When it was time to say goodbye, not a single tear fell down the sailors' cheeks. The cruiser "Texas" was thrown into a landfill without regret, despite her young 15 years and a quarter of a century of remaining resource.
11 thousand tons of steel structures, Tomahawk cruise missiles and plans for further modernization with the installation of the Aegis system - all were in vain. What killed the cruiser Texas? Why was the practically new ship cut into nails mercilessly?
At first glance, the reason for the untimely decommissioning of "Texas", as well as its three formidable sisters-thorns - "Virginia", "Mississippi" and "Arkansas" was the end of the Cold War. But after all, many of their peers remained in the ranks! - the same destroyers "Spruence" passed under the Stars and Stripes flag for another 10 or more years. The frigates "Oliver H. Perry" were not less longevity - half of them are still in the US Navy, others were transferred to the allies - Turkey, Poland, Egypt, Pakistan, where they were enthusiastically received by local sailors.
Paradox? Unlikely. The Yankees primarily wrote off the most ineffective, costly and difficult-to-use equipment samples.
15 years is not an age for a battleship. For comparison, the average age of modern American Ticonderoga-class URO cruisers is 20 … 25 years, and, according to the plans of the US Navy, they will remain in service until the middle of the next decade. Fig. - nuclear-powered missile cruiser "Arkansas"
The cruiser "Texas" let down its "hot heart" - the infernal D2G unit, inside which uranium assemblies burned with invisible fire, releasing 150 Megajoules of heat every second.
The nuclear power plant (YSU) endowed the ship with fantastic combat capabilities - unlimited cruising range, high cruising speed - without regard to the fuel reserves on board. In addition, the YSU ensured the tightness of the superstructure, due to the lack of developed chimneys and air intakes - an important factor in the case of the use of weapons of mass destruction by the enemy. Agree, there are many advantages.
Alas, behind the beautiful tale of "seven round the world trips without entering the port" were hidden several hard-hitting truths:
1. The autonomy of the ship is not limited only by the fuel reserves. Food, technical fluids, repairs - every time you have to meet with an integrated supply ship or make a call to the nearest naval base / PMTO. Not to mention such a simple and obvious condition as the endurance of the crew - equipment and people need rest.
2. A trip around the world at full speed of 30 knots is nothing more than a beautiful fantasy. Ships rarely go alone: frigates, landing ships (large landing craft, "Mistral" - max. 15..18 knots), supply ships, ocean tugs and marine rescue complexes, minesweepers, escorted merchant marine vessels - the Navy's combat service may include a variety of tasks.
When operating as part of a squadron, a nuclear cruiser loses all its advantages - it is not possible to install a nuclear control system on each Mistral, frigate or merchant ship.
3. A nuclear power plant, coupled with its cooling circuits and hundreds of tons of biological shielding, takes up much MORE space than the engine room of a conventional cruiser, even taking into account the required stock of thousands of tons of fuel oil or lighter oil fractions.
However, it will not be possible to completely abandon the conventional power plant in favor of the nuclear power plant: according to the accepted safety standards, emergency diesel generators are installed on all nuclear-powered ships and there are reserves of fuel.
This is the kind of savings.
In numbers, this literally means the following:
The power plant of the modern Aegis destroyer "Orly Burke" is a combination of four General Electric LM2500 gas turbines (a famous unit used on naval ships in 24 countries of the world), as well as three standby diesel generators. The total power is about 100 thousand hp.
The mass of the LM2500 turbine is nearly 100 tons. Four turbines - 400 tons.
The fuel supply on board the "Burk" is 1,300 tons of JP-5 kerosene (which provides a cruising range of 4,400 miles at a speed of 20 knots).
You ask why the author so cleverly neglected the masses of the beds, pumps, thermal insulation circuits and auxiliary equipment of the engine room? The answer is simple - in this case it doesn't matter anymore.
After all, a promising development of the Afrikantov Design Bureau - the "compact" nuclear reactor RITM-200 for the LK-60Ya nuclear icebreaker under construction has a mass of 2,200 tons (a combination of two reactors). The power on the icebreaker shafts is 80 thousand hp.
2,200 tons! And this is without taking into account the biological protection of the reactor compartment, as well as the two main turbine generators, their feed, condensate, circulation pumps, auxiliary mechanisms and propeller motors.
No, there are no complaints about the icebreaker here. An atomic icebreaker is a wonderful machine in all respects, in polar latitudes one cannot do without a nuclear power plant. But everything should have its time and place!
