The fate of the Project 956 destroyers in our Navy today is no secret to anyone who is even slightly interested in naval issues. But even in the chaos of the post-Soviet years, everything could have gone differently. There have been positive examples of how these ships were kept in service.
From an interview with the commander of the Northern Fleet, Admiral G. A. Suchkov, 2004:
At Sevmash, we repaired the Fearless destroyer. For three years, in debt. The plant met us halfway, and we will pay off with it during this and 2005. But we have a destroyer.
And in 2000, the destroyer Rastoropny was delivered for repairs at Severnaya Verf in St. Petersburg. More precisely, they put two, one of which was quickly written off there, and they plan to return Rastoropny to us already in 2010. Despite the fact that in Severodvinsk the cost of repairs rose to us at 280 million rubles, and at "Severnye Verfy" - 470 million rubles. Who is behind this?
Today the destroyer Fearless is named Admiral Ushakov and is the only running destroyer in the Northern Fleet.
Could other ships have been dealt with in similar ways? Nobody even checked this.
The driven horses are shot
Two very illustrative examples that very well describe the difference between the approaches that were really shown in our country, and others, not ours.
Example # 1:
Kaliningrad, May 13, 2018 / TASS /. Sea tugs of the Baltic Fleet have escorted the destroyer "Restless" from Baltiysk, the main base of the Baltic Fleet in the Kaliningrad region, to Kronstadt, where it will become a floating exhibit of the marine branch of the Patriot park, Fleet spokesman Roman Martov told reporters on Sunday.
To understand all the shame and shame of what happened, it is necessary to emphasize that in order to extend the service life of the ships of the USSR Navy, the service life of the main cable routes is very acute, i.e. year of construction of the ship. At the same time, all large anti-submarine ships (BOD) of project 1155, missile cruisers (RRC) of project 1164, which are in the combat composition of the Navy, have a service life longer than the destroyer "Restless", which entered the Navy in 1992 and was sent to the fleet. No comments.
By the way, the former commander of "Restless", Rear Admiral VA Tryapichnikov, is now the head of the Naval Shipbuilding Directorate.
As of today, three Project 956 destroyers remain formally (in a very problematic technical condition) in the Navy's combat composition: "Fast" in the Pacific Fleet, "Admiral Ushakov" in the North and "Persistent" in the Baltic (does not go out to sea).
2018-31-03. The flagship of the Baltic Fleet, the destroyer Nastoichivy, is 25 years old. In the near future, the ship's crew is preparing to go to sea to work out elements of the course task (K-2). In the naval ranges of the Baltic Fleet, the crew of the "Nastoichivny" is to carry out artillery and rocket firing, conduct air defense exercises, and also work out anti-submarine missions.
Department of information support of the Baltic region (Kaliningrad).
However, the "Persevering" could not get out into the sea … "Restless" went to the park. Actually, the very presence of destroyers in the Baltic Fleet (as well as the "crowd" of corvettes) raises the question of the adequacy of the operational planning of the Navy for its intended purpose, because even without questions (without an answer) of combat support, these ships can be hit right at the berths by enemy long-range artillery.
Example # 2. In 2019the modernized (since 2015) destroyer of the project 956E "Hangzhou" of the PLA Navy entered sea trials (instead of the beam launcher of the Shtil air defense system, vertical launchers of the HHQ-16 air defense system were installed, the HHQ-10 air defense system launcher appeared, instead of the Moskit anti-ship missile system) E "posted new anti-ship missiles YJ-12A). The second destroyer Fuzhou is undergoing a similar upgrade.
Taking into account the deployed PLA Navy "ship conveyor", the attitude towards the ships of Project 956 (two projects 956E and two projects 956ME) is indicative.
The Chinese have a fundamentally caring attitude even to old ships (an example of which is our first destroyers of the very problematic 7U project, which for a long time were part of the PLA Navy, and now some of them are preserved as a monument), but the question and the meaning of the article are not in them, but in the Russian Navy.
