Aircraft Carrier Admiral Kuznetsov: News #2

Kinda curious about how rusty the bow is, it was all fresh painted for the trip to Syria.
Paint stripped back to metal or new panels put in?

Would not read too much into that... the deck surface is generally covered in heat resistant tiles that are generally not metal and do not rust... that is probably just the colour of the natural material or the colour they are painted... note the shape... like it is made of square jigsaw pieces.... I would say the bits that are rust coloured have just been placed to replace old tiles and have not yet been painted so they match the other tiles...

And now this 1 has sunk completely. In any case, it created more work & $ loss since it must be replaced/salvaged/repaired.

They are not supposed to fully submerge, but partial sinking is intended as a normal part of their operation.

The way it sank probably led to some damage and it wont be easy to raise for this reason.

Whether they fix it or get rid of it... it needs to be moved from where it is.

I am not sure why those clowns ran the dock in such deep water, they should have prepared and underwater platform so that there was no chance of the dock sinking.

They should have tested the pumps and power systems before they started taking the ship off in the first place... but hindsight is 20/20.

Some news outlets are suggesting that GPS wasn't working properly during the exercise and that it was likely that the Russians were interfering with the signal... perhaps Norway will send the bill to Russia... hahahahahahaha

The tanker crew warned them repeatedly that they were getting in the way but got a reply that "everything is under control". The skipper's, navigator's & XO (Executive Officer) naval carriers r over! They'll most likely stand a court martial.

GarryB wrote:

They should have tested the pumps and power systems before they started taking the ship off in the first place... but hindsight is 20/20.

Onboard engines were not used for very long time and are out or order for years apparently. Pumps were getting power from the shore via the power grid.

Tsavo Lion wrote:The tanker crew warned them repeatedly that they were getting in the way but got a reply that "everything is under control". The skipper's, navigator's & XO (Executive Officer) naval carriers r over! They'll most likely stand a court martial.

The first contact and warning between the ships was 56 seconds before the colision.

Which wouldn't have been necessary if HI checked into the VTS controller on entering the area.
VTS would have given appropriate directions for HI to stay out of the way of the 100Kton tanker & to turn its transponder/nav lights on.

HI was blasting along at over 17kt close to a bunch of large commercial traffic, without much manoeuvring room, with nav lights & transponder off & apparently a very poor watch being kept on its own radar/EO/out the windows, it didn't call in to VTS, it didn't slow or alter course when advised to.

Even if technically the tanker was in give-way position, practically a loaded 100Kton tanker coming out of port counts as having impaired manoeuvring -> is default the right-of-way ship to anything but a (bigger) less manoeuvrable ship.


If I didn't know its real I'd have considered the transcript a version of the old US carrier vs Lighthouse gag.

Details: https://riafan.ru/1119978-za-granyu-razumnogo-ekipazh-naskochivshego-na-tanker-fregata-nato-porazil-eksperta-nekompetentnostyu?utm_source=24smi.info&utm_medium=cpc&utm_content=1933775&utm_term=2152

PD-50 to be lifted https://lenta.ru/news/2018/11/19/pd50/
Says to get it out of the way not to repair.
Divers cutting a metal sample for strength testing.

we have a number of options for how to solve the problem: either to make a design on a dry dock at the 10th plant, which is located practically across the bay, or the question of acquiring a finished dock is being considered. We still have an option for using a dry dock at the Sevastopol plant

So considering either buying in new floating dock or building at Polyarny or Sevastopol.
Not really the obvious places for new giant floating dock construction but maybe a case of where there is spare capacity?

mnztr wrote:Its modular so they can re float it piece by piece by doimg some.cutting. That way it won't snap

Docks are not "so" modular. Obviously you are not familiar with this technology!

kumbor wrote:

mnztr wrote:Its modular so they can re float it piece by piece by doimg some.cutting. That way it won't snap

Docks are not "so" modular. Obviously you are not familiar with this technology!

There are varying designs, how this particular one is put togther I am not so sure, but I think they can cut it up and salvage some sections. If its worth it? Who knows. But I am no Naval Archithect or salvage expert. That I fully admit.

if it is just for scrap they could cut bits off it and raise it a piece at a time... blow all the ballast tanks first so nothing floats up before it is wanted, and then cut it to pieces.

