The Russian Military Merged Thread- Navy

[Ex-Dragoon]

The fire suppression system evidently cuts off the air to a compartment.

Sounds almost like Halon...

 

[Retired AF Guy]

More info from Reuters. The report says that the sub is the Nerpa, an AKULA II attack sub that according to unconfirmed reports was to be "leased" to India. According to this blog, the majority of dead belonged to the Amur shipbuilding company.

 

[geo]

From what I have heard on the radio, there wasn,t a fire BUT, the fire suppression system was set off - lomething like Halon - the gas ate up all the oxygen in the compartment - depriving everyone in the room of the air they need....

 

[Retired AF Guy]

From what I have heard on the radio, there wasn,t a fire BUT, the fire suppression system was set off - something like Halon - the gas ate up all the oxygen in the compartment - depriving everyone in the room of the air they need....

According to this report from the Int'l Herald Tribune the victims died"after an accident with its fire-extinguishing system flooded two compartments with Freon gas." The report also states that Sergei Markin, an official with Russia's top investigative agency, suggested that operating rules were violated, which may indicate human error was at fault.

With 208 people (two and a half times its normal complement) on board (81 crew and the rest civilians) there may not have been enough air breathing equipment on board for everything. I also wonder whether the civilians had been properly trained in the proper emergency drills.

 

[Eye In The Sky]

Regardless, its a bad way to go IMO. 

RIP to the ones who didn't make it thru this incident/accident.

 

[geo]

Oik... If you were just about ready to "lease" the boat.... would you feel comfortable hearing about the 20 dead, 20 injured....

 

[Occam]

For those who are curious, Halon 1301 (a fire suppressant) and Freon 13B1 (a refrigerant) are the same chemical.  The press probably doesn't realize this when they're stating that it was a Freon discharge which was to blame.

 

[medicineman]

This makes me so wanna go out and volunteer for sub service - on the bright side, most of ours aren't in the water though...

MM

 

[aussiechangover]

on 2 occasions i`ve been at sea on subs i`ve seen the halon system mailfunction and dump everywhere. nothing like a mad scramble the the emergency breathing system after. it`s sad to see that this is the 2nd accident in only recent years with the kursk being the other, and after this we were told to surface and communicate home so they know were all ok after this hit the australian media and people began to freek out.

This makes me so wanna go out and volunteer for sub service - on the bright side, most of ours aren't in the water though...

MM

it`s funny you  mention that as one of the times the halon failed was out of the water when a contractor did something he wasn`t supposed to

 

[medicineman]

Well, by the time my training is done, my boat MIGHT be out of dry dock, so might not have to worry too much.  I'd love to get posted to the Chicoutimi though - I doubt she'll ever see the deep (or shallow) blue again.

MM

 

[Retired AF Guy]

on 2 occasions i`ve been at sea on subs i`ve seen the halon system mailfunction and dump everywhere. nothing like a mad scramble the the emergency breathing system after. it`s sad to see that this is the 2nd accident in only recent years with the kursk being the other, and after this we were told to surface and communicate home so they know were all ok after this hit the australian media and people began to freek out.
it`s funny you  mention that as one of the times the halon failed was out of the water when a contractor did something he wasn`t supposed to

Well, guess what! Sub tragedy blamed on sailor’s error. Apparently, something similar happened here.

More info on the accident here: Lessons from the Nerpa sub accident and here: Freon killed as crew slept.

 

[CougarKing]

I wonder if these means they will eventually return to Russia, but via their Vladiovostok base of their Pacific Fleet instead of their other homeports at Sevastopol, etc.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D94REPNO1&show_article=1

MOSCOW (AP) - A Russian warship will sail through the Panama Canal this week for the first time since World War II, the navy announced Wednesday, pushing ahead with a symbolic projection of Moscow's power in a traditional U.S. zone of influence. 

The destroyer Admiral Chabanenko will arrive Friday at a former U.S. naval base in Panama's Pacific port of Balboa for a six-day visit after carrying out joint maneuvers with the Venezuelan navy in the Caribbean Sea, navy spokesman Capt. Igor Dygalo said in a telephone interview.

