Russia's only aircraft carrier catches fire

[TheGreenGoblin]

The ill starred Admiral Kuznetsov which has a dubious reputation for reliability and operational readiness is on fire in dry dock. Sadly 10 sailors have been injured, one sailor is missing and one death has been reported.

Russia’s lone aircraft carrier — the ageing Admiral Kuznetsov — caught fire on Thursday morning following an accident sustained while under repair in port near Murmansk.

Footage of the fire showed thick black smoke rising above the decks of the vessel. According to Russian news agencies, ten people have been injured, mostly with burns, with seven of them remaining in a local intensive care unit. Two men remain unaccounted for.

The same wires suggested the fire, which began just before 11 am, is spreading and now covers 600 sq metres of the vessel.

Initial reports said the fire followed welding work in the engine room. Initially limited to a 20 sq m area, flames advanced quickly owing to the extensive diesel stores onboard.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 43406.html

The Admiral Kuznetsov is infamous for its smoking stack and the need for an attendant tug as was seen when it passed by the UK in 2016 en route to the Mediterranean Sea.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Video


Some ex-Russian Navy guy reckons it's an insurance job
Someone else reckons there's less smoke now than when it's at sea, so maybe it's just a new engine test

[TheGreenGoblin]

A crane fell onto the ship in dry dock last year and caused serious damage. It should be put out of its misery and scrapped.

[Rwy in Sight]

Maybe they need to bring out an ecclesiastic dream team of the Russian Orthodox church and run an exorcism.

[4mastacker]

Good news for Russian inventory holders - this could turn out to be the Russian equivalent of the 'Atlantic Conveyor' - although quite how some grunt sitting in the wastes of Siberia could use it as an excuse for all the missing AK47s on his loan card would be an interesting exercise in 'creative accounting'.

4ma - who used the AC facility several times to "sort stuff out".

[Pontius Navigator]

TGG, sending a tug with an out of area task group was a normal Soviet policy. Remember they have far fewer friendly ports to safe harbour.

In the 1970s they used to station a tug, usually a SORUM in the lee of the Shetlands. They were supposed to remain 3 miles off shore but could lie closer in in bad weather and might poo ashore for essential supplies.

[Rwy in Sight]

Post resubmitted just below

[Rwy in Sight]

Good news for Russian inventory holders - this could turn out to be the Russian equivalent of the 'Atlantic Conveyor' - although quite how some grunt sitting in the wastes of Siberia could use it as an excuse for all the missing AK47s on his loan card would be an interesting exercise in 'creative accounting'.

4ma - who used the AC facility several times to "sort stuff out".

Provided it is written off which it would be a blow to the Russian military as it is real gaining strength in the recent year. I have a suspicion what is AC but a new explanation would be welcome.

[4mastacker]

Provided it is written off which it would be a blow to the Russian military as it is real gaining strength in the recent year. I have a suspicion what is AC but a new explanation would be welcome.

AC = Atlantic Conveyor. The excuse reason offered by many inventory holders after the Falklands Conflict for equipment that was "missing". e.g."The 12Kva generator/SLR camera/aircrew watch* was on the Atlantic Conveyor when it was sunk".

* - substitute other item of choice.

[Rwy in Sight]

Thanks for confirming my initial thought.

[TheGreenGoblin]

TGG, sending a tug with an out of area task group was a normal Soviet policy. Remember they have far fewer friendly ports to safe harbour.

In the 1970s they used to station a tug, usually a SORUM in the lee of the Shetlands. They were supposed to remain 3 miles off shore but could lie closer in in bad weather and might poo ashore for essential supplies.

Thanks for raising that point PN which I suppose in my bias I was apt to overlook. Still, while I accept that even Western carrier forces need substantial fleet protection and supply support, the Admiral Kuznetsov seems to go beyond the bounds of just having an asset like a tug nearby for normal operations, she has had to be towed back to base numerous times due to technical issues and has a very poor accident record.

I seems, sadly,that the most recent fire has cost the lives of two men.

Time for Russia to give up on carriers?

An ill starred history

[Rwy in Sight]

Do the Russians use the same Battle Group formation as the US Navy with a plethora of ships around or is it just the carrier and a couple of vessels?

[Pontius Navigator]

RiS, from what I remember it is very similar. In attacking a capital ship the aim was to punch a hole through the escorts. Their frigates and cruisers all carried long range SSM to attack a US fleet and try to counter the superior air power. Formidable as these ships looked they were very much one-trick ponies.


One day we were attempting to locate and prosecute a Russian submarine a mere 20-30 miles in front of their TF. They were using an SSN in DS (direct support).

