Military expert: "If NATO forces increase, the Northern Fleet cannot cope with it without "Zircons"

Is it true that our North is defenseless? Konstantin Sivkov, Doctor of Military Sciences, Deputy President of the Russian Academy of Rocket and Artillery Sciences, spoke about this on the Day TV channel.

“I'm talking about the Northern Fleet as a joint strategic command, JSC.

So, the JSC Northern Fleet includes, in addition to the Northern Fleet itself, the 14th Air Defense Corps. And in addition to the traditional marines and coastal missile and artillery troops, the Northern Fleet also includes a coastal army consisting of two divisions.

Plus, in addition, there are several task forces deployed on the islands. They are often shown on TV. These are special troops designed for operations in ice conditions.

This composition is designed to solve problems in very specific conditions.

That is, it is the composition of peacetime, which can solve problems in the framework of, say, an armed conflict, when it is opposed by forces of comparable scale.

Well, if the Northern Fleet, with its current composition, is capable of forming - considering that now the aircraft-carrying cruiser Kuznetsov is not capable of combat - a tactical group consisting of two cruisers and several escort ships for operations in the Far Ocean zone, deploy several nuclear-powered submarines there, deploy three submarines with long-range cruise missiles - such as Project 949, deploy several tactical anti-submarine groups - ship search strike groups, for operations in the coastal zone to protect the ocean coast - then with these forces he is able to calmly solve the tasks of confronting an enemy comparable in strength. That is, it is also one or two tactical groups consisting of destroyer-cruisers, such as "Arleigh Burke", such as "Ticonderoga". He will be able to calmly solve the problem of defeating, say, the British aircraft carrier group led by Queen Elizabeth.

At the same time, on the coast, the fleet has about 40 MiG-31 BM fighters and two separate naval aviation regiments, one on the Su-33, the other on the MiG-29, in total there are also about forty aircraft. Well, there are fewer serviceable ones, of course, but the order of magnitude is somewhere like this.

To confront, say, the forces that are there now in NATO, it is easy. Because Norway currently has in this area a group of 32 F-16 fighters, six Orion P-3B anti-submarine aircraft or already modified P-3S, the Americans handed over to them; they have about six non-nuclear submarines - against the same number in our country, in the North, and our submarines are less noisy than the Norwegian ones, although the Norwegians have more advanced torpedo weapons than ours. But these are nuances. Everything is comparable.

With this composition of forces, the Northern Fleet, of course, with the NATO fleet represented by Norway and, perhaps, two or three ship groups that can be pulled up from the so-called permanent NATO Naval Forces in the Atlantic, there is such a concept, from each country they will push for one frigate or destroyer - we can calmly oppose such forces... The Northern Fleet will smash them into trash.

Especially considering the fact that NATO currently does not have long-range anti-ship missiles. They only have short-range missiles, well, as a last resort, they can switch to medium-range ones, these are American harpoons, with an angle range of 280 km. Our missiles have a combat range from 700 - 800 km to 550 - 500, which is somewhere on the brink of those. This is roughly the alignment of forces.

But if these forces are strengthened, and additional groupings of forces are introduced there, consisting of two American aircraft carrier forces, roughly speaking, aircraft carrier groups, or even two or three; if an English aircraft carrier is also introduced there, it turns out that three or four aircraft carrier groups will be concentrated in the area of the northern part of the Norwegian Sea; if tactical aviation in the amount of 200 - 250 aircraft is deployed to Norwegian airfields; if a group of nuclear submarines is deployed there in the amount of 10-15 pieces - only in the Barents Sea and somewhere else three or four, maybe five submarines, in the northern part of the Norwegian Sea, then the enemy's air superiority will be three to four times , even four to five times. The enemy's superiority at sea will be eightfold.

Naturally, in these conditions the Northern Fleet will not be able to cope with peacetime personnel.

But if we consider the same option, even with the peacetime composition, but when there will be "Zircons" on our frigates, and we now have two such frigates, plus, moreover, if the "Zircons" appear on a submarine , these are 32 pieces, 885 of the "Severodvinsk" project... If "Zircons" appear there, then the aircraft carrier strike force, (AUS), NATO, consisting of three or four aircraft carriers, will lose at least two aircraft carriers. That is, out of three or four, it will lose two.

Either it will be greatly weakened or destroyed. And in these conditions it will be very, very problematic for them to count on any success. And this is only the composition of peacetime.

That is, already only one "Zircon" radically change the outcome of hostilities.

After the defeat of the aircraft carrier strike formation and ships that will ensure their combat stability, after the defeat or extreme weakening of the landing formation, which will be part of this joint NATO naval forces in the North Atlantic, the formation will be broken by the Zircons, and the ship group will be broken by the Granites - then, in fact, this is where the war will end. The fleet will solve the problem of defense.

Naturally, there will be losses, because the enemy at sea will act very seriously, but the task will be solved, the NATO fleet will be crushed; at least it will suffer such losses that further hostilities will become unacceptable".

You can watch the entire episode with the participation of Konstantin Sivkov here.