Coastal defense. This, if you look into the dictionary of terms, is the totality of the forces and means of the fleet with fortifications and a system of anti-landing and anti-aircraft structures designed to protect naval bases, ports and important coastal areas.
Cumbersome. Let's take a look at the antiamphibious defense as well?
Antiamphibious defense (PDO) of the coast - a set of measures aimed at the defense of the coastal strip (coast) by coastal forces (coastal missile and artillery forces) or ground forces in cooperation with the navy and aviation (Air Force) in order to prevent the landing of sea and air assault forces enemy.
Already more or less clear.
It turns out that coastal defense is if the fleet is involved, antiamphibious defense is if it is not.
Antiamphibious defense as such, in my opinion, was formed during the Second World War. A classic example is the events on the coast of France, with the help of which the Germans wanted to prevent the landing of allied troops.
It looked ominous, but did not help much during Operation Overlord, as we all remember.
Coastal defense is a very ancient thing. As well as very old and BO troops. In general, as soon as humanity rolled away from the coast and began to swim along it, almost immediately this coast had to be guarded and defended. Because everyone turned out to be smart, and it became a good form and an easy income at the same time to float to a neighbor in order to take away something.
Well, in Troy or Syracuse, sailing for war is generally a classic.
So, most likely, the coastal defense troops appeared long before any artillery and other newfangled things there.
But their role has not changed very much since the times of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome: they do not allow the enemy's fleet to approach their shores, preventing the landing of enemy troops with subsequent robbery or seizure of territories and the fire effect of enemy ships on their ground targets.
Only among the ancients, ballistae, catapults and scorpions were involved in the "fire effect", and today, of course, toys are more interesting.
Until the middle of the last century, the concepts of "coastal defense" and "coastal artillery" were synonymous. It was just that there was nothing else from the weapons, respectively, they protected their shores with guns, reduced to batteries.
The batteries were installed in forts covering ports, in areas of the coast where it was possible to land. Naturally, the batteries were stationary, since they used ship guns. And the farther towards the middle of the 20th century, the more terrible coastal batteries began to look, to which gun turrets from heavy cruisers and even battleships went.
The latter turned out to be quite a good and effective weapon for themselves against the ground forces, which would like to approach the defended objects.
The batteries of Sevastopol and Leningrad, which quite successfully and effectively fired at the advancing troops of the European team led by the Germans, can easily be cited as examples. Among the allies, you can remember about Fort Drum in the Philippine archipelago.
In general, artillery fought to protect the coast for several centuries from Dover to Cartagena. And she fought well.
There was even such a class of ships as coastal defense battleships.
After World War II, coastal artillery batteries began to be replaced with anti-ship missile (ASM) battalions. As a rule, all countries that started such a replacement used the same anti-ship missiles on their ships to defend their shores.
The anti-ship missiles turned out to be no less, and in some cases, more effective weapons. And - importantly - cheap. That is, the coastal installation of anti-ship missiles was definitely cheaper than a ship armed with such missiles. But the radius of action was also more modest, since the anti-ship missiles were installed on the coast.
But the coastal installation of anti-ship missiles could be disguised and covered with air defense means. Or make it maneuverable by installing it on a mechanical traction. But if it arrived, then it arrived.
And then, all the same, the coastal installation of the anti-ship missile system (and any system of coastal defense of the past) is still passive, and the initiative in battle has always belonged and will belong to the attacking enemy fleet.
By the way, this is precisely why some countries abandoned coastal defense altogether or left the main role in the defense of the fleet, and BO assigned the role of support.
But it's one thing if the country's coastline and budget are similar to those of Estonia or Lithuania, and another thing if it's Russia or the United States. Which have a coastline from one ocean to the other.
Let us leave the United States alone for the time being, their coastal defense in general has followed its own development path, and let's take the USSR.
When the leadership of the already deceased country realized that the country would not be able to fight on equal terms in a possible conflict with the NATO fleet, then, taking into account the experience of the Great Patriotic War, when the coastal defense showed itself well, they decided to strengthen the fleet with the help of BO.
And the coastal defense, which was part of the USSR Navy, began to develop at a very rapid pace, the benefit of such costs as the construction of missile cruisers was not required.
And one of the first in the world (possibly the very first), the coastal defense of the USSR Navy began to switch to missile weapons.
This did not mean at all that the artillery was being scrapped, no. The coastal batteries served in fact until the 70s of the last century. But in the 50s, missile systems began to receive registration on the Soviet shores.
I am sure that among the readers there will be those who breathlessly remember how they served on this “miracle weapon”.
The firstborn of the Soviet coastal defense was the Sopka anti-ship missile complex with the Kometa anti-ship missile system, which was put into service in 1958.
In 1966, the more advanced Redut anti-ship missile system with the P-35 supersonic anti-ship missiles took up the defense of the coast. The same missiles were carried by missile cruisers of Project 1134, code "Berkut", which have now become history.
In 1978, the coastal anti-ship missile system "Rubezh" with the P-15 anti-ship missile system entered service. These missiles were armed with missile boats of projects 183 and 205. The products were tested in battle, with these missiles the Egyptian and Indian (especially) fleets successfully fought against the Israeli and Pakistani fleets.
As you can see, every 10 years the BPCRK was replaced with a more modern one. But alas, when, with the next change of course in the USSR, they began to create an ocean-going fleet and overstrained on this, of course, coastal missile systems were also affected.
