In the two previous articles, we described the state of affairs in the coastal troops of the Russian Navy, which includes coastal missile and artillery troops and the marines. In the article offered to your attention, we will summarize and try to draw general conclusions about the state of this type of fleet forces.
On the whole, perhaps, it can be stated that against the background of a frankly bleak picture of the gradual destruction of the fleet (the current pace of its "recovery", in fact, only postpones the inevitable, and does not come close to making up for the loss in ships), the current state and prospects of the BV of the Russian Navy look moderately optimistic … In the BRAV unit, this optimism is based on a large-scale re-equipment of troops from the old "Frontiers" and "Redoubts" to quite modern "Bastions" and "Bali" brigades, half of which will be armed with "Bastions" (with anti-ship missiles "Onyx", and, perhaps, in the future, "Zircon"), and the second half - "Balami" with the Kh-35 and Kh-35U. Surprising as it may sound, if such a program is implemented, the BRAV of the Russian Navy will definitely surpass the BRAV of the times of the USSR in the quantity and quality of its missile weapons.
Unfortunately, the quantity and quality of missiles is far from the only component of the BRAV's combat power. As we said earlier, although the flight range of the Onyx is unknown, it is practically impossible for it to exceed 500 km, since in this case, by deploying the Bastions, Russia massively violates the INF Treaty, which, in general, is not in its interests. Thus, the "long arm" of the BRAV is still far from being attainable, and in order to be able to hit the enemy, it must be deployed in the right place in time. Which once again brings us back to the problems of over-the-horizon reconnaissance and target designation, which, as we know, have not yet been resolved.
Formally, the Russian Federation possesses all the necessary equipment to create the Unified State System for Illumination of the Surface and Underwater Situation, which would provide total control over surface (with underwater - more difficult) objects at a distance of at least 1,500 km from our coastline. We also have reconnaissance satellites, over-the-horizon radars, early warning and reconnaissance aircraft, as well as electronic reconnaissance equipment and much more. But all this is either insufficient in number, or (like, for example, AWACS aircraft, specialized reconnaissance aircraft) is not part of the Navy and is not “tied” to obtaining the necessary information, since it is intended for solving other problems and will be used in other regions. On the whole, UNDISP is not working today, and, alas, it is unclear when it will work - if we evaluate the pace of its construction, we are unlikely to get it not only by 2030, but also by 3030.
On the other hand, it is impossible to say that everything is completely hopeless, because at least two elements of the UNUSPO are currently quite well developed. The first is over-the-horizon radars, which are currently capable of detecting surface targets at a distance of 3,000 km or more.
These stations do a good job of controlling the air and surface situation, but they cannot check "friend or foe", and most importantly, they are massive stationary objects that may well be disabled or destroyed with the onset of a conflict. The second element is the presence in our coastal forces of numerous electronic warfare units, which also carry out electronic reconnaissance.
Undoubtedly, the Coastal Forces are one of the most important components of the navy, but it should be understood that even if we had a fully functional EGSONPO, the Russian Navy's BV in its current form would still not be an absolute protection against attacks from the sea. Of course, missiles capable of hitting targets at a distance of 300 (500?) Km are an extremely dangerous threat to any amphibious operation. But the "Bastions" and "Balls" cannot completely impede the actions of the AUG (just make them stay at a certain distance from the coast, which, in general, is already quite a lot) and enemy surface ships equipped with cruise missiles, like "Tomahawks", with a flight range up to 2,500 km. So, for example, "Balls" and "Bastions" deployed in Crimea are able to "finish shooting" almost to the Turkish coast, but are powerless against an aircraft carrier deployed in the Aegean Sea and using the Turkish airfield network as jump airfields.
As for the number of rocket launchers, then, on the one hand, a very real opportunity to "catch up" to the level of the USSR is wonderful. But we must not forget that the USSR BRAV was supposed to ensure the security of our shores in the presence of the most powerful Soviet Navy, from which today practically nothing is left. And if we achieve, and even surpass the BRAV of the times of the Soviet Union, then … will that be enough?
As for the Marine Corps, then, of course, it should be noted that in recent years, the growth of its capabilities is quite obvious. Maintaining the highest standards of personnel training, the Marines are armed with new military equipment (the same armored personnel carriers), ammunition ("Warrior"), controls ("Strelets") and much more. Tanks are returning to the Marine Corps brigades, although not T-90 or "Armata", but only T-80BV and T-72B3, but any tank is better than its absence, etc.
