Russian Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

lcloo said:

Looking at the photo, there is no obvious sign of explosion caused by missile detonation. Seem like missiles failed to explode, just like the Exocet that hit HMS Sheffield in Falkland but failed to explode, instead the unspend fuel of the missile caused fire that sunk the ship.

The suspected missile entry points are just meters below the ship's CIWS.

View attachment 87271

Click to expand...

Anti-ship missiles warhead penetrates hull and explode inside and Neptune has 150kg multi-EFP(?) warhead. INS Hanit was it from something similar but got lucky because missile apparently hit ships crane what caused most EFP sludges fly away from the ship while Moskva suffered two(?) hits and warheads detonated where they were supposed to... inside the hull.

lcloo said:

Looking at the photo, there is no obvious sign of explosion caused by missile detonation. Seem like missiles failed to explode, just like the Exocet that hit HMS Sheffield in Falkland but failed to explode, instead the unspend fuel of the missile caused fire that sunk the ship.

Click to expand...

Shieffield was Batch 1 of Type 42 - it had 3500t standard displacement and 120m length. Moskva had 9400t standard displacement and 186m length.
Stark had about 3500t standard displacement was hit by two Exocets and survived and returned to service. Sp this can't be the explanation.

Here's one that I put it together after I saw the photos this morning, because I was waiting for the photos since the news broke. It's still a speculation but it seems to me that it manages to integrate all the pieces of information that were released previously into a coherent scenario.

First note that there are no signs of hull damage apart from the suspected strike point and fire and smoke is seen emerging through open hatches and other ducts. Now combine that with the fact that quickly after the first news of attack we learnt that the ship was sinking, then that it was being towed which indicated it lost power.

Ammo explosion should be immediately rejected because S-300F is the only place on the ship where a detonation could damage the hull significantly, but if it did the ship would probably be beyond salvage. P-500 launchers are on deck so detonation dissipates into the air and damage is done to the superstructure and first layer under deck but unlikely to sink the ship. Another fact that people miss is that fuel tends to burn rather than explode, and warheads are armored and it's difficult to cause spontaneous ignition.

Once the photo was out it seemed obvious to compare it with the layout of the ship.



The area where the missiles supposedly hit is where the turbines are. Turbines look like jet egines, or this thing below - except that they are encased in a shell that allows for pressure gradient inside the turbine.



On the left you have the compressor - the blades shape the flow of air into the combustion chamber - the bit without blades - where fuel is injected into high-pressure, high-temperature air and the ignited gas mixture propels the fans on the right which are the turbine proper. This means that every gas turbine is a fiery pressure bomb with fragmentation from the blades just waiting to happen as soon as you damage the casing and also as soon as the shaft is loose it will transfer its angular momentum onto everything around it.

The worst thing that you can hit on a ship is propellant storage (not ammo!). The second worst thing is hitting a working turbine or a boiler.

Now you need to remember that Moskva was only superficially overhauled. There were reports that the sprinkler system which didn't work wasn't fixed. If that as overlooked I suspect that another crucial system was faulty as well - ventilation. Without ventilation human crews can't operate because it's the toxic fumes that kill you, not the fire. Without sprinklers fire spreads and you get more fumes.

If you look at the layout and pay attention to the description below you will see that while the "red" areas are engine rooms the "yellow" areas are places like electrical switchboards and some other technical spaces as well as the command center right in front of the first engine room. Slava was designed before survivability through dispersal and redundancy was even considered as a standard design practice. This means that if turbines were hit and there was damage, fire and smoke everywhere then the switchboards and the like were quickly made inaccessible to anyone who wasn't a properly suited emergency team. Loss of turbines and electrical network would lead to loss of control over the ship's systems and soon it would mean that humans had to do all the mechanical work to operate the ship. The same humans that had to rely on gravity for ventilation - which is why you have the smoke marks on the hatches - before they could enter an area filled with smoke.

So what is a common solution in such situations - when you need to stop the fire and further damage but have no means of doing it through regular means?

