Remember back in Spring when the Navy decided to respond to Russian territorial aggression by sailing a missile destroyer into the Black Sea? We didn’t hear much more about that after the fact, oddly enough.
I recall that when I read about it, I pretty much shrieked at my monitor: “Are you crazy?” The Black Sea has been a Russian pond since the tsars, and while Russians may be casual about other nations’ territorial claims they consider their own as serious as a heart attack. Go ask Gary Powers. I don’t pretend to be anything remotely like a military expert, but I know a bad idea when I see one.
Anyway, the Donald Cook entered the Black Sea, sailed around importantly for a very brief time, and then left. The Navy issued a triumphal press release about its exploits, and the whole incident went down the memory hole.
In America, that is. Internationally, it seems there was more to the story.
What frightened the USS Donald Cook so much in the Black Sea?
The Donald Cook is one of the most advanced missile destroyers afloat. Keep it stocked with ammo and it sounds as though this one small ship could have pretty much won WWII all by itself. It’s designed to be untouchable. But of course it wasn’t fighting the Luftwaffe, and it got owned – repeatedly – by a single conspicuously unarmed SU-24.
As the Russian jet approached the US vessel, the electronic device disabled all radars, control circuits, systems, information transmission, etc. on board the US destroyer. In other words, the all-powerful Aegis system, now hooked up – or about to be – with the defense systems installed on NATO’s most modern ships was shut down, as turning off the TV set with the remote control.
The Russian Su-24 then simulated a missile attack against the USS Donald Cook, which was left literally deaf and blind. As if carrying out a training exercise, the Russian aircraft – unarmed – repeated the same maneuver 12 times before flying away.
After that, the 4th generation destroyer immediately set sail towards a port in Romania.
Since that incident, which the Atlanticist media have carefully covered up despite the widespread reactions sparked among defense industry experts, no US ship has ever approached Russian territorial waters again.
Probably good news for contractors developing electronic countermeasures, but still. Doesn’t sound like it was very well thought out.
According to some specialized media, 27 sailors from the USS Donald Cook requested to be relieved from active service.
Stupidity is so annoying… and increasingly frightening. The smart folks know that any offensive technology will quickly be negated by defensive technology, and this is a good example. How many billions spent to construct that ship again?
Always amazed by this sort of thing. The US gov. seems to think there should be no limit whatsoever to what it does, but if a Russian war ship had sailed into the Florida Keys like this, all hell would have broken loose. I’m astonished at the patience and forebearance of the Russians, frankly.
Oh, my goodness! Not too long after writing the above, lookie what I found:
RUSSIAN PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN, already locked in a power poker match with President Obama, raises the stakes by authorizing bomber flights over the Gulf of Mexico — while launching a glitzy global radio and web broadcast network to spread the word of Moscow. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/11/13/putin-pokes-west-with-massive-news-outlet-launch-bomber-flights/
I can just imagine all the panties in a twist along the eastern coast right now…
There are a few things in this article that just don’t add up. For one, I can see radar jamming but being able to remotely shut down all systems on a ship would require an enormous technological leap. To the point where I can’t even imagine how that would work and I’m not exactly unknowledgeable when it comes to electronics and IT.
Secondly, were this true it would represent the first glimpse of a hitherto unknown superweapon. Such weapons are far more useful when you’re the only one who has them. The moment you display them, however, your enemy will be hard at work copying them. See also: Nukes. So why would Russia “waste” such a powerful device on a mere regional pissing contest?
I can’t find much more information on this supposed “systems shutdown”. How sure are we about the veracity of the source? Methinks this might be an extremely overblown description of modern electronic countermeasures and the same pissing contests we’ve been having with the Russians for decades.
Along with bmq215’s objections, consider the source clicking the “about ” button for Voltairenet reveals that it was founded by a French journalist and that it supports all theUnited nations, one world order, lefty viewpoints with a distinct anti- American flavor. One might be well advised to take any report on Russia- U.S. encounters with a grain of salt.
I don’t know but it looks to me that this story is a little bit of bull sh… er, propaganda. If this event had happened the way it was written in voltairenet.org one would think that the serious military technology news (Janes Defense Weekly, Aviation Weekly, Defense News etc.) would have picked up on it and broadcast it, yet the trades are all quiet. If, and that is a very big if, this happened then the most likely explanation would be that the electronic warfare systems were compromised by some serious intelligence gathering. No super weapon here just the ability to remote access the ships systems using stolen data.
I do concede I know nothing about this source or the veracity of the story. Just passing it on. The voyage definitely happened and it was brief, and stupid, and I strongly suspect that its brevity and its stupidity are closely related. 🙂
I’m with bmq215 on this. In fact, I detect a pungent whiff of eau de bullshit.
Think about the first paragraph, which is offered without the slightest proof or attribution: ” The State Department acknowledged that the crew of the destroyer USS Donald Cook has been gravely demoralized ever since their vessel was flown over in the Black Sea by a Russian Sukhoi-24 (Su-24) fighter jet ”
Even if it were 100% true, (which I gravely doubt) could you imagine the US State Department making such an “acknowledgment”?
That said; Do I think that sending that ship was a great idea? No, not unless you like the idea of Russian warships in the Gulf of Mexico.
I would guess radars were jammed. I would also accept the SU24 made simulated attack runs while radars were jammed. I would also guess the Donald Cook did not run their coutner measures since it was just a show-the-flag moment and went home when they decided they’d had enough fun and/or remembered they didn’t have a fleet behind them.
Sailors can request to be removed from active service? How times change!
The whole article is one steaming pile of BS wrote by a journo who is so far left that even stalin would be embarassed by him!
This story has to be BS. You can jam signals and in fact we do it all the time. That doesn’t prevent a missile launch or stop the missile from hitting it’s preprogrammed target. And jamming is temporary requiring the jamming device to be quite close. A simple “basket” under this plane would be very limited in both power and ability. Also, it wasn’t the key part of the story, but if this were in war time the plane wouldn’t have made it within 5 miles of the ship. The real risk to our ships especially in small ponds like this is anti-ship missiles. They have become so advanced that they cannot be defended against.
That story probably sounds very plausible to those who don’t know anything about the topic or the situation. It is laden with lots of technical terms. Also the ship’s shoulder thing that goes up was easily spoofed by glorious warplane of Mother Russia.
Plus one to Tam and Mamaliberty, both.
I doubt very much that the Russian plane was able to shut down the entire defense system on the destroyer. So much so that I feel relatively confident calling BS.
I also recall reading Michael Critchton’s “The Thirteenth Warrior” and recall the scene where the two vikings were locked in a death duel, and the one viking feigned weakness, and allowed himself to be “beaten” right up until he suddenly reared up to behead his opponent. The reasoning behind his doing this was that he won without showing his other enemies the measure of his actual strength and abilities. Makes me wonder, but maybe I’ve got too much confidence in the strategic abilities of our leaders.
I also think that if Russia were to send a warship to our territorial waters, that we’d be perturbed by it. And I cannot imagine why anyone thought it was a good idea to do that to Russia. Stupid, stupid, stupid.