As expected, the ongoing discussion in the Russian military and shipbuilding sectors about whether to abandon the "Admiral Kuznetsov" aircraft carrier since the beginning of this month is essentially a prelude to President Putin's visit to the Russian Navy, and also the final efforts of different interested parties regarding the fate of the "Kuznetsov" ship.

On July 24th, President Putin visited the northernmost important nuclear submarine base in Russia, Severomorsk, inspected the Northern Fleet of the Russian Navy, attended the commissioning ceremony of the fifth 955A-class ballistic missile nuclear submarine "Knyaz Pozharsky," and convened senior officers from the Russian military, the Russian Navy, and the Northern Fleet for an important strategic meeting on the development of the Russian Navy's submarine forces.

At the meeting, President Putin's speech officially set the tone for the future development focus of the Russian Navy. President Putin stated that the Russian Navy's submarine forces play an important role in safeguarding Russia's national sovereignty and territorial security, maintaining Russia's national interests, maintaining regional and global stability, and preserving strategic balance. Building strategic ballistic missile nuclear submarines is even more an essential part of Russia's "trinity" strategic nuclear force.

The Russian Navy will continue to build large numbers of 955A "Borei"-class ballistic missile nuclear submarines and 885M "Yakut" attack nuclear submarines. At the same time, it will also strengthen the capabilities of conventional submarines equipped with 3M14 "Kalibr" cruise missiles, continuing to build 636.3 conventional submarines and newer 677 conventional submarines. Especially the 677 conventional submarines, President Putin said in one go that the Russian Navy plans to build nine of them! However, according to previous information, the 677 project has been nearly stagnant, it is unknown whether it has been revived or if it was just a mistake by the people below.

Just after President Putin finished his speech at the meeting on the development of the Russian Navy's submarine forces in Severomorsk, the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC), responsible for repairing the "Kuznetsov" ship, immediately made a statement. On the 25th, the CEO of the majority shareholder of the USC, the Russian Foreign Trade Bank (VTB), Andrei Kostin, clearly stated in an interview that it was no longer meaningful to continue repairing the "Kuznetsov" ship.

Firstly, the aircraft carrier is too old, having been in service for over 40 years, and even if repaired, it would have no value. Secondly, the repair of the "Kuznetsov" ship has already cost too much money, and it would require 35 billion rubles (about 3.2 billion RMB) to be repaired. No one knows how VTB calculated this figure... In short, there is no value or meaning in repairing the "Kuznetsov" ship anymore, and the future outcome will be either selling it or scrapping it, everything is over.

So now, looking back, the sudden emergence of "Russian netizens" on social media last month talking about the condition of the "Kuznetsov" ship, followed by the "Izvestia" newspaper first raising the issue, demanding to abandon the "Kuznetsov" ship, and then leading to a big debate among major domestic media in Russia, should be a continuation of events—intended to create a wind-up for President Putin's visit to Severomorsk and the speech he gave at the meeting on the development of the submarine forces of the Russian Navy.

And the USC/VTB are very politically savvy, quickly grasped the intention of the top leader and made a quick statement to abandon the "Kuznetsov" ship—The only problem is that the USC is really shameless, this ship was handed over to you for repairs, right? They dragged their feet for eight years, and finally, when the top leader made a statement, they just used it as a reason to end it, like the debt being wiped out after the person died. If I were to say, these officials who were responsible for repairing the "Kuznetsov" ship, killing them all would definitely have some innocent ones, and killing half would definitely miss some.

Return to the Soviet Red Navy

Will the Russian Navy's future really rely entirely on submarines? Dafan believes it's not strange, which is in a way a return to the norm of the Soviet Red Navy.

Geographically speaking, Russia has never been suitable for building a balanced fleet. Although its coastline is long, the actual number of good ports is very limited, which are mainly St. Petersburg on the Baltic Sea, Crimea on the Black Sea, and Vladivostok on the Japan Sea. However, these sea areas are basically closed or semi-closed seas. For a large fleet to go out, it must first break through the land-based and sea-based joint blockade of the NATO bloc, and it itself does not have the capability to act independently at sea.

While the coastal area of the Northern Fleet is relatively good, due to the long Arctic ice period, surface ships are greatly affected by sea ice, reducing their lifespan and making them unable to go out for several months a year.

Therefore, from the Tsarist era, the main focus of the Russian strategy of land and sea power has never been on maritime power, but rather on controlling the edge regions of the Eurasian continent from the center of the Eurasian continent, such as Western Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia. To achieve this strategic goal, for Russia, the construction focus has never been on the navy, but on the army.

Therefore, except for a short period, the Soviet Union tried to build a balanced fleet with strong long-range action capabilities, such as aircraft carriers and cruisers, heavy combat ships have never been the top priority of the Soviet and Russian navies' construction.

