The reason for writing an article, and in fact an exposition of the thoughts of an indifferent observer of the construction of a modern Russian fleet (and for some, the revival of the Russian fleet), were numerous discussions on the pages of "Military Review" about the Russian aircraft carrier ("To be or not to be?"), destroyers, frigates and corvettes. Program “What? Where? When?" takes time out! Let's try to soberly assess the challenges, problems and ways of solving the tasks of the modern fleet for Russia. A discussion is offered in the English style, without shouting, with pauses, respecting the point of view of the opponent, because it can be heard by those who have the levers of the construction machine of the Russian fleet in their hands.
Russian naval theaters in Europe can be described as closed. This is the Caspian (1100 km from Astrakhan to Iran); The Black Sea with the Crimea in the middle (from Sevastopol to the straits 600 km, and the whole sea from east to west 1200 km); The Baltic with the enclave of Kaliningrad and the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland (from St. Petersburg to Kaliningrad 1000 km in some places along the territorial waters of individual sovereign states) and only in the North our White and Barents Seas conditionally allow the fleet to enter the oceanic expanse of the Atlantic. But in the upcoming war of Lendleigh convoys, the General Staff does not plan to receive them in Murmansk. This means that in the north, from the North Cape to Spitsbergen, the "partners" will do everything possible to lock up the Northern Fleet, as in the Black Sea and Baltic straits. What is the point of building ships with a cruising range of several thousand miles and an autonomy of at least a month, if they certainly will not pass the natural and military anti-submarine and anti-ship defense lines of a potential enemy in the theaters of operations under consideration?
In the light of the defense doctrine of our state, the limited European maritime theater of operations, the country's economic capabilities, it is proposed to consider the possibility of building the concept of a "mosquito fleet" on the basis of a single ship hull with outstanding driving performance for use as a platform for replacing in the future small anti-submarine ships of project 1124M, small missile ships of project 12341 and missile boats of project 12411. Naturally, a new ship in all guises should not be worse than the above-mentioned combat units when performing their characteristic combat missions. At the same time, we must understand that without a reasonable compromise it will not be possible to unite "the horse and the quivering doe." How and how profitable can such an offer be?
To further intrigue and shock the reader, I will say that the prototype for the proposed thought experiment will be the project 11451 of a small anti-submarine ship, removed from service and dismantled with great pleasure for metal. I take off my hat with a bow as a sign of respect and recognition of success in front of the team of co-authors of the book of scanty circulation "Falconry small anti-submarine ships of projects 1141 and 11451" - comrades Dmitriev G. S., Kostrichenko V. V., Leonov V. V., Mashensky S. N., and with great care I will allow myself to call the ship proposed in the article the "Falcon" project.
The new "Falcon", in order to become a generation with a "plus" sign, needs a fruitful idea and really existing achievements of the country's military-industrial complex. This will be the key to repeating success on the example of the Su-27 and Su-35. The titanium hull of a hydrofoil ship with dimensions of 55 meters in length, 10 meters in width and a total displacement of 500 tons should become a universal platform for placing anti-ship missiles, anti-submarine weapons or air defense systems. It is titanium that should become the hallmark of the ship. Titanium products for American Boeings seem to some to be a matter of national pride, but titanium submarines were even more proud of the previous generation of the country. Yes, you probably will have to remember, and maybe from scratch to develop technologies for the construction of such hulls, but with their successful development and implementation in mass production, access to the external market for military and civil shipbuilding will be practically guaranteed. And it will be your final product, not spare parts for someone else's product. Occupying an intermediate density value between aluminum (2.7 g / cm3) and iron (7.8 g / cm3), titanium (4.5 g / cm3) has three more qualities that make it an almost ideal choice for building a ship. The melting temperature of 1660 degrees C will practically exclude the spread of a possible fire outside the affected compartment of the ship. Resistance to corrosion and, in particular, to the effects of salt water, negates the problems of electrochemical protection that arose from the predecessor due to the case of the aluminum-magnesium alloy AMG-61 and titanium hydrofoils. And finally: practically non-magnetic titanium (which is why submarines were built from it) has six times less electrical resistivity even in comparison with iron, which will positively affect the radar signature of a small ship in addition to the stealth technologies of the hull, which are not were conceived forty years ago in project 11451. The combination of high speed and non-magnetic hull will make the ship practically invulnerable to mine-torpedo weapons of a potential enemy, which will be especially important in limited maritime theaters in conditions of a noticeable lag and a small number of its own mine-sweeping forces.
Perhaps the most difficult and interesting issue in the development of the project of the Sokol hydrofoil ship will be the power plant.
From ancient times to this day, the high maximum speed of a warship was considered a necessary advantage over the enemy, be it a sailing frigate or a submarine. The different specificity of tasks for existing ships unites them with one common requirement: to have a high maximum speed when performing a combat mission. Which was done. 32 knots at full speed for the small anti-submarine ship of project 1124M, 34 knots for the small missile ship of project 12341 and 38 knots for the missile boat of project 12411. And what is most interesting, the naval commanders at one time would not have refused to increase these values by 2-4 knots if this did not entail an increase in the mass-dimensional characteristics of the power plants of these ships, which is already beyond reasonable limits. But if you believe the statistics, 80-90% of the time on cruises ships go cruising within 12-18 knots.
