What's under "Cook's" armpit? — "Russian Spring" investigation, part 2 (ФОТО, ВИДЕО)

What’s so prominent about American navy destroyer, what did it do in close vicinity to Russian territorial waters and what exactly happened to it in Black Sea two years ago?

In the first part of its investigation “Russian Spring” compared US claims and Russia’s statements regarding Russian figher jets fly-by over Americam “Donald Cook” destroyer and assessed Su-24combat capacities.

READ ALSO: Why Su-24 zoomed over "Donald Cook" — «Russian Spring» investigation (FOTOS, VIDEO, INFOGRAPHICS)

Let’s now focus on the objects of the “attack” and find out what “Donald Cook” is and why it arrived to Russian coast.

What’ under “Cook’s” armit?

To assess fourth generation fleet destroyer “Donald Cook” emerging near Russian borders one needs to examine its main characteristics and tactical employment options more precisely.

The vessel was put afloat in 1997 but commissioned only 15 months after that — a lot of engineering changes were made over that period as well as refitting and upgrade. 

As a result the American vessel got powerful missile ordnance, modern electronic support and whole range of protection facilities.

«Tomahawks»

However onboard anti-ship systems for a vessel with a displacement of five thousand tons are not very well reprsented and this deserves special atteneton: the vessel with only four 'Harpoon’ cruising missiles is obviously not intended for severe navy battles.

Still presence of significant quantity of ‘Tomahawk’ nuclear-capable missiles with range capability up to 2500 km (the destroyer is equipped with 56 or 96 missiles in its standard and strike versions respectively) is obviously pointing out that ‘Donald Cook’ is intended for «strikng coastal targets under conditions of full dominance and enemy’s fleet non-resistance».

‘Tomahawk’ missile launch from US Navy ship

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‘Tomahawk’ missile launch from ‘Donald Cook’ destroyer during US military operation in Iraq, 2009

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Footage of ‘Donald Cook’ performing combat missions 

According to opinion of I rank captain Alexander Khrolenko with 15 year of service in Pacific Fleet being military observer of Russian news agency RIA Novosti it is “definitely a challenge if foreign destroyer is manoeuvring close to Russia’s territorial waters with ‘Tomahawk’ missiles onboard as apart of NATO navy group».

«It was quite expectable that Russian AF appeared there. There were also other possible ways (surface and underwater) how Russian AF and Navy could react as such threat could not be left unnoticed», — Khrolenko added.

The expert also believes that «two days of fly-by look like researching potential capacities of ‘Donald Cook’ weapons and air defence — at different altitudes and course angles.

judging from Pentagon’s nervous reaction Russian pilots acted quite professionally and the destroyer’s crew – not quite professionally».

AEGIS air defence system

But ‘Donals Cook’ was designed not only for missile striked on coastal targets. The vessel which according to official data costed Pentagon more than 1 billion dollars is equipped with special missile defence system AEGIS (name of Zeus’s shiled in Greek mythology).

This system is multifunctional cpmbat command informaional system consisting of integrated network of sensors and computers with stike and combat tools like air intercept missiles «Standard missile 2» (SM-2) and improved «Standard missile 3» (SM-3). These missiles are launched with the help of universal vertical launch systems located under the vessel’s main deck.

The Americans started AEGIS development in 1969, in 1973 the first pilot item was installed at aircraft carrier ‘Norton Sound’. 10 years later in 1983 the first ship equipped with AEGIS was commissioned into US Navy. It was ‘Ticonderoga’ cruiser.

Since then number of US ships equipped with AEGIS has grown and today ‘Donald Cook; is one of the dozens cruisers and destroyers with this type air defence system.

It isn’t hard to guess that Washington got used to the role of the only policeman to the world while Russia was getting through its post-Soviet crisis. And now Pentagon tends to send US AEGIS-equipped ships to regions adjacent to Russian territorial waters and being strategically important to Moscow.

