Naval development in post-Soviet Russia is an example of a combination of stupidity and inefficiency. The funds allocated for the restoration of the fleet only led to an increase in the scale of mistakes of those who were responsible for their development. Such a situation is absolutely intolerable, and it is believed that the patience of the political leadership is already running out. But how can we make building a fleet, especially shipbuilding, a more efficient and meaningful process? One way to do this is to draw on the experience of our enemies (the Americans). After all, if you learn from anyone, then from the very best, right?
Let us turn to what rules in naval development our enemy is guided and guided by and what it gives him to follow these rules.
A bit of history.
In the early seventies, the US Navy experienced an ideological and organizational crisis. One of its consequences was that the Soviet Navy was able to seriously "push" the United States in the World Ocean, and, in some cases, force the Americans to retreat. This show of force, however, only angered the Americans and forced them to dramatically increase pressure on the USSR in order to eventually crush it. We must carefully study the experience of American naval development at the end of the Cold War and after it, and be sure to use it.
At the end of 1971, an ally of the Americans, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, which unleashed a war with India, found itself in a difficult position. Indian troops were successfully offensive on land, and at sea, the Indian Navy was able to inflict catastrophic losses on Pakistan. Under these conditions, the United States, despite its employment in Vietnam, sent an aircraft carrier strike group TG74, led by the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Enterprise, to the Indian Ocean. The aim of the AUG was to pressure India, to force India to withdraw its aircraft from the front to counter the hypothetical attack of the AUG, to distract the aircraft carrier Vikrant from the fighting, and to deter India from an offensive in West Pakistan. Taken together, this was supposed to ease the situation of Pakistan.
But the pressure did not work: in the Indian Ocean, the AUG stumbled upon a Soviet formation as part of the missile cruiser of the project 1134 Vladivostok (previously classified as a BOD), the missile cruiser of the project 58 Varyag, the destroyer of the project 56 Excited, the BOD of project 61 Strogiy, nuclear submarine of project 675 "K-31", armed with anti-ship cruise missiles, missile diesel submarine of project 651 "K-120" and six torpedo D EPL pr. 641. Also, the detachment included a landing ship and support ships. The Americans were forced to retreat. It was a formidable sign - the Russians showed that although their fleet was inferior to the US Navy in terms of numbers, it was technologically at least equal, and already had enough power to thwart the plans of the Americans. Our sailors were very cocky and seriously made the Americans nervous.
The TG74 trek turned into a mindless cruise, and in January, AUG was ordered to leave.
At the same time, in December 1972, the USSR launched the aircraft-carrying cruiser "Kiev" - its first aircraft-carrying combat ship.
In the spring of 1973, the United States was forced to withdraw from Vietnam, which significantly demoralized the personnel of all types of their armed forces.
But the US Navy received the main slap in the face in the fall of 1973, during the next Arab-Israeli war. Then the Navy deployed in the Mediterranean a grouping of nineteen warships and sixteen submarines, including nuclear ones. Missile submarines continuously kept the crews of American ships at bay, which then had nothing to defend against a more or less dense volley. Tu-16s continuously "hung" in the sky over the American naval formations. The US Navy had an overall superiority in forces over our fleet - there were two aircraft carriers alone, and in total the US 6th Fleet had forty-eight warships in the region, combined into three formations - two aircraft carriers and one landing force. But the very first salvo of Soviet submarines would have seriously changed the situation to the disadvantage of the Americans, would have significantly thinned the composition of the Navy, and they understood this.
The United States never entered hostilities on the side of Israel, although it must be admitted that Israel itself coped, albeit “on the brink”. Nevertheless, the Arabs owe it to the USSR to stop the Israeli tanks on the way to Cairo. At that time, the Soviet marines had already embarked on ships to land in the vicinity of the Suez Canal, and the air bridge from the USSR to the Arab countries was stopped in order to allocate the required number of aircraft for the Airborne Forces. The USSR was really about to enter the war if Israel did not stop, and a powerful fleet was the guarantee that this entry was realizable.
For the Americans, this state of affairs was unacceptable. They used to think of themselves as the masters of the seas and oceans, and being treated like this infuriated the American establishment.
