Hello again everyone,
apologies on the late update. Non-trivial announcement, though, that these will probably become bi-weekly, meaning every other week. I'll try to drop in on the off-weeks to respond to questions or comments even if there's just one or two.
I'll also try to post Tuesday morning (morning for USA time zones) for this week's. It'll have a little extra something, so look forward to it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by longface
Can someone tell me more about what the 68-A is? I'm having trouble finding information about it, only about the 68-bis.
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Information on Soviet ships is a bit more scarce than NATO ships, and the Sverdlov in particular seems to be scarce on info. Effects of the iron curtain still seem to linger to today.
All I can say that's true for all ships designated Project 68 A is they were modifications of the 68bis that started in the 70's enlarging the bridge area and adding the 8 AK-230 CIWS guns. I believe there were also ESM suite upgrades. But the Soviets tended to have a habit of modifying ships on a ship-by-ship basis even worse than the US did, meaning different ships received different ESM and radar upgrades, even within the 68 A designation.
One of the best examples of this Soviet inconsistency though is how the Azov differs very significantly from the rest of the Kara class cruisers.
Another example is how the Project 68bis had 5 different subclasses from the main class:
1. The 68 A as discussed,
2. Project 68E: the
Dzerzhinsky was modified to use a mid/long-range liquid-fueled SAM (M-2 Volkhov-M, NATO designation: "SA-N-2 Guideline"),
3. Project 68U1: a command ship modification, the
Zhdanov had a turret removed to make room for extra accomidations and electronics, 4 AK-230 guns installed and a short-range 4K33 "Osa-M" SAM system installed.
4. Project 68U2: the
Senyavin had all of those same modifications, but had an additional turret removed to make room for aviation facilities for a helicopter.
5. Project 68ER: the
Admiral Nakhimov had a KSShch (NATO designation: "SS-N-1 Scrubber") AShM system installed in place of both forward turrets.
(all of that is just on Wikipedia)
Dzerzhinsky was relegated to reserve status relatively quickly. The liquid fuel was extremely dangerous for use on a ship, especially a ship that might take damage (hypergolic fuels are a real nightmare).
68ER was decommissioned very quickly, its modification being deemed a failure. It was decommissioned in 1960, while the next ship of Project 68 wouldn't be decommissioned until 1986.
You can get the full, enormous list of modifications and dates
here.
Though the US would on rare occasion make comparably significant changes to their ships, they would usually designate the ship as its own class in those events, such as with the Truxtun and Bainbridge "class" ships, which were single-production nuclear-powered variants of the Belknap and Leahy-class ships, respectively, and arguably the Bainbridge had far less significant modifications than many Project 68 subclasses as its armament was unchanged.
Biggest exception to this would be modernization programs.
Though perhaps the mess of modifications on the Sverdlovs makes more sense when one considers they held a similar place to the Soviets as the Iowas held to the US: old ships with great symbolic value that the navies wanted to modernize to keep relevant and commissioned.
Even the Iowas had much more consistent armament, though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Martes
Just to point out - the forward flags are harbor-only, they would never sail with them.
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Thanks for the input! I'll be sure to change things to be accurate, then. Do you know of any good sources that summarize the various naval flag traditions? I've found sources that list the meanings of many signal flags, but there's lots of contextual knowledge like this that's more difficult to come by.