There is one, one might say, fatal flaw in the minds of the naval commanders who have left the ship: a lack of understanding of the role of naval aviation. This problem cannot be considered purely Russian, in many fleets of the world there has been and there is a mutual dislike between aviators and sailors. But only in Russia did it take on truly pathological forms, and only for Russia it could be fraught with catastrophic consequences, even the most dire.
Aircraft made their way into the fleet for a long time and not easily. The relationship between aviators and sailors was also not easy. Prim people in a beautiful strict uniform, accustomed to proudly driving large and beautiful warships on the seas, looked with apprehension at desperate people in leather jackets who disappeared with gasoline, throwing their flimsy flying machines towards the heavenly element, realizing that these whatnots are already capable of sending to the bottom of their huge armored cruisers and battleships, but unwilling to admit it.
And then a war broke out in the world, which completely changed the fleets, and aviation, and the relationship between them.
Aircraft proved to be deadly enemies for surface ships. The list of heavy armored ships sent to the bottom by deck or land-based aircraft is very long. But in our country, they underestimate what role aviation actually played in the war at sea. Usually, carrier battles in the Pacific Ocean come to mind, but in reality, the role of aviation was many times greater.
It was the aircraft that defeated the German fleet in the Battle of the Atlantic. If the British had not thought of launching fighters directly from transport ships using gunpowder boosters, communications between the United States and Britain would have been severed by the Condors, also by planes, by the way. And then escort aircraft carriers, of which the United States built more than a hundred units, entered into action, basic patrol aircraft equipped with radars, and flying boats.
Of course, the Allied corvettes and destroyers also contributed, but they were dealing with something that somehow survived the air strikes. And Germany also lost surface ships from aviation. "Bismarck" received a torpedo from a deck torpedo bomber, and only then the ships finished it off. The Tirpitz was sunk by heavy bombers. The list is long.
But the Axis countries did not lag behind either. The Germans did not have naval aviation, but the Luftwaffe operated effectively over the seas. And the gigantic losses of our Baltic Fleet, and the sunken destroyers and cruisers on the Black Sea, ships from the polar convoys that died in the Arctic - all of these are either only aircraft, or, in some cases, mainly they. Then the Allies suffered from the German pilots in the Mediterranean, and the Italians "got" from them at the end of the battles in the region. There is no question of the Japanese, they are the Americans and became the founders of new naval doctrines and ideas involved in air power, starting with Pearl Harbor and the sinking of "Compound Z" at Kuantan. The Americans, in addition to the widest scale aircraft carrier battles, fought against the Japanese fleet with their army aviation in New Guinea, and the scale of that war was not much inferior to the aircraft carrier battles. The strikes of coastal aircraft on convoys and the mining of harbors by land bombers cost the Japanese almost more casualties in people than all the carrier battles combined.
And what about us? And the same thing: the USSR was "in trend" here. Of all the German ships sunk on the Soviet-German front, more than 50% were drowned by naval aircraft, and more than 70% of armed ships.
It was aviation that became the decisive force in the war at sea in that war. The force that determines the winner, and is able to neutralize the lack of warships.
After the war, the USSR intensively developed naval aviation, and also practiced the use of the Air Force against naval targets. Torpedo bombers were built, fighter formations were subordinate to the Navy. Long-range flying boats were created for hunting submarines.
Immediately there was a lag. First, for political reasons, carrier-based aviation did not develop - the USSR did not build aircraft carriers, even light air defense aircraft carriers. And this despite the fact that back in 1948, the commission of Rear Admiral V. F. Chernysheva concluded that there are almost no missions at sea that could be performed without aviation, and that coastal aviation will always be late for calling surface forces. So then it happened.
Secondly, when the Americans had George Washington class submarines equipped with ballistic missiles, and when, as a response to this threat, work began on the creation of an anti-submarine aircraft capable of finding nuclear submarines in a submerged position, it turned out that the domestic radio-electronic industry was incapable of to create a search and targeting system of the required efficiency. The anti-submarine Il-38, Be-12 and Tu-142 that appeared in the USSR never became truly effective PLO aircraft.
At the same time, the reconnaissance aviation of the Navy was, as they say, at the world level and above, and the naval missile carrier was generally an unprecedentedly powerful tool that gave the USSR, which did not have large surface forces, the ability to conduct massive attacks of enemy naval formations, and, what is important, to carry out maneuver of forces and means between fleets - an opportunity that the ships of the Navy would not have in wartime.