You allow controlled flooding of parts of the ship. You let it sink just enough that the fires die out but the ship still floats. And it seems to me that this might be what we see here on the photo. For an old ship that lost power and has a fire in the engine room right over the place where fuel enters the turbines - sinking sounds like the safest solution. At worst you make a mistake and sink the ship but gain enough time that the crew evacuates. At best you stabilize the hull an it can be towed to port.

Moskva was being towed to port when it sank meaning it was not sinking and only took on more water due to improper handling. If a ship is sinking nobody will tow it 100+ km across the sea because you can only tow a ship at very low speeds and water needs time to enter the ship through pressure leaks. However during towing the ship can gather water through movement or change of position and sink anyway.

So that's my interpretation: two missiles hit the engine rooms, turbines exploded, there was some damage to internal structure and systems, emergency systems failed, fire and smoke spread inside the ship, the decision to flood the damaged area and evacuate the crew was made, the salvage ships arrived and stabilized the wreck, tugboats took it some distance from the place of the attack and it took water and sank underway.

It matches the "compound neglect" theory which I explained previously. It matches what we can see on the picture and the layout.

Two missiles can't sink a cruiser especially if they don't explode. But if they explode and damage working turbines your ship needs to be in perfect condition and the crew needs to be well trained for the ship to survive it because you lost power and the fire is in the very source of energy for the ship. Moskva almost survived it and that's despite all we heard about the ship and Russian Navy standards which is plausible considering it was just two medium AShMs with 150kg warheads.

Also:

Note that both 3R41 and both Osa-M systems are in rest position indicating that the crew didn't know that they should be scanning for threats. Most likely the missiles didn't register on displays from Fregat-M and Voskhod - which is also plausible.

So far it makes sense to me. We'll see if any more photos or clips leak out over time.

lcloo said:

Looking at the photo, there is no obvious sign of explosion caused by missile detonation. Seem like missiles failed to explode, just like the Exocet that hit HMS Sheffield in Falkland but failed to explode, instead the unspend fuel of the missile caused fire that sunk the ship.

The suspected missile entry points are just meters below the ship's CIWS.

View attachment 87271

Click to expand...

i find it hard to believe a fire that started at the point you indicates could have failed to cook off the SA-N-4 missile magazine right next to it, left no burn or scotch marks on the paint of the superstructure around it, fail to cook off the S-300 missile drums forwards of, but somehow found enough flammable staff to managed to burn all the way to midship and then ignite a huge conflagration there.

I don’t think this is how shipboard fire works.

MarKoz81 said:

Shieffield was Batch 1 of Type 42 - it had 3500t standard displacement and 120m length. Moskva had 9400t standard displacement and 186m length.
Stark had about 3500t standard displacement was hit by two Exocets and survived and returned to service. Sp this can't be the explanation.

Here's one that I put it together after I saw the photos this morning, because I was waiting for the photos since the news broke. It's still a speculation but it seems to me that it manages to integrate all the pieces of information that were released previously into a coherent scenario.

First note that there are no signs of hull damage apart from the suspected strike point and fire and smoke is seen emerging through open hatches and other ducts. Now combine that with the fact that quickly after the first news of attack we learnt that the ship was sinking, then that it was being towed which indicated it lost power.

Ammo explosion should be immediately rejected because S-300F is the only place on the ship where a detonation could damage the hull significantly, but if it did the ship would probably be beyond salvage. P-500 launchers are on deck so detonation dissipates into the air and damage is done to the superstructure and first layer under deck but unlikely to sink the ship. Another fact that people miss is that fuel tends to burn rather than explode, and warheads are armored and it's difficult to cause spontaneous ignition.

Once the photo was out it seemed obvious to compare it with the layout of the ship.

View attachment 87272

The area where the missiles supposedly hit is where the turbines are. Turbines look like jet egines, or this thing below - except that they are encased in a shell that allows for pressure gradient inside the turbine.

View attachment 87273

On the left you have the compressor - the blades shape the flow of air into the combustion chamber - the bit without blades - where fuel is injected into high-pressure, high-temperature air and the ignited gas mixture propels the fans on the right which are the turbine proper. This means that every gas turbine is a fiery pressure bomb with fragmentation from the blades just waiting to happen as soon as you damage the casing and also as soon as the shaft is loose it will transfer its angular momentum onto everything around it.

