I will start from afar and with absolutely known facts. Since we are talking about the fact that in America everyone can sleep peacefully (let's not talk about Poseidons and other fantastic cartoons now), then this peace of mind of citizens must be based on some kind of foundation. Otherwise, it is not calm, but so …
Such a foundation (as everyone knows) is the American aircraft carrier strike groups, which are essentially just floating airfields that can be nominated anywhere. Naturally, well protected from all kinds of opposition. Well, in theory, since no one has tried to test the strength of AUG, so in reality there may be many surprises.
After all, we have gone far from the Second World War, when flat-deck monsters could solve all problems under certain conditions. And they decided by dropping cabinets such as Yamato and Musashi.
But progress did not stand still, planes became jet-powered, good radars appeared on them, missiles became smart and accurate.
And in the mid-50s, the confrontation between the former allies of the USSR and the United States that arose after World War II turned into a kind of dilemma: how, if something happens, to destroy the enemy and not lose your own.
On the one hand, at the beginning of this journey, the Americans had no headaches at all. They had strategic B-29s capable of delivering atomic bombs to objects on the territory of the USSR from airfields in Europe, although there were many doubts with Europe. Mainly due to the fact that the Soviet Army could easily leave nothing from Europe again.
In general, the ground forces of the USSR did not leave any chances to the enemy. In the air, if not parity was outlined, then our aircraft confidently caught up with everything produced in the West.
But the sea was definitely not so beautiful. To build ships the way our former allies knew how, alas, we never learned. And the problem "what to do at sea" arose at its full height. And at sea there was no chance at all to offer at least some resistance to the former allies. Not in the Pacific Ocean, not in the North.
And the government of the Soviet Union made a landmark decision: not to try to catch up with the United States and their slaves in the race to launch ships, but to try to neutralize the enemy's advantage in a different way.
The USSR did not have a trump card - a deck of trump cards represented by Korolev, Glushko, Chelomey, Chertok, Rauschenbach, Sheremetyevsky … And this deck was played with maximum efficiency, relying on anti-ship missiles that could be launched from ships, submarines and aircraft.
Yes, submarines did not work out right away, surface ships were also far from ideal, but aviation …
And with aviation it turned out. Apparently, the start taken during the war and further acceleration played. To be honest, we didn’t build ships larger than a minesweeper during the war, but boats, submarines and airplanes are quite enough for us.
Yes, in those years, submarines were far from what they are now, and did not pose such a threat as modern monsters, but the bet made on bombers armed with heavy anti-ship missiles played.
And she didn't just play. The Soviet Union, with all its desire, simply could not fight the United States at sea, increasing the number of ships on an equal footing. But here's the deal: a squadron of bombers with anti-ship missiles easily and naturally delivered missiles at launch distances, could destroy enemy ships, but at the same time cost immeasurably less than missile carrier ships.
It is clear that we do not take missile boats into account, they are short-range weapons. But naval air missile carriers became a real headache for the United States for many years for several reasons at once.
The first was the ability to produce aircraft capable of carrying anti-ship missiles far, and of anti-ship missiles themselves.
The second reason was the number of aircraft capable of carrying anti-ship missiles. At the peak of its heyday, the naval missile-carrying aviation (MRA) consisted of 15 regiments of 35 aircraft each. Half a thousand missile carriers, which, moreover, can be very easily transferred from one theater of operations to another …
Plus to them are electronic warfare aircraft, tankers, reconnaissance aircraft, anti-submarine aircraft, just bombers. Overall, the MPA was a very tangible force.
And the air response to a possible trip to the shores of the USSR had its own reason. It was much easier to find the ship at sea, let alone the formation, than the entire MPA regiment going on an "official visit" to the AUG. Even when the first spy satellites appeared, their use was, let's say, with minimal benefit.
So for the United States, the time has come to search for solutions, because any commander of a formation of ships of the American fleet was not sure of the safety of their ships precisely because the Soviet missile carriers that went out to the range of a confident salvo could inflict very significant damage.
Yes, of course, aircraft carriers, airplanes, the effect of air cover … However, even in the case of timely detection, the crews need time to take off and go to the specified area. It is doubtful that Soviet pilots would have expected them like a gentleman.
So, perhaps, only the fifties did the Americans live in relative peace. Then a systematic search for ways to counter Soviet aviation began.
As a result, everything turned into a confrontation between the American fleet and Soviet missile carriers. The models changed, from the T-16k through the T-22 to the Tu-22M, the essence remained the same: to minimize the losses of the fleet from MPA strikes in the event of a hypothetical conflict.
Basically, American surface ships have mutated into air defense ships, and not just air defense, but long-range ones. The main goal was to turn the ships into a means of fighting Tupolev's missile carriers.
One can only admire how much material resources the United States has put into development. Meanwhile, much that was developed turned out to be, to put it mildly, very highly specialized. Here it is worth recalling an attempt to use not the cheapest (but generally very expensive) F-14 Tomcat interceptors with ultra-expensive Phoenix missiles, which were also created to combat the MRA in the Iran-Iraqi conflict.
