U.S. Navy Tracks Russian Vessel off Hawaii Coast Near Missile Range

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

The U.S. Pacific fleet is closely tracking a Russian Navy surveillance ship which has been operating off the coast of Hawaii near a crucial American missile range.

The U.S. Naval Institute (USNI) reported that the vessel off the coast of Kauai for the last few days was the Russian Navy Vishnya-class auxiliary general intelligence (AGI) ship Kareliya.

The ship is operating just outside of U.S. territorial waters, around 13 nautical miles west of the island.

International waters start at 12 nautical miles from a sovereign coastline.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-navy-tracks-russian-vessel-off-hawaii-coast-near-missile-range/ar-AAKrGRA

[SoCalNative]

1. Would be a shame

if one of the test missiles that they fire accidentally took out the Russian ship....

[lagomorph777]

6. Bazinga! My words exactly.

[haele]

2. Ah, brings back memories of the Reagan years.

AGIs off the coast of California, casually shadowing us once we got about 120 miles away from the Channel Islands.

Our CO once got so tired about postponing an exercise, he went over shortwave and offered them steaks from the CPO's mess, hot dogs, buns, and rocky road ice cream to head up to SF and stay out range for three days.

And they took him up on it, giving the CO a bottle of vodka in return. Daresay no one ever put it down in a log entry, but whenever the range checked for AGIs that week, none could be found.

Good times. However, with today's hopped up Russian Mercenary attitudes their armed forces, I wouldn't trust Putin's "Navy" to be quite as lax. They probably have some serious quota requirements

Haele

[Irish_Dem]

4. Hilarious, the Russians bought off with American picnic food.

Ships do travel on their stomachs.

[haele]

5. This was when they were Soviets.

There were three of them that alternated patrols, and basically they were made of rusted 1940's recycled tank Steele and about 50 layers of paint. And a crapload of antennas, all crammed on a 75' or so long boat.

Not very comfortable for the crew, that we estimated at around 25.
So yeah, fresh picnic food would be a great inducement to cooperate.

BTW, CPO mess steaks were Prime, Dry Aged at that time. Typically Rib-eye or Porterhouse. Occasionally, they would even get Filet Minion. The Mess Cooks running messes for CPOs - and a good CO -were masters of appropriation in the old days, and typically the best cooks on the ship.

Haele

[Irish_Dem]

7. Great story, thank you for posting.

Gee the Soviet ships sound quite grim. I am sure fresh food, American style was a big treat for them.

My brother worked onboard a ship for awhile in his younger years and said shipboard morale was completely dependent upon the ship's cook and food.

Your CPO mess food sounds top notch.

[Twoflower]

3. Yep I remember the Russian "Fishing troulers".

[roamer65]

8. Time for some torpedo tests.

Ooops. How’d that happen?

[pecosbob]

9. They used to monitor arrrivals and departures from Pearl Harbor regularly when I was there

This was of course during the cold war. The usual antennae-festooned fishing trawlers...occasional submarines as well. They would have tracking ships on site for all our announced missile tests. We came to expect their presence.

[onethatcares]

10. I'm glad we don't do anything like that.

specially track any ships outside their territorial waters but I'm a firm believer that picnic food and two kegs of beer go along way to defusing tensions though and they are a lot cheaper than tossing a torpedo out there.