Recently, a highly specialized discussion on the problems of shipbuilding has flared up on topwar. The accumulated thoughts forced me to write an article, because it is no longer possible to fit them into the commentary format. It will again be about ship armor, so those who have developed an allergy to this topic may not read further.
Destroyer cruiser
Ship armor became one of the main controversial objects. The phenomenon of her disappearance, it would seem, has already been discussed from all sides. But, despite the heated debate, the key points remained unrevealed.
One of the main arguments: the load items allocated for booking were released and were spent on something incomprehensible. As a result, modern ships have no armor at all, and there is no sharp increase in the saturation of weapons or equipment close in mass to the missing armor. The error of the whole logic of such a statement lies in the very formulation of the question. The point is, the armor did not disappear. It didn’t disappear because it didn’t exist.
Indeed, which ships carried serious bookings during WWII? These were at least "light cruisers", but "light" only in the classification of that era. In reality, these were ships with a total displacement of more than 12,000 tons. That is, comparable in size with the modern RRC pr. 1164. Ships of smaller dimensions did not have armor, or the armor was purely symbolic: with a plate thickness of 25-50 mm.
The modern subclass "missile cruiser" did not appear through the evolution of artillery cruisers, but grew out of a destroyer that had never been armored. This is how the world's first RRC pr. 58 appeared, which received the serial number of the project from the "destroyer" series. It was reclassified into a cruiser at the behest of Khrushchev and the leadership of the Navy, in view of the seriousness of the tasks facing him. Moreover, it could not be "squadron" at all, because it was supposed to act purely in a cruising way - alone.
Therefore, the most massive ocean-going warships are the descendants and development of WWII destroyers. They never wore armor, and they never had articles of loads corresponding to them. There is no need to talk about frigates - ships of this size and displacement have never been armored. Therefore, the possible experiences with the frigate "Stark" are not from this opera - there was no armor on a ship of a similar size even during WWII.
"What did the armor go to?"
Nevertheless, the modern destroyer, although it grew out of a WWII destroyer, has almost grown in size and displacement to a light cruiser of the WWII period, and never received armor. Missile cruisers without a mine-carrying origin - "Ticonderoga", "Glory", and "Peter the Great" - only local armoring of individual systems do not have it either. Built out of the blue as cruisers, they could have been booked. Where did the designers do with those displacement reserves that were allocated for the armor?
The answer is the same - they didn't go anywhere. Modern RCCs were designed from scratch, without regard to armored ancestors. Therefore, it is impossible to imagine them as a structure in which a certain weight could allegedly be placed under the armor, but which was mediocrely taken away to "fitness centers", half-empty interiors, exhaust pipe shafts and so on. All these "excesses" exist on their own, and they did not appear at the cost of canceling the reservation. The opposite is also true - if armor is required, it is not necessary to cut the area of the antenna posts and cabins in order to carve out the weight. It's just that when a modern cruiser is equipped with armor, its displacement will increase while maintaining its dimensions. For example, "Arlie Burke" from series to series was heavier and grew from 8,448 tons of full displacement to 9,648 tons, lengthening the hull by only 1.5 meters. The addition of 1200 tons could well have been spent on armor.
The version that the weight allocated for armor on WWII cruisers could go to increase the height of the radar antenna posts' reinforcements does not stand up to criticism. The command and control centers of the WWII cruisers were located, as a rule, at the same altitudes, or slightly lower - by a few meters. For example, the control tower of the 68-bis cruiser was located at a height of 27 meters from the waterline, and the radar antenna post on the project 1164 cruiser is located at a height of 32 meters. It is hard to believe that 2,910 tons of armor for cruiser 68-bis were used to raise the radar station by 5 meters on the cruiser Slava of a similar size. Another example - the battle cruiser "Alaska" has a control tower at a height of 30 meters, and a radar at 37 meters. The cruiser 1144, of a similar size, has a radar at a height of 42 meters. A sharp increase in the heights of the antenna posts is not observed in other cases.
Maybe the superstructures are weighing more? Really 2900 tons? Let's try to imagine the dimensions of a superstructure weighing 2,900 tons, made of steel with a thickness of 8 mm. Having made simple calculations, we find that a five-story house 95 meters long and 20 meters wide will weigh so much. Can you see such structures on the deck of the RRC pr. 1164? No. Even the "dwelling house" of the cruiser "Ticonderoga" is three times less.