Installing such a power plant on a promising Russian destroyer is a dubious decision to say the least.
In fact, the American Burke is not the best example here. More modern models, for example the British Type 45 destroyers with a successful combination of diesel generators, gas turbine engines and full electric propulsion, demonstrate even more impressive results - with a similar fuel reserve, they can travel up to 7000 nautical miles! (from Murmansk to Rio de Janeiro - how much more ?!)
Nuclear cruiser "Texas" and cruiser "Ticonderoga"
As for the cruiser "Texas" mentioned at the beginning of the article, a similar situation developed with it. With a similar composition of weapons, it was at least 1,500 tons larger than a non-nuclear cruiser of the Ticonderoga class. At the same time, it was slower than "Tiki" by a couple of knots.
4. Operation of a ship with YSU, all other things being equal, turns out to be more expensive than operation of a ship with a conventional power plant. It is known that the annual operating costs of "Texas" and its sisters-thorns exceeded those of "Ticonderogo" by $ 12 million (a solid amount, especially by the standards of 20 years ago).
5. YSU worsens the survivability of the ship. A failed gas turbine can be turned off. But what about the damaged circuit or (oh, horror!) The reactor core? That is why grounding or combat damage to a ship with YSU is a global event.
6. The presence of a nuclear control system on board the ship complicates his visits to foreign ports and complicates the passage of the Suez and Panama Canals. Special security measures, radiation control, approvals and permits.
For example, it came as an unpleasant surprise for the Americans when their nuclear-powered ships were banned from approaching the shores of New Zealand. Intimidation by the "communist threat" did not lead to anything - the New Zealanders only laughed at the Pentagon and advised the Yankees to study the globe more closely.
Difficult, costly, ineffective
This considerable list of sins became the reason for the cancellation of all 9 nuclear-powered cruisers of the US Navy, including four relatively new "Virginias". The Yankees got rid of these ships at the first opportunity, and never regretted their decision.
From now on, overseas do not build illusions at the expense of nuclear-powered ships - all further projects of surface warships are the Orly Burke destroyers, which will form the basis of the destroyer forces of the US Navy until the 2050s or the three promising Zamvolt destroyers - all of them are equipped with conventional, non-nuclear power plant.
Nuclear power plants are inferior in terms of cost / efficiency (a broad concept that includes all the above factors) even half a century ago. As for modern developments in the field of naval power plants, the use of promising FEP or CODLOG schemes (full electric propulsion with a combination of full speed gas turbine generators and highly efficient cruising diesel generators) makes it possible to achieve even better performance. When carrying out combat service in remote areas of the World Ocean, such ships are practically not inferior in autonomy to ships with nuclear power plants (with an incomparable cost of a nuclear power plant and a conventional power plant of the CODLOG type).
Of course, YSU is not “the devil in the flesh”. A nuclear reactor has two key advantages:
1. Colossal concentration of energy in uranium rods.
2. Release of energy without the participation of oxygen.
Based on these conditions, it is necessary to look for the correct area of application for shipboard nuclear systems.
All answers have been known since the middle of the last century:
The possibility of obtaining energy without oxygen was appreciated at its true worth in the submarine fleet - they are ready to give any money there, just to stay under water longer, while maintaining the 20-knot speed.
With regard to the high concentration of energy, this factor becomes valuable only in conditions of high energy consumption and the need for long-term operation at maximum power. Where are these conditions present? Who fights the elements day and night, making their way through the polar ice? The answer is obvious - an icebreaker.
Another major consumer of energy is an aircraft carrier, or rather, catapults installed on its deck. In this case, a powerful, productive YSU justifies its purpose.
Continuing the thought, one can recall specialized ships, for example, the atomic reconnaissance aircraft "Ural" (communications ship, project 1941). The abundance of energy-hungry radars and electronics, as well as the need for a long stay in the middle of the ocean (the Ural was intended to monitor the American missile range on the Kwajalein atoll) - in this case, the choice of YSU as the main power plant of the ship was quite logical and justified decision.
That's probably all.
"Savannah" cargo-passenger nuclear-powered ship
The rest of the attempts to install YSU on surface warships and ships of the merchant fleet were crowned with failure. The American commercial nuclear-powered vessel "Savannah", the German nuclear-powered ore carrier "Otto Gahn", the Japanese cargo-passenger nuclear-powered vessel "Mutsu" - all projects turned out to be unprofitable. After 10 years of operation, the Yankees put their nuclear-powered icebreaker on hold, the Germans and Japanese dismantled the YSU, replacing it with a conventional diesel engine. As they say, words are superfluous.
