For some time now, an interesting trend has been noticed on our site: a number of respected authors of "VO" proclaimed the imminent refusal of the Russian Navy from oceanic ambitions and the concentration of efforts on the so-called mosquito fleet. In support of this point of view, a document entitled "Strategy for the development of the shipbuilding industry for the period up to 2035" was cited. (hereinafter referred to as the "Strategy").
Well, fortunately, this document is not secret and is open to download and read by anyone. Surprisingly, it is a fact: nothing of what is stated in it does not suggest the future priority of "mosquitoes": moreover, "Strategy" directly hints at the desire to build ships of the ocean-going fleet. Let's see what exactly the "Strategy" says about the prospects for the development of the Russian Navy. Quote # 1:
“Currently, in the interests of the defense and security of the state, Russian enterprises are building:
- nuclear and non-nuclear submarines;
- multipurpose ships (corvettes and frigates);
- patrol and border ships;
- landing ships;
- rocket ships;
- ships of mine defense (minesweepers);
- various special vessels, apparatuses and support vessels.
When upgrading the Russian submarine fleet, the emphasis is on building multipurpose and strategic nuclear submarines. In surface shipbuilding, priority is given to the creation of ships of the "mosquito fleet" (ships of small displacement, intended for warfare in coastal areas)."
That is, the "Strategy" directly says that the priority is given to the "mosquito" fleet now, today, and all those who are interested in the state of the modern Russian Navy know the reasons why this happened. However, the current description of the situation does not mean in any way that we will continue to adhere to the course of the "mosquito" fleet in the future. On the contrary, "Strategy" says:
“The construction of serial surface ships (NK) and submarines (submarines) according to current projects will be completed by 2022 - 2025. In the same period, the creation of lead surface ships (including distant sea and ocean zones of operation) and submarines of new projects will begin."
What does this mean? To date, we have in different stages of construction and delivery of ships to the fleet (not counting MRKs, boats, and other PDRKs and floating craft "from 80 tons displacement", which our Ministry of Defense loves to include in the reporting on the replenishment of the Russian Navy):
SSBN project 995A "Borey A" - 5 units;
MAPL project 885 "Yasen-M" - 6 units;
Diesel-electric submarines of project 636.3 "Varshavyanka" - 2 units. (and 4 more have been contracted, and with a high degree of probability these diesel-electric submarines will actually be built);
Diesel-electric submarines of project 677 "Lada" - 2 units;
frigates of project 22350 "Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Gorshkov" - 4 units;
corvettes of the project 20380/20385/20386 - 5/2/1, and in total - 8 units;
Large landing craft project 114711 "Petr Morgunov" - 1 unit.
In principle, all of them (or at least most of them) can indeed be transferred to the fleet by 2025, and, apparently, in the future, the Ministry of Justice Industry is preparing to build ships of the ocean-going fleet. Which?
"To a large extent, these ships will be the result of the evolutionary development of NK and submarines of the current generation, which will ensure the continuity of technological equipment at construction plants and reduce costs throughout the entire life cycle."
It is unclear, however, whether this item is a wish of the Ministry of the Industry, or a fait accompli. But in general, it can be assumed that a promising corvette (if there is one at all), and a frigate (22350M), and diesel-electric submarines (something based on the "Lada") will not represent something completely different from what was built before …
Further, "Strategy" reports on the presence of three scenarios for the development of the shipbuilding industry: which one "works" depends on the general state of the country's economy.
The first, and most deplorable for us option is conservative, it assumes the cost of a barrel of oil at the level of $ 40, GDP growth in the period 2018-2035. - on average 1, 2% per year, and the dollar exchange rate in 2035 - 94, 2 rubles. In this case, a complete refusal is assumed … no, not from all large ships, but only from a part of them - the construction of promising destroyers and an aircraft carrier (more precisely, a naval aircraft carrier complex, or IAC) is postponed, until 2035 they will not start. But, strictly speaking, even in this case, it is probably impossible to talk about the priority of the "mosquito" fleet in the surface forces, since we will continue to build SSBNs, MAPLs and surface ships up to and including the frigate. And if we call a spade a spade, then, perhaps, a destroyer, since preliminary estimates for the frigate 22350M brought its displacement to 8,000 tons, that is, this is a destroyer. True, the dates for laying down some of these ships may be shifted for 2025, and until that time we will restrict ourselves to completing only those ships that have already been laid down - and, perhaps, with something quite new.
