Ship Misidentification

During the Democratic National Convention, an evening was set aside to honor veterans and recognize their service to the nation. That's always a good thing to do.

But whoever put together the slide show included a dramatic photo of a group of Soviet warships, with what appear to be a formation of US aircraft flying over.

It was a good picture, but it would have been better to have a formation of American warships. Here's the account from the Navy Times.

 

 A bit embarrassing. Shouldn't have happened.

On the other hand, at least no one was killed, as happened in 1974 when the Turkish Air Force sank the Turkish Navy destroyer, TCG Kocatepe.

I've been reading a lot lately about WWII in the Pacific, and such episodes were not unknown. The truth is, identifying warships can be a challenge, even for a trained professional.

Now to the interesting part. The slide that was shown is in silhouette and the antenna arrays are pretty characteristic of Soviet warships. The hull and superstructure of the ships, though, look an awful lot like our Arleigh Burke class Aegis destroyers. There's a good reason for that. After years of study by naval intelligence and the Naval Ships Systems Command, our naval architects decided that the hull form used by the Soviets had much better sea keeping qualities in heavy weather than the shape we had used on destroyers and cruisers since early in the 20th century. So, for our newest combatant ship we borrowed heavily from Soviet Naval Architecture.

How do I know? Some of my friends did the research, and I saw the culmination of it when I worked on the details of the Arleigh Burke class combat system design.

It isn't a big secret, but I don't think the influence of Soviet designs on our ships is widely known. Compare the pictures, and you will see what I mean.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BCGN_Kalinin_1991.jpg

http://www.military-today.com/navy/arleigh_burke_class_l3.jpg

By the way, when it was formed in 1882, the Office of Naval Intelligence was formed for the purpose of seeking out and reporting developments in other navies. So we could copy the best. At that time in our history, we intended to modernize, but had not yet begun the "new steel navy." The first four steel warships were not authorized by Congress until 1883. We had a lot to learn about steel plating, assembly, modern steam plants, and large guns.

Why not learn from other navies? we thought then. Still not a bad idea.