Here we should definitely mention so called European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) suggesting deployment of air defence system in Europe. One of the most important parts of Washington’s plan is deployment of US Navy ‘Ageis’-equipped ships in the European seas. The first phase of EPAA – deployment of Mssile Defence systems in Europe was implemented in 2011 by the USA.

AEGIS system allows to monitor hundreds of objects simultaneously and tranfer information to processing centre supporting compat task fulfilment. ‘Donald Cook’ is a mobile element of global missile defence system to certain extent as it performs reconaissance and generates certain strategic solutions in automatic mode inclusing solutions on ballistic missiles employment.

First ‘Cook’s’ shame and “broken” AEGIS

However there is one ‘NO” which is a key to understanding pained Pentagon’s and State Dept’s reaction to recent “very dangerous approaching” of Su-24 to American destroyer.

Thing is that what happened on April 10—12 is no the first rendez-vous of  American destroyer and Russian jet. They’ve already met — two years before the current events: April 12 2014 amid “Crimean Spring”.

Then the destroyer stood in Black Sea in close vicinity to Crimean peninsula where not so long ago a historcial event happened — Crimea’s reunification with Russia. Acording toAmerican party’s official statements ‘Donald Cook’s’ Black Sea voyage, which started April 10 2014 after the vessel passed through Bosporus, was mean to be part of the efforts to reassure USA’s allies and partners in the region.  

Did it occur to Ameria command to challenge the accomplished fact of reunification by military methods or Washington just wanted to show its modern destroyer of to Russia in close vicinity to its borders — noone knows except for American military command.

Still the result of the voyage was astonishing for the Americans.

The point is that Su-24 was barraging over Cook’s deck for 1,5 hours then.

But the most horrible revelation for the Americans was that fact that the uch-lauded AEGIS simply went AWOL after Su-24 appeared. It got back to work just after Russian jet dissappeared having left the crew in shocked by Russian military capacities.

The reason of such failure supposedly was “Khibiny” aircraft electronic countermeasures (ECM) system mounted at seemingly armless Russian strike aircraft.

This information was never oficially confirmed by the Defence Minitries of Russian and the USA but there is no escaping the fact that after Russian jet manoeuvres «ashamed» destroyer left for Romanian Constanța port and 27(!) ‘Donald Cook” crew members were so afraid during “training attack” that handed in resignation.

Searching for enemy and demonizing Russia

Against the backdrop of the fresh “incident” with the American destroyer Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that NATO countries headed by he USA continue persisted with propaganda campaign aimed at demonizing Moscow, its intdernal and external policies. This was said during meeting at Mongolia’s Foreign Ministry.

He also said that we were witnessing “the unprecedented since the end of Cold war military activity build-up, NATO’s presence at the so called Eastern front to put military and political pressure upon Russia, to deter and restrain it.

All these factors are accompanied by aggressive propaganda campaign aimed at demonizing Russia».

Sergey Lavrov underlined that NATO was bothered «searching for enemy to make its further existence minimally reasonable».

Everyone can see that Lavrov;s words make sense: NATO members headed by the USA cut back military cooperation with Russia and significantly activated their military activity on the European continent.

According to official data Pentagon’s 2017 military budget’s unclassified part provides expenses rise up to 3.4 billion dollars or the so called “European Security Initiative”. Last year this smounted to less than 800 million dollars.

READ ALSO: NATO vs. Russia: who's frightening Europe with «Russian bear» — «Russian Spring» investigation

So it is obvious that all the Russian aggressin abd Moscow’s war mongering talks are just a folding screen for NATO and the West to hide their own military capacities build-up in close viciniy t the Russian borders.

The aforementioned EPAA under which “Donald Cook” is imperiously cruising ners Russian terrotorial waters is a part of this process. 

That is why demonstrating capacities of the Russian Air Force especially the electronic warfare is absolutely right and justified approach aimed at remindning our “Western partners” that unipolar world times are long gone and now Washington and its allies shpould respect Moscow’s position backed by the newest military technologies and unique warfare systems.

“Russian Spring” expert group