Dmitry Rogozin: "You need to put as many weapons as possible on warships!"
Surface ships for the Russian Navy should be built so that they have as much as possible weapons, and the sizes remained the same. We examined the modern ship ("Boky"), which, in its armament, "musculature", despite its modest size, can with the ships with more "broad shoulders." Further modifications of this project, corvettes, frigates, ships of other displacement will be associated with the formation of an optimal weapon scheme - that is, as many weapons as possible should be on a ship that does not “swell” in size
- Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, an interview at the opening of the International Naval Salon in St. Petersburg, July 4 2013
Dmitry Rogozin quite rightly identified the main trend of the domestic shipbuilding: in the construction of Soviet / Russian ships, priority was always given to weapons!
Modest in size "tin" carried tremendous power strike systems, developed means of self-defense and multifunctional complexes of naval weapons.
The huge masses and dimensions of the Soviet anti-ship missiles (to match their capabilities!) Created certain difficulties with their placement on board ships - the original layout was usually used with the open placement of launch canisters right on the upper deck.
As a result, even with the naked eye it was noticeable that the ships, literally, are overloaded with weapons and ammunition. The upper decks were literally “overwhelmed” with rocket launch canisters, beam launchers, multi-barreled RBUs and naval artillery barrels.
The ferocious face of Soviet ships, also known in the West as a “purposeful-looking design” (a serious ship for serious tasks), left no doubt as to the intentions of the Soviet Navy. Only forward, for the right of global domination in the sea!
Missile cruiser pr. 58 "Terrible" (1962). This is not to say that he was a super-hero, but for its size and cost, its capabilities were simply frightening. With a preventive strike, the “kid” could fill up any naval group of the US Navy (two salvos of 4 anti-ship missiles, two missiles with a “surprise”). The defensive capabilities of the cruiser itself were small, however, in those days the American aviation there was nothing more serious than subsonic attack aircraft and free-falling bombs.
Probably, that was what Dmitry Rogozin meant during his speech at IMDS-2013. However, in the continuation of the vice-premier's speech there are quite a few interesting phrases and statements: “Boiky corvette”, “optimal weapon scheme”, and also “as many weapons as possible on the ship while maintaining the same size”. At the same time, the Deputy Prime Minister stressed that "the buildup of armaments should not affect the comfort of the life and work of the crews."
Quite fair requirements to improve the effectiveness of combat surface units, while minimizing costs. Another thing is how feasible are these orders?
Indeed, the Russian boom of the 20380 project (adopted in the Russian Navy in May 2013), presented at the exhibition, corresponds in its class to the best world analogues. In addition to the rapid hull lines and superstructures, made with the technology of "stealth", the small ship carries on board such an impressive armament complex, which would envy a foreign frigate or light destroyer.
Tactics percussion arms (eight subsonic RCC X-35 «Uranium" with a range over 100 km), twelve topside cells SAM "Redut" (12 SAMs medium range 9M96E or 48 lung 9M100 missiles) - Corvette capable of attacking airborne targets at a distance of 40 kilometers from the ship. Universal artillery caliber 100 mm, two "metal cutters" AK-630M, anti-submarine complex "Package-NK" (8 small-sized torpedoes) and, of course, a helicopter.
And this is not the limit - on the “Greater” corvette under construction (improved 20385 project), it is planned to increase the number of Red Army air defense systems to 16 units, as well as to equip the corvette with a universal firing system (ECCS): eight Caliber cruise missiles with firing range over 2 thousand kilometers. And all this in the body of a tiny corvette with a full displacement of 2200 tons!
For comparison: to deploy a similar armament complex onboard the frigate Brandenburg, German developers needed as many 4500 tons of displacement! A comparison of Russian corvettes with similar-sized German corvettes of the type "Braunschweig" gives truly compelling reasons to be proud of the domestic shipbuilding. It is the “optimal armament scheme” that Dmitry Rogozin spoke so colorfully about!
German frigate Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, visit to St. Petersburg, 2009 year
But what about the statement about the "increase in the number of weapons while maintaining the same size"? What did the deputy prime minister mean?
Probably, the articles of the load - the ratio of the basic elements of the ship. In general, the set of parameters is as follows:
- hull and ship mechanisms;
- constructive protection and booking (if any);
- power plant (engine and ship power station);
- armament (the most important parameter, according to D. Rogozin);
- fuel;
- team and reserves of provisions;
- displacement reserve (in this case it can be neglected).
