Imagery has emerged showing the aftermath of a Ukrainian missile strike on a Russian warship.

The images show the ship billowing smoke and low in the water. The vessel is also seen listing to port with damage on its left side

https://twitter.com/geoallison/status/1515965181251272705

With a crew of 510, Moskva was the most powerful warship in the Black Sea region.

She sank on 14 April 2022 in the Black Sea, 100 km from the coast of Odessa. Ukrainian officials and the US Department of Defense said Ukraine attacked the cruiser with two R-360 Neptune anti-ship missiles. The Russian Ministry of Defence said a fire caused a munitions explosion.

The images are consistent with Ukrainian claims that two missiles hit the cruiser before it rolled and sank and appear to contradict Russian claims that the vessel went down in rough seas whilst being towed.

According to the Lithuanian defence minister, there were 485 crew members aboard, including 66 officers. He also said that a “Turkish ship” responded to a distress call and saved 54 crew members at 2 a.m. local time. The captain of the ship was reported to have died in the incident.

Russia has not announced any casualties in the fire or the sinking of the ship. American sources however believe there were casualties in the event.

The ‘Snake Island Warship’

In February 2022, the cruiser left Sevastopol for the Black Sea as part of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The ship was later used against the Ukrainian armed forces during the attack on Snake Island together with the Russian patrol boat Vasily Bykov. Moskva hailed the island’s garrison over the radio and demanded its surrender, and was told “Russian warship, go fuck yourself“. After this, all contact was lost with Snake Island, and the thirteen-member Ukrainian garrison was captured. The exchange has been translated as:

Russian warship: “Snake Island, I, Russian warship, repeat the offer: put down your arms and surrender, or you will be bombed. Have you understood me? Do you copy?”

Ukrainian 1: “That’s it, then. Or, do we need to fuck them back off?”

Ukrainian 2: “Might as well.”

Ukrainian 1: “Russian warship, go fuck yourself.”

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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345 COMMENTS

  1. This is a great victory of symbolic and practical value for the Ukrainians, and a great morale booster. There’s been a lot of speculation why the systems on the ship failed to stop the missiles. Will this make the RN rethink their approach to anti-ship missiles now?

    • On the 4th May 1982 HMS Sheffield was struck by a single Exocet missile and later sank. That lesson has been learnt.
      The more interesting question is did the Russia systems work? There is a lot of speculation on lack of maintenance. Corrupt officials taking the money and the maintenance is not done.

      What makes you think the RN systems are not up to the job?

      • Richard we don’t parade our missile systems outboard like the Moskva did (past tense) the Navy’s internal magazine stowage are well equipped with fireman sprinklers and yodel alarms in 1988 HMS Southampton was almost sliced in two by MV Torbay right through the Seadart Mag well designed meant no explosion

        • What about Harpoon missiles, they are deck mounted? And how does the move to vertical launched missiles affect this – how well protected are the sides and tops of e.g. the vertical launch “box” on a T23?

          • Good point ,unlike the Glamorgan who turned stern on tòo the threat of an exocet whenever we do a sinkex or it was the real thing Anti ship missiles hit the ships side the Harpoons fitted are fwd of the Bridge not amassed along the ships side like the Moskva but then again never served on a 23 Gunbuster might know about the FF capabilities of the VLs David

          • Harpoon launch tubes are armoured. The launchers themselves have manually operated sprays to cool the missile launch tubes should a fire be involved.
            The warheads are on the upper deck and as explosions take the easiest route the blast will go mostly up. The missile itself contains, if I remember correctly something like 60 gals of JP10 jet fuel

          • Vl missiles sit inside launch tubes that are in effect there own magazines. Look at UK silos on T23 and T45. Unlike other VLS systems in other navies RN systems are not flush and they protrude above 1 deck. The silo is protected by upper deck compartments and lockers being around them. It does mean that the warhead isn’t nestled inside the ship which is a plus. .
            The launch tubes usually have a deluge system fitted to spray or flood them in a fire.

          • This might be the first naval thread in quite some time where people are NOT calling for the up-gunning of RN ships! Your insights are really something Gunbuster. Given that compromise is a necessity in any complex build/design process, RN ship designs look more impressive every day.

          • Isn’t this only going to have a limited effect. If a large enough missile hits the side of the ship, the resulting explosion and shockwave is going to make mince meat of the armour around the silos and if the explosion/blast wave hits the silos they are going to explode, meaning no amount of foam etc will save the ship.

            Ok, it will mean that a hit away from the silos would be unlikely to cause a fire that spreads to them, but if it’s a lucky hit to the hull near the silos, I would expect the ship will still sink. I assume more modern anti-ship missiles are programmed to hit where it most hurts.

          • Insensitive munitions are a wonderful thing! The Sting Ray torpedo in its latest Mod variant has an IM warhead. Warheads burn , not explode. The use of sprays though raises a lot of steam which can buckle bulkheads etc if a vent plate isnt fitted. Big magazines on RN vessels have vent plates.
            Not sure if Ceptor is 100% IM.

        • amunition stowage protection or lack of it is a common theme and an area that should be considered more often and it goes all the way back to the age of sail where a cannion ball could ignite a powder magazine and blow the ship into driftwood. in the falklands i was on a county class destroyer which had a corridoor running most of the ships length holding the dreadful seaslug missiles when antrim was hit the bomb bounced almost the whole length without going off! in 1978 while off the coast of fort lauderdale the ship went to emergency stations when the alarm for a fire in the seacat magazine went off!!!! luckily it was a false alarm and the crew returned to the ‘uckers boards to change out of their brown underpants.

          • Worked on Slug on the London had the poster at the airlock too the Test rm in the mag which stated “Explosives are Safe until you Forget itheir Dangerous ” !! Has always stuck with me so true

      • Absolutely, after 1982 the RN and the US Navy looked long and hard after the Falklands, cable trunking and missile stowage has come along way since then. Also the RN stopped the use of aluminium skin cladding on the upper decks of its ships.

