I am continuing to track the movements of the Russian Navy ships not out of a sudden passion for naval warfare, but because I was taught many years ago already that surface fleet movements are the “body language” of big states (submarines are always covert). In this case, looking at what the Russian navy does tells us a lot about what it thinks is, or might, be happening. Today I have learned that the large anti-submarine ship Admiral Panteleev has crossed the Suez Canal and is now in the Red Sea with the semi-official mission to shadow the USN carrier Nimitz and the associated battlegroup.
Also, I try to provide a photo of the ship(s) simply as a way to show non-military readers what kind of hardware we are talking about (in the spirit of “one pictures is worth a thousand words”).
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| Large anti-submarine ship Admiral Panteleev |
Of course, I should also be doing that for the US Navy ships near Syria, but I simply do not have the time for that. Besides, I suppose that this information should be rather easy to find ( example: http://www.gonavy.jp/CVLocation.html) and that other bloggers already contribute that kind of information.
In the case of the Admiral Panteleev, this is not threat at all to the USN in the Red Sea, but it is an ideal platform to keep a close eye on what the Nimitz and its support vessels are doing. The semi-official version of its mission appears to be true in this case.
I will continue to keep an eye on “Russia’s body language” as long as there is a risk of a US attack on Syria.
The Saker
When the attack on Syria was apparently imminent, the US destroyers and support ships in the Med. were south of Crete in a formation to maximise sensors and facilitate an attack. They did this for 2 days. Then they moved to locations around Sicily the day before Obamma deferred the attack to Congress. They have not moved since.
Is it really to shadow the Nimitz or to keep an eye on israeli subs??
Looks like this ship has a history of anti-piracy duties in the Gulf of Aden. Maybe this is the destination??
http://rt.com/news/russian-tanker-defeats-somali-pirates-with-water-cannons/
http://eng.russ-yug.ru/article/3971/
or
According to this story, it is just heading back to port in Vladivostok.
http://cyplive.com/eng/news/kreyser-varyag-vozglavit-gruppirovku-vmf-rf-v-sredizemnom-more.html
@Anonymous1, Anonymous2, Anonymous3 & EVERYBODY:
YESSSS!!! If we pull together our efforts we can get something really interesting going. Did you know that roughly 80% of all the info government decision makers use every day is “open source”, i.e. freely available (on the Internet), about 15% is “proprietary” (mostly non-classified but restricted corporate information) and only 5% (or less) is really “classified” (by a government)?
The info given by Anonymous1 is very interesting and a perfect example. If we had had this info before Obama spoke to Congress it would have been sizzling hot, really. But even AFTER the info is still important because once we see that the US destroyers moved away from their attack position we see the real “body language” of the USA. Remember that the Americans are fully aware that the Russians are tracking them, as much as the Russians know that the US is tracking them. Ironically, they have less secrets from each other than from us, the general public. Still, we, the simple people, can make much better analyses of what is happening with this kind of information if only because that allows us to look at the “body language” of our countries rather than at the words of our (always lying) politicians.
Is it really to shadow the Nimitz or to keep an eye on israeli subs??
I rarely discuss subs because they are firmly in the 5% of deeply classified information. Even the Russians and the Americans cannot constantly monitor each other’s subs. So all I can do is guess, but my guess is that while yes, of course, the Admiral Panteleev is an advanced anti-submarine ship, the Israeli subs in the Red Sea are not as important as Israelis subs in the Mediterranean or the Persian Gulf. Also, remember that we know nothing about where the Russian attack submarines are, only that there was one cryptic and anonymous statement by an off the record Russian Navy official that Russia actually had more subs in the Mediterranean that the USN (which might or might not be true). With subs is is really always impossible to tell. The best one can do by scanning blogs and other sources is to see whether they are in dock at their base or not, hardly a very useful info. But such is the nature of these beasts…
As for the Admiral Panteleev heading for the Gulf of Aden and eventually Vladivostok, this is very likely, just like the Nimitz is, I think, headed for decommissioning (iirc). But with surface ships, especially in a crisis situation, all that matters is what they do now simply because we cannot know what they will do later. Also, we should put more weight on a coordinated movement by many ships than on the movement of one. The main reason why I indicated that the Admiral Panteleev had crossed the Suez was to add a “minus one” mark to the tally of Russian Navy ships I had made earlier. That, and as an opportunity to explain why tracking ships can be a valuable exercise.
Guys, keep these small nuggets of information about US, Russian, French and Chinese ships coming, they can be very interesting. Same thing for Iran and Israel, but their navies being much smaller and much less capable, the “body language” aspect can be harder to read. It’s really easier with the big guys, will lots of ships.
Thanks a lot to all of you!