And yet, what could the weight of the armor of light cruisers of WWII go to on missile cruisers of similar size? No matter what. There is simply no armor, that's all. If desired, it can be installed on existing cruisers without any problems and overloads. Modern cruisers have simply become lighter with the same dimensions.
This is easily seen on the example of the cruiser 1164. It just has an ideal analogue in the form of the cruiser Cleveland. The length is the same - 186 meters, width for 1164 - 20.8 m, for "Cleveland" - 20.2 m. Draft is 6, 28 and 7.5 meters, respectively. But the total displacement of 1164 is 11,280 tons, and the Cleveland's is 14,131 tons. With the same dimensions, "Cleveland" weighs 25% more! But in light cruisers, the weight of the armor just fluctuated within 20-30% of the standard displacement. What will happen if the "Glory" is loaded with armor up to the 14131 tons available to "Cleveland"? That's right, "Glory" will acquire armor, very similar to that of "Cleveland". For example: an armored belt 6 meters high, 130 meters long and 127 mm thick, as well as a solid armor deck within the same 130 meters, 51 mm thick. And it will weigh just 2797 tons, i.e. the difference in total displacement between Cleveland and Glory. Will Slava, having received an additional load of 2797 tons, be able to go to sea? Of course he can, because Cleveland did it somehow.
The same analogy can be drawn with the cruiser 1144, which has an analogue in the form of the battle cruiser Alaska. The length of the hulls is 250, 1 and 246, 4, the width is 28, 5 and 27, 8, the draft is 7, 8 and 9, 7 meters. The dimensions are very close. Full displacement of Project 1144 - 25 860 tons, "Alaska" - 34 253 tons. Alaska has 4,720 tons of armor. With this weight of armor, 1144 can receive an armored belt 150 meters long, 6 meters high and 150 mm thick, as well as an armored deck 70 mm thick. Of course, weaker than "Alaska", but also looks solid. At the same time, it is quite obvious that "Peter the Great", having taken on ballast (or armor) of 4,720 tons, will not sink at all, but will only slightly settle in its hull, and will calmly plow the ocean. The huge difference in displacement between ships of practically the same dimensions clearly shows that the much more developed and tall superstructures of Project 1144 actually weigh negligible, and if they were twice as large and higher, "Peter the Great" did not weigh heavier than the armored "Alaska" ".
And here is an example of an analogue not in size, but in displacement. Our BOD 1134B is one-to-one similar in displacement to the Japanese light cruiser Agano. At the same time, "Agano" is noticeably narrower than our BOD (15, 2 meters versus 18, 5) with almost the same length and draft. Here, the reader will say! The ships are the same, but the armor on the BOD 1134B is not! Where did the incompetent designers get the tons of armor free on our BOD? There is no need to rush to conclusions, first you need to enjoy the information on booking "Agano". He had a side armor thickness of as much as 50 mm, a deck of 20 and a turret of 25 mm. In principle, armored personnel carriers of the ground forces are armored in almost the same way today. In short, the displacement and dimensions of unarmored missile ships and their armored artillery ancestors begin to converge when the armor of the latter tends to zero.
"Specific gravity of the ship"
To test the above arguments, you can use the simplest, even primitive, but visual way to estimate the density of the ship's layout. The underwater part of any vessel has a complex shape, and in order not to calculate the integrals, we simply take the volume limited by the length, width and draft of the hull. This is a very crude method, but oddly enough, when applied to many ships, it gives a pronounced pattern.
Artillery armored ships have a total displacement density of 0.5-0.61 tons / m3. Modern rocket ships are not up to such indicators. The figures typical for them: 0, 4-0, 47 tons / m3.
For the pairs of cruisers given by me, these values will be: "Slava" - 0.46 tons / m3, "Cleveland" - 0.5 tons / m3. "Peter the Great" - 0.77 tons / m3, "Alaska" - 0.52 tons / m3. "Nikolaev" - 0, 46 tons / m3, "Agano" - 0, 58 tons / m3.
There are also exceptions that prove the rule. There are armored ships, the relative density of which is close to that of rocket ships. True, the very booking of such ships can be considered tending to zero. These are the cruisers of the 26-bis project - 0, 46 tons / m3 (as in 1164). At the same time, the thickness of the armor of cruisers 26 bis does not exceed 70 mm and it is difficult to consider them "seriously" armored ships.
