By agreeing in the last part that we need an adequate domestic theory of naval power, we need to adapt it to geography, because Russia's position on the seas is unique.
We are accustomed to the fact that Russia has completely access to the sea. And at first glance, this is actually so - our sea border has a length of 38807 kilometers, and the shores are washed by the Pacific and Arctic Oceans directly, and indirectly by the Atlantic. And we have more merchant ships under national jurisdiction than the United States.
And, nevertheless, many Western commentators, communicating with each other, characterize Russia as Landlocked - literally locked or blocked by land. Here, by the way, it is again important to correctly understand the meanings: we use phrases like "land power", while our opponents use "locked by land" instead.
There is no contradiction. All sea communications used by the merchant fleets of different countries to communicate with our country, and our Navy too, pass through the narrows that are controlled by a potential enemy.
At the same time, the presence of the enemy's naval bases around the world, and naval groupings on all oceans, gives him the opportunity to either block the Russian Navy in coastal waters, or attack it there, establishing in any case domination in the sea off our shores, which then allow him to use our own coastal zone to attack our territory from the sea.
This problem was described in more detail in the article “There are no exits. On the geographical isolation of the oceans for the Russian Navy " … However, that article had the goal of focusing the public's attention on what the public for some reason had forgotten, replacing the process of thinking with the process of mindlessly eating information "feed" that our "propaganda machine", which is not always accurate in terms of phrases, slips it.
However, the restrictions that the geographic factor affects the development of our fleet are so important, and, with the right approach to naval development, will have such a powerful impact on the fleet that they need to be studied in as much detail as possible. And, what is especially important, to assess the consequences of geographic factors for the future of the Russian fleet.
Not the navy, but the fleets. On isolated theaters
It is necessary to call a spade a spade: we do not have a fleet, but four fleets and one flotilla - different. Those theaters of military operations on which the bases of our fleets are located differ from each other simply phenomenally. So, some aviation torpedoes, which are armed with naval aviation, do not work in the Baltic - the salinity of the water is insufficient to activate the battery. In the Pacific Ocean and in the North, storms of the same magnitude affect ships differently due to the different wavelengths during storms and the excitement inherent in different regions. Opponents (except for the main enemy, which we have everywhere) are different, a different outline of the coastline, and as a result - in principle, different conditions for combat operations for each fleet. And this potentially dictates a different structure and a different ship composition for each of the fleets.
At the same time, the maneuver of ships between fleets is extremely difficult even in peacetime - far away, and in wartime it will be possible only if the United States does not participate in the war. If they participate in it, then the ships from one fleet to another will not be transferred. The only exception is the ships of the Caspian Flotilla, which can be sent to help the Black Sea Fleet (let's leave the potential usefulness of this step "outside the brackets").
These limitations will never be overcome. This means that the consequences to which such geographic fragmentation leads will always be in effect, and the fleet should be built taking this factor into account.
The problem of the disunity of the fleets in an extremely acute form arose before Russia with the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War. Then it turned out that the Japanese have a superiority in numbers over all the naval forces of the Russian Empire in the Pacific Ocean. The confrontation of the Japanese fleet against the 1st Pacific Squadron ended in a natural victory for Japan, and when the 2nd Pacific Squadron came to the Far East after many months of transoceanic passage, the Japanese again had a numerical superiority over it. The overall superiority of the Russian Imperial Navy over the Japanese fleet proved impossible to realize. It should be admitted that today the problem has not gone anywhere.
In the fundamental doctrinal document concerning the Navy, in the Fundamentals of the State Policy of the Russian Federation in the Field of Naval Activities for the Period up to 2030, the following lines are given to the inter-theater maneuver of the Navy:
38. The main tasks of naval activities to prevent military conflicts and strategic deterrence are:
e) performing inter-theater maneuvers, as well as regular ice cruises of nuclear submarines of the Navy;
and
51. Indicators of the effectiveness of measures to implement state policy in the field of naval activities are:
d) the ability of the Navy to build up a naval grouping in a dangerous strategic direction due to the inter-theater maneuver by the forces of the fleets;
Alas, a fundamental point has been ignored - what to do if the need for an inter-theater maneuver arose in wartime? But this is a fundamental moment - after the outbreak of a global military conflict, no CCS maneuver between the theater of operations by sea will be possible, on the other hand, nothing particularly limits it before it begins. In the event of a local conflict, the fundamental question is that the forces carrying out the maneuver should be in the theater of operations in time, before the enemy establishes dominance at sea (and not as in the Russo-Japanese war).
