What do we recycle?
In the first part of the article, it was shown that the USSR, and then the United States, began a large-scale reduction of fleets at the turn of the 90s of the last century. Let us ask ourselves a question - what was good in this process and what was bad? It is obvious that the process of reduction was multifaceted and consisted of objective, inevitable processes, as well as of coercive actions aimed at deliberately reducing the combat capabilities of the fleet. The latter is a political decision aimed at defusing tensions in relations between the superpowers.
Objective and inevitable processes include a decrease in the level of tension and the likelihood of a full-scale war, the release of human and financial forces, fettered by huge armies, for peaceful affairs. In addition, some part of the recycled equipment in any case had to be written off according to the service life. This is all wonderful and can only make you happy.
Subjective processes, on the other hand, include the forced loss of combat capability and the elimination of equipment that has not yet fully devoted its resources to defend the Motherland. We are not talking about people, since this is not part of the tasks of this work.
Let's focus on the purely technical aspects of the problem. The decommissioning of a ship can be carried out by a willful decision of the command before it reaches its intended service life. This is possible when the ship is no longer needed, its modernization and operation is not advisable. Or due to the complete consumption of the resource - due to old age.
If we calculate what share in the total scrapping flow were the ships destroyed before the expiration of the service life limit, it will be possible to understand how much the leadership of the fleet and the state took care of the available resources. It is clear that if the inevitable task of reduction arose, then it is better to get rid of obsolete trash, and not from the best and most valuable combat units. The ship is not being built to go on pins and needles a few years after construction. But what if the bosses thoughtlessly send for melting not only outdated rubbish, but also the latest weapons? And how is the enemy doing with this? After all, it's one thing when, under the guise of reduction, you write off something that should be written off anyway, since it is hopelessly outdated. And it’s a completely different matter when you are scrapping the latest technology, in which the money and efforts of your people were invested several years ago.
How to separate the new from the old? The author considers the service life of 20 years to be the most objective indicator as a conditional cut-off barrier. If a ship is written off after serving 20 years, then we can assume that the funds invested in its construction, one way or another, have been spent with benefit. For 20 years, the ship defended the interests of the country - this is the return that is required of it. But if a ship goes to scrap without having served even 20 years, it already looks like sabotage. There are exceptions when recently built ships become obsolete very quickly and their modernization is comparable to the construction of new ones. Yes, this is possible. But only if this is an exception. And if this is a system, then this is already a squandering of state resources. The premature destruction of equipment due to the inability to properly maintain and repair it should also be included there.
Everything new - go to the landfill
Table 4 presents the total tonnage of ships under 20 years old scrapped and the percentage of the total scrapped space. It can be seen that before the upheavals associated with the collapse of the USSR, the share of decommissioning new ships ranged from 0 to 15%. In other words, both sides tried not to withdraw the latest weapons from the composition.
It also clearly speaks of the processes of mass decommissioning of ships in the Soviet period of time, until 1991. As shown earlier, disposal began in the USSR back in 1987, before the destruction of the state, when everything was still relatively safe. Then this process continued after the collapse of the country. This can give the false impression that it is a natural phenomenon - as if we were just getting rid of junk and old stuff. And after the change of power from Gorbachev to Yeltsin, this process continued. In fact, until 1991, the share of new equipment in the total write-off was a small part. On average, for 1986-1990 - about 16%. Specifically, in the record year 1990 - no more than 40%. Those. the reductions concerned, first of all, really old and outdated equipment. But already in the next 5 years, from 1991 to 1995, this figure soared from 16 to 43%, and then to 63%. For example, in 1995 the share of write-offs of new equipment was 96%, in 1998 and 1999 about 85%, in 1993 - 76%, in 1994, 1996 and 1997 - about 68%.
Simply put, the massive downsizing that began in 1987-1990, as a positive process of detente in the Cold War, was carried out quite cleverly - mostly old equipment was disposed of. There really was something to get rid of without regret. The USSR wrote off completely useless submarines of projects 613, 627, 658, 611, 675, etc. Surface ships - TFR projects 50, 204, 35, destroyers of projects 56, 57, 30-bis, boats of project 205, cruisers 68 -bis and more. Of the relatively new ships, obviously unsuccessful ones were decommissioned, for example, the nuclear submarine of project 705, or the nuclear submarine of project 667A, which in any case were to be written off under the SALT and START treaties, and it was too expensive to rebuild all of them into cruise missile carriers.
