In the last part of the cycle, we examined the development prospects (or rather, the complete absence of such) of destroyers and large anti-submarine ships of the Russian Navy. The topic of today's article is cruisers.
I must say that in the USSR this class of ships was given the closest attention: in the post-war period and until 1991, 45 ships of this class entered service (including artillery, of course), and by December 1, 2015, 8 cruisers remained. (We will devote a separate article to the heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser "Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Kuznetsov", since, regardless of the peculiarities of the national classification, this ship is an aircraft carrier. Today we will restrict ourselves to missile cruisers.)
Missile cruisers (RRC) of project 1164.3 units
Displacement (standard / full) - 9 300/11 300 t, speed - 32 knots, armament: 16 anti-ship missiles "Basalt", 8 * 8 SAM S-300F "Fort" (64 ZR), 2 * 2 PU SAM "Osa -MA "(48 missiles), 1 * 2 130-mm AK-130, 6 30-mm AK-630, 2 * 5 533 torpedo tubes, 2 RBU-6000, hangar for the Ka-27 helicopter.
All three ships of this type: "Moskva", "Marshal Ustinov", "Varyag" are in the ranks of the Russian Navy, the first of them being the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet, and the last one of the Pacific.
Heavy nuclear missile cruiser (TARKR) of project 1144.2. 3 units
Displacement (standard / full) - 23 750-24 300/25 860 - 26 190 tons (data in various sources differ greatly, sometimes the total displacement of 28,000 tons is indicated), speed - 31 knots, armament - 20 anti-ship missiles "Granite ", 6 * 8 SAM" Fort "(48 SAM)," Fort-M "(46 SAM), 16 * 8 SAM" Dagger "(128 SAM), 6 SAM" Kortik "(144 SAM), 1 * 2 130 -mm AK-130, 2 * 5 533-mm torpedo tubes with the ability to use PLUR of the Vodopad-NK complex, 2 RBU-12000, 1 RBU-6000, hangar for 3 helicopters.
It was assumed that all three ships of this type, "Peter the Great", "Admiral Nakhimov" and "Admiral Lazarev", will be built according to the same project, but in fact they were not identical and had some difference in the nomenclature of weapons. SAM "Fort-M" is installed only on "Peter the Great", the rest of the ships have two SAM "Fort", their total ammunition is 96 missiles, and not 94, as on "Peter the Great". Instead, on the Kinzhal air defense missile system and the Kortik air defense missile system on the Admiral Nakhimov and Admiral Lazarev, the Osa-M air defense missile systems (2 per ship) and eight 30-mm AK-630 were installed. "Peter the Great" and "Admiral Nakhimov" have 2 RBU-12000 and one RBU-6000, but on the "Admiral Lazarev" - on the contrary, one RBU-12000 and two RBU-6000.
"Peter the Great" is currently serving in the Northern Fleet of the Russian Federation, "Admiral Nakhimov" is undergoing modernization. “Admiral Lazarev has been removed from the fleet.
Heavy nuclear missile cruisers (TARKR) of project 1144.1. 1 unit
Displacement (standard / full) 24 100/26 190 tons, speed - 31 knots, armament - 20 "Granit" anti-ship missiles, 12 * 8 "Fort" air defense systems (96 missiles), 2 * 2 "Osa-M" air defense systems (48 SAM), 1 * 2 PU PLUR "Blizzard", 2 * 1 100-mm AK-100, 8 30-mm AK-630, 2 * 5 533-mm torpedo tubes, 1 RBU-12000, 2 RBU-6000, hangar for 3 helicopters.
The first-born of the TARKR class in the domestic fleet, in the USSR he received the name "Kirov", in the Russian Navy - "Admiral Ushakov". Withdrawn from the Russian Navy in 2002, but has not yet been utilized.
Needless to say, all the missile cruisers that we have at our disposal were inherited by the Russian Federation from the USSR. Only "Peter the Great" was being completed in the Russian Federation, but it was launched in 1989 and by the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union it was in a fairly high degree of readiness.
