Our fleet today is forced to buy expensive and obsolete torpedoes
An unconditional mistake committed in the USSR back in the 50s was the monopolization of the development of the homing system (HSS) of torpedoes by organizations that did not have experience in the field of sonar technology. Due to the fact that at the initial stage, copying of German samples was made, the task was considered simple …
THE ERRORS WERE TOO OBVIOUS
Meanwhile, it was in the middle of the twentieth century that the time of "primitive" CLNs abroad ended. New requirements for naval underwater weapons forced to look for fresh ideas. In the Soviet Union, the competition of the best creators of hydroacoustic technology began to be welcomed, such organizations as the Central Research Institute "Morfizpribor", the Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics and the Acoustic Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences … using the experience and best practices of third-party organizations. Gross blunders were also made when establishing scientific support from the Navy (28th Central Research Institute). It is unlikely that the mistakes made by the developers in the 70s and 80s would have been missed by the specialists of the Scientific Research Center for Radioelectronic Weapons (NRC REV) of the Navy, they were too obvious …
In the 50-60s, passive SSNs (torpedoes SET-53, MGT-1, SAET-60M) were adopted, which are largely copies of the first German homing torpedo "Zaukening" (1943). It is characteristic that one of these SSNs (torpedo SAET-60M) was in service with our Navy until the early 90s - a unique case of longevity for a rather complex military electronic system, testifying to our "well-being" in the development of torpedo launchers.
In 1961, the first domestic active-passive SSN for the SET-40 torpedo was put into service, and in the 60s, active-passive homing systems also received anti-submarine torpedoes of 53 cm caliber (AT-2, SET-65). In the early 70s, on the basis of developments in the 60s, a unified SSN "Sapphire" for all torpedoes was created. These systems were quite efficient, provided reliable targeting in simple conditions, however, they had extremely low noise immunity against the SPGT and were significantly inferior in characteristics to the US Navy's CLS torpedoes.
For the promising 3rd generation UST torpedo, the requirements were set by the CLS of the Mk-48mod.1 torpedo, which, under favorable hydrological conditions, is capable of detecting a submarine at a distance of more than 2 km. The task of "catching up and overtaking America" was solved by the creation by the end of the 70s of a powerful low-frequency SSN "Waterfall", developed for the UMGT-1 aviation torpedo and installed (in a more powerful version) in the USET-80 torpedo. The new system, in the conditions of the deep-water test sites of the Black Sea, provided the response radius for unswerving submarines set in the TTZ. However, the tests in real conditions were devastating.
The head of the torpedo weapons exploitation department of the 28th Central Research Institute of the Navy L. Bozin recalled: “The commander of the 3rd generation submarine formation, Admiral Tomko, sent boats to combat service with a heavy feeling … positioned the shooting boat and the target that it was impossible to miss. But the torpedo still did not see the target … "And also:" And what about the Naval Institute? Scientists of the Naval Institute did not make a real contribution to the development of homing systems in the 70-80s. We wrote some research projects, reports, conclusions. And thanks for that. And they looked where they showed. And the developers could only show what they had: the results of work on the Black Sea."
A similar situation is described in the memoirs of an employee of the Gidropribor Research Institute who participated in the development: “It was 1986. The Northern Fleet has been firing USET-80 practical torpedoes for five years. However, in the submarine mode, the results of these firing began to alarming: maybe the sailors are poorly mastering this torpedo or the torpedo is unstably guided in the conditions of shallow northern ranges.
After repeated bathyspheric tests on real targets, it was found that the USET-80 torpedo SSN under the conditions of the North polygons does not provide the reaction distance required according to the technical specifications.
The honor of the fleet remained at its best, and it took TsNII Gidropribor two more years to put on the USET-80 SSN torpedo, which was also adapted to the conditions of the North."
Or: “… they delighted with their successes … the homing devices completing their cycle of full-scale tests of the Kolibri torpedo (product 294, caliber 324 mm, 1973) with the SSN reproduced on the domestic element base … This SSN -" Ceramics "- broke all longevity records … Virtually not a single torpedo remained where this SSN was not installed as an anti-submarine SSN during modernization."
