[HN Gopher] Moskva cruiser sank while being towed in a storm - R...
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Moskva cruiser sank while being towed in a storm - Russian Defense
Ministry
Author : globalise83
Score : 219 points
Date : 2022-04-14 20:26 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (tass.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (tass.com)
| trasz wrote:
| Not directly related, but I find Safari's automatic translation
| invaluable for following this war - because I can read the "other
| side's" media instead of looking for "our media" to pick up a
| story.
|
| The one built into Telegram is useful too, but terribly
| unreliable. And boy, what's happening there... Russians are
| getting increasingly aware of the situation, and they are calling
| for blood. And I don't mean (just) Ukrainian blood.
| trhway wrote:
| Glory to Ukraine!
|
| It was exactly the ship in that famous phrase of being sent very
| offensively and very far by the defenders of Zmeiny island
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_warship,_go_fuck_yours...)
| which has become a Ukrainian battle cry since then, and looks
| like the ship has ultimately reached the prescribed destination.
|
| Interesting that the ship was hit by the Ukraine developed
| missiles which Ukraine put in service just about a year ago.
| Looking at this war (and compare it to the fighting in 2014-2015)
| it is very noticeable how much a progress Ukraine has made in the
| last 8 years and in particular absorbing all the new developments
| in the technology while Russia in many areas hasn't progressed
| since 1945. I see that is a perfect illustration of constant
| learning and adaptation vs. stagnation.
|
| Anyway, for anybody who likes Odessa and hates its shelling by
| those Russian Navy ships - the video of the burning "Moskva" with
| the wonderfully matching occasion soundtrack "Moscow" by
| GenghisKhan https://twitter.com/i/status/1514481957962657794
| dragontamer wrote:
| > Looking at this war (and compare it to the fighting in
| 2014-2015) it is very noticeable how much a progress Ukraine
| has made in the last 8 years and in particular absorbing all
| the new developments in the technology while Russia in many
| areas hasn't progressed since 1945.
|
| Even worse than that for Russia. The "Moskova" was created in
| Mykolaiv, Ukraine.
|
| The warship itself was a creation of the USSR, but has more to
| do with Ukraine's manufacturing prowess than present-day
| Russia.
|
| Russia wants to pretend that the USSR's history is Russia and
| Russia's alone. That's why Russia wants to erase Ukrainian
| history. But this war is proving that Ukrainian contributions
| to the old USSR's power was mighty and cannot be ignored.
|
| ------
|
| The mighty warship was created by Ukraine, and brought down by
| Ukrainian missiles. The story here is really about how Russia
| has forgotten their Slavic brother's contributions to the USSR.
|
| EDIT: It is quite possible that Ukrainians knew some kind of
| weakness to the ship that they exploited during the attack.
| ctrlaltdelete95 wrote:
| Please don't call Ukraine Russia's slavic brother. That's how
| russians justify the war - "we are protecting our brothers
| from the nazis". Ukraine is a sovereign nation. Let's not
| perpetuate russian propaganda.
| dragontamer wrote:
| I recognize its Russia's propaganda, but I enjoy corrupting
| their propaganda / words into other uses.
|
| There is truth in this matter: USSR was composed of many
| modern nations. This whole "Moskva ship sinks" thing is
| almost entirely Ukrainian, historically speaking.
| Ukrainian-built ship, brought down with Ukrainian missiles,
| with the Russians renaming the ship to Moskva to try to
| "steal" its way into history.
|
| I find this entire situation deliciously ironic for the
| Russians. It really shows how much of a paper-tiger they
| are, and how much Russia is trying to steal the USSR's name
| and history for themselves.
| _jal wrote:
| > It really shows how much of a paper-tiger they are
|
| In a straight fight, it sure looks that way.
|
| But a weak, frightened and embarrassed authoritarian
| nuclear power is a very dangerous thing.
| rosndo wrote:
| > EDIT: It is quite possible that Ukrainians knew some kind
| of weakness to the ship that they exploited during the
| attack.
|
| Such as that it's loaded with explosives that won't respond
| well to being hit with anti ship missiles?
| sliken wrote:
| More along the lines of the radar for most of it's systems
| point forward, leaving the rear much less protected by
| anti-missile tech.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Its a cruiser. Which means the ship was loaded with anti-
| missile missiles, anti-missile RADAR, and anti-missile
| CIWS.
|
| The fact remains that the Ukrainians killed an anti-missile
| cruiser, with... a missile. That's impressive. Something
| horribly wrong has happened to the Russian anti-missile
| defense systems.
|
| That suggests that the Ukrainians know about a weakness to
| the Russian missile defense systems... a blindspot where
| the RADAR wouldn't pickup enemy missiles perhaps? In any
| case, maybe its not so surprising, Ukrainians built the
| ship after all.
| RajT88 wrote:
| > That suggests that the Ukrainians know about a weakness
| to the Russian missile defense systems... a blindspot
| where the RADAR wouldn't pickup enemy missiles perhaps?
| In any case, maybe its not so surprising, Ukrainians
| built the ship after all.
|
| One of the weaknesses of missile defense systems, is they
| can only engage a small number of targets at a time.
|
| If you knew the Moskva could engage (say) 12 incoming
| missiles at a time, you fire 24 all at the same time.
|
| There was some articles on it a few years back, which of
| course I can't find now. It was regarding virtual
| wargames, where one commander handily won by, basically,
| firing everything all at once at the start of the game.
| saynay wrote:
| What I was hearing earlier is the old anti-missile RADAR
| that was in use on that ship was not capable of dealing
| with targets approaching from multiple sides at once, and
| so the Ukrainians flew a UAV on one side to effectively
| "distract" it, while the Neptunes struck it on the other
| side.
| speeder wrote:
| I saw elsewhere that an upgrade was proposed but the
| budget for it was denied...
|
| I guess it is just a matter of reading the proposal,
| figure out what needed upgrading, and considering that to
| be the weakness you can exploit.
|
| An analogy would be finding out the castle you want to
| conquer was supposed to have a rear gate repaired but the
| repairs were postponed... it would be quite obvious to
| attack that rear gate.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| Apparently the ship's armaments were vastly out of date.
| Its combat systems were from 90s and it had no modern
| anti-missile defences.
|
| Its offensive weaponry was more impressive, but even then
| it barely carried the radars to support them.
| trhway wrote:
| >EDIT: It is quite possible that Ukrainians knew some kind of
| weakness to the ship that they exploited during the attack.
|
| not really. If they could they would hit the cruiser's anti-
| ship missiles - that would sent the ship immediately down
| instead of the whole fire/towing story. You just can't always
| hit that precisely from like 30 miles distance coming at
| transonic speed, and who knows what defense measures were
| activated by the ship.
|
| If anything, the weakness exploited here is the Russian poor
| state of combat readiness. The ship was mostly hanging around
| there for more than a month. All that time they were supposed
| to man the radars and keep CIWS/etc. combat ready - no way
| for Russian Navy. Maintaining combat readiness is a big issue
| even for shorter time frames - for example in 2008 while
| guarding the assault ships convoy on the way to Georgia
| "Moskva" was hit by the very brave and brazen unexpected
| night attack by Georgian small ships. Fortunately for
| "Moskva" back then the Georgians didn't have any weapons
| except small caliber artillery (it is really hard to imagine
| the courage of those Georgians to perform such an attack -
| just 4 small ships against that overwhelmingly large Russian
| Navy force. One of those Georgian ships was sunk by Russian
| anti-ship missile).
| [deleted]
| fuoqi wrote:
| >The warship itself was a creation of the USSR, but has more
| to do with Ukraine's manufacturing prowess than present-day
| Russia.
|
| >The mighty warship was created by Ukraine
|
| The independent Ukraine with all its "manufacturing prowess"
| was unable to finish its sister ship Ukraina for 30 years. It
| got almost sold to Russia in 2010.
|
| >brought down by Ukrainian missiles
|
| With a tinsy bit of help from the NATO radars and
| surveillance drones.
| jollybean wrote:
| If you don't have money or strategic reason to finish a
| ship, or arm it you don't finish it.
|
| Frankly, that kind of ship has no place in a Ukrainian
| fleet, so to spend billions on it would make no sense.
| Ukraine as a province of Russian Empire, for that Empire -
| yes. But not for Ukraine proper.
|
| That ship is designed to take on American fleet in Black
| Sea and elsewhere.
|
| Ukraine just needs to a small / fast Black Sea fleet and
| possibly a few micro subs etc..
| worik wrote:
| > Ukraine just needs to a small / fast Black Sea fleet
| and possibly a few micro subs etc..
|
| And a lot of missiles....
| ivan_gammel wrote:
| > The warship itself was a creation of the USSR, but has more
| to do with Ukraine's manufacturing prowess than present-day
| Russia.
|
| It is indeed the product of USSR, which had integrated supply
| chain and R&D. Very likely some components of it were
| manufactured in Russia. Ukraine alone would not be able to
| build and maintain such ship due to budget and resource
| constraints, but Russia has rebuilt its capabilities in XXI
| century -- their military industrial complex can maintain,
| upgrade and build such ships. I doubt though they will
| commission a replacement any time soon, since they are
| actively building lots of smaller vessels.
| antattack wrote:
| Makes me wonder however, where Ukraine's (edit)Neptune missiles
| where all this time and why Ukraine is getting Harpoon missiles
| from UK if they have their own.
| lolinder wrote:
| > and why Ukraine is getting Harpoon missiles from UK if they
| have their own.
|
| Because missiles are not a renewable resource, and the more
| they have the more they can fire?
| Arrath wrote:
| Harpoons also carry a warhead about 50% larger than the
| Neptune, increasing the range of targets they can
| effectively hit. The Neptune is only designed for targets
| of 5,000 tons, compared to the Moskva being over 10,000.