Soviet missile cruisers are a unique weapon of their kind, created within the framework of the concepts of combat use of the USSR Navy. Today we will not analyze in detail the history of their creation, because both the RRC project 1164 and the TARKR project 1144 are not even worthy of a separate article, but a cycle of articles each, but we will limit ourselves to only the most general milestones.
For some time (after the Second World War), the main enemy of our fleet was considered to be NATO aircraft carrier groups, and during this period the concept of the USSR fleet assumed the fight against them in our near sea zone, where surface ships would operate in conjunction with missile aircraft. Although it is worth noting that even then we were building ocean-going ships for ourselves, such as artillery cruisers of the Sverdlov type (project 68-bis) - apparently, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin understood well that the ocean fleet is an instrument of not only war, but also the world.
However, after the appearance of nuclear submarines (carriers of ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads, SSBNs) in the enemy fleets, they became a priority target for our Navy. And here the USSR faced, let's not be afraid of this word, insoluble conceptual difficulties.
The fact is that the range of even the very first ballistic missiles of SSBNs was many times greater than the combat radius of carrier-based aircraft, respectively, enemy SSBNs could operate at a greater distance from our shores. In order to counteract them, one had to go to the ocean and / or remote sea areas. This required large enough surface ships with powerful sonar equipment, and they were created in the USSR (BOD). However, the BODs, of course, could not operate successfully in the conditions of the overwhelming dominance of the United States and NATO in the ocean. In order for the USSR PLO groups to successfully perform their functions, it was necessary to somehow neutralize the American aircraft carrier and ship strike groups. On our shores this could have been done by the MRA (naval missile-carrying aircraft), but its limited radius did not allow it to operate in the ocean.
Accordingly, the USSR needed a means of neutralizing the NATO AUG far from its native shores. Initially, this task was assigned to submarines, but very soon it became clear that they would not solve this problem on their own. The most realistic way - the creation of its own aircraft carrier fleet - for a number of reasons turned out to be unacceptable for the USSR, although the domestic sailors really wanted aircraft carriers and, in the end, the USSR began building them. Nevertheless, in the late 60s and early 70s, one could only dream of aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines could not independently defeat NATO fleets in the ocean, and the country's leadership set the task of destroying SSBNs.
Then it was decided to shift the focus to the creation of new weapons - long-range anti-ship cruise missiles, as well as a space targeting system for them. The carrier of such missiles was to be a new, specialized class of an ocean-going surface attack ship - a missile cruiser.
What exactly it should be, there was no clarity. Initially, they thought about unification on the basis of BODs of projects 1134 and 1134B, in order to create PLO ships (that is, BOD), air defense (with the deployment of the "Fort" air defense missile system on them) and shock carriers of anti-ship missiles using a single hull. Then they abandoned this in favor of the Project 1165 missile cruiser Fugas, which was carried both by the anti-ship missile system and the Fort air defense missile system, but it was then closed due to the too high cost - the ship was supposed to be made atomic. As a result, they returned to the BOD of project 1134B, but decided to make not a unification in a single body, but a much larger missile cruiser based on it.
The idea was to create a flagship of the PLO group, equipped with powerful strike and anti-aircraft weapons, and the latter was supposed to provide not object, but zonal air defense (i.e., cover the entire group of ships). This is how the Project 1164 missile cruiser appeared.
At the same time, and in parallel with the development of a new missile cruiser, Russian design bureaus were designing a BOD with a nuclear power plant. They started with a displacement of 8,000 tons, but later the appetites of sailors grew and the result was a ship with a standard displacement of about (or even more) 24,000 tons, equipped with almost the entire range of weapons existing at that time. Of course, we are talking about a project 1144 heavy nuclear missile cruiser.
The fact that Project 1164 was originally created as a missile cruiser, and Project 1144 as a BOD, to some extent explains how in the USSR at the same time, in parallel, two completely different ships were created to perform the same tasks. Of course, this approach cannot be called sensible in any way, but it must be admitted that as a result of this, the Russian Navy received two types of extremely beautiful ships instead of one (may the dear reader forgive me for such a lyrical digression).
