Declassified performance characteristics of new Russian missiles shocked the West
Attack ships - destroyers, URO cruisers are desperately needed by the Northern and Pacific fleets in the amount of at least 20 units - 10 each. And we have such ships, thanks to the Soviet military-industrial complex. The cruisers of projects 1144 and 1164 require only overhaul and re-equipment with modern models of radio and missile weapons.
The news of France's refusal to supply the Russian Navy with Mistrals was greeted by experts with great enthusiasm. Our fleet has ships of this class “for nothing, and for money,” as they said in the popular Soviet cartoon. But for four troughs - that is how much it was planned to buy - it would have to pay as much as two billion euros. Apparently, someone's sick fantasy painted a picture of the suicidal landing of four battalions of Russian marines on the coast of Alaska, not otherwise. Perhaps one such ship would be useful to the Ministry of Emergencies, but the Navy would not.
Sometimes you really regret that the Russian land rarely gives birth to such patriotic intellectuals as Sergei Georgievich Gorshkov. Under him, in the period from 1956 to 1985, the Russian fleet reached the peak of its power. The Navy received large series of first-class red-deck handsome missile carriers. The Soviet school of shipbuilding has always stood out against a faded world background. Destroyers have always been a special feature, since the first project, they succeeded better than others. Lately, the Navy has gotten hopeful. On February 13, 2013, the main command of the Navy approved the draft design 23560 (code "Leader") of a promising destroyer for the far sea zone, which was presented by the Northern Design Bureau. This is an excellent ship with swift lines and unlimited seaworthiness, the king of the ocean zone. Looks clearly more advantageous than the puffy and overweight "Orly Burke". A worthy successor to the Soviet destroyer of the 1st project of the Leningrad class. The main armament is cruise missiles for firing at ground targets, the ammunition load is 100-120 units.
Truly formidable
In the late 1960s, the technological lag behind the USSR in the field of missile weapons at sea became obvious to most Western military experts. For clarity, let's imagine a hypothetical duel somewhere in the North Atlantic between peers (1961 release) - the American flagship, the nuclear supercruiser Long Beach and the Soviet missile destroyer Grozny (project 58, which, after the entry into service of the lead ship with a light hand Khrushchev reclassified as URO cruisers). First, let's take a look at the onboard arsenals. Long Beach carries missile weapons: RIM-2 Terrier missiles - 120 units, RIM-8 Talos missiles - 52, ASROC PLUR - 24. Onboard Grozny: Progress anti-ship missiles P-35 and V-600 missiles "Wave" - 16 units. Nuclear weapons at Long Beach: six SAM-N-6bW / RIM-8B nuclear missiles equipped with W-30 warheads with a yield of 0.5 kilotons were stored in the cellars of the Talos long-range air defense system (from declassified US Navy records, according to other well-known sources - 2-5 kt) plus 46 conventional SAM-N-6b / RIM-8A. In the Terrier medium-range air defense system, 10 (out of 120) RIM-2D missiles are equipped with W-45 nuclear warheads with a capacity of one kiloton. In addition to anti-aircraft missiles, there were three ASROC (W-44) nuclear PLURs on board. The nuclear arsenal of "Grozny" is not so impressive: only four 3M44 missiles of the P-35 anti-ship missile complex out of 16 were equipped with TK-11 nuclear warheads with a capacity of 200 kilotons.