        • All good stuff but what does the RN have that actually deflects or destroys incoming ant-ship missiles – a CIWS such as Phoenix/Goalkeeper?

          • A wall of 56lb su HE from the mk8 ,super Rboc chaff Matilda CIWs 30mm and 20mm and the deflector decoy which is launched like emergency liferafts

          • Hi Tommo. The 30mm has little AA capability with way too slow rate of fire(c200rpm c.f.600rpm for most machine guns & 1,000+ for most AA systems), let alone anti missile capability. You need 1000s of RPM to have any hope of hitting such small, fast targets & doing enough damage to stop them. They’re not designed to combat air except helicopters close & slow. Waste of a weapon staion IMO as LAA guns of that or similar calibre abound.

          • Always fired above and In front of 30mm twin or si ngle I maintained them along with 20mm 7alphas and Gambo

          • Sorry David 7alphas we’re 20mm single barrel spring and blowback the ones that you see in WW2 films shooting down Jap zeros .Gambo1 are their replacements 20mm Stands for Gun Armament Marine Bore 0 1 gambo1 which were pumped spring action with a greater rate of fire than the 7alphas I lost myself in memories when I wrote that last post sorry

          • Something like the T45/T23 have a fussed data picture from all the sensors, radar/optical/ESM. They use this picture to jam/spoof incoming ASMs. There is chaff/flares and electronic off-ship decoys/jammers.

            If all that fails ASTER 15/30 is capable against Supersonic sea skimming ASM as is Sea Ceptor on T23.

            On the T45 the last line of defence is Phalanx. Phalanx was built specifically to shoot down incoming missiles. Phalanx has been updated over the years and now includes an AESA targeting radar, optical tracking, capability against agile targets and the ability to hit surface targets.

            RN ships normally have two 30mm cannons that can be fired manually from the Ops room – I think they might also have an automatic mode.

            Lastly RN ships also carry two mini-guns and four GPMS (machine guns).

          • Did a course at Collingwood for Close weapons in 81 watched a TS film of an AM39 being taken out by a Phalanx Hindsight its a pity that the MOD didn’t upspec the 42s after viewing that film

          • I’m not saying anything you don’t know far better than me but i’ll answer anyway. To keep weight and hence draught down for them to operate in waters too shallow for comparable sized steel ships. That’s the official answer. The unofficial one that they’d be up against non-state or third world opponents. Like the Houthis ! Now they can’t wait to get rid of them.

          • The primary reason for use of Al in naval vessels has been a reduction in topweight for ship stability to compensate for the increase in sensors & comms located high up There has always been some awareness of the fire hazards (not enough imo) and experience with shipboard fires has rightly made many navies very wary of going down this road.

          • This is a good summary Around Aluminium in warships

            .https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.694.7036&rep=rep1&type=pdf

            Of the three major reviews of warship loss or damage aluminium has never been found to be the cause.

            It was made up by the media who did not take the time to actually check what RN warships were made of.

            Aluminium has great use in increasing the about of armour protection, especially for ships operating in the literal due to weight.

          • So a great demo for ally in ships was always shown at the RN Fire School . The firefighting, damage control and sea survival course is a mandatory 5 day course for everyone joining a ship. Everyone from the CO down to a baby sprog seaman must complete it. And yes the CO, HODs, WOs CPOs and all the lads and lasses will be in BA sets fighting fires, banging in wooden wedges into holes in water filled compartments and donning a life jacket and survival suit, jumping into horsea lake and swimming to a life raft.

            So the demo…2 x pieces of plate set at 45 deg angle with a 50lb weight in the centre of each. They have a constant stream of water running over them. Beneath is a dieso fuel fire. With the water running, simulating boundary cooling, no issues.

            Turn the water off and the ally starts to sag after a short time and eventually after no more than probably 4 mins the weight drops through the weakened ally plate. The steel one is still there , glowing a little bit but still supporting the weight.

            Ally bulkheads/decks require boundary cooling quickly in a fire. With reduced manpower on modern ships that requirement is not sustainable or practicable. With steel you have more time to establish the containment and boundary cooling requirements.

            If the deck or bulkhead fails then the fire spreads and instead of containing a single six sided box (compartment) you are suddenly containing 2 x six sided boxes which needs twice as many people, more BA sets, more BA controllers more hoses.

          • Fair, I suppose it about good design and using the correct material depending on what you expect to happen and can manage. Using Ally for armour good idea,using Ally for a bulk head, fire compartments not so good.

          • Powdered Aluminium + powdered iron oxide (rust) = one formulation of thermite.
            It really needs to be a powder mix to be thermite so the fuel (Al) and oxidiser (Fe2O3) are in intimate contact for the reaction.

          • Even the Army and RAF have to do the fire fighting and deck handling courses, if they are part of the air party embarked on the ship.

          • Because they actual read the findings of losses from the falklands, the damage to the USS Belknap and USS Stark ?

      • Magazines are the most protected spaces on an RN vessel. Heat and smoke detectors operating Auto sprinkler systems and a crash stop of the vent along with sequence starting fire pumps. The water supply is from 3 different supplies with each supply powered by a different fire pump or a pressurised storage tank. The power to the fire pumps is also from different gensets with also emergency back up and auto changeover switches. Blow off plates, flooding drains, Cat C electrical fittings, no flammable liquid pipework passing through the mag, any wood battens are hardwood that chars and doesn’t burn in a fire. Vent that can be isolated and closed off.