Cheers,
The Saker
http://therearenosunglasses.wordpress.com/2013/09/13/the-syrian-army-has-the-ability-to-shoot-down-waves-of-american-tomahawks-parts-1-and-2/
This is a fascinating site:
http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/default.aspx?centerx=30¢ery=25&zoom=2&level1=140
It shows marine traffic all over the world- just go to the “world map” at the top of the page. It’s not only interesting to watch all the commercial traffic here, but also to notice where the traffic isn’t.
@Sky: yes, this is a great website, and it also have a very well designed Android app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.marinetraffic.android) which I often use to track ships off the Florida coast. Alas, Marine Traffic does not provide any info on military vessels for which, of course, I cannot blame them, but which makes me dream of the day when we, the general public, will have the means to track military ships…
The other problem is that this site and app are totally dependent on so-called AIS transponders (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_Identification_System) which are not mandatory so any vessel which does not have one, or decides not to use it, will remain “invisible” to this network.
That is a common problem, air traffic monitoring applications such as the excellent Flight Radar 24 (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.flightradar24pro) or the excellent Flight Aware (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.flightaware.android.liveFlightTracker) also depend on transponders.
Still, I remember tracking the flight Snowden was supposed to take to Cuba and when I saw that it was deep over Canada and the USA I immediately understood that he was not on board that plane (http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com/2013/06/a-couple-of-small-comments-about-edward.html).
This was fun, it reminded me of the time in my life were I used to really track aircraft movements, especially NATO and Soviet aircraft over Europe…
Cheers,
The Saker
@Sky: just saw this:
http://breakingdefense.com/2012/05/17/google-satellites-can-track-every-ship-at-sea-including-us-na/
Neat, no?
Really neat, Saker ! As deep in the nefarious cabal as Google is, it just goes to show that it’s probably more interested in information for its own sake than ideology.
The shipping maps are a lot of fun. I live on the coast so of course I had to check out the shipping traffic around here.
I was thinking that perhaps these tracking maps might indirectly show military locations, as the other ships would be directed away from them. So we could watch to see where ships change course and avoid certain places.
@Sky:I was thinking that perhaps these tracking maps might indirectly show military locations, as the other ships would be directed away from them.
Not really, there are no “military only” shipping lanes. What does happen is that when a navy wants to do some live fire they announce that in advance and then there is a temporary exclusion zone (unless of course its the Israeli Navy which, as all things Israeli, doesn’t give a damn about any international law including maritime law and who fires missiles from the middle of the Mediterranean towards a zone filled with civilian and military ships). But other than that, military vessels often show up right next to the civilian ones.
I live on the coast
Which one? (Don’t feel like you have to answer this one, its irrelevant, private and I am just curious, living myself on the Florida Atlantic coast – so if I am prying here, ignore this one, ok?).
Cheers!
The Saker
New England coast- Cape Cod :)
@Sky: beautiful, beautiful place. I have great memories of Cape Cod. And the seafood is heavenly too!
I *love* the Atlantic Coast.
Have a super-wonderful day :-))
Do we have this item in the catalogue of ships yet?
http://sana.sy/eng/22/2013/09/25/504363.htm
More Russian ships arriving. What do you make of this? I’ve heard that there has been an “agreement” regarding the use of force. Force not permitted immediately upon any alleged Syrian non-compliance, but apparently there may be enough of a loophole for the US to strike.
(I love the coast- Florida is very beautiful too) :)
@Sky: hi Sky! Good to hear from you :-)
Yup, I got these two listed here:
http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com/2013/09/russia-is-continuing-to-increase-sized.html
They are number 1 and 2 in this list.
The SANA article calls them “landing warships” which is ok, but I prefer my translation of “heavy amphibious assault” which is a much more accurate translation of the Russian “Большой десантный корабль” (Bolshoi Desantnyi Korabel) and is also a better description of what these ships do. SANA also got their photo wrong, and this is why I like to add photos, so that people are not mislead by strange names. Finally, SANA even got the name of the rescue ship wrong too, LOL! They wrote “Votiy Krylov” while the real name is “Fotii Krylov”, but nevermind, because at least now I can add this one to my provisional list too (under the right name, of course).
Here is what this guy looks like:
http://www.optika4.ru/uploads/posts/2012-02/1329028119_feb_t_and_t_jpg7a.jpg
BTW – adding a rescue ship is, iirc, a standard practice when forming a naval task force (some of these ships are not in their prime anymore….)
As for the UN Resolution, I will write about it tomorrow when I see the actual text. But my feeling is that it is better than what could have been expected.
Kind regards, fellow Atlantic-dweller,
The Saker
The Russian navy has practiced anti-submarine combat in both the Baltic Sea and the Arctic Barents Sea in consecutive drills, as its naval reinforcement in the two regions continues. Russia’s military drills from all branches of the armed forces have increased this year, however the ones carried out in the Baltic and Arctic are the most controversial, largely because Russia shares both regions almost exclusively with Nato member states.