1. The Second World War showed that surface ships without air cover do not survive in an area where enemy strike aircraft are actively operating. 2. She also showed that large surface ships are easily destroyed by combat aircraft, which, for example, entailed the disappearance of large surface ships - battleships and heavy cruisers.
What's the problem with these two statements?
That this is a lie: in the Second World War, everything was not like that. And even it was somewhat the opposite. Moreover, now it is not so either. And also rather the opposite.
The idea that large surface ships are not able to survive in areas where enemy strike aircraft are intensively working (whether basic or deck-based, no difference) looks beautiful and mesmerizing. And there is a certain amount of truth in it. And sometimes it is. But there is no actual evidence sufficient to consider this idea true in all cases. And it never existed. Sometimes and always are two very different concepts.
Let's figure it out.
Historical example 1. The Workers 'and Peasants' Red Fleet of the USSR against the Luftwaffe
For obvious reasons, one must start with domestic combat experience. Because the domestic combat experience was formed under the influence of such immutable things as "geography", for example. And the “players” around are all the same, and sometimes they form alliances that are painfully familiar from the history textbook. Therefore, it is worth starting the study of historical experience with the Great Patriotic War.
The analysis of the reasons why our ships died in the war was made long ago and exhaustively, however, a person - and this applies not only to our people, this is generally the case - is not always able to draw correct conclusions even from "chewed" material. We have to make them for him and give them ready-made. But, in fairness - if the conclusions are correct, then there is nothing to worry about.
Of all the Soviet fleets during the Great Patriotic War, the Black Sea Fleet was the most severely opposed to the German aviation. This was due to the nature of hostilities at sea - the fleet was required to provide protection for convoys and transports, carry out military transportations on its own in the face of enemy aircraft opposition, and conduct landing operations to help the army. The Navy did all this, with varying degrees of success. A feature of the requirements for the fleet in these operations was that the warships had to systematically enter the zone of action of the German strike aircraft and stay there for quite a long time, repelling air attacks on their own. He will not delve into the shortcomings of the Black Sea Fleet's combat work - there were a huge number of them.
Consider what the results of the battles between the Luftwaffe and Soviet large surface ships looked like.
During the war years, the Germans managed to sink eleven large (or conventionally large, such as the Novik-class EM, for example) ships - destroyers, leaders, large mine-loaders, and including one light cruiser with air strikes.
Under what circumstances were they able to do this?
We look.
- EM "Frunze" (type "Novik"). Sunk at sea on September 21, 1941 by 9 bombers. Lay in a drift, rescuing the crew of the sunk gunboat "Red Armenia".
- KRL "Chervona Ukraine" (type "Svetlana"). Sunk on November 21, 1941 in the port of Sevastopol. While at the base, he fought off multiple attacks of large air forces, received extensive damage, lost speed and buoyancy. The crew waged a long battle for survivability, and was later removed from the ship.
- Minzag "Ostrovsky" (former merchant ship). Sunk on 23 March 1942 in Tuapse, stood at the pier.
- EM Svobodny (pr. 7th). June 10, 1942, sunk in the parking lot in Sevastopol.
- EM "Perfect" (pr. 7). June 26, 1942 attacked at sea on the move by 20 bombers, received several direct hits from bombs, sank.
- Leader of "Tashkent". Sunk 28 June 1942 Received damage during the transition under massive air strikes (about 90 German aircraft dropped about 300 bombs on him, the strikes continued all daylight hours), with the help of other ships in tow he came to Novorossiysk, died during a massive (64 bombers on the entire naval base) strike by the German aviation on the naval base Novorossiysk, at the time of the sinking was at anchor in the base.
- EM "Vigilant" (pr. 7). On July 2, 1942, sunk by an air strike while anchored in Novorossiysk Bay.
- Minzag "Comintern" (before re-equipment, cruiser "Bogatyr"). On July 16, 1942, during a German air raid, he received serious damage in the parking lot in Poti, later disbanded and flooded. It was in need of repair, but due to the loss of bases on the Black Sea, repairs were impossible. Prior to that, it was repeatedly attacked from the air at sea on the move, fought off up to 10 raids per day, and retained its combat effectiveness in the event of damage caused by aerial bombs.
- EM "Merciless" (project 7). Sunk on October 6, 1943 during a massive airstrike at sea, the campaign was organized and passed with a lot of mistakes by the command staff of all levels.