          • To be fair the demise of the antelope was the detonation of a 1000lb bomb, that destroyed the main fire main and mobility killed it. Meaning the crew could not fight the fire and with the fire loss of fire main and mobility kill in a war zone they had to abandon ship. At that point there were any number of ways it could have floundered, the sea cat magazine was just one more added bang.

            interestingly this was quite a common theme from the falklands, loss of fire main, mobility kill, in danger from enclosed waters, weather and enemy action leading to abandoning the ship and its inevitable loss.

            But then the RN was very good at rescuing its crews and the loss of life RN crews was a lot lower than if they had tried to save the ships whatever the cost. It also showed the good drills the RN had.

        • Our mantra was “STOCKFUL” stowages,temperature ,oil ,clips,keys,floods,utilities, lamps .Whenever we would check magazines

        • Oh, I’m outraged! We’re cutting down hard wood timbers from our precious rainforests to protect RN ships!

          I’m calling Greta – she’ll teach ya!

      • The RN anti-anti ship missile systems may not be up to the job if they are of broadly similar technology to those on Moskva. Hopefully someone will have the relevant info to advise.

        • The RNs ASMD doctrine is spot on. Its streets ahead of what was on Moskva.
          I went on an Udaloy and Sovremmeny in the 90s. They where supposed to be the latest and greatest Russian Destroyers. I wasn’t impressed then and haven’t been since No command system as I would know it where you are taking inputs from systems and combining and displaying the data.
          they had Individual systems reporting to a guy with a chinagraph on a perspex plotting board…

          • Nothing wrong with DLGs (county) served on the London oh at least the Glam survived an Exocet and yes every handbagger had a Chinagraph in their 8s pocket

          • Nothing wrong with the Counties at all.

            It was just a factual observation as to how the ops room worked!

            I agree Glamorgan did survive an Exocet hit and that shows it was better screwed together and better crewed that the Russian hulk was.

            In a funny way I think the counties had better battle damage resistance than T42 B1. If you ignore the massive hazard posed by the Sea Slug magazine….which is hard to ignore as if you hit a County anywhere above the waterline you hit that bloody magazine.

          • Worked slug flashdoors between each section of the mag worked brilliant unless you left the efflux deflector plate in the raised position when moving the Slugs around the only worrying thing was before they were winged and finned the Slugs sat in crates above the fwd engine rm and you’d have too check the deck if it warmed up that was of putting especially when your doing OOW manoeuvres but otherwise they were good for their time

          • I know the Sea Slug slightly predated the Bloodhound, but never understood why the Navy did go with a navalised version of Bloodhound? Much faster speed, greater height and range, plus a more accurate radar tracker.

          • Slugs 901,radar had locking bolts that were removed when operating so the radar would stay true even though the ship was tilting back and forth where as Airfield defence the ground doesn’t move with the 901 if it was rough it was hard too keep locked on to the target might of well thrown Harsh words as they were forever losing track of the target

          • 1960’s technology, updated in the 70’s. I had a few months in Glamorgan after she had Exocet fitted, very impressive ship but could still only handle a few targets at a time. The RN has moved on a huge amount in 50 years, it appears the Russians haven’t. Also am I the only one who has to resist calling them Soviets?

          • In recent weeks it’s difficult not to though I tend to slip into Fascists pretty easily too esp since seeing their links to Le Pen. Nothings as it was anymore I guess it’s either democratic or tyranny now, left and right means nothing and totally interchangeable.

          • There’s a queue, you’ve now joined it… at back.

            Of course, the nomenclature maybe changing.

          • chinograph? thats a blast from the past. i’d forgotten they existed, back in the golden days of steam

          • Handbaggers sorry RPs and their bloody write backwards perspex Chinagraphs so historic now gone the way of the Quill Andy

        • Like @GB I had the dubious privilege of visiting Russian ships in the 90’s.

          Frankly I couldn’t wait to get off them.

          Having worked on how to make RN ships safer virtually everything that could be done hadn’t been done. Nobody cared. It was a big impressive ship.

          The electronics were a joke and I could see at a glance that several systems that were boasted about couldn’t possibly work as there were obvious bits missing or they just were not connected up. What was there was unbelievably simple.

          As @GB states, elsewhere system integration was at RN 1950’s levels.

        • The RN air dedence and anti missile weapons are not comparable to Moskva 1980s technology. The RN sea ceptir is cutting edge and upto date whilst sea viper is deadly and an almost guarenteed 1 missile 1 hit response to threats ratio.
          Summary RN much much better than the Russian navy at defending against anti ship missiles

        • Realistically we don’t know if the RN defences work or not and will only find out if there is a war. We know phalanx failed when it was called on by the USN, but it’s been upgraded a number of times since, but who knows if that has fixed it or not. Same with all the systems. The only thing we know is that sea dart worked during the gulf war, so you have to assume sea ceptor is better than that.

          • Before a major deployment RN ships usually do a shoot. For T23 a low level height keeper rushton simulates a sea skimmer. It can also be used for phalanx shoots… (Just don’t shoot it off the tow wire) Alternatively a supersonic target drone can simulating a High Diver.
            You could also do missile shoots against 4.5 inch shells. As I have said before. I was on Brilliant in 1983 when we shot down an exocet fired by HMS Jupiter in a trial off of Wales. The stuff works and the people using it know their stuff.

          • Thank you for providing such great insights on this, I enjoyed reading all of your excellent posts on this article.

            Moskva looks a bit like how I would design a warship in the back of a maths book aged 10 (loads of missile tubes and guns!)…

          • I’m sure the stuff was tested to work prior to the Falklands, but a combo of good tactics by the Argentine pilots and poor weather/sea state meant that it all failed when it mattered. The number one difference is always going to be controlled test, not happening after weeks at sea at high pressure, where focus is lagging due to tiredness etc and mistakes happen, which is going to be the case during a war.

          • Things were tested less pre 82’ than they were after. With the exception of gunnery.

            Missiles were treated as some kind of Voodoo – partly because they were so expensive to replace when expended.