In 1975, during numerous meetings at the Pentagon and the White House, the US political leadership decided that it was necessary to "reverse the trend" and begin to put pressure on the Russians themselves, regaining unconditional dominance in the oceanic zone. In 1979, when China, friendly at that time to the Americans, attacked Vietnam, which was definitely hostile to them, the Americans sent AUG to Vietnam as part of the idea of "returning to business" in order to support them and put pressure on Hanoi during the battles with the Chinese. But AUG came across Soviet submarines. And again nothing happened …
The Americans have relied on technology. Since the seventies, the Ticonderoga-class cruisers, the Spruence destroyers, the Tarawa UDC, the Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carriers began to enter service, and the construction of the Ohio SSBN began (the lead boat was commissioned in 1981). They were "helped" by the brainchild of Admiral Zumwalt's High-Low Navy concept, the Perry-class frigates, the Navy's workhorses. They did not stand out in anything special in terms of technical perfection, but there were many of them, and they were actually effective against submarines.
But their adversary did not stand still. Project 1143 aircraft-carrying attack ships appeared, extremely dangerous at the very first strike that the Americans feared, the number of Project 1135 anti-submarine ships increased, much more effective than their predecessors, new weapon systems appeared, such as the Tu-22M bomber, the Ka- 25RTs, and from the end of the seventies a series of new destroyers of large displacement were laid, presumably superior in striking power to any American surface ship. These were the destroyers of Project 956. In 1977, the first BOD of Project 1155 was laid down, which was destined to become a record anti-submarine in terms of efficiency.
And finally, in 1977, the Project 1144 Kirov nuclear-powered missile cruiser was launched, which alone required a full-fledged AUG to counter it, and was capable of crushing the navy of a small country without support.
At the same time, in the late seventies, the noise of Soviet nuclear submarines dropped sharply, and the number of nuclear submarines of the USSR already surpassed the United States.
All this largely neutralized the American stake on technology - technology was not only theirs. In addition, some technologies were only in the USSR - for example, titanium submarines or supersonic anti-ship missiles.
The situation for the Americans was depressing. Their dominance in the oceans was coming to an end. I had to do something. The idea of fighting the Soviet Navy was needed, and a leader was needed who could generate and implement this idea.
This leader was destined to become the owner of a consulting firm and part-time reserve captain of the Navy, deck reserve pilot John Lehman.
The format of the article does not provide for an examination of how Lehman managed to infiltrate the American establishment and gain a reputation for himself as the man who can be entrusted with the entire leadership of naval development. Let's restrict ourselves to the fact - after becoming President of the United States, Ronald Reagan offered Lehman the post of Minister of the Navy. Lehman, who at that moment only turned thirty-eight and who, with boyish enthusiasm, left from time to time the management of his business in order to lift the A-6 Intruder attack aircraft from the deck of an aircraft carrier into the air, immediately agreed. He was destined to go down in Western history as one of the men who defeated the USSR and one of the most successful leaders of the US Navy in history.
What is behind this name? A lot: both the familiar look of the US Navy, and the "Lehman Doctrine", which consisted in the need to attack the USSR from the East, in the event of a war in Europe (including simultaneously with the Chinese, in some cases), and a gigantic "injection" of the latest technologies into the field of intelligence, communications and information processing, which dramatically increased the combat capabilities of the Navy. This is the monstrous pressure that the USSR Navy felt on itself immediately from the beginning of the eighties, and the repeated raids of the US Navy special forces on Chukotka, Kuril Islands, Kamchatka and in Primorye (and you did not know, right?) In the eighties, and the massive introduction of winged missiles "Tomahawk" on almost all ships and submarines of the US Navy, and the return to service of battleships "Iowa", and the most expensive naval program in human history - "600 ships". And this is where lessons begin that we would like to learn. Because those leaders who will revive the domestic fleet will face restrictions that are very similar to those that faced the US Navy Secretary John Lehman and which he overcame.
The experience of the winners is worth a lot, and it makes sense to analyze the approaches of Lehman's team and his predecessors to naval development, and, for contrast, compare this with what our Ministry of Defense is doing in the same field. We were lucky - Lehman is still alive and actively giving interviews, Zumwalt left behind memories and a formulated concept, the US Navy declassified part of the Cold War documents, and, in general, how the Americans acted and what they sought is understandable.
So, the rules of Lehman, Zumwalt and all those who were behind the revival of the US Navy in the late seventies and early eighties. We compare this with what the Navy and the structures of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation associated with naval construction did.