Until a certain moment, the Navy also had its own fighter aircraft, capable of preventing enemy aircraft from attacking Soviet ships in the near sea zone. But even in the Soviet years that were favorable for military power, the problem began to grow, which was destined, already in the post-Soviet years, to grow to absolutely ugly forms.
The pilots, whose planes were both the main striking force of the Navy in a conventional war, and the "eyes" of the fleet, and its "fire brigade", capable of arriving on command anywhere in the country in a matter of hours, did not become "their own" in the fleet. The psychological problem suddenly became organizational.
The naval pilots had general military ranks. Their career options were limited compared to the crew. And in general, naval aviation was treated as an auxiliary branch of troops in relation to the surface and submarine forces. As long as the Soviet government could "flood" the armed forces with all the resources they needed, this was tolerable. But in 1991, the Soviet regime was gone, and the abscess burst.
That's what wrote Former Commander of the Air Force and Air Defense of the Baltic Fleet, Lieutenant General V. N. Sokerin:
10 years of service in general positions in the Air Force of the Northern and Baltic Fleets give me the right to assert: in the last few decades, a stable, handed down from generation to generation, biased, to the point of cynicism, contemptuous and disdainful attitude towards the Air Force of the fleets has developed in the fleet. Everything negative that takes place on the ships is smoothed out or completely hidden. Every little thing in aviation swells from a fly to the size of an elephant. Aviation has long been and remains the "stepdaughter" of the Pope's fleet.
… Having celebrated its 60th anniversary, in 2002, the 5th Kirkenes Red Banner Naval Missile-Carrying Aviation Division, which was a real forge of naval aviation personnel and the last in the aviation of the Navy, was disbanded. not one of the ship commanders performed a single, not even an export flight,and this is on Tu-22M3 airplanes. In fact, it has not existed for many years due to the "zero" level of pilot training due to the lack of kerosene. Back in the early 90s, there were plans to transfer it to the 37th VA VGK, if they came true, I am sure that the division, which had some of the newest (by years of manufacture) Tu-22M3 aircraft, did not sink would be in oblivion.
Or such fragment:
There is a meeting of the Military Council of the Navy. A slide is displayed with data on the aviation regiments of the Navy, in which 3-4 serviceable aircraft remained. One of these regiments is part of the Baltic Fleet Air Force, which I then commanded. Moreover, this is the famous Pokryshkin regiment. Commander-in-Chief Kuroyedov looks at the slide and says: "It is too expensive to maintain aviation, I have no money for that." After a pause, he adds: "To bring the regular strength of these regiments in line with the number of serviceable aircraft." We, the commanders of the air forces of all four fleets, are depressed and silent and are only exchanging glances, but suddenly one of my colleagues in a mighty whisper on the floor of the hall says: "Well done, he did it himself, he did it himself!"
This was the case everywhere, in all fleets, all the long 90s, which in fact did not end for naval aviation. If in the Aerospace Forces such problems went into oblivion back in the 2000s, then for the aviation units of the fleet, such episodes were the norm in 2015 as well. Perhaps this is the norm now.
The navy practically "killed" its main weapon with its own hands.
The second misfortune was a break in the development of technology for naval aviation. Even in the 90s, some money was allocated for research on promising ships, and in the 2000s, the construction of warships began. But almost nothing was invested in the development of naval aviation. With the exception of the renewal of several assault aviation regiments and a certain amount of research and development on the means and methods of anti-submarine warfare, no major work was carried out to create new aircraft for the fleet in Russia.
This hit especially hard on anti-submarine aviation, which even under the USSR was "unlucky."
Let us dwell on this issue in more detail.
As you know, our microcircuits were the largest in the world. Behind this joke was an unpleasant truth: the domestic electronic industry lagged behind the enemy in the element base, and this dragged everything along - the lag in weight and size characteristics, the lag in communication, in the reliability of electronics, in information processing facilities.
This began to apply to anti-submarine aviation immediately, as soon as it became necessary to start using radio-hydroacoustic buoys (RGAB), receive signals from them, process them and record them. And our buoys, and signal transmission, and methods and means of processing were very far behind the Americans. As a result, "contacts" with foreign nuclear submarines were a whole event in the life of the crew of an anti-submarine aircraft. This problem was never solved, until the beginning of work on the topic "Window", mentioned earlier.
Another was never solved - the flawed approach to aircraft design in general.
