How showed the Falklands, light aircraft carriers, especially in the British case, with short takeoff and vertical landing aircraft, have extremely limited applicability, and in the case of the Falklands, their "success" is in no way a consequence of their tactical and technical characteristics, or the qualities of aircraft based on them.
But the limitations for light aircraft carriers are actually much broader than those demonstrated at the Falklands.
The problem is that light aircraft carriers not only cannot provide a sufficient number of sorties per day or the basing of normal aviation, as was the case with the British in 1982.
The problem is that these ships are often not applicable at all. This applies not only to carriers of "vertical", of course, but to all small aircraft carriers in general, including ejection carriers (the same Argentine aircraft carrier "May 25" is also on this list).
The excitement factor
Speaking of light aircraft carriers, and in this case, regardless of what kind of aircraft they carry on board, one cannot ignore how the factor of excitement at sea, or, simply put, pitching, affects their combat effectiveness.
The ability or inability to lift and receive aircraft directly depends on how often and at what angles the deck level fluctuates. To understand the issue and remove some illusions, we will touch on the issue of pitching in more detail.
There are six types of ship pitching: longitudinal, side, keel, vertical, lateral, yaw.
Of all these, the most important are the side, keel and vertical ones generated by it. Let's take a closer look at them.
The most problematic type of rolling, at first glance, is airborne. It generates heel and affects the stability of the vessel. For an aircraft carrier on which the plane lands by wheels, deck roll is, in theory, critical.
But there are nuances here. Rollback can be eliminated by technical methods. The special shape of the underwater part of the hull, damping tanks, especially active ones with water overflow depending on the pitching, onboard rudders and on some ships gyroscopic dampers allow, in theory, to reduce the amplitude of side rolling by several times.
The problem with a light aircraft carrier is its small size, which does not always allow such systems to be fully deployed on board. Today, one warship is known, where various types of jointly working stabilizers have reached their maximum efficiency - the French aircraft carrier "Charles de Gaulle". But it is not entirely light, its displacement exceeds 42,000 tons. Smaller ships will have to be content with the worst pacifiers.
Again, in theory, you can go at an angle to the wave or against it. Then the effect of rolling will decrease.
But the keel and vertical will begin to operate in full force. And here an insoluble problem arises - if the amplitude of roll can be reduced by various ship systems (sometimes at times), then nothing can be done with pitch and roll.
VERTICAL AND PITCH ROLLING IS NEUTRALIZED ONLY BY THE SHIP'S WATERLINE AND DRAFT DIMENSIONS. And nothing else. Bigger dimensions, less pitching, smaller dimensions, stronger pitching
And now this is already really critical. Rollback acts both in the middle part of the deck and at the extremities, and an aircraft landing vertically will always catch a blow from the deck going upwards, and taking into account also the pitching going up at an angle. In the center of the deck too. And this is irreparable. We must clearly understand that when on video frames we see the accurate landing of "Harriers" somewhere in warm coastal waters, then this is one thing, and the reality of a real theater of operations may be completely different.
Of course, on small aircraft carriers with normal aircraft, all these factors are also fully operational.
The video shows the USS Siboney CVE-112 escort aircraft carrier in the North Atlantic in 1950. With a standard displacement of 10,900 tons, it had a total displacement of 24,100. Its dimensions, of course, were smaller than that of the same Invincible, although the draft was larger. But for an aircraft carrier to be unable to lift and take back aircraft, it is not necessary to bury its nose in the wave.
For comparison - flights from a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier of the "Nimitz" type in almost the same (this is obvious when looking at the waves) conditions.
It is quite difficult to fit into the format of the article the calculations for pitching in waves, they are very voluminous and require understanding of many aspects of the interaction of the ship's hull with water in different types of waves (different wavelengths, their heights, for regular and irregular waves, at different ship speeds, with taking into account the possible resonance between the period of natural oscillations of the body and waves, etc.). In addition, many did not study higher mathematics, and of those who did, many have forgotten.