But since 1991, and after the collapse of the USSR, this process has changed structurally, and ships that had recently left the stocks went to scrap. This cannot be explained otherwise than by deliberate sabotage.
At the same time, reductions in the United States were far more rational. In 1995, when Russia decommissioned ships under 20 years old with a total tonnage of 300 thousand tons (96% of the total for the year), in the United States, only 35 thousand tons of the same new ships were scrapped, or 23% of the total tonnage. The difference is 10 times! The average values of the share of new ships in the total volume of them only once approached the Russian ones - in 1996-2000, reaching 30%. In other periods - no more than 5%. In total, over the years of reductions, the Americans have written off 4 times less tonnage of ships under the age of 20.
After 2000, the destruction of new units in Russia decreased, but only reached zero in the last 5 years.
Probably, someone will think that the assessment criterion of “old age” at 20 years is far-fetched. Why not 25 or 15? I hasten to reassure the reader - the author has made calculations for these ages too. The situation has not changed dramatically. Ships under 15 years old in the United States over the years of active reductions were written off 13 times less than in Russia. And if we start from the figure "25 years", then 2 times less.
The calculations carried out make it possible to separate the ships, the decommissioning of which was natural, and in any case they had to be disposed of. It's just that the moment of their incapacitation coincided with the general large-scale reduction. And now it is possible not in words, but in numbers to measure the damage caused by the own authorities to the navy.
Depending on the assessment criterion, the Russian authorities deliberately destroyed 2-13 times more combat-ready modern ships than the United States, and with a total tonnage of 450 thousand tons - 1,900 thousand tons. The largest part of these losses (85%) occurred during the reign of Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin …
Construction
The write-off of ships in itself, even if relatively modern and still good quality, is still half the trouble. If they are replaced by newly built, even more effective combat units, the disposal process can be assessed positively - fresh blood is being poured in, and an accelerated renewal is underway. How was this case on both sides?
The United States, even disabling relatively fresh combat units, was actively filling the fleet with even more powerful ships. Their construction never stopped. Every year the US Navy received something new. When they got rid of their old stuff, they gave the sailors something in return. Of course, the total size of the fleet also decreased, but very smoothly and not as much as in Russia. This decline can be considered natural.
In Russia, with the collapse of the USSR, construction rapidly degraded. In the first post-Soviet five-year plan, everything looked quite rosy, primarily due to the completion of the ships laid down in the 80s. This process proceeded by inertia. But gradually all that remained of the USSR ended. Have new ships been laid? And how were they completed?
Table 5 shows the number of hulls to be laid, as well as the proportion of completion of the number laid down (with the exception of amphibious ships and minesweepers). In the Soviet years, it was the norm to lay 16-18 buildings and complete almost everything. In the first 5 years of the existence of the Russian Federation, the laying did not stop completely - on average, about 5 buildings were laid a year. But here's the completion … Less than half of the pledged was brought before commissioning. Some of the buildings were not completed until 1990, so the figure of 91.3% in the period 1986-1990 is also largely on the conscience of the Yeltsin era.
In 1996-2000, only 2 buildings were laid. Shipbuilding record! During the same period, the US Navy received 36 brand new ships …
In 2001-2005, the first progress began. And at least they were able to finish building everything that was laid down. Only in the last 5 years has there been any progress. Too weak yet to rejoice.
Thus, over the entire post-Soviet period, the smallest average annual number of new buildings and the least productive completion falls on the reign of Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin …
Correction of preliminary findings
In the first part, the very fact of the existence of a massive disposal of ships by both sides was indicated. But it was definitely impossible to judge the benefits or harms of this process. Now we can give such an assessment. The reductions begun in the USSR are quite adequate - due to outdated technology in new Russia, they have turned into the destruction of not old, but new technology. We can express this in concrete figures - the thoughtless premature destruction of ships cost Russia 1,200 thousand tons of displacement, and 85% of this number fell on the years of Yeltsin's rule. The similar losses of the USA were 4 times less.
Construction during the Yeltsin era was collapsed 5-8 times compared to the Soviet period. At the same time, the United States reduced construction volumes by only 20-30%.
These are the net losses of our country, without taking into account the write-off of ships that have actually served their life, which in any case should have been disposed of.