Would be an interesting job for an ROV... such a robot would be quite useful...

GarryB wrote:if it is just for scrap they could cut bits off it and raise it a piece at a time... blow all the ballast tanks first so nothing floats up before it is wanted, and then cut it to pieces.

Would be an interesting job for an ROV... such a robot would be quite useful...

Or maybe they can use an ROV to attach air hoses to all the ballast tanks...park an ROV to observe it and gradually pump air into them... and see what happens. would be kinda fun to try, it breaks up under water then who cares...lol

LMFS wrote:K's repairs will apparently cost 70 million rubles

https://z5h64q92x9.net/proxy_u/ru-en.ru/https/vpk.name/news/235825_vosstanovlenie_admirala_kuzInnecova_oboidetsya_v_70_mln_rublei.html

In the scheme of defence spending that is like 1 cent..lol

mnztr wrote:

GarryB wrote:if it is just for scrap they could cut bits off it and raise it a piece at a time... blow all the ballast tanks first so nothing floats up before it is wanted, and then cut it to pieces.

Would be an interesting job for an ROV... such a robot would be quite useful...

Or maybe they can use an ROV to attach air hoses to all the ballast tanks...park an ROV to observe it and gradually pump air into them... and see what happens. would be kinda fun to try, it breaks up under water then who cares...lol

It is not easy at all. It is very difficult, dangerous, very expensive and when submerged object is raised from deep it is raised in sequences, each sequence is lower deep than earlier. Time consuming, expensive. If you try to raise something big form bottom of ocean with blowing all ballast tanks, submerged object is rise fast and when come in to contact with surface it is so violent that brake all connections, links and submerge again. With second submerging object is more damaged. If you want, look how submarine Kursk is raised to surface. In lost Yugoslavia, we have one company who is working on salvaging sunken objects, its name was Brodospas. At that time it was very good one, best in east Mediterranean area, only one is more or less better on west coast in France. But, then come 90s. Now we do not have a company who is working on salvaging sunken objects, we have a small companies, but they are unable to do job on right way and successfully. Once I was working on raising sunken fishing ship, it was wooden ship 40 years old and it is at 50 m deep. We try to rise it four time and every time ship is broke surface and sunk again. Fifth time, it come one old guy from Brodospas, and that time it was successful. I earn 1000Euros for that job.

GarryB wrote:if it is just for scrap they could cut bits off it and raise it a piece at a time... blow all the ballast tanks first so nothing floats up before it is wanted, and then cut it to pieces.

Would be an interesting job for an ROV... such a robot would be quite useful...

As floating dock is no "state of the art", complicated vessel, and it is not self propelled either, I don`t see much problem in salvaging it and refitting it for further use, though it costs. It`s up to Russians to decide whether it is worth raising it up and refitting. Some sources say it was built in 2000, and some that it dates from 80s, so i can`t say what is true. Raising such dock is not so complicated, i think, because it has no structural damage. As I`ve heard, dock was left without power for ballast pumps, which caused heavy list and made dock capsize. They need sufficient amount of HP air to blow ballast chambers symmetrically so as to float dock to surface and then patch over vents and openings. That`s what I think.

Or maybe they can use an ROV to attach air hoses to all the ballast tanks...park an ROV to observe it and gradually pump air into them... and see what happens. would be kinda fun to try, it breaks up under water then who cares...lol

Would probably be safer to attach airbags to the structure first and then fill them up to give extra bouyancy and then try to fill the main tanks.
I suspect the reason it sank in the first place was because there were holes in the internal ballast tanks and when the pumps stopped working because the land based power source failed they just filled up.

If that is the case then they need extra lift to compensate... something over 300m long would be just too tricky to work with.... balance issues and the risk it might break up and damage itself further... I think cutting it up where it is and removing it a piece at a time makes the most sense in terms of safety and getting rid of the problem... it is rather old and worn out and needs to be replaced anyway.

