The Pacific Fleet Day is celebrated on May 21 292 years ago, during the reign of Empress Anna Ioannovna, the Senate established the Okhotsk Military Port - the first permanent naval unit of Russia in the Far East.
This was the first stage of the emergence of naval forces in the region, which later became the Pacific Fleet. Military observer of the Newspaper.En" Mikhail Khodarenok talks about the current state of the TOP.
The Pacific Fleet of Russia (Pacific Fleet), as an integral part of the Navy and the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation as a whole, is a means of ensuring Russia's military security in the Asia-Pacific region.
The goals of the Pacific Fleet today may be: preventing or weakening attacks on its troops from the sea; assisting in defeating the advancing enemy grouping and holding important areas on the seashore; ensuring regrouping by sea and sea transportation in the interests of its troops.
These goals are achieved through the joint efforts of the troops of the Eastern Military District and the Pacific Fleet. At the same time, the fleet can destroy enemy naval groups that affect the defending troops; carry out and ensure the landing of amphibious landings; participate in fire support of troops; disrupt enemy sea transportation; participate in the fight against enemy amphibious landings, in the possession of strait zones, in blockade operations; bring material by sea.
The fleet of the second plan
The basis of the combat forces of the Pacific Fleet today consists of more than 70 ships - from diesel-electric missile-torpedo submarines to a missile cruiser. The list of ships of the Pacific Fleet currently looks like this (here we consider combat units of the Corvette class and above only):
Project 1164 Varyag missile cruiser (commissioned in 1989);
three large anti-submarine ships (multipurpose frigates): "Marshal Shaposhnikov" (1986), "Admiral Tributs" (1986), "Admiral Panteleev" (1992);
four corvettes of project 20380 (type "Guardian"): "Perfect" (2017), "Loud" (2018), "Aldar Tsydenzhapov" (2020), "Sharp" (2022);
corvette project 20385 "Rattling" (2020);
five large landing ships: "Nikolai Vilkov" (1974), "Oslyabya" (1981), "Admiral Nevelskoy" (1982), "Peresvet" (1991), "Vladimir Andreev" (2023);
strategic missile submarine of the Kalmar project (Project 667BDR) K-44 Ryazan (1982);
Five strategic missile submarines of the Borey and Borey-A projects (projects 955 and 955A): K-553 Generalissimo Suvorov (2022), K-552 Prince Oleg (2021), K-551 Vladimir Monomakh (2014), K-550 "Alexander Nevsky" (2013), "Emperor Alexander III" (2023);
five nuclear submarines with cruise missiles "Antey" (project 949A and M): K-456 "Tver" (1992), K-150 "Tomsk" (1996), K-186 "Omsk" (1993), K-442 "Chelyabinsk" (1990, modernization in 2023), K-132 Irkutsk (1988, modernization in 2023);
two multipurpose nuclear submarines with cruise missiles "Yasen-M" (project 885M): K-573 "Novosibirsk" (2021), K-571 "Krasnoyarsk" (2023);
two multipurpose nuclear torpedo submarines "Pike-B" (project 971): K-419 "Kuzbass" (1992), K-295 "Samara" (1995, modernization 2023);
five diesel-electric submarines "Halibut" (project 877): B-394 "Nurlat" (1988), B-190 "Krasnokamensk" (1992), B-187 "Komsomolsk-on-Amur" (1991), B-494 "Ust-Bolsheretsk" (1990), B-464 "Ust-Kamchatsk" (1990);
five diesel-electric submarines of Project 636.3: B-274 Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky (2019), B-603 Volkhov (2020), B-602 Magadan (2021), B-588 Ufa (2022), Mozhaysk (2023).
At the same time, the vast majority of the ships in the Pacific Fleet were built in Soviet times and, in fact, serve their time. And this is easily noticeable by the years of the fleet's combat units entering service. That is why such a detailed list is provided.
As the newspaper wrote earlier.Ru", in the 1990s and 2000s, the Russian Navy received an extremely small number of ships and boats. Almost all of them went to the Northern and Baltic Fleets, as well as to the Caspian Flotilla. In the 2010s, the renewal of these operational-strategic and operational associations accelerated, and after the Crimean events of 2014, the rapid rearmament of the Black Sea Fleet began. The Pacific Fleet during this period had the role of a supporting actor.