It turned out that something much cheaper than the F-14 could be used against the MiG-23 and MiG-25 of Iraq.
Okay, plane. Let's take a look at what the two main non-aircraft combat units of the US Navy are like: the cruiser Ticonderoga and the destroyer Arleigh Burke. It is enough just to look at the list of weapons, and it immediately becomes clear that the main specialization of these ships is air defense and missile defense. Well, they can still shoot rockets along the shore.
It is safe to say that it was the naval missile-carrying aviation of the USSR that had such a significant impact on the development of shipbuilding in the United States. And even today, 30 years after the liquidation of the Soviet Union, the main concept of US warships is air defense.
Of course, to say that the USSR found a way to completely neutralize the AUG is to sin against the truth. But with such a number of aircraft, capable of delivering enough missiles to almost anywhere in the world to inflict, if not defeat, then cause significant damage to the US fleet, it was possible to do this.
And here no one would want to check how real it is. Simply because it would cost one side huge losses in aircraft, the other in ships.
And we cannot say that it cost us a penny. Five hundred strike aircraft (and Tu-16 and Tu-22 were the best in the world at one time), top-class crews, infrastructure, all this cost a lot of money.
Some people are of the opinion that an aircraft carrier fleet would cost us about the same money. But we never learned how to build full-fledged aircraft carriers, and cruiser stubs with the function of launching aircraft in the West did not frighten anyone, even when we had three of them. In the future, three.
But even without aircraft-carrying cruisers, we had a force that really moderated the agility of the Americans. Naval missile-carrying aviation.
Let me also remind you that the location itself on the map of the USSR and the USA is different. In the United States, everything is simple and convenient, there are two oceans, in the water area of each in a very short time you can concentrate an arbitrarily huge squadron. But here, alas, maneuvering by ships of different fleets is possible only theoretically. But in principle it is impossible, especially if hostilities start somewhere. And the distances between the fleets are simply terrifying.
And here the possibility of transferring three to five regiments of missile carriers can seriously change the balance of forces in any theater of operations, especially considering the fact that the transfer will take place in the airspace of one's own country. And it will be very difficult for the enemy to prevent this transfer in principle.
I don’t know how anyone, but it seems to me that this is really a very important point. If we could not (and we will never be able to) gather our fleet into a fist and give the enemy on the sides, then this could be done with the help of missile carriers.
The key word is "it was". Unfortunately.
The Soviet Union ended - and the naval aviation ended. And they killed her in less than 20 years. And that's all, the force that really kept the US aircraft carriers in suspense was simply gone.
Probably, I will not sin strongly against the truth if I say that no one got the way our Navy degraded. And in the end, the Navy just took and killed its aircraft. Easy and casual. In the name of the ships living.
In general, of course, from the very moment the USSR was organized in terms of naval commanders, we had everything very, very sad. And if the fleet was, with a sensible leadership, it was very short-lived, somewhere in the seventies.
Well, this guide, saving the ships closer to them, simply destroyed the naval missile-carrying aircraft. Which was finally abolished in 2010.
The remains of the aircraft were transferred to long-range aviation.
Ten years have passed. I will allow myself to express the opinion that today at DA there are simply no crews left capable of working on sea targets. Long-range aviation, as it were, is not designed to work on ships, respectively, the crews are trained using a slightly different method.
Generally, of course, it's strange. The whole world is working on the creation of aviation units capable of solving any problems at sea, and after all, since the Second World War it has become clear that aviation is the main strike weapon. Missiles, yes, missiles are great, but planes also carry missiles, and planes can work very well with the "eyes" of naval groupings.
And we have? And we have gas in the pipe …
But in order to understand in which direction it is necessary to think and move, it is worth looking at what the neighbors are doing. Maritime powers with dynamically developing navies.
We are talking about China and India.
China today is the main rival for the United States in the Asia-Pacific region. The pace with which the Chinese PLA fleet is developing is worthy of respect and admiration. All is well with aviation.
Speaking about naval missile-carrying aviation, it should be noted that here there is a copying by the Chinese of what was once created in the USSR.
Today, the PRC is in service with the Xian H-6K - the latest modification of the H-6, which, in turn, is a copy of our Tu-16k. The N-6K is as different from the N-6 as it is different from the Tu-16.
The combat load of the N-6K is 12,000 kg. The bomber is capable of carrying 6 CJ-10A cruise missiles (also a copy of our Kh-55), and will be able to carry the aircraft version of the Dongfeng-21.
The DF-21 is generally an interesting weapon. It seems to be an anti-ship missile system that can deliver a nuclear warhead where necessary, but at the same time, the missile can be used as a way to deliver a UAV and as an anti-satellite missile.
Coupled with a missile carrier, which has a decent range, it is quite possible.
But what is more interesting in my opinion is what India is doing.
The Indians did not burden themselves with the purchase of expensive licenses or the organization of production through a "copier".
Moreover, having judged that it is expensive to build bombers or missile carriers of the Tu-16 or Tu-22 type, the Indians made it more interesting: they built a missile for existing aircraft.
