Submarine fleet: shipbuilding problems.

The history of Russian fleet is a centuries-old affair. It was the year 1718 when an attempt to build the first Russian submarine as a "concealed vessel," attempt undertaken by the serf self-taught inventor Yefim Nikonov, was registered. Russian submarines got their first, if limited, experience of combat operations at the end of the Russo-Japanese war. Formed in Vladivostok in December 1904, a submarine unit numbering 13 vessels was on patrol duty, in 1905, in the area of Russky and Askold islands. As some historians believe, those actions prevented the Japanese fleet from attacking Vladivostok.

The Emperor's decree of March 19, 1906, officially defined submarines as an independent component service of the Navy. Since then, March 19, 1906 is believed to be the day of birth of the Russian submarine fleet. In keeping with order of the commander-in-chief of the Navy No. 253 of July 15, 1996, this date is marked annually as the Day of Submariner.

Before World War I and in its course till the year 1917, 73 submarines were handed over to the Navy. Thirty-four of these were built in Russia: 32 of the Bars-type (I.G. Bubnov's project), one mine-laying submarine, Krab (M.N. Naletov's project), and one of the Pochtovyi-type (S.K. Dzhevetsky's project). As estimated by naval specialists, the Bars-type submarines proved the best in the world among the submarines at that time. Russian submariners won their first victories during World War I (the Baltic submarines Volk [Wolf] and Pantera [Panther]). The world's first mine-laying submarine, Krab, was active in laying submerged minefields in the Black Sea. The mines it planted at the mouth of the Bosporus in July 1915 were instrumental in blowing up the German-Turkish cruiser Breslau, which was crippled for quite long. Notice that Pantera (commander A.N. Bakhtin), by sinking a British destroyer, on August 31, 1919, opened the count of combat victories for Soviet submariners.

In the pre-war period, the Navy received 212 small, medium and cruiser-type submarines. Of these, 15 were in the Northern Fleet, 69 in the Baltic Fleet, 47 in the Black Sea Fleet, and 81 in the Pacific Fleet (a clear numerical imbalance: a considerable prevalence of submarines in the Baltic Fleet and the Black Sea Fleet by comparison with the Northern Fleet, whereas the reverse proportion should have been the case. In all evidence, the command was short of time, before the war, and failed to transfer the surplus from the Baltic to the Northern Fleet). Their wartime operations resulted in the sinking of nearly 100 combatant ships and upwards of 300 freight vessels displacing a total of one million gross register tons.

Under post-war programs and till 1958, when the building of atomic submarines began, nearly 250 diesel-powered submarines were built. In 1958, the Navy received its first multi-role atomic submarine, K-3 (Leninsky Komsomol), this opening the first page in the history of the ocean-going atomic submarine fleet. Simultaneously, the building of streamlined diesel-powered submarines with different designation continued.

In 1959, the adoption of the first missile system D-I with R-11FM ballistic missile made the Russian Navy the first navy in the world possessing strategic missile-carrying submarines. Later they were replaced by diesel-powered strategic missile-carrying submarines, and these, in turn, by powerful atomic missile-carrying submarines of different types with intercontinental ballistic missiles. Till the late 1960s the building also continued of improved diesel torpedo-carrying submarines, which were used en masse for combat patrol duty in the World Ocean from the 1960s to the 1980s. All in all, the Soviet Union built 243 submarines of different classes and projects. With pre-revolutionary Russia counted in, upwards of 1,000 diesel-powered submarines were built.

The Soviet Navy's building record indicates that it is necessary to take into account not only quantitative but also qualitative parameters. While creating the ocean-going atomic submarine fleet and stepping up batch production and assimilation of new types of ships, we often regarded enhancement of combat efficiency of new ships as a numerical build-up. Certainly, in a situation where the country was facing the threat of atomic annihilation, it was necessary to build up the naval strength as soon as possible. Nevertheless, the pace of advance work, to my mind, was allowed to slacken. For this reason, the almost 250 submarines built in the Soviet Union not only secured the strategic parity with the U.S.A. and demonstrated the national shipbuilding might but also exhausted the economy and left this country and its navy with a number of unsolved technical, economic and social problems (salvaging of discarded ships, failure to create the full amount of necessary infrastructure for submarine operation and maintenance, insufficient maintenance and modernization capacities, etc.).

