What's in a Name?

Astrkhan. You can see the name on the side of the ship

As I read about the Russian Navy I often have wondered where the ship names came from. Some like the Настойчивый Persistent which is an Sovremennyy class destroyer in service with the Baltic  Fleet, follow the British manner of naming ships. In the British Navy you will find ships such as the Invicible, Tireless, etc.

Most Russian Naval vessels have their ship number on the side

Many other ships in the Russian Navy bear the names of cities. While this may seem to be in the tradition of other Navies around the world, it also has a deeper meaning. After the fall of the Soviet Union the Russian Navy was in shambles. They had no money, and what money the Navy did have was used to decommission ships or was lost to corruption. It was around this time that ships of the Russian Navy started to adopt names. Before this many of the ships were simply know by their class and ship number, such as K-222 or BPK-650.  Many ships adopted names of major Russian cities, and in return the ships received support from the cities. It was a clever way of feeding the sailors and keeping the Russian Navy running.

The sail of the Yuri Dolgorukiy

 Another popular naming method is to name a ship after a famous historical figure such as an admiral. You can see this with the new Borei class submarines, with the first two ships of the class being named Yuri Dolgorukiy and Alexander Nevskiy.

It will be interesting to see what direction the Russian Navy moves in the future naming of ships.

 For an entire list of ships currently serving in the Russian Navy and the names of the ships check out this wikipedia page.

A New President (well kind of)

       The news out of the Russian Navy this week has been slow. I'm guessing that this is because of the elections and protests dominating the news. In case you hadn't heard Vladimir Putin was elected to a third term as president of the Russian Federation. That means for the next six years he will be the head of the Russian military.

Putin

     So in light of that here are a few of the stories that I found from the past week: 

Typhoon at sea

       The Russian Navy has said that it will not modernize the Typhoon class submarines (the picture in the article depicts an Akula class submarine, which the Russian call the Typhoon. Akula is the NATO reporting name for submarine pictured in the article.) The main reason for not wanting to modernize lies in the fact that a full refit of one of the Typhoons could pay for two new Borei class submarines. The reports on whether or not these submarines will stay commissioned with the fleet vary widely. With some sources saying that they will remain in service until 2019. In my opinion besides the Dmitri Donskoy, which is being used to test the Bulava missile, the ships will be scrapped.  For more information about the Typhoons see my earlier blog post here. 

      

IL-38 May

      The Northern Fleet now has a modernized version of the IL-38 May. The aircraft were upgraded and fitted with a new system called Novella. Here are some of the new capabilities:

"The Novella system includes a digital computer manned by two operators. The system also has a new high resolution thermal imaging system, a magnetic anomaly detection system, an optical detection system (including laser, TV and thermal channels), gravitational anomaly detector and other equipment."