June 10, 2021 the head of the United Shipbuilding Corporation A. Rakhmanov informed the public the following:
"If, within the framework of our understanding, modern technologies are applied on the corvette, then, in fact, its construction may be delayed until these technologies are developed."
“And if we take into account that the ship itself can become an experimental vessel, then it will never (will not become part of the Navy. -“IF”). It will plow the sea and develop new technologies."
"If it really is a test vessel, it will be put into operation as a test vessel."
The key point here is the phrase
"As a matter of fact, its construction may be delayed until the development of these technologies", clearly hinting that the ship will not be built for a long time. By the way, informed sources in the defense industry spoke about this even before its laying, claiming that the purpose of the project was not the construction of a super corvette, but the development of budgets, as impudent as it was open. And the fact that the ship may be unable to be used for its intended purpose was also said, and a lot. And now, after spending many tens of billions on this project, we were hinted at its potential outcome.
Is it overwhelming?
After all, for this project online for many years a whole army of bots and corrupt journalists was torn apart, who as soon as they did not praise it. And then suddenly such hints … Moreover, what is important - insiders report that this idea does not come from A. Rakhmanov himself, but from the customer, that is, the Navy. Obviously, on the customer's side they understand how big the hole will be in the country's defense with such a ship as a combat unit, and they insure themselves against this, and they don't want to be responsible for the failure in the High Command - all the main instigators of this scam, who wore shoulder straps, have already fired.
It is also time for Alexei Leonidovich himself to start laying straws about "Daring Mercury" - the collapse of this project will be large enough to kill not only the guilty (in a bad version - not so many guilty ones, unfortunately we have it), but also those who he simply “stood by” - and Mr. Rakhmanov, being personally not involved in this scam, “stands” close enough to it that “respected people” would miss the opportunity to make him a switchman. He, of course, is not to blame, but this is not a significant factor in our country, alas.
There are precedents in our country for appointing the guilty in this way - the same Vice-Admiral Bursuk flew not only and not so much for his mistakes, but for the results of actions and inaction of completely different people (from structures generally not related to the Russian Navy), to which he could not influence in any way. Here there will be an even more epic failure, which also cost the country the renewal of the surface anti-submarine forces of the near sea zone - and this cannot be fixed, time is lost. No ships capable of fighting submarines have been laid in our country since 2016. The "respected people" will deflect this blow anyway, so it's time for A. Rakhmanov to strain himself.
It is worth considering, however, such a question - what can be done with the "Mercury" in order to return at least a small part of the funds invested in this "sawmill", and still get some kind of warship as a result of these investments? But first - about that straw, which, of course, has not yet broken the back of this camel, but, perhaps, it will.
Barrier
Let's not beat around the bush - the reason is in the radar complex (RLC) produced by JSC "Zaslon". According to "people in the subject", this outstanding organization, which has launched its tentacles into the navy and the aerospace forces, cannot ensure integration into the electronic weapons of ships of its miracle complexes, with a huge price, large required internal volumes in the ship, frantic energy consumption and, unfortunately, zero combat effectiveness. And, apparently, he cannot now provide for the series.
Of the two ships handed over to the fleet with this complex, one - the corvette of project 20385 "Thundering", after more than a year of improvements, was still able to shoot down one target (while the organization of these firing was such that the "miracle" -RLK could not be turned on at all), showing Performance characteristics at the level of complexes of the early 60s. The second ship - the corvette of project 20380 "Hero of the Russian Federation Aldar Tsydenzhapov", according to the Ministry of Defense, shot down a target missile with a cannon, while the press service of the Ministry of Defense did not show any video, and most importantly, there are no reports that this ship at least once fired anti-aircraft guided missiles (SAM). From this it is easy to conclude that the anti-aircraft missile system on the ship is generally not combat-ready.
Of course, now the Ministry of Defense can organize "shooting at a stopwatch" - load the future route of the target missile into the BIUS and synchronized in time with its launch, shoot the 9M96 missile defense system at the point at which, according to calculations, the target missile will be at that time. The performance characteristics of 9M96 missiles allow it to shoot down a target during such a trick and when launching several missiles - not even one, but in war, of course, it will not work that way. Focus will remain focus
In fact, the Zaslon radar is a mass and size model of the radar. Its effectiveness in comparison with real complexes is the same as that of a mass-dimensional model of an assault rifle, to which a real bayonet-knife was attached, in comparison with a real assault rifle. That is, it is possible to kill them, as it were, but "there are nuances."