The second scenario is called a very fashionable word "innovative" today. The situation in the economy is supposed to be much better than the conservative one - oil at $ 60 per barrel, average GDP growth of 2% per year, the dollar exchange rate in 2035 - 85.4 rubles. Everything is much better here - already in the period 2018-2022. an intensification of R&D on ocean-going ships should be expected and:
"The beginning of purchases of leading and serial promising models of naval fuel (including large NKs of the far sea and ocean zones of operation) after 2020".
The third scenario is called target (or forced) - oil at $ 75 / barrel, average annual GDP growth of 3.4%, dollar exchange rate in 2035 - 77.2 rubles. In these circumstances, the laying of ocean-going ships, as in the previous scenario, should begin after 2020, but, obviously, construction will be somewhat larger-scale.
It is not entirely clear, but, most likely, in the target, that is, the most favorable scenario, in the period 2018-2035. (the text of the document indicates 2018-2030, but most likely this is a typo), our shipbuilding industry should build for the Russian Navy and for export as many as 533 ships, vessels and floating craft with a displacement of over 80 tons. Where are the Americans with their 300-ship fleet … Of course, one should not delude oneself: it should be understood that in the period 2014-2017. inclusively, according to the data of the National Research Institute of the Higher School of Economics (yes, the same one), we have built 336 units of such ships and floating facilities. It would be interesting, of course, to see what kind of floating craft they are, because the author of this article has long had a strong feeling that these statistics take into account separately not only lifebuoys, but, perhaps, already galley cisterns …
But, be that as it may, it should be admitted that the "Strategy" turned out to be very encouraging - today the price of a barrel of oil is $ 72.57, and there are no special preconditions for its sharp drop in the near future. Therefore, in accordance with the document, in the period 2020-2022. we should expect the laying of the first ocean-going surface ships and it is impossible to say that the country has finally abandoned the construction of an ocean-going force, limiting itself to small missile ships. Of course, we all remember very well where the road paved with good intentions leads, but nevertheless, such plans of the Ministry of Justice Industry regarding military shipbuilding look quite positive and cannot but rejoice. However, the "Strategy" is not limited to the military fleet alone, and it examines the prospects for the civil shipbuilding of the Russian Federation. And there…
To be honest, the author of this article is very surprised at the frankness with which the Strategy reveals the situation with our civilian fleet. Just a few numbers.
Over the past 30 years, the volume of international trade has grown 5 times, with 85% of its volume being carried out by sea transport. The importance of sea and river transport in the Russian Federation continues to grow, "Strategy" states:
“The dynamics of the volume of cargo turnover in Russian ports in recent years has shown a steady growth. The cargo turnover of the seaports of Russia in 2016 amounted to 721.9 million tons. It is predicted that by 2020 it will reach the level of 884 million tons, by 2025 - 995 million tons, by 2030 and in the future - about 1129 million tons.
This, of course, is wonderful, but … In order to ensure this cargo turnover, we need to build 1,470 cargo ships with a deadweight of 22.9 million tons by 2035, while 1,069 ships should replace similar ships, which, due to their aging age will be written off for scrap, and 401 ships should be commissioned in excess of what we have today. But one should not forget the supplying fleet - by 2035, 1,600 such ships should be commissioned, of which 1,088 units. will go to replace those leaving the system, and 512 units. - for an increase in relation to the current amount. And this number does not include vessels for servicing offshore fields, which, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, we will need to build 140 more units by 2035. In addition, to keep the passenger traffic at the current level and meet the growing needs of the northern delivery, it is necessary to build 42 sea passenger ships.
Fishing fleet? Today it numbers more than 2,000 vessels, with most of them operating well beyond the standard service life. In simple terms, people risk their lives going to sea on such ships. And even if we continue this practice, by 2035 we will have no more than 240 fishing vessels, that is, in order to at least keep our fishing fleet at the current level, by 2035 we should build about 1,800 such vessels.
The research fleet today is 79 units, the average age of which is over 30 years, and to support the research that we are going to carry out, we will need another 90 ships by 2035.
