… For aircraft carriers?
The Kuznetsov sounds like it’s just a shipload of bad luck. The recent fire allegedly did several hundred million dollars in damage – possibly totalling the ship. This makes a total of 3 accidents that have potentially totalled the ship: the dry dock supporting it failed and dropped the ship; a crane fell onto the deck and tore holes in some important things, and now one of the welders repairing the damage from the crane set the ship afire for a while.
Kuznetsov on fire in Murmansk
The fire apparently compromised a great deal of electrical wiring. That’s going to mean no end of badness for the ship’s future reliability.
Remember: that is the pathetic thing that the US imperial navy’s 13 supercarriers are stacked up against. The Russians only have one aircraft carrier. It has been out of action since late 2017. The picture above may not be from the most recent fire; there was another one in 2009, which killed one crewmember. Apparently that fire was caused by a short circuit; my confidence in the Kuznetsov’s electrical system would be going down, rapidly. This is supposed to be a warship, the whole “catches fire, likes to burn” thing is not one of the attributes of a successful battle-worthy vessel. The US navy, obviously, does not need a fleet of supercarriers just to stand opposite the Kuznetsov – that’s all pentagon bullshit. The US Navy’s carriers are “force projection” – useful for parking opposite countries that don’t have a navy, and adjusting their attitude with a rain of high explosive. It’s the American Way.
Kuznetsov has a sister ship, the NS Vikramaditya. The Russians gave the ship to India, so long as they paid $800 million for “upgrade and refit” and another $1 billion for the aircraft and gear on board. The ship sat decommissioned from 1996 to 2004. The refit was supposed to finish in 2008, but because of scheduling overruns, the ship was not ready until 2012. Cost overruns were $1.2 billion. [Those Russian defense contractors are pikers compared to their American counterparts] It was, however, discovered that an Indian commodore responsible for the project pricing had been thoroughly bribed by the Russians.
The ship has also been plagued with problems: [wik]
On 17 September 2012, malfunctions were detected during trials. According to an official report, seven out of eight steam boilers of the propulsion machinery were out of order. Due to this, the deadline of the hand over this ship to the Indian Navy was postponed again until October 2013. Later investigation has determined that the cause for the engine failure was due to poor workmanship and supervision.
I suspect the ship did not perform as expected, with only 1 of 8 boilers functioning. It’s a miracle that it moved at all. [mb]
At least two people, including a civilian, were killed and another two injured, following leakage of toxic fumes from the sewage plant on June 10 2016. A number of workers were injured or died during ship’s renovation, in Russia.
I’m not sure I can think about what kind of toxic fumes come from a sewage plant, that are able to outright kill people. Derek Lowe once wrote about “hell’s dumpster” (thioacetone) [things I won’t work with] – perhaps that’s what one uses to clean a Russian aircraft carrier’s sewage plant.
There’s no doubt about it: nautical life is dangerous. The sea is unforgiving. So, apparently, are Russian sewage plants.
Carrier flight deck operations are insanely complicated and the margin for error is basically nonexistent. The US Navy has the only effective carrier fleet in the world, because the US fleet is the only one that practices and can actually operate their ships, and train their pilots. Carrier deck landings are notoriously difficult for pilots; there are so many things that can go wrong, and you do not want to try to deploy flight wings and deck crew that are out of practice. Since the Kuznetsov has not been doing flight operations for 4 years, there’s a good chance that they’ve lost a lot of the people that knew what they were doing.
Hydrogen sulphide?
One would be a misfortune, two would look like carelessness… At three, I’d be starting to suspect enemy action.
Anything that’s not oxygen will outright kill people at sufficient concentrations.
Dunc@#3:
Anything that’s not oxygen will outright kill people at sufficient concentrations.
Yeah, but I don’t want to think about what might come out of a sewage system in such quantities that it lethally replaces the oxygen in an area. Andrew G@#1 probably has it – hydrogen sulfide. Although it could be they were cleaning it with bleach and lye or something unwise like that. Again, my mind skitters off thinking what that situation might have been like.
