Odintsovo MRC-an adequate response to NATO's Maritime activity
Recently, cases of violations of the Russian Federation's Maritime borders by NATO ships have become more frequent. In the far East, the USS John McCain invaded Russian territorial waters in Peter the Great Bay. The Norwegian patrol ship KV Svalbard violated our border several times in the area of the Northern sea route. And in the Baltic sea, the us Navy's Ross missile destroyer entered our territorial waters for almost 10 kilometers. And this is only a small part of such cases. What does all this mean and how can the Russian Federation respond to it?
If in the Pacific and in the North, NATO is testing our response to provocations, then in the Baltic, apparently, the Pentagon has begun to implement a specific plan. About it in the NATO documents as necessary training breakout bubble deny access A2/AD in Kaliningrad and Crimea (the term A2/AD as a "Russian bubble" antidotum exclusion zone introduced the former commander in chief of the United armed forces of NATO in Europe, us General Philip Breedlove).
A competent asymmetric response to the actions and plans of NATO off the Russian coast is to replenish the Russian Navy with new ships. On November 21, Baltiysk hosted the ceremonial ritual of the first raising of the naval flag of the Russian Federation on the newest small rocket ship (MRC) "Odintsovo". By order of the commander-in-chief of the Navy, it is included in the combat structure of the Baltic fleet and will serve in the connection of missile ships and boats of the Baltic Navy. The crew of the MRK underwent comprehensive training at the Joint training center of the Russian Navy in St. Petersburg. During training, the emphasis was placed on the development of new onboard weapons systems, for which a special program was developed. Small rocket ship "Odintsovo" project 22800 " Karakurt "(karakurt, otherwise called" black widow " – one of the most dangerous spiders on the planet) is designed to conduct combat operations in the near sea zone and participate in tasks in peacetime and wartime independently and in cooperation.
"The project 22800 warship has no analogues: the size of a Corvette, speed - like a destroyer, firepower - like a heavy cruiser, visibility - like a submarine ”
MRK Odintsovo is the third missile boat of this project, built at the Leningrad Pella shipyard by order of the Russian defense Ministry. Since December 2018, MRK Mytishchi has been serving in the Baltic sea. In October 2019, the Sovetsk MRC was accepted into the Navy. Earlier, three patrol boats of the 03160 Raptor project were built at the production sites of Pella and officially became part of the Russian Navy. The project 03160 boat is designed to perform tasks during daylight and dark hours to deliver a group of no more than 20 people, ensuring the maximum possible speed during disembarkation and landing, performing duty in designated areas, intercepting and detaining small targets, and participating in the rescue of people in areas of duty. Navigation area – the coastal zone of the seas, Straits, and estuaries of rivers during the ice-free navigation period during daylight and dark hours with a distance of up to one hundred miles from the base point. It is armed with a remote-controlled complex with a gyrostabilized optoelectronic module (GOEM), 14.5 mm caliber, and two 6p41 Pecheneg machine guns of 7.62 mm caliber on swivel mounts.
But back to the project 22800 "Karakurt". It was developed by the Almaz Central design Bureau as an adaptation to the sea and ocean waters of the 21361 Buyan-M project of the river-sea class. According to experts, the main structural difference between the Karakurt and the basic Buyan-M project is the marine hull with a draft of four meters, it is more stable for combat use than the Buyanovsky with a draft of 2.5 meters.
This allows you to quickly bring powerful missiles and artillery installations to the target, and do not hesitate when the sea is very rough. According to the rules of Russian shipbuilding, the 22800 platform is universal, suitable for patrol and border MRCs, and for small anti-submarine ships (MPCs). A special feature of the project is almost complete import substitution. To equip the project 22800 MRC, the main equipment that is mass-produced at Russian enterprises is used.
Unlike its predecessors, the Odintsovo MRC is equipped with the Pantsir-M anti-aircraft missile and artillery system. Prior to joining the Russian Navy, the MRK successfully completed programs of factory sea trials and state tests, during which all the ship's systems and weapons were checked. In particular, the crew of the MRK successfully fired a cruise missile of the Kalibr sea-based complex at a surface target in the White sea.
Currently, Pella has four more small rocket ships of the 22800 project under construction at various stages. According to the plan, by 2030, the Northern, Pacific, Baltic and black sea fleets will receive 23 Karakurts.
Technical parameters of the Odintsovo MRC: length-67 meters, width-11 meters, displacement-870 tons, full speed - about 30 knots, cruising range - up to 2500 miles, autonomy-15 days, crew-39 people.