Effectively we were practising Air Plan 4, Sectors 1 and 2 looking for a threat to own forces. We had our knuckles wrapped

But where else to find him.

[Sisemen]

The Atlantic Conveyor sinking was a masterpiece of “fake news”. The media and official reports put it about that it had been hit by an Argentinian Exocet.

That was a smokescreen.

As was emphatically proven, following the end of hostilities, the ship sank because it was simply overloaded with approximately 10 times its normal cargo weight. Inventory returns from across all the branches of the UK armed forces do not lie!

[Rwy in Sight]

The story of AC does put a smile on my face every time is posted here. Some people are lucky that it is so deep there that Argentina can't say "sorry guys let's raise it see what it is there and we will pay you back".

[TheGreenGoblin]

I was looking into the whole concept of the Kuznetov class of ship and that history and came across this delightful snippet on Wikipedia.

Two ships were originally laid down at the Nikolayev South Shipyard in the Ukrainian SSR, followed by the first of the Ulyanovsk-class nuclear-powered supercarriers.

The plans were disrupted by the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Only the lead ship Admiral Kuznetsov had been commissioned when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, and the ship now serves in the Russian Navy. Her sister ship Varyag remained in Ukraine unfinished and unmaintained for a decade before being sold and towed to China for use as a floating casino. Instead, the ship was eventually completed and commissioned in 2012 as the Chinese navy's first aircraft carrier, the Type 001 aircraft carrier Liaoning. A third ship has been built by China to a modified Type 001A design and is expected to be commissioned in 2019. It began sea trials on May 13, 2018

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuznetsov ... ft_carrier

One wonders whether the second of the UK's Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers, The Prince of Wales, will be incorporated into the global meta Casino Class of carrier in the light of news like this.

Dominic Cummings is seeking to launch a review of Ministry of Defence spending and strategy next year, after concerns that the department has been wasting billions on misjudged procurement.

The anticipated review from Boris Johnson’s most influential aide comes amid expectations of a wider revamp of Whitehall operations and after he singled out the £6.2bn decision to build two new aircraft carriers as continuing to “squander billions of pounds”.

Details of the defence review had not been immediately briefed to MoD officials, who said that reports about it could only be described as speculation. Its existence is likely to worry service chiefs.

There has been particular concern at the heart of Whitehall about the Royal Navy, which has only just overseen a decade-long programme to build two new aircraft carriers – one more than Russia or France – which many believe are militarily inefficient. <<How can either carrier be more inefficient than the Admiral Kuznetov?>>

The first of the two ships, the Queen Elizabeth, was off the coast of Florida in October, testing with British F-35 jets for the first time, while the second, the Prince of Wales, sailed into Portsmouth last month for the first time after completing its first sea trials.

Quo vadis...

One might argue that Mr Cummings has a point about Whitehall Defence spending but others may point out that he is more aligned with Russia's interests than those of the UK in the light of his ideological agenda. I know where I stand in my opinion of his agenda.

[Pontius Navigator]

I won't go into details but HMS Gordon Brown has bankrupt both RN and RAF.

[Boac]

and might poo ashore for essential supplies.

- didn't realise the Shetlanders were so accommodating

[TheGreenGoblin]

I won't go into details but HMS Gordon Brown has bankrupt both RN and RAF.

Maybe I am nothing but a Little Admiral but its seems to me that the process of the emasculation of the British military started way back in the 50's.

Later I acquired a copy of Jane’s Fighting Ships for myself – or rather I was given it when the biggest house in the village, a large Victorian villa, was cleared of stuff when its untidy owner died. Mine is the edition for 1954-55, which is roughly the year I became an amateur student of warships; not connecting them, until I saw the film The Cruel Sea, with the actual business of destruction and death. As I leaf through it now it hardly seems possible that I can have witnessed the maritime age the book describes. As well as 19 aircraft carriers, the navy possessed five battleships, 24 cruisers, 82 destroyers, 180 frigates, 57 submarines, two monitors, three fast minelayers, 195 minesweepers and “numerous small craft and auxiliaries”.

Today it has 77 commissioned ships in all, only 19 of which (six destroyers and 13 frigates) can be described as significant surface combatants. Of course, the navy in 1955 still lingered as an imperial fleet, and in any case many of its ships were mothballed “in reserve”.

[Pontius Navigator]

A 2020 Destroyer is the size of a light cruiser and so too are the Frigates. A WW2 Destroyer or even 1970s Types 12 and 14 frigates were not that different.