These ships are the real lucky ones. In a real combat situation, they would have been "hacked" to the fullest. The very first battle threatened them with heavy losses, not justified by anything except the obstinacy of high officials and the super-profits received by "effective managers" involved in the creation of these vessels. Whose decisions were dictated by any considerations other than increasing the combat capability of the fleet.
And the enemy … The enemy would have minted commemorative medals and celebrated victories. Of course, without mentioning that the losers simply had incapacitated ships.
Leading untrained people into battle means betraying them.
(Sun Tzu.)
But the check by force did not take place. Everyone gradually forgot about the shortcomings of those ships and were even proud of them.
Awkward and incapacitated, they showed the flag in peacetime, after which they peacefully perished in the melting pot. Their heirs continue to sunbathe in the Californian sun without worrying about anything in their careers.
The specific names of those who are guilty of creating the vessels cannot be named. Ships are the fruit of a collective intelligence that often took on strange shapes.
Individual design teams worked on their narrow tasks, unaware of the overall progress of the project. As for the very appearance and concept of application, they were also chosen by more than one person. Any ship is a compromise in the struggle of interest groups, often adhering to completely opposite views on the tasks facing the fleet.
Inadequate terms of reference gave rise to problems associated with the need to combine fantasy with harsh reality. On another occasion, the boldness of ideas outstripped the possibilities of technology. Innovation literally “devoured” the ship.
Somewhere too much has been stolen by “effective managers”. It is no secret that most projects born in peacetime pursue a single goal: to cut the defense budget.
But enough philosophy. We are waiting for at least five not the best pages from the history of the navy. If the dear reader decides that five cases are not enough, he can always expand this list by adding his "nominees" to it.
Large cruisers of the "Alaska" class
"Alaska" and the same type "Guam" are real American veterans. Participants in the fighting in the Pacific. On a cloudy morning in April 1945, they, along with six battleships in a community of 10 aircraft carriers, boldly advanced to intercept the Yamato (with full confidence that the battle would end before the arrival of the line forces).
The following phrase became the canonical description of "Alaska" among marine historians:
Too big and expensive to be used as cruisers and too weak and vulnerable for joint operations with battleships … according to American experts themselves, they were "the most useless of the large ships built during the Second World War."
(Kofman V. L. Supercruisers 1939-1945. "Large cruisers" of the "Alaska" type.)
In addition to the vague concept of use, supercruisers were built without regard for anti-torpedo protection - nonsense for shipbuilding in the 1940s. The very first meeting with a submarine threatened "Alaska" and two thousand sailors on board with a catastrophe similar to the death of "Barham" or the Japanese "Congo".
Of the six planned cruisers, two were completed. At the third corps, the admirals' enthusiasm finally dried up, and the construction of the large (in Russian sources - battle-line) cruiser Hawaii was stopped when the readiness level was 80%.
After a couple of years of aimlessly walking in the waters of the Pacific Ocean, "Alaska" and "Guam" were put on hold. The next dizzying step in their career was cutting up for scrap metal.
American universal amphibious ships (1971 - present)
It began with "Tarawa" and continues to this day. UDC "Wasp", "Makin Island" and the project with the proud name "America".
Unarmed, slow-moving "barges" worth billions of dollars. Too expensive to operate in peacetime and completely useless in a combat situation.
The Navy did not feel the need for such bulky landing ships. Just as the Marines themselves did not feel the need for them. "Tarawa" did not fit into the concept of using the Marine Corps - they had long since realized that the classic landings were a thing of the past.
Only one party was interested in creating a super-UDC. The Pascagoul shipyard, where this one and all subsequent 45,000-ton hippos were built.
The shipyard is notable for its enviable productivity - to date, 15 amphibious helicopter carriers have already been "washed down" there. And the value of the latest contracts has crossed the line of $ 3 billion per unit.
In practice, all transport tasks of the UDC are provided by a fleet of military transports, which larger and faster any "Tarawa", while also capable of unloading on the high seas.
Tactical helicopter assault forces are carried out from the decks of high-speed aircraft carriers of the Nimitz class (as was the case during Operation Eagle Claw).
The tasks of patrolling in peacetime are handled by more modest ships, incl. floating bases-helicopter carriers, created on the basis of civilian tankers. Which are being built at the present time.
Unlike the Europeans who dabble in their Mistrals, the US Navy has a large fleet of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, against which the capabilities of the Wasp and Tarawa air groups look simply awkward.
It is interesting that, despite the increased price tag, the new generation of the UDC "America" has completely lost the docking camera for landing boats, turning into a stub of a classic aircraft carrier without catapults, crawling at a speed of 20 knots.
Well, and the main question - who wants to be on her deck in the combat zone, under the fire of "Bastions" and "Caliber"?
Heavy aircraft carrier cruisers
In comparison with the American "Tarawa" its peer, the aircraft carrier "Kiev", seems to be an undoubted triumph. His example shows how many combat systems can be placed on a ship with a displacement of 40 thousand tons!
Eight anti-ship "Basalts", four medium and short-range air defense systems, anti-submarine missiles, perfect hydroacoustics, artillery. The crew is 2000 people. Power plant capacity - 180,000 hp. (2, 5 times higher than that of "Tarawa"). The cruising range is one and a half times more.
But this story has a downside.