Nevertheless, the capabilities of the domestic marines to carry out the key tasks of this type of troops are today in question. As we said earlier, the primary missions of the Marines are:
1. the landing of tactical amphibious assault forces to solve independent tasks and to assist the formations of ground forces;
2. defense of basing points and other objects from air and sea landings, participation, together with ground units, in antiamphibious defense.
We will return to the first point a little later, but for now let's pay attention to the second. The problem here is that Russia is the happy owner of a very long coastline: for example, the Black Sea coast of the Russian Federation stretches for more than 1,171 km. And it is not possible to ensure its protection by the Marine Corps alone, simply due to the relative small number of the latter.
I must say that this problem was realized back in the USSR, therefore, when the Coastal Forces were formed, in addition to the existing BRAV and MP formations, four motorized rifle divisions and four artillery brigades taken from the Ground Forces were also included in their composition. Thus, each fleet received one reinforced motorized rifle division, which, in addition to the statewide tank regiment and three separate tank battalions (one for each regiment), also had an additional tank battalion consisting of 5 companies (51 T-80, T -72, T-64, T-62). As for the artillery brigades, each of them was armed with 120 152-mm guns. In total, the Coastal Forces of the USSR had about 1,500 tanks, more than 2,500 armored combat vehicles (armored personnel carriers, BRDM), more than 1,000 guns of 100 mm caliber, etc.
Something of the former splendor remains today. Thus, the Coastal Forces of the Black Sea Fleet have the 126th separate coastal defense brigade, the Baltic Fleet has a motorized rifle brigade and a separate regiment, the Northern Fleet has two Arctic motorized rifle brigades. But, of course, even after equipping the Marine Corps formations with tanks (as expected - 40 tanks per brigade), they will not even reach the level of the BV of the USSR Navy. The Pacific Fleet is perhaps of particular concern. During the years of the USSR, its Coastal Forces had a marine division, a motorized rifle division, a separate artillery brigade; today, these are two marine brigades.
It is possible, of course, to assume that the RF Ministry of Defense intends to solve the tasks of coastal defense, involving the Ground Forces for this. But you need to understand that today the Ground Forces of the Russian Federation include about 280 thousand people. and about 2,300 tanks (according to the state, taking into account the revival of divisions, their number may have increased, but, of course, not by orders of magnitude). In terms of numbers, this roughly corresponds to that of the Turkish armed forces (260,000 people and approximately 2,224 tanks in the army). Of course, in terms of their qualities and armament, the domestic troops are far superior to the Turkish ones, but let us compare the territory of Turkey and Russia … In other words, the Russian land army is not at all large and, admittedly, it is not even entirely clear how such a number of tasks can be solved. large-scale conflict. And they certainly do not have "extra" formations in order to provide assistance to the Coastal Forces.
Thus, it can be stated that, despite the traditionally high training of the marines and the continued equipping of them with new equipment, the capabilities of anti-amphibious defense are limited simply due to the small number of units of the Coastal Forces.
As for the landing, here, alas, everything is even worse. The first thing I would like to draw your attention to is the deplorable state of the landing ships of the Russian Navy. We listed in detail the types and main performance characteristics of landing ships and boats in the previous article, so we will not repeat ourselves: we only note that today the basis of the amphibious forces of the fleets is 15 large landing ships of the project 775.
It seems to be a significant value, but the youngest BDK of this project (sub-series III) - "Korolev" and "Peresvet" this year turned 27 years old, "Azov" - 28, and they are far from young, although with proper care they are quite capable serve another 12-15 years.
But the age of the other 9 ships of this type (II sub-series) today is from 30 to 39 years old, so they obviously need to be replaced within the next 10 years. The oldest large landing ships in the domestic fleet are three ships of the 1st sub-series of project 775 (one is forty years old, two more ships entered service 42 years ago) and, of course, four ships of project 1171, which today are 43 to 52 years old. - these seven large landing ships require replacement "yesterday". And what is coming to replace them?
