Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Straits

NATO buildup in Black Sea violates Montreux Convention — Russian deputy

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said earlier on Wednesday that NATO would continue adapting and building up its military capabilities in the Black Sea region

MOSCOW, February 10 /TASS/. Russia’s former Black Sea Fleet commander Vladimir Komoyedov warned NATO on Wednesday that the 1936 Montreux Convention restricted the time of stay of foreign warships in the Black Sea.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said earlier on Wednesday that NATO would continue adapting and building up its military capabilities in the Black Sea region, including its naval forces, intelligence means and possibilities for redeploying reinforcements.

"First of all, the Black Sea is a closed theatre. It is an internal sea, in fact, which is connected to the Mediterranean Sea by straits," Komoyedov told TASS on Wednesday in response to Stoltenberg’s words.

"There are rules of use and there is the Montreux Declaration, which specifies the duration of stay [of foreign warships in the Black Sea]," Komoyedov said adding that the warships of non-Black Sea states could stay there no longer than 21 days.

"Territorially, it [NATO] will certainly build up its forces - in Turkey, in Bulgaria and in Romania," Komoyevov, who heads the Russian State Duma Defense Committee, said.

He agreed that NATO would certainly wish to strengthen and reinforce its Black Sea group. "However, it does not mean that 20, 30 or 50 warships are going to appear there," the deputy explained.

"We have enough forces capable of monitoring the situation and passing decisions depended on the situation," Komoyedov added.

He said it was too early to speak about a naval balance in the Black Sea. "We still need time to create this balance. A lot of things need to be built, replaced and repaired," Komoyedov said when speaking about Russian naval forces.


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Rotation of the Black Sea

The Navy Commander-in-Chief, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and, most likely, the GDP itself, seems to have managed to solve the problem indicated in the Impassable Straits entry (Ref. 1). It will be possible to talk about the viability, temporal or permanent nature of the decision made later - as the Soviet experience is almost completely forgotten. For today, we have no reasonable alternative.


B-265 "Krasnodar" passes the Bosphorus, 03/14/2019 (photo ru.euronews.com with feed kubnews.ru)


The rotation of the boats of the 4th separate brigade of the submarine of the Black Sea Fleet was carried out in two steps. 03/12/2019 came out of Sevastopol, and on March 14, 2019, the Bosporus diesel electric submarine B-265 Krasnodar passed (link 2, link 3, link 4). Two weeks later (03/27) the B-268 “Velikiy Novgorod” entered the Black Sea, was noted in Sevastopol on March 29, and arrived in Novorossiysk on April 3 (ref. 5, ref. 6, ref. . On 25 April, the B-262 “Stary Oskol” Bosporus (link 9) passed through to the Mediterranean Sea, and the Kolpino B-271 (reference 11) went back in the opposite direction on May 1, 2005, arriving in Novorossiysk on 03.05 (reference 12).

According to unofficial information, “Stary Oskol” and “Krasnodar” will be repaired at the Admiralty Shipyards (St. Petersburg) at the end of 2020, and until that time “will perform tasks as part of the permanent operational compound of the Russian Navy in the Mediterranean Sea” (Ref. 13) according to the official - at least B-262 makes "the transition to the ship repair enterprise of the North-West of Russia for scheduled maintenance" (Ref. 14). Velikiy Novgorod and Kolpino, who have served in the SPM for more than 1.5 years (since 08/28/17), will be repaired in Sevastopol.

The combat service in the SPM basically fits into art. The 12th Montreux Convention of 1936, which allows the littoral states to the Black Sea to pass through the straits "their submarines built or bought outside this sea in order to return to their base" or "for repair in shipyards located outside this sea" (during the day, on the surface, alone) (Ref. 17), but says nothing about the time when repairs should be carried out and what tasks the submarines are allowed to perform on the way to the ship repair yards and back.

How will the stars in the future - we will see. Perhaps after the departure of the Old Sea Oskol and Krasnodar from the Mediterranean Sea or after the completion of their combat service on the way back, their place in Tartus will be taken by the B-261 Novorossiysk and B-237 Rostov-on-Don. Perhaps after the construction of boats for the Pacific Fleet (2022), the Admiralty shipyards will build another 636.3 or 677 series specifically for the SPM, which probably would be more correct, since according to the adopted scheme minus two repairs on the Black Sea Fleet and in the SPM it remains only on two diesel-electric submarines.

