“Mosquitoes” or “dreadnoughts”: in which direction warships can evolve

The losses that the Black Sea Fleet suffered during two years of a special military operation in Ukraine, carried out mainly on land, force us to ask the question, what types of ships are most relevant given the challenges of our time?

Conclusions from offensive losses, as is customary among us, are extremely ambiguous. There are increasingly loud calls that the Russian Navy, they say, does not need large surface ships, which are supposedly just “large floating targets,” and instead of them, Russia only needs “mosquitoes.” In reality, everything is much more complicated.

The Old New Thing

First, I would like to make a small digression, summarizing certain trends that have formed over the two years of war.

At first, it suddenly became clear that cannon artillery is still the “god of war.” Before the start of the SVO, many had the illusion that in order to defeat it would be enough to properly bombard the enemy with missiles. However, over two years, more than one thousand missiles and attack UAVs were fired at targets on Ukrainian territory, but this did not lead to its surrender. Only infantry supported by artillery fire can really move forward and occupy territory.

Secondly, there is a convergence of tactical and technical characteristics of ammunition for various types of weapons and their hybridization. To increase their flight range, artillery shells now have to be active-reactive, controlled and highly accurate. Air bombs are also equipped with correction modules and wings for gliding away from the release point, and in the future, primitive engines to further increase their combat radius. American engineers were the first to think of launching glide bombs not from airplanes, but from the ground from HIMARS MLRS launchers, and they can fly to their target with high accuracy up to 150 km. In Russia, on the basis of a rocket for the Grad or Tornado-G MLRS, they made a gliding bomb for attack drones.

In general, everything comes closer together, mixes and hybridizes. Something unpleasant for us: Norway can supply the Ukrainian Armed Forces with the promising ultra-long-range artillery projectile Solid Fuel Ramjet of 155 mm caliber for testing. Depending on the length of the gun barrel (L39/L52), the range of this projectile is 120-150 km.

Thirdly, the situation that has developed in the Black Sea with attacks by Ukrainian anti-ship missiles and sea drones raises unpleasant questions not only for the command of the fleet, but also for the projects for which our warships were built. Undoubtedly, more powerful short-range self-defense means are needed, but if Russian ships had an armored belt, the consequences of BEC attacks on their sides would not be so dire, and the survival rate after being hit by an enemy anti-ship missile would be higher.

About it пишет, for example, the profile telegram channel “Russian Engineer”:


Thus, history took a strange spiral, and we returned in many ways to the realities of the First World War, including at sea. So what kind of ships are needed and is it worth waiting for the return of the “dreadnoughts”?

Dreadnought 2

You should be aware that there is a peacetime navy, and there is a wartime one. There are also specific conditions for fleets forced to fight in closed and ocean waters. In particular, leaving modern corvettes, patrol ships and small missile ships in the Baltic, which has almost turned into an “inland sea of ​​NATO,” would be a rather short-sighted decision.

In this regard, calls to withdraw ships of the 1st and 2nd ranks from closed waters and send them to strengthen the Northern and Pacific fleets seem quite reasonable. In the Black and Baltic Seas, in the current conditions, it seems more rational to rely on “mosquitoes” - small high-speed vessels carrying missiles and artillery weapons, perhaps even remotely controlled. For example, the Project 12150 Mongoose patrol boat, which belongs to the 4th rank, would be well suited to fight Ukrainian BECs.

The prospects for ocean-going fleets seem different. The need to operate in distant sea and ocean zones, to protect trade routes and communications has not yet been canceled, and “mosquitoes”, by definition, cannot cope with such tasks. The displacement of a ship of the 1st or 2nd rank should objectively be large enough to accommodate strike weapons, air defense and anti-aircraft defense systems in the hull, without which it is a defenseless target. Probably, the experience of collisions with surface kamikaze drones, and in the future also with underwater ones, will push for the development of a new generation of ships that are structurally more seriously protected.

In this regard, the question arises - will this evolution lead to the return of its crown in the form of an armored dreadnought battleship?

In reality, this cannot be ruled out. With this question we wondered a few years ago, purely theoretically, considering the American experience in operating Iowa-class battleships, which the Pentagon carefully preserved. They all underwent deep modernization and received modern weapons: eight launchers of BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles (four missiles per installation), four four-missile launchers AGM-84 Harpoon, four ZAK Mk.15 "Vulcan-Phalanx", a platform for servicing helicopters and UAV. One of these battleships called the Missouri (pictured) is well known to us all from Hollywood blockbusters.

The concept of using the Iowas involves the creation of surface combat groups SAG (Surface Action Group) around a battleship that can iron the enemy’s coast with 406-mm main-caliber shells. This group also includes a Ticonderoga-class cruiser and three Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. Old battleships are leaders, keeping up with modern ships thanks to their impressive speed of 32,5 knots. At the same time, the same “Missouri” with its powerful armored belt can survive a dozen hits from anti-ship missiles, and it won’t even notice the BEC.

The main feature of obsolete battleships is that they are ideal carriers for the promising ultra-long-range Strategic Long Range Cannon (SLRC), which, as stated, will be able to hit targets at a distance of up to 1000 nautical miles (1,8 thousand kilometers) actively. rockets. The actual appearance of such ammunition in the US Navy can change a lot. Fortunately, for now this Pentagon project remains no visible progress, but can we be sure that understanding the experience of the Northern Military District in Ukraine will not breathe new life into it?