Let's just say that for one and the same cargo ship, an increase in draft from 8 meters (as in the Invincible type) to 11 (as in the Eagle type in its last configuration and at maximum displacement) leads to an increase in the pitching period by calm water (no waves) by about 15%.
On waves and taking into account not only different draft, but also the length of the ship (and the ratio of the length of the hull along the waterline to the wavelength is very important), everything will be much more dramatic.
In regions such as the South Atlantic, North Atlantic, Barents or Norwegian Seas, the number of days per year when an aircraft carrier of 50 or more thousand tons can still be used, and an aircraft carrier of 15-20 thousand tons is no longer, is calculated at least by many tens days. In some years, up to a hundred
That is, the fact that light aircraft carriers are deliberately inferior, it seems as if it is intuitively clear to almost everyone, but how inferior they are, it becomes clear only if you delve into the question.
In a collision with a fleet relying on small aircraft carrier ships for solving key tasks, it is enough just to wait for moderately bad weather. Three points - and not a single plane from a small aircraft carrier will take off
And the funniest thing about all this is that you have to pay for these "combat capabilities". Britain had to pay MORE for them than trying to keep normal ships in service. This fact is not obvious to many, but it took place, and, in the light of some events that are now brewing around our fleet, it is worth studying it in more detail.
As well as the history of the collapse of the British aircraft carrier in general.
Aircraft carriers and Labor
The extremely instructive history of the degradation of the British aircraft carrier forces can be measured from the beginning of the sixties, when fundamental decisions were made. By then, the vast Royal Navy was undergoing dramatic reductions. Under various pretexts, the Navy removed from service all light aircraft carriers of the Colossus and Majestic types, most of which were sold to other countries (in an interesting way, after a while, Argentina, the future adversary, appeared on the lists of these countries).
By the end of the first half of the sixties, the aircraft carrier forces of Great Britain consisted of four light (up to 28,000 tons) aircraft carriers of the Centaurus class, among which was the future hero of the war with Argentina, Hermes, one aircraft carrier of the Illastries class, the Victories, and a pair of Odeishes "-" Eagle "and" Arc Royal ".
For economic reasons, Britain could not maintain such a fleet for a more or less significant time, however, in case of war with the USSR, it was required to be able to use at least 4 aircraft carriers. In addition, Britain was constantly involved in various conflicts throughout its former Empire, which continuously required the use of the fleet and naval aviation.
In terms of their condition, the ships were not the same. Light aircraft carriers were particularly distinguished. The Centaurus was already unsuitable for the deployment of modern warplanes on it, and the flights of the Sea Vixens and the rare single Scimitars were worth a huge effort. In fact, this ship was kept in the ranks only to replace other ships when they were under repair.
"Albion" and "Bulwark" have already been converted into the so-called "commando-carryers", in fact, amphibious helicopter carriers, and in this capacity were used.
"Hermes" was distinguished by a larger deck from the moment of construction and surpassed its sisterships in the ability to use combat aircraft. In the late 60s, American Phantoms even flew a little from it, although the ship, due to its small size, turned out to be unsuitable for their basing. But the Buckanirs and Sea Vixens flew from it without any problems.
The Victories was almost completely rebuilt in the late 1950s and was essentially a new ship. From domestic experience, it is difficult to find a restructuring comparable in depth, perhaps the transformation of the Admiral Gorshkov TAVKR into the Vikramaditya aircraft carrier. The ship was able to use modern jet aircraft at that time and was used intensively and successfully, including in combat operations. In 1966, several Phantoms from the American aircraft carrier Ranger flew from it, showing that, in principle, the ship could carry modern aircraft, although it would have required additional alterations.
From 1959 to 1964, the Eagle underwent an intensive modernization for the use of more modern jet combat aircraft, the electronic armament was especially deeply modernized - this is how the ship received a three-dimensional radar capable of tracking up to 100 targets simultaneously, and for the comfort of the personnel, an air conditioning system was installed in compartments. Although the ship, partly built during World War II, had a number of reliability problems, in general its condition could be firmly regarded as "satisfactory", and it remained so until the very end of the service.