1. Many ships are needed. Any warship is a threat to which the enemy will have to react, spend forces, time, money, resource of ships, and in a combat situation - to bear losses. The reduction of ships is an extreme measure, it can take place either when the potential of the ship is completely exhausted, or during the replacement of old ships with new ones according to the "pennant-for-pennant" scheme, or if the ship turns out to be unsuccessful and its existence does not make sense. In any case, reducing the number of ships is an extreme measure.
This was the reason for the fact that the Americans "pulled" outdated ships to the maximum and returned to the ranks of World War II veterans - battleships. I would like to note that the declassified documents indicate that the Iowas were supposed to work not along the coast, but together with missile ships - on Soviet ships. They were also supposed to become (and have become) the most armed carriers of the Tomahawk CD. It is worth noting that their use was planned in those regions where the USSR could not fully use strike aircraft - in the Caribbean Sea, in the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, and other similar places, although in fairness, battleships even entered the Baltic. But it was just a show of force, in a real war, they would have acted elsewhere.
Similarly, along with the Spruence, dozens of obsolete destroyers remained in the ranks of the US Navy, all of the Legi missile cruisers built in the sixties and their atomic version of the Bainbridge, their almost the same age as the Belknap class, their atomic version of the Trakstan, the atomic the cruiser Long Beach, nuclear submarines built before Los Angeles, and even three diesel-electric ones, continued to stand in the ranks.
Lehman saw that even a high-tech fleet was not enough to defeat the USSR at sea. Therefore, he advocated the number - the development program of the US Navy was called "600 ships" for a reason. The number matters and God is not only on the side of large battalions, but also large squadrons. To prevent the ships from becoming useless at all, they were modernized.
For comparison: the ships of the Russian Navy were decommissioned long before the exhaustion of their resource and in conditions when there were no special grounds for decommissioning. First of all, we are talking about ships whose repairs were delayed and which "died" under the conditions of this repair. These are, for example, the destroyers of Project 956.
Of the total number of decommissioned ships, six units were written off already in the middle of the 2000s, when there was a minimum, but still some kind of funding for the Navy. Two are now rotting in repair plants, with unclear prospects. It is clear that the ships are already very outdated, but they created some level of threat to the enemy, especially if we consider their hypothetical modernization. Rotting and BOD "Admiral Kharlamov", also with unclear (and most likely, alas, clear) prospects.
Another example is the refusal of the Navy to accept from the Border Service the ships of Project 11351 that it did not need. At the turn of the 2000s, the Border Service decided to abandon these ships as too costly - a slightly simplified frigate with turbines and anti-submarine weapons was too expensive to operate. The Navy was asked to take these PSKR for itself. Of course, for service in the Navy, they would have to be modernized and re-equipped, but after that, the fleet would have the opportunity to increase the ship's composition for not much money.
The fleet demanded that the FPS first repair the ships at its own expense, then transfer it. The FPS, of course, refused - why would they repair what they are giving away as unnecessary? As a result, the ships went to pieces and today the Pacific Fleet has four ships of the first rank on the move.
In fact, there are even more such examples, including in the submarine fleet. Now, when the old ships have been cut and there is nothing to modernize, they will have to build new ones, but only when the shipbuilding industry comes to life and finally turns out to be able to build something within a reasonable time frame, that is, apparently, not soon. And yes, new ships will definitely be many times more expensive than repairing and upgrading old ones. On the one hand, they would still have to be built, on the other, they would have to be built in more numbers and faster in time. And this is money, which, generally speaking, does not exist.
2. It is necessary to make every effort to reduce budget expenditures, but not to the detriment of the number of pennants
Lehman faced mutually exclusive conditions. On the one hand, it was necessary to knock out the maximum funding from Congress. On the other hand, to demonstrate the possibility of reducing costs for a separate ship being commissioned. To the credit of the Americans, they have achieved this.
First, the Navy was prohibited from revising the technical requirements for ships after a contract was signed for them. After the contractor ordered a series of ships, all changes in their design were frozen, it was only allowed to immediately start work on a new "block" - a package upgrade that would affect many ship systems and be done all at the same time, and together with scheduled repairs. This allowed the industry to start ordering components and subsystems for the entire series at once, which in turn reduced prices and shortened construction time. The timing, in turn, also played to reduce the price, since the cost of the ships was not so strongly influenced by inflation. It was this measure that allowed the appearance of such a massive series of ships as the destroyer "Arlie Burke".
