"Peter the Great" leaves, questions remain
So, on April 25 of this year, just three months ago, when the first wave of noise about the Eagles arose, I published my opinion on this topic. TARK "Peter the Great" - who said it's time to landfill?
Then it was very difficult to understand how events would really unfold, but these three months showed that colleagues from TASS have more informed sources than all the other media that wrote and spoke on this topic. And the TASS material turned out to be correct: the heavy nuclear cruiser Peter the Great will indeed be written off after the repair of the Admiral Nakhimov is completed.
All the dreams that the Russian fleet there will be two such ships, dispelled like haze over the ocean.
Admiral Valentin Selivanov, former chief of staff of the Russian Navy, gave this assessment of what is happening:
“Each ship has a service life. “Peter the Great” is now 34 years old. This is the normal life of a ship. If such a decision is made, then there is nothing to object to. It is better to build a new frigate or cruiser than to restore this one. Over the years, all control systems weapons, pipelines are outdated. If such a decision is made, then it is justified.
Let me quote from the article above:
“...on our pages, we quite often talked about how these ships can be of real benefit in the event of a conflict. Moreover, at one time, when analyzing the repair of Nakhimov, I spoke out in the sense that it would be nice to reinforce the frankly poor capabilities of the Pacific Fleet with a ship whose salvo power would be about 50% of all the capabilities of the Pacific Fleet.
A curtain? Almost yes.
In addition, in that article, I unwittingly missed one point. More precisely, it was said about the human factor, but not quite in that direction. I said yes, the crew of the Peter the Great was about XNUMX people. And this quantity could be used to equip several frigates of the Admiral Gorshkov type. Seven, to be exact.
I confess, I completely forgot that for the "Admiral Nakhimov" we not only have a crew, but there is nowhere to get it from. Of course, our higher naval educational institutions can provide a certain number of specialists, but these will be specialists without work and service experience.
Hypothetically, it would be possible to break the crew of Peter the Great into two parts, leave one on the ship, send the second to the Nakhimov and add graduates and specialists gathered from other ships. Rocketeers, signalmen, specialists of radar posts could be taken from the crew of the same "Moscow", for example.
But this would mean that we would have two ships with inferior crews, that's all. It is clear that tomorrow it seems that you won’t go into battle, but who knows how everything will turn out in general?
As a result, the crew from the Peter the Great has already been transferred to the Admiral Nakhimov and is preparing for the tests. Some part was left on the "Peter the Great" to ensure the survivability of the ship.
"Admiral Nakhimov" is at the final stage of modernization at "Sevmash". Mooring trials of the ship are currently underway, and the cruiser should start sea trials in December 2023. The return of the ship to the fleet is scheduled for 2024. This was previously announced by the head of Sevmash, Mikhail Budnichenko.
In general, the situation is strange. The Admiral Nakhimov, which is 10 years older than the Peter the Great and has not sailed since 1997, will become the flagship of the Russian fleet based in the Northern Fleet. Whom he will restrain there and from whom he will protect our borders - of course, that is another question, but I repeat, in the Pacific Ocean this ship would look much more expedient.
But alas, no.
Here such a vile thought creeps into my head that Nakhimov is being transferred to the Northern Fleet precisely because there are factories nearby, where, if necessary, the ship will be “finished”.
It is clear that 9 years of service at the dawn of foggy youth and 26 years of waiting for repairs are not seeds. For a quarter of a century, the ship was kept “at the minimum wage”, and now, even if you have killed 200 rubles or so for its modernization, of course, you should not expect that everything will work as it should. This is too optimistic.
How justified is this at all? I'm not here to judge.
Many today say that "Peter the Great" is everything.
The ship is in a condition approximately similar to the condition of the Admiral Kuznetsov, maybe a little better. For many (including me) it was a very unpleasant discovery that the resource of the 34-year-old ship was almost completely exhausted. And there is no point in trying to modernize it, it's easier to write it off.
Here's a question for those who care so much about the notorious "presence in the DMZ", "flag demonstrations" and other rubbish: well, is all this, your favorite ostentatiousness, so important? Here, if you please ... They demonstrated, showed, were present. Not a single combat operation in 34 years (except for the capture of as many as three boats of Somali pirates, a worthy deed for the largest non-aircraft carrier in the world) service, not a single missile launch at real targets - and that's it, the ship is scrapped.
Excuse me, how was it necessary to demonstrate and be present? However, everything is on the track record. Thousands of miles were wound on propellers, various exercises took place, some tasks were performed, the results of which were given awards and titles.
And now that's all?
Meanwhile, if you look at the other side, the Americans have Ticonderoga-class cruisers there.
They are not driven to the other side of the world, as they drove "Peter the Great" to show the Colombians and Venezuelans our strength and power. They just stand at their bases, undergo maintenance and repairs, of course, taking into account the service life. They are also written off.
For example, the cruiser Shiloh, which was laid down in 1987 and commissioned in 1992, will be decommissioned as planned in 2039. And his fellow Vicksburg, which entered service in the same 1992, will be decommissioned in 2041. Accepted by the fleet a year later, in 1993, the Cape St. George and Vella Gulf will be decommissioned in 2044.
That is, almost on average after 50 years.
And now we have a ship that has been laid up for a quarter of a century awaiting repairs, will be replaced by another ship, which is 10 years younger than the replacement. Well, one is no stranger to our miracles, but everything looks rather doubtful.