The US Navy did not see a particular need for specialized anti-ship weapons, believing that carrier-based aircraft with tactical nuclear bombs B43 and B58 are more effective. The tasks of self-defense of ships were supposed to be solved with the help of anti-aircraft missiles adapted for firing at surface targets. Until the appearance of Harpoon in 1977, the American Navy did not have specialized anti-ship missiles. Of the many types of air defense systems that the navies of NATO countries have, Talos is the most suitable for firing at surface targets. In it, in the initial and middle segment of the flight path, the principle of guidance along the radar beam or the three-point method is applied, in the Western technical literature - the saddled beam. Its main drawback was that the width of the radar beam increased with distance, so guidance was possible as long as it did not exceed the radius of destruction of the missile warhead. To correct errors in the final section of the trajectory, semi-active radar guidance is used. The rocket could be launched at a surface target located within the ship's radio horizon. Since the reflection of the rotating radar beam from the water surface at small tilt angles could create problems for the autopilot, the Talos missile defense system rose to a great height and then dived almost vertically on the target, illuminated by the SPG-59 radar beam. Experimental firing from the cruiser Oklahoma City at an obsolete destroyer in 1968 demonstrated that a massive 3300 lb. hour), has enough kinetic energy to sink a ship. The missile defense system descended almost vertically, striking the stern, pierced the deck, rammed the engine room, blowing out the boiler nozzle, and the bottom, roaring into the depths. The ship broke in two and sank. The damage would be even greater if the warhead carried explosives. The only condition that limits the ability of Talos missiles to fire at surface targets is that at least part of the metal mast must stick out from under the radio horizon. Experienced firing determined the maximum range of 25 miles (40 km) at the target "destroyer". That is, in this conditional battle, a situation arises when one ship attacks, and the enemy can only defend. Why are the principles of guidance of the Talos missile defense system described in such detail? The fact is that the nuclear RIM-8B does not have semi-active radar guidance, it is controlled only in the radio beam throughout the flight, so you can forget about firing at surface and low-flying targets. It even outwardly differs from the usual RIM-8A in the absence of "horns" - four interferometer antennas on the outer surface of the air intake ring. The missile is designed to fire at a group aerial target flying at high or medium altitudes. The radius of destruction of a nuclear warhead is up to 1000 feet (300 meters). If it is fired at a train of four P-35 missiles, stretching eight kilometers, it will hit one at best.
"Grozny" is capable, with external target designation from Tu-16RTs, Tu-95RTs or Ka-25RTs helicopters, to strike at Long Beach from a distance of 200-250 kilometers with two salvoes of four missiles. They are in two echelons with an interval of two kilometers, the nuclear ones - those who close the ranks will overcome this distance in eight to nine minutes. The first missiles with conventional warheads go to "slaughter", in other words, are designed to oversaturate the single-channel Talos and Terrier air defense systems and will certainly be shot down, while nuclear missiles will get to a supercruiser with a displacement of 15,600 tons and send its charred skeleton to the bottom.
It is clear that "Long Beach" is a security ship, it does not go alone, only as part of the AUG. But this is an example of how the "lone wolf" - a small Soviet destroyer with a displacement of 4,500 tons can tear apart a whole herd of expensive American buffaloes.
Undershoot "Tomahawk"
Since January 24, 2014, Sevmash has been working on the modernization of "Admiral Nakhimov" under the project 11442M. The technical design was developed by the Northern PKB. The modernization of the cruiser began with the dismantling of large-sized equipment and systems that must be replaced and repaired. This made it possible to reduce the weight of the structure, which facilitated the transfer from the quay wall to the enterprise's loading basin. In one of the Sevmash workshops, pontoons were made for the transfer of "Admiral Nakhimov" through the threshold of a floating hydraulic gate in the loading basin. On October 16, 2014, the head of the Northern Design Bureau said that after the repair, the Admiral Nakhimov will serve another 30-40 years: “It will be a fundamentally updated ship, almost new. He has a good body. And everything else, except for the hull and part of the power plant, will be new."
Sevmash and the design bureau of special machine-building entered into a deal for 10 sets of UVP 3S-14 for installation on a missile cruiser during modernization. The contract is estimated at 2.559 billion rubles. Thus, 20 SM-255 launchers of the 3K45 "Granit" complex will be replaced by ten modules of the 3C-14 vertical launch unit under the 3M14 "Caliber" KR and 3M54 anti-ship missiles. The total ammunition load will be 80 missiles.
3M14 "Caliber" showed extremely high efficiency during the combat operation in Syria. The first baptism of fire of the Russian-Soviet strategic KR took place on the night of October 7, 2015. A grouping of the Caspian Flotilla consisting of the Project 11661 Dagestan missile ship (Gepard code) and three Project 21631 Buyan-M MRKs launched 26 Caliber 3M14 missiles at the targets of the Islamic State banned in Russia. On November 20, the same squadron struck at targets in the territory captured by terrorists in Syria with eighteen "Calibers". On December 8, the submarine "Rostov-on-Don" of project 636, while in the Mediterranean, fired a salvo of four of the same missiles at IS targets from a submerged position. Immediately after the second missile attack, all central television channels showed footage of the Defense Minister's report to the President on the results of the combat operation. Vladimir Putin noted the high efficiency of the new Russian airborne X-101 and sea-based 3M14 airborne missiles. For the first time declassified and announced personally by the president of the performance characteristics of new missiles. In particular, the world community became aware of the operational range of the Kh-101 KR - 4,500 kilometers and the 3M14 - 1,500 kilometers. While the first figure did not surprise leading Western experts, the second caused shock. Previously, it was believed that the export version of the 3M14E has a firing range of 275 kilometers, and the Russian one - no more than 500. Although it is worth recalling: high-ranking naval officers in the official Russian press unequivocally hinted at a range of 2,000 kilometers and even 2,600 kilometers. The President emphasized: “If necessary, missiles can be equipped with nuclear warheads. " Let's dwell on this in more detail.