| Whether it was a lucky hit on a/the magazine
| compartment(s), poor damage control, or combinations there
| of, good job Ukraine and the Neptune.
| dboreham wrote:
| Plausible deniability.
| [deleted]
| trhway wrote:
| they have only one battery which seems to have just become
| really operational.
| anotherboffin wrote:
| The Economist [0] (paywalled) says the factories making the
| Nautilus missiles have been heavily bombarded and that the
| Ukrainian military doesn't seem to have many of these
| missiles. I guess they were just very carefully choosing
| their target and the time to strike?
|
| [0] https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/04/14/ukraine-
| claims-t...
| [deleted]
| simonh wrote:
| It's called Neptune. It only entered service last year, so
| they probably don't have many, and it's possible early
| Russian strikes may have suppressed the batteries that were
| operational at the start of the war.
| eneas wrote:
| Neptune. Waiting for a surprise attack on a big target? They
| entered in service a year ago.
| dboreham wrote:
| We don't know today how much help they had. e.g. perhaps a live
| KH-12 feed is handy for guiding a simple missile to a moving
| ship.
| jollybean wrote:
| This is it really. We have no idea how much American /
| outside involvement going on.
|
| It may not even have been a Ukrainian-made missile. Maybe it
| was a Harpoon, but they're just saying Ukrainian because NATO
| doesn't want the public credit.
|
| Russia had 100's of advisors in North Vietnam during the Cold
| War I don't see why the US shouldn't have support units all
| around E. Ukraine.
| throwmeariver1 wrote:
| We pretty much know that NATO is helping them immensely
| with battlefield overwatch there are awacs and other air
| assets 24/7 in the air around the borders of Ukraine.
| Harpoon is not yet delivered and the operators are still in
| training as are the ones for the switchblade system so it
| was most definitely a Neptun.
| jollybean wrote:
| "Harpoon is not yet delivered" we don't know that.
| matkoniecz wrote:
| > the video of the burning "Moskva"
|
| Is there confirmation that it is specifically this ship? This
| video appeared in some places which backtracked this claim.
| Barrera wrote:
| By any measure, the war is going very badly for Russia. None of
| its claimed aims have been met, and the sinking adds to a long
| line of apparent military defeats.
|
| This raises the question of what comes next if this kind of thing
| keeps happening. What does Russia do? Russia appears to have
| staked the farm on this operation. Can it afford anything less
| than total victory?
|
| The Russian military has made a sizable investment in tactical
| nuclear weapons with allegedly 2,000 of them on hand [1]. These
| small weapons can be detonated in ways that produce minimal
| fallout but lots of destruction [2]:
|
| > A tactical nuclear weapon (TNW) or non-strategic nuclear weapon
| is a nuclear weapon which is designed to be used on a battlefield
| in military situations, mostly with friendly forces in proximity
| and perhaps even on contested friendly territory. Generally
| smaller in explosive power, they are defined in contrast to
| strategic nuclear weapons, which are designed mostly to be
| targeted at the enemy interior away from the war front against
| military bases, cities, towns, arms industries, and other
| hardened or larger-area targets to damage the enemy's ability to
| wage war.
|
| With every conventional defeat faced by the Russian military and
| with the massive loss of credibility this causes, at what point
| does Russia decide that it's time to take the gloves off?
|
| [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-60664169
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_nuclear_weapon
| TMWNN wrote:
| >With every conventional defeat faced by the Russian military
| and with the massive loss of credibility this causes, at what
| point does Russia decide that it's time to take the gloves off?
|
| I've been thinking about this possibility for a while:
|
| * Putin fires tactical atomic weapon at some empty plot of
| Ukrainian land, and announces it as a "demonstration" of
| Russian might.
|
| * The weapon is a dud.
|
| I'm not sure whether this outcome might not be _worse_ in the
| long run, in terms of geopolitical stability, than if the
| weapon performs as expected!
| paxys wrote:
| Unless they are also planning to nuke the rest of the planet,
| there is no "victory" in that scenario.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| I don't know, I'm quite worried. I don't think this is as cut
| and try as people make it out to be.
|
| If Russia did launch a limited tactical strike on Ukraine,
| let's say super low-yield, honestly not much more than the
| MOABs we fired off in Iraq, is the USA really going to risk
| Berlin, or US cities getting vaporized to defend a non-NATO
| country?
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Russia is so weakened I doubt NATO would want them to
| regain strength if they start dropping nukes.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > If Russia did launch a limited tactical strike on
| Ukraine, let's say super low-yield, honestly not much more
| than the MOABs we fired off in Iraq, is the USA really
| going to risk Berlin, or US cities getting vaporized to
| defend a non-NATO country?
|
| The Baltics and Poland have already been pushing for NATO
| intervention because they want Russia checked because they
| don't want to be next; Article 5 is nice, but they'd rather
| stop Russia before it's on their land.
|
| Nuking Ukraine, even a tiny little nuke, ratchets that up
| enormously and forces the US and Western European NATO
| powers to decide how to secure the eastern flank of the
| alliance.
| moffkalast wrote:
| I presume it would at least make a full embargo more
| likely?
| aorloff wrote:
| Ukraine has also not yet attempted to hit Moscow (the city,
| not the ship) with missiles.
|
| Once a nuclear bomb is used, a lot of gloves will come off,
| not just the Russian ones, and so far Ukraine appears to
| have a lot of extremely competent military partners and
| Russia has a reluctant Belarus.
| isbvhodnvemrwvn wrote:
| What missiles capable of striking Moscow does Ukraine
| have? It's 500km from the closest point within Ukraine's
| borders. That's at the limit of long-range variants of
| Iskander, and Ukraine only has older stuff like Tochka.
| emilsedgh wrote:
| Do you mean the response to a Russian nuclear aggression
| would be nuclear?
| paxys wrote:
| It doesn't have to be nuclear. _Any_ direct response from
| NATO would be a losing scenario for them.
| fmajid wrote:
| Nuking Kyiv would probably kill more Russians and Belarusians
| than Ukrainians from the fallout.
| Barrera wrote:
| The elimination of large chunks of the Ukrainian army in a
| single detonation could lead to the stated goal of the
| invasion, which was regime change in Kyiv.
|
| It would be a calculated risk that the response from the West
| would be much like it has been so far. We're not talking "The
| Day After," but more like a really big bomb and 2,000 more
| where that came from. The response to the invasion has been
| fragmented at best, and it's not unreasonable to think that
| would continue, especially given a county that has
| demonstrated a willingness to use nuclear weapons in battle.
|
| I'm not saying this is likely, but more speculating as to
| what series of events would cause the scenario to play out.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| There's no massive army operating in one place. It's a
| bunch of units running around in the woods, hills, towns
| and cities. Their largest forces are probably near the
| largest Russian forces, so sure, if they're willing to cull
| their own.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The elimination of large chunks of the Ukrainian army in
| a single detonation could lead to the stated goal of the
| invasion, which was regime change in Kyiv.
|
| A tactical nuke won't do that, though.
| Chyzwar wrote:
| Imagine that this tactical nuclear weapon from 70's fail
| and expolde over russia territory Or is dropped and do not
| not work.
|
| Russia would need to make tests and reach readiness to use
| them, ideally with air superiority.
| greenonions wrote:
| I don't think it's entirely clear that the US/Europe has the
| appetite to go to war over the use of a tactical nuke.
| histriosum wrote:
| My uneducated guess is that the primary goal of the latest
| rhetoric about the possible use of chemical weapons is
| intended to make this more clear. If "we" (not the US yet,
| but other countries that are nearer) are signalling a
| readyness to respond kinetically if chemicals are used,
| surely the message is that nuclear would trigger an even
| greater response.
| hollerith wrote:
| Has the US or NATO even threatened to go to war if Russia
| starts using tacnukes in Ukraine? I haven't seen any
| reports to suggest so, and I've been following the news on
| this war closely.
|
| (The US has threatened more sanctions if Russia uses WMDs.
| That threat was in response to signs Russia was getting
| ready to use chemical weapons.)
| mattm wrote:
| Nuclear or chemical fallout that drifts into NATO
| countries could potentially warrant a response.
|
| Here's one such article from a few weeks ago.
| https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/03/23/if-russia-
| use...
|
| Of course, we won't know for sure unless it happens (and
| let's hope it doesn't).
| [deleted]
| pm90 wrote:
| The world stage doesn't really matter to Russia. It's pretty
| clear that their propaganda and words are being aimed at
| Domestic audiences and allies. And unfortunately it's working.
|
| If they wanted to use tactical nukes they would have likely
| used it to take Kyiv. That they did not suggests they aren't
| going to use them. Their goal now seems to be
| annexing/liberating parts of eastern Ukraine and bullying
| zelenski into neutrality.
| bigodbiel wrote:
| I disagree. The "western world", that is Anglo-American
| centric world order, doesn't matter, but the Kremlin (not its
| ultra-nationalists calling for total war) knows it needs its
| ex-Soviet satelites plus China, India, etc.
|
| This is about a new world order.
| edrxty wrote:
| This is a slightly unique situation as prevailing winds are
| from the west so fallout would just end up in Russia most of
| the time.
| tyrfing wrote:
| > What does Russia do? Russia appears to have staked the farm
| on this operation. Can it afford anything less than total
| victory?
|
| I haven't been tracking developments very closely, but a
| minimal set of objectives would be claiming land up to the
| Donetsk/Luhansk oblast boundaries under DPR/LPR flags, which
| can be framed as a victory. Nukes are unlikely compared to
| simply changing what "victory" means.
| j15e wrote:
| Why is there no image of the sinking ship? Because at sea in war
| zone? Wouldn't Ukrainian army want to show image from their drone
| after hit? New satellite image coming soon?
| pvarangot wrote:
| Apparently it sank during a storm so probably getting visual
| confirmation to share was though. The drone was used to
| distract the radar, probably got shot down.