Was it possible (and was it necessary) to preserve and modernize the destroyers of Project 956?
If it turned out to be an extremely expensive modernization of Marshal Shaposhnikov and other much older and more problematic ships of Project 1155, then with regard to the 956 destroyers the answer should have been "yes." Yes, not all ships, but only the newest.
But nevertheless, such modernization did not take place.
Often this is "blamed" for the steam turbine (PTU) main power plant (GEM) of destroyers.
Alleged problem of a steam turbine main power plant
In 1995, the author heard the phrase "the horses are being driven to shoot" in the previous heading at the 7th operational squadron of the Northern Fleet in response to a question about the reasons for the extremely difficult technical condition of all the destroyers of the squadron.
Before falling down with a heart, many of our destroyers managed to run very, very many miles. For example, the operating time of the boilers of the head destroyer "Sovremenny" at the time of being put into repair (decommissioning) was about 25 thousand hours for each boiler. An even more striking example is the destroyer "Otlichny", which passed 150,535 miles in 8 years of active operation (for comparison: Peter the Great had only 180,000 miles on the lag in 17 years).
In the course of combat service in 1986 in conditions of high water and air temperatures, "Excellent" effectively won the race against two gas turbine ships of the US Navy KR URO CG48 Yorktown and EM DD970 Caron.
The examples given show that the matter was not in the reel after all …
Yes, in the situation of the 90s. the issues of operation of ships with steam turbine installations at high parameters arose very acutely. It is acute for the training of personnel (especially for urgent service), and for the repair and water treatment. Alas, the Navy used, to put it mildly, not all of its capabilities.
For example, in the 90s, a lot of nuclear submarines with an unexploited resource of active zones and power plants were withdrawn from the Navy. And nothing prevented the "boiling" of feed water for steam-turbine surface ships with a guaranteed supply of their needs. As a matter of fact, they did this on submarines (with the destroyed coastal supply system), a "unit" (submarine) was started up in order to provide the rest of the nuclear-powered ships with high-purity water.
Given the large resource of the zones of decommissioned submarines, this did not require any additional costs for the fleet. However, not a single such case is known for surface ships, as if our submariners and surface watermen served in different fleets …
Yes, the use of a boiler and turbine plant on a modern warship is an outdated solution. But it is quite working! And due to production reasons at the time of the decision. Production reasons for the problematic issues of the main power plants of ships, our modern shipbuilding tasted to the fullest. Especially after 2014, the time of the actual loss of the Ukrainian enterprise "Zorya-Mashproekt" (gas turbine units and gearboxes). The issue of not only new ships (projects 11356 and 22350), but also the possibility of operating previously built ships with gas turbine installations (projects 1135, 11540, 1155, 1164, 1166) was extremely acute. Continuation of active operation in that situation BOD project 1155 simply "killed" their resource.
Was it technically possible to restore the destroyers' KTU (last hulls)? Yes, of course: the steam turbine units themselves had a very significant resource, and problematic boilers could be replaced with modern KVG-3D (as for the Indian aircraft carrier Vikramaditya), replacing fuel oil with diesel fuel. There was free money in the country in 2014 …
Moreover, such a decision would have prompted an adequate repair and modernization of the TAVKR "Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Kuznetsov". In the current reality, with the traditional triviality of the Navy, they decided to "save money" by replacing only 4 emergency boilers … left 4 others (old), decided not to replace fuel from fuel oil with diesel. A year later, they decided to change all the boilers, but the first 4 were already purchased for fuel oil. I had to take 4 others with fuel oil … Accordingly, with the entry into the Navy of "Kuznetsov" we get a situation when the ships of the same formation use different fuel. Given the Navy's tanker problems, this is an amazing solution. Save on matches!
At the same time, there are unreliable allegations that supposedly these ships are so outdated that their modernization does not make sense. It's worth dealing with this.