Unfortunately, we again see a formal approach taken by the drafters of a doctrinal guideline document. The influence of the disunity of our fleets on the organizational and staff structure of the fleet as a type of armed forces is not mentioned. Meanwhile, the problem of maneuver is both important and partly solvable, but the composition of the Navy and its organization should be built with such a task in mind.
There is, however, a positive aspect in the disunity of our fleets. Our fleets are almost impossible to destroy all at the same time, if their command will properly manage the entrusted forces and troops. In order to achieve the simultaneous defeat of all our fleets, it is necessary to assemble a coalition, which would include at least the United States, part of NATO, Japan, preferably also Australia.
And Russia, in turn, seeing a titanic preparation for an offensive on itself from one eighth of all mankind, should be enchanted to wait for a denouement and do nothing. This is hardly possible in the real world. And the United States alone with its current combat strength of the Navy will not be able to "cover" everyone at the same time - at best, it will be possible to "deal" with the Pacific Fleet and conduct a heavy oncoming battle with the North. They will probably win it, but this win will have a price.
And this factor, which works for us and directly arises from the disunity of the fleets, we can also use in the future.
It is curious to note that we are not alone. Another country whose fleet is divided by land and cannot quickly get together is … the USA!
It is not customary to talk about this, for some strange reason, but our main opponent has exactly the same vulnerability - his Navy is divided between the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic. And, importantly, the main strike force of the US Navy, aircraft carriers, cannot cross the Panama Canal. Only bypassing South America and nothing else. This gives us some possibilities, which we will talk about some day. In the meantime, we will confine ourselves to stating the fact - the disunity of the fleets due to their location on different sides of a large land mass does not prevent the acquisition of sea power and the conduct of war at sea to a decisive extent, but this disunity must be properly circumvented. The United States resolved this issue by keeping its ships in size for many years, allowing them to pass the Panama Canal.
Only the emergence of post-war large aircraft carriers changed this state of affairs (although the battleships Montana planned during the Second World War were also supposed to be too large, but they were not built). Our solution can be and may be different.
However, it would not be entirely correct to restrict ourselves to purely geographical restrictions, because they lead to another restriction, so to speak, of the "second level".
Both to the West of Russia and to the East of it are states, or simply superior to the Russian Federation in economic power and military shipbuilding, or alliances, groups of states that, having united, will also jointly gain superiority over the Russian Federation.
The clearest example is Japan. This country has a slightly smaller population, economic superiority, it builds ships much faster than Russia, easily, within a few years, it can hand over to its Navy on an aircraft carrier. For Russia, with its economy and structure of threats, even a hypothetical "competition" in strength at sea with Japan looks like an extremely difficult task, and we have no friends in the West either. And this is another consequence of the fact that our fleets are scattered over the extreme regions of a huge land mass - we will never be able to ensure numerical superiority over our opponents in theaters that are distant from each other. We, theoretically, can "in principle", in general, be stronger than the Japanese or the British, but in order to realize this superiority, we need to bring the fleets together so that they can support each other's operations against the same enemy. The latter, however, will understand this no worse than us, and hinder us in all ways, from diplomatic to purely military.
With the United States, it is even worse, we, in principle, will not even be able to soften the blow of the Americans if they are caught in the waters adjacent to the bases, without the possibility of joining forces, at least part of them.
So, let's first summarize:
- Different conditions in different fleets, apparently, require a different ship composition.
- Geography requires a very fast CC maneuver in the pre-war time, and makes it almost impossible in the war.
- At the same time, it is extremely difficult to achieve the simultaneous defeat of all the fleets of Russia by any one enemy, which gives Russia time, albeit a little, to organize or defend in all directions, or, in the case of a local war with free global communications for maneuver, for an inter-theater maneuver.
- One of the consequences of the geographical disunity of the fleets is the economically impossible dominance in the theaters of military operations over potential adversaries - they are simply too strong economically. This will always be the case, and the enemy will always interfere with the transfer of additional naval forces by sea to "his" theater of operations.
