A series of advanced Chinese missile fire control destroyers (URO) Type 052C and 052D does not give a minute of peace to the fleets of Japan, India, Australia and the United States, annually spreading an ever-increasing network of naval dominance in the Asia-Pacific region. The Chinese Navy currently has 6 URO Type 052C "Lanzhou" destroyers and at least 5 Type 052D "Kunmin" EMs; 7 more Kunmin-class destroyers are at various stages of construction at the Dalian and Jiangnan shipyards. By 2018, the fleet will include all 18 ships of two classes.
"Lanzhou" and "Kunmin" with a displacement of 6,600 to 7,500 tons in seaworthiness and technological qualities are on the same level, or significantly surpass their American counterparts - destroyers of the Arley Burke class. Thus, the cruising range of Chinese ships reaches 14,000 miles, while the American "Aegis destroyers" have a cruising range of 6,000 miles. Type 052C and 052D are no longer conventional artillery and missile destroyer-arsenals (Luida class and Type 052) with the "farm" principle of operation of various ship combat systems: their shipborne anti-aircraft missile systems HQ-9 / 9B, anti-submarine systems CY- 5 and anti-ship missile systems are programmatically built around the modern high-performance combat information and control system (BIUS) H / ZBJ-1, as well as the bus for exchanging tactical and command information via a coded radio channel “HN-900” (analogue “Link-11”). Since Type 052C / D are considered destroyers of anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense, the main source of information for the combat operation of their CIUS are multifunctional radars with 4-way HEADLIGHTS Type 348 (on the Lanzhou EM) and Type 346 (on the Kunming EM). The digital architecture of their radio-electronic base was borrowed from the Russian radar "Mars-Passat" installed on the heavy aircraft-carrying missile cruiser 1143.5 "Admiral Kuznetsov" -Passat ".
As you know, at that time the Mars-Passat radar was never brought to a level that would allow combat firing of interceptor missiles at anti-ship missiles and other air attack weapons. The fact is that "Sky Watch" (as the complex was called in NATO) at that stage of development of electronic technologies had a serious problem with the principle of programmed transfer of an electron beam over a 360-degree aperture of 4 PFAR canvases, i.e. when transferring the beam from the sector of view of one antenna array to the sector of another (each sector is about 90 degrees). As you know, when an air object enters the view area of the next antenna array, the on-board computer of the radar complex, according to the data of the previous antenna array, must prepare the exact coordinates of the tracked target for instant acquisition for auto-tracking with a new track. This requires modern high-performance processors, which neither the USSR nor the United States possessed at that time. The first versions of BIUS "Aegis" became a vivid proof of this.
When designing the AN / SPY-1 radar, Lockheed Martin specialists were unable to create a centimeter radar with an all-aspect aperture that would accompany and capture air targets without the help of specialized AN / SPG-62 continuous-radiation radar searchlights, and only in 2010 began development of a promising multifunctional radar AMDR, where the single-channel AN / SPG-62 aperture is replaced by multi-channel AFAR illumination radars. Also, a similar technology was used in centimeter I-band APAR radars, installed on European frigates such as "Saxony", "De Zeven Provincien" and "Yver Huitfeld". Our modern example is the shipborne SAM 3K96-2 "Polyment-Redut", which to this day has problems in integrating the 9M96E and 9M100 missiles with the Sigma-22350 combat information and control system and the Polyment multifunctional radar station.
The Chinese very successfully copied the Aegis, which caused great fears between the States and its allies, but the West and its Asian partners became even more fearful after the publication on the Chinese Internet of photographs showing the loading of modular universal embedded launchers of the Chinese Type 052D EM with transport and launch containers. (TPK) with YJ-18A supersonic anti-ship missiles. For the US Navy, Japan and India, this meant only one thing - the loss of the superior strike potential of the fleets in the long term. Today the Americans cannot answer with anything worthy to the 3-swing YJ-18A. All anti-ship missiles of the Harpoon and AGM-158C LRASM families, despite the range from 240 to 1000 km, are subsonic, and therefore can be easily intercepted by the Chinese ship HQ-9B. The use of the SM-6 SAM in the anti-ship mode also has its own characteristics. Their long flight range is achieved only along a semi-ballistic trajectory, where the missiles can be easily detected by Type 346 radar stations and intercepted by HQ-9 missiles.