| dotopotoro wrote:
| Drone possibly was scrificial. Satellite is not on demand and
| not in ukraine possession and would not show much after moscow
| sank.
| toast0 wrote:
| (Publicly accessible) satellite images weren't immediately
| available because of cloudy conditions, from what I read on
| news reports about the incident.
| enriquto wrote:
| There are surely satellite SAR images available, though.
| antattack wrote:
| On that same page there's another article titled:
|
| Voennaia operatsiia na Ukraine. Onlain
|
| Which google translates to: "Military operation in Ukraine.
| Online"
|
| However Voennaia also means war, so I wonder how different would
| the tile be to say War operation in Ukraine? Would it be voina na
| Ukraine?
| ivan_gammel wrote:
| Native Russian speaker here: translation ,,military" is
| correct, because this is how it is positioned in official
| Russian sources - an operation conducted by military forces
| (the term operation comes from FSB, meaning that according to
| Russian propaganda it is more like police or counter-terrorism
| operation).
| rich_sasha wrote:
| Slavic speaker here, "Voennaia" looks like the adjective
| derived from the "war" noun. So not "war", but kind of like,
| "war-ful operation", or "combat operation".
| ivan_gammel wrote:
| It is indeed derived from ,,war", but here it has different
| meaning, so ,,military" is correct translation. You would use
| ,,war operation" as translation if this operation was an
| episode of war, but according to Russian propaganda it is
| not. Combat operation would be translated as <<boevaia
| operatsiia>>.
| AdamH12113 wrote:
| English version: https://tass.com/russia/1438045
| dang wrote:
| Changed from https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/14383383. Thanks!
| anikan_vader wrote:
| To put things in perspective, this was the only capital ship
| being operated in the Black Sea (by any navy). Russia is the only
| Black sea power that fields cruisers (or even destroyers), and
| the only warships they now have officially on duty in the Black
| Sea are frigates or smaller. In terms of capital ships, this
| leaves them with one battlecruiser and two cruisers in
| operational condition, none of which have access to the Black
| Sea. (Their sole aircraft carrier is under repairs).
|
| The only other loss of a warship of comparable size in combat
| since WW2 was the ARA General Belgrano, a slightly smaller
| cruiser sunk by a British sub in 1982. Losing a surface ship to
| enemy action is just not common these days. For a little more
| context, the only currently commissioned US naval vessel to have
| sunk an enemy ship is the USS Constitution, which sank the HMS
| Java (and more famously the HMS Guerriere) in 1812.
| fmajid wrote:
| Turkey's closed the Bosporus to military ships under the terms
| of the 1936 Montreux Convention. It's not as if any Russian
| ships could even get into the Mediterranean anyway.
| breck wrote:
| Interesting read from just 7 days ago: "Russia's Most Powerful
| Warship In The Black Sea Is Operating In A Pattern"
|
| https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2022/04/russias-most-po...
| dotopotoro wrote:
| Just some notes. It was a flagship of black sea fleet. It had
| crew of approx 500. After the event, russian ships started
| keeping greater distance from Ukraine.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > After the event, russian ships started keeping greater
| distance from Ukraine.
|
| Because it was the primary air defense for that entire area. If
| it can be hit by anti-ship missiles, the rest of the fleet
| _definitely_ can.
| Tarragon wrote:
| "due to damage to the hull received during the fire from the
| detonation of ammunition"
|
| The Ministry of Defense didn't clarify whose ammunition it was
| that exploded.
|
| More seriously that was the flagship of the Russian fleet in the
| Black Sea. That's gotta put the fear of god into the other ship
| captains.
| monocasa wrote:
| The cruise missile tubes are right there on the deck; I don't
| doubt they exploded after getting hit with a Neptune or two.
| Neptunes are only rated to take out 5k tonnage ships, and
| Moskva is 12k tons. I bet you Moskva's own ordnance exploding
| after being hit by Ukraine's missiles is what actually killed
| it. Still a point for Ukraine for sure.
| [deleted]
| rich_sasha wrote:
| Seeing as it sank many hours after it first caught fire, I'd
| imagine it was its own ammunition that caused the big fire
| (alongside fuel, lubricants etc).
|
| What set its own ammunition on fire is the follow-up question.
| Seems like the Ukrainian missile, though after what we've seen,
| nothing would surprise me.
| lolinder wrote:
| Any answer besides "Ukrainian missile" is going to be even
| more embarrassing for Russia. At least a missile strike is
| enemy action. Any alternative explanation for the sinking of
| your _flagship_ is just incompetence.
| paulmd wrote:
| Fires on ships are very harsh and dangerous environments.
| The US recently lost an entire carrier _while in drydock
| with the maximum resources available_ , not even out at
| sea. Once it gets going, it's extraordinarily difficult to
| get under control.
| dharmaturtle wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Bonhomme_Richard_(LHD-6
| )
|
| A "Wasp-class amphibious assault ship", not a CVN. But
| yes, capable of launching harriers/F-35s.
| driscoll42 wrote:
| To be fair, the ship was considered to be not worth
| repairing, but did not sink. It could have been repaired.
| But your point is accurate that it in drydock and it is
| embarrassing that the fire couldn't be put out sooner.
| idoh wrote:
| Any insight as to why fires on ships are hard to control?
| I hear it and believe. On the other hand I've been inside
| of military ships before and they are partitioned, with
| lots of metal doors to section off and contain damage, so
| I don't understand the difficulty.
| Arrath wrote:
| Flammable materials like paint, lubricants, furniture,
| sailors are quite common inside those metal rooms. I have
| read of cases where the fires were so hot as to cause
| combustion _through_ the bulkheads by radiant heat,
| regardless of the compartments being shut to section off
| the fires. The weight of water from firefighting efforts
| can cause stability issues, especially if it starts to
| slosh and compound any damage-related listing.
| mrdatawolf wrote:
| Do you have a source for this? My poor google skills
| can't find anything after the '67 fire for an American
| carrier.
| jonahhorowitz wrote:
| That fire was set by sabotage and the saboteur disabled
| many of the fire control systems before setting the
| fire[0]. Embarrassing for sure, but not quite maximum
| resources.
|
| [0]:https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/military/st
| ory/202...
| Someone wrote:
| > Seeing as it sank many hours after it first caught fire
|
| I may have missed some info, but I think the jury is still
| out on that. The Ukrainians announced the sinking a day
| before the Russians did. At least one of them must have been
| incorrect, I would guess for propaganda reasons.
|
| My money would be on the Russians lying. An Ukrainian lie
| would be very embarrassing if Russia subsequently invited
| some journalists over to look at the ship.
| Tarragon wrote:
| Sure, I'll believe that an ammunition fire on the Moskva is
| what sank it. Hower that fire was caused by... Top contenders
| are missile and inept crew.
|
| Looks like Russia would rather we accept that the crew was
| inept than it was sun by a Ukrainian made missile
| dekhn wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximate_and_ultimate_causat
| i... note the very first example is a sinking ship
| netsharc wrote:
| Someone should remake "The front fell off" video[1] but
| fitting the context: A Russian reporter interviewing the
| Russian defense minister.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" Top contenders are missile and inept crew."_
|
| It could also be sabotage by a Russian or foreign
| infiltrator.
| jacquesm wrote:
| You forgot the aliens.
| paxys wrote:
| > The missile cruiser "Moskva" sank while being towed to its
| destination in a storm due to damage to the hull received due to
| a fire from the detonation of ammunition. [Translated]
|
| So many different ways to avoid saying that a Ukrainian missile
| sank it.
| Tabular-Iceberg wrote:
| A missile cruiser is going to have a lot of hypergolics on
| board. If you don't know what you're doing that's an easy way
| to blow yourself up, like what happened with the submarine
| Kursk.
|
| So it's plausible that it wasn't the Ukrainians, but then again
| it would surely be more honourable to get blown up by a
| Ukrainian missile than by your own incompetence. So if Ukraine
| is falsely claiming credit they should be taking it as a
| propaganda godsend.
| dsabanin wrote:
| There were a lot of reports many hours before the russians
| acknowledged anything that the Ukrainians did it. From many
| different sources. Then there was the SOS captured by
| hundreds of regular users on the websdr source. Also, there
| was a captured conversion by the russian military discussing
| how it was done - Bayraktar took out the ship's radar and
| took attention away from the missiles that were launched from
| the shore.
|
| Everything fits, there's no reason to believe russian
| propaganda now. They are just trying to save their non-
| existent face.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Ukraine announced the strike before Russia announced anything
| was wrong though.
| Tabular-Iceberg wrote:
| That's probably right. It just sounds so outlandish to make
| up a lie to make yourself look bad.
|
| Maybe there's something about Russian military culture that
| the rest of us don't understand, where being killed by the
| enemy is a much bigger loss of face than killing yourself.
| yks wrote:
| Their current war is based on the propaganda of Russian
| superiority over Ukrainians, military superiority
| specifically since Russians built their whole modern
| ideology on winning WWII. Admitting that Ukrainians are
| capable of anything is therefore undercutting this
| foundational national idea.
| hollerith wrote:
| US missile cruisers (and destroyers) don't have hypergolic
| fuels onboard because all the missiles have solid fuels, but
| maybe Russia is different.
| Tabular-Iceberg wrote:
| Good point. From what I can find their missiles are indeed
| solid as well. But they do have hydrogen peroxide
| torpedoes, which could have been the culprit, as with
| Kursk.
| nautilius wrote:
| Why would it have lots of hypergolics on board?
| matkoniecz wrote:
| For own anti-ship missiles carried on deck?
| [deleted]
| sitkack wrote:
| All sides of war are such an incredible waste.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| It's an unfortunate, but sometimes necessary, waste. The world
| isn't a nice place, a fact that most of us in the West can
| happily ignore most of the time.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| This is kind of perfect though, even from a pacifist POV.
