'Destroyers of Discord'

Here comes the biggest arms scandal of the year (maybe tied in rank to the recent ROK officer kickback case involving the Korean fighters).

When Russia delivered the two Sovremannies to the Chinese Navy, the project was hailed as a truimph of the Russian industry. The Chinese customers were happy, the sailors were happy, and the transition was smooth, almost perfect, compared to what happened with the Chinese transition on the Flankers. The ‘hawks’ in the US (Chinese code name for “right wing” elements) got their field day of China bashing about the “Aegis killers” as a provocative new statement of Chinese aggression, never mind that shore batteries loaded with indigenous Chinese cruise missiles that can hit all the way to the major Taiwan port of Kaoshiung, missiles that actually pose a far greater threat than the Sovermannies with their limited complement of Moskits.

The talk is ripe that as satistied customers, the Chinese want two more destroyers.

The problem is, there is a question whether the Russians could do it again. The Sovremannies were built from parts all over the old Soviet bloc, and when the Soviet Union disintergrated, many of these components are hard to get anymore. How the Russians apparently were able to finish two ‘new’ Sovremannies was to take two unfinished hulls that were cancelled, then assembled them with components from the ten Sovremannies that were decommissioned after the Soviet breakup.

Compounding the problem is that the Chinese have upped their requirements. They apparently wanted something that can tangle with Japan’s new Kongo class destroyers, which are equipped with the Aegis system. The Chinese wanted a new SAM system, but most importantly, they are interested on the Yakhont antiship missiles. But unless they got something to launch them, there is no deal on the Yakhonts.

So the Russians said yes, they can design and make a Type 956EM to fire Yakhonts. Keep in mind that would have required a significant redesign of the ship.

Last January 3, they signed a US$1.4 billion deal. St. Petersberg’s Northern Shipyards, which had built the 956s before, was most likely to get the contract and may have invested already acquiring many components and tools for such a project in anticipation.

In a cash starved economy, $1.4 billion was sure to attract their share of eager sharks. There were many bids, as politicians vyed for the contract to bring to their home city or shipyard which they may have financial interest on. It really got complicated at this point, as the Russian contractors started airing their dirty laundry in public, and some contractors have complained, they have not even been properly compensated on the previous Sovremanny project. The aggressive Russian press quickly got a hold of it, and had a field day. At the same time, the red faced Rossoboronexport (did I get the spelling right?) were trying to calm the Chinese fears and assure them that the project can be completed. If they are to do so, the Russians still had three Indian frigates in various stages of completion which they had to finish first before they started on the Chinese destroyers. One headline on this mess and scandal on the Russian military industrial complex called this the “destroyers of discord”.

The latest word now is that another St. Petersberg firm, the Baltic Shipyards, have gotten the contract instead of the Northern Shipyards, in an attempt to cut out the Yeltsin family out of it (did the Yeltsins financially gained from the previous Sovremanny contract?) This is not very assuring or amusing to the Chinese government, since the Baltic Shipyard didn’t build the previous Sovremannies.