Why do the Russkies paint the deck of their ships orange?

nice pic of evil red commie’s decks 😀 (from link above)

1985-ish

nice pic of evil red commie’s decks 😀 (from link above)

Ship: Vize-Admiral Drozd (Вице-Адмирал Дрозд)
Hull Numbers: 583(1968), 548, 553(1970), 592, 298, 299(02.1976), 560(1982), 060(1984), 097(1985), 054(1988), 068(1990)
Yard No.: №793
Laid Down: 26.10.1965
Launched: 18.11.1966
Commissioned: 27.12.1968
Modernizations: added 2×1 45 mm 21KM, added navigation radar «Don»
Decommissioned: 1.07.1990
Scrapped: Sank 1992 on way to breakers

Lots of nice pics here: http://drozd-cruiser.ucoz.ru/photo/fotografija_1/4-0-310 and here http://tsushima.su/forums/viewtopic.php?id=3303

3 large pics here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Vize-Admiral_Drozd_(ship,_1968)

Way more pics by search on shipname in Cyrillic than in regular alphabet.

Nosing around in Algeria ’76, it was a rough old dog of a ship – Vitse Admiral Drodz a Kresta 1 (from memory)

Dont recall the gun turrets especially…though it was at Birkenhead bout 93ish?. I was a beardless boy of about 18 at the time and, being from that neck of the woods, was getting a serious amount of banter from a gang of civvy mates about having to come home on leave to get near a Russian ship!.

The abiding memory was that the 7 or so of us, being former grammar school rugby team types and fairly large units to a man, were considerably bigger than many of the rather pale and lightweight ‘visiting team’. We were viewed with considerable disdain during our tour as a consequence!. I’d just started on trade training and was getting to grips with GWS30, so, to have a look at an SA-N-7 launcher at the time was a big deal…which brought me to the red colouring on the weather deck and the aforementioned pithy epithet!.

Growing up around there I’d spent quite a bit of time at Cammell Lairds so I’d seen a fair few vessels in their red lead and the Russian practice seemed obvious. After all there would only, really, be one practical reason to put a red surface coat over red lead….and the ramifications of that, I think, would be worse!!!.

Yeah sounds like the experience you had was considerably different!. A Kresta though???. When?

J

‘Gremyashchy (also some years back)’

was this the Battle of the Atlantic bash at Liverpool – we might have tripped up over each other!
(I was surprised to see so much concrete in the base of the gun turrets.)

One of the Nimrod crews there was being shown around by a Russian sailor who spoke good (if americanised) English. All was going well until they came to the aft gun turret; the Russian said “Here we have the twin 120mm cannons.” One little balding airforce type spoke up, “Actually they’re 130 mm guns.” The Russians face froze and there was a moments silence before he said “Tour over!” and walked off.

I think I must have been speaking to the ‘Political Officer’ on the Kresta all those years ago.

Nice red decks though…

Before the money ran out the decks were well painted and it did not appear to be a cheap ‘just the base coat of red lead paint’ idea.

For purpose of dating, note the ship type (Mirka class) and the Opel Kadett… This is a visit of corvette project 35 (Mirka) to Copenhagen in 1976

This is a visit of Kotlin class destroyer (Project 56) “Nastoychivy” to Copenhagen in 1976.

SAM Kotlin 1981

Soviet missile cruiser Project 58 (Kynda) class Admiral Golovko, 18 Sep 1990

A Kresta II guided missile cruiser and a Udaloy class destroyer in Severomorsk, July 1992.

I was fortunate enough to go aboard the Gremyashchy (also some years back) and she had a darker surface coat on the maindeck level which appeared more antiskid than anything else. A lot of the Northern Fleet destroyers seemed to have the same thing.

When asking about the red surfaces on the upper weather decks I mentioned ‘anti rust’ and got a grin and the word ‘simple’ back!. Maybe he wasnt quite as lyrical as the bloke you spoke to!!!.

I never got the sense it was slapdash at all, quite the opposite, and to be honest, after the stories of uncovered asbestos paint on interior surfaces, it didnt strike me as all that strange?.

I love that deck color, makes ships look real handsome IMO.

Glad to see it on the 20380s as well 🙂 .

Blood Red Decks

A Soviet Navy sailor told me (yes it was many years ago) that the decks were painted red to honour the blood spilled by the Russian Navy over the years.

He was particularly proud of the fact that the Russian Cruiser Aurora fired the shot signalling the start of the Russian Revolution on 25th October 1917 (it was a blank).

Before the money ran out the decks were well painted and it did not appear to be a cheap ‘just the base coat of red lead paint’ idea.

Since the end of the Soviet Union this naval tradition appears to be still in evidence on major ships.

Auxiliary ships and ‘minor combatants’ of course have been seen with green decks.

ALso consider the water color. A light grey 956EM would stand out just as badly against dark Atlantic and arctic waters as a bright orange 965 😀

in China they realize the red paint alone is too risky and needs another coat on top
that is why they re-do the russian ship they buy in the 1990s into a safer grey

As an aside, I’ve got to admit that I do like the green that they paint their cockpits. So much more restful than the all black UK style.

^not just commies

Ship owners and operators recognise intuitively that combating corrosion impacts significantly upon vessels reliability, availability, through life costs and budget availability for replacement projects. However, until recently, the UK Defence procurement organisation and its budgetary stove piping precluded the adoption of a range of spend to save measures including those related to corrosion avoidance at the design stage of a project.

Additionally, in the absence of a mandated corrosion prevention programme that would guarantee continuity of initiatives through the procurement cycle, decision makers have often been forced in extremis to trade off corrosion resistance as a cost savings measure when under budgetary pressure.

http://www.amteccorrosion.co.uk/corrosion%20resistant%20ship.html

Amtec Consultants Ltd are an independent corrosion, coating and cathodic protection consultancy, specialising in all aspects of vessel construction from design, through building, to service life and major repairs in later life.

^Lazy Commies!!!! :diablo:

Actually, the Russian often paint decks of larger vessels in a two-tone scheme, one of which is the reddish color found on their small ships and the other is a darker color. The darker color is used primarily on the main deck, and the lighter color on the higher level decks and superstructure top.

The Russians use more than one paint scheme, probably depending on which fleet we’re looking at. They also use Grey-Green on their decks sometimes:

See http://forum.keypublishing.com/showpost.php?p=582786&postcount=12

Anyway, as our esteemed collegue Jonesy explained in the past:

The red colour is just the ‘red lead’ antirust coating. ‘Our’ ships use it too but ‘we’ uniformly put a surface coat of grey over the top of it. In some cases the Russians do and in some cases they dont.

Theres no absolute need to apply the surface coat. Certainly at the many dozens of miles that modern naval engagements are anticipated to take place over the visual advantage of having greyed out horizontal surfaces is insignificant. Plus there is a bonus that an area that takes lots of seaspray, thusly requiring regular maintenance, is easier to maintain if you can just slap on another coat of red lead rather than having to scrape off a patch then reapply the base and top coats.

Perhaps it is a visual thing just as D`Day stripes were worn. Im sure the weather gets pretty crummy around those parts?. I bet if they went to war they would get toned down very quickly.

Blood red decks

Dude,
If y’all have to ask that question, it’s almost certain that y’all would not understand the answer.

Its camouflage…so they can blend in to orange groves in Florida and California and y’all will never spot them. Sneaky them Russkies!

Dude, America needs more carriers and missiles to stop dem Commies.