|
| The crew probably got off alive (mostly). A vessel built only
| for killing, was sunk.
|
| I agree it's not good to revel in bodycounts, but equipment-
| count... really nothing wrong with being happy about this one.
| sitkack wrote:
| The waste was in its construction. I am not lamenting
| removing it from the service of killing.
| dotopotoro wrote:
| I've read that Turkish vessel took only 75 evacuated persons,
| while sunk ship had crew of approx 500.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| We'll see (hopefully). They had a lot of time evacuate, and
| a lot of friendly ships in he area.
| sitkack wrote:
| This comment is at negative 4, apparently a number of people
| don't agree that war is a waste.
|
| The labor that went to make the ship was wasted, the pollution
| caused by manufacturing was a needless waste, the materials
| could have been used for another less wasteful purpose. And
| unless the ship is raised and recycled, it will just rust in
| oblivion on the bottom of the black sea.
|
| How about we just don't.
| dotopotoro wrote:
| You've miss-interpreted the reason for minuses.
|
| The disagreement is with implying that both sides of war are
| equal.
|
| While there are no saints, only one of them chose to start
| the waste (see also: Chechnya, Georgia)
| sitkack wrote:
| I should have said dimensions instead of sides. I was not
| implying equality. But he loss of lives even to the
| production of war machines and their ultimate destruction
| is waste of the earth, of humanity and our collective time.
|
| Even the effort spent on this conversation is a waste
| perpetrated by Putin, in no way should this statement be
| taken as an insult against you. That is not my intent. The
| waste of war is a cascading fractal.
|
| Inexpensive autonomous weapons of war are here. The cost to
| kill for less than a $1 a soul is within everyone's reach.
|
| The war in the Ukraine will have larger implications than
| WWI or the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
| [deleted]
| matkoniecz wrote:
| Probably because it reads as blaming both sides, while one is
| fully responsible that the entire waste happened.
|
| And Ukraine needed to be armed - otherwise scenes like in
| Bucha and Mariupol would be happening across entire Ukraine,
| followed by brutal occupation.
|
| > How about we just don't.
|
| That requires cooperation from all sides.
| greenpeas wrote:
| Furthermore, for each piece of equipment lost, resources will
| be allocated to replace it, and then some. And many other
| countries have decided to increase their military budgets as
| a result of this conflict.
|
| > How about we just don't.
|
| But how exactly do you propose we do that?
| worik wrote:
| We could start by being nice to, and tolerant of, each
| other.
|
| I am willing
| greenpeas wrote:
| I guess if you all promise to be nice, I can stop locking
| the doors to my house when I leave for work in the
| morning.
|
| We'd also simplify all our web services to not require
| passwords, we'll just trust all the nice people to be who
| they say they are.
| [deleted]
| dotopotoro wrote:
| Kind of true, but only one of the sides is instigator, and
| tries to repeat kaliningrad's cleansing.
| lazide wrote:
| Think of it as a unfortunate and probably necessary side-effect
| of life.
|
| Lack of war requires consistency and coherency between all
| parties to the degree they see themselves as 'one'
| (politically, economically, etc.) and have the same goals and
| needs, and are in agreement on how to fulfill them - or an
| overarching authority to enforce behavior.
|
| For example, Civil war generally happens when an existing
| entity starts splitting into different political factions
| because the existing group can no longer agree on goals, needs,
| and how to fulfill them. Think of this like an animal getting
| cancer, where the animal is a country. When the countries
| central authority (think immune system) no longer is strong
| enough to suppress/control dissent.
|
| War between countries happens when one country sees more
| benefit capturing/conquering/etc. another country than not.
| Like an animal killing or eating another animal for food, or
| territory, or just because.
|
| In any real environment that is constantly changing, it is very
| difficult to have any sizable group that is consistent, happy,
| and has the same identity enough that they'll all individually
| sacrifice when necessary to make the larger group still work.
| Trying to do it globally with the current human condition would
| not be pretty.
|
| This is especially true when you consider that all individual
| members within a group are susceptible to individual
| pathologies themselves.
|
| Depending on how you define these groups, either we're talking
| individual countries, collections of countries/allied
| coalitions, or individual sub-states.
|
| Almost always, some combination of 1) the group expends massive
| energy removing/silencing dissent, or 2) the group expends
| massive energy changing, with who benefits constantly changing
| too. Occasionally, 3) political-social identity aligns well and
| everyone sees it as a property of their reality, so #1 or #2
| aren't necessary (very much). All existing large countries
| spend a lot of time and treasure on #1 though.
|
| Think of it like the bodies immune system, with #3 being 'a
| very clean environment'.
|
| So either you end up with a large political entity which wields
| significant power within it's borders (or is blessed with a
| very consistent and happy socio-economic identity for a time)
| to crush dissent, or has a lot of socio-economic 'churn', which
| rises or falls together (ahem, USSR, CCP, USA, EU, etc.), or
| many small ones.
|
| Either way, these entities MUST push/pull/defend their
| interests - which fundamentally always don't align perfectly
| with others due to their varying socio-economic states and
| resources - including wars from time to time. The alternative
| is starvation from a competitor. The only alternative would be
| to have a larger authoritarian capability which enforces the
| lack of war and stasis on these various fronts. Drawing an
| analogy of a world like that to a zoo isn't hard.
|
| That larger authoritarian capability would fundamentally need
| to be more powerful than any single actor or coalition of
| actors, or eventually it would be removed or overthrown via
| war.
|
| 'World Peace' is not just a pipe dream, it's a fantasy that it
| is ever anything we'd want - it would require global stasis,
| enforced by some kind of extreme global authoritarianism that
| would keep the 'have nots' in the have-not pile, and the have's
| in the have pile forever. Or everyone to always be happy with
| each other, even if that means some of them starve to death due
| to lack of resources (extreme brainwashing?).
|
| World War sucks too of course, since too rapid change, churn,
| and turmoil sucks for everyone with massive blood spilled and
| treasure lost probably far in excess of what normally would
| occur in a bit more peaceful set of changes. It would be the
| natural equivalent of a massive famine or the like.
| worik wrote:
| > 'World Peace' is not just a pipe dream, it's a fantasy that
| it is ever anything we'd want - it would require global
| stasis, enforced by some kind of extreme global
| authoritarianism that would keep the 'have nots' in the have-
| not pile, and the have's in the have pile forever. Or
| everyone to always be happy with each other, even if that
| means some of them starve to death due to lack of resources
| (extreme brainwashing?).
|
| I really do not follow your argument.
|
| Turning it around world peace requires authoritarian
| enforcement of global inequality.
|
| The argument as presented is a very depressing outlook on
| humanity. My personal experience is the exact opposite. Wars
| (and other social chaos) are organised by a small minority.
| The vast overwhelming majority of us want peace
| lazide wrote:
| and how do you propose to identify and eliminate that small
| minority exactly?
|
| Near as I can tell, every system creates a small minority
| that drives it, and near as I can tell it's a fundamental
| requirement of all human organizational systems for them to
| be effective.
|
| The scale we are at, everything happens through systems of
| some kind.
|
| The small number of folks involved are either de jure (by
| rule) or de facto (in fact) the ones who make the actual
| decisions required for the organization to respond, move
| forward, act.
|
| If this is true, then 'the small number of people
| organizing the social chaos' are fundamental to the entire
| system. Removing them may change things for a time, but not
| for very long, and may (often if you look at the historic
| of revolutions) replace them with even worse.
|
| I don't think it's depressing, any more than recognizing
| that zebras get eaten by leopards.
|
| Not recognizing or avoiding it just leads to further chaos
| and damage. It would not help anyone (including zebras or
| leopards) to put guards out on the Serengeti to 'enforce
| the peace' for instance. At least not for very long.
| drakonka wrote:
| Except for the side defending its country from an invasion.
| WJW wrote:
| More like being "sank while being towed" I think? (edit: original
| title was "Cruiser 'Moskva' sank while towing") Anyway, as a
| former navy officer it looks very bad that the flagship of a
| fleet was apparently sunk by a anti ship missile (ASM) strike.
| Certainly in NATO navies you always keep a layered defense for
| your high value targets and while the Neptune ASM is very modern,
| the flagship should definitely not have been the first to be
| sunk.
|
| This will be (should be) a wake up call for the rest of the fleet
| and keep them much further from the shore, which in turn has
| impact on the amount of air control the Russians can exert on the
| southern parts of Ukraine as apparently they have been leaning on
| navy vessels to provide SAM cover.
| Someone wrote:
| > Certainly in NATO navies you always keep a layered defense
| for your high value targets
|
| It looks similar to what they did with their tanks: fight with
| insufficient infantry support
| (https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2022/03/15/in-
| ukraine-...)
| jeffbee wrote:
| It's always seemed very doubtful to me that a layered defense
| of the type mounted by U.S.N. carrier groups would be effective
| in a real war against a sophisticated opponent. It's obvious to
| me that every capital ship would be at the bottom of the ocean
| in the first hour of a war with China. The useless Russian ship
| we are discussing was, after all, equipped with a modern anti-
| missile system and yet it sank. Perhaps their CIWS readiness
| was not optimal, but that has also happened to the U.S. in the
| case of the Stark.
|
| Ships are expensive and missiles are almost free by comparison,
| so this seems like a fundamental problem for naval warfare.
|
| What I'm really wondering is why the Russians even staged this
| ship into the Black Sea. What possible capabilities could it
| have been providing that the Russians could not also get from
| land units?
| chubot wrote:
| To me it feels like an asymmetry between progress in
| sensors/software vs. progress in hardware/personnel since the
| last major wars ?
|
| That is, are the warships of today much better than the
| warships of 1950, if better at all? What about the skill and
| preparation of the crews?
|
| On the other hand when I watched videos of the Javelin
| missile I see a lot of sensors and software that probably
| could have only been created recently.
