Destroyer keeps watch on Russian carrier (Great Britain)

British Forces News ^ | 14 December 2011

[sukhoi-30mki]

Smart navies, including the US Navy avoid rough weather to the maximum possible extent.

[em2vn]

That occurred because Admiral Nimitz ordered the pumping out of ballast to make room for fuel oil. Once that took place the ships were top heavy when the Typhoon struck and the ships capsized.

[Ronin]

Not any time I was at sea, we didn’t. When I was on the Connie, we would bend on a lot of knots to get out of the way of a typhoon. One time the Captain cut it a bit close coming into Subic and the ship was rolling and pitching like a tin can. Fortunately we were close enough to fly off most the airwing.

Carriers are curiously delicate beasties. The ship itself can handle most anything, but those wee birdies weigh a lot and no matter how many chains you put on the suckers, they won’t hold in place if the deck tilts too much.

That’s why helmsmen never use more than 5 degrees of rudder when the ship is at speed.

[em2vn]

I was one of those slobs on the tin cans plane guarding the bird farms. It was always exciting when sweepers were piped and the crap came flying off of the carriers. At times we dodged fully inflated tires still attached to the wheels and parts of the landing gear.
It was almost as exciting as having a potato fight with the crew of the Jersey when tied up across the mole from her in Long Beach.

[Ronin]

Oh, I can imagine...

I started my days as a QM striker in NX Div on Connie. It didn’t work out for me because I didn’t have the math skills do handle navigation, but it did give me a lot of bridge time when I was a wimpy little kid of 17-18.

I used to sneak up and position myself right behind the Captain’s chair and watch flight ops, listen to the radios, watch the small boys trying to keep up. Great fun!

But back to the original point, I really find it hard to believe that any carrier would go looking for hurricane weather if they could avoid it. Certainly not if they have aircraft aboard.

That one time I mentioned in my previous post when Capt. Peele tried to sneak past a typhoon into Subic Bay, and then got pinned against shallow waters and had to drive through the edges, still stands out as one of the most amazing experiences of my life. It wasn’t quite green water over the flight deck, but it was damn close, and the noise that ship was making had half the crew scared to death.

We could barely pick out the escorts on radar, and radio communications were bad to say the least. Every third swell they were playing submarine.

Good times...

[pabianice]

The Kuznetsov is held together by rust. As is most of the Russian fleet. I’d bet a day’s pay it cannot launch or recover any aircraft.

[Oztrich Boy]

Only a nimrod would have let those aircraft go out of service.

Ironic? The old Nimrod base was RAF Kinloss, on the south shore of Moray Firth, less than 5 minutes flying time away

The Dutch in the Medway

1664-72


If wars were won by feasting,
0r victory by song,
Or safety found in sleeping sound,
How England would be strong!
But honour and dominion
Are not maintained so.
They're only got by sword and shot,
And this the Dutchmen know!

The moneys that should feed us
You spend on your delight,
How can you then have sailor-men
To aid you in your fight?
Our fish and cheese are rotten,
Which makes the scurvy grow -
We cannot serve you if we starve,
And this the Dutchmen know!

Our ships in every harbour
Be neither whole nor sound,
And, when we seek to mend a leak,
No oakum can be found;
Or, if it is, the caulkers,
And carpenters also,
For lack of pay have gone away,
And this the Dutchmen know!

Mere powder, guns, and bullets,
We scarce can get at all;
Their price was spent in merriment
And revel at Whitehall,
While we in tattered doublets
From ship to ship must row,
Beseeching friends for odds and ends -
And this the Dutchmen know!

No King will heed our warnings,
No Court will pay our claims -
Our King and Court for their disport
Do sell the very Thames!
For, now De Ruyter's topsails
Off naked Chatham show,
We dare not meet him with our fleet -
And this the Dutchmen know!

-----------------------------

Progressive

Money spent on an Army or Fleet
Is homicidal lunacy.

[Vanders9]

There’s only - what - fifteen “major surface combatants” in the Royal Navy these days. Some will be in refit, and a fair number will be deployed around the world, so yes. One destroyer is about all that there will be. And York is not a young ship either, although admittedly neither is Kutznetzov.

[Vanders9]

Well yes, the operative word was “originally”. Originally it was merely a coastal defense force, because they knew there was no chance they could challenge NATO on the high seas, but slowly they have been building up their blue sea capabilities, in order to help put more pressure on, and carrier battlegroups are the most obviously visible expression of that. Such things are not easy to establish right from scratch. It takes some time for even a big bear to learn how to swim :)

[Stonewall Jackson]

My great-uncle, Commander John Atkeson, was commander of the destroyer Healy when she went through this typhoon. I never had the opportunity to meet him (he passed away two months before I was born) but I have listened to some interviews he gave concerning his service in WW2.

He said that this storm was the one thing that frightened him the most during the war (this is from a guy who charged two 13,500-ton cruisers with a 2,400-ton destroyer) because of the feeling of helplessness. Even when outgunned or outnumbered by the enemy, you could always fight back, but with a storm you just had to sit there and take it.

[roadcat]

If there is a silver lining to come out of this cloud, it might be that Britain just had their doorbell rung for a very rude wake-up call.

