The Russian Invasion of Ukraine

[McAvoy]

I've gotta say, even for what a clown show the invasion has been getting your flagship torpedoed and sunk by an enemy with no navy is quite an achievement. To my knowledge completely unprecedented in the history of warfare.

The Moskva got hit with probably two missiles from the Ukrainians. Not torpedoes. Different types of weapons.

I was surprised they still had those weapons but then I keep forgetting Ukraine is the size of Texas. You can hide alot in a country that size.

Offhand, the only thing similar was during the Russo Japanese War in 1904-1905. Russians suffered loses to their fleet to the Japanese. And even worse to the second fleet they sent in the Battle of Tsushima.

[Madner Kami]

I've gotta say, even for what a clown show the invasion has been getting your flagship torpedoed and sunk by an enemy with no navy is quite an achievement. To my knowledge completely unprecedented in the history of warfare.

The Moskva got hit with probably two missiles from the Ukrainians. Not torpedoes. Different types of weapons.

I was surprised they still had those weapons but then I keep forgetting Ukraine is the size of Texas. You can hide alot in a country that size.

Offhand, the only thing similar was during the Russo Japanese War in 1904-1905. Russians suffered loses to their fleet to the Japanese. And even worse to the second fleet they sent in the Battle of Tsushima.

On a technical level, the Moskva would have been completely capable of fighting off an attack with multiple Neptune missiles, especially if her escorts had been around. The crux is, that Russia is trying to blockade Odessa, Ukraine's last remaining seaport and thus has to be... economic with it's vessels (only about 12 of the roughly 40 vessels in the Black Sea Fleet are major surface combat assets). So Moskva ended up being mostly alone on that fateful day. Now the Ukrainians are some cheeky bastards and knew of a quirk in the Moskva's radar arrays, not in the least surprising, given that all the Slava-class cruisers were built in and by Ukraine and the Slavas weren't particularly high on the refit list of the russian navy for a while now... This AA-radar array and the ship's innate AA-capabilities would deny anything short of a massive missile strike, but, this radar can only work into one direction and so the Ukrainians sacrificed a Bayraktar-drone, to distract the radar away from the actual attack. It is not know how many Neptune-missiles were fired, but at least one, possibly two made it through to impact and explosion.

Neither one nor two would have been enough to enact catastrophic damage to the ship on their own, each only delivering 150kg of explosives (nothing you'd want to be hit by regardless, but that is besides the point). So the theory goes, that there's some truth in the russian lies and that one or both impacts lead to a fuel leak in the externally placed missile batteries of the ship, which made it to the innards of the ship (likely as a result to the Neptune-hits), where possibly an electric spark from the explosion-damage lead to the missile-fuel igniting. The fire went out of control and further damaged the ship (possibly through an internal magazine catching an accute case of too much heat and exploding), which was subsequently evacuated (note, there's a report of at least 50 sailors having been taken up by a turkish freighter, something which wouldn't happen if the evacuation would have been orderly and the ship's captain is reported to have died, possibly as a result of secondary explosions as a follow-up of the fire - official death count: 0, real number of casulaties: at least 1, quite possibly a hell of lot more - some rumors talk of only 58 men making it out, which would be the exact number saved by the turkish freighter, so take it with a few grains of salt).
The russians lateron tried to take the ship into tow (whether the fire was extinguished in the meantime or ran out or even raged on is unknown), but the damage suffered lead to the ship being ad hoc converted into a submarine.

Russia tries to spin it as having been lost in and due to a storm, but weather-reports at the time do not agree. Waves of about 2m height were reported and while certainly rough, that weather alone wouldn't do any harm to a ship of that size, though the waves may have contributed to the ship's array of problems, which quite likely included a sizeable hole as a result of the fire or secondary explosion.

[McAvoy]

I've gotta say, even for what a clown show the invasion has been getting your flagship torpedoed and sunk by an enemy with no navy is quite an achievement. To my knowledge completely unprecedented in the history of warfare.

The Moskva got hit with probably two missiles from the Ukrainians. Not torpedoes. Different types of weapons.

I was surprised they still had those weapons but then I keep forgetting Ukraine is the size of Texas. You can hide alot in a country that size.

Offhand, the only thing similar was during the Russo Japanese War in 1904-1905. Russians suffered loses to their fleet to the Japanese. And even worse to the second fleet they sent in the Battle of Tsushima.

On a technical level, the Moskva would have been completely capable of fighting off an attack with multiple Neptune missiles, especially if her escorts had been around. The crux is, that Russia is trying to blockade Odessa, Ukraine's last remaining seaport and thus has to be... economic with it's vessels (only about 12 of the roughly 40 vessels in the Black Sea Fleet are major surface combat assets). So Moskva ended up being mostly alone on that fateful day. Now the Ukrainians are some cheeky bastards and knew of a quirk in the Moskva's radar arrays, not in the least surprising, given that all the Slava-class cruisers were built in and by Ukraine and the Slavas weren't particularly high on the refit list of the russian navy for a while now... This AA-radar array and the ship's innate AA-capabilities would deny anything short of a massive missile strike, but, this radar can only work into one direction and so the Ukrainians sacrificed a Bayraktar-drone, to distract the radar away from the actual attack. It is not know how many Neptune-missiles were fired, but at least one, possibly two made it through to impact and explosion.

