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Russia v Ukraine


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25 minutes ago, Captain Howdy said:

I don’t know anything about war and battle tactics etc but wouldn’t these huge battleships be easy to knock over by air attack? 

Captain, that is disappointing to hear.

 

They are big, but they also pack big defense.

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41 minutes ago, Captain Howdy said:

I don’t know anything about war and battle tactics etc but wouldn’t these huge battleships be easy to knock over by air attack? 

Single ship on it's own, yes. But usually you'd have a battle group that would consist of surface units each with it's own particular job such as anti submarine, anti air and picket duty protecting the more important ships such as a carrier or cruiser command unit.

 

This vessel appears to have been on its own and no escorts. It reportedly also sailed a regular predictable course which is a mega no, no but that was probably down to arrogance on the part of the commanding officers.

 

Even so, a heavily armed ship such as this cruiser should stand a fighting chance of protecting itself. It's when individual ships get attacked by multiple systems even heavily armed ships can be overwhelmed.

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52 minutes ago, Captain Howdy said:

I don’t know anything about war and battle tactics etc but wouldn’t these huge battleships be easy to knock over by air attack? 

Come on, it’s the GF, having absolutely no knowledge on a subject isn’t a barrier to pontificating on it.  

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1 hour ago, dockers_strike said:

After the sinking, my view on it.

 

This is a significant loss for Russia despite their propoganda of what may have caused this.

 

This is a capital ship. The Moscow wasnt just heavily armed, it was the control of air attack for that region. Not many navies now operate 'cruisers,' I think only Russia and the US continue to do so. Their operations have largely been taken over by destroyers or frigates.

 

That in itself is interesting since now, the Royal Navy's Type 45 Destroyers are, by weight, virtually 'light cruisers.' In the USN where their frigates tend to be larger than their destroyers, they fulfill that role.

 

The Moscow displaced about 11,600 long tons making this the biggest naval vessel sunk since WW2. The General Belgrano, sunk by 2 torpedoes from HMS Conquerer in 1982, was some 10,000 long tons.

 

By all accounts, the weather was choppy when news of this incident broke. That in itself shouldnt make it impossible for radar to detect sea skimming objects on a heaving ship. That's one reason why radars are generally mounted on the highest point of the vessel.

 

However, 'old' radar and firing systems can be overwhelmed by multiple targets where the radar and firing system isnt designed for the task.

 

The Artesian radar fitted to many RN ship can allegedly monitor over 100 separate objects. But, the Moscow's radar systems are likely old from its last refit early 2000s and not a match for anything the USN and RN has.

 

Russia claims a fire broke out and set off many internal explosions. This is probably true if the ship was hit by one or two exocet type anti ship missiles. These missiles are designed to hit ships just above the waterline and not the superstructure.

 

As mentioned before, one exocet took out Sheffield even though the missile's warhead didnt explode. The resultant fire from the missile's fuel caused immense damage and loss of life. It didnt sink her but like the Moscow under tow in heavy seas with a massive hole midships, she sunk.

 

So why didnt Moscow's radar detect the alleged missiles and open fire? A possible reason is the radar and firing systems became overloaded with other targets ie drones. Or, the radar prioritised closer targets such as drones rather than the further out missiles. Or, the officer of the watch simply wasnt paying attention and not attentive.

 

One of the procedures to try and avoid these sea skimming missiles if detected was to turn the ship either bow or stern on to minimise the radar profile lock the missile can achieve. That's a brave old tactic especially as many ships now have Close in Weapons Systems mounted midships and they need line of sight to engage.

 

RN ships are now fitted with Phalanx CIWS something they didnt have in 1982. These are basically heavy calibre gatlin type guns that spit out hundreds of rounds a minute, throwing a wall of lead into the path of any incoming missile. The objective being to hit and explode the warhead before it gets to the ship.

 

It's possible the Moscow was trying to get its CIWS to bear on the targets but in doing so, presented a 'beam on' target for the missiles own radar to acquire?

 

Once hit, was the ship doomed? The seriousness of the damage should not be underestimated since the Russians themselves say most of the ship's company was taken off well in advance of them admitting the ship had sunk.

 

Ships have watertight compartments to try and prevent flooding in such incidents but, add in further explosions and fire, it seems hard to think the ship would make it back to its home port in heavy seas.

 

It's unlikely a heavily armed ship such as this would just have a fire break out and the fire cause extensive explosions such as to require ship's company to be taken off.

 

The Russians say the ship 'lost her balance.' Whether that's lost in translation or not, I dont know. But heavy seas, at least one hole maybe two on the waterline and she'll be taking on water faster than you could pump it out. Basically, she heeled over and sank to the bottom of the Black Sea.

 

Either way, this is a major blow to Russia and her navy and a major coup for Ukraine. I dont think any Russian ship will get too close to the Ukrainian coast any time soon.

 

Is that your opinion? I wouldn't know any of that.

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1 hour ago, Captain Howdy said:

I don’t know anything about war and battle tactics etc but wouldn’t these huge battleships be easy to knock over by air attack? 

It depends on the ship. When you look at the capability of the PAAMS(S) system on the Type 45 destroyer serving the Royal Navy, with the SAMPSON and S1850M radars, which between them can track well over 1000 targets out to 400km, including BMs in outer atmosphere. Our carriers have the S1850M too. That's not to say they're untouchable, but the threat from the air is greatly minimized by having such good control and visibility. 

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In case anyone was wondering, Tom Cooper isn't convinced Moskva was hit by rockets. He still maintains Berdyansk explosions were probably an accident. And the UKR helicopter attack on Russian soil a couple of weeks ago was a RUS false flag.

The man has less faith in UKR forces capabilities than Section.