Reminds me of the history of San Francisco Bay. Back when the Spanish were in control, some Russian warships sailed into SF Bay. The Spanish coastal defenses were caught off-guard, and had problems loading their cannons and couldn't get a shot off. The Presidio commander sailed to the Russian ships, and learned that the Russians only wanted to trade goods for their fort some fifty miles north. Lucky for the Spanish. The Russians could easily have taken mid-California away from the Spanish, and the history of the U.S.A. might be different today.

[em2vn]

I agree with you. A skipper will try to navigate away from a hurricane or a typhoon. I found it odd that a Russian carrier was seeking shelter from a North Atlantic storm. When is there not a storm in the North Atlantic. Running in such weather in that ocean is SOP.

[Ronin]

I’m not so sure about that. First, Russian small boys actually have better sea-keeping abilities than ours do because a lot of them, if not most, are equipped with fin stabilizers. This is particularly true for the Northern and Baltic Fleets.

Our ships, with the exception of submarines, seldom operate far enough north or south to need them.

As for their carrier, well, they only have the one and it hasn’t really spent that much time at sea. Plus, they’re not going to be flying in that weather anyhow, so I can easily see why the admiral of that formation would decide to make port rather than fight it out with the weather.

His mission is apparently not that critical.

[Tommyjo]

Of course it can. The Kuznetsov conducts these lengthy deployments every few years. It regularly operates Su-33s and Su-25s. During 2009 it tested MiG-29s for the Indian Navy.

MiG-29 carrier test video

See Freepers thread from November 2011

Freeper thread on Kuznetsov Su-33 Pilot

[em2vn]

During my Navy time I never heard the term small boy. What does that refer to?

[Ronin]

HA! That’s what carrier sailors call destroyers, frigate and such. Little fellows, ya know.

[Tommyjo]

Russian warships leave Moray Firth for Atlantic

[Tommyjo]

It looks like elements of the Russian Navy Carrier Task Force are about to enter the Mediterranean to join up with the Frigate Ladny?

I had a spin on the receiver and copied the following Morse Code weather and sea state report from two unidentified Russian Navy vessels

Morse Code weather report from callsign RK081 with coordinates.

Transmitted on 8345 Khz at 0030 GMT 22 December

RK081 BT 794 20 22 0400 794 BT SML

22001 99369 70069 41798 10305 10160 .027. .4000 70200 81/// 22223 00170 21/// 303// ...... Signal fades out

From the second and third group the lat and long is

36.9N 06.9W (North West of Rota/Cadiz, Spain)

I noted callsign RAL46 sending the following Morse Code on 12464 Khz at 1234 GMT on 21 December.

RAL46 BT 715 19 21 1614 715 BT FM RAL46

21121 99367 70096 41498 80207 10160 40310 53010 70211 884// 22233 20801 302// 41002 21014 BT AR

From the message above the second and third groups contain the lat long. That puts the ship off the southwest of Portugal.

36.7N 09.6W

It is reported in the media that the Black Sea Fleet Frigate Ladny is due to meet up with the Kuznetsov Task Group. The Ladny has just finished a visit to Toulon naval base, France.

[tanknetter]

A coastal defense force with carriers? That doesn’t make sense. If that were the case aircraft would be launched from land bases. There would be no need for carriers.

Technically, the Kuznetsov wasn't designed to be a "carrier" in the true sense. The Flankers are self-defensive in nature (very hard to get them into the air with attack ordinance with the ski-jump/deck run), and her primary offensive armament are her anti-ship Granit SSMs (which are carried in silos in the MIDDLE of the forward flightdeck).

The intent was that she'd operate with Kirov and Slava-class cruisers to deny USN carrier groups the ability to approach and attack land-based targets. Power-projection and offensive operations were a much lower consideration, and in that sense she's pretty much limited to offensive fighter sweeps.

[Tommyjo]

Looks like the Russian aircraft carrier Kuznetsov and escorts have entered the Mediterranean?

Morse Code message on 12464 Khz at 1254 GMT - 22 December

RIT DE RAL46 QSA IMI QTC K RAL46 145 17 22 1630 145 BT FM RAL46 RAL65 FOR RJD74 RJH45

22121 99357 70040 41/98 03004 10180 40.62 51020 70200 22233 330// 40801 22012 BT AR RAL46

From the second and third group of the message.

35.7N 04.0W

Vessel RAL46 is also sending the message for another callsign RAL65. It appears to be travelling in close proximity. Callsign RAL46 and RAL65 could be the carrier Admiral Kuznetsov and escort Admiral Chabanenko?

The callsign RIT is HQ Northern Fleet Severomorsk.

Morse Code message on 12464 at 1214 GMT - 22 December. This places the vessel in the Mediterranean.

RMP DE RK081 QSA IMI QTC K RKO81 303 20 22 1600 303 BT SML FOR RJD38 BT

22121 99357 70041 41798 12705 10180 40266 5.000 70200 81001 22233 0170. ..501 327// 4///// 88000 80000 22017 AR RK081

From the second and third groups of the message.

35.7N 04.1W

The callsign that the vessel (RK081) is sending the message to is RMP. This is the Baltic Fleet HQ at Kaliningrad so it narrows down the likely candidates.

Very hard to tie down the callsign to a specific ship. It could be anyone of the Baltic Fleet vessels in the Task Group? RK081 is possibly the Tanker Lena entering the Mediterranean first to link up with the Black Sea Fleet Frigate Ladny?

Baltic Sea Fleet elements of the Task Force.

Tanker Lena

Frigate Yaroslav Mudry

Frigate Neustrashimy