Last week was marked by a number of statements by the leaders of the Russian Defense Ministry and the Defense Industry Complex. President of the United Shipbuilding Company (USC) R. Trotsenko during the International Maritime Defense Show in St. Petersburg said: "The Russian fleet needs aircraft carriers." In 2016, USC will start designing a similar ship. The construction of the first Russian aircraft carrier in the new millennium will begin in 2018, and in 2023 it will be launched.
Discussions about the design of new domestic aircraft carriers have been going on for about two years. But the statements of naval and industrial leaders contradict one another. Either the aircraft carrier is completely unnecessary, then it is needed - but only in the future. Then you need to build two or three super ships, and literally a week later they declare that you need five or six. In general, apart from contradictions, nothing specific is said.
At the end of 2010, the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Admiral Vysotsky, said that development work was now underway on the plan for the construction of a new domestic aircraft carrier. And that he was about to be ready. However, soon, Defense Minister A. Serdyukov announced that his department had no funds to build aircraft carriers.
From a similar leapfrog, one can only understand that no one denies the need for aircraft carriers. But so far there are different judgments about when and what aircraft carriers to build. R. Trotsenko believes: an aircraft carrier should be exclusively nuclear and have a displacement of 80 thousand tons. It should be noted here that the construction period of 5 years for such a giant looks simply unrealistic. I would have sung in 7 years!
Today, aircraft-carrying cruisers are needed to ensure the combat stability of the formations of heterogeneous strike forces. In other words, squadrons of surface ships. It is no secret that ships deprived of their aviation "umbrella" do not live long in an ocean war. Moreover, air forces are required to ensure greater survivability of the submarine fleet. Including - during the deployment of submarine missile carriers of the naval strategic nuclear forces (NSNF). This task is undoubtedly the most important for an aircraft carrier. As Admiral Vysotsky pointed out, without aviation cover "the combat stability of the missile submarine cruisers of the Northern Fleet will be reduced to zero already on the second day."
In the standard aircraft carriers, you will need 2-3 for the Northern and Pacific fleets. In particular, while one carrier group is on duty in the ocean, the second is preparing to change it, and the third is undergoing scheduled repairs.
Almost all military analysts assume that the domestic plan 11437 - "Ulyanovsk" will be taken as the base of a modern nuclear aircraft carrier. This 75 thousand ton ship was scrapped by Ukraine in 20% readiness.
After all, it seems to us that if something remains of Ulyanovsk in the new plan, then only the general dimension. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge, and the requirements have changed a lot. The newest aircraft carrier should be inconspicuous - in other words, have heaped sides characteristic of "stealth ships", superstructures with a minimum of protruding parts. It must carry air defense and missile defense systems. It will not have long-range anti-ship missiles - there will be enough of them on the escort ships. And let the aircraft carrier carry more aircraft, fuel and ammunition for them. It seems that the planes will be completely different than those planned in the assigned tasks according to the requirements. Apparently, it will turn out to be a shipborne version of the 5th generation T-50 fighter.
It is also quite clear that its power plant will not be a steam turbine. A similar one is now installed on our only aircraft carrier, "Admiral Kuznetsov". There were a lot of troubles with her, and neither the fleet nor the shipbuilding industry wants a repetition of the problems. Consequently, the choice will have to be made between gas turbine and nuclear power plants.
All the same R. Trotsenko pointed out: in addition to nuclear aircraft carriers in the Russian Federation, it is planned to build the first nuclear destroyer. Apparently, it was decided to revive the idea of a "domestic atomic squadron" at a new historical stage. It will turn out or not - a difficult question. Considering that the new domestic corvettes under construction have absolutely caught up with the frigates in displacement, and they, in turn, are able to compete with the destroyers, we can assume that the newest destroyer will grow up significantly and catch up with the cruiser. This all means only one thing, the future main strike unit of the surface fleet will become a huge warship with a displacement of 10-12 thousand tons, equipped with countless launchers of cruise, anti-ship, anti-aircraft and anti-submarine missiles.
Will our homeland be able to build 10-12 nuclear super ships, several nuclear aircraft carriers, dozens of nuclear and diesel submarines, 25 frigates and 40-50 corvettes of different sizes? Even in two decades? Still, it seems that this plan of the "nuclear super destroyer" will give way to a more moderate gas turbine ship of a slightly smaller size and price. And the head of the USC simply voiced his desires.