The new "Falcon" can quite realistically offer military sailors a cruising speed within 28-35 knots, a long full speed of 45-50 knots with the ability to accelerate, if necessary, and up to 55-60 knots! And it will not be an experimental or "record" ship, but an ordinary workhorse of the fleet. Such advantages in speed have already been given by titanium hydrofoils in combination with Ukrainian gas turbine engines to ships of Project 11451. Everything in the world is progressing, in contrast to the well-known neighboring country that is not hindered. And now, on serial British destroyers of the Dering type, a united electrical power system of the ship was used, "providing for the deep integration of the components of the ship's power plant (GEM and EES) into a single system with centralized control and monitoring" (quote from ZVO No. 10 2015). Such a call from afar is designed to make us think, why on the English destroyer there are only four sources of electricity common to the entire ship, and on the Russian missile boat there are seven (two diesel engines and two turbines to support the ship's progress and three diesel electric generators)? Only a little "worse" for RTOs and IPCs (six energy sources, again, are not completely interchangeable). Do not think that this is a criticism of the domestic military-industrial complex. But the autonomy of the British destroyer is higher than any of our ships discussed in the article. The integrated electrical power system of the ship (OEES) on the universal platform of the hull for the new "Falcon" consisting of two gas turbines and two diesel engines should become the highlight of the project, while it is highly desirable that the above mentioned cruising speed be provided by the operation of only one turbine. And this is not a fantasy at your leisure. So, the MRK pr.12341 with a displacement of 730 tons is in full swing at 34 knots while simultaneously operating three M507A diesel engines with a capacity of 10,000 hp each. (and this is a displacement mode). In other words, the specified speed is achieved at a power density of 41 horsepower per tonne displacement. RK pr.12411, with a specific power of 65 hp / t, reaches a speed of only 38 knots. And by the way, the MPK pr.11451 (with practically the same displacement as that of the RK) was able to reach a speed of 65 knots with a specific power of 106 hp / t. and provided a speed of 47 knots with a total power of the GGTA of 25,000 hp.
Considering the above, it can be argued that a hydrofoil ship weighing 500 tons with two gas turbine engines of 25,000 liters each. with. everyone can easily provide a cruising speed of 28-35 knots with one engine running. And the presence of two diesel generators in the ship's EPES, say, with a capacity of 500 kW each, will give the whole system more flexibility and stability.
The electric propulsion system on the new ship will eliminate a number of shortcomings of the previous project. Leaving the propulsion system of the ship unchanged with three vertical columns on each of which were placed two differently rotating propellers. Electric motors installed with vertically rotating rotors will make it possible to abandon three RD 50 upper gearboxes weighing 2.5 tons in dimensions of 1, 3/1, 1/1, 6 meters each. And the possibility of including the side columns in the counter-flow will provide maneuvering at low speeds together with the bow thruster, as a result of which there is no need for two retractable propelling-steering columns. I would like to emphasize one important fact: one of the three GTUs on project 11451 was the M16 main gas turbine with the DN71 reversible gas turbine engine, which was previously used as a sustainer in the M21 and M21A installations for Project 1164 missile cruisers. Such unification of gas turbine engines becomes especially important after the breakdown of ties with Ukrainian suppliers. For the fleet under construction, the country cannot avoid the development of its own production of engines for ships, and only the unification of engines of different projects will allow in the shortest possible time and with the maximum economic effect to solve this problem.
The AK-630M can serve as a positive example of global unification in our fleet. Project 1124M small anti-submarine ships and Project 12341 small missile ships each have one such installation, and Project 12411 missile boats even have two! Also, regardless of the displacement and purpose, all three projects are equipped with 76-mm single-barreled artillery mounts. Small anti-submarine and missile ships are also related by the presence of the Osa air defense system with a two-boom launcher and ammunition load of 20 missiles of the same type. All this, so to speak, is the standard armament of a warship, without touching a specialized one, depending on the purpose or narrow focus. But in the 40 years since the development of these projects, the threats to the ships of the "mosquito fleet" have also changed significantly. At present, and even more so in the future, the main threat to a small high-speed hydrofoil ship can only be a guided anti-ship missile. I can hardly imagine a fighter-bomber pilot in an attempt "ala Argentines" to hit the indicated ships with freely falling bombs or "storm off" from an aircraft cannon, albeit such as on the A-10! And the new "Falcon" will leave the artillery duel without any problems.
Two modules of the new Pantsir-M anti-aircraft missile and artillery system can be considered as the simplest and lightest version of the standard armament of a ship on hydrofoils. These are 16 missiles ready for launch, and 24 barrels with a caliber of 30 mm with a known ammunition load and rate of fire. The lack of a 76-mm caliber will block missiles with the possibility of hitting surface targets, which the Wasp also had. And the reaction time and the number of targets fired at the same time increases incomparably. Or a more solid version for a command ship in the network-centric system of the Sokolov division with a lightweight version of the M-Tor and two 57-mm AU-220M. In general, the choice is up to the customer, just do not step on the rake with Polyment-Redut, use the samples existing in the metal, which can be brought to mind while the buildings are being built.
Options for equipping the IPC with anti-submarine weapons and anti-ship missiles are discussed in sufficient detail in the above publication, and their detailed analysis and discussion, tactics of use and basing can become the topic of the next article.
