How Russian planes scared an American ship. What scared the American destroyer. On an unnamed frequency

The US State Department admitted that the crew of the American destroyer Donald Cook was demoralized after meeting with a Russian Su-24 bomber that did not have bombs or missiles on board. We found out why this happened and what else Russia has that is inspiring.

On an unnamed frequency

On April 10, he entered the Black Sea American destroyer"Donald Cook". On April 12, a Russian Su-24 front-line bomber flew over the destroyer. April 14, after a generally ordinary incident - our planes do not approach ships very regularly probable enemy V neutral waters, - The Pentagon made an extremely emotional statement, accusing Russia of violating its own traditions and international treaties. It was mentioned that the crew of the Donald Cook was demoralized after the meeting with the bomber; information appeared in a number of media that 27 American sailors wrote reports about dismissal from the fleet. What scared the destroyer crew so much?

"Donald Cook" is not a rusty submarine "Zaporozhye", but destroyer US Navy fourth generation, whose main weapons are guided missiles. This is the most massive post-war ship with a displacement of more than 5,000 tons: 62 have been built since 1988, with 13 more planned. The Cook's main weapons are cruise missiles"Tomahawk" with a flight range of up to 2,500 kilometers, capable of carrying nuclear warheads. In conventional and attack versions, the destroyer is equipped with 56 or 96 such missiles, respectively.

The 380 people who make up the ship's crew are reliably protected. The Donald Cook's combat posts are surrounded by Kevlar - each ship carries 130 tons of this expensive material, but durable material. The small superstructure is covered with material that absorbs radar radiation. Below the waterline, the destroyer is protected by armor made of high-strength magnesium-aluminum alloys. To reduce underwater noise, air is supplied to the edges of the propellers. As a result, a cloud of bubbles is formed, distorting and smoothing out the hydroacoustic “portrait” of the ship.

Finally, the Donald Cook is equipped with the latest Aegis combat information and control system - among other things, it integrates the air defense systems of all ships on which it is installed into a common network, allowing it to simultaneously track and fire at hundreds of targets. On the edges of the destroyer's superstructure there are four huge antennas of a universal radar, replacing several conventional radars. Along with the Tomahawks, fifty anti-aircraft guided missiles of various classes are waiting in the universal launchers at the bow and stern.

It would seem that the appearance of such a ship in the Black Sea should cause shock and awe. And so it happened, but from the wrong side. The Russian Su-24 front-line bomber that arrived at the Donald Cook did not have bombs or missiles on board. Under the fuselage hung one container with a Khibiny electronic warfare system. Having approached the destroyer, the Khibiny turned off its radar, combat control circuits, data transmission systems - in short, they turned off the entire Aegis, just as we turn off the TV by pressing a button on the remote control. After this, the Su-24 simulated a missile attack on the blinded and deafened ship. Then another and another - a total of 12 times.

When the bomber took off, the Donald Cook hurriedly headed to the Romanian port to calm her nerves. He did not approach Russian waters again. The Americans are accustomed from afar, in complete safety, to crush poorly armed detachments of some desert partisans with missiles. And if that doesn't work out, they don't play.

Soldiers of the invisible front

The more complex the electronic system, the easier it is to disrupt its operation using electronic warfare methods and means. - said the head of the research center for electronic warfare and assessing the effectiveness of reducing the visibility of the Air Force Academy Vladimir Balybin. - To win in modern warfare, it is not enough to achieve air supremacy. It is also necessary to ensure information superiority.

In addition to the Khibiny, the domestic military-industrial complex produces many different devices capable of discouraging both regular enemy units and bandits and terrorists. The Airborne Forces began to receive Infauna complexes. Installed on an armored personnel carrier or other military equipment, the complex finds and jams enemy radio communications in the HF and VHF bands, and “puts to sleep” remotely controlled landmines. They will certainly explode - but only after a column of Russian military personnel passes over them and moves away to a safe distance.

"Infauna" has one more function - optical sensors placed on the sides of the vehicle detect flashes of shots and give the command to set up a smoke screen to shield the column from fire. The "Judoist" information security complex, among other things, finds and neutralizes electronic devices that have been unauthorized connected to data transmission channels.

The product "Lesochek" performs the same functions as "Infauna", but is much more compact - it can be carried in a backpack or suitcase. With such a case it is convenient to go to important business negotiations - the most advanced security service will not be able to eavesdrop on them. For businessmen, there is a civilian version of "Lesochka" - it can be mounted in the trunk of a Mercedes.

If the “Lesochek” product had been working in General Romanov’s UAZ in Grozny in 1995, the explosion of the vehicle of the commander of the internal troops might not have happened, said Balybin.

