Outwardly, this ship looks strange: a huge box with propellers and a rudder. Its silhouette most of all resembles a cruise liner, only completely without portholes - a blank board. At first glance, the ship causes a slight shock and even some rejection, yet we are accustomed to a certain marine aesthetics. But this is only as long as we do not look inside.
Inside, the ship is able to delight any army logistician. And there is something: 11 cargo decks and a "garage" - a superstructure on the upper deck, 54, 8 thousand square meters. meters of deck area, capacity 5196 cars. Isn't this a dream for military shipping? Tonnage - 60, 9 thousand tons, maximum deadweight - 20, 4 thousand tons. Length - 200 meters, width amidships - 32.2 meters, height amidships 34.5 meters, draft - 9.7 meters. From the waterline to the upper decks, the height is almost the same as that of a 9-storey building. And this box can develop up to 20 knots.
This article will focus on car carriers: Sunrise Ace and Carnation Ace. Both are built at the Japanese shipyard Shin Kurushima Dockyard Co. Ltd and are of the same type.
I pay so much attention to the design details of these ships because they delight me, and I admire how much they can provide for transoceanic shipping of troops, equipment and supplies. If you are going to seriously fight overseas, you cannot do without such ships. The problem of transporting troops and goods across the ocean is a very serious problem, it is not without reason that Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, in response to the harassment of army generals to start a war against the United States as soon as possible, answered briefly and succinctly: "Will you cross the Pacific Ocean?" Therefore, this task should not be underestimated. I would even say that without such transport ships, the rest of the navy, with all its aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, corvettes, submarines, is essentially useless, since the navy itself is not able to achieve complete victory on the enemy coast and crushing the enemy located overseas. If we ever mature enough to throw down a military challenge to the United States, trample the Capitol Hill with tarpaulins and write something indecent on the ruins of the White House, then this type of transport will achieve this victory.
The transport ship is the root of victory
The experience of many wars shows that it is not so difficult to seize a bridgehead or port, or to land troops. The most serious problems begin later, when a large group of troops is landed on the seaside bridgehead, which is drawn into fierce battles. The battles for seaside bridgeheads are usually stubborn and brutal; the enemy perfectly understands the importance of owning a coast and, moreover, a port, and is doing everything possible to drop troops into the sea. Procurement becomes the key to the entire operation; the fighting troops must receive everything in full and without delay, and this supply falls primarily on transport ships.
Supply is the key to an operational-tactical operation to capture, hold and expand a suitable seaside bridgehead. But then, when the enemy was driven away from the coast and the offensive develops inland, supply still remains the key to victory, since the group of forces must be supplied and supplied. This also requires ships, large, roomy, which can carry a lot of different cargo in one voyage.
The requirements for such vessels are as follows: large capacity, the ability to carry a wide variety of cargo, from heavy armored vehicles to personnel, speed, seaworthiness and maneuverability, as well as the ability to quickly load and quickly unload. The last very important requirement: time plays a role, and the speed of unloading reduces the likelihood that the enemy will be able to cover the ship with the cargo with an air or missile strike in the port.
In my opinion, a car carrier of the type under consideration meets these requirements to the greatest extent in comparison with other types of sea vessels, especially dry cargo and container ships. But first things first.
Vessel capacity
So, as stated, the Sunrise Ace car carrier has 11 cargo decks, numbered from top to bottom. The main deck is the 7th, where cars enter through the aft and side ramps. Communication between decks is carried out by means of internal lifting ramps leading from one deck to another. After loading, they rise. The 4th and 6th decks can be moved up and down in separate sections to increase the height of the 7th and 5th decks if necessary.
The 7th deck is the main one for three reasons. Firstly, through it, cars enter the ship from the berth and from there are placed on all other decks. Secondly, it is on this deck that heavy equipment up to 100 tons in weight can be placed. Thirdly, the strength of this deck is determined by the fact that it provides a watertight volume of the vessel, which ensures its unsinkability. The inner ramp from the 7th to the 8th deck also closes as a watertight hatch. Basically, the hull of the ship is a structure from the keel to the 7th deck, and everything above it is a solid superstructure. Unusual architecture, nothing to say.
