Mine-sweeping forces of the domestic fleet … Usually the articles of the cycle offered to your attention are created according to a certain template. A certain class of ships is taken, the composition and capabilities of those representatives of this class, which are currently part of the Russian Navy, are being studied, and their decommissioning is predicted. And then the possibilities and the number of new ships of the same class that the Russian Federation is building or is going to lay down in the near future are being studied. All this is compared, after which a conclusion is made about the sufficiency or insufficiency of our forces for the next 10-15 years.
In the case of domestic mine-sweeping forces, this scheme does not work. No, of course, the Russian Navy has both naval and base minesweepers and roadstead minesweepers, and in a fairly significant number. The problem is that, despite the presence of ships, there are no mine-sweeping forces in the Russian Federation capable of dealing with a somewhat modern threat.
Why did this happen?
It is no secret that today the fighting efficiency of the fleet is still based on ships laid down and built under the Soviet Union. SSBN? They are still based on the "Dolphins" of the 667BDRM project, made in the USSR. Multipurpose nuclear submarines? "Pike-B", made in the USSR. Submarine missile carriers? Project 949A "Antey", made in the USSR. Missile cruisers? Large anti-submarine ships? Diesel submarines? Our only aircraft carrier?
Made in USSR.
But with the minesweepers, alas, they blundered in the USSR. And by 1991 we had, albeit a numerous, but already outdated trawling fleet, which already then was not able to solve the tasks facing it. Of course, the USSR worked to overcome this lag, but it did not have time, and "bequeathed" it to the Russian Federation, but here …
However, first things first.
From the very inception of the mine-sweeping forces and until about the 70s of the last century, the main method of destroying mines was trawls, towed by specialized ships - minesweepers. At first, the trawls were contact (their principle was based on cutting the minerail - the cable connecting the mine to the anchor), then - non-contact, capable of simulating physical fields in such a way as to force the bottom mines to detonate. However, mine work was continuously improved, and the moment came when this scheme became outdated. In the 70s of the twentieth century, a mine-sweeping revolution took place in the west: trawling (that is, towing a trawl through a minefield) was replaced by methods of searching for and destroying mines ahead of the minesweeper's course, and specialized hydroacoustic stations (GAS) were engaged in the search, and the destruction - Unmanned underwater vehicles.
At first, everything was not so bad - at the beginning of the same 70s, the USSR Navy received a complex seeker-destroyer of mines KIU-1. It consisted of a hydroacoustic station MG-79 and STIUM-1 (self-propelled remote-controlled mine seeker-destroyer). KIU-1 is a complex of the first generation, according to its technical characteristics it was quite at the level of imported analogues.
However, then the strange began. Firstly, the fleet accepted the innovation with a creak, preferring the usual towed trawls. Secondly, the development of next-generation anti-mine systems was withdrawn from Leningrad to Uralsk (Kazakh SSR) - and there it was started practically from scratch. As a result, before the collapse of the USSR in 1991, it was possible to create a second-generation STIUM "Ketmen", as far as can be judged - a powerful unit of large size, but alas, with a high level of physical fields, which is absolutely not good for combating the mine threat. "Ketmen" became a part of the KIU-2 complex. In all likelihood, the USSR is already lagging behind the naval forces of the NATO bloc. Work was also started on the 3rd generation STIUM "Route", which were supposed to provide the USSR with parity as tools for mine-sweeping. However, the development of "Route" could not be completed until 1991, and then …
Then there was a failure almost in a decade, and only at the end of the 90s was the corresponding order issued to the State Research and Production Enterprise (GNPP) "Region", which had significant experience in creating uninhabited underwater vehicles and sea underwater weapons. The new complex was supposed to include:
1) Automated Mine Action System (ACS PMD) "Sharp"
2) GAS mine detection with a subtle antenna "Livadia"
3) GAS mine detection on the self-propelled remote-controlled underwater vehicle "Livadia STPA"
4) STIUM for the destruction of mines "Mayevka"
Unfortunately, it looks like Livadia STPA has encountered difficulties, instead of it a towed side-scan sonar has been created. Everything would be fine, but with such a GAS, the minesweeper loses the ability to conduct mine reconnaissance along the course of the ship. According to other sources, "Livadia STPA" nevertheless in the end worked as it should, but the author, unfortunately, does not have exact data on this score.
