From the depths of centuries and waters, the outlines of "Victory" appear.
In the name of His Majesty … a ship of the line … in the name of military victories … to allocate 61,136 fnl. From the treasury. sterling.
According to modern experts, in the 18th century, the creation of a 104-gun sailing ship was equivalent to the construction of a nuclear aircraft carrier (1% of the military budget of a superpower).
At the time of Admiral Lazarev, the mentor of Nakhimov and Kornilov, a three-deck battleship with rigging and weapons cost 2.5 million rubles. banknotes (estimate 1836). Smaller, two-deck LK - 1, 8 million. Despite the fact that the ships were built by slaves, serfs, assigned to state-owned factories. To complete the picture: in the middle of the 19th century. the annual military budget of the Russian Empire exceeded 300 million rubles.
Let's turn over to the next page.
Launched in 1938, the heavy cruiser "Prince Eugen" cost the Germans 109 million Reichsmarks.
The cost of another masterpiece of Teutonic engineering, the battleship Bismarck, was 196.8 million rm.
Aha! Feel the catch? In past centuries, the cost of ships was strongly correlated with their size. And suddenly, in the twentieth century, this dependence was broken.
Compared to the battleship, the Prince seems like a fragile toy. Three times less displacement, fighting qualities are not comparable. However, the difference in their cost is much less than the difference in combat capability. The most powerful ship in the Atlantic was only 1.8 times more expensive than a very mediocre cruiser.
The reason for the surprising situation?
Fire detection and control equipment. Precision mechanics, optics, radio engineering, analog devices and calculating devices. High art!
Sighting systems and combat controls interacted with tracking systems and unique drives capable of moving multi-ton weapon structures with the precision of a surgeon's hands.
Despite the differences in parameters, the systems described above were performed at one, very sophisticated technical level. And it was they who largely determined the cost of building a cruiser and battleship. The guns themselves, the dead body of armor and thousands of tons of hull structures could not radically change the situation. As a result, 14 thousand. a serial-built ton cruiser cost the budget as much as half of the 40,000 ton "Bismarck".
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Nowadays the situation in the navy has become truly unique.
The epic with the French "Mistral" flew into the amount of one billion euros. Let me remind you that this was the cost of TWO helicopter carriers, taking into account the Russian-made communication systems installed on them (50 million euros, according to media reports). And also among the indirect costs were the preparation of future bases and crew training.
Let's remember what the Mistral is. They are contemptuously called “barges”, but honestly, where have you seen such barges?
Six seats for helicopter takeoff and landing operations. Two 30-ton lifts. Fuel valves for aircraft refueling. Equipped hangar. Indoor pool and gates for the exit of 4 landing boats. Cargo deck with ramps for tanks and wheeled vehicles. A hospital with modern (and expensive) equipment. Command "amphitheater" with communication facilities. Cubicles and cabins to accommodate 400 Marines - with all amenities, including gyms. Also a galley and cold rooms for food for half a thousand people.
200-meter helicopter carrier with a standard displacement of 16,500 tons.(with a full load and a filled docking chamber, the Mistral's displacement exceeds 30 thousand tons, although in this case it does not count).
Two giant UDCs. 2 x 16.5 = 33 thousand tons of hull structures and modern equipment.
For the same cost (~ € 1 billion), you can buy … one modern air defense frigate, which has a standard displacement of about 5 thousand tons.
In other words, the unit cost of building one ton of the frigate "Horizon" is six times higher than that of an amphibious assault helicopter carrier.
In practice, the comparison of the “unit cost” of one ton of frigates and UDC is not used anywhere. While perfectly mathematically correct, it makes no more sense than calculating the proportions of a perfect sandwich.
Everyone who deals with the rearmament of the Navy knows that modern frigates and destroyers are more complicated and more expensive than any ships, even larger ones.
That is why developed and wealthy countries that build aircraft carriers for export (for example, Spain with its famous Navantia) are unable to independently build a frigate of the "Horizon" level.
Although what is “Horizon”?
Joint Franco-Italian project, which is simplified version British destroyer Daring. That one - yes, a masterpiece. What is its main radar with AFAR, capable of viewing a bird from a distance of 100 km. He knows how not only to watch, but also to transmit commands to the launched missiles. On board the destroyer there are a lot of different tricks, for example, a second, "far-sighted" radar capable of seeing satellites in space orbit.
The missiles will independently find the target, even if it managed to hide behind the horizon.
That is why the price of "Daring" (over one billion, but already pounds sterling). Plus a couple of hundred million for ammunition.
The appearance and dimensions are almost identical to "Horizon".
We will leave the classification features overboard. The frigate is not because it carries three masts with straight sails. The beautiful word has outlived its era. It is now an ocean zone rocket ship. Floating battery of air defense-missile defense, the British called it a destroyer, the French - a frigate. Although with the same success could be called a brig.
Here are a couple more interesting examples.
Incredibly, the cost of the hull of an American destroyer is 5% of the total cost of the ship.
And in terms of the unit cost of construction, a ton of a destroyer is twice the cost of one ton of a giant nuclear aircraft carrier, with all its reactors, control systems and 100-meter catapults.
Japanese helicopter carrier Izumo, which caused a stir in the APR. Almost a quarter of a kilometer in length, with a standard displacement of 19.5 thousand tons. The construction cost was 1.2 billion (in US dollars).
For comparison: the cost of building a modest destroyer "Akizuki" (2010) amounted to almost 900 million (the same USD).
