Russian Nuclear Submarines Near USA Coastline!
Chess Gator
From Times Online
August 5, 2009
Shades of Cold War as Russian submarines spotted off US east coast
Russian akula
(Military-Today.com)
A Russian akula submarine. Two were spotted off the east coast of the
US
Michael Evans, Defence Editor
The shadow of the Cold War has returned to the US coastline with the
first detection in 15 years of Russian nuclear-powered submarines
operating offshore.
Together with the irregular appearance of Bear strategic bombers in
international airspace close to the US and the UK, the emergence of
two Akula class submarines off the US east coast - described by a
Russian general as “a normal patrol” - has reawakened concerns about
Moscow’s military aims.
The Royal Navy declined to say whether it had any evidence of Akula
submarines returning to their Cold War haunts in the Iceland Gap,
north of Scotland. “We don’t want to let them know that we know where
they are operating,” one defence official said.
Commodore Stephen Saunders, a former submarine commander and editor of
Jane’s Fighting Ships, said it was unlikely that Russian nuclear boats
had ever gone away. However, he added: “The Russian Navy has been
suffering from neglect for years, to such an extent that a Russian
Navy commander admitted in June that they might have to buy ships from
abroad.”
“So the arrival of Akula class submarines off the US eastern seaboard
is as much a political move by the Russian Navy as a military one,
although these deployments would always have to be approved from high
up,” he said. “It’s unquestionably the Russian Navy trying to raise
its profile.”
One of the two submarines spotted off the US was an Akula II, a more
recent version of the class which first came into service in the
mid-1980s. Akula II class vessels are the quietest of Russian nuclear-
powered attack submarines. Their construction started in 1991 but
development work was suspended due to lack of funding. But the cash
was found in the 2007 defence budget and sea trials started in October
last year.
Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of staff of the Russian Armed Forces,
said the submarine patrols had restarted in 2007 after the order had
been issued by Vladimir Putin, then the Russian president, for the
strategic bomber patrols to be relaunched. RAF Typhoon and Tornado
aircraft, part of quick-reaction alert units based in the UK, have had
to scramble to chase away Bear bombers on a number of occasions since
2007 when they first started to approach close to British
internationally-recognised airspace.
US officials said the two newly-detected submarines had done nothing
yet to provoke significant concern. One of the Akula submarines was in
international waters about 200 miles off the US coast; the location of
the other was not released. However, a US Pentagon official told the
New York Times: “Any time the Russian Navy does something out of the
ordinary, it is cause for worry. We’ve known where they were, and
we’re not concerned about our ability to track the subs, but we’re
concerned just because they are there.”
Norman Polmar, an American naval historian and submarine warfare
expert told the paper: “I don’t think they \ have put two first-line
nuclear subs off the US coast in about 15 years.”
Last year, in another sign of the Russian Navy trying to return to its
old ways, the battle cruiser, Pyotr Velikiy, sailed to the Caribbean
to participate in naval exercises with the Venezuelan Navy, along with
the destroyer, Admiral Chabanenko, and other support ships. It was the
first significant show of military force in that region since the end
of the Cold War.
Commodore Saunders said the Russians were trying to build a new
generation of nuclear ballistic-missile submarines but that at present
they had failed to develop a missile that worked. The Russians have
carried out several aborted tests on a new Bulava submarine-launched
strategic missile.
The most recent flight test, carried out on July 16, ended in the
missile veering off course and blowing up in mid-flight after being
launched from a submarine in the White Sea. It was the sixth test of
the Bulava missile to fail since 2005.
Bert Hyman
news:ad701956-c29f-45f9...@b14g2000yqd.googlegroups.com
Chess Gator <chess...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The shadow of the Cold War has returned to the US coastline with the
> first detection in 15 years of Russian nuclear-powered submarines
> operating offshore.
So the Russians get to bankrupt themselves again, this time without the
rest of the "union" to support them?
--
Bert Hyman St. Paul, MN be...@iphouse.com