The Arc Royal experienced constant problems with technical serviceability and, against the background of its sister ship, the Eagle, was notable for its low reliability. This ship, formally of the same type as the Eagle, was simply pursued by technical problems. During the construction, it immediately received a larger angular flight deck, but in the end it entered service four years later, and was completed "with tension" - the structure was largely outdated by the time it entered service, even at the level of individual components.
Its economic speed was 4 knots lower than that of the "Needle" - 14 versus 18, which in those years were the standard for most warships in the world. The maximum speed was half a knot lower.
In 1964-1965, the future of the British aircraft carrier fleet seemed to be as follows. There was a project CVA-01, heavy aircraft carriers, the lead ship in the series which was to be called "Queen Elizabeth", a very interesting project.
It was assumed that the "Hermes" and "Eagle", as the most reliable ships and the best representatives of their classes in terms of condition and tactical and technical characteristics, would continue to serve, the rest of the Centauri would be slowly decommissioned, and the Victories would be in service until Queen Elizabeth will not be built and then decommissioned. In this form, the aircraft carrier forces of the Navy were supposed to exist until the early 80s, and there would already be a different situation. The rest of the ships were awaiting withdrawal to the reserve and subsequently dismantled for metal, or immediately dismantled for metal. An important point - it was originally supposed to make the "Eagle" the carrier of "Phantoms", and not "Arc Royal", as it later happened.
True, the most perspicacious economists and politicians in Britain already understood that the new aircraft carrier, CVA-01, the country in its then state would not pull. But the old ones were in the ranks.
In order to assess the "wisdom" of those decisions that the military-political leadership of Britain made a little later, it is worth briefly assessing which military operations British aircraft carriers had to participate in in the 60s and early 70s ("Eagle" was withdrawn from service in 1972, will consider this to be a point of no return in some way).
In 1956, the Eagle was used during the Suez Crisis.
In 1961, the Victories traveled to the Persian Gulf to put pressure on Iraq, which made its first claim to Kuwait. A few months later, it was replaced by a small Centaurus.
In 1963, Centaurus and Hermes were sent to Southeast Asia, where an Indonesian-inspired coup took place in the British protectorate of Brunei.
Later, also in 1963, the Centauri air group took part in an operation to counter an armed uprising in what is now Yemen.
In early 1964, the Centaurus and the Albion, converted into a commando-carry, with a detachment of commandos on board, defeated the rebels in Taganyika, now Tanzania.
In 1964 "Victories" was sent to Southeast Asia to support Malaysia in its confrontation with Indonesia.
In 1965, the Arc Royal was used during the naval blockade of Rhodesia.
Obviously, the tasks of aircraft carriers for many years in a row were strikes along the coast in different parts of the former British Empire and the protection of landing units there from the air. By that time, the Cold War had been going on for almost twenty years, no military conflict between the USSR and the West had yet occurred, moreover, there was some kind of detente after the Karbi crisis was peacefully resolved, in fact there was not a single serious reason for so that in the foreseeable future something would change in the use of British aircraft carriers.
Another thing changed. In 1964, the Labor government came to power in Britain. Domestic political and economic affairs of those years in a country far from us and alien, this is one question. But the fact that in naval matters the new cabinet has clearly "messed things up" is different and obvious. It is difficult to say what exactly the Laborites were against the carrier fleet. At first glance, they wanted to save money for the country.
But later we will see that the savings would have been brought about by the Conservative course, and the Laborites, on the contrary, spent much more than was necessary with extremely dubious results. Most likely, the way they initially treated the carrier forces was due to ideological reasons. As we know, leftist politicians often tend to "drive" reality into the framework of their meager ideas about it. The fate of the British carrier forces bears clear signs of such an attempt.
It is from this moment that it is worth counting the history of those decisions that led the British fleet to what it turned into in the Falklands War.
In 1966, Britain issued a White Paper on Defense, which clearly stated that the era of aircraft carriers in the British Navy must end in the early 1970s. The document was issued at the behest of Prime Minister Harold Wilson under the leadership of Secretary of Defense Dennis Healy. The main idea of the document was the following.
