100,000 tons of democracy can ruin any country’s day. Nevertheless, the deeper I study aircraft carriers and carrier-based aircraft, the more often I come across more and more funny details about this type of naval weapon. Today I invite readers to look at this topic from a slightly unusual angle - to compare the cost of aircraft carriers with the cost of their only worthy opponents - Russian rocket and space systems, developed back in the Soviet Union. We will not discuss the combat capabilities of aircraft carriers - too many words have already been said on this topic. Only one thing is certain - aircraft carriers and aircraft carrier multipurpose groups are a dangerous rival with enormous combat potential.
I do not have access to state secrets of the Russian Federation, nor am I an employee of the Newport News shipyards. My cost calculation is based on data from open sources, where possible I try to find valid numbers and do not use approximations. If this is not possible, I find the cost of similar systems, and, taking into account common sense, I project the numbers onto the original object, always rounding them in favor of Russia.
Business plan
Well, dear readers, I suggest you do the incredible together with me - calculate the cost of the US Navy's multipurpose aircraft carrier group, taking into account the construction and operation of all AMG ships and aircraft of carrier-based aircraft. Of course, the composition of the group may vary depending on the tasks assigned, but I did not include in the price various amphibious groups or special equipment, since similar tasks can be performed by the Russian Navy without the help of carrier-based aircraft. I note right away that there will be two calculations: for systems already existing today and for promising systems of the near future.
The standard structure of AMG includes the aircraft carrier itself, its deck wing (60 aircraft - usually no longer exists, otherwise there will be difficulties with the placement, maintenance and transportation of aircraft), 4 … 5 missile escort destroyers, two multipurpose submarines and a universal supply transport for timely providing AMG with fuel, food and consumables.
Why does an aircraft carrier need such a large escort? Still, a floating airfield is always a tasty target, especially since for many military fleets of the world, countering AMG is the main task and significant forces and means are allocated to support it. It would be a sin for an aircraft carrier not to allocate half a dozen escort ships. On the other hand, the safety of the entire AMG is largely ensured by the deck air wing (the escort forces cover only the near zone), therefore, in the event of the loss of the aircraft carrier, the AMG turns into an ordinary KUG.
So, hence the standard AMG composition:
- 1 nuclear-powered aircraft carrier of the "Nimitz" class. The construction cost is about $ 5 billion. The cost of operating the ship itself (excluding the wing) is $ 10 million per month. 6,000 American sailors eat $ 1 million in hamburgers a month. Impressive. It is also necessary to take into account that all American aircraft carriers undergo overhaul and modernization once every 20 years, at a cost of about $ 1-2 billion.
- 5 Aegis destroyers of the "Orly Burke" type (or, their predecessors - the missile cruisers "Ticonderoga", almost identical to the "Burks" in size, armament and cost). The official cost of each ship is $ 1.2 billion.
It is very expensive for a destroyer, even if it is a benchmark in its class … But everything becomes clear in comparison: the cost of building a modern Russian TFR pr. 22350 "Guarding" is 250 million dollars.
The displacement of the Aegis destroyer is 10,000 tons, the displacement of the TFR is 2000 tons. In addition to the 5 times larger displacement, the Aegis destroyer can hit targets on water, on land, in the air and in space, and our patrol boat (despite the fact that it is also the best in its class) has much more modest capabilities for detecting and destroying targets, that's why he and the TFR. However, the cost of both ships may come as a surprise to the layman.
The official cost of operating Aegis destroyers is $ 20 million per year (in principle, this is consistent with the cost of operating an aircraft carrier - the Orly Burke has 10 times less displacement and 15 times less crew).
- 2 multipurpose nuclear submarines of the Los Angeles type. The cost of construction is over $ 1.5 billion per unit. Operation - 25 million per year.
- Deck aircraft. The most interesting aspect!
The composition of the deck air wing varies depending on the tasks facing the AMG, however, the number of aircraft on the decks of the Nimitz rarely exceeds 60 units: 2 naval squadrons and 1 squadron of the Marine Corps: a total of 35 … 40 F / A-18 fighter-bombers Hornet. Why is the ILC squadron on an aircraft carrier, you ask. Tradition, s. KMP aircraft differ from naval aviation only in coloring (digital camouflage, standard for KMP). Also, according to official information, the standard wing includes 4 AWACS E-2 Hawkeye, 6 EA-6 Prowler electronic warfare aircraft and 10 helicopters (anti-submarine MH-60 Sea Hawk and search and rescue HH-60 Pave Hawk ). Frequent guests on the deck include C-2 Greyhound transport aircraft (one of the Hawkai versions), Sea Stellen and Sea King heavy transport helicopters; Cobras of the Marine Corps. I will not scrupulously calculate the cost of the latter, after all, this is land aviation, only from time to time arriving on the deck of an aircraft carrier.
We will also take into account the cost of the most advanced version of the Hornet - the Super Hornet. The price of the fighter is $ 55 million per vehicle. The same is the price for specialized aircraft EW "Prowler". The most expensive are air command posts and AWACS aircraft: the cost of modern versions of the Hokai has reached $ 80 million. The price of Sikorsky helicopters ranges from $ 20 million per aircraft. The total cost of a carrier-based wing is about $ 3 billion!
