Russian fleet is the second largest in the world
The modern navy is designed to perform three main tasks: ensuring strategic deterrence as one of the components of the “nuclear triad”, supporting ground forces in local conflicts and performing “decorative” functions, otherwise called “flag demonstrations”. In some cases it is possible:
- participation in international operations (demining of the Suez Canal or Chittagong Bay);
- protection of territorial waters (displacement of the cruiser "Yorktown");
- search and rescue operations (rescue of the crew of the Alpha Foxtrot 586 or search for spacecraft landing capsules splashed in the Indian Ocean)
- special operations (destruction of the USA-193 satellite in low earth orbit or escort of tankers in the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq war).
Based on the foregoing, it seems curious to find out how the two most powerful cope with their tasks fleet in the world - the US Navy and the Navy of the Russian Federation. And this is by no means an absurd joke.
The Russian fleet is still the second largest naval fleet, and, oddly enough, it is still able to carry out assigned tasks in the near and far sea zone.
The colossal difference in the naval composition of the Russian Navy and the US Navy is due primarily to the difference in views on the use of the fleet on both sides of the ocean. America is predominantly a maritime power, separated from the rest of the world by two deep “anti-tank moats” with salt water. Hence the obvious desire to have a powerful fleet.
Secondly - this has been talked about for a long time - the power of the modern US Navy is redundant. At one time, the "Lady of the Seas" Great Britain focused on the "Two power standard" - the numerical superiority of the British fleet over the next two fleets. Currently, the American fleet has numerical superiority over all the fleets of the world combined!
But what does it matter in the age of nuclear weapons? Direct military conflict between the developed powers threatens to inevitably escalate into a global war with the destruction of all human civilization. And what difference does the battle between Chinese and American aircraft carriers end if nuclear warheads have already fallen on Beijing and Washington?
At the same time, for local wars, a super-power ultra-modern fleet is not required - “shoot a cannon at sparrows” or “hammer nails with a microscope” - inexhaustible folk imagination has long picked up definitions for such a situation. In its current form, the US Navy does more damage to the United States than to its opponents.
As for Russia, we are the primordial "land" power. There is nothing surprising in the fact that, despite its numerous feats and loud words to the glory of the sailors, our Navy almost always remained in secondary roles. The exodus of the Patriotic War 1812 of the year or the Great Patriotic War was decided not at sea. As a result, limited funding for the Navy programs (however, this was enough to have the second largest fleet in the world).
"There are two types of ships - submarines and targets" - says the sea wisdom. The underwater component is the basis of the fleet of any modern state. It is the submarines that have been entrusted with the honorary position of the “grave-diggers of Mankind” - an invisible and invulnerable warship is able to incinerate all life on the whole continent. A squadron of strategic missile submarine cruisers is guaranteed to destroy life on planet Earth.
In the Russian Navy there are seven operating SSBNs of the 667BDR “Kalmar” and 667BDRM “Dolphin” projects, as well as one new missile carrier of the 955 “Borey” project. Two more missile carriers are being repaired. Two "Boreas" - in construction, in a high degree of readiness.
Steel eyes under black cap
As part of the US Navy such boats 14 - the legendary strategic bomber "Ohio". Dangerous opponent. Extremely secretive, reliable, with ammunition from 24 Trident II missiles.
And, nevertheless, ... parity! The insignificant difference in the number of submarines no longer matters: 16 missiles launched with 667RDRM or 24 missiles launched from the Ohio submarine are guaranteed death for all.
But miracles do not happen. In the multi-purpose submarines of the Russian Navy in total loss: only 26 multipurpose submarines and underwater carriers of cruise missiles against the 58 nuclear submarines of the US Navy. On the Americans' side, not only quantity, but also quality: the twelve submarines are the newest fourth-generation submarines of the Virginia and Sivulf type, which, by a combination of characteristics, are the best in the world. Four more American boats - converted Ohio-type missile carriers, carrying Tomahawk cruise missiles instead of ballistic Tridents, all 154 missiles in 22 mines + 2 lock cameras for combat swimmers. We have no analogs of such equipment.
However, not everything is so hopeless - as part of the Russian Navy there are special purpose nuclear boats - the odious “Losharik” and its carrier - BS-64 “Moscow Region”. A new submarine of the 885 "Ash" project is undergoing tests.
