Last flight of the dying swan
Very quietly and imperceptibly (however, as always) this sad day passed - Naval Day aviation Russia. Something there was said by someone from the highest echelons of power, noted and promised. And again silence reigned over the waves, which had previously been torn to shreds by the engines of reconnaissance and anti-submarine aircraft.
And there are strange sensations: on the one hand, it seems like everyone understands the importance, on the other hand, we have few types in the Armed Forces that drag out such a frankly miserable existence.
That is why, after waiting a bit, because just recently we were already talking about our hydroaviation (this is an even sadder topic), I decided to raise the topic of Russian naval aviation. Moreover (we will return to this in the near future) that the day of July 17 itself has nothing to do with those events, they happened earlier.
But in any case, it's still unimportant. We celebrated the centenary of the birth of Russian naval aviation, and in three years we will already be celebrating 110 years. But whether on its centenary or on its hundredth anniversary, our naval aviation is in a state that is somehow even merciless to call a crisis. This is not a crisis, this is practically death.
It's a shame, because during the Great Patriotic War, naval aviation could, perhaps, even more than surface fleets, whatever you take, except for the North, where everyone plowed to death. And although our pilots did not sink Tirpitz and Yamato, nevertheless, there were a fairly large number of glorious deeds on the account of naval pilots.
After all, naval aviation is not only bombers and torpedo bombers, this should not be forgotten. We will analyze this now, but for now I would like to note that during the years of the Cold War, our naval missile-carrying aviation, which has already been killed by today, was not just an excellent shock fist, but a mobile reserve that could be very quickly transferred from one seas to another, significantly enhancing the capabilities of the ship groupings available there.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, naval aviation for thirty years of Russian reality lived from crisis to crisis until it turned into an absolutely incompetent set of separate units and formations armed with completely obsolete aircraft. What we have in terms of at least some concept of application is a question, but I don’t want to know the answer to it, which is why: there is nothing but disappointment there.
Let's just try to figure out what our naval aviation is like today.
In theory, naval aviation (MA) is divided into types:
- ship-based fighter;
- shore-based fighter;
- assault;
- missile-carrying;
- anti-submarine;
- reconnaissance;
- electronic warfare;
- fuel station;
- management and communications;
- transport;
- search and rescue;
- sanitary.
Let's go now for each component.
Ship-based fighter aircraft.
The 279th Naval Fighter Aviation Regiment on the Su-33 and the 100th Separate KIAP on the MiG-29KR. With these parts, everything is clear: as long as there is no carrier, we will not talk about any prospects for naval fighter aircraft because of complete hopelessness.
Coast-based fighter
A number of Su-27s in the mixed units of the DKBF.
Assault aviation
In the assault regiments, which only rearmed from the Su-2000 to the Su-17 only in 24, today it is relatively good: the Su-30SM are coming into service, but in more than modest quantities. The most massive attack aircraft is still the Su-24M, which cannot carry anti-ship missiles.
The second positive moment is the appearance of the Ka-52 Katran.
This is a very good car, but here's the problem - it's just a very good attack helicopter, which has only a folding propeller from the sea. The rest of the equipment corresponds to the land version. True, the Katran can carry X-35 anti-ship missiles, which makes it a dangerous adversary for ships with a displacement of up to 5 tons, but range also plays a role here.
Missile-carrying aviation
Completely ceased to exist, the remaining aircraft were transferred to the Long-Range Aviation.
Anti-submarine aircraft
It is practically non-existent, too, if we are talking about aircraft. Two dozen remaining Il-38s, the youngest of which is over 50 years old and 8 modernized Il-38Ns based on the model for India, plus two dozen (12 Tu-142MK / MZ and 10 Tu-142MR) Tupolev aircraft, a little younger (the latter were released in 1994) age.
Two squadrons in the North and Pacific fleets - this is all that the “great maritime power” has, waving at all sorts of “flag demonstrations” in the Far Sea Zone and other nonsense from this opera.