But, unfortunately, the United States is not the only serious player in the "anti-Chinese axis"; the Indian Naval and Air Forces play a very important role here, which are now receiving the most advanced models of surface ships, diesel-electric submarines and tactical fighters combining Russian, Ukrainian, Israeli, French, and own national technologies of the XXI century. For example, the main surface strike and defensive component of the Indian Navy is represented by 3 Project-15A (Project P15A) destroyers of the Calcutta class. The running qualities of 163-meter destroyers with an almost "cruising" displacement of 7,500 tons are provided by 4 gas turbine power plants GTD-59 with 2 gearboxes RG-54, developed by the Nikolaev enterprise SE "Zorya-Mashproekt" (Ukraine), as well as 2 Russian shaft lines and propellers, designed by FSUE SPKB ("Northern Design Bureau") and FSUE TsNII im. Academician A. N. Krylov.
Attack anti-ship equipment is represented by 16 heavy supersonic stealth anti-ship missiles of the Russian-Indian development "BrahMos", located in 2 vertical launchers (VPU), 8 transport-launch containers each. The defensive armament and the radar equipment attached to it have already been developed by the Israeli corporations Israel Aerospace Industry (IAI) and ELTA Systems. These include: the Barak-8 shipborne long-range air defense system, the EL / M-2248 MF-STAR multifunctional 4-way radar with S-band AFAR (range 250 km) and the EL / M-2238 STAR S-band surveillance radar (range 350 km). The destroyers are equipped with a classic decimeter radar detector LW-08 "Jupiter" with a parabolic antenna array and a horn-type radiator, serially produced by the Dutch company "Thales Nederland BV", as an auxiliary means of viewing the airspace. But despite the ability of the combined anti-ship salvo of 3 destroyers (INS Kolkata, INS Kochi and INS Chennai) of 48 BrahMos anti-ship missiles, this will not be enough to destroy even half of the ship's composition of the Chinese EM "Lanzhou" and "Kunming. "Carrying the HQ-9 complex on board. Moreover, modern Chinese multipurpose fighters Su-30MKK, J-10B, J-15D / S are unlikely to allow dozens of Indian Su-30MKIs to reach a range acceptable for launching BrahMos (300 km).
The Indian Navy urgently needed a quick and effective solution to maintain parity with the Chinese Navy in the Indian Ocean and off the coast of Southeast Asia.
As reported on its website, on September 17, 2016, the analytical resource "Military Parity", the Indian shipbuilding company "Mazagon Docks Ltd" (Mumbai) in cooperation with the Italian holding "Fincantieri - Cantieri Navali Italiani S.p. A." begins the program of serial construction of 7 next-generation stealth frigates "Project-17A". The design of a promising patrol ship with a displacement of 6,670 tons has been developed by Fincantieri under a contract with the Indian Ministry of Defense since the end of 2011. In July 2012, the first graphic image of the new frigate was published on the network, which became a constructive continuation of the first Indian "stealth" frigate of the "Shivalik" class, the creation of which the Indians owe to the OJSC "Severnoye PKB", which was involved in the design in the mid-90s. Therefore, we can observe some similarity with the Russian pr. 11356.6 "Talvar".
The new ships were supposed to significantly strengthen the combat stability of Indian naval and aircraft carrier strike groups in the first half of the 21st century, and therefore the weapons and radar architecture of the new ship were updated. To further reduce the radar signature, the antenna posts of the MR-760 Fregat-M2EM radar detectors and other means of electronic intelligence with the outdated open architecture were removed from the range of the Project-17A radio-electronic equipment. There are reverse blockages of the upper sides of the sides, typical for stealthy ships, an angular compositional mask of the main artillery gun and a high pyramidal superstructure for a multifunctional radar, which makes it possible to increase the radio horizon by several kilometers. Now directly about the radar equipment and naval air defense "Project-17A".