It was precisely such radars that our system allowed to drive into the fleet, with it already delivered "Thundering" pr. 20385 and "Aldar Tsydenzhapov" pr. 20380, with it "Zealous" is preparing for tests, "Strict" and "Sharp" of project 20380 and " Agile "project 20385. New corvettes, which President Putin demanded to lay down almost a year ago, have also been contracted with this complex.
And the miracle ship of Project 20386, of course, was also supposed to be equipped with a miracle hand-made article from Zaslon, just different, but just as “effective”.
But problems began with the supply of the complex. And, perhaps, these problems will "catch up" not only with 20386, but also with other corvettes.
Let's look at the photo - a large hull, this is Mercury, the small one next to it is Strogiy, project 20380. The latter looks like this six years after the laying, although usually for 6-7 years of leisurely work, Severnaya Verf has already made a full-fledged descent on the water, after which the ship went to the outfitting wall. These guys, in principle, do not like to work quickly, but here they, as they say, surpassed themselves.
Why?
Let us venture to suggest that the Strogo is drowned by the same thing as the Mercury - the RLK. This is the only "component" of the ship of this project that can cause such a long delay in construction.
If you ask about how the independent press covers the activities of Zaslon, you can find the following things:
- In October, a commission came to Zaslon from the Central Research Institute of the Air Force to accept all this property, but then it turned out that some of the materials were simply lost, and what was available could not cost 800 million rubles.
Another interlocutor, who confirmed that the commission from the Central Research Institute of the Air Force of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation was engaged in the acceptance of materials for the Dart project, said that the specialists were shocked when they saw the materiel that had survived in the warehouses of the enterprise.
“A telescope without a telescopic tube, a dilapidated model of a rocket, two old Acer laptops, a bunch of wires, a Panasonic cordless telephone and several server racks and monitors. In general, it became clear that such property is clearly not worth hundreds of millions, - says the officer.
- But most importantly, it is possible that the software, which was developed with the aim of detecting and capturing missiles and hypersonic aircraft, was also lost along the way.
In addition, the commission did not find a number of classified documents on the project.
According to the interlocutor, they were told at Zaslon that the documents were allegedly seized within the framework of a criminal case initiated by the Nizhny Novgorod police. Moreover, the seizure of documentation took place literally three days before the arrival of the commission.
And further link.
We will not argue that everything written under the link is true. Competitive wars in our country are a common thing, JSC "Zaslon" has enough ill-wishers and competitors, and its owners - too (and not only in business). Nevertheless, the results of the work of this organization in the field of shipbuilding are unambiguous.
And it is precisely these unambiguous results, according to the people involved in the shipbuilding, that led to the fact that the "Strogy" stood at the wall, and from the "Mercury" they propose to make a non-military experimental vessel, with a deadline for delivery "sometime later."
What to do with the radar for corvettes under construction projects 20380 and 20385?
The answer for all unfinished ships is to install a worked-out complex, for example, unified with the Karakurt MRK - the Positiv radar for detecting air targets with radio correction equipment for missiles and work in the drive layer, Mineral-M for issuing target designation for surface targets by the complexes missile weapons, or "tower" with AFAR from KBP (actually working, in contrast to the "Zalonovsky miracle"), radar "Puma" to control the fire of an artillery gun, a mast with a radio-transparent insert, like on "Karakurt".
With such a set of radar equipment, the ship, on the one hand, will become cheaper by at least twenty percent, and on the other hand, it will be combat-ready in terms of hitting air and surface targets "without discounts." The issue of radar equipment for corvettes was discussed in more detail in the article by M. Klimov "Thundering" and others. Will our fleet get effective ships in the near-field? ".
What to do with already built corvettes with MF-RLK?
The Ministry of Defense should ask "Zaslon" about this, but not now, but when the failure with the radar station, which is called "bahn", with the passage of the "shock wave" to the very top of our "vertical of power", when already "Zaslon" will not be able to hide from responsibility …
We should consider another question - what can be done with the hull of the "Mercury" in order to get some kind of warship on its base?
Are there any options?
There is.
Light frigate
Let's look at the photo of the case 20386 again.
The ship is significantly larger than the 20380 corvettes, which normally ran from the Baltic to the Red Sea, and from Vladivostok to Hawaii. At the same time, if you believe the statements of officials that were made at the beginning of this glorious project, then the ship, due to specific contours, "buries" deeper into the wave, which, on the one hand, increases the flooding of the nose, but on the other hand, somewhat improves behavior in waves and reduces pitching.
