I toured the USS Missouri and learned that they used bunker oil as fuel for a period of time, but they had a technique to hide the smoke (making it translucent) by adjusting air and fuel intake in the boiler. They usually made some junior seaman or a Navy cadet watch the smoke for its visibility. This was 1940's US technology.
@@Vito-hw5nb Yeah, it's crazy what they did back then. That said I suspect the Russians have the same technology but just don't know how to use it properly.
In WWII the battleships Iowa and New Jersey used this technique while "sneaking" near Japanese anchorage at Truk atoll, these battleships alongside several cruisers and destroyers destroyed escaping Japanese ships from American carrier strike in the anchorage. The Japanese never see the large ships coming until their silhouette of their hulls were spotted by lookouts which was too late by that time, battleships at the time were most known for generating smoke making them get spotted from long range.
@@pavelthefabulous5675they know how to tune the fuel/air mixture, but the Iowa's needed to swap and clean fuel burners every 4 hours minimum to prevent injector fouling and keep a clean burn. Good luck getting a critically understaffed engineering department to do highly frequent preventative maintenance when they're already struggling to keep the ship moving at all.
Greetings from India. We operate INS Vikramaditya and boy it’s history was also painful. It was named Baku /Admiral Gorshkov when we bought it, and immediately found that it had glaring problems. First of all, it could not take power from land based facilities. It only operated in DC. Multiple AC convertors had to be placed, and then we found out the wiring wasn’t able to handle that. The insulation would melt and create fire hazard. So almost 2500 km of wiring, and 3000kms of pipe needed to be changed. It also lacked centralized fire suppression systems, and even adequate lighting. The engine-fire was so much issue that the engine is coated in Asbestos foils, making guys working there wear PPE. It's a mess and we will discard it as soon as we get a new carrier.
Good post. I understood that India would have a tough job of making that carrier functional. But looks like you did get it to that point. If nothing else the refit, modernisation and learning experience is invaluable. Thank you for your insight. For the near future looks like carriers will still Play an important role for those who operate them. But they are a Hugh target and they need the right countermeasures and protection to remain valid.
@@mooglemy3813 I understand. However we have been using Carriers for a long time now, even in Combat. We used INS Vikrant extensively in 1971 war and also used our carriers to blockade Pakistan during 1999 Kargil war so we are aware of the pros and cons of Carriers.
@@mooglemy3813 But yeah, I wholeheartedly agree that in future Carrier protection is getting tougher than usual. Specially the Swarm drones are a big concern.
When you mentioned the whole “if a ship is renamed it’s a curse” then how the ship had a bunch of problems, I immediately said to myself, “No wonder the Kuzy is cursed!”
@@aliabdallah102 sounds about right. It's funny but corruption and incompetence got so bad in Russia/USSR that anyone who didnt participate was viewed as a threat so they'd be excluded and isolated and eventually fired/transferred or stuck in dead end positions. Working too hard or being too competent could cost you your job. People often talk about how innovation wasnt rewarded in the USSR and even economics aside (people will often innovate even without a massive reward in the form of a patent) this did a lot of stifle innovation. That and the Soviets had a tendency to pile praise on a politically chosen person like Alexei Stakhanov who got credit for his whole teams work.
Some time ago, I've read some anecdotal stories of a Russian serviceman who claimed he used to serve on this piece of ship. He mentioned how understaffed the ship was and how half of the ship's decks/rooms were literally abandoned and never visited by the crew, so it was very easy to get "lost" occasionally: whenever he felt like skipping some duties he would venture into abandoned corridors and decks and spend some time sleeping without anyone knowing where he was. Another hilarious story of his was about how during refueling in a port the refueling team managed to confuse the fuel tank lids with the crewed deck doors. They poured hundreds of tons of mazut into crewed decks, flooding many rooms and burying equipment under sticky greasy black liquid.
Great video, just a note though, one of the reasons the carriers black smoke has become so over the top in recent decades is because prior to knocking two dry docks together and building one for it the other year Russia didn't have a single dock capable of servicing the ship (and Ukraine weren't about to let them bring it back for repairs). This means the ship has never been able to receive power/etc from a dock and has had to run entirely on it's own systems even when at port. As a result even though the ship was only commissioned 22 years ago it's boilers/etc are well past their intended lifespan, having already seen the equivalent of 30-40 years of use.
How can you build a ship larger than what can be towed by a six cylinder car that CAN’T take on shore power? Thats just INSANE. At the very least have shore based generators so you are not wearing out Marine Grade material while in port.
For anyone wondering, the original dry dock was the floating PD-50 which sank with Kuznetsov in it. The thing was gargantuan. This carrier is cursed. What kind of vessel has entombed catacombs in its hull and areas within it that are completely abandoned?
German here. Russian "econonics" are very sustainable - for scrapyards. I thought in the '90s, Russia would develop economically and democraric. But - my wife escaped from Belarus - ruzzian and belaruzzian people are very passive, lazy and they never learn. Dumb sheeps. Sorry to say that, but thats is my realistic opinion. Unfortunately.
These stories are so important - coming from people right in the middle of it. Official military histories tend to be very dry, sanitized 'officially approved' affairs. So it's great to hear the behind the scenes stories of what actually went on. Also - this Aussie was lucky enough to go on board the USS Ranger in 1991 when it docked in Fremantle, Western Australia. Back then, the public was still allowed on board when these monster ships visited. I think there was more air power on the deck of that one ship than the entire Australian Air Force! Mighty impressed and grateful.
@@bikerz3857 Thanks. 'Freo' has declined since those days unfortunately, but it's good to hear you enjoyed your stay. And yes - our girls liked American sailors!
> I think there was more air power on the deck of that one ship than the entire Australian Air Force! I would really hope so, considering how much taxpayer money we keep throwing at our mil tech haha. It should amount to something. The Aussies got a nice air force and navy for a reasonable price.
I was a stoker in the 1970s on a Royal Navy Tiger class cruiser, we burned heavy fuel oil in our boilers. It had to be preheated prior to burning to enable it to be atomised sufficiently to burn without creating black smoke. To start the boilers from cold was a long procedure, initially firing up with diesel until there was sufficient heat to run the oil heaters.
I just saw a program on local T.V. that showed the Lakers (relatively small transport ships that run the Great Lakes) are burning heavy oil. The crewman said they have to heat it to over 100 degrees before burning it, but it is the cheapest fuel there is.
German here. As we sailed across the Baltic Sea (near Gotland) we saw a black cloud on the horizon. We thought that a tanker was burning there, but half an hour later only a Russian destroyer passed us. The Russians are world champions in building smoking warships. The Brits can't top that even if they burn cold crude oil (lol). But I also know that from our 3 former destroyers of the Charles F. Adams class. When they fired up their boilers, one also believed that night had fallen.
@@callsigndd9ls897hi, ex RN also. Except they never did intentionally burn it cold, so I’m informed. My first ship was an oil driven steamship , back in 91. If black smoke ever came out the funnel, the Cpt would go bananas. Totally postal. They retired that class not long after, though I believe some were sold to India etc.
@@redvelvetshoes Yes, the Charles F. Adams-class destroyers only smoked like hell during the warm-up phase in port. When driving later you hardly saw any smoke. These destroyers were practically the last steamships in the German Navy. The Russians don't seem to care whether their ships smoke or not. Even Russian ships with diesel engines and also tanks or trucks smoke compared to NATO equipment like hell. My father was drafted in the last weeks of WWII and drove on a minesweeper. The minesweepers had 2 piston steam engines with exhaust steam turbine and coal boilers. The stokers were trained to add only a small amount of coal at a time rather than shoveling the boilers full. My father said there was an art to running the boilers with virtually no smoke and still generating maximum pressure. After the war my father sailed on the same minesweeper for the British (German Mine Sweeping Administration) until 1948 to clear the minefields in the Baltic Sea. My dad served longer on this ship for the Royal Navy than for the German Kriegsmarine (lol). The British preferred to use German antimagnetic minesweepers for this purpose instead of their own. Some of these boats were only built in 1944/45 and were practically brand new and already had tracking devices such as are still used today. My father had a good time on that ship while millions of other discharged soldiers were unemployed after the war.
I wanted to thank you for providing such interesting and useful information on your channel. Flying the F-14 had been a childhood dream of mine in the 70s-80s that didn't work out. As an older man I get to experience that dream a little bit with the F-14 in DCS. Your tips and tricks were instrumental for me learning how to air refuel. After a month of zero progress your suggestion to sweep the wings made all the different. So thank you for your service and for all the information you share on your TH-cam channel.
US Navy = 2nd best Air Force on this planet. Hilarious that Topgun/Tailhook showed the Navel Aviators (mis spelled on purpose) were at best pale imitations of the REAL fighter pilots. USAF handed the Navy their asses over and over again - while the Navy flew against A4 and A6 - USAF flew against actual MIGs and Rafale, etc... Navy played - USAF saved.
@@godslayer1415 I really couldn't knowledgeably debate on the quality of the USAF either today or in the past. I was only interested in US Navy Aviation. I did know the academic achievement level, assessment testing and physical requirements were by far the highest within US Navy versus the USAF at the time. If I had pursued a commission with the USAF after the Navy disqualified me, I almost assuredly would have been accepted. I just wasn't good enough for the Navy's standards. So had no interest in other branches. Also this was forty years ago. Always remember that perspective mattes.
Ward, these researched and pre-written pieces are SO educational. I love that they are a-political. For a non-service member, your channel is still one of my favorites because it is a fascinating window into the military and military industry. Thank you so much for your effort, you are positively impacting lots of young peoples lives by raising awareness of career trajectories and national pride, who wouldn't otherwise have access to such content.
Sure, it's nice to hear an apolitical video but then again you have to have a good ol' feel good/NATO and West are superior/we will bust you up piece of footage from time to time.. Seeing the amount of war crimes and shear brutality shown by the Russians against Ukrainians, it feels good to humiliate them redicule them if we can't show them the real power of NATO's weapons systems...
I work with a guy who was born in Mykolaiv and worked on the Kuznetsov as a mechanic during his mandated time with the maritime services. He said it was a P-O-S then, and it's still a P-O-S now and he is not one bit surprised that nothing has changed.
Was deployed on a ship chasing this thing around. It's engines would fail all the time. There was a saying on the smoke deck. "If you lose track of the carrier just look in a circle" you may not have been able to see it specifically but you sure as hell could see the black cloud.
To be fair I read about an exercise where an old super carrier (I think one of the forestall class) was launching aircraft along side a new Nimitz class and the forestall class was out launching the Nimitz two to one!
The Mazut isn't just a tactical disadvantage, it's a clear and obvious safety hazard on a terrible vessel that is already attempted to become a viking pyre in numerous incidents.
To be fair - Its probably trying to commit suicide, driven by an acute sense of deep shame at what routine Russian corner-cutting and corruption have done to the ship. *SMILE* China's first two carriers whilst no doubt better than Kuznetsov are still a fundamentally flawed design and as the adage goes .... You can't polish a 💩
Funny, at first the Black Sea flagship the Moscow almost looked invincible. It only took two Neptune rockets to sink it. This Russian aircraft carrier is no difference.
@@patriotzfinder They got the sister ship, apparently, with a few jet skis filled with C4 and some Cessna 152 speed drones, apparently. They didn't sink it, but might as well have, since it is STILL out of commission and probably will be to the end of this war.
Back in the early 90's, some Russian (ex-Soviet) ships visited San Diego as a 'goodwill tour'. My dad (a former Board of INSURV officer) and a few others went aboard for guided tours and were instructed to take 'mental notes' of the weapons and other systems. Afterwards, my dad remarked "I doubt those weapons could even fire." From a distance the ships 'looked' great, but up close they could see painted over rust, painted over mechanisms for weapons hatches (also rusted) and other glaring signs that the ships were POS's. And this was only like 2-3 years after the fall of the USSR. And, from the sound of things, the Ruskies haven't improved much.
Well considering the state of their only carrier, and more recently one of their capital ships… it scares me to think about the state of your average Russian destroyer
A few years back I had the opportunity to get a tour of the Cruiser Moskva, before its current state as a future reef. The outside was painted alright, but stepping in felt like a bachelor pad cleaned up 10 minutes before a date.
@@DuraLexSedLex About 11 years ago, went up to Vancouver and saw one of the Moskva’s sisters do a port visit. Didn’t go up to it, but wished I had. Probably as described. They seem to show off those massive weapons.
I was there. I even have a picture of myself with a Russian navy sailor. Those were very optimistic times. Too bad that optimism has become what it is today.
The anecdote about having the Kuznetsov's officers over to the USS America reminds me of a similar account/sea story I read from the 1990s (believe it was from a Surface Warfare Officer posted to USS Abraham Lincoln, CVN-72). They had a high-ranking Russian admiral aboard and if I recall correctly were performing flight ops while doing an underway replenishment from their attached AOE or AO which was simultaneously refueling one of the escorts on the other side. By the account, the Russian admiral muttered something in his native tongue and the USN officer assigned as a translator had to stop himself from laughing behind the admiral's back. Apparently the Russian admiral had said something to the effect of "How the hell did we ever think we could win the Cold War?" Same officer also had a couple other good sea stories; one involving an exercise with B-52s where one passed his cruiser low enough to soak the captain with a rooster tail of spray and another regarding seeing TCS footage from an F-14 that they vectored onto a Russian MiG-25. In the latter case, supposedly when the MiG driver saw the Tomcat the RIO decided to be cute and hold up a sign in Cyrillic that read "Bang, you're dead."
There is a story about a Russian officer/observer on a French warship and they intercepted his "secret" rapport and 4/5 of the rapport was all about how amazingly mind blown he was that he had access to running hot water in his cabin at all times of the day...
During a transit to the Med from Norfolk VA the Saratoga group got word of a major Soviet combatant (Kirov class?) leaving the Med enroute to his homeport near Murmansk. The battlegroup commander and Sara's CAG put together an "airshow" to fly above the Soviets from about 500 to 700 miles away. F-14s and A-6s in the package. Next day the Soviets repaid the "complement" when we received notification that Northern Fleet air arm Tu-95s were in route to overfly us. Okay so far, not unexpected. When the Bears showed up one stayed up high and the other dropped down low, both with Tomcats off either side. The "low guy" dropped down very low and flew the length of Sara's flight deck, the carrier's masthead visible ABOVE the Bear, the Tomcats still with him. Then the Bear banked into a left turn, still so low that it appeared that he was going to put a wingtip into the water. THAT was the only time I have ever heard of Navy fighter pilots backing away from another plane. "Crazy Ivan" leveled his wings and overflew our ship picking up a little altitude passing us above masthead height with the F-14s returning to station off either wingtip.