Problematic TTZ and weak air defense
TTZ for the design of a fire support ship for the landing of the Navy issued to the Northern PKB in 1971, i.e., initially these were artillery ships with the main task of supporting the landing. In the process of development and creation, the project received high-speed and anti-jamming anti-ship missiles Mosquito and the M-22 Uragan collective defense air defense system (however, very controversial in terms of the concept of construction).
At the same time, the ships had a single surveillance radar, extremely weak anti-submarine weapons and a single helicopter in a movable hangar, which, taking into account the displacement, which had increased to "cruising," raised questions …
The detection of air targets was provided by the general detection radar "Fregat" (hereinafter in the series - "Fregat-M" and "Fregat-MA (2)"), which was also a target designation radar for the M-22 "Uragan" air defense missile system (with the provision of "illumination" for passive radar homing heads of missiles (PRLGSN missiles) assigned to defeat targets with special radio searchlights). A serious drawback of the ship was the presence of only one surveillance radar (moreover, the decimeter range, not optimal for detecting low-flying anti-ship missiles) and the absence of a CIUS.
The lack of only one radar was corrected only on the latest ships of the series, which were exported to China, by installing a radar for the Positiv command module and two combat modules of the Kashtan near-line anti-aircraft complex (ZKBR) with artillery and missiles.
However, Russian destroyers had problems with air defense, and very serious ones.
From the memoirs of the officer of the Missile and Artillery Armament Directorate of the Navy, Captain I Rank V. K. Pechatnikov:
The concept of building a complex with no means of tracking the target nevertheless prevailed, or rather, it was pushed by shipbuilders: they just had to place light and small-sized illumination projectors and did not have to rack their brains with placing an additional location of the complex. This circumstance has always been the subject of rejection of the complex by the naval structures. To be honest, at first I did not see a big sin in this, being a native of the winged theme, where launching towards the target, even in the absence of any contact with it, was a common thing. Then, however, when it became necessary to introduce a new missile 9M38M1, and later its subsequent modifications, these funds became simply vital, but the logic of building the system no longer allowed them to be built in painlessly …. but the lack of its own target tracking stations in the complex … then became a big stumbling block.
In addition, the lead ship of Project 956 "Sovremenny" was launched, which should have been armed with the M-22 air defense system. We reported to the commander-in-chief of the Navy that, by changing the ideology of building the complex in order to fully use the capabilities of the rocket, we can freeze the program for building new ships for 4-5 years. Having found out that even with the previous ideology, the complex is 5-6 times more productive than the existing "Volna-M", the commander-in-chief decided to leave everything as it is with subsequent modernization.
If I knew then that there would be no more upgrades, perhaps they would agree with the delay or partial arming of the ships …
According to the plan, we had to take the air defense system into service until 1980, in which the Sovremenny destroyer had already surrendered to the fleet. Of course, we did not have time: the complex did not want to shoot down low-altitude targets. In addition, one feature came to light: firing a salvo of cruise missiles coming from one direction sharply reduced the likelihood of defeat. The main parameter of the TTZ was practically not fulfilled. The missile seeker, opening at the top of the trajectory, began to direct the missile to the energy center of the targets and only as it approached it switched to tracking the nearest target … But, since the concept of further upgrades had already been adopted, they decided to leave everything as it is.
Conclusions on the combat effectiveness of Project 956 destroyers
The strike complex with the Moskit anti-ship missile system was excellent. True, for carriers such as an airplane or boat. Alas, for a ship of almost cruising displacement, an operational missile system was openly requested, with an appropriate "long arm" (range).
