| Submit your comments on this article |
| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Wired Magazine: Assault Ship's Bad Day " Inside the Battle for the Black Sea" |
| 2008-08-15 |
| While the speed of the Russian Army's response grabbed the attention of western observers, the fast response by the Russian Navy has been quite remarkable, too. The war started on Friday August 8th; the Black Sea Fleet was reported to arrive off the coast of Georgia on Saturday August 9th. That's pretty impressive, considering it is about 400 nautical miles from Sevastopol to Ochamchire. While the Moskva, Smetlivy, Muromets, and Aleksandrovets can make good speed and make the trip quickly, those ships sailed from Sevastopol with an assortment of support vessels that could only make 12-16 knots, at best. Simple math reveals that would make it a 25 hour trip, meaning the ships would have had to put to sea almost immediately after the fighting began. For any fleet to deploy that quickly is extraordinary readiness. Then, on the early morning of August 10th, there was a battle at sea. The Russian Black Sea Fleet was engaged by four Georgian coast guard vessels, while conducting landing operations in Ochamchire. The Russians claimed to sink one ship, and the day after the battle the Moskva was reported to be in the Russian port of Novorossiysk. |
| Posted by:3dc |
| #2 For any fleet to deploy that quickly is extraordinary readiness. Maybe they were "pre-ready", if you know what I mean. |
| Posted by: Angie Schultz 2008-08-15 22:56 |
| #1 Amusing - the Georgian boats were armed only with guns. If they were missile boats, they might have sent the Russian Black Sea fleet to the bottom. Some of the details of the sailor's story are slightly inaccurate -- call it fog of war. The Georgian ship sunk was not the Tbilisi, as the sailor suggests. Rather it was the Georgian patrol boat P-21 Georgy Toreli. A night battle in the littoral, the Georgians armed only with guns, yet the little flotilla of four was able to get in close to Moskva and start a little fire. Covering its withdraw, the Mirazh missile boat is reported to have sunk the ship in only 90 seconds in what was reported as 300 meters of water. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2008-08-15 22:28 |