The Russians have had really bad luck with UnReps. We considered running 200 feet apart at 15 (or more) knots while tied to 2 other ships with steel cables and large hoses as a routine event that happened at least daily, sometimes several times daily, regardless of the time of day or night. Obviously, I was on a Replenishment ship. For the Russians, this simple (for us) evolution seemed to precipitate every type of engineering, steering, or other casualty possible in a modern ship. Years ago I watched a video of UnRep mishaps in which the Soviet/Russian Navy was featured. Name it. Burst hoses, parted lines, tensioning failures, fire on the supply ship, fire on the receiving ship, one or the other simply going DIW in the middle of the UnRep, crappy stationkeeping, and one apparent failure to remember that a sharp turn to Starboard when the UnRep is complete will put your stern into the Oiler on the Port side.
When a brother was on a Marine Assault Ship, one of his shipmates was decapitated by a parted line during replenishment at sea. Shit happens, even on American ships.
@@dave8599 Oh definitely. Even a modern well-maintained warship with a well-trained crew offers uncountable opportunities to meet your Maker. The point is that Russian naval vessels are not maintained well, and the crews are not trained well. This leads to an incident count well above what would be considered normal for most navies. The Russian navy prefers to pull into port to re-supply. For at-sea replenishment, they prefer that both ships be anchored. Their replenishment fleet has one ship with the capabilities of a US AOE/AOR. Most of their UnRep ships are much smaller than ours, much slower, and do not have the rough-sea capabilities. The majority of their UnRep fleet is pushing 50 years old.
1st Rule of Warships, never change the name of a ship. Building a Fleet Aircraft Carrier is "easy" (not really), but Carrier Ops are really hard. The Russians have discovered that, and the Chinese are about to learn the hard way. The US has 100 years of Naval Aviation and Carrier ops, and the first 20 years were a learning experience.
There's actually a quite comical reason for it, they changed it from Riga as it was named after a city in Latvia and they wanted independence from the USSR. Then they changed it from Leonid Brezhnev as it was named after a former Soviet premier form Ukraine, and they wanted independence from the USSR. Then they changed it from Tbilisi as it was named after a city in Georgia and they wanted independence from the USSR. So they named it after the most Russian of Russian men xD As for the carrier ops thing, it's not an experience issue as they had been using Aviation cruisers for decades it's just they don't have the money to do it properly anymore. Hence having to scrap most of their older ones and selling one to India (who still use it) so they could afford to use the Kuznetsov.
I can confirm Chinese pilot training attrition rate is horribly bad. Lots of dead would be carrier pilots, most apparently dying while training on shore. Can't confirm if that's true generally in the Chinese air force.
As a former us Navy surface guy, I am delighted to see that Russia still is a global Navy paper tiger. So many years after WW2, the world still cannot replicate what Nimitz and the boys did to keep ships supplied and on mission. The USN 2 ocean war is a wonder of the modern world to me. Yes I'm biased. I may have served but every night I sleep under the blanket of security I have been provided by those before me. I am a grateful man. Blessings to you all!
It’s staggering how degraded the Russian military is. In 1985 the world considered them a close #2, when Ukraine is all said and done they may not be in the top 10
@@jackof1 I dont think they're in the top 20 in terms of military competence. I knew they weren't doing too hot prior to Ukraine, however this just shows that they were never ready to fight a war with a competent military force, it was all just posturing and pretending they were still the Red Army.
@@jackof1 post USSR russia was always a paper tiger. with putin at the wheel they dreamt of imperial glory while having a GDP smaller than italy's. the math doesn't make sense - can't run a superpower military on a budget smaller than italy's. that's why there's never money for anything. too many vanity projects not enough funding for any of it. so the first thing that gets cut is unglamorous budget items like training and maintenance. that's why in UKR they're performing so poorly - complete lack of training even though they're relatively well equipped esp. compared to the ukrainains at the start.
I read / heard some things about the Admiral, but your 15 minute video is very informative, pointing out all the weaknesses of this ship. Great, thank you!
Ward I remember seeing these tragic fires and damage on the nightly news. However the losses either didn't register or didn't have impact at the time. Seeing this now it first reminded me of the losses my dad saw in his time with 8th USSAF in the UK. The loss was horrific to the US Navy. As teenager it didn't hit home now on my 74th Birthday today Oct. 6th, it hit hard at all these young sailors lost. Thank you for this video may the all be resting peace.
The first Soviet carrier was the KIEV around 1975 - 1976, I was on the USS YARNELL CG 17 and we shadowed the KIEV as soon as it got into the Black Sea for several weeks to gather intelligence . It was a V/STOL type carrier. Their escorts were not happy with our presence . I believe the Kiev is in China as a museum now . BMCS SW ret
X-32 and a cameo of Fred Knox on channel Dark Skies. I was a PR in VF-32 and had the pleasure of serving along side you and Mr Knox. After my tour,I returned to civilian life and a few years later saw a documentary on the X-32 on PBS. Mr Knox stands out in my memory because it was well known that he was very intelligent and an excellent pilot.
"Mazut" is heavy fuel oil used by most navies up to the 1970s, and used in domestic heating in rural areas before natural gas, its usually a heavy oil residue left after the lighter fractions such as gasoline, diesel, naptha etc have all been economically removed. The unique thing about Soviet Mazut was the poor refining of all their oil products meaning their product was full of unremoved hydrocarbons that made it impossible to get the damn stuff to burn nicely, two tanks ostensibly containing the same fuel could have wildly different peak combustion characteristics.
I was in VS 32 at the time and remember when they came onboard, the look on their faces was priceless. One of our LT's spoke Russian and was tasked with being a translator for the embarked Russian staff. Later, he told us some very interesting things the Russians were saying.
When they were on the ship, were they treated to a meal? If there is one thing that can REALLY impact morale and psychology is good, or bad chow. If I were the Capt I would have had the mess crew serve up their best chow, for the whole crew, and invited the Russian big wigs to eat good food along side every day sailors while acting like it was nothing.
I found out yesterday that Retired Captain, and Naval Aviator Judith Bruner passed away at her home in Annapolis last month at the age of 74. She piloted the P-3 Orion during her 25 year USN and Reserve career. She was the first female commander of a P-3 crew, and was the first woman pilot to fly through the eye of a hurricane. She would go on to work for NASA at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD, from which she retired.
@@WardCarroll Sorry in advance because after, "R.I.P. Capt' Bruner", I'm off-topic, but I wanted to be sure you got notified of this comment: Any chance the WHOLE POINT was to having you host the Russians so that, shoe-on-other-foot, when you saw what rustbucket planes they had such rustbucket carriers...and all that broke-down crap was decommissioned and they ACTUALLY had cutting edge navel aviation gear?!
@@troyevitt2437 "cutting edge" They focused on things being cheaply made Think of this, if there's even a pinch of quality, they would have already shown it after a year fighting in Ukraine
Our military corruption leads to overpaying for overbuilt, overpowering weapons of war. Russian corruption leads to soldiers having rusty, non-functional guns, copper being stolen out of tanks, and most equipment being generally nonfuctional. Privates steal what they can, supply officers sell anything they can, upper leadership funnels funds into yachts. It's an entire military culture built on being as inefficient and self-serving as possible. We lost around 58,000 in Vietnam. Russia has done about twice that in Ukraine, in maybe a tenth of the time.
@@satagaming9144 Russian losses in Ukraine aren't surprising, they haven't fundamentally changed how they fight a war since at least 1914. Heavy artillery bombardment followed by human wave tactics of undertrained, underequipped, badly led conscripts. Never mind learn any lessons from 21st century warfare, they haven't even started learning them from the 20th.
I'm sure the rest of the world has a different perspective on this. The American military complex and leadership functions a lot like a modern day empire. Perhaps a professional, well equipped and trained empire, but an empire all the same. I think the big difference is that Russian corruption results in suffering troops and unrealized military goals, and American corruption results suffering civilians and semi-permanent political instability in the countries they decide to ransack without consequences. Also, American troops suffer terribly too, but usually after they return from war when sheltered, spoiled, non-serving politicians decide that vets are a financial liability and should take responsibility for themselves (mostly so people who invested money in killing machines can reap a profit) Just don't mistake America's big, shiny, fancy guns as an indication they are righteous and doing good in the world. They ransack countries that can't defend themselves and forsake their wounded warriors as soon as they return home so billionaires can get richer.
@@Teesquared00 I agree to a large extent, though I would argue the American empire has usually been a benign one in comparison with its rivals and predecessors. It's true that the US invades other countries for geopolitical gain and engages in heavy-handed, hubristic and often futile nation-building projects. However, I do think there's a large difference between attempting to topple an incredibly brutal and already unstable regime (as was the case in Afghanistan and Syria) or intervening on behalf of another nation that's under attack (Yugoslavia and the Gulf War), and entering a country to forcibly drag it into your sphere of influence. I agree that it's a small comfort to the civilians of these places though, who were indeed victims of American war crimes. As a small aside, it's very questionable what role (if any) acquisition of resources plays as a rationale for recent US-led wars. I believe extending American political and economic influence at the expense of its rivals, mainly China, is its priority. For example, Venezuela has a government hostile to the US, a weak military and a dysfunctional state, and few if any major allies. Yet despite holding the world's largest oil reserves by far, Venezuela was not ransacked as you say.
Did you know that whilst the ship was docked 90% of it’s entire existence, it’s engines are totally spent! The reason is that they left the engines running to provide basic living conditions for the crew whilst being docked! Those are some expensive living quarters if you ask me!
The bits about Mazut fuel are very interesting, since we used another form of it in the U.S, called Bunker C fuel. This is also a bi product of petroleum refining. From the early 1950s until 1970, the Union Pacific Railroad built new locomotives called GTELs or Gas Turbine Electric Locomotives. Yes, railroad locomotives powered by jet engines. These engines were massive, and could generate up to 10,000 horse power under the right conditions. Bunker C was used to power these engines. It had to be strained to get rid of impurities, then preheated. The GTEL program was stopped, in large part, due to the cost increase of Bunker C fuel, and the increasing demand for it by the plastic industry in the production of various plastic products.
I was about to say, Mazut sounds a lot like Bunker oil which most maritime freighters run on. Wiki says "Naval Mazut" is equivalent to US Bunker A/B and "furnace Mazut" is Bunker C.
Mazut is/was supplied to Belgian homes for heating - in the fall, a tanker would deliver a season's supply - I figure to remote or older homes. Never saw the black smoke, so maybe they used a 'cleaner' variant and/or additives.
The Union Pacific turbine-powered locomotive project was also abandoned because the turbines were very thirsty even when idling. With rising fuel prices it got to the point that when dropping off just a few cars they shut the turbines down and used conventional diesel power.
I was in Reactor Department on CVN-71 (Theodore Roosevelt) dead in the middle of her Refueling and Complex Overhaul (RCOH) in the early/mid 2010s. You would be shocked at the amount of overall planned maintenance in terms of $, man-hours, and time put into our Navy ships throughout their life in an effort by Big Navy to have a large percentage our our fleet "battle ready" at any given time. I would guess a ship is in some kind of planned maintenance phase for about 1/3 of its life - not to mention basic upkeep of equipment by sailors and numerous inspections/functional tests of everything while not in an official maintenance phase (pierside/cruising/deployed). Honestly being in the Navy on a ship really boils down to 2 things - training which speaks to ensuring man-power quality and maintenance which speaks to ensuring equipment-quality. It was all a HUGE pain to deal with as a young surface warfare officer but now that I'm out of the Navy I understand better and respect the madness that is the US Surface Navy - well mostly anyway.
Ruzzskies have some clever engineers, however, they are handicapped by sociopathic leaders in a crippling political system... so this was inevitable....
Well, that sounds like a floating, (sort-of), nightmare. I've tried to follow the stories, but Mooch, you broke it all down simply and succinctly. Thank you!
During my career our radar facility hosted a Russian delegation as part of an anti-ballistic missile treaty inspection. We sanitized the facility to include turning off the oscilloscope in the operations center, which displayed the radar frequency and waveform. They were a friendly group of communist chaps who enjoyed the many packs of American cigarettes at the end of the buffet line.
For some reason this reminded me of something from fairly long ago, I was in the Finnish army, and our relationship with the Russians is not very well known but there is a fair bit of mischief going on. A number of years ago we switched from using voice comms on radio to encrypted text, and not long after this we had a very good interservice exercise spanning like a week or so, and oopsie daisy one of the new encryption terminals went missing. This resulted in the single biggest witch hunt and an unholy amount of butthurt that I think happened in the last 50yrs, what happened is fairly well known unofficially - by which I mean privates might not know the story, but about everyone with brass on their collar did... A Lada with Russian accented mushroom pickers showed up at one remote post acting very friendly, then disappeared in an odd hurry, apparently with the encrypted text terminal thing in their pocket...
@@hb1338 Not sure it has any relevance at this point, or at any point the last 20yrs or so, all those terminals were upgraded afterwards as far as I know, and other procedures regarding them were updated to prevent this from happening again like that. I don't think we applied to join NATO, if we did that would be quite far down the list of stuff to worry about heh, apart from the airforce there is zero gear interoperability, and close to zero in terms of default tactics and further even down to command structure etc which is a much bigger deal I'd think. But I don't know what's going on now, I left in 2001, so whatever happened after then I don't know almost anything about except for what's public info.
We conducted flight ops and SAR demonstration with Kuznetsov in the summer of 1996 (Med Cruise) when she was anchored off of Tunisia. I flew in the KA-27 and we had their pilot fly in our SH-60B. Our Ship USS SAN JACINTO (CG-56) hosted their surface officers and we showed them our UNREP capabilities. My OIC flew in the KA-27 from San Jack to Kuznetsov the day when we completed a combined SAR Demo.
I was aboard USS Monterey for the combined operations with USS American and the Kuznetsov. Got to land our SH-60B aboard Kuznetsov, and brought some of them to USS Monterey for tour & chow. At that point, we all thought we had gotten past any significant chance of a war with them. Yet where we are today. 😢
The last thing anyone in any military wants to do is go to war... militaries around the world should be disbanded, in their place a mutually agreed to island be designated/named "Last Resort", when the political leadership of two or more countries have a serious disagreement, twenty five members of those governments are taken to the islands with equal amounts of weapons and ammunition, whom ever survives is declared the victor and exercises whatever agreement was made. Yeah, I know, will never happen...