Neither one nor two would have been enough to enact catastrophic damage to the ship on their own, each only delivering 150kg of explosives (nothing you'd want to be hit by regardless, but that is besides the point). So the theory goes, that there's some truth in the russian lies and that one or both impacts lead to a fuel leak in the externally placed missile batteries of the ship, which made it to the innards of the ship (likely as a result to the Neptune-hits), where possibly an electric spark from the explosion-damage lead to the missile-fuel igniting. The fire went out of control and further damaged the ship (possibly through an internal magazine catching an accute case of too much heat and exploding), which was subsequently evacuated (note, there's a report of at least 50 sailors having been taken up by a turkish freighter, something which wouldn't happen if the evacuation would have been orderly and the ship's captain is reported to have died, possibly as a result of secondary explosions as a follow-up of the fire - official death count: 0, real number of casulaties: at least 1, quite possibly a hell of lot more - some rumors talk of only 58 men making it out, which would be the exact number saved by the turkish freighter, so take it with a few grains of salt).
The russians lateron tried to take the ship into tow (whether the fire was extinguished in the meantime or ran out or even raged on is unknown), but the damage suffered lead to the ship being ad hoc converted into a submarine.

Russia tries to spin it as having been lost in and due to a storm, but weather-reports at the time do not agree. Waves of about 2m height were reported and while certainly rough, that weather alone wouldn't do any harm to a ship of that size, though the waves may have contributed to the ship's array of problems, which quite likely included a sizeable hole as a result of the fire or secondary explosion.

Interesting information.

I am a huge Navy buff. But my interest stops at WW2. But not for Aviation.

I do remember in many articles written during the Cold War Era that the Soviets had a tendency to design and built ships that were over armed for ships their size. As in strong punch glass jaw sort of thing. Might be Warship International.

Anyway, ships nowadays don't have armor. Like the opposite of it. It wouldn't not surprise me that Moskva sunk even in mild weather. One or two missile hits with a fire or ammunition explosion.

I did see a picture of the ship sinking. Don't know if it's Photoshop though. Anyway the seas were calm.

[clearspira]

https://www.emmanuelsblog.com.ng/2022/0 ... 3.html?m=1

Russian state TV declares that WW3 has begun after the sinking of the Moskova. Which is kind of amusing given how they are running with the idea that it was all a big accident. They can't even keep their own propaganda straight.

[CharlesPhipps]

The Moskova being destroyed is one of those national pride things that is hard to paper over unlike the bodies and failure to take the country.

[phantom000]

https://www.emmanuelsblog.com.ng/2022/0 ... 3.html?m=1

Russian state TV declares that WW3 has begun after the sinking of the Moskova. Which is kind of amusing given how they are running with the idea that it was all a big accident. They can't even keep their own propaganda straight.

Makes me think of the USS Maine, which started the Spanish American War when it exploded in Havana Harbor back in 1898. Even then, it was thought to be an accident but war-hawks on both sides had turned tensions in a full scale war fever before an investigation could be carried out.

Granted its kinda hard to see how a warship could be 'accidentally struck' by a missile, much less two of them.

[CharlesPhipps]

https://www.emmanuelsblog.com.ng/2022/0 ... 3.html?m=1

Russian state TV declares that WW3 has begun after the sinking of the Moskova. Which is kind of amusing given how they are running with the idea that it was all a big accident. They can't even keep their own propaganda straight.

Makes me think of the USS Maine, which started the Spanish American War when it exploded in Havana Harbor back in 1898. Even then, it was thought to be an accident but war-hawks on both sides had turned tensions in a full scale war fever before an investigation could be carried out.

Granted its kinda hard to see how a warship could be 'accidentally struck' by a missile, much less two of them.

I mean, the big difference being the Ukraine is happy to claim credit and they're already at war.

[hammerofglass]

I don't even understand how that threat is supposed to work. Ukraine has been in a state of total war from day one of the invasion, you can't really escalate it more.

And yeah I don't know why the hell I called them torpedoes. It was late and I was tired.

[clearspira]

I don't even understand how that threat is supposed to work. Ukraine has been in a state of total war from day one of the invasion, you can't really escalate it more.

Ah, but this isn't a war as far as Russian MSM is concerned remember. Its a Special Military Operation to free the Ukrainians from Nazis. Putin may be hoping that the Russian people themselves start calling for war.

[CharlesPhipps]

Well they're going to need a lot more resources if they're going to make a dent in all this.