And now we will interrupt for a while the description of the twists and turns of domestic mine action systems and list the minesweepers as part of the Russian Navy. In total, our fleet includes three types of minesweepers:
1) Marine - the largest, capable of performing sweeping operations at a great distance from their native shores, including accompanying ships of the fleet on long voyages, 2) Basic - for operations in the closed seas, ensure the safety of approaches to the bases of the fleet.
3) Raid - for actions within the water area of ports, on roadsteads, in rivers.
Let's start at the end. As of December 1, 2015, the Russian Navy included 31 roadstead minesweepers (RTShch), including: RTShch project 697TB (2 units), RTShch project 13000 (4 units), RTShch project 12592 (4 units), RT-168 project 1253 (1 pc), RTShch-343 project 1225.5 (1 pc), RTShch project 1258 (10 pc) and RTShch project 10750 (9 pc). All these ships have from 61, 5 to 135 tons of displacement, speed from 9 to 12, 5 knots, artillery armament in the form of one installation of a 30-mm or 25-mm machine gun or 12, 7-mm machine gun "Utes", on some of these, the placement of MANPADS is provided.
As exotic, two RTShch project 697TB, created on the basis of small fishing trawlers, are of some interest.
Moreover, perhaps, four minesweepers of Project 13000, which are radio-controlled unmanned boats - minefield breakers.
But alas - with the exception of nine ships of Project 10750, all ships of this subclass can only use towed trawls, which means that they are completely outdated. In essence, it no longer matters when they were created and how long they can remain in the ranks - the only important thing is that they are not able to fight not even the modern mine threat, but even the mines of the 80s of the last century.
The situation is a little better with the minesweepers of Project 10750.
They were originally built taking into account the use of the KIU-1 or KIU-2M Anaconda anti-mine complex on them (the latter using the Ketmen STIUM.
There were 22 basic minesweepers (BTShch) in the Russian fleet, including 19 projects 12650 and 3 projects 12655, however, these projects do not have any fundamental differences.
The standard displacement of the ships is 390 tons, the speed is 14 knots, and the cruising range is up to 1,700 miles. Initially, they were armed with one paired 30-mm gun mount in the bow and one 25-mm gun mount in the stern, later they began to install 30-mm six-barreled AK-630 guns instead. The "highlight" of the project was a wooden case - fiberglass at that time was not yet sufficiently mastered by the industry. As an anti-mine means, BTShch can carry either KIU-1 or towed trawls of various types. Due to the lowered level of physical fields (tree!) And the newest for the 70s (and it was then that the construction of the minesweepers of this project began), the mine action system, which was then the KIU-1, could be considered one of the best minesweepers in the world. All 22 ships of this type entered service in the 80s - early 90s of the last century, and only Magomed Gadzhiev in 1997.
And finally, sea minesweepers. We had 13 of them as of December 1, 2015, including:
MTShch project 1332 - 1 unit.
A former fishing trawler, in 1984-85 was re-equipped in Arkhangelsk. The standard displacement is 1,290 tons, the speed is 13.3 knots, the armament is 2 double-barreled 25-mm assault rifles, two MRG-1 grenade launchers.
MTShch project 266M - 8 units.
Standard displacement - 745 tons, speed - 17 knots, cruising range - 3,000 miles, armament - two 30-mm "metal cutters" AK-630, two 25-mm machine guns, 2 RBU-1200, MANPADS "Igla-1". Of all the MTShch project 266M in the Russian Navy, only 2 ships of this type entered service in 1989, the rest - back in the 70s of the twentieth century. For their time they were very good, they could use the KIU-1, today six ships of this type have been in service for 40 years or more, and the two youngest are 29 years old.
MTShch project 12660 - 2 units.
The standard displacement is 1,070 tons, the speed is 15.7 knots, the cruising range is 1,500 miles, the armament is one 76-mm AK-176 and AK-630M gun mounts, 2 * 4 PU MANPADS "Strela-3". Mine action - KIU-2 with STIUM "Ketmen"
MTShch project 266ME - 1 unit. "Valentin Pikul". Similar in its performance characteristics with the ships of the 266M project, possibly intended for more modern mine-sweeping weapons (KIU-2?), Entered the fleet in 2001
MTShch project 02668 - 1 unit "Vice-Admiral Zakharyin".