Features of the Red Navy Era

After abandoning the construction of a balanced navy, the Soviet Red Navy needed only a functional navy serving specific tasks. What tasks did the Red Navy need to undertake? Two: First, in the era of missile nuclear weapons, maintaining a sufficiently powerful underwater strategic nuclear force. Second, protecting the Soviet coast and covering the campaigns of the Soviet Army's front and front groups.

The former needs no explanation, currently the only available sea-based nuclear force is the ballistic missile nuclear submarine, and the best way to protect the ballistic missile nuclear submarine is the attack nuclear submarine. Of course, the Soviet Red Navy achieved both hands, not only the attack nuclear submarine, but also specially equipped a large number of anti-submarine ships. It aims to form a basic position in the White Sea and Okhotsk Sea fortress area.

With surface war anti-submarine ships, aviation anti-submarine patrol aircraft, undersea warfare attack nuclear submarines, and supporting fixed underwater hydrophone arrays together, forming the basic launch position of the ballistic missile nuclear submarine. However, regardless of anything, the demand for strategic nuclear retaliation capabilities determined that the Soviet Red Navy must build a powerful nuclear submarine force.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, with the status and demand for strategic nuclear weapons increasing in Russia, considering nuclear weapons as extremely important strategic weapons for national security, the construction focus of the Russian Navy must still be the ballistic missile nuclear submarine. This can be seen from the fact that the Russian Navy is willing to be inactive in the development of large surface warships, but must ensure the equipment scale of 10 955/955A ballistic missile nuclear submarines and 160 Bulava submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

Now, Putin re-emphasized the importance of nuclear weapons and nuclear balance for the future of Russian national security and international situation, which determines that the construction focus of the Russian Navy will inevitably tilt towards ballistic missile nuclear submarines and attack nuclear submarines.

As for the latter? During the Soviet Red Navy era, the most important mission of the Red Navy was to protect the Soviet coast and cover the campaigns of the front and front groups. The target of confrontation was the US Navy's aircraft carrier battle group. Therefore, ultimately, the problem is how to fight against the US aircraft carrier, and the Soviet Red Navy did a lot of work on this.

For example, in terms of situational awareness and target indication systems, the Red Navy successively developed the "MRS-T-1" ("Success-1") and "MKRTS" ("Myth") sea-based target indication and allocation systems. In the construction of anti-aircraft carrier forces, the Soviet Red Navy established a three-dimensional anti-aircraft carrier strike system, including the rocket aviation of the Red Navy composed of Tu-95 strategic bombers, Tu-22M/M3 medium-range bombers. The underwater missile cruiser forces composed of 670 and 949 class cruise missile nuclear submarines, as well as the surface war anti-aircraft carrier forces composed of surface missile ships.

1164 class cruiser carrying P-1000 anti-ship missiles

The anti-ship missiles used are large-scale campaign anti-ship missiles, such as the P-500 "Granit", P-700 "Sovremenny", and P-1000 "Oka". These anti-ship missiles are large in size and are specifically designed to strike heavy targets such as aircraft carriers, even carrying nuclear warheads, and their adaptability has certain impacts. In a way, the reason the Soviet Red Navy built so many large ships was to accommodate these large-scale campaign anti-ship missiles.

However, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the boundary between these campaign-level anti-ship missiles and tactical anti-ship missiles became less clear. For example, the P-800 "Yakhont" anti-ship missile and the 3M22 "Zircon" are of tactical anti-ship missile size but have the effect of campaign-level anti-ship missiles. Some small Soviet-era missile ships or destroyers can now carry them.

22350 frigate firing Zircon

For example, the 22350 and 20385 ships could not carry large-scale campaign-level anti-ship missiles during the Soviet era, but now they can carry "Yakhont" or "Zircon" to perform sea battles and strike aircraft carrier battle groups. In this case, the advantages of nuclear submarines become prominent again, not only can they take on campaign-level anti-aircraft carrier missions, but they are also the only type of vessel that can support different sea areas, such as the Northern Fleet supporting the Pacific area, conducting cross-sea area support.

Therefore, for the Russian Navy to build nearshore area denial forces, nuclear submarines or even conventional submarines equipped with cruise missiles are much more cost-effective than various large surface ships. According to the experience of the Soviet Red Navy, Gorshkov ordered the construction of an anti-aircraft carrier task force. A Soviet anti-aircraft carrier task force is primarily composed of a submarine division (task force), including cruise missile nuclear submarines and attack nuclear submarines. In the future, the Russian Navy may also continue to strengthen this kind of anti-aircraft carrier task force organization.

In summary, after a month of turmoil over the fate of the "Kuznetsov" ship, with President Putin's official determination, the future of the Russian Navy will shift its focus to submarines, which seems to have settled down, leaving us with only the last shadow of the Red Navy.

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7532007329886356002/

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