As previously announced, on April 23, two new frigates of Project 22350, named Admiral Amelko and Admiral Chichagov, were laid, as well as two new ships, as promised, Project 11711, named Vladimir Andreev and Vasily Trushin.
And it was then that everyone was surprised: the Navy and USC threw a surprise to the honorable public.
Other landing ships. What was laid on April 23, 2019?
Everyone remembers the epic with the project 11711 large landing craft - a record long-term construction, and a record not only in terms of time, it was built for 14 years, but also by how simple the ship turned out to be "too tough for our shipyard" in the end. What is the only one last alteration of the ship, "refused" to demagnetize after the end of construction! And the fleet, which changed the TTZ three times for a ship under construction, "distinguished itself" here no less.
In the end, the ship was still completed. Extremely unsuccessful - from the hull contours designed with errors, to the very concept, the ship was and remains the object of well-deserved criticism. Nevertheless, as already indicated, the laying of such ships would be an absolute plus for the Navy, simply because no matter how bad they are, and such ships are better than none. Domestic large landing ships are seriously worn out, while the ships of the project 775 were built in Poland for a long time, and because of this there are difficulties with their repair, an update is necessary, so the news of the laying of a couple of ships of the project 11711 was received positively by almost all observers.
However, at the ceremony itself, it turned out that the ships being laid have very little in common with the project 11711 that we knew. We look at the photo.
This is the lead ship of Project 11711 Ivan Gren.
This is his mortgage board with a silhouette.
And now we look at the image of the ships being laid. This is a completely different project in fact! Instead of two superstructures - one, the flight deck has been expanded to accommodate simultaneous flights of two helicopters.
And the silhouette.
Moreover, the head of the USC A. Rakhmanov said that the ships' displacement will be different - 7-8 thousand tons.
The mortgaged ships have very little in common with the "original" 11711. Surprisingly, for such different ships, no other project code was used - they deserve it.
The project, however, raises questions. The figure clearly shows that the ship has retained the bow gate for unloading equipment "at point-blank", to the shore. But for a ship with such a displacement, the idea of going close to the shore seems extremely dubious. For him, it would be much more logical to lower the equipment afloat through the aft gate and send it to the shore on its own. Frankly speaking, the losses with this method of landing are lower for both the landing force and the ships. The only problem is that the Marine Corps does not have a seaworthy armored vehicle, but as soon as a ship has been made from which a full-fledged over-the-horizon landing can be carried out, it would be worth spending money on a car - especially since it can be used with conventional large landing ships, and for the same over-the-horizon disembarkation.
The gate is a problem node. The ships that are equipped with them have the danger of knocking out the gate by a wave when slamming, and there were such cases in the fleets. As a precautionary measure, the BDK uses the "strapping" of the gates in the transport position, which at the same time slows down and complicates their use, as well as the ship's tacking, at an angle to the wave, which reduces the speed at crossings in some cases. It is clear that the new ships will inherit this problem. Was it justified? More likely no than yes.
One of the types of slamming is bottom. Impact on the wave can destroy the bow. There is also a "oncoming" wave impact, into the stem (into the nose)
Here you can recall the Americans who solved the issue with the gates on the tank landing "Newports" by abandoning the gate in favor of the most complex folding bridge - and this was not done just like that.
TDK-class "Newport"
The second "weak point" is the very possibility of the ship's approach to the shore. Physics cannot be fooled, and 7000 tons of displacement for a ship with dimensions comparable to the large landing craft of project 11711 means a large draft. But for approaching the shore, a shallow draft is extremely important. Even for a "classic" tank landing ship, a very small part of the world's coast is available for disembarkation. For the new 7000 tonne trucks, it will be even less. And this greatly facilitates the enemy's anti-amphibious defense, because there are few places where such a large ship can approach the shore.
Do the new ships have a docking camera? We do not know this yet. Let's just say - for a ship of this class, it would look very logical, in fact, the Navy would receive a pair of almost full-fledged (minus the problematic gates) DVKDs, which we have long and sorely lacked. But so far we do not even know if the ship has the ability to release equipment from the stern.
Well, let's wait.
One way or another, Vladimir Andreev and Vasily Trushin have one colossal advantage over the standard Grenas: a large flight deck allows a couple of helicopters to be lifted simultaneously. This is a huge step forward compared to "Ivan Gren" and "Peter Morgunov", which, if there are two helicopters on board, have the ability to lift only one into the air, after which it is necessary to pull out the second from the cramped and narrow hangar and prepare it for takeoff. This, it must be admitted, is a miserable scheme for the use of helicopters, and it is very good that everything will be different on the new ships.