            Lessons were learned and times/attitudes changed for the better.

          • SB when on the London 2 twin Mk 6s doing an AA shoot no one batted an eyelid firing one SeaSlug bottles of bubbly were order of the day then the wait for the WAs at Whale Island too come back with the Telemetry data information and another bote of Bubbly

          • I’m amazed Sea Slug hit anything!

            In my experience it just looked big and impressive but couldn’t hit the proverbial for any money and often went wildly off course for reasons that nobody could ever understand.

          • But boy did their frighten the Birdlife we fired one with its deflector plate still attached too replicate having too emergency clear the whole ships mag when alongside Fountain lake Jetty if a major engine rm fire had got out of control I believe it proved it could be achieved it did work that was a High Seas firing if it had been for real Fareham would have had a bad day or portsdown hil or anywhere within a wide arc Seaslugs went where the wanted to go

          • during a test firing on antrim in 1980, a seaslug just about got off the launcher, landed on a guardrail and dropped over ther the side and was never seen again.briish technology at its best.

          • Must of been the blue touch paper always fails too get it of the Launcher when lite in windy conditions Andy

          • My bessy oppo ,made a remark to the WEO, when his team got all worked up and excited about firing an Ikara AST ” There goes a Dialysis machine for the NHS ” crude but true at the time

          • The USN said it wasn’t turned on, do you believe them? Or more realistically they didn’t want to admit a system failure used across all ships. Why on earth would it be turned off operating in a war zone close to shore, where anti ship missiles were expected, only reason I can think of is they didn’t trust the system to be left on, which meant it is useless. Either way it failed, whether it was turned off and they didn’t turn back on when they identified the missile or it just didn’t work. The reason doesn’t matter, if the RN ship hasn’t been there, it would have been a sunk USN ship.

          • In those days during the tanker war most systems didn’t have the keys in the safe to fire locks 24/7. It was assumed that nobody was daft enough to fire on a Western warship. Nobody probably considered an incident that was “accidental”
            Things changed rapidly after that. Doing patrols in the late 80s through the straights started and ended with a 3 hour all hands in ammo hump from mags to weapons and back down at the end.

          • Had too place hoofing great sisal mats over the Ready Use Lockers and keep hosing them down too keep the temp down GB

          • I would say differently, as GB alluded to below, our ships do frequent live fire exercises. But perhaps more significantly for NATO, our ships participate in joint exercises that also include live fire exercises. Therefore, even ships with different weapon systems, radars and combat management systems are tested together to make sure they can interoperate with each other whilst not causing interference to another ship’s systems whilst coming under attack. perhaps the best know of these exercise is the Formidable Shield. They are designed to test ships with threats that realistic as possible. The ships crews know they will come under attack, but they don’t know when, where or from what type of of threat.

            See attached link:

            Royal Navy joins NATO’s major missile test off Scotland (mod.uk)

            Qinetiq run the ranges and they use a plethora of different target drones from subsonic to supersonic to mimic sea skimming to high diving missile threats. The exercise has also used Israeli Black and Silver Arrow ballistic target missiles to simulate hypersonic ballistic missile threats. Chobham (now Draken) run their electronic countermeasures and test aircraft against the ships to measure how they perform whilst coming under sustained and complex jamming.

            I’d say we are in a much better place due to the realistic training our ships are put through.

          • Dont start me off on mutual interference or choosing beacon frequencies for missiles fired by different ships…

      • I probably should have been more specific. I was asking a more generally applicable question, rather than the familiar ‘Top Trump’ or ‘fantasy navy’ type comparisons made using public stats. For example… the use of shore-based mobile anti-ship systems for places like the Falklands (in a similar way that the US Marines are doing with the NSM mounted on the back of a vehicle). I agree that there are big questions to be asked about the Russian Navy’s training and maintenance standards. I think it shows that the Russian Navy’s money is going into its submarines at the expense of its surface fleet and maintaining basic standards there.

        • How about a BV206, with a set of Sea Venom mounted on the rear track? Nice wide tracks to cope with the bogs, it’s amphibious. Plus Sea Venom would make a right mess of any amphibious vessel trying to beach. Let alone causing a lot of issues for any supporting warships.

      • It has been sad the engagement limit on the ships missiles was 20m plus and as a result could not take down the Neptune coming in at 5m. The CIWS on the ship should have shot the Neptunes down but the sea state was 1m and could have cluttered the CIWS radar picture and the ASMs must have slipped through. Being an old ship it may well have not had a fussed integrated threat and targeting picture. The ship appears to be a collection of systems with separate radars and control systems. This may have contributed to the loss. Also the Russians may also not have expected a ASM attack and thus may have had the CIWS in standby and not active. A similar situation almost cost USS Stark her life… her phalanx was in standby too as they did not expect an attack.

        • The Russian ciws dont have their own AESA radar. They are centrally controlledcfrom ops via input from ships main radar suite. Therefore if 1980s radar didnt detect incoming threat the CIWS wasnt going to respond either.

          • The AK603’s tracking radar is a simple continuous weave illumination radar not an AESA radar. It dates back to early 1970’s. It has had a few tweaks since then but is essentially the same.

      • By not bothering to fit our own warships with AShMs, allowing a lengthy capability gap between the retirement of our ancient Harpoon missiles & the eventual replacement with those being slowly developed. It’s like sending battleships to sea with no main armament when everyone else has AShMs. A few much smaller(Sea Spear)/tiny(Martlet) missiles from Wildcat helicopters(IF they are embarked rather than the ASW Merlins) are not comparble nor sufficient replacement. Don’t be fooled by blatent spin.
        We need an interim AShM now if not yesterday.