After Stalin's purge of the intellectuals (anyone smarter than him) Russian national expertise still has yet to recover. Smart Russians emigrated knowing that one day the rulers would once again do something stupid and deadly.
What a fantastic video, I'm so glad YT recommended it to me! I've been reading news about Kuznetsov for quite a while now, always laughing, but I've been hoping for a serious analysis of the topic for a long time!
We shadowed the Kuznetsov off Ireland on its way to the med when it spilled its oil and on return later. They denied it all obviously. We called it up the first time and asked were they flying aircraft off the deck as we were going to inspect them. They took a while to answer and said no they had no aircraft flying and to stay 5km away. We performed our pass anyhow as we were entitled to meanwhile tracking a Kamov helicopter on our FLIR despite them saying no aircraft flying. On its return we went out to meet it again but received a HF comms message from Shannon ATC to say 4 SU-33’s were heading our way. We fire walled the throttles and got out of dodge and RTB’d. Didn’t want to be bumped by ‘accident’.
Before Sweden joined NATO Ireland should have bought a lot of Swedish kit to uphold Irish sovereignty and fend off Russian intrusions into Ireland's exclusive economic zone. The Gripen fighter and Saab 340 AEW&C or Globaleye, Visby-class corvettes and Gotland-class submarines, etc. It would have been interesting for Sweden, Finland, Austria, and Switzerland to have joined Ireland in a de facto neutral democratic bloc, perhaps looser than NATO but sharing the same mostly Swedish equipment, training etc.
I was aboard HMS Brazen in 1990/91. We followed Kusnetzov for a month it was December if I remember correctly. We followed it through the English channel, upto the arctic circle. We had a special domed camera flown out for our lynx helicopter. We photographed every inch of that ship. I remember one of their KA 27's tried to land on our flight deck. We frantically signalled to them that their helicopter was too big to land. So they hovered above and lowered down 2 bottles of vodka for our captain. I think my details are correct I could have been aboard HMS Jupiter though.
That's really interesting, my father was on HMS Brazen at around the same time, he left the RN in 1993, but he also served on HMS Chatham and HMS Illustrious during his 7 year stint.
8:56 Man your Russian accent had me rollin!! Having been in the U.S. Navy and stationed out of Rota, Spain during the 1980’s-1990’s I can recall many of the same places you’ve been deployed to. You definitely bring back some great memories as you speak about your experiences from this time. Thanks for sharing, the wardrobe and of course the accent! 🙏🇺🇸✌🏽
Cheers from Russia! I was a bit apprehensive about watching these videos of yours, you know, even if you have some strong opinions on your own country, hearing someone from outside talking shit about it is disheartening. But I've actually enjoyed your analysis, and I commend you on your very professional and respectful tone.
Greetings from the United States, we have our own problems as well, but I get what you are saying. Some of your aircraft however are quite good, and among my most favorite planes. Too bad our leaders can’t have a peaceful conversation like we can.
@@usauk3605 to be fair, as a Russian I always envied US for having your Navy to quite decent size, tech and, well, general design - ships are beautiful, and I definitely adore the late WW2 battleships, which you made into museums. Here, in Russia kinda hard to build a navy when you always have your whole western border open for the invasions - no natural barriers like mountains, uninhabited deserts or anything so up to the introduction of nuclear weapons and WW2 end pushing border as far to the west as only possible was a matter of survival and security. Last time, Russia failed to do that, resulted in demographic loss of 27 Million, most economically developed part of the country levelled to rubble and new armed stand off with the former allies in a war. So, yep, here Army always came first and Navy was historically built in a rush for some kind of regional strategic operation to then be lost due to low maintenance and general lack of resources - old tradition since Peter the Great.
@mdokuch96 Yeah, America is in a totally different strategic situation, as we depend on a large, up to date navy to project power pretty much anywhere outside the Western Hemisphere. As you said, Russia has a large land border, thus allowing your country to be invaded by land. All we have to worry about is Canada and Mexico, so not a lot of danger there. You guys have some decent ships, but as you said, your leadership never bothers to maintain them. Still, Russian military equipment is some of my favorite in the world, and I wish our two countries could stop arguing with each other.
@@mdokuch96 „have your whole western border open for invasions“ ironically since WW2 the invasions always came from Russia, every, single, time. Maybe the problem isnt the border, but the urge to be invasive even thought the army is lame…
@@usauk3605 Canada and Mexico sounds good comapared to us in Europe living on the same continent with Russia that sadly doesn't understand what the phrases "state border" and "sovereign state" mean.
It's always a really bad idea to have just one of anything because what you end up with is all the development costs, all the delays and costs associated with repairing defects, and all the costs of setting up the logistics and support to service a single point of failure. One Russian aircraft carrier, (yeah I know a second was being built, but 1 in service) one dockyard, one dry dock etc. The French have the same with their nuclear aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, the Ukrainians with their Antonov AN 225. As the saying goes, "we have learned from our mistakes and can repeat them precisely"!
@@donreed did I? Completely forgotten to be honest. Sounds from your post that you're a victim of domestic abuse and your wife has anger management issues.....(don't tell her I said that).😉
It was a part of a ship-building programme, with a sisterships improving one after another. The third one, Ul'yanovsk, with it's construction started near the SU breakup, was intended to trade the ramp for steam-powered launchers, and the next one was supposed to have nuclear power
Some time ago I volunteered at a community maritime center that included a large ship simulator used for training maritime pilots and other missions. On Saturdays, we would open the simulator to the general public and I would spend several hours alongside other volunteers letting anyone who wished take an 87' USCG cutter, an Arleigh Burke-class DDG, or any of several commercial vessels out for a (simulated) spin. Being on the west coast, we had very detailed simulations of the ports of Seattle and San Francisco, as well as the Inland Passage. The young ones especially enjoyed driving either of the military vessels, and we'd set them out in Elliott Bay and give them various ship targets to intercept, or set up force ten gales in sight of the Space Needle. For some reason the simulation package included a ship target of the TAKR Adm. Kuznetsov, so we'd throw that out in the shipping lanes and send folks to intercept, usually giving rise to comments from the adults in the room to the effect of "I think we're going to lose this fight." But from the sounds of it here, even the cutter could take on this wreck. Thanks for another excellent video.
"But from the sounds of it here, even the cutter could take on this wreck. " sound that you forgot the begining of the movie where extra armament of the ship was showed -> that is there to make it look more like a heavy cruiser... that Granit missiles can deliver a 500kT warhead -> stuff that leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki was in 20kT range...
@@Bialy_1 In theory, it has that capability. Remember the Moskva, though. 1/6 of the main guns worked, the radar was kept off most of the time, and the emergency gear was kept locked to prevent sailors from stealing it. If Kuznetsov was the best-maintained ship in the Russian Navy it could still be a floating husk with empty missile tubes and rusted pipes.
Ward, thank you for your fantastic content. Not only is the information first rate, the delivery style is top notch. Your presentations feel like military briefings, concise, specific, on-point, and comprehensive of the subject. Can you please give us profiles on the Chinese carriers? My impression is that they have done more with the Kuznetsov Class ships than the Russians themselves. Thanks again for everything you're doing!
This was the best update and history for a foreign power’s vessel I’ve ever seen. I’ve heard stories about this vessel and even wondered why the Chinese had one that looked like a twin. I enjoy your videos Mr. Carroll.
Not everything, but a ton of China's vehicles, weapons, and equipment are based of Soviet designs even today. The Russians are still facing issues with China copying their kit with accusations of IP theft being aimed at even relatively recent aircraft. The Cold War was full of cases of China importing and then copying Soviet built gear which is why even during the early days of the PRC the Soviets hesitated sending WMDs and nukes to China and why they even limited sending them civilian nuclear tech, China's first nuclear weapon program was even named "Project 596" which referenced a supposed "betrayal" by the USSR for not sending them a nuclear bomb.
Ward, fantastic recap of Russian’s carrier aviation calamity. I was the final America CV-66 Air Boss during her last deployment and remember the Russian visit quite well. The 30-plane launch was the brainchild of the Handler to demonstrate our sortie generation capability and what a 30-year-old carrier could do, ergo 30 for 30! The astonishing work of the deck spot throughout the night was extraordinary and we wanted to blow the Russian Visitors away and DID! The launch took less than 10 minutes. ADM Kasatonov could not believe what he was seeing and was absolutely thunderstruck, which was our intent. His biggest question to me was about the significance of the colored jerseys on the flight deck. I explained the jobs they performed but what blew him away the most was the fact the average age of sailors on the flight deck was south of 20 years old. Hell - that fact still amazes me to this day in carrier aviation. On that day in January 1996 - “WE ROCKED THE BOAT”
I was a Scoutmaster for 12 years. It used to be that the BSA tried to prepare these young boys for responsibilities, but somewhere along the way they kept lowering their expectations. It didn't help being badgered by the Left's army of activists, but who can withstand an onslaught of lawyers and lawsuits?
Also remember that the evaporators supply boiler feed water. While they should have reserve feed water, it is still a limited suppy, and when it runs out, you aren't going much farther.
I served on the USS Wichita AOR-1 in the early 80s. We accomplished refuel and supply along side, maybe 200 feet apart from our customer, at 10-15 knots. We got to watch a Soviet refueling. They slowed to steerage, the speed at which you still have control of your rudder against the currents, tossed the refueling hose over the side with the customer following closing behind. Who then had to capture the hose and haul it aboard, attach it to a flange, yea nuts and bolts, we used a quick couple device much like in air refueling on aircraft. And steam powered winches in 1980, ours were electro-hydraulic. Our technology / techniques easily 30 years in advance if not more, than theirs.
I was in engineering/GSM on DDs and DDGs. Was up topside while unrep was underway early days before moving on to the engine rooms then to CCS. We had our stuff together back then for sure as the giver and taker of the fuel. We practiced a lot though due to having to take on fuel frequently as gas turbine ships. I always enjoyed the flank 3 break aways and playing the break away song loud within and outside the ship on the 1MC !
I went into the Navy shortly after the Soviet collapse. I was stationed in Yokosuka Japan aboard the U.S.S. Bunker Hill CG-52. We would occasionally come across, now Russian, ships while sailing around Southeast Asia. I had to laugh at the idea that the U.S. was at all concerned about the Soviet navy. At first I thought they were painted brown but it was rust. I can’t comprehend how they were floating. They looked a little intimidating with a bunch of missile tubes and missile pods, guns everywhere. They definitely adopted the “throw enough shit at the wall and some of it will stick” strategy.
@@Jimmy_Jones Its most likely correct what he's saying The Russians and late Soviet's were known for very poor maintenance, the Moskva was also very rusty according to Ukranian sources when they sank her
Thank you for your service sir. I did 6 years as a Cryptologist in the US Navy and our service times overlapped and I had noticed the same thing. Why we even thought the Russian navy was a threat was not easily understood. I guess if we played up the threat Congress would give the contractors money to build new toys. One of our carriers (I wanna say the Carl Vincent but I'm not sure) at some point followed the Kuznetzov to it's port. Not trailing it to keep a watch on it but to pick up the Russian sailors if they had to abandon ship because the Kuznetzov was on fire in multiple places. It has a 100% perfect record in the Med--every time it has entered the Med it breaks down. It also has a tug permanently assigned to it's battle group.
I was ships company on the USS Theodore Roosevelt from 86 to 90 as an Aviation Ordnanceman, a Mag Rat in the G-3 Weapons division. I missed being a Plank Owner by 1 month. When we did our first cruise it was up in the North Sea as part of a large NATO exercise. My first port of call was Wilhelmshaven Germany. Of course we had the Russian Bears do their normal flyby with our Tomcats in trail, but when the Kirov steamed into view one day, the size of that thing was like seeing an island moving by. And from what I remember, they had a medical emergency that they were unable to deal with, so they transported him and their doctor over to us for surgery. I had been sent up to the bomb farm to repair an arming wire that had gotten damaged on a Mk 84 and saw their helicopter land on our deck and they placed the whole stretcher and medics on a weapons elevator and lowered them to sickbay. For 10 hours the Kirov was cruising in formation along side our own battle group. I am not sure of the outcome, I think they saved him. It made our evening news that they showed internally and the newspaper we also circulated, call the "Rough Rider" based on Theodore Roosevelt. Everything was named around him. The forward mess deck was called "San Juan Grill". But I do remember them doting on the Glasnost aspect and a demonstration of the new cooperation between our countries. Never saw the Kuznetsov. But their ships are a whole different look than ours. Like Tom Clancy said, "say what you want to about Ivan, they sure do make 'em pretty"
Did they name any of the armaments on the ship Big Stick Diplomacy? Or one of the decks with amenities for the crew the Square Deal? Gotta love Teddy "Rough Rider" Roosevelt. He was one of if not the greatest of all time US presidents, or GOATUS if you will.
As a resident of Istanbul I remember watching the incomplete sister ship's towing through the bosphorus straight as a teenager. At the time it was known that Chinese were purchasing the ship however I remember vaguely that the public info was that they were planning to turn the ship into a "theme partk" or "entertainment ship".
I got to see the classified version of "Soviet Sea Power" in the late 80's while serving on board the USS John Adams (SSBN 620 G). We knew our weapons systems worked. We launched 4 SLBM's of the coast of Cape Canaveral. Proud and sobering moment for me.
The reason why the US has millions of missiles is due to the fact that he old systems are used for testing and training. So a missile that is nearing its best by date will be used to see if it works.
Fun Fact, Kuznetsov when deployed always accompanied by huge tugboat simply because it something goes wrong, she simply dragged by tug boat towards nearest friendly port to fix her problem.
Small question. Why you call big battleships "Her" or "She"? Because for me it is "IT", or he (Admiral Kuznetsov was male? for example). Ofc I am not native English Speaker (learner).
Which is not a surprise to anyone who actually watched the video, and heard Ward say that quite clearly in his narration. And fun fact, it didn't "ALWAYS" have the tug accompanying it - another thing you would know if you watched the video.
A great video, thanks Ward, a lot of information that I never knew about the Kuznetsov and its operations or lack thereof! I went down to the south coast of the UK when it made its passage to see the legendary smoke plume when it made its passage, my God, I wasn't disappointed! It could be seen from over the horizon, I think they either shut it down and towed it or it broke down and was towed. My vantage point was near Dover almost the narrowest point of the Channel. It was a floating disaster, I pity its crew.
