RSM55I agree with you on all but the last statement. Some of the first video footage we saw of the Russian army, when it was on its way to Tskhinvali, showed as many as three BUKs traveling in an armored column. There are also photos of Tunguska stationed in Tskhinvali after the city had been taken. As well as photos of Russian Shilka near Gori. So they definitely had adequate air defense for ground forces.
I don’t know what to make of these claims that Russian ground forces came under attack by the Georgian air force. I do know that apparently that some Su-25 tried to destroy the Roki tunnel but failed.
You’re not entirely right.
AD was adequate for already deployed troops, not troops on the move. An armoured column heading towards Gori was sent there without a single AD asset (without BRDMs even!!) and was duly attacked by a single Georgian Frogfoot, that fortunately missed and finally dropped the rest of the load in the pampa when the Russians fired a MANPAD at it. No Strela-10 or Tunguskas, or even the proverbial Shilka there.
BUKs cannot operate while on the move.
Most Tunguskas were used as a pinpoint defense in South Ossetia, some didn’t have missile launchers mounted.
You would also notice the total absence of TORs – which is per se not surprising in the North Caucasus Mil. District, but still.
RSM55Ther would be little if any reaction, this accident did not kill or injure anyone and caused no serious damage. Frankly it is almost a non-incident, unlike when a Russian submarine sinks itself or gases its crew.:mad:
Yeah, you’re right.
The problem is that the last time some shipyard worker at Sevmash ignited a cleaning cloth, all Western newspapers (and Russian news as well, to be fair) titled “Fire aboard a Russian nuclear sub”. Whereas when HMS Tiresome suffers real powerplant failure in the middle of the Med, or when USS Blind Rouge hits the bottom and maims a few crew members, no one is crying havoc.
RSM55Hell, Georgians Hind helicopters were still attackig rus. convoys at the Roki tunnel during the last day of the war! How is that possible?
Hmm, to put it mildly, it’s not true. Georgian Hinds were not operating till the last day of the war, and they did not attack anything north of Tsinkhvali by day 3. Simply because they didn’t have any info where to strike anymore.
PGMs were used by the Russian side.
ARMs were used also, esp. against modern Ukrainian S-300 system derived arrays and BUK arrays. All half-mobile and static Georgians radars were destroyed by day 3. At least 1 Mainstay was on permanent station (it’s a proven fact)
The problems are different:
– total unpreparedness for effective SEAD on day 1
– total unpreperadness for effective recce
– bad intel
– neglect of electronic warfare
– day only helos
– very bad and totally inadequate AD for ground forces and convoys (and that’s from the country that invented the mobile AD doctrine!!!).
There are enough problems to work on, as you see.
RSM55Can this have lead to some misinterpretation by the sailor and unintentionally might have activated it ?
ONE guy releasing a TRIPLE security switch, even if it’s all computerized, without anyone noticing? Well, theoretically…(remember the Chechen who managed to kill a couple of crew members and to retreat to compartment 1 before releasing freon manually in the CP?).
As for alarm bells etc.: the alarm horn reacts to a)the release and b) if it doesn’t work, it reacts to the slightest rise of compartment pressure.
My guess is that the horns were shut down/masked, in order to ensure that the civilian crew/some exhausted mils could sleep well in case of intempestive horn blast – something that happened before, esp. after several false alarms when crew members get tired of reacting to every false alarm (due to a fault in the emercomms) every half an hour.
Here an update from the BBC:
Russian charged over sub disaster
The Nerpa Russian nuclear submarine. Photo: 9 November 2008
The K-152 Nerpa was carrying many more people than usual
A sailor has been charged for setting off a firefighting system on a Russian nuclear submarine that released gas, killing 20 people, investigators say.
They say the suspect – who has not been named – activated the system “without authorisation and for no reason”.
They say the man “has already admitted his error”, but some officials have cast doubt on the announcement.
Twenty people, mostly civilians, died when freon gas was released on the Nerpa attack submarine on Saturday.