The basis of the radio-electronic protection of tactical formations of the Russian Army is the Borisoglebsk-2 complex. It includes an automated control center and four types of jamming stations - in a single algorithm they find sources of enemy activity on the air and jam them.

The "Resident" device finds and blocks satellite and Cell Phones, subscriber systems for GPS navigation. It proved its effectiveness during the conflict in South Ossetia, disorienting Georgian drones. In Chechnya, the head of the electronic warfare department of the Voronezh Air Force Academy, Vladimir Khrolikov, fought with terrorists:

We had tracking stations throughout the territory. As soon as there was activity on the air, we made a note and passed it on to the gunners. Dzhokhar Dudayev, as you know, was destroyed by a missile aimed at the signal of his satellite phone. In Grozny electronic warfare specialists They neutralized radio-controlled landmines rolled into asphalt.

Re-equipment of strategic nuclear forces Russia on the latest tools Electronic warfare is progressing at an accelerated pace, said Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Dmitry Rogozin. If the army and navy as a whole will be re-equipped by 70 percent by 2020, then the electronic warfare capabilities of the strategic potential will be updated by 100 percent.

Electronic warfare is what allows our smart weapons to operate and other people's smart weapons to fall asleep. And that’s right,” the Deputy Prime Minister noted.

The Pentagon has released footage of Russian Su-24 bombers approaching the American destroyer Donald Cook. The incident occurred yesterday in international waters Baltic Sea. The Russian Ministry of Defense has already stated that the planes strictly followed safety rules. However, NATO almost called the behavior of the Russian pilots a declaration of war.

Western channels have been playing six seconds of video without stopping for almost a day. According to some media, the plane passed 20 meters from the deck, according to others, it flew right over the deck, and still others almost hit people. The atmosphere is heightened by people in uniform, one after another: Russia has almost declared war.

"The incident contradicts professional standards military personnel operating in close proximity to each other," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.

The fact that the planes did not have full ammunition loads under their wings, and as soon as they approached the ship, immediately began to move away, was never reported by Western channels.

"The crews of Su-24 aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces over the neutral waters of the Baltic Sea. All aircraft flights Russian VKS are carried out in strict accordance with international rules for the use of airspace over neutral waters. The flight route of the Russian aircraft passed through the area where the US Navy destroyer Donald Cook was located, approximately 70 kilometers from the Russian naval base", explained the head of the press service and information department of the Ministry of Defense Russian Federation, Major General Igor Konashenkov.

We are talking about the largest Russian naval base in the Baltic Sea, Baltiysk. As the Russian planes approached American ship was only 70 kilometers from this most important operational-strategic formation Navy with headquarters in Kaliningrad. The approach could be called a typical display of the flag, but at that moment there was an entire arsenal of weapons on board the American ship.

The artillery on the American destroyer was a Mark 45, the firing rate of which was 20 rounds per minute, anti-aircraft artillery complex Mark 15 Phalanx CIWS, with subsonic flight speed, and, worst of all, modern system Aegis combat system - missiles long range- the same tomahawks that fly over a distance of 2.5 thousand kilometers can carry nuclear warhead. Another hour and the ship could have come very close to the Russian port.

It had already approached the Russian shores twice before. Americans like to say that the ship is invulnerable. But in 2014, it was detected in the Black Sea by the Russian Bastion anti-ship system. At the same time, Russian fighter jets approached him.

“Not far from the Crimean coast, our Su-24 bomber switched on electronic warfare equipment at a distance of a kilometer from this destroyer. The entire control system and radio electronics on the destroyer went out - it was completely de-energized, the systems did not work missile defense, management missile weapons. Even 20 sailors are said to have written letters of resignation from the destroyer because the US government was unable to protect their lives. We showed them their place and behave correctly. They are not exclusive, not kings at this wedding. They behave as if they can do something, but we can’t do anything,” said retired colonel and military observer Viktor Litovkin.

“The appearance of foreign warships in the immediate vicinity of Russia’s maritime borders, of course, should remain in the field of attention of our Aerospace Forces. In the event of a potential violation of Russia’s maritime border, we need to do everything to ensure that this does not happen, and that a target hostile to us is driven out into neutral waters," said the military expert, Chief Editor magazine "National Defense" Igor Korotchenko.

The practice of fighters and bombers overflying warships was, in fact, introduced by the Americans themselves. Russian sailors have been on the nerves since the Cold War.

“From personal experience, I remember 1970, when we were sailing on a floating base submarines, planes flew over us several times every day different countries. I have a whole bunch of photographs at home. We were completely calm about this. If there is some kind of fear, this already relates to psychological stability. For normal military personnel, this is a common thing,” said Russian admiral, commander of the Northern Fleet in 1999–2001, Vyacheslav Popov.

