Help! Call the police! We were tricked and stolen by our load reserve!
This is how a normal working day began at the Bath Iron Works (Maine), when the documentation of the Soviet project 26-bis fell into the hands of engineers. The amazement of the Yankees knew no bounds - the cruiser "Maxim Gorky", launched back in 1938, demonstrated completely anomalous characteristics.
In some incomprehensible way, in the old days, it was possible to build real warships - with large-caliber artillery, armor and an extremely high speed in a hull with a displacement of less than 10 thousand tons.
Nowadays, 10 thousand tons is hardly enough for the construction of flimsy warships without a hint of an armored belt and artillery towers of the main caliber with powerful barbets and protected ammunition cellars.
Armor, huge reserves of fuel, heavy large-caliber guns, powerful propulsion systems capable of accelerating a ship to 35 or more knots - all this has disappeared these days. At the same time, the displacement remained the same!
Obviously, something had to come in return. But what was the released load reserve spent on? Why do modern ships look such "weaklings" against the background of their glorious ancestors?
The characteristics of the cruiser "Maxim Gorky" - objectively, a very weak and imperfect firstborn of Soviet shipbuilding, in our time cause sincere respect:
The crew is 900 people.
The power of the power plant is 129,750 hp.
Full speed - up to 36 knots!
Fuel autonomy - 4880 miles at an economic speed of 18 knots.
Armament composition:
- nine guns of 180 mm caliber, placed in three rotating turrets MK-3-180;
- universal and anti-aircraft artillery: six 100 mm guns, nine 45 mm 21-K semiautomatic devices;
- two three-tube torpedo tubes of 533 mm caliber; mine rails - in total, the cruiser could set up to 160 sea mines;
- 20 depth charges BB-1;
- aircraft armament: catapult 13K-1B, crane, two seaplanes KOR-1;
Reservation!
- armor belt - 7 centimeters of steel.
- lower deck - 50 mm.
- armoring of main battery towers and barbets - 50 … 70 mm. The conning tower - 150 mm (walls), 100 mm (roof).
The most important thing is that all this impressive set of weapons and mechanisms fit into a hull with a total displacement of … 9700 tons. Just unbelieveble!
Load clauses for cruiser 26-bis with reduced fuel capacity
Nowadays, the Aegis destroyer Orly Burke, sub-series IIA, has such a displacement, but a modern ship is not close to a war cruiser - no armor, no heavy weapons, no powerful power plant … just a tin box with computers swaying on the waves.
After reading such a statement, the reader will probably think that the author is crazy.
To call the newest super-destroyer equipped with the Aegis system "can" ?! The AN / SPY-1 radar with a phased antenna array, Tomahawk cruise missiles, anti-aircraft systems, anti-submarine weapons and helicopters, stunning standardization and unification with ships of other classes … we have just a masterpiece of design thought!
However, it is important to understand that no one compares the Berk and the cruiser Maxim Gorky in terms of their combat capabilities. In this case, only the mass of mechanisms and load items are of interest. And here a difficult paradox arises …
Arsenal
Comparison of the mass of the vertical launch launcher Mk.41 of the destroyer "Berk" with three heavy armored turrets of the cruiser "M. Gorky”give an obvious result. Each MK-3-180 turret weighed 247 tons - 10 tons more than the standard 61-round Mk.41 equipped with Tomahawks and long-range anti-aircraft missiles.
And this is without taking into account the cruiser ammunition! - one hundred 97-kilogram shells for each gun + powder charges + equipped ammunition storage.
As a result: the old cruiser accommodated three main-caliber turrets (3 x 247 tons). Even two full-fledged Mk.41 installations could not fit on a modern destroyer - the bow group of the UVP had to be halved - to 32 cells.
Don't be confused by the figure of 96 launchers (bow and stern groups of the Berk destroyer UVP). Despite all the apparent massiveness, the 61-charge Mk.41 installation in the "shock version" is a compact truss structure with dimensions of 8, 7 x 6, 3 x 7, 8 meters with power supplies and control equipment. The empty weight of the installation is 119 tons. Launch canisters with various rocket ammunition are loaded inside, the mass of the heaviest launch canister with a Tomahawk is 2, 8 tons. The mass of the glass with the Standard-2 anti-aircraft missile is much lighter - only 1.38 tons. On some ships, three cells are occupied by a loading device, reducing the total number of launch cells from 64 to 61.
Universal artillery? Orly Burk has a 5”/ 62 Mk.45 mod.4 aluminum single-gun mount weighing 25 tons. MIND. Gorky - six single-gun installations B-34 weighing 12, 5 tons each. The cruiser turns out to be heavier again!