The standard displacement is 791 tons, the speed is 17 knots, one 30-mm AK-306, two 14.5-mm machine guns, Igla-1 MANPADS. It is a MTShch project 266ME adapted for a new anti-mine complex with STIUM "Mayevka". Commissioned in 2009
So what do we have? Formally, we have as many as 56 minesweepers of various types, but if you look a little more closely, it turns out that of them, only 34 ships can use modern methods of trawling, that is, the use of unmanned underwater vehicles. It seems to be not bad either - but if you forget that 21 ships from the above can only use the KIU-1, that is, the equipment of the 70s. But only 13 ships are capable of fighting the same "Captors" (at least theoretically), of which 9 are raid minesweepers with a displacement of 135 tons, ie. they are completely non-seaworthy.
However, if you listen to the words of people directly associated with the mine business, then the picture looms much more gloomy. The fact is that for some reason the leadership of the Navy underestimated the modern means of searching and destroying mines, and, despite the emergence of the newest KIU, preferred to use the old, good, time-tested trawls. KIU (complex mine finder-destroyer) in the fleet were used almost on an initiative basis by individual enthusiastic officers, and all official tasks were set and solved by towed trawls - in other words, the USSR Navy, despite the presence of remotely controlled underwater vehicles, did not acquire how many -that rich experience in dealing with mine risk through KIA.
In the Russian Federation, these trends have only intensified. And therefore, despite the presence of ships that could theoretically use KIU, in practice they were used only by two minesweepers - "Valentin Pikul" and "Vice-Admiral Zakharyin". On the first, the container version of the new KIU with STIUM (self-propelled remote-controlled mine seeker-destroyer) "Mayevka" was tested, on the second - the ship version.
The first one is interesting in that it can be installed on almost any ship, not even a minesweeper, but, as far as the author knows, this specimen was removed after testing from "Valentin Pikul", and on "Vice-Admiral Zakharyin" operation collided with either technical, or with some other problems.
In other words, as of December 1, 2015, the Russian Navy had ONE minesweeper with some modern anti-mine weapons. And, perhaps, there were none.
What does this mean? For example, the impossibility of withdrawing strategic missile submarines from bases in combat conditions, because no one interferes with American nuclear submarines from placing mines in a threatened period.
Here, however, the question arises - how could it have happened in general? And here we return to the description of the misadventures of domestic KIU.
The fact is that by about 2009 we had a relatively modern 3rd generation KIU - a combination of "Dieza", "Livadia" and "Mayevka", which was developed instead of the "Route" being created in Kazakhstan. Judging by the table below, among its foreign "classmates", "Mayevka" did not shine with "unmatched in the world" indicators.
And so, as far as one can assume from information from open sources, there was a clash of interests of the three groups.
The first group - the creators of Mayevka - naturally advocated that their system, which, by the way, passed all the required state tests and was adopted for service, went into mass production.
The second is the designers of a new complex to combat the mine threat, called "Alexandrite-ISPUM". This system is the next, 4th generation, which, in terms of its functionality, was supposed to reach the world level.
And, finally, the third group, which saw no reason to tinker with domestic developments, but preferred to buy self-propelled guided underwater vehicles in France.
As a result, it turned out that by GPV 2011-2020 we had, albeit not the best in the world, but still a fully operational complex "Diez" / "Livadia" / "Mayevka", which passed state tests and is ready for serial production. Perhaps this complex had some problems, but again, judging by the information in the open press, there was nothing that could not be corrected during operation. In other words, we had a mine-sweeping force of about six dozen minesweepers, "stuck" in their combat qualities somewhere in the 60s and completely incapable of fighting not only a modern, but even a mine threat of level 90 -s of the last century. And a relatively modern mine action complex, which, perhaps, did not have enough stars from the sky, but was still quite workable - but which was not on the minesweepers we have.