- Leader "Kharkiv". Sunk on October 6, 1943 during a massive airstrike at sea, the campaign was organized and passed with a lot of mistakes by the command staff of all levels.
- EM "Capable". Sunk on October 6, 1943, together with EM "Merciless" and the leader "Kharkov", the campaign was organized and passed with a lot of mistakes of the command staff of all levels. Instead of removing the crews from the sinking ships, the commander of the "Capable" engaged in towing under air strikes, lost the time needed to get out of the impact, which entailed the destruction of the ship. In fact, he could well have escaped the blow.
The last three cases resulted in the Stake's ban on the withdrawal of large ships at sea.
How many ships, whose commanders did not admit obvious mistakes in the planning of the cruise, were sunk by German aircraft at sea and on the move?
ONE. Destroyer "Impeccable"
During the entire long, intense and brutal war on the Black Sea, the Germans were able to drown only one warship on the move at sea, the military campaign of which was properly organized, and the commander did not do obvious stupid things.
And if we count all those sunk on the move and at sea, then four. All the rest were caught immobile at the bases, and more often with extensive combat damage, which, nevertheless, did not lead to their death (at sea).
From this point of view, the order of the Headquarters looks at least strange - it was more dangerous in the bases, at least as long as the German aviation could reach them. For the sake of safety, it was necessary to throw all the running "ones" into battle - to cut the German communications at sea, to disrupt the evacuation of the 17th Army from the Crimea. But our military-political leadership with the strategy at sea was at odds even then, and it turned out how it happened.
And the rest of the cruisers and destroyers of the Black Sea Fleet until the end of 1943 staged artillery raids on German troops on the coast, transported troops and refugees, delivered landing units to the designated area of their landing on landing craft, sometimes landed under fire in ports, crushed coastal artillery and constantly repulsed attacks from the air.
About 2,000 bombs were dropped on the cruiser Krasny Krym. The ship repulsed more than two hundred air attacks. Served until 1952.
The cruiser Krasny Kavkaz is almost the same, some figures differ.
Almost every warship of the Black Sea Fleet had its own list of downed German bombers, albeit a short one.
Take, for example, the oldest of the sunken warships - the Minzag Comintern, the former Kagul cruiser of the Bogatyr class. March 9, 1942 with a convoy goes from Novorossiysk to Sevastopol, the Germans discover the convoy and on March 10 the convoy has to fight off 10 air attacks, on March 11 the convoy arrives in Sevastopol without losses, and there the Comintern receives a direct bomb hit with serious damage and personal losses. composition, while the combat capability of the ship is not lost, and the Germans in that attack lose two aircraft. After that, the "old man", launched back in 1902, goes back to Novorossiysk.
And so - all the large ships of the Black Sea Fleet. Dozens of times in the entire war, many dozens. Campaigns, repulsed air attacks, regularly shot down German planes.
The experience of the war on the Black Sea has unambiguously shown that the destruction of a large high-speed surface ship by tactical strike aircraft on the move at sea is an incredibly difficult task, fraught, firstly, with a huge consumption of ammunition, and secondly, it is also dangerous for the attacker - the ship can be very painful snap back. At the same time, the chances of its successful implementation are minimal.
Moreover, in the battle between limited air forces and a surface ship, on the Black Sea in 1941-1943, as a rule, the surface ship won. This is a historical fact.
But in the base, the ship is vulnerable. Firstly, it stands, and secondly, around it there is a terrain with characteristic landmarks and sometimes difficult terrain, which makes it easier for aviation to attack. But even with the bases, it's not so simple. In those days when the Germans managed to sink the Chervona Ukraina, the Red Crimea was hiding there in Sevastopol and they never got it. Yes, and in the Baltic, the Germans (to a large extent by accident) "got" Marat, but the "October Revolution" - could not. Nevertheless, the vulnerability of ships is important at sea - and it is low, at least, our combat experience speaks about this.
Why is the fact of sinking at sea on the move important for us to assess the combat stability of NKs attacked by aviation? Because the ship performs combat missions on the move and at sea. And it is on the move and at sea that it is necessary to assess its combat effectiveness, including under attack from the air.
But maybe these are some features of the Eastern Front such? Maybe Western experience says something else?
No. Does not speak.