In discussions about the cost of operating carrier-based aircraft, many copies have been broken. Although the numbers are on the surface, the main thing is to be able to find them. The cost consists of several parameters, the main of which are the number of sorties and the cost of an hour of flight of the aircraft.
In 2009, the aircraft carrier Enterprise celebrated a round date - 150,000 take-offs from its catapults over 50 years of service. Basic arithmetic suggests that 3000 sorties are carried out from the ship annually. Of course, the intensity of sorties fluctuates in time (while in the dock, aviation does not work, during hostilities, the intensity of sorties, on the contrary, is maximum). Nevertheless, we will proceed from an average figure of 3,000 departures per year.
The cost of an hour of flight depends on the type of aircraft. Here are just a few examples:
F - 16 Block 52 - $ 7100 / hour
F / A - 18E - $ 12,800 / hour
For interest, I will give data on the Tu-160 - $ 30,000 / hour
And here's another curious figure: F-22 - $ 44,000 for 1 hour in the air!
The cost of an hour of flight EA-6 Prowler and E-2 Hawkeye will be taken equal to an hour of flight of the supersonic F / A-18. What is the average departure time? I think many readers will agree that it can be taken in 2, 5 hours (in addition to the many hours of sorties of combat air patrols, there are also 30-minute combat training flights).
Hence the average cost of operating an air wing: 3000 sorties x 2.5 hours x $ 12,800 = $ 96 million per year!
During hostilities, the cost of the sorties should include the cost of the ammunition used. One 500-pound GBU-12 Paveway guided bomb costs $ 19,000. The more powerful 907-kg GBU-24 costs even more - $ 55,000. Another thing is that "Desert Storms" do not happen often. Also, the calculation of the cost of operation must necessarily include planned and unscheduled repairs. As a result, we boldly double 96 million and round it up to $ 200 million. Here it is - the average cost of the annual operation of carrier-based aircraft.
The total cost of creating the considered AMG is $ 16 billion. The average cost of operating ships is $ 270 million per year + 200 million per year for the operation of an air wing, consisting of 60 aircraft. Colossal!
Of course, it was not entirely correct to take into account the price of missile destroyers and submarines here - these types of ships are to a large extent independent naval weapons that perform tasks regardless of their inclusion in the AMG, and no one has ever tried to dispute the need for these ships in the Navy. … They will have to be created in any case, even in the absence of an aircraft carrier.
What does the future hold for the Americans? It's no good - the creation of new AMGs will require even greater costs (although, their capabilities will be much wider - up to firing at objects in low-earth orbit and the use of electromagnetic catapults for carrier-based aircraft). The estimated cost of designing and building a new type of nuclear aircraft carrier, Gerald Ford, has exceeded $ 14 billion. The cost of the new Aegis destroyers "Orly Burke" sub-series IIA has reached $ 2 billion. The construction of multipurpose submarines of the "Virginia" type requires $ 2, 8 billion for each unit. I'm not talking about the odious F-35 program!
As for carrier-based aviation, I have come across the following opinion: while harshly criticizing a carrier-based wing for its high cost, experts do not attach importance to the fact that land aviation requires much more significant funding. Nobody objects to orders of hundreds (thousands) of aircraft for the Air Force, as does the fact that pilots have to train regularly. At the same time, the proposal to allocate 60 aircraft for placement on the deck of the ship causes a sharp rejection, although this greatly increases the power of the Russian Navy. Only the deck wing is capable of providing reliable air defense for the squadron in the open ocean. Yes, deck aircraft are somewhat more expensive to maintain, have specific systems and designs, and have a lower resource due to special operating conditions. But on the scale of the entire Navy, this difference in price is almost imperceptible. Moreover, only 60 (even 100, taking into account training and reserve) flying machines are required to equip one aircraft carrier. For comparison, the Su-27 of all modifications was produced 600 units, MiG-29 - 1600 units, F-15 - 1500 units, F-16 - 4400 units.
On the subject of cost, I would like to add one more paragraph. The price of one copy of the Tomahawk cruise missile is about $ 1.5 million. Compare this with the cost of the departure of a carrier-based attack aircraft and you will understand that no arsenal ships are capable of replacing an aircraft carrier in terms of efficiency. Moreover, unlike the stupid Ax, aviation will do the job more quickly and efficiently.
Heading West
To proceed to the second part of the article, it is necessary to make a small remark and talk about the methods of targeting surface-to-surface cruise missiles (or, alternatively, “air-to-surface”). There are three of them:
1. Guidance using an inertial system and a homing head (GOS), the so-called. creep method. The launched rocket follows in a given direction at a certain height, the system of gyroscopes and altimeters keeps it on the course, the seeker scans the space. As soon as the seeker locks the target, the rocket rushes into the attack without losing sight of the target. The method is quite suitable for light anti-ship missiles. Examples - "Boeing - Harpoon" or the domestic 3M-54KE "Club".
