The end of the 20th century marked the end of an entire era, the collapse of the country fell on the shoulders of the people with a heavy burden, reflected in all spheres of society, from agriculture and housing and communal services, to mechanical engineering and science.
As for the military, the collapse of the system and the subsequent collapse of industry brought the army to the brink of survival. But, in my opinion, the most severe blow was received by the Navy, because without proper financing of the fleet, the ships were forced to rust at the berths, the lack of spare parts and fuel and lubricants affected combat readiness, putting the ship for repair actually meant its withdrawal from the fleet, and the planned modernization dragged on for decades … Over the years, the fleet has lost dozens of ships, many of which were eventually put on pins and needles. Over the past two decades, Russia has actually lost its position not only in the world's oceans, but also on its shores. An example is the Black Sea basin or the Far Eastern region, where our neighbors have significantly changed the balance of power in their favor during this time.
Recently, a lot of information has appeared in the open press about the laying of new ships, but they are mainly small displacement vessels (patrol ships, missile boats, corvettes), the main function of which is to control coastal waters. It is pointless to argue about whether the fleet needs these ships, because the answer is only one "definitely YES", but today we will focus specifically on combat ships capable of solving a wide range of assigned tasks. At the moment, the Russian Navy includes about a dozen surface combat ships capable of solving tasks outside the 200-mile economic zone. The composition of the domestic surface fleet is as follows:
Northern Fleet:
1 Heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser of project 1143.5 type "Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Kuznetsov" (commissioned in 1990)
1 Project 1144.2 heavy nuclear missile cruiser, type "Orlan" Peter the Great (commissioned in 1998)
3 BODs of projects 1155 and 1155, 1: "Vice-Admiral Kulakov" (commissioned in 1981), "Severomorsk" (commissioned in 1987), "Admiral Chabanenko" (commissioned in 1999)
1 Project 956 destroyer, type "Sarych" "Admiral Ushakov" (commissioned in 1993)
Total 6 warships
Black Sea Fleet
1 Project 1164 missile cruiser "Moscow" (commissioned in 1982);
1 BOD Project 1134-B "Kerch" (commissioned in 1974).
A total of 2 warships.
Baltic Fleet
1 Project 956 destroyer "Sarych" "Persistent" (commissioned in 1992)
Total 1 battleship
Pacific fleet
1 Project 1164 Varyag missile cruiser (commissioned in 1989);
3 destroyers of project 956, type "Sarych": "Fast" (commissioned in 1989), "Fearless" (commissioned in 1990), "Admiral Tributs" (commissioned in 1986);
3 BOD Project 1155: Marshal Shaposhnikov (commissioned in 1986), Admiral Vinogradov (commissioned in 1988), Admiral Panteleev (commissioned in 1992)
Total 7 warships
In total, the Russian Navy currently has only 16 surface combat ships (excluding coastal zone ships, auxiliary and landing craft), the average service life of which exceeds two decades.
If in the first two fleets (Black Sea and Baltic), due to the geographical features of the water area, the bulk of the tasks can be assigned to "small ships" (missile boats, small artillery ships, corvettes), then for the Northern and Pacific fleets, ships are of key importance, capable of solving a much wider range of tasks, including in the vastness of the world's oceans. The main purpose of these fleets is to cover the patrol areas of our SSBNs and to protect the territory from the threat of attack by "probable friends" using nuclear weapons and cruise missiles. Since the main sources of threat are AUG and submarines capable of striking a target, being thousands of kilometers away from it, solving the problem of protecting the country at distant lines using ships whose autonomy is significantly limited (10-15 days) seems to be little realizable. … To solve such problems, in my opinion, Ship Strike Groups are needed, consisting of vessels capable of comprehensively solving the tasks of air defense, anti-submarine defense, electronic warfare, and possessing a significant strike potential.
Recently, the media reported on the start of the implementation of the project for the deep modernization of the TARK project "Orlan" "Admiral Nakhimov", as well as announced plans for the truncated modernization of the two remaining nuclear cruisers of the same project of the same project, which have been mothballed since the mid-90s and were planned for withdrawal from the Navy.
Reference: The cruisers of the project 1144 "Orlan" are a series of four highly autonomous heavy nuclear missile cruisers built at the Baltic Shipyard in the USSR from 1973 to 1989, the only surface ships with a nuclear power plant in the Russian Navy.
According to NATO classification, the project is designated as English. Kirov-class battlecruiser.
