Tuesday, 24 December 2019

Russia’s Aircraft Carrier Fire Follows Spy Submarine Fire and Carrier Crane Accident

Posted on ‎12‎/‎21‎/‎2019‎ ‎3‎:‎01‎:‎27‎ ‎PM
Russia’s only aircraft carrier has a fire that has covered over 600 square meters (6000 square feet) of the carrier. Even if the fire is put out, Nextbigfuture predicts that the carrier will not be worth salvaging. 
Currently, the ship is being flooded with water and chemicals to douse electrical wiring and diesel fuel fires. Those chemicals are wrecking all of the electronics and electrical systems that are not being burned in the fire. The fire is wrecking the engine. 
The carrier was already a 30-year old lemon. It was towed back from the coast of Spain in 2012. 
It was put in for a 3-year repair program in 2017. Those repairs were budgeted at $340 million. In 2018, a 70-ton crane fell and sank Russia’s only drydock large enough to service the aircraft carrier. The crane knocked a 210-foot hole in the carrier deck. 
The fire, whole and chemical damage have driven the cost of salvaging the carrier to over $2 billion. It would be better to start over. 

Russia has had no usable aircraft carrier since 2017. Russia will officially have no carrier for the next ten years. 
Russia’s whole navy has problems. They had a spy submarine sink in July 2019 and killed 14 sailors. 
The Russian fleet has declined from a true oceangoing force with long-range battlecruisers and destroyers to a mostly coastal force operating small, short-range vessels. 
In 2019, Russia got 23 new surface ships but only seven are armed combatants. One is a Gorshkov-class frigate (4,500 tons) and six are missile corvettes (2000 tons). 

US Coast Guard cutters are 4500-ton ships. 
The U.S. fleet in total displaces 4.6 million tons of water. The Chinese fleet displaces 1.8 million tons. The Russian fleet displaces just 1.2 million tons. The Russian Navy has really lost its one aircraft carrier. The Russian fleet is probably only 1.1 million tons. 
The U.S. fleet can carry around 12,000 offensive missiles. Chinese ships in total can carry 5,200 missiles. Russia’s fleet packs no more than 3,300.

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