        • Camm itself will be a very effective anti shipping weapon, it’s a 100kg Missile travelling at Mach 3-4 will the same level of energy into a hull as a 6 inch navel gun shell and that’s insignificant. With every RN ship pottering around with 32 of those that just nasty. If you then add in the Rotor which will be able to carry 4 pin point accurate 100kg missiles able to target individual part of a ship. Not forgetting the medium gun, which is not nothing ( people aways forget just how much fire a navel medium gun can bring down, it’s not effected by soft or hard kill like missiles). So even with just those systems an RN escort is nasty.

          If the RN then decide to add spear 3 ( which can be quad launched so you get four time more that a standard anti-ship missile). They could easily equip 16-32 on each escort. That would be devastating to any ship and not something that could be stopped. 32 networked swarm spear 3s would be far more likely to knock out a large combatant with good air defence that 4-8 big anti ship missiles.

          Finally the type 23/26/31/45 are all escorts and designed for protecting shipping/key large ships and shipping lanes, they are not the primary offensive arm of the RN that’s the carriers or SSNs for power projection and closing down another navy.

          even so I’m not saying the RN should not have a escort based large anti ship missile. But a mixture of CAMM, sea venom and spear three would make any RN escorts a devastating weapon platform at any normal engagement ranges ( there has never be a case of ships flinging ASMs at each other from 100s of miles).

          • I agree.

            But as we are in a realm of fantasy muscleman wars a bigger more obvious stick is perhaps needed?

            In practical terms just having a lot of Ceptor across the fleet is excellent.

            As with every weapons system Ceptor will have flaws and all it takes is for that flaw to be exploited. Which is why having a primary/secondary complimentary system matters?

          • Yes agree, having plenty of options to engage an enemy is important as stuff does break or maybe not able to do the job.

            For me the Heavyweight Anti ship missile is the icing on the cake. So if I ruled the world I would ensure a deployed escort had the following:

            1) medium caliber Navel gun as the dependable Swiss Army knife of ASuW ( the early batch 22s were a travesty, who build an escort without a medium gun).

            2) 32 sea ceptors to allow them to be used as snap attack missiles in ASuW?

            3) Rotor based offensive missiles ( now if your small ship flight is an wildcat your fine, but if a T23 has a merlin that’s a problem).

            4) leaver the crap out of spear 3 and put a good number on any deploying escort as it’s go to standard ASuW If the rotor or shorter range options are out.

            5) some form of willy to wave at the stupid thugs like Putin and the Russian navy, otherwise know as a heavyweight anti ship missile. This should be more thought of as a deterrent, compared to the first four which Likely could be/will be used in most shooting wars. At present I think Life extending the harpoons will do. Any new solution should primarily be land attack and strike for the Mk41 launchers with ASuW willy waving as a secondary function.

      • h.m.s sheffoield was to have been the first ship to be fitted with the then,embryonic phalanx close in weapon system. as a veteran of the conflict(h.m.s antrim) the best defence a ship had was the chaff launchers and machine guns we all have seen the response by ALL navys of the world to invest in ciws some are better than others a story worth remembering is that when the uss stark was hit by TWO missiles the phalanx system was not active

    • Doesn’t seem very rough out there, appears the Russians can’t even get the sea state correct in their propaganda. Shows what even relatively small warheads can achieve with secondary effects. Makes you wonder what even 4 or 5 Brimstones could have done to a ship of that design if they hit the missile canisters or other weak points. It’s like a boastful muscleman being taken down by a swift carefully placed stiletto to the abdomen.

      Was confused by your RN question for a moment as I was thinking they are well placed against anti ship missiles but realised you meant in an offensive sense and yes totally agree you can’t simply rely on defending against them, the best defence is usually attack or eventually they will get through your defences..

      • Hi Spyinthesky,

        Your point about secondary effects of a missile strike is often over looked. When Sheffield was hit in 1982 the warhead failed to explode at all, but the heat generated by the kinetic energy of the hit and, apparently, the heat from the last of the missile’s solid rocket motor fuel set the ship on fire. One major problem they had (but didn’t realise at the time) was that the cabling used at the time was insulated with a material that contained an oxidant! Meaning the material could burn without air! So the fire spread.

        The biggest leasons learnt by the RN was around how to design the ship to survive a hit and fire fighting training for the crew. Every time I watch a series about life in the RN on TV there is always a fire drill or a real response to a suspected fire and to me their response appears to be very professional with very good equipment.

        The point I’m making is that defence against offensive weapons is about way more than defensive weapons and decoys, it starts with the requirements and goes from there.

        The RN has had this buttoned down well for the last 30 years, lets hope the leasons remain learnt and embedded.

        Cheers CR

        • We had too be good and professional when it came too fire and flood when at sea phoning 999 wasn’t an option the Ship was our Home and workplace Chariotrider

        • Lots of other things came from it. Hydraulic ring mains are no longer a thing. Use individual systems filled with waterglycol mix (OX40) that doesnt burn. HP air bottles are now fitted with remote operated dump valves to the upper deck. A broken pipe on a HP air line can feed air at 300bar into a fire even after you have closed down and isolated a space keeping it fed for a long time.
          So much good stuff came out of the Falklands DC /FF lessons learnt. Its a major reason why incidents on Brazen, Southampton, Nottingham, Lusty, Broadsword to name a few didnt spiral out of control. The kit and the training is streets ahead of any other navy I have seen. The Aussies are the closest to us on DC/FF I have seen and thats to be expected due to the close ties we have with them.

          • It didnt detonate. If it had the hole in the side of Sheffield would have been a hell of a lot bigger.

        • What was interesting was the damage assessment of the stark and its two Exocet hits, the one that detonated actually did less damage that than the one that did not. It was because the missile that detonated lost more of its heat energy outwards through the hole in the hull and it was destroyed closer to the hull. The second Unexploded Exocet Went deeper transferring all its kinetic energy into the hull as well all the BTUs of heat energy from the unspent fuel stayed in the hull.