Most Russian naval ships have regular disease outbreaks because the service systems on board are incapable of operation. SO simple things like toilets and showers do not work properly. Water storage systems are corroded, leaky and prone to cause health issues. Captains of the ship probably have a seperate water system that has been fitted. In a major war none of those ships would work or be capable. The Chinese Navy is not much better and is incapable of travelling more than a few hundred miles from their coastlines. Their best and most active ships maybe 500 miles if many issues were to be ignored.
Yah, I wondered about that myself. They're like the N Korean brass; ain't been in a national conflict for over a half century but their chests are full of medals. haha
If any US navy carrier was found to be in even half as much neglect as that carrier the admiral and everybody remotely involved would’ve been court martialed and a massive maintainance check on everything in ever carrier would’ve been enforced
American government contracting his its flaws but there's one area it's good at: contract specifications. If what you deliver doesnt match specs in your contract if they want to they can make you make a new one for the agreed upon amount and not pay for the defective one or fix it up to mandated specs at your cost. I worked in government contracting for awhile, both civilian and military, and if we installed the wrong _part_ we could be forced to replace it at our cost and do it at overtime to get it done _now_
As a schoolboy brought up in Portsmouth a British naval base we got to visit all the ships from various nations. They were all similar but the thing that struck me was how lousy was the welding in the Russian ships. The thought struck me that these ships could fall apart in a storm. Regards, Jim in NI UK
Hence why the Royal Navy would wipe out the Russian Navy in battle. Britain has a naval culture that goes back several centuries Russia has none. The reason for this is that Britain is a Island nation and Russia is a frozen coastline nation with very few ports.
I remember the Navy Days in the 80s! Can't remember off the top of my head if there were any Soviet boats there though. I don't know whether my father or myself were more excited... I think that my mum and brother were less so... They couldn't fit the big US nuclear carriers into the harbour and IIRC it was a near-run thing when the Iowa visited - that would have been an interesting day to sit in the Still & West.
@@jophussaurus2450 British Naval culture existed before the rise of Empire and will still exist after it has gone. Island cultures have strong naval presence that are built through culture over several centuries. Just as the Egyptian culture was built around the Nile river system or Swiss culture is shaped by the mountains that surround it. Italy has a strong naval presence in the mediterranean because of the way the country forms a peninsula that juts deep into the med. Just because most of this goes over your head does not mean it is not happening.
Friends worked on an old boat that ran on Bunker-C, pretty similar to that Hazmut"stuff. I was given to believe that if the tar was sufficiently heated to lower the viscidity, then filtered to within an inch of its life, it would burn smoothly and cleanly.
Sure. Oilers on ancient freighters during WW2 managed to get their dubious sourced oil to burn cleanly. Otherwise U-Boote would spot them. Its a task but it can be done
I like the footage of the vf102 f14B getting launched. Strokes the burner half way down the cat stroke and clearing turn... nah just go vertical. Very cool! That sukhoi test pilot must have been wondering how he could transfer navies after that demo.
When I was courting what would become my future wife (and now Ex), she lived and worked in Murmansk. She did belly dancing on the side and got to perform for the carrier's crew when it made a port of call. All she could talk about was how the hangar deck smelled horribly like a sewer and made her eyes water. I smile thinking about that now.
Thank you sir, for providing insights such as the full name of this vessel and some of the technical details. While she may have the reputation as the worst flat top afloat, she’s still an interesting piece of naval history.
Hehe, just to remind you that nobody's perfect... ".....U.S. Navy's $13 Billion Warship Gerald R. Ford Sows Doubt It Can Defend Itself - Bloomberg....."
Thanks Mooch, these updates are some of your best content sir...keep it up. PS ~ Were you on the Lincoln in Spring/Summer of 1995, I refueled some Tomcats and got some pictures from the KC135 if you would like them. We even got cleared on one mission to do a 1,000 foot abeam, 1,000 AGL pass on the boat port side...got those pictures too. ~Juice
Let's be honest. Even if the Russians manage to get Kuznetsov operational again, it's only a matter of time before another fire breaks out from yet more outrageous Russian incompetence.
When I was in the Royal Navy in the 60s and 70s, boilers burned FFO - Furnace Fuel Oil - which seems to have been very similar to Mazut, and used for the same 3 reasons as the Russians used it - it was cheap, inexpensive, and didn't cost much. It was horrible stuff and stank to high heaven. It was so dirty the chief of the watch had to blow soot every 4 hours, and as a result everything on the upper deck aft of the funnel was coated in thick black soot. The director for the missile system I maintained was situated in such an area, and ventilation for the electronics rack drew air in from outside - imagine the effect of black soot laden air being drawn over high voltage electronics - soot is conductive! It did have an amusing side. Entering Tonga for the coronation in 1967 the crew lined the side in their best white uniforms ("procedure alpha"). As we approached the anchorage just off the capital Nuku’alofa a light shower of rain meant we ended up looking like Dalmatians . That was 4th July 1967. On 4th July 1976 I was again in full whites in the Hudson river for the US Bicentennial. In the early 70's the navy switched to burning diesel. Much cleaner, and soot only needed blowing every 24 hours.
I was a Surface Line LT deployed in the Med. Our CO thought it would be cool for everybody to be in whites, with swords, so COMSIXTH Flt, on another DD refueling port side to could see how impressive our refueling was. Unfortunately, the forward transfer fuel line popped out of the refueling trunk and sprayed black fuel over everybody. Memorable! It took 6 months to be reimbursed by the Navy for replacement whites.
I saw the Tall Ships in 1976. It was quite a sight. It usually doesn't look like that. Was something when it did though. The Hudson was just packed full of ships.
As a 17 year old apprentice ERA (Engine Room Articifer) in the RCN in the very early 1960's, one of the early-in-the-training 'get your feet wet' exercises was to "butterworth" (coat the inside of the tank spaces with a margarine-like grease) a previously steamed out bunker fuel tank. To say that "bunker fuel" was dirty stuff would be a huge understatement. Encountering dead rats in those tanks was not uncommon, along with all sorts of other junk that got pumped in along with the bunker fuel. That job ranked only slightly below cleaning out the Babcock & Wilcox "boiler mud-drums". We were allowed to sign up at the age of 17 with parental permission due to that course requiring us to sign a 7 year hitch and graduating after 39 months of training in Machinist, Marine Diesel, and Stationary engineer trades as a Trade Group 3 - PO2 and not seeing any sea duty for those first 3 years & 3 months of service. A good program that was required to keep pace with the RCN upgrading from WWII tech. Sad to say it all went sideways once politicians like Trudeau senior decided the requirement for a functioning military was a luxury ancillary of low import.
I recall watching a You Tube video on the topic of the Russian submarine fleet. They were interviewing an American naval officer who said " I kind of feel bad for those boys. They will typically leave port with 20% of the equipment that is not functional. We don't leave the dock if there is no milk in the fridge" 🤣
Thanks for the history lesson. I first thought the picture showed her blowing tubes as we had to for NSFO. Leave it to the Soviets to make a fuel even worse. My carrier experience as ships company was Bon Homme Richard CVA31, Midway CV41 and Oriskany CVA34. All prior to and during Vietnam. Please keep posts like this coming.
My dad served in Vietnam on the CV-61 Ranger and he always had a low opinion of Soviet vehicles. He grew up during the Cuban Missile Crisis and during a time when "duck and cover" drills were done often in school, his dad even had a bomb shelter so as a child he feared Soviet bombers. In Vietnam one day they got a warning of a "Brown Bear" aka a Tu-95 bomber flying overhead so he rushed to get a look at it and it changed his opinion on Soviet engineering for the rest of his life. He said "it looked like an ancient WW2 that was about ready to drop out of the sky. Any one of the fighters we had onboard could have shot it down easily". Russia's still flying a prop bomber nearly 70 years after the US switched to jet bombers.
He's also good at keeping a straight face. There must have been moments there where he was tempted to insert remarks like "and your not going to F***ing believe THIS but..."
I also understand that the ski jump, due to the slow takeoff speed, significantly reduces the weapons load that the Russian and Chinese planes can carry when compared to catapult launched aircraft. Of course this makes them less capable and effective.
kinda defeats the whole purpose of an aircraft carrier prolly Aircraft are supposed to be vehicles that efficiently get the payload where it needs to be, where then the "2nd stage" takes over and delivers the rest of the payload for the last mile. If ur aircraft cant really carry a shit ton to begin with, you might aswell just spam a bunch of long range missiles on a destroyer. Thats what the USSR has tried to do I think, but it looks like Russia didnt catch the memo
@@honkhonk8009 don't hurry to understimate SU27 ancestors (Su 33 as I remember, current main board planes). Even half load for this planes is almost equal to f18 full load. It is really good planes. But corruption, stealing, alcoholism, idiotism, stupidity makes all this paper characterestics even worse for any expectations. Ond ofc overall number of planes is not comparable to US even close.
Mooch, thank you very much for this breakdown of the history of the Admiral Kuznetsov. Your information and the "Sea Stories" both you and my fellow viewers add is wonderful. Very nice uniform ... should we call you Vice Admiral 'Mooch'? 😉 I hope you and yours had a safe and Happy New Year.
Kuznetsov to Liaoning and Shandong: "Hello, my sisters who changed nationality to Chinese" Liaoning and Shandong: "Hello, our defunct and complicated sister. We are the much better versions of you."
I toured the USS Missouri and learned that they used bunker oil as fuel for a period of time, but they had a technique to hide the smoke (making it translucent) by adjusting air and fuel intake in the boiler. They usually made some junior seaman or a Navy cadet watch the smoke for its visibility.
This was 1940's US technology.
Military tech always suprised me especially from 20 century
@@Vito-hw5nb Yeah, it's crazy what they did back then. That said I suspect the Russians have the same technology but just don't know how to use it properly.
In WWII the battleships Iowa and New Jersey used this technique while "sneaking" near Japanese anchorage at Truk atoll, these battleships alongside several cruisers and destroyers destroyed escaping Japanese ships from American carrier strike in the anchorage. The Japanese never see the large ships coming until their silhouette of their hulls were spotted by lookouts which was too late by that time, battleships at the time were most known for generating smoke making them get spotted from long range.
@@pavelthefabulous5675they know how to tune the fuel/air mixture, but the Iowa's needed to swap and clean fuel burners every 4 hours minimum to prevent injector fouling and keep a clean burn.
Good luck getting a critically understaffed engineering department to do highly frequent preventative maintenance when they're already struggling to keep the ship moving at all.
They also had a periscope they could look through to see the smoke
Greetings from India. We operate INS Vikramaditya and boy it’s history was also painful. It was named Baku /Admiral Gorshkov when we bought it, and immediately found that it had glaring problems. First of all, it could not take power from land based facilities. It only operated in DC. Multiple AC convertors had to be placed, and then we found out the wiring wasn’t able to handle that. The insulation would melt and create fire hazard. So almost 2500 km of wiring, and 3000kms of pipe needed to be changed. It also lacked centralized fire suppression systems, and even adequate lighting. The engine-fire was so much issue that the engine is coated in Asbestos foils, making guys working there wear PPE. It's a mess and we will discard it as soon as we get a new carrier.
Good post. I understood that India would have a tough job of making that carrier functional. But looks like you did get it to that point. If nothing else the refit, modernisation and learning experience is invaluable. Thank you for your insight. For the near future looks like carriers will still
Play an important role for those who operate them. But they are a Hugh target and they need the right countermeasures and protection to remain valid.
@@mooglemy3813 I understand. However we have been using Carriers for a long time now, even in Combat. We used INS Vikrant extensively in 1971 war and also used our carriers to blockade Pakistan during 1999 Kargil war so we are aware of the pros and cons of Carriers.
@@mooglemy3813 But yeah, I wholeheartedly agree that in future Carrier protection is getting tougher than usual. Specially the Swarm drones are a big concern.
But you are still buying Soviet and Russian weapons, right?
Thanks. Informative
This is how informational videos should be done. Clean editing and straight-forward, no fluff information. Well done.
I totally agree. No bias, just information. Thank you, Ward. A very well-produced piece of content.
@@btjr583 This video was entirely biased. You are mentally lost.
Yeah I like that too it was very very clean it was really done with really well that whole video was done really good Ward you get a great job man
When you mentioned the whole “if a ship is renamed it’s a curse” then how the ship had a bunch of problems, I immediately said to myself, “No wonder the Kuzy is cursed!”
crazy part is you'd think that someone would catch a few of these problems during construction, before it even got named
Well, the Chinese carrier Liaoning was renamed twice. Originally the Riga, then the Varyag. And yet it seems to be doing fine.
@@arthas640in the Soviet Union, checking more than half a time is illegal
@@aliabdallah102 sounds about right. It's funny but corruption and incompetence got so bad in Russia/USSR that anyone who didnt participate was viewed as a threat so they'd be excluded and isolated and eventually fired/transferred or stuck in dead end positions. Working too hard or being too competent could cost you your job. People often talk about how innovation wasnt rewarded in the USSR and even economics aside (people will often innovate even without a massive reward in the form of a patent) this did a lot of stifle innovation. That and the Soviets had a tendency to pile praise on a politically chosen person like Alexei Stakhanov who got credit for his whole teams work.
The Kommuna:
Some time ago, I've read some anecdotal stories of a Russian serviceman who claimed he used to serve on this piece of ship. He mentioned how understaffed the ship was and how half of the ship's decks/rooms were literally abandoned and never visited by the crew, so it was very easy to get "lost" occasionally: whenever he felt like skipping some duties he would venture into abandoned corridors and decks and spend some time sleeping without anyone knowing where he was. Another hilarious story of his was about how during refueling in a port the refueling team managed to confuse the fuel tank lids with the crewed deck doors. They poured hundreds of tons of mazut into crewed decks, flooding many rooms and burying equipment under sticky greasy black liquid.
Lmao 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Damn, they have really smart people !n Russia, but when they're dumb they're real dumb!
It seems nothing has changed since the Monty Python-esq Russia/Japanese War.
Damn lol
To mix up a refueling port and crew doors had to involve some infamous Russian spirits.
Great video, just a note though, one of the reasons the carriers black smoke has become so over the top in recent decades is because prior to knocking two dry docks together and building one for it the other year Russia didn't have a single dock capable of servicing the ship (and Ukraine weren't about to let them bring it back for repairs). This means the ship has never been able to receive power/etc from a dock and has had to run entirely on it's own systems even when at port. As a result even though the ship was only commissioned 22 years ago it's boilers/etc are well past their intended lifespan, having already seen the equivalent of 30-40 years of use.
