The beginning of the era of perestroika and the criminal policy of mutual disarmament caused irreparable damage to the navies. The most seriously affected by Russia's actions was the US Navy, which lost most of its ships and all promising weapons programs.
Nuclear cruiser "Arkansas" decommissioned in 1998, cut into metal.
Designed to accompany nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, it could circumnavigate the globe seven times on a single charge. With modern weapons, Tomahawk missiles and the planned installation of the Aegis system.
In total in the period 1993-98. the American fleet has lost nine nuclear cruisers, incl. four "Virginias" who did not have time to serve even half of the established term.
The next superhero strike aircraft carrier "America", was decommissioned in 1996. At the moment, it is located at a depth of 5140 meters at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
A powerful warship with a total displacement of 83 thousand tons, capable of carrying up to 70 aircraft on its decks. The regular crew is 5100 people, the stock of aviation fuel is 5880 tons, the ammunition is 1650 tons of various aviation weapons.
Along with America, the fleet lost seven more aircraft-carrying ships, incl. four Forrestall-class supercarriers - elderly but still robust 300-meter giants with modern fighters on board. During Operation Desert Storm, they demonstrated combat effectiveness at the level of the atomic Nimitz. Which, however, did not save the Forrestols from being scrapped.
Funnel at the site of the sinking of "America"
37 multipurpose nuclear-powered submarines of the "Stagen" ("Sturgeon") type formed the backbone of the US Navy's submarine forces at the height of the Cold War. Together with them, in the 1990s, the unique low-noise boats "Lipskom" with an electric transmission and "Narwhal" equipped with a reactor with natural circulation of the coolant were cut. And also the submarine of special operations "Parche", created for the covert examination of the landfills of the Soviet Navy and the collection of missile debris.
Also, during this period, 30 strategic missile-carrying submarines of the Franklin, Lafayette and Madison types with Trident-1 ballistic missiles were decommissioned. And also 11 newest multipurpose nuclear submarines of the Los Angeles type (it is curious, when the first boats of this series were written off, the latter were still under construction).
Total: minus 80 nuclear submarines !! This is the real reduction of armaments. By the way, over the past quarter of a century, the Yankees have not been able to compensate for the loss, instead they were able to build only 20 submarines (for comparison: during the same period, the Russian Navy was replenished with 9 nuclear and 6 diesel-electric submarines).
At the end of the nineties - the very beginning of the 2000s, 30 Spruence-class destroyers had to be written off - large combat units with a displacement of 9,000 tons, capable of firing a salvo of 60 Tomahawk cruise missiles. In the photo - one of the destroyers: before and after the torpedo hit.
Launching a cruise missile from the Missouri
The battleships that underwent modernization, in addition to the most powerful artillery weapons (9 x 406 mm), received launchers with 32 Tomahawk missiles. The modernization included the installation of new radars, modern anti-aircraft systems, equipment for drone flights and the replacement of part of the universal artillery with 16 Harpoon anti-ship missiles.
On the night of January 17, 1991, the battleships were the first to open fire on Baghdad. And after a couple of years they were finally withdrawn from the fleet.
This was not a complete list of losses. In addition to all the ships listed, 18 missile cruisers, fifty anti-submarine frigates, seven helicopter carriers, all American tank landing ships, Charleston-class weapons transports, and Kidd-class air defense destroyers were destroyed. The programs for the construction of the next generation submarines (Seawulf) and the nuclear attack cruiser CSGN were canceled, and the development of the A-12 deck stealth attack aircraft was discontinued.
Against the background of what happened to the American fleet, the problems of domestic sailors can be described as "insignificant." Contrary to the widespread legend about the unacceptable and premature decommissioning of "newest ships' squadrons", there was nothing special to write off. Fortunately (or unfortunately) there were too few real combat units, the loss of which had any significance. These are the unfinished "Varyag", three "Orlans" (which were not even written off, but taken to the reserve) and the unfinished RRC "Admiral Lobov", which remained in Nikolaev. The aircraft-carrying cruisers Novorossiysk and Baku are those that were built according to modernized projects and, unlike the other two aircraft carrier, have not yet had time to develop their resource.
On the submarine fleet - of those about whom one can breathe a sigh of regret, only four titanium boats and an unfinished experimental nuclear submarine "Mars".
Everything else is cruisers and BODs built in the 1960s and 70s, numerous post-war patrol boats (projects 35, 159), 40-year-old destroyers of Project 56, useless boats and half-century old submarines … One glance is enough to understand what it is were for the ships. Already at the end of the 70s, their only task was to inflate the number of full-time (and, consequently, admiral's posts), they could not do anything else in terms of their characteristics.
By its armament composition, any representative of this list was a parody of the gas turbine "Spruence" with dozens of launchers and the "Tomahawk" cruise missile launcher. The same as the “roaring cows” (imperfect nuclear-powered ships of 1-2 generations) or “diesel-lovers” of the 50s against the background of nuclear-powered “Sturzhenov” and “Los Angeles”.
The loss of the unfinished Varyag and Ulyanovsk (readiness 18%) was fully compensated for by the write-off of five full-fledged strike aircraft carriers - Forrestal, Independence, Sagatogi, Ranger and America (such as Kitty Hawk).
It will not be a big exaggeration that each of the decommissioned Iowa-class aircraft possessed greater destructive power and combat value for the fleet than the decommissioned aircraft-carrying cruiser Kiev.
Instead of 6 giant submarine “Sharks”, the Yankees wrote off 30 (!) Of their own missile carriers from the SLBM “Trident”.
The exchange was not equal. Global disarmament was beneficial to only one side. And this side, without a doubt, is Russia. Writing off under the guise of "ships" a pile of unusable trash in exchange for the decommissioning of hundreds of modern ships and submarines of the US Navy, which posed a real military threat to Russia.
The Russian Moremans themselves got off with "little blood", preserving the backbone of their fleet. The reduction of the navy practically did not affect the large and most modern ships and submarines. Most of the APCs of Project 1155, large landing ships of Project 775, all three RRC of Project 1164 ("Slava"), the aircraft-carrying cruiser "Kuznetsov", the third generation submarines of the "Shchuka-B" type and strategic missile submarines of the project 667BDRM. The newest at that time units, which could not even be written off. All of them have been perfectly preserved to this day and now represent the interests of Russia around the world.
"Syrian Express"
Also, a number of 1st rank ships were completed, which the "reformers" inherited from Soviet reserves. Among them are the nuclear-powered cruiser Peter the Great (1998) and the large anti-submarine ship Admiral Chabanenko (1999). The completion was accompanied by the installation of a new generation of weapons systems that turned outdated projects into ships of the 21st century.
