The BALTOPS 25 train granted a uncommon sighting of a Soviet-designed helicopter touchdown on one of many U.S. Navy’s two Chilly Warfare period Blue Ridge class ships.
Crusing within the Baltic Sea, the united statesMount Whitney (LCC 20) supplied its massive aft helicopter deck as a facility for Polish army personnel working the Soviet-designed Mil Mi-17 helicopter to observe and certify their deck touchdown expertise. The Chilly Warfare period Blue Ridge class command and management ship Mount Whitney is working as half of a giant NATO flotilla participating within the annual BALTOPS train, which started on Jun. 5, 2025.
🌊⚓Power in Unity⚓🌊 A shocking show of naval energy and partnership, as 40 ships from 16 nations be part of forces within the #BalticSea for the annual #BALTOPS train. These highly effective pictures showcase #NATO’s army may, multinational cooperation & dedication to collective… pic.twitter.com/n5nv7zVGnr
— NATO Maritime Command (@NATO_MARCOM) June 6, 2025
BALTOPS 25 is a maritime-focused train comprising anti-surface warfare, anti-submarine warfare, mine countermeasures, air protection, and amphibious operations, amongst others. BALTOPS 24 was the most important occasion of the train to this point, and this 12 months’s train sees participation from Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, the UK, and america.
Having accomplished the deck touchdown qualification, the Polish crew are actually capable of routinely function their helicopters from U.S. Navy ships, growing interoperability between the 2 NATO allies. Based on the U.S. Navy, the Mi-17 was being operated by a particular operations squadron, doubtless the Particular Operations Aviation Unit primarily based on the thirty third Air Base, Powidz.
“This Polish deck touchdown qualification aboard Mount Whitney is a testomony to the excellent teamwork and professionalism of each the Polish aircrew and our personal Crew 20,” stated Captain Colin Worth, USS Mount Whitney’s commanding officer. He added that “It’s by means of workout routines like this that we construct belief, improve our interoperability, and strengthen our means to function seamlessly collectively to make sure safety within the Baltic Sea area.”
The Mi-17 is the export variant of the Mil Mi-8, which started coming into service with Soviet and Jap Bloc forces within the mid-Seventies. Very similar to comparable Western designs, just like the Black Hawk and Puma, it has acquired a variety of upgrades and continues to be produced by Russia to at the present time. Poland’s most up-to-date deliveries of the kind date from the early 2010s.
In the long run, these helicopters will doubtless get replaced by Western fashions, although the precise alternative plans are unclear. Studies in 2023 recommended that 22 AW101 helicopters could be ordered, to function alongside these ordered for the Polish Navy, however no additional information has develop into obvious concerning this procurement. Extra not too long ago, it has been reported that Poland’s purchase of the Sikorsky S-70i Black Hawk has been postponed.
Although Soviet-designed helicopters working from U.S. ships is an unusual and weird sight, this isn’t the primary time the Mount Whitney has acquired such a go to. Lithuanian Mi-8s have landed on board the ship on a minimum of two events, and a Ukrainian Kamov Ka-27 visited in 2018. Maybe most notably, in 2010, when relations with Russia had been comparatively normalized, the ship hosted ‘51 Crimson’, a Russian Navy Kamov Ka-27, throughout joint workout routines.
The train was considered one of quite a lot of NATO workout routines in 2010 that noticed a restricted degree of Russian participation, which supplied near-unique views of Russian warships working alongside ships that they’d been designed to satisfy in battle. At present, the one comparable pictures we are able to collect are of distant views of Russian or NATO vessels working at a distance shadowing the others’ operations.
USS Mount Whitney
The latest of the 2 Blue Ridge class command and management ships which entered U.S. service within the early Seventies, the Mount Whitney relies in Gaeta, Italy, and serves because the flagship for the U.S. Navy Sixth Fleet. The ship spends a lot of its time working within the Mediterranean, although sometimes ventures additional afield throughout Europe to participate in workout routines.
Its Mediterranean homeport makes it nicely positioned to help in operations going down in Africa and the Center East. In 2023, Mount Whitney carried U.S. Sixth Fleet commander Vice Admiral Thomas Ishee and accompanying employees to the Jap Mediterranean after the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas assault towards Israel.
Over 50 years previous, the Blue Ridge class ships nonetheless depend on boilers and steam generators for propulsion, and had been primarily based on the hull-form of the united statesIwo Jima (LPH 2) amphibious assault ship commissioned in 1961. The big deck space was put to make use of housing a plethora of antennas and different communications gear. Many of those have at the moment been changed by trendy equivalents, enabling superior satellite tv for pc communications to forces and commanders internationally.
Armament at the moment includes two Phalanx close-in weapons methods (CIWS) and two Mark 38 25mm machine gun methods. Beforehand, the ships carried RIM-7 Sea Sparrow field launchers together with 4 3 inch cannons in two Mark 33 twin mounts. No hangar amenities are supplied on board, however the ships routinely carry a MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter for logistics assist.
Mount Whitney’s sister ship, the united statesBlue Ridge (LCC 19) is homeported in Yokosuka, Japan, and commonly sails throughout the Pacific area. It’s anticipated to stay in service till 2039. Mount Whitney, in the meantime, is reportedly on account of decommission in 2027. Putting this “indispensable” ship into retirement has been strongly criticized by former U.S. Navy officers, who argue that no different ship or base has the identical capabilities. In contrast to shoreside bases, the venerable command ship will be positioned wherever required and doesn’t depend on the diplomatic approval of host nations for army operations.
Whether or not this retirement goes forward will stay to be seen, as many such proposals from branches of the U.S. army typically find yourself being overturned by Congress or by the Govt department itself. A key case that demonstrates this was the 2015 proposal to shut RAF Mildenhall by 2020, later reversed in the identical 12 months it was initially deliberate to close down. Now, with intensified operations within the European theatre, the bottom has develop into much more essential.