Damn Lord. I hope let the original Crew of Mechanics Retire. It's a Damn shame
How can you build a ship larger than what can be towed by a six cylinder car that CAN’T take on shore power? Thats just INSANE. At the very least have shore based generators so you are not wearing out Marine Grade material while in port.
@@mylesanhalt9155 Well...Russian ships can't run on AC electricity without modification
For anyone wondering, the original dry dock was the floating PD-50 which sank with Kuznetsov in it. The thing was gargantuan. This carrier is cursed. What kind of vessel has entombed catacombs in its hull and areas within it that are completely abandoned?
German here. Russian "econonics" are very sustainable - for scrapyards. I thought in the '90s, Russia would develop economically and democraric. But - my wife escaped from Belarus - ruzzian and belaruzzian people are very passive, lazy and they never learn. Dumb sheeps. Sorry to say that, but thats is my realistic opinion. Unfortunately.
These stories are so important - coming from people right in the middle of it. Official military histories tend to be very dry, sanitized 'officially approved' affairs. So it's great to hear the behind the scenes stories of what actually went on.
Also - this Aussie was lucky enough to go on board the USS Ranger in 1991 when it docked in Fremantle, Western Australia. Back then, the public was still allowed on board when these monster ships visited. I think there was more air power on the deck of that one ship than the entire Australian Air Force! Mighty impressed and grateful.
I visited Fremantle WA on board the USS Ranger back on 87 and 89. Great port visit. Beautiful ladies.
@@bikerz3857 Thanks. 'Freo' has declined since those days unfortunately, but it's good to hear you enjoyed your stay. And yes - our girls liked American sailors!
Great story. Thank you!
There probably was.
> I think there was more air power on the deck of that one ship than the entire Australian Air Force!
I would really hope so, considering how much taxpayer money we keep throwing at our mil tech haha. It should amount to something. The Aussies got a nice air force and navy for a reasonable price.
I was a stoker in the 1970s on a Royal Navy Tiger class cruiser, we burned heavy fuel oil in our boilers. It had to be preheated prior to burning to enable it to be atomised sufficiently to burn without creating black smoke. To start the boilers from cold was a long procedure, initially firing up with diesel until there was sufficient heat to run the oil heaters.
So you're saying the Russians are hacks? Lol
For king and country
I just saw a program on local T.V. that showed the Lakers (relatively small transport ships that run the Great Lakes) are burning heavy oil. The crewman said they have to heat it to over 100 degrees before burning it, but it is the cheapest fuel there is.
German here. As we sailed across the Baltic Sea (near Gotland) we saw a black cloud on the horizon. We thought that a tanker was burning there, but half an hour later only a Russian destroyer passed us. The Russians are world champions in building smoking warships. The Brits can't top that even if they burn cold crude oil (lol). But I also know that from our 3 former destroyers of the Charles F. Adams class. When they fired up their boilers, one also believed that night had fallen.
@@callsigndd9ls897hi, ex RN also. Except they never did intentionally burn it cold, so I’m informed. My first ship was an oil driven steamship , back in 91.
If black smoke ever came out the funnel, the Cpt would go bananas. Totally postal.
They retired that class not long after, though I believe some were sold to India etc.
@@redvelvetshoes Yes, the Charles F. Adams-class destroyers only smoked like hell during the warm-up phase in port. When driving later you hardly saw any smoke. These destroyers were practically the last steamships in the German Navy. The Russians don't seem to care whether their ships smoke or not. Even Russian ships with diesel engines and also tanks or trucks smoke compared to NATO equipment like hell.
My father was drafted in the last weeks of WWII and drove on a minesweeper. The minesweepers had 2 piston steam engines with exhaust steam turbine and coal boilers. The stokers were trained to add only a small amount of coal at a time rather than shoveling the boilers full. My father said there was an art to running the boilers with virtually no smoke and still generating maximum pressure. After the war my father sailed on the same minesweeper for the British (German Mine Sweeping Administration) until 1948 to clear the minefields in the Baltic Sea. My dad served longer on this ship for the Royal Navy than for the German Kriegsmarine (lol).
The British preferred to use German antimagnetic minesweepers for this purpose instead of their own. Some of these boats were only built in 1944/45 and were practically brand new and already had tracking devices such as are still used today. My father had a good time on that ship while millions of other discharged soldiers were unemployed after the war.
I wanted to thank you for providing such interesting and useful information on your channel. Flying the F-14 had been a childhood dream of mine in the 70s-80s that didn't work out. As an older man I get to experience that dream a little bit with the F-14 in DCS. Your tips and tricks were instrumental for me learning how to air refuel. After a month of zero progress your suggestion to sweep the wings made all the different. So thank you for your service and for all the information you share on your TH-cam channel.
Great to hear, Gary!
US Navy = 2nd best Air Force on this planet. Hilarious that Topgun/Tailhook showed the Navel Aviators (mis spelled on purpose) were at best pale imitations of the REAL fighter pilots. USAF handed the Navy their asses over and over again - while the Navy flew against A4 and A6 - USAF flew against actual MIGs and Rafale, etc...
Navy played - USAF saved.
@@godslayer1415 I really couldn't knowledgeably debate on the quality of the USAF either today or in the past. I was only interested in US Navy Aviation. I did know the academic achievement level, assessment testing and physical requirements were by far the highest within US Navy versus the USAF at the time. If I had pursued a commission with the USAF after the Navy disqualified me, I almost assuredly would have been accepted. I just wasn't good enough for the Navy's standards. So had no interest in other branches. Also this was forty years ago. Always remember that perspective mattes.
Ward, these researched and pre-written pieces are SO educational. I love that they are a-political. For a non-service member, your channel is still one of my favorites because it is a fascinating window into the military and military industry. Thank you so much for your effort, you are positively impacting lots of young peoples lives by raising awareness of career trajectories and national pride, who wouldn't otherwise have access to such content.
Well said.
Sure, it's nice to hear an apolitical video but then again you have to have a good ol' feel good/NATO and West are superior/we will bust you up piece of footage from time to time.. Seeing the amount of war crimes and shear brutality shown by the Russians against Ukrainians, it feels good to humiliate them redicule them if we can't show them the real power of NATO's weapons systems...
Yes, this was an excellent presentation. Just the facts.
This old tired girl needs one more name change: razor blades.
He's very political LOLOLOL re watch his videos
Damn, I thought my old 64 Chevy Impala smoked bad back in High School but this takes the cake!
Yeah why even bother painting it to match the ocean.
Featuring the renowned Soviet Admiral Wardimir Carollnikiov
He should wear this in all his videos!!! :-)
But where's the comically oversized peaked cap?
Moochovich
@@IrishCarney
They lost it in Ukraine.
This guy works for the Wagner Group.
Thank you for your insights and commentary. One of the best channels on TH-cam.
I work with a guy who was born in Mykolaiv and worked on the Kuznetsov as a mechanic during his mandated time with the maritime services. He said it was a P-O-S then, and it's still a P-O-S now and he is not one bit surprised that nothing has changed.
What's p o s?
@@mynameisnobody3931 pice of... ship
@@Oleffo lol got it... thanks 😉
Russia needs to scrap that thing or sell it. I don't know why they keep operating it.
90 percent of most Soviet/Russian aircraft, ships,tanks and systems are POS!!! Lol
Was deployed on a ship chasing this thing around. It's engines would fail all the time. There was a saying on the smoke deck. "If you lose track of the carrier just look in a circle" you may not have been able to see it specifically but you sure as hell could see the black cloud.
Imagine having a brand new carrier and not even being able to compare it to a carrier that is about to retire. That story he told is crazy.
To be fair I read about an exercise where an old super carrier (I think one of the forestall class) was launching aircraft along side a new Nimitz class and the forestall class was out launching the Nimitz two to one!
@@mcduck5 Which carrier?
@@mcduck5Which one?
@@concept5631 I am almost certain it was the USS Independence launching FA18s next to one of the nimitz launching the larger and heavier F14.....
@@mcduck5 Only a fellow American carrier can out-do an American carrier.
The Mazut isn't just a tactical disadvantage, it's a clear and obvious safety hazard on a terrible vessel that is already attempted to become a viking pyre in numerous incidents.
To be fair - Its probably trying to commit suicide, driven by an acute sense of deep shame at what routine Russian corner-cutting and corruption have done to the ship.
*SMILE*
China's first two carriers whilst no doubt better than Kuznetsov are still a fundamentally flawed design and as the adage goes ....
You can't polish a 💩
ppfffttttt "viking pyre"... I like that :)
Funny, at first the Black Sea flagship the Moscow almost looked invincible. It only took two Neptune rockets to sink it. This Russian aircraft carrier is no difference.
@@patriotzfinder They got the sister ship, apparently, with a few jet skis filled with C4 and some Cessna 152 speed drones, apparently. They didn't sink it, but might as well have, since it is STILL out of commission and probably will be to the end of this war.
@@MrJdsenior Maybe we should try to sink both ships. It only took two Neptune rockets to sink The Moskva. Nice experiment...
In the summer of 96, I was on the USS Tortuga when we did a passex with the Kuznetsov. Very accurate description of her condition and crew.
Back in the early 90's, some Russian (ex-Soviet) ships visited San Diego as a 'goodwill tour'. My dad (a former Board of INSURV officer) and a few others went aboard for guided tours and were instructed to take 'mental notes' of the weapons and other systems. Afterwards, my dad remarked "I doubt those weapons could even fire." From a distance the ships 'looked' great, but up close they could see painted over rust, painted over mechanisms for weapons hatches (also rusted) and other glaring signs that the ships were POS's. And this was only like 2-3 years after the fall of the USSR. And, from the sound of things, the Ruskies haven't improved much.
Well considering the state of their only carrier, and more recently one of their capital ships… it scares me to think about the state of your average Russian destroyer
A few years back I had the opportunity to get a tour of the Cruiser Moskva, before its current state as a future reef. The outside was painted alright, but stepping in felt like a bachelor pad cleaned up 10 minutes before a date.
@@DuraLexSedLex About 11 years ago, went up to Vancouver and saw one of the Moskva’s sisters do a port visit. Didn’t go up to it, but wished I had. Probably as described. They seem to show off those massive weapons.
I was there. I even have a picture of myself with a Russian navy sailor. Those were very optimistic times. Too bad that optimism has become what it is today.
And thank God for that!
Thanks!
The anecdote about having the Kuznetsov's officers over to the USS America reminds me of a similar account/sea story I read from the 1990s (believe it was from a Surface Warfare Officer posted to USS Abraham Lincoln, CVN-72). They had a high-ranking Russian admiral aboard and if I recall correctly were performing flight ops while doing an underway replenishment from their attached AOE or AO which was simultaneously refueling one of the escorts on the other side. By the account, the Russian admiral muttered something in his native tongue and the USN officer assigned as a translator had to stop himself from laughing behind the admiral's back. Apparently the Russian admiral had said something to the effect of "How the hell did we ever think we could win the Cold War?"
Same officer also had a couple other good sea stories; one involving an exercise with B-52s where one passed his cruiser low enough to soak the captain with a rooster tail of spray and another regarding seeing TCS footage from an F-14 that they vectored onto a Russian MiG-25. In the latter case, supposedly when the MiG driver saw the Tomcat the RIO decided to be cute and hold up a sign in Cyrillic that read "Bang, you're dead."
There is a story about a Russian officer/observer on a French warship and they intercepted his "secret" rapport and 4/5 of the rapport was all about how amazingly mind blown he was that he had access to running hot water in his cabin at all times of the day...
During a transit to the Med from Norfolk VA the Saratoga group got word of a major Soviet combatant (Kirov class?) leaving the Med enroute to his homeport near Murmansk. The battlegroup commander and Sara's CAG put together an "airshow" to fly above the Soviets from about 500 to 700 miles away. F-14s and A-6s in the package.
Next day the Soviets repaid the "complement" when we received notification that Northern Fleet air arm Tu-95s were in route to overfly us. Okay so far, not unexpected.
When the Bears showed up one stayed up high and the other dropped down low, both with Tomcats off either side. The "low guy" dropped down very low and flew the length of Sara's flight deck, the carrier's masthead visible ABOVE the Bear, the Tomcats still with him. Then the Bear banked into a left turn, still so low that it appeared that he was going to put a wingtip into the water.
THAT was the only time I have ever heard of Navy fighter pilots backing away from another plane. "Crazy Ivan" leveled his wings and overflew our ship picking up a little altitude passing us above masthead height with the F-14s returning to station off either wingtip.
The Russians have had really bad luck with UnReps. We considered running 200 feet apart at 15 (or more) knots while tied to 2 other ships with steel cables and large hoses as a routine event that happened at least daily, sometimes several times daily, regardless of the time of day or night. Obviously, I was on a Replenishment ship.
For the Russians, this simple (for us) evolution seemed to precipitate every type of engineering, steering, or other casualty possible in a modern ship. Years ago I watched a video of UnRep mishaps in which the Soviet/Russian Navy was featured. Name it. Burst hoses, parted lines, tensioning failures, fire on the supply ship, fire on the receiving ship, one or the other simply going DIW in the middle of the UnRep, crappy stationkeeping, and one apparent failure to remember that a sharp turn to Starboard when the UnRep is complete will put your stern into the Oiler on the Port side.
When a brother was on a Marine Assault Ship, one of his shipmates was decapitated by a parted line during replenishment at sea. Shit happens, even on American ships.
@@dave8599 Oh definitely. Even a modern well-maintained warship with a well-trained crew offers uncountable opportunities to meet your Maker.
The point is that Russian naval vessels are not maintained well, and the crews are not trained well. This leads to an incident count well above what would be considered normal for most navies.
The Russian navy prefers to pull into port to re-supply. For at-sea replenishment, they prefer that both ships be anchored. Their replenishment fleet has one ship with the capabilities of a US AOE/AOR. Most of their UnRep ships are much smaller than ours, much slower, and do not have the rough-sea capabilities. The majority of their UnRep fleet is pushing 50 years old.
1st Rule of Warships, never change the name of a ship. Building a Fleet Aircraft Carrier is "easy" (not really), but Carrier Ops are really hard. The Russians have discovered that, and the Chinese are about to learn the hard way. The US has 100 years of Naval Aviation and Carrier ops, and the first 20 years were a learning experience.