USET-80K caliber 534 mm, 1989 … a new two-plane active-passive acoustic SSN "Ceramics".
Thus, all the 80s with the real combat capability of the USET-80 torpedo (SSN) in the fleet there were big problems (despite the fact that the old SSNs were guided normally), which were solved only in 1989 by installing the American SSN "reproduced on the domestic element base" torpedoes … developments of the 60s (!). Moreover, this history - the ongoing serial production of this CLS - the developer does not cease to be proud of in the 21st century …
As they say, comments are superfluous!
It is also characteristic that the homing systems developed by NPO Region for the APR-1 and APR-2 aircraft anti-submarine missiles already in the 60s were much more perfect and smarter than those of the main developer. The CLS of the modern torpedo UGST is also the result of the work of the NPO Region. On the basis of knowledge of the APR in the Research and Production Association, an anti-torpedo of the "Package" complex was developed, but more on that below.
SPEED AND RANGE
Against the background of these problems, our undoubted success should be considered the development of anti-submarine missiles (ASM) for nuclear submarines.
There is an opinion: since the enlightened West does not have them in service, we do not need them either. However, PLR is a high-speed weapon that ensures the defeat of enemy submarines in the shortest possible time and at much greater distances compared to torpedoes. The use of anti-submarine missiles in a situation where the enemy fired first allows you to seize the initiative in battle and win. Moreover, the speed of delivery of the warhead to the target plays an important role. The merit of the Novator design bureau lies precisely in the implementation of this requirement, which was most clearly manifested in the PLR 86r of caliber 65 cm. The opinion that the range of this anti-submarine missile (about 100 km) was unnecessary is illiterate. The range is a consequence of the high speed, which provides a significant increase in efficiency at distances much less than the maximum in comparison with the PLR 83r of the 53 cm caliber.
Unfortunately, PLR 83r and 86r had some drawbacks - a consequence of a number of errors in the TTZ for their development.
One of them was the surface version of the "Waterfall" - PLR 83rn. A launch from a submarine imposes a number of additional requirements on the rocket (and this is both weight and money), which are completely unnecessary for surface ships. The ammunition of our anti-submarine ships was many times inferior to the western ones, moreover, this trend grew with each new project, an example of this is the SKR project 11540 with absolutely insufficient ammunition from six rocket-torpedo launchers (RTPU) of 53 cm caliber.
What are the reasons for this situation? First, in the isolation of our military science from the navy. Here one cannot but recall the widely advertised Shkval rocket torpedo. Yes, they got 200 knots in a serial product, but a number of restrictions made these weapons virtually useless in battle. The interest of foreign intelligence services in this topic was not directed at the Shkval itself, but at the huge volume of bench tests of submarine missiles carried out in our country, because the ideology of the high-speed torpedoes developed in the USA and Germany was fundamentally different - non-nuclear, with SSN, high speed and low range, for use by aviation and as a warhead of PLRK (that is, close to what we had on the APR).
This breakaway has led to a number of developments suitable only for "paper wars". The fleet, which is often quite ironic about the next scientific news, is simply crushed by the turnover, starting from the volume of paperwork increasing from year to year and ending with the daily plan of combat training, continuous "presentation to the inspectors" and "elimination of comments."
The next reason is the lack of training (first of all, the narrow specialization of the officer corps), the organization and the system for resolving naval issues. The weapons officer (anti-submarine officer) had, as a rule, poor knowledge of acoustics, submarine detection systems, since the training programs were aimed at primarily studying the mechanical part.
In some cases, the reasons lie in the very low quality of the mathematics of tactical models developed for scientific support of the design of ships and IGOs.
Another reason can be considered the lack of a single body with powers and resources responsible for the long-term development of the Navy. Little by little, everyone is engaged in the future of the Navy - the Naval Scientific Committee, the Naval Academy, the 1st Central Research Institute, the 24th Central Research Institute, central directorates … In general - formally - only the Main Command of the Navy, which carries a huge burden of current affairs.
