A place where a person without special protective equipment dies in a few minutes. This is not the surface of the Moon or distant Mars. This is the beloved Arctic - an area that extends above 66 ° 33 ′ N. NS. (Arctic Circle) and compares favorably with the rest of the Earth's negative average annual temperature. In this case, "special protective equipment" means the most insulated clothing and indoor spaces with an obligatory source of heat.
As you know, a man in his original form is able to spend several days outside the ship and calmly transfer the air temperature above + 50 ° C. But in the Arctic, such tricks will not work. This place is more dangerous than the Sahara and California's Death Valley combined - one careless step into the frosty haze, and the cold will wrap the daredevil in a ram's horn. In the morning, the comrades will find only a numb mummy with forever bent limbs.
"The country of ice horror" - this is how the Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen described the Arctic after many years of expeditions in these parts.
An unavoidable obstacle to the development of these places is the endless winter night (the length of the polar night depends on the latitude).
When the edge of the solar disk flashes again in the southeastern side of the sky, and the snowy landscape of the hills lights up with a pale pink light, the Sun Festival is celebrated in Murmansk. Residents of Moscow and the Kuban cannot understand why the lucky 300,000 - the inhabitants of the world's largest city built beyond the Arctic Circle - are so happy in the deepening twilight.
The Arctic was not intended for human habitation. As if nature itself has cursed this place, forever chaining the earth and the ocean with a layer of ice, solid, like a stone. Monotonous snowy landscape and endless night - among polar explorers there are mystical legends about “white noise” and “call of the North Star”. A strange mental disorder, known among the Pomors as "measuring" - a person loses his mind and runs away into the icy desert. According to legend, the unfortunate always run strictly to the north.
But no matter how harsh these northern territories are, they belong to us by right. To paraphrase Admiral Essen: “We have no other waters. We'll have to use these. And if so, the Russians had to master this unsuitable area for life and learn how to derive the maximum benefit from it.
The main treasure of the Arctic today remains the Northern Sea Route (NSR) - a strategic transport artery on the way from Europe to Asia; historically established national unified transport communication of Russia in the Arctic, stretching along the entire northern coast of the Urals, Siberia and the Far East.
Battles for the Arctic Ocean
The length of the sea borders of the Russian state is 38 808 kilometers! Of which 19,724 km pass along the coast of the Arctic Ocean: the Barents, Kara, Laptev, East Siberian and Chukchi seas. Year-round navigation without icebreakers is possible only in the Barents Sea, off the coast of the Kola Peninsula, where the warm Gulf Stream warms water and air, driving ice far to the north. And then the “land of ice horror” begins - all the ports of the NSR, with the exception of Murmansk, work for 2-4 months a year - during the summer-autumn navigation.
An obligatory attribute is the icebreaker fleet - contrary to the widespread assertion about "the longest sea frontiers", Russia de facto is the owner of the world's longest ice borders. Many meters of pack ice cover us from the northern direction more reliably than any Coast Guard or navy. With all the ensuing advantages and disadvantages.
The unique Arctic cruise of the Northern Fleet's warships, which took place in September of the outgoing year, still causes mixed assessments: domestic and foreign analysts express doubts about the advisability of the presence of the nuclear-powered missile cruiser Peter the Great in high latitudes. When asked whether such operations were previously carried out using surface warships, the former commander of the 5th Mediterranean operational squadron, Chief of the Main Staff of the Navy, Admiral Valentin Selivanov, answered directly:
No, we didn't need it - just wasting time and money. Ships go to sea either for combat training - the closer their range is, the more economical and easier it is, or for combat service in the area of potential contact with the enemy. There has never been an enemy on the Northern Sea Route. There was no need for us to send ships there.
TARKR "Peter the Great" was created as a hunter for convoys and ship groupings of the enemy, but it is absolutely impossible to imagine an aircraft carrier group of the US Navy in the Kara Sea. First, there are no tasks for her. Secondly, the American surface fleet is categorically not adapted for operations in the Arctic.
The last time the enemy appeared in these waters during the Great Patriotic War - in August 1942, the heavy cruiser "Admiral Scheer" broke through into the Kara Sea. As a result, the raider was never able to catch up with the convoy on the way to the Velkitsky Strait - when Soviet steamers and icebreakers were crawling at a speed of 5 knots, the Germans could hardly give 1-2 knots. Heavy ice neutralized all the Sheer's advantages in speed - itself the nature of the Arctic has turned naval combat into a farce.
After wandering in the Kara Sea, the cruiser sank the icebreaker Sibiryakov in an unequal battle, unsuccessfully fired at the port of Dikson - and got away. The Germans no longer dared to risk the super-ship for the sake of such worthless results.
But that was then. This is not the case now.
The uniqueness of the 2013 Arctic voyage was that all Russian nuclear-powered surface ships (a cruiser of the Russian Navy and four icebreakers of Rosatomflot) took part in the operation.