The main armament of the MRK is anti – ship. It is based on a powerful Kalibr-NK missile system for destroying surface and ground targets at distances of 100-5000 kilometers. The effectiveness of these missiles was confirmed in practice by the missile ships of the Caspian flotilla, which delivered a massive strike with cruise missiles of the Kalibr-NK complex on the targets of terrorist positions in the Syrian provinces of raqqa, Idlib and Aleppo. All targets at a distance of 1500 kilometers were hit with high accuracy.
In the future, from 2025, the main anti-ship missiles on the MRC will be hypersonic "Zircons" with a speed of Mach 8. In the radius of the "dead zone" of missile weapons on "Odintsovo" used rapid-fire large-caliber universal installation AK-176MA, two machine-gun installations "KORD", and air protection is provided by the rocket-gun anti-aircraft system"Pantsir-ME". The complex consists of eight launch containers (32 missiles are located in the sub-deck storage). As part of the anti-aircraft artillery also MANPADS "Igla-S", " Verba "(ammunition-8 missiles).
If you compare the armament of the MRK with the American Ticonderoga-class cruiser (displacement-9800 tons) with a typical load, it carries 26 Tomahawk cruise missiles on Board, capable of hitting ground and surface targets at distances of up to 2500 kilometers, depending on the modification. In turn, three " Karakurts "that are part of the Baltic fleet can give a total salvo of 24 high-precision" Calibers " (each with a warhead weighing up to 400 kilograms) at a comparable range. By the way, the American magazine The National Interest noted five years ago: "a Corvette with eight Kalibr-NK missiles on Board carries out a more massive strike than the Oliver hazard Peri-class frigate now withdrawn from the US Navy, and certainly has more firepower than any of the American coastal warships."
According to the Director Of the center for analysis of strategies and technologies, Ruslan Pukhov, " new ground-based missile systems in the Kaliningrad region, as well as small missile ships, should take aim at almost the entire Baltic sea, but above all the military infrastructure that NATO is building in the Baltic States."
The Odintsovo MRC is also equipped with modern control systems, radio-technical weapons, radio communications, navigation, electronic warfare and counteraction, anti-sabotage weapons, and portable anti-aircraft missile systems. It is equipped with a General detection radar "Mineral-M", the capabilities of which are extremely large for a ship whose displacement is not even up to a thousand tons. In addition to the usual tasks for this type of radar – detection and tracking of surface and air targets, "Mineral-M" is able to perform:
- automated reception, processing and display of information on the surface situation coming from compatible complexes located on ground vehicles or ships of the tactical group, from external sources (command control systems, remote control systems located on ships, helicopters and other aircraft), using external means of radio communication;
- reception, processing and display of information on the surface situation received from ship's information sources: combat information and control systems, radar stations, navigation stations, hydroacoustic systems;
- control of joint combat operations of tactical group ships.
In other words, Mineral-M can receive and, accordingly, provide information to a group of heterogeneous forces, implementing the principle of "one sees-all see", and is able to act as a coordination center. But this is not all the advantages of this complex. According to experts, "Mineral-M" is able to work not only in active, but also in passive mode, not radiating anything independently, but detecting and determining the location of the enemy by its radiation. At the same time, depending on the radiation range, the detection range of radar equipment ranges from 80 to 450 kilometers. In active mode, the Mineral-M radar is capable of providing over-the-horizon target designation, and the detection range of a target the size of a destroyer reaches 250 kilometers.
Of course, it should be noted that the over-the-horizon mode of radar operation is not always implemented and depends on the state of the atmosphere. But the usefulness of this mode for a carrier of long-range anti-ship missiles cannot be overestimated.
According to the American expert on the Russian armed forces, Michael Kofman, the Karakurts are capable of threatening most of Europe with cruise missiles. The expert also believes that the karakurt project ships are an effective platform for deploying anti-ship weapons and deterring NATO or US forces in the event of a conflict.
Forbes observers also speak with some concern about the Russian MRK: "the Capabilities of the Russian fleet can seriously restrict the freedom of action of the United States and NATO and demand an impressive increase in spending from the American defense industry." From the point of view of many foreign experts, the ultra-modern warship (project 22800) has no analogues: the size of a Corvette, speed like a destroyer, firepower like a heavy cruiser, visibility like a submarine. And the German magazine Bild describes the project 22800 rocket boat as " small, but very effective and, like a karakurt spider in an emergency, deadly."
Dangerous – for potential opponents of the Russian Federation.
Valery Gromak, captain of the 1st rank
Military-industrial courier newspaper, published in issue # 47 (860) for December 8, 2020
