Posted on 12/21/2019 1:01:27 PM PST by Vince Ferrer
Russias only aircraft carrier has a fire that has covered over 600 square meters (6000 square feet) of the carrier. Even if the fire is put out, Nextbigfuture predicts that the carrier will not be worth salvaging.
Currently, the ship is being flooded with water and chemicals to douse electrical wiring and diesel fuel fires. Those chemicals are wrecking all of the electronics and electrical systems that are not being burned in the fire. The fire is wrecking the engine.
The carrier was already a 30-year old lemon. It was towed back from the coast of Spain in 2012.
It was put in for a 3-year repair program in 2017. Those repairs were budgeted at $340 million. In 2018, a 70-ton crane fell and sank Russias only drydock large enough to service the aircraft carrier. The crane knocked a 210-foot hole in the carrier deck.
The fire, whole and chemical damage have driven the cost of salvaging the carrier to over $2 billion. It would be better to start over.
Russia has had no usable aircraft carrier since 2017. Russia will officially have no carrier for the next ten years.
Russias whole navy has problems. They had a spy submarine sink in July 2019 and killed 14 sailors.
The Russian fleet has declined from a true oceangoing force with long-range battlecruisers and destroyers to a mostly coastal force operating small, short-range vessels.
In 2019, Russia got 23 new surface ships but only seven are armed combatants. One is a Gorshkov-class frigate (4,500 tons) and six are missile corvettes (2000 tons).
US Coast Guard cutters are 4500-ton ships.
The U.S. fleet in total displaces 4.6 million tons of water. The Chinese fleet displaces 1.8 million tons. The Russian fleet displaces just 1.2 million tons. The Russian Navy has really lost its one aircraft carrier. The Russian fleet is probably only 1.1 million tons.
The U.S. fleet can carry around 12,000 offensive missiles. Chinese ships in total can carry 5,200 missiles. Russias fleet packs no more than 3,300.
Guess you never have heard of Kaliningrad Oblast...
Those dummies shouldn’t be spending money on a carrier anyway...it is a status symbol to them and nothing more. What a piece of crap.
Thanks for the ping, Chode, and...Merry Christmas!
and Merry Christmas to you my brother!
a vanity project for sure...
Concur.
Russia and the United States are natural allies. And we used to be allied until the Bolsheviks came along.
“” “” In WWII Russia did not even engage in war with Japan even though Japan was an AXIS power, because they knew they would be wiped out.”” “”
ROLFMAO!
“” “” The Baltic fleets face ice problems half the year and the same problem of being far too removed from the open seas without having to pass through enemy waters.
This is one reason why Russia wants Crimea, but what they would really like is to have Estonia and other Baltic States back (not likely to happen).”” “”
How Estonia is solving an ice and remoteness problems?
The economic value of Baltic countries for USSR were merchant ports. It continued after their independence before Russia developed own ports in the Baltic to save on transit fees.
“In WWII Russia did not even engage in war with Japan even though Japan was an AXIS power, because they knew they would be wiped out.”
Not really the case. In 1939 General Zukov and the Red Army administered a first class ass whipping to the Japanese Army at Khalkhan Gol. This defeat convinced the Japanese that their plans for the conquest of Eastern Siberia were DOA. To protect their Northern flank the Japanese signed a truce and non aggression pack with the Soviets. When the Japanese attacked the Americans, Brits, French and Dutch in the South Western Pacific area, the Soviets knew that the Japanese would not move against their forces in the far East. Stalin felt comfortable pulling several hundred thousand troops from Siberia and using them to launch a counter attack against the Germans outside of Moscow in 1941. The Japanese strictly followed the terms of their treaty with the Soviets, as did the Soviets, until August 1945. The Soviets unleashed almost a million men and 2,000 tanks against the Japanese, completely crushing them in the final weeks of WWII.
Great line.
During the Cold War each carrier was said to have 100 nukes on board...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.