“I lived for 20 years in Japan, where the capital was located next to two American air bases. We saw a huge number of cases when American planes hovered over civilian objects. Let alone the extent to which they did not respect other people’s military installations,” - said media consultant and human rights activist who worked as a journalist in Tokyo, John Bosnich.

What will be the reaction of American sailors to approaching their ship will become known as soon as the destroyer returns to port. So far, only “not from fright, but from surprise” has been reported.

After 1991, when an Iraqi MiG was shot down over Persian Gulf one of the American Hornites, F/A-18 had no combat contact with Russian-built fighters. However, in November 2000, there was still a meeting between American carrier-based aircraft and fighter jets Russian Air Force, which was “as close as possible” to combat.

First, you should give the floor to the American pilot, a direct eyewitness to the events described (the text of his letter sent by e-mail from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, against the will of the author of the message, became public knowledge).

“...The voyage was quite easy and interesting: 54 days at sea, 4 in port and 45 hours of flight in October alone! (for comparison, many pilots of the Russian Air Force have an annual flight time of about 45-60 hours, with the required 200-250) Yes, we flew off our asses! Since I became one of the squadron commanders, I have been flying a lot. Here interesting story(and this is not bullshit).

So, I’m sitting there and chatting about all sorts of bullshit with my deputy, and we hear a call on the box from the BIC (combat information center- the “brain” of the ship). -They say: “Sir, we have spotted Russian planes.”

The captain replies: “Declare the alarm, scramble the fighters.” From the center they say: you can only announce “Alert-30” (departure 30 minutes (!) from the moment of announcement). The captain swore and said: “Get everything you can into the air as quickly as possible!” I ran to the navigator's telephone and contacted the squadron duty officer. It wasn't our squadron on duty that day, so I told him to find out who was on duty and make them get off their asses and rush to the flight deck (only Alert 7 assumes you're already on the flight deck and ready to go into the air: “Alarm 30” means you are still sitting in the waiting room).

Soon Russian Su-27 and Su-24 at a speed of 500 knots passed directly over the bridge of the Kitty Hawk. Just like in the movie "Top Gun"! The officers on the bridge spilled their coffee and said...! (An obscene expression that has a very emotional Russian counterpart.) At that moment I looked at the captain - his face was purple.

The Russian fighters made two more tight turns at low altitude before we finally launched our first aircraft from the deck. It was... EA-6B "Prowler" (electronic warfare aircraft). Yes, yes, we launched the unfortunate Prowler one on one against a fighter right above the ship. Our pilots were already asking for help when finally the F/A-18 from the "sister" squadron (I use this term literally, as they looked like a company " women lung behavior" (the phrase in quotation marks has been replaced by a more decent one - note from the administration), flirting with the Russians) took off into the air to intercept. But it was too late. The whole team raised their heads and watched as the Russians made a mockery of our pathetic attempt to stop them.

The funny thing is that the admiral and the commander of the carrier force were in the command room for a morning meeting, which was interrupted by the hum of the turbines of Russian aircraft circling above the aircraft carrier's control room. The commander's staff officer told me that they looked at each other, at the flight plan, were convinced that the launch was only a few hours away that day, and asked: “What was that?”

Four days later, the Russian intelligence service emailed the commander of Kitty Hawk with photographs of our pilots rushing around the deck, desperately trying to get the planes into the air...”

The events described in the letter took place in the Korean Strait area on October 17, 2000. Two Su-24MR reconnaissance aircraft and a covering flight of Su-27 fighter-interceptors from the 11th Air Force and Air Defense Army took part in the flyby of the American multi-purpose aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. . According to the then Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Air Force, Anatoly Karnukov, “this was planned reconnaissance, during which, however, unusual tasks were solved.” At the same time, no international agreements were not violated by the Russian side.

It should be noted that the American naval maneuvers took place only 300 km from the Russian coast, which in itself could not be regarded as a friendly act towards our country. Therefore actions Russian aviation were completely justified and legitimate.

According to the Commander-in-Chief, the intelligence results “were impressive.” Su-24MRs made several approaches to the aircraft carrier, photographing everything that was happening on the flight deck. The photographs showed panic on board the ship: the sailors began to urgently cut the hoses connecting the aircraft carrier to the tanker, which at that time was transferring fuel aboard the Kitty Hawk.

The F/A-18 fighters were able to take off only after the second approach of the Russian reconnaissance aircraft, but the Su-27s immediately led them away from the ship with a diversionary maneuver, which allowed the reconnaissance aircraft to carry out several more flights over the aircraft carrier, which was completely defenseless from the air. According to press reports, the flyby by Russian Kitty Hawk aircraft was repeated on November 9 and was also successful.