|
| I don't think such a thing could have existed in 1950 or
| 1970. Probably by 1990 it was possible, but I bet it's a lot
| better by 2010 too. Electronics got cheaper and smaller and
| more mobile. Imaging is way better.
|
| So while I don't know any of the specifics, this seems like a
| general trend. It's going to be harder for the offensive side
| to take and hold territory, and maybe the aircraft carrier is
| obsolete in a big conflict.
|
| We saw some asymmetry in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, but
| it doesn't seem like the same type, since AFAIK the opponents
| didn't have many smart weapons.
| Marthinwurer wrote:
| Modern warships are far, far better than the ones that we
| used in the 50s. We have more powerful engines, more
| redundancy, and better damage control systems. The sensors
| that we have on the ships are much better, and they are
| used to control more advanced, accurate, and powerful
| missiles. The crews are better trained, because they're a
| fully volunteer force, and more lessons have been learned
| over the years.
|
| The carrier is not obsolete. They are surrounded by a
| battle group of the best of these modern ships, in open
| ocean with mobility unrestrained by the rules of engagement
| of a pre-planned exercise. On their decks, they carry 50+
| aircraft that can investigate anywhere within 500nmi,
| ensuring that nothing moves on the surface that they don't
| know about. When a plane lands, it can be turned around for
| another sortie in an hour with a fresh pilot and more
| missiles. Each of these missiles have a range of their own
| of 100nmi+, and can be carried more than 500nmi by the
| aircraft carrying them. An aircraft carrier at full power
| can even outrun some smaller surface ships.
| chubot wrote:
| Yeah true, I shouldn't have stated in absolute terms ...
| But I still suspect there is a differential in the
| progress in tech for offense (holding a territory) vs.
| defense. And maybe that differential is greater than you
| consider Russian offense vs. western defense ...
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| Distance from the shoulder fired missiles?
| jltsiren wrote:
| On one hand, this sounds much like military folklore. "If you
| serve in role X, you have Y seconds/minutes to live once the
| fighting starts", or something like that.
|
| Real wars are confusing and there is a lot of uncertainty
| about everything. Maybe China could sink every US Navy
| capital ship if they fire everything they have at once, but
| they are not sure about that. There have not been any major
| naval battles since WW2, and nobody really knows what would
| happen in one. If they fire everything and it doesn't work,
| their forces will be spent and vulnerable until they can
| resupply, and they may not want to risk that.
|
| On the other hand, big high-value targets do sound like a bad
| idea, given how warfare has evolved in the past 30-40 years.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Defense-in-depth includes obfuscation of position, signals
| warfare, first-strike, and strategic deterrents.
|
| If you put a carrier group in a pond and lob missiles at
| them, I'm not confident in the outcome either.
| mwattsun wrote:
| The joke on our submarine was that aircraft carriers should
| more properly be called "targets." Sweden has a super quiet
| submarine design using Sterling engines:
|
| _A Stirling engine is particularly well suited for a
| submarine because the engine is nearly silent and can use the
| surrounding sea water as a heat sink to increase efficiency_
|
| _In 2005, HSwMS Gotland managed to snap several pictures of
| USS Ronald Reagan during a wargaming exercise in the Pacific
| Ocean, effectively "sinking" the aircraft carrier_
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotland-class_submarine
|
| My own opinion is that aircraft carriers are very effective
| in projecting power around the world during peacetime or low
| intensity conflicts, but military planners recognize (I hope)
| that they will be quickly sunk in an all out war and have
| contingency plans.
| moffkalast wrote:
| There is this theory that at least US CVNs have enough
| power and the correct hull shape to hydroplane in an event
| of an emergency. It would likely do a lot of damage in the
| process so it's probably never tested, and it's classified
| so nobody really knows for sure.
|
| But if informed that an attack is imminent there may be at
| least one ace up their sleeve.
| idoh wrote:
| That seems pretty wild. Torpedos don't strike the side of
| a ship, rather they are meant to explode underneath for
| max damage. So even if a CVN could hydroplane, I don't
| think it would evade a torpedo.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Well an ADCAP can do as much as 55 kts, which is probably
| the fastest conventional torps go, and you'd definitely
| buy more time to deploy countermeasures and decoys.
|
| A Shkval can go as fast as a missile, but it can't turn
| very well so you might be able to dodge it this way.
|
| Sure it's not a good outlook in any case, but it's better
| than sitting there waiting to be hit.
| na85 wrote:
| >But if informed that an attack is imminent there may be
| at least one ace up their sleeve.
|
| ... Traveling a few dozen knots faster is an "ace up the
| sleeve"?
| jacquesm wrote:
| It is if you don't expect it.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Submarines can't approach if the Carrier is faster than
| the Sub.
|
| Its a stupid strategy, but it seems to check out. The
| faster a submarine tries to go, the easier it would be to
| detect.
| WJW wrote:
| There was a famous exercise in which a Dutch submarine
| managed to sink over half a carrier group in an exercise
| (https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/dutch-submarine-sinks-half-
| of...) and printed a t-shirt to commemorate the occasion. The
| shirt was _very_ swiftly forbidden by the leadership team,
| since the Americans were rather unhappy about the whole thing
| and it was deemed to be not very diplomatic to wear such
| shirts to the traditional end-of-exercise bbq on the flight
| deck.
| kimixa wrote:
| Though reading too much into wargames is also a mistake -
| they put significant limits on the sonar power as otherwise
| it would devastate the local ocean ecology, which naturally
| benefits those who want to remain hidden like submarines in
| exercises. They're meant to use estimates and an honor
| system of detection, but I've generally heard it's pretty
| laughable from people involved.
|
| I don't doubt that such ecological worries will go out the
| window if there's actual threats involved.
| Animats wrote:
| Ships can now be attacked from shore. That really hadn't been
| much of a thing since the era of seacoast forts. But that's
| changing. China has invested heavily in shore-based anti-ship
| missiles. There are now more things you can launch from a
| truck that can take out a ship. As seems to be what happened
| here.
|
| Look at a map of western Russia's sea access. Choke points
| everywhere, most of them controlled by others.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| "Territorial waters" were long defined by the range of
| guns.
|
| 3 mile, 12 mile. 200 is roughly the range that's reasonably
| patrolable via aircraft.
|
| What you own is defined by what you can defend.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_waters
|
| And yes, Russia's sea access is surprisingly limited for a
| country which nominally has the 4th longest coastline of
| any --- largely along the Arctic ocean.
| int_19h wrote:
| Ukrainians claim that they took out the ship's anti-missile
| radar first with an UAV before firing the missile.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Glory to them if true, but this particular ship had 6
| independent fire control radars for their close-in weapons
| systems, which are automatic. The UAV perhaps destroyed the
| sensor system of the long-range anti-air missile system?
| Either way, obviously it worked. I am a huge skeptic of
| anti-missile weapons since they have performed extremely
| poorly in limited practice.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > More like being "sank while being towed" I think? (edit:
| original title was "Cruiser 'Moskva' sank while towing")
|
| Fun fact: in early modern English, "towing" was the correct
| passive participial form, and "being towed" was ungrammatical.
| WJW wrote:
| Wow, TIL! How would the early English have expressed "towing"
| in the active sense though?
| jollybean wrote:
| As a former naval officer can you help us understand the
| capabilities here, as there are some odd details emergying:
|
| 1) Do ships truly have good defences against Harpoons etc.
| these days? If 1 or 2 were sent a ship is there a decent chance
| they'd be neutralized?
|
| 2) There's indications Ukraine was flying a drone to distract
| them possible have their radars not on the right thing, firing
| missiles from behind. Does this remotely make sense i.e. radar
| coverage? Or possibly even just overwhelming/confusing the
| ships operators a bit?
| wins32767 wrote:
| Russian/Soviet CIWS are mostly effective at targets over 50m.
| Harpoons are wave skimming. There was a plan to upgrade the
| Moskova with more modern CIWS but it didn't get funded.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Ukraine claims to have used their Neptune's, not the new
| Harpoons.
| emaginniss wrote:
| Somebody needed a chalet instead
| WJW wrote:
| Sure!
|
| 1) Let's look at the ship I am most familiar with, the NL
| Navy Zeven Provicien class
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Zeven_Provinci%C3%ABn-
| class...). It generally would have 2 types of anti air
| defense missiles, the SM-2 and the ESSM (both US-built, see
| wikipedia for their publicly available specs). Apart from
| that, there are electronic and flare/chaff passive
| countermeasures and finally a Goalkeeper CIWS for last-mile
| defense. I have little doubt that we would have been able to
| take on an attack of 2 Harpoon missiles. OTOH, the Neptune
| missiles are a lot more modern than the Harpoon and modern
| missiles have been known to do tricky things like having a
| pseudo-random noise generator generate corkscrew like
| maneuvers to evade the defensive fires. I'll also note that
| the Moskva was built in the early 80s (though refitted after
| the fall of the Soviet Union) and it was apparently quite
| stormy (so additional radar noise from wave reflections may
| have been a thing). All in all, IMHO it seems quite likely
| that they were indeed hit. Warships don't just suddenly catch
| fire, and especially in warzones when the opponent has
| sophisticated anti ship missiles it seems more likely that
| the fire was caused by a missile impact.
|
| 2) For older warships it could be possible. Usually they
| would have a rotating air warning radar and a dedicated
| targeting radar for missile guidance. An example would be the
| STIR (https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/stir-tracking-and-
| illuminatio...) on NATO vessels, basically a powerful
| narrowbeam radar on a servo pedestal. There would rarely be
| more than two or three on a vessel, so it _might_ be possible
| to distract all of them with several drones. Modern naval
| radars use active phased array technology where the amount of
| tracked targets is no longer the bottleneck (in practice, you
| 'd need dozens of missiles), but as mentioned before the
| Moskva is from the early 80s so they would probably not have
| this yet. So it _could_ happen, especially in a stormy sea
| where the waves provide a lot of additional radar noise, but
| it is really only speculating without a lot more information
| than we have right now.
