19FortyFive: Rusting US Navy ships compared to Soviet Navy – the sea fleet (Navy) of the USSR. Columnist John Rossomando gives a similar comparison in the American edition of 19FortyFive.
“Last month I visited the Norfolk Naval Base, the headquarters of the US Atlantic Fleet. What I saw frightened me and reminded me of stories about the rusting Russian fleet in the days after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, “the author notes.
Rossomandol writes that the rust streaks he noticed on the ship in Norfolk, symbolized the decline of American naval yards due to decades of neglect, mismanagement, and inadequate use of manpower.
“Ships like the nine-year-old Medgar Evers, named after a slain civil rights activist [Medgara Eversa], the Arlington amphibious warship named after those killed at the Pentagon on 9/11, and the Ticonderoga-class missile cruiser, whose number was hidden, were rusting at the docks. They were not the only ones, but the most noticeable when I surveyed the base, “- said the observer.
The author notes that the US Navy previously mocked images of rusty Soviet ships as a sign of lagging behind in navigation and combat capabilities.
In October, the Navy Times reported that the US Navy spent over $ 2 billion between FY 2017 and FY2020 to combat corrosion on F/A-18 Hornet carrier-based aircraft.
< p> In December 2019, the American magazine The National Interest named the only Russian aircraft carrier “Admiral Kuznetsov” a piece of rust.