The problems voiced can be solved. The requirements to have different types of ships in different theaters of operation seem, oddly enough, to be the easiest to solve. In fact, the Baltika is a "special" theater of operations, where adaptability to theater conditions cannot be sacrificed for universality. And here we can resort to the following tricks:
1. Integration of combat missions to be solved in one platform. So, for example, a small medium landing ship armed with a pair of 76-mm cannons will also be a landing ship, and will be able to fire along the coast, and will be able to hit surface targets with artillery fire, be able to conduct mine laying and carry out transport missions. Perhaps it will be able to equip it with some kind of small-sized missiles with a range "to the horizon", then it will be able to attack and destroy surface targets even beyond the range of actual fire of 76-millimeter paper. Its design will not be optimal for any of these tasks, but the same ship will actually be able to solve them all. This will allow not to build two or three specialized ships, and to be limited to one, optimized for the theater of operations with its depths, distances, enemy, etc.
2. Unification not of projects, but of systems. If we assume that we desperately need a special type of warship in the Baltic, then it can be unified with other ships of the Navy, not within the framework of the same project, but in terms of subsystems. For example, the same radar system, the same diesel engine, cannon, the same missiles, but different hulls, the number of engines, the number of missiles, the presence / absence of a hangar, helicopter landing sites, a different crew, and so on. At the same time, it is immediately necessary to make a variant of the "Baltic project" and for the export too, in order to justify the additional costs for a separate small series of ships for one theater of operations.
It should be understood that, in contrast to the inter-theater maneuver of forces and means, this problem is insignificant. Maneuvering is another matter entirely.
Maneuver
It is necessary to clearly understand that the maneuver of fleets and groups of warships from "their" fleet to the required combat zone, if there is an enemy ready to fight on the lines of communication, will be either impossible or meaningless due to the loss of time. This brings us to a simple and consistent solution - since after the start of hostilities, the implementation of the maneuver is no longer possible or difficult, it must be carried out as far as possible … before the start of hostilities!
And here the Soviet experience from the "Gorshkov era" comes to our aid, namely the concept of OPESK - operational squadrons. OPESK were groupings of warships and floating rear ships deployed in advance in the distant sea and ocean zones, ready to engage in hostilities at any time. Today, for those times, it is customary to feel nostalgic, remembering that the Soviet Navy was “present” in certain regions, but now…. In the same "Fundamentals" the need for this "presence" is mentioned almost on every second page.
But the USSR Navy was not just "present", it was deployed in important areas of the World Ocean so that it could not be taken by surprise by a sudden outbreak of war. These were forces designed to contain the war by demonstrating a readiness to enter it immediately, the Soviet Union's response to a geographic problem.
Whether we like it or not, OPESK is an irresistible necessity given our geographic location. We will not have time with the maneuver after the war begins, but we can have deployed forces in the ocean ahead of time, which can arrive at a potential point of conflict within a matter of days.
However, unlike the Soviet Union, we cannot, for economic reasons, constantly keep large forces in the ocean. Therefore, in our case, the provision of inter-theater maneuver with ships should look like the deployment of operational formations with the participation of ships of all fleets at the first signs of a threatened period.
For example, satellite reconnaissance made it possible to detect the loading of supplies on all Japanese submarines at the bases at the same time. This is a reconnaissance sign. And without additional waiting, the ships of the Northern and Black Sea fleets allocated to the OPESK are preparing to go to sea, receive ammunition, go to sea, meet, and if within a couple of days after this action the Japanese do not receive a clear explanation, then the group begins to move to The Indian Ocean, having a backup task - the demonstration of the flag and business visits, that is, in fact, assistance to domestic diplomats, and the main one - to be ready to go to the Pacific Ocean and immediately enter the war against Japan.
If, during the OPESK transition, the tension subsides, then the squadron's action plan changes, the time of its stay at sea is reduced, and so on, if not, then its transition is made to the area from where it can begin to act against the enemy, and in the future, it expects development events and the corresponding order.
There is no other scenario for an inter-theater maneuver by surface forces, with which we would be guaranteed to be able to do it everywhere.
Deployment of submarines is carried out in the same way, but taking into account the actions to ensure stealth.
This half-forgotten response to a geographic challenge should form the basis of our military planning.
However, this is not a panacea. Firstly, events can corny go too fast. Secondly, the previously available forces of the fleet in the theater of operations (in the example with Japan, this is the Pacific Fleet), together with the OPESK collected from other fleets, may simply not be enough, and it may be impossible to transfer additional forces at all or impossible in time. In these conditions, the fleet needs a mobile reserve, the ability of which to redeploy from one direction to another could not be prevented by any enemy, and which could be in place really quickly.