All elements of the ship are in a given balance with each other - it is impossible to increase one parameter without affecting the others. Just putting an extra anti-aircraft complex on the ship and an additional fire control system will fail — or rather, an overkil maneuver will turn out. When calculating the design of the ship, key attention is paid to its stability - if the specified restrictions are violated (shifting the center of gravity position due to overload or roll caused by damage in the underwater part), the metacentric height will critically decrease - the unfortunate ship will fall to the side and will be buried in masts.
Obviously, you have to donate any of the elements. But how?
1. Hull and ship mechanisms.
A ship without a hull can not be, but you can try to ease it. It is possible to thin the casing to the limit and weaken the power set - but then the hull will pop and burst under the impact of the waves, as the hulls of American Ticonderoga type cruisers do.
You can try to fool mother nature by playing on the “density” parameter - durable and lightweight titanium alloys work wonders. But the cost of such a ship would be so high that it would be easier to build two similar corvettes (cruisers, frigates) from ordinary steel.
Also, you can use a cheaper structural material, such as aluminum-magnesium alloy AMG. Almost a complete analog of titanium, the only snag - AMG alloy perfectly ignites and burns with a hot flame. Deadly threat to the survivability of the ship.
As for the hull of the corvette "Boky" - the designers managed to "squeeze" out of it all the reserves. The steel smooth-decked case, but the superstructure is made of composite materials (fiberglass) - solid weight savings.
2. Constructive protection and booking
For modern surface ships this item is irrelevant.
3. GEM
Everything is simple here - the required power of the power plant is determined by the required speed of the ship. The speed itself is in cubic dependence on the power of the power plant. In other words, if, other things being equal, the ship's power plant's capacity is reduced by 2 times, the speed will fall by 8 times. Catastrophic law of nature.
In real terms, this means the following: to accelerate the 2200-ton corvette to speed in 27 nodes (50 km / h) four Kolomna diesel 16Д49 horsepower 6000 hp is required. each. The net mass of each “motor” (excluding gearboxes, generators and auxiliary equipment) is just over 26 tons.
Reduce the speed of the corvette "Boy" is clearly not worth it - it is already on the border of the lower limit.
The required power, and, therefore, the mass of the power plant, can be reduced by optimizing the contours in the underwater part of the hull. Alas, this method has already been used - the contours of Russian corvettes are already extremely perfect. As for the nasal bulba, in which the under-rocky gas is placed, it is impossible to do anything here.
Theoretically, it is possible to replace Kolomna diesel engines with foreign ones, for example, ship engines of the MTU company - this will save a mass of several tens of tons, but will significantly complicate the operation of the power plant of the Russian corvette.
4. Armament
This was much discussed at the beginning of the article. The Russian corvette is already full of weapons to the limit.
UVP anti-aircraft complex "Redut"
5. Fuel
A live parameter directly related to the notion of autonomy. Domestic warships, traditionally, are not too good in this matter. The Corvette “Boky” is no exception: the cruising range of the entire 3500 ... 4000 miles on the economic course of the 14 nodes - fuel reserves are hard enough even for the Baltic Sea.
6. Crew
Dmitry Rogozin was worried in vain - the weight of the sailors' bodies, their personal belongings, the interiors of the personnel quarters and the provisions could be neglected - this value is negligible against the background of the masses of the hull, armament and ship mechanisms. The personnel are accommodated in the most comfortable conditions, and the automation has made it possible to abandon a large number of people on board (the crew of the “Boky” corvette does not exceed 100 people).
The bridge of the corvette pr 20380
To summarize our brief study: modern ships of the Russian Navy carry powerful and diverse weapons on board, surpassing their foreign counterparts in quantity and quality. Steregushchiy type corvettes, a series of frigates under construction on projects 11356 (Admiral Grigorovich) and 22350 (Admiral Gorshkov) are under construction - all of them are “armed to the teeth”, and their designs are correctly balanced taking into account the realities, conditions and needs of the Russian military marine fleet Of Russia. Everything, as ordered by the Deputy Prime Minister.
The main disadvantage is that the construction pace is too slow (6-7 years for the corvette, this is three times higher than all the standards of decency). However, the design of the ships is absolutely nothing to do with - the whole thing is in the financing and delays in the development / testing / adoption of new ship weapon systems and radio electronics. As a result, the lead ship is usually accepted into the navy "naked" - all planned equipment is gradually being introduced on subsequent ships of the series.
However, there is another hidden problem that is not directly related to the construction of ships under construction. Dmitry O. suggested that the ship’s capabilities should grow, and the dimensions should remain at the same level - in this case, the “Boky” corvette, presented at the IMDS-2013 exhibition, was adopted as a reference.
The difficulty is that no matter how hard design engineers try, it is impossible to build a powerful and multifunctional combat ship in a hull with a displacement of 2200 tons. The corvette will remain forever a corvette - a guard, a ship of rank III, oriented to solve a wide range of tasks in coastal waters.