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PLB Black Sea Fleet: the burden of Montreux

October 9 p. In the Strait of Gibraltar, a submarine of the project 636.3 of the Russian Navy was seen, moving west, accompanied by the SBS of the Black Sea Fleet "Captain Guriev" ( link 1 ). Apparently, the same boat was seen by German observers on the 25th or a day earlier in the Fehmarn Belt (south of the Great Belt) and identified it as a submarine of the Black Sea Fleet going to one of the Russian shipyards in the Baltic ( link 2 ). According to the SKAP (Harbor Master Service System) of St. Petersburg, on the last day of the month, the submarine, as it turned out - B-237 "Rostov-on-Don" , arrived in Kronstadt, and on November 10 moved from there to the Admiralty Shipyards ( link 3 ) ...

PLB 636 Rostov-on-Don 2020 (10) 24-25 Fehmarn Belt (1) - ln-online.de (Germany) .jpg
B-237, Fehmarn Belt, 24-25.10.2020 (ln-online.de)


Marathon " Rostov " The

arrival in St. Petersburg of "Rostov-on-Don" was to a certain extent a surprise. Logically, of the two Black Sea submarines that entered the Mediterranean Sea through a loophole in Article 12 of the Montreux Convention (for repair at shipyards located outside the Black Sea), the B-261 Novorossiysk was to arrive first. The lead boat of the series passed the Bosphorus six months earlier than Rostov - 04.12.2019 versus 23.06.2020. Their pre-operational repairs were performed in the same sequence and at approximately the same interval. It turns out that after the completion of the repair and the beginning of the military service of "Novorossiysk", which he still carries, 15 and 11 months have passed, and "Rostov-on-Don"respectively. However, this is not the main thing for our topic.

Interesting is the speed mode of the B-237 inter-fleet passage from Tartus to Kronstadt (on AB), which can be judged by the dates of the passage of the two available control points - Gibraltar and Fehmarn, as well as the possible ratio of the duration of the submarine's stay above water and under water. About 2000 miles were covered in about 15.5 days at an average speed of 5.5 knots. The economic underwater speed of the PLB pr. 636 is 3 knots, the cruising range is 400 miles, and the time under water is 5.5 days. (Y. Kormilitsin, O. Khalizev "Submarine device", 2008-2009 [K.Kh.], volume 2, pp. 232-233). Maximum the surface speed is 11 knots, but the average (according to the experience of the Novorossiysk crossing from Polar to Gibraltar in 2015) does not exceed 7.5 knots.

Assuming that at the Gibraltar-Fehmarn crossing, Rostov alternated between surface and submerged positions, moving at 7.5 and 3 knots, respectively, from two simple equations with two unknowns (x + y = 2000 [miles] and x / 3 + y / 7.5 = 15.5 x 24 [hours]) it turns out that the time spent above and under water is related as 53% to 47%, that is, almost 1: 1. For reference: 1) there is information that the scheme can be applied in practice: a day under water at 5 nodes (120 miles) - surfacing to charge the battery - 120 miles under water, etc. ( ref. 4 ); 2) battery charging time (depends on the discharge timemode) 8-16 hours. ([K.Kh.], volume 1, page 167), on average 12 hours.


Deployment Schedule

The legal problems associated with the passage of the BSF submarine of the Black Sea Straits, and the practiced method of overcoming them, were discussed in previous entries ( ref. 5 , ref. 6 ). The first boat of Project 636.3, which left the Black Sea and intends to return after repairs in Kronstadt, undertaken for the sake of two deployments (BS) in the Mediterranean Sea (on the way there and back), should be B-262 "Stary Oskol", which completes the trip to the Gulf of Finland (from 31.12.2019) and is about to begin the transition to its own theater of operations ( link 7 ) (*) .

(*) It is curious that now in the Baltic Sea there is a real crowd of 636.3 combatants - "Stary Oskol", "Krasnodar", "Rostov-on-Don", "Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky" and "Volkhov".