The only force capable of this type of maneuver is aviation. And here we are again forced to resort to the Soviet experience, when the main striking force of the Navy was coastal-based missile-carrying aircraft. Such a decision from the point of view of building a "classical" fleet looks strange, but there is nothing strange - this is the only way to level our somewhat unfortunate geographical position. National specificity.
Of course, all of the above applies not only to naval strike aircraft, but also to anti-submarine aircraft, which is the most dangerous and effective means of fighting submarines.
The article "On the need to restore naval missile-carrying aviation" approaches were voiced that allow Russia to quickly and not very expensively in comparison with the USSR to restore the basic strike aircraft. Briefly - the Su-30SM platform with a more powerful radar and the Onyx missile as the "main caliber", in the future, the addition of cheap and small-sized AWACS aircraft and tankers, when it will be possible to develop and build them.
Such aviation will be able to relocate from fleet to fleet within a few days and to abruptly raise the power of the groupings of surface ships and submarines deployed in the sea, increasing their missile salvo, or even allowing them to dispense with only the issuance of target designation forces by surface forces.
In the same article, the substantiation is made that this should be precisely naval aviation, and not just an outfit of the Aerospace Forces.
The last question: is it necessary to create such an aircraft within the Navy, and not the Aerospace Forces?
The answer is unequivocal: yes. Combat operations over the sea and against fleets have their own specifics, for example, the need for many hours of flights over non-orientated terrain, the need to search and attack targets above it, including in adverse weather conditions, the need to attack compact and mobile targets protected by air defense and electronic warfare of such power, with which the pilot of the Aerospace Forces is unlikely to meet somewhere. All this requires specific combat training, and this requires the time of the pilots. In addition, it is quite obvious that the commanders of the naval formations will sometimes find it very difficult to beg "their" aircraft from the Aerospace Forces, especially if the Aerospace Forces themselves find themselves in a difficult situation. For these reasons, naval missile-carrying aircraft should be part of the fleet, not the Aerospace Forces. Of course, it will be necessary to train naval commanders in the combat use of aviation, to make them competent in its tactics in order to exclude incompetent decisions of commanders who have left the ship's personnel. But in general, the need for naval subordination of this type of troops does not raise any doubts.
And whatever the scale of the reorganization of naval aviation would not be needed to provide such capabilities, it will have to be done.
Today, many have already forgotten that in the USSR most long-range bombers were not part of the Air Force, but part of the Navy. So, in 1992 in long-range aviation there were 100 Tu-22M missile carriers of all modifications, and in the naval aviation - 165. Aircraft with their mobility turned out to be an indispensable means of increasing the mass and density of a missile salvo in a sea battle.
By the 1980s, Americans had come to the same conclusions.
In the second half of the eighties, as a response to the appearance in the USSR Navy of aircraft-carrying cruisers of project 1143 and missile cruisers of project 1144, as well as the growth of the number of the naval personnel of the Navy as a whole, they began to arm strategic bombers B-52 with anti-ship missiles "Harpoon". It was assumed that the B-52, modified for the ability to perform low-altitude (500 m) flight for a long time, possessing the most powerful electronic warfare system in the world, with trained pilots and six anti-ship missiles each, would be able to play an important role in sea battles with the USSR Navy., for which the US Navy was preparing in the eighties. So it probably would be.
The Americans were well aware that aircraft with anti-ship missiles would be a force multiplier in a naval war - they would make it possible to have many small strike groups of ships with an insufficient missile salvo, but widespread coverage, and, before a battle, quickly enhance the firepower of such small groups with their missiles … It was precisely the mobile reserve of the fleet, although it was subordinate to the Air Force, not the Navy.
Now that the growth of China's navy is already threatening Western domination in the world, they are doing the same. At the moment, the training of the personnel of the 28th Air Wing of the US Air Force and their B-1 bombers for the use of LRASM missiles has been completed.
With our geographic location, we cannot avoid the same thing, only, of course, taking into account the "economy".
However, having introduced preliminary deployment as the basic strategy of the pre-war (threatened) period, and creating a mobile reserve capable of being transferred from fleet to fleet, we run into a "stopper" on the way to effectively control such forces and their actions - the existing command system.
The article “Destroyed management. There is no single command of the fleet for a long time described what the control system of the Navy had become in the course of Serdyukov's ill-conceived reform. It is worth citing a quote from there explaining that the control of the fleets must be returned to the fleet again.
