The best praise is praise from the mouth of the enemy
The legendary pair of strike carriers with the poetic names "Soaring Crane" ("Shokaku") and "Happy Crane" ("Zuikaku") caused the Americans more trouble than any other ships in the Imperial Japanese Navy. The burning Pearl Harbor and the wrecked battleships of the US Pacific Fleet lying on their sides are inscribed in bloody letters in their bright military career. Then there was a showdown with the Royal Navy of Great Britain in the vicinity of about. Ceylon - then the Japanese aircraft carriers sank everything that they met on the way and burned the capital of Colombo, from the valid trophies of the raid - the destroyed aircraft carrier Hermes and two large British cruisers: Dorsetshire and Cornwall. "Dorsetshire" sank 8 minutes after the start of the attack, "Cornwall" resisted for 20 minutes, the Japanese naval pilots had no losses. In the Coral Sea, the "cranes" did not act like a gentleman at all - they beat and sank the "Lady Lex" - the formidable American aircraft carrier "Lexington" (an interesting fact - in English, everything that walks on the seas is feminine). The sinking of the aircraft carrier Hornet is also their job. According to the devilish plan of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the "sweet couple" of ocean bandits always worked together - Yamamoto was the first to come to the conclusion that it was advisable to strike a target with as many aircraft as possible.
Why did the Imperial Navy, which had such fine ships, end up miserably losing the battle for the Pacific Ocean? It's simple - in Japan, over the years, 30 aircraft-carrying ships were built; in the United States by the middle of 1942 (already six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor!) 131 aircraft carriers were in various stages of construction, including 13 huge Essexes.
Why did I tell all this? 70 years ago, aircraft carriers became the full masters of the oceans, and carrier-based aircraft became the most implacable and ruthless enemy of ships. But our country, being a primordially continental power, was in no hurry to get involved in an arms race at sea, postponing the construction of aircraft-carrying ships. This was largely facilitated by the "missile euphoria" that gripped the top military leadership in those years. But the ambitions of the USSR grew, the fleet was gaining strength, and 71% of the Earth's surface was still occupied by the oceans. In the early 70s, it became simply indecent not to have its own aircraft carrier, and the USSR decided to take the first step in this direction.
The birth of a legend
First, there were three "Krechet" - heavy aircraft-carrying cruisers "Kiev", "Minsk" and "Novorossiysk". Project 1143 - a strange hybrid of a missile cruiser and an aircraft carrier - still causes heated debate among people keen on the topic of the Russian Navy. Polar opinions prevail - many argue that the "heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser" is a fundamentally new class of warship created in the USSR. Others argue that the Kiev air wing could not function normally because missiles interfered with, and missile weapons could not be used normally because planes interfered.
On the other hand, there is a story about how a poor British aircraft carrier of the "Invincible" in 1982 was able to turn the tide of the Falklands War, while the ship was at great risk, tk. did not have any defensive weapons. Our TAVKR, possessing a similar air wing, had 4 air defense systems and 8 automatic cannons. In addition to powerful air defense, the TAVKR was equipped with the Polynom GAS, the Vikhr anti-submarine missile system (16 rocket torpedoes with nuclear warheads) and a dozen anti-submarine helicopters - all this gave Kiev exceptional capabilities in the fight against submarines. The only drawback of TAVKR is its too high price. TAVKRs cost as much as nuclear aircraft carriers, while significantly inferior to them in terms of capabilities. The tasks that the "aircraft-carrying cruiser" performed could be solved with much cheaper and more effective means.
In 1982, the fourth representative of the TAVKR family - "Baku" (aka "Admiral Gorshkov", now in the Indian Navy under the name INS Vikramaditya) was launched. After analyzing the obvious shortcomings of the first TAVKRs, when creating "Baku" it was decided to carry out a deep modernization of Project 1143. The architecture of the superstructure was changed, the nasal sponson was cut off and the bow was expanded. The ship's armament has undergone significant changes - instead of 4 "Shtorm" and "Osa-M" air defense systems, 24 launchers of the "Dagger" air defense system (ammunition - 192 SAMs) appeared on the ship, the caliber of universal artillery was increased - up to 100 mm, a new radar station with a phased array appeared Mars Passat. Instead of the Yak-38, it was planned to equip the cruiser with the promising Yak-141 VTOL aircraft. Alas, the most important point of the modernization program was not fulfilled - the Yak-141 was never adopted. Therefore, despite serious attempts to modernize, "Baku" did not have any fundamental differences from the original project.
Finally, the first real aircraft carrier, Admiral Kuznetsov, appeared in the USSR Navy. The first and only domestic aircraft carrier with a continuous flight deck has been part of the Russian Navy for a quarter of a century. A beautiful and interesting ship, the history of which is full of tragic moments.