Here's how the media described these events:

1) On December 7 in Washington, US military officials Kent Bacon and Admiral Stephen Pietropaoli held a press conference at which they revealed some details of a series of incidents in the Sea of ​​Japan, when Russian Su-27 and Su-24 reconnaissance aircraft flew at a critical distance to the American aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk based there.

Some time later, the carrier received an email containing two photographs of the Kitty Hawk's deck taken from Russian aircraft during one of these Russian Air Force actions, Bacon said Thursday. The letter also contained a short message in Russian, the contents of which Amiral Pietropaoli refused to clarify, UPI reports. According to him, the letter was not sent from the Russian Ministry of Defense, and its sender is unknown to the Pentagon representative.

In addition, Kenneth Bacon said that at a press conference a week ago, when he also spoke about the actions of Russian pilots, he made a number of inaccuracies. Firstly, there were not two, but three cases of overflight of Russian aircraft - on October 12, October 17 and November 9. Secondly, in the October 17 incident, the planes were not “detected at an acceptable distance” a few hundred meters from the ship, as previously reported by the Russian Air Force, but flew directly over the aircraft carrier, causing confusion for the US military. At this moment, pictures were taken and subsequently sent to Kitty Hawk.

Lenta.ru 8.12.00

2) Russian military aircraft in the Sea of ​​Japan successfully carried out an operation to overcome air defense American aircraft carrier multi-role strike group led by the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk (KittyHawkCV63). A message about this, published by the Izvestia newspaper, was confirmed to Interfax on Tuesday by informed sources in the Russian military department. According to them, this happened twice in the Sea of ​​Japan at the moment when the US aircraft carrier group was heading for exercises in the Korean Strait (October 17) and when it was returning from maneuvers (November 9) ... (Interfax November 14, 2000)

According to some reports, the planes were from 11 air army(commander - Lieutenant General Anatoly Nagovnitsyn). The Kitty Hawk's deck was completely unprepared for resistance, and the Americans seriously decided that they were being attacked, and in a panic they began to cut the fuel communications so that there would be no big explosion and fire during the attack. Then they raised the Hornets and tried to accompany the Sushi to the coast.

On the same day, Anatoly Kornukov stated that “Management General Staff The Armed Forces highly appreciated the work of Russian pilots who opened the air defense system of the US aircraft carrier strike force led by the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. According to him, all pilots will be nominated for awards. “This was a planned reconnaissance, although during it unusual tasks were solved. The results of this reconnaissance are impressive,” the commander-in-chief emphasized.

On October 17, 2000, two Su-24 and Su-27 combat aircraft from the 11th Air Force and Air Defense Army of Russia discovered the Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier and flew in close proximity to it, at an altitude of approximately 60 m. At the time of the flyby, the ship was replenishing stocks on the go in the northern part Sea of ​​Japan, between the island of Hokkaido and the Russian mainland. After the flyby Russian pilots sent the pictures they took to the aircraft carrier's website. The flights were repeated on October 20 and November 9

A month later, representatives of the US Department of Defense officially acknowledged the fact of the aircraft carrier overflight. Russian funds mass media They prefer the term “conditional destruction”.

American sailors filmed their “honorary escort” - Russian Su-24 bombers, which .

As the Wall Street Journal wrote the day before, such incidents were noted this week in the Baltic Sea. The Russian planes were not armed with missiles, but the US military considered their maneuvers “unsafe and potentially provocative.”

One of the episodes happened when a Polish helicopter was supposed to take off from the deck of an American ship. However, due to the Su-24, the takeoff had to be postponed.

In one of the moments captured on video, Su-24s come from the direction of the sun and pass over an American destroyer at ultra-low altitudes.

The crew of the ship thoroughly enjoyed the air show, not forgetting to take photos and videos and then post them on Flikr and Youtube.

Photos taken by the American military are shown on the Navy.mil portal.

Let us recall that in April 2014, the media reported that the USS Donald Cook had already been “attacked” by Russian aircraft in the Black Sea. It was reported that the Su-24 bomber made several maneuvers near the American military vessel. The pilot did not respond to requests, but silently flew in prohibitive proximity to the destroyer at an altitude of 600 meters.

The guided missile destroyer USS Donald Cook is an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer assigned to the US Navy's 22nd Squadron. Its permanent location is military base"Rota" in Spain. The main weapon of the ship is Tomahawk cruise missiles (from 56 to 96 units) with a flight range of up to 2,500 kilometers, capable of carrying nuclear warheads. The destroyer is also equipped launchers anti-ship missiles"Harpoon", anti-submarine, mine-torpedo weapons, 127 mm artillery installation, anti-aircraft guided missiles and six-barreled artillery guns.

The ship is equipped with a modern combat information and control system "Aegis". The system allows you to receive and process information from sensors of other ships and aircraft formations and issue target designations to their launchers.