Project 877/636: Kilo class SSK

Well you have answered your own question... if it can only go through for repairs that is clearly why it went through... they probably needed to replace a few nuts and bolts that are in storage in Tartus...

If it goes to Syria for some missile launches first and/or to do some faux 'repairs' at Tartous they're endangering the convention.

Well would you not say they endangered the convention by putting missiles on Kiev class carriers and Kuznetsov class carriers and calling them aircraft carrying missile cruisers?


Plus... who cares if they do send a US carrier group to the Black Sea.... can you say fish in a barrel?

Well yes Turkey has let it through apparently without protest -> presumably they've had the appropriate discussion & Turkey must have been convinced that its for genuine repairs.
Russia should stick to whatever agreement was made & not try to pull a quick-one, pissing off Turkey at a time that its being more friendly than its been for a very long time would be an incredibly stupid move.

Its my understanding that there were fairly significant negotiations between Turkey & USSR over the Kiev class & K used that precedent.

Plus... who cares if they do send a US carrier group to the Black Sea.... can you say fish in a barrel?

The Black Sea is one of the only major salt-water areas where US navy has been seriously constrained over a long time & its by a treaty the US can't just withdraw from.
It makes no sense to endanger that constraint just to launch a few Kalibrs at Al Queda.

It makes no sense to endanger that constraint just to launch a few Kalibrs at Al Queda.

2 out of 6 Black sea fleet 636 boats are permanently based at Tartus, so Krasnodar wasn't needed for that. It's a signal of toughness, probably directed at the US with their recent destroyer deployments to the Black and Baltic seas and the Trident Juncture 2018. They also need to show some muscles to Erdogan, beacause he's not implementing Idlib peace process. If Russia was afraid of him it would lose him quicker than if not respecting him enough. It is a world superpower and needs to behave accordingly.

Russia has been talking to Turkey more in the last few years that for a very long time before that, they have various agreements that seriously benefit Turkey, and they are cooperating on sorting out Turkeys neighbour Syria, which is of serious concern to Turkey... I would suspect this move isn't just for shits and giggles, and certainly wont be a power move to one up the US or show Turkey who is boss, because Russian is really not in a position to actually do that.

I rather suspect it is moving to Tartus to increase their fire power in terms of long range unmanned attack capacity on targets in Syria that both Russia and Turkey want to see pummelled, so Turkey has her eyes open and are happy to agree.

Having an extra launch platform available means more intense attacks can be launched and in such cases it is the first explosions that tend to get the enemy off guard and tend to kill the most people... after the first strike people tend to go to safe places and hunker down and become much harder targets, so in terms of killing people having an extra sub means 6 more targets can be hit at any one time, so follow up targets can be hit faster.

I rather suspect it is moving to Tartus to increase their fire power

Another offensive in densely populated Idlib would make a lot of hands dirty. Something no one wants in the last stages of war. The Russo-Turkish demilitarization agreement probably still sounds as good as it did in September, but the major question for Russia may be how to convince Turkey to force the rebels to implement it.

certainly wont be a power move to one up the US

In the late January the US operated 2 destroyers in the Baltic and 1 in the Black sea at the same time. Yesterday, the Baltic fleet had a 15-ship drills and today the Severomorsk is supposed to meet Gorshkov's squadron. They are testing if they can fight on two fronts at the same time.

Two hours ago Gorshkov stopped near the predicted rendez vous spot with Severomorsk after racing from the Ionian sea at 15 kn.

Didit occur to anyone that Russia might have simply asked Turkey for permission?

While Turkey practically administers it I don't believe they have the option of simply granting waivers, they're required to stick to the limits in the convention for friends as well as 'potential enemies'.

Two hours ago Gorshkov stopped near the predicted rendez vous spot with Severomorsk after racing from the Ionian sea at 15 kn.

Racing... 15knts? 16knts is a normal speed for a cargo freighter... a military vessel racing from one place to another would need to be moving at or near its top speed for quite a distance to be called racing...

Another offensive in densely populated Idlib would make a lot of hands dirty.

Idlib is full of shit... it is the pro ISIS bastards and their families and supporters... there are no innocent victims in Idlib... and the west knows it because all these ISIS nutcases wanting to come home to the nice comfortable west are coming from Kurdish jails and Idlib and Iraqi jails.

I find it hilarious the liberal western media cries every time women and children are killed in Russian or Syrian government attacks... like a woman is an innocent victim in this situation... like there are no suicide bombers who are women and no women fighters for the cause...

Then an Aussie dickhead kills 50 people in New Zealand... he should be sent to Syria to fight ISIS if he is such a hero for the cause... of course it is a bit different when the people you are shooting are shooting back...

