Ballad of the BDRM

If the Strategic Rocket Forces can have their own anthem, and you can drink to Russian gas, why not get out your guitar for the SS-N-23 Sineva?

Now begrudgingly on Twitter

I've always thought Twitter was pretty stupid. Now it looks like I'll be issuing or Tweets or Twits or whatever the hell you call it with the rest of ya.

Test

I'm at PD passing very close astern....

Pic of the day

Moskva takes a shot line from the Petr Velikiy, somewhere in the Indian Ocean a couple of weeks ago.

I don't think the Russians are going to reconstitute their rail mobile ICBM force anytime this century

Questions about rail-mobile missiles started to pop up a few days ago. I haven't heard about "reloads", though, until I saw a piece by Christopher Ford, currently a senior fellow at Hudson Institute. Entitled "Does 'New START' Fumble Reloads and Rail-mobile ICBMs" the piece conveniently summarizes the arguments and "frets about" scenarios in which

"SS-25-style treaty-accountable deployed ICBM launcher could be accompanied by one or more nuclear-armed reload missiles and any necessary reload vehicles,"

or, even worse,

"unlimited numbers of rail-mobile launchers deployed with nuclear-armed missiles."

All this, of course, is just plain crazy.

I think its worth noting what an insane amount of very expensive infrastructure and rolling stock and trials and testing it takes to make a rail mobile ICBM system which you can see for yourself in this video:



Best part of the video is at about 4:30 where, somewhere on the test range in Plesetsk, they set 900 tons of high explosive 650 meters from an SS-24 rail car set and blew it up for shits and giggles or testing or something. And yet, the narrator of the video claims that that very rail car set survived the explosion and successfully launched an SS-24.

Watch what you put on Facebook kiddies!

It will stay with you forever!

Although it CAN be almost like poetry (nsfw).

It's also slightly amusing that sailors seem to be disproportionately more dissatisfied with their service than their soldier, airmen and Marine counterparts, although to be fair to the jarheads, only one of them is a Marine and saying FTM.

But the sailors seem to be very unhappy.

Panteleyev sailors conduct a ship boarding - video

I make no claims to the authenticity of this video. I am not certain of the context. It is mostly is Russian (with much NSFW language), partly in English (with NSFW language) and shows several obviously wounded men.

The explosion at the end is nice though!

From the description at You Tube:

Yesterday on Tuesday (27 April) at 1812 Moscow time the large antisubmarine ship Admiral Panteleyev captured a pirate ship off of Somalia according to the Ministry of Defense.

The capture took place at 1812 Moscow time and took place about 15 miles from shore. Inspection of the vessel revealed seven Kalashnikovs, pistols, aluminum boarding ladders, navigation equipment, including satellite navigation, fuel cans and ammunition.

Twenty nine were detained.

Based on the number of pirates in this video, I don't think these were the pirates killed under the auspices of Russia's "catch and release" program.

And this concludes the winter training cycle...

In the Sea of Japan, a strike group consisting of a destroyer and two missile boats (at least one a Tarantul, the subject of this report), destroy a group of targets simulating an enemy strike group. The report notes that the boat performed a launch that was complicated, not only because they made multiple simultaneous launches, but because it was an offset launch with the boat moving in the opposite direction from the targets. The report also noted that the target, which was 70 km away, was successfully destroyed. The commander of the Brigade of Surface Ships, Igor Osipov was satisfied, noting that this is the sixth year in a row of successful launches.



Meanwile, in the Black Sea, much the same was happening at the same time last week:



In the waters around Crimea, a task group repelled an attack by a notional enemy. Cruise missile strikes destroyed targets with direct hits. More than 15 ships participated in the large scale exercises. The strike group consisted of the air cushion missile boat Samum, the small missile boat Shtil and two cutters. Naval Aviation helicopters and aircraft supported the exercise. The tactical commander was given complete freedom of action. These have been the first exercises of its kind in almost three years. The agreement to extend the lease of Sevastopol Naval Base has led to better relations between the Slav brothers and means that the Russians plan to hold joint exercises with the Ukrainian Navy.

And here are some fun eyewitness pics of the Black Sea exercises.

Twenty four years later...

Pripyat, April 2004:

The Russian Navy Blogger doesn't have those clothes anymore...

Photos of the day: Alang shipbreakers, India

Via

For more on the Alang shipbreakers, see William Langewiesche's great article from The Atlantic, "The Shipbreakers", an article I read over a decade ago and has stuck with me to this day. 

Is Wonderwall the new British national anthem?

Rock on.

Imagine

Imagine: 

Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters —the black protesters — spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protester — these black protesters with guns — be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic? What if they were Arab-Americans? Because, after all, that’s what happened recently when white gun enthusiasts descended upon the nation’s capital, arms in hand, and verbally announced their readiness to make war on the country’s political leaders if the need arose.