The Panama Canal has long been a symbol of U.S. clout in Latin America, and Dygalo said no Soviet or Russian military ship has sailed through it since World War II. The wartime alliance between the U.S. and the Soviet Union swiftly gave way to the mistrust, military buildups and proxy conflicts of the Cold War.

In a throwback to those times, the Russian navy statement announcing the plans referred to the base the Admiral Chabanenko will visit as Rodman naval base—its name when it was a U.S. base many years ago.

Rodman was the hub for all U.S. naval activities in South America and supported fleet units transiting the 50-mile (80-kilometer) canal. But control of the facility shifted to Panama a decade ago, and it is now called the Balboa naval base.

Monday's joint maneuvers with Venezuela, which brought the Admiral Chabanenko and the nuclear-powered missile cruiser Peter the Great across the Atlantic along with two support ships, were widely seen as a show of Kremlin anger over the U.S. use of warships to deliver aid to Georgia after its August war with Russia.

Russian warships tailed U.S. ships in the Black Sea, where Russia borders Georgia, on that mission.

The Russian squadron's voyage to Venezuela was Russia's first such deployment to the Western Hemisphere since the Cold War era, aimed to showcase the Kremlin's global reach and reassert its claim to great-power status. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is a staunch U.S. foe.

The voyage coincided with a trip to Latin America late last month by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who visited four nations in what he acknowledged was an effort to raise Moscow's profile in a region he said it has long neglected.

U.S. officials have mocked the Russian show of force, saying that the Russian navy is a shadow of Moscow's Soviet-era fleet and suggesting that the U.S. retains far more influence in the region than Russia.

"Are they accompanied by tugboats this time?" U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack joked to reporters in Washington last week ahead of the Russian ships' arrival off Venezuela.

Dygalo would not say where the Peter the Great, which led the Russian squadron, would be located while the destroyer visits the Panama base.

 

[Blackadder1916]

I wonder if these means they will eventually return to Russia, but via their Vladiovostok base of their Pacific Fleet instead of their other homeports at Sevastopol, etc.

No, they are headed for the Indian Ocean and then probably back to their "Northern Fleet" homeports, most likely showing the flag at port visits along the way.

Russian naval task force to leave for Indian Ocean on Dec. 9
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20081127/118569487.html

13:58  27/ 11/ 2008

VLADIVOSTOK, November 27 (RIA Novosti) - A task force from Russia's Pacific Fleet will leave its main base in Vladivostok on December 9 to take part in joint naval drills with the Indian navy in the Indian Ocean, a fleet official said on Thursday.

According to the official, the task force will comprise the Admiral Vinogradov, an Udaloy class missile destroyer, a tugboat, and two tankers.

"The task force will participate in the joint naval exercises INDRA-2009 with the Indian navy in January," the source said.

INDRA is a biennial Russian-Indian exercise aimed at practicing cooperation in enforcing maritime law and countering piracy, terrorism, and drug smuggling. INDRA-2009 is the fourth such exercise since 2003.

"The exercises will involve a number of artillery and missile live-firing drills," the official said.

The task force will also conduct joint exercises with a task force from Russia's Northern Fleet, led by the Pyotr Veliky nuclear-powered missile cruiser, which will arrive in the Indian Ocean after joint drills with the Venezuelan Navy scheduled for December 1.

Following the exercises, the Russian warships will pay visits to several ports in Indonesia and China.

Vice Admiral Konstantin Sidenko, commander of the Pacific Fleet, earlier said that Russian warships from the fleet would make several long-range training sorties in the South Pacific and Indian oceans in 2009, and participate in a number of exercises involving live-firing drills.

Russia announced last year that its navy had resumed and would build up a constant presence in different regions of the world's oceans.

 

[CougarKing]

Those must have been some really heavily armed "border patrol" ships.

http://en.rian.ru/world/20090219/120221660.html

BEIJING, February 19 (RIA Novosti) - Beijing urged Russia on Thursday to conduct a probe into the sinking of a Chinese cargo ship off Russia's Pacific Coast over the weekend that killed eight crewmembers, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said.

