The British Royal Navy Sort 45 class destroyer HMS Duncan has performed a forty-eight-hour shadowing mission of the Russian Udaloy class destroyer Vice Admiral Kulakov between the North Sea and the English Channel. The incident occurred at a time of notably excessive tensions between Russia and the Western Bloc, and represented the primary time a Royal Navy floor combatant working beneath NATO management in UK nationwide waters throughout a 3rd occasion passage. Transiting of the English Channel has posed risks to Russian ships previously, with the nation’s oil tankers having been boarded and seized by NATO members previously. Through the newest encounter, HMS Duncan reportedly maintained a clear air image, and served as a communications and knowledge node for the Recognised Maritime Image. Though carrying explicit massive sensor suites, Sort 45 class ships lack any form of anti-ship armaments, and carry very small arsenals of simply 48 launch cells for Aster 15 and Aster 30 surface-to-air missiles.
Neither sort of destroyer advantages from excessive versatility, with the British ship being closely specialised in direction of air defence duties, whereas the Udaloy class is a Soviet period design specialised in anti-submarine warfare roles. The Udaloy class advantages from carriage of a bigger arsenal, nevertheless, together with 64 vertical launch cells for surface-to-air missiles, eight anti-submarine missiles, and 20 anti-submarine rocket launchers. It’s nonetheless probably the most flippantly armed destroyer class within the Russian fleet, with even newer frigates such because the Gorshkov class being far more closely armed. The encounter between the 2 ships highlights the more and more restricted capabilities which each Russian and European floor combatants have suffered from, notably in comparison with the far more closely armed and versatile AEGIS-type destroyers deployed by the US, China, Japan and the Koreas.