          • No idea Roddy, just quoting the findings from a paper on damage control and use of aluminium in warship construction. So I bow to the clever buggers who reviewed the damage and wrote the paper.

      • I was thinking about shore-based anti-ship systems in general, and extending the lethality of anti-ship missiles at greater ranges (as you picked up on). Yes, people have been saying this for a long time, that you don’t need an ICBM-size missile to take out a ship. I read somewhere that the Russian ship’s defensive systems might have been compromised by ‘rain’ and/or the ship was navigating a predictable repeat pattern.

      • From an attacking point off view might it be an idea to go for smaller, top down attack capable missiles with the aim of damaging VLS silos rather than destroying the whole ship? Apparently VLS silos/cells are prone to warping under damage making them useless. Could 4 or 5 well placed Brimestones neutralise a ship?
        On damage control, how able would a lean-manned ships company be able to tackle serious damage?

        • I think anything no matter how small the warhead is going to cause big problems on a ship. So long as it doesn’t bounce off and the blast is actually inside the ship it’s going to cause issues. Now if you have 4-16 separate fires and damage to deal with from smaller missiles it’s a lot to deal with at one time.

        • Raises many questions doesn’t it. Must admit I am coming round to the idea of smaller is better in terms of being able to hit such a target successfully which clearly means a smaller warhead and thus a very high level of flexibility and accuracy required and preferably AI ability to select the best place to strike for any given target, not just a strike itself. Then attack in batches with varying attack vectors and behaviours to further complicate matters. Of course having the option of following up with more powerful missiles to finish the job once initial damage and confusion has been achieved would be the ideal. It’s interesting to see that the US (and no doubt the cooperation with UK and Aus) work on Hypersonics is about clever manoeuvrable missiles rather than the mini ballistic types the Russians are boasting about.

          • Yes lots of swarming clever missiles will be the way forward as you can cram more on a ship they are harder to see and you can ensure they hit the optimal places for a mission or mobility kill.

            If the RN really leaver the work spear 3 would be a very significant weapon system as you could put 32 in the place of 8 normal sized missiles. I suspect 32 networked spear 3 would create a far greater problem that 8 larger missiles.

            As for hyper sonic missiles the RN already has a Mach 3-4 anti surface option in CAMM ( small is not So relevant when your Travelling at Mach 3-4). That’s another 32 Anti surface missiles on each RN ship….

          • Need a missiled with booster (harpoon body and 4 smaller missiles (Brimstone?) that release/launch from booster (like Starstreak) booster flies first hundred+ miles then the smaller missiles seperate and acceleate /manouver the last segment…. like an inversve sea Slug where the 4 original rocket motors are missiles and the main body is the motor?

          • the Perseus concept missile had that idea, the concept was a main missile with Two sub missiles that split of for 3 missiles to manage.

          • The problem with hypersonic is that if you want to use them at low level the range is drastically reduced due to the massive fuel burn, plus you have to substantially beef up the missile’s airframe, include ablative coatings or active leading edge cooling to cope with atmospheric heating, which all adds weight and complexity. For the high altitude cruising hypersonic missile like Zircon. These still have to be massive due to the amount of fuel they require. But they can still be tracked by both radar and IR, regardless of what the media claims. A near miss by even Sea Ceptor, that sets off its proximity fused warhead will cause structural damage. Which at the speeds it is travelling will be catastrophic.

            I still believe the best option is a high subsonic speed, sea skimming missile, that has a significantly reduced radar signature. It means the missile can be relatively small, but still have a decent range. Can carry a large multi-effects warhead. But is very difficult to detect, giving it a better chance of reaching the target. The added bonus is that it will also be a lot cheaper!

        • Yes, 4 or 5 Brimstones could mission kill a ship. But it will depend on the type of ship and the number of duplicated systems it has. This is the theory behind using F35Bs with Spear 3s against ships.

          There is a reason a lot on Nations chose the sea skimming missile over a high diving one. Firstly they are a bugger to detect especially in crap weather. Secondly, they give the less warning time to the ship’s air defence system. Thirdly they can be made to dive towards the ship’s waterline to make sure the ship takes on water. But some can also do a pop up and diving attack as they get close to the ship. Which on older air defence systems can confuse the tracking radar, especially if they are relying on a doppler shift to measure the threat’s velocity.

          A high diving one can be a medium to high altitude cruising missile that then dives down on to the ship from a high angle at subsonic or supersonic speeds. You can also include hypersonic anti-ship missiles into the high diving category. Russia in particular favour these types of anti ship missile. The issue they have is that they are easier to track and give the ship more time and flexibility on how to counter them. But from a radar perspective the ship decks and upper structure presents a very good reflector, making it easier for the missile to aim for.

      • Spy. Looking at the photos on naval lookout it seems the Modkva was wrecked by internal explosions probably from magazines and/or fuel storage. The hull is buckled and blown out in several places on the portside. The sea would have easily flooded the hull in any sea state with those breaches in integrity.
        It all fits with the S1000 Vulture missile cannisters on deck exploding and causing a massive fire as well as extensive internal damage.

    • Lots of unknowns here, but I think the use of drones may have been crucial – distracting an elderly fire control system. And let’s not forget the difficulty for an older radar in picking up sea-skimming targets against a backdrop of land (memories of HMS Coventry spring to mind). I think that, when the dust settles, this’ll be seen as a superbly planned, well executed attack that preyed on Moskva’s weaknesses. Well done Ukraine!