Being a deeply improved frigate of the Shivalik class, with a total displacement of 500 tons increased, the Project-17A came closest to the destroyer class. This is also indicated by its length - 149 m, width - 17, 8 m and draft 9, 9 m (in the missile cruiser URO "Ticonderoga" it is 9, 7 m). Thanks to the computerization of the ship with the help of new microprocessor platforms, the number of the crew was reduced from 257 to 150 people, which automatically freed up the additional internal volumes of the frigate needed for a larger number of launch modules with missile weapons. The configuration of weapons and CIUS is as close as possible to the destroyers "Project-15A" "Kolkata". The 4-channel Shtil-1 air defense missile system with four 3R90 Orekh target illumination radars (present on Shivalik) was removed from the list of shipborne air defense systems, but the Israeli Barak-8 air defense missile system was installed with an antenna post of the EL / M- multifunctional radar. 2248 MF-STAR.
Despite the excellent speed and maneuverability of the 9M317E missiles, the "light" version of the "Shtil-1" with 4 RPN 3R90 installed on the Shivalik could not provide a full-fledged reflection of a massive missile strike by Chinese supersonic anti-ship and anti-radar missiles, in contrast to the long-range Barak-8 "(" LR-SAM "). If the 9M317E missiles use a semi-active radar homing head and strictly 4 target channels, the Barak-8 anti-aircraft interceptor missiles have an active radar seeker receiving target designation from the MF-STAR, so the channel of the complex can approach 8 - 12 simultaneously fired targets. In addition, the antenna post of the MF-STAR station is installed 2 times higher than the 3P90 radar searchlights, due to which the range of Barak-8 for low-altitude targets can reach 35 km, for Shtil-1 - no more than 15 km.
Such a choice of the Indians in favor of the Israeli air defense system for a promising frigate could be condemned, arguing that the 9M317E missiles had better high-speed performance in comparison with the Barak-8 missiles (1550 m / s versus 720 m / s), but here this is completely inappropriate, since The Indian Navy today is guided by the need to effectively combat dozens of low-flying Chinese anti-ship missiles on counter-intersecting trajectories, for which the Barak-8 is ideal, while the four-radar modification of the Calm with high-speed 9M317E is more suitable for destroying fewer targets in pursuit. It is also worth mentioning that the range of the Israeli complex against high-altitude targets reaches 80-90 km, while the Shtil illumination system, based on Orekh radars, limits the firing range to 35 km, and the 9М317E missile has a maximum range of 50 km. … A built-in vertical launcher for 32 TPKs with Barak-8 missiles will be installed on the Project-17A frigates.
General ship radar means of warning about far and near air situation, as well as target designation will be represented by a powerful L-band AWACS radar station "SMART-L". This moment strikingly distinguishes the Project-17A frigates for the better, in comparison with the Kolkata destroyers, in terms of: illumination of the distant air situation, detection and tracking of small-sized ballistic targets, the number of simultaneously tracked target tracks, as well as identification of various stages of flight promptly - tactical ballistic missiles. The "SMART-L" radar is represented by a passive HEADLIGHT mounted on a rotating (with a frequency of 12 rpm) antenna post on the rear of the warship's superstructure. The antenna array is represented by 16 active-type transmit-receive modules and 8 passive-type receiving modules (24 PPM), assembled in a web of 8, 4x4 m. The station operates in the frequency range from 1000 to 2000 MHz (wavelength 15-30 cm) and allows detecting inconspicuous high-precision weapons with EPR less than 0.01 m2 at a distance of up to 65 km. "SMART-L" is capable of tracking up to 1000 air targets and 100 surface targets on the way; but a separate item is the possibility of tracking ballistic missiles at the initial and final stages of flight with fixing the moment of separation of the stages and the warhead.
