Constant participants in the debate about the concept of the development of the modern Navy and the eternal confrontation between "shell and armor" are happy to welcome a new participant, N. Dmitriev. Below is a brief review of the article “Battleships in the XXI century. What's wrong with them?"
The topic is deservedly popular, which means full speed ahead.
Less abstract reasoning, more facts!
In today's navy, sadly, the days of super-battleships and other giant ships are long gone. The cost of building and maintaining them is prohibitive for today's military budgets.
The landing ships of the Maritime Transportation Command of the "Bob Hope" type, length 290 meters, total displacement of 62 thousand tons. There are 25 such leviathans in the MSC hot standby.
Destroyers-helicopter carriers "Hyuga" and "Izumo" (Japan). The length of "Izumo" is 248 meters, full in / and 27 thousand tons.
Now even beggars like Egypt can afford the landing Mistral with a displacement of 20 thousand tons. However, only seven states of the world can adopt a modern destroyer (some 8 … 10 thousand tons). Interestingly, dear N. Dmitriev knows the answer to this riddle?
(Answer: a zonal air defense system is installed on the destroyer, which, together with detection equipment, control systems and ammunition, is twenty times more expensive than its hull. Therefore, you can build a second larger ship, having received the Izumo and Mistral, but at a cost and labor intensity construction, such a giant will not even come close to a destroyer.)
Tons of displacement do not cost anything against the background of the high-tech "stuffing" of the air defense ship. Differences in the cost of an armored and unarmored destroyer are within the margin of error.
The diagram shows the cost structure for the construction of a Chinese frigate Type 054A with relatively primitive and cheap weapons (medium-range air defense systems, only 32 launch cells). As a result, the cost of weapons and detection equipment amounted to ~ $ 200 million (53%) versus $ 45 million for the hull with its fittings and interior decoration (13%).
So, arguing that:
The efficiency / cost ratio rules the fleet in the 21st century, and this is what I will proceed from.
Comrade Dmitriev, to put it mildly, is disingenuous. But he simply does not know what it is about.
Due to the exceptional cost of precision weapons, size and displacement are not significant parameters in assessing the cost of a warship. By the way, the amphibious "Bob Hope" cost five times less than the six times smaller "Arlie Burke".
To add 4000 tons of displacement, it will be necessary to add another 40 meters to the length, the ship already looks more like a kayak than a destroyer. This is not an option. Increase width. Then the resistance of the underwater part of the hull will increase, and we will lose speed, moreover, more armor will be required, and such a ship will no longer get through the channels. Increase draft. How much more ?! And, again, we will lose the course.
In the same article, a respected shipbuilding engineer argued strictly the opposite:
“Zamvolt” (15 thousand tons) and “Arlie Burk” (10 thousand tons) have power plants of the same capacity (100 thousand tons) and approximately the same speed (the large “Zamvolt” is 1-1.5 knots slower).
That is, the problem with the "extra" 4000 and even 5000 tons has suddenly "evaporated" somewhere.
With the power plant, I will not think too much and say that there are gas turbines with a total capacity of 100,000 hp, as in the "Arleigh Burke". The "Zamvolt" power plant has approximately the same power, and it will allow the ship to accelerate to 30 knots.
If N. Dmitriev had thought a little harder, he would have noticed that the speed and required power of the propulsion unit weakly correlate with the displacement. It is for this reason that heavy cruisers of the war years, being twice the size of modern destroyers, were content with EIs of similar power (a difference within 20%). Moreover, those heroes of the past were faster than any of the modern destroyers (33+ knots).
Reservation from the board of engine rooms. Do you need it? Necessary. One MO is fifteen meters long for such ships, and there are usually two of them. The easiest way would be to make a citadel. It turns out that if you book at least a height of 5 m and a depth of 1 m from the waterline, you need about 500 m2 of armor, which is 500 tons of weight.
This weight must be compensated for, and a simple equivalent increase in displacement will not be enough here. We'll have to put ballast in order to return the value of the metacentric height of the ship and maintain the initial stability. If we assume that the overall center of gravity of the armor will be about 5-10 m higher than the center of gravity of the ship, then we will have to lay ballast of an equivalent weight on the bottom. This means that the weight increases not by 2000, but by all 4000 tons. And how to compensate for this? Throw away unnecessary equipment.
