Project 22160 Corvettes: benefit performance of the ugly duckling
There were so many comments in Russia about the Project 22160 ships, and there was a place on our pages. For example, here: "Innovative insanity" of patrol ships of project 22160 Maxim Klimov. Furious, controversial, but to the point.
In fact, project 22160 is really the most failed naval ship project in stories new Russia. The ships' disadvantages not only outweigh their advantages, there are no advantages! The small displacement resulted in insufficient seaworthiness. Modular weapons were never developed and produced, and the ships went into service with simply ridiculous weapons: a 76 mm cannon and a pair of 14,5 mm machine guns.
Indeed, in terms of actual weapons, Project 22160 has no analogues in the world. You can be proud, because only anti-sabotage boats are weaker.
Plus, the “innovative” lines (Russia is really obsessed with innovation) turned out to be so unsuccessful that the speed of the ships was at the level of armored cruisers from the Russo-Japanese War.
The only advantage is its quite decent autonomy and cruising range. True, at a frankly pathetic speed of 16 knots.
And suddenly - here you are! Solemn reports that these ships turned out to be almost the most useful in repelling naval attacks drones September 13 and 14 to the ships of the Black Sea fleet Russia.
Some are already saying out loud that these ships turned out to be the most effective weapons countering maritime drones. It's debatable, but we'll try to figure out how it all happened. And how “unique combat capabilities” these ships actually have. For everyone must be rewarded according to his deeds, isn’t it?
A bit of history.
Project 22160 was created by the Northern Design Bureau from St. Petersburg, conceived as an ordinary patrol vessel, without “unparalleled” ones, without any power and record-breaking characteristics. In general, it’s an ordinary rank 3 patrol corvette. In the future - with guided missile weapons, without prospects - well, in the end the fleet received without prospects.
The tasks that such corvettes must perform are simple and uncomplicated: patrolling a 200-mile economic zone, chasing away pirates and smugglers, if any, providing assistance to those in distress at sea, participating in monitoring operations, protecting various objects such as the Crimean Bridge and so on.
In wartime, such ships, in addition to patrol service, must search for and attack enemy submarines, fight surface ships of their class and below, strike enemy sea and ground targets, solve air defense problems, and provide support to their older brothers, corvettes and frigates. In general, it does everything that a universal ship should.
So, Project 22160 corvettes cannot do any of the above. Simply because they have nothing.
In general, missiles are a kind of fetish for our fleet. It all went back to Soviet times, and every ship in our fleet was required to carry something from the missile arsenal on board. Frighteningly deadly.
This applied to everyone - from an aircraft-carrying cruiser, which became a cruiser, and not an aircraft carrier, because it had a solid set of anti-ship monsters, to a small missile boat with four small missiles, which, nevertheless, could seriously puzzle the same corvette or frigate.
And in general, the idea was quite good: the output was perhaps a strange fleet, variegated, but bristling with a huge number of missiles of various calibers.
But the patrol ship project 22160 became such an exception.
Let me quote from one of our large media outlets on the topic of armament of type 22160 corvettes.
“The small displacement of the Project 22160 patrol ship did not allow it to be equipped with a universal launcher of the modern Kalibr missile system - the same as on the small Karakurt missile ships or corvettes and frigates of modern projects.”
Corvettes and frigates of modern projects, with a stretch, let's say okay. The Vasily Bykov was laid down in 2014, which clearly makes it an old ship of an outdated design, doesn’t it?
Let's look at "Vasily Bykov" and "Karakurt" in terms of displacement and armament.
"Karakurt" is small, but very poisonous.
Standard displacement "Vasily Bykov"/"Karakurt" - 1500/800 tons
Artillery: 1 x 76mm on both ships.
Extra charges:
"Vasily Bykov" - 2 x 14,5 mm "Sting"
"Karakurt" - 2 x 12,7 mm "Kord"
Flak:
"Vasily Bykov" - no
"Karakurt" - 2 × 6 30-mm ZAU AK-630M or 1 x 2 30-mm "Pantsir-ME"
Anti-aircraft missiles:
"Vasily Bykov" - 8 MANPADS "Igla-S" or "Verba"
"Karakurt" - 8 MANPADS "Igla-S" / "Verba" or 6 missiles of the "Pantsir-ME" complex ("Pantsirs" are installed on all ships of the project, starting from the third).
Tactical missile weapons:
"Vasily Bykov" - no
“Karakurt” - 8 UVP 3S14 cells for “Caliber” or “Onyx”
Now, if someone has righteous indignation at the fact that something incomprehensible is happening at all, and how so many weapons were stuffed into an 800-ton ship, but there was no room for a 1500-ton corvette, then it’s not worth it.
"Vasily Bykov" has a helicopter.
And this requires a lot of space. Plus, if you look at the autonomy figures, the Vasily Bykov can patrol at sea for up to 60 days, but for the Karakurt this figure is four times less.
The struggle between autonomy and helicopters against missile weapons ended with some kind of compromise: Project 22160 was made, seemingly, modular. That is, according to the combat mission, the ship could be equipped with what it needed: missile, anti-submarine and other types of weapons. And by default, the ship remained practically “empty”: without missile and torpedo weapons.
