The end of the Second world war and the beginning of the war “cold” put shipbuilders leading countries of the world in a very difficult situation. What will be the fleet of the near future? A plausible answer to this question. On the one hand, the naval theorists and engineers have gained an extensive experience of fighting the sea, which, it would seem that rightly could be considered the criterion of truth. On the other hand, progress in military technology has been so rapid that to follow him is not always possible. Electronics, jet aircraft, guided missiles, nuclear weapons—all these innovations have required reflection, and the most reasonable solution here would be not to rush and to “pause”. However, to do so would have taken the United States by the end of 1945 they had a huge fleet and was considered to be the undisputed world leader. Other countries, especially those whose Navy suffered heavy losses, could not wait and started to build new ships immediately. The result of this venture was quite natural: the first post-war destroyers, developed on the basis of previous projects, at the time of entry into service turned out to be obsolete and unfit for combat missions in a new environment.
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Many historians of the Russian fleet passed the XIV century and goes straight from the campaigns of the Kievan princes to Byzantium if not Peter the Great, at least to the campaign of Ivan the terrible in 1552, Kazan. In fact, the shipbuilding and the movement of Russian troops on the ships never stopped, even during the Tartar yoke.
The lessons of the Second world war, naval warfare was not quite obvious and understood immediately. The first attempts of consideration of combat experience led to the emergence of the destroyers, though having excellent characteristics, but is quite traditional in concept (described in previous issue). A clearer awareness of their role took a lot of time, so shipbuilders in many countries have decided to pause or be limited to only experimental ships.
Almost all the Maritime powers of second rank, trying to create or radically change the torpedo power in the period between the world wars, faced a dilemma: either to buy the ships on the side, getting into the political and material dependence on the supplier, try to build their own, developing its own industry, creating jobs, but often at the risk of a delay, the main task for several years.
In countries which are called “Maritime powers of the second tier”, you can see two diametrically opposite approaches to creation of own torpedo ships. Some tried to build world’s most powerful superessence remaining, as a rule, in a single instance; one of them belonged to Yugoslavia and Poland (about which we told in the previous issue of the journal). Other countries, on the contrary, gave preference to low-cost destroyers with modest combat capabilities, but that it was possible to build a small but still lots.
If the aerial part of the German operation for the invasion of Crete in may 1940, no doubt, was an outstanding achievement and entered the history of the art of war, its Maritime component looked just pathetic. The so-called “First light convoy”, intended to capture the airfield at Maleme, consisted of two dozen commandeered the Greeks of motor boats and small coasting boats to the full loaded troops, weapons and ammunition. The only warship, which was assigned to protect the caravan from the enemy fleet, was a small Italian torpedo boat “Lupo” commanded by captain 2 rank, Francesco Mimbelli.
Inevitably looming at the end of the 30-ies of the threat of war forced the British Admiralty to take all possible measures to strengthen the fleet, and to do this required quickly and at minimal cost. If the ensuring action of the fighting force of the fleet one way or another was solved through the construction of various types of destroyers, as we told you in previous issues, the issue of the protection of navigation in the waters surrounding Britain and her possessions, looked much sharper. Three dozen sloops, mostly obsolete, slow moving, not able to ward off even the plane-“whatnot” — that could oppose the “mistress of the seas” potential enemy for tens of thousands of miles coastal strip of the Empire, which yet “never the sun went down”.
Composed at the end of the Second world war on Stalin’s personal order long-term plan of development of the Navy (see “modelist-Konstruktor” No. 6 in 2002) were struck by its size. It is now clear that at that time in our country, which is emerging from a difficult period of its history, was hardly the strength to carry out such an ambitious plan in full. But, most importantly, the point of this expensive program was a bit, because the main rival in the struggle for world domination, the United States already had a huge fleet to catch up, which quantitatively is not possible. The most far-sighted political and military leaders of our country understood that it is necessary to find a principally new solution that would compete with America on the oceans.
In 1950-e years the Navy has a new enemy — jet aircraft. High speed and powerful weapons of new generation aircraft need to increase the range of their interception. But the first attempt to implement destroyers anti-aircraft missile systems, medium range as we already know have failed (see “modelist-Konstruktor” No. 9 for 2002). A two-stage Terrier with difficulty placed on the rebuilt “Hayate”, demanded too much space. Of course, the Americans could abandon its use, focusing on lighter single-stage “Tartarus”, but the desire to cover their carriers are far anti-aircraft “umbrella” gave rise to another solution. Times little space, so it is necessary to build larger ships! So there is a new subclass of destroyers, received in the USA the designation “missile frigates”, or “missile, the leaders of the destroyers” (DLG — Destroyer Leader, Guided Missile).
In the early 1980s, the years of the cold war at sea has reached its climax. The unprecedented growth of the Soviet Navy — qualitative — inspired West well-founded fear. The USSR not without success, aspherical American goodsto in the oceans— only in 1981-1983 and the sea came holoeye ships from four new series: missile cruiser “Kirov” and “Glory”, the destroyer “Modern” MIC “Swashbuckling”… the Soviet anti-ship missiles at soem characteristics — range, speed, power, warheads, far ahead of the best Western samples. Never a history of Russian fleet was not as Arnim tool miraaj policy, and as the time, separated from us by two decades. Largely it was the merit of Admiral S. G. Gorskaya, nearly 30 years held the post glaucoma of the Navy. He was able to convince party leadership of the USSR that without a powerful Navy ornago our country will not be able to compete with the United States and will Aetna doomed to the “subordinate” position.