Commander Barton was right about his ship's capabilities. He could shoot down fired missiles in batches and undermine Soviet submarines at depth. But in case of fire contact with an American aircraft, the lifespan of a LEAHY-class cruiser did not exceed one minute.
At 04:00, two explosions flashed in the sky, echoing a chain of flashes along the mast and superstructure: the broken cables laid in open places were short-circuited. After another moment, the safety protection worked, and the "Warden" plunged into darkness. Inside the bridge and the combat information center, cut by shrapnel, were wounded and one killed.
Who shot? Who did you hit?
In the morning, collecting the wreckage, the sailors were surprised to find fragments of an American-made anti-radar missile. Interspersed with the aluminum debris of its own superstructure, crushed by the force of the explosion.
Investigation results: both missiles were fired by an attack aircraft that mistakenly mistook the radiation from the Warden radar for North Vietnamese radar. The exact name of the culprit of the incident could not be established.
At dawn, the crew of the cruiser managed to restore the power supply and control of the ship. The weapon was still inactive: "Warden" lost most of the radar. Shrike fragments pierced the upper deck and entered the cellar of ASROK anti-submarine missiles. It is still unknown whether it contained 10 kiloton W44 special ammunition. Commander Barton believed that the ship's combat functionality had dropped by 60%.
The damaged cruiser went for ersatz repairs in Sabik Bay (a naval base in the Philippines), where repair teams patched holes, repaired cable breaks and put in order the equipment of combat posts. The Parsons destroyer shared the antenna of the SPS-48 surveillance radar with the cruiser.
After 10 days, "Warden" returned to position in the Gulf of Tonkin.
New terms of reference
The first experiments with the restructuring of artillery cruisers into missile ships demonstrated the exceptional compactness of the new weapons. With all the archaism of electronics and missile weapons in the 1950-60s. missile systems were lighter, took up less volume and required less effort to maintain them. In comparison with the artillery weapons, for which these ships were originally designed.
The new armament has removed the requirements for high speed. The parameters and dimensions of the power plants were sharply reduced.
In the era of homing missiles, capable of hitting a target at a distance of tens of kilometers from the first salvo, the speed of the ship was no longer critical, as it was in the days of artillery duels. Games with speed were expensive: for example, when the required value of the maximum speed was reduced from 38 to 30 knots, the required power of the power plant was halved!
At the same time, the need for any constructive protection disappeared. The main reason, in my opinion, was a sharp increase in the capabilities of jet aircraft: a single Phantom could drop as many large-caliber bombs as a whole group of WWII dive bombers. Covering the entire cruiser with them, from tank to stern.
Which seemed to make it pointless to try to eliminate the consequences of the hits. In the event of a breakthrough to the target, the plane will burn and sink the ship in no time. Especially given the high vulnerability of antenna devices.
However, the planes would have broken through in any case, given the general primitiveness of the air defense system of that time. So, during the demonstration firing in 1962, in the presence of Kennedy, the cruiser "Long Beach" three times failed to hit the target plane. What is the point of building a cruiser, then, if it is guaranteed to die in the first minutes of the battle? This issue remained outside the scope of discussion.
Returning to the tendency to lighten new ships to the limit: in addition to jet bombers, there was a fear of "incinerating" nuclear fire. Despite the results of the explosions at Bikini, which showed low effectiveness of nuclear weapons against ships, the overall assessment of the hostilities was reduced to the third world war. In which the survivors will envy the dead.
The end result: The nuclear missile era has lowered design requirements. Speed, security, bulky weapons and crews of thousands of people are all in the past.
The first series of missile cruisers, designed in the modern era, were distinguished by unexpectedly small dimensions, a lightweight superstructure made of aluminum alloys, and a reliance on missile weapons.
When creating the RRC project 58 (“Grozny”), Soviet shipbuilders took as a basis the hull … of the destroyer pr. 56 (“Spokoiny”) with a total displacement of 5570 tons. Today ships of this size are classified as frigates.