In the autumn of 2012, it became known that the Corvette "Savvyitelny" (the second ship of the 20380 project) failed anti-aircraft fire - in five cases out of five, the shipboard Redut missile system missed. Sailors attributed the failure to the unsatisfactory performance of the ship’s radar equipment. Mounted on the corvette, the general detection radar "Furke-2" is too weak to confidently "highlight" the air target at large and medium distances. As a result, the homing missiles are not able to "hear" the reflected "echo", and the missiles miss the targets.
Under the radio transparent hood is hidden radar "Furke-2"
The use of the Furke-2 radar as the main radar already says a lot - it is only the "well-fed" version of the land-based radar MASK of the Pantyr-C1 short-range radar. Installing something more serious does not allow the modest size of the corvette.
Even if we could find a reserve for the masses and spaces to install a full-fledged radar, there will certainly be a problem with power consumption - will the existing diesel generators have enough power or will we have to install something bigger?
And what do you want, since it was a hard technical task: to fit the overall complex into a small ship with a displacement of about 2,5 thousand tons? Because of the small size of the compartments, many units of the air defense system and radar we could not accommodate, and the rest had to be seriously squeezed. All this could not affect the effectiveness of the complex, but now we have found a technical solution.
- an anonymous interviewee "Izvestia"
You may ask: how are these problems solved abroad? The answer is no way. Foreign corvettes or LCS (littoral combar ship - ship of the coastal zone) are focused on solving their specific tasks - search / capture of traffickers, drug dealers, illegal immigrants, search and rescue actions, protection of bases, trawling of fairways, patrolling territorial waters. The corvette simply does not require such complex and cumbersome systems as the Redut air defense system - for self-defense, repelling provocations and random attacks, there are enough anti-aircraft machines and short-range air defense systems. More serious problems are solved by ships larger in size.
Promoting a tiny corvette to the role of a “super hero” is too naive and, at least, strange. Based on the level of development of modern science and technology, to create a full-fledged combat unit of the fleet, able to withstand any of the possible threats and operate effectively in coastal waters, in open sea areas and in the open ocean - all this requires a ship (destroyer) with a displacement of 3- 4 times as large as that of the lively corvette.
Such dimensions are necessary for the guaranteed placement on board of a destroyer of a universal armament complex; means of detection, navigation and communication; fire control systems and multi-functional BIUS. It is this displacement reserve that is required to construct a sufficiently strong hull with more or less worthy structural protection, to accommodate a full-fledged power plant and fuel reserves, providing a cruising range of at least 4000 ... 5000 miles at the operating speed of 18-20 nodes. The ship must be heavy enough to ensure normal seaworthiness and exclude bottom slamming (in other words, so that the ship does not jump out of the water during any light storm, and the possibility of using weapons was maintained even with sea 5-6 points). And, of course, it is required to provide comfortable conditions on board for the deployment of personnel.
For all this, a destroyer requires a full displacement within 8000 tons.
British destroyer of Daring type. Total Displacement - 8000 tons
Forty years ago, the Americans attempted to create a universal ship of the ocean zone within the frigate class. Alas, despite the vast experience in shipbuilding, the most modern materials and technologies, the attempt can not be called successful. The fact that the frigates "Oliver H. Perry" - helpless steel coffins, American sailors guessed for a long time: solid armament and ammunition, transoceanic cruising range, but something was wrong ...
Fire detection and control systems - trimmed copies of equipment from real cruisers and destroyers, an unclosed loop of near air defense, dubious seaworthiness (4500 tons - too little to withstand the pressure of the elements in the North Atlantic). The single-stage power plant and aluminum superstructure - all this did not add confidence to the sailors of the US Navy.
The truth turned out to be a real battle - in 1988, the Stark frigate could not repel the attack of a single Iraqi Air Force plane, received two missiles on board and almost bent at the scene of the incident - only the lack of excitement and nearby US Navy ships saved. The victims of the attack were 37 American sailors.
It seems that not everything is all right with USS Stark
After analyzing the results of the Perry type frigates service, the Americans completely curtailed the direction of work in this direction and since then they have built only full-fledged Burke destroyers (in / 8000 and 9000 tons). Prospective coastal ships (corvettes / patrols / minesweepers) of the LCS type are intended only for auxiliary operations in the intertidal zone and are not designed for direct combat with a serious enemy.
Fantasy is a slightly open curtain to the future, but the facts inexorably testify: no one has yet been able to build a successful warship, with a smaller displacement than other members of this class of ships.
Corvette "Boky", the Baltic Fleet of the Russian Navy
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