This situation did not arise today. Former commander of the Northern Fleet, Admiral AP Mikhailovsky (see his book "I Command the Fleet"), she is described in an amazing way - that is, in no way. Arkady Petrovich says more than once that the task of mastering 3rd generation ships was set to him by the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, but he never mentioned the acute problems that the fleet had to face during its implementation (for example, USET-80).
AND HOW DO THEM?
Apparently, it makes sense to analyze the experience of other states with powerful naval forces, primarily the United States. For example, to carefully study the division of the organizational structure of the Navy into administrative and operational, but this issue is beyond the scope of this article.
The preservation of 53 cm torpedo tubes (TA) on our surface ships is nothing more than a rudiment of the Second World War. The whole world even fifty years ago switched to TA for small-sized torpedoes with salvo ranges similar to torpedoes of 53 cm caliber (without telecontrol).
The commander of one of the American destroyers said very well about modern TA NK: "I hope never to experience the nightmare of detecting submarines at a distance of their effective use."
Small-sized torpedoes in the US Navy are a weapon of aviation and have long been a "spare pistol" for ships. The main anti-aircraft weapon of American ships is the Asrok VLA submarine missile system with a zone of destruction from 1.5 to 28 km (with the prospect of further increase).
In the arsenals of the Russian Navy there is a significant number of MTPK mines, which, if anything, taking into account the reduction in the number of ships, we will not be able to physically. These mines include an MPT torpedo ("our Mk-46"). She, like her American progenitor, has great potential and, with appropriate repairs, thanks to modernization, is capable of serving for many more years. Having “played enough” in the 90s with an expensive toy - a small-sized torpedo with a “super TTX” Mk-50, the Americans in the 21st century pragmatically returned to the development of the 60s - the Mk-46 with a new SSN, which has become a modernized Mk-54.
For us, a similar solution is much more expedient. The appearance on our NKs of the 324 mm caliber (with the modernized MPT torpedo) objectively paves the way for the anti-torpedo of the Packet complex (324 mm caliber), which today should be the main element of the ship's anti-torpedo protection (PTZ) circuit.
TODAY AND TOMORROW
The adoption of new models of torpedoes (especially their SSNs) and detection systems (including those based on active illumination and network-centric multi-positional systems) into service since the early 90s of the navies of foreign countries, led to an even greater aggravation of the situation with the MPS of the Russian Navy, its carriers (primarily underwater) already at a conceptual level, fundamentally calling into question submarines and their weapons in their traditional form.
It must be admitted that the nature of the changes in submarine warfare that have taken place over the past two decades is not fully understood not only in our country, but also abroad. The elaboration of an adequate concept for the development of weapons and military equipment is real only after a thorough study of the capabilities of new network-centric systems and their testing in real conditions. Today, we can only talk about determining the direction of development of naval underwater weapons and priority measures to resolve the most acute problems of the Navy's IGOs.
The fundamental changes in submarine warfare include:
- a significant increase in the guaranteed detection distances of submarines with new search tools;
- increasing the noise immunity of new sonars, which makes it extremely difficult to suppress them even with new EW means.
The conclusion about what a modern torpedo homing system is, can be drawn, for example, from the report of the UDT-2001 conference (9 years ago!).
For three years, specialists from BAE Systems and the Defense Research Directorate of the British Defense Ministry carried out this work in relation to the Spearflsh torpedo. The main areas of work included:
- processing of a broadband signal (in active and passive modes);
- the use of a more complex form of the signal envelope;
- hidden mode of active location;
- adaptive beamforming;
- classification using neural networks;
- improving the tracking process.
The tests revealed that the use of a wide bandwidth (about an octave) allows to increase the efficiency of separating the useful signal from the background noise due to the increased processing time. In active mode, this allows the use of a signal duration compression procedure, which reduces the influence of surface and bottom reverberation.
A complex randomly filled signal envelope and a wide frequency bandwidth are used to detect targets using low-power signal emission. In this case, the radiation of the torpedo is not detected by the target.