If we compare the Atlantes (ships of Project 1164) and Orlans (Project 1144), then, of course, Atlanta is smaller and cheaper, and therefore more suitable for large-scale construction. But, of course, the Eagles are much more powerful. According to the views of those years, in order to "penetrate" the air defense of the AUG and inflict unacceptable damage to the aircraft carrier (completely disable or destroy) it was necessary to 20 heavy anti-ship missiles in one salvo. "Orlan" had 20 "Granites", on the nuclear submarine missile carriers of Project 949A "Antey" they put 24 such missiles (so that, so to speak, with a guarantee), but "Atlanta" carried only 16 "Basalts". On the "Orlans" there were two "Fort" air defense systems, which means there were 2 radar posts for tracking and illumination of "Volna" targets. Each such post could aim 6 missiles at 3 targets, respectively, the Orlan's capabilities to repel massive raids were much higher, especially since the Atlant radar located in the rear “does not see” the bow sectors - they are closed by the cruiser superstructure. The close air defense of the "Orlan" and "Atlant" was comparable, but on the "Peter the Great" instead of the outdated "Osa-M" air defense systems, the "Dagger" air defense system was installed, and instead of the "metal cutters" AK-630 - the "Kortik" air defense system. On Atlanta, due to their smaller size, such a modernization is hardly possible.
In addition, the Atlantis PLO was deliberately sacrificed: the fact is that the placement of the most powerful at that time SJSC Polynom increased the ship's displacement by about 1,500 tons (SJSC itself weighs about 800 tons) and this was considered unacceptable. As a result, "Atlant" received a very modest "Platinum", suitable only for self-defense (and even then - not too much). At the same time, the Orlan's underwater search capabilities are not inferior to those of specialized BODs. The presence of a whole air group of three helicopters, no doubt, provides Orlan with much better PLO capabilities, as well as search and tracking of surface targets, than one Atlanta helicopter. In addition, the presence of a nuclear power plant provides "Orlan" with much better opportunities to accompany enemy aircraft carrier groups than Atlanta with its conventional power plant. Atlant, unlike Orlan, has no constructive protection.
An interesting aspect. For a long time it was argued that the weak point of our heavy ships was the BIUS, which was unable to combine the use of the entire variety of weapons installed on cruisers. Perhaps this is so, but the author of this article came across a network of descriptions of exercises in which a heavy nuclear missile cruiser, having received data from an air target from an A-50 AWACS aircraft (the target was not observed from the cruiser), issued target designation to an anti-aircraft missile system of a large anti-submarine ship and that, not observing the air target himself, and using exclusively the control center received from the TARKR, hit it with an anti-aircraft missile. The data, of course, is completely unofficial, but …
Of course, nothing is given for free. The dimensions of the "Orlan" amaze the imagination: the total displacement of 26,000 - 28,000 tons makes it the largest non-aircraft carrier ship in the world (even the Cyclopean SSBN of Project 941 "Akula" is still smaller). Many foreign reference books call Peter the Great a "battlecruiser", that is, a battle cruiser. Without a doubt, it would be correct to adhere to the Russian classification, but … looking at the swift and formidable silhouette of the Orlan and remembering the fusion of speed and firepower that battlecruisers showed the world, one involuntarily thinks: there is something in it.
But such a large and heavily armed ship turned out to be very expensive. According to some reports, the cost of the TARKR in the USSR was 450-500 million rubles, which brought it closer to heavy aircraft-carrying cruisers - the TAVKR project 1143.5 (hereinafter "Kuznetsov") cost 550 million rubles, and the nuclear TAVKR 1143.7 - 800 million. rub.