At one time, in 1962, the "Cuban missile crisis" gave a strong impetus to active measures to accelerate the deployment of intercontinental ballistic missiles. The creation by the "probable enemy" of boundary stationary systems for illumination of the underwater situation nullified the potential of SSBNs with a firing range of 1500-2500 km. In 1963, the Commission on Military-Industrial Issues (MIC), at the direction of the political leadership, sets the task of creating a preliminary design of the D-9 missile complex (RK) with a liquid-propellant missile of a significant firing range and to carry out the elaboration of its placement on the submarine. SKB-385 was chosen as the developer of the preliminary design of the Republic of Kazakhstan (now JSC "Municipal Rocket Center named after Professor V. P. Makeev"). The design studies for the submarine were assigned to TsKB-16 and TsKB-18, and the surface carrier TsKB-17. For the first time in Russian practice, the leading institutions of 3 departments were involved in solving fundamental issues of the "weapon-carrier" system: TsNII-88, Ministry of Defense Industry; TsNII-45 and TsMNII-1 of the Ministry of Justice Industry; 1, 24 and 28 institutes of the Ministry of Defense, the Navy. At the end of 1963, the research work "Design and research work on the justification of ships of the fleet from the RK D-9" was completed. TsNII-45 recommended: range 9000 km, number of missiles 16-24, single-shaft nuclear submarine, power 40 mW. The main designer of the RK V. P. Makeev recognized these results as convincing and invited the institute to join the participants in the development of the preliminary project. But developer rivalry is not just a sign of a market economy. It was both among the designers of the submarine and among the creators of missiles V. N. Chelomey, V. P. Makeev and others. There was no necessary experience in designing naval missiles for submarines with a launch from under water. Mostly existing ICBMs were proposed. S. N. Kovaleva: “At one of the meetings, VN Chelomey turned to me with a proposal to accept a missile for the submarine, the length of which is commensurate with the length of the submarine, and it should have been launched by placing the submarine vertically (“on the bottom”). Of course, I said that it is unrealistic. " After that, the capital's OKB-52 (chief V. N. Chelomey) proposed to install on submarines and surface ships a modified ground solid-propellant missile UR-100 (range 11,000 km, but the mass dimensions were approximately 1.5 times larger than that of the complex missile D-9, dry start from a transport and launch cup with a gap between it and the shaft ~ 0.5 m.) The authority of the OKB and personally V. N. Chelomey were so high that the military-industrial complex entrusted to work out this option, while in various versions (submersible launch sites, diesel-electric submarines and a surface ship). Behind the leading institutions is a comparison of options and advice. This particular "undeclared tender" became the arena of collisions of firmly different judgments. The surface option disappeared by itself for obvious reasons. The opponents remained TsNII-88, which is in the same department as SKB-385 and OKB-52. After heated discussions, it became obvious that TsNII-88 would not insist on the UR-100 naval registration.
As a result, at a meeting of the Council of Defense, the political leadership, having penetrated into the technical essence of the issue, decided to follow the path of creating the RK D-9 on the basis of a liquid-fuel rocket in the version of V. P. Makeev, which was later implemented on the SSBN "family" 667B - the current basis of the domestic NSNF.
After long discussions, the decision was made - to build SSBNs of projects 941 and 667BDRM at the same time. A little more than 10 years have passed and the submarine of project 667BDRM will become the basis of the current NSNF, having undergone appropriate modernization in order to extend the service life and increase combat effectiveness. Popular wisdom says: "It is impossible to enter the same river twice." But there are no rules without exception. In the mid-nineties, the question of developing a new (4 generations) SSBN based on a solid-propellant rocket, unified with a ground version with a dry start from a transport and launch cup, again arises. Now this option is well covered in the media and in the statements of the chiefs of the Defense Ministry, the Navy, and others. This is a Borei-class SSBN with a Bulava-30 missile.
The thought of an entirely nuclear-powered aircraft carrier squadron has long and firmly possessed the minds of admirals of the leading fleets. The US military at one time built nuclear cruisers, which they expected to cover nuclear aircraft carriers. Nuclear frigates were also planned. However, it turned out: for small ships, less than 12-14 thousand tons of displacement, the nuclear reactor does not give any advantages. The significant weight of the reactor and its security is eaten away by the gain that is formed due to the absence of fuel tanks. As a result, the United States abandoned "wholly nuclear squadrons" as a utopia, and nuclear cruisers were completely written off.