Finally, the untimely decommissioning of American nuclear-powered cruisers and the absence of new projects in this area abroad - all this clearly testifies to the futility of using nuclear power systems on modern warships of the "cruiser" and "destroyer" classes.
A rake run?
The revived interest in the problem of nuclear control systems on surface warships is nothing more than an attempt to understand the recent statement on the design progress of a promising domestic destroyer:
“The design of the new destroyer is carried out in two versions: with a conventional power plant and with a nuclear power plant. This ship will have more versatile capabilities and increased firepower. It will be able to operate in the far sea zone both singly and as part of the naval groupings"
- representative of the press service of the Russian Ministry of Defense for the Navy (Navy) Igor Drygalo, September 11, 2013
I don't know what about the connection between the nuclear power plant and the firepower of the destroyer, but the connection between the YSU, the size and cost of the ship can be traced quite clearly: such a ship will come out larger, more expensive and, as a result, its construction will take longer - at that time, as the Navy urgently needs to be saturated with surface combat ships of the oceanic zone.
Unrealized project of the nuclear-powered large anti-submarine ship pr. 1199 "Anchar"
A lot has already been said today that the YSU has little effect on increasing the combat power of the ship (or rather the opposite). As for the cost of operating such a monster, everything is also extremely obvious here: refueling with ordinary ship fuel - kerosene, solar oil (not to mention boiler fuel oil) - will be MUCH cheaper than a "perpetual motion machine" in the form of a nuclear reactor.
Let me quote data from the report for the US Congress (Navy Nuclear-Powered Surface Ships: Background, Issues, and Options for Congress, 2010): the Yankees honestly admitted that equipping a surface warship YSU automatically will increase the cost of its life cycle by 600-800 million dollars, compared to its non-atomic counterpart.
This can be easily verified by comparing the average "mileage" of a destroyer during its entire service life (usually no more than two or three hundred thousand miles) with fuel consumption (tons / 1 mile) and the cost of 1 ton of fuel. And then compare the resulting amount with the cost of recharging the reactor (taking into account the disposal of spent nuclear fuel). For comparison: recharging a multipurpose nuclear submarine can cost up to 200 million dollars at a time, and the cost of recharging the reactors of the aircraft carrier "Nimitz" was 510 million dollars in 2007 prices!
The last years of the nuclear ship's life will be of no small importance - instead of the banal sinking in the form of a target or neat cutting into metal, complex and expensive disposal of radioactive ruins will be required.
The construction of a nuclear destroyer could make sense only in one case - the absence of the necessary technologies in Russia in the field of creating offshore gas turbine installations.
M90FR
Alas, this is absolutely not the case - for example, NPO Saturn (Rybinsk), with the participation of SE NPKG Zorya-Mashproekt (Ukraine), has developed a ready-made sample of a promising shipborne GTE M90FR - a close analogue of the American LM2500 turbine.
As for reliable and efficient ship diesel generators, the world leader, the Finnish company Wärtsilä, is always at the service of which even the arrogant British have resorted to when creating their destroyer Type 45.
All problems have a good solution - there would be desire and persistence.
But in conditions when the Russian Navy is experiencing an acute shortage of ships in the ocean zone, dreaming of nuclear super-destroyers is, at least, not serious. The Navy urgently needs "fresh forces" - heels (or better - a dozen) "Burke-like" universal destroyers with a total displacement of 8-10 thousand tons, and not a couple of atomic monsters, whose construction should be completed before 203 … th year.
The modest hero of the sea is the tanker "Ivan Bubnov" (project 1559-B).
A series of six tankers, project 1559-V, was built in the 1970s for the USSR Navy - it was thanks to them that the fleet was able to operate at any distance from its native shores.
The tankers of the project are equipped with a device for transferring cargo into the sea on the move by traverse method, which makes it possible to carry out cargo operations in case of significant sea waves. A wide range of transported goods (fuel oil - 8250 tons, diesel fuel - 2050 tons, aviation fuel - 1000 tons, drinking water - 1000 tons, boiler water 450 tons, lubricating oil (4 grades) - 250 tons, dry cargo and food 220 tons each) allows the tankers of this project to be ranked as integrated supply ships.
And this is the Yankees