The seaworthiness of the ship, according to the promises of the Almaz Central Marine Design Bureau, is better than that of the 20380. The speed of the ship with such contours should exceed 30 knots, the economic cruising range and the project 20386 should have been 5000 miles, which indicates good fuel reserves on board. Autonomy is 30 days, which is twice as long as that of the project 20380 corvettes.
To assess the potential of this case, let's resort to a comparison.
The Mercury at its widest section of the hull is more than a meter wider than the Oliver Perry-class frigate. The latter has sub-optimal main dimensions and is only 70 centimeters wide in width at its widest point, and exceeds the project 20380 or 20385 corvette, while carrying two helicopters. Two helicopters would also fit into a hull with a width like that of 20385, which means that they can be placed on 20386, in a normal hangar, of course, not under the deck.
Due to its large size, most likely, on such a ship it is possible to place at least one Redut air defense missile launcher more than on the same 20385, which will bring the number of missiles on board to 24, like the Project 11356 frigate. under at least one universal vertical launcher 3C-14 for "Caliber", "Onyx" and "Zircon" on the ship will remain, and perhaps it will be possible to place two.
In fact, the width and draft of the project 20386 hull is identical to the 11356 frigate, it is just that it is shorter by 16 meters. It is not necessary to install RBU-6000 and 53-cm torpedo tubes on it, electronic weapons are now being produced much more compact than what was installed on 11356 (you can cite as an example only one of the four radar target illumination stations MR-90 "Nut", which are not needed on a modern ship). This means that the internal volumes of the project 20386 hull, when it is redesigned and partially rebuilt, as well as with another (more consistent with reality) superstructure, quite allow to place on this ship a weapon that is quite adequate in strength and, possibly, even two helicopters.
Of course, the architecture of this hypothetical new ship will be completely different from that of the original 20386. The upper deck will have to be cut off - the optimal relative position of the gun and the air defense system of the air defense missile system is completely different.
Unfortunately, the manufacture of the 6RP gearbox has already begun, and this ship will in any case remain with a very suboptimal system of partial electric propulsion - with all the disadvantages of the latter, but practically without its advantages. If not for this, then it would be possible to simply unify the ship according to the power plant with the frigate of project 22350 - it would be better in all respects.
As a result, the exit may not turn out to be the worst light frigate.
Instead of which, of course, it was possible to build something either cheaper or more needed. But on the other hand, even if there is such a unit, there is already a case, part of the filling has been unambiguously ordered, not to disappear? Yes, he will be alone and in fact will replenish our "fleet of samples". But this is how we do things, we almost have a "fleet of samples" anyway.
A little over three years ago, in March 2018, the author in his article “Worse than a crime. Construction of corvettes of project 20386 - error offered one of the options for the future fate of this project (before the actual start of its construction, there were still about 8 months):
“Alternatively, this ship can be completed as an experimental and at the same time training ship, for testing electronic equipment, a fundamentally new main power plant, for testing innovative hull contours and assessing the real value of stealth in the radar wavelength range. In addition to the above tasks, it can be used as a training (internal volumes allow to accommodate a large number of cadets) and for training helicopter pilots to search for a ship at sea, board a ship and fly from it. Perhaps it is worth getting by with a simplified and reduced set of weapons on this ship, since it will not be combat."
This option was seen as the least evil compared to building a full-fledged ship according to the original design, but more than a strong-willed decision to stop work. Now, unlike those times, the ship's hull has already been partially built, and there is some groundwork for filling it. And now there is an attempt to make a belated decision, the one that had to be made back in 2018, since this scam was allowed to be born.
And yes - this is still the lesser evil, compared to the attempt to complete the ship according to the original design
But, perhaps, it is worth considering the option of "mastering" the body, the capacities of the "Zvezda-reducer" and turbines in a different way? This is both real and not too late. Yes, the money for the old project was wasted. But they cannot be returned. So let at least some normal unit be put into operation, albeit at an insane price for such a ship.
It is advisable to make sure before that that they did not screw up the contours - the situation when the width and draft, like that of the frigate 11356, is received by a ship that is 13% shorter, also raises questions. But such a check is just not a problem, from the word "in general" - even in our conditions. As well as an insert into the body of an additional section, if necessary. At least hull work in our country is still being carried out normally and, if necessary, quickly.
This means that the question of rebuilding the "Mercury" into a normal ship must be worked out in any case.