Why this set of reasoning if it contradicts the obvious? No matter what modern shipbuilders are babbling now (without citing any specific calculations), the fact remains: in history there were well-protected, well-armed and, at the same time, exceptionally fast ships! At the backward technological level of the 20s. last century. Those who do not want are looking for reasons, those who want are looking for opportunities. There is no need to tell horror stories about stability and metacentre. If contemporaries do not have enough knowledge and even just a desire to assess the situation from a different angle, let us turn to the engineers of past eras.
Heavy cruiser "Myoko", Japan, 1925.
Full displacement 15, 5 thousand tons (almost like the destroyer "Zamvolt"). The power of the power plant is 130 thousand hp. Speed (depending on mod.) - up to 35 knots. Naturally, more than any modern ship.
What happens if five main-caliber turrets, 12 Kampon boilers and other rusty junk are removed from the Mioko, while reducing the cruiser's crew by 6-8 times.
In return, a hundred compact UVP cells and an AN / SPY-1 radar coupled with highly efficient gas turbines.
Probably the ship will capsize right away?
Of course not. Why should he overturn. The modernized "Mioko" has a free load item of many thousands of tons. And there are a lot of options for how to dispose of it (including spending on increasing security).
Someone will say: impossible! In this case, it must be admitted that over the past 90 years, progress has been moving in the opposite direction.
Isn't it funny yourself?
"Myoko", being an ugly and imperfect "Washingtonian", one way or another, already initially carried some armor (belt 102 mm, armored deck 35 mm). Weak? But we have in reserve - thousands of tons of load reserve! With the complete absence of international restrictions on military and military ships (i.e., if necessary, you can easily bargain for a couple of thousand tons more).
All the power of modern technology is at your disposal.
Perforated Bainite armor protection and thickness differentiated Krupp armor steel included in the hull power set (we partially save on frames and skin). 500 tonnes of internal splinterproof bulkheads (up to a couple of inches thick + ceramic / kevlar). Cofferdams (narrow uninhabited corridors) filled with scraps of steel pipes.
A million different solutions!
"The rocket will make a slide and crash into the deck." So what? Is it possible that someone naively believes that the creators of the "armored vehicle" will not take into account the most obvious threats of our time in its design. Who even said that its appearance and layout will resemble cruisers 90 years ago? And who decided that the horizontal defense would be weaker than the vertical one?
Will the boat capsize? Stability problems. Damn it with two!
The narrow, long and unstable "Mioko" dragged five turrets of the main caliber 203 mm. It's even cooler than any armored deck. 1000 tons, but not by, and ABOVE the upper deck!
"The superstructures will collapse", "the superstructures cannot be booked."
And who in general decided that a modern ship needs any massive superstructures?
Now I have a question for my esteemed opponent: what equipment needs to be placed in the superstructure? Which of the systems located there cannot be placed inside the case? The lack of volume is solved by increasing the width of the body by a couple of meters.
The armor itself also costs money and a lot. The price is usually negotiable and depends on the grade of steel and the size of the required sheets, but the price limits can be determined. One ton of armor plate costs about 300,000 rubles.
Pfft … 5 thousand dollars. Against the background of the destroyer - 2,000,000,000.
An insignificant expense item. The whole body with armor - 10% of the cost.
Their targeting radars are still vulnerable. Communication antennas cannot be removed from the superstructure. Auxiliary radars too. If a missile hits the superstructure, we still, it turns out, will greatly lose in combat effectiveness, we will go blind by half an eye and deaf by half an ear, but still we will retain the opportunity to somehow fight …
… if they do not have special advantages, but are more expensive?
“Oh, fig with him. Let him drown,”said Herr Admiral and hung up.
And it doesn't matter that there are still 200 people left on board the damaged ship (many of whom are highly qualified specialists). And unspent ammunition worth half a billion dollars. + on trifles: power plant turbines, CIC consoles and servers, generators and electrical fittings, a helicopter and many other useful and expensive property.
Let it sink - the radar was barely scratched by the first splinter. And before that, even let it burn from the wreckage of the shot down missile (the curious incident with the frigate "Entrim", 1983)
The absurdity of this approach is obvious and does not require additional clarification.
Finally, the ability to withstand one more blow than the opponent and win as a result is invaluable.
