What Frightened The USS Donald Cook So Much In The Black Sea? -- Voltaire Net
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 which carried neither bombs nor missiles but only an electronic warfare device.
On 10 April 2014, the USS Donald Cook entered the waters of the Black Sea and on 12 April a Russian Su-24 tactical bomber flew over the vessel triggering an incident that, according to several media reports, completely demoralized its crew, so much so that the Pentagon issued a protest [1].
The USS Donald Cook (DDG-75) is a 4th generation guided missile destroyer whose key weapons are Tomahawk cruise missiles with a range of up to 2,500 kilometers, and capable of carrying nuclear explosives. This ship carries 56 Tomahawk missiles in standard mode, and 96 missiles in attack mode.
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My Comment: This is a huge story .... if it is true. But when I did a quick check on the internet I found only Infowars was doing any reporting on this story. No one else is touching the story .. and no one is denying it.
If on the off-chance that this story is true ... I would not be overly concerned. Such a plane would be shot down rather quickly in the event of hostilities, and now that we know what are the capabilities of this Russian technology .... I am sure that countermeasures are being developed right now.
11 comments:
The real story here is what lies behind the actions of that Russian jet on a political matter... It says a lot, and I mean a lot, about the current administration and policies when a Russian jet openly simulates and tests its hardware against a live US target.
WNU,
This is an interesting story, but it's full of if's. I have to think about it some more.
Plowman,
Your right that the political dimension is something to consider (a lot) when reading about this incident. 30 years ago this happened quite often. Some ex navy sub friends have told me stories of "rubbing elbows" with soviet subs down deep. But that was then and we had a long lull and now we're back at it, which as you say begs a big question.
I have to think about this too James .... if true this is a big story.
Sorry Nikante Sanue .... I never got it. But if you have more information on this story, please leave it in this comments thread.
This one has been out there for some time. A few issues:
1: Of course the SU-24 was unmolested by the Cook. It would be about the same thing as a Russian DDG sailing around Lake Superior and being buzzed by F-15E's. All you CAN do is watch. Maybe send a radio call "You're too close, back off" which will be ignored in a game of blind-man's bluff.
2: There really isn't going to be much of any way an airborne platform - especially a non-dedicated platform (You might be able to talk me into it with an EA-6B or an E-3C) is going to out-power a ship-borne platform in an energy duel. Might be they had a network hack that shut down some portion of the ship's computers? Yup. And they'd be IDIOTS to expose it in this situation because any exploit (especially a zero-day exploit) once used, is shut down. You get about ONE shot. Why waste it on a display?
3: Even if they HAD managed to shut down the ship's entire electronics suite (which is about forty discreet systems, many of which are not interconnected), there's no way the US Navy would be telling anyone about it.
Orion
Orion's comments are right on target. If they could do what was reported(shut down entire ship wide systems), that would be a war winner on par with Enigma. What possibly could Russia gain that would justify this use if true versus use in real conflict? Also in the reporting I've seen, is the claim that 20+ sailors were so demoralized that they asked to be relieved, I doubt that, that number could be easily explained by normal time in service/duty station attrition. Of course the Pentagon complained, that's normal.
Also Orion's Lake Superior/Black Sea analogy is perfect.
Thank you, James.
As to the 20 folks being demoralized - I think it's a lot more likely they're demoralized by having a CiC who would send a lone Destroyer into a Russian lake.
That's like saying "HI! Please sink me and claim it was a training accident!"
I'd be demoralized too. It'd be one thing if I had a CiC that my enemies were afraid of or believed would respond, but with THIS one? They'd probably only get a gag-gift with a badly translated message on it.
Orion
Orion,
"That's like saying "HI! Please sink me and claim it was a training accident!" Jesus I wouldn't want to be on that ship, you'd be dead meat in a heart beat.
...State Department acknowledged?
No such post ANYWHERE.
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