Russia's War Against Ukraine

[MengJiao]

thats where the ships torpedos are located.

  I was thinking pretty high up:

 

[Tripoli]

thats where the ships torpedos are located.

  I was thinking pretty high up:

The torpedoes are carried lower in the hull.  I've highlighted the torpedo firing hatch in the image below.  Having them low helps lower topside weight (which is always a good thing) and also ensures the torpedoes also get over the side, instead of sliding limply onto the main deck in the event of a misfire.  :)

[ComradeP]

I was beginning to wonder if the launchers were hit, it didn't really match with the diagram I saw earlier.

Unless I'm seeing things, it looks like there's still a tug or another boat "behind" the Moskva in the picture trying to control the fire. That elevated water cannon, for lack of a better word, doesn't belong to the Moskva I think and there's a mast visible above the SA-N-6 launchers.

As to the scorch marks: after thinking about it some more, it does seem odd that there's no smoke. Either the firefighting was successful in that area, or those scorch marks were caused by the internal explosion the Russians mentioned.

An explosion would explain the scorch marks without smoke trailing from the holes: pressure from the blast blows away plating or portholes from the inside, followed by a fireball and nothing after that unless there's flammable/combustible material around. Given the size of the aft scorch mark, the torpedo storage Tripoli mentioned is a good candidate for either the primary or a secondary explosion.

Unless the on-board fire hoses/extinguishers all have independent auxiliary power generators, power seems to be working.

Tripoli, do you know what the significance could be of that central crane-like thing being elevated? What does that normally do?

[Tripoli]

I was beginning to wonder if the launchers were hit, it didn't really match with the diagram I saw earlier.

Unless I'm seeing things, it looks like there's still a tug or another boat "behind" the Moskva in the picture trying to control the fire. That elevated water cannon, for lack of a better word, doesn't belong to the Moskva I think and there's a mast visible above the SA-N-6 launchers.

As to the scorch marks: after thinking about it some more, it does seem odd that there's no smoke. Either the firefighting was successful in that area, or those scorch marks were caused by the internal explosion the Russians mentioned.

An explosion would explain the scorch marks without smoke trailing from the holes: pressure from the blast blows away plating or portholes from the inside, followed by a fireball and nothing after that unless there's flammable/combustible material around. Given the size of the aft scorch mark, the torpedo storage Tripoli mentioned is a good candidate for either the primary or a secondary explosion.

Unless the on-board fire hoses/extinguishers all have independent auxiliary power generators, power seems to be working.

Tripoli, do you know what the significance could be of that central crane-like thing being elevated? What does that normally do?

There is a 3 second video (which I can't seem to locate now) that shows some type of vessel on the starboard side of the Moskva. Probably there isn't as much smoke in these images because the engineering spaces are all underwater.  I'm guessing that at this point, a lot of the fire has either burned itself out or has been submerged.   The crane you mention is normally stowed between the two stacks. see image below.  I'm guessing they used it to launch the ships boats (assuming any were sea worthy after the damage) and possibly the life rafts when they abandoned ship.  The life rafts would hold most of the crew, but they are unpowered.  As the ships boats are powered, they would be very useful in keeping the liferafts together, and rescuing anyone who didn't make it to the rafts, especially in any significant sea state.

Edit: I can't explain the damage to the area just forward of the helo hanger and just below where the TOP DOME radar is.  The outer bulkhead appears to have peeled back or collapsed, but there is no signs of scorching in the area, nor do the hanger doors appear to be scorched.  I don't believe any ammunition would be carried here.  More likely, it some type of room for electronic equipment associated with the TOP DOME.  The lack of scorching would seem to indicate it wasn't hit by a missile.  I really don't understand what happened here]

[MengJiao]

Edit: I can't explain the damage to the area just forward of the helo hanger and just below where the TOP DOME radar is.  The outer bulkhead appears to have peeled back or collapsed, but there is no signs of scorching in the area, nor do the hanger doors appear to be scorched.  I don't believe any ammunition would be carried here.  More likely, it some type of room for electronic equipment associated with the TOP DOME.  The lack of scorching would seem to indicate it wasn't hit by a missile.  I really don't understand what happened here]

  It's pretty weird.  Maybe they cleared it as a way in or out of some threatened spaces or the shock of some explosion whiplashed the whole structure, partially ripping the radar out of place.

[ComradeP]

That video with the tug made it clear that the water spray/jets left and right of the TOP DOME radar in that picture come from the tug.

