Posted on 09/14/2016 2:37:47 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
The last time Russia’s sole aircraft carrier sailed into the Mediterranean Sea, five years ago, the U.S. Navy’s 6th Fleet kept a close eye on its progress. The concern among American officers wasn’t the ship’s contingent of fighter planes; instead, it was the very real worry it would sink and necessitate a potentially risky rescue operation.
The 26-year-old Admiral Kuznetsov made it through that 2011 deployment without sinking and is now headed back to the eastern Mediterranean this fall as part of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s effort to use Syria as a showcase for his new model military. But the earlier worries were plenty valid: On a 2009 Mediterranean transit, one sailor died when the vessel caught fire, and the ship accidentally dumped tons of fuel into the sea in a refueling mishap. And those accidents aren’t outliers. The problems with the ship are so widespread, and so expected, that the flattop has to be shadowed by tugs to tow it to port when it predictably breaks down.
But now the Kuznetsov has a slate of different objectives in mind. The ship will begin launching airstrikes on behalf of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a Russian ally. It will be the carrier’s first-ever combat deployment and the first combat test of its MiG-29K fighter jets. It will also offer the first and perhaps best chance to showcase the carrier-based fighters’ capabilities to potential clients such as India, which already operates a Russian-built carrier and which has purchased dozens of MiG-29s over the last decade.
The Kuznetov’s deployment comes just as Russia has carved out an increasingly prominent role in the Syria crisis. Last week, a year after Moscow started military operations there, the United States and Russia reached a deal on a cease-fire that, if
(Excerpt) Read more at foreignpolicy.com ...
On the other hand, no sailor on the ship will give birth
Say what you want about our female sailors, but I work with the sailors (both male and female) on a daily basis and the overwhelming majority are very competent professionals.
Don’t judge all of them by the actions of a few. There have always been a few bad sailors.
That is a very unattractive vessel, to my eyes.
Is the power plant nuclear or oil-fired?
Oil fired.
What gave it away? The oil spill mishap with resulting fire?
“It’s nuclear, nuclear I say” says Hillary
Most are sluts.
It’s not that females are “bad sailors”, it’s that they are female and thus it’s wholly inappropriate to put them in harms way.
Also they have sex and get pregnant.
They are bad for morale and decrease readiness and fighting abiltiy in every metric.
The military is not a jobs program. It does not exist to “provide opportunity”.
Darn thing is better armed than most of our cru, er, destroyers, and has an air wing to boot! It is practically a task group by ints
Russia President Vladimir Putin looks on, bemused, as the handle on the door of the armored SUV comes off in the hand of General Aleksandr Shevchenko, while the chief of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff, General Valery Gerasimov, looks on, appalled.
According to Russian news reports, the man who served as Putin’s tour guide -- General Aleksandr Shevchenko, the director of the Russian Defense Ministry’s Main Armored Directorate -- was eager to show Putin the specially built armored model of an SUV built by the Russian automotive giant UAZ.Oops...With television cameras rolling, the entourage -- which included the chief of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff, General Valery Gerasimov -- walked to the front passenger-side door and Putin tried to open the door. An officer appearing to be Shevchenko went to help him, pulling on the door handle -- until he pulled it off.
Jets drink too!
That ship STINKS.
http://www.businessinsider.com/5-ways-the-russian-military-is-falling-apart-2015-8
“Plumbing problems in the ship limit the number of functioning latrines to 25 for her full crew of nearly 2,000.”
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