| dabeeeenster wrote:
| Thank you! Comments like these are the reason HN is so
| great.
| veemjeem wrote:
| Do you know what happens to explosives on sunk ships
| generally? Are they usually left at the bottom of the
| ocean, and could they have the potential to detonate?
| cm2187 wrote:
| And would a ship of that size carry nukes?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The Moskva is nuclear-capable, but I don't think anyone
| publicly knows whether it was nuclear-armed in this
| particular conflict. My bet would be no.
| throwanem wrote:
| That said, if anyone decides to mount a recovery or
| salvage mission of any kind, it may be worth upgrading
| that "no" to a soft "maybe".
|
| As far as I know, nobody has tried to retrieve
| conventional munitions from a shipwreck, and reasonably
| enough - they're not dangerous enough to be worth the
| trouble. Nations _will_ go after lost nuclear warheads,
| though; indeed, Bayesian search theory saw significant
| development and interest to serve that purpose [1], and
| the CIA 's been known to go to Bond-movie levels of
| trouble to the same end [2].
|
| Granted, these were both First Cold War projects, but it
| seems like there's some degree of possibility that this
| use of "First Cold War" may eventually prove not to have
| been a somewhat silly joke, so...
|
| [1] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/RTt59BtFLqQbsSiqd/a-h
| istory-...
|
| [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Azorian
| oldgradstudent wrote:
| So by the wonders of Bayes' formula we can conclude that
| the F-35 that sank in the South China Sea carried nuclear
| warheads?
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60607784
| Someone wrote:
| No. The F-35 has modern tech that the enemy likely hasn't
| (fully) seen.
|
| That makes it worthwhile to try and prevent the enemy
| from seeing that tech.
| throwanem wrote:
| No, but by the wonders of a moment's consideration we can
| surmise that leaving an example of the US's newest
| stealth technology, in the backyard pool of the power
| it's primarily designed to be used against, might not
| strike someone in the US Department of Defense as the
| world's cleverest idea.
| WJW wrote:
| Typically they would just be left there and (very) slowly
| degrade. As an example, the Dutch navy still clears
| hundreds of mines and unexploded bombs every year, left
| over from the 2nd world war. The explosives still work
| and are usually triggered with a small clearing charge so
| that they won't pose any danger to fishermen and the
| like.
|
| So yes there is potential to detonate, but in general
| that does not matter a lot unless you are the unluckiest
| person in the world and happen to be right above it at
| the time. The explosive wave front expands in a sphere
| and so decreases in amplitude with the square of the
| distance to the origin. It loses lethal potential very
| quickly.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| In some cases, everyone just kind of hopes the problem
| goes away.
|
| SS _Richard Montgomery_ comes to mind. Tsunami threat
| directly off the southern coast of England.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Richard_Montgomery
|
| https://yewtu.be/watch?v=R9u41aeItss
| jacoblambda wrote:
| > Warships don't just suddenly catch fire
|
| Warships certainly do suddenly catch fire. They just don't
| usually catch fire in such a way that it's a casualty. DCS
| is usually competent enough to get things under control in
| reasonable amounts of time.
|
| Normally the sudden catching fire is due to electrical
| problems, particularly when repairs are done by non-
| electrical teams who fail to follow the correct procedures
| or doubly so if they are battleshorting for one reason or
| another.
|
| Now what happened here though definitely wasn't "suddenly
| catching fire" unless the crew were negligent and
| incompetent... which well actually looking at the
| performance of the Russian army that could actually be a
| possibility.
| oldgradstudent wrote:
| > Warships don't just suddenly catch fire
|
| Warships, just like everything else, do suddenly catch fire
| from time to time. Carelessness, negligence, sabotage, or
| bad luck could cause a fire that would sink a ship.
| Especially during a war, when munitions are being handled
| under pressure.
|
| Not the most likely cause, but shit does happen.
|
| BTW, By sabotage I don't mean some mustache twirling spy,
| but something more mundane, a disgruntled sailor, or a
| homesick one that wants to return to base as soon as
| possible.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Miami_(SSN-755)#2012_fire
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sailor-ryan-mays-court-
| martial-...
| WJW wrote:
| OK sure, they do. But on every warship I've ever been on
| (granted, none of them were Russian), every single person
| was a trained firefighter and very well aware that there
| was no fire brigade to call. In particular, setting fire
| to an ammunition store (as opposed to something more
| innocent but still vital like the galley) seems like an
| especially stupid thing to do. I'd also like to point out
| that every single missile system I've ever seen is not
| reloaded in any meaningful way at sea. Ships just pull
| into port an a crane lifts the replacement canisters into
| place.
|
| Given the potential causes basically being [accident,
| self-inflicted sabotage, hit by missile], "hit by
| missile" seems by far the most likely given all the other
| information about this.
| oldgradstudent wrote:
| On the warships I've been on, there were only a few well
| trained fire fighters, and the rest were poorly trained
| on the job. I doubt if I would have been a very useful
| member of the damage control team had something happened.
|
| Galley fires could happen anytime. During times of war,
| guns are being loaded, missile systems are turned on and
| tested to ensure they are ready. Somebody could easily
| screw up and cause a major fire. If missiles were fired
| by the Moskva, then a dud could have caused a fire, and
| so on.
|
| I'm not claiming this is likely in this case, but it does
| happen.
| cm2187 wrote:
| Would you be able to share some light on what a cruiser is
| (that's how this ship is classified on wikipedia) vs another
| kind of ship. I am comparing to the british navy which doesn't
| seem to have anything above destroyer (outside of aircraft
| carriers). In these days and age where all war ships seem to be
| essentially floating missile launch platforms, what is the
| difference?
| brimble wrote:
| Ship class designations are weird. Russia keeps a ship or two
| designated as "battlecruisers" (in the WWII era, that would
| have meant a lightly-armored, probably fast, very large ship
| with battleship-class guns) that would just be called
| cruisers in most other navies, now. I've seen British ships
| with tonnage that would put them nearly up to a WWII-era
| heavy cruiser (step under a battlecruiser, the smallest thing
| generally regarded as a "capital ship" in that era) called a
| destroyer (formerly that would have been a _much_ smaller
| size of ship), these days.
|
| From their design, the ship class in question seem to be some
| kind of largish general-purpose missile cruisers with
| substantial armament and decent anti-air/anti-missile
| defenses, but not intended to survive sustained fighting
| (their weapon placement suggests that--all those missile
| tubes on the deck can't possibly be safe, but it might let
| them cram more weapons on there cheaply)
|
| [VERY LATE EDIT] The TL;DR here is that "cruiser" and
| "destroyer" and all that are nearly meaningless without
| context of who's doing the labeling, and when.
|
| [ANOTHER LATE EDIT] I overstated the degree to which the
| Kirov class' designation is misleading: its displacement _is_
| roughly in the range of WWII-era battlecruisers (~1 /2 the
| displacement of an Iowa class battleship--armor is really,
| really heavy). It lacks battleship-class guns, but so does
| everything else these days and it'd be kinda silly if it had
| them.
| speeder wrote:
| The battlecruisers are actual battlecruisers including
| having a lot of deck guns. They are nowhere near Ukraine
| though. Seemly their job is patrol seas where US warships
| might attack Russia.
|
| Also I`ve read the reason Iowa Battleship in USA is not
| fully decomissined is just in case they need it to take out
| the two Russian battlecruisers... not likely to be nededed
| but "just in case"
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Also I`ve read the reason Iowa Battleship in USA is not
| fully decomissined is just in case they need it to take
| out the two Russian battlecruisers... not likely to be
| nededed but "just in case"
|
| The Iowa and Wisconsin (originally New Jersey and
| Wisconsin, but then Congress specifically intervened to
| override the Navy and specify Iowa to replace New Jersey)
| were returned to the reserve status and kept in mothballs
| because Congress ordered the Navy to keep to Iowa-class
| BBs in reserve in case needed to support Marine
| amphibious operations (this ended in 2006), not to fight
| the Kirovs.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| No, the Kirovs don't have much in the way of guns. The
| main armament is 20 P-700 missiles.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirov-class_battlecruiser
|
| Lots of big missiles; the only real naval gun is a twin
| 130mm. (That's about the size of an Arleigh Burke
| destroyer's gun. The Iowa's 15" guns are 406mm.) If
| you're in gun range of a Kirov, something has gone badly
| wrong for the Kirov.
| nradov wrote:
| All US Navy battleships were completely decommissioned
| years ago. There is no possible way to reactivate any of
| them.
| irrational wrote:
| But, what if aliens start attacking Hawaii? Could we
| reactivate one of them then?
| akmarinov wrote:
| I think I recall watching a documentary on that topic.
| Very enlightening stuff
| [deleted]
| ceejayoz wrote:
| We should've reactivated one to shell the studio that
| greenlit that movie.
| GlenTheMachine wrote:
| IDK. It's a bad movie. But as bad movies go, it's a
| pretty good bad movie.
| watersb wrote:
| It would have been a better bad movie on 1/10th the
| budget. And a different script. And a different premise.
| Oh well, the actors tried...
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleship_(film)
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| zerkten wrote:
| Why would you use an old battleship when you have
| submarines (torpedoes and missiles), airpower, smaller
| surface ships with lots of missiles?
|
| (I think you may have confused this with the 1980s refit
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa-
| class_battleship#1980s_re....)