For military transport, the ability of the ship to transport cars is of little interest, although such needs will also be, since any large army in the future will clearly be highly motorized. More interesting is the ability to carry heavy equipment. From the typical loading plan, you can find out that a car carrier can take on board either 40 units of cranes of 80 tons each, or 32 units of bulldozers of 100 tons each, or 24 units of trucks of 80 tons each, or 41 units of trucks of 50 tons each. Heavy equipment is located on the 7th deck. If we take dump trucks of 20 tons each, then 90 units can be placed on the 7th deck and 82 units on the 5th deck, a total of 172 vehicles.
Thus, a car carrier can transport tanks and other armored vehicles, tactical missile systems, anti-aircraft missile systems, engineering and pontoon equipment.
The rest of the decks can be adapted to accommodate other cargo in pallets, plastic containers, boxes, barrels; a kind of floating warehouse that can be easily loaded and unloaded using forklift trucks. The 1st and 2nd decks can be set aside for personnel, where sleeping places and temporary bathrooms are equipped.
How much will fit?
On such a ship, it is advisable to transport any part entirely, with all subdivisions, equipment and supplies, which can immediately turn around and engage in battle. However, preliminary estimates showed that of all the units that are in the Russian army, only the airborne assault brigade fits into the car carrier entirely.
It has 2,700 personnel, 13 T-72 tanks, 33 BMDs, 46 BMP-2s, 10 BTR-82A, 18 BTR-D, 6 2S9s, 8 ZSU-23 Shilka and 616 vehicles. Heavy armored vehicles - 13 units (for 41 cargo places), light armored vehicles - 121 units (for 172 cargo places). It fits quite well, even with additional ammunition, food and fuel.
Tank brigades no longer fit entirely on the ship due to the large number of heavy equipment. For example, in a tank brigade there are 94 tanks, 37 BPM-2, 6 armored personnel carriers, 18 Msta-S and other equipment. There are too many tanks, it will take three trips to transport them, with the need to divide the brigade into parts. The motorized rifle brigade has 31 tanks and 268 armored personnel carriers, which is also a lot; there are not enough cargo spaces for light armored vehicles. In general, this is not surprising, since our tank and motorized rifle brigades were created as land brigades and they were never faced with the task of completely immersed in a sea vessel.
Hence the conclusion: if you fight overseas, you will have to reorganize tank and motorized rifle brigades, so that they correspond to the capabilities of the transport vessel. In fact, to create parts of overseas operations, you need to do this: there is a fleet of transport vessels of the type in question, there is their loading plan, and based on this plan, the staff of the brigade is developed.
Sharing is a bad decision. You never know what can happen during transportation and unloading, and there is nothing worse when the brigade enters the battle in parts, when the tanks are in place, and the motorized rifle and the headquarters do not know where.
Three unloading options
The main advantage of a car carrier over other types of dry cargo ships consists in two points. First, no cranes are required for unloading. There may not be cranes in a captured port if the enemy prudently knocked them down and left you with a nose. The cranes installed on the ship itself partly solve this problem, but unloading, especially of heavy equipment, takes a long and painful time, piece by piece. The enemy, on the other hand, can send a tactical missile to help unload, since the coordinates of the berths in the port he has left are well known to him. The vehicle leaves the car carrier on its own, which greatly speeds up the unloading. Secondly, all cargoes in small containers can be loaded on board in advance into vehicles, which eliminates the need to transship this cargo from the vessel to vehicles at the berth. Let's say the ammunition leaves a car carrier together with the trucks on their own. This is very beneficial, since the crew, airlifted by the car carrier, immediately finds itself with the set ammunition, fuel and food on wheels and is thus ready for battle as soon as it leaves the dock.