 What do I imagine? I imagine a lot of white folk with dirty undies, that's what I imagine!

Happy Charles Krauthammer Day!

Charles Krauthammer has had seven years. How's that search going, Chuckie?

Hans Blix had five months to find weapons. He found nothing. We’ve had five weeks. Come back to me in five months. If we haven’t found any, we will have a credibility problem.

 Yet, that war worshipping pundit continues to have a forum, like Bill Krystal, like Tom Friedman, et. al, while the Dirty Fucking Hippies that were right continue to be Dirty Fucking Hippies.

It's Fox News' world, we only barely survive in it.

Jump

Rock on.

Smokers in the Gulf of Aden

 Anyone remember smokers?



Rough gist: The flagship of the Black Sea Fleet has reached the Gulf of Aden, one of the most dangerous seas in the world. The cruiser will spend a few days there training. As the cruiser passes through the Bab el Mendab, the Gulf of Aden lies ahead. But the cruiser doesn't have to worry about Somali pirates that the sailors are vigilant against. There have been a couple of times in the past month when Somali pirates mistook warships for civilian ships, with disasterous results. The crew is read history and stories about the region during meals over the 1MC.

Marines stand four hour watches on deck. After watch in the 40 degree heat, the Marines do PT. Dozens watch as they do hand to hand combat on deck. A Marine explains that long-range combat can turn hand to hand at any minute, so they practice. The gunners' mates won a competition, their Captain lifting a 24kg weight more than 100 times.

By the end of the week, the ship will be on course for India and they'll start reading up on the Indian Ocean.

Local old age home turns out to greet USS John L Hall in Sevastopol, Ukraine

Gist: About a hundred activists turned out to greet the USS John L Hall at the pier in Sevastopol. They carried anti-US and anti-NATO signs and shouted "Yankee go home!". The Ukrainian authorities delayed the Hall's entry into port in hopes the small crowd would disperse, but in vain.

Comment: In contrast to the visits of the USCG Dallas and the USS Mount Whitney back in 2008, right after the Five Day War, the crowds are much smaller and there isn't much discussion of the visit on message boards.

Just a normal port visit to an almost normal foreign port, like anywhere else in the world.

Is this some sort of anti-ballistic missile maybe?

I'm guessing an ABM of some sort...
(Via)

Update: Apparently it is an ABM...

Looks like the Peter the Great made it through...

Peter the Great apparently made an uneventful transit through the Suez Canal. Meanwhile, the Moskva is supposed to make a port call in Muscat, Oman on 24 April en route exercises in the Indian Ocean and eventual participation in Vostok-2010.

In other deployment news, the escort ships Yaroslav Mudriy and Neustrashimyy along with the tanker Olekma returned to their Baltic Fleet base in Baltiysk. The Yaroslav Mudriy was in the Mediterranean on her first deployment when the Neustrashimyy joined her as the Neustrashimyy was returning from her duty off the Horn of Africa.

Given the lies of Fox News

this can only be a good thing (no link, I refuse to give that fat, Nixon protege, Jabba the Hut looking motherfucker Roger Ailes the traffic):

Members of the U.S. Navy were denied access to FoxNews.com for hours on Friday before service was finally restored shortly before noon ET, the Navy confirmed.

Cmdr. Danny Hernandez, a Navy spokesman, said he was unable to offer an exact reason why access to Fox News' Web site had been blocked, but he said it most definitely was a technical issue.

"This was not a policy issue," Hernandez said.

...

Fox News - lying liars who are destroying America with their lies. Keep it shut off, Navy! For more about Fox News' hard fought legal right to lie, click here. And all that lying done by Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, and the whole "news" division led by Jabba the Hut stunt double Roger Ailes is tearing this country apart.

And you thought coastal artillery went out with the Lindy Hop...

The self propelled artillery system Bereg is the only coastal artillery system of its kind in service in Russia and is based exclusively in Novorossiysk. Today's exercises took place on the Taman Peninsula, where the littoral zone is perfect for firing upon any sort of target. The coastal defense system consists of six mobile units on a MAZ chassis. At full battle readiness, it is as long as two buses and reaches cruiser speeds, 60 km/hr, and it can deploy in less than five minutes.

The objective of this exercise is to prevent an enemy landing by destroying the enemy while he is still fourteen to twenty km from the shore.

Crewman with thick, unidentified accent: I'm talking about the gun-layer's station...It's the most important place.

Many specifications of the weapons system are a military secret. Civilians are strictly prohibited from approaching the camo covered command post. The number of sailors manning the Bereg is classified. Riflemen guard the perimeter even during exercises.

Pavel, the crew commander, says that the system can engage in combat in any conditions, day or night, in temperatures from -50 to +50 degrees. The coastal artillery system has advantages over guided missiles:

Track commander: "You can knock a missile out, but a shell is, basically, a hunk of iron. Not much you can do about that."