On board the destroyer there are two Falanx six-barreled anti-aircraft guns with built-in fire control radars. So what? Nine Soviet 45 mm semi-automatic machines weighed no less.
The destroyer is armed with small torpedoes - the Mk.32 ASW system. The old cruiser also has mine-torpedo armament - "full-fledged" torpedoes of 533 mm caliber. As well as a stock of depth charges and mine rails.
On board the "Burk" sub-series IIA are two MH-60R anti-submarine helicopters with a take-off weight of 10 tons, there is a helipad with a control room for takeoff and landing operations, two hangars, a supply of aviation fuel and an aviation ammunition cellar. Solid!
But after all, “M. Bitter is not so simple! Two seaplanes KOR-1, a supply of aviation gasoline, and most importantly - a rotary pneumatic catapult that accelerated a 2.5-ton aircraft to a speed of 120 km / h. What is only one pneumatics, designed for air pressure of 50-60 atmospheres. + Compressors. + Two cranes for lifting the plane out of the water.
Here again, parity is observed. The composition of the cruiser's aviation armament is no less cumbersome and heavy than that of a modern destroyer.
In general, the weapons and ammunition of the cruiser M. Gorky weighed 1246 tons. How did such a massive pile of weapons fit on the old cruiser, if 96 UVP cells, a single five-inch plane and a couple of helicopters could hardly fit on a modern destroyer?
And instead of a heart - a fiery motor
Cannons and weapons are still nothing. Much more serious is the fact that the cruiser M. Gorky "was faster than any modern ship. Full speed of 36 knots is no joke. To accelerate the whopper to 70 km / h, an extremely powerful and efficient power plant was required: six water-tube boilers and two turbo-gear units with a total capacity of 130 thousand hp. For comparison: the destroyer "Orly Burke" is propelled by four gas turbines with a capacity of "only" 105 thousand hp. (full speed - 32 knots).
Even with a simple head-on comparison, the size of the engine rooms and the mass of the power plant mechanisms of the Soviet cruiser should exceed those of the Orly Burk. And if we take into account the progress in the field of creating ship power plants - how is the ancient boiler fueled by fuel oil combined with the high-tech General Electric LM2500 gas turbine ?!
Certain conclusions can be drawn from the following table. The power plants of modern ships are several times lighter than the power plants of their predecessors with equal power.
Another funny point is the fuel supply on board and the cruising range at economic speed.
"Maxim Gorky" - 4880 miles at 18 knots (1660 tons of fuel oil)
Orly Burke - 6,000 miles at 18 knots (1,300 tons of JP-5 kerosene)
It is clear that the gas turbine installation of a modern destroyer is 50% more economical than the steam turbine power plant of the cruiser M. Bitter . Improved contours of the hull, the quality of the plating and screws played a significant role - a consequence of the inevitable progress in the field of design methods and technologies for the metalworking process over the past half century.
But all this does not change the main problem - the old Soviet cruiser was forced to have 20% more fuel on board. The extra 360 tons of oil products can be hidden somewhere in the inter-board space, but you can't fool Mother Nature - an extra 360 tons of water will splash out from under the bottom of the ship. Archimedes, and that's it!
Is the armor strong?
This is really strange: the destroyer "Berk", unlike the ships of the Second World War, is completely devoid of armor. The usual "tin can" with the ribs of the power set sticking out through the skin.
Of course, upon closer inspection, it becomes noticeable that the designers have made a number of efforts to increase the ship's security: the combat information center, personnel premises and ammunition storage have local anti-fragmentation booking. It is reported that 130 tons of Kevlar were used to protect critical areas - more than on any modern ship.
Tin board of the destroyer "Porter" after a collision with a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, 2012
However, if you do not hesitate to call things by their proper names, then all the "armor" of the destroyer "Berk" is nothing more than a bluff and profanation of high defense. This was clearly shown by the case of the explosion of the US Navy destroyer "Cole" in the port of Aden (2000) - a surface explosion with a capacity of 200-300 kg of TNT near the side of the "Cole" completely disabled the destroyer, 17 dead, 39 wounded … Yes, the protection is good … Any WWII cruiser of similar size - the Soviet 26 bis or the British York - could withstand a much more powerful blow with less casualties.
It is not so much about the protection and real combat characteristics of the destroyer,. how much about the fact that the 25 mm thick UVP aluminum covers are not at all similar to the 50 mm steel deck of the cruiser M. Bitter . This means that the lion's share of the displacement of the Soviet cruiser (1,536 tons) was spent on booking.
Even after deducting the unfortunate 130 tons of Kevlar, the Burk has a huge "shortfall" - logically, the destroyer should be lighter by as much as 1400 tons.