      • I think there is more to the story of Moskva’s targetting and sinking. What we are able to piece together is that the Ukranians distracted Moskvas sensors and radar operators with a drone or drones.
        The Moskva’s radar suite had a narrow targetting and tracking beam radius of about 180 degrees firing arcs. Very 1980s technology. In essence the ships radar operators are told which direction the threat axis is coming from and they focus on that axis. Theregore drone draws attention whilst coming from the opposite side are the true attacking Neptune or Harpoon missiles.
        CIWS SAMs should have intercepted but likely the Neptune was sea skimming and below detection and interception height. Eg kess than 20m. CIWS then should have intercepted. But unlike Phalanx and goalkeeper the Russian CIWS dont have their own independent AESA radar but are instead slaved to the ships main radar suite. Therefore if threat not detected it wouldnt be engaged by CIWS.
        The Moskva was initially seen on fire in amongst a large number of cargo ships. This convoy of shipping likely caused radar clutter and made the detection of the closing Neptune/ Harpoon missiles much harder.
        Once hit the ship was wrecked by secondary explosions. Internally and externally causing the hull to buckle and blow out in multiple locations along the port side. The damage and blast is extensive from the bridge superstructure back to the funnels and is consistent with the S1000 Vulture heavy anti ship missiles cooking off. (2nd ecplosions).
        From videos posted by Russias defence ministry less than 100 crew members survived to be paraded in front of the news cameras.
        The conclusion can only be that Russias fleet of elderly soviet era warships are vulnerable to sea dkimming anti ship missiles and that when hit the risk of secondary explosions is very high from the proliferation of missiles and weapons mounted on open decks of their fleet destroyers and cruisers.
        Also internal damage control, firefighting and bulkhead patency and battle damage resistance is debateable and likely way below NATO warship standards.

    • The RN still believes in ASM and it’s investing in it heavily. It just believes they are better delivered by either a helicopter using sea venom or a long range weapon beyond the range of harpoon or NSM.

      • If you think a helicopter is survivable against a near peer opponent in this day and age over the ocean your delusional. And yet there is no UK ASM as we speak other than the much maligned harpoon. Which is light years ahead of the harpoonski that the Russians copied and which the Ukrainians copied after that.

        • Why is that, there are such things as the rules of physics which allow low flying rotors to fly around all day below the radar horizon. If you can’t see it you can’t shoot it and there is no radar in the world that can look through the earth.

  2. My word the Sea state is really Harry Roughers no wonder why she went down I felt seasick just watching it on Twitter (Not) I’ve seen rougher boating lakes

        • 😂😂 We have a local sea cadet unit near me and i’d be willing to bet they’re better trained than the Russian Navy.

      • I know it’s terrible when weekend Sailors think that their Lewis Hamilton on peaceful stretches of Britians canals 6knts max or your scare the Wildlife and flood the towpath with your wash

  3. I wonder if the crew sang a Russian version of “Always look on the bright side of Life ” as the boys on the Sheff did ? Just curious

  4. People often don’t realise that when you pump water into a ship to put a fire out you then have to pump that water out again pretty sharpish to stop the vessel from becoming unstable and capsizing.

    • Having served on the Hermes (bomblifts) and Invincible (vent party) it was worked out that if a fire or flood in the hangar and there wasn’t adequate pumps too remove water it would only take between 1/2″ to 1″ of surface water too turn turtle all drains were too be keep free of any debris and section based pumps and hangar pumps were regularly primed and tested something by the looks of it the Russians didn’t put on their todo list

      • Spot on.

        It may well be fire fighting attempts or attempt to flood areas that sank her.

        I **suspect** flooding was deliberately used as the crew were not up to or equipped to fight the fire.

          • That is probably why the she broke her back?

            That vertical crack in the side is probably caused by hogging cad used by the flooding?

            Once the ship is broken in half I don’t think it is salvageable and it could well have broken in half under tow? I know it is a rash thing to say but maybe that part of the Russian story is true!

        • Inches it doesn’t take alot when the hangar is bloody massive half an inch over that amount of deck space is a few tonnes of loose water sloshing around Monkey spanner

          • I wasn’t thinking of it as moving water but of course it’s sloshing about it’s in the sea. An inch all over could add up to feet of water at one end of the deck and dry at the other. I’ve seen the mess the kids make in the bathroom when they slosh about. I need damage control training just to deal with that

          • The report on the herald of free enterprise show how little water you need from a depth point of view, as Tommo pointed out because it moves around it will all pile to one side and the ship will flounder.

      • Also been a major problem especially in the early days for RORO ferries with vehicle decks extending to most of the ships beam. The dreaded free surface effect…

        • Morning for you, evening for me :). From the photos, she looks salvageable to me at the time of the photo. maybe could have been pumped out and towed to port. That said I know little about these things, armchair admiral’s opinion. Glad she went to the bottom though.

          • You and me both, I know nothing apart from what I read and that’s nothing compared to experience and naval types here. Nothing wrong with us armchairs, we care and are interested.

          • The internal damage from the fire is likely much more extensive than can be seen from outside. If you look near the last remaining life raft canister just below the hanger doors you can see smoke damage indicating the fire raged all the way through the internal spaces of the ship. On other photos you can also see around the same area the hull is bowed out and theirs a black line of escaping smoke all the way down to the water indicating the ships hull had been cracked.

    • That is a sad sight and that ship went down carrying an Nuclear cruise missile with it . No one who remembers seeing Royal Navy ships on the news burning and sinking one after the other in the Falklands would ever state such a comment .

      • Well I do, as I was 10 at the time and followed it all, and I did make that comment. Seeing your own armed forces vessels being sunk and a potential enemies is a different matter. Would you prefer her intact?

        Yes, I’d read there were 2 nukes, unsure if it’s accurate.

        • I was there ,for corporate, so didn’t see any of the News being plugged on the 3 channels we had then But one thing we did say was either “There are no flowers on a Sailors grave ” or ” Still on patrol” and that was it I still get somewhat sombre from the 4th May when it went real for us Sheff took an exocet until June 12th when the glam took an exocet Both Pompey boats

      • It is sad to see a ship like that.