In all, three servicemen and 17 civilians were killed and another 21 people were injured during sea trials in the Sea of Japan.
‘Scapegoat’
“The suspect faces charges of negligence for causing the deaths of two or more people,” said Vladimir Markin, representative of the prosecutor general’s office.
I was lying down resting after being on watch. Suddenly the freon gas started coming down right above me. It was like a drug. I lost consciousness
Viktor Rifk, survivor
However, Mr Markin declined to give any details about the accident.
If found guilty, the sailor could be jailed for seven years.
But a member of Russia’s Public Chamber, which oversees the government and parliament, expressed concern about the speed with which the investigators announced that they had found the culprit.
Anatoly Kucherena said the law stipulated there should be a thorough investigation and collection of evidence followed by a trial in court at which any suspects would be found either guilty or innocent.
Several defence experts have also expressed fears that the sailor might be a scapegoat, and one member of the Nerpa’s crew was quoted by Russia’s Interfax news agency as saying that his colleague could have made a confession under pressure.
The Nerpa, or Akula-class, submarine had more than 200 people aboard, 81 of them service personnel, when the accident happened.
On Wednesday, officials said that preliminary investigations suggested that the “unsanctioned activation” of the automatic firefighting system caused the tragedy.
Freon gas displaces oxygen from the air to put out a fire.
There has been speculation that overcrowding and the presence of so many civilians aboard the vessel may have contributed to the death toll – but this has not been confirmed by the investigators.
Survivor’s account
Several survivors later recalled the terrifying seconds after the gas started filling some sections of the submarine.
Survivor Viktor Rifk in hospital. Photo: NTV television
Viktor Rifk said he managed to put a gas mask on time
“I was lying down resting after being on watch. Suddenly the freon gas started coming down right above me. It was like a drug. I lost consciousness,” said Viktor Rifk, an engineer, quoted by the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper on Tuesday.
“We all had gas masks but maybe some people didn’t manage to put them on in time,” Mr Rifk later told Russia’s NTV television.
A number of the people were sleeping when the accident happened, and reports in Russian media suggested that some of them were too dazed to put on gas masks.
Several former Russian mariners have suggested that the civilian personnel – engineers and shipyard workers – may have lacked experience in handling the breathing apparatus.
The nuclear reactor, which is in the stern, was not affected and there was no radiation leak, officials said.
Russia’s worst submarine disaster happened in August 2000, when the nuclear-powered Kursk sank in the Barents Sea. All 118 people on board died.
The then president, Vladimir Putin, was criticised for being slow to react to the incident and reluctant to call in foreign assistance.
RSM55The market need lighter. simpler and cheaper planes, i hope both sukhoi and mig are considering more practical solutions, than the 90’s-80’s estravaganza
And seems Mig is involved in the pakfa (since, seems they will build them also), what is the involvement level of the mikoyan house?
Come on, guys, get real.
If anything, this threat should be renamed “how would you speculate on bits of info that have nothing to do with the subject matter”.
The bottom line of the article is that Pogosyan will lead the military division of the OAK.
It means he finally won.
He will remain head of Sukhoi Works, and Skunk works 🙂
He will get RSK MiG, and therefore will either put the focus on the mod. of the 29 and 31 series (which is official) or eventually “kill the *******s”.
That’s it. Period.
No one is planning a “lighter PAK FA” or anything like that.
RSM55Point 1 – IF the GBI field in E.Europe is so vital to the defence of CONUS why are they going to take the GBI’s out and secretly put IRBM’s in?. They will surely need all the GBI’s they could get. After all even 100 GBI’s….even if they could reach and catch an outbound Russian strike…would be barely enough to scratch the surface.
Point 2 – What does a land based IRBM in Poland give the US that it doesnt have already. Decapitation strike?. They’ve got that already with Trident.
I’m not playing the devil’s advocate here, I’m just explaining the basic principles of deterrence.