There's actually a quite comical reason for it, they changed it from Riga as it was named after a city in Latvia and they wanted independence from the USSR. Then they changed it from Leonid Brezhnev as it was named after a former Soviet premier form Ukraine, and they wanted independence from the USSR. Then they changed it from Tbilisi as it was named after a city in Georgia and they wanted independence from the USSR. So they named it after the most Russian of Russian men xD
As for the carrier ops thing, it's not an experience issue as they had been using Aviation cruisers for decades it's just they don't have the money to do it properly anymore. Hence having to scrap most of their older ones and selling one to India (who still use it) so they could afford to use the Kuznetsov.
The Soviets changed names of vessels constantly. Submarines often had multiple names.
I can confirm Chinese pilot training attrition rate is horribly bad. Lots of dead would be carrier pilots, most apparently dying while training on shore. Can't confirm if that's true generally in the Chinese air force.
@@QuizmasterLaw Probably being helped by ex RAF and USAF pilots 😎
If you have a virgin piss in the bilge during the renaming ceremony, you can get away with it.
As a former us Navy surface guy, I am delighted to see that Russia still is a global Navy paper tiger.
So many years after WW2, the world still cannot replicate what Nimitz and the boys did to keep ships supplied and on mission.
The USN 2 ocean war is a wonder of the modern world to me.
Yes I'm biased. I may have served but every night I sleep under the blanket of security I have been provided by those before me. I am a grateful man. Blessings to you all!
Wounded kitten. Or in the case of the Navy, a drowning kitten.
It’s staggering how degraded the Russian military is. In 1985 the world considered them a close #2, when Ukraine is all said and done they may not be in the top 10
@@jackof1 At best they are now the second best army, in Ukraine...
@@jackof1 I dont think they're in the top 20 in terms of military competence. I knew they weren't doing too hot prior to Ukraine, however this just shows that they were never ready to fight a war with a competent military force, it was all just posturing and pretending they were still the Red Army.
@@jackof1 post USSR russia was always a paper tiger. with putin at the wheel they dreamt of imperial glory while having a GDP smaller than italy's. the math doesn't make sense - can't run a superpower military on a budget smaller than italy's. that's why there's never money for anything. too many vanity projects not enough funding for any of it. so the first thing that gets cut is unglamorous budget items like training and maintenance.
that's why in UKR they're performing so poorly - complete lack of training even though they're relatively well equipped esp. compared to the ukrainains at the start.
Ward, this video is really extraordinary. Not just its content, but for the sheer journalistic quality of it. Nice job.
There are so many stories about screwups when building ships, but expecting THAT disaster to have any long term functionality is frightening.
That's Russia for ya
I read / heard some things about the Admiral, but your 15 minute video is very informative, pointing out all the weaknesses of this ship. Great, thank you!
Excellent piece Ward (your standard)! Well produced! Appreciate all the work that goes into a complicated production like this podcast.
Ward I remember seeing these tragic fires and damage on the nightly news. However the losses either didn't register or didn't have impact at the time. Seeing this now it first reminded me of the losses my dad saw in his time with 8th USSAF in the UK. The loss was horrific to the US Navy. As teenager it didn't hit home now on my 74th Birthday today Oct. 6th, it hit hard at all these young sailors lost. Thank you for this video may the all be resting peace.
The first Soviet carrier was the KIEV around 1975 - 1976, I was on the USS YARNELL CG 17 and we shadowed the KIEV as soon as it got into the Black Sea for several weeks to gather intelligence . It was a V/STOL type carrier. Their escorts were not happy with our presence . I believe the Kiev is in China as a museum now . BMCS SW ret
Yes, it's a theme park/hotel in Tianjin, China. The Kiev is also been turned into a museum/theme park.
It's gone now, unfortunately.
Caught fire for "unknown" (read: horrendous negligence) reasons and is set to be scrapped.
X-32 and a cameo of Fred Knox on channel Dark Skies. I was a PR in VF-32 and had the pleasure of serving along side you and Mr Knox. After my tour,I returned to civilian life and a few years later saw a documentary on the X-32 on PBS. Mr Knox stands out in my memory because it was well known that he was very intelligent and an excellent pilot.
What a nightmare of a ship for the crew. This video is my first from this channel. It has great historical info and well put together. Subscribed.
"Mazut" is heavy fuel oil used by most navies up to the 1970s, and used in domestic heating in rural areas before natural gas, its usually a heavy oil residue left after the lighter fractions such as gasoline, diesel, naptha etc have all been economically removed. The unique thing about Soviet Mazut was the poor refining of all their oil products meaning their product was full of unremoved hydrocarbons that made it impossible to get the damn stuff to burn nicely, two tanks ostensibly containing the same fuel could have wildly different peak combustion characteristics.
I was in VS 32 at the time and remember when they came onboard, the look on their faces was priceless. One of our LT's spoke Russian and was tasked with being a translator for the embarked Russian staff. Later, he told us some very interesting things the Russians were saying.
When they were on the ship, were they treated to a meal? If there is one thing that can REALLY impact morale and psychology is good, or bad chow. If I were the Capt I would have had the mess crew serve up their best chow, for the whole crew, and invited the Russian big wigs to eat good food along side every day sailors while acting like it was nothing.
What sort of things were they saying hahaha
You cant leave us hanging like that!
@@saf6996 That’s what I’m saying 😂😂
@@shooter7a
The mafia’s finest chicken adobo.
I found out yesterday that Retired Captain, and Naval Aviator Judith Bruner passed away at her home in Annapolis last month at the age of 74. She piloted the P-3 Orion during her 25 year USN and Reserve career. She was the first female commander of a P-3 crew, and was the first woman pilot to fly through the eye of a hurricane. She would go on to work for NASA at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD, from which she retired.
RIP
F
@@WardCarroll Sorry in advance because after, "R.I.P. Capt' Bruner", I'm off-topic, but I wanted to be sure you got notified of this comment: Any chance the WHOLE POINT was to having you host the Russians so that, shoe-on-other-foot, when you saw what rustbucket planes they had such rustbucket carriers...and all that broke-down crap was decommissioned and they ACTUALLY had cutting edge navel aviation gear?!
@@troyevitt2437 "cutting edge"
They focused on things being cheaply made
Think of this, if there's even a pinch of quality, they would have already shown it after a year fighting in Ukraine
R.I.P. Captain Bruner. I went to Greenbelt Junior High, and high school at Eleanor Roosevelt, right down the street from Goddard.
Just when we in the US think our military-industrial complex has issues, here comes Russia for a bit of comic relief! Thank you, Ward!
Our military corruption leads to overpaying for overbuilt, overpowering weapons of war. Russian corruption leads to soldiers having rusty, non-functional guns, copper being stolen out of tanks, and most equipment being generally nonfuctional. Privates steal what they can, supply officers sell anything they can, upper leadership funnels funds into yachts. It's an entire military culture built on being as inefficient and self-serving as possible.
We lost around 58,000 in Vietnam. Russia has done about twice that in Ukraine, in maybe a tenth of the time.
@@satagaming9144 Russian losses in Ukraine aren't surprising, they haven't fundamentally changed how they fight a war since at least 1914. Heavy artillery bombardment followed by human wave tactics of undertrained, underequipped, badly led conscripts. Never mind learn any lessons from 21st century warfare, they haven't even started learning them from the 20th.
I'm sure the rest of the world has a different perspective on this. The American military complex and leadership functions a lot like a modern day empire. Perhaps a professional, well equipped and trained empire, but an empire all the same.
I think the big difference is that Russian corruption results in suffering troops and unrealized military goals, and American corruption results suffering civilians and semi-permanent political instability in the countries they decide to ransack without consequences.
Also, American troops suffer terribly too, but usually after they return from war when sheltered, spoiled, non-serving politicians decide that vets are a financial liability and should take responsibility for themselves (mostly so people who invested money in killing machines can reap a profit)
Just don't mistake America's big, shiny, fancy guns as an indication they are righteous and doing good in the world. They ransack countries that can't defend themselves and forsake their wounded warriors as soon as they return home so billionaires can get richer.
@@Teesquared00 I agree to a large extent, though I would argue the American empire has usually been a benign one in comparison with its rivals and predecessors. It's true that the US invades other countries for geopolitical gain and engages in heavy-handed, hubristic and often futile nation-building projects. However, I do think there's a large difference between attempting to topple an incredibly brutal and already unstable regime (as was the case in Afghanistan and Syria) or intervening on behalf of another nation that's under attack (Yugoslavia and the Gulf War), and entering a country to forcibly drag it into your sphere of influence. I agree that it's a small comfort to the civilians of these places though, who were indeed victims of American war crimes.
As a small aside, it's very questionable what role (if any) acquisition of resources plays as a rationale for recent US-led wars. I believe extending American political and economic influence at the expense of its rivals, mainly China, is its priority. For example, Venezuela has a government hostile to the US, a weak military and a dysfunctional state, and few if any major allies. Yet despite holding the world's largest oil reserves by far, Venezuela was not ransacked as you say.
This is a Ukrainian built ship, not Russian.
Excellent video! Your knowledge and delivery are impeccable. Thank you for your service and your channel.
Did you know that whilst the ship was docked 90% of it’s entire existence, it’s engines are totally spent! The reason is that they left the engines running to provide basic living conditions for the crew whilst being docked! Those are some expensive living quarters if you ask me!
Very nice breakdown of the ships history thanks Mooch. It is amazing how badly the ship was run.
Breakdown is a good word to use in connection with that ship
I'm guessing you mean the very few times it WAS run.
The bits about Mazut fuel are very interesting, since we used another form of it in the U.S, called Bunker C fuel. This is also a bi product of petroleum refining. From the early 1950s until 1970, the Union Pacific Railroad built new locomotives called GTELs or Gas Turbine Electric Locomotives. Yes, railroad locomotives powered by jet engines. These engines were massive, and could generate up to 10,000 horse power under the right conditions. Bunker C was used to power these engines. It had to be strained to get rid of impurities, then preheated. The GTEL program was stopped, in large part, due to the cost increase of Bunker C fuel, and the increasing demand for it by the plastic industry in the production of various plastic products.
Called Bunker "C", blinds you with a smokescreen. I think that was on purpose....
I was about to say, Mazut sounds a lot like Bunker oil which most maritime freighters run on. Wiki says "Naval Mazut" is equivalent to US Bunker A/B and "furnace Mazut" is Bunker C.
Mazut is/was supplied to Belgian homes for heating - in the fall, a tanker would deliver a season's supply - I figure to remote or older homes. Never saw the black smoke, so maybe they used a 'cleaner' variant and/or additives.
It is Bunker C sunblock, prevents skin cancer.
The Union Pacific turbine-powered locomotive project was also abandoned because the turbines were very thirsty even when idling. With rising fuel prices it got to the point that when dropping off just a few cars they shut the turbines down and used conventional diesel power.
Fantastic commentary, video, editing, your personal stories .. thank you for your service and for posting this gem... Long live this great Nation
I liked that you used what seems to be true photos of the ships instead of stock images of random ships and other things. Nice work.
I was in Reactor Department on CVN-71 (Theodore Roosevelt) dead in the middle of her Refueling and Complex Overhaul (RCOH) in the early/mid 2010s. You would be shocked at the amount of overall planned maintenance in terms of $, man-hours, and time put into our Navy ships throughout their life in an effort by Big Navy to have a large percentage our our fleet "battle ready" at any given time. I would guess a ship is in some kind of planned maintenance phase for about 1/3 of its life - not to mention basic upkeep of equipment by sailors and numerous inspections/functional tests of everything while not in an official maintenance phase (pierside/cruising/deployed). Honestly being in the Navy on a ship really boils down to 2 things - training which speaks to ensuring man-power quality and maintenance which speaks to ensuring equipment-quality. It was all a HUGE pain to deal with as a young surface warfare officer but now that I'm out of the Navy I understand better and respect the madness that is the US Surface Navy - well mostly anyway.
Ruzzskies have some clever engineers, however, they are handicapped by sociopathic leaders in a crippling political system... so this was inevitable....
SWO life and community is brutal ... Nothing but respect for you guys
Well, that sounds like a floating, (sort-of), nightmare. I've tried to follow the stories, but Mooch, you broke it all down simply and succinctly. Thank you!
During my career our radar facility hosted a Russian delegation as part of an anti-ballistic missile treaty inspection. We sanitized the facility to include turning off the oscilloscope in the operations center, which displayed the radar frequency and waveform. They were a friendly group of communist chaps who enjoyed the many packs of American cigarettes at the end of the buffet line.
For some reason this reminded me of something from fairly long ago, I was in the Finnish army, and our relationship with the Russians is not very well known but there is a fair bit of mischief going on. A number of years ago we switched from using voice comms on radio to encrypted text, and not long after this we had a very good interservice exercise spanning like a week or so, and oopsie daisy one of the new encryption terminals went missing. This resulted in the single biggest witch hunt and an unholy amount of butthurt that I think happened in the last 50yrs, what happened is fairly well known unofficially - by which I mean privates might not know the story, but about everyone with brass on their collar did... A Lada with Russian accented mushroom pickers showed up at one remote post acting very friendly, then disappeared in an odd hurry, apparently with the encrypted text terminal thing in their pocket...
@@hb1338 Not sure it has any relevance at this point, or at any point the last 20yrs or so, all those terminals were upgraded afterwards as far as I know, and other procedures regarding them were updated to prevent this from happening again like that. I don't think we applied to join NATO, if we did that would be quite far down the list of stuff to worry about heh, apart from the airforce there is zero gear interoperability, and close to zero in terms of default tactics and further even down to command structure etc which is a much bigger deal I'd think. But I don't know what's going on now, I left in 2001, so whatever happened after then I don't know almost anything about except for what's public info.
Impressed by USN carrier capabilities in Desert Storm, 1990-91, the Soviet Union began construction of a carrier of their own in 1985. Wow!!!!
I noticed that
There's probably some sort of time machine we are just unaware of
@@arhabersham In Soviet Russia, the military controls time itself (but is still unable to reliably power an aircraft carrier though).
We conducted flight ops and SAR demonstration with Kuznetsov in the summer of 1996 (Med Cruise) when she was anchored off of Tunisia. I flew in the KA-27 and we had their pilot fly in our SH-60B. Our Ship USS SAN JACINTO (CG-56) hosted their surface officers and we showed them our UNREP capabilities. My OIC flew in the KA-27 from San Jack to Kuznetsov the day when we completed a combined SAR Demo.