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23 minutes ago, SasaS said:

In case anyone was wondering, Tom Cooper isn't convinced Moskva was hit by rockets. He still maintains Berdyansk explosions were probably an accident. And the UKR helicopter attack on Russian soil a couple of weeks ago was a RUS false flag.

The man has less faith in UKR forces capabilities than Section.

Was that the one where they flew in low and hit the refinery? If it was a false flag, you'd think they'd pick a less expensive target than a place holding millions of gallons of fuel.

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19 minutes ago, Mudface said:

Was that the one where they flew in low and hit the refinery? If it was a false flag, you'd think they'd pick a less expensive target than a place holding millions of gallons of fuel.

He was skeptical they actually lost all that fuel, with the immediately available footage, no casualties and firefighters quickly on the scene.

 

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2 hours ago, dockers_strike said:

Single ship on it's own, yes. But usually you'd have a battle group that would consist of surface units each with it's own particular job such as anti submarine, anti air and picket duty protecting the more important ships such as a carrier or cruiser command unit.

 

This vessel appears to have been on its own and no escorts. It reportedly also sailed a regular predictable course which is a mega no, no but that was probably down to arrogance on the part of the commanding officers.

 

Even so, a heavily armed ship such as this cruiser should stand a fighting chance of protecting itself. It's when individual ships get attacked by multiple systems even heavily armed ships can be overwhelmed.

 

It's possible a large proportion of its crew were bladdered.

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1 hour ago, SasaS said:

In case anyone was wondering, Tom Cooper isn't convinced Moskva was hit by rockets. He still maintains Berdyansk explosions were probably an accident. And the UKR helicopter attack on Russian soil a couple of weeks ago was a RUS false flag.

The man has less faith in UKR forces capabilities than Section.

What are "Berdyansk explosions" bud or is that a separate incident?

 

The ship was 60 miles or thereabouts offshore, outside the range of artillery bombardment but within anti ship missile range.

 

I cant see them mining that far offshore and then forgetting where they dropped them causing the damage but it's an outside possibility.

 

I still think the anti ship missiles is the best, most plausible  explanation until evidence to the contrary is provided.

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3 hours ago, Captain Howdy said:

I don’t know anything about war and battle tactics etc but wouldn’t these huge battleships be easy to knock over by air attack? 

Everything I know about ocean warfare can be summed up by Quint.

 

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9 minutes ago, dockers_strike said:

What are "Berdyansk explosions" bud or is that a separate incident?

 

The ship was 60 miles or thereabouts offshore, outside the range of artillery bombardment but within anti ship missile range.

 

I cant see them mining that far offshore and then forgetting where they dropped them causing the damage but it's an outside possibility.

 

I still think the anti ship missiles is the best, most plausible  explanation until evidence to the contrary is pro

vided.

 

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From the Defensionem update.

 

"Let's deal with the elephant in the room first: Slava class missile cruiser Moskva, flagship of the Black Sea Fleet.
Early Thursday morning (around 1am), Ukrainian sources claimed to have hit the Moskva. Ukrainian and Turkish Twitter went into a frenzy and the ship was said to have rolled over and sank within minutes. Russian sources started talking about an ammunition explosion on the ship.
 
It became clear as the day passed that the Moskva had indeed been hit, but that it was being assisted by other Russian surface vessels (including tugs) and that the whole group was trying to bring the cruiser back home to Sevastopol. By that stage, several Western sources confirmed that the ship was still afloat. A couple of Russian sources even claimed that the ship had made it back to port...
 
Towards 5pm on Thursday, Russia officially announced that the Moskva had lost stability and sank in stormy weather while being towed back to Sevastopol. The stormy weather bit has been debunked: Conditions in the Black Sea yesterday were not that bad. It simply seems that Moskva took on too much water.
This is the first loss of a cruiser for Moscow since 1942. One must indeed go back to WWII to see the previous sinking of a ship of such tonnage in times of war (Moskva=12,500 tons).
 
The Moskva played a pivotal role in the Russian de-facto blockade of Odessa: Its powerful Anti-Ship missile array was designed to sink anything afloat, but most importantly (Ukraine doesn't have a navy anymore), Slava class cruisers are equipped with 64X S-300 SAM missiles!
 
The Russian Navy, however, has displayed a fair amount of complacency: Most of its ships patrolling the Black Sea settle early for predictable patterns of patrols... The sector in which the Moskva usually sailed was well known and she was recently seen on a satellite picture sailing 85km from the Ukrainian coast!
All the Ukrainians needed to do was to get a solid fix on the Moskva and launch one or several of their Neptune AshM in that direction. They could have had a fix on the cruiser's position thanks to a drone or thanks to info passed onto them by NATO (Ukraine's performance in this war is in great part due to NATO's C5ISR sharing contribution). The missile would have done the rest.
 
The Neptune AshM is basically an upgrade of the Soviet Kh-35. Its initial guidance is based on inertial navigation. Once the missile has reached its area of operation, it switches on its own active homing radar.
While the Slava class ships are a potent threat to other surface vessels and aerial threats, their dated sensors and systems would have had problems detecting, tracking and locking onto a sea skimming missile (Neptune can fly as low as 3 metres in terminal phase).
 
Russia has lost one of only 3 Slava class cruisers. It has also lost its flagship in the Black Sea and a formidable anti-ship and Air Defence platform. The loss of those capabilities might give the Ukrainian Air Force in the West of the country some breathing space and potentially some offensive options.
Russia cannot replace those capabilities: The Bosporus Strait is currenly closed to Naval Vessels...
 
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12 minutes ago, TheHowieLama said:

So Tom is wrong then?

Dunno. But Russians did apparently hit the factory where Neptunes are made last night.

Personally, naval battles don't do it for me. More of a sieges, urban combat and antitank weapons me.

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