So, we could choose "tit in hand" - simply put, to modernize our least old sea, base and raid minesweepers, replacing the equipment (or using the place where it should have been) KIU-1 and 2 "Sharp," Mayevka "and "Livadia". We could, in addition to the existing old ships, build a small series of cheap basic minesweepers based on the same project 12650, with its wooden hull. Thus, today we would have received, albeit not the best in the world, but still more or less adequate mine-sweeping forces, capable with a high degree of probability of ensuring the entry and exit of our surface and submarine forces from naval bases.
But instead, we preferred the "pie in the sky" - having waved our hand at the "Mayevka", continued the development of "Alexandrite-ISPUM", and developed a new type of minesweepers under the project 12700 "Alexandrite". At the same time, at least, the lead ships of the series were supposed to receive French systems for searching and destroying mines until Alexandrite-ISPUM was ready, and when it was still ready … Well, it could have turned out differently, because under the minister Defense of Serdyukov, the refusal from domestic developments in favor of import supplies was, as they say now, the most fashionable trend in our country.
For the sake of fairness, it should be noted that the supporters of the "French roll" also had logical reasons for their position. The thing is that remote-controlled vehicles in combination with GAS for finding mines turned out to be quite effective anti-mine weapons. Accordingly, mines have received technology that prevents this method of trawling. It looked like this - when setting a minefield, most of the mines were placed in the calculation of enemy surface and submarine ships, but some of them were supposed to play the role of "mine defenders" - they exploded when approaching underwater vehicles for mine clearance.
Of course, such an approach complicated trawling, but still did not make it impossible. For example, it would be possible to use surface drones to initiate the detonation of the "mine defenders", and then, when the "defenders" are neutralized, to sweep in the usual way. Or it was possible to create underwater kamikaze vehicles, which, at the cost of their death, would cause the mine defenders to undermine, after which the "real" underwater remote-controlled vehicles would no longer be threatened. Perhaps there were also other options for dealing with the "mine defenders", but we had none of this.
The enthusiasm of our fleet with old, towed trawls did not allow us to gain much-needed experience in operating remote-controlled underwater vehicles, respectively, with the appearance of "mine defenders" there was a feeling that even promising domestic STIUMs were outdated, and we have some fundamentally new means of dealing with the new threat not even in development. At the same time, foreign military thought followed the "kamikaze" path, creating disposable mine destroyers. Their advantage was that with the help of such a "kamikaze" mine was destroyed quickly and very reliably, the disadvantage - the device cost much more than any mine.
That is why the position of the supporters of the "French" version: "Let's buy foreign super-equipment, and not wait until our military-industrial complex creates another" neither a mouse, nor a frog, but an unknown animal "nevertheless had a perverted logic under it. from "Aleksandrite-ISPUM" (ulita is coming - someday there will be) foreign underwater vehicles have actually proven their worth. On the basis of which we could improve our own developments, it would be a very reasonable decision. However, as far as the author could understand, the supporters of purchasing French equipment were talking about something completely different - about the complete replacement of domestic developments with imports.
In general, we tried to purchase in France the entire range of required equipment - judging by the weapons offered for the Project 12700 minesweepers for export, each minesweeper should have received:
1) Two autonomous anti-mine underwater vehicles of the Alister 9 type with a working depth of up to 100 meters;
2) Two remote-controlled unmanned underwater vehicles of the K-Ster Inspector type with a working depth of up to 300 meters;
3) Ten disposable remote-controlled K-Ster Mine Killer submersibles.
Alas - then everything went in full accordance with the popular proverb, and instead of "pie in the sky", we got a "duck under the bed."
The head minesweeper of Project 12700, "Alexander Obukhov", was laid down on September 22, 2011, was launched in June 2014, and entered service only in 2016.
Yes, only he did not receive any French equipment - due to the sanctions, it was forbidden to supply modern trawling systems to the Russian Federation.
Thus, we got the latest, very large (full displacement - 800 tons) and has no analogues in the world minesweeper. Don't laugh, it really has no analogues - its hull was formed by the method of vacuum infusion, and a world record was set, as its length was 62 meters and "Alexander Obukhov" became the largest ship in the world made using this technology.