In case I wanted an aircraft carrier, before, now I do not.
I’ll bet the cramped spaces and limited number of ventilation points allow toxic gases to build up much faster on a ship than most other places, even in buildings.
CO2 is another possibility if there’s aerobic activity going on
Im surprised they have sewage plants, I thought they would just flush it all overboard
yeah, I also thought ships just dumped waste (including garbage) into the ocean. I guess they need some sort of system to hold stuff while near shore, in port, or in other areas where people will notice and get up set at garbage, sewage, and such.
I was also thinking methane, but I don’t believe that’s toxic as much as it is an asphyxiant. I’m guessing it’s some agent added to either clean the system, or some anti-microbial or something added to the sewage? H2S sounds possible…
I wouldn’t rely on press reports to make that distinction reliably.
If the deaths were in confined spaces, with little of no ventilation, the list of hazardous chemicals and compounds goes up. Even seemingly safe materials like latex paint and common rust can, given the right situation and enough time, pull oxygen out of a space and render the space nearly instantaneously lethal until properly ventilated.
Fairly common to hear of multiple deaths with poorly trained crews. You open a hatch or cover, send a guy down and then, without warning, he goes silent. Second guy goes down to find out what is going on, and falls silent. Third guy, half thinking it is either a joke or they found something interesting, like maybe a bottle of hooch, goes down but more slowly. Only to fall unconscious and die at the foot of the ladder.
Sewage treatment plants can be quite dangerous. Aerobic bacteria consume oxygen, anaerobic bacteria can produce methane and/or HS. The first displacing oxygen and the second being remarkably poisonous by itself. Chlorine and ammonia are commonly used and, if combined, produce chloramine gas that is related to phosgene, made famous in WWI.
Confined spaces are inherently dangerous.
I wonder if the relevant people in Russia have written off aircraft carriers as the cavalry of the 20th century. 21st century naval warfare takes place underwater.
It is a wonder that the Kuznetsov managed to survive this long. It got commissioned as the USSR collapsed and the USSR/Russian navy disintegrated. At best it is probably held together by chewing gum and string.Well maybe duct tape.
The thing is, the Russians, apparently, are not “that” interested in aircraft carriers though some admirals can dream.
10 Ian King
AIUI, Russian military doctrine is primarily defensive. They are not that interested in projecting power around the world (à la USA) as they are in sinking anything that comes near enough to Russia to be even slightly threatening. For that, they seem to have adapted a version of the French “jeune école” approach, concentrating on massed swarm attacks from submarines, air defences and smaller surface vessels, all with advanced missile technology, to wipe out sitting targets like US aircraft carriers.
@ 2 Dunc
One would be a misfortune, two would look like carelessness… At three, I’d be starting to suspect enemy action.
Well, the Russian shipbuilding industry has had its problems. You are likely safer on the ship than building it.
On the other hand, the CIA might be stupid enough to waste resources on an outdated ship rather than worry about real threats / Russia launches new nuclear-powered icebreaker i.
An video Seven Seas of Ice gives an interesting view of Russian capabilities in the Arctic. Oh, and there is this / Russian icebreaking tanker set to deliver fuel to Alaska town.
France also has an operational & reasonably-militarily-effective big-deck aircraft carrier, the /Charles de Gaulle/. They sometimes do join-training exercises with the USA.
Effectively working one of those is something of an art. Any failure can lead to disaster. The USS Oriskany (CV-34) took casualties because of a few mishandled flares. When the fire broke out nobody considered the unique nature of magnesium flares, or that they burn so hot they can break water down into hydrogen and oxygen. Adding water made thing worse and cost damage control teams many lives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Oriskany_fire
US Navy has learned many lessons the hard way.
It is maybe worth noting that at least in the USA the various degrees of government certification for merchant marine work boil down to a little bit of training for ship handling, diesel engine maintenance, or whatever, and a hell of a lot of firefighting.