Huge Floating Dry Dock Holding Russia's Only Carrier Admiral Kuznetsov Has Sunk
12 replies, posted
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/24547/huge-floating-dry-dock-holding-russias-only-aircraft-carrier-has-accidentally-sunk
This floating drydock (PD-50) is Russia's largest Dry dock, and the only one they have that can fit the Kuznetsov, they have a second one in the black sea that's quite large but fairly smaller and likely won't be able to fit her. Additionally Russia's other large ships rely on both dry docks such as Russian Boomer subs puting the number of drydocks they have for their larger hips down to one. PD-50 was bought from the Swede's in the 80's and with current sanctions and MoD's Dire budget situation replacing it is likely to be an extremely difficult and slow process.
On the other hand, the Kuznetsov was deep into a desperately needed overhaul, with word of hull damage if Russia is unable to find a place for her to repair here and finish her overhaul Russia could likely lose her Carrier all together and send the RFS Admiral Kuznetsov to the scrap yard.
50% chance it was sabotaged by covert actors of a foreign power.
50% chance it was Russian notions towards maintenance and safety.
I always presumed a prerequisite for docks is that they don't sink. In Soviet Russia, ship sinks dock, I guess?
The follow up article mentions this actually.
If high-up Russian officials are willing to allege
a U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol and surveillance aircraft took
control of terrorist drones that attacked Moscow's airbase in Syria,
then accusing the U.S. of cyber meddling seems like very low-hanging
fruit. The potential fallout from the loss of this unique dry dock, and
from the fact that the Russian Navy still relies heavily on what clearly
are weak points of potential failure, is a big pill to swallow for the
Kremlin and the Ministry of Defense.
I mean, Russia's going to blame it on saboteurs anyways. It's what they did with the Soyuz that had a hole drilled in it. It's a classic blame tactic going back to Soviet times - it's always counter-revolutionary saboteurs, not a complete failure of management and a culture that rewards incompetence.
It was Ukranian Neo-Nazi Communist fascists!
The Black Sea and Mediterranean won't be the same without the Kuznetsov choking it to death
Fuck me... is it not nuclear powered?
France and the United States are the only folks who operate nuclear-powered carriers, everything else is conventional.
Though the Kuznetsov is particularly filthy among that category.
Russia has been diverting the status of their shit show of an army for decades, nothing new to be honest..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kursk_submarine_disaster
This overhaul period was to last 5 years minimum and included gutting her entire engineering plant and replacing everything with modern (Gas Turbine I think?) plants. For reference here is her nasty ass boilers after they were removed:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DiuwWCGXUAAHLhO.jpg
Good.
As much as I love ships and air carriers - whatever russia loses is good.
There goes the price you pay for having high corruption.
Floating drydocks are designed to sink in order to pick up the ship. If I had to guess they can probably fix the problem and bring it up fairly easy. It'll be a huge pain in the ass but I doubt it's lost.
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