China and Russia having issues over the continuing maintenance of China’s next fleet. With 12 Kilos and four legacy Russian 956E/EM DDGs, China is trying to figure out how to best maintain the backbone of their fleet–with Russia, or go solo. Decisions have been slow in coming, and the two countries, according to UPI, have been talking for four years.
“…the Chinese contacted technicians at Sevastopol Shipyard in the Ukraine, through whom they acquired some of the Kilo submarine maintenance blueprints and started to carry out repairs on their own. This has resulted in poor qua
lity repair work, according to the Russian military source.
Under the former Soviet Union, the Black Sea Fleet had Kilo submarines and Ukraine had the responsibility to maintain and overhaul the vessels. The technical information provided to China by the Ukrainians, therefore, was from manuals for the earlier edition Kilo submarines.
The Kilo 636 series has undergone a thorough upgrade since that time, with completely different battery, navigation and fire control systems, as well as weapon systems. The Ukrainian manuals were simply not adequate to instruct China in repairing the submarines.”
Interesting. Maybe Russia is getting a tad vexed over reverse-engineering issues.
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