Below is a possible rotation schedule for the Black Sea Fleet submarine, which allows keeping two boats out of six in the Mediterranean and two or four in the Black Sea on a permanent basis. Durationcombat service in the SPM - one year before and one after repair in the Baltic, which also lasts one year, including two months (2x1) for inter-fleet crossings (2x4750 miles at 5.5-7.5 knots). The overhaul intervals are not the same, but the schedule is cyclical. Within one cycle (12 years) one boat makes 4 (2x2) MFPs, for the entire service life (say, 30 years) - 8 MFPs (taking into account that the very first deployment in the SPM is carried out after construction in St. Petersburg before the first call to Black Sea). Resource of materiel For the opportunity to access the BS in the SPM without violating the Montreux convention, one has to pay with "excess" (not related to the use of the submarine for its intended purpose) wear and tear of the materiel, primarily the power plant. To the least extent, this concerns diesels as part of 30DG diesel generators ( ref. 8

). They work only on the surface or under the RDP and have an assigned resource up to write-off of 50 thousand hours ( Ref. 11 ). If during the passage the time spent above and under water is the same, then as a result 8 MFP (approximately 5840 hours) diesels will use up only 6% of their resource.

The situation is somewhat worse with the PG-167 generators (as part of the 30DG) and propeller motors. As far as is known, DC collector machines ([K.Kh.], volume 2, pp. 237-238) with short-lived brush-collector assemblies, they should not have too high resource characteristics. It was not possible to find data on boat hydroelectric motors , but it is known that their conditional analogues - engines of the 2P series - have an average resource of 30 thousand hours. (link 12 ), and the brushes are three times smaller ( link 13 ). On the PLB pr. 636.3 with full electric propulsion there are two HEDs - the main (PG-165) and the economic (PG-166), while on the move (on the MFP) one of them is continuously working: the first is above water, the second is under water ... Then, for 8 MPPs, each HED will develop at least 10% of the total resource.

It seems that 6 and 10% can be considered quite acceptable payment for the permanent presence of the Black Sea Fleet submarine forces in the Eastern Mediterranean, but even here not everything is clear. The indicated percentages are indicative and refer only to the speculative transition regime described above with the same duration of surface and diving. Moreover, due tothe lack of data remains behind the scenes consumption of the battery resource on underwater running, which depends primarily on the number of charge-discharge cycles . In the case of purely surface MFPs (when the DG and the main hydroelectric engine are operating), the resource of all PG machines may decrease by as much as 20%. Combat training The inter-fleet passage from Tartus to Kronstadt (and vice versa) is, in fact, an event of combat training on the high seas lasting 2/3 of autonomy (2/3 of 45 days), and in this sense it can be regarded as a purely positive phenomenon. In the course of such events, the military collective (crew) rallies and the skills of using weapons and technical means in the natural conditions of submarine operation are sharpened to automatism . Achieve a commensurate effect while standing at the pier,

absolutely impossible. In addition, during the transition practically around the whole of Europe, opportunities are presented for scuba diving in the most interesting areas from a military point of view and for practicing tracking the ships of NATO countries, especially near their bases (Naples, Rota, etc.).

On the other hand, for the PLB of project 636.3, which are ships of the near sea zone (first of all, in terms of diving range equal to 400 miles), it would be much more useful to work out the tasks of combat use in their theater of operations, in our case, in the eastern part of the SPM ( including the Aegean Sea from Crete to the Dardanelles, the surroundings of Cyprus and the approaches to the Suez Canal) and, of course, in the Black Sea.


Possible solution to the problem

Of course, the Main Command and the General Staff of the Navy know better, and it would be foolish to teach them to command the fleet. The proposed solution is just only one of the options that might be considered, and it is possible that will be accepted for execution. The point is to include Tartus on the list of non-Black Sea shipyards at the intergovernmental (Russian-Turkish) level, where, if necessary, the Black Sea Fleet's submarine base can be repaired. The necessity in this case implies the absence of free slipways in the dry and floating docks of Sevastopol at a specific point in time, in other words, when we need to deploy the submarine in the SPM. In order for the Turks or someone else not to have unnecessary questions, it is necessaryto have in Tartous a floating dock of suitable carrying capacity. There should not be any particular difficulties here, since the catalog of the Gorodets SSK contains floating docks for 5, 8 and 15 thousand tons ( link 14 ). ■

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