You can tell if a target has been destroyed only by looking at the radar screen. A couple of hits will sink a destroyer. Just one hit will send a landing vessel capable of making 180 km/hr to the bottom. Only the Bereg can hit that kind of target.

Igor Siratskiy, commander of the Novorossiysk coastal defense forces: One Bereg system can track four targets, on land or at sea. Any combination of forces, any combination of equipment.

...Today's exercises took three hours and expended a hundred rounds and sank dozens of targets. They packed up in less than five minutes and returned to base. The sailors say that the main thing is suddenness and accuracy.

The Great Migration to Vostok 2010 update

Peter the Great welcomes visitors, including the Russian ambassador to Syria and the commander in chief of the Syrian Navy aboard during her two day port visit to the Tartus roadstead:



I see from the video that the Russians also believe in the "if the foreigner doesn't understand you, just repeat it louder and slower until they do" method of foreign language translation. I hope the libs in Tartus were good, since this will be the last port they hit for a month and a half, according to the reporter.

Two days in Tartus, and its off to Egypt to follow the Moskva through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea.

A very special Russian language lesson...

...starring the most important word in the Russian language:

The Central Navy Portal publishes a video taken on the Northern Fleet large anti-submarine ship (BPK) Vice Admiral Kulakov in which an officer, while instructing sailors, hits them and threatens them with physical punishment for stray pencil marks. The officer calls his pupils "animals" and "cattle".

Rather than do the translation myself, I found another You Tube clip that reasonably approximates whats being said:

I like big butts...

...and I can't lie.



Hell yeah.

Come for the butts, stay for the rhumba-fied Depeche Mode....

Rock on.

Sarah Palin displays her mastery of nucular strategy issues

I didn't realize that there WAS a safe way to use nucular weapons...

Moskva departs Sevastopol for Vostok 2010

 Via Navy.ru:

The flagship of the Black Sea Fleet the Guards Missile Cruiser Moskva left Sevastopol on deployment on 09 April. The ship will execute missions in the Mediterranean, Indian and Pacific Oceans according to the press service of the Black Sea Fleet.
 ...
Earlier Interfax news agency reported sources in the fleet headquarters as saying that the cruiser Moskva and a support ship will be the first participants in the operational-strategic exercises Vostok-2010 to arrive in Vladivostokin the middle of May. Ships from the Northern and Pacific Fleets will also participate. During the deployment the ship will operate in the Indian Ocean with elements of Long Range Aviation, carry out combat exercises with the P-500 Bazalt main missile armament on maritime targets and take part in bilateral exercises with India.

The cruiser will participate in joint exercises in the Mediterranean with French and Italian ships this spring.

 But once she's seen the big city of Vladivostok, will she ever settle for salo again??

Update: According this report, the Moskva returns in September.

Our Stupid American Discourse, part 2

Failed VP candidate, half-term governor and noted arms control expert, Sarah Palin:

"Now, the president is working with all that vast nuclear-policy experience he acquired as a community organizer and short-time senator and full-time candidate!"

President of the United States, and the new "Nunn" in "Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction" agreement, Barack Obama:

STEPHANOPOULOS:I want to get to some of those broader issues [of nuclear proliferation]. Because you're also facing criticism on that. Sarah Palin, taking aim at your decision to restrict the use of nuclear weapons. Your pledge not to strike nations, non-nuclear nations, who abide by the nonproliferation treaty. Here's what she said. She said, "It's unbelievable, no other administration would do it." And then she likened it to kids on the playground. She said you're like a kid who says, "Punch me in the face, and I'm not going to retaliate." Your response?
OBAMA: I really have no response. Because last I checked, Sarah Palin's not much of an expert on nuclear issues.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But the string of criticism has been out there among other Republicans as well. They think you're restricting use of nuclear weapons too much.
OBAMA: And what I would say to them is that if the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff are comfortable with it, I'm probably going to take my advice from them and not from Sarah Palin.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But not concerned about her criticisms?
OBAMA: No.

I wonder how many SS-24 ICBM eliminations Sarah Palin has attended?

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative."
John Stuart Mill

And what the hell is George Stephanopoulis asking Obama what he thinks of Sarah fucking Palin's ignorant criticism anyway?  There are literally a thousand conservatives out there who have thoughtful opinions on arms control, and he goes to Sarah fucking Palin. What a tool.

Peter the Great has a date in Tartus...

Via.

 Flagship of the Northern Fleet, the heavy nuclear missile cruiser Peter the Great passed through the English Channel on Sunday on her way to the Straits of Gibraltar. In a few days she will be in the roadstead in Tartus, Syria where she will meet the the Black Sea Fleet missile cruiser Moskva and continue on to the Indian Ocean as a surface strike group.

