The ship and its crew disappear into fire and water. Their approximate place of death remains in the xx ° xx’xx’ format, and shells fired by dead sailors fly towards the enemy for another minute.
Battleship is epic and beautiful. But few people living on the coast are able to imagine the true power of naval weapons. And the resistance of ships to combat damage may seem to the average man in general an incredible fantasy.
In the works of sofa experts, there are amusing falsifications, which later acquire the status of an axiom. Why are such pseudoscientific materials that receive hundreds of positive reviews dangerous? First, they prevent people from thinking logically. Secondly, they can become the reason for the next “missile euphoria”.
Below is an excerpt from a recent article “Salvo-revenge. The declassified performance characteristics of the new Russian missiles have shocked the West, which in all seriousness states the following:
In this wonderful passage, you can argue with almost every word.
For example, a massive rocket with half-empty tanks.
SAM "Talos" had an estimated firing range of 100 nautical miles. Below we meet the statement that max. the firing range at the ships was limited by the radio horizon (that is, no further than 25 miles, and even less for a destroyer-type target, which is confirmed by the formula for calculating the radio horizon D = 3.57√H).
When assessing the range, it is worth taking into account the impulse of the two-ton launch booster. A total of 15-20 miles for the Talos is almost point blank, the second stage fuel remained unused. About "half-empty tanks" was said for the sake of a catchphrase.
Further more. Especially for the author of this article, I will give a photo of that very "outdated destroyer" after being hit by that very missile. Missile firing of the cruiser "Oklahoma City" at a surface target, California coast, 1968.
The ship broke in two and sank
As we see with our own eyes, this is not true. The destroyer was damaged, but did not break and remained afloat. After the shooting ended, the Navy experts had enough time to reach the target and inspect the destroyer. The fire, caused by the ignited fuel from the rocket tanks, had already been extinguished by that time.
… Rammed the engine room, blowing out the boiler nozzle
Where did the details of the boiler nozzles come from, if, according to the same author, after being hit by a rocket, the ship broke into two parts and sank?
Mutually exclusive paragraphs?
"Talos" did not hit the stern area, as indicated in the article "Rocket Revenge", but practically in the central part of the ship, in the chimney area. Obviously, the author was not familiar with this photo, did not go into details and was just fantasizing.
Further. We see with our own eyes that a DE-class ship (destroyer escort) was used as a target, i.e. escort destroyer of the Second World War (characteristic layout, single chimney). It is not the subtleties of classification that are important here, but a completely obvious fact. Escort destroyers, a priori, were weaker and smaller than their peers, belonging to the class of conventional destroyers (DD).
These days, the size of an escort can only evoke a condescending grin. Those ships had a total displacement of only about 1.5 thousand tons. This is seven times less than that of modern destroyers. In comparison with them, the "escort" is shorter by almost 70 meters, and its width in the midship is less than half.
The problem with the “obsolete destroyer” that was put under attack was not that it was outdated, but that it was very small.
And on this unfortunate pelvis they "blasted" the Talos super-rocket RIM-8 at more than two speeds of sound.
The result is not impressive. A piece of the deck and side was torn out, the compartment was destroyed. However, the "escort" stands on an even keel and does not even think about drowning. There are no traces of an extensive fire.
… the rocket pierced the deck, rammed the engine room, blowing out the boiler nozzle, and the bottom, roaring into the depths
Lack of roll is relentlessly indicative of no damage to the underwater part of the target. So what about the broken bottom is not true again.
These results are in excellent agreement with the combat experience of World War II. The destroyers were regularly attacked by the kamikaze, but most of them returned to the base on their own. The record holder was "Luffy", which withstood four rams in a row in April 1945.
Destroyer Luffy (DD-724) after a series of kamikaze hits. He returned on his own to the USA. A supersonic missile with an inert warhead cannot inflict more damage than hitting several subsonic aircraft (with a combat load). And if "Luffy" didn't drown - why should the escort fall in two and drown? What, according to the author, was it made of cardboard?
Now a small excursion into the history of the missile that allegedly sank the destroyer.
Long-range naval air defense system RIM-8 Talos, which until recently held the record for firing range at aerodynamic targets (180+ kilometers). Created on the basis of primitive technologies and radio tubes of the 50s, the complex was clearly inadequate in size. To service his super missiles, an entire rocket factory was equipped inside the ship. All components of the multi-ton missile defense system were stored separately and assembled immediately before launch.
"Talos" were able to accommodate only 7 cruisers of the US Navy (while three of them barely kept afloat).
In terms of their mass and dimensions, its anti-aircraft missiles approached the Soviet heavy anti-ship missiles ("Amethyst", "Mosquito", etc.), and their launch mass was twice that of the S-300 missiles and three times that of the MIM-104 Patriot!
The damage would be even greater if the warhead carried explosives
Only if the crew, in the turmoil of the battle, had time to turn off the proximity fuse before the start. Otherwise, the anti-aircraft missile will explode while approaching the ship, and the striking element, in the form of a steel bar folded like an accordion, will whistle over the mast and scratch the deck.
The only condition limiting the ability of Talos missiles to fire at surface targets: at least part of the metal mast must stick out from under the radio horizon
Not the only one.
If the exotic "Talos" at least had a contact fuse, then most air defense systems are deprived of such an opportunity in principle.
1. The probability of a direct hit of missiles in an air target is minimal, kinetic interception has received only limited distribution in missile defense systems.
2. In view of the above, a contact fuse is useless against air targets and only complicates and makes the missile design heavier.
The author did not come across a mention of the presence of contact fuses on domestic missiles of the S-300 family (if this is not the case, please correct), they are not on the new American SM-6, as well as on most modifications of the SM-2.
The British, who fired the Sea Dart air defense system at the Brave-type boats, immediately noted that due to the impossibility of detonating the warhead, damage is caused only by the kinetic effect of the SAM itself, as well as by the ignition of its unburned fuel.
As a result, firing anti-aircraft missiles at surface targets is possible (in a number of situations it is the only one possible), but not always effective. As for the idea of the need for a contact detonator (why? Perhaps it will explode itself when it meets a target), it does not make sense. Combat explosives are too resistant to initiation without a detonator, and if it were that simple, the detonator would disappear as a class.
Epilogue
Now there will certainly be clever people who will argue that the Granit super-rocket (and where, without the great and terrible) will sink any NATO ship anyway.
Only it was about something completely different.
Before us is a small, but completely deceitful excerpt from the article "Rocket revenge". In which the power of missile weapons is exaggerated, which is supposedly capable of sinking ships even without the presence of warheads. At the same time, no one pays attention to the obvious inconsistencies in the case.
Kinetic energy alone is not enough to cause serious damage to warships. Even the supersonic Talos (launch mass 3.5 tons, second stage mass 1.5 tons, speed 2.5M), which was superior in this respect to many modern anti-ship missiles, did not have enough strength to sink a 1,500-ton destroyer.
It seems incredible. But facts are stubborn things.
The speed and mass of the rocket, no matter how high these values are, are devalued by the negligible mechanical strength and "softness" of its design.
A missile with a disabled or a failed warhead poses a danger only to ships that have obvious design flaws and flaws in their design. With an abundance of fire hazardous materials, AMG alloys and weak means of survivability, aggravated by the small size of the ships burned out by unexploded missiles.