The passive buoy reacts to noise. But the sea has a natural noise level, which also depends on the roughness. It is variable. And if the buoy is adjusted for noise corresponding, for example, to two points, and the sea state is four, then the buoy will react to the natural noise of the sea, and not to the noise that is superior to it from the submarine. The search will be thwarted.
In both the Il-38 and Tu-142, the crew does not have access to the buoys in flight. Once the buoys are set up on the ground, nothing can be changed later. The buoys are fixed in the weapons bay, horizontally like bombs. And if the weather turns bad, that's it. Disruption of the operation.
In contrast to our aircraft, in the American Orion, the buoys are located in a separate compartment, in inclined launch silos communicating with the manned compartment, and the crew members have the opportunity to adjust them during the execution of a combat mission. This alone multiplied the effectiveness of the aircraft's sortie.
In the USSR, something similar could be done in the Be-12, which has the ability to go through the entire aircraft, including the weapons bay, through the doors in the bulkheads. Of course, this would require a re-arrangement of the compartment, and the completion of the airframe. But no one has been puzzled by this until now.
Also, in Orion, the crew maintains combat effectiveness for much longer - the plane has places to rest (even bunks), a low noise level, and more comfortable working conditions. For comparison, in the Be-12, the noise level in the cockpit leads to hearing impairment over time. The computers on board, used to process signals from buoys, have surpassed ours for an epoch.
Together with the best flight characteristics and significantly better design buoys, this ensured the total superiority of the Orions in search operations over domestic machines at the end of the seventies. And then the Americans introduced a radar search for water surface disturbances caused by a submerged submarine, introduced the possibility of setting up a field of buoys with the provision of their joint operation, low-frequency buoys that increased the detection distance of an underwater object at times, and the gap became simply endless. This is how he remains now.
Aircraft upgrades during Soviet times had minimal effect. R&D "Window" could have been a breakthrough, but in the late USSR, innovations found a place under the Sun with great difficulty, and as a result, nothing really happened, although finding American submarines on retrofitted aircraft was hundreds (!) Times easier, the crew could " to gain "several" contacts "a week, and in a month of combat work to find more foreign submarines than in the whole previous life.
And finally, a tactical question: NATO and the Americans almost always knew that the Russians had sent their anti-submarine on a combat mission. The location of the radar station in Europe and Japan, as well as the sophisticated means of RTR always allowed them to detect the fact of the departure of aircraft in "their" direction in advance. And almost always, when our crews had something to look for in the Okhotsk, Barents or Mediterranean seas, enemy fighters hung on their tail. In fact, the crews of the PLO aircraft were suicide bombers - in the event of a real clash, there would be no one to protect them during the sortie - the fighter aircraft of the USSR did not have aircraft with sufficient range, or an in-flight refueling system to provide the anti-submarine with an escort, and they could not they protect him in the absence of their AWACS aircraft.
After the collapse of the USSR, timelessness set in in anti-submarine aviation. Work on the A-40 amphibian has stopped. Somehow work was carried out on the new Novella complex, the possibilities of building an PLO aircraft based on the Tu-204 were sluggishly discussed, some research and development were carried out … This, for the time being, did not give a practical result, and the aircraft fleet was constantly decreasing. The Il-38, Be-12 and Tu-142M remained less and less, and the new aircraft were not even really designed. Meanwhile, the United States and its allies made a breakthrough in the quality of submarines, making them even less noisy, and in the case of the allies - Germany and Japan - by adding air-independent power plants to their diesel-electric submarines.
The situation in our PLO aviation would have been quite sad if the Novella complex had not appeared. However, one must understand that it would not have existed if it had not been for an export contract with India for the modernization of the Il-38 previously supplied to it into the Il-38SD Sea Dragon variant.
In the 2010s, a ray of light flashed in the dark dying kingdom of naval aviation - the modernization of the Tu-142M3 into the M3M version, and the Il-38 into the Il-38N version with the Novella complex began. But the number of aircraft remaining in the ranks is such that they can be safely "taken out of the brackets" in any serious conflict.
Let's not speculate on how effective the Novella complex is, and what is installed on board the Tu-142M when it is converted into an M3M variant. This topic is very sensitive. Let's just say - we are still very far from the United States and Japan.
