Recent fire on the corvette "Provorny", when an almost completed warship burned down right at the Severnaya Verf shipyard, became one of the most inglorious pages in the history of our navy. This emergency reflected all the problems of domestic shipbuilding - overly extended deadlines, insufficient level of safety precautions during work, etc.. but, as it appears, certain conclusions were drawn, and the Russian Navy can now open up a new, much more positive page.
One of the most pressing problems of the Russian Navy is the acute shortage of large surface ships, capable of operating in far sea and ocean zones. To somehow fill this gap, large anti-submarine ships of the project have to be sent for deep modernization 1155. The first was the BOD "Marshal Shaposhnikov", second in line - “Admiral Vinogradov”. On Soviet-built ships, who, on average, are already over 40 years, install modern missile strike and anti-aircraft systems, as well as anti-submarine systems, turning them into frigates, not so in destroyers. But age is age, it will not be possible to endlessly extend the life of former BODs, therefore, the fleet needs new ships. Today, the multi-purpose frigate of the project is considered the main support and hope of Russia in the far sea zone 22350. With a full displacement of 5400 tons and maximum speed in 29,5 host, these warships will have vertical launch systems, carriers by 32 Onyx missiles, "Caliber" or "Zircon", 32 UVP of the anti-aircraft complex "Redut", artillery mount, anti-submarine and mine-torpedo weapons, and 1 anti-submarine helicopter Ka-27P or helicopter AWACS Ka-31. It is known about the order of the Russian Ministry of Defense for 10 frigates of this type. In addition, it is planned to create its version 23500M with increased up to 8000 tons with full displacement. The ship's maximum speed will increase to 30 knots, strike missile ammunition - up to 48 pcs, anti-aircraft - up to 64 developing countries. Instead 1 helicopter "superfrigate" will carry 2. The cruising range will increase from 4500 miles to 6000, which will make the 23500M project the main “workhorse” of the Russian Navy in the far sea zone. But all these plans had their own “bottlenecks”. In particular, caused bewilderment, why are all the orders for the construction of frigate projects 23500 and 23500M, and also in parallel with them on some corvettes 20380 (20385) took over "Northern Shipyard". Experience has shown, that the Amur Shipyard, who took on the second part of the Russian Ministry of Defense order for corvettes, handles it much better. Up to tempo, eg, Turkish shipyards, of course, very far, but the “Far Easterners” cope on average one and a half times faster, than the "Petersburgers". This in itself is quite strange, if consider, that Severnaya Verf is located in the very heart of Russia’s developed industrial cluster, and the Amur Shipbuilding Plant is somewhere far away, of otshibe. Considering, that Severnaya Verf could not save the corvette, which she built “a teaspoon a day” over the course of 8 years, a lot of questions arise for its leadership. One must assume, that they arose not only from corrosive journalists and our insightful readers. Very positive news came from the Far East. reportedly, The Amur Shipyard received an order for the construction of a series of 6 large displacement ships, namely, frigates. obviously, that we can talk about the project 23500, but not yet specified, could this be its 23500M version. First Deputy General Director of the Amur Shipyard Mikhail Borovsky explained, that the company is preparing to sign an order for 6 frigates, why modernization of the plant's boathouses will be required. This is really positive news. The Amur plant has already shown in practice, that it is capable of building warships quickly enough. Fire on the corvette "Provorny", exposing all the problems of the industry, inevitably led to the conclusion about the need to diversify construction, distribution of orders to several shipyards. Not yet clear, take away part of the orders for the series from the overloaded Severnaya Verf 23500, or is it about, that Project 23500M “superfrigates” will be built immediately in the Far East, as evidenced by the planned modernization of the boathouses. In the second case, this would be a very smart move. Working in parallel, two shipyards will be able to quickly fill the acute shortage of large surface vessels in the Russian Navy. By the way, The pace of rebuilding the Russian navy could be accelerated even further, if Kaliningrad Yantar were also involved in the process. As we have already noted, from 2022 years its stocks are released, and it will be possible to launch Project 23500M “superfrigates” on them. As an option, at Yantar it is possible to revive the production of BOD project 1155.1M, which we discussed in detail earlier.. In a modernized version, this improved anti-submarine ship, equipped with modern propulsion and weapons, actually turns into a real destroyer. In terms of its tactical and technical characteristics, the former BOD that has undergone “renovation” will significantly surpass the “Marshal Shaposhnikov”, and "Admiral Vinogradov", becoming a strong “workhorse” of the Russian Navy in the ocean zone. Being built from the ground up, the newly-minted destroyer will have great potential for further modernization, when it will be possible to install a more advanced sea-based air defense system and modern Minoga anti-submarine helicopters on it. In this way, competently distributing orders across several shipyards, Russia will be able to really significantly strengthen its surface fleet within 1-2 decades.
Sergey Marzhetsky