Yes, in general, almost nothing. In the Russian Federation, two Project 11711 Tapir BDKs were laid down, of which the first, Ivan Gren, which began to be built in 2004, finally entered the fleet in June of this year. The second ship of this type, "Petr Morgunov", is promised to be commissioned next year, 2019. Even ignoring the national custom of shifting the delivery dates to the fleet "to the right", we get 2 BDKs instead of 7, which in the very near future need to be withdrawn from the fleet. Even taking into account the fact that the ships of the "Ivan Gren" type in their landing capacity are perhaps twice as large as the Project 775 BDK, this does not seem to be an equivalent replacement. And no more large landing ships in the Russian Federation were laid or built, and how we are going to make up for the departure of another 9 large landing ships of project 775, which will gradually leave the system, is categorically unclear.
I must say that according to the GPV 2011-2020. it was supposed to solve this issue radically - it was planned to build four universal landing ships of the Mistral type, of which two were to be built for us by France, and two more - by us ourselves, under a license provided by the French.
We will not consider in detail the feasibility of ordering such ships abroad: apparently, in addition to the corruption component, this decision played a role in "repaying" the French for their loyal position in relation to the 08.08.08 war, but there may have been other reasonable considerations. In any case, this was a big mistake, and here life put everything in its place: spending time and money, Russia did not receive the ships it needed. The money, however, was later returned.
However, it should be admitted (regardless of the merits and demerits of a particular French project) that the reorientation from the BDK to the UDC would certainly be the right step in terms of updating our amphibious fleet. The fact is that the main method of landing from a large landing craft is a ramp, in which the large landing craft must come close to the shore.
It is clear that not everywhere the sea coast allows this to be done - for example, the large landing craft of project 1174 "Rhino", which had a total displacement of over 14,000 tons, had a ramp length exceeding 30 meters, but they could also land troops only on 17% of the world coast … There was another method of landing troops, which did not require the BDK to come close to the shore: the bow gates were opened, and then the armored personnel carriers reached the land on their own, but it is clear that such a method is available only with insignificant waves and surf, and also only for floating armored vehicles - tanks cannot be unloaded in this way.
In the USSR, they understood this problem, therefore, on the BDK of project 1174, in addition to the usual ramp, there was also a dock chamber, in which either 6 landing boats of projects 1785 or 1176 were placed, or three air cushion boats of project 1206, which made it possible to transport and land on unequipped coast heavy armored vehicles - T-64 and T-72 tanks. Still, the "Rhinoceroses" were not considered successful ships in the USSR, and they were to be replaced by the universal landing ships of the project 11780 "Ivan Rogov", also known under the nickname "Ivan Tarava" (for their significant similarity with the American UDC). With a displacement of about 25,000 tons, these ships were supposed to receive a continuous flight deck (the air group - 12 Ka-29 transport helicopters in the landing version, it was possible to use the Yak-38 VTOL aircraft) and a fairly spacious dock chamber for four landing boats of Project 1176 or 2 landing boats on an air cushion, project 1206, despite the fact that, according to some sources, "Ivan Tarava" was capable of transporting up to 40 tanks and 1000 paratroopers (probably over relatively short distances).
Of course, the UDC had significant advantages over the traditional Soviet large landing ships. This is the ability to land troops on the coast where the BDK would not be able to come close to the coast, this is the excellent logistics capabilities provided by the air group of transport helicopters, and the ability to over-the-horizon amphibious landing, when the UDC itself is not endangered by fire weapons from the coast. Perhaps the only advantage of the large landing craft remained only the speed of the landing - it is clear that in places where it was possible to disembark from the ramp, unloading the marines and their equipment from the large landing craft would have been faster than using helicopters and landing boats, which had to make many flights in order to to transport all the equipment to the shore.
It should also be noted that UDC can be much better adapted for combat services, which were conducted by the Soviet fleet - when landing ships "in full combat" and with marines on board went to the same Mediterranean Sea and were there in constant readiness for landing. The fact is that the UDC is much larger than the BDK ("Ivan Gren" - 5,000 tons, the full displacement of the same ships of the 775 project has about 4,000 tons, but the same "Ivan Rogov", as we said above - 25,000 tons), so that much better conditions for the landing can be created on them - both in terms of living and providing medical care, etc. And on the whole there is no doubt that the same Mistrals, with all their shortcomings, would be much better designed for such military services than the Project 775 BDK or even the newest Ivan Gren.
