rickusn

l 1 2007 9:48AM
Two U.S. warships make port call in Vladivostok
VLADIVOSTOK. July 1 (Interfax) - The U.S. guided missile carrier Curtis Wilbur and submarine tender Frank Cable have arrived at the main base of the Russian Pacific Fleet, Vladivostok.

It is a second meeting between Russian and American naval crews this year and its goal is to further naval cooperation in Asia and the Pacific, to attend celebrations of the Day of Vladivostok on July 2 and U.S. Day of Independence on July 4 and to go to La Perouse Strait on a memory cruise, the Pacific Fleet's press service has announced.

The Russian hosting ships are the large amphibious ship BDK-98 and the large submarine chaser Admiral Panteleyev.

The U.S. crews will be received by the Pacific Fleet commanders and by the mayor of Vladivostok.

U.S. naval officers will give classes to Russian naval academy cadets - new form of contacts between Russian and U.S. crews.

The program of the Memory Cruise includes a conference on July 4 on rescue operations and research missions of the Russian and U.S. Pacific fleets. On the same day, Russian and American naval crews will the attend the departure ceremony for the rescue and research vessel Iskra, which has been searching for sunken ships and submarines in the Sea of Japan for the past few years.

On July 5, the BDK-98 and the Frank Cable will head to the La Perouse Strait to pay respects to the crew of the U.S. submarine, the Wahoo, destroyed during World War II. Veterans of the Russian Pacific Fleet will be aboard the BDK-98.

The upcoming visit of the U.S. warships will be 22nd in the recent history of relations between the Russian and American navies. Russian crews previously visited their American colleagues in San Diego, Seattle, Pearl Harbor and the Marianas. sd


Note: The most active Russian ships over the last 1/2 dozen years have been the Udaloy class ships of which the RFS Admiral Panteleyev is a unit.

They are one of my favorite designs but are far more useful when paired with a Sovremennyy class destroyer but more often than not you see two Udaloys paired together and the pair sometimes operating with a Slava class cruiser.

With the exception of the single Udaloy II Admiral Chabanenko which is more often seen operating independently although it has operated as part of the Kunetzov battlegroup.