Gallant American GIs are taking cities with one Marine battalion! Neither the lack of Coca-Cola, nor the delay in delivering pizza to the front lines - nothing can break the morale of the American Marines. Enduring the hardships and hardships of military service, US soldiers crush a tenfold superior enemy and plant the Stars and Stripes (a-ka "mattress") on another Iwo Jima, Okinawa or the central At-Tahrir Square in the glorious city of Baghdad.
And what? The situation looks quite realistic. The Americans have everything they need to carry out such operations: a fleet of versatile amphibious ships, special landing craft, helicopters, speedboats on a hovercraft, amphibious tanks and four divisions of selected cutthroats equipped with the most modern weapons. There is even a special term - the amphibious assault group (ADG) of the US Navy. A powerful and compact tool for "power projection" anywhere in the world.
A versatile landing ship
Modern "Noah's Ark", capable of transporting and landing forces of marines on equipped or unequipped enemy coast. Huge autonomy and cruising range allow the UDC to operate independently at the other end of the Earth, and the presence of two to three dozen aircraft units on board makes it possible to land combat groups deep in enemy territory, providing solid fire support to the landing forces.
The UDC is not just a landing ship. This is the command center of the entire operation - the headquarters and the combat information center, where all information about the current situation in the landing zone is collected. An admiral's cabin, a multitude of satellite communication channels, dozens of work stations for operators and communications … The universal amphibious assault ship offers fantastic possibilities for managing amphibious operations.
UDC is a comfortable floating hospital designed to accommodate hundreds of victims of hostilities, accidents and cataclysms. On board the ship there are a dozen operating rooms in which the most complex surgical operations can be carried out at the same time - another coastal hospital will envy the equipment of medical units of the UDC.
UDC has created a new format for amphibious operations. The over-the-horizon landing allows the ship not to expose the ship to the danger of shelling from the shore - during the landing, modern UDCs should be located tens of kilometers from the enemy's coast, remaining invisible to enemy radars and invulnerable to cannon artillery fire. Equipment and personnel are transported to the shore by high-speed boats and helicopters.
Finally, the modern UDC is equipped with a complex of self-defense weapons capable of repelling random attacks from escaping missiles, enemy aircraft and sabotage groups.
Boats, helicopters, armored vehicles, thousands of personnel, giant warehouses and storage facilities, a command center and a hospital - all this is one UDC. Power, efficiency and economy. One ship duplicates the tasks of a dozen ships. Is not that great?
No, this is not great. That's funny.
According to statistics, the rate of required tonnage per paratrooper during the Second World War was 7 gross register tons. What does this figure mean? Just ordinary human needs - to eat and drink. Without any vulgar jokes.
On long trips, there is a shortage of basic necessities - it is often difficult to find even fresh water suitable for drinking. Soldiers require a camp kitchen with all the necessary equipment. Tents, blankets, medicines. Hygiene products - you don't want your platoon to become a herd of stinking animals, do you? Often, special equipment is needed (from shovels and binoculars to laser target illumination equipment). Optionally - air conditioners, Coca-Cola and mobile diesel generators.
Weapons and Ammunition. This is just a nightmare - for example, the supply standard of the Red Army in 1941 set 72 rounds per day for one 152 mm gun; in reality, in a tense battle, the consumption of ammunition exceeded the norm many times. In our case, thousands of artillery shells will have to be delivered far away!
It is no secret that the required expenditure of material resources has increased many times over time - already during the Falklands conflict (1982), the tonnage rate per one British paratrooper reached 50 gross register tons. What do you want? Severe weather conditions, long expedition to the other end of the Earth.
It turns out to be a simple proportion. Are there 2,000 Marines aboard the MP? Very well, immediately put three container ships with equipment, provisions and ammunition in the wake of the UDC.
It is not hard to imagine how much fuel the Abrams gas turbine engines consume, how much fresh water is required for soldiers in a hot desert and will two, five, even ten thousand Marines have enough strength to carry out a large landing operation in modern conditions? However, more on that below.
UDC is the flagship! It is a common delusion, actively introduced into the common consciousness with the help of vivid but meaningless phrases such as "coordination center", "combat information server" and so on. In reality, when the need arises for centralized control of a large amphibious operation carried out by diverse forces of the marines, aviation and navy, special command ships come to the rescue.