There are no technological problems here, considering that the Caliber is the direct heir to the Soviet sea-based KR 3M10 Granat. More precisely, a deep modernization. Soviet nuclear warheads can be easily removed from warehouses, reactivated and mounted on new missiles. The assortment is rich. These are, first of all, almost "native" TK 66-02 with a capacity of 200 kilotons. They were installed not only on "Grenades", but also on the airborne KR X-55 and KR 3M12 "Relief", better known as the RK-55. The improved model TK 66-05 with increased power of up to 250 kilotons was installed only on Kh-55SM missiles. Both warheads have the same weight - 140 kilograms. Another "candidate" is the lighter 90-kilogram TK-60 of low power (10 kt), specially designed for the 3M55 Onyx anti-ship missile system. The original version of the "Caliber" has a high-explosive fragmentation warhead weighing 500 kilograms. With the replacement of a conventional warhead with a nuclear one, with the rational use of the vacated internal volumes of the rocket, it is possible to place up to 400 kilograms of additional fuel, which will increase the range of up to a thousand kilometers. Let me remind you that the sea-based medium-range missiles have nothing to do with the INF Treaty.
Another premiere remained little noticed - the first ever combat use of the TFR, equipped with a fundamentally new ARGS-14 seeker - active radar, capable of working on ground stationary and limited mobile targets in a complex natural and artificially created jamming environment. That is, the GOS ARGS-14 is capable of identifying targets against the background of a difficult terrain and in conditions of active radio countermeasures by the enemy. In 2014, Raytheon, making up for the lag in guidance systems from Russian technologies for the TFR, began test flights of the improved Block IV modification to attack surface and restricted ground targets. The new active radar seeker IMS-280 with AFAR X-band (2) in the 10-12 GHz range (wavelength - 2.5 cm) is capable of using the reflected electromagnetic signal, comparing it with the archive of potential target signatures stored on the hard drive of the on-board computer, autonomously define: "our" - "alien" ship or a civilian ship. Depending on the answer, the rocket independently decides which target to attack. Gradually, the ARLs of the GOS are replacing the OE of the GOS from missiles of different classes from ATGM to TFR. However, the trend. With the same, one might say, identical characteristics, the American seeker is 25 percent heavier than the Russian one and occupies a larger volume in the rocket. The designers warned the military: despite the fact that the new GOS will be installed instead of the AN / DXQ-1 DSMAC optoelectronic module, some of the fuel tanks of sections 1, 2, 3 will have to be removed, the total volume of fuel will be reduced to 360 kilograms. This will reduce the operational range of the missile from 1600 to 1200 kilometers. The military with a creak, but agreed. In return, they get a universal long-range missile system for strikes against ground targets and a full-fledged anti-ship missile in one missile, which they never had. The previous, outdated TASM anti-ship Tomahawk, retired more than a decade ago, was equipped with a primitive active radar seeker AN / DSQ-28 Harpoon missile, and there were serious concerns about the very limited ability to clearly identify targets from long range. The rocket could not find a target or take the first one that came across the AU, including its ships. Even the installation of GPS satellite navigation receivers on all missiles in the mid-90s did not greatly improve the situation. Anti-ship missiles BGM-109B TASM had an unprecedented maximum aerodynamic range of 500 miles (800 km), but the submarine and NK commanders were forbidden by internal instructions to use it for more than 200 miles. Raytheon is clearly winning the competition for a promising long-range anti-ship missile system from its competitor - Lockheed Martin with its LRASM project. The company proposes not to produce new missiles, but to modernize the entire arsenal of four thousand existing Tomahawks. The repair kit, which costs 250 thousand dollars apiece, includes a major overhaul with an extension of the service life for 15 years and the installation of a new GOS. The completion of the work is planned for 2021.