In addition, Russian sailors have their own "trump card" - 20 diesel-electric submarines, in contrast to America, where diesel-electric submarines are not built for half a century. And in vain! “Dieselukha” is a simple and cheap tool for operations in coastal waters, besides, due to a number of technical reasons (lack of powerful pumps for reactor circuits, etc.) - it is much quieter than a nuclear submarine.
Conclusion: it could be better. New "Ash", modernization of titanium "Barracudas", new developments in the field of creating small diesel-electric submarines (project "Lada"). Looking forward to the future.
Moving on to the sad - the surface component of the Russian Navy is simply ridiculous against the background of the US Navy. Or is it an illusion?
The Legend of the Elusive Joe. The Russian Navy has one heavy aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov. An aircraft carrier or an aircraft carrier? In principle, from the classic aircraft carrier, the Soviet-Russian TAVKR differs only in that it is weaker.
Americans have ten aircraft carriers! All, as one, atomic. Each is twice as big as our Kuznetsov. AND…
And ... the elusive Joe can not be caught, because nobody needs him. Who were the American aircraft carriers in the open ocean going to fight with? With gulls and albatrosses? Or with the unfinished Indian Vikramaditya?
Objectively, there are no opponents for Nimitz in the open ocean. Let the infinite expanse of water plow and beckoning American pride - until the US National Debt reaches 30 trillion. dollars and there will be no collapse of the economy of the United States.
But sooner or later "Nimitz" will approach the enemy shore and ... attack the sunny Magadan? For purely continental Russia, of the entire American fleet, only strategic Ohio submarines are dangerous.
However, in any of the local conflicts, the Nimitz nuclear supercarrier is of little use. Which, however, is understandable - the power of the Nimitz carrier-wing wing is simply insignificant against the background of thousands of combat aircraft and helicopters of the US Air Force, which tore apart Iraq, Libya and Yugoslavia.
And here are also worthy representatives of the class of aircraft carrier ships - 17 universal amphibious assault helicopter carriers / ships of the docks of the types “Tarawa”, “Wasp”, “Austin”, “San Antonio” ... As the Russian promising “Mistral”, only twice as large.
At first glance, a tremendous offensive force!
But there is one caveat: let all the 17 of these ships try to land (17 thousands of marines and 500 armored vehicles) somewhere on the coast of Iran. And better - China. Blood will flow like water. The second Dieppe is provided.
Note. Dieppe - landing operation carried out in August 1942. Three hours after the landing, half of the 6000 paratroopers were killed or wounded, the allies abandoned Tanks, equipment and in horror were evacuated from the coast of France.
Landing operations using small forces are almost always doomed to failure. And the Americans know this better than us - they prepared for the war with Iraq for six months, tormented the enemy from the air for two months, dropping 141 thousand tons of explosives on it, and then an avalanche of a million soldiers and 7000 units of armored vehicles hurled across the Iraqi border from Saudi Arabia.
In view of the foregoing, the combat value of the amphibious "Waspov" and "San Antonio" is not too great - it is useless to use them against any serious countries. And to use such a technique against the Papuans is stupid and wasteful, it is much easier to land a landing party at the capital airport of some Zimbabwe.
But how are the Americans fighting? Who delivers thousands of tanks and hundreds of thousands of soldiers to foreign shores? It is clear who - high-speed transports of the Shipping Command. Total Americans in the presence of such vessels 115. Formally, they do not belong to the navy, but they always walk in a dense escort ring of destroyers and frigates of the US Navy - otherwise one enemy torpedo will put a division of the American army to the bottom.
The Russian Navy has no such ships, of course, but there are Large landing ships (BDK) As many as 19 units! They are old, rusty, slow. But they do an excellent job with their functions - to demonstrate the flag and deliver to Syria a batch of equipment and military equipment in front of the entire perturbed Western world. The BDK has neither normal air defense, nor cruise missiles, - nothing but primitive artillery. The guarantee of their security is the status of the Russian Federation as a nuclear power. Try to touch the ships under the flag of St. Andrew!
Nobody is going to drive them into a real battle - where the 40 000 – ton “Wasp” cannot handle our BDK (the displacement of 4000 tons) has nothing to do.