The Ministry of Defense has told Izvestiya that the latest cruise by the Peter the Great will last not less than two months. The ship will visit Syria, Oman and India. Together with ships from the Black Sea and the Pacific Fleet, she will take part in exercises in the Far East called "Vostok-2010". There are also plans for two exercises in the Indian Ocean - first with a joint Russian task group and a second with the Indian Navy.
...
The idea behind the deployment is to "execute tasks in support of strategic and regional deterrence and support the maritime activities of the Russian Federation". By the way, experts say that the material expenditures don't matter when it comes to Russian military presence and professional development. "It's not a lot of money. It's more important to show that we are everywhere....One deployment like this for the crew is like finishing two academies", says former vice commander of the Navy, Admiral Igor Kasatonov.

"One deployment like this for the crew is like finishing two academies." Interesting thing to say when 50 percent of your crew is conscripted from the fall call up...

Our stupid American discourse

Noted arms control expert, Rudolph 9iu11ani:

“A nuclear-free world has been a 60-year dream of the Left, just like socialized health-care. This new policy, like Obama’s government-run health program, is a big step in that direction. President Obama thinks we can all hold hands, sing songs, and have peace symbols.”

President Ronald Reagan, second Inaugural Address:

There is only one way safely and legitimately to reduce the cost of national security, and that is to reduce the need for it. And this we are trying to do in negotiations with the Soviet Union. We are not just discussing limits on a further increase of nuclear weapons. We seek, instead, to reduce their number. We seek the total elimination one day of nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth.

Why are people as stupid as Rudy fucking Giuliani invited on my teevee and called an expert?

18 years, 18 years She got the Kulakov got you for 18 years

Get down, Russian Navy, get down get down:

The Vice-Admiral Kulakov destroyer will rejoin Russia's Northern Fleet after an 18-year overhaul, a spokesman for the Severnaya Verf shipyard said on Monday.

The Vice-Admiral Kulakov, a Project-1155 Udaloy-class destroyer, was commissioned in 1982 and was in service until March 1991 when it was retired for repairs.

The retrofit program ran into serious difficulties over a lack of funding and there were even plans to scrap the warship. However, in the early 2000s, the Russian Defense Ministry raised enough funds to complete the modernization.

Is this a record for a refit? Will the overhaul of the Gorshkov break this record?

Russia truly is that QB you see on TV Any Given Sunday
A country that won the Resource Superbowl and drives off in a Hyundai.

Peter the Great at the Mike Datum

Peter the Great transited the English Channel at 19 knots on Sunday, but before that, she was in the Norwegian Sea conducting exercises and paying respects to the Project 685 Mike class attack boat that sank in the Norwegian Sea on 07 April, 1989.

The video starts with the crew coordinating with an IL-38 who made the flight from the Kola just to play with Peter the Great. As soon as the IL-38 departs, a Norwegian P-3 takes its place, while a Norwegian reconnaissance ship shadows Peter the Great at the edge of visual range. A KA-27 practices searching for submarines by lowering dipping sonar. Next the special purpose damage control division shows off their mad fire fighting skilz acquired through daily damage control drills. Finally, Peter the Great goes full stop in a snowstorm to lay a wreath at the Mike datum to commemorate the sinking 21 years ago this month before she gets underway for the English Channel, Gibraltar, the Suez and beyond.

Miss Belarus Detective

The Russian Navy Blogger's picks:

Is there nothing sexier than "Law and Order" and the woman that will enforce it?

Her shoulder boards say, "Do you understand the rights I have read you?" but her eyes say "I'm going to have to conduct a more THOROUGH search..."

Why didn't the cops that stopped me in Moscow asking for identification EVERY SINGLE DAY I WAS THERE look like her?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, every single one is a Russian cop, but the title at English Russian is "Miss Belarus Detective 2010", so complain to them and go there and pick your own damn hot cop.

It cannot be emphasized enough what a scumbag Sean Hannity is

So not only does he steal from the children of dead and wounded vets, he is a terrorist sympathizer also, and proud of it apparently:



Here is Timothy McVeigh's handiwork, for those who forget:

Sean Hannity - objectively pro-truck bombing terrorist. Objectively pro-child killer.

Steregushchiy class project 20380 corvette Soobrazitelnyy launched in Saint Petersburg

Video summary: The sixty percent complete Soobrazitelnyy was launched at Saint Petersburg's Admiralty Shipyard. It is a stealth vessel whose radar cross section is ten times less than previous ships. The stealth characteristics are achieved through the use of special construction techniques. The Soobrazitelnyy will undergo sea trials this year and enter the Baltic Fleet in 2011. About two dozen of these ships are planned.

Petr Velikiy is splittin' atoms and boiling water...