I was aboard USS Monterey for the combined operations with USS American and the Kuznetsov. Got to land our SH-60B aboard Kuznetsov, and brought some of them to USS Monterey for tour & chow. At that point, we all thought we had gotten past any significant chance of a war with them. Yet where we are today. 😢
The last thing anyone in any military wants to do is go to war... militaries around the world should be disbanded, in their place a mutually agreed to island be designated/named "Last Resort", when the political leadership of two or more countries have a serious disagreement, twenty five members of those governments are taken to the islands with equal amounts of weapons and ammunition, whom ever survives is declared the victor and exercises whatever agreement was made. Yeah, I know, will never happen...
After Stalin's purge of the intellectuals (anyone smarter than him) Russian national expertise still has yet to recover. Smart Russians emigrated knowing that one day the rulers would once again do something stupid and deadly.
Russians will never change. Their neighbors know this that's why they have been preparing for them to act up again.
What a fantastic video, I'm so glad YT recommended it to me! I've been reading news about Kuznetsov for quite a while now, always laughing, but I've been hoping for a serious analysis of the topic for a long time!
We shadowed the Kuznetsov off Ireland on its way to the med when it spilled its oil and on return later. They denied it all obviously. We called it up the first time and asked were they flying aircraft off the deck as we were going to inspect them. They took a while to answer and said no they had no aircraft flying and to stay 5km away. We performed our pass anyhow as we were entitled to meanwhile tracking a Kamov helicopter on our FLIR despite them saying no aircraft flying. On its return we went out to meet it again but received a HF comms message from Shannon ATC to say 4 SU-33’s were heading our way. We fire walled the throttles and got out of dodge and RTB’d. Didn’t want to be bumped by ‘accident’.
Are you with the Irish Navy or Royal Navy if you do not mind me asking?
Before Sweden joined NATO Ireland should have bought a lot of Swedish kit to uphold Irish sovereignty and fend off Russian intrusions into Ireland's exclusive economic zone. The Gripen fighter and Saab 340 AEW&C or Globaleye, Visby-class corvettes and Gotland-class submarines, etc. It would have been interesting for Sweden, Finland, Austria, and Switzerland to have joined Ireland in a de facto neutral democratic bloc, perhaps looser than NATO but sharing the same mostly Swedish equipment, training etc.
GREAT POST! Very factual, and interesting. Thank you.
I was aboard HMS Brazen in 1990/91. We followed Kusnetzov for a month it was December if I remember correctly. We followed it through the English channel, upto the arctic circle. We had a special domed camera flown out for our lynx helicopter. We photographed every inch of that ship. I remember one of their KA 27's tried to land on our flight deck. We frantically signalled to them that their helicopter was too big to land. So they hovered above and lowered down 2 bottles of vodka for our captain. I think my details are correct I could have been aboard HMS Jupiter though.
Ah that's pretty cool man. Better time of hope I guess.
That's really interesting, my father was on HMS Brazen at around the same time, he left the RN in 1993, but he also served on HMS Chatham and HMS Illustrious during his 7 year stint.
@@Mmjk_12 What was his job and name? Ask him about it. I was on Illustrious too for 6 months but it was in "mothballs" at the time.
@@Mmjk_12 maybe don't post about your application for much longer on public forums ;) you never know who's looking for their next intelligence target.
@@Kyoptic Yeah, in hindsight I have no idea why I did that. Luckily the only instance I've revealed it haha.
8:56
Man your Russian accent had me rollin!!
Having been in the U.S. Navy and stationed out of Rota, Spain during the 1980’s-1990’s I can recall many of the same places you’ve been deployed to.
You definitely bring back some great memories as you speak about your experiences from this time.
Thanks for sharing, the wardrobe and of course the accent!
🙏🇺🇸✌🏽
Cheers from Russia! I was a bit apprehensive about watching these videos of yours, you know, even if you have some strong opinions on your own country, hearing someone from outside talking shit about it is disheartening. But I've actually enjoyed your analysis, and I commend you on your very professional and respectful tone.
Greetings from the United States, we have our own problems as well, but I get what you are saying. Some of your aircraft however are quite good, and among my most favorite planes. Too bad our leaders can’t have a peaceful conversation like we can.
@@usauk3605 to be fair, as a Russian I always envied US for having your Navy to quite decent size, tech and, well, general design - ships are beautiful, and I definitely adore the late WW2 battleships, which you made into museums.
Here, in Russia kinda hard to build a navy when you always have your whole western border open for the invasions - no natural barriers like mountains, uninhabited deserts or anything so up to the introduction of nuclear weapons and WW2 end pushing border as far to the west as only possible was a matter of survival and security. Last time, Russia failed to do that, resulted in demographic loss of 27 Million, most economically developed part of the country levelled to rubble and new armed stand off with the former allies in a war. So, yep, here Army always came first and Navy was historically built in a rush for some kind of regional strategic operation to then be lost due to low maintenance and general lack of resources - old tradition since Peter the Great.
@mdokuch96 Yeah, America is in a totally different strategic situation, as we depend on a large, up to date navy to project power pretty much anywhere outside the Western Hemisphere. As you said, Russia has a large land border, thus allowing your country to be invaded by land. All we have to worry about is Canada and Mexico, so not a lot of danger there. You guys have some decent ships, but as you said, your leadership never bothers to maintain them. Still, Russian military equipment is some of my favorite in the world, and I wish our two countries could stop arguing with each other.
@@mdokuch96 „have your whole western border open for invasions“ ironically since WW2 the invasions always came from Russia, every, single, time. Maybe the problem isnt the border, but the urge to be invasive even thought the army is lame…
@@usauk3605 Canada and Mexico sounds good comapared to us in Europe living on the same continent with Russia that sadly doesn't understand what the phrases "state border" and "sovereign state" mean.
It's always a really bad idea to have just one of anything because what you end up with is all the development costs, all the delays and costs associated with repairing defects, and all the costs of setting up the logistics and support to service a single point of failure. One Russian aircraft carrier, (yeah I know a second was being built, but 1 in service) one dockyard, one dry dock etc. The French have the same with their nuclear aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, the Ukrainians with their Antonov AN 225. As the saying goes, "we have learned from our mistakes and can repeat them precisely"!
Ukraine has 0 An225.
@@donreed did I? Completely forgotten to be honest. Sounds from your post that you're a victim of domestic abuse and your wife has anger management issues.....(don't tell her I said that).😉
@@donreed That actually is the whole reason for polygamy in Islam. If wife #1 cant make kids then they get wife #2, #3, or #13
It was a part of a ship-building programme, with a sisterships improving one after another. The third one, Ul'yanovsk, with it's construction started near the SU breakup, was intended to trade the ramp for steam-powered launchers, and the next one was supposed to have nuclear power
Some time ago I volunteered at a community maritime center that included a large ship simulator used for training maritime pilots and other missions. On Saturdays, we would open the simulator to the general public and I would spend several hours alongside other volunteers letting anyone who wished take an 87' USCG cutter, an Arleigh Burke-class DDG, or any of several commercial vessels out for a (simulated) spin. Being on the west coast, we had very detailed simulations of the ports of Seattle and San Francisco, as well as the Inland Passage. The young ones especially enjoyed driving either of the military vessels, and we'd set them out in Elliott Bay and give them various ship targets to intercept, or set up force ten gales in sight of the Space Needle. For some reason the simulation package included a ship target of the TAKR Adm. Kuznetsov, so we'd throw that out in the shipping lanes and send folks to intercept, usually giving rise to comments from the adults in the room to the effect of "I think we're going to lose this fight." But from the sounds of it here, even the cutter could take on this wreck. Thanks for another excellent video.
Sounds like the deadliest strike you could do on it would be to hit the tugboat.
@@spodula yeah, a few well-placed .50 rounds and you'd part the tow lines I expect.
@@djcfrompt Good luck with idea that few .50 rounds are able to cut a steel cable that would be used to tow a ship of this size...
"But from the sounds of it here, even the cutter could take on this wreck. " sound that you forgot the begining of the movie where extra armament of the ship was showed -> that is there to make it look more like a heavy cruiser... that Granit missiles can deliver a 500kT warhead -> stuff that leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki was in 20kT range...
@@Bialy_1 In theory, it has that capability. Remember the Moskva, though. 1/6 of the main guns worked, the radar was kept off most of the time, and the emergency gear was kept locked to prevent sailors from stealing it.
If Kuznetsov was the best-maintained ship in the Russian Navy it could still be a floating husk with empty missile tubes and rusted pipes.
Excellent mini-documentary; its very satisfying listening to people who actually know what they are talking about
Ward, thank you for your fantastic content. Not only is the information first rate, the delivery style is top notch. Your presentations feel like military briefings, concise, specific, on-point, and comprehensive of the subject.
Can you please give us profiles on the Chinese carriers? My impression is that they have done more with the Kuznetsov Class ships than the Russians themselves.
Thanks again for everything you're doing!
th-cam.com/video/sdtF4ntndW0/w-d-xo.html
This was the best update and history for a foreign power’s vessel I’ve ever seen. I’ve heard stories about this vessel and even wondered why the Chinese had one that looked like a twin. I enjoy your videos Mr. Carroll.
Not everything, but a ton of China's vehicles, weapons, and equipment are based of Soviet designs even today. The Russians are still facing issues with China copying their kit with accusations of IP theft being aimed at even relatively recent aircraft. The Cold War was full of cases of China importing and then copying Soviet built gear which is why even during the early days of the PRC the Soviets hesitated sending WMDs and nukes to China and why they even limited sending them civilian nuclear tech, China's first nuclear weapon program was even named "Project 596" which referenced a supposed "betrayal" by the USSR for not sending them a nuclear bomb.
@@arthas640the best form of flattery is being imitated
Ward, fantastic recap of Russian’s carrier aviation calamity.
I was the final America CV-66 Air Boss during her last deployment and remember the Russian visit quite well. The 30-plane launch was the brainchild of the Handler to demonstrate our sortie generation capability and what a 30-year-old carrier could do, ergo 30 for 30! The astonishing work of the deck spot throughout the night was extraordinary and we wanted to blow the Russian Visitors away and DID! The launch took less than 10 minutes. ADM Kasatonov could not believe what he was seeing and was absolutely thunderstruck, which was our intent. His biggest question to me was about the significance of the colored jerseys on the flight deck. I explained the jobs they performed but what blew him away the most was the fact the average age of sailors on the flight deck was south of 20 years old. Hell - that fact still amazes me to this day in carrier aviation. On that day in January 1996 - “WE ROCKED THE BOAT”
I was a Scoutmaster for 12 years. It used to be that the BSA tried to prepare these young boys for responsibilities, but somewhere along the way they kept lowering their expectations. It didn't help being badgered by the Left's army of activists, but who can withstand an onslaught of lawyers and lawsuits?
@@markthomas207 with all due respect ,wtf?
Thank you, Ward! That was a fascinating history that I would probably never have learned about but for your channel.
My pleasure!
OUTSTANDING video, sir. Informative and very well researched. Thank you!
Comrade Ward, I thank you for the interesting video. All solid information. Take care.
Great history lesson, Mooch! Keep 'em coming!
Thank you, Ward for your videos! It's an absolute pleasure to have a history lesson given by someone who has actually been there!
Also remember that the evaporators supply boiler feed water. While they should have reserve feed water, it is still a limited suppy, and when it runs out, you aren't going much farther.
Fascinating story of the Kuznetsov, and the addition of your own personal experiences is super neat!
I served on the USS Wichita AOR-1 in the early 80s. We accomplished refuel and supply along side, maybe 200 feet apart from our customer, at 10-15 knots. We got to watch a Soviet refueling. They slowed to steerage, the speed at which you still have control of your rudder against the currents, tossed the refueling hose over the side with the customer following closing behind. Who then had to capture the hose and haul it aboard, attach it to a flange, yea nuts and bolts, we used a quick couple device much like in air refueling on aircraft. And steam powered winches in 1980, ours were electro-hydraulic. Our technology / techniques easily 30 years in advance if not more, than theirs.
I was in engineering/GSM on DDs and DDGs. Was up topside while unrep was underway early days before moving on to the engine rooms then to CCS. We had our stuff together back then for sure as the giver and taker of the fuel. We practiced a lot though due to having to take on fuel frequently as gas turbine ships. I always enjoyed the flank 3 break aways and playing the break away song loud within and outside the ship on the 1MC !
I went into the Navy shortly after the Soviet collapse. I was stationed in Yokosuka Japan aboard the U.S.S. Bunker Hill CG-52. We would occasionally come across, now Russian, ships while sailing around Southeast Asia. I had to laugh at the idea that the U.S. was at all concerned about the Soviet navy. At first I thought they were painted brown but it was rust. I can’t comprehend how they were floating. They looked a little intimidating with a bunch of missile tubes and missile pods, guns everywhere. They definitely adopted the “throw enough shit at the wall and some of it will stick” strategy.
You sure it was rust then?
Now the rust is on another carriers and cruisers trying to hide from the Russian Navy, and they are not even chased yet!!
@@Jimmy_Jones Its most likely correct what he's saying
The Russians and late Soviet's were known for very poor maintenance, the Moskva was also very rusty according to Ukranian sources when they sank her
@@bubamaranovichok4901 YEAH, RIGHT Comrade. Go Back To Your Bottle Of Vodka And Sleeping In The Streets.
Thank you for your service sir. I did 6 years as a Cryptologist in the US Navy and our service times overlapped and I had noticed the same thing. Why we even thought the Russian navy was a threat was not easily understood. I guess if we played up the threat Congress would give the contractors money to build new toys. One of our carriers (I wanna say the Carl Vincent but I'm not sure) at some point followed the Kuznetzov to it's port. Not trailing it to keep a watch on it but to pick up the Russian sailors if they had to abandon ship because the Kuznetzov was on fire in multiple places. It has a 100% perfect record in the Med--every time it has entered the Med it breaks down. It also has a tug permanently assigned to it's battle group.