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > From their design, the ship class in question seem to be
| some kind of largish general-purpose missile cruisers with
| substantial armament and decent anti-air/anti-missile
| defenses,
|
| My understanding is that the Moskva specifically had few
| and outdated anti-missile self-defense systems, but capable
| anti-air systems (and was, in fact, the main anti-air
| platform as well as the flagship for the Black Sea fleet.)
| ajross wrote:
| In modern usage it's mostly just about size. Naval non-
| carrier surface combat vessels have a bunch of roles and
| weapon systems, but tend to be generalists and not
| specialists. So everything has cruise missiles and SAMs and
| radars and antisubmarine helicopters, etc... If it's big it's
| a "cruiser" and if it's small it's a "frigate" and everything
| else is a "destroyer". And there's a bunch of overlap and
| ambiguity.
|
| These ships are big-ish soviet-era vessels designed primarily
| (as I understand it) for anti-ship cruise missile focus, but
| they fill all roles.
| simonh wrote:
| Originally cruisers were pretty much the largest ships in a
| fleet, capable of independent long range cruising missions.
| Battleship was a broader term.
|
| The development of HMS Dreadnought heralded a revolution in
| big gun capital ship design and modern battleships were
| sometimes referred to as Dreadnought class battleships,
| though for a long time that's been the only kind.
| Particularly large or capable cruisers are sometimes called
| battle cruisers.
|
| This ship doesn't have big guns because it's a missile ship
| so it can't be a battleship, but it is a capital ship, which
| makes it a cruiser.
|
| As all programmers know, naming things is hard.
| jltsiren wrote:
| "Cruiser" is an old term, and it originally referred to the
| mission rather than to the ship. Cruisers were usually
| smaller ships such as frigates or sloops, because bigger
| ships were too expensive to use in that role.
|
| Battleships were the last descendants of the ship of line,
| which basically meant a ship big enough and heavily armed
| enough to not be a weak link in the line of battle.
| dragontamer wrote:
| I'm no Navy expert. But, here's my understanding of today's
| Navies.
|
| * Corvette/Frigates -- Smaller ships with smaller munitions.
| They're just missile platforms. Anything smaller than a
| Corvette basically is ignored for most discussions. Frigates
| are slightly larger than Corvette.
|
| * Destroyers -- Bigger than Frigates. Not only do Destroyers
| have significant missile capacities (like Corvette /
| Frigates), Destroyers are big enough for major sensor suites.
| SONAR, RADAR, etc. etc. Maybe enough for a CWIS (aim-bot with
| a gatling gun, designed to automatically shoot down enemy
| missiles as they approach).
|
| * Cruisers -- Bigger than Destroyers. More missiles, more
| sensors. While a Destroyer might have 1x CWIS and 1x RADAR,
| you might be seeing 2x or 3x CWIS or RADARS on the larger
| Cruiser class.
|
| > In these days and age where all war ships seem to be
| essentially floating missile launch platforms, what is the
| difference?
|
| Defense. You need a lot of power to run those RADAR systems,
| which are constantly scanning the skies for enemy missiles.
| Corvette/Frigates are too small to have a CWIS / anti-missile
| defense system, so they need to hang around larger ships
| (like Destroyers or Cruisers) for defense.
|
| Multiple Destroyers could be stationed next to each other to
| increase their defenses. But if two Destroyers were just
| going to sail together (for better RADAR coverage and/or
| defenses), its a better idea to just make a slightly bigger
| ship, but with twice the RADAR / twice the defense of a
| singular Destroyer.
| Lev1a wrote:
| > Corvette/Frigates
|
| Don't know if this is just a meme or actually called that
| by real Navy members, but I heard them referred to as
| "missile sponges", i.e. to "soak up" missiles fired at the
| convoy/battle group.
| Marthinwurer wrote:
| The difference is less the CIWS and more the amount of
| displacement that they have to spend on capabilities and
| the generality of those capabilities.
|
| Even LCSs, effectively overpowered corvettes, have CIWS.
| They don't have the radar which can deal with threats
| further out than the 10 miles or so that their SeaRAM can
| deal with.
|
| Frigates have more room to fit larger radars, power plants
| to feed them, and missiles to fire with them. Smaller
| frigates usually have 8-16 VLS tubes with ESSM or SM-2 to
| deal with threats 30+ miles out. Bigger ones, like the
| planned Constellation class, will have 32.
|
| Destroyers are where you get enough room to start having
| strike and long range defense capabilities. The radar is
| now powerful enough to track ballistic missiles coming in
| from space, and they have missiles that can intercept them
| like SM-3. They also have extra VLS to store strike
| capabilities, like Tomahawk missiles. US Arleigh Burke
| class Destroyers have 96 VLS cells.
|
| Cruisers have an interesting role. In the US navy, we don't
| really need them. We have a slightly larger destroyer hull
| with extra room for a fleet command center that we call
| cruisers to make congress happy. In navies that don't have
| carriers, though, their role is to be the main strike
| platform for the fleet. They'll have mounts for the largest
| mobile missiles in their arsenal, like the Russian P-700
| Granit, which NATO called "Shipwreck".
|
| Carriers are the most important part of the US Navy. Their
| power projection and sea control capabilities are
| unmatched. Each one carries their own airborne radar
| squadron, as well as 44+ strike fighters to not only defend
| it but to strike back at their foes. The carrier allows the
| fleet to know everything that happens within 500 miles, and
| destroy anything that it doesn't want there.
|
| So, why don't we want to just have lots of cruisers? A mix
| of survivability and flexibility. While offensive
| capability scales linearly with tonnage, survivability
| falls to the cube-square law and only increases as the cube
| root of tonnage. Carriers are a special exception to this,
| because their aircraft are such a force multiplier.
| However, they're extremely expensive so very few countries
| can afford more than one or two. The US, however, is
| required by congress to have at least 10. For flexibility,
| it's often nice to have more platforms with less
| capabilites in more places than one platform with more
| capabilities in one place.
| dragontamer wrote:
| > Carriers are the most important part of the US Navy.
| Their power projection and sea control capabilities are
| unmatched. Each one carries their own airborne radar
| squadron, as well as 44+ strike fighters to not only
| defend it but to strike back at their foes. The carrier
| allows the fleet to know everything that happens within
| 500 miles, and destroy anything that it doesn't want
| there.
|
| Modern US Carriers are pretty absurd though. Do they
| really need 2 runways and 4 catapults?
|
| I get it, in combat, you really want to launch your
| aircraft really fast. But it does show how building one-
| ship with 2x runways is considered better (by the US Navy
| anyway) than building 2x ships with 1x runways each.
|
| There's a lot of decisions that went into the design of
| these ships. I'm not sure if they all made sense... it
| all comes down to what modern naval combat is (and
| frankly, no one really knows what modern naval combat
| is... there hasn't been a clash of major powers since
| WW2. Falklands War IMO doesn't count since Argentina
| isn't really the same kind of power as United Kingdom)
|
| ------
|
| I think everyone knows that our Carriers are vulnerable
| to enemies. But they're so useful for power projection
| that we keep building them...
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| >Corsair
|
| Corvette.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Woops, there goes my Starcraft part of my brain
| corrupting my military part of my brain. Thanks for the
| correction, I just edited it in.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| At least carriers are obvious :)
| andbberger wrote:
| USN oliver perry class frigates have a CWIS system. in fact
| it seems the majority of USN ships have a CWIS system.
| asvitkine wrote:
| > its a better idea to just make a slightly bigger ship,
| but with twice the RADAR / twice the defense of a singular
| Destroyer
|
| Why? Wouldn't two destroyers be more flexible and also
| harder to hit than one big ship?
| dragontamer wrote:
| Cause Navy guns don't scale that way.
|
| Destroyers are around 8000 tons. Cruisers are around
| 10,000 tons.
|
| You need 16,000 tons of metal to make 2x Destroyers. You
| only need 10,000 tons of metal to make 1x Cruiser.
|
| Your crew sizes are also merged together with the larger-
| ships, meaning you need fewer sailors to perform the same
| amount of firepower. Two Destroyers would have a lot of
| redundant jobs compared to one Cruiser.
| sgt101 wrote:
| Ha, no one is right.
|
| The key distinction is what name when applied to the hoped
| for platform will win funding from the national tax authority
| - what ever that is.
|
| In the UK talk of cruisers is a no-no, the last "through deck
| cruisers" were actually aircraft carriers, and no one is
| falling for that again. Thus the Type 45's are definitely
| destroyers despite displacing 9400 tonnes. In other lands the
| Ticonderoga's are cruisers, even though they displace 9600
| tonnes, the Arleigh Burke are destroyers at 9300 tonnes, but
| the Zumwalt's come in at 14000 tonnes as destroyers as well!
| Note, there will only ever be three Zumwalt's.
| greenyoda wrote:
| According to Wikipedia:
|
| "Modern cruisers are generally the largest ships in a fleet
| after aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships."[1]
|
| So it looks like they're larger than destroyers but have a
| similar function.
|
| A discussion of current U.S. and Russian cruiser capabilities
| can be found here:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruiser#Current_cruisers
|
| Moskva is a Slava-class cruiser:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slava-class_cruiser
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruiser
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > So it looks like they're larger than destroyers but have
| a similar function.
|
| The Ticonderoga class cruisers are basically the same size
| as the Arleigh Burke destroyers (smaller than the Flight
| III, larger than earlier ones) and much smaller than the
| Zumwalt-class destroyers.
|
| There's a degree of what amounts to fashion in the naming,
| and "cruiser" is out of fashion for newer ships.
| nradov wrote:
| The distinctions between surface warship classes are somewhat
| arbitrary. Some modern frigates and destroyers are larger
| than WW2 cruisers. Originally cruisers were lightly armored
| vessels intended for long range, high speed commerce raiding
| to disrupt enemy logistics. They weren't intended to stand in
| the line of battle and slug it out with heavily armored
| battleships. But now modern cruisers carry large numbers of
| missiles for attacking other ships, or striking surface
| targets, or defending an aircraft carrier from air and
| missile attacks. So the key distinction that characterizes a
| cruiser is basically just "more missiles".