Historical Case 2. Kriegsmarine vs. Western Allies
The loss of the war at sea by the Germans is a well-known fact. As well as those unfavorable conditions in which their surface fleet had to operate.
The enemy of the Germans, Britain, dominated the sea. At the start of the war, the British had seven aircraft carriers and carrier-based aircraft. It must be said that it is very outdated, but in the absence of the enemy's aircraft over the sea, even outdated aviation, in theory, can turn into an infinitely significant thing. Was it so in the end?
And again, no. We will omit the destroyers, they rarely went on long campaigns against the Royal Navy, but we will list the larger ships. To some, this will seem dishonest, because in the Soviet navy we considered them large enough to be counted. But here is such a thing - what kind of fleet, such "large" ones. Those who do not like the technique can recalculate in their own way.
So, we take a list of two Bismarck-class battleships (Bismarck and Tirpitz), a pair of Scharnhorst-class battleships (Scharnhorst and Gneisenau), pocket battleships (Deutschland, Admiral Graf Spee, Admiral Scheer), the heavy cruisers Blucher, Admiral Hipper, Prince Eugen and the smaller cruisers Karlsruhe, Cologne, Königsberg, Emden, Leipzig and Nuremberg.
What do we see from this? If we discard those ships that survived the war and surrendered, then among the dead there is again only one ship, the death of which was involved in aviation, and which, at the same time, would have died on the move and at sea - the Bismarck. All the rest either died for reasons unrelated to aviation, or were bombed at the bases, and the same "Tirpitz", for example, on the 14th attempt.
Moreover, Bismarck is again a specific example.
Firstly, if Lutyens had not given the very same radiogram that issued him, but, having shown more responsibility, would have acted according to the situation and independently, then it is not at all a fact that the battleship would have been caught by the "British". And when they nevertheless "caught", the aircraft only inflicted damage on the ship, and did not sink it, the Bismarck even kept its course, and if the British did not have surface forces nearby, the ship could well either leave or force the enemy to pay for their sinking with many lives.
So how many large surface ships did the Kriegsmarine end up losing at sea on the move from enemy aircraft?
ONE
And one "at a stretch", together with other forces, whose "contribution" to the destruction of the ship was at least comparable to the contribution of aviation. From 1939 to 1945.
And what conclusions can be drawn from this? The conclusions are obvious and they have already been made for the Soviet fleet. However, we will return to the conclusions.
Now let's move across the ocean.
Historical example 3. War in the Pacific
It is rather difficult to single out any significant episodes in the war, where more than eight hundred units were used by landing ships alone. The American aircraft carrier "formation" TF38 / 58 "for our money" should have been called something like the "Group of aircraft carrier fleets." The scale of the use of carrier-based aircraft in that war was unparalleled. It is literally unparalleled - this has never happened before, and, most importantly, this will never happen again. No country in the world will again create a fleet with dozens of heavy strike aircraft carriers and hundreds of light and escort carriers. This is no longer possible.
It is possible to single out episodes from giant fights that confirm or refute something. But the scale will lead to the fact that it will be possible to simply "shovel" examples for any of the points of view.
Therefore, let's turn to statistics.
So, we use the data of JANAC - the combined arms committee of the Army and the Navy, which had the task of studying the losses inflicted on the enemy during the war, the losses of Japanese warships and merchant ships, broken down by the forces that inflicted these losses.
And this "breakdown" looks like this.
In total, the United States sank 611 Japanese warships of all classes (except for submarines, research on them was carried out "by another department").
Of them sunk:
US Navy submarines - 201
Surface ships - 112
Army aviation - 70
Basic aviation of the Navy - 20
Deck aviation of the Navy - 161
Coastal artillery - 2
Blown up by mines - 19
Destroyed by "other aircraft and agents" (whatever that means) - 26
What is the conclusion from this? And the conclusion is simple: in the presence of an aircraft carrier fleet, when aircraft carriers are the main warships and perform the main tasks, and, at the same time, in the conditions of an extremely intense air war waged by base aircraft against the Japanese fleet (both army and naval), aviation of all types sank fewer ships than surface ships and submarines. And less than half of the ships that the United States drowned altogether.
And this was in conditions when the opposing side also had aircraft carriers en masse, which themselves could lift aircraft into the air, which deprived the experiment "ship against aircraft" of the necessary "purity", so to speak.