I do not say that I share the Russian point of view.
I just say that the mere notion of “threat”, in a classical MAD environment, necessitates a response.
The Russian response is, imho, logical and quite restrained.
You threaten me by, say, 10% of my potential, then I negate your 10%. Period.
Any new capability is matched by another. That’s textbook deterrence.
Otherwise, you just stop playing the game, and trust each other.
But that’s not what is going to happen. Not after the invasion of Iraq, not after Guantanamo, not after the expansion of NATO, not after Georgia, etc.
You would have to rebuild trust first. Let’s hope they have that in mind (the russians have already signalled that: in the words of their Min.foreign affairs, they are ready to trade missiles in Kaliningrad for BMD in Europe plus more leverage on Iran).
RSM55How was the radar destroyed? Ar attack or by ground fire?
Tell-tale marks above the structure clearly suggest a ARM. I would suppose a Kh-58 (shrapnel holes diameter is quite characteristic). The panel side was either ripped open by the missile engine or by the Russian troops who took the picture (with a grenade, e.g.).
RSM55Its not the numbers I find strange RSM. Its the fact they were dived with that many onboard undertaking testing serials.
It’s a normal procedure for factory trials. Industry tells how much they want on board, military how much they can sustain, the final lists are not closed till the last minute. The point of factory trials is that you have production/industry specialists with you when a system does not fulfil the military requirements, as you have a lot of new equipment after full mod. It’s a procedure that is at least 50 years old.
Basic DC procedure. The victims in the flooded spaces would have had time to make a report. Dont Akula’s have heat sensors in their compartments?.
Time factor: it depends. If everyone was sleeping or busy checking the fire system, 4 minutes is enough to die.
All crew and service members plainly hadnt had the lecture about keeping your PBU on you at all times.
Of course they had it, but they did not care (normal Russian way, sadly).
Do Russian subs still use PBU’s with air cannisters or have they moved to the boat-wide emergency air manifold system that NATO boats use?.
They have both: PBU-2 are short-timed (up to 40 min) personal regenerators (acid triggered, closed breathing), boat-wide breathing systems are present also since the 2nd generation, plus you have special CO2 and gases standard masks, plus surfacing systems.
The irony is that the Soviet/Russian fleet probably invested more that any other fleet in emergency and recovery systems as such (the above plus surfacing chambers and pods), yet lack of maintenance and training (combined with insufficient on-shore support) rendered all these endeavours meaningless (see Komsomolets case, for example).
RSM55Absolutely nothing there has demonstrated any potential threat to Russia, just that you lay awake at night hugging your pillow praying that the evil capitalists dont decide to nuke you for no reason.:D
Darling, I would be pleased if you would acknowledge your total lack of competence in the matter (the part about land-based French ICBMs really did it) and at least tried to respond the arguments and facts that were so kindly presented to you 😀
PS: I am not really afraid that the evil capitalists will nuke peaceful Switzerland at the moment 😀
RSM55You talk nonsense, trying to blame the deaths of civilians on the victims themselves whilst refusing to entertain the fact that this is yet another accident resulting from Russian incompetance and a lack of investment.
??? What is wrong with you? Of course it is due to incompentence and disregard for safety rules. Can’t you calm your russophobe stance down at least when we talk about the death of someone? 😮
Besides, congrats: you manage to contradict yourself within two posts 😀 : first you wrote about stupid equipment and lack of it, now that you’ve noticed that you know s**t about the subject matter you switch to general “Russian incompentence”.
RSM55[QUOTE=Jonesy;1320819]If she was dived why did she have so many civilians aboard, seemingly, without emergency equipment, emrgency procedures training or both. /QUOTE]
It was final factory trials. It’s normal procedure: full complement (73) plus factory representatives and specialists (more than 100).
All guys are supposed to be trained in normal emergency procedures, doesn’t mean that they really can handle that. The death and injured toll figures tell us the contrary (3 mil vs 17 civilians, same proportion in injures).
