Blast From The Past: Moskva Underway for Joint Exercises
(the new Moskva/ex-Slava CSG)
Shades of days of yore, the Moskva joined up with the Kuznetsov carrier group (or корабельной ударной группы (КУГ) – ship assault echelon (KUG)) for joint exercises conducted on the 20th. Sailing from her (or, if you perfer, his in the Russian vernacular) base at Sevastopol on the 12th, the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet met the Kuznetsov, representing the Northern Fleet, in the west Med and the two forces proceeded to the Atlantic for a joint missilex, the first in fifteen years according to Ria Novosti. Of course, according to the same article, all missiles found their targets, an especially important item in light of l’affaire d’Klub… Other exercises will take place with strategic aviation (VVS) and long-range naval aviation later this month with the latter acting, presumably, as "Orange" air. More to follow.
SJS, it appears that you are showing the Moskva Helicopter Cruiser; which I believe may be retired. It looks like the Moskva of today is actually the ex-Slava.
http://flot.sevastopol.info/eng/ship/cruisers/slava.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moskva_class_helicopter_carrier
Doggone it Dutch – that was the hidden recce gotcha. We were waiting to see if our shoe brethern would’ve noticed — for sure, Ria Novosti and about half of the european press sure didn’t as they ran with the (oops) old shot of the Moskva.
Oh Well, rack another recce score up for the Hummer Ready Room – beginning to look like ORE all over again… 😉
– SJS
I am interested to discover if the russian exercise passed west of Ireland en route to the Bay of Biscay or when homeward bound, can anyone help 🙄 ?
Shay:
I seem to recall seeing something along those lines — will scour my resources this weekend and leave a note here.
– SJS