Britain is abandoning global political claims and a global military presence. Britain will not conduct military operations other than the military defense of its allies in Europe. Britain should focus its efforts on preparing for war with the USSR in Europe as part of its NATO membership. Military mechanisms superfluous for this task must be eliminated. This applied to aircraft carriers in the first place.
Meanwhile, Britain still had (and still remains) a mass of overseas possessions. How was it possible, having the previous military experience of the 50s and 60s, having a lot of overseas possessions and some warming with the USSR, to give it out? This looks like a clearly ideological decision, which absolutely does not correspond in any way to what the British Navy has actually and continuously been doing in previous years.
The inertia of the decisions made earlier, however, still showed itself for some time. So, in 1966, "Eagle" embarked on a new modernization. He had one of the aerofinishers replaced to ensure the landing of faster aircraft than the Buckaneers, and the long side catapult was scalded with thick steel plates. This made it possible to protect the catapult from the exhaust of the Rolls-Royce Spey engines, which were equipped with the British Phantoms, and in the long term made it possible to ensure the mass launch of such aircraft. In this form, the ship was used for testing Phantoms and proved to be a good side. This upgrade, however, was not complete, as discussed in the previous article.
And this was the last sensible step in the history of the British aircraft carrier fleet. Then came the collapse.
The Eagle, which was planned to be the main carrier of the Phantoms under the Tories, never became one. Successful tests of these aircraft on it became his "swan song".
In 1967, a fire broke out on board the Victories, which was undergoing regular repairs. The damage he caused was minor, but politicians immediately used this as an excuse to decommission the ship. At the same time, it must be understood that until the mid-seventies the ship would have passed without problems, and maybe it would have passed even more, because during the restructuring of the fifties, only the hull remained from the old "Victories", and even then not all, even the turbines were replaced … The ship did not experience any special problems with reliability and was regularly repaired.
I wonder if he would have lasted until 1982? This question will remain open, it cannot be answered firmly, "yes", but there are no grounds for a firm "no" either.
At the same time, for some strange reason, it was decided to rebuild under the Phantoms not the vigorous Eagle, but the crumbling Arc Royal. It was rebuilt for Phantoms, but it was rebuilt strangely.
Arc Royal received elongated catapults. But, apparently, their thermal resistance remained at the level of the old ones, at least to find information about the reinforcement of the catapult chute similar to the Igla onboard catapult is not yet possible, which means that the massive lifting of the Phantoms from the ship could be impossible.
The ship, however, received a full set of reinforced finishers and reflectors, which the Igloo lacked. At the same time, they did not completely re-equip the Arc Royal with the Phantoms - the Buckaneers were still the most numerous type of aircraft on board, only now reconnaissance and air refueling were added to their role as strike vehicles, as if from the Phantoms Would be the worst scouts.
Oddly enough, the modern electronic weapons that the Eagle was equipped with, primarily the radar, did not get on the Arc Royal, it remained with its old, no longer quite adequate equipment, having received only the American AN / SPN-35 landing control radar, which increased its compatibility with the US Navy aircraft.
In 1972, Britain had to fight again with the help of aircraft carriers - Guatemala tried to "probe" the defenses of Belize, which had just become independent, and the Arc Royal went to the next colonial war - to strike along the coast. Reality seemed to tell the British what the future really awaits them, but they did not listen.
In the same year, the Eagle was withdrawn from the Navy, formally in reserve, in reality, it immediately began a massive dismantling of components for the Arc Royal, which was experiencing constant breakdowns, and it was clear that the ship would not return to service.
The Wilson government, meanwhile, actually launched the dismantling of the former Empire. Troops were withdrawn from all bases in the Persian Gulf and the Far East, Singapore and Malta were abandoned, the British left Aden (now the territory of Yemen), the TSR-2 aircraft program was killed, the last chance of the British to remain in the league of leading aircraft manufacturers, and, of course canceled all new aircraft carrier projects.
