In the previous article of the series, we completed the analysis of the state of the Russian submarine fleet. Now let's move on to the surface.
Studying the capabilities of our SSBNs, MAPLs, diesel-electric submarines and this strange EGSONPO, we paid special attention to the ability of the Russian Navy to solve its most important, strategic task, namely, the task of delivering a large-scale and crushing nuclear missile strike against the aggressor country. For this, the fleet must have modern types of SSBNs and ballistic missiles for submarines, and, in addition, must ensure the combat stability of strategic missile submarine cruisers until they use nuclear weapons.
Therefore, we will begin the description of surface ships with light forces intended for operations in the near sea zone and capable of assisting other forces in ensuring the security of the SSBN deployment areas. In other words, in this article we will talk about corvettes.
First, a little history. In the USSR, anti-submarine defense in the near sea zone was occupied by patrol ships, as well as small anti-submarine ships, and boats. SKR were represented by a very successful project 1135 and its modifications.
In the standard displacement of 2,810 tons, domestic designers were able to fit the stationary GAS MG-332 "Titan-2", towed by the GAS MG-325 "Vega", which was quite good for its time, and the most powerful anti-submarine weapons, which included a quad launcher of the URPK-4 anti-submarine missile system. "Blizzard", two four-tube torpedo tubes and bombs. In addition, the ships had a pair of Osa-M self-defense air defense systems and two twin 76-mm installations. These ships received gas turbine running gear and were deservedly loved by sailors for their reliability, high combat and seaworthiness. In total, the USSR built 21 ships according to project 1135 and 11 more - according to the improved project 1135M, and, in addition, 7 ships were built according to project 1135.1 "Nereus" for the border troops of the KGB of the USSR, whose anti-submarine capabilities were weakened, but which, if necessary, also could be involved for PLO water areas.
Small anti-submarine ships were presented:
Project 1124: very good ships for their time.
Of course, in the standard displacement of 830 tons it was impossible to accommodate a powerful GAS (the famous "Polynom" just weighed about 800 tons), but nevertheless the MPK had two sonar stations with a sub-keel and a lowered antenna, and as the main anti-submarine weapon - four 533 -mm torpedoes. It is unlikely that the individual search capabilities of the IPC boggled the imagination, but this was atoned for by their large numbers - since 1970, 37 ships of this type entered the USSR fleet. The MPK turned out to be quite successful, and therefore, starting from 1982, their improved versions were put into operation - 31 ships were built according to projects 1124M and 1124MU. They received more advanced GAS, and with the same main armament (two twin-tube torpedo tubes) and somewhat enhanced self-defense weapons - the improved Osa-MA air defense system (and not the Osa-M on Project 1124 ships), 76-mm (and not 57 mm) gun mount, 30 mm "metal cutter" AK-630M. And besides this, another MPK was built according to project 1124K, on which the Osa air defense system was replaced by the Dagger. In total, the USSR Navy received 69 ships of projects 1124, 1124M / MU and K. As in the case with the patrol ships of the project 1135, these IPCs "liked" the KGB, which built a certain number to protect the sea borders of the USSR. But, since they still did not belong to the navy, we will not take into account the "KGB fleet".
Project 1331M: these ships were designed in the GDR, with the help of the Zelenodolsk Design Bureau.
In general, the ships turned out to be not very successful and were inferior to the IPC of the 1124 family. Nevertheless, 12 IPC of this type were added to the composition of the USSR fleet.
The ships of the above projects had a standard displacement of more than 800 tons, but then we will consider the MPK of a much smaller size, up to 450 tons - therefore it makes sense to classify them as anti-submarine boats (although in the USSR Navy they were listed exactly as MPK)
Project 11451: A highly original design for a 320-ton hydrofoil ship.