The next important point is that the Russian Navy has all the 15 surface ships of the far sea zone: cruisers, destroyers, large anti-submarine ships. Of these, only 4 can provide a zonal air defense squadron in open sea areas - the heavy nuclear missile cruiser Peter the Great and three missile cruisers of the 1164 project, Moscow, Varyag and Marshal Ustinov.
As part of the US Navy such ships 84, including: 22 missile cruisers "Ticonderoga" and 62 destroyer type "Orly Burk."
US cruisers and destroyers are from 90 to 122 cells OHR Mk.41, each of which lurk winged "Tomahawk" anti raketotorpedy ASROC or anti-aircraft missiles family "Stenderd" that can strike targets at ranges of up to 240 km and destroy objects outside the Earth the atmosphere. Unified digital weapons control system "Aegis" together with modern radars and universal weapons makes the "Ticondero" and "Orly Berki" the most deadly of all surface ships of the US Navy.
15 vs. 84. The ratio, of course, shameful. Given that the last peer of our large anti-submarine ships, the destroyer of the Spruens type, the Americans wrote off in the 2006 year.
But do not forget, the probability of a direct military conflict between the US Navy and the Russian Navy is vanishingly small - no one wants to die in a thermonuclear hell. Consequently, the Orly Burk supereminders can only powerlessly monitor the actions of our ships. In extreme cases, it is dangerous to maneuver and attack with radio curses.
At one time, to neutralize the supercraiser "Yorktown" (type "Ticonderoga") turned out to be a rather small sentry ship "Selfless" and its brave commander Kavtorang V. Bogdashina - a Soviet patrol broke the American left side, deformed the helipad, demolished the launch pad "Harpun "And prepared to re-bulk. No repetition was needed - Yorktown hastily left the inhospitable territorial waters of the Soviet Union.
By the way, about the patrol and frigates.
As part of the Russian Navy 9 frigates, corvettes and patrol, not counting the hundreds of small artillery, anti-submarine and rocket ships, rocket boats and sea minesweepers.
The US Navy has, of course, more such ships: the 22 is an elderly frigate of the Oliver Hazard Perry type and three coastal warships of the LCS type.
LCS, in every sense, is an innovative thing - the course of 45-50 units, universal weapons, a spacious helipad, modern electronics. It is expected that this year the US Navy will be replenished with the fourth ship of this type. In total, the plans sounded the construction of 12 marine supermachines.
As for the Perry frigates, they have greatly weakened lately. In 2003, rocket weapons were completely dismantled from them. Several ships of this type are written off annually and by the beginning of the next decade all Perry should be sold to allies or scrapped.
Another important point - the marine base aviation.
The naval aviation of Russia is armed with about fifty anti-submarine IL-38 and Tu-142 aircraft (let’s be realistic - how many of them are in flying condition?)
As part of the US Navy, 17 squadrons of anti-submarine aircraft, naval radio-electronic reconnaissance aircraft, and retransmitter airplanes, altogether in the number of one and a half hundred cars, excluding the reserve and Coast Guard aircraft.
In service are the legendary P-3 Orion, as well as their special reconnaissance modification EP-3 Aries. Currently, new anti-submarine aircraft P-8 Poseidon began to enter service.
Even in theory, the naval base aviation of the US Navy is three times superior to the patrol and anti-submarine aviation of the Russian Navy. And this is truly insulting. I'm not sure about the Orion and Poseidon anti-submarine abilities (where did they look when the Pike-B surfaced in the Gulf of Mexico?), But in terms of search and rescue capabilities, the Americans have more than an order of magnitude.
When the IL-38, which are still able to rise into the air, are still looking for and cannot find rafts from the shipwreck or an ice floe with fishermen - no, guys, it is impossible.
Findings in all this stories will be contradictory: on the one hand, the Russian Navy in its current state is not capable of conducting any serious military operations far from its native shores. On the other hand, Russia is not going and is not planning to fight on the other side of the world. All our modern interests are in the near abroad, in the Caucasus and in Central Asia.
Demonstration of the flag, participation in international maritime salons and naval exercises, delivery of military aid to friendly regimes, humanitarian operations, evacuation of Russian citizens from military conflict zones, protection of the territorial waters of the Russian Federation (where pack ice is not suitable close to the shore), hunting to pirate felucges - the Russian Navy can do everything (or practically everything) that the fleet should do in peacetime.
(in the bottom illustration - in the head of the second column there is a BOD pr 1155)
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