Secondly, the ships were built only in long typed series with minimal differences in design from hull to hull. It also kept costs down in the long run.
A separate requirement was a direct ban on the pursuit of excessive technical perfection. It was believed that the newest systems could and should be installed on the ship, but only when they were brought to an operable state, and, choosing between a “just good” subsystem and a more expensive and less sophisticated, but technically more advanced, it was considered correct to choose the first of them. … The pursuit of superperfection was declared evil, and the principle “the best is the enemy of the good” became a guiding star.
The final touch was the introduction of fixed prices - the contractor could not seek to increase the budget for the construction of already contracted buildings under any circumstances. Of course, with low American inflation, it was easier to achieve this than, for example, under ours.
Also, the US Navy categorically sought the unification of naval subsystems on ships of different classes and types. One of the positive consequences of those times is that all gas turbine ships of the US Navy are built with one type of gas turbine - the General Electric LM2500. Of course, different modifications of it have been applied on different ships, but this cannot be compared with our "zoo". Great attention was paid to inter-ship unification. But it also reduces the cost of the fleet.
Of course, it was in the eighties that the US Navy was a "zoo" of different types of warships, but then they had to crush the USSR with numbers. But the ships under construction were distinguished by a reduced type.
And the last thing. This is a fair competition between shipbuilders and subsystem manufacturers, which allowed the customer (Navy) to "move" the prices of ships "down".
On the other hand, in the form of a retaliatory step, the most severe budgetary discipline was introduced. The Navy carefully planned budgets, matched them with the budgets of shipbuilding programs, and ensured that the money stipulated by the contracts for the shipbuilders was allocated on time. This allowed the industry to keep to the schedule for building ships and did not allow price increases due to delays in the supply of components and materials, or due to the need to create new debts to continue construction work.
Now let's compare with the Ministry of Defense and the Russian Navy.
The first massive ships of the new Russian fleet were conceived as a Project 20380 corvette and a 22350 frigate. Both were planned in large series, but what did the Ministry of Defense do?
If the Americans froze the configuration of the ship, then at 20380 they revised it on a large scale, and more than once. Instead of the ZRAK "Kortik" on all ships after the lead was installed the SAM "Redut". This required money to redesign (and the ships were seriously redesigned for this). Then they designed 20385 with imported diesel engines and other components, after the imposition of sanctions, they abandoned this series and returned to 20380, but with new radars in an integrated mast, from the backlog of the failed 20385. Again, changes in the design. If the Americans correctly planned expenses and rhythmically financed shipbuilding, then in our country both the 20380 and 22350 series were financed with interruptions and delays. If the Americans massively replicated tested and proven systems, changing them to new ones only with the confidence that everything would work, then our corvettes and frigates were literally packed with equipment that had never been installed anywhere before and had not been tested anywhere. The result is long construction and fine-tuning times and huge costs.
Then additional expenses begin, caused by the lack of inter-ship unification.
How would the construction of the same 20380 go if they were created in the USA? First, CONOPS would be born - Concept of operations, which means "Operational concept", that is, the concept of what kind of combat operations the ship will be used for. For this concept, a project would be born, components and subsystems would be selected, under a separate tender, some of them would be created and tested, moreover, in real conditions, in the same conditions in which the ship should be operated. Then a tender for the construction of the ship would be held, and after its completion, the technical task would be frozen. The entire series would be contracted immediately - as planned thirty ships, and would go according to this plan, with adjustments only in the most urgent cases.
The ships would be built completely the same, and only then, during repairs, if necessary, they would be modernized in blocks - that is, for example, replacing torpedo tubes and AK-630M on all ships, modernizing electronic weapons and some mechanical systems - again the same on all ships. The entire life cycle would be planned from laying down to disposal, there would be planned and repairs and upgrades. At the same time, the ships would be laid down again at those shipyards where they were already built, which would guarantee a reduction in the construction time.
We do everything exactly the opposite, completely. Only fixed prices have been copied, but how can they work if the state can simply underpay the money on time, and the entire construction financing scheme will go headlong, with an increase in the contractor's costs and an increase in the (real) cost of the ship?
And of course, the scam with a new type of ship 20386 instead of the existing one, fulfilling its tasks and of the same class 20380, would not even start.