Over the past year, R&D has been in full swing at Raytheon on a supersonic 3-speed version of the Tomahawk. It will have nothing in common with its predecessor, except for the name. Instead of DTRD rocket will receive a fundamentally new ramjet, accelerating it to a cruising speed of 3 M, maintained throughout the flight to the target. The factor seriously limiting the performance characteristics of the missile is the size of the ship's launch tubes (glasses) of the UVP Mk-41. The missile container must not exceed 21 "(533 mm) in diameter and 266" (6756 mm) long. The weight of the booster rocket is limited to 4000 lb (1800 kg). It is appropriate to recall the DARPA Arc light program, which at one time did not leave the pages of the media. The impression was that the agency had gathered extremely naive people with knowledge of physics at the level of the 6th grade of high school. Already the first reports about Arc light were very similar to science fiction. In the dimensions of the Mk-41 launcher, it is impossible to make an aeroballistic missile with a hypersonic upper stage, having a mind-boggling launch range of 3,700 kilometers, even with a microscopic warhead of 100 pounds. The missile was created according to the concept of a rapid global strike. To achieve such results with the available initial data, you need a solid fuel that is ten times higher in specific impulse and calorific value than the best modern grades. In the end, the Ministry of Defense realized that DARPA was leading by the nose, since 2012 they stopped funding this program and now generally mistrust all the agency's developments.
TARKR "Peter the Great" is planned to be docked for overhaul in the third or fourth quarter of 2019 and completed at the end of 2022. The ship, unlike Admiral Nakhimov, will have a mixed ammunition load of 3M14 Caliber subsonic missile launchers, 3M55 Onyx supersonic missile systems, and is also equipped with a fundamentally new 3K22 Zircon hypersonic missile system (for more details - “Five Machs from the target”, “MIC ", No. 12, 2016). The product is undergoing test trials, which are scheduled to be completed by 2020. All Peter the Great's missile armament will be placed in the same 10 universal modules UVP 3S-14. Unlike the American Mk-41, the Russian UVP will allow the deployment of weapons with large weight and size characteristics: up to 750 millimeters in diameter, up to 9000 millimeters long, with a launch weight of up to 4000 kilograms for liquid fuel missiles and up to 4500 kilograms for solid fuel missiles. This provides significant advantages in terms of range (up to 1000 km), speed and combat load.
Younger brothers "Kirov"
By mid-1989, the USSR Navy numbered about 1,000 surface ships and 377 submarines (including 189 nuclear-powered). Of these, 276 and 338, respectively, were capable of carrying nuclear weapons. The surface force consisted of seven aircraft-carrying cruisers, 34 cruisers, 52 destroyers, 119 large and small anti-submarine ships and 65 missile corvettes. The main strategic striking power was 64 SSBNs, which had 980 ballistic missiles on board, capable of delivering 2,956 nuclear charges to targets at an intercontinental range. The Soviet Navy at that time was able to wage an armed struggle in the sea and ocean spaces with any enemy, to successfully resist the most powerful fleet - the American and dwarf fleets of NATO countries at the same time.
The modern Russian fleet is a pale shadow of the mighty Soviet Navy. The project of the last Soviet missile cruiser 1144 began to be developed in the mid-60s. The first ship in a series of five units was laid down at the Baltic Shipyard in Leningrad on March 26, 1974 and entered service in 1980. He received the name "Kirov". Cruisers of this type are the largest combat surface ships in the world, laid down after the Second World War, with the exception of aircraft carriers. Displacement - 24,500 tons, length - 251 meters. The power plant is nuclear, has a full capacity of 140 thousand horsepower. Travel speed - 31 knots. Crew - 728 officers and sailors. The cruiser carries on board three Ka-27 (Helix) helicopters. The main armament of the ship is 20 supersonic anti-ship missiles 3M45 "Granit" with a firing range of 600 kilometers. The second cruiser, Frunze (renamed Admiral Ushakov in 1992), entered service in 1984. Both ships were in the fleet reserve for some time. Currently "Kirov" is dismantled for metal. "Admiral Ushakov" - laid up in the Abrek Bay in the Far East. Two other ships - "Admiral Nakhimov" and "Peter the Great", laid down as "Kalinin" and "Yuri Andropov" in 1983 and 1986, entered service in 1988 and 1998, respectively. The construction of the fifth ship was canceled in 1989.