As a result, we came to the collapse of the USSR both without ships and without a BPCRK. And the situation got worse every year.
The breakthrough came only in 2008, when, 30 years later, Russia's coastal defense received a new Ball complex with the Kh-35 anti-ship missile system.
And two years later, in 2010, the Bastion was adopted, the most modern complex with the most advanced, in my opinion, the Onyx anti-ship missile system.
Today, coastal missile brigades of the Russian Navy are on duty to protect the coastline and facilities, armed with both types of BKRK. This is logical and justified, since the brigade consists of two battalions of the Bastion air defense missile system with a range of up to 500 km and the Bal air defense missile system with a range of up to 260 km.
In the SCRC "Ball" division there are 4 launchers with 8 missile launchers each, in the "Bastions" division - 4 launchers and 4 TPM - 2 missile launchers each.
The brigades, however, are not enough.
536th brigade of the Northern Fleet (stationed in the village of Guba Olenya, Murmansk region).
25th BF brigade (Donskoye settlement, Kaliningrad region).
11th brigade of the Black Sea Fleet (Utash settlement near Anapa, Krasnodar Territory).
15th Brigade of the Black Sea Fleet (Sevastopol).
520th brigade of the Pacific Fleet (Anglichanka settlement near Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky).
72 brigade of the Pacific Fleet (pos. Smolyaninovo near Vladivostok) of the Pacific Fleet brigade.
Moreover, the 72nd brigade of the Pacific Fleet was scattered. One battalion of "Bastions" is covered by Vladivostok itself, the second battalion of "Bastions" was sent to the Iturup island of the Kuril ridge, and the "Balov" battalion was sent to the island of Kunashir.
In addition to these brigades, there is also a separate battery of the Bastion SCRC (2 launchers) on the Novosibirsk Islands. If you look at the map, it becomes completely clear that the complexes are not in vain there.
There is also the 51st coastal missile division of the Ball SCRC as part of the Caspian Flotilla.
In general, sparsely, to be honest. Considering the length of our coastline … But better than nothing, better than worthless old cruisers, which are not out of repair, and aircraft carriers, which are beautiful only on paper.
Meanwhile, the Black Sea Fleet still has the 11th brigade, armed with two divisions with "Redoubts" and (!) The 459th separate coastal artillery division. In service with the 459th obad are 130-mm guns A-222 "Bereg".
This is the last artillery unit in our coastal defense.
True, the Black Sea Fleet also includes the 15th Brigade, stationed in Sevastopol. The brigade is armed with one "Bastion" division and one "Balov" division. The third division of the brigade is armed with the Utes anti-ship missile system with a mine-based anti-ship missile system 3M44 Progress.
For comparison: the coastal defense of the PRC PLA has 10 brigades.
But in NATO, only three countries have coastal defense forces.
Spain is a unique country, in which the coastal defense forces, which, by the way, are part of the ground forces, are armed with only coastal artillery from 155-mm SBT155 / 52APUSBTV07 guns). There are no missiles at all.
The Polish Navy has recently adopted two batteries of the Norwegian NSM SCRC (12 launchers of 4 anti-ship missiles).
Croatia is armed with three batteries of the Swedish SCRC RBS-15K and 21 artillery batteries.
The Swedes themselves have 6 RBS-15KA launchers, as well as 90 RBS-17 launchers, this is actually an anti-ship version of the American Hellfire ATGM, dangerous only for small targets such as MRK.
Finland has 4 launchers RBS-15K and coastal artillery - 30 guns K-53tk, 72 K-54RT (Soviet M-46), 1.130K90-60 (130 mm).
If we look at the European theater of operations (we do not take the Asia-Pacific region, we are not there in fact), then in comparison with the NATO countries, we are all right.
However, who will attack Spain, and Sweden, in principle, too?
As for our two puddles, the Black Sea and the Baltic, everything is in order there. I mean, if you have to fight off someone, that is what. I am silent about the Caspian at all.
But I would not be so optimistic about covering the Northern Fleet and the Pacific Fleet. The spaces are huge, and the Pacific Fleet also has such neighbors that a couple more - and no enemies are needed at all. And the islands seem to be controversial for Japan, and the coastline is so … rather big.
In general, there is a lot of work there in terms of (in an amicable way) the formation of at least four SCRC brigades, two for the fleet.
And here it is, the question.
Dear readers, who is in the wheelhouse. We bring to your judgment such a reflection: is it worth it?
Is it worth building all these vague and incomprehensible mosquito RTOs, under-corvettes and so on? And different projects, with different propulsion systems, and even with eternal problems with engines? We cannot build on our own, we buy from China, although it still sells.
Wouldn't it be better to stop the process of frankly stupid (but profitable) budget utilization when building very strange corvettes with Caliber cruise missiles, but completely without anti-submarine weapons and with very weak anti-aircraft weapons?
The INF Treaty no longer exists, and all these "mosquitoes" were designed to bypass this Treaty, so is it worth it to fence everything?
After all, in theory, it is possible to solve just a bunch of problems: not to build ships that we are not able to build, not to "substitute" non-replaceable diesel engines for import, but simply to take and build a SCRC, placing them in key directions?
Plus, of course, mobile launchers based on wheeled platforms.
How do you like this option?
