The Hardest Working Warship in the World

As I have noted many times on the blog, RFS Admiral Chabanenko (DDG 650) is the hardest working warship in the world. Prior to mid last year, RFS Admiral Chabanenko (DDG 650) was basically the only Russian warship that made global deployments. Imagine being the only naval ship to protect Russian maritime interests for half a decade. Ouch. Some ships are built to always be at sea.

Russian missile destroyer Admiral Chabanenko left a naval shipyard in the country's Kaliningrad exclave on an urgent mission after having hurried repair work carried out, a shipyard spokesman said on Wednesday.

"Admiral Chabanenko urgently left the Baltiisk naval base on January 20 after receiving orders for a mission of state importance," Sergei Mikhailov said...

Chabanenko docked for repairs at the Yantar shipyard on January 15 after its recent Latin American tour-of-duty. The original repair schedule, including the overhaul of the propulsion system, envisioned the work being finished by the end of February.

Guess plans have changed. For those who watch too much TV, this is the same destroyer Foxnews played over and over again on TV last month when it pulled into Cuba, and RFS Admiral Chabanenko (DDG 650) was the escort during the Caribbean Sea cruise with the nuclear powered battlecruiser RFS Pyotr Veliky (BCGN 099), which is now in the Indian Ocean btw.

It will be fun to watch the speculation. Some will suggest the RFS Neustrashimyy (FFG 712) is having some problems in the Mediterranean Sea, a rumor about 48 hours old now, maybe because it isn't true? Others may suggest it is related to the activity off Somalia, noting the recent incident where RFS Admiral Vinogradov (DDG 572) may have accidentally missed with a few shells in its pirate fight a few days ago that killed some fisherman.

Why not send another ship? Is the Russian Navy scraping the bottom of the barrel for operational hulls? Where are the Slava class cruisers? Are they in the yards? Does Russia consider them reserves?

Is there any interesting submarine activity taking place?

If RFS Admiral Chabanenko (DDG 650) is indeed heading to fight pirates with RFS Admiral Vinogradov (DDG 572), and you add in the the Ropucha II class Tank Landing Ship RFS Yamal (BDK 156) and Ropucha III class Tank Landing Ship RFS Azov (BDK 151) dispatched last week to fight pirates, that would suggest Russia is taking an 'all in' approach to piracy.

Even a casual analysis can't help but note that on the day after Barack Obama is sworn in as President of the United States, Russia has coincidentally begun moving all of its major operational surface warships towards the Mediterranean Sea. You already have the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier group there. Russia has the RFS Pyotr Veliky (BCGN 099) battlecruiser soon to participate in the INDRA exercises, only to return through the Suez about the time RFS Admiral Chabanenko (DDG 650) arrives. Essentially, Russia has all these surface combatants and amphibious ships all moving around the same area, and that doesn't even include another 20 ships of the Black Sea Fleet that were able to go to sea during the Georgia campaign.

But it isn't coincidence at all. Back in December I wrote that all indications were Russia looked to be committing virtually every major warship from the Northern, Baltic, and Pacific fleets to the Middle Eastern/Mediterranean Sea region around the time of the inauguration. While it may seem odd Russia would commit to surging more warships in a costly deployment simply for naval exercises and fighting pirates, particularly when they already have major ships already in the region that can easily meet both of those requirements, the Russian Navy is still operating on last years budget surplus. It is unclear what these developments mean, but the time frame the Russian ships will be massed is limited as many ships are soon scheduled to return home.

Regardless, it it something to keep an eye on.