The worst thing that you can hit on a ship is propellant storage (not ammo!). The second worst thing is hitting a working turbine or a boiler.

Now you need to remember that Moskva was only superficially overhauled. There were reports that the sprinkler system which didn't work wasn't fixed. If that as overlooked I suspect that another crucial system was faulty as well - ventilation. Without ventilation human crews can't operate because it's the toxic fumes that kill you, not the fire. Without sprinklers fire spreads and you get more fumes.

If you look at the layout and pay attention to the description below you will see that while the "red" areas are engine rooms the "yellow" areas are places like electrical switchboards and some other technical spaces as well as the command center right in front of the first engine room. Slava was designed before survivability through dispersal and redundancy was even considered as a standard design practice. This means that if turbines were hit and there was damage, fire and smoke everywhere then the switchboards and the like were quickly made inaccessible to anyone who wasn't a properly suited emergency team. Loss of turbines and electrical network would lead to loss of control over the ship's systems and soon it would mean that humans had to do all the mechanical work to operate the ship. The same humans that had to rely on gravity for ventilation - which is why you have the smoke marks on the hatches - before they could enter an area filled with smoke.

So what is a common solution in such situations - when you need to stop the fire and further damage but have no means of doing it through regular means?

You allow controlled flooding of parts of the ship. You let it sink just enough that the fires die out but the ship still floats. And it seems to me that this might be what we see here on the photo. For an old ship that lost power and has a fire in the engine room right over the place where fuel enters the turbines - sinking sounds like the safest solution. At worst you make a mistake and sink the ship but gain enough time that the crew evacuates. At best you stabilize the hull an it can be towed to port.

Moskva was being towed to port when it sank meaning it was not sinking and only took on more water due to improper handling. If a ship is sinking nobody will tow it 100+ km across the sea because you can only tow a ship at very low speeds and water needs time to enter the ship through pressure leaks. However during towing the ship can gather water through movement or change of position and sink anyway.

So that's my interpretation: two missiles hit the engine rooms, turbines exploded, there was some damage to internal structure and systems, emergency systems failed, fire and smoke spread inside the ship, the decision to flood the damaged area and evacuate the crew was made, the salvage ships arrived and stabilized the wreck, tugboats took it some distance from the place of the attack and it took water and sank underway.

It matches the "compound neglect" theory which I explained previously. It matches what we can see on the picture and the layout.

Two missiles can't sink a cruiser especially if they don't explode. But if they explode and damage working turbines your ship needs to be in perfect condition and the crew needs to be well trained for the ship to survive it because you lost power and the fire is in the very source of energy for the ship. Moskva almost survived it and that's despite all we heard about the ship and Russian Navy standards which is plausible considering it was just two medium AShMs with 150kg warheads.

Also:

Note that both 3R41 and both Osa-M systems are in rest position indicating that the crew didn't know that they should be scanning for threats. Most likely the missiles didn't register on displays from Fregat-M and Voskhod - which is also plausible.

So far it makes sense to me. We'll see if any more photos or clips leak out over time.

Click to expand...

the problem with the theory of uncontained gas turbine explosion is the gas turbines are well below waterline, where as the missiles would likely hit at a level at it above the weather deck,

Bellum_Romanum said:

Sorry for the odd topic rant but correct me if my perception is wrong: The Russians have bungled their military operations badly that their once feared military prowess has been reduced to memes and being clowned by the entire collective west which can lead to reduce export sales of their military HARDWARES, which means another reduction in Russian economic growth. Russian civilian infrastructure according to some supposed Russians like their roads are not in the best conditions so much so that whenever they look with envy on buying Chinese electric cars their concern is whether the cars can handle the apparent shitty Russian road conditions.

And now that their economy is in a pickle a lot of Russians are going to be struggling even more than before. I don't understand the exact mindset of Putin when it launched the attack against Ukraine knowing that his country's economic vitality was already struggling pre-covid, pre-invasion and chosing to attack with a force that grossly underestimated Ukrainian resolve, as well as NATO'S collective actions. It can be argued that Russian economy of force has a direct corrolation with Russian economy that's relatively poor and that it had no choice but to attack now while it can because if Russia waits for a couple more years the Russian economy may not be able to afford the overall costs for the operation not to mention the improvements that Ukraine military fully integrated with NATO official member or not.

