Admiral Kuznetzov coal fired?

A couple of points but first you have to admire the skill of the tug captain getting a tow line in those seas, against a carrier that must have been bucking like a mule. I was on HMS Tiger many years ago when we broke down in the Bay of Biscay, the seas were less than those in this video but it wasn't pretty. It took about three hours to get them going again.
Re the oil that the Russian Navy use I do know that its low grade. When Russia was about to buy the two French assault ships they realised very late in the day that the French engines wouldn't run on Russian oil.

Low grade oil?
Low grade coal!
Mazut? Poor grade oil. Typically Soviet crude and dirty and cheap but get job done. Was the carrier at full speed? Since other Soviet....I mean Russian ships also must be using mazut without the smoke then it's something personal to the Kuznetsov
Of course maybe with radar and stuff no big deal that it's black smoke can be seen miles away. But it must be a pain for a Su-33 pilot to go through that just as he is about to land.
Looks more like syrup does old mazut. No wonder it burns dirty. Like coal
Read that the Russians don't differentiate between oil grades so if it burns it's good.

A couple of interesting points about the deployment of the Admiral Kuznetsov.
1) The tug was needed as one of the escorting frigates the Mirazh, broke down.
2) She doesn't seem to have the ability to refuel in the normal alongside manner. A photo was released showing the carrier refueling behind the tanker.
3) There are some questions re the aircraft. The SU33 are being phased out and only have the abillity to drop dumb bombs. A Mig 29KR crashed on the 14th November which is well known but this is likely to be due to a lack of training of the pilots. Although the Mig 29KR was first delivered in 2013 the training of the pilots for naval operations didn't start until Dec 2015 at Yeisk and the first landing and take offs from the Kuznetsov were as late as August 2016. Since the accident no Mig 29's have been seen operating from the Kuznetsov, only the Su33's.
4) The presumption being that the Mig 29's were needed as they can use smart weapons.
5) Most of the aircraft from the Kuznetsov are operating from land bases with few if any strikes are being launched from the ship.
6) The indian Navy are less than impressed with the Mig29K as availability rates are in the mid 20's percents. They are blaming the workmanship of the aircraft and the Russians are blaming the Indian engineers.

Yikes!

Glider said:

2) She doesn't seem to have the ability to refuel in the normal alongside manner. A photo was released showing the carrier refueling behind the tanker.

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UNREP alongside is the standard for many Navy's (most NATO forces), however astern replenishment is the standard for others. Astern replenishment was the only way for the Russian Navy until just a short while ago, and today they still both alongside and astern techniques, depending on the ship.

So astern is her "normal", as it is for many other Russian vessels.

T!

I don't deny what your saying, the observation was based on the fact, that the can I say normal Russian approach is obsolete. It highlights that in many ways the Russian navy has a lot of lessons to learn before it can be truly be considered a global navy.

I served aboard ships in the 70's and 80's that on occasion bumped uglies with what were then Soviet ships (VMF). It was approximately 1979 or 1980. We were aboard the HMAS Melbourne, a ship with a bad reputation of cutting her escorts in half. During flying operations, the Russians made repeated passes right under the bows of the carrier, passing within inches of the ship sometimes. Our escorts made strong efforts to keep these annoying little t*rds away from the carrier whose ability to manouver was restricted during flight ops but the Russians were very good at piloting their ships. I have on occasion exercised with Pommie, and USN ships as well as the navies of nearly every other pacific rim navy. The VMF manned ships by a clear margin are the best sailors out of all of them by miles. This mostly arises from a man joining a ship and then spending almost his entire naval career aboard that one ship. The crew learn how to get the most out of that ship, whereas we tend to shift our personnel around to gain a wider experience.

One final entry on this the Admiral Kuznetsov also lost an Su33 which rolled off the back of her due to a failure on the arrestor gear, the pilot ejected safely.

All in all as a projection of power it doesn't seem to have been a huge success, just a very expensive PR stunt

fubar57 said:

That is one p!ssed off looking captain.

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He should be happy he's not the captain of the Kursk.

You're all wrong. It is smoke from the galley. The cooling oil they use is made from coal dust and STP! Simply bad dietary habits!

Seriously, that's a lot of smoke froma ship for a country that usually has smokless jet engines in their fighters.