Britain from the third in the world in terms of political and military influence of the power turned into the American "six", which we know today. What was offered in return? The project of the aircraft with vertical take-off and landing "Kestrel", which was later destined to become "Harrier", the future "Tornado", and, for some reason, an attempt to join the American project of the front-line bomber F-111, which ultimately failed.
There was an attempt to turn the island into a continental power, almost complete. In 1970, Wilson lost the election, but in 1974 he returned to the office and occupied it until 1976. By this time, almost nothing remained of the old aircraft carrier fleet. In the ranks was "Hermes", which from 1971 to 1973 amputated catapults and aerofinishers, turning it into an amphibious helicopter carrier ("commando-carry") and the last days of the "Arc Royal" whose state did not allow to hope that he could live more or less significant time. The ship, which even in good times did not shine with reliability, has been cut in money for repairs since 1970 in order to save money, which did not remain without serious consequences.
Even today, the question is asked in British blogs and social networks: Could the Arc Royal have prevented the war in the Falklands if it had stayed in the ranks? The question, however, is that in 1978 the fallacy of abandoning aircraft carrier forces in Britain was already realized, and if the Arc Royal could have been left in the ranks, then, apparently, it would have been left. But he was literally falling apart.
They should have left Eagle and possibly Victories. And still there was no need to touch the Hermes, having given him the opportunity to carry at least only the shock Bachenirs. But by that time it was already too late.
But the most interesting thing in this story is how much money was actually saved on the abandonment of aircraft carriers.
Money down the drain
Complete conversion of "Needle" for the basing of the air group, wholly or largely consisted of "Phantoms", in 1972 would have cost no more than 30 million pounds.
Minimal modifications "under the" Phantom "in the form of two more air arrestors, reinforced gas reflectors and a heat-resistant box for the second catapult in 1968 would have cost only five million.
If the ship were to stand in reserve for some time due to lack of money, awaiting reactivation, then for each year of keeping the reduced crew, 2 million pounds would be required, and then, every four years, 4 million would have to be spent on repairs. At the same time, the return to service would take about 4 months.
As a result, it was possible to go according to two options, if it was impossible to maintain even one aircraft carrier, then spending 5 million on minimal modifications the ship could be put into reserve, a year that way in 1970, and then subject it to the necessary for maintenance in a "live" state works in 1974 and 1978. There, the economy was already not so bad, and in terms of money, such an operation would have risen to 32 million pounds over ten years according to scheme 5 in 1968, 2 each year until 1974, then in 1974 6, from 1975 to 1977 inclusively again to two and in 1978 again 6. Naturally, these are figures without taking into account inflation, which then accelerated significantly, taking into account inflation they would have been somewhat different.
"Phantoms" had already been purchased and mastered by the crews by that time, the "Bakeries" too, this did not require any special expenses. The Hermes could well have been a "desk" to maintain the skills of the Phantoms pilots to work from the deck.
Ideally, it was worth paying 30 million for the modernization of the Igla, supplying the Arc Royal as a source of spare parts, and going through the seventies with the Eagle and Hermes - with all the disadvantages of the latter as an aircraft carrier (small size), he, it was still much better than the ships that replaced him. The important point is that this option would be much CHEAPER than what the British actually did with their aircraft carriers.
The fact that the Hermes served pretty well until 2017 (in the Indian Navy as Viraat) suggests that there was no problem keeping it in the ranks - just as it did not become in reality.
How much money the British lost on the endless breakdowns of the Arc Royal, we do not know, the money that could have been used to modernize the Needle, they still spent on the rebuilding of the Arc Royal and Hermes. I didn't manage to save money, I managed to overpay.
But these were small things compared to what started later.
As already mentioned, apparently, the Labor government was puzzled not to save money, but to turn Britain into a kind of US appendage, deprived of the opportunity to conduct an independent policy. Therefore, while there was a creeping destruction of the British aircraft carrier forces, in parallel, since 1966 (remember the "White Book") a project was created, which was destined to become an aircraft carrier of the "Invincible" type in the future - an anti-submarine cruiser and a command ship, which was supposed to protect against the Soviet submarines transatlantic convoys.