The second option for unloading is when the car carrier operates as a floating warehouse, filled with a wide variety of cargo. On board there are two automobile divisions of 80 trucks each (occupy the 7th and 5th decks). Before entering the port, the trucks on the 7th deck are loaded and immediately after mooring they leave the ship. The car carrier immediately takes off and goes into the sea so as not to be a stationary target, at this time the trucks from the 5th deck are transferred to the 7th, loaded and also leave as soon as the ship is moored. After the loaded cars leave, empty cars enter the ship, the ship goes out to sea again, loads empty cars and enters the port. And so on until all the cargo is on the shore, and not dumped into the mountains in the port, but delivered to its destination. Then the ship picks up both units and leaves for the next shipment of cargo. It is advisable to go out to sea at each cycle of loading vehicles on board in order not to turn the vessel into a stationary target and not to occupy the berth.
A third option for unloading the ship is also possible, when the port has just been captured, it is unsafe to enter it, but the troops on the shore need supplies. The cargo can be removed from the vessel by helicopters. This will require some refinement. A technological opening is cut out at the top of the "garage", into which a truck crane is placed and fixed. The deck under the crane is properly reinforced. In the "garage" next to the crane, cargo lots are stacked in accordance with the carrying capacity of the external suspension of the helicopter and stacked into a cargo net. The crane lifts this mesh with a load to the top of the "garage". The helicopter hovers, releases the lines, hooks the net and lifts it off the ship. The Mi-8 can lift up to 5 tons on an external sling, the Mi-26 up to 20 tons.
In principle, part of the top of the "garage" can be converted at the shipyard into a full-fledged helipad, which allows the helicopter to land and load cargo into its cockpit. In this case, the car carrier becomes partly a landing ship and can operate together with UDC, helicopter carriers, destroyers and corvettes, taking part in the landing operation itself. As soon as the Marines have more or less seized and secured the port, the car carrier lands an entire airborne assault brigade in it, the appearance of which will greatly change the operational situation. A whole brigade with all the equipment and supplies is a very strong argument in any amphibious operation.
How to sink?
Alas, so far we do not have such wonderful ships, and it is not known when they will be. A potential enemy has such ships and there is no particular doubt that they will be used in case of war for transport operations. Hence the problem: how to sink?
The car carrier is quite vulnerable to naval weapons. The hull of the vessel below the 7th deck is single-breasted, thickness is about 25 mm; superstructure - thickness 8-10 mm. For machine gun fire (except for the bridge), the ship is not very vulnerable. Large caliber machine guns and 20mm or 40mm cannons are better, but it is doubtful that they would cause significant damage to the vessel.
Therefore, the main argument against him is torpedoes. But how many do you need? The vessel has an interesting feature: it is more vulnerable when partially loaded than when fully loaded. For example, flooding with a full load of one, two or even three compartments of a watertight hull will only lead to a more or less noticeable list that does not threaten the vessel. At partial load, even one compartment may be enough for the ship to capsize and sink.
An examination of the tables from the Damage Control Manual, used for a quick assessment of the situation, shows that flooding of the compartments located amidships is the most dangerous for the ship; at partial load, this leads to the death of the vessel or to a strong list. Therefore, comrades submariners, if you attack such a ship, shoot amidships. At least three hits - and it will go to the bottom. In wartime, the loading of the vessel will in most cases be partial. It is better to use torpedoes with a contact fuse when deepening about 2-3 meters; in this case, the hole will be in the lower car decks.
Anti-ship missiles. You can try to destroy the bridge, pierce the side on the upper decks to cause a fire or explosion of the cargo placed on them. Not a very effective solution, it will take 4-5 missiles to cause a lot of damage to the ship.
Artillery. If your ship has a 76mm cannon and above, and you have the ability to fire at the ship, there are a few things you can do. It is best to shoot at the ramps, aft and side. With damaged or knocked down ramps, the vessel is almost useless, will not be able to load and unload and will require factory repairs. It is also possible to shoot the side at the upper decks (roughly mid-freeboard) in the expectation of causing a fire or explosion. A fire for such a vessel is very dangerous. If it was loaded with ammunition and explosives, then consider yourself lucky.
With cash naval weapons, such a transport vessel can either be drowned or permanently disabled. Everything else depends on luck and impudence.
There are also issues related to ships of this type, for example, the issues of its construction in sufficient quantity, its modifications for military needs, or various subtleties of the transportation of goods on it. We will probably stop at this for now.