Some sources say it was built in 2000, and some that it dates from 80s, so i can`t say what is true.

Think it was made in 1980s in Sweden... several sources say it was old... this is not some complex piece of machinery... it is a floating dry dock... I am sure if they made a new one themselves they could make it safer and much more useful these days...

Once I was working on raising sunken fishing ship, it was wooden ship 40 years old and it is at 50 m deep. We try to rise it four time and every time ship is broke surface and sunk again. Fifth time, it come one old guy from Brodospas, and that time it was successful. I earn 1000Euros for that job.

Sounds to me like you know what you are talking about... I just think I do... This dry dock is huge and I really don't think it is worth salvaging except to remove it from where it is...

Raising such dock is not so complicated, i think, because it has no structural damage.

It is a flat bottom with two side walls... it is not exactly a structurally strong structure... you might find it has been weakened but not know until it collapses as it comes up or as it goes back down again... I don't think it is worth the risk.

It is very useful, but that just means they should make another one... or two or three to replace others in poor condition too.

Newer designs could be made safer and better.... experience with these dry docks could be used to add useful features to a new model.

How I say, it is difficult process to rise something what is sunken and it is on bottom of ocean. People can not imagine how is important to know sea bottom of what type of material is made, is it rock, sand or mud. Rise something is easy if it is bottom rock, sand is not so hard too, but if it is made from mud, it is difficult. Mud is soft, and sunken object is always bury itself in it. This is one reason why is so hard to rise objects from muddy bottom. You must make multiple channels for cables what will tie both sides of sunken object to floating cisterns what will be filled with compressed air. When you start filling cisterns with air, you MUST start blowing air in pipes what you are put it between sea bottom and sunken object. This is MUST because mud is soft and make a "vacuum" on sunken object and does not allow object to be lifted. Of course, you can blow air anyway and with enough floating cisterns at one point it will be released from mud and like a torpedo it will go to surface. Whit speed and its mass, when it come to surface it will be fly out few meters in air( in my experience, ship is fly out 2m in air and fall in sea again), some cables what hold cisterns brake and ship is lost her buoyancy and sunk again. When is finally find rest on sea bottom, we dive again and make all work what we are doing last time, again. This ship is not big and extra heavy but we are working almost entire month. From start when I start dive, I suggest to my fellow coworkers that we are doing on wrong way, but I was dismissed and I shut up. My suggestion is, tie floating cisterns to ship, fill with air just enough that a ship will have small but evident buoyancy, blow air in pipes what a buried in mud to ease sticky connection between ship and bottom. When ship is lifted few centimeters from bottom, rescue ships will start lifting it with own capstans and windlasses. Entire process what we are make fifth time is what I suggest to my follow coworkers. We are lift ship 5m from bottom and tow her in 5m shallow water, there we make all preparation for lifting her to another 5m lift and tow. This process is made many times until we come in shallow water, 10 or 12m deep, then pump air in floating cisterns until ship is lifted from water. Ships deck is centimeter higher than sea surface at that time we engage water pumps to empty ships lower decks. All time we are carefully measure distance at bow and stern from sea level, it is important to do that because ship will not get wrong inclination and sunk again.
So, this process must be done for floating dock, and imagine how hard is to get a dock long 300m at sea surface, can you imagine how expensive that operation will be. With that difficulties what I write, you must count on something like storms, ice, strong currents and low visibility at bottom, cold and deep at what a divers will work (when you are going deeper, pressure is bigger and time what you can work at bottom is shorter, cold and heavy work cause that divers will spent more air than normal( more expensive because you need to refile bottles and send new divers down) and shorten its time to work on sunken ship. And you must count on something that will brake on salvaging ships and you must repair it. Expenses will rise and rise, so in total, rising something from bottom is veryyyy expensive, time and labor consuming, and when you rise sunken object from bottom you must repair it. And tat is new expense. All in all, let the sunken object rest it on bottom in peace.

A very odd suggestion that it could use Sevastopol, there are some decent size drydocks there but as noted in the comments of that article, definitely too small for K.