The chief designer of the project was V. Ye. Yukhnin. As of 2012, only one of the four built cruisers, the Peter the Great TARKR, is in service.
Armament after modernization:
The main acquisition will be UKSK - the newest universal shipborne firing systems. In the same launch containers it will be possible to install Onyx or Caliber missiles, which will become the main weapon. In addition, air defense will be strengthened: the S-400 and new melee air defense systems.
In total, taking into account anti-aircraft missiles, the cruiser will carry over 300 missiles of various types.
Representatives of this project:
Heavy nuclear missile cruiser "Kirov" ("Admiral Ushakov")
Commissioned: December 30, 1980
Northern Fleet of the Russian Navy
Current status: Since 1990 in reserve. Sucked since 1991.
Heavy nuclear missile cruiser "Frunze" ("Admiral Lazarev")
Commissioned: October 31, 1984
Pacific Fleet of the Russian Navy
Current status: Sucked since 1999.
Heavy nuclear missile cruiser "Kalinin" ("Admiral Nakhimov")
Commissioned: December 30, 1988
Northern Fleet of the Russian Navy
Current state: Under repair and modernization since 1999. In fact, the modernization began at the end of 2012, the end of the modernization in 2018
Heavy nuclear missile cruiser "Yuri Andropov" ("Peter the Great")
Commissioned: March 1998
Northern Fleet of the Russian Navy
Current state: In service.
There is also information about the commenced repair and modernization of the Marshal Ustinov RC of the Atlant project, which is to be part of the Pacific Fleet. Additionally, plans were voiced to acquire the RK Ukraine (formerly Admiral of the Fleet Lobov) of the same project from Ukraine.
Reference: The cruisers of the project 1164 Atlant code (NATO code - English Slava class) - a class of Soviet missile cruisers, occupying an intermediate position between the ships of the Ushakov class (pr. 1144 Orlan, formerly Kirov) and the Sovremenny-class destroyers (project 956). The Atlant-class missile cruisers with powerful surface-to-surface missiles became an important part of the Russian Navy after the division of the USSR fleet.
A total of 4 cruisers of this type were built, and 3 were commissioned.
Armament:
• Anti-ship - 16 launchers of the Vulcan complex (ammunition for 16 P-1000 anti-ship missiles), a missile weighing up to 6 tons and a flight speed of 3077 km / h with partial armor is equipped with a powerful (500 kg) conventional high-explosive cumulative or nuclear (350 kt) warhead and is capable of hitting designated targets at a distance of up to 700 km. The flight of the anti-ship missile system to the target is carried out along a complex trajectory. It is equipped with a telecontrol system and an onboard electronic countermeasures against the air defense of the attacked ship. The length of the rocket is 11.7 m, the wingspan is 2.6 m, the diameter of the rocket is 0.88 m.
• Anti-submarine - two torpedo tubes (10 torpedo ammunition for fighting enemy submarines) caliber 533 mm, length 7 m, weight 2 tons, explosive charge 400 kg, range up to 22 km, speed up to 55 knots (100 km / h).
• Two RBU-6000 rocket launchers (ammunition of 96 rocket depth charges, bomb weight 110 kg, warhead weight 25 kg, length 1.8 m, caliber 212 mm) rocket depth charges are mainly intended to protect the ship from torpedoes and submarines, by conducting single or salvo firing, firing range 6 km, immersion depth 500 m.
• Ship-based anti-submarine helicopter Ka-25 / Ka-27 with a hangar and a helipad.
• Two-gun shipborne artillery mount - 130 mm AK-130 (600 rounds of ammunition) is designed to fire at sea, air and coastal targets at a distance of up to 24 km, with a rate of fire of 90 rounds / min. The mass of the installation reaches 98 tons, the mass of the projectile is 86 kg, the muzzle velocity of the projectile is 850 m / s. The AK-130 ammunition includes unitary cartridges with a high-explosive fragmentation projectile, equipped with three types of fuses.
• Six ZAK - AK-630 (16,000 rounds of ammunition, 2,000 rounds per tape) are designed to engage air targets, anti-ship missiles, small ships, pop-up mines and lightly armored ground targets. The initial velocity of a projectile with a diameter of 30 mm, weighing 0.834 kg reaches 900 m / s, a rate of fire of 6000 rds / min, a range of up to 8 km.
