Nobody disputes the fact that in the 90s. of the last century, the geopolitical picture of the world has undergone dramatic changes. Along with it, military doctrines also changed - primarily of the countries occupying leading positions in the world. In the late 90s. The Pentagon, and with it the NATO countries, began to reorient their fleets from operations in the oceans to operations in coastal zones within the framework of local conflicts. The new concept of the use of the Navy, as well as the successful development of a number of modern technologies, required a revision of the combat composition of the naval forces.
It was planned to create ships of a new generation - a small displacement, which means relatively inexpensive, built with the use of science-intensive technologies and the latest achievements of military equipment, capable of solving many combat missions with a relatively small displacement. The so-called littoral combat ships (Littoral Combat Ships - LCS) of the US Navy were to become such units.
The need to revise the concept of using the fleet in coastal waters, where the threat of an attack from the enemy is extremely high, arose most acutely after the incident with the American destroyer Cole (DDG 67) on the Aden roadstead on October 12, 2000. Then a modern, well-armed and expensive warship was for a long time incapacitated by the explosion of a small boat filled with explosives that approached its side. The destroyer was saved and put back into operation after 14 months of repairs, which cost $ 250 million.
In a sense, the prototype of modern littoral warships can be considered the Swedish corvette Visby (YS2000), launched in June 2000. The highlight of the project is that the ship was created with extensive use of stealth technology. It is called the first "real" stealth ship. It was its widely advertised ability to be invisible to enemy detection equipment that brought the corvette truly worldwide fame. The decrease in radar signature was achieved due to the use of composite structural materials that ensure absorption and "dispersion" of radar radio waves, as well as due to the choice of a rational shape of the hull and superstructures of the ship. In addition, all the main weapon systems are hidden behind special sealed shelters, made flush with the hull structures (the only exception is the artillery mount, but its tower is made of radio-absorbing stealth material). The mooring equipment is made in the same way. As you know, it is these elements, as well as the developed antenna posts, that make a very significant contribution to the RCS of the entire ship.
With its small displacement, Visby is equipped with a helipad. In addition, it was reported that its weapons are built on a modular basis: in the central part of the hull there is a special compartment where various weapons can be installed - from strike missiles to unmanned underwater mine destroyers. True, judging by the publications in the press, the first four hulls were built with anti-mine weapons and only the fifth - with a shock one originally installed on board.
In August 2000, the Swedish company Kockums began work on the Visby Plus project, an ocean-going corvette. In general, his philosophy is similar to the previous one: minimization of the signatures of physical fields, weapons and equipment hidden in the body, the use of composite materials, a water cannon as a propeller, and a modular principle of the arrangement of weapons. Interestingly, the program was not implemented, but the corvette, very much like Visby Plus, appeared in the US Navy.
No wonder. There is the most direct relationship between the American project LCS and the Swedish corvette. On October 22, 2002, at the Euronaval naval show in Paris, representatives of the American company Northrop Grumman announced the signing of a joint agreement with Kockums (developer of the Visby corvette), which covered the issues of improving the design, construction and sale of Visby-type corvettes, as well as related technologies as the American the government and its allies through the so-called Foreign Military Sales Program.
As a result, in September 2006, the first littoral warship of the American fleet - Freedom (LCS 1), developed by the group of the company under the leadership of Lockheed Martin corporation, was launched from the stocks of the Marinette Marine shipyard. Its main feature is the construction of weapons according to the modular principle, which was stipulated in the design specifications. The modular container principle should become multipurpose in the full sense of the word. Thanks to its implementation, the ship can adapt to any combat mission in the shortest possible time, having on board only the weapons and equipment necessary for this specific operation in an optimal combination.
Three corporations took part in the final tender for the development of the future ship - Lockheed Martin with a deep V displacement ship with water cannons as the main propellers, General Dynamics (GD) with an outrigger trimaran with water cannons and, finally, Raytheon with a skeg KVP with a composite hull. materials developed on the basis of the Norwegian hovercraft missile boat Skjold. Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics were named winners. On January 19, 2006, according to the GD project, the LCS 2 trimaran was laid down, named Independence. It was also designed using a modular armament principle (the ship was launched on April 29, 2008). For the general public, it was announced that after comprehensive tests of both options, a decision would be made: which ships to build next - single-hull or trimarans.
The approach is quite odd, frankly. It has long been calculated that multihull ships are more expensive than monohulls of approximately equal displacement. The cost of construction, further maintenance and repair is also higher. The advantages obtained with a multi-case scheme are not as great as the amount that has to be laid out for them. But the disadvantages are very serious. For example, the combat survivability when one outrigger is damaged is sharply reduced. For docking and repair of such ships, special conditions are required, etc.
The leadership of the US Navy initially considered the possibility of acquiring up to 60 LCS ships until 2030 with a total cost of about $ 12 billion. It was planned that the first sub-series of ships would consist of twelve or perhaps thirteen ships. However, the cost of building littoral ships, which was initially estimated at $ 220 million per unit, reached almost $ 600 million each. And this is without combat modules, the cost of which is not included in this amount.
