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Russian Ships at DNC Tribute to Vets: Mission Accomplished

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Once again, life imitates the People's Cube! We don't have to write parodies anymore - just copy-paste news articles from serious sources. This one is from Navy Times (ushanka tip to Laika the Space Dog).

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Russian ships displayed at DNC tribute to vets

By Sam Fellman - Staff writer
Posted: Tuesday Sep 11, 2012 17:16:10 EDT



On the last night of the Democratic National Convention, a retired Navy four-star took the stage to pay tribute to veterans. Behind him, on a giant screen, the image of four hulking warships reinforced his patriotic message.

But there was a big mistake in the stirring backdrop: those are Russian warships.

While retired Adm. John Nathman, a former commander of Fleet Forces Command, honored vets as America's best, the ships from the Russian Federation Navy were arrayed like sentinels on the big screen above.

These were the very Soviet-era combatants that Nathman and Cold Warriors like him had once squared off against.

“The ships are definitely Russian,” said noted naval author Norman Polmar after reviewing hi-resolution photos from the event. “There's no question of that in my mind.”

Naval experts concluded the background was a photo composite of Russian ships that were overflown by what appear to be U.S. trainer jets. It remains unclear how or why the Democratic Party used what's believed to be images of the Russian Black Sea Fleet at their convention.
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A spokesman for the Democratic National Convention Committee was not able to immediately comment Tuesday, saying he had to track down personnel to find out what had happened.

The veteran who spotted the error and notified Navy Times said he was immediately taken aback.

“I was kind of in shock,” said Rob Barker, 38, a former electronics warfare technician who left the Navy in 2006. Having learned to visually identify foreign ships by their radars, Barker recognized the closest ship as the Kara-class cruiser Kerch.

“An immediate apology [from the committee] would be very nice,” Barker said. “Maybe acknowledge the fact that yes, they screwed up.”

The background — featured in the carefully choreographed hour leading up to the president's Sept. 6 speech accepting the Democratic Party's nomination — showed four ships with radar designs not used in the U.S. fleet.

For example, the ship in the foreground, on the far right, has a square radar antenna at the top of its masthead. That is the MR-700 Podberezovik 3-D early warning radar, commonly identified as “Flat Screen” for its appearance, a three-dimensional early warning radar mounted on the Kerch, said Eric Wertheim, editor of “Combat Fleets of the World.”

Similarly, the third ship has a MR-310 “Head Net” air search radar, shaped like two off-set bananas, at its masthead and is mostly likely the guided missile destroyer Smetlivyy. The first two ships seem to be Krivak-class frigates, but it's hard to discern from the silhouette, experts said.

But the fact they are Russian ships is not in doubt. In addition to the ship's radar arrays and hulls, which are dissimilar from U.S. warships, the photo features one more give-away: a large white flag with a blue ‘X' at the ships' sterns.

Polmar, who authored “The Naval Institute Guide to the Soviet Navy,” recognized the blue ‘X'-mark: “The X is the Cross of St. Andrew's, which is a Russian Navy symbol,” Polmar said. (An anchored U.S. warship, by contrast, flies the American flag on its stern.)

Based on this specific group of these ship types, one naval expert concluded that this was most likely a photo of the Black Sea Fleet.

“Ships are all Black Sea Fleet,” A. D. Baker III, a retired Office of Naval Intelligence analyst, told Navy Times after looking at the image. “These four ships, at the time the photo was taken, constituted the entire major surface combatant component of the Black Sea Fleet,” Baker said, noting the photo was likely to be six years old or older. (The Kerch is now on the list to be scrapped, Baker said.)

Barker, the former sailor who first spotted the errors, believes the seven aircraft streaking by are F-5 jets, a trainer used by the U.S. Navy. Asked to explain how he reached that conclusion, the former airplane spotter ticked off a list: “Twin engine, single rudder, with hard points on the wingtips, with that silhouette is going to make them F-5s.”

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Does this come as a surprise? I know we're supposed to be switching to Ak's soon, but why not go the whole way and start making Sovremenny class destroyers?

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It would appear that all the demos onstage has stepped in the ship.

What is the big deal? A ship is a ship is a ship.

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I see this, comrades, not as a screw up but as a glorious step forward for the propagation of disinformation to the Amerikkkan people. All praise to the glorious world of next Tuesday!

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I am so humbly proud that dear leader Hussein proudly offered honor to Motherland ships.

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Clearly this was just a gesture of good will from President and retired KGB murderer Vladimir Putin to his friends in the Democratic Party.


I'm sure too many Democrats would have been offended seeing all those American flags flying from U.S. Navy vessels.

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This is because the DNC doesn't want Americans to be too proud of America, because then we might think more of it than we do of our own precious opinions. Bear in mind, that America as an idea was hatched over 200 years ago and we, all together now, pull reality out of our asses every morning.

So we should have Soviet warships. And the delegates should arrive in Yugos or Trabis. No soap in the hotel.

Hahahaha. Got you, didn't I? While they were sweating in Charlotte, I was in Bali with my Gulfstream, talking to Laurie David, who confessed to me that sometimes she has to use two sheets of toilet paper.

Which is astonishing because I thought that all the shit she had came out of her mouth. Remember the South Park episode when Cartman learns that if he crams food up his butt, he'll crap out his mouth?

We progs are definite bottom feeders and our oral egestion shows it.


 
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