But anti-submarine aviation is critically important for the defense of the country. The United States and its allies have a huge submarine, and most importantly, it is on US and British submarines that most of the Anglo-Saxon nuclear arsenal is located. Neither the country's defense against a hypothetical nuclear strike, nor a preventive nuclear blitzkrieg, if it turns out to be necessary, are impossible without the destruction of at least part of the US strategic submarines, because otherwise the losses of the civilian population of the Russian Federation are simply prohibitively large. But, even bypassing (for now) the issue of detecting these submarines in the ocean, we must admit that it is impossible to destroy even a part of them without modern anti-submarine aviation. But she is not. This is hard to believe, but the absence of a submarine hunter in Russia may ultimately cost the lives of most of our people. This is the reality, unfortunately.
And this is all the more offensive because all the technologies necessary to create a modern anti-submarine ship are already in Russia today …
Today, the naval aviation of Russia is an extremely strange conglomeration of different combat and transport squadrons, often brought together into consolidated regiments, which, due to different aircraft in the composition, even for their purpose, cannot even be commanded. The number of aircraft of each type in service with the Navy is calculated in units of machines, but there are more aircraft types than that of the US Navy (excluding their carrier-based aircraft). It looks like the naval aviation of some Third World country, but interspersed with anti-submarine and interceptors left over from a dead civilization, however, are rapidly becoming obsolete.
Attack aviation is represented by the old Su-24MR and the new Su-30SM, which are reduced to two assault regiments, where they replaced the Su-24. MRA with its missile carriers is a thing of the past forever. Shore-based fighter aviation is represented by a modest number of Su-27 and MiG-31, approximately two regiments in size. Anti-submarine - less than fifty vehicles of all types - Il-38, Il-38N, Tu-142M, MR, M3M, Be-12, of which only seven Il-38N can fight submarines, and, possibly, twelve Tu-142M. But at least something and somehow.
For comparison: Japan has more than ninety aircraft, each of which is simply infinitely superior in efficiency to any of ours - this applies both to the Orions assembled in Japan and to the monstrous Kawasaki P-1, which, apparently, are the most advanced aircraft. PLO in the world at the moment.
The fleet does not have its own aircraft refuelers and AWACS planes, if they are needed, then they will have to be "asked" from the Aerospace Forces through the General Staff or the higher command in the theater of operations, and it is not a fact that they will be given in a big war.
For reconnaissance, there is only the same low-speed and defenseless Tu-142M and a handful of Su-24MR, which cannot fly far without tankers.
In general, the Navy has not shown any particular interest in having naval aviation, and the news that it will be transmitted to the air force and air defense armies did not cause any response in the naval environment.
As if they don't need planes at all.
Separately, it should be said about naval aviation. The trip of "Kuznetsov" to the Mediterranean Sea cannot be attributed to the glorious pages of military history. But, at least, naval aviation received at least some experience, albeit negative. Let's say right away that the experts warned in advance that the air group was not ready to perform combat missions, and the ship itself was not constructively designed to carry out strike missions. So, in front of Syria, even the weapon cellars had to be refined in order to ensure there the possibility of storing large quantities of aerial bombs.
Nevertheless, in comparison with reconnaissance or anti-submarine aircraft, shipborne in some advantage. If in Russia it is now impossible to produce an anti-submarine aircraft at all (there is no design that could be put into production), then aircraft for naval aviation, the MiG-29K, are quite being produced for themselves. But, unfortunately, the Ka-27 and Ka-29 helicopters are not produced. Just as with anti-submarine aircraft, with radio reconnaissance aircraft and jammers, the loss of each unit will be irreparable.
As for naval fighters, the 279th OQIAP is still of limited combat capability. Perhaps, someday, when the aircraft carrier "Admiral Kuznetsov" is restored, and the deck crews are equipped and trained as needed (for example, they will have a cutting tool for quickly dismantling a torn aerofiner cable and will be trained to quickly replace it), we will see training strike missions with the maximum possible number of sorties per day for strike missions, flights for armed aerial reconnaissance missions over the sea, practicing air defense missions for naval formations, for striking the entire air group (as the Americans say "alpha-strike"), the work of the aviation regiment headquarters on the organization of long and continuous combat missions in different "modes", and the interaction of shipborne aircraft with coastal ones … so far there is nothing like that. Nevertheless, at least the lost planes can be reimbursed, which is good, no matter what they are. Another would be the aircraft carrier "reimburse" …
At the moment, the situation in naval aviation is as follows.
1. Specialized reconnaissance aircraft. In fact, it is almost absent, there are several Su-24MRs. Long-range reconnaissance tasks are performed by aircraft of different classes, mainly Tu-142M.