Icebreaker fleet - today we have 6 nuclear-powered (of which only 4 are operating) and 30 diesel icebreakers, and all operating "nuclear-powered ships" must leave the system by 2025. Here things are … no, not so - they can be relatively good, since we in 2015-16, 3 diesel icebreakers were commissioned, and now we have 8 more. in different stages of construction. But in order for our icebreaker fleet to fulfill its tasks, it is necessary to build 3 nuclear icebreakers according to project 10510, five - according to project 22220 and four more icebreakers for exporting LNG and oil through the Gulf of Ob - and seven of them should be commissioned before the end of 2025, and they have not yet been pledged …
The river fleet … its full strength, unfortunately, the "Strategy" does not indicate, but it is reported that there are 11,855 vessels in its composition, whose age exceeds 20 years. Moreover, the average age of a river cargo ship is 36 years! The river passenger fleet includes 658 vessels, whose age exceeds 20 years, more than half of them must be replaced by 2030. In addition, there are river cruise ships (90 units) 50, of which will be decommissioned in the next decade.
Thus, we see that the need for civilians, both river and sea, is huge in our country - we are talking about many thousands of units. And here two questions arise:
1. "Strategy" is very correct in reasoning precisely about the number of ships we need to ensure and develop the existing sea trade. But, besides this, it would be interesting to know - are our ship owners able to pay for the purchase of all these transports, ro-ro ships, tankers and seiners? That is, it is clear that we now have 2,000 fishing vessels, it is clear that if their number decreases, the volume of fishing will begin to decrease proportionally. But do the companies that maintain these ships have money to buy new seiners? After all, if they do not exist, then no "Strategy" of the Ministry of the Industry will help anything - we should talk about a strategy to support fishing enterprises.
2. To what extent are our production facilities ready for a radical renewal of the civilian fleet? Unfortunately, The Strategy does not directly answer this question. Let's try to figure it out ourselves.
So, everyone who is interested in the naval topic is well aware of how slowly, with what a huge creak and lagging behind schedules, the replenishment of the domestic navy with new warships is proceeding. Alas, our fleet has not yet reached the “bottom” - at least over the next decade, the number of ships withdrawn from the fleet for disposal (or into the reserve, which is, in fact, deferred disposal) will exceed new receipts. Needless to say, the program for updating the Russian Navy in accordance with the state armaments program for 2011-2020 was not just a failure, but failed with a deafening crash. In other words, the construction of the navy is proceeding neither shaky nor shaky. But with all this, "Strategy" reports:
“In the last 5 years, military products accounted for up to 90% of the commercial output of enterprises. The production volumes of civilian products remain relatively low and unstable."
In general, what the military fleet has received in recent years should be characterized by the words "very little" and "completely insufficient", but the civilian has to be content with 10% of the above. Although, of course, the cost of a warship is many times higher than that of the same transport vessel of equal displacement, and it would be nice to add quantitative data to the cost data, but here "Strategy" gives in - there are almost no data on the production of the shipbuilding industry in the Russian Federation over the past years … Let's try to turn to other sources.
Unfortunately, as it turned out, the data characterizing our civil shipbuilding is, for some reason, inaccessible. But according to the INFOline agency, over the past 7 years, in the period from 2011 to 2017, we have commissioned civil vessels (and floating craft, of course) with a tonnage of 1,977 thousand tons.
Is it a lot, or a little? Taking into account the fact that in 2008 the required tonnage for the period 2010-2015. was estimated at 6,178.9 thousand tons. - very few. In the past three years, we do not even build 200 thousand civilian tonnage per year - (although, for example, in 2012, 515, 9 thousand tons were built) - and we should build only transport sea vessels (not counting all others) in the next 18 years - 22, 9 million tons, that is, we need to build an average of 1,347 thousand tons of transport ships alone! Apart from icebreakers, fishing and so on and so on.
The situation with the river fleet is even worse - to restore it, we need to build five to six thousand vessels over the next 18 years, and over the past seventeen, in the period from 2000 to 2016, we have mastered only 317 cargo river transports (this is already according to the Strategy).
