Now then, I am not going to mention that the United States Navy is the greatest naval force in the solar system or that their weapon systems are just beyond state-of-the-art.
I will not mention the discipline of the US Navy submarine fleet or their omnipresence around the oceans of the world, that quite frankly is a well known fact, and it goes without saying.
Today, I'd like to sigh in sorrow for the firefighters who fought gallantly to put out a fire in one of Russia's Delta IV Submarines (nuclear) at Russia's main naval base.
There was an interesting article in SpaceWar Daily online news titled; "Nine injured as huge fire engulfs Russian nuclear sub," on December 30, which stated: "Nine people were injured when a huge fire engulfed a Russian nuclear submarine as it was being repaired," and "The vessel had all its nuclear missiles and conventional rockets removed before entering the dock, two reactors had been switched off well in advance and there was "no threat of a nuclear radiation leak," and "The power unit was switched off and is now safe.
" Now then Russia has a five of these "Delta 4 Class" submarines which carry 15-16 ICBMs, often one of the tubes is left empty in case the crew needs it in an emergency to escape, which by the way has happened before, which is why they now only have 5 instead of six of these subs.
Okay so, I ask; what on Earth is Russia's problem with their submarines, recall the major disaster in 2000, when the nuclear submarine; Kursk - killed over 100 of its crew, it also when up in a fiery explosion, albeit that time at sea, not in the port.
Worse, I worry about those nations which have bought old Russian submarine hand-me-downs for their militaries, they are floating around in underwater coffins, which is a scary thought.
China has a few of those old subs, and old Soviet era aircraft carrier, and other nations have some of their older diesel subs.
I personally can't think of a worse way to go.
All this is pretty embarrassing for the Russian at a time Putin thinks he's going to re-assert and project Russian power, in fact very soon he plans to send the Russian Navy off the coast of Syria, for what could be a showdown if NATO or the US intervenes.
Although Russia also risks embarrassing itself something terrible it seems, as right now they have become the laughing stock of military analysts around the world - yes, me included.
And, it's not only Submarines that the Russians cannot seem to keep operationally ready, a couple of days the prior a Sukhoi 24 crashed and exploded during landing.
Sure, the Russians crash military aircraft all the time, nothing new, but it speaks volumes to the reality of their operational capabilities or not.
Will Russia militarily confront another nation right now? Boy, that wouldn't be wise, as they'd have more loss of life and hardware from their own mismanagement, mistakes, and accidents, than even a small inept nation-state military could provide them in combat.
Please consider all this and think on it.