Unlike the domestic RRC project, which combined the Volna air defense missile system with powerful offensive weapons (two 4-container launchers for P-35 anti-ship missiles), the Americans built a purely escort "Lehi" to cover aircraft carrier formations.
The main weapon was the medium-range air defense system "Terrier". The cruiser received two launchers with four radars to illuminate targets, which (in theory) made it possible to repel aircraft attacks from two directions at the same time.
To combat submarines, another innovative tool was provided - ASROK rocket torpedoes.
In accordance with the emerging trend, the first missile cruisers lost their artillery. The only reminder of the "smoke of sea battles" was a pair of paired 76 mm anti-aircraft guns, the combat value of which was in doubt: insufficient rate of fire as an air defense weapon, insignificant power against surface and coastal targets. Subsequently, the Americans completely abandoned artillery, replacing useless three-inch containers with Harpoon anti-ship missiles.
The American cruisers turned out to be somewhat larger than the Soviet first-borns of the rocket era: the full displacement of the "Legi" due to the increased requirements for autonomy (8000 miles at an operational speed of 20 knots). Otherwise, it was the same "tin" with a total displacement of 7,800 tons, a crew of 450 people and a boiler-turbine unit on fuel oil with a capacity of 85 thousand hp.
For the sailors who began their service on board the TKR during the war years, the seaworthiness of the missile cruiser seemed simply magnificent: the "tin" easily rose to the wave. Unlike heavy artillery ships, which were forced to cut through the shafts with stems, forming avalanches of water splashes. That led to difficulties in the operation of weapons in the bow of the ship.
Total for the project "Legs" in the period 1959-64. 9 serial cruisers and one experimental cruiser were built, featuring a nuclear power plant.
The admirals themselves were embarrassed to call these "cans" cruisers, so until 1975 they were classified as "destroyer leaders with missile weapons" (DLG).
The developers of the terms of reference for the "Legi" class cruiser can be congratulated in absentia on the construction of useless ships that could not hold out under return fire for a minute. Unable to carry out any "dirty work" associated with fire support, fighting against sea and coastal targets.
At the same time, completely useless in their main hypostasis: "umbrellas" for ship formations.
Now, looking back 60 years in the past, you can see: the Soviet series of the RKR pr.58 at least had a realistic concept of application. No one forced the cruisers to beat off air attacks for hours, while still managing to cover other ships. The task of our RRC was to shoot down their ammunition load of anti-ship missiles and repeat the fate of the Varyag. The air defense missile system installed on board was an auxiliary means that (if successful) gave extra minutes to launch the anti-ship missile system and cause additional damage to the enemy (“thin out” the attacking air group).
Otherwise, the Soviet scope of "innovations" was not inferior to the American one - the cruiser "Grozny" was a "disposable" ship, on which it was not planned to continue the battle after meeting with the first splinter. The superstructures are entirely made of aluminum-magnesium alloys, the decoration of the premises with the use of synthetic materials, open-sided launchers and torpedo tubes on the upper deck.
And the point is not that on a ship that grew out of a destroyer, with a displacement of 5500 tons, with such an amount of weapons, there could be no load reserves left to increase security and survivability. The question is why it was even necessary to take the destroyer hull as a basis.
The attack with the use of PRR on the cruiser "Warden", once again showed that the concept of a modern "high-tech" ship, created as a naval air defense platform - is deeply mistaken. An anti-aircraft ship that will be destroyed by aircraft in a matter of minutes. Such a scenario makes the very construction of large surface ships meaningless.
The Yankees were very lucky that none of their opponents had decent means and / or political will to organize an attack on an aircraft carrier group. Otherwise, the Legi escort cruisers would have shown even more "impressive" results.