2. Scanning of the underlying relief and comparison of the obtained data with a digital photograph stored in the memory of the cruise missile's computer. This makes it possible to follow on the cruising section at an extremely low altitude, remaining invisible to detection equipment. At the last moment, when approaching the target, the seeker is switched on and the missile "covers" the target. The only disadvantage of the method is the impossibility of using it for anti-ship missiles (water is the same everywhere, there is nothing to check with). An example is the Tomahawk.
3. Guidance from the satellite. The coolest and most expensive way. Let's talk about it in more detail.
Extraterrestrial Death Form
I spoke in more detail about the Legend Maritime Reconnaissance and Targeting System in my last article https://topwar.ru/12554-morskaya-kosmicheskaya-razvedka-celey.html Now I will only briefly note: a unique system created back in the 70s years, for a long time provided our sailors with high-quality intelligence information, allowing them to quickly track any changes in the World Ocean. A lot of intelligence systems similar to the ICRC have been created (for example, the modern secret radio-technical intelligence system "Liana"). The only thing that made the ICRC a truly unique technique was its US-A satellites (index GRAU 17F16), which still have no analogues in the world.
"Guided Sputnik - Active", equipped with a two-way side-looking radar, made it possible at any time, in any weather, to track all movements of the US Navy's multipurpose aircraft carrier groups and issue target designations to missile weapons directly from orbit.
The implementation of such a complex principle of operation of satellites of the US-A type posed a number of complex, sometimes contradictory problems for its developers. First, for the radar to work correctly, it was required to provide the lowest possible orbit altitude (perigee / apogee 230-250 km). Second, the radar consumed a significant amount of energy. It was not possible to install large-area solar batteries on the spacecraft - in low orbit the influence of the Earth's atmosphere became noticeable, the spacecraft with great resistance quickly lost speed and burned out in the upper atmosphere. Moreover, solar panels could not work on the shadow side of the Earth.
There was only one way out - to install a nuclear reactor on board the satellite. The structure of the nuclear power plant BES-5 "Buk" included a fast neutron reactor BR-5A, with a thermal power of 100 kW. Output electrical power - 3 kW. Estimated working time - 1080 hours. The mass of the reactor is 1250 kg. The mass of the spacecraft is 4300 kg. The length of the spacecraft is 10 meters. Diameter - 1.3 meters. After working out the set time, the reactor block was separated and transferred by the upper stage into a "burial orbit" at an altitude of 700 km, the rest of the satellite burned up in the atmosphere.
For the full-fledged operation of the Legend MCRC, it was necessary to simultaneously operate two US-A satellites in near-earth orbit. In addition, the MKRTs complex included satellites of the passive radio-technical separation US-P (average orbital altitude - 400 km) and ground-based information reception points.
So we come to a very interesting point - the cost of the Soviet space system "Legend". As we have already noted, the operating time of 1 US-A satellite was 1080 hours (45 days). For the system to function, two satellites of this type were required in near-earth orbit. As a result, it is required to carry out 16 launches into space per year. Perfectly. In reality, out of 39 launches of US-A satellites (including test ones), 12 ended in an accident. This level of accidents is explained by the high complexity of the spacecraft with a nuclear reactor on board. Sometimes the flight almost ended in disaster: twice radioactive debris fell into the ocean, but in 1978 the "death star" fell on Canada.
The US-A was launched by the Cyclone-2 launch vehicle, a civilian version of the R-36-orb heavy intercontinental ballistic missile. Extremely reliable rocket and space system. The launch weight is 176 tons. The price of one launch of the Cyclone series LV in 2010 is $ 20 million (excluding the cost of the spacecraft itself and its delivery to the cosmodrome).
The cost of the US-A satellite is difficult to determine - the data is still classified. But the very fact of the presence on board of a nuclear reactor, a powerful radar station and a significant mass of the spacecraft (more than 4 tons) indicates the prohibitive cost of this space system. And after 45 days, such a complex and expensive apparatus was irretrievably lost!
As an example, the cost of an order of magnitude simpler satellites of the Glonass system (spacecraft mass - 1400 kg, energy source - ordinary solar panels) is, according to various sources, 10 … 15 million dollars. Taking the price of satellites of the US-A series equal to at least $ 15 million, we get a completely paranormal value. The operating cost of the Legend MCRC is 16 launches х (20 million + 15 million) = 560 million dollars per year! Here's an asymmetric response to a threat.
And that's just the cost of the target designation system! How much will the weapon itself cost? The most surprising thing is that the last launch of the US-A satellite of the ICRC "Legend" system took place on March 14, 1988. The estimated satellite operation time is 45 days. US-A is a key element of this entire maritime rocket and space system. Without the US-A spacecraft, the MKRTs is unable to fulfill its main task - to ensure the operation of the P-700 "Granit" complex. Accordingly, sailors are left without a reliable over-the-horizon target designation system.
Output
My goal was not to reproach the military for overspending. No, I was talking about something completely different. A new Arms Race is inevitable and the winner is the one who invests in the most effective weapons.