As you can see, although there are questions about the new large landing craft, it is still clear that the designers and the fleet are working on errors, and are trying to fix something. It would, of course, be much more useful to use the experience of countries that have more experience in the construction of amphibious assault ships than Russia, at least the same Singapore or Indonesia. But we traditionally do not learn from other people's mistakes, only from our own.
Well, let it be so. It's better to learn from your mistakes than not learn at all. So, be that as it may, the news of the laying of new landing ships is doubly joyful, both because of the very fact of the laying, and because it seems that work on the mistakes has begun. Sooner or later, but we will come to an optimal appearance for both the landing ships and the landing forces in general.
All this cannot but rejoice.
But the matter is not limited to landing ships.
Other frigates
According to rumors leaked to the press, the two new frigates of Project 22350 have not 16 "cells" for offensive missile weapons, but 24!
This news is positive without options. Now the new frigates in terms of the power of their offensive missile weapons (cruise missiles, anti-ship missiles, PLUR) have potentially surpassed even the cruisers of the 1164 project, which have only 16 heavy supersonic anti-ship missiles. Yes, in theory they fly further, in practice it is simply unrealistic to obtain reliable target designation at such a range, which nullifies this advantage. But the quantity is the quantity. Both "Amelko" and "Chichagov", according to the above information, will be able to carry the same 16 supersonic anti-ship missiles, only "Onyx", and they will also have room for eight other missiles - for example, PLUR, or "Caliber" to strike at " earth ".
Inside the red outline - vertical missile launchers. On project 22350, there were always two of them, 8 missiles each. Now, perhaps, there will be three - in the same zone
With an additional launcher for eight missiles, the total number of missiles on board, together with anti-aircraft missiles in the new ships, reached 56 - an unparalleled number for a Fregat-class ship.
It is worth rejoicing for the fleet this time without reservations.
Where did you "stick" the third launcher? Apparently, next to the old two - at least, there are no other possible places on the ship. It must also be remembered that the frigates of Project 22350 are distinguished by a very dense layout, and it took a lot of effort from the engineers to embed another launcher.
It's good that they did it (if 24 missiles are true).
Political question
Among other things, on such a significant day for the fleet, the absence of the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Admiral Korolev, at the ceremony of laying down the new ships was surprising. I must say that rumors have been circulating about Korolev's "precarious" position for a long time. And there are plenty of clear signs that the president is already seriously annoyed by what is happening with the Navy, the development of which he paid great attention to. From this point of view, the absence of the commander-in-chief next to the president may be a sign of clouds gathering over him. Let's say right away - there is a reason. The number of insane decisions regarding naval development exceeded the "critical mass" even under Admiral Chirkov, but Korolev was able to do the seemingly impossible: to aggravate the situation even more. If we assume that the president is dissatisfied with the commander-in-chief and that this is why the commander-in-chief was not at the ceremony of laying the new ships, then perhaps a new commander-in-chief awaits us. Not to miss again with the candidacy.
A spoon of tar
Unfortunately, it was not only positive. The ceremony of withdrawal of the submarine "Belgorod", a radically rebuilt former modernized missile carrier of Project 949AM, evoked sad thoughts. If everything went as it should, then this ship would have entered service several years ago as the first deeply modernized 3rd generation missile carrier, armed with at least 72 cruise missiles. With improved electronics and reduced noise. Some experts argue that since the Belgorod would be built immediately as a carrier of the Caliber, and would not be rebuilt from the standard 949A, the number of missiles on board could be increased to a hundred.
A sad event, in fact.
Now we will never know - the missile submarine was mutilated during the restructuring, and instead of dozens of cruise missiles on the sides, launchers are equipped (are they equipped?) For six Poseidon SPA.
Which we know useless from a military point of view, vulnerable and do not have any advantages over ballistic missiles (on the contrary, missiles have all the advantages).
An additional section was cut into the boat to ensure the basing of the nuclear deep-water station, the Shelf power module and the Harpsichord NPA, and she herself will go not to the fleet, but to the GUGI MO, which uses the Poseidon SPA project as an excuse to increase budgets and acquire additional power in the Ministry of Defense. This ship is lost to the Navy.
There is no doubt that what the GUGI is doing is important (except for the Poseidons), but the converted Project 667BDR submarines, which have now been massively withdrawn from the Pacific Fleet's combat strength, but have not yet been disposed of, would be enough for them. And there was no need to "spend" the new missile carrier for the needs of the GUGI, it was a decision somewhere between a stupid crime and criminal stupidity. However, the Poseidon project will cost us dearly in the future, much more expensive than the lost submarine.
One way or another, but in general, firstly, there were much more good events on April 23 than bad ones, and secondly, there is a trend towards correcting the situation in surface shipbuilding.
It is still just "being born", but this cannot but rejoice.
Although, as it turned out, there is something to be sad about.
