Eisennagel

Funds are short and maybe the Lider class may not see the light of day. The Russian defense industry takes another blow as the Su-57 is cancelled, and efforts refocused on continuing improvements of the Flanker. https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/russias-stealthkiller-fighter-project-has-been-abandoned/news-story/03e50ea76d6a5dfb5aaac69b9c75fbd6 Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin wants to be in with the Japanese stealth fighter project. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/northrop-grumman-plans-battle-lockheed-213400490.html The UK reveals its all new fighter for a while, the Tempest. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44848294 Final Buyan-M corvette laid. PLAAF begins large scale Red Arrow exercise. A Saudi drone was shot down in Yemen by the Houthis. Initial reports suggest its a Wing Loong but its more likely a CH-4. Might be a new light tank for the PLA Marines.

Just to give an idea of the gigantism that dominates the thinking of the shipbuilding industry, Hyundai Heavy Industries alone have nine docks that are each capable of holding a 300,000 ton ship. Nowadays, the mega shipyards in China, Japan and Korea are in a panic with the glut in excess capacity as orders for mega ships are drying up, which means the order queue is now down to two years.

Need to calculate visual and radar horizon. Lets assume two ships with radar top mast at 10m each. The radar would also be the most visible thing on the ship on top of the mast. The radar horizon for the two would be 26 km, and the visual horizon would be 22 km. Now lets say, the 10m mast ship faces a ship with a mast 20m high. Both would radar spot each other in LOS at 31km. If both ships have a 20m radar mast height, that would extend to 36km range. What happens if a ship has a radar search plane flying over it? If the plane is hovering at 1000 meters, the plane's radar horizon against a surface target with 10 meters height would be 143 km. At 2000 meters, its 197 km. At 3000 meters its 238 km. At 10,000 meters height its a whooping 425 km, but this is assuming the plane''s downward search radar can reach that far.

The HMS Ocean is back on the water with her new owners. The Saudi MMSC is a much better equipped LCS. Russian Navy ships gather at the Gulf of Finland for the annual naval parade. SAAB introduces a new antiship missile, the Gungnir. Saudi Arabia has signed up with Spain for new corvettes. The Saudis are rapidly beefing up their navy, and these will serve alongside their MMSCs.

Japan Maritime Self Defense force in Jeddah after Gulf of Aden escort mission, and looks to strengthen ties with the Saudi Navy. http://www.arabnews.com/node/1339066/saudi-arabia CNN puts out an article on the Type 055. https://edition.cnn.com/2018/07/13/asia/china-new-destroyers-intl/index.html Could the USN FFG(X) program take a nod from East Asian shipbuilders? Previously I have already mentioned some good designs from Korean and Japanese shipbuilders. https://thediplomat.com/2018/07/the-us-navys-ffgx-program-could-take-a-nod-from-east-asian-shipbuilders/ Under a billion US$? That's a steep cost for an Admiral Grigorovich class frigate. India gets hit with a high sticker price. https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/frigate-buy-from-russia-hits-high-cost-of-warship-building-118071600029_1.html

The USS Gerald Ford goes back to the dock for a year of fixes. This time of the year already? Marshall Ustinov and the Admiral Gorshkov on the way to St. Petersburg, for the big naval parade later this month.

I suppose this was it.

Severnoye won't recognize their original creations after the refit. The HQ-10 launcher seems back again. The other destroyer was moved elsewhere. Original ship.

Severnoye won't recognize the Sovremennyy they made after the ship goes through its radical refit. How the same ship looked originally. Exercises in the Black Sea has begun.

There should be four spy ships with the Russian Pacific Fleet: Kurily Karelia Pribaltika Azia Karelia just finished an extensive refit and overhaul last year. All four ships go all the way back to the Cold War but has since been refitted for the current age. The bulk of the Russian spy ship fleet is on the Northern, Baltic and Black Sea side, including the latest ships.

I believe the Russian Navy is supposed to station spy ships with each fleet, North Fleet, Baltic Fleet, Black Sea Fleet and the Pacific Fleet. Each fleet acts on their own, especially the Pacific Fleet. The other three fleets could reinforce each other though that requires units to move across the Channel to the Atlantic and to the Med.

The Russians used to send them. I am not sure why they didn't send one this year, or maybe they did but it wasn't reported. https://news.usni.org/2016/07/06/russian-spy-ship-now-off-hawaii-u-s-navy-protecting-critical-information

Pics of other lifters in action. These are oil rigs being delivered from China to the customers in Europe to be deployed in the North Atlantic. MV Blue Merlin now as Dockwise Blue Merlin. Delivering sea based X-Band Radar to Alaska on a DoD contract.

Appreciate it or not, we are living in a golden age of ship gigantism. There are tanks and freighters out there at 300,000 to over 400,000 tons, and cruise liners at over 200,000 tons.

USS Essex gets the F-35B. The US Coast Guard seems to be in with RIMPAC too. I always thought that these cutters need to have frigate versions too. De Ruyter going through the Bosphorus Straits to the Black Sea for scheduled exercises there. Disaster strikes on graving dock, flooding the dock, and damaging the ship being constructed. This will highlight another growing problem, the decay and rot of the shipyard infrastructure. A sacrifice readied for target practice. That's what spy ships are for, spying. Would be interesting to know what she got now. Back at St. Petersburg.