A unique and difficult-to-replace sea transport ship, operated through the Kremlin’s military logistics company, sank in the Mediterranean Sea near Spain on Christmas Eve. The loss of the 13,000-tonne M/V Ursa Major is a serious blow to Oboronlogistika and Russia’s long-suffering shipbuilding industry.
The German-built Ursa Major was just 15 years old and young for an auxiliary shipment when it suffered what the Russian Crisis Management Center described as an “explosion” in its engine room. The ship detected the board to starboard before finally sinking. Nearby shipping rescued two of her 16 crew members.
The Big Dipper is a special advantage. It is Oboronlogistika’s largest vessel, and also one of the company’s few registered vessels to have loading and unrolling ramps that allow cars to enter and exit directly from its hold, as well as top-mounted cranes for loading. vertical. “There is simply no more elegant universal shipping RO/RO-LO/LO (capable of horizontal and vertical loading),” lamented one Russian blogger in a missive translated by Estonian analyst WarTranslated.
The Big Dipper once supported the Russian garrison in Syria, which is now in danger as a new regime gains strength in the war-torn country. But he would have been assigned to the project when it sank. RO/RO shipment left from St. Petersburg. in mid-December to Vladivostok, on the Russian Pacific coast. She crossed the English Channel on 16 December along with her fellow Russian auxiliary Sparta and the Russian naval corvette RFS Soobrazitelnyy.
A Royal Navy Type 23 frigate shadowed the Russians on the passage. Later, a Portuguese air force Lockheed Martin P-3 patrol plane checked in.
At that moment you could see a pair of heavy cranes on the Ursa Major bridge. Cranes and two special hatches for nuclear-powered icebreakers would have been the main shipment of the Big Dipper as it sailed south through the Mediterranean towards the Suez Canal, heading south towards Vladivostok and then the Northern Sea Route to avoid the winter ice. The bulky cranes would have possibly made the Big Dipper heavy, potentially contributing to its fall.
“Along with the ship, the cranes destined for the Vladivostok terminal and the luxurious hatches of the icebreakers sank to the bottom,” the blogger complained. “The task of the Big Dipper in the Far East is to satisfy state objectives similar to the “development of port infrastructure and the Northern Sea Route”, which are now, evidently, derailed. »
Sources:
1. TASS
2. WarTranslated
3. WarshipCam
4. Portuguese Air Force
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