...and headin' East:

On Tuesday, 30 March, the Russian Navy begins deploying forces to carry out largest exercises on the world ocean in recent years. The exercises began with the departure of the heavy nuclear missile cruiser Petr Velikiy from Severomorsk...The cruiser will pass through the Atlantic, Mediterranean and the Suez Canal and enter the Indian Ocean. Ships from the Baltic, Northern, Pacific Fleets as well as Naval Aviation will act in support.

This video from Zvezda News notes that one goal of this deployment is to train the crew, fifty (50) percent of whom are new conscripts. The reporter notes that this is a bit of a risk, but on the other hand the experience will allow the conscripts to master their tasks quicker. The Captain of the Petr Velikiy, Feliks Menkov claims that "Not one man wouldn't want to go on this deployment. People who wouldn't want to go to sea need to serve on another ship. And if they don't know how to do their jobs, we'll teach them." The electrical department head, Vitaliy Khadzhi adds, "It'll be tough, but we'll try..." The Petr Velikiy will pass through the Atlantic, Mediterranean, Indian and Pacific Oceans in the first two months. She got a completely new paint job. The commander of the Northern Fleet concludes with remarks about how interesting the exercise will be, as well as how interesting the port calls and exercises with "probable partners" will be as well. The next land the crew of the Petr Velikiy will see will be Gibraltar.

 Note to Russian Navy: Hundreds of untrained conscripts + tons of high explosives + nuclear power = not good. Just sayin'...

And in other dino-cruiser news, any idea why the Admiral Ushakov has apparently changed it's name back to Kirov?

I knew Sean Hannity and Oliver North were scumbags, but...

...stealing from the children of wounded servicemen and women? What next - curbstomping crippled orphans for their lunch money? Shit, it don't get much lower. And we're talking about Sean Hannity and Oliver North here. I mean, my expectations weren't high to begin with, but THIS?

Hoodathunk that Oliver North would divert money for improper purposes? What a disgrace to the uniform...

Bear porn. Time for a smoke.

 While new arms control treaties are signed, old habits remain...



Rough, partial transcript:

A pair of Tu-95 MSs take off for Vorkuta, where the notional enemy is located. On board the bombers are Kh-55 cruise missiles. Each aircraft can carry 16 of these missiles, but today each crew must destroy the enemy with one round.....

Radio chatter.

To make it more understandable how powerful these missiles are, they are equivalent to the destructive power of 4,000 rail cars loaded with high explosives, but in peace time, the crew practices with training rounds. The missiles can fly 3,000 km and to make the missile appear as small as possible to the enemy air defenses, the wings can fold in to the body of the missile like scissors. After the missile hits the target, this little piece of the missile is left with the number on it so that they can determine the accuracy of the strike.

The accuracy of the strike depends most of all on the navigator. For the navigator on today's flight, Vadim Viktrovich, this will be his first launch in twelve years of service in Long Range Aviation.

Vadim Kodrik: I can relax a little now. Of course, it was nice, especially at the moment everything went off. There was a little pressure. I was thinking about how to mark this occasion and so first a smoke break!

 But the smoke break had to wait because of an aviation tradition.

In accordance with our traditions, in commemoration of the occasion I'd like to present him with this little bell.

 The crew found out about the successful launch and mission graded "outstanding" on the way home and immediately after landing, a new red star appeared on the TU-shchik.  Each star marks the time the aircraft has made a direct hit on the target during firings.

 Ah, I need a cigarette.

Keep hustlin', ya'll.

Rock on.

Casualty on Pac Fleet spy ship

 Photo: SSV-493 Aziya, sister ship to the stricken SSV-80 Pribaltika

The Pacific Fleet large reconnaissance ship "Pribaltika" has suffered a casualty in the Korea Straits in the Sea of Japan.

A Pacific Fleet representative announced that the Pribaltika flooded through the kingston valve in the machinery room Sunday morning...."The large anti-submarine ship Admiral Vinogradov set sail from Vladivostok to the scene of the casualty...The crew is trying to restart the engine. There are no casualties", the source added.

China gets the Varyag for peanuts while the Gorshkov remains a money pit

VPK quotes a Chinese blog that the ex-Soviet almost carrier Varyag is going to be commissioned into the People's Liberation Army Navy as a training carrier, giving the People's Liberation Army a People's Liberation Army Naval Airforce with fixed wing capability: 

 VPK:

According to the Chinese source blog.sina.com, the leadership of the Chinese Navy confirmed press reports of accepting the Ukrainian aircraft carrier "Varyag" into the fleet as a training carrier.

The carrier is the ideal training platform for carrier pilots since it can go to sea and pitch and roll. Rolling can't be simulated on land training bases. The carrier will also be a test platform for self-defense systems. Besides that, the experience with the Varyag  will give the Chinese the opportunity to choose a power plant for an indigenously built carrier. According to unconfirmed sources, testing of a carrier based version of the J-10 has already begun. A series of escort ships like the "Chinese Aegis" Type 054 destroyers and other vessels are already building.

