Translated material
Floating rate
The Russian Navy wants to become economically profitable
Yesterday, military sailors not only celebrated their professional holiday, but also clarified their plans and decided on the concept for the development of this type of armed forces. The Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Admiral Vladimir Masorin, essentially defined a new task for his subordinates: the Navy must bring the state not only political and military-political dividends, but also economic ones.In other words, the Navy must focus on ensuring the safety of navigation of civilian - commercial, fishing - vessels, as well as on the extraction of minerals from the bottom of the World Ocean. The country should also receive political dividends from material and intellectual investments in the construction of a national aircraft carrier fleet.
The greatest efficiency in solving the tasks assigned to the fleet on the high seas, says Admiral Masorin, can only be achieved with the use of aircraft carriers. But the number of types of naval aircraft will be reduced to four. These will be a multifunctional ship-based aircraft (Su-33 of a highly modified version), a patrol aircraft complex, a helicopter and an unmanned aerial vehicle.
The fleet's rescue forces, brought to perfection after the tragedy with the nuclear submarine Kursk, will come to the aid of civilian ships in distress, including foreign ones. Today, at the Admiralty Shipyards in St. Petersburg, the construction of the lead search and rescue vessel Igor Belousov of Project 21300 is already underway. In 2009, it will enter service with the Navy. In the future, each of Russia's four fleets will have at least one rescue ship. Already in November of this year, military sailors will receive the Panther Plus rescue bathyscaphe purchased in the UK. It will be included as the main part of the airmobile rescue complex. Recently, the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy said, the rescuers' pay has been increased.
Admiral Masorin confirmed that maintaining the Navy is not cheap for the state: several warships “eat up” more than a tank brigade of a hundred armored vehicles with attached artillery. However, the Navy as the country's heritage must be preserved, if only because the Russian navy is one of five in the world that has nuclear submarines. Moreover, Russian nuclear-powered ships are recognized as the best. They are significantly supplemented by diesel-electric submarines.
Another trend in the development of the Russian Navy is a constant decrease in the number of ships. However, the same cannot be said about combat power, since both ships and their weapons are being updated. To confirm these words, in July the Northern Fleet fired cruise missiles at a target from five directions at once.
The crisis in Russian military shipbuilding has been overcome. Today, the construction of two dozen ships of the corvette series has begun, the design of destroyers continues, and the construction of new landing ships has begun. All of the listed ships are universal, priority is given to the vertical launch missile systems installed on them. New information systems, electronic warfare equipment, surface and underwater situational lighting, new generation control systems - the fleet will receive this and much more in the near future. The promising shipbuilding program provides for a minimally sufficient nuclear potential, which can also be attributed to the new trends of the fleet.
The attitude of civil authorities towards the fleet also changed. The Moscow government, for example, as in Soviet times, patronizes the Pacific Islanders, provides them with financial assistance to set up a training base, donates new medical equipment to hospitals, and books to libraries.