And if we take into account all our previous conversation (main battery towers instead of UVP, bulky power plant instead of gas turbines, 360 tons of "extra" fuel oil) - it turns out that the total displacement of the cruiser of the 26-bis project and the super-destroyer "Orly Burke" should differ by several thousand tons.
But, alas, this is not the case. The displacement of the old armored monster and the modern "can" is the same.
Zeno's paradoxes, or what was the displacement reserve spent on?
The version with an error in units of measurement does not work - American feet are meticulously converted to meters, and pounds - to kilograms. The result is the same - 9600 tons of full displacement of "Orly Burk" against 9700 tons of "Maxim Gorky".
The version with radio electronics sounds much more serious - a modern ship is jam-packed with all kinds of radars, sonars, computers and control panels. Powerful computing systems need efficient cooling systems, megawatt radars require an entire power plant on board - that is, perhaps, the whole answer to which the displacement was spent….
Steep until they hit him. Colossus with feet of clay.
But excuse me, do radars, communication systems, additional generators and 100 computers weigh as much as a 110-meter armor belt 7 centimeters thick of steel (the width of the armor plates is 3.4 meters, it is also necessary to take into account that the cruiser has two armor belts - one with each side + traverse bulkheads + barbets of three main battery towers + conning tower with 150 mm walls + armored protection of the tiller compartment, etc.) … was this huge array of steel lighter than semiconductor computers and radar antennas?
Finally, if we are talking about fire control systems, the cruiser "Maxim Gorky" had no less cumbersome devices "Molniya-ATs" (control of the main caliber) and "Horizon-2" (control of anti-aircraft guns) - analog computers, stabilized sighting lines and spaced rangefinder posts covered with armor sheets.
Maybe it's all about the conditions of the crew? Modern sailors serve in much more comfortable conditions - on the destroyers "Berk" there are 4 square meters per person per person. meters of living quarters. Restaurant food, drinks vending machines, air conditioners, a superbly equipped medical unit … It would seem that this is the answer to the question of what the load reserve was spent on …
Oh, well, we shouldn't have remembered about the habitability of the ship!
The crew of the cruiser "Maxim Gorky" was THREE TIMES more than the crew of the "Orly Burk" - 900 people against 300-380 on a modern destroyer. It's amazing how it was possible to accommodate such a number of Red Navy men on board the ship at all!
And again the truth slipped out of our hands …
Of course, experts will now give a long list of equipment for which the load reserve could be spent:
- MASKER system - air supply to the underwater part of the hull to reduce the hydroacoustic signature of the destroyer;
- special requirements for anti-nuclear protection (entrance lobbies, ship sealing, filters, increased pressure in the interior);
- desalination plants with a capacity of 90 tons of water per day;
- three standby gas turbine engines;
- passive jamming system Mk.36 SRBOC;
- 25 mm automatic cannon "Bushmaster" to repel terrorist attacks;
etc. etc.
Alas, this time too many questions arise. The superstructure, chimneys and mast of the Orly Burke are made of light aluminum-magnesium alloys - nothing like the massive steel structures of the cruiser M. Bitter.
We can continue in the same spirit: modular design, lightening the destroyer's hull through the use of new assembly technologies, accurate computer calculations, accurate welding and fitting of parts. Further - the widespread use of light alloys and composite materials (helicopter hangars "Berka" are completely made of composites) - all this, in theory, should partially or completely compensate for the increased loads from the elements of the emergency protection system, reserve gas turbine engines and the MASKER system.
As for the presence of desalination plants on board the Orly Burke and the absence of them on the M. Bitter - imagine how many tons of fresh water should have been stored on board a cruiser with a crew of 900 people!
What the hell is this? The cruiser M. Gorky”still looks heavier than a modern destroyer, although in reality their displacement is the same.
In vain, a respected reader expects a brilliant Hollywood-style denouement - everything falls into place, good triumphs over evil. There will be no happy ending. The author's competence does not allow him to confidently explain the reason for the paradox with the displacement of modern ships. The author only outlined an interesting problem and is ready to listen with pleasure to the opinion of professional shipbuilders.
Afterword. Regarding the paradox, there are a number of simple assumptions: perhaps this is somehow related to the density of the ship's layout: modern equipment requires more space, extra space, foundations and hull structures are required - this is where the entire displacement reserve is spent. Ballast jokes? Or the devil, who, as usual, is in the little things? However, these are just assumptions.
Artillery of the cruiser "Kirov"
UVP Mk.41
An interesting precedent from history is the Baltimore-class artillery cruiser, modernized in the early 1960s according to the Albany project. Despite the powerful modernization with the complete replacement of artillery with five missile systems, the appearance of a large superstructure and bulky radars - the displacement of the cruiser remained the same.