With the help of specialized drivers installed in the "SMART-L" radar information conversion interface, the developers from "Thales Nederland" managed to programmatically increase the sensitivity of the station's transmit and receive modules, which made it possible to open the ELR extended range mode. This mode was tested on the radar stationed on the F803 "Tromp" frigate of the Royal Netherlands Navy during a joint naval missile defense exercise with the US Navy in the Asia-Pacific region. Operators of the SMART-L station tracked the flight of the ARAV-B training rocket simulating the MRBM, starting from the moment of ascent over the radio horizon, and up to the ascent to the low-orbit section of outer space (150 km), followed by the separation of the warhead already on the descending trajectory. The shipborne surveillance radar showed all the ability to integrate into various missile defense systems to intercept promising hypersonic weapons, as well as to observe near space down to low orbits.
In March 2012, it became known that the "SMART-L" radars installed on most European frigates, thanks to the ELR (Extended Long Range) mode, will be able to detect launching ballistic missiles at a distance of 1000 km, which made it qualities a direct competitor to the AN / SPY-1A family. And in the summer of the same year, we saw the first graphic image of the Indian "Project-17A" with "SMART-L" on board, this confirms the new conceptual approach of the Ministry of Defense and the Indian Navy to the requirements for new warships. In an unobtrusive frigate of a new generation, the Indians see an NK of moderate displacement, with a maximum level of automation and "digitization", a minimum crew size, high defensive capabilities and the ability to monitor the entire spectrum of aerospace threats with their partial neutralization. These are the defensive qualities that a series of 7 Project 17A frigates will give the Indian fleet.
Strike armament of the frigate will remain the same: the project provides for 1x8 VPU for 2-swing anti-ship missiles PJ-10 "BrahMos". All 7 frigates of the series will carry an arsenal of 56 BrahMos, capable of overtaking targets at a distance of 270-290 km along a combined trajectory, which is not a very pleasant fact for the Chinese fleet, since, like the American Aegis, the Chinese H / ZBJ-1 is very it is easy to overload with a massive missile strike, which will not be able to cope with only 4, provided by the CIUS, continuous radiation radar to illuminate the target. In a few years, we should expect the adoption of the Indian Navy and Air Force hypersonic version "BrahMos-2", capable of breaking through the enemy's echeloned missile defense system at speeds up to 1600 - 1700 m / s. The stealth missiles will be included in the armament range of both the Su-30MKI multipurpose fighters and all surface ship projects. After that, a noticeable lag of the Chinese naval missile defense system from the promising Indian anti-ship missile system will begin. The Chinese fleet will need to immediately develop a promising anti-aircraft missile system based on a new multi-channel AFAR-radar, similar to the American prototype AMDR, or the Japanese-Dutch serial multifunctional radar FCS-3A, installed on Akizuki-class destroyers and Hyuga helicopter carriers. For several years, the Celestial Empire will lag behind in the level of defense of its naval strike groups and aircraft carrier formations.
Interestingly, the Indian "stealth" frigates of "Project-17A", as well as other NKs of various projects, will be equipped with an improved Russian rocket-propelled bomb launcher RBU-6000 RPK-8, large-scale production of the first version ("Smerch-2") which was started in 1964 at the Ural Heavy Engineering Plant (UZTM, Uralmashzavod) in the city of Sverdlovsk. It can be assumed that the continuation of the tradition of installing RBU-6000 is a kind of tribute to the fashion in the new century of more modern anti-submarine and anti-torpedo systems such as “Packet-NK”, RPK-9 “Medvedka” and “Caliber-NKE” with anti-submarine guided missile 91RE2, but not everything is so simple here.
