparable speed data with less power. Thus, instead of three M000Ds, four M507s can be used, each of which will work on its own water cannon. And we will solve the problem again, because even with the current capabilities of Zvezda PJSC for the supply of diesel engines, it will be possible to build up to two such ships a year without increasing the production of engines.
All that is needed for this is that on the newly designed small warships, instead of two- and three-shaft propulsion systems with propellers, multi-shaft water-jet ones are used.
Currently, multi-shaft water jet installations are becoming more widespread in Western countries. This is essentially a "battery" of water cannons, occupying the entire width of the vessel from side to side.
Such propellers are used so far mainly on high-speed ferries. For example, Silvia Ana, with a length of 125 meters, a width of 18, a total displacement of 7 tons and six engines with a capacity of 895 kilowatts, can reach speeds of up to 5 knots. Such a move is given to him by a multi-shaft water jet installation.
It is easy to calculate that for a ship the size of the Karakurt and the same displacement (less than 1 tons), a similar multi-shaft water jet system will provide comparable speed data with less power. Thus, instead of three M000Ds, four M507s can be used, each of which will work on its own water cannon. And we will solve the problem again, because even with the current capabilities of Zvezda PJSC for the supply of diesel engines, it will be possible to build up to two such ships a year without increasing the production of engines.
All that is needed for this is that on the newly designed small warships, instead of two- and three-shaft propulsion systems with propellers, multi-shaft water-jet ones are used.
And then one and a half ships a year turns into two ships a year, plus two engines into spare parts a year (and not one M507D in two years). And now this is already a normal pace, subject to stable funding.
The M507 engine, it can be seen that it consists of two identical sections-compartments working on a common gearbox. And it is true, these are two 56-cylinder engines working together. Photo: Dieselzipservice
And this is a single 56-cylinder compartment - the basis of both the M504 engine from one compartment and gearbox, and the two-compartment M507.
At the same time, all radio-electronic weapons are serial, for which, of course, it will be necessary to carry components according to gray schemes, but this is just solvable. All weapons are either serial or almost serial. The air defense from the Pantsir-M with the problems of the firing radar and the 76-mm gun resolved is more than worthy for a small ship (but it is necessary to change the range of the radar!). The ship will not have any bottlenecks that would prevent it from being built - regardless of the severity of the sanctions.
And many such ships can be built. Five years - ten corvettes. Ten years - twenty corvettes. Well, or up to 160 cruise missiles in a total salvo. If Zvezda manages to make more diesel engines, then more ships can be built.
At the same time, such ships may well operate in the far sea zone, namely: in the Mediterranean Sea, creating unbearable conditions for the western submarine and based on Tartus. A large number of such ships will "please" our partners with a total missile salvo and how many forces are needed to detect and attack them all.
Well, if the Buyans-M go to the DMZ, then these will be able to be present there without problems, but with a much greater effect. Escape, if necessary, to the Red Sea, to Port Sudan, for example, will also be possible without any problems, if there was a tanker nearby.
The extent to which such ships, if there were many of them, would be useful off the coast of Ukraine simply does not require comments - both the Pantsiri-M (as well as the Torah) and the Caliber are quite in demand there today.
Does the idea have flaws? Not critical. Firstly, there is no way to land a helicopter on board. But, as shown by M. Klimov, this is not an obstacle for, for example, refueling a helicopter from such a ship, if the fleet is able to master one. This is not an obstacle for taking a person on board a helicopter or delivering cargo to a ship by air.
Refueling a helicopter without landing, however, is not the Russian Navy, but you can learn how. And equip the ship with everything necessary for this.
The ship will operate in the near sea zone, where it will mainly be possible to ensure its interaction with helicopters based on the coast, or with anti-submarine aircraft, if they are still available by then.