Currently, as is evident, priority measures should be adopted to maintain combat readiness of the existing atomic submarine force (there is no alternative power sources for submarine engine installations). In the first place, it is necessary to ensure the completion of submarines that are already in the course of construction--the pilot strategic missile cruisers Yuri Dolgoruky and Alexander Nevsky, and the multi-role submarine Severodvinsk--and to continue their batch production. The batch production, even if batches are small, enables planned optimization of advanced technologies, as well as development and supplying of entire complete plant and mechanisms, including the necessary materials and energy resources. In addition, this makes it possible to train and keep engineers, technicians and workers proficient in the needed specialties.

Given the present state of the shipbuilding industry, it takes several years to build a ship. This disenables timely replacement of discarded vessels, and so, it is impossible to keep up the minimal necessary submarine strength without engaging in maintenance. For example, it makes sense to repair and modernize only ships that were built in the last few years, given that our multi-role submarines have been in service for 10 to 15 years or longer and failed to pass through the regulation first medium repair they are supposed to after ten years of service (this kind of repair may last from two to three years). The repair should be entrusted primarily to specialized ship repair facilities possessing the necessary production and technical potential. In turn, the designing bureaus responsible for the ships should, on orders from the Navy, draw up designs for yard repair restoration involving replacement of weapons on board recently built ships. Next, the designers and the Navy must draw up variants of a program of first and second repairs to be effected after each ten years of operation with the maximum possible replacement of weapons and technical equipment, this in accordance with technical specifications and designs of those yard repairs and with account taken of workloads shipyards have to bear being busy building new ships and developing weapons and equipment for them. Financial and economic capabilities should also be taken into consideration. Thus, ships must be made to serve for 30 years. To secure the necessary funding and organize performance, it makes sense to include the repair variants program in the currently drafted State Weapons Program for 2006-2015 (SWP-2015).

The specific feature of the present century is a rapid change of forms and methods of warfare and certain changes in the "bridgehead," from which military force is used. In the last century, like in our day and age, the sea is increasingly often such a bridgehead, something that doesn't rule out the growing role of near-earth, including outer, space. The evolutionary change of naval tactics, starting from sail-powered fleet to nuclear-powered and aircraft carrying fleet, as well as of the concept "fleet vs. fleet" to "fleet vs. shore" and so on, is changing over into the revolutionary one. We no longer have time reserves to leisurely think over results of a recent conflict. Forecasting, scientific and military prediction are increasingly important. He who manages to see in a new physical principle or effect the prototype of a future ship or weapon and estimate chances for its combat employment will be more ready for all kinds of unexpected things associated with military threats. This is why it is ever more necessary to look for new breakthrough solutions and less costly methods of development of ships and weapons.

High-quality and efficient development of modern shipbuilding is possible only on the basis of fundamentally new design solutions, such as the use of acoustic or hydrodynamic designing, with specialized research institutions substantiating new constructional and diagram solutions and estimating their efficiency. It is necessary to more resolutely introduce advanced R & D by naval scientists and related industries in the area of hydrodynamics and strength, as well as the use of multi-shell ship structures.

The navy's truck record over the last two or three decades shows that ships of the future Russian Navy should be designed for maximal independence from shore infrastructures and support assets. For this it is necessary to develop new main and auxiliary ship systems and mechanisms with extensive life-spans and periods between repairs and with service life intended to last throughout a ship's life-cycle, atomic-powered or using other physical principles. In view of the lack of a developed shore infrastructure, it makes sense to use on a wider scale the module principle where ship structure is involved, which principle will help expand modernization capabilities and secure sufficient out-of-yard maintainability. These innovations are unlikely to increase the cost of ships too dramatically by comparison with benefits resulting from shore infrastructure reductions. Simultaneously work should be continued to standardize torpedo and missile weapons as precision ones possessing enhanced hit capabilities. To compensate for decreases in the number of ships, systems in course of development should increase a ship's combat might by an order of magnitude.

Certainly, newly developed or modernized submarines should possess high combat efficiency while performing organic missions. In this context, while evaluating the vessels' combat characteristics on the cost-efficiency criterion, we ought not to forget about evaluating the operational characteristics on the same criterion. In all evidence, it should be taken into account that a vessel spends the greater part of her service life in peacetime conditions and therefore the cost of upkeep (operation) predominates in its evaluation on the basis of the said criterion.

In considering the problems of the modern submarine fleet, one should thoroughly evaluate the state of the shipbuilding industry and the entire defense industry in order to adopt the necessary measures for enhancing their capabilities. In many respects, this state is determined by the governmental economic polices that are primarily carried out through the formation of the state budget. The state's refusal to be indirectly involved in managing the economy through the budgetary formation can hardly be justified, as is evident from the present state of Russia's industry as a whole and the military-industrial complex in particular. The sector certainly needs reforming. But in the process, I believe, more serious state goals should be handed down than the highly debatable conversion of the remaining public property to joint-stock operation. As is evident, it makes sense to reform the shipbuilding industry within the framework of a federal or national program for creating a navy in accordance with the "Maritime Doctrine of the Russian Federation for the Period till 2020" that was approved by the RF President.