As conceived by the developers, he was supposed to quickly go to the area where the submarine was seen, look for it with the help of the Zvezda M1-01 (MG-369) lowered GAS and destroy it, for which it was armed with four 400-mm torpedoes. It was considered extremely useful for the Black Sea, before the collapse of the Union, they managed to build 2 such boats
Project 12412 was an anti-submarine version of a missile boat with a standard displacement of 420 tons.
Received on armament SJSC "Bronza" with a keel and drop-towed antennas, 4 * 400-mm torpedoes, 76-mm and 30-mm artillery systems. For the USSR Navy, 16 such ships were built (another 20 for the USSR KGB).
So, in total, 32 patrol ships (excluding KGB ships), 81 small anti-submarine ships and 18 IPCs, which we decided to consider as anti-submarine boats, were commissioned in the USSR, and a total of 131 ships. The author of this article does not have data on how many of them remained in the fleet today, but as of December 1, 2015, the Russian Navy included:
Project 1135 / 1135M patrol ships - 2 units: Ladny and Pytlivy
MPK project 1124 / 1124M: 2 and 18 units, respectively.
MPK project 1331M - 7 units.
There are no anti-submarine boats at all.
A total of 29 ships.
Also in the Russian fleet are two patrol ships of project 11540 ("Undaunted" and "Yaroslav the Wise") and the last "singing frigate" of project 01090 "Sharp-witted", but according to the author, within the framework of the "corvette-frigate" classification, they are more likely to be frigates, rather than corvettes, and will not be considered within the framework of this article.
Obviously, the capabilities of the surface forces of ASW have decreased by several times in comparison with the times of the late USSR. But the problem, in essence, is not even that the number of domestic anti-submarine ships has decreased by 4, 5 times. Even if, by a wave of a magic wand, they suddenly returned to the ranks of the fleet today, their effectiveness against modern means of submarine warfare, such as the 4th generation nuclear submarine, could not be high. Having been commissioned before the collapse of the USSR, today they would have a very respectable age of about 30 years or more, and they, in any case, in the very near future it would be time to retire.
Therefore, it is absolutely not surprising that the state armaments program for 2011-2020 planned the construction of as many as 35 corvettes. And, no doubt, such an ambitious number of coastal zone warships could indeed significantly restore the surface PLO component of our Navy.
However, this did not happen.
GPV-2011-2020 assumed the commissioning of six corvettes of project 20380 and twelve - of project 20385, and then the transition to the construction of ships of a new type. Such plans were completely justified, because, firstly, the development of the technical project 20380 was completed back in 2001, so by the end of GPV-2011-2020, the ship was not the last word in naval science and technology. And secondly, project 20380 and its modernized version 20385 can hardly be called successful ships.
Since in the past we have already described the shortcomings of this project, this time we will limit ourselves to a brief listing of them.
The first drawback is the armament inadequate for the corvette's tasks. Firstly, the ships are simply overloaded with weapons, although in fairness we note that the founder of the series, the Guarding corvette, suffered from this disadvantage to the least extent. Moreover, a helicopter, eight Uran-U anti-ship missiles, a Kortik-M air defense missile system, a 100-mm AU and two 30-mm metal cutters, together with eight tubes of the Paket-NK small torpedo complex looked quite reasonable in the standard displacement 1,800 tons. In general, a fairly balanced ship with universal armament was obtained. It would have looked very good as an export ship for third world countries, but in terms of its combat capabilities, it did little to meet the needs of the Russian Navy.
"Uranus" were too weak to use the corvette as a strike ship, and in general, the use of a sufficiently large, but not too fast (27 knots) ship raises serious doubts. But there is no doubt that enemy submarines will become the main enemy of our corvettes, and "Guarding" carries quite powerful (for its size) hydroacoustic systems to detect them. But at the same time, the corvette lacks any adequate anti-submarine weapons: the "Packet-NK" installed on it is more of an anti-torpedo than an anti-submarine complex: although its 324-mm torpedoes are capable of attacking enemy boats at a distance of 20 km, their speed is is only 30 knots, although the maximum torpedo speed of this complex is 50 knots. Air defense "Guarding" would be sufficient provided that the "Kortika-M" was brought to a working state (there is information that the complex experienced problems both with missiles and with artillery "completion" of the target after its attack with missiles) or replacing it with a naval version "Shell".