The skipper probably did not know it was not a REAL fire, therefore no emergency surfacing. The sub was running deep at the time of the incident. All crew and service members had PDUs.
RSM55Horrific, 3 times the standard compliment were on board, rumour has there was insufficient breathing apparatus in a compartment filling with gas designed to starve fire of oxygen.
Come on, sealord, calm down.
Freon-based firefighting systems were on all Russian subs since the 2nd generation, and there has been only 3 serious incidents involving them till now (one lethal – the last one)
All in all, it’s better to have such a system than to fight severe fires by yourselves.
The system is quite foolproof – it requires manual activation and allows for 10 seconds delay between the activation and evacuation procedures.
Insufficient breathing apparatus is utter BS – every crew member carries his PDU all times – there are however reasons to believe civvies disregarded this requirement. If your PDU is malfunctioning, there are enough breath intakers in every section.
Freon release is normally accompanied by a continuous horn signal.
What we have is a totally improbable chain of events:
1) Automatic freon gas release without any fire on board (due to a new full-auto system requested by the Indian side, for example)
2) A cramped sub, which is ABSOLUTELY normal for factory sea trials
3) the vast majority of hand is civilian, i.e. less trained
4) an accident at 20:30 pm moscow time, i.e. they were probably sleeping in the Far East
5) no audio emergency signal.
I would wait and see the conclusion of the enquiry.
RSM55Wishfull thinking, the Su-34 is delayed due to incompetance not your comical theory.
You are both wrong.
The Su-34 is delayed because of a few brilliant heads in the RuAF who think that there is no point of massively producing a 20th century design for 21st century needs.
Basically, a bunch of upgraded Su-27 and PAK FAs could do the Su-34 job better and more efficiently.
Logically, there is a fights between the industry (that wants the buck right here right now), the military (that wants the hardware right here right now) and the analysts (who know that you should give the military what they need and not what they want, and the industry what you order and not what it wants to deliver).
RSM55What has a first strike got to do with 10 interceptors? Moscow has more than that and you dont see NATO crying like a baby.
OK. Slowly and calmly:
First strike means less missiles to fire against CONUS, or NATO, or whatever. Combined with Ohios in the North and BMD in Poland, Alaska and the US, it kinda lessens your retaliatory potential.
Who cares if they could be converted?
Well, me, for example, living in Europe. I don’t want to have Pershing-redux again in my vicinity 😉
So could any cruise missiles on SSN’s, surface ships, and at bomber bases in Europe.
A big NO. Cruise missiles are potentially nuclear anyway – your opponent knows it. Bombers need reaction and arming time – it’s not a first strike weapon, and your opponent knows it.
Missiles in silos that you don’t see, don’t know and don’t monitor (including max. numbers) are another thing.
Not to mention the French land based ICBM force…
What what??? 😀
The conversion idea is just nonsense.
It’s not nonense, it’s hypothetical – and technically feasible, and technically feasible without anyone noticing. The BMD component in Poland is technically speaking an IRBM on steroids.
The combination of hypothetical-feasible notions means the death of MAD.
All this is is pathetic childish winging from a Russia that can not accept that all its former colonies have escaped and successfully forged their own destinies.
Well, Russia never had colonies in the way you western guys had, otherwise they would all speak Russian and still have Medvedev as a nominal head of the Soviet Commonwealth 😀
As for forging their “own” destinies, I’m very sad about the fact that they don’t think about their own national interests but only foreign ones (both ways).
RSM55Leave it to the Russians to “protect” themselves against defensive weapons with offensive weapons. :rolleyes:
Well, the problem is that the Russians think about
a) first strikes
b) other ABM sites (Alaska, California…)
c) the absence of limitation treaties (10 ABMs today, 100 tomorrow)
d) the lack of evidence that the ABMs in Poland are real ABMs and cannot be converted into anything offensive in a matter of weeks.
They are probably paranoid, right? 😀
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