In general, the equipment turned out to be interesting: there is a good Positive-MK radar, but only a 76-mm gun is “attached” to it. There is an Ariadne sonar, but there are no depth charges, no anti-submarine torpedoes, nothing that could be used to attack a submarine. All this was supposed to be done later. This is how we usually do it.
“Vasily Bykov” and the rest of the corvettes were supposed to receive specially developed container launchers for the Kh-35 “Uran” anti-ship missiles or “Caliber-K” cruise missiles. According to the project, each ship was supposed to take on board two containers with four missiles each.
But alas, the SVO began, then complications began at sea, and all four ships of Project 22160 were left with a cannon and two machine guns in terms of armament.
But don't discount the radar.
In general, the main means of detection for corvettes is the Fourke radar, which operates in the 10 cm range. This radar cannot be called optimal specifically for working on stealthy low-flying and surface targets (especially surface ones); its tasks lie on a slightly different plane.
But the ships of Project 22160 turned out to have a trump card - this is the Pozitiv-MK radar, operating in the 3-cm wavelength range (X-band).
The radar was installed naturally for the use of missiles. Otherwise, why would a patrol corvette have a radar that can “look” at 300 km? With a phased array antenna... Yes, the Positive will not take as many targets as the Fourke can take for escort, but it doesn’t need it. But he takes on small-sized targets, and, as practice has shown, quite well.
So it turned out that, on the one hand, a good radar coupled with the fire control system of the MP-123 “Baghira” and the AK-176MA-01 with a rapid-fire 76-mm cannon is more than enough to see and destroy such a difficult target as a six-meter boat without a crew.
In general, when I watched the video from on board one of the boats that had not sailed, I had a clear confidence that they were shooting at it from an onboard MTPU with a 14,5 mm machine gun. The 76mm gun was hitting another boat.
This suggests that the crew of the corvette had very decent training, since this happened at night. That is, the crew at least had a night vision device that the gunner could and knew how to use. Plus the necessary skills in shooting practice. Yes, the boat was able to get quite close to the ship, but the calculation worked as it should and the boat did not reach.
And on Project 22160 corvettes, you can additionally install 12,7-mm Cordas, which are quite suitable for working against such targets as uncrewed kamikaze boats.
Now someone can say: this has already happened somewhere. That's right, here it is:
Anti-aircraft guns that won't fire into the sky against torpedoes for beggars
Swan song of sparrows?
And there was an article a year ago about hunting for drones using an aircraft with a piston engine and high-speed machine guns of the ShKAS type.
And in principle, everything turned out as predicted. And the events of September 13 and 14 only confirmed the predictions made. On September 13, “Vasily Bykov” destroyed three naval drones, and on September 14, the same type “Sergey Kotov” was attacked by five. And all five kamikaze boats were destroyed.
Indeed, under such conditions, missiles would be practically useless. The target sizes are too small, they provide too little heat or radar response to the radar, and they are too cheap.
Whatever one may say, modern anti-ship systems are created to work against normal ships, and not against targets the size of an inflatable boat. And here a rapid-fire artillery system, and even a machine gun, look more preferable.
So it turned out that a patrol ship with a cannon and two machine guns became a more effective fighter of naval drones than a similar corvette, but armed with missiles. The paradox of war, but it is what it is.
But Project 22160 ships also have helicopters. This is also a very effective weapon against kamikaze boats. A helicopter from above will be able to easily see the boats by their wake. And if you don’t attack with airborne weapons (and now it would be nice to have machine guns on all reconnaissance helicopters), then give exact coordinates to the ship.
And here the greater autonomy of patrol corvettes also turns out to be very useful, especially if we remember the assurances of some people on the other side that they will have as many kamikaze boats as necessary.
That is, there simply must be a patrol service in places where such mine ships may possibly approach our borders. Kamikaze boats should be destroyed not in ports, but far away on the approaches to them.
It is clear that project 22160 is not only not the most successful in our fleet, it is rather the most unsuccessful. And therefore, after the last two ships are accepted into the Black Sea Fleet, no more will be built, and this is an absolutely correct decision. But with six ships that can combat maritime drones very effectively, it would be criminal not to do so to the fullest.
The only thing that can complicate the work of these ships is the complete defenselessness of the ships in terms of air defense. It simply doesn’t exist; several MANPADS are an opportunity to shoot down a drone, but not a modern aircraft that decides to attack a corvette. Therefore, if we are seriously talking about the fact that Project 22160 corvettes will actually patrol the waters at a distance from coastal complexes, then it simply needs at least minimal protection from aircraft and anti-ship missiles.
Moreover, an excellent radar already exists. It would just be a shame to lose such useful ships from the actions of enemy missilemen or pilots. Protecting and guarding ports directly at their entrance is also not the best, because it risks the fact that sooner or later a kamikaze boat will slip past the defenders.
In general, there is something to be surprised and happy about, and something to think about.
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