The history of the creation of the last aircraft carrier of the USSR, the nuclear-powered aircraft-carrying cruiser Ulyanovsk, is shrouded in the greatest mystery. Alas, the death of the Soviet Union put an end to the project - when 20% was ready, the ship was cut into metal and removed from the slipway. Who was "Ulyanovsk" really - the stillborn brainchild of the "Cold War" or the most powerful warship in the history of mankind?
TAVKR project 1143.7
Length - 320 meters. Full displacement - 73,000 tons. The crew is 3800 people. Externally, Ulyanovsk "was an enlarged copy of the aircraft carrier" Admiral Kuznetsov ", had the same rapid forms and retained its layout. In inheritance from Kuznetsov, Ulyanovsk got a bow springboard, an island superstructure with an installed Mars-Passat radar and a similar set of missile weapons. But there were also differences, the main one of which was that Ulyanovsk was set in motion by 4 KN-3 nuclear reactors with a total thermal power of 305 megawatts.
Here you need to make a short educational program. The aircraft carrier is the only type of surface ship that vitally needs a nuclear power plant (YSU). In addition to such an undoubtedly useful attribute as an unlimited cruising range (of course, within reasonable limits), the YSU has another important property - a huge steam productivity. Only YSU is capable of providing the aircraft carrier's catapults with the necessary amount of energy, which directly affects the number of sorties per day, and, consequently, the effectiveness of the aircraft carrier's combat service. The atomic "Enterprise" provided 150 … 160 sorties per day, while its "colleague" type "Kitty Hawk" with a conventional power plant, no more than 100 per day. And that's not all - the Enterprise's catapults consumed no more than 20% of the steam produced by the YSU, while during intensive flights of carrier-based aircraft, the Kitty Hawk was forced to sharply reduce the speed - neither sailors nor pilots had enough steam.
By the way, there is a legend that the YSU saves the ship's displacement, allowing it to accept a larger supply of aviation fuel and ammunition. This is not true, YSUs take up the same amount of space as conventional power plants. YSU does not need thousands of tons of diesel fuel, but in addition to the nuclear reactor itself and the steam generating installation, they need several circuits with their own biological protection and a whole plant for desalination of sea water. Agree, it's stupid to increase fuel autonomy with limited supplies of fresh water on board. Secondly, bidistillate is vital for the operation of reactors. Therefore, the nuclear-powered Enterprise had no advantages over the non-nuclear Kitty Hawk in terms of aviation fuel reserves.
Summarizing all of the above, the presence of YSU on the Soviet aircraft-carrying cruiser gave the ship completely different combat qualities. For the first time in the history of the Russian Navy, two 90-meter steam catapults “Mayak” appeared on the corner deck of the Ulyanovsk. Another of the catapults of this type was installed at the Crimean airfield NITKA for training carrier-based aviation pilots. Instead of catapults, a springboard was installed on the bow of the Ulyanovsk, as on the Kuznetsov. Not the best solution - the springboard does not allow aircraft with a low thrust-to-weight ratio to take off and limits the combat load of the aircraft. From other "simplifications" - 3 aircraft lifts, instead of 4 on the "Nimitz".
As for the Ulyanovsk air wing itself, it was somewhat inferior in capabilities to that of the Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, which is logical - the USSR and the USA had different doctrines for the use of aircraft-carrying ships. As a result, fewer aircraft were based on the Soviet aircraft-carrying cruiser and their range was limited to the Su-33 and MiG-29K fighters, as well as the Yak-44 early warning aircraft (draft). The Americans, in addition to the F-14 Tomcat fighter, had a whole line of carrier-based attack aircraft and fighter-bombers (Hornet, Intruder), tankers (based on S-3 and KA-6D), anti-submarine aircraft, reconnaissance aircraft and aircraft radar patrol (RF-4, ES-3, E-2), electronic warfare aircraft (EA-6B), and even the transport C-2 Greyhound.
While the Americans were building purely floating airfields, the Soviet aircraft carrier retained a solid rocket armament:
- complex of anti-ship missiles "Granit" (more on this below)
- 24 launchers of the revolving type SAM "Dagger" (192 SAM ammunition, firing range - 12 km)
- 8 anti-aircraft missile and artillery complexes "Kortik"
For comparison: self-defense systems "Nimitz" include 72 anti-aircraft missiles complex "Sea Sparrow", of which only 24 are constantly ready to fire. Melee means - 3 … 4 anti-aircraft machine "Falanx" or SAM SeaRAM.
As for the anti-torpedo protection, here is parity: the Ulyanovsk was equipped with two 10-charge RBU-12000, the Nimitz - 324 mm homing torpedoes.
In principle, the Americans have never welcomed the deployment of a wide range of defensive weapons on the decks of classic aircraft carriers. Their floating airfields performed their specific tasks, and all defense functions in the near zone were transferred to the escort - frigates and destroyers have much more opportunities here. I remember that the same "Enterprise" for 7 years generally went without any defensive weapons, until in 1967 the compact Sea Sparrow air defense system appeared. On Soviet aircraft-carrying cruisers, everything was completely different. Which path was correct could only be shown by a combat check, which, fortunately, did not happen.