Let's imagine an example: by the nature of the radio exchange and based on the analysis of the current situation, the intelligence of the Navy understands that the enemy is going to concentrate a reinforced group of submarines against the forces of the Russian Federation in the Pacific region, with the probable task of being ready to sever sea communications between Primorye, on the one hand, and Kamchatka. and Chukotka on the other.
An emergency solution could be a maneuver by anti-submarine aviation forces from other fleets … but now, first, it is necessary for the officers of the ground forces from the General Staff to correctly assess the information from the Navy, to believe in it, so that the Marine Section of the General Staff confirms the conclusions made by the command of the Navy, so that from the paratroopers, military intelligence also came to the same conclusions so that the arguments of some of the district commanders, fearing that enemy submarines in his theater of operations would start sinking “his” MRK and BDK (and he would be responsible for them later), would not turn out to be stronger, and only then, through the General Staff, this or that USC district will receive an order to "give" its aircraft to its neighbors. There can be many failures in this chain, each of which will lead to the loss of one of the most valuable resources in the war - time. And sometimes lead to non-fulfillment of actions that are vital for the defense of the country.
It was here that the main striking force in the oceanic directions was lost, and not only the Navy, but the RF Armed Forces as a whole - the Naval Missile Aviation of the Navy. She, as a branch of the military, capable of maneuvering between theaters of operations, and for this reason, the proper central subordination simply did not find a place in the new system. Aircraft and pilots went to the Air Force, over time, the main tasks shifted to striking ground targets with bombs, which is logical for the Air Force. But there is nothing to urgently "get" a large naval strike group of the enemy in the sea today.
In order to ensure a quick (this is the key word) maneuver of forces and assets between dangerous directions, these forces and assets must be centrally controlled, so that the Main Staff of the Navy does not have any delays in the withdrawal of forces from certain directions and their transfer to other. This requires the restoration of a full-fledged naval control system. Surprisingly, geography has reached even here, and if we want it not to prevent us from defending our country, then we will have to “adjust” from it and on the command “front”.
There is, however, something else that the fleet can maneuver through its territory without restrictions.
Personnel.
Reserves
Once upon a time, the fleet had not only ships in combat, but also standing on conservation, which were supposed to replenish the combat strength of the Navy in a threatened period or in the event of war. The ship got up for conservation after going through the necessary repairs, and its withdrawal from conservation with return to combat strength could have been done very quickly.
These were usually not the most modern ships. But, it is better to have a ship than no ship, especially since the enemy would also be commissioning far from the very latest units. However, the enemy had much more of them.
In those years, when the fleet was large enough, it also had a significant mobilization resource from those who had previously served in the Navy, and there was a mechanism for the quick return of these people to military service through the system of military enlistment offices.
Today the situation has changed dramatically. There are no ships that could be put on storage, the fleet and the combat strength of ships are not enough, ship repair does not work as it should, and the time for repairing ships is almost higher than the time for their construction. The situation with reservists has also changed - the number of people who served in the Navy decreased following the Navy, the demographic indicators of the country and its economy do not give grounds to believe that the mobilization resource of the fleet can grow significantly in the foreseeable future. Yes, and the military registration and enlistment offices now do not count people so tightly, and it will take a long time to look for a former sailor who left for a better life in a neighboring city. All this makes the possibility of a rapid increase in the fleet in the event of war impossible.
Meanwhile, the presence of quickly put into operation reserve ships, and the ability to mobilize crews for them, is a critical component of sea power for a country whose fleet is divided in the same way as it is in Russia.
Yes, it is impossible to create more powerful naval groupings in each direction than hostile or dangerous neighbors have. But it is theoretically possible to have "spare" ships that require a minimum of money in peacetime and are quickly put into operation before the war. Not now, of course, but the country does not live in one day, and the correct principles of sea power live for a long time.
On the other hand, even if (or when) common sense and strategic clarity win, and the development of the Russian Navy proceeds along the normal path, the question remains with the number of reservists. They just won't be in the right amount, and won't be for a very long time.
And here we come to another solution.
Since our neighbors from the West and the East are stronger than us, since we will not be able to have fleets comparable to them in number (for the West, comparable to the number of military blocs opposing us in total), then one of the answer options is the presence of combat-ready ships for conservation at each theater of operations. And, since we may encounter difficulties with the call of a sufficient number of reservists, it is necessary to provide for maneuver in personnel.
Suppose, during a threatened period in the Pacific Fleet, for example, a corvette is taken out of conservation. Formed with the involvement of mobilized sailors, the crew takes him out to sea, undergoes combat training, passes course tasks, adjusted for how actively the enemy is behaving.