It is difficult to contain the resentment, watching what the idea of the Soviet aircraft carrier fleet poured into in the 1970s and 80s.
8 anti-ship missiles - a salvo of one submarine, project 670M. All the rest of the armament of the 40 thousand ton aircraft carrier corresponded to the 7 thousand ton BOD.
Such giants should not be built in order to cross the armament of an anti-submarine ship and a submarine. 270 meters of length are required for the takeoff / run of jet aircraft with a takeoff weight of tens of tons.
However, half of the area of the upper deck of the aircraft carrier was occupied by missile launchers and a bulky superstructure. The remaining half was crowded with a handful of Yak-38s without radar and a combat radius of 150 km.
In the absence of any alternative, helicopters became the main operating force of the air group. In this form, aircraft carriers went around the world, depicting the Soviet aircraft carrier fleet. On closer questions, vague explanations were given: "TAKR is not an aircraft carrier", "it has important anti-submarine missions", "few aircraft - but count the missiles."
The final result, despite all the technical splendor, never once corresponded to the idea of the appearance of aircraft carrier ships as part of the USSR Navy. The last hopes of the supporters of this idea, who promoted the aircraft carrier project under the camouflage designation "TAKR", in the end were completely destroyed by supporters of the opposite point of view.
Who was ready to spend billions of rubles, and, if necessary, pay off with thousands of other people's lives in order to justify their erroneous postulates and original ideas about the appearance of the fleet.
Zamvolt
The creators of "Zamvolt" had a difficult mission. Create a destroyer capable of surpassing the very successful Orly Burke project.
It turned out powerful.
Six antennas of an all-seeing radar, from which neither a periscope flashing among the waves nor a satellite at cosmic heights can escape. Combined missile and cannon armament. New layout. Instead of crowded UVP sections, missiles are placed along the perimeter of the deck, in mines with ejection panels. Unprecedented visibility reduction measures. Increasing the overhaul life of mechanisms. Reduced crew size.
Of all the promises, practically nothing succeeded. The tactical and technical assignment of "Zamvolt" can be safely transferred to the science fiction library.
Especially pleased were the creators of the cannons, which perverted the very idea of naval artillery of the 21st century. Instead of an auxiliary system, ready to bring down a shower of "blanks", invulnerable to any "Armor" and air defense systems, with a minimal reaction time and immunity to weather conditions, something amazing has turned out here. The artillery shot of "Zamvolt" was equal in cost to the launch of a cruise missile!
For such ships that did not go into series, there is a poetic nickname "white elephants of the fleet." But the three built "Zamvolta" are "lame elephants" that did not receive even half of the combat systems envisaged by the project. And if we take into account the initial level of ambition, then the Zamvolt project suffered a deafening fiasco.
There is not an ounce of sympathy in these lines. The hostile nation "failed" the program to create a new generation of destroyers. Seven feet above the keel. We wish our partners to work in the same direction, increasing the degree of absurdity.
However, they can cope with this without our advice.
Little Crappy Ship (LCS)
A fleet cannot be made up of only cruisers and destroyers; some tasks require ships of the third rank. Instead of conventional patrol boats and corvettes, the LCS, a coastal combat ship with an innovative design, was proposed. The speed looked somewhat strange - 50 knots, of great importance for a displacement ship of this size. But the rich have their quirks …
In reality, for half the cost of a missile destroyer, it turned out a "vessel", which instead of "Aegis" - MANPADS, and from the strike weapons - a machine gun. The modular concept did not materialize. First, the time taken to replace modules. Secondly, the very presence of the necessary models. Finally, quick-detachable equipment is inferior in capabilities to full-fledged systems.
The creators of the LCS continue to talk about "special tasks in the coastal zone", but the sailors have a simpler opinion. With the funds spent on the creation of the LCS, it was easier to build a dozen Orly Berkov hulls with a reduced armament structure. The result would be full-fledged combat units, in contrast to the "littoral ship", which is not able to withstand even the simplest threats.
The anti-rating is not limited to the examples presented
There could be, for example, artillery submarines. French "Surkuf" and a series of Soviet squadron submarines of the "Pravda" class. Absolutely crazy ideas that have found embodiment in metal, contrary to all the arguments of skeptics.
The creators of "Surkuf" and "Pravda" did not seem to notice that the submarine, due to its specific contours, layout and lower buoyancy, is categorically incapable of operating in one formation with destroyers and other surface ships. A submarine from such a "diving destroyer" will also turn out to be dubious.
This has been confirmed in practice.
In a later era, the Americans again distinguished themselves by building "very large light cruisers" of the Worcester class with automatic 152-mm "anti-aircraft guns". At a time when the danger from high-altitude bombers was recognized as practically zero, and to provide naval air defense, completely different calibers and rate of fire were required.
Nowadays, the Germans are weird with their frigate F125 "Baden-Württemberg". A huge, empty and slow-moving box with a displacement of 7000 tons, carrying almost less weapons than the Russian MRK "Karakurt" (800 tons).
As you can see, the number of inadequate and meaningless projects will grow steadily over time. A direct consequence of the fact that the 40 most developed economies in the world have not been at war with each other for 70 years. In such conditions, priority is given to profits from the implementation of a project in the field of military shipbuilding. Rest assured, we will see many more paradoxical and not very useful constructions.