• Two installations of the Osa-MA air defense missile system (ammunition of 48 missiles, rocket mass 128 kg) of short range are intended for self-defense of the ship from strikes of aircraft, helicopters and anti-ship missiles, as well as for firing at surface targets. The combat capabilities of the air defense missile system make it possible to destroy air targets at a speed of up to 600 m / s at a distance of up to 15 km and an altitude of up to 5 km, the missile length is 3 m, and the mass is 128 kg.
• Eight S-300F "Fort" air defense systems (64 missiles in 8 launchers of the revolving type below deck, length - 7, 9 m, diameter - 0, 34 m, weight - 1600 kg) is designed to protect the order of ships from attacks by aircraft, cruise missiles and other means of enemy air attack, speed up to 2000 m / s, range up to 90 km and up to 25 km in height.
In my opinion, the ships of these projects, which are armed with the Kalibr and Vulkan missile systems, as well as sea-based S 400 air defense systems, are excellent for solving the assigned tasks and can serve as the basis for the formation of naval strike groups.
In my opinion, the ships of these projects, which are armed with the Kalibr and Vulkan missile systems, as well as sea-based S 400 air defense systems, are excellent for solving the assigned tasks and can serve as the basis for the formation of naval strike groups.
Reference: "Triumph" (S-400, originally - S-300PM3, air defense index - 40R6, according to the classification of the US Defense Ministry and NATO - SA-21 Growler, literally "Grumpy") - Russian long and medium-range anti-aircraft missile system, anti-aircraft missile system (SAM) of a new generation. Designed to destroy all modern and promising aerospace attack weapons - reconnaissance aircraft, strategic and tactical aircraft, tactical, operational-tactical ballistic missiles, medium-range ballistic missiles, hypersonic targets, jammers, radar patrol and guidance aircraft, and others. Each air defense system provides simultaneous shelling of up to 36 targets with guidance of up to 72 missiles at them
The main characteristics of "Triumph"
Maximum speed of targets hit, km / s 4, 8
Target detection range, km 600
Range of destruction of aerodynamic targets, km
• maximum 400
• minimum 2
Target hitting altitude, km
• maximum 30
• minimum 0, 005
Range of destruction of tactical ballistic targets, km
• maximum 60
• minimum 7
The number of simultaneously fired targets (with a full complement of air defense systems) 36
The number of simultaneously guided missiles (full air defense missile system) 72
6-7 Shock Ship Groups, manned by these vessels, accompanied by destroyers, are capable of blocking the main shock-hazardous directions in the future.
The main problem in the formation of such formations is the almost complete absence of modern multipurpose destroyers in the Russian Navy. At the present stage, ships of such classes, which in fact should be equipped with such Strike Groups, are required first of all versatility, the ability to solve a wide range of tasks, such as air defense, anti-submarine defense, electronic warfare, and have a good strike potential. The destroyers available in the Navy (Project 956 "Sovremenny") and BOD (Project 1155) began to be put into service more than 30 years ago and are no longer able to fully solve the entire range of tasks assigned to them without deep modernization, especially that their quantitative composition leaves much to be desired (most of the ships need major repairs or are in reserve), this is well understood by the leadership of the Navy, which plans to modernize the ships of these projects by 2020:
It is planned to carry out repairs and modernization of the EM, as well as to reconstruct the power plant.
The BOD is planned to be equipped with modern A-192 cannons, Caliber missiles and the latest air defense and missile defense system with S-400 Redut missiles.
For the introduction of modern weapon systems, it will be necessary to change the ship's control system, that is, almost all electronics.
Thanks to this alteration, the BODs will actually become destroyers and will be able to destroy not only submarines, but also surface ships, aircraft, missiles and ground objects. That is, they will become universal combat ships.
But it is infinitely impossible to carry out repairs and modernization, no one has canceled such concepts as "metal fatigue" and "physical wear and tear". Based on the foregoing, it is time to think about the development of a destroyer project, which could fully combine the best domestic developments and a ship school, as well as absorb foreign experience. But this project should not only be implemented on paper, but also should actually be launched into a series, since it will not be possible to solve all the accumulated problems in the fleet with single, piece copies.
Summing up, I would like to look into the future with hope, since not everything is lost for our fleet and the country as a whole, and the panic that prevailed in society some 5-10 years ago is gradually disappearing, because with We are able to solve many problems in the implementation of the planned tasks and daily well-coordinated work, and in the next decade Russia will be able to firmly stand on its feet and restore its lost positions in the world ocean.
