Posted on 04/14/2016 6:23:59 PM PDT by Mariner
At least in the surface fleet when we'd have a Sunday BBQ on steel beach, and the Russians would come alongside close...we could see they were drinking beer.
Late afternoon we'd all go topside and moon each other before separating.
Then come early Monday morning it'd be back to fun and games.
For some reason we fell into that routine of taking Sunday's off.
The Russians don't fire on us and we don't fire on them.
As soon as the aircraft was ID'd as Russian the skipper will order all fire control radar turned off.
Both sides have been FASTIDIOUS at showing restraint.
And for good reason.
It's fun out there.
Nanny, Nanny, Boo, Boo
Whatcha gona Dooooo?
Because Odrama wants us not to pay attention to something else.
Never saw them face to face at sea. Hell, never saw anything but the inside of that can for 3 months.
Bingo.
He's probably looking at a much bigger deployment in the Baltics or Poland.
Or worse, in support of the BRAND NEW PM in Ukraine.
The somb!tch is crazy. And stupid.
But you heard 'em plenty.
What I find amusing about all of this is the notion that the US Navy had no idea there were Russian fighters and helos in the vicinity. They saw them from at least 50 miles out, knew their intentions since they weren’t carrying weapons and probably had a laugh knowing the Russkies would politicize this to make Obama look weak.
If the jets had visible weapons on it, the Russkies wouldn’t have gotten within 50 miles of the ship. The US would have had planes scrambled as soon as it was evident there were weapons.
This was no big deal.
I made six Pacific crossings on MSTS, 1951-1961.
Never saw much more than an occasional far off light.
Sea Story Time!: I got home from leave just as the October War was starting in the Med. After two weeks they sent me back to Naples to Submarine Group 8, who just happened to have Captain Bo Bohannan who was the skipper of the first submarine I actually sailed on as the US Chief of Staff to ADM Kenny McKey. Captain Bohannan assigned me to write the “Patrol Report” for SUBBRU 8, since they hadn’t had time to do it themselves. When I couldn’t keep up, they brought the Commissioning Crew from Los Angeles over to help me. That gave me some slack, so they sent me out to Independence CV-62 as the “Submarine Liaison Officer”. So that sets the scene.
We had a Russian Kashin that was shadowing the Task Force 69, and OPSEC on Independence was not really great. They would start night flight ops at 1800 like clock work. The great thing was they were down one ship for Starboard Plane Guard, so five minutes before Flight Ops, the Kashin turns to assume the Starboard Plane Guard position in perfect formation when the Independence came around to launch course.
We were tracking them precisely from the time they took off. And knew their mission within 2 minutes after that.
Interested to know your opinion on China. I agree the US and Russia like to pull each other’s tails but don’t let it get out of hand,and have done so for so long it’s basically SOP.
I don’t recall that during the Cold War days. We had to refuel at night to avoid the Russians maneuvering in front of us and interfering. The few times we were buzzed wasn’t really a buzz as much as an aircraft crossing from side to side at an altitude high enough to not constitute a threat.
From the picture on the internet, the Russian aircraft was almost reach out and touchable.
Sweet and totally believable.
In their prime they had a helluva Navy.
If one was to die at sea, I'd rather die from a Russian hit than the Norks or Chinese. It'd be far more honorable.
I have a nephew who was on the USS George Washington when she led a Battle Group in to the Yellow Sea...maybe 500 miles from Beijing. This was during Obama, maybe 5-6 years ago.
He said the Chinese never came out to play even once. All military ships and aircraft stayed at least 100K away.
My question is WTF is a US Navy destroyer doing in the Baltic?
This country is broke - we can’t afford to be wasting our money defending wealthy Northern European welfare states that are perfectly capable of patrolling their own seas.
The Child-In-Chief wants to puff up what little chest he has.
And of course those 23mm rounds from the internal gun would have done no harm to anyone or anything. Stranger things have happened.
Because there's video of it now, and Russia has been flexing more and more muscle lately. It all paints a worrisome picture.
I’m more worried about being bit by spiders...just sayin.
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