I was ships company on the USS Theodore Roosevelt from 86 to 90 as an Aviation Ordnanceman, a Mag Rat in the G-3 Weapons division. I missed being a Plank Owner by 1 month. When we did our first cruise it was up in the North Sea as part of a large NATO exercise. My first port of call was Wilhelmshaven Germany. Of course we had the Russian Bears do their normal flyby with our Tomcats in trail, but when the Kirov steamed into view one day, the size of that thing was like seeing an island moving by. And from what I remember, they had a medical emergency that they were unable to deal with, so they transported him and their doctor over to us for surgery. I had been sent up to the bomb farm to repair an arming wire that had gotten damaged on a Mk 84 and saw their helicopter land on our deck and they placed the whole stretcher and medics on a weapons elevator and lowered them to sickbay. For 10 hours the Kirov was cruising in formation along side our own battle group. I am not sure of the outcome, I think they saved him. It made our evening news that they showed internally and the newspaper we also circulated, call the "Rough Rider" based on Theodore Roosevelt. Everything was named around him. The forward mess deck was called "San Juan Grill". But I do remember them doting on the Glasnost aspect and a demonstration of the new cooperation between our countries. Never saw the Kuznetsov. But their ships are a whole different look than ours. Like Tom Clancy said, "say what you want to about Ivan, they sure do make 'em pretty"
Did they name any of the armaments on the ship Big Stick Diplomacy? Or one of the decks with amenities for the crew the Square Deal?
Gotta love Teddy "Rough Rider" Roosevelt. He was one of if not the greatest of all time US presidents, or GOATUS if you will.
That's a great story! Glad you guys were in a position to help.
Man red storm rising was such a good book
I readed the hunt for Red October😂
I am simple human, i see kunetzov,i laugh.
As a resident of Istanbul I remember watching the incomplete sister ship's towing through the bosphorus straight as a teenager. At the time it was known that Chinese were purchasing the ship however I remember vaguely that the public info was that they were planning to turn the ship into a "theme partk" or "entertainment ship".
And that's the start of a whole other chapter! Do a quick search on the origins of the Chinese Air craft carrier...it's crazy!
They turned it into a floating casino.
@@geopolitix7770 terrorist country Turkey blacklish China for 1 billion money
There’s a video on it, they did exactly that.
I got to see the classified version of "Soviet Sea Power" in the late 80's while serving on board the USS John Adams (SSBN 620 G). We knew our weapons systems worked. We launched 4 SLBM's of the coast of Cape Canaveral. Proud and sobering moment for me.
The reason why the US has millions of missiles is due to the fact that he old systems are used for testing and training.
So a missile that is nearing its best by date will be used to see if it works.
Wow...a competent speaker with great presentation skills. My next Patreon.
Fun Fact, Kuznetsov when deployed always accompanied by huge tugboat simply because it something goes wrong, she simply dragged by tug boat towards nearest friendly port to fix her problem.
Small question. Why you call big battleships "Her" or "She"?
Because for me it is "IT", or he (Admiral Kuznetsov was male? for example). Ofc I am not native English Speaker (learner).
Nautical tradition to refer to ships as “she.”
@@wahoodza2454 in english speaking nation, ship usually refers as "She"
@@ipritch23i93 , @Ernest Jay. Thx alot. Very interesting... and strange for me. ))
Which is not a surprise to anyone who actually watched the video, and heard Ward say that quite clearly in his narration. And fun fact, it didn't "ALWAYS" have the tug accompanying it - another thing you would know if you watched the video.
A great video, thanks Ward, a lot of information that I never knew about the Kuznetsov and its operations or lack thereof! I went down to the south coast of the UK when it made its passage to see the legendary smoke plume when it made its passage, my God, I wasn't disappointed! It could be seen from over the horizon, I think they either shut it down and towed it or it broke down and was towed. My vantage point was near Dover almost the narrowest point of the Channel. It was a floating disaster, I pity its crew.
Most Russian naval ships have regular disease outbreaks because the service systems on board are incapable of operation.
SO simple things like toilets and showers do not work properly. Water storage systems are corroded, leaky and prone to cause health issues. Captains of the ship probably have a seperate water system that has been fitted.
In a major war none of those ships would work or be capable. The Chinese Navy is not much better and is incapable of travelling more than a few hundred miles from their coastlines. Their best and most active ships maybe 500 miles if many issues were to be ignored.
Most impressed by the guys ability to carry all those medals
Yah, I wondered about that myself. They're like the N Korean brass; ain't been in a national conflict for over a half century but their chests are full of medals. haha
If any US navy carrier was found to be in even half as much neglect as that carrier the admiral and everybody remotely involved would’ve been court martialed and a massive maintainance check on everything in ever carrier would’ve been enforced
The difference is the US has the GDP to afford a budget to maintain its vessels. The Russians dont
I agree, plus I would not buy a Russian toaster let alone one of their ships.
BaH! Safety standards are for people who can retire later. In soviet Union you dont retire.
American government contracting his its flaws but there's one area it's good at: contract specifications. If what you deliver doesnt match specs in your contract if they want to they can make you make a new one for the agreed upon amount and not pay for the defective one or fix it up to mandated specs at your cost. I worked in government contracting for awhile, both civilian and military, and if we installed the wrong _part_ we could be forced to replace it at our cost and do it at overtime to get it done _now_
@@rustillthere.5024 You can always buy some US planes. They cannot fly though :D
Love that you did it wearing a soviet uniform
The comically large epaulets always amuse me :)
As a schoolboy brought up in Portsmouth a British naval base we got to visit all the ships from various nations. They were all similar but the thing that struck me was how lousy was the welding in the Russian ships. The thought struck me that these ships could fall apart in a storm. Regards, Jim in NI UK
Hence why the Royal Navy would wipe out the Russian Navy in battle. Britain has a naval culture that goes back several centuries Russia has none.
The reason for this is that Britain is a Island nation and Russia is a frozen coastline nation with very few ports.
I remember the Navy Days in the 80s! Can't remember off the top of my head if there were any Soviet boats there though. I don't know whether my father or myself were more excited... I think that my mum and brother were less so...
They couldn't fit the big US nuclear carriers into the harbour and IIRC it was a near-run thing when the Iowa visited - that would have been an interesting day to sit in the Still & West.
@@bighands69 The British navy is woefully under equipped. You don’t have an empire anymore, stop pretending
@@jophussaurus2450
British Naval culture existed before the rise of Empire and will still exist after it has gone.
Island cultures have strong naval presence that are built through culture over several centuries. Just as the Egyptian culture was built around the Nile river system or Swiss culture is shaped by the mountains that surround it.
Italy has a strong naval presence in the mediterranean because of the way the country forms a peninsula that juts deep into the med.
Just because most of this goes over your head does not mean it is not happening.
Thank you for sharing amazing stories! Thank you for your service!
Friends worked on an old boat that ran on Bunker-C, pretty similar to that Hazmut"stuff. I was given to believe that if the tar was sufficiently heated to lower the viscidity, then filtered to within an inch of its life, it would burn smoothly and cleanly.
Sure. Oilers on ancient freighters during WW2 managed to get their dubious sourced oil to burn cleanly. Otherwise U-Boote would spot them. Its a task but it can be done
Great video, Ward! So cool hearing your stories and what you have done...thank you for your service and love the uniform, comrade!
I like the footage of the vf102 f14B getting launched. Strokes the burner half way down the cat stroke and clearing turn... nah just go vertical. Very cool! That sukhoi test pilot must have been wondering how he could transfer navies after that demo.
I love how an aircraft carrier can legally not be an aircraft carrier by just changing the name
When I was courting what would become my future wife (and now Ex), she lived and worked in Murmansk. She did belly dancing on the side and got to perform for the carrier's crew when it made a port of call. All she could talk about was how the hangar deck smelled horribly like a sewer and made her eyes water. I smile thinking about that now.
Now that it's in the past or now that she's your ex? 😛
Thank you for this, sir! Very, very enlightening, especially the ties to the Liaoning and the PLA-N carrier.
Thank you sir, for providing insights such as the full name of this vessel and some of the technical details. While she may have the reputation as the worst flat top afloat, she’s still an interesting piece of naval history.
Solid channel. Non-existent drama. Hard Facts.
Subscribed.
I feel bad for the sailors who had to deal with that ship.
but the sailors did not feel bad shooting at civilians
@@virusnjk Maybe they did feel bad?
Or anyone who had to deal with that ship.
Hehe, just to remind you that nobody's perfect...
".....U.S. Navy's $13 Billion Warship Gerald R. Ford Sows Doubt It Can Defend Itself - Bloomberg....."
@@tokyo.peking carriers aren’t supposed to be able to defend themselves, that’s what their escorts are for.
Thanks - this was fascinating!!! As a ship lover, what a tragedy for the Kuznetsov...
Thanks Mooch, these updates are some of your best content sir...keep it up. PS ~ Were you on the Lincoln in Spring/Summer of 1995, I refueled some Tomcats and got some pictures from the KC135 if you would like them. We even got cleared on one mission to do a 1,000 foot abeam, 1,000 AGL pass on the boat port side...got those pictures too. ~Juice
Let's be honest. Even if the Russians manage to get Kuznetsov operational again, it's only a matter of time before another fire breaks out from yet more outrageous Russian incompetence.
When I was in the Royal Navy in the 60s and 70s, boilers burned FFO - Furnace Fuel Oil - which seems to have been very similar to Mazut, and used for the same 3 reasons as the Russians used it - it was cheap, inexpensive, and didn't cost much. It was horrible stuff and stank to high heaven. It was so dirty the chief of the watch had to blow soot every 4 hours, and as a result everything on the upper deck aft of the funnel was coated in thick black soot. The director for the missile system I maintained was situated in such an area, and ventilation for the electronics rack drew air in from outside - imagine the effect of black soot laden air being drawn over high voltage electronics - soot is conductive!
It did have an amusing side. Entering Tonga for the coronation in 1967 the crew lined the side in their best white uniforms ("procedure alpha"). As we approached the anchorage just off the capital Nuku’alofa a light shower of rain meant we ended up looking like Dalmatians . That was 4th July 1967. On 4th July 1976 I was again in full whites in the Hudson river for the US Bicentennial.
In the early 70's the navy switched to burning diesel. Much cleaner, and soot only needed blowing every 24 hours.
I was a Surface Line LT deployed in the Med. Our CO thought it would be cool for everybody to be in whites, with swords, so COMSIXTH Flt, on another DD refueling port side to could see how impressive our refueling was. Unfortunately, the forward transfer fuel line popped out of the refueling trunk and sprayed black fuel over everybody. Memorable! It took 6 months to be reimbursed by the Navy for replacement whites.
I saw the Tall Ships in 1976. It was quite a sight. It usually doesn't look like that. Was something when it did though. The Hudson was just packed full of ships.
As a 17 year old apprentice ERA (Engine Room Articifer) in the RCN in the very early 1960's, one of the early-in-the-training 'get your feet wet' exercises was to "butterworth" (coat the inside of the tank spaces with a margarine-like grease) a previously steamed out bunker fuel tank. To say that "bunker fuel" was dirty stuff would be a huge understatement. Encountering dead rats in those tanks was not uncommon, along with all sorts of other junk that got pumped in along with the bunker fuel. That job ranked only slightly below cleaning out the Babcock & Wilcox "boiler mud-drums". We were allowed to sign up at the age of 17 with parental permission due to that course requiring us to sign a 7 year hitch and graduating after 39 months of training in Machinist, Marine Diesel, and Stationary engineer trades as a Trade Group 3 - PO2 and not seeing any sea duty for those first 3 years & 3 months of service. A good program that was required to keep pace with the RCN upgrading from WWII tech. Sad to say it all went sideways once politicians like Trudeau senior decided the requirement for a functioning military was a luxury ancillary of low import.
@@brustar5152well I was a CEA apprentice on my first ship Sirius, in Tonga, and especially Fiji. A good run ashore Inthe South Pacific!
@@brustar5152 writing as a fellow tiffy - "artificer"...
I recall watching a You Tube video on the topic of the Russian submarine fleet. They were interviewing an American naval officer who said " I kind of feel bad for those boys. They will typically leave port with 20% of the equipment that is not functional. We don't leave the dock if there is no milk in the fridge" 🤣
Thanks for the history lesson. I first thought the picture showed her blowing tubes as we had to for NSFO. Leave it to the Soviets to make a fuel even worse. My carrier experience as ships company was Bon Homme Richard CVA31, Midway CV41 and Oriskany CVA34. All prior to and during Vietnam. Please keep posts like this coming.
A bit of trivia for you. Jim Morrison's father commanded the Bon Homme Richard at one time.
My dad served in Vietnam on the CV-61 Ranger and he always had a low opinion of Soviet vehicles. He grew up during the Cuban Missile Crisis and during a time when "duck and cover" drills were done often in school, his dad even had a bomb shelter so as a child he feared Soviet bombers. In Vietnam one day they got a warning of a "Brown Bear" aka a Tu-95 bomber flying overhead so he rushed to get a look at it and it changed his opinion on Soviet engineering for the rest of his life. He said "it looked like an ancient WW2 that was about ready to drop out of the sky. Any one of the fighters we had onboard could have shot it down easily". Russia's still flying a prop bomber nearly 70 years after the US switched to jet bombers.
Great background, thanks Ward !
Man i love this guy! He's neutral and just talkes about the subject at hand and gives you good information about it...good job 👍
He's also good at keeping a straight face. There must have been moments there where he was tempted to insert remarks like "and your not going to F***ing believe THIS but..."
@@geopolitix7770 👍👍👍
He is far from neutral, but I do agree with the video that this ship is a piece of junk.
I also understand that the ski jump, due to the slow takeoff speed, significantly reduces the weapons load that the Russian and Chinese planes can carry when compared to catapult launched aircraft. Of course this makes them less capable and effective.
kinda defeats the whole purpose of an aircraft carrier prolly
Aircraft are supposed to be vehicles that efficiently get the payload where it needs to be, where then the "2nd stage" takes over and delivers the rest of the payload for the last mile.
If ur aircraft cant really carry a shit ton to begin with, you might aswell just spam a bunch of long range missiles on a destroyer.
Thats what the USSR has tried to do I think, but it looks like Russia didnt catch the memo
@@honkhonk8009 don't hurry to understimate SU27 ancestors (Su 33 as I remember, current main board planes). Even half load for this planes is almost equal to f18 full load. It is really good planes.
But corruption, stealing, alcoholism, idiotism, stupidity makes all this paper characterestics even worse for any expectations. Ond ofc overall number of planes is not comparable to US even close.
Mooch, thank you very much for this breakdown of the history of the Admiral Kuznetsov. Your information and the "Sea Stories" both you and my fellow viewers add is wonderful.
Very nice uniform ... should we call you Vice Admiral 'Mooch'? 😉
I hope you and yours had a safe and Happy New Year.
Kuznetsov to Liaoning and Shandong: "Hello, my sisters who changed nationality to Chinese"
Liaoning and Shandong: "Hello, our defunct and complicated sister. We are the much better versions of you."
Mean girls. lol.
Shandong is more of a clone of liaoning than a true sister of the kuznetsov