Better plaster and crib than Granite and a fence
Anti-ship missile system in conjunction with the Space Reconnaissance and Targeting System. An extremely complex, unusual system, on which the research teams of academicians V. N. Chelomey and M. V. Keldysh.
The length of each rocket is 7 meters, the launch weight is 7 tons. Weight and dimensions correspond to the MIG-21 fighter. The task is to destroy the ship groupings. Warhead - penetrating, weighing 750 kg (according to other sources - 618 kg) or special with a capacity of 0.5 megatons.
The P-700 missiles have two flight algorithms:
Low-altitude trajectory. In this mode, the firing range is 150 km (conventional warhead) or 200 km (nuclear warhead). Cruising speed - 1.5M. At an extremely low altitude, the anti-ship missile system is difficult to detect and the probability of its destruction by air defense means of those years tends to zero.
Altitude trajectory. The firing range grows many times over - up to 600 km. The marching altitude, according to various sources, is from 14 to 20 km. On the downward trajectory, the rocket accelerates to 2.5 times the speed of sound.
According to some sources close to the Russian Navy, the P-700 missiles are capable of independently selecting targets and exchanging information in flight. Alas, this statement cannot be confirmed or refuted - salvo firing by the Granit complex has never been carried out in practice.
On board "Ulyanovsk" there were 16 such "disposable attack aircraft", the covers of the missile silos were integrated into the flight deck. P-700 "Granit" is a unified missile system installed on Soviet cruisers, aircraft carriers and submarines, therefore, on surface ships, before launching "Granites", outboard water was previously pumped into the missile silos. In general, this complex contained many original technical solutions and 3 options for obtaining target designation (MKRTs, Tu-95RTs, helicopter).
NATO navies, faced with a new threat, are still looking for a reliable antidote. Timid attempts to intercept supersonic low-flying targets imitating Soviet anti-ship missiles did not give an unambiguous answer - can modern air defense systems (RIM-162 ESSM, SeaRAM, Aster-15) with a high probability intercept low-flying anti-ship missiles.
The US Navy proposed to solve the problem in a complex way - Granites flying at high altitude are typical targets for the Aegis air defense system and do not pose a threat. The problem was precisely with the interception of low-flying anti-ship missiles - in this case, relying on air defense systems was pointless. High-speed Granites and Mosquitoes flying above the water (another miracle of the Soviet military-industrial complex, at the time of the attack, the Mosquito was moving at Mach 3!) Unexpectedly "emerged" from behind the radio horizon and were in the zone of fire of air defense systems of only a dozen another seconds. The only "Achilles' heel" - the launch distance in this case did not exceed 150 … 200 km for the "Granit" and 100 … 150 km for the "Mosquito". It was decided to throw all forces into the fight against the carriers of the "Granites" in order to prevent them from entering the range of a salvo. Aircraft carrier strike groups fumbled with their "long arms" from combat air patrols and AWACS aircraft over the ocean surface. What was under the surface remained a mystery behind seven seals. Despite the in-depth anti-submarine defense, Soviet nuclear submarines periodically broke through to aircraft carrier orders. Again, this is a matter of chance, often the outcome of a naval battle depends only on the position of the stars.
A much more important point - the last launch of the active satellite US-A of the Space Reconnaissance and Targeting System was made on March 14, 1988, the service life of the spacecraft was 45 days. As an amateur, I am completely unaware of how target designations have been issued for the P-700 "Granit" for the last 24 years. Knowledgeable people, please comment on this situation.
Pity not only humiliates, it deprives of strength and the future, burdening with the past. The birth and death of the seventh Russian aircraft carrier is an irreversible process caused by the destruction of the military-industrial complex of the Superpower. "Ulyanovsk" was vitally necessary for the Navy of the Soviet Union - the USSR had interests in all parts of the world, and the primary task was to keep track of the numerous fleet of the "potential enemy". Unfortunately, Russia did not need such a ship - even if Ulyanovsk had time to be completed, its further existence would be in question - only the operation of the Legend-M MCRTs required up to $ 1 billion a year.
The Ulyanovsk itself was obviously not a superhero, but it was one of the strongest warships in the world. Its lag behind the Nimitz lay not in the technological field, but rather in the lack of rich experience in the operation of carrier-based aircraft among Soviet sailors. One thing remains unquestionable - the Russian Navy has developed rapidly, creating amazing pieces of equipment. We can be proud that the Ulyanovsk project was created in Our country.
Not only the alignment of the sea battle depends on the random position of the stars, our whole life depends on chances. I wonder how many "Ulyanovsk" ships would be in our Navy today if there were no random people at a random meeting in Belovezhskaya Pushcha?