One cannot remain indifferent to the sight of the icebreakers Yamal, Taimyr, Vaigach and 50 Years of Victory making their way through the ice - a power that knows no boundaries! These magnificent machines will pass where any other ship will be stuck forever and be crushed under the onslaught of heavy ice. In 2013, the icebreaker 50 Let Pobedy celebrated a fantastic anniversary - it reached the North Pole for the hundredth time. These ships have unlimited autonomy in terms of fuel reserves, a long-term supply of food on board, carry aircraft, the latest navigation and communication systems, and have the ability to break ice more than 2.5 meters thick. The true masters of the Arctic - they are able to penetrate into any area of this icy world.
"Taimyr" and "Vaygach". Handsome men!
However, four icebreakers are a reason to think. To escort three warships and seven support vessels (TARKR "Peter the Great", landing ships "Kondopoga" and "Olenegorsky miner", rescue tugs, medium sea transport and a tanker) - the entire icebreaker fleet of Russia was needed to lead such a caravan to the coast of the Novosibirsk Islands ! Despite the fact that the trip was carried out at the ideal time of the year - the beginning of September, the navigation is in full swing. When daytime air temperatures exceed 0 ° C, and the southern edge of the pack ice moves far to the North.
There is no doubt that in the last decade sailors have noted the simplification of the ice situation - at the beginning of the 21st century there were precedents when, during one navigation of the NSR, single vessels passed without the accompaniment of icebreakers. Images from space confirm the situation - the ice area in the Arctic has noticeably decreased.
But … it was only necessary to turn off the usual route - to take a little to the north, in the direction of Fr. Kotelny (archipelago of the Novosibirsk Islands) - and immediately the help of four nuclear icebreakers was needed!
Naive Canadians still hope that the melting of the Arctic ice will become irreversible - just a little more, and the northwest passage will open in high latitudes, along the northern coast of Canada. Direct competitor of the Russian SMP!
Hell no. The myth of global warming is a deception on a global scale - unscrupulous scientists and experts who exploit this hypothesis are not inclined to tell the whole truth. The amount of ice in the Arctic has indeed decreased. But during the same time, the ice shell of Antarctica, on the contrary, has increased in thickness and size. The cycle of substances in nature!
It seems that we are dealing with some kind of unexplored cyclical process between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres - it is possible that in a few decades the Arctic will begin to be covered with ice again. Sweet dreams of banana palms on Franz Josef Land and arguments in the form of oil reserves on the Arctic shelf (and this is 100% evidence that lush tropical forests grew on the site of the ocean millions of years ago) should not lead the layman astray. This was hundreds of millions of years ago. And it will not happen again very soon.
We live in the coldest era in the history of the Earth - Antarctica is to blame. If there was the Southern Arctic Ocean in place of the ice-covered land in that place, the climate on Earth would be fundamentally different. Antarctica chills the Earth by serving as an excellent reflector of sunlight and a reservoir of giant ice reserves. Alas, we will not see any palm trees in high latitudes, until this damned "refrigerator" crawls away to another place, obeying the perpetual motion of lithospheric plates.
In the meantime … ships make their way through the cold water along the coast of Russia. The icebreaker is leading the caravan - despite the broken, discharged ice, the crew activates the pneumatic flushing system (FOC is used to reduce the friction of the ice on the hull). This makes it possible to maximize the channel behind the icebreaker and facilitate the movement of ships and vessels going in the wake. Without knowledge of such subtleties, one cannot survive in the northern seas.
Icing of the trunks of the towers of the main ships of the cruiser "Belfast" during the escort of the Arctic convoy
Formless ice figure - RBU-6000 installation. Large anti-submarine ship "Admiral Isachenkov", Norwegian Sea, 1977
Ice-covered BPK "Admiral Yumashev"
The use of squadrons from surface warships in the Arctic is fraught with significant difficulties: the ships are constrained in maneuver. An additional gift for violators of the peace of northern waters will be such an unpleasant process as ICE. A terrible thing, during bad weather and storm, it is capable of knocking out a ship in no time, chaining all launchers, guns and radars with indestructible chains. The polar night, changeable weather, disgusting visibility are more the rule than the exception for those latitudes. Obviously, even with help, in the form of nuclear icebreakers, cruisers and destroyers (not to mention the Mistral) have absolutely nothing to do in the Arctic.
And yet there is the only class of warshipscapable of challenging the primacy of nuclear icebreakers in the fight for the title of Master of the Arctic.
The Nautilus became the first ship to reach the North Pole on August 3, 1958.
Black streamlined submarines that rush towards the North Pole without encountering any resistance. Nuclear submarines do not pay attention to the fields of impenetrable pack ice, they are not afraid of the most severe frosts and polar blizzards. They do not suffer from icing and poor visibility. They are powerful, fast and able to navigate the Arctic Ocean at any time of the year.
Ice, on the other hand, is ideal cover and protection for them - no aircraft can deploy a sonar buoy or drop a torpedo. And not a single anti-submarine ship will be able to keep up with the submarine in those latitudes - it will get stuck in the ice, without the ability to use its weapons.
If necessary, hydroacoustics will tell the crew that there is a hole or ice of suitable thickness: the submarine will gently press against the inner surface of the ice, blow through the tanks and - voila! - having scattered blocks of broken ice, it will rise to the surface. In this sense, the most spectacular was the giant "Shark": due to its size, heavy SSBN pr. 941 could break two-meter thick ice with its deckhouse!