Firstly, despite the technical possibility of unifying the transport and launch containers for the BraMos anti-ship missiles with the 91RE2 Caliber-NKE anti-submarine missiles, a full-fledged anti-submarine defense cannot be provided in the near underwater zone (“dead zone”), which is about 5 km … Secondly, for these purposes, a more compact defensive anti-torpedo / anti-submarine complex of the "Packet-NK" type is needed, but as you know, this complex was not supplied for export and is present only in the armament of our corvettes of project 20380/85 and frigates of project 22350 "Admiral Gorshkov ". "Packet-NK", developed by JSC GNPP "Region", is produced in a double version - anti-torpedo and anti-submarine. The anti-torpedo version is represented by the M-15 anti-torpedoes installed in one or more (up to 8) guides of the SM-588 launcher. The counter-torpedo is equipped with an active-passive acoustic homing head and has a range of 1400 m at a speed of 90 km / h. The target is captured by the seeker at a distance of up to 400 m. The "dead zone" of the anti-torpedo version is no more than 100 m.
The anti-submarine version of the "Packet-NK" complex provides for equipping 14 times more long-range small-sized thermal torpedo MTT; its range reaches 20 km, the speed is similar. The ratio of the configuration of the installation with the M-15 anti-torpedoes in the SM-588 guides is also completely different, and may depend both on the number of guides (from 1 to 8), and on the data on the underwater enemy previously reconnoitered by hydroacoustic systems. If, for example, ultra-low-noise anaerobic diesel-electric submarines with an air-independent power plant operate in the area of the naval theater of operations, then more emphasis is placed on equipping with M-15 anti-torpedoes, since it will be very difficult to detect enemy submarines themselves, and the main task will be to defend against single or massive torpedo attacks. For example, modern German torpedoes DM2A4ER (at a speed of about 30 knots) have a range of up to 140 km, and the British "Spearfish" - 54 km at a speed of up to 65 knots (about 120 km / h). It will be almost impossible to detect the enemy's DSEPL carrier at such a distance, especially in the waters dominated by the enemy, and you will have to take a hit, destroying modern torpedoes a few kilometers from your own ship.
If it is known that other types of submarines are in the zone of sea confrontation, including more “noisy” nuclear submarines and SSBNs (they also carry torpedo armament), then the SM-588 launcher can be equipped with a certain number of MTT torpedoes; they will keep enemy submarines within a 20 km radius of a friendly KUG or AUG.
The Indian naval forces do not possess this complex, and therefore the good old RBU-6000 remain the only reliable options for protecting the new Indian frigates from enemy torpedoes and submarines. A more advanced version of the RPK-8 Zapad anti-submarine missile system, using 12-barreled RBU-6000 launchers as a firepower, was developed by the Tula Design Bureau GNPP Splav in the late 1980s. in order to combine in a single complex the improved anti-torpedo qualities of the Smerch-3 system (with the 6-barrel RBU-1000) and the anti-submarine capabilities of the Smerch-2. The RPK-8 "West" entered service with the Russian Navy on November 26, 1991. The West differs from Smerch-2/3 not only by the single RBU-6000 launcher, but also by the new 90R anti-submarine missile and the MG-94E anti-torpedo missile introduced into the complex.
Anti-submarine missile 90R / R1 is a carrier of a detachable gravitational underwater projectile 90SG with an active sonar homing head. The torpedo shell 90SG is a multifunctional defensive weapon and can be used against enemy submarines as well as against torpedoes and compact delivery vehicles for saboteurs. The missile has a firing range of 600 to 4300 m, and is capable of destroying enemy submarines at depths of up to 1 km. The delivery vehicles for saboteurs and torpedoes can be intercepted at a depth of 4 to 10 m. The reaction time of the RPK-8 Zapad computing facilities from the moment the underwater target is detected to the moment the firing is possible is only 15 seconds, thanks to which any Zapad surface carrier has the ability timely neutralization of the underwater threat. The 90SG submarine gravity projectile is equipped with 19, 5 kg of explosives, which, when used in salvo, make it possible to achieve an 80% probability of hitting an enemy submarine.