Aviation was, of course, the main striking force in the war in the Pacific Ocean, but it did not inflict the main losses on the enemy surface forces. It’s a paradox, but it’s true
And this is the same fact as dozens of flights of "Red Crimea" under air strikes. Irrefutable.
There is one more example. Battleships.
Historical example 4. Losses of battleships at sea from air strikes
Interestingly, the opinion that the battleship was squeezed out of the light by airplanes still dominates the minds. Nevertheless, it is worth assessing the reality, namely, how many battleships were destroyed by aircraft on the move at sea? For the "weight" we will also add battlecruisers here, let them also be in the "rating".
1. "Bismarck" (Germany) - as already mentioned, not quite a "clean" example. But let's count.
2. "Prince of Wales" (Britain) - the infamous Battle of Kuantan, one of the alleged proofs of the inability of surface ships to survive under air strikes.
3. "Ripals" (battle cruiser, not a battleship, Britain) - in the same place and at the same time. We'll come back to this example later.
4. "Hiei" (Japan). An example is even less "clean" than the Bismarck - the ship was seriously damaged and almost completely lost its combat effectiveness even before the air strike, moreover, it sank not from the consequences of an air attack, it was flooded by its own people after further use of the ship turned out to be impossible due to damage. But the planes contributed to its sinking, so again we count.
5. "Roma" (Italy). The battleship was sunk by yesterday's allies after the crew made a decision to surrender, in addition, the latest weapon against which the Italians had no means - a guided gliding bomb was used against it. That is, here is an example of the use by the Germans of technical means that already belong to a different technological era.
6. "Musashi" (Japan). A "clean" example, but also with one caveat, which will be discussed later.
7. "Yamato" (Japan). On the one hand, the ship was deliberately sent to death by the command to divert American aviation, on the other, the amount of aircraft thrown into its sinking was as unprecedented as the size of the US aircraft carrier fleet. Nobody ever before or after that has thrown or will throw 368 first-class attack aircraft from 11 (!) Aircraft carriers into an attack on a small group of ships (in fact, on one attack ship with an escort). Never. So that's another example, but oh well.
Total. For aviation completely and unconditionally - "Prince of Wales", "Repals" and "Musashi".
Again, the "Repals" was an outdated ship, practically devoid of air defense systems, it had only two 76-mm cannons and that was all. This is zero.
For comparison: the KRL "Red Crimea", theoretically not comparable with the "Ripals" ship "several classes lower" had:
- 100 mm anti-aircraft guns - 3;
- 45 mm semi-automatic guns - 4;
- 37 mm anti-aircraft guns - 10;
- 12.7 mm quad machine gun mounts - 2;
- 12, 7 mm machine guns - 4.
In an amicable way, "Repals" would be generally excluded from the "rating", but he died in the same battle with a real battleship, with the "Prince of Wales", and in a landmark battle, so let's leave it, but with the proviso that it was a floating target, and not a full-fledged combat ship.
Further, returning to our unconditional episodes - in fact, these are two battles from the entire Second World War. Moreover, in both cases, huge aviation forces at that time were thrown on the ships, especially on the Musashi. Thus, there are two "clean" battles behind aviation, both in the form of pre-planned attacks on one or two ships by very large forces, with an interval of 2 years and ten months.
And - controversial episodes. "Bismarck" about which everything has been said above. "Hiei", which, perhaps, would have sunk without air attacks. "Roma", faced with the fact that yesterday's ally used superweapons. "Yamato", which the command sent to death, and the enemy literally bombarded with bombs and torpedoes in such quantities that it is now not repeatable to anyone and never. An example that doesn't really prove anything.
And that's all. These are all battleships sunk by airplanes on the move at sea. Seven ships in six battles, of which the aviation single-handedly resolved the issue only in four, of which one was an unexpected use of the latest weapons, and in the second the battleship itself went to suicide. And yes, "Repals" is still not a battleship, there was only one battleship in that battle.
And, since everything is learned in comparison, let's see how many battleships were sunk in the course of the war.
Answer: together with the mentioned ships - fourteen. It turns out that aviation destroyed only half, and if you count honestly, out of fourteen battleships and "Repals" (he is also on this list), "purely" aviation sunk five, including the "Repals", "Roma" without air defense, and purposefully substituted for strike "Yamato".