|
| The US Navy is gradually decommissioning their cruisers and
| can't afford to build new ones.
| sgt101 wrote:
| Well, can't afford while keeping 9 super carriers and 30
| odd virginia class. It should be noted that the current
| generation of super subs can fire cruise missiles at shore
| targets as well as old cruisers could. Add in the shift in
| drone technology and the argument for big, non carrier
| surface combatants looks poor.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Add in the shift in drone technology and the argument
| for big, non carrier surface combatants looks poor.
|
| The newer American destroyers are bigger than the last
| cruisers we built, so phasing out of cruisers isn't about
| not having big, non-carrier surface combatants.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The US Navy is gradually decommissioning their cruisers
| and can't afford to build new ones.
|
| The Ticonderoga class cruisers are 9,600 tons, the Arleigh
| Burke Flight III destroyers are 9,700 tons, the Zumwalt
| class destroyers are almost 16k tons.
|
| We have newer cruisers, we just call them destroyers.
| nickff wrote:
| Most of the other replies here say it's all about size, and
| size does matter, but it's not the whole story.
|
| Generally, cruisers are designed with capabilities that allow
| them to operate anywhere on the ocean on their own, or as the
| lead vessels in small groups of ships (along with frigates
| and destroyers). Destroyers are usually smaller and have a
| more limited set of capabilities, and are intended to operate
| as ocean-going support ships in a combat group. Frigates are
| usually even smaller, with similar set of capabilities to a
| destroyer, but more limited equipment and intended to operate
| relatively close to their home ports.
|
| Every navy has different sizes for each, with the USA having
| some of the largest ships of each designation. You should
| also keep in mind that each type of ship has gotten
| progressively larger over time; as of WWII, destroyers were
| roughly 2000 tons, and cruisers were about 8000 tons.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Some are bigger than others, which means that they can launch
| more missiles (and maybe also longer range missiles). They
| may also have more powerful radars, and have a more central
| role in coordinating the fleet as a whole.
|
| Also, they have more people, so it's a bigger deal if they
| get sunk.
| akimball wrote:
| Nah, it was upgraded to a submarine.
| bambax wrote:
| All ships can go under water. Some can resurface.
| [deleted]
| sebastianconcpt wrote:
| You are supremely correct comrade!
| seandoe wrote:
| Oh sinking? That's not a bug
| subroutine wrote:
| "Ukrainian soldiers on Snake Island, this is Russian Warship
| Moskva, surrender yourselves or die"
|
| "Russian warship Moskva, go fuck yourself"
|
| Then Moskva opened fire. Everyone on the island was (edit)
| captured.
|
| Guess where Moskva is now?
|
| At the bottom of the ocean. The Ukrainians are so badass.
| [deleted]
| bhouston wrote:
| > Then Moskva opened fire and killed everyone on the island.
|
| I understand they didn't die and were just taken prisoner. See:
| https://www.npr.org/2022/03/24/1088593653/snake-island-sailo...
| bnt wrote:
| Weren't all of them recovered? Or is everything
| misinformation these days?
| mechanical_bear wrote:
| Not necessarily "misinformation" exactly, so much as just
| general "fog of war".
| RC_ITR wrote:
| From Wikipedia:
|
| Misinformation is incorrect or misleading information
| presented as fact, either intentionally or
| unintentionally. Disinformation is a subset of
| misinformation, that which is deliberately deceptive.
|
| So yes 'misinformation' no 'disinformation'
|
| Isn't English just such a utilitarian language?
| _moof wrote:
| They were taken prisoner, and later given back to Ukraine
| in a prisoner swap.
| volkadav wrote:
| turns out the garrison was captured and later exchanged in a
| prisoner swap, so they made it out alive :)
|
| https://www.npr.org/2022/03/24/1088593653/snake-island-sailo...
| sebastianconcpt wrote:
| Now I want to fantasize them being the ones pressing the fire
| button of these neptunes.
| eps wrote:
| As colorful as it was, the context of that island episode is
| that none of the soldiers on the island actually died.
|
| They were all taken as PoWs by the Russians.
| dotopotoro wrote:
| TylerLives wrote:
| "Russian warship, go fuck yourself"
|
| _surrenders_
|
| I don't understand this.
| amelius wrote:
| I hope they were not on that ship still.
| travisgriggs wrote:
| Two questions. US ships usually have phalanx defensive systems
| for anti missle deterrents. I've always heard these are pretty
| effective as long as their active and not overwhelmed.
|
| Does the Russian navy not possess these? Or do they, and it just
| didn't work well?
| ApostleMatthew wrote:
| Russia uses a similar system, the Kashtan CIWS. This article
| (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61103927) indicates that
| the Moskva did have one installed, though I don't know why it
| didn't help in this case.
| rixrax wrote:
| Couple of questions that I remain curious about now that sinking
| has been confirmed:
|
| 1. Did it go to a bottom with some nuclear warheads onboard? What
| is going to happen to these? (Slava class is nuclear strike
| capable[0])
|
| 2. It was the flagship of the BS fleet. This I have been told
| implies admiral and their staff on board. Any news of the fate of
| the fleet staff?
|
| 3. Is there any news beyond 'all were evacuated' of the fate of
| the crew? Some news said Turkish navy managed to rescue ~50
| sailors. What about the rest ~450[1]?
|
| [0] https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/03/ukraines-next-
| nightmare-... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slava-
| class_cruiser
| riffic wrote:
| uh, tass.ru is not the most unbiased of sources here. Why are we
| linking to it and not say, someone a bit more neutral (for
| example, wikipedia:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_cruiser_Moskva#Sinking)
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Confirmation from a hostile source. If Tass admits it sank, it
| probably sank.
| Zigurd wrote:
| It amounts to "statement against interests." If Tass admits it
| sank, it sank.
| capdeck wrote:
| ... and you turn to Wikipedia when even its founder no longer
| trusts the website:
|
| Wikipedia co-founder: I no longer trust the website I created -
| YouTube
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0P4Cf0UCwU
| riffic wrote:
| > Larry Sanger
|
| uh, yeah there's a reason he's no longer with the project.
| dude's got history.
| IMTDb wrote:
| Because the fact that it is relayed by a pro-putin newspaper is
| significant. This was is also an information war, so analysing
| _who_ reports the news is almost as important as _what_ is
| reported.
| riffic wrote:
| TASS is a news agency, like Reuters or AP, not a newspaper.
|
| While it's significant, it's also propaganda. At the very
| least, WP has a policy to maintain a neutral point of view
| and to only put things on the site which can be reliably
| sourced.
|
| We should be sensitive to the power of a site like this in
| relaying harmful propaganda.
| jakubadamw wrote:
| You're right, TASS is a Russian state press agency transmitting
| official propaganda but what this is an example of is Russians
| admitting their own loss. It rarely happens in this war, which
| makes this all the more interesting.
| epolanski wrote:
| You can't hide your flagship sinking.
| mattm wrote:
| I thought that was the point. To expose an obvious attempt at
| spinning information.
| gvb wrote:
| Quote from the Moscow-based think tank, the Center for Analysis
| of Strategies and Technologies:
|
| "The flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the Moskva cruiser,
| was indeed attacked by the Neptune anti-ship missiles from the
| coastline between Odessa and Mykolaiv," it said, adding that _a
| drone distracted the ship before the missiles hit._ [emphasis
| mine]
|
| Ref: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/14/ukraine-
| russ...
| Arrath wrote:
| As the ship was host to a S-300F system, roughly analogous to
| the US's AEGIS missile defense, getting distracted by a single
| drone sounds like it should be yet another black eye in this
| whole chain of events.
| favorited wrote:
| The analysis I saw noted that their air defense only had a
| 180-degree range. So a drone could be used to distract their
| defense, get it pointed away from the Neptune launcher, then
| fire from the ship's blind spot.
| dathinab wrote:
| What if, just hypothetical, it was a swarm. (I don't think it
| was in this case).
|
| I mean private persons can use drone swarms to put pictures
| on the night sky.
|
| And while they are rout pre-programmed, it's not hard to use
| a template to very fast pre-program a drone swarm to fly some
| pseudo randomized pattern around a ship of which the position
| is known.
| weeblewobble wrote:
| Likely not a consumer class drone/quadcopter like what
| you're picturing, but a combat drone (basically a small
| airplane) like this
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baykar_Bayraktar_TB2
| newsclues wrote:
| Pretty sure the drone wasn't merely a distraction, I think they
| have pods with data links to the missiles with also talk to
| each other.
| trhway wrote:
| Yes, the drone was used to provide the precise ship's
| position to the missiles, and that allowed to almost
| immediately turn off the main radar of the missile launching
| battery, thus not allowing Russia to learn about its position
| and to strike back.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Do you know this for a fact or is it speculation?
| bastardoperator wrote:
| Sounds like you could sink all these ships pretty easily if a
| single drone kicked this entire chain of events off.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| There was also severe weather, and the Neptunes are sea-
| skimming. Sounds like the Ukranians waited for the perfect
| shot, as there aren't many of the things.
| a-b wrote:
| Burn in hell!
| mkl95 wrote:
| The ship was 40+ years old, although it was going to be used
| until 2026. How common is it for warships to be that old?
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Very common.. US Ticonderoga class cruisers were first
| commissioned in 1983, so they're all ~40 years old. We're in
| the process of decommissioning some of them now, but many will
| likely still be sailing in 2040. Often times older ships get
| retrofit with the latest defense/offense capabilities and new
| propulsion if there's something they'd benefit from.
|
| Ohio and Los Angeles class submarines were mostly built in the
| 1980s as well and many / most (?) are still active.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticonderoga-class_cruiser
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio-class_submarine
| tomohawk wrote:
| Additional information:
|
| https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraine-situation-repo...
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