Alas, the development of the project 20380 corvettes went in a completely different direction - they tried to install the Redut anti-aircraft missile system on the ship. Of course, there was no way to put on a ship of such a small displacement the multifunctional radar "Polyment", which was supposed to control the fire of this air defense system. As a result, the task of issuing target designation and adjusting missiles in flight (until their homing head captures the target) was attempted to be assigned to the standard General Purpose Radar "Furke-2", which is not intended for this at all. According to some, unverified data, today a somewhat effective control of missiles is provided with the help of the Puma artillery fire control radar, but this is not certain.
With the improvement of the corvette according to project 20385, its armament underwent significant changes: two light four-barreled Uran-U anti-ship missiles were replaced with a vertical launcher for eight Caliber missiles, and the number of Reduta cells was brought to 16 (on Project 20380 ships was 12), in addition, a new radar was used to control the air defense system. To a certain extent, anti-submarine capabilities have also grown, because the Caliber cruise missile family also includes torpedo missiles (91P1 and 91RT2). But here the "rebellion of admirals" began, because with such weapons the cost of corvettes 20385 reached the price of frigates of the "admiral" series (project 11356Р), which was completely unacceptable. A corvette must be relatively cheap to be massive, otherwise there is no point in creating ships of this class. Moreover, in terms of their combat capabilities, seaworthiness, and cruising range, the 11356R frigates left the 20385 corvettes far behind.
The second disadvantage is the use of a diesel power plant. The fact is that of the four types of power plants: nuclear, gas-tube, steam-turbine and diesel, the shipbuilders of the USSR have perfectly mastered the first two. There was no point in creating diesel engines for any large surface warships, and without that the USSR Navy experienced enough problems with the variety of weapons and equipment. Moreover, ship diesel engines are surprisingly difficult, we can say that in the world only Germans and Finns have succeeded in such diesel engines. Nevertheless, for the corvettes of the 20380 project, a diesel power plant was adopted. Realizing that one should not rely on one's own forces, they intended to equip domestic warships with German MTU diesel engines. But, after the introduction of sanctions, they had to abandon the use of the brainchild of the "gloomy Teutonic genius" and switch to the products of the domestic Kolomna plant. Which makes good diesel engines for electric locomotives, but their ship "products" are significantly inferior to the German ones in terms of reliability.
In general, it can be stated that the project 20380/20385 corvettes did not work out of the corvettes of the project 20380/20385 suitable for mass construction, a reliable "horse" for the coastal seas. An unsuccessful choice of weapons, an inoperative anti-aircraft missile system, an unreliable chassis … And you can't say that the project had absolutely no merit. The designers managed to solve the rather non-trivial task of placing a helicopter hangar on a ship of such a small displacement, to provide low radar visibility to place a very numerous hydroacoustic weapons … but alas, all this did not make the project 20380/20385 corvettes successful.
To date, there are five Project 20380 corvettes in service, including "Guarding" (transferred to the fleet even before the start of GPV 2011-2020). Five more corvettes are in various stages of construction, while "Loud" will obviously be ready in 2018, the rest are expected in 2019-2021. As for the project 20385, only two ships of this type were laid down, "Thundering" and "Agile" - they should replenish the fleet in 2018-2019.
On this, the construction of corvettes of the 20380/20385 family is likely to be completed. True, an opinion was expressed in the press (RIA Novosti, 2015) that at least six ships of this type would be built for the Pacific Fleet, for which two more ships should have been laid at the Amur shipyard, but due to the fact that 2018, and the bookmarks did not take place, most likely they will not. Thus, the composition of the Navy will be replenished not by 18, as originally planned by the GPV 2011-2020, but only 12 corvettes of the project 20380/20385. The only plus in all this is only one - there are very good chances that most of them will actually enter the fleet by 2020, and the rest will become operational in the early 1920s. This century.