There is also no need to talk about the quality of combat missions. A number of experts, including domestic ones, agree that the IL-38 in the modernized version is thirty years behind the American Poseidon, and in the non-modernized version, by all fifty. With the Tu-142, things are no better.
And if you look at the number ... "Orions", which are the same age as the IL-38, also serve to this day, undergoing various upgrades. And why not serve if they were stamped under a thousand? And until now, almost two hundred flies in the USA and even more than a hundred from the Japanese. This is in addition to one and a half hundred Poseidons.
That is, for one patrol anti-submarine aircraft of Russia on the other side TEN aircraft. Moreover, not the same, but obviously more modern.
By and large, today there is practically nothing to fight enemy submarines. No, of course, two dozen aircraft is better than not having them at all, but this is a question of efficiency. Well, about the new anti-submarine aircraft today, one can’t even speak one’s tongue. Well, what new aircraft, when such things are happening in the country ... Not only they don’t produce - as far as we know, they don’t even develop them.
That is, prozhiranie Soviet heritage as it is. When, in 10-15 years, the wing of the last Il-38 falls off, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin will express something appropriate to the moment, the government will give birth to another resolution aimed at solving the problem, and we will go to drink standing up and not clinking glasses for anti-submarine aviation. Former shield of the country at sea.
And there’s nothing to say here, at what pace everything we need is being developed and built, it’s clear that the I-38 and Tu-142 will be cut into disrepair before something comes to replace them.
With anti-submarine helicopters, more precisely, with a helicopter, everything is also not very smooth. He is. Unfading Ka-27.
It can be compared with the UAZ-“loaf” - since there is nothing more modern, we will use what we have. The Ka-27 is not mass-produced, the remaining helicopters are being upgraded to the Ka-27M. New acoustic and magnetometric systems, radio intelligence system, new radar with AFAR. Regarding the new GAS or new types of weapons - not a word.
Reconnaissance aircraft
There is no more reconnaissance naval aviation. As well as naval tankers should be immediately attributed here. They don't exist anymore either.
For reconnaissance, anti-submarine aircraft are used, if reconnaissance is generally interesting to anyone, and VKS tankers carry out refueling. Naturally, in the event of a conflict, the fleet will be left without the possibility of refueling its aircraft in the air, because with flying tankers in the Aerospace Forces it is also quite strained.
Here you can also put a coffin with the inscription “mine action aviation”, since mine action helicopters with towed trawls also remained there, not in the fields of unnamed battles for the budget.
Aviation RTR, EW, AWACS
Here, in order to show the state of affairs, it is enough to say that the Russian Navy is armed with TWO aircraft RTR Il-20RT and TWO electronic warfare aircraft Il-22M.
And there is nothing more to say or write. Two electronic warfare aircraft and two electronic control aircraft for all Russian Navy.
Transport aircraft
Here, oddly enough, a semblance of life still glimmers. But this life is provided by the planes of the Ukrainian Antonov Design Bureau, all these An-12, An-24, An-26, An-140 and An-72. As for spare parts and mechanisms for them, I will not speak, and so everything is clear. When these aircraft will be gone is a question without many unknowns.
search and rescue
It is mainly provided by helicopters and on the Black Sea as many as four Be-12 amphibious aircraft.
In general, it turns out just a unique situation: what the Russian military industry can produce in sufficient quantities, like, for example, carrier-based aircraft, no one needs because USC is not able to produce carriers for these aircraft.
The question is, why the hell do we need two whole naval air regiments, if there is no normal carrier for them, and what is, is not able to ensure the launch and reception of heavy Su-33s, except in the variant of half-empty tanks and half-armed weapons?
We are building a UDC in Kerch, but how will the marines be transferred from them to the shore in which case? Removed from storage by fifty-year-old Ka-29s?
We have nothing to fight with enemy submarines that are improving their defense methods, but with the stubbornness of a maniac, the development of a new GAS for the Ka-27 is being postponed.
Armed with modern anti-ship missiles, naval missile-carrying aircraft were a scarecrow for the ships of other fleets. But it is being destroyed, and such a theoretical question as “how can you stop the fleet of Japanese destroyers in which case” will only cause bewilderment. Apparently, the entire Japanese navy for one salvo of the Varyag, since the Admiral Nakhimov is now not expected at the Pacific Fleet.
