In June 2011, during the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, among other interesting events, something completely unique happened. For the first time after the Second World War, Russian representatives signed a large-scale agreement on the supply of military equipment with a foreign company. It became known that for the needs of the Navy huge ships, helicopter carriers "Mistral" are being purchased. This event was a real sensation. Until now, domestic shipbuilding enterprises somehow managed to order themselves without foreign help, and learned how to do it, from time to time our Western "friends" began to move their hair on their heads, for example, submarine missile carriers. Where did the desire to get ships of this type come from?
Why was Mistral created?
The Mistral is a Mediterranean wind, rather cold, from time to time blowing the southern coast of France spoiled and pampered by a mild climate. It can not be compared with the piercing moist frosty streams of Arctic air, which residents of Severodvinsk and Murmansk have long been accustomed to, but it seems to be the top of discomfort with delicate Gallic noses. As much as the climate, the military doctrines of France and the Russian Federation differ. The Mistral type helicopter carrier is essentially a large ship, practically devoid of an independent anti-submarine, anti-ship and anti-aircraft defense system, that is, capable of operating only as part of a squadron, surrounded by an escort.
On the other hand, it reflects the shipbuilding concept that has been fashionable in recent decades, according to which, landing parties landed on foreign shores as if “remotely”. This happens as follows: a large ship approaches a hostile state at a relatively safe distance of fifteen to twenty miles, then begins to load equipment on special barge boats, and in the meantime attack and transport helicopters with specially trained soldiers fly forward, capture the bridgehead and ensure the absence of resistance during the whole process. The landing ship is not even visible from the shore, and small transports arrive unexpectedly, unless, of course, the side undergoing the invasion has the means for over-the-horizon detection. Here is approximately the scenario for which the Mistral type is intended. This ship has too much draft; it cannot come close to shore. He is also unable to provide support to the advancing troops; for this, he does not have enough guns or missiles.
Ship characteristics
The large flight deck immediately catches the eye of those who look at the Mistral. The characteristics of this large ship are impressive. It has a length of 200 meters, a displacement of 22 thousand tons, however, it is capable of moving along the sea at a speed of only 18 knots. The crew, including pilots, is approximately 170 team members. In addition to all the difference between an aircraft-carrying vessel, that is, a deck and under-deck hangars, it has other features. For example, a compartment for transporting forty modern tanks. Mistral is an aircraft carrier, but first of all it is a landing ship.
But it’s not enough to bring tanks to the coast of an enemy country; they still need to be delivered on land and unloaded to the shore. For this, a whole technology is provided. These are our large landing ships (BDKs) simply rest their bow on the beach, open the ramps, and "forward to the motherland!" The armies of NATO countries act differently, much more cunningly. But more on that later.
The wing is equipped depending on the tasks to be solved in a military campaign. Helicopters on deck and in hangars can accommodate from 16 to 32, depending on the ratio of anti-submarine, attack and transport aircraft of different geometric sizes.
The amount of manpower that the ship takes aboard is also important - 450 marines. This is a battalion.
An urgent conversion of the ship into a floating hospital is also possible. This may become necessary when solving humanitarian problems or providing medical assistance to wounded soldiers as a result of hostilities.
And also the Mistral is a ship intended for long trips. Its autonomous range is 20 thousand kilometers. This is half the equator. If you need to restore order in the rebel colonies, then this is what we need. But on the question of why Russia needs Mistral, it’s still necessary to smash its head. Our country does not have overseas territories. Nobody seems to be planning to land an landing somewhere in Australia or Argentina, and if such a desire arose, then it would be necessary to buy ships not two, or even four ... In addition, the landing process itself is very peculiar.
How does the French landing
The French Mistral stands on its side, as already mentioned, twenty nautical miles from the hot coast, where it is not clear what can happen, and releases special barges from which it carries armored vehicles. For this procedure, he has a certain dock, in which the mentioned vehicles are alternately loaded, loaded with tanks and armored vehicles, then flooded to the level of the surrounding world ocean, and only after that they leave their native floating base. The landing process takes place powerfully and for a long time, many hours. According to our staffing table, four dozen vehicles are a reinforced tank battalion consisting of three companies and a command unit, that is, very few. We can say with confidence that if someone hostile to us tried to land somewhere near Anapa, the Bastion coastal defense complex would have stopped this quickly ...
Helicopters
The French have their own rotorcraft. They are divided into classes according to their purpose, two of which are used as deck. The multi-purpose NH-90s and strike Tigers make up approximately equal shares of the wing, and their lifting devices are designed to ensure that the equipment is moved to the flight deck and back to the hold, where they shelter from storms, splashes of sea water and undergo preventive maintenance. There are two elevators in total with a lifting capacity of 13 tons, one aft, the other next to the wheelhouse.
The main deck-based helicopters we have are the anti-submarine Ka-27M and Ka-226, but the Ka-52 Alligator is also needed to carry out attacks on ground or sea targets. The dimensions of these machines differ from their French counterparts, moreover, to a greater extent. "Mistral" for the Russian Navy were built taking into account the necessary adjustments.
Contract details
The French were bargaining frantically. The Russian side insisted on the construction of three of the four planned helicopter carriers at its own shipyards using imported technical documentation. We agreed on half. In addition, the aft was manufactured at the Baltic Shipbuilding Plant, which also made the project cheaper. Of particular note is the high quality of the work of domestic shipbuilders and the complete docking of all nodes during the final assembly in Saint-Nazaire.