It's highly unlikely that the Varyag will be a fully capable combat aircraft carrier since the carrier was built in 1988 and has been in the water almost 20 years. Carriers in the US Navy have a 50 year service life, so the Varyag wont be in the Chinese order of battle for very long.

China originally bought the Varyag for $20 million without an engine or a rudder. A Chinese entrepeneuer wanted to turn it into a floating casino in the fascinating, but shady, enclave of Macau.

Perhaps the Indians should have waited a bit and bought the Gorshkov for scrap, instead of approving $2.35 Billion to renovate a 25 year old hull. I wonder how many dachas, Hummers and condos in Dubai were bought with the skim off all the money the Indians have poured into that pit?

Moskva goes East

The Black Sea Fleet flagship, the missile cruiser Moskva has  a couple of international exercises planned for the spring of 2010. The ship will sail for the Mediterranean to participate in PASSEXes with ships from Italy and France. The cruiser also plans to take part in bilateral naval exercises with the Indian Navy in the Indian Ocean.

Besides that, the Moskva should sail for Vladivostok, where it will participate in the Vostok-2010 strategic exercise.

One on-line source suggests that the Moskva will be accompanied by the Krivak class Pytlivyy and a tug. 

Another blogger, citing an Interfax report, says that the Northern Fleet Kirov class cruiser Petr Velikiy, the Pac Fleet Slava class Varyag, several Udaloy BPKs, several Sovremennyy EMs, and other surface and subsurface combatants will participate in the maritime events of Vostok-2010 in June. He also asserts that there will be an SS-N-12 shot during the exercises with the Indians.


Putin's Mini-Me reportedly expressed a desire to attend in order to watch modern war at sea.

Last month, rumors circulated that the Moskva was leaving for the Pac and wouldn't return to the Black Sea Fleet.

Goddamn you, Stephen Colbert. Goddamn you to hell....

For finding this clip and featuring it on your show this week:

This picture was taken from a Su-24...

Allegedly.

USS Kitty Hawk, 17 October 2000, Sea of Japan

What I'd like to know is why Russian film stock for their recon photos sucks so bad.

This is a little curious and slightly disturbing

While surfing through some photos of the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov at the pier, I ran across these photographs:

What is that in the upper right corner, behind the kingpost on that red ship moored nearby?

Why it appears to be the former Golf class diesel powered ballistic missile submarine K-118, later converted to a communications submarine and now in its final resting place, next to the Kuznetsov.

You'd figure that a country which has an ambition to build six aircraft carriers in the next forty years would find the time and money to dispose of their junked ships properly, instead of just leaving them derelict at the carrier pier.

Excellent photo essay on the Caspian Sea Monster

Livejournalist igor113 has an excellent series of photos of the weird and wonderful Caspian Sea Monster.

There are photos of the flight deck (bridge? flight deck? I have no idea what to call it!), the crew quarters (the ekranoplan could stay at sea for five days), the galley, the anchor room, the forward most radome in the nose, the flight engineer control panel, some sort of damage control panel, the "engine room" and the weapons control station under the first pair of SS-N-22 tubes. The beast is truly the weird offspring of a 747 and a missile corvette; parts of it are genuinely airplane like and parts of it are genuinely ship like.  Igor climbs the tower to the tail gunner's station up on the vertical stabilizer and I am stunned by the good material condition that the area is in. In fact, the entire interior looks pretty good, good enough that it looks like with a little rehab and paint, it could be restored to operational condition pretty quickly.

Astounding.

Photos from the outside. 
Photos from the inside.
Photos of the Orlan's specially built support dock.

Russia is very different from America

The head of Murmansk Oblast Dmitriy Dmitrienko gifted his apartment to the commander of BPK Severomorsk...

According to the official press release, the governor gave the apartment to the CO "during the fleet wide formation held in honor of Armed Forces Day. Captain First Rank Andrey Klimenko, captain of the Severomorsk, received the special gift. The governor gave him the deed to the apartment that he received during his service in the Northern Fleet".

Dimitrenko had the apartment since it was assigned to him. With the agreement of the Northern Fleet and the administration of the city of Severomorsk, he gave it to a new owner who needed a better place for his family...

 Via KGRR.

Somebody check Frank Gaffney's garage for a crescent wrench

Because anyone who owns a CRESCENT wrench, an obvious symbol of Islamic Jihad if I've ever seen one, clearly wants Sharia law in the United States:

The Obama administration’s determined effort to reduce America’s missile defense capabilities initially seemed to be just standard Leftist fare — of a piece with the Democratic base’s visceral hostility to the idea of protecting us against ballistic missile threats. A just-unveiled symbolic action suggests, however, that something even more nefarious is afoot.
 ...
What could be code-breaking evidence of the latter explanation is to be found in the newly-disclosed redesign of the Missile Defense Agency logo (above).  As Logan helpfully shows, the new MDA shield appears ominously to reflect a morphing of the Islamic crescent and star with the Obama campaign logo. (For a comparison, the previous logo is below.)