But the coastal zone requires not only ships capable of performing strike missions. We need patrolmen to control the exclusive economic zones. For example, in June 2007 a patrol ship Piloto Pardo, built by ASMAR for the Chilean Navy, was launched. The project developer and component supplier is the German company Fassmer. The ship is Lloyd's Register certified.
The Piloto Pardo displacement is about 1,700 tons. Its tasks include the protection of the territorial waters of Chile, the implementation of search and rescue operations, monitoring of the aquatic environment, training for the Navy. The Chilean Navy already has two ships of this type - Piloto Pardo and Comandante Policarpo Toro, and a total of four units are planned to be commissioned. The neighboring states are interested in the project - Argentina intends to acquire five ships of this type, and Colombia two.
It should be noted that the designers reasonably abandoned the achievement of high travel speeds, but seriously increased the cruising range. They did not overload the project with shock and anti-aircraft weapons, limiting themselves to light artillery and a small helicopter.
Russia did not remain aloof from the design of such littoral ships. In April 1997, at Severny Verf in St. Petersburg, the laying down of a coastal zone patrol ship of the PS-500 project, designed by Severny PKB for the Vietnamese Navy, took place. The Vietnamese side ordered two sets of equipment and mechanisms, block sections for the lead ship, as well as bow and stern sections for the second. It was assumed that after the tests and the delivery of the first hull to the fleet, an order would follow for the manufacture of the remaining sections for the second. But this did not happen.
The sections were assembled in Vietnam at the Ba Son shipyard in Ho Chi Minh City. On June 24, 1998, the lead ship was launched, and in October 2001 it was delivered to the Navy.
PS-500 is designed to carry out patrol and border service to protect territorial waters and economic zones, to protect civil ships and communications from enemy warships, submarines and boats. For the first time in the practice of domestic shipbuilding for ships of this class and displacement, the shape of a deep V type hull was successfully applied, which made it possible to obtain high seaworthiness, and water cannons of the same type as on the Visby corvette were used as the main propellers (KaMeWa 125 SII, however, with old impellers and with reversing steering devices). The combination of the latest advances in the development of hull shapes and water cannons made it possible to achieve exceptional maneuverability of the ship in the entire range of speeds (internal and small roll on circulation, turn on "stop", lagging). The hull and superstructures of the ship are completely steel without the use of light alloys.
Of course, the external "exterior" of the PS-500 is not as attractive as that of Visby, but its armament and tactical and technical elements fully correspond to the concept of a small ship in the coastal zone, and most importantly, the Russian ship turned out to be much cheaper. And in terms of armament, it (the Swedish counterpart is actually a minesweeper, recall that only the fifth ship of the series is armed with strike missiles) significantly surpasses it.
As for the radar signature due to the introduction of very expensive elements, the feasibility of reducing it for small ships, often operating against the background of the coastline, rocks, islands, etc., which are excellent natural shelters and interference for the radar signal, is questionable. Therefore, perhaps, it should be admitted that some "neglect" of this indicator is logical.
Today, several versions of the PS-500 with light weapons have been developed (for example, a 76-mm artillery mount can be replaced with a 57-mm gun), as well as with a helipad for receiving and servicing a light helicopter of the Ka-226 type.
A novelty in 2009 was the Project 22460 Rubin frontier patrol ship developed by the Severny PKB. It is designed for patrol and rescue operations in the territorial sea. Perhaps the main feature of this ship (and the displacement of the Rubin, like that of Visby, is about 600 tons) is the presence on board of a landing area for a light helicopter and the ability to quickly equip a hangar. Visby, which until recently was considered the smallest combat ship with a helicopter on board, does not have a hangar - there is only a helipad. "Rubin" is also equipped with a high-speed rigid-inflatable boat, mounted on the stern slip, along which the boat can be lowered and lifted aboard on the go. The boat is stored in a multifunctional room, which can also be used to accommodate various special equipment. A search helicopter and a boat seriously expand the capabilities of a small ship.
A serious difference between the Russian ship and the Swedish one is that it uses steel as a structural material, which allows it to work in young and broken ice up to 20 centimeters thick, and this is more than relevant for the seas of Russia. When creating the ship, stealth technologies were applied within reasonable limits.
Armament "Rubin" at first glance "frivolous" - one multi-barreled 30-mm artillery mount AK-630 and two machine guns "Kord". But this is quite enough to stop terrorists or violators of the border, and for the period of mobilization, the ship can be equipped with Uranium anti-ship missile launchers and additional anti-aircraft weapons.
Let us recall that the Coast Guard of the Border Guard Service of the FSB of the Russian Federation includes patrol ships of project 11351 with a displacement of more than 3500 tons, developed by the Severny PKB. But they were built back in Soviet times. Today "Severnoye PKB" as a promising patrol ship in the littoral zone offers a ship with a standard displacement of about 1,300 tons, armed with a 57-mm gun and a Ka-27PS search and rescue helicopter. Installation of special equipment is possible. The cruising range at an economic 16-knot speed is 6,000 miles, the full speed is 30 knots. In the case of ordering such products, border guards will receive relatively cheap seaworthy ships with sufficiently strong weapons to solve tasks that correspond to the realities of the time and, at the same time, have serious modernization potential, allowing them to turn into formidable warships in a fairly short time.