To characterize the artillery capabilities of the ship (two highly automated AK-130 artillery complexes) for the main purpose, it is best to quote an ex-officer of the Pacific Fleet (on the Courage forum):
In 2000, they practiced a war in the seaside direction with the 5th army. The groundmen spent a week building a company stronghold. After receiving the control center from the correction post, after 5 minutes, horns and legs remained from the ROP. The shooting was carried out by pr. 956 board 778 2 AU AK-130, the rate of fire is maximum. The ROP was located at a distance of 3 km from the coast. The minimum firing range was 20 km. The chief of staff and chief of artillery of the army were delighted.
The ship is given 5 minutes to apply an artillery against a coastal target, while it continuously moves in an anti-artillery zigzag, shoots and jamming.
Regarding the range, I agree (not enough), but there is little comfort in the fact that it is hard for coastal artillerymen to shoot at a maneuvering target, which is able to dump you almost 3 tons of land mines in a minute …
Well, anti-submarine weapons (4 torpedoes SET-65 in two twin-tube torpedo tubes and RBU-1000 for anti-torpedo protection) with the subtle GAS "Platina" was frankly weak.
The only helicopter for a ship of almost cruising displacement was also not a source of pride (however, the larger project 1164 RRC had the same).
At first glance, the conclusions for the 956 project are devastating.
However, if you look closely, it becomes obvious that the 956 is just one example of serious conceptual shortcomings of literally all 3rd generation ships of the USSR Navy (this was manifested in the most striking form during the development of the next generation destroyer, with devastating criticism by the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy S. G. Gorshkov scientific organizations of the Navy).
SAM "Fort-M"? Several examples of not always successful shooting them.
For exercises (with practical rocket firing) in 2011:
According to Varyag, 2 RM P-120 was launched for him. The Fort air defense system did not work, whether it works or not. the coastal ones work fine.
That is, we see serious systemic problems of the Navy, in which the shortcomings of individual projects are a special case.
Obviously, these problems had to be solved comprehensively (and the task is quite technically solvable) on the scale of the fleet, and, accordingly, the issue of "problem projects" is in the plane of their optimal modernization.
Export alternative
In the conditions of practically "zeroing" of the naval shipbuilding program after the December 1991 event, export became the salvation for the domestic shipbuilding. Moreover, it began with the supply of large surface warships of new projects back in the USSR, for example, the construction of a series of Project 61ME destroyers for the Indian Navy.
In the early 90s. A program for the creation of export frigates of Project 11356 and Indian destroyers of Project 15 (with significant Russian design assistance and supplies of combat systems) began to be implemented.
The Indian customer harshly raised the issue of including an effective collective defense air defense system in the composition of these ships, while the export "Rif" (our "Fort-M") obviously did not pass the weight and size restrictions.
As a result, on the basis of the Uragan air defense system, on the basis of a promising groundwork and plans for its modernization, in a short time, an actually new Shtil-1 air defense system was created, initially with a beam launcher from Uragan, and later with a new vertical launcher for new air defense missiles with increased range 9M317ME (first presented abroad at the EURONAVAL-2004 show).
It should also be noted that the St. Petersburg "Meridian" series of BIUS "Requirements" for ships of the Indian Navy should be noted. This work began in the late 1980s. (that is, even before the start of work on projects 11356 and 15), had several stages and ultimately led to the creation of a "maximum" version of the BIUS "Requirement-M" for Russian frigates of project 11356, ensuring the use of incl. SAM with active radar seeker (ARGSN).
Subsequently, on the basis of the "Shtil-1" groundwork and a vertical-launch missile defense system, the Chinese Navy was already created (with large Russian participation) the HHQ-16 air defense missile system.
The total number of foreign ships with the Shtil-1 / HHQ-16 air defense system is impressive.
Indian Navy:
- 3 destroyers of the Delhi type, pr. 15, built in India, entered service in 1997-2001. - two single-girder launchers (48 missiles);
- 6 frigates of the Talvar type, pr. 11356 (construction of the series continued), built in Russia, entered service in 2003-2004. (first three) and in 2012-2013. - one single-girder PU (24 missiles);
- 3 frigates of the "Shivalik" type, pr. 17, built in India, entered service in 2010-2012. - one single-girder PU (24 missiles).