The remarkable case with “Warden”, about which in one of the recent topics his colleague Sergei recalled, lies in the same plane with “Sheffield”, which was burned down by an unexploded anti-ship missile, and other lesser-known incidents, in which they are not the smallest in size and powerful enough for their time, expensive ships immediately went out of action when attacked from the air. Sometimes not even having time to notice the enemy.
In the described case, on April 16, 1972, two AGM-45 "Shrike" missiles, equipped with a warhead weighing 66 kg. The explosion thundered at a height of 30 meters above the ship (according to other sources, 30 feet) and led to serious consequences.
Death is just the beginning
In fact, the disastrous scenario of the cruiser "Warden" has a very distant relationship to the modern navy. The severity of Warden's position was due to the following circumstances:
1. The absence of any other weapons on board, except for archaic air defense systems with a "beam" guidance method. The ASROK launcher also, unfortunately for the Yankees, was damaged (since it had protection only from water splashes).
Therefore, it is not surprising that after the loss of some of the radars and ASROCA, the cruiser's functionality decreased by 60%. A virtually useless trough.
Modern destroyers have an order of magnitude wider range of weapons, which, in principle, do not require any radars. All cruise missiles (anti-ship missiles, "Calibers", "Tomahawks") have an over-the-horizon flight range and use external target designation means. Often, flight missions are loaded into the “brains” of the RC long before the ship arrives at the launch site.
With the development of technology, it even became possible to fire anti-aircraft missiles with ARLGSN according to data from other AWACS ships and aircraft.
Therefore, a destroyer with a damaged radar is only the beginning of the battle. It will pose a threat until it is completely burned. And this is already a task of a completely different scale …
2. The general bulkiness of the old radars and their poor location on the cruiser of the 1960s, which fluttered in the wind like caravel sails.
Modern ships use much more compact radars, consisting of multiple antenna arrays. Which cannot be “knocked out” with one explosion. And modern microcircuits are extremely resistant to strong vibrations, in comparison with hundreds of radio tubes of the Terrier air defense missile system.
Finally, the antennas of the communication systems on the most modern ships are made retractable, which also makes it impossible for them to fail simultaneously. Not to mention 21st century technology and pocket-sized satellite phones.
3. The frankly dubious decisions of the Lega designers, who brought the idea of a “disposable ship” to the point of absurdity. From the cable routes laid in the open superstructure on the roof, to the classic AMG alloy. It is surprising that 2/3 of the fragments that got inside the "Warden" belonged to the ship itself.
More modern projects are already devoid of that frivolity inherent in designers of the middle of the last century. Steel, only steel. An increasing number of internal armored bulkheads. Certain attempts are being made to protect the ammunition - one of the most expensive and dangerous elements on board the ship. The covers of the UVP have anti-splinter armor - fragments should not penetrate inside, as happened on the "Warden".
How effective are such measures? Finding itself in the situation of “Warden”, the modern “Burke” would be able to retain the lion's share of combat capability. In all other situations, as one of the readers aptly put it, sailors still go into battle under the protection of a layer of paint.
Going back decades in the past, we saw that the developers of technical specifications for rocket ships of the 60s. they were wrong in literally everything. Even in assessments of the survivability of ships that, only by virtue of their size, can withstand something that sometimes seems like a battle fantasy.
On August 30, 1974, the Otvazhny BPK tragically died in the Sevastopol region. There were 15 anti-aircraft missiles in the burning stern cellar. The first stage of each SAM had a PRD-36 solid-propellant jet engine, equipped with 14 cylindrical powder bills with a total weight of 280 kg. The second stage engine was equipped with a 125 kg powder bunk. The warhead of the rocket is a high-explosive fragmentation weighing 60 kg, of which 32 kg is an alloy of TNT with RDX. Total: on board a 4500-ton boat, which had a deck flooring 4 mm thick and built in the best traditions of “disposable weapons”, six tons of gunpowder and almost half a ton of high-blasting explosives were detonated.
According to the views of the majority, internal explosions of such power should have left no trace of the ship. But the "Brave" stayed afloat for another five hours.