Click to expand...

Arms sales need considerable technical manpower and inputs for a final manufactured product. i dont think they are related to economic growth. every new or renewed system had worked flawlessly. consider the amount of ATGM pumped into Ukraine and the end result of destroyed armour. airpower is measured by sorties.
Times of Israel estimate is that Russia has gained at least gained 4 million people. thats alot of population rescued to be used in Russian economic system. The effectiveness of military campaign will be measured by implementation of peace over long borders for enhanced economic activity. . they already have infrastructure in place to import things more quickly as population size increases.

There have been a lot of arguments to the effect of a 10k ton warship should not succumb to 2 medium sized antiship missile hits because warships a third that size survived it. This is a very fallacious, war game hit point based, concept of how warships succumb to damage.

I will point forward one fact for everyone to consider, During WWII, battleships are 3-7 times the size of cruisers, have massive armor and tough underwater protection designed to enable them to survive damage. cruisers generally have thin armor and no underwater protection.

Yet during world war two, several cruisers have survived 2 torpedo hits and returned to port.

Yet no battleships ever survived more than two torpedo hits and still made port.

in fact, more than one battleships sank virtually on the spot after being hit by 3 torpedoes.

So ability of larger tougher warship to survive more damage than smaller more fragile warships is highly dependent on the circumstances. In principle if all things are equal, then larger warship should be more survival than smaller ones. but there are many things that influence the particulars of each scenario, and they are seldomly ever equal.

So given a relatively small sample, one should expect to see a much bigger impact from scenario variation in the cases involved than the physical size and theoretical robustness of the ship,

Chance play a far bigger role than might be imagined if one extrapolate from the “hit point” concept in military war games and simulations.

to put it another way, the chance of what on paper is clearly the stronger side being defeated in a single battle is often much greater than the side reveling in it’s apparently greater strength would realize.

Richard Santos said:

There have been a lot of arguments to the effect of a 10k ton warship should not succumb to 2 medium sized antiship missile hits because warships a third that size survived it. This is a very fallacious, war game hit point based, concept of how warships succumb to damage.

I will point forward one fact for everyone to consider, During WWII, battleships are 3-7 times the size of cruisers, have massive armor and tough underwater protection designed to enable them to survive damage. cruisers generally have thin armor and no underwater protection.

Yet during world war two, several cruisers have survived 2 torpedo hits and returned to port.

Yet no battleships ever survived more than two torpedo hits and still made port.

in fact, more than one battleships sank virtually on the spot after being hit by 3 torpedoes.

So ability of larger tougher warship to survive more damage than smaller more fragile warships is highly dependent on the circumstances. In principle if all things are equal, then larger warship should be more survival than smaller ones. but there are many things that influence the particulars of each scenario, and they are seldomly ever equal.

So given a relatively small sample, one should expect to see a much bigger impact from scenario variation in the cases involved than the physical size and theoretical robustness of the ship,

Chance play a far bigger role than might be imagined if one extrapolate from the “hit point” concept in military war games and simulations.

to put it another way, the chance of what on paper is clearly the stronger side being defeated in a single battle is often much greater than the side reveling in it’s apparently greater strength would realize.

Click to expand...

Well theoretically bigger ship has more water tight compartments, so given the same damage delivered by say 200kg warhead bigger ship has a larger proportion of buoyancy intact compared to smaller ship.

Problem is given the decrepit state of repair, how many of Moskva's water tight compartments can be considered truly water tight? Zi Ya Zhou's video mentioned they saw bulkhead doors held together with ropes in her sister ship doesn't inspire much confidence....

Also Russia's school of thought of warship design AKA "Stuff as many weapons as humanly possible onto a hull" is not helping..... If a AShM is to hit the ship it would struggle to find a spot where there isn't some boom boom's waiting to cook off....

Broccoli said:

Supposedly less than 150 KA-52 are in service + 50 or so single-seat KA-50 choppers.

Click to expand...

They only built like 15 Ka-50 and they belong to the Ministry of Interior, as far as I remember