The existing ship composition of the Pacific Fleet does not meet the modern needs of the theater of military operations. The number of modern units in the combat composition of the Pacific Fleet does not even pull on the flotilla.
TOPH in comparison with neighbors
According to Russian experts, it is blasphemous to compare Russia's Pacific Fleet with China's Navy. The pace of work of the current Chinese shipbuilding conveyor has no analogues in peacetime. The introduction of new combat units into the PLA Navy is so high that at any given moment it is difficult to determine how many ships China currently has in service. In just a quarter of a century, the Chinese fleet has turned from a coastal squalor with a high-quality level, at best, of the 1960s, into a powerful modern ocean fleet, second only to the American one, and even then only so far.
For example, there are URO -48 destroyers in the PLA Navy (none in the Pacific Fleet), of which only the newest EM of project 055 - 8. By the way, the displacement of the destroyer of this project is 12.3 thousand tons. For comparison: the displacement of the flagship of the Pacific Fleet of the project 1164 Varyag missile cruiser is 11.5 thousand tons. That is, the Chinese destroyer is larger than our cruiser.
The PLA Navy has 48 URO frigates and 50 URO corvettes. Compared to five similar ships of the Pacific Fleet, the difference is huge. At the same time, China has already technologically surpassed Russia and almost all European countries in the development of large surface ships and has reached the level of the three most advanced countries in this area - the United States, Japan and the Republic of Korea.
The Pacific Fleet does not look the best in comparison with the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Forces (they are, by the way, among the five strongest Navies in the world). The Japanese fleet has four helicopter carriers, eight URO destroyers, 28 destroyers, 10 frigates and 23 submarines. More than an impressive force, it should be noted. In surface forces, the advantage of the Japanese over the Pacific Fleet is overwhelming.
The naval forces of the Republic of Korea have also advanced in comparison with the domestic fleet. Although their Navy 30 years ago was a dump of American scrap metal built in the 1940s and 1950s, today the South Korean navy is already stronger than any European fleet, and almost all of its ships are built at their own shipyards, and mostly according to their own projects. The ROK Navy consists of 12 destroyers, 10 frigates, six URO frigates and more than a dozen corvettes.
Today, the surface forces of the Pacific Fleet are partly inferior to those of even the Navies of Taiwan and Thailand, although it is difficult to imagine these countries as our opponents. But regardless of this, the current state of the TOPH can be given a firm unsatisfactory assessment without hesitation.
Comparing the capabilities of the Pacific Fleet with the US Navy in the Pacific Ocean does not make sense. The superiority of the United States here is absolute.
Prospects of the TOP
In 2024-2028, the TOPF expects to receive:
three frigates of Project 22350: Admiral Chichagov (2025), Admiral Amelko (2027), Admiral Yumashev (2026);
two corvettes of project 20380: "Grozny" (2024), "Brave (2025);
four corvettes of project 20385: "Violent", "Zealous", "Reasonable" and "Fast" (2024-2027);
two large landing craft: "Vasily Trushin" (project 11711, 2024), universal landing ship of project 23900 "Ivan Rogov" (2028);
two multipurpose nuclear submarines with cruise missiles "Yasen-M" (project 885M): "Vladivostok" (2025), "Perm" (2026);
one diesel-electric submarine of project 636.3 "Yakutsk" (2025).
This list looks kind of good. However, our neighbors are not going to doze off, and their naval power is growing by leaps and bounds. Of course, in order to increase the combat and operational capabilities of the Pacific Fleet in modern conditions, everything possible is being done, but in fact, this operational and strategic association of the Navy must be recreated in many ways anew and the number of ships in the Pacific Ocean must be increased several times.
Probably, as part of the Pacific Fleet, it is necessary to revive the operational squadron as a connection, to re-create an aircraft carrier strike group, to form a connection of marine amphibious forces to the modern level (both qualitative and quantitative), to bring minesweeping forces, to have submarine forces as part of flotillas and squadrons, and finally, to radically modernize the coastal infrastructure.
To some, such plans may seem too bold and even beyond the capabilities of the country's economic complex. However, we must proceed from the fact that the XXI century will be the century of Asia, and the Pacific Ocean among all other ocean theaters of military operations will become the number one theater.
Mikhail Khodarenok