By and large, Soviet missile cruisers had two fundamental flaws. First, they were not self-sufficient, because their main weapon, anti-ship missiles, could be used at over-the-horizon ranges only for external target designation. For this, the Legend reconnaissance and target designation system was created in the USSR, and it really made it possible to use anti-ship missiles at full range, but with significant restrictions. Passive radar reconnaissance satellites could not always reveal the location of the enemy, and there were never many satellites with active radar in orbit, they did not provide 100% coverage of sea and ocean surfaces. These satellites were very expensive, they carried a powerful radar, which made it possible to control NATO warships from an altitude of 270-290 km, a nuclear reactor as a source of energy for the radar, and also a special booster stage, which, after the satellite exhausted its resource, was supposed to launch its spent reactor into an orbit 500-1000 km from Earth. In principle, even from there, in the end, gravity will pull the reactors back, but this should have happened not earlier than in 250 years. Apparently, in the USSR it was believed that by this time spaceships would already plow the vastness of the Galaxy and we would somehow figure it out with the numerous reactors lying around in the atmosphere.
But it is important that even the USSR could not provide an absolute coverage of the earth's surface with active satellites of the Legend system, which meant that it was necessary to wait for the satellite to pass over the desired area of the sea or ocean. In addition, satellites in relatively low orbits, and even unmasking themselves with strong radiation, could be destroyed by anti-satellite missiles. There were other difficulties, and in general, the system did not guarantee the destruction of enemy AUG in the event of a global conflict. Nevertheless, Soviet missile cruisers remained a formidable weapon, and no American admiral could feel comfortable being within range of the Kirov or Slava missiles.
The second big drawback of domestic RRC and TARKR is their high specialization. By and large, they could destroy enemy ships, lead and control the actions of a detachment of ships, covering them with their powerful air defense systems, but that's all. Such cruisers did not pose any threat to coastal targets - despite the presence of a 130-mm artillery system, bringing such large and expensive ships to hostile shores for artillery shelling was fraught with excessive risk. In theory, a heavy anti-ship missile system could be used to engage ground targets, but in practice this made little sense. According to some reports, the Granit anti-ship missile system cost about the same, or even more expensive than its modern fighter, and few coastal targets were "worthy" of such an expensive ammunition.
In other words, the Soviet concept of combating enemy AUGs: the creation of long-range anti-ship missiles and their carriers (RRC, TARKR, Antey submarine missile carriers), a reconnaissance and target designation system for these missiles (Legend) and, at the same time, the strongest sea ground-based missile-carrying aviation was in terms of costs comparable to the construction of a powerful aircraft carrier fleet, but did not provide the same broad capabilities for the destruction of surface, underwater, air and ground targets as those possessed by aircraft carrier groups.
Today, the capabilities of the missile cruisers of the Russian fleet have significantly decreased. No, they themselves remained the same, and despite the emergence of the latest defensive weapons systems, such as the ESSM or SM-6 anti-aircraft missiles, the author of this article would not at all want to be in the place of the American admiral, on whose flagship aircraft carrier Peter the Great launched two dozen "Granites". But the ability of the Russian Federation to give target designation to heavy anti-ship missiles was greatly reduced: in the USSR there was a "Legend", but it self-destructed when the satellites exhausted their resource, and new ones did not appear, the "Liana" could not be deployed. No matter how much the NATO data exchange systems were extolled, their analogue existed in the USSR fleet (stations for the mutual exchange of information or VZOI) and the missile cruiser could use the data that another ship or plane received. Such a possibility exists even now, but the number of ships and aircraft compared to the times of the USSR has decreased several times. The only progress is the construction of over-the-horizon radar stations (ZGRLS) in the Russian Federation, but whether they can provide target designation for missiles - it is unclear, as far as the author knows, in the USSR they could not issue a CU. In addition, ZGRLS are stationary large-scale objects, which, probably, in the event of a serious conflict, will not be so difficult to damage or destroy.
Nevertheless, today it is the missile cruisers that represent the "fulcrum" of the domestic surface fleets. What are their prospects?
All three Atlantes of Project 1164 are currently in service - one can only regret that at one time it was not possible to agree with Ukraine on the purchase of the fourth cruiser of this project, which is rotting in a high degree of readiness at the outfitting wall. Today this step is impossible, but it would already be pointless - the ship is too old to be completed. At the same time, Project 1164 is literally "stuffed" with weapons and equipment, which made it a very formidable ship, but greatly reduced its modernization capabilities. "Moskva", "Marshal Ustinov" and "Varyag" became part of the Russian fleet in 1983, 1986 and 1989, respectively, today they are 35, 32 and 29 years old. The age is serious, but with timely repair, the RRC data is quite capable of serving up to forty-five years, so that in the next decade not one of them will "retire". Most likely, during this time, the ships will not undergo any radical upgrades, although it is only guesswork to exclude the installation of new anti-ship missiles in old launchers and the improvement of the Fort air defense system.