Apparently, to somehow rectify the situation with the failed 20380, patrol ships of Project 22160 were called in location.
Once again, the developers have tried to tie a horse and a quivering doe in one harness. On the one hand, the displacement of the ship had to be reduced to reduce the cost of construction, but on the other hand, the catastrophic situation with large surface ships required to ensure seaworthiness sufficient for operations outside the seas washing the shores of the Russian Federation. As a result, the patrol ships of Project 22160 received a displacement of 1,300 tons and 60 days of autonomy, as well as seaworthiness sufficient for the far sea zone (the combination of all of the above in one ship is more than doubtful, but …) As far as you can understand, in the tasks of the Black Sea ships of this type will include a demonstration of the Mediterranean flag.
At the same time, the ships were originally designed for the Border Guard Service of the FSB of Russia. Their standard armament, the 3M-47 "Gibka" air defense system (in fact, a turret for the Strela MANPADS), a 57-mm gun mount, a pair of 14.5-mm machine guns and a DP-65 grenade launcher system, designed to destroy combat swimmers, looks quite reasonable for a patrolman, whose task is to protect territorial waters in peacetime and detain violators, but is completely unsuitable for a warship in wartime. And the patrol ship of Project 22160 does not carry any more weapons.
More precisely, it bears, but how? Free space is provided in the stern of the ship.
There you can install several standard cargo containers with weapons placed in them - for example, "Caliber" cruise missiles, or a mine-sweeping complex, or …
There is only one problem - as of today, nothing is known about any container complexes other than Caliber. But it is known that the Russian armed forces have not purchased a single container complex. Probably, the ships of Project 22160 will have to temporarily walk without "container" weapons … only there is nothing more permanent than temporary.
And what a shame - the patrol ships of the project 22160 have a very developed hydroacoustic armament. These are the stationary SJC MGK-335EM-03, and the SUS with the towed antenna "Vignette-EM". There is a hangar (though it looks very cramped) and a helicopter. Throw away all these "flexible" and 57-mm artillery mounts with machine guns, put the naval version of "Pantsir", a conventional torpedo tube, and the same "Packet-NK" - and you would get an excellent small anti-submarine ship with a standard displacement of 1,300 tons, in which the Russian fleet needs so much today …
… although it probably wouldn't have worked. Because the ships of the project 22160 are equipped with a combined power plant, in which high speed is provided by gas turbines, but the economic course - all the same diesels, and on the first ship of the series, "Vasily Bykov", German diesels of the MAN company were installed. In other words, the Russian Navy will receive six ships that can search for submarines, but cannot destroy them, because they do not have anti-submarine weapons.
"But wait, what about the helicopter?" - the attentive reader will ask. True, the ship has a helicopter, but as far as the author of the article knows, usually the search for an enemy submarine is carried out by a pair of helicopters - while one searches, the second carries ammunition to destroy the detected submarine. If there is no second helicopter, then the destruction of the detected submarine is assigned to the ship - for this, the USSR BODs carried long-range missile-torpedoes. But at the same time, the helicopter cannot carry sufficient ammunition and the means to search for submarines. Therefore, a rather strange way of fighting the submarine will be available for the patrol ship - while the ship searches for the submarine by its own means, the helicopter is on duty in readiness for takeoff with suspended weapons. However, taking into account the small detection distance of the submarine and the long reaction time (while the helicopter still takes off), it can easily happen that the helicopter will have nowhere to return.
Today, six patrol ships of Project 22160 have been laid down, with the last one, Nikolay Sipyagin, on January 13, 2018. Taking into account that the head Vasily Bykov, having been laid down in 2014, has not yet entered service, it can be assumed that the series will be built until 2022 - 2023.