The fiberglass hull gives the minesweeper advantages by significantly reducing the level of its physical fields. Even taking into account the fact that a modern ship of this class does not have to climb into a minefield by itself, this is an extremely useful bonus, because all kinds of things happen at sea and additional protection for a minesweeper will never be superfluous.
However, its main anti-mine weapon remains the same towed trawls, conceptually obsolete in the 70s of the last century. However, this is not a completely correct statement, because unmanned boats also entered service with the "Alexander Obukhov".
Do they not allow you to buy anti-mine complexes abroad? Let's buy an unmanned boat, since for some reason the restrictions on sanctions did not apply to it. Moreover, the French "device" turned out to be really quite interesting: it has as many as two GAS, one of which is designed to detect mines at a depth of 10 m (old anchor mines), and the other - at a depth of up to 100 m, including bottom, and can operate at a distance of 10 km from the carrier ship! In addition, the "Inspector" is able to "control" (more precisely, to relay control from the minesweeper) to the K-Ster Mine Killer underwater mine destroyers.
However, the K-Ster Mine Killers themselves were never sold to us. The reasons why the French Navy was not at all interested in the brainchild of the "gloomy French genius" called Inspector-MK2 have not been announced. At the time of the transaction, the manufacturing firm did not sell a single "Inspector" to any country in the world. Against this information background, questions about whether a competition was held among foreign manufacturers of such equipment, whether an optimal offer was chosen, and whether Inspector-MK2 passed state tests in the Russian Federation, clearly turn into rhetorical. In the end, we should have bought at least something from the French, because the funds have been allocated for this! And so, in 2015, the Prominvest company, which is part of the Rostec corporation, concludes a contract for the supply of 4 Inspectors. Two of them were delivered to our fleet right in the same 2015, but about the second pair - it is unclear, perhaps they were never delivered to the fleet (did the French remember about the sanctions?)
But, be that as it may, a couple of "Inspectors" joined the composition of our fleet. Does this mean that the lead ship of the Project 12700 series of minesweepers still received modern anti-mine weapons? Unfortunately no.
The problem is that buyers somehow did not pay attention to the geometric dimensions of the "Frenchman". Unfortunately, they do not allow the Inspector-MK2 to be lifted aboard the Project 12700 minesweeper.
As a result, "Alexander Obukhov", of course, can take the "Inspectors" in tow … or put a crew there (there is such an opportunity) so that they take French boats to the desired area, and then, before trawling, take people out of there. The main thing is that the excitement does not happen, because in this case, transferring from a 9-meter boat will become another problem …
There is one more "funny" nuance. Someone might say that we, they say, bought Inspector-MK2 in order to get acquainted with the best foreign technologies, see what they are doing abroad and adjust our own developments. But the problem is that the French "Inspector" is optimized for searching for mines at shallow depths (up to 100 m), that is, it does not cover the entire spectrum of mine defense tasks at all (today, some mines can be deployed at 400 meters). Accordingly, its acquisition (with the subsequent … ehhkm … replication) could only solve the particular tasks of trawling the waters of naval bases and approaches to them (where the depth is appropriate). But these boats were purchased for a very large sea minesweeper, which is completely contraindicated to work at shallow and ultra-shallow depths!
Today we are designing unmanned boats "Typhoon", which should surpass the French "Inspectors" in their capabilities, but … let's start with the fact that the technology of construction of Project 12700 minesweepers, which has no analogues in the world, with all their advantages, have one drawback - they are banally expensive. The cost of "Alexander Obukhov" is not known for certain, but the bmpd blog provides data on his insurance contract. So, the insured value of the head minesweeper of Project 12700 is “from the moment of testing until the transfer of the vessel to the Customer” 5,475,211,968 rubles. Most likely, this is the cost of the newest minesweeper, but it is possible that this insurance contract includes only compensation for the costs of its construction, i.e. the cost of this ship is higher by the sum of the manufacturer's profit and VAT.
But even if 5, 5 billion rubles. - this is the price of a completely finished ship, and - without its main weapon, a mine countermeasures complex (which could only be partially taken into account in the cost of the minesweeper, since the minesweeper was not equipped with anything except for the GAS), then the ships of the project 12700 became for us truly "Gold". And this is exactly what, apparently, they want to make the Typhoons for them, which already in the basic configuration cost 350 million rubles.