Are there any prospects?
Obviously not. One gets the full impression that the command of the Russian fleet simply does not have a basic understanding of what tasks the MA should perform. Therefore, for all thirty years of Russian reality, naval aviation has simply been played around like something that is not very necessary, from corner to corner. Selecting and closing bases, transferring planes and helicopters, and so on.
At one time, back in 2021, Putin noted the role of MA and said that it was necessary to develop naval aviation:
"Given the build-up of foreign naval forces through the supply of modern nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers and attack ships, unmanned ships, we need to develop naval aviation at a faster pace, primarily by equipping the Navy with advanced aircraft and aviation weapons"
It's a paradox, Putin understands, but naval admirals don't. And for examples to go far - do not respect yourself.
We have already mentioned the Il-38 aircraft. Yes, an old man whose abilities are far below average. But those planes that serve in the Indian Navy, they can carry X-35 anti-ship missiles. The IL-38SD can take such missiles on board quite well and, if necessary, can implement them. And Russian planes cannot use Russian missiles. And the modernization of the IL-38 does not provide for such a moment.
Further. India again. Indian Su-30s easily take and use Brahmos anti-ship missiles, which are a refinement of our Onyxes in the export version, that is, Yakhonts.
Our? Ours cannot. Is there a 3M55 rocket in the aviation version? Eat. Why can't an anti-submarine aircraft get them into ammunition?
Why does the R-8A "Poseidon" easily take the AGM-84 "Harpoon" anti-ship missiles, and Mark.54 torpedoes, and sea mines, and a variety of air bombs? All that is available to the Il-38 is the oldest anti-submarine torpedoes AT-1 or AT-2 and APR anti-submarine missiles, also from the 60s of the last century. Moreover, it is worth remembering that the IL-38 does not have sights. Neither optical nor television. And the dumping of all weapons goes "somewhere there, in the direction of the enemy."
What prevents the MA from being strengthened with such things as the X-61, the aviation version of the Onyx? And use it with the same Su-30s, or what is the angler not joking with the Su-34? Which, so to speak, can be completely entered into the structure of the MA instead of the ancient Tu-22M. And this chic aircraft, taking not even a dozen, but 2-4 anti-ship missiles, will be able to reason with whomever is necessary with their help.
I like the idea of making a naval strike aircraft based on the Su-34. This is just a great aircraft that can easily cope with such a task. Yes, the Su-34 will not be able to barrage for days somewhere out there, in the ocean, but it is quite capable of taking off and striking the enemy with the help of its weapons.
In general, a paradox: there are planes. There are missiles. But there are absolutely stupid questions of the elementary school level: why is there no new anti-submarine aircraft, with new means of detection? Able to hear a boat coated with even the most modern compositions? Why was the old and inefficient hydroacoustic station left on the Ka-27M during modernization? Well, it was no thirty years ago, why not develop a new one?
Can't we or can't we? Or is it just not necessary at all?
Approved (so said the head of Naval Aviation, Colonel Andrey Pakhomov) the concept of development of Naval Aviation. It was approved by the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Admiral Evmenov. Of course, there is nothing in the public domain, this is understandable. However, you can't just be happy.
The concept of development is when there is something in the base, and this something can be developed in some direction. In our case, it is necessary not to develop, but to reanimate the miserable remnants of Soviet naval aviation. And first of all - the construction of aircraft and the training of crews for them.
And when we still have the MA that the fleet needs, when the Navy thoroughly describes for itself where and how it will use its naval aviation, then it, the MA, will need to be developed. In the meantime, urgent surgical resuscitation is needed. And if everything goes well, over the seas it will again be possible to see wings with stars to fear the enemies.
In the meantime, everything looks more like optimistic speeches at the bedside of a terminally ill patient. Speeches are not on the topic of how best to cure, not a medical symposium, but rather a rally in which they say that the patient will live another hundred years.
Miracles do not happen.
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