By the way, we have many times more types of warships than the United States, but the fleet as a whole is weaker (to put it mildly).
Now let's look at the consequences using specific numbers as an example. According to Rosstat, the ruble / dollar exchange rate at purchasing power parity should be about 9, 3 rubles per dollar. This is not a market or speculative figure; it is an indicator of how many rubles are needed to buy in Russia as much material goods as in the US a dollar can buy.
This figure is averaged. For example, food in the United States is four to five times more expensive, used cars are cheaper than ours, etc.
But as an average, the PPP comparison is quite usable.
Now we look at the prices. The lead "Arlie Burke" flight IIa - $ 2.2 billion. All subsequent ones - 1.7 billion. We calculate by PPP, we get that the head costs 20, 46 billion rubles, and the serial 15, 8. There is no VAT in America.
Our corvette 20380 costs 17, 2 billion rubles excluding VAT, and the lead ship - "cut" of the project 20386 - 29, 6 billion. But where are the corvettes, and where is the ocean destroyer with 96 missile cells ?!
Of course, one can make claims to the very concept of purchasing power parity, but the fact that we spend our money several times less efficiently than the Americans is beyond doubt. With our approach and budgetary discipline, they might have a fleet on par with France or Britain, but not what they have. For politically concerned citizens, we will make a reservation - there are also “cuts” and corruption.
We should learn from them both financial planning and production management.
3. It is necessary to reduce unproductive and expensive R&D
One of Lehman's demands was to cut off funding for various miracle weapons programs. Neither super torpedoes, nor super missiles, in the opinion of the then US Navy, did not justify themselves. It was necessary to adhere to a standard set of weapons, standard power plant options, unified weapons and equipment, and rivet as many ships as possible. If, in the foreseeable future, the program does not promise not very expensive and mass-produced weapons, ready for mass production, then it should be canceled. This principle helped the Americans save a lot of money, some of which they used to modernize the types of weapons and ammunition already being produced, and, as a result, they got good results.
In contrast to the then USA, the Navy is seriously carried away by very expensive projects of super torpedoes, super missiles, super ships, and in the end has no money even to repair the cruiser "Moscow".
In the United States, however, in recent years, they also deviated from the canon, and received a lot of non-working programs at the output, for example, littoral battleships LCS, but this is already the result of their modern degradation, this was not the case before. However, they have not yet fallen to our level.
4. The fleet should be a tool for achieving strategic goals, and not “just” a fleet
The Americans in the 80s had a clear goal - to drive the Soviet Navy back to their bases. They got it and they got it. Their Navy was quite a working tool for this purpose. An example of how these things were done was an event well-known in the West, but little-known in our country - the imitation of the US Navy attack on Kamchatka in the fall of 1982, as part of the Norpac FleetEx Ops'82 exercise. By such methods, the Americans forced the Navy to spend fuel, money and resources of ships, and instead of being present in the World Ocean, pull forces to their shores to protect them. The USSR was unable to respond to this challenge, although it tried.
Thus, the "Naval Strategy", on the basis of which the Reagan administration (represented by Lehman) defined the tasks for the Navy, exactly corresponded to what goals the United States pursued in the world and what they were striving for. Such clarity in strategy and naval development made it possible not to scatter money and invest it only in what is really necessary, discarding everything unnecessary. Thus, the United States did not build any corvettes or small anti-submarine ships to guard bases. Their strategy was that by active offensive actions they would push back their line of defense to the border of Soviet territorial waters and would hold it there. You don't need corvettes for that.
In Russia, there are several guiding documents that define the role of the Navy and its importance in the country's defense capability. These are "Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation", "Marine Doctrine of the Russian Federation", "Fundamentals of the State Policy of the Russian Federation in the Field of Naval Activities" and "Program of Shipbuilding until 2050". The problem with these documents is that they are not related to each other. For example, the provisions voiced in the Fundamentals do not follow from the "Marine Doctrine", and if you believe the leaked data on the "Shipbuilding Program", then it also contains provisions that do not correlate with the rest of the doctrines, to put it mildly, although in general this cannot be said, the document is secret, but some of it is known and understood. Well, that is, on the contrary, it is not clear.
