World Naval Developments

This html article is produced from an uncorrected text file through optical character recognition. Prior to 1940 articles all text has been corrected, but from 1940 to the present most still remain uncorrected.  Artifacts of the scans are misspellings, out-of-context footnotes and sidebars, and other inconsistencies.  Adjacent to each text file is a PDF of the article, which accurately and fully conveys the content as it appeared in the issue.  The uncorrected text files have been included to enhance the searchability of our content, on our site and in search engines, for our membership, the research community and media organizations. We are working now to provide clean text files for the entire collection.

launched SA-N-9 Gophers were not canted in any way, hovve The Admiral Kharlamov, completed in 1989, is inten

Below Decks on Russian Warships

Given a rarely extended opportunity to visit below decks on the Russian S/ava-class cruiser Marshal Ustinov [ex-Admiral Lobov] and the Udaloy-class destroyer Admiral Kharlamov in Boston harbor, I saw a command-and-control organization quite different from that of the U.S. Navy.

The Marshal Ustinov, completed in 1986, has four separate mechanisms for targeting her over-the-horizon SS-N-12 Sand­box missiles: a Bell Crown standard data link alongside her fore­mast; a Punch Bowl satellite link to passive ocean-recon­naissance satellites (the active- radar reconnaissance satellite program is dead); a radar- equipped Ka-25 Hormone he­licopter in a hangar aft; and

SS-N-12s on the Marshal Ustinov (right); SS-N-12 target assignment console (bottom left); SS-N-12 con­trol console (middle); radar/weapon status board (bottom right).

Rum Tub electronic support measures (ESM) equipment.

Antiship ESM might seem useless beyond the horizon, but many signals trapped in ducts near the sea surface can travel surprising distances. In the North Atlantic, ducting is frequent but very intermittent; ESM works only if the set can pick up fleeting traces of signals. That is apparently the case with Rum Tub, which is also the major ESM set triggering Side Globe directional noise jammers. Other ships, such as the Kiev and

Kirov classes, use Rum Tub only for targeting, and other: tennas (Bell Bash-Bell Thump) to direct the jammers.

The Admiral Kharlamov carries the next-generation Wi^f Glass ESM set for over-the-horizon targeting. Her SS-N-14 m¹ siles have a secondary antiship capability and she can data-lb with other ships to triangulate targets, much as U.S. ships f# with the Classic Outboard HF/DF system are designed to wo^;1

The Russian vertical launch missile system is quite differ^ from those common in the West. There is only a single door a® the magazine below rotates to place a missile under it for firi®

Because a missile blast mii set the others in the magaZ® alight, the missiles are cok launched, meaning that they 1 nite after getting airbor®¹ (Western systems, with missile per cell, use launches.) The Russians the® fore cant their missile tub slightly outboard, so that i®¹' siles that fail to ignite duds '^vl not fall back onto the sh>t Many years ago, U.S. desi?¹ ers did much the same thi®^; The Admiral Kharlamov’s

primarily for ASW, with a main battery of eight SS-N-14 U’¹, siles forward and a pair of ASW helicopters aft. The reader'' note that the hinges on the upper and lower SS-N-14 tubes “ fer. The missile was designed to carry either a torpedo or u ^1,1 clear depth bomb. The special hinges on the lower tubes ‘ reportedly connected to a nuclear release mechanism, which

Second Captain consoles in the Admiral Kharlamov’s battle information post; there is a repeater on the bridge.

quite warm, and although doors into

the

P mputs such as damage control data (transmitted from a sep- damage control center) and weapons readiness data in ad-

^l0n to the usual data from the ship’s sensors and messages ^via data link. Also, quite unlike its Western counterparts, it

tain

A/,

PPWial Ustinov—used by the commanding officer. The Mar­... Ustinov also has a large console for SS-N-12 weapon as-

>m_e

y'^N‘^l4s-

_sj(!^<J«^e; the Admiral Kharlamov did not, but did have a televi- ^monitor, which presumably had the same function.

tacks them only when the appropriate re­lease code is received. Given the agree­ment with the United States to withdraw tactical nuclear weapons from the sea, these tubes are probably now empty.

The Admiral Kharlamov has smoke floats in deck release positions fore and ^afti they are probably intended to frustrate electro-optically or laser-guided weapons— the ship also has the new Spetra-F laser detector. The older Marshal Ustinov ftas neither detectors nor smoke floats, ^ar|d lacks the newer ship’s fixed chaff launchers.