It looks kind of weak from the outside in fact. And it does not look at all in comparison with how many battleships the opposing sides brought into battle.
However, in the action "battleship against air strike" there are also opposite examples. It was the American battleships that, during the war in the Pacific Ocean, were the "shield" that protected ship formations from Japanese aviation. Equipped with radars and a large number of rapid-fire cannons ranging from 20 to 127 mm, high-speed and armored battleships performed in that war the same role that URO ships with the AEGIS system will play several decades later. They will repel thousands of attacks by Japanese aircraft - from basic bombers and torpedo bombers to "live anti-ship missiles" - aircraft operated by "kamikaze". They will receive hits, shoot down enemy aircraft, walk to the enemy coast for shelling, conduct artillery battles with surface ships at sea … and none will be sunk.
Quite indicative.
For the sake of fairness, it is worth noting those who "spoil the statistics" - British destroyers. This is whom the aviation crumbled, so crumbled. But, here again, specific moments - the Britons often climbed where exactly the large aviation forces were waiting for them, for example, during the German capture of Crete. Whoever crawls on a rampage, he eventually gets it sooner or later, there is nothing to be done.
As for the losses of American destroyers, minus the kamikaze attacks, which were also a sudden innovation for the allies, they, for the most part, did not die from aircraft.
Output
A sober analysis of the confrontation between surface ships and aircraft in World War II suggests this.
In cases where a single surface ship or a small group of surface ships (for example, the Prince of Wales and Repals at Kuantan) collides with large, well-trained air forces, which purposefully conduct a large-scale operation aimed at destroying these particular ships, there is no chance … The ship is slow and the planes that did not destroy it the first time will then return again and again, and with each attack, the ship will be less and less able to resist - unless of course it is not sunk at all right away.
There are many examples, and this is not only the battle at Kuantan, this is the loss of the British during the evacuation of troops from Crete, this is our "rainy day" on October 6, 1943, and much more. Actually, from an uncritical analysis of such episodes, concepts are born that surface ships are "out of date".
But in cases where a single ship or a group operating in the enemy's air dominance zone, retain the surprise of their actions, they act according to a clear plan that makes it possible to use all the shortcomings of aviation as a combat means (using the time of day and weather, taking into account the response time of aviation to a detected warship when planning an operation and choosing the moments to change course, camouflage when entering bases, high speed during the transition and unpredictable maneuvering, choosing a course unexpected for reconnaissance of the enemy after any contact with his forces, not only with aviation), have strong anti-aircraft weapons and a trained crew, observe discipline when using radio communications, have everything you need on board to fight for damage directly during the battle and after it - then the situation becomes the opposite. Air reconnaissance forces, small in number, are usually powerless to cause harm to such a ship, as are the shock squadrons on duty, raised on alert after its detection.
Even statistics say that in the overwhelming number of cases when such "prepared" surface ships entered hostile waters, they won battles against aviation. The same Black Sea Fleet is quite an example for itself, because every ship, even the one that was killed, first went DOZEN TIMES where the Luftwaffe could and did act freely.
This is how the correct conclusions sound about what we should learn from the WWII experience. This does not diminish the role of naval aviation, it does not diminish its danger for surface ships, and especially for supply ships, it does not negate its ability to destroy absolutely any ship, if necessary, or a group of ships.
But this shows well that she has a limit of capabilities, firstly, and that for success she needs to create a huge superiority in forces over the enemy, secondly. Or a lot of luck. Which is not always possible.
And the WWII experience clearly tells us that the ships in the bases are just targets. Taranto, Pearl Harbor, the German raids on our bases in the Black and Baltic Seas, the sinking of German ships - from the Tirpitz to some light cruiser, the sinking of the Niobe by our aircraft - all speak of this. The ship at the base is in a much more dangerous position than the ship at sea. We must not forget about this.
Surface ships may well fight in the absence of air supremacy of their aviation, they may well fight in the presence of enemy aviation in the sky, and even sometimes in conditions when it dominates the air - at least locally. Their capabilities, of course, also have a limit. But this limit still needs to be reached. Or rather, you don't need to get to it.
But maybe something has changed in modern times? After all, we are so smart, we have ZGRLS, we have missiles, planes are now supersonic … in modern times, it's not the same as in the old days, right?
Not true.