The second possible disadvantage is speed. A rough estimate shows that a multi-shaft water-jet installation will not allow to win back an increase in the displacement and size of the ship relative to RTOs (we are adding a sonar system, torpedo weapons and personnel), while reducing the power of the power plant. The maximum speed will probably be in the range of 27-29 knots. This means that many enemy surface ships (USA, England, Japan) will be faster.
Here it must be clearly stated that this will not affect the fulfillment of tasks to ensure the deployment of NSNF, there, in general, most of the time you will have to walk with a towed GAS, and a few extra nodes at maximum power simply do not make sense, you will need a good search speed, and it will secured.
A submarine will not be able to move away from such a ship - with active “illumination” of the water area, its stealth is unimportant, and the 91R anti-submarine missile fired from the UVP 3S14 is in any case faster than any submarine and hits far.
When striking with cruise missiles, speed is not important.
When deploying ship groups anywhere, the transition speed is important, which the ship can maintain for a long time, but here it will be very high, 20 knots or more. In fact, it will be one of the fastest (in terms of moving to the designated area) ships.
That is, the fact that the ship’s speed will be less than that of the same Karakurt or Project 11356 frigates is basically not important.
As in the case of a helicopter, this disadvantage is not significant.
It will affect in two cases - when trying to track the ships of the United States, Britain or Japan, which almost all go faster than 30 knots, and when operating in such a dangerous situation, from the point of view of underwater and air threat, that an extra 2-3 knots of speed (will give the opportunity to go 3,6-5,4 extra kilometers in every hour or, for example, 10,8-16,2 kilometers in three hours at maximum power) will be critical.
Before such a war, you still need, as they say, to finish the game, firstly. And secondly, for future ships there is a high-speed option - two of the four water cannons will be driven by M-70 turbines, also mastered by the domestic industry. This will give about 33 knots of maximum speed, but with restrictions on the time of operation of the turbines, and at the expense of increased fuel consumption.
Turbines, by the way, make it possible to increase the number simply at an explosive pace - ten M504s per year, two per ship, and the same number of M-70 turbines, which can actually be obtained in the same period, make it possible to double the number of ships under construction compared to purely diesel ones.
But - due to the increase in cost.
One way or another, this fallback option can be kept in mind for the future, but for now there is a question of an imminent collapse in the number of surface forces, and decisions must be made that will allow building the fleet as quickly and cheaply as possible. Now that means an all-diesel ship.
Take a step forward
The situation requires rational solutions. Those responsible for shipbuilding must understand a simple thing - the time when you could promise and not deliver is almost over. The number of empty buildings on the stocks will sooner or later become critically large, while none of our potential adversaries capable of inflicting real harm on us, except for Poland and Ukraine, have land borders with us. The next war may turn out to be completely different, and the era of impunity for “respectable people” is ending, it’s time for them to worry already.
Who will build such ships? This will be able to do most of the factories in our country, the ship promises to be simple. However, stable funding will be needed.
Who will design such a ship?
It would be most logical to involve the Almaz Central Design Bureau in the work, at least no one has experience in designing light ships for the fleet comparable to the Almaz, and the example of the Karakurt RTO more than eloquently speaks of what level, Almaz can do the job: the corvette fiasco is more of a combination of the evil will of individuals and the era of chaos in our country, this is an exception that does not characterize the capabilities of Almaz.
But you need to click on them so that they do exactly the project that is needed, and as quickly as possible - in one and a half to two years.
With a strict setting of the task in Almaz, they will do everything, especially since the experience of creating Karakurt can be used here to the maximum extent - this is the decisive advantage of the Central Design Bureau.
Both the situation that is developing around our country and the career interests of people who will soon be asked about the timing of the commissioning of new ships, the provision of strategic nuclear forces and the increase in the total missile salvo of the Navy require a sharp increase in the power and size of the fleet in the face of a simultaneous increase in sanctions pressure and reduced funding . More ships and missiles for less money, and fast.
This means that responsible leaders just need to do this, and that’s it. Well, or new bosses will settle into their chairs, and very soon.
Information