This would be a “he said – she said” dispute fundamentally
unresolvable on the face of it, except
for some surveillance photos taken of the incident. The most telling such is reproduced
here. Under the international rules of
the road at sea, a ship being overtaken
has the right of way, so the overtaking
vessel has the obligation to avoid.
If you look at the ship’s wakes in the photo, you can see what actually happened. The ship on the left is the Russian
destroyer, the ship on the right with
the obvious flat-face superstructure is the American guided missile cruiser. Follow the cruiser’s wake back: it is straight. The Americans never changed course. And they were indeed overtaken by the
faster-moving Russian destroyer, as the
videos of the incident show, plus its
larger wake in this photo despite being similar in size.
Now follow the Russian destroyer’s wake back: it is not straight. The Russians clearly changed course toward
the cruiser, then adjusted back parallel
at a dangerously-close separation. In
other words, they made a rule-violating
and very dangerous run on the Americans, to try to intimidate them. The Russian account of this incident is quite
clearly a disgusting lie.
This is bullying behavior most probably done at the explicit
direction of the dictator in charge of Russia:
Vladimir Putin. He has a long and
sordid history of this. The previous-latest
incident was Russian jets intercepting a US patrol plane over international
waters, and flying dangerously close
while doing this.
Bullies typically continue their intimidating behavior until
they meet actual resistance, or until
they get bored and go looking elsewhere for new victims to intimidate. Merely ducking out of the way is not actual
resistance. The one bullied must fight
back at one level or another. Some
bullies require higher force levels of resistance than others, but that is just the way it is.
I suggest that the US Navy has to do more than just maneuver
its ships to avoid the collisions, when
the Russians try to intimidate them.
Before the ships get too close, I
recommend putting a shot across the bow of the offending vessel. Be prepared to back that up with actual
conflict, but I suspect that would not
be necessary.
The bigger the caliber of the gun for this resistance, the more effective it will be. A hundred years of prior experience says that
5-inch is adequate on a destroyer, 8-inch
would be better on a cruiser. Resisting
bullying intimidation is a compelling reason for US warships to have multiple large-caliber
guns on their decks. Too many do not.
The analog of this type of resistance for aircraft
encounters applies to both US Naval and US Air Force aviation. When the Russians show intimidating behavior
toward patrol aircraft, it would be wise
to send a couple of escorting fighters,
just not right alongside the patrol plane. They should be out of sight, but able to close within a single handful of
minutes, once the intercepting Russian
fighter gets detected inbound.
When the intercepting Russian fighter gets too close, the American fighters suddenly arrive. It’s not just getting between the Russian and
the patrol plane, resistance means
firing some tracers from gun-equipped fighters, as very-visible warning shots. While the escort must be prepared for actual
air-to-air combat, that seems unlikely, once the warning shots are seen.
This does mean the escorting fighters you send must be
equipped with air-to-air dogfight guns,
and the bigger the better, up to
about 20 mm caliber. This is exactly why
combat aircraft equipped only with missiles are utter nonsense. This is a lesson already learned in
Vietnam, and seemingly forgotten again
in our latest fighter designs.
Show determined resistance,
and the bully will usually back down without a fight, or at least not much of one. That lesson applies to the schoolyard, and to international affairs, because nation states behave toward each
other pretty much like grade school-age children. Not just the Russians, but also the Chinese, the North Koreans, and the Iranians have been displaying
significant bullying behaviors of late.
It is not just our presence,
but our actual resistance, that
is the effective deterrent for this.
____________________
Update 6-15-19:
Similarities and differences between the two ships:
Note: a long ton is
2200 lb, compared to the standard
(short) ton of 2000 lb. A long ton at
2200 lb is very similar to, but not
identical to, a metric ton at 2205 lb.
Measures of the disturbance created by the ship moving through
the water might include the displacement (weight), and the size of the submerged cross section
plowing through the water (beam x draft).
The Chancellorsville’s displacement is factor 1.23 larger than the
Admiral Vinogradov’s displacement. The
cross section of the Chancellorsville is factor 1.48 larger than the cross
section of the Admiral Vinogradov.
Both measures point to a larger wake created by the larger
disturbance of the Chancellorsville, if
both ships were moving at the same speed.