" The Foreign Ministry and the Chinese consulate in Russia have already respectively raised representations to the Russian Embassy in China...urging the Russian side to spare no effort to help search for the missing crew members and quickly find out the causes of the incident," Jiang Yu was quoted by Xinhua as saying during a regular press conference.

The New Star, owned by a Hong Kong based company, sank in the Sea of Japan 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the port of Nakhodka in the Primorye Territory during a storm on Sunday.

Chinese media reported that the Sierra Leone-flagged New Star sank as a result of damage sustained, when the ship was fired upon by Russian border guards after the vessel left Nakhodka and crossed the Russian border without prior permission from the authorities.

The ship had tried to deliver a consignment of rice to a Russian company who refused to accept the goods claiming it was "poor-quality" produce.

Two Russian border guard ships were sent to stop the vessel, but the captain ignored their orders.

Russia subsequently informed China, Japan and South Korea as well as Russian Foreign Ministry representatives in Vladivostok about the situation surrounding the sinking.

The border guards fired warning shots, but when the vessel still refused to stop more direct shots were fired. According to video footage shown by Internet media in Vladivostok, Russian border guards fired a total of 515 shots at the vessel's bow. When this had no effect, they requested permission to open fire on the stern.

The Chinese ship owners have accused Russia of breaching international maritime law. The owners said in a letter that Russia's actions were not only "an awful violation of international law but also a cruel violation of human rights."

The owners also demanded that Russia provide compensation for the incident and requested that a joint Russian-Chinese government group be set up to investigate the sinking of the New Star.

The ship issued a distress signal when the vessel started to take on water during the storm on Sunday, and 16 crew members, all of them Indonesian or Chinese nationals, got into two lifeboats. Half of them were picked up by a Russian vessel, but an attempt to save the other eight sailors failed when they were washed out to sea.

A small boat was discovered on Tuesday in the area where the ship sunk, but there was no one on board. The search operation launched by Russia continued on Thursday.

An investigation into the incident has been launched by prosecutors in Russia's Far East.

 

[aesop081]

The Russian Interior Ministry has Krivak IIIs in its inventory.

 

[CougarKing]

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=6be_1234970614

In the Mandarin news report above that has some footage of the aftermath of the confrontation, the reporter refers to the ship as "XIN XING" or the ship's name- NEW STAR. The character subtitles are also in simplified characters so this report is from the mainland.

 

[CougarKing]

So does this mean the deal with the Russians is off?

India to Construct Own Aircraft Carrier: Navy
By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Published: 26 Feb 11:19 EST (16:19 GMT) 

NEW DELHI - India has started building its own aircraft carrier, its navy announced Feb. 26, amid a protracted dispute with Russia over the cost of a Soviet-era carrier.

The navy said the keel-laying ceremony for the vessel would be held Feb. 28, but production of components for the 858-foot ship had already begun.

"With this project, India joins the select club of 40,000-ton aircraft carrier designers and builders," the navy said in a statement.

The carrier will be armed with surface-to-air missiles, latest radar and an array of other combat systems from Israel, France and Russia, naval officials said.

"This is the most prestigious project that the Indian navy has taken up in-house so far," the navy said.

India currently has only one operational carrier - the INS Viraat - after scrapping its first, INS Vikrant, in 1997 after more than 35 years of service.

Viraat is scheduled to be phased out soon.

India has been involved in a long-running wrangle with Moscow over a 2004 deal to buy a refurbished Soviet-era carrier, the Admiral Gorshkov.

The original price for the refit was $970 million, but Russia later demanded an additional $1.2 billion.

The sides eventually settled for an extra $900 million, but the carrier has yet to be delivered, and the latest reports suggest the Russian export firm Rosoboronexport wanted to increase the price tag again.

The 137-ship Indian navy is in expansion mode and has warships from the U.S. navy and submarines from France.

 

[tomahawk6]

Looks like it.

 

[tomahawk6]

Indian blogger has some images of the new carrier.

http://livefist.blogspot.com/2009/03/photos-keel-laying-ceremony-of.html

 

[geo]

If the Russian carrier is off... does that mean the MIGs that are to fly from it/them off too ?