It can be stated that projects 20380, 20385 and 22160 do not meet the requirements of the Russian Navy. And therefore, on October 28, 2016 at Severnaya Verf, a corvette of the new project 20386 "Daring" was laid. He was supposed to become a "work on the mistakes" of previous projects and give the fleet the "workhorse" that it needs so badly. What kind of ship did it turn out this time?
Tasks of the corvette project 20386:
1. Protection of sea communications within a 200 mile economic zone.
2. Counteracting the ships of a potential enemy at any distance from the bases of the fleet.
3. Provision of stable air defense of ship formations against air strikes by means of air attack.
4. Search, detection and destruction of submarines in a given area.
5. Providing air defense and fire support for amphibious operations.
What catches your eye? Firstly, the project 20386 corvette … has ceased to be a corvette, because with a displacement of 3,400 tons (it is not known, however, standard or full), this ship can be called anything you like, but not a corvette.
In the opinion of the author of this article, the following happens. For a long time in the Russian Federation, design bureaus were on the brink of survival, and were ready to do anything for the sake of budgetary funds, and the fleet desperately needed full-fledged combat ships, but did not have the ability to pay for them. As a result, there was a competition of "miracle ships" - in the struggle for funding, the designers tried to cram maximum weapons into the minimum displacement and vied with each other to offer the military a missile cruiser in the displacement of a missile boat. The consequence of this was that our first projects - corvette 20380 and frigate 22350 were rearmed with a lack of displacement. However, in fact, the cost of a modern ship determines its equipment - the hull itself costs little, so there was no point in saving a penny and creating low-sea frigates (and that was exactly what the corvettes of the project 20386 were). As a result, the only truly successful ship project was the Project 11356 frigates, which became an improved version of the Talwar, developed for the Indian Navy on the basis of the famous Project 1135 TFR, in the creation of which the designers made an effective warship, and did not try to "cram the unpushable" into a minimum size.
Now, gradually, everything is returning to normal: for example, the sailors do not want the continuation of the series of frigates of Project 22350, but want to get a much larger ship based on it (we will talk about Project 22350M later). And the same thing happens with corvettes.
The author of this article is not a shipbuilding engineer, but in the drawings, the project 20386 corvettes do not look like 11356 frigates.
Therefore, most likely, their standard displacement is about 2,800 tons, a little more or less, and the total displacement is 3,400 tons. Thus, we can say that we are abandoning corvettes as a class and returning to the idea of the SKR project 1135 (whose the displacement was just 2 810 tons) on a new technological base. We plan to build relatively small, but well-armed ships, seaworthy enough to, if necessary, make inter-theater crossings and be present, say, in the same Mediterranean Sea. In fact, in terms of their functionality, the new ships will replace classic corvettes (ships of the order of 2,000 tons) and, to a large extent, frigates (about 4,000 tons). The rest of the "frigate" functions will be taken over by the destroyers - and the ships that are planned to be built according to the 22350M project, regardless of what they are called, are destroyers.
What has changed in comparison with previous types of corvettes? Fundamental changes affected the ship's power plant. Instead of diesel engines, the project 20386 corvette received a combined gas turbine unit with partial electric propulsion, which includes two M90FR gas turbine engines with a capacity of 27,500 hp each. and two main electric motors with a capacity of 2200 hp. In other words, the economic progress of the ship will be provided by electric motors, and the full one - by gas turbines.
The advantage of this decision is that we are finally moving away from diesel engines and are gradually introducing electric propulsion on warships. In theory, this is a very advanced technology that promises us many benefits: the ability of the electric motor to quickly change speed, and even the direction of rotation of the propeller, makes a ship with electric motors very maneuverable. But the main advantage is that electric propulsion (at least potentially) provides minimal noise, which will be a huge advantage for an anti-submarine ship.