I'm still not sure what that thing to the right of the crane is. The mast visible above the SA-N-6 launchers is on the bow of the tug.

[Tripoli]

And one other point IRT the Moskva sinking. GCaptain has a news story "Russian Admiral Meets Crew Of Sunken Flagship Moskva"  https://gcaptain.com/russian-navy-admiral-meets-crew-of-sunken-missile-cruiser-moskva/?subscriber=true&goal=0_f50174ef03-dd2dac8b0d-170465134&mc_cid=dd2dac8b0d&mc_eid=28239a3349  in the story it mentions that only about 100 crew (all who appear uninjured) are seen in the video meeting the Russian admiral.  Now there might be several reasons for only 100 crew members being in the video.  Possibly there were more, but images of them never made it to the released footage.  Possibly some are injured, and could not meet the Admiral.  Possibly some are still on other rescue vessels making their way to port. But, IMHO, if your story is that 500 crewmen were rescued from a sunken ship and then stage a photo op with an admiral, you need to have somewhere around 500 crew in the photo.  Based on this, I  suspect the crew losses (including injured) were pretty heavy.

[Pete Dero]

^ The father of one of the young conscripts who went missing on the Moskva missile cruiser lashes out at the Russian military who are even refusing to tell him what happened to his son.
The father says he was contacted by other families of MIA conscripts from the ship.




The irony? The father's page is full of pro-invasion and pro-Putin posts.

[Pete Dero]

There is a 3 second video (which I can't seem to locate now)

Video is in the tweet.

https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1515971229978611715?

And in this article.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/picture-of-moskva-russian-warship-shows-devastation-after-ukraine-missile-strike

[Tripoli]

This appears to be a fairly good analysis of the attack and aftermath:
https://intellinews.com/don-russia-s-black-sea-flagship-moskva-sunk-the-anatomy-of-a-missile-strike-241550/?source=russia

[JasonPratt]

The Grim Reapers analyze that Moskva photo (I think -- at work, haven't had time to watch it through myself):

For some topical Cold War fun, 10 days ago they used DCS to pit Iowa class battleships (early 1980s refit) against Kirovs:

[MengJiao]

This appears to be a fairly good analysis of the attack and aftermath:
https://intellinews.com/don-russia-s-black-sea-flagship-moskva-sunk-the-anatomy-of-a-missile-strike-241550/?source=russia

   That seems to cover a lot!  I thought the Grumbles could be used against sea-skimmers, but maybe not.  Also, the amount of radar clutter due to waves, rain, and clouds doesn't
seem to be a popular topic in these analyses.  NATO AWACS, a drone and 4 + 4 Neptunes from two directions seems to be enough to explain the hits.

[Tripoli]

This appears to be a fairly good analysis of the attack and aftermath:
https://intellinews.com/don-russia-s-black-sea-flagship-moskva-sunk-the-anatomy-of-a-missile-strike-241550/?source=russia

   That seems to cover a lot!  I thought the Grumbles could be used against sea-skimmers, but maybe not.  Also, the amount of radar clutter due to waves, rain, and clouds doesn't
seem to be a popular topic in these analyses.  NATO AWACS, a drone and 4 + 4 Neptunes from two directions seems to be enough to explain the hits.

Based on the fact the POP GROUP (SA-N-4)  and TOP DOME (SA-N-6) FCRs appear to be in the "stowed" position, I'm not sure the Moskva ever even saw the attack coming.  Possibly on loss of power these FCRs revert to "stowed", but I doubt it.  In my mind, that is pretty good evidence the Russians were, for some reason, unprepared for the attack.

[JasonPratt]

I wonder if that factors back into the theory that Moskva lit up as the bait, then shut down and moved out the way hoping for its escorts to counter-battery shots taken at it. But if that was true, the active defense things wouldn't have been stowed away, right?

[Gusington]

From the IntelliNews article:

Getting a hit

'Returning to the moment when a Neptune missile appeared over the horizon at 22 km and with fifty seconds to impact, Moskva's reaction would have been a combination of kinetic and electronic countermeasures. We've listed the possible electronic countermeasures (ECM) above. Moskva was old and probably had an out-dated ECM suite unable to jam a modern agile seeker jumping from active radar to passive radar and back at the speed of software. Neptune's designers may well have had accurate information on Moskva's ECM suite as well, gained during service in Soviet times.'