In the Soviet Union, two obsolete Project 68-bis cruisers were converted for these purposes. "Zhdanov" and "Senyavin" lost parts of their weapons, in exchange the ships received an additional mast with antenna devices, a helipad, a printing house, comfortable cabins for senior command personnel, a cockpit for a musical orchestra and work premises of the headquarters operational post with a total area of 350 sq. meters.
USS Mount Whitney - command ship of the US Sixth Fleet
As for the US Navy, the Americans originally built Blue Ridge-class specialized command ships. A sleek open deck with multiple antenna housings, a helipad, state-of-the-art communications systems, equipped briefing and press conference facilities, and command posts for up to 200 officers and 500 junior officers.
Trying to "shove" all this equipment onto a universal amphibious assault ship means turning the UDC into an overly complex and unjustifiably expensive structure, which, at the same time, is not capable of fully performing amphibious and command functions.
The story with the "ultramodern hospital" on board the UDC is completely analogous to the story with the headquarters. Evacuation and medical care are always handled by specialized hospital ships, whose activities are regulated by the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907.
Hospital ship "Irtysh", Pacific Fleet
Dozens of operating rooms, an infirmary with a thousand beds, an X-ray room, a medical laboratory, a pharmacy, functional research rooms, intensive care wards, a dental office, a morgue, oxygen stations … to place all this on board one UDC seems to be a very non-trivial task.
Finally, hundreds of victims have nothing to do on a warship - they need to be urgently delivered to their homeland, while exposing them to as little danger as possible. The best solution is a special floating hospital that meets all the requirements of the Hague Convention.
White color, green stripe along the entire length of the hull, interrupted by three red crosses - the deliberate sinking of such a vessel is regarded as a war crime. Whatever the skeptics say, the victims on board the hospital ship are many times more likely to get to their native shores than those who remained on board the universal amphibious assault ship.
As a result, instead of one "universal" landing ship, several specialized ships and vessels appear - container ships with equipment, staff and hospital ships …
But what about the escort? That's right, a dozen surface and submarine warships. And to them - a dozen naval tankers with fuel, fresh water and technical fluids. In addition, our squadron will need a floating workshop and several ocean tugs (rescue complexes) to evacuate damaged and damaged ships from the OBD area. Plus a couple of mine-sweeping ships … As a result, a giant formation of dozens of pennants looms, which does not at all look like a "compact amphibious group".
A living example - during the Anglo-Argentine conflict in 1982, the British "sea wolves" drove a squadron of 86 warships and support ships to the Falklands! (excluding the group sent to the island of Yu. George and the ships that ensured the transatlantic passage of the squadron).
Paradoxical, but true:
1. Amphibious assault groups do not exist, tk. their existence in today's realities, in principle, is impossible. Landing operations are carried out by colossal forces of the army, aviation and navy - this is a very expensive "game" in which, in addition to dozens of warships, hundreds of support vessels are involved.
2. A universal amphibious assault ship (helicopter dock), similar to the American "Wasp" and "Tarawam" - empty bravado and a waste of funds to the wind. Exceptionally large, expensive and useless ships are not capable of solving the task for which they were once created. They cannot capture even the smallest country (as they say, not according to Senka's cap), while their use in any of the modern conflicts is ineffective and unnecessarily wasteful.
The French-Russian "Mistral", the Spanish "Juan Carlos", the American "San Antonio" and their analogues look a little better - these ships are relatively modest in size, adequate cost, nevertheless, their scope is limited to colonial showdowns and suppression of savage riots …
As for "serious" conflicts ("Desert Storm", etc.), during them it is possible and even necessary to use the Mistral UDC. But, it should be understood that the contribution of the "Mistral" will be microscopic. UDCs do not solve anything in modern warfare; a completely different technique is required here.
But who are they, these mysterious conquerors that make a decisive contribution to the transfer of the Marine Corps forces? Who are these monsters that are capable of delivering an army of millions to foreign shores in the shortest possible time? They are not shown at parades and in museums, films are not made about them or books are written. The existence of these machines is the Great Secret of the American Navy, which cannot be mentioned in the media. Therefore, instead of the real state of affairs, the Pentagon tells the tale of "amphibious groups" and focuses the listeners' attention on other nonsense.
Rapid transports of the Shipping Command
A galaxy of 100 Leviathans that can bring democracy to any of the enemies of the State Department. Their size will be envied by the aircraft-carrying cruiser "Admiral Kuznetsov" (up to 300 meters in length, displacement in cargo - more than 60 thousand tons). At the same time, the giants may well lay claim to the "Blue Ribbon of the Atlantic" * - their speed exceeds 20 knots, up to 33 knots for gas turbine ships of the Algol series!