For the Admiral Vinogradov to be producing the bigger wake conclusively
means it was traveling much faster. That
clearly points to it overtaking the Chancellorsville.
The Admiral Vinogradov has changes in the direction of its
wake while the Chancellorsville does not.
Therefore, it is conclusive that
the Admiral Vinogradov not only overtook the Chancellorsville, but also maneuvered toward it, to a dangerously close pass.
Otherwise, in general
dimension, the ships are rather
comparable, and comparable in terms of
gun armament. Both pack a large quantity
and variety of missiles, not listed in
the data above.
____________________
Update 6-16-19:
“Fighter aircraft with guns” question. Answer:
500+ rounds of 20+ mm required, based on history. Something like 1000+ rounds is desired. The following data explain why. This list is
representative, not comprehensive. So don’t be upset if I left out your favorite
airplane.
F-35: USAF -A model
carries internal GAU-22 25 mm cannon,
but only 182 rounds; intended only
for air-to-ground fire. USMC -B and USN
-C models have no internal gun, but can
carry the GAU-22 25 mm gun in a gun pod.
Again, intended for air-to-ground
fire only. No combat yet.
F-22: USAF top fighter.
No guns at all! Some combat
Middle East, mostly in bombing role.
F-15: Old USAF top
fighter headed for retirement. Vulcan 61
20 mm gatling gun, 940 rounds, combat Middle East & Balkans.
F-16: Long-serving
USAF lightweight fighter, may be headed
for retirement. Vulcan 61 20 mm gatling
gun, 511 rounds, combat Middle East & Balkans.
FA-18: USN top
fighter/bomber. Vulcan 61 20 mm gatling
gun, 578 rounds, combat Middle East & Balkans.
F-14: Former USN top
fighter. Vulcan 61 20 mm gatling
gun, 675 rounds (no longer in service), combat Middle East.
F-4: Retired
USAF/USN/USMC interceptor, fighter, and fighter/bomber. Early models A-D had no guns at all, F-4E had an internal Vulcan 61 20 mm gatling
gun with 640 rounds; earlier models were
retrofitted with gun pods carrying the same weapon. (no longer in service) combat in Vietnam which showed the need for
guns.
F-100: Retired USAF
interceptor/fighter used as bomber as well.
Four 20 mm cannon with 200 rounds per gun (800 rounds total)
(long-retired), combat Vietnam.
F-8: Retired USN top fighter
of 30 years’ service. Four 20 mm
guns, 125 rounds per gun (total
500) (long-retired), combat Vietnam.
F-86: Long-retired
top USAF fighter. Six Browning
50-caliber machine guns, 1800 rounds
total (long retired), combat Korea.
If you look at the long-retired aircraft (F-86, F-8,
F-100, and F-4), you can easily see the mistake made introducing
the F-4 without guns. It had to be
retrofitted with a pod-mounted gun in Vietnam to cope with the Migs, until the advent of the F-4E model.
This lesson stayed “learned” through the F-15, F-16,
F-14, and FA-18, but once again seems to have been “unlearned”
with the F-22 and the F-35. On the
naval side, the F-14 is retired, but the FA-18 still in service. On the air force side, F-15 and F-16 are still in service but
planned for retirement, and the number
of F-22’s is limited, and they have no
guns. The F-35 is entering service, but with “teething troubles” as reported in
the news, and without enough rounds for
effective air-to-air gun combat.
The net result is that the air force has only the F-15 (approaching
retirement) as an effective potential escort for patrol planes menaced by
Russian fighters approaching dangerously close.
To reach practical escort range,
it would have to carry more drop tanks of fuel than missiles. Neither the F-22 nor the F-35 can do this
job, and the small F-16 (also headed for
retirement) just won’t have the range,
even with drop tanks.
The navy has the FA-18 capable of doing the escort job, but only when carrying more drop tanks of
fuel than missiles. Naval fighters
typically have shorter range than air force fighters.
Net outcome: we are
not equipped with the long-range escort fighters able to do the job of
resisting the “bullying” of our patrol aircraft. They will have to self-resist, and none is equipped to do that. They carry no guns or missiles, being converted airliners. (The P-3 Orion is a converted Lockheed
Electra-2 4-engine turboprop airliner
from the early 1950’s, the P-8
Poseidon is a converted Boeing 737 2-engine jet airliner from the late 1960’s.)
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