But what is 350 million? Nonsense. Therefore, the manufacturer proposes to equip an unmanned boat with shock modules (!) And / or an unmanned aerial vehicle "Orlan" (!!!). No, do not think badly, the UAV performs an "overriding" function - if without it the range of control of the Typhoon from the minesweeper reaches 20 km (which is clearly more than enough), then from the UAV - as much as 300 km! You can drive the same directly from the St. Petersburg Admiralty into radio-controlled ships! And if they are also equipped with combat modules, then arrange a "sea battle" at the meeting …
We can only be glad that there are no proposals to equip the Typhoon with launchers for Caliber and a landing deck for a promising vertical take-off and landing fighter (although … the author of this article will not be surprised at anything). As a matter of fact, the above advertising poster perfectly characterizes the developers' conscientiousness. As follows from the "header" of the table, they compare their "Typhoon" with Inspector-MK2 … but for some reason in the table itself the performance characteristics of the previous Inspector-MK1 modification are given
And here is the sad result. Today we are building "gold" minesweepers of Project 12700 - one has been commissioned, four more are in different stages of construction, expected until 2020. In December 2016, the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy, Vladimir Korolev, announced that 3 more the slipway they still have not stood up. In addition to them, we are creating at least "golden" unmanned boats of the "Typhoon" type. In the bowels of the research institute, the "gloomy domestic genius" with might and main designs the newest and most modern mine-fighting system "Alexandrite-ISPUM", which, of course, will be the best in the world, but someday later, but for now we must not forget to transfer the funding for the next stage of the R&D project in a timely manner … And by the way, open up new research. Because, due to incomprehensible negligence, "Alexandrite-ISPUM" is developed exclusively in a ship modification, but in a container one - not, therefore, for example, it cannot be installed on our under-corvettes-patrol ships of Project 22160.
And at this time, our only operational complex "Diez" / "Livadia" / "Mayevka" is already on one minesweeper, its container modification, tested on the "Valentin Pikula", according to some reports, was taken out somewhere near Moscow.
Well, what if there is a war? Well, you have to learn from the experience of the Royal Navy. One of the key tasks of Rear Admiral Woodward, who commanded the British aircraft carrier group in 1982 at the Falklands, was to ensure the landing - and bloodless as possible. Everything would be fine, but the approaches to the landing site could be mined, and there was not a single minesweeper in Woodward's compound. New ships of this type were just being tested, and the original British Falklands were not sent to recapture the Argentines.
But how to deal with mine danger? The rear admiral had no choice - he had to send one of his frigates, "Alakriti", so that he could check with his own bottom the presence of mines in the landing zone. In his memoirs, Woodward wrote:
“Now I had a difficult mission to invite Captain 2nd Rank Christopher Craig to contact and say: 'I would like you to go and see if you can drown after being blown up by a mine in the Falklands Strait' tonight…”
The admiral risked a small frigate with a crew of 175 to avoid jeopardizing the landing craft packed with Marines. It is in this way that, if something happens, we will have to withdraw SSBNs into the sea - by launching a multipurpose nuclear submarine in front of them, because the Russian Navy has no other way to protect missile submarine cruisers from modern mines. There is only one nuance - when a British ship was killed in battle, its commander or senior officer, according to tradition, uttered the phrase: “The King has a lot” (“King has a lot”). And even under the Falklands, despite the fact that the Royal Navy in 1982 was only a shadow of its former greatness, this phrase would still be fair in relation to the Alakriti - there were quite a few small frigates left by the Crown.
Alas, this cannot be said about our multipurpose nuclear submarines.
Previous articles in the series:
Russian military fleet. A sad look into the future
Russian military fleet. A sad look into the future (part 2)
Russian military fleet. A sad look into the future. Part 3. "Ash" and "Husky"
Russian military fleet. A sad look into the future. Part 4. "Halibut" and "Lada"
Russian military fleet. A sad look into the future. Part 5. Special purpose boats and this strange UNMISP
Russian military fleet. A sad look into the future. Part 6. Corvettes
Russian military fleet. A sad look into the future. Part 7. Small missile