After the resignation of the Labor government in 1973, the project grew into almost an aircraft carrier with a displacement of 16,500 tons. In 1973, a year after the Igla was decommissioned and even before it was finally plundered for parts, the order for the construction of the lead ship in the series was issued. At the same time, "Hermes" was converted into a similar disabled person.
In 1975, the Labor government decided that helicopters alone could not be enough, it was necessary that someone drove away the Soviet Tu-95RTs, which, as they believed in the West at that time, would direct Soviet submarines to convoys. And the government issued a contract for the development of a naval version of the Harrier, which had previously been designed as a short-takeoff attack aircraft for the Air Force.
The savings turned out to be just excellent - instead of placing all the necessary helicopters and several interceptors on the existing Hermes, it was first disfigured (for a lot of money), then additional money was spent on the creation of a naval version of the Air Force attack aircraft capable of intercepting in the air, and - here she, the main economy - began to build a series (!) of aircraft-carrying ships! Just three years after the Eagle went to dismantling, just five years after the Victoriez was decommissioned for the sake of economy, and two years after the light aircraft carrier Hermes was converted into a helicopter carrier for a lot of money. … Now, firstly, it was necessary again to remake the Hermes back into an aircraft carrier and install a springboard, return equipment for controlling flights of aircraft groups, and secondly, order Sea Harriers and pay for them, and of course, build new light aircraft carriers
Tentatively, this whole epic cost Britain more than 100 million pounds from 1966 to the 1980s, at the exchange rate of the sixties (by the time the Invincible entered service, the pound had already depreciated more than 3, 8 times and prices had changed numerically) …
Not a bad economy compared to 30 million for a complete rebuild of the Igla and its maintenance, no matter how expensive it is, in any case, we can not talk more than six million a year from 1968 to 1980, which would eventually provide a full-fledged aircraft carrier by 1980, for just over the same one hundred million during this time, with the bulk of them paid at the beginning of this period.
Opponents of such a theory can point out that in 1972, before decommissioning, the Eagle ran aground and received extensive damage to the underwater part of the hull, but this can in no way be an excuse for what happened, if only because it had been at the dock at that time on the conversion "for Phantoms" nothing of the kind would have happened, and there could not have been such extensive damage to the hull, as the defenders of the British government's policy later tried to prove.
How much would an unborn CVA-01 cost? And here the most interesting thing awaits us. In 1963, three years before the project of a new heavy aircraft carrier was canceled in order to save money, then Defense Secretary Peter Treunicroft quoted a figure of … 56 million pounds. Despite the fact that his critics insisted that it would not be possible to meet this money, and the ship would leave at least a hundred. Taking inflation into account, it can indeed be said that the rework of the Hermes, the construction of the Invincible, the creation of the Sea Harrier, and the endless renovations of the Arc Royal between 1963 and 1980 were somewhat cheaper. About a quarter.
Only later, after Falkland, the British had to build two more light aircraft carriers for hundreds of millions of pounds each and equip them with planes too
As a result, it didn't work out to save money. It turned out only to overpay, and not just to overpay, but to overpay a lot, with a simultaneous loss of combat effectiveness. CVA-01, had it been built, would most likely still be in service, however, already "on the brink". The British Navy would not have lost experience with normal carrier-based aircraft, catapults and finishers. In terms of its combat strength, a bunch of not mutilated "Hermes" (served until 2017) and that old "Queen" would be many times stronger than three light "Invincibles". And that would be cheaper. Many hundreds of millions of pounds in eighties prices, or, to make it clearer, more than a billion pounds in today's prices.
Thus, the cheapest option would be to keep the Igla in service until the early 80s, with a possible restart of the CVA-01 in a new form later, when the economy has already recovered somewhat, and the parallel keeping in the ranks of the Hermes with the Bakenir, and later with some other small western aircraft. And it also provided the British Navy with the maximum level of combat power.
But they went the other way and lost their fighting power, and, apparently, forever, and overpaid a lot of money for this loss.