What really pisses me off is the media describes the victims as Muslims... like he would describe them.... they are people... and he should be executed.

Send him to a muslim country for his sentence....

While Turkey practically administers it I don't believe they have the option of simply granting waivers, they're required to stick to the limits in the convention for friends as well as 'potential enemies'.

There is no independent arbitration system though... they have a document that outlines the rules for everyone and they use that to make decisions... of course they will err more in favour of friends than in enemies, but which columns are Russia and the US in at the moment.

Letting a submarine that was in the Black Sea out for a bit is hardly changing the balance of power inside the Black Sea region in Russias favour, and is hardly a power message to any country within the Black Sea clan.

Letting a US carrier group in on the other hand is a blatant and clear violation because carriers are banned... even ones belonging to Black Sea countries fleets, and really the US doesn't have any special rights in this region at all and would have no leg to stand on.

16knts is a normal speed for a cargo freighter.

In this expedition alone, ships rarely exceeded 10 kn. Slower speed probably decreases fuel consumption.

there are no innocent victims in Idlib.

The Russians and Turks have came to an agreement in September, dividing the opposition to moderate (FSA) and extreme (HTS). It's actually an improvement, because Americans never admitted that anybody apart from the ISIS is extreme. So now HTS is to be eliminated and than FSA, protected by Turkish military is to begin talks with the government.

Letting a submarine that was in the Black Sea out for a bit is hardly changing the balance of power inside the Black Sea region in Russias favour, and is hardly a power message to any country within the Black Sea clan.

There's been a lot of little puzzles in Baltic and Black sea regions, that make a nice big picture if you frame them. S-400 deployment to Kaliningrad and today's news of deploying Tu-22M3 to Crimea both enhance security considerably and confirm their attention to these regions.

The Russians and Turks have came to an agreement in September, dividing the opposition to moderate (FSA) and extreme (HTS). It's actually an improvement, because Americans never admitted that anybody apart from the ISIS is extreme. So now HTS is to be eliminated and than FSA, protected by Turkish military is to begin talks with the government.

Well to be fair they were talking against purposes here... the so called moderate rebels the west claims it supported mix and mingle with the so called extreme terrorists and they had no interest in separating them because both tended to shoot at Russia and Iranian and Syrian government forces.

The question is, can Turkey get the terrorists they support to separate from the rest so the Syrian government and Russian and Iranian forces can obliterate the "bad" ones like the dogs they are... I am sure there wont be many moderates wanting to sneak through the lines and join the gonners but there will be a lot of people who suddenly realise they are westerners and were cooks or librarians all this time and want to go home and are ready to talk.

If it was up to me, the men can stay in camps in Syria and Iraq and work as forced labour for 10 years to repair some of the damage they did, and the women can choose to either do something similar or come back to their home country and spend 10 years in jail, their kids can go into care and be deprogrammed...

There's been a lot of little puzzles in Baltic and Black sea regions, that make a nice big picture if you frame them. S-400 deployment to Kaliningrad and today's news of deploying Tu-22M3 to Crimea both enhance security considerably and confirm their attention to these regions.

Yeah, but moving one sub to Tartus is hardly the start of a full scale invasion of NATO via its extensive Mediterranean underbelly... it all started years ago when they bought and half made Mistrals with France in a cunning long term plan to prestage their deployment in Egypt... so they have forward deployed helicopter carriers ready for the op... with this sub and a star destroyer they will be ready for their campaign...

I notice they didn't let any American ships through during the little events around the crimean bridge and the incident with the Ukrainians... the US was left asking germany to send boats through...

DDG Cook was in the Black Sea & visited Odessa when Germans were asked to go to the Asov Sea. Frou Merkel said: "nein! u want out ships & saliros be shot at & captured like those Ukrainian boats!?"
Turkey will permit & justify subs transits by all means, otherwise her economy will be badly hurt from Russian sanctions on trade & tourism.

Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, first of the Pacific boats launched

Couple of construction pics of the 2nd, kinda surprising that level of detail has been shown of the presumably pretty sensitive 2ndary propulsion



I love that there are now actually subs where the classic Red October quote is valid (even if its just little electric thrusters, they're in tunnels & in the right place)

Admiral James Greer: What are these doors?
Jack Ryan: Those doors, sir, are the problem. I-I don't know what they are, neither do the British. Perhaps our friends in Murmansk have come up with something new.

More pics https://bmpd.livejournal.com/3587443.html

3rd & 4th to be laid down later this year.

They should order 3-4 for Baltic fleet also

The navy plans to order additional 9 Ladas. They have to go somewhere.