It should be specially noted that these are not some promising developments, this is already a fact, moreover, in serial torpedoes, which is confirmed by the press service of the US Navy's submarine command on December 14, 2006: “The first Mk 48 mod.7 was delivered to the fleet on December 7, 2006 year loaded on SSN-752 Pasadena at Pearl Harbor.
The ability to effectively counter such torpedoes requires primarily anti-torpedoes. In modern conditions, anti-submarine missiles are acquiring a special role, especially since we are superior to everyone in this matter. For heavy torpedoes, it becomes extremely important to be able to attack surface targets from distances of more than 25-35 km with multi-torpedo volleys with telecontrol.
Maybe, taking into account the identified problems, it makes sense to buy torpedoes abroad, as once in the 19th century or in the 30s of the 20th? But as once, alas, it will no longer work, since the main things in a torpedo today are its CLS, control system, algorithms. And these questions are being closed by the leading developers, up to the development of special schemes for guaranteed destruction of the torpedo software, so that the enemy cannot restore it even from the wreckage.
The British Defense Ministry is studying the possibility of acquiring a heavy torpedo Mk 48 ADCAP from the US Navy as a ready-made alternative to modernizing the Spearfish wire-guided heavy torpedo in service with the submarine. This decision took on significant significance after the Defense Industrial Policy Office of the Ministry of Defense announced in December 2005 that in the future the UK would be ready to purchase torpedoes overseas, provided that it retains control of their tactical software and the CLO device (Janes Navy International, 2006, p. 111, No. 5, p. 5).
It turns out that there is no certainty that even the closest ally of the United States - Great Britain received full access to the "software" …
Abroad, it is possible and necessary to purchase a number of components for our MPO, but the homing system and control system must be domestic. This work also has great export prospects. We have the scientific potential necessary for the development of modern CLNs.
Today, IGO is one of the main strike and defensive assets of the Marine General Purpose Forces (MSNF) and plays an extremely important role in ensuring the combat stability of the Marine Strategic Nuclear Forces (NSNF). And in conditions of significant superiority of potential adversaries in the theater of operations and air supremacy, modern mine warfare (using long-range self-transporting and ultra-wideband mines) can be a powerful deterrent, but the latter deserves a separate discussion.
I repeat: despite the acute problems with the development and production of modern MPS, today there is sufficient scientific and production potential for the development and production of underwater weapons that meet the most modern requirements.
This requires:
1. Implementation in R&D - stages, modularity. The result, even at an intermediate stage of development, must be suitable for practical application.
2. Analysis of all production capabilities of our engineering industry to achieve maximum performance characteristics and minimum cost of MPO.
3. Widespread use of civilian technologies.
4. Issues of military-technical cooperation in terms of both export and import are extremely important in the interests of the development of the IGO of the Navy. Competent formulation of questions PTS works to ensure HRT issues.
5. Participation in the utilization of IGO developers - to use the backlog of previously manufactured underwater weapons for the release of advanced models, as is done in the same USA.
6. Correction of regulatory documents for the development of military equipment, taking into account new approaches and time requirements to reduce the time and cost of R&D.
7. Abandonment of the 53 cm TA on surface ships, switching to the 324 mm caliber with the modernized MPT torpedo and the "Packet" anti-torpedo.
8. It is categorically necessary to equip submarines with an anti-torpedo system "Package". Option for submarine pr. 877 to submit for export.
8. Refinement of the submarine torpedo tube for hose specifications, modernization of heavy torpedoes for hose reels, mastering the hose specifications in the fleet.
9. Taking into account the resource constraints and ammunition support for the Navy's submarines, it is advisable to have two types of heavy torpedoes in service: a modern model - UGST and a modernized USET-80 torpedo (with replacement of the battery, SSN and installation of hose telecontrol).
10. In modern conditions, the PLR is becoming the main anti-submarine weapon for both surface ships and submarines.
eleven. To begin the development of an especially small-sized MPO (caliber less than 324 mm). The development of the CLS makes it possible to ensure high efficiency of even a small warhead of a small torpedo, and helps to significantly reduce its cost.