How can you build a fleet in such conditions? If there is no clarity even in matters of principle, for example, are we “defending” or “attacking”? What to choose - two PLO corvettes or a URO oceanic frigate? To protect the allies (for example, Syria) in the Mediterranean Sea, we need a frigate, and for the defense of our bases it is better to have two corvettes, we will probably not have money for both. So what to do? What is our strategy?
This question should be closed as concretely and unambiguously as possible, otherwise nothing will work. It doesn't work anymore.
5. A massive and cheap ship is needed, a workhorse for all occasions, which, moreover, is not a pity to lose in battle. Expensive ships alone are not enough
The High-End Navy principle was invented by Admiral Zumwalt, and he was his main proponent. Congress buried all Zumwalt's ideas and he himself was quickly "eaten" too, but he managed to do something. First a quote:
A fully high-tech navy would be so expensive that it would be impossible to have enough ships to control the seas. Fully low tech navies will not be able to withstand certain [some. - Translation] types of threats and perform certain tasks. Given the need to have both enough ships and reasonably good ships at the same time, the [Navy] must be a combination of high-tech and low-tech [navies].
This was written by Zumwalt himself. And within the framework of ensuring the mass scale of the fleet, he proposed the following: in addition to expensive and complex ships, we need massive, simple and cheap ones, which can be made a lot and which, relatively speaking, will “keep up everywhere” precisely due to the mass scale. Zumwalt proposed to build a series of light aircraft carriers according to the Sea Control Ship concept, Pegasus missile hydrofoils, a multipurpose ship with aerostatic unloading (non-amphibious airbag) and the so-called "patrol frigate".
Of all this, only the frigate, which received the name "Oliver Hazard Perry", went into the series. This suboptimal, primitive, uncomfortable and weakly armed ship with a single-shaft power plant became, nevertheless, a real "workhorse" of the US Navy, and until now it cannot be replaced with anything. The decommissioning of these frigates created a "hole" in the naval weapons system, which has not been closed until now. Now the Navy is sluggishly conducting the procurement procedure for new frigates, and, apparently, this class will return to the US Navy, but so far there is a hole in their weapons system that there is nothing to fill, and voices demanding to repair and return to service all the Perries that are possible, sound regularly and continuously.
For all its primitiveness, the ship was a good anti-submarine and was part of all American naval groups at the end of the Cold War.
In contrast to the Americans, the Russian Navy does not have, and the industry does not develop a massive cheap ship. All projects that we are working on, or which pretend to be in work, are expensive projects of complex ships. Alas, someone else's experience is not a decree for us.
We do the opposite, and we get the other way around - not the fleet, but the "neflot".
6. It is necessary to reduce bureaucracy and simplify command chains in the field of shipbuilding
In all of his interviews, Lehman emphasizes the importance of reducing bureaucracy. The Americans introduced a fairly transparent and optimal shipbuilding management system, and Lehman made a significant contribution to this formation. In addition to the fact that the optimization of the bureaucracy significantly speeds up all the formal procedures required by law, it also saves money by reducing unnecessary people that you can do without.
Everything is somewhat more complicated with us.
According to the testimony of persons working in the structures of the Ministry of Defense, there is complete order with the bureaucracy there. The approval of a project or non-urgent order can take months, and the whole set of our tyranny is manifested in full growth. If this is true, then something must be done about it. In general, any human collective can be approached with a "cybernetic" approach, like a machine, finding weak and "bottlenecks" in it, eliminating them, accelerating the passage of information from performer to performer and simplifying decision-making schemes, while reducing unnecessary people, those without whom the system already works.
It is possible, and such things have been done in many places. There is no reason why they could not be done at the Department of Defense.
The loss of naval power by Russia keeps in itself a huge danger - any enemy will be able to lead somewhere far from the shores of the Russian Federation a harmful and politically destructive, but at the same time low-intensity conflict, which cannot be answered with a nuclear strike. There are other reasons, for example, the enormous length and vulnerability of coastal lines, a large number of regions, communication with which is possible only by sea (with the exception of rare air flights), and the presence of powerful navies in hostile countries. The current situation with the fleet is absolutely intolerable and requires correction. And whoever is engaged in this correction in the near future, the experience of the enemy, the rules by which he builds his sea power, will turn out to be very, very useful and deserve close study.
Of course, Russia is not the United States, and the goals of our naval development should be different. But this does not mean that the American experience is inapplicable, especially in conditions when the domestic one showed useless results.
It's time to improve.
