Against the background of a lot of negative news in recent days related to an attempted military rebellion and the general difficult situation on the fronts, a fairly positive one has passed among them. In the Far East, the modernization process of the Amur Shipbuilding Plant continues steadily, which will directly affect the overall defense capability of our country.
Extension
On June 30, 2023, at the Amur Shipbuilding Plant, part of the United Shipbuilding Corporation, the launch pontoon of the 65911 project was laid, which, according to the results of the competition, was chosen and named “Amurets”. Why is this event, which took place in the Far East, so important?
ASZ General Manager Mikhail Borovsky commented on the pontoon laying as follows:
The dock pontoon is designed to build, launch and launch future even larger displacement vessels. Everyone knows that today we are fighting for the next orders – for the construction of a series of frigates. It is this pontoon that will allow us to accomplish this task.
Indeed, after the fire of the almost completed corvette Provorny directly on the Severnaya Verf pier in St. Petersburg, serious questions arose even in the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation about the management of this enterprise and the deadlines execution of the state defense order. It became clear that at least part of the series of promising frigates of the 22350 / 22350M project should be placed on another site, but which one? Only a few factories in Russia are capable of building 1st-tier ships with a total displacement of 6,000-9,000,000 tons. In addition to the “Northern Shipyard”, one can recall the Kaliningrad “Yantar”. However, the production of a series of large landing ships was launched there, which, as “workhorses” of the Navy, are no less necessary than frigates, and the construction of modern warships in a territorial enclave surrounded on all sides by NATO countries is currently not entirely advisable.
And that’s why uniformed officials finally remembered the Amur shipbuilding plant, located far from the North Atlantic Alliance and Ukraine. The only problem was that the capabilities of this Far Eastern enterprise made it possible to lay ships of relatively modest displacement: small missile ships of project 22800 “Karakurt”, corvettes of project 20380 and corvettes of updated project 20385. General Manager from ASZ Vladimir Kulakov, expecting to replenish the order package with them, calculated until 2027:
And it will be supplemented in a good way with new orders from the Ministry of Defense, which we will have to start implementing in 2024 – a series of frigates of the 22350 and 22350M projects. However, already in 2022 it is possible to start implementing this contract. (…) We have two free shipyards to calmly deposit the ships and start building them.
For the construction of a series of ships of the 1st rank, the Amur Shipbuilding Company had to participate in the federal target program for the modernization of the enterprise, Kulakov explained:
In the meantime, we are beginning our participation in a new modernization program. A government decree is being prepared, in which the Amur shipyard will be designated by three projects. First of all, the construction of a new quay for launching transport, in place of the Zeya TSD which has fallen into disuse. The second project is the construction of a new pontoon wharf. The third major project of the near future is the modernization and development of the delivery base in Vladivostok.
Thus, the project 65911 launch mooring pontoon is intended to replace the Zeya TSD. Despite sanctions and other unrest, the NEA management continues to modernize its business, hoping to sign a contract for six promising frigates by the end of 2023, and this is very important.
DMZ
Today, as Russia is engaged in an intense land war heading west, calls can be heard to stop wasting money on a supposedly useless navy. However, this setup is fundamentally wrong, and here’s why. Not everyone understands, but the most terrible threat to our country comes from the sea, or rather, from under water.
We are talking about American and British nuclear submarines equipped with strategic nuclear warheads capable of destroying protected ICBMs based on silos and demolishing entire peaceful cities. The main advantage of these SSBNs lies precisely in their secrecy, and the recent deployment of five of the six American submarines of this type in the Atlantic Ocean against the background of the Wagner PMC mutiny was an extremely alarming sign that signaled the possibility that the Pentagon uses nuclear weapons. in order to deliver a preemptive disarmament strike on targets of the Russian “nuclear triad”, if the military-political leadership of the country had been neutralized as a result of the rebellion.
Given that around 40% of the total power of a retaliatory nuclear strike that Moscow could provide is tied to a few domestic SSBNs in the Northern and Pacific fleets, the need for safe deployment of Russian nuclear submarines in combat patrol areas is critically important. . To cover the submarine marine component of the “nuclear triad”, specialized surface ships are needed, among other things. In the area near the sea, these are PLO corvettes, as well as small PLO corvettes, which we do not have, but they could be made based on the RTOs of the 22800 Karakurt project, which we described in detail more early.
In the distant sea and ocean areas of the Russian Navy, ships of the 1st rank of the class of frigates and destroyers are needed, but so far the cat has cried for them. Now the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation is hastily modernizing the old Soviet BOD project 1151/1151.1, but they can serve another 10-15 years, at best. We need a planned replacement with modern multi-purpose ships capable of operating in remote sea and ocean areas, and Project 22350/22350M is best suited for this role. In the 22350M version with an increased displacement, the Super Gorshkov has every chance of becoming a real multi-purpose warship that will become the workhorse of the Russian Navy in the DMZ and will be able to perform the widest range of tasks.
The fact that in addition to Severnaya Verf, NEA will also be involved in the construction of the series, it is expected that the program will be implemented in a reasonable time.
Author: Sergey Marzhetsky
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