Military expert: Russian Kalibr and Oniks missiles will not help in fight against NATO ships
Russia’s Navy has its hopes set on anti-ship missiles, but these hopes are baseless, says military expert Maxim Klimov in an article titled “Submarines to the slaughter” on the Military-Industrial Courier (VPK) website.
The specialist believes that, when it comes to implementing modern sonar concepts, the Russian fleet lags critically far behind western forces. As examples of this, he mentions the project 20380 corvette and the project 22350 frigate, which lack multi-position radar.
“Taking into account the status of matters of stealth, sonar and the overall operational situation, in the majority of tactical situations, the fight will start with a surprise attack on us. Due to a significant lag in torpedo matters, we have developed an unsubstantiated hope in the anti-ship missile (including Kalibr and Oniks missiles). However, the moment the first anti-ship missile is launched, our vessel will effectively lose stealth, after which the powerful opponent will raid it with aircraft,” Klimov believes.
The specialist acknowledges that in the present day, stealth torpedo attacks are technically possible due to the limited range of anti-submarine defense, but “this is implemented in western weapons, not Russian”.
“We have a severe problem with the noisiness of the torpedoes used. The question is effectively: is it realistic, taking into account the capabilities of our industry, to meet the prospective demands for the low-noise levels of 53 cm caliber torpedoes or do we need to transition to a larger caliber?” the expert observes.
In his opinion, creating Russian fifth-generation Husky-class submarines is pointless unless the matter of low-noise torpedoes is also dealt with. “The appearance and effectiveness of a weapon are the determining parameters of prospective submarines. We, however, without having satisfactory answers concerning the weapons or the stealth, are already getting hold of budget funds to design 5th generation submarines,” he concludes.
In December Klimov said that the Russian Navy does not possess modern equipment to detect low-noise American submarines.