But with the TARKR, the situation is far from being so rosy. As we said above, today work is underway at the Admiral Nakhimov, and its modernization is quite global. It is more or less reliably known about the replacement of the Granit anti-ship missile system with the UVP for 80 modern missiles, such as Caliber, Onyx and, in the future, Zircon. As for the air defense system, initially there were many rumors in the press about the installation of the Polyment-Redut system on the TARKR. Perhaps, initially, such plans existed, but then, apparently, they were abandoned, or perhaps it was originally the speculation of journalists. The fact is that the Redoubt is still nothing more than a medium-range air defense system, and complexes based on the S-300 have a much longer arm. Therefore, the most realistic information seems to be that "Admiral Nakhimov" will receive "Fort-M", like the one that was installed on "Peter the Great". It can also be assumed that the complex will be adapted to use the latest missiles used in the S-400, although this is not a fact. "Metal cutters" AK-630 will be replaced, according to available data, with the ZRAK "Dagger-M". In addition, it was planned to install an anti-torpedo complex "Packet-NK".
About the terms of repair and modernization. Generally speaking, the TARKR "Admiral Nakhimov" has been at Sevmash since 1999, and in 2008 spent nuclear fuel was unloaded from it. In fact, the ship was laid down rather than being repaired. The contract for the modernization was signed only in 2013, but the preparatory repair work began earlier - from the moment it became clear that the contract would be concluded. It was assumed that the cruiser would be delivered to the fleet in 2018, then in 2019, then the date of 2018 was again named, then 2020, and now, according to the latest data, it will be 2021. In other words, even if we assume that the terms will once again not "go" to the right, and counting the start of repairs from the moment of the conclusion of the contract (and not from the actual date of the start of repairs), it turns out that the repair of "Admiral Nakhimov" will take 8 years.
A little about the cost. In 2012, Anatoly Shlemov, head of the state defense order department of the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC), said that the repair and modernization of the cruiser would cost 30 billion rubles, and the purchase of new weapon systems would cost 20 billion rubles, that is, the total cost of work on Admiral Nakhimov Will amount to 50 billion rubles. But you need to understand that these were only preliminary figures.
We have long been accustomed to the situation when the terms of repairs of ships and the cost of their repairs significantly increase from the initial ones. Usually shipbuilders are accused of this, they say they have forgotten how to work, and their appetites are growing, but such a reproach is not entirely true, and anyone who worked in production will understand me.
The thing is that a full assessment of the cost of repairs can be made only when the unit being repaired is disassembled and it is clear what exactly needs to be repaired and what needs to be replaced. But in advance, without disassembling the unit, determining the cost of its repair is akin to fortune telling on the coffee grounds. In this "fortune-telling" the so-called preventive maintenance schedules greatly help, but on one condition - when they are executed in a timely manner. But there was a problem with the repair of ships of the fleet back in the USSR, and after 1991 it, one might say, disappeared - due to the absence of any repairs.
And now, when a decision is made to modernize this or that ship, a kind of "pig in a poke" arrives at the shipyard and it is almost impossible to guess right away what needs to be repaired and what does not. The real volumes of repairs are revealed already in the course of its implementation, and, of course, these "discoveries" increase both the repair time and its cost. The author of this article is not trying, of course, to portray shipbuilders as "white and fluffy", there are enough of their own problems, but the shift in terms and cost has not only subjective, but also quite objective reasons.
Therefore, it should be understood that the 50 billion rubles announced by Anatoly Shlemov in 2012 is only a preliminary estimate of the cost of repair and modernization of Admiral Nakhimov, which will increase significantly in the process of carrying out the work. But even the indicated 50 billion rubles. in today's prices, if we recalculate through the official data on inflation (and not through real inflation), they amount to 77.46 billion rubles, and taking into account the "natural" increase in the cost of repairs - perhaps not less than 85 billion rubles, or maybe and more.