Kerch drydock is definitely big enough but I think Russia is more likely to leave K tied up to the dock while building a replacement drydock in the North than tow it all the way to Kerch. (especially if the Granit tubes have actually been deactivated as has been rumored since then Montreaux convention becomes a problem)

Apparently 10th shipyard (Polyarny) has a RFP to build a new floating dock, short timeframe from 30 Nov to 12 Dec.

I kinda like the (probably longer term) suggestion of making a proper drydock in the flattened area next to PD-50 which nobody seems to be sure about but appears to have been the start of a drydock for Ulyanovsk.

PD-50 on the right, flattened area could house a very big drydock.

Which is also what you see in the foreground: thats apparently Rosneft plan for a big oil platform shipyard which they've been touting as recently as August this year & why PD-50 was handed over to them in the first place https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/2018/08/navy-gives-way-oilmen-murmansk-shipyard

Via Balancer but apparently a TASS article

FSUE Atomflot will order billions of rubles to build a new dock to repair icebreakers.
From six to eight and a half billion rubles may be required for the construction of a dock in Russia for the repair of new nuclear-powered icebreakers.

According to TASS, citing the fleet technical director of the federal state unitary enterprise Atomflot Oleg Darbinyan, the dock will be built in Russia - it will take about two years. Earlier for this, they planned to use the PD-50 Murmansk dock, but it sank.

It is planned that the new dock will be able to accept universal nuclear-powered icebreakers currently under construction, but another option will be needed for the giant icebreaker Leader.

I have wondered about what was being planned for the icebreakers but its surprising that they'd use Coastguard/Atomflot funds for a PD-50 replacement.
Perhaps Navy will fund a bigger Lider icebreaker (& new CV?) compatible dock later?

Interview with USC boss has some info on the PD-50 sinking https://bmpd.livejournal.com/3464185.html

Q: “After the PD-50 floating accident in Murmansk, almost two months have passed, and there is still no clear answer about the reasons.” According to the latest data, the specialists of the 82nd shipyard (owned by Rosneft), contrary to the rules, carried out eye balancing. Because of this, the PD-50 gave a heel, an unnaturally high load was created on one of the walls, a weld burst, water poured into the dock, and it went to the bottom. Is this really true and is there new data?

A: - The commission, which was collected by the Ministry of Industry and Trade, gave its conclusion, but there is a special opinion of the specialists of the 82nd plant. The version you have mentioned has grounds, but diving works are still going on, and only on their results can we say something more specific.

Q: - Are there any plans for the construction of similar pond?

A: - We have long been raising the issue that in the state armament program (LG) a dock program should take a separate place. Now the general condition of the dock farm leaves much to be desired - it is a question of dry docks, which require repair, and of floating docks. In the investment program, which has been agreed upon and should be approved by the Ministry of Economy in the near future, the situation with transfer devices has already been resolved. We will continue to look at how to get additional funds to close the question once and for all.

Q: - Where will they repair "Admiral Kuznetsov"?

A: - Four options are considered, each of which has its own price and its own features. One - the acquisition of the dock where it is available. This issue deals with the 82nd plant. The alternative is to dock Kuznetsov in one of the existing transfer structures. Plus there are a couple of exotic solutions that I don’t want to talk about yet, you first need to perform a number of geological and engineering surveys.

Q:- What are the repair periods?

A:- According to "Admiral Kuznetsov" dates do not change. We have two possible dates for re-docking. The first is the summer of 2019, the second, taking into account the redistribution of the order of work on the cruiser — the end of spring — the beginning of summer 2020. We are waiting for the decisions of all parties involved and we will think what to do.

So not making any rapid decisions.
Not mentioned but clearly raising & repairing PD-50 is definitely out.
Geological surveys implies looking into making a new drydock.
With no rapid moves to replace PD-50 it seems doubtful K can stick to those repair timelines since its been made clear it needs to go back into drydock to finish.

Well big decision was made regarding the ship herself. I don't know why nobody posts it here.

https://kozweek.com/russia-gives-china-to-repair-its-only-aircraft-carrier-admiral-kuznetsov/39971/

I know sources aren't that trustworthy and it didn't gain a lot of attention on Balancer but if it's true it's good news.