Currently Russia is putting into shape SWP-2015 but it lacks a long-term naval development concept. I believe it makes sense to draw up a "Concept for the Development of the Navy and Military Shipbuilding for the period till 2030-2040," considering the time it takes to build ships, develop their designs, and create fleet infrastructure as well as the required funding. And, of course, the program of military shipbuilding should include, as before, a number of subprograms for ships systematized by classes and designation, with the building to be oriented to concrete industrial cooperation and production cycle. Realizing the ideas of the said "Concept" in concrete ten-year programs and plans (five-year plans, for example) of military shipbuilding and fleet-building will not only enable the Defense Ministry and the Navy to deal with the existing tasks in the long term but will also aid the development of the national shipbuilding industry and related branches of the military-industrial complex as well as the growth of export capabilities and military-technical cooperation. On top of that, the guaranteed permanent presence of Russia's fleet and marine economic facilities in the World Ocean will enhance the state's economic, political and military capabilities. In the first place, linkage and coordination are necessary of the suggested "Concept" and SWP-2015 with the "Concept of Reforming Enterprises of the Shipbuilding Industry" that is being drafted by the Federal Agency for Industry. Within the framework of these concepts and programs it is also necessary to reform the system of the Navy's and the shipbuilding industry's ship repair yards.

As is obvious, the defense industry is unable to get to its feet without serious state support. But structural shifts alone, in the hope of the Russian market's self-sufficiency, are not enough. State preferences are needed for enterprises performing state orders, including favorable interest-free or low-interest credits to be used to overhaul their fixed assets; abolition of VAT on purchases of raw materials and complete plant for products manufactured under state orders; stimulation of depreciation deductions, etc. To reduce the defense budget expenditures on purchases of batch-produced weapons, a return can be suggested to the consideration of a possibility of abolishing VAT for military products purchased by the Ministry of Defense (Navy).

In wrapping up the consideration of what one sees as the main problems involved in the building of a modern submarine fleet, one cannot but mention yet another problem. The last few decades have demonstrated the danger of any kind of lopsidedness in naval construction. A particularly dangerous case of lopsidedness is the underestimation of the maritime accident-proof and rescue systems. At the same time, it is necessary to understand that non-consolidated and separate actions by different agencies, given the existing economic situation on the national scale and the rapid ageing of ships and vessels, will not achieve a breakthrough in the fight against disasters, accidents and deaths on the seas. Each agency is creating a rescue service of its own. Apart from the Navy's Directorate of Emergency Rescue and Salvage Operations, maritime rescue and salvage operations are handled by the Emergencies Ministry. The Interior Ministry and other power agencies, as well as oil and gas companies engaged in offshore exploration and pipeline fuel transportation have underwater operations specialists of their own. In a word, wary of the state, all entities possessing interests and productions in the underwater sphere are putting together their own underwater operations and rescue services. Understandably, the level of training of those specialists and the degree of them having modern accident-fighting and rescue equipment are different. The Navy's historical priority in the training of underwater operations specialists for all humanly needed depths and in the development and creation of underwater-technical, research (including deep-water) and rescue equipment implies, in the current economic conditions, creating a unified federal accident-fighting and underwater operations service subordinated to the Defense Ministry. This service should train appropriate underwater specialists, service and operate all nationally available technical assets, including research and rescue, perform works in the interests of all economic entities in the underwater sphere on the long-term basis, and execute control functions over development and certification of new equipment.

Vice Admiral V.V. PATRUSHEV (Res.)

Candidate of Military Sciences

Viktor Vassilievich PATRUSHEV was born in Spassk-Dalny, Maritime Territory, on March 9, 1944. He graduated from Pacific Higher Naval School Imeni S.O. Makarova (1967), Naval Academy (1986), General Staff Academy (1991), and Civil Service Academy of the Russian Federation (1997). He served on board Northern Fleet atomic submarines, holding positions from department commander to commander of an atomic submarine division. Subsequently he was chief of staff of a submarine flotilla (1991-1993), operational directorate chief at the General Staff of the Navy (1993-1999). He participated in and led many unique long-range atomic submarine cruises, including ones performed under Arctic ice. He authored more than 50 scientific works and numerous press publications.