There are quite a few good planes in India. We are talking about the Su-30MKI, of which India has more than 200. Both purchased from us and produced under license.
It was under the Su-30MKI that the Bramos anti-ship missile was designed as a carrier, which was based on our own P-800 Onyx anti-ship missile, or rather, its simplified export version of the Yakhont.
"Brahmos-A", version for aeronautical use. It was planned to be installed on the fifth generation FGFA fighter, but since the aircraft was not destined to fly, the Su-30MKI, which takes not 6 missiles, like the Chinese N-6K, but no more than 3, was quite suitable, but it does not need escort / security, Su -30 he himself can be puzzled by the issue of safety, even with the "Brahmos" on the suspension.
And what to say if you get rid of the anti-ship missile …
The radius of the Chinese N-6K is, of course, twice as large. It's true. 3000 versus 1500 - there is a difference. The Chinese can operate their aircraft at a great distance. But how many such aircraft does the PRC have?
In total, about 200 H-6s were manufactured. These are all modifications, starting with the Tu-16. Training, reconnaissance, tankers, bombers … If we talk about the N-6K, then 36 of them have been released so far.
India has about 200 Su-30MKI. Although, yes, the PRC also has Su-30s. Only there are no "Brahmos" for them.
But overall, things look good for both countries. Yes, India is cheaper, but it is not a fact that it is worse. On the other hand, a country can put up such a mass of aircraft that the fleet of any country will be very much puzzled by the issues of reflections of such a number of anti-ship missiles. Up to overheating of processors.
And I would like to draw your attention to the fact that EVERYTHING is backed by our technology.
And we have?
And we have the Su-30, and the more interesting Su-34, and the Onyx missiles, and newer designs. And there is a finally decrepit and uncompetitive fleet, and a rather tense situation with the country on the world stage.
It is clear that war is not expected, but if something happens, we, as we did not have a fleet capable of enlightening the same Japanese in the Pacific, is not expected. I don't even stutter about the fleets of the United States and China. And there is nowhere to wait for reinforcements.
The only thing that could weigh heavily on the scales and tip them in our direction is several real regiments of carriers of anti-ship missiles.
In fact, we do not need so much time to recreate the naval missile-carrying aviation. It can be reanimated using the base of naval assault regiments, which use the same Su-30. Just teach the Su-30 to work with the Onyx anti-ship missile.
Our geography has hardly changed. As the fleets were torn apart, so they are now, each floundering in his own puddle. With the new strike ships (if they are not RTOs), everything is still awful for us. And the only thing that could dramatically enhance the capabilities of the fleets is the revival of naval missile-carrying aviation.
It's just worth considering the issue of using not the Su-30, but the Su-34. A more interesting plane, in my opinion.
And, of course, the question of personnel. Frames, frames and more frames. Airplanes are easy to rivet. There would be someone to put at the steering wheels.
However, we have a very strange approach to this issue, especially from the naval command. They do not want to get involved with aviation in the navy. Indeed, why do we need MRA? There are "Calibers", we will solve all the issues with them.
Khrushchev also thought so, but how did it end?
There is already tested "Onyx". The missile seems to be of interest to the Navy, but not in terms of use from aircraft. And somehow nothing has been heard about the very idea of the MPA revival. Yes, and about the aviation options of our anti-ship missiles, too, is silent. Not needed, apparently.
Really strange. India is working in this direction, China is working, even the United States is moving something off the ground. And only with us - peace and grace. Only Russia does not need heavy and long-range missiles on airplanes.
Maybe we have ships from somewhere that can really be a threat to the AUG? I don't remember, to be honest, that something came into operation.
Well, in addition to the supersonic Onyx, there now seems to be a hypersonic Zircon. OK. And the carriers? Are all the same boats? And our ancient "Orlan" and "Atlantes", which in case of something even from space do not need to be tracked, are they already burning all over the globe?
Not seriously. Unprofessional. Shortsighted.
However, what can I say, we have the "Poseidon". He will solve all the problems, if that.
It is a pity that the "Poseidon" normal admirals in the appendage are not given. It would be more useful at times. And then (God forbid, of course) you would not have to tear your elbows off to bite. Because the present day of our naval aviation is like the navy.
Yes, we still have several, through an oversight, clearly surviving regiments of naval assault aviation. On the Su-30SM, with the Kh-35 and Kh-59MK subsonic missiles and the Kh-31A supersonic missiles.
The missiles are not new (I would say: ancient), with a warhead that allows you to confidently work out on a corvette. 100 kg for the X-31 - well, a corvette, no more. We are not even talking about aircraft carriers, cruisers and destroyers. Likewise, I will not say anything about how successfully a subsonic missile can be used today.
A slightly different approach is needed.
In general, it is very strange that we, who in the past created a reference naval missile-carrying aviation, with which today everyone who wants to achieve something (India and China) is frankly copying, tomorrow we will not even be in the position of catching up. And in the position of laggards forever.
And where? At sea, where in general we have never been strong. But we probably don't need to. We have Poseidon …