Russian submarine Veliky Novgorod arrives in Sevastopol for the first time

The Veliky Novgorod is the fifth in the group of six submarines of project 636.3 built for the Black Sea Fleet

SEVASTOPOL, March 29. /TASS/. Russian diesel-electric submarine Veliky Novgorod has entered Sevastopol for the first time after forming part of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, the fleet’s press service informed reporters on Friday. Earlier, the vessel was conducting maneuvers in the Mediterranean Sea.

"Today, a solemn arrival ceremony of the Veliky Novgorod submarine has taken place in Sevastopol. <…> This is the first arrival of the submarine to the hero city of Sevastopol after its inclusion in the Black Sea Fleet," the message by the press service informed, adding that during the maneuvers in the Mediterranean Sea, the submarine had hit several terrorist targets on the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic.

The Veliky Novgorod is the fifth in the group of six submarines of project 636.3 (Varshavyanka) built for the Black Sea Fleet.


More:
http://tass.com/defense/1051260

The navy plans to order additional 9 Ladas. They have to go somewhere.

Yeah, with Lada production starting to accelerate this should be the final order for 636.3.
9more Ladas plus the 3 on order = 12, combined with the 12 636.3 gives 6 new subs per fleet.

Russian submarine Veliky Novgorod arrives in Sevastopol for the first time

Interesting, timing fits a rotation with the one that recently left but I still don't get how they're dealing with Montreaux Convention.

They ask Turkey for permission.

There is no provision in Montreaux Convention to do that though.

Quotes:

The Convention gives Turkey full control over the Turkish Straits and guarantees the free passage of civilian vessels in peacetime. It restricts the passage of naval ships not belonging to Black Sea states.

In the end, the British conceded some of their requests while the Soviets succeeded in ensuring that the Black Sea countries – including the USSR – were given some exemptions from the military restrictions imposed on non-Black Sea nations.

A number of highly-specific restrictions were imposed on what type of warships are allowed passage. No more than nine foreign warships, with a total aggregate tonnage of 15,000 tons, may pass at any one time, therefore a single non-Black Sea state warship passing the straits might not exceed 15,000 tons. An aggregate tonnage of all non-Black Sea warships in the Black Sea must be no more than 30,000 tons (or 45,000 tons under special conditions), and they are permitted to stay in the Black Sea for no longer than twenty-one days. Only Black Sea states may transit capital ships of any tonnage, escorted by no more than two destroyers.

Under Article 12, Black Sea states are also allowed to send submarines through the Straits, with prior notice, as long as the vessels have been constructed, purchased or sent for repair outside the Black Sea. The less restrictive rules applicable to Black Sea states were agreed as, effectively, a concession to the Soviet Union, the only Black Sea state other than Turkey with any significant number of capital ships or submarines.[10][11] The passage of civil aircraft between the Mediterranean and Black Seas is permitted but only along routes authorised by the Turkish government.[12]

End of Quotes.

If the submarine is constructed (build) outside the Black Sea it is allowed to travel trough the Straits anytime it wants.

Only allowed out to go for repair.
Thats explicit, no exception.

The intent is:
Black Sea powers (ie USSR) are allowed defensive subs even if they don't have local ship-building/repair abilities.
No outsider subs allowed to make offensive patrols in.
But the quid pro quo for non-Black Sea powers is that the Black Sea isn't allowed to be a safe base for offensive patrols out into the Med.

But all Russian patrols are defensive...

Plus that would mean subs from Romania and Bulgaria and the Ukraine are not allowed to leave the Black Sea at all and they have no other access to open ocean from their coastlines... why would they agree to that?

Sure they would agree to no foreign subs, but why would they agree that no Black Sea homed ships or subs could not use the straights to the outside world and back... especially when they know the Turkish will be moving their own subs from the black sea to the med and back when it suits them and that the Soviets had canals built to allow the transfer of ships and subs too...

Plus that would mean subs from Romania and Bulgaria and the Ukraine are not allowed to leave the Black Sea at all and they have no other access to open ocean from their coastlines... why would they agree to that?

Because it was negotiated in the late '30s after the Civil War, with burgeoning power of USSR, post-Ottoman Turkey trying to establish control & smaller Black Sea countries stuck between.

Turkish will be moving their own subs from the black sea to the med and back when it suits them

Turkey is defined as a Black Sea nation -> must be bound by the subs clause too.
I see no exclusion for Turkey.
Presumably either keeps all its subs outside or only moves the ones that are stationed inside out for repair.

Hmm, I guess Turkey could be allowing the Russian sub out invoking the war clause 20 or threat of war clause 21 over Syria/terrorists and/or the coup -> warships pass at discretion of the Turkish Govt.
But it'd be the first time those have been invoked as far as I'm aware so you'd think there would be some publicity of it.

NO!
If the sub is buils outside the Black Sea it is allowed to travel where and when it want.
That is fact!