I must say that in the USSR and the Russian Federation, electric propulsion was not something unknown - it was used on icebreakers and auxiliary ships, but, for reasons unknown to the author, it was not used on surface warships. If such a scheme turns out to be successful on the corvette 20386, then it will certainly be used on ships of other classes, at least there were mentions of partial electric propulsion for the destroyer "Leader" in print.
The armament of the new corvette in many respects repeats the ships of the project 20380. The air defense is provided by the same Redut air defense system, only there will be 16 cells, not 12 (as on 20385 corvettes). But now they will be controlled by a completely new multifunctional radar complex (MF RLC) "Zaslon", which is a real highlight of the project.
What is the MF RLC "Zaslon"? Most of all, it resembles a cross between the American AN / SPY-1 and the British SAMPSON installed on the Daring-class destroyers. The similarity to the American complex is given by four phased arrays, deployed so as to collectively provide a 360-degree view around the ship.
But the American radar had one, not the best feature. He worked in the decimeter range of radio waves, which allowed him to see very high (including objects in near space) and far, but decimeter radars poorly see low-flying objects, because the latter are against the background of the underlying surface (sea). On the other hand, centimeter-range radars do an excellent job of seeing low-flying targets, but not as well as decimeter ones at high-flying ones. In the Soviet fleet, this problem was solved as follows - surveillance radars were decimeter, and to control what was flying over the waves, they used a separate, specially designed for this radar "Podkat".
The British in their radar simply combined two in one - their SAMPSON has both decimeter and centimeter gratings, while the decimeter one provides a general overview, and the centimeter one controls low-flying targets. This technology has made the destroyer "Daring" the fame of the best air defense ship of all time.
MF RLC "Zaslon" works in a similar way. It also has radar systems in the decimeter and centimeter range, the principle of which corresponds to the British radar. At the same time, it is known that the complex controlling the centimeter range uses AFAR.
"Zaslon" can still do a lot. For example, the complex is capable of conducting not only active, but also passive search, focusing on the radiation of the enemy's electronic systems - in this mode, the "Barrier" is able to detect and track more than 100 targets at a distance of up to 300 km. Moreover, the complex is capable of placing active radar jamming and managing passive jamming. MF RLK "Zaslon" is also universal in that it can control not only the missile weapons of the "Redut" air defense system, but also the ship's artillery installations. It goes without saying that within sight of the "Zaslon" is able to issue target designation for an anti-ship missile, and in addition, it provides information support to external weapons systems, such as a ship's helicopter or an "outside" fighter.
The only drawback of the Zaslon MF radar is a very moderate range - this complex “sees” a target with an RCS of 1 square meter at a distance of 75 km. This is not a very good result. Although, of course, the developers' statements that SAMPSON is able to see a pigeon (0, 008 sq. M) at a distance of 105 km are most likely a publicity stunt (i.e., the British radar station can do this, but in ideal conditions, and in this mode, which will never be used in conventional scanning of space), but still it should be understood that the MF RLC "Zaslon" is much inferior to the British radar in terms of detection range. On the other hand, we must understand that we are creating, in fact, a patrol ship and there is absolutely no need to shove on it "unmatched in the world" weapons and equipment that overlap (or at least equal) what the world's best air defense destroyers have at their disposal.
An interesting question - where did this MF RLC "Zaslon" come from? Who managed in such a short time to solve all the issues that "torment" the radar of a similar purpose "Polyment", preventing the entry into service of the lead frigate of Project 22350? It turned out that this was the handiwork of the Zaslon scientific and technical center, a developer of on-board electronic equipment for the aviation of the Russian Aerospace Forces, including for the MiG-31BM. The author of this article assumes that against the background of the catastrophic state of the air defense of new corvettes, STC Zaslon was able to offer a quick solution based on the radar of modernized combat aircraft of the 4th generation (and even using AFAR). If the MF RLC "Zaslon" will operate normally, it will become a huge breakthrough even if the "Polyment" turns out to be a definitive failure. In any case, many necessary technologies will be worked out at the Zaslon (for example, such as the "transfer" of control of the missile defense system and the object attacked by it from one grate to another) on which, according to rumors, the Polyment "stumbled".