It was immediately agreed that the French side would install part of high-tech navigation equipment for Russia on the Mistral, and prepare only installation sites for armaments and lay cable communications. All missile and artillery systems the Russians put themselves and their own.
An important factor in signing the contract could be the ability to master the latest shipbuilding technologies, if, of course, the French have something to learn. They mainly relate to methods of assembling large-capacity hulls, although the Baltzavod and the United Shipbuilding Corporation immediately received an order for atomic icebreakers, no less complex than the Mistral. The cost of two military vessels amounted to 1.2-1.5 billion euros, plus 2.5 billion rubles for the work that was to be performed by Russian shipbuilders.
Weapon systems and alerts
The main radar installed on the Mistral for Russia, which will have to be their “eyes,” is the French Thales. Features of the housing design made it difficult to install domestic counterparts.
The initial scarcity of defensive systems caused additional requirements of the naval command for retrofitting ships with five Gibka air defense systems, designed to use Eagles and a pair of 30-mm AK-630 six-barrel artillery fire systems for hitting low-flying high-speed targets. Anti-ship protection is carried out by complexes of supersonic cruise missiles capable of "working" on coastal targets. Anti-submarine defense includes all possible sonar hardware.
Retrofitting details were not widely disclosed, but it is known that every Russian Mistral is a control ship, and not just a helicopter carrier and amphibious transport, so the saturation of information technology on-board computer complex is also very serious.
Balancing
The Mistral-type helicopter carrier is a large, large-tonnage ship and needs to be balanced to ensure its stability in severe storms. Three vessels in service with the French Navy are equipped with the Norwegian-made L3Marin automatic system, which is responsible for balance. The intention to replace it on the ships being built for Russia with a French balancer, tested on much lighter corvettes and frigates, caused objections from the customer. In addition, Rosoboronexport has a direct interest in this system, since the contract is so expensive. The navigational safety of Russian helicopter carriers is too important to save on it.
Problems and Solutions
There were problems with completing the ship with shuttle vehicles. French double-hull catamaran boats were rejected from the very beginning, and domestic high-speed hovercraft transports were not placed in the cargo compartment. They agreed that the acquisition of the Dugong and Serna domestic tank landing boats, having a length of 45 and 26 meters, respectively, would still be the best solution.
The ice class of the hull was also upgraded, as the contractor received an order based on the possible basing areas for new ships. Unlike their French counterparts, their area of responsibility is not limited to tropical waters, and in a port, for example, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky can be very frosty. However, the Russian naval command at the time of signing the agreement was not sure where the helicopter carriers were to be based. This was decided later.
Helicopter experience
The USSR Navy already had large aircraft-carrying anti-submarine cruisers — Leningrad and Moscow — in service. The helicopter wing of these warships was intended to detect the submarines of a potential enemy. After obsolescence and technical wear and tear, they were withdrawn from the Navy, they did not plan to replace them, since in general they turned out to be not much more effective than BODs of smaller displacement and, accordingly, much cheaper both in production and in operation. Contributing to obsolescence and low modification potential, which was expressed in the impossibility of re-equipping hangars for modern helicopters. In general, world experience shows that it is not worth saving on aircraft carriers, they should be built with a margin, taking into account the possibility of their retrofitting in the process of improving control systems, weapons, communications, navigation and detection. In this case, expensive ships can serve for decades. How much a Mistral-type helicopter carrier meets this criterion is a big question.
"Admiral Kuznetsov" in its design is not an analogue of "Mistral." This ship performs very different functions, does not carry forces for landing and has completely different driving characteristics.
International reaction
Ships have not yet been completed, and it has already been announced that the main Far Eastern military harbor will become the base for the newest Russian helicopter carrier Vladivostok, built according to the Mistral project. This news aroused the alert concern of the Japanese government, who saw some aggressive intentions in strengthening the composition of the Pacific Fleet of the Russian Federation. Of course, the diplomatic maneuvers of our eastern neighbor have exclusively political motivation and fit into the general format of claims for the "northern territories", the question of which is raised periodically, in anticipation of the next election. Even the most daring patriotic Japanese science fiction writers cannot assume that the Russian marines will land a tank battalion somewhere on the island of Hokkaido for several hours. In the photo, the Mistral looks impressive, but even after equipping this ship with cruise missiles, it will not turn into a missile cruiser, it is very slow, and in general, it was not built and bought for that. And for what?
Military Specialist Serdyukov
It would be more correct to ask about not why, but why and why. Former Minister of Defense A.E. Serdyukov obviously did not understand much in strategic matters. Much richer he was gifted with natural artistry (of course, he has the makings of a good filmmaker). Perhaps he immediately dreamed of how the formidable and huge transport and landing ships flying the Andreevsky flag would look on the ocean expanses . And besides the artistic merits, Mr. Serdyukov, apparently, has a certain commercial acumen. But these are only assumptions.
To admit the fallacy of the Mistral business with the Russian government is quite possibly humanly inconvenient. Two ships (Sevastopol and Vladivostok) can already be considered to have been accepted by the Navy command, and the fact that the Russian side has practically abandoned the construction of a couple more, speaks in favor of their uselessness, although this has not yet been stated directly. They just decided to wait.
Terrible, in fact, nothing happened. Landing-type helicopter-carrying ships of the dock type do not quite agree with the Russian military doctrine, but from time to time international complications arise that force us to change previously developed approaches. About such ships, we can say that they are “just in case of fire”.
Money was spent on warships, this was not done in the best way, but helicopter carriers can be used in peacekeeping operations, which, as the events of recent months have shown, are quite probable.