 You know what else is evidence of the Islamic conspiracy to remake the United States?

  Does the crescent moon and palm tree signify that South Carolina is under imminent threat of Islamo-fascist take over? I'll bet Frank Gaffney thinks YES!

Is this lovable American icon also a sinister harbringer of Islamo-fascist takeover?

 

 He makes CRESCENT SHAPED PASTRIES! FRENCH CRESCENT PASTRIES!

Since Frank Gaffney has obviously moved on to write for the Onion, I'd say its fair to say that no one should give a shit what he thinks about anything.

Addendum: Bonus "Frank Gaffney is crazier than a shithouse rat with tertiary syphilis" blogging -

When do we get to hear the phrase “sap and impurify our Precious Bodily Fluids” used in all seriousness? And by whom? I’ll take Sarah Palin, by the end of the year.
-dms

Word, yo.

Su-33 almost buys it on Kuznetsov

Don't know when this was filmed, but it doesn't look good to my black shoe clad eye. Make sure you check out the tailhook.

Russia vs. the Pirates: Round Four for the Pacific Fleet

 Via Vladimir Pelevin's blog:



Gist:

 A task force left Vladivostok for the Indian Ocean today consisting of the large anti-submarine warfare ship (BPK) Marshall Shaposhnikov, the ocean going tug and the tanker Pechenga. The sailors will ensure the security of vessels in the Horn of Africa area. This will be the fourth deployment by Pacific Fleet vessels to Somalia. During previous deployments our ships escorted more than a hundred vessels from 26 nations and thwarted more than 20 attacks.

 Other reports indicate that the ships will carry detachments of marines and the Shaposhnikov will embark two helos.

Previously, the  BPK Admiral Tributs, the tanker Boris Butoma and the ocean going salvage tug MB-99 returned to Vladivostok on 16 Nov 2009 after a 140 day deployment to the Indian Ocean on piracy patrol.

Photo of the Day

An undated photo of an SS-N-18 being loaded into/removed from an unidentified Delta III with the Marshal Krylov missile range ship in the background.

A retaliatory strike for sending us T.a.T.u.

American Porno Model Adopts a Child From Russia.

Model and Lesbian Tila Tequila Adopts Child From Russia.

What ever you do Russia, you don't EVEN want to know what we would retaliate with if you send up Ksenia Sobchak...Mutually Assured Cultural Destruction, Bitchez!

Apparently, I can now engage in armed bank robbery at will

All I have to do is consult a lawyer first. If that lawyer gives me bad legal advice which causes me to commit all manner of sordid and horrible crimes, I'm covered, since "lawyers can make really really crazy arguments and still avoid professional sanction" and they can have honest disagreements on difficult matters of legal judgment without violating ethical standards.

Margolis' last point is especially important, since the former Vice-President of the United States is now going around the country telling people that he supports waterboarding and actively sought to use it when he was in office. Put differently, there is at least one member of the previous Administration walking around that is an admitted war criminal, although, to be sure, confessing to the elements of a war crime on television apparently does not, at least in this country, lead to any serious danger that one will actually be prosecuted for such crimes.

Whether or not the DOJ refers Yoo and Bybee for professional discipline, no one should think that either man behaved according to the high standards we should expect of government attorneys. They, and the government officials who worked with them, shamed this nation. They dragged America's reputation in the dirt. They severely damaged our good name in the eyes of the world. They undermined the values this country stands for and that the legal profession should stand for. Nothing the DOJ does now--or fails to do--will change that.

Now, who wants a bag of money? But Clinton got a blowjob and that's all that matters.

Rum, Sodomy and the Lash.

Its pretty disgraceful and historically ignorant to say that homosexuals can't be warriors (ever hear of the ancient Greeks?). And Tony Perkins, who never served a day in the military, lecturing people about "conditions in the barracks" is amusing.

But comparing honorably serving homosexuals to drug dealers and thieves is pretty despicable and an apology to gay servicemen and women is in order. But then, why should we give a shit about what some dude who retired from the Navy 25 years (or 125 years, I can't really tell) ago thinks about DADT? Consorting with bitter, primitive, hate-gnomes like Elaine Donnelly and Tony Perkins who want to bring a vision of a religious dictatorship to America doesn't do much for your cred.

Abraham Simpson on acid. Heh.

For those who don't want to click through to the video, here is a rough transcript:

Like the time I took the ferry to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe so I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on them. Give me five bees for a quarter you'd say. Now where were we, oh ya. The important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because if the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones.

Email these bigots and tell them that you wont put up with insulting servicemembers like that. Tell them the Russian Navy Blog sent you.