Otherwise, the armament of the ship of project 20386 is quite consistent with the corvettes of the previous series. These are two four-pipe Uran-U anti-ship missiles, the missile's range is 260 km. In terms of its combat capabilities, the missile is similar to the latest modifications of the "Harpoons", which is more than enough to counter the enemy's light forces. The launchers themselves are located at the superstructure behind the shields that open only before the missile launch, which is done in order to minimize the ship's RCS. The artillery is represented by a 100-mm installation, which is the minimum "gentleman's standard", allowing us to speak about the ability of the corvette 20386 to support the landing, as well as a pair of 30-mm AK-630M (information that the ship will receive much less rapid-fire AK-306 is likely all the same erroneous), torpedoes - the ubiquitous 324-mm complex "Packet-NK". There will be a new corvette and a helicopter with its hangar. And in addition, for unclear reasons, on the corvette of project 20386, as well as on 22160, free space was placed to accommodate container weapons.
In theory, it will allow, if something happens, to radically strengthen strike or anti-submarine weapons, or, in addition to the helicopter, to place a certain number of UAVs. In addition, the presence of side hatches allows the use of light high-speed boats (say, for throwing sabotage groups behind enemy lines) or, more importantly, the deployment of unmanned mine action vehicles.
Unfortunately, with all the above advantages, there are many questions to the armament of the 20386 project.
Firstly, it is completely unclear why domestic developers ignore such powerful anti-submarine weapons as 533-mm torpedoes, which would be very much in demand when an enemy submarine is detected 15-20 km from the corvette. It seems that it is the 533-mm torpedo that would be a weapon capable of destroying a submarine at a distance at which the corvette is able to detect it. As a result, in the current configuration (that is, with "Packet-NK"), the project 20386 corvette is clearly under-armed against the underwater threat - the submarines that it will have to look for have much more powerful weapons than it. Secondly, the modularity of weapons led to an unjustified complication of the ship's design. There is a hangar on the corvette, but it is below deck, i.e. each ship of this type will have to be equipped with a helicopter lift, like an aircraft carrier. And this entails a significant complication of the design. And, of course, its rise in price.
In the published annual report of PJSC "Shipbuilding Plant" Severnaya Verf "(St. Petersburg) for 2016, the cost of the corvette of project 20380 (" Zealous ") is 17,244,760 rubles. But the cost of the head corvette of project 20386 is 29,080,759 rubles. In other words, the cost of the new ship again either came close, or already surpassed the frigates of the "admiral" series, despite the fact that the fighting qualities … perhaps became better in the air defense unit, but absolutely worse in terms of anti-submarine warfare.
All of the above casts doubt on the fact that the project 20386 corvette will become the "workhorse" of the fleet. It is likely that the Russian Navy will need a new type of corvette …
But even if not, although the fleet has shown interest in ten such ships, according to plans, it is planned to commission three such corvettes by 2025.
So, in the USSR, PLO of the near sea zone was provided with 131 TFR and IPC. Today there are 34 of them: 29 old, still Soviet times, and 5 new corvettes of project 20380. By 2025, when Soviet-built ships will retire or lose their combat value, the Russian Navy will have 21 ships of the "corvette" class of four (!) Different types of which 6 ships of project 22160 do not carry airborne anti-submarine weapons.
One more thing. All six ships of Project 22160 are intended for the Black Sea. Of the ten corvettes of project 20380, six are planned to be based in the Baltic and four - to be transferred to the Pacific Fleet. Both project 20385 corvettes will go to the Pacific Fleet. And only 20386 are intended for the Northern Fleet.
In other words, by 2025, the security of SSBN deployment will be ensured by six corvettes in the Far East and as many as three in the northern seas …
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