But … an important nuance arises here. The fact is that the landing operation is not only about the marines and the ships transporting them. The landing of an assault force in a modern large-scale conflict is a complex operation that requires the allocation of diverse forces of large numbers: it is necessary to "clean up" the coast, which should be carried out to a state of complete non-survival of the forces defending it, warships to form an amphibious order, cover for the transition from the influence of the fleet and aviation enemy … And, let's be frank, the current state of the naval personnel and aviation of the Navy is such that it completely excludes the possibility of carrying out any large amphibious operations in a full-scale war with NATO, or in an armed conflict with any of the developed countries. In other words, we simply do not have enough funds to ensure the conditions for the landing, and the safety of ships with amphibious assault forces. As an example: you can, of course, talk for a long time about the "landing on the Kuriles", that is, the transportation of reinforcements to the "disputed" islands using the same "Mistrals" in the event of a hypothetical conflict with Japan. But the truth of life is that our entire Pacific Fleet is unable to provide air defense of the landing force within the range of the Japanese Air Force, which has about 350 strike aircraft, including about 200 F-15 of various modifications. We have nothing to oppose to the Japanese submarine fleet, which has almost two dozen (18, to be exact) very modern submarines in its composition. Recall that the Pacific Fleet has 4 BODs, one nuclear-powered multipurpose submarine of the Shchuka-B type and six old Halibuts. Four attack surface ships of the Pacific Fleet - two submarines Anteya, the missile cruiser Varyag and the destroyer of Project 956 Bystry are clearly no match for 4 Japanese helicopter carriers, 38 destroyers and 6 frigates.
In fact, in an armed clash with one of the developed countries or in a global conflict, the possibility of landing on enemy territory is reduced almost to the landing of reconnaissance and sabotage groups. By the way, the Dugong and Serna high-speed landing boats that entered service are just for such actions.
This creates an interesting collision. If we talk from the point of view of the development of domestic amphibious assault ships, then, of course, it is necessary to design and build full-fledged UDCs. But this business is very expensive, and we can create them only to the detriment of other forces of the fleet: in the event of a serious conflict, we will not be able to use these ships for their intended purpose. Such ships of the Russian Navy in their current state can only be used in “police” operations, like the same in Syria, but even there they, rather, have the status of “desirable” rather than “necessary”. That is why the creation of the UDC today (the Priboy project and the like), with all its usefulness for the domestic amphibious forces, should be considered harmful and untimely for the fleet - today naval aircraft, minesweepers, submarines, corvettes and frigates are much more important to us.
On the other hand, it is impossible to completely forget the amphibious forces of the fleet, or to limit oneself exclusively to high-speed landing boats. Perhaps the Ivan Gren series should have been continued, laying down a few more such ships to replace the aging Project 775 large landing craft. Or go a little differently: the fact is that the Syrian operation revealed another weakness of the fleet (as if there weren't enough of them anyway) - the ships at the disposal of the Navy could not ensure the timely delivery of goods to our military contingent in Syria in the volumes it needed. Large landing ships are capable of performing the role of military transports, but, of course, the relatively small displacement of the ships of the project 775 played a negative role here - they could not carry a sufficient amount of cargo. "Ivan Gren" is much larger, and, perhaps, would be better suited for the role of military transport. And if not, then maybe it is worth considering the idea of creating a ship-transport, which, "in combination" could play the role of an amphibious assault ship: such ships will not lose their importance even if someday we turn out to be sufficiently wealthy for construction UDC.
In general, concluding a short series devoted to our Coastal Forces, I would like to note that, despite the fact that their condition today causes the least concern in comparison with other branches of the fleet, we see that today they still cannot solve the them tasks in full, although for reasons not directly related to the BV of the Russian Navy. The coastal missile and artillery forces greatly lack the EGSONPO, which could reveal the movement of enemy ships in our waters and ensure the timely deployment of mobile missile systems, as well as target designation for them. In addition, by virtue of the INF Treaty, BRAV does not have a truly "long arm" to counter the aircraft carrier strike groups of our "sworn friends." The marines do not have enough numbers for antiamphibious defense of the coast, and in addition, due to the physical aging of the landing ships and the inability of the fleet to allocate forces sufficient to cover them, carrying out any large-scale landing operations becomes extremely risky and hardly justified in conflict with somewhat of a serious adversary.