And when the strategic situation changes, nothing prevents part of the same crew from transferring to the Baltic, where they will commission the same corvette and will serve in it. As a result, the personnel will be transferred to where the situation is more dangerous at the moment and where the ships are needed more. Only a few officers will remain in the field, for example, commanders of combat units.
This idea may look exotic in someone's eyes, but in fact there is nothing exotic about it. The ground forces more than once practiced the deployment of units by transferring personnel and at the same time receiving military equipment directly to the theater of operations. Why shouldn't the Navy do something the same in the future?
In the future, when order is restored in naval construction, it will be necessary to start forming such reserves and practicing their actions - conscription, formation of crews, withdrawal of ships from conservation, accelerated combat training, and the entry of mobilized ships into combat strength. And then - again, with the same 80-90% people, but in a different fleet.
Naturally, such a "fire" mode of operation of personnel should be a temporary measure and be used to accelerate the increase in the number of the Navy's combat strength, which would outstrip the rate of mobilization of people, and would allow to have maximum forces "here and now."
Another of the consequences of the need to have a mobilization reserve of ships is the need in the future to include in the structure of the ship the need to keep it in mothballing for several decades. If now the service life and the number of some planned repairs for this service life are set, then it should be set that after serving 75-85% of the period, the ship will have to be repaired, mothballed and then another fifteen to twenty years with some breaks for de-mothballing, stand at the pier. Preserving both combat effectiveness and the ability to return to service with minimal costs.
Let's summarize
The fleets of Russia are disunited and located at a great distance from each other. The conditions on the fleets vary greatly, up to serious differences in the composition of the water. Different coastlines, weather, excitement, neighbors and opponents.
In such conditions, it is required to have ships that are slightly different from each other in different fleets. At the same time, it is necessary to continue adhering to inter-ship unification. This contradiction is resolved by unifying various ships in terms of subsystems as much as is possible in principle without loss of combat capability and an irrational rise in the cost of ships.
A special problem is the inter-theater maneuver. This is due to the fact that there are countries or their alliances to the east and west of Russia, with an economy that is at least not inferior to the Russian one, and it is impossible to surpass them all in strength, which means that in order to create a favorable balance of forces in one theater of operations, one will have to go there. transfer forces from another.
In wartime, this, depending on the nature of the conflict, may turn out to be impossible, or impossible in time. Therefore, the maneuver by ships must be carried out in advance, by deploying in the sea formations of ships from other fleets, which in advance, even during the threatened period, would make the transition to the required theater of operations. The beginning of the threatened period should be considered the appearance of the first intelligence signs of an exacerbation of the military-political situation by this or that country. The difference between this practice and the Soviet concept of operational squadrons - OPESK - will be only a smaller number of deployed formations, and their deployment only during a threatened period.
As a mobile reserve, which can be quickly transferred to any of the fleets and back, naval aviation, both anti-submarine and strike, is used. Specialized naval aviation makes it possible to increase the strike capabilities of fleets and naval formations in operations against an outnumbered enemy. There are no other means that could just as quickly strengthen the fleets in one direction or another. The need to have a powerful base, namely naval aviation, stems from the geographic features of Russia.
In order to quickly and without spending a lot of money change the balance of forces between the enemy and the Russian Navy, the latter must have a reserve - ships for conservation and a mobilization resource to be mobilized for the fleet. To accelerate the mobilization of the naval personnel, the same personnel can be transferred from fleet to fleet, if the situation requires it.
To control such global actions in terms of territorial coverage, it is necessary to restore the Main Command and the General Staff of the Navy as full-fledged and full-fledged combat command and control bodies capable of simultaneously and in real time control the operations of all fleets and ship formations at sea, including inter-fleet groupings, operational squadrons, and so on. … Highly effective reconnaissance will also be required, capable of obtaining in advance information about impending dangerous actions of the enemy, which is necessary for the preliminary deployment of operational squadrons at sea.
These measures will minimize the negative impact of the geographic disunity of all Russian fleets, while retaining the advantages of their position in the form of the impossibility of their simultaneous defeat in all theaters of operations.
In the future, when understanding of naval issues becomes the norm in Russia, all these provisions should be fixed doctrinal.
Otherwise, the repetition of the problems of 1904-1905 is inevitable, it is only a matter of time. Knowing that everything ultimately depends on us, we will always remember about the geographical factor and how it affects our domestic theory of naval power.