The second example - battleships of the "Deutschland" type, the famous diesel raiders of Germany - 0, 42 tons / m3. But their booking does not even reach that of the "light" Cleveland: 80 mm side and 45 mm deck.
It is clear that the armored ships are heavily loaded. Nevertheless, this did not prevent them from plowing the oceans no worse than modern rocket descendants. The armor was simply removed from modern rocket ships, without using the released constructive mass reserves. Therefore, rocket ships have become simply lighter, and nothing more.
If not armor, then why not weapons?
Of course, the statement that a modern missile cruiser can be freely hung with armor equal in mass and thickness to the corresponding WWII ships is an oversimplification. But it clearly shows that modern ships are actually underutilized and, if desired, they can be booked to one degree or another. And without drastically changing the composition of weapons, ammunition and generally not reducing the payload as a whole.
One more question remains. If modern ships are so underutilized and have impressive reserves in terms of masses, why are they not equipped with many times more weapons? If not for armor, then at least this supply can be spent on weapons!
And this is where other laws come into force. The armor is compact, because steel has a density of 7800 kg / m3. There are no missiles, computers, radars and other things with such a density. This means that volumes and areas are required. And this is already an increase in size, followed by a displacement.
The proposal described above for the possible armor of the cruiser "Slava" has a "unused load" mass of 2 797 tons. This weight easily accommodates more than 12 sets of "Fort" air defense systems, consisting of 12 illumination-guidance radars and 768 missiles in drum launchers. That is, the weight reserve is enormous, but can someone, having looked at the drawings of the RRC pr. 1164, find free areas or volumes to accommodate additional TPK missiles of the "Fort" complex? No, you can't find them. It will not be possible to increase the ammunition load, and not because of overload, but because of the lack of free spaces. Even if the habitability is reduced to the level of "everyone is sleeping side by side in one common barracks", the masts and superstructures are cut, space for such a number of missiles will not be freed up. And such a situation will be on any modern ship, be it Ticonderoga, Slava or Peter the Great.
Finally, no one claims that modern ships are ideal, maybe soon there will be a ship with a better layout, more saturated with weapons.
"Why is there no reservation?"
If it is possible to put the armor, why doesn't anyone put it on? Everyone knows why armor disappeared from ships in the era of nuclear weapons, but why it still has not reappeared is not entirely clear.
And the answer lies in the armor penetration of modern warheads of anti-ship missiles. The presence of an armored belt with a thickness of 150-200 mm does not fundamentally solve the problem of protecting the ship. It only reduces the likelihood of damage from warheads with low armor-piercing (X-35 missiles, Harpoon, Tomahawk, Exocet), but does not save "large" missiles from warheads. Armor penetration data is still not advertised, but there is one exception. It is known that the HEAT warhead of the Basalt anti-ship missile system, which is in service with the Project 1164 cruisers, penetrates 400 mm of armor steel. It seems that the numbers for "Granit" are not much less, but rather even more. Perhaps the armor penetration of the Bramos or Mosquito warheads without shaped charges is less, but not many times.
Under these conditions, the presence of a thick, but negligible in terms of area, armor belt 200-300 mm thick does not play any role. Even if a missile hits it, it can penetrate it without much problem. Even for light anti-ship missiles that do not have high kinetic energy (low flight speed and warhead mass), a compact cumulative warhead can be built that can cope with at least a 100-mm obstacle. And thicker armor will not appear on ships of the dimensions of a modern destroyer. Supercruisers like Peter the Great may well sink not Harpoons or Kh-35, but Granite and Basalt. Even if the target is a WWII battleship, for example, "Iowa" - its armor belt of 330 mm is not a problem.
It turns out that those wishing to build modern battleships propose to create target ships for the already existing means of destruction. That is why armor is not fully revived even today. Shooting down missiles on the way is in any case more effective. Active protection prevents problems, passive - only allows you to reduce their consequences with a certain amount of luck.
At the same time, no one disputes the presence of anti-splinter armor on modern ships. Armor on rocket ships should appear, and its area and weight will only grow over time. But the purpose and role of such a reservation is completely different than that of WWII cruisers. No armor today is capable of preventing an anti-ship missile warhead from entering the ship, but it is quite possible to reduce the consequences of this penetration. Such armor does not come close to the parameters of the WWII times and in terms of weight.