Well, "Peter the Great" could not work out the entire resource in 34 years. I can’t believe it, even though he spent half his life on dubious campaigns. And replacing it with the Nakhimov does not look like something logical, especially since, as already mentioned, one such ship deployed to the Pacific Ocean will double the existing grouping of ships there in terms of the power of a missile salvo.
But it is perfectly believed that the priorities have simply changed. And there is simply no money for "Peter". Now, if you go from this side, then everything is very logical. There was (you can already say in the past tense) "Peter the Great", which was worn out by demonstrations of the flag and hunting for boats of Somali pirates, which really was time to put on a major overhaul. And it all looked fine, because for 2-4 years the ship could be taken to the dock, in its place was the Admiral Nakhimov, for the overhaul and modernization of which 200 billion rubles were spent.
With this money, I note, it would be possible to build at least 6 frigates of the Admiral Gorshkov type, which I consider very decent ships. SIX. That is, if you then upgrade and repair Peter the Great in the same way, then the fleet, it turns out, lost TWELVE new frigates.
That's pretty decent power, by the way. If all these 12 hypothetical frigates were to be driven to the Pacific Fleet, I am 100% sure that the Japanese would moderate their ardor a little. And the Chinese, on the contrary, would have taken it with a feeling of deep satisfaction, since everything that looks against Japan looks for China. Although China does not have allies, they would like such an alignment as a powerful Pacific Fleet.
But what can I say now, we all understand perfectly well that there will not even be two cruisers. The money that could have gone to repair "Peter the Great" has long been burned in the crucible of the NWO. And there is nowhere to compensate them, there is nothing to talk about. Well, except maybe try to type in sms, as it is now fashionable.
There is no money and it is not expected. Therefore, "Peter the Great" will go to waste, but what will happen to "Nakhimov" is a question.
It can be assumed that at first the ship will not go anywhere at all or go far from the repair plants, since everyone understands perfectly well what 26 years of standing is. I wildly hope that the repair of Nakhimov was done differently from that of Moskva in terms of quality, so there are some chances of success. But the overall picture is puzzling.
And in any case, this huge ship will be doomed to stand near the quay wall. Precisely because there will again be no money for campaigns and demonstrations. In this regard, we are clearly returning to the nineties, when out of the entire Russian fleet, a couple of BODs depicted something like that in the waters of the World Ocean, fortunately, they had enough for long-distance trips.
In our case, answering Comrade Admiral Selivanov, I would like to say: yes, we understand everything that there will be neither a couple of cruisers of the Orlan project, nor a dozen new frigates. There is no money, and there is nothing to hold on to.
"Admiral Nakhimov" is almost coming, "Peter the Great" is actually leaving, questions remain.
And the main question here is: what to do with the Pacific Fleet, which today, well, simply does not look against the backdrop of the Japanese. The course taken by the country's leadership has given rise to many unfriendly states, which, although they do not have any special claims against us, except for a showdown with Ukraine, they still exist. And separately in this cohort is Japan, which is not only declared an unfriendly state, but it also has a wagon with a trolley against us.
And the fleet. Well, a very decent fleet capable of dispersing the Pacific Flotilla in one salvo of all URO destroyers. Good destroyers. And on these scales, you still have to throw something.
Now those who have been reading us for a long time will say: you yourself stood up for frigate corvettes, a mosquito fleet and all that, being against aircraft carrier cruisers! Yes of course. And now I advocate, because rather than having three huge black holes in the form of "Peter", "Nakhimov" and "Kuznetsov", patched-patched and absorbing money precisely at the speed of this space object, it is better to have two dozen new ships of a smaller class. We still know how to build them, and a new ship is a new ship ...
But what is the use of these arguments if there is no money?
It can be assumed that the repair of Kuznetsov will now stop / move to the right indefinitely, and everything has already been announced with the repair of Peter. One can only hope that the repair of the Nakhimov is really a repair and the ship can still serve.
And one can only dream of new corvettes-frigates. It is clear that no money will be allocated for them, no matter how sorry you are.
And it turns out that the situation is returning several years ago, when the flagship of the Russian Navy will proudly hang out as part of the Northern Fleet, guarding the Arctic borders from no one knows who (well, I can’t imagine an American AUG in the ice of the Arctic Ocean, there’s not enough imagination) and with an indistinct promising to come to the aid of the Pacific Fleet within a couple of weeks, depending on the ice situation on the Northern Sea Route.
It is clear that Nakhimov has nothing to do in the Black and Baltic Seas, so the only place where he will really be appropriate with his missiles is the Pacific Fleet. But the ship has already been enrolled in the Northern Fleet, so there is nothing to talk about either.
Naturally, the command of the Russian fleet was thinking and deciding something before taking such steps. It is a pity that we do not know all the nuances, but in general it becomes clear that many naval programs will be curtailed in favor of the ground operation in Ukraine. There's nothing to be done about it. And in principle, the replacement of one old ship with another, older, but repaired one, will not affect the combat capability of our fleet critically, all the more so, if it were not for our submarine forces, talking about the combat capability of the fleet in general would be even sadder.
So what's most in this stories it is not the cutting into metal of Peter the Great that causes negative, but the fact that they will not cut metal for new ships. And that the Russian shipbuilding industry will now begin to feel the same nineties, when there was something to build, but there was nothing to pay for.
Alas, this is the reality of our days.
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