For the first time in many years, Russia is conducting large-scale exercises at sea, which affect not only the entire Navy, but even the Aerospace Forces. What tasks and how exactly should the fleet work out at these exercises in order to prepare for a battle with Western ships and naval aviation in the event of real hostilities?
Since September 10, the Russian Navy has been conducting the largest strategic command and staff exercises in recent years, Ocean-2024. "The entire Navy, part of the Aerospace Forces, and the forces of the People's Liberation Army of China are taking part in the exercises," said Admiral Alexander Moiseev, Commander-in-chief of the Navy.
The Commander-in-Chief stated that more than 400 ships and vessels have been involved, and the number of personnel involved is about 90,000 people. The exercises are command and staff, they "fight" mainly on maps, but the forces that designate all those that would really be involved "in the war" have gone to sea and are operating – both ships, submarines, aircraft, and coastal troops.
The Ministry of Defense has already talked about a number of episodes of the exercises. For example, the frigate Admiral Golovko of the Northern Fleet (SF) fired Kalibr missiles, ships of the Caspian Flotilla fired artillery at a naval target, calculations of the coastal missile systems Bastion of the Baltic Fleet destroyed a detachment of warships of a conditional enemy, and naval aviation searched for enemy submarines in the waters of the Barents Sea.
For obvious reasons, additional details are not provided. However, it is quite possible to describe what these exercises should look like. In war, troops can only do what they have carefully worked out in exercises before. Sometimes you can jump over your head and improvise successfully, but this is rather an exception to the rule. This means that in order to prove oneself well in a real war, it is necessary to create exactly the conditions that will be in a real war and act accordingly.
What might the Russian Navy face in the event of a major war? The West sees aircraft with anti-ship cruise missiles (anti-ship missiles) and submarines with torpedoes as the main means of attack against ships. This means that the Russian Navy needs to practice repelling air strikes and submarines.
How to protect Russian ships from NATO aircraft
What would a typical NATO airstrike on a large detachment of warships look like? 24-28 attack aircraft will take part in it, of which two or four are jammers suppressing ship radars, the rest are attack vehicles.
At a distance of several tens of kilometers, aircraft covered by interference fire two anti-ship missiles (most likely American subsonic Harpoon), and this salvo of 44-48 missiles goes to the target. A little later, anti–radar missiles (anti-radar missiles) - 4-8 units will be fired from aircraft that cause interference. In terms of time, the volleys will be combined so that the low-visibility subsonic "Harpoons" and even smaller, but high-speed (under 3000 km/h) anti-radar missiles from diving approach the ships simultaneously.
The commanders of our ships will have a choice – either turn off the radars in advance and get a volley of several missiles on board, or defend themselves from "Harpoons" and the like, but then get fast PRRS into the antennas. You have to be prepared for this difficult choice, and the exercises are a great opportunity to practice group air defense. According to the Ministry of Defense, the reflection of air strikes during these exercises is already being worked out.
To do this, it is necessary to prepare in advance both the crews of the ships, and the ships themselves from a technical point of view, and stocks of target missiles similar to those missiles that our enemies will use.
If you shoot at old Soviet missiles in the amount of one or two units, there will be no sense from such exercises. The fleet has adequate target missiles, and they are used in state tests.
The Pacific Fleet has a special situation here. Japan is nearby, and its aviation RCC is supersonic, small-sized ASM-3 missiles. Each Mitsubishi F2 fighter carries a pair of such missiles. Accordingly, a typical target for naval anti-aircraft missile systems of ships of the Pacific Fleet is a salvo of 44-48 small supersonic missiles.
To repel such a blow is an extremely difficult task. Preparation for it is complicated by the fact that we do not have target missiles that match their tactical and technical characteristics. Nevertheless, the Pacific should shoot at some supersonic missiles that the fleet has, if only they were launched at low altitudes.
How to deal with submarines
The second threat to our ships is Western submarines. The newest frigates of the Russian Navy project 22350 and corvettes of projects 20380 and 20385 can successfully and timely detect such submarines.
These ships have towed sonar stations. Working in groups, they will be able to create huge zones of full acoustic control, inside which even the most silent foreign submarine will be detected. When boats attempt to attack our ships from a long distance with torpedoes controlled by fiber-optic cable, frigates and corvettes should be able to defend themselves with anti-torpedoes, which should be included in the ammunition of their Paket-NK complexes.
To work out such actions, the Navy can transfer corvettes from the Baltic to the Northern Fleet, and concentrate all combat frigates of project 22350 there. This will make it possible to create zones in the north in which NATO submarines will not be able to stay, and to work out the tasks of anti-submarine warfare.
The Pacific Fleet also has such capabilities. The combination of the jointly operating new corvettes of project 20380 with the existing Soviet large anti-submarine ships (BOD) of project 1155 (including the upgraded frigate Marshal Shaposhnikov) can also be quite effective. In the meantime, according to the statements of the Ministry of Defense, BOD and small anti-submarine ships (MPCs) of the 1124M project are participating in anti-submarine activities.
The Russian Navy is capable of fighting with the necessary level of use of its newest ships after minimal preparation time, taking into account the real capabilities of the enemy and according to adequate tactical schemes. This requires minimal preparation. For some of the things described above, it will take a few days.
In light of the fact that our main enemies – the United States and Great Britain – do not share borders with us on land, we must prepare for war with them as quickly as possible. The ongoing strategic exercises Ocean-2024 are a great way to achieve all of the above.
Alexander Timokhin