Chinese Navy:
- 4 destroyers pr. 956E / EM, built in Russia, entered service in 1999-2000 (the first two) and 2005-2006. - two single-girder launchers (48 missiles);
- 2 destroyers of the 052В type, built in China, entered service in 2004, - two single-beam launchers (48 missiles);
- 30 frigates of the 054A type, built in China, have been commissioned since 2008 (4 ships under testing + 2 under construction) - WPU of the Chinese version of the "Calm" - HHQ-16 (32 missiles).
A total of 48 ships of the Indian and Chinese navies.
A modernization that never happened
The beginning of 2014, a coup in Ukraine. The Russian Navy receives a "knockdown" in the form of a refusal to supply gas turbine power plants for new ships and repair old ones. At the same time, a sharp aggravation of the military-political situation sharply raises the question of the real combat effectiveness of the armed forces and the Navy (Navy ships).
As mentioned above, the replacement of boilers and the repair of the KTU, while ensuring proper operation, made it possible to actively and intensively operate the repaired destroyers (including in the far and ocean zones).
At the same time, new equipment, weapon systems made it possible to revise the entire concept of project 956 with the creation of effective multipurpose ships in the process of modernization.
The presence of serial air defense systems "Shtil-1", radars ("Fregat-MA" and "Positive"), BIUS "Requirement" made it possible to dramatically increase the effectiveness of the ships' air defense. In the situation of 2014, it was completely completed and with significant reserves for the modernization and development of the air defense system, with eliminated the shortcomings of the "Hurricane". Do not forget that in 2014 the new air defense system of the Navy "Poliment-Redut" (Project 22350 frigates) was in a state very far from combat capability …
The problematic issue was short-range air defense systems. All proposals of the industry in this area (SAM "Redut" with SAM 9M100, "Tor-FM", "Pantsir-M") had some serious shortcomings (for more details: "Corvettes that will go into battle"), but drawbacks to be solved.
Taking into account the unambiguous priority of radio command control systems for short-range air defense systems, the optimal solution would be comparative tests of the Tora-FM and Pantsir-M, developed on the initiative, on various ships of the Navy, followed by a decision based on their results. In this case, one could be sure that "Shell" and "Thor" would have a significantly different, much more effective appearance and capabilities today.
Removing the main task from the ships - fire support, made it possible to obtain on their base multipurpose ships with the replacement of the AK-130 stern artillery installation with the UKSK missiles of the "Caliber" and "Onyx" complex (3x8, as in one of the development variants of the 956 project).
In the stern of it, the towed active-passive GAS "Minotavr" normally stood up, while the broadband GAS "Platina-M" made it possible to ensure joint work with the BUGAS "Minotavr-ISPN". That is, the composition of hydroacoustic means is close to those envisaged for the promising project of the Navy 20386. In terms of the capabilities of detecting submarines, such a composition of hydroacoustic means unambiguously surpassed the SJSC Polynom (due to the use of a lower frequency range), except for the bow sector, however, a decrease in the detection range in it was easily compensated by the joint work of a pair of ships.
Of course, the 53 cm torpedo tubes had to be changed to the "Packet", and this was absolutely real.
It is of interest to compare such a frankly "budgetary" modernization of a destroyer (technical could have done a lot better) with the modernized BOD "Marshal Shaposhnikov" of Project 1155 ("Defective modernization of" Marshal Shaposhnikov ").
Table. Comparison of the hypothetical version of the modernization of the destroyers of Project 956 and the BOD of Project 1155 ("Marshal Shaposhnikov"):
It is easy to see that the modernized multipurpose 956 looks much more balanced and more armed than the modernized 1155 project. Option "956 mod", with the replacement of only one SAM (ie 36 UVP SAM "Shtil-1"), but the placement of the second helicopter, while viewed more preferable.