Most of them have a civilian background - ordinary Dutch, Danish, British, South Korean (and even one Soviet!) Container ships recruited for the needs of the American fleet. The Pentagon closely monitors high-speed container ships, ro-ro ships (ships for the transport of wheeled and tracked vehicles), dry cargo ships around the world and actively buys up the vending models of marine equipment. A period of intensive modernization (ramps and ramps, 110V electrical network, cargo arrows and other special equipment) - and a nightmare ghost of war enters the ocean - a tank landing ship capable of delivering a hundred Abrams and tens of thousands of tons of other equipment in one voyage …
- Former name?
- "Laura Maersk"
- Place of Birth?
- Denmark.
- Who are you now?
- USNS Shughart (T-AKR 295), 277m Ro-Ro Rover of the Maritime Command, lead ship in a series of three.
Among the Leviathans, there are periodically less epic, but no less useful units - cable layers, tankers, submarine bases, oceanographic ships and mobile landing platforms. Each ship has its own clear purpose, while, in peacetime, some of them sleep on conservation, and sometimes perform tasks in the interests of civilian organizations. By the way, the bulk of the crews of the Maritime Transportation Command are freelance civilian sailors, the military appear on the decks of Leviathans only during campaigns in the combat zone.
***
It is worth making a small digression here. Of course, the concept of the Maritime Transport Command does not imply direct participation in landings on the enemy coast. It seems that the Yankees have completely abandoned the idea of large-scale amphibious assault forces - in modern conditions, an attempt to attack "head-on" on the enemy coast is too complicated and risky an operation that threatens to result in unjustifiably high losses. Brave Americans act according to a different, knurled scheme - they unload tanks in the port of the nearest friendly state, accumulate forces and … voila! A steel avalanche of armored vehicles poured across the border.
Target Iraq? But why storm the Iraqi coast - we will carry democracy across the border of Saudi Arabia. Target Syria? We will drive through the Turkish-Syrian border. Target Iran? We will drive through the Iranian-Iraqi border.
This is where the need for "Leviathans" arises - in a couple of months, giant transports will deliver thousands of armored vehicles, fuel, provisions, equipment and hundreds of thousands of army and marines personnel to the desired port. And then - the war.
The giant fleet of Leviathans is the very means for "projecting power" in any corner of the planet. Only, unlike the cheap threats posed by amphibious groups, Maritime Command is truly ABLE to bring democracy to any country in the world.
***
Comparison of Leviathans with "Mistrals", "Wasps" and "Taravas" is simply offensive - UDCs are just puppies compared to these mutants. How much aircraft can be accommodated on board the Mistral? 16 medium-sized helicopters?
Leviathan, without batting an eye, will deliver 100 rotorcraft + spare parts, fuel and lubricants, ammunition and auxiliary equipment to the enemy coast.
Apache helicopters preparing for loading
The cargo decks of the military transport "Bob Hope" (by the way, one of the few that was originally built at American shipyards on the special order of the US Navy) are equal in area to eight football fields. This allows you to transport up to 900 units of trucks and Hummer vehicles at a time. To save time, the equipment is driven aboard on its own through the folded aft ramp.
Unloading can take place in several ways: through the aft and side ramps, using four cargo arrows with a carrying capacity of 110 tons, or, if it is not possible to get close to the shore, using pontoon ferries or using mobile landing platforms MLP (tanks are transferred to a moored to the side platform, from where they are delivered by boats and barges to the shore).
Most Leviathans have equipped helipads (and even hangars) on the upper deck - all this further expands the capabilities of these giant cargo ships.
Unloading equipment using pontoons
MLP at work
Epilogue
The river of truth flows through the bed of delusion. Media reports on the arrival of another US Navy amphibious assault group in the Persian Gulf - a dummy, a noise grenade, a snag. The real war begins only after the Leviathans of the Maritime Command arrive in the proposed area of hostilities. This technology contains the entire strength of the American armed forces - power, mobility, speed of deployment. It is from these gigantic transports that the greatest threat emanates - without them, the US army would be locked up, as in a prison, on the North American continent and would not have the slightest opportunity to establish democracy outside of its country.
USNS Antares - one of the fastest cargo ships in the world (gas turbine vessel of the "Algol" type)