So, we can say that our civil shipbuilding industry is in a state of crisis - we are facing challenges that we are unlikely to be able to adequately respond to. The civil tonnage commissioning schedule irrefutably testifies to the hardest blow received by the industry during the 2014 crisis, after which it has not recovered to this day, and has not even reached pre-crisis indicators (over half a million tons of deadweight in 2013 and less than 190 thousand tons in 2017). Even more frightening is that, most likely, this crisis is dictated, among other things, by the lack of effective demand for the industry's products. That is, we have a huge fleet of aging transport and fishing vessels, but it is far from the fact that the companies operating them have the financial resources to renew this fleet. Again, you should pay close attention to the fact that in the presence of a domestic industry, many companies prefer to order ships abroad. So, for example, very significant events in 2015 were:
1. Launching a trawler manufactured by Tersan Shipping Inc. (Turkey, Istanbul) by order of Nenetsky Rybaksoyuz LLC (Russia, Murmansk);
2. Launching an icebreaker manufactured by Arctech Helsinki Shipyard (Finland, Helsinki) by order of an unknown Russian company;
3. Laying down of the tanker by Samsung Heavy Industries, Ltd (South Korea, Seoul) by order of PJSC Sovcomflot (Russia, Moscow);
4. Laying-down of a gas carrier by Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co Ltd. (South Korea, Seoul) by order of PJSC "Sovcomflot" (Russia, Moscow).
The production facilities of domestic shipbuilding enterprises need serious renovation and modernization. On the one hand, it is pleasant to note that, as one unkind memory of the secretary general said, “the process has begun” - according to the “Strategy”, in recent years the share of fixed assets less than 10 years old has been steadily growing. However, "Strategy" immediately notes the main shortcomings of domestic enterprises. One of the main ones is the impossibility for most of them to carry out the construction of ships in a large-block way: enterprises do not have the ability to mount such blocks, or the infrastructure for their transportation. It is noted that modular-modular methods are used in full only in the construction of submarines. The obsolescence of the machine park, a small share of CNC machines, weakness of automation and robotization of production are also noted. It is interesting that information technologies are being introduced in our country quite widely, but due to the obsolescence of the machine park, this does not give the effect that could be expected. It is noted that a number of enterprises have unique technologies (processing and welding of titanium structures, equipment for the installation of large assembly units, measuring and testing complexes, etc.) that are superior to the world level in technical characteristics, but inferior in the degree of mechanization and automation.
A critical situation has developed in the area of component quality. "Strategy" notes that domestic manufacturers are uncompetitive practically across the entire spectrum of marine component equipment, while the largest lag is noted in the production of power equipment: diesel engines, diesel generators, gas turbine engines, etc., cranes, auxiliary mechanisms, pumps, and equipment for the oil and gas sector. The consequence of such a deplorable state of our manufacturers is that the share of imported equipment in our civil courts is 70-90%. Even worse is that:
"A high degree of use of imported components and materials is also characteristic of military shipbuilding, especially in the construction of surface ships of small and medium displacement (up to 80%)."
The Strategy reports that at present they are trying to correct this situation for the better - import substitution plans have been created and are being implemented, within the framework of which the lists of equipment to be replaced in the first place are determined, and, although this is not directly stated, these plans are being implemented with the support state (including financial). In addition, the industry is now trying to improve the quality of components by setting up joint ventures with leading manufacturers of such equipment, but here, alas, Strategy does not announce any specific achievements.
In general, the following can be stated. Our shipbuilding industry is underutilized today - according to the "Strategy", existing orders load existing production capacities by 50-60%, but at the same time we are inferior to the world's leading shipbuilders in technologies for building ships, vessels and their components. Such a lag casts great doubt on our ability to ensure the reproduction of our transport, fishing, river and other fleets. We are threatened by a landslide reduction in the number of civil shipbuilding, similar to the military one, and this is an extremely negative scenario for our economy as a whole. So, for example, a reduction in the fishing fleet will lead to a decrease in the gross national product, to the bankruptcy of a number of enterprises and the replenishment of the ranks of the unemployed by its employees. At the same time, the need for their products (fish and seafood) will make it necessary to purchase them abroad.
The problems of shipbuilding add to the complexity of the shipyard. The Strategy directly says that domestic operators of the civilian fleet prefer to repair ships abroad, since our ship repair centers (even large ones) cannot compete with foreign ones. The complexity of the logistics of spare parts and equipment (including due to insufficiently effective customs procedures) is noted, as well as the natural and climatic conditions of Russia, which increase overhead costs (for the maintenance of capital buildings and structures, their heating, etc.). As a major drawback, "Strategy" notes the lack of a proposal for comprehensive service of the life cycle of ships - from their design and construction to disposal inclusive.
The only positive that the author of this article was able to see is that, judging by the text of the Strategy, our Ministry of Justice is very clearly aware of the problems facing the domestic shipbuilding industry, and it does not turn a blind eye to them, but tries to solve them, moreover, to solve them systematically. How much he succeeds, the future will show, and we can only wish his managers and specialists good luck and hope for the best.