The fact that if Britain had normal aircraft carriers, the Falklands War might simply not have happened, and with what Britain turned up against it, it could simply lose, it is already possible not to even mention.
This was the price of the bet on light aircraft carriers.
Lesson to good fellows? Not yet
Why do we need these old stories of a foreign country? It's very simple: there are many parallels between what was happening in Britain then and what is happening in Russia now.
As in Britain, we have very strong voices of those who propose to abandon the creation of full-fledged aircraft carrier forces. Unfortunately, our own propaganda, convincing the population of the worthlessness of American aircraft carriers, is pouring water on the mill of those who want there to be no Russian aircraft carriers in the future, and this work is being done quite "successfully."
The supporters of "continental thinking" are also gaining strength (Russia is a land power, whatever these words may mean).
At the same time, their views are essentially quasi-religious, like those of the British Laborites, who finished off the remnants of the British Empire for the sake of their ideas, which later did not pass the test of reality. These people do not hear any arguments and do not want to learn anything, because they are sure that they already know everything (and in fact, even with logic, they have huge problems).
They can give numerical data on how much tonnage our main enemy can attract for the deployment of troops in Europe and show what is the share of our fuel in the energy balance of European NATO countries. But they will still talk about the fact that it is necessary to invest first of all in the army, we are a land power, and the fact that an invasion of us from the West is technically impossible, but okay, if they want to invade, they will invade, we are a land power, we need to invest in the army … No arguments just work.
They can be shown on the map the NSR and Kaliningrad, the Kuriles and Sakhalin, talk about gas from Sabetta and Norilsk Nickel, show what share of domestic exports go through ports, but they will still talk about the fact that Russia does not depend on sea communications.
There is no thought process behind all this, but this contingent influences public opinion if only because the masses do not know how to think logically.
And it would be okay for the masses, but we also have such politicians, and who knows how much power such a contingent will have tomorrow. And whether some cunning rat like Harold Wilson, but with a Russian passport, is using these sentiments.
In the penniless Britain of the late 60s, everything was also on emotions, the result is known.
Just like with Britain, we have something - an old aircraft carrier that could very well be rebuilt and serve for years to come. There is naval aviation armed with normal aircraft, which can also be brought into a fully combat-ready state.
There is even a "fire on the Victories" - a fire on the "Kuznetsov", after which legions of paid (and cheap) klikush rushed to stir up panic that the ship should be decommissioned, that almost a hundred billion burned out there (which was obvious nonsense), although it is still necessary to figure out why it caught fire (as with the PD-50 - in their testimony, the surviving workers from it stated that they felt a blow from below before the flooding began. And, as with the British aircraft carrier, the damage was minimal in the end, and the ship is quite recoverable. So far, our hunters, unlike the British ones, have failed, although the "script" was the same - clearly.
As in the case of Britain, there is a strong informational pressure that we need to abandon the normal ship that we have, and instead build an ersatz - in our case it is a UDC of the Juan Carlos type, and develop our own verticals … And this, too, is far from the first time in our history, and it is very similar to how the British abandoned normal aircraft carriers and started building low-combat ersatz.
And we, too, will lose military capabilities and a lot of money on this - a huge amount of money that will literally be thrown down the drain. Like in Britain.
Just as in the case of Britain, we cannot build a new aircraft carrier here and now, but we will be able to master it in the near future, at least in a simplified form (see article “Aircraft carrier for Russia. Faster than you expect ). And having strained a little, we will be able to master a completely full-fledged nuclear ship, we just need to figure out what to do with those shipyards that are needed for its construction later, when it has already been built. In the meantime, the Britons did not use this opportunity to bring what we already have to a combat-ready state. And they got the Falklands.
And just as in the case of Britain, instead of this option, Russia may well throw itself into a super-expensive and senseless fornication to create defective ships and strange and unnecessary airplanes for them - or it will be pushed there.
However, our prospects need to be analyzed separately, and first we must analyze another crazy theory - that universal amphibious assault ships can replace aircraft carriers. Somehow strangely quickly and firmly it was registered in the minds of our citizens.
We'll have to dissect her too.