In other words, the repair and modernization of the TARKR project 1144 "Atlant" is an extremely time-consuming and costly thing. If we try to express its cost in comparable values, then the return of the “Admiral Nakhimov” to service will cost us more than three frigates of the “Admiral's” series, or, for example, more expensive than building a submarine of the Yasen-M type.
The next "candidate" for modernization is the TARKR "Peter the Great". The cruiser, which entered service in 1998 and has not undergone major repairs since then, it is time to make a "capital", and if so, then at the same time it is also worth modernizing it. But "Admiral Lazarev", obviously, will not be modernized, and there are several reasons for this. First, as mentioned above, the cost of modernization is extremely high. Secondly, today in the Russian Federation only Sevmash will be able to carry out repairs and modernization of this level of complexity, and in the next 8-10 years it will be occupied by Admiral Nakhimov and Peter the Great. And thirdly, "Admiral Lazarev" entered service in 1984, today it is already 34 years old. Even if it is put at the shipyard right now, and taking into account that it will stay there for at least 7-8 years, then after modernization it will hardly be able to serve more than 10-12 years. At the same time, "Ash", built for about the same money and at the same time, will last at least 40 years. Thus, even the immediate repair of "Admiral Lazarev" is a rather dubious undertaking, and even undertaking its repair in a few years will make no sense at all. Unfortunately, all of the above applies to the lead TARKR "Admiral Ushakov" ("Kirov").
In general, we can say the following: for some time the situation with missile cruisers in the Russian Federation has stabilized. In recent years, we had three ships of this class ready "for march and battle": "Peter the Great", "Moscow" and "Varyag" were on the move, "Marshal Ustinov" was undergoing repairs and modernization. Now "Ustinov" is back in operation, but "Moscow" is long overdue for repairs, then, probably, the "Varyag" will be repaired. At the same time, “Peter the Great” will be replaced by “Admiral Nakhimov”, so we can expect that in the next 10 years we will have two permanent cruisers of Project 1164 and one of Project 1144. But in the future, the Atlantes will gradually leave. to retire - after a decade, their service life will be 39-45 years., but the "Admiral Nakhimov", perhaps, will remain in the fleet until 2035-2040.
Will there be a replacement for them?
This may sound seditious, but it is completely unclear if we need missile cruisers as a class of warships. It is clear that today the Russian Navy needs ANY warship, because their numbers have already broken through the bottom long ago and in its current state the fleet cannot ensure the fulfillment of even such a key task as covering the SSBN deployment areas. In addition, it should be understood that in the future, with the economic policy that the country's leadership is pursuing today, we will not have any rivers of abundance in our budget, and if we want to get a capable and somewhat adequate Navy, then they must choose the types of ships taking into account the criterion "cost-effectiveness".
At the same time, it is extremely doubtful that the class of missile cruisers satisfies this criterion. For ten years there have been talks about the creation of a promising destroyer, and after the start of the implementation of GPV 2011-2020, some details about the future project appeared. From them it became quite clear that, in fact, not a destroyer was being designed, but a universal missile and artillery surface combat ship equipped with powerful strike weapons (cruise missiles of various types), zonal air defense, the basis of which was to be the S-400 air defense system, if not the S -500, anti-submarine weapons, etc. However, such universalism obviously does not fit into the dimensions of the destroyer (7-8 thousand tons of standard displacement), respectively, at the very beginning it was said that the displacement of the ship of the new project would be 10-14 thousand tons. In the future, this trend continued - according to the latest data, the displacement of the Leader-class destroyer is 17.5-18.5 thousand tons, while its armament (again, according to unverified rumors) will be 60 anti-ship winged, 128 anti-aircraft and 16 anti-submarine missiles. In other words, this ship, in size and combat power, occupying an intermediate position between the modernized Orlan and Atlant and having a nuclear power plant, is a full-fledged missile cruiser. According to the plans announced in the open press, it was planned to build 10-12 such ships, but the more modest figures of 6-8 units in the series also "slipped through".