The destroyer turned out to be really modest - only 5000 tons of standard displacement; with limited ammunition. Unlike the Daring, there are not enough stars from the sky: Akizuki was created to cover its “older brothers” - large Aegis destroyers, copies of the American Burks. And in this role it is quite good: the destroyer is equipped with an impressive complex of radio equipment, including the main FCS-3A radar with eight active antennas. Will instantly react to the appearance of a threat in the near zone. That's why the cost is high.
As for the light helicopter carrier Izumo, with a small difference in size, it is significantly more expensive than the French Mistral. Specifically, twice.
The reason lies in the availability of a set of detection tools. Like the destroyer, it is equipped with a full range of equipment, including sonar and radar with AFAR. Strictly speaking, a “stripped down” version of the OPS-50 is installed on the Izumo, which is not capable of directing missiles (which it does not have), however, taking into account the cost of such options, the cost of the helicopter carrier also exceeded one billion dollars.
What will be the Russian response to Akizuki and Izumo?
In the near future, the hopes of the Russian Navy are associated with a series of frigates of the project 22350 (the lead one is “Admiral Gorshkov”) and the shipborne air defense missile system “Poliment-Redut”.
The basis of the complex is the multipurpose radar "Polyment", which consists of four phased antenna arrays mounted on a tower-like superstructure of the frigate. Plus a detection station of an unknown type, hidden under the fairing at the top of the superstructure.
There is also a compromise version of the Redut air defense system for arming the new corvettes of the project 20380 (20385). Where, instead of the Poliment radar, the 5P27 Furke radar is used to detect and target missiles.
Very good, you might say. What is the price of these solutions?
Six years ago, according to official data from Severnaya Verf, the cost of building a corvette reached $ 600 million.
So much money for a "boat" with a displacement of 2000 tons? What surprises you, the size of the ship itself matters little! And many destroyers can envy the complex of radio-technical means of this corvette.
As for the larger (4000 t) and much stronger armed frigate (powerful Poliment radar, 32 cells for anti-aircraft missiles instead of 12-16 on the corvette, not counting strike weapons), at the end of the 2000s, the cost of Gorshkov was estimated at one third of the cost of the destroyer Zamvolt.
That is why the domestic USC is ready to fulfill any task of our military, except for the construction of ships of the frigate / destroyer class.
All sorts of boats, IACs and rescuers are baked like pies, reconnaissance ships are important to go to the water, black silhouettes of submarines glide. But as for a small frigate, this is a question for tens of billions of rubles.
The problem is (and what to hide?) That with the existing level of corruption it is possible in the end to finish building any ship, at the same time turning the “long-term construction” into a profitable business.
Anyone other than an air defense ship. A ship whose capabilities are similar to black magic. Hit the flying bullet with a bullet! Pierce the space with your beams for hundreds and thousands of kilometers and aim the interceptors at the aircraft / satellite / missile warhead.
The development of such a destroyer and, above all, its weapons, will require the involvement of hundreds of research teams from all over the country.
Without proper concentration of efforts and restrictions on the personal enrichment of responsible persons, it is impossible to build such a masterpiece.
Sea guard
As we could see from the above examples, any comparison of fleets in terms of the number of pennants and the total tonnage (!) Of ships will give a fundamentally wrong idea of the capabilities of the Navy of a particular country.
The differences between carriers of zonal air defense-missile defense systems and ships of other classes are too great. A fleet with such technology goes beyond traditional limits, turning into a kind of sea space forces.
On February 21, 2008, the SM-3 rocket was launched from the cruiser Lake Erie in the Pacific Ocean and three minutes after the launch hit the USA-193 reconnaissance satellite located at an altitude of 247 kilometers, moving at a speed of 27,000 km / h.
On April 4, 2012, at a missile range off the Ile do Levant island near Toulon, a French naval frigate of the "Horizon" type intercepted a supersonic low-altitude target GQM-163A Coyote, flying at a speed of 1 km / s at an altitude of less than 6 meters above the sea surface (which no easier than shooting down a satellite - too little time).
For the same reason, all reflections on the "mosquito fleet" and the construction of missile boats instead of "excessively expensive" destroyers and frigates seem naive.
Nine women cannot bear a child in a month, just as nine RTOs with “Calibers” will not replace one frigate at sea.
Why do ships need such a strong AA defense?
90% of all naval attacks over the past half century have been carried out with the use of air assault weapons. Without anti-aircraft systems at the current level of development of aviation and missile weapons, when meeting with an enemy slightly more developed than ISIS, the ship will be torn apart in seconds.
Of course, one can hope for electronic warfare funds (as if they are cheaper!). But this does not negate the need to physically destroy the threat. Indeed, in addition to the destroyer itself, there may be tankers and convoy ships nearby, which must be navigated through the dangerous area. Finally, the target could be an enemy reconnaissance satellite in low-earth orbit.
Why are these systems so fantastically expensive?
The author does not deny the significant corruption component of these projects. War is a profitable business; any thefts, tragedies and mistakes, the undercover struggle of the elites and the defense of fake dissertations can be hidden under the secrecy label.
Nevertheless, the technical level of these devices causes pride in modern technology. Designed and hand-assembled array of thousands of transmitting and receiving elements, megawatt radiation power, millions of lines of program code. All this is capable of working outside the walls of sterile laboratories, in the stormy conditions of the open sea. With full integration into the complex of other radio equipment and ship weapons.
The systems for illumination of the underwater environment are no simpler than active sonars and towed antennas of many kilometers, capable of detecting mines in the water column, at a distance of ten miles from the ship.
In this case, we are talking about piece products - unique systems that are not used anywhere else, except for high-ranking warships and yachts of oligarchs.