Both ships are air-conditioned, at least amidships near the command spaces. For many years the Russian Navy and its So- ^v,et predecessor have used “citadels” to Protect against fallout and chemical attack, he citadel is sealed, and positive air pres­^SUre >n it prevents gas or particles from ^emering. This sort of arrangement requires lhat the ship be operable entirely from

Within enclosed spaces. Although the day

rvas superstructure were often opened, the Marshal Ustinov had '^ery effective air-conditioning. The Admiral Kharlamov's seemed ^ess effective.

The two ships have similar command arrangements that are ^aPParently typical of modem Russian surface combatants. The Pt'naary combat system computer, referred to as the “Second ^aPtain,” is connected to a variety of multi-function displays: °ⁿ the bridge, in the ship’s combat information center (CIC), ^vvhich the Russians call a battle information post, and in a sep­^arate Weapons control space.

Unlike a Western combat data computer, such as the Navy ^taical data system,the Russian’s Second Captain receives own-

^arate <Jiti sent

PUKJuces a ranked list of tactical options. It can, moreover, fight ^{e s}hip if necessary, using scripts in its memory—hence its ^0rnewhat sardonic name. This provides yet another important Pti°n: a group commander (or the commander’s combat com- Ptaer) _{can contro}i _a subordinate ship via a data link feeding that 'P ^s Second Captain system. This option was dearly visible ^ board the missile boat Hiddqnsee, where the SS-N-2 missile console had a data-link setting. The boat was too small to ^e a system of its own, but its architecture had to fit the same

^hlerarchy.

Each ship’s bridge is divided fore and aft by an athwartships ^ain, shielding surface-search radar scopes and Second Cap- consoles—one in the Admiral Kharlamov and two in the

^nent; the Admiral Kharlamov lacked any equivalent for her (j ._A U14s. The Marshal Ustinov had a large periscope on the

The bridge consoles are standard multi­function units; the Marshal Ustinov has 20 scattered about her bridge and weapons control station. The ship’s bat­tle information post was located several decks below and abaft the bridge, buried in the hull for protection.

The Admiral Kharlamov’s battle in­formation post, in contrast, was just aft of the bridge, perhaps half a deck down, and thus still in the superstructure. More generally, the cruiser was much more heavily built. Presumably that reflects a formal distinction between destroyer and cruiser standards of construction, which would be comparable to that in many other navies. The cruiser’s wardroom extended all the way across the ship; the destroyer’s was far more cramped.

The battle information post functions partly as an alternative bridge and partly as a weapon assignment station. As in the U.S. Navy, the Russian Navy would much prefer this protected area for the CO’s post in combat, but many COs much prefer the bridge. An open passage links the battle infor­mation post with the weapons control station from which the weapons are actually fired. In the Marshal Ustinov, it accom­modated a classical vertical manual plot, a relatively large space that also contained two Second Captain terminals (equivalent to those on the bridge), another SS-N-12 assignment console, and an SS-N-12 control console—the only one on the ship.

In the Admiral Kharlamov, the battle information post ac­commodated a pair of Second Captain consoles (one could be used for ASW and the other for AAW, or one could be used for both); the secondary bridge also included a steering stand and engine-order telegraph.

The SS-N-12 console arrangement is similar to that on the Hiddensee, which has an SS-N-2 console just abaft her bridge and another below that is adjacent to her other weapons con­trols. It seems likely that one of the two Second Captains on the bridge of the cruiser is dedicated to the long-range surface pic­ture, for SS-N-12 engagement; the other would be for the air and possibly the ASW picture. Apparently, it is standard prac­tice to place weapon assignment consoles for the big surface-to- surface weapons only on the bridge and in the battle informa­tion post. Descriptions of the weapons control station Sovremennyy-class destroyers indicate that the consoles for SS- N-22 Sunburn missile control are not located there. Note that the SS-N-14 of the Udaloy is not included in this category, even though it has a secondary antiship role.

I was struck by how empty the battle information post seemed—there are no banks of radar monitors, no multiple track­ers or track supervisors. In the West, the trackers and supervi­sors are in the combat information center so that the officer mak­ing tactical decisions has some idea of the source and accuracy of the data on which the tactical picture is based. This concept was illustrated dramatically on board the USS Vincennes (CG- 49) when Captain Will Rogers was desperately trying to iden­tify an approaching aircraft—which turned out to be an Iranian