But what is the cost of implementing such a program? We have already seen that the repair and modernization of the TARKR, according to preliminary (and clearly underestimated) forecasts, in 2012 cost 50 billion rubles. but it is obvious that building a new ship would have been much more expensive. It would be completely unsurprising if the cost of the Leader destroyer in 2014 prices amounted to 90-120 billion rubles, or even more. At the same time, the cost of a promising Russian aircraft carrier in 2014 was estimated at 100-250 billion rubles. In fact, of course, there were many assessments, but the words of Sergei Vlasov, the general director of Nevsky PKB, in this case are the most weighty:
“I have already said that an American aircraft carrier in the recent past cost 11 billion dollars, that is, 330 billion rubles. Today it is already worth $ 14 billion. Our aircraft carrier will, of course, be cheaper - from 100 to 250 billion rubles. If it is equipped with various weapons, the price will rise sharply, if only anti-aircraft complexes are supplied, the cost will be less”(RIA Novosti).
At the same time, Sergei Vlasov clarified:
"If the future aircraft carrier has a nuclear power plant, then its displacement will be 80-85 thousand tons, and if it is non-nuclear, then 55-65 thousand tons."
The author of this article does not at all call for another "holy war" in the comments between opponents and supporters of aircraft carriers, but only asks to take into account the fact that the implementation of the program of serial construction of destroyers (and in fact - heavy nuclear cruisers) "Leader" at its costs is quite comparable to the program for creating an aircraft carrier fleet.
Let's summarize. Of the seven missile cruisers that did not go under the gas cutter before December 1, 2015, all seven have been preserved to date, but two TARKRs, Admiral Ushakov and Admiral Lazarev, have no chances to return to the fleet. In total, the Russian Navy still has five missile cruisers, of which three non-nuclear (Project 1164) will leave service around 2028-2035, and two nuclear-powered cruisers may well survive even until 2040-2045.
But the problem is that today we have 28 large non-aircraft-carrying ships in the ocean zone: 7 cruisers, 19 destroyers and BODs, and 2 frigates (counting as those of the Project 11540 TFR). Most of them were commissioned back in the days of the USSR, and only a small number of them were laid down in the USSR and completed in the Russian Federation. They are becoming obsolete physically and morally and require replacement, but there is no replacement: to this day, not a single large surface ship of the ocean zone has been built in the Russian Federation (from laying to delivery to the fleet). The only replenishment that the fleet can rely on in the next 6-7 years is four frigates of Project 22350, but you need to understand that these are frigates, that is, ships inferior in class to a destroyer, not to mention a missile cruiser. Yes, we can say that the armament of frigates of the type "Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Gorshkov" significantly exceeds what, for example, our destroyers of Project 956 had. type "Spruance", in response to which they were created. But the frigate "Gorshkov", with all its undoubted merits, is absolutely no match for the modern version of the "Arlie Burke" with its 96 cells UVP, anti-ship missiles LRASM and zonal air defense based on the SM-6 missile defense system.
Project Leader destroyers were positioned as a replacement for Project 1164 missile cruisers, Project 956 destroyers and Project 1155 BOD, but where are these Leaders? It was speculated that the first ship of the series would be laid down by 2020, but this remained well-intentioned. As for the new GPV 2018-2025 - at first there were rumors that the "Leaders" were removed from there completely, then there was a refutation that work on them would be carried out, but funding (and the pace of work) under this program was cut. Will at least the first "Leader" be laid by 2025? Mystery. A reasonable alternative to the "Leader" could be the construction of frigates of project 22350M (in fact - "Gorshkov", increased to the size of the destroyer of project 21956, or "Arleigh Burke", if you like). But so far we do not have a project, but even a technical assignment for its development.
There is only one conclusion from all of the above. The surface oceanic fleet, inherited by the Russian Federation from the USSR, is dying, and, alas, nothing is replacing it. We still have a little time to somehow rectify the situation, but it is rapidly ending.