Even the Russians know they suck: Epilogue

Chill Descends Over Russia as Olympic Medals Prove Elusive

After Australian aboriginal groups accused a Russian ice dancing pair of mocking aborigines, Valentin Piseev, president of the Russian Figure Skating Federation, suggested that they were the target of an international plot to force them to alter their performance.

“I think that this is a well-executed strategy directed against our athletes,” Mr. Piseev told Russian television from Vancouver.

Yes, Russia is victim of a conspiracy. Russia has often been the victim of international plots. Usually that plot is some sort of Jewish plot and not an Australian aboriginal plot, so for this routine they get a 10 for originality.

Rarely do Bulava launches achieve this...

When did moustaches go out of style in rock?

Fire! Fire! Fire!

 Photo: K-480 being rolled out of the building hall at SevMash, 16 April 1988. Source: military.tomsk.ru and TV program Udarnaya Sila

Arkhangel'sk - The efforts to extinguish a fire on a submarine awaiting disposal at the Zvezdochka Shipyard in Severodvinsk has been continuing for seven hours according to a source.

The fire on Akula class K-480 Ak Bars (Project 971) began at approximately 1445 Moscow time. "Cable raceways caught fire. Initial efforts to extinguish the fire were ineffective. The compartment is relatively big, but it almost immediately filled with smoke and visibility was practically zero. An attempt was made to flood the compartment in an attempt to extinguish the flames without effect".

K-480 is pretty young for being being a candidate for disposal (not that that is a BAD thing from my perspective!). For a taste of what disposal involves, see A Unique Operation in Gremikha.

Johnny, you are too bad.

One of these days, when the evil boys they come, where you gonna run to?

Queen always sounds better in the original Tartar

Shameless rumor mongering about the Black Sea Fleet

 

Moskva in drydock recently, though she's out as of 05 Feb and apparently preparing to deploy to the Far East and never return. Or return by Navy Day in late July, one of the two.

I mean the future Azov-Black Sea Flotilla.

The "Moskva" wont return to the Black Sea Fleet after she finishes exercises with the Pacific Fleet. Anyone who isn't lazy already knows this. The 30th Division will be broken up and the 41st Brigade will be transferred to he Caucasus....The Black Sea Fleet will be reconstituted as the Azov-Black Sea Flotilla. Together with the Caspian Flotilla, they will be directly subordinated to an infantry General - the commander of the new Southern district. Numbers of servicemen will decline from 18,000 to 12,500 in the spring.

At this rate, all that will remain of the former Black Sea Fleet by 2017 will be a pair of roadstead tugs. Friends of mine on ocean going tugs say that crews are going to one watch and they are being converted to roadstead tugs.

What's the greasy silver pole that's a propulsion machine to all the ships? Shaft!

Damn right!

What was the part that put Moskva into maintenance dock? I'm talkin' 'bout shaft, and I can dig it!

 ==================================================================

In related shameless, baseless potential slander, the chief of the Black Sea Fleet may be fired soon for...what else is there (besides creepy sex murders that is):

A source in fleet headquarters told Goryachiy Novosti ("Hot News") that the Federal Security Service (FSB) has thwarted an attempt by the Black Sea Fleet commander, Vice Admiral Aleksandr Kletskov to sell a decommissioned auxiliary ship (information needs to be verified).
...
One thing is known for sure. An eighty man audit team is coming into Sevastopol on 20 February to inventory fleet assets and see if Kletskov is mixed up in any other dirt.

Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains

An' go to your Gawd...no, wait a minute, that can't be right...back to your socialist paradise in a zinc box marked груз 200 like a fighter in support of international socialist solidarity.

In commemoration of the Reds getting their asses kicked back across the Panj and returning to a country that would cease to exist in less than three years, lets take a look at the Do's and Don'ts in support of international socialism, unity and brotherhood:

Collection of counter-propaganda materials

January 1987

 

To the internationalist warrior:

Value the honor and integrity of Soviet citizenship highly. Without fail follow Soviet law, uphold the military oath and military regulations, carry out the orders of commanders and leaders and conscientiously fulfill your patriotic and international duty. 

Prohibited!

Do not enter into unauthorized communications or acquaintances. 

Prohibited!

Do not patronize Afghan stores, shops or markets whether government or private. Do not obtain from there or from private people any sort of item, food, liquor or drugs. 

Do not undress to sunbathe or swim in the sight of local population or near houses since such behavior is not in keeping with national and religious customs of the Afghans and are considered offensive. 

Prohibited!

Do not enter the courtyards or houses of the local population, look through their windows and doors, at the faces of women or enter into conversation with them. 

Prohibited!

Do not accept any gifts, awards or presents from local authorities or other civilians having any value as a good or service.  

  

Always display a high level of political alertness, always and everywhere maintain OPSEC, do no talk about official business or other topics of conversation concerning operational activities of units in the presence of outsiders.  

Source.