The MG-94E anti-torpedo projectile is equipped with a detachable head module of hydroacoustic counteraction, the first stage is similar to the PLUR 90R / R1. Due to a single missile unit, the MG-94E has a range of 4300 m identical to the 90P1, while the principle of operation of the combat module of this projectile is to create active hydroacoustic interference in the immediate vicinity of enemy torpedoes, which disrupts the stable operation of their CLS (systems homing). Together with new anti-torpedo shells and anti-submarine missiles, the RPK-8 Zapad complex retained the ability to use the RSL-60 rocket depth charges, which, despite the very outdated hardware, have a range of 5800 m and are capable of volley fire attacking enemy submarines on depths up to 450 m, in one salvo from 2 to 4 RSL-60 are usually launched. The first RBU-6000 launchers as part of the Smerch-2 anti-submarine missile system were sent to the Indian fleet together with 3 Project 1135.6 Talwar frigates back in 2003.
But the RPK-8 alone is not quite enough for a decent anti-submarine and anti-torpedo defense. The combat information and control system of the ship should also include modern hydroacoustic means of illumination of the underwater situation at the far and near borders. It is these means that provide accurate target designation for anti-submarine missile systems of any generation, and it is on them that the success of repelling an enemy underwater attack, or the early destruction of enemy submarines before the launch from their TA, depends to a greater extent.
Based on the latest observations of the cooperation of the Defense Research and Development Organization DRDO (St. Bangalore) with leading Russian and Western European corporations, all modern Indian submarines and surface ships will be equipped with some of the most advanced sonar systems in the world, slightly inferior only to the latest modifications of the American GAS AN / SQQ-89 (V) 15. The prospective frigates of the Project-17A will not be an exception, the sonar appearance of which will partially or completely repeat the SAC of the senior frigates of the Shivalik class.
The ships will receive an upgraded version of the HUMSA-NG station as the main active-passive GAS. This station is located in the nose bulb fairing of a surface ship and is capable of scanning underwater space in active and passive modes both at a line-of-sight distance (about 46 km) and in the 1st and 2nd convergence zones (63 and 120 km, respectively). The station has excellent potential for locating remote and low-noise underwater objects, but its potential and resolution is noticeably weaker than that of the main state-owned GAS for destroyers and missile cruisers URO AN / SQS-53B / C, since the American station is represented by 576 transmitting and receiving sonar modules. placed in a cylindrical acoustic array with a height of 1, 75 and a diameter of 4, 88 m, and the Indian "HUMSA-NG" in a more compact cylindrical module, numbering no more than 370 transmit and receive elements. Nevertheless, this is absolutely sufficient for the operation of all types of anti-submarine and anti-torpedo weapons of the Project-17A frigate.
Additional sonar station - towed active-passive low-frequency "ATAS / Thales Sintra". This station is an analogue of the Russian GAS "Vignette-EM". It is represented by a flexible extended towed antenna (FPBA), also known as an equidistant towed acoustic array. Its length at Sintra is 900 meters (at Vignette it is from 92 to 368 meters). The acoustic grid is located in a flexible sound-transparent tube and is represented by piezoelectric pressure transducers, which is created by low-frequency hydroacoustic waves caused by the disturbance of the aquatic environment by the hulls of underwater and surface facilities, reflected by hydroacoustic waves from the low-frequency generator-emitter of the station itself in active mode, as well as by submarine and submarine propellers. A towed submerged carrier helps to maintain the required depth during the movement of the GPBA "Sintra" frigate. The station operates at a frequency of 3 kHz and can detect noise-emitting and noise-reflecting underwater objects both in the near zone of acoustic illumination (from 3 to 12 km) and in the first and second distant zones of acoustic illumination (35-140 km). Torpedoes, low-noise submarines and any type of surface craft are detected.
As a result, we have a subtle Indian frigate of the next generation, quite balanced in armament and means of detection / guidance, capable of significantly strengthening the position of Delhi in the Indian Ocean in front of Beijing.