2. Specialized coastal strike aircraft. Two regiments on the Su-30SM and Su-24M, modern and trained formations, but do not have long-range anti-ship missiles. Against the same US Navy, these regiments will be enough for a couple of sorties. But they can sink someone even in a battle with the US Navy. The best in its condition and combat capability of the MA unit; dangerous to any opponent.
3. Anti-submarine aviation. About forty vehicles, somehow capable of performing anti-submarine missions. Of these, about twenty are completely obsolete and before the upgrade, their combat value against a full-fledged enemy is strictly zero. New aircraft are not produced in the Russian Federation, any loss of an PLO aircraft is irreparable.
4. Ship aviation. Small in number: one incomplete fighter aviation regiment and several dozen helicopters. Remains in an incomprehensible status after the start of the repair of the aircraft carrier. Limited combat capability just like a ship. Anti-submarine and landing helicopters are not mass-produced, the loss of each such helicopter is irreparable. Also, shipborne trainer aircraft are not produced, although their production can be restored. The Ka-52K naval attack helicopters are being produced, but their role in the naval weapons system is unclear.
5. Fighter aircraft. Approximately two regiments, one each in the Northern and Pacific fleets. For 2015, the attitude to the shelves as to a suitcase without a handle, no fuel was allocated for flights. In 2018, the press published reports on the transfer of naval fighter aircraft to the newly created air force and air defense armies. For 2018, the number of reports on MiG-31 flights from AB Yelizovo in Kamchatka has increased, the aircraft still carry the symbols of the Navy.
6. Transport aviation. About fifty aircraft belonging to eight different types (An-12, 24, 26 of various modifications, Tu-134, 154 in passenger versions, Il-18, An-140). It is combat-ready, but mainly consists of aircraft that have been discontinued. The performance of parachute landing tasks for special forces and marines is possible only on a limited scale.
There are several new Mi-8 helicopters of various modifications and several training aircraft.
This is not the kind of naval aviation with which you can defend the country in a big war, not the kind of aviation with which the fleet can call itself combat-ready, and not the kind of aviation with which the Navy can be an instrument of foreign policy influence that can be used in countering the enemy. And, worst of all, no one is sounding the alarm about this.
Recently, there have been rumors that the situation with anti-submarine aircraft may improve somewhat. Back in 2017, Major General I. Kozhin, commander of naval aviation, said literally the following: "Work on the creation of a new generation of anti-submarine patrol aircraft for the naval aviation of the Russian Navy is nearing completion." Observers agree that the Major General was referring to a patrol and anti-submarine aircraft based on the Il-114.
The layout of such an aircraft was shown at the exhibition of arms and military equipment KADEX-2018 In Kazakhstan.
It is noteworthy that the windows run along the entire side, and, perhaps, the problem of adjusting the sensitivity of the RGAB during a sortie on this aircraft can be solved. Also noteworthy is the fact that in the drawings the aircraft carries the X-35 anti-ship missile system. Earlier, the Navy refused to install them on both the Tu-142 and the Il-38N (although they are on the Indian export aircraft). Oil was added to the fire by photographs of the IL-114 flying laboratory with a fairing for the Kasatka-S ventral radar, produced by NPO "Radar-MMS".
Alternative fantasies about the future development of combat aircraft on this platform immediately appeared on the network.
Is the Il-114 a good plane, if we consider it as a base for an ASW plane? Not to say that much. Far from ideal. But there is fish in the absence of fish and cancer. Even such an aircraft is infinitely better than none, and if such aircraft are really built, then this should only be welcomed.
At the same time, one must not forget that the future of such a platform as the Il-114, basically questionable.
Also at the beginning of 2018, the expert community was dumbfounded news about the preparation of the modernization of the Be-12 … There are fewer than ten of these aircraft left, and it is estimated that about ten aircraft can be found in storage. As a result, you can get 14-16 cars. We must immediately say that this is an extremely irrational and expensive solution, which makes sense only in one case - if the need to massively use anti-submarine aircraft arises before the new aircraft is ready. Similar thoughts arise from news about a similar impending (supposedly) revival of PLO Mi-14 helicopters. Is there really any information about a war brewing in the near future? Or is it so “zero” on the new plane that it has come to the point of “raising the dead”?
One way or another, in the field of anti-submarine aviation, some kind of behind-the-scenes movements have clearly begun, and God forbid that they end in something good, because the situation is truly intolerable.
In general, with the current attitude of the Navy towards naval aviation, one cannot expect any drastic changes for the better. Neither in anti-submarine aviation, nor in shock, nor in reconnaissance, nor in auxiliary. The timelessness in naval aviation continues.
