The mine defense ship of Project 12700 will ensure the exit of the Navy forces from their bases.
The Navy will include the newest Project 12700 minesweeper Afanasy Ivannikov. He will serve in the Northern Fleet. The ship is capable of detecting and neutralizing all types of marine mines. This includes the so-called smart mines, which can be found both in water and in the sea. In the North, he will be engaged in ensuring the withdrawal of ships and submarines to sea, experts say.
What tasks will the minesweeper Afanasy Ivannikov perform?
On Wednesday, the new mine defense ship Afanasy Ivannikov of Project 12700 Alexandrite will be accepted into the Navy. The solemn ritual of raising the St. Andrew's flag will take place on the Baltiysk embankment. According to sources of the Russian Navy's Izvestia, the ship will replenish the Northern Fleet.
The ships of this project are designed to combat naval mines, including new ones, the so-called smart ones, which the Afanasy Ivannikov mine defense ship can detect both in water and in the sea, the military department said.
Photo: Global Look Press/Bernd von Jutrczenka
Image source: iz.ru
"Smart" mines are currently being developed in different countries of the world. They can be installed in a group or separately from each other. Electronics, using a special algorithm, allows you to distinguish your own from others, as well as determine the type of naval target. To do this, acoustic portraits of ships are embedded in the software.
"The ships of Project 12700 have a very powerful system for detecting various kinds of underwater objects — using sonar stations, unmanned boats, and it has an underwater mine detector," military expert Dmitry Boltenkov told Izvestia. — There is a complex system that allows you to see not only anchor and non-contact mines, but also those that are deepened. If you get a three-dimensional picture of the seabed, and then compare it with a new image, you can find differences and understand that there may be something dangerous there.
Photo: TASS/Alexander Demyanchuk
Image source: iz.ru
Afanasy Ivannikov will become the ninth representative of the series to join the fleet. Two ships, the Alexander Obukhov and Lev Chernavin, serve in the Baltic, three, the Georgy Kurbatov, Ivan Antonov and Vladimir Yemelyanov, are part of the Black Sea Fleet, and three more, the Yakov Balyaev, Pyotr Ilyichev and Anatoly Shlemov, serve in the Pacific Ocean.. The Polar minesweeper was recently launched. According to Alexander Moiseev, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy, this ship will become part of the Northern Fleet by the end of the year. Three more representatives of the series are under construction: Dmitry Lysov, Semyon Agafonov and Viktor Korner.
Thus, there have been no new Project 12700 minesweepers in the Northern Fleet until now, and this year it will receive two ships at once.
"This is good news for the Northern Fleet,— said Dmitry Boltenkov. — During the Great Patriotic War, we lost many minesweepers to mines. And now there may be a mine danger too. Minesweepers are needed to ensure the withdrawal of ships and submarines of the Northern Fleet to the Barents Sea. Its main bases are located in such a way that passage from them to the sea is limited. Enemy forces can mine the exits from their bases with the help of submarines or aircraft. The first modern minesweeper is very good. The ships of this class, which were previously owned by the Northern Fleet, were built several decades ago.
Photo: IZVESTIA/Pavel Volkov
Image source: iz.ru
The Northern Fleet's need for new minesweepers is great, military expert Captain I rank Vasily Dandykin told Izvestia.
"Minesweeping forces are a necessary element of any Navy," he noted. — Mines are becoming more sophisticated every year. We need good modern minesweepers to work with both on-board equipment and unmanned descent vehicles. The ships of the Alexandrite project have already shown their good qualities. For a fleet like the Northern Fleet, especially given the tension on this flank created by a potential enemy, such minesweepers are a great necessity. Moreover, this is a problem that needs to be solved very quickly. I hope that our main polar fleet will receive even more such ships.
Photo: IZVESTIA/Pavel Volkov
Image source: iz.ru
The construction of the first two ships of the project, the Alexander Obukhov and Georgy Kurbatov, took six years each. However, in the future, the release dates of the minesweepers were significantly reduced, and now about three years pass from the laying to the transfer to the fleet. Last year, Vladimir Seredokho, general director of the Sredne-Nevsky Shipyard, reported that from 2025 the company would transfer two ships of Project 12700 to the Navy annually.
Characteristics of the mine defense ship of Project 12700
The mine defense ship of project 12700 has a displacement of 890 tons, a length of 61.6 m, a width of 10.3 m, and a speed of 16.5 knots. The range of navigation is 1,500 miles, the autonomy of navigation is 10 days. The crew is 44 people.
The hulls of the Project 12700 minesweepers are made of monolithic fiberglass, and magnetic ammunition fuses do not react to them. At the same time, such a case has a higher strength compared to steel ones.
Photo: IZVESTIA/Pavel Volkov
Image source: iz.ru
The Diamant system, which includes two light boats with special underwater robots, is installed on board to search for and destroy mines. The device is designed to neutralize minefields within 10 km and at a depth of up to 100 m. Thanks to the plastic hull and low-noise engine, sea mines do not react to the boats, and they can search unhindered using sonar and magnetometers.
The integrated Alexandrite-ISPUM mine search and destruction system is designed to detect deep-sea objects. It includes a remote-controlled underwater vehicle capable of detecting suspicious objects within a radius of 500 m and at a depth of up to 300 m. Its speed is about 3-6 m/s. The equipment can work underwater with sea waves up to three points.
Underwater drones are sent to the detected objects, which install explosive charges on them. If necessary, they can tow the ammunition to shallow water and destroy it there. Remote mine clearance tactics minimize the risk to personnel.
Roman Kretsul