It must be emphasized that technically, such a modernization was absolutely real, all of the specified weapons were serial, there were no problems with supplies. Accordingly, "Burny", "Bystry", "Admiral Ushakov", "Persistent" and "Restless", and possibly the newest one at the Pacific Fleet Bezboyaznenny (1990), could find a second life. At the same time, the destroyers from the Baltic clearly had to be removed, with the formation of homogeneous ship formations at the Northern Fleet and Pacific Fleet.
That is, for relatively moderate costs (the obvious cost of such modernization is much less than what happened at Shaposhnikov), the Navy could get it in 2017-2018. 5-6 relatively modern and fully combat-ready "first ranks" with the possibility of their maximum active use (including in the far and oceanic zone) for 10 years (until 2027-2028). Unlike ships with gas turbines (projects 1155 and 11540), new boilers and a significant resource of the PTU made it possible to walk intensively without convulsive counting of the remaining power plant resource.
Time, alas, is gone
And if the fleet is still trying to save the ships of the project 1155, then a cross has already been put on the destroyers. Time for their modernization has been lost. Taking into account the fact that a series of new ships of project 22350 has already gone, it makes no sense today to invest in these old ships. If we hypothetically assume that a decision will be made now, then its implementation, taking into account the specifics of budget financing, will begin no earlier than 2021, ship repairs will take 3-4 years (in fact, much more), i.e. the ships will come out of this repair with modernization in the years 2024-2025 … At the same time, the newest 956 was adopted by the Navy in 1993, i.e. at the time of 2024 he will be already 31 years old. Ten years after an average repair is at least 41 years for the ship, but this already requires an unambiguous replacement of the main cable routes (which sharply increases the cost and terms of repair).
A completely different situation was in 2014, when, with a timely decision, 4-6 destroyers could really get a second life, and a very active one. Even "Burny" (in the Navy since 1988) leaving the factory after 3 years (2017) could well serve for another 10 years, until 2027, without any large-scale replacement of trunk cables. And this is even more true for the five newer ships ("Ushakov" ("Fearless"), "Persistent", "Fast", and possibly "Fearless").
Main lessons of the 956 project
First. The Navy needs, if not the most innovative, but actually working and effective technical and tactical solutions. The pursuit of a crane in the sky often ends with a broken trough.
Second. At the forefront of the development and use of the fleet should be real combat effectiveness.
Third. In a situation when the fleet sends relatively new ships to the park, the society has a logical question: haven't our admirals played with ships? Requiring huge funding for new ships of the Navy, is it capable of ensuring their normal operation, modernization during service and effective use in battle?
Decent death for ships
Well-deserved, efficient and well-served ships should go to patriotic parks. Ships that you can be proud of, like, for example, SKR "Smetlivy". This ship is indeed a part of the History (with a capital letter) of the Soviet Navy, the great confrontation of the Cold War.
The same thing that was done with the destroyer "Restless" is stupid, not funny and shameful. At the same time, a worthy result of the service could be found for him.
And this is not cutting into needles, but, for example, testing modern means of destruction of the Navy on it. And as an example here, we, alas, the US Navy, which does not just use old ships as targets, such firing has a pronounced research character, all reports on which, of course, the US Navy is tightly secret (with a minimum of details for the media).
Such events have not been carried out in our fleet for many decades, despite the fact that new anti-ship missiles with a sharply reduced mass of warheads are being adopted, the issues of the real effectiveness of which on large ships are acute.
Last thing. Two fresh photos.
Two destroyers of projects 956E (modernized) and 956ME in the exercises of the Eastern Fleet of the PLA, October 2020 (source: "Live Journal" dambiev).
And the "newest" destroyer of the Pacific Fleet "Bezofaznenny" (adopted by the Navy in December 1990). Fearless at the last dock (October 2020).
Only the single and older "Bystry" remains in the fleet's combat strength.
Do we draw any conclusions from all this? The question is open …