        It is also a totally legitimate target of war. As soon as that fleet started lobbing missiles at sovereign Ukrainian land the Ukrainians had every right to fire back in kind.

        Much as I regret the massive loss of life I cannot criticise the Ukrainians for doing what they did as I believe it was absolutely justified. The Ukrainians didn’t start this war: Russia invaded.

        RIP those who didn’t make it out.

      • I remember as a kid seeing Sir Tristram entering the Tyne after the war and the burnt and twisted superstructure. It made the horror of what happened to Sir Galahad real to me. But those ships were in the Falklands to liberate British subjects whose islands had been invaded by a military dictatorship.

        It’s a shame that Russian sailors will have been lost, but I’m glad the Mockva has been sunk and can only hope the rest of the Black Sea fleet follow soon. I’ll cheer at every Russian ship sunk, warplane and helicopter shot down, tank and APC destroyed.

      • It’s always sad when people die before their time, but that was a warship of a power that had invaded another country with no real provocation and bombed civilian targets.

        The balance is that every Russian member of the armed forces killed and weapon system destroyed is one step closer to the end of a war of aggression that’s killing innocents as well as people protecting those civilians.

        I feel for them and their families but they were killed by the actions of their own government not Ukraine ( as in if Russia had not invaded UKriane they would not be dead).

          • I believe it’s around 10% of the human race are psychopathic, a good portion of those are master manipulators ( psychopaths learn to mask every early in life) who have a higher than average chance of getting positions of power and a fairly large (50%) of the world take facts as presented by their leaders. That means there will always be a number of human wolves leading nations so there will aways be war.

            That is why I can’t ever vote for the Green Party even though I’m an environmentalist.

          • Not all Psycopaths are of the same calibre as Hitchcocks Norman bates ,or Harris’s Dr Lector but we normals always fall for the charm of them they are hard wired one way and we’re wired the opposite and that means we’re always attracted too them

      • I was actually UNDER Shef when she was launched and remember walking into Barrow the a.m. after she was attacked. Barrow owned that ship, the town was silent.

        I could feel something for the mums of the people lost on the Moscow, but at the moment, Russian Armed Forces need smashing, and Moscow was smashed. I’ll not shed a tear for any Russian combatant, however, I will hope that more of their platforms get smashed such as their Backfire bombers.

        Russia needs to hurt, badly.

        Then they might realise Putin needs to go.

  7. Over on “The Drive War Zone” they have highlighted the presence of a Russian Tug on her starboard side, you can make out the mast just to left of the radome and the water jets.

    • Had a look, very interesting, still the result is the best one for Ukraine 🇺🇦. The Black Sea has definitely become contested, which should push Russian ships further from the Ukrainian coast.

    • My personal opinion is that they let it sink rather than the rest of the world seeing just how vulnerable the mighty Russian Navy is.
      More evidence (if needed) why we need to have a SSM system operational at all times with no “capacity gap” in the RN.

      • The question I have is why was she sailing alone? She was the flagship, shouldn’t she have had escorts to provide overlapping cover for sensors and defensive weapons?

        • Read she wasn’t alone. Looking at Russian tech from the outside i’m doubtfull they’d be capable of multi ship co ordination of sensors or anything else for that matter.

        • She wasn’t sailing alone, in fact she was providing air-defence to other ships, which makes her loss to missile strikes even more embarrassing for the Russians.

          • Hi Sean, there is likely to be a hole in there air defenses in the southern sector, I’m hoping the Ukrainians can take advantage of it.

        • I do not believe she was alone, She was supposed to be the centre of the air defence for the rest of the fleet. The frigate and corvettes in the black sea fleet all have cruse missiles for land attach but the Moskva was supposed to be there protection from air attack/missile attack so by taking her out the rest of the fleet have to sit at least 200 mile from the Ukraine (believed range of Neptune). This also means that an amphibious assault is almost certainly now out of the question.

          • Lviv and western Ukrainian infrastructure ought to be less subject to cruise missile attacks if these have been being launched from ships of the Russian Black Sea fleet.
            It could also be the case that these smaller frigate and corvette sized vessels are now vulnerable to Sea Brimstone launched from any Ukrainian fast attack craft we can furnish.

          • I wonder if when they prepare to launch their own cruise missiles certain defensive systems are off or at least compromised, maybe the Ukrainians recognised a pattern and chose their timing well, not unlike what the Serbs did when they downed the F117 saw a pattern and adjusted their own available tech and procedures to target it. The longer you carry out repetitive actions I suspect the less vulnerable you feel or/and simply more lazy about taking what become increasingly laborious preventative precautions over time. That’s where I guess the quality of training becomes a serious and increasingly important factor.

          • Dead right , Complacency gets you killed That F117 was flying a predictive flight plan time and time again , Us Brits are taught never use the same route when stepping out on patrol vary and stagger your timing Never the same time Never the same place

          • Does that mean the whole of Ukraine, can be attacked by cruise missiles by sea? Certainly buys the Ukrainians more time to react if they can.

          • The Russians have a number of delivery systems for cruise missiles but if they want to keep the sea launched systems going they will have to reload which up until recently has been done in Sebastopol (Crimea) so with out the Moskva as top cover there is an opportunity to ambush the vessels as the come and go.
            But it looks as though the Russians are stepping up the air launched systems so that would mean that the Ukrainians will need the longer ranged air defence systems that can reach out over the Black sea nearer to the Russian coast line. The land based launchers will have to be dealt with by the Ukrainian SF in Russia or just hope they run out of missiles soon as they only have a finite number and seem to have launched a fair number already. I am not sure how many they (Russia) have in stock piles but they will have to keep some back as a reserve in case things escalate or they intend to push on to Moldova or the Baltic states.

          • Putin must be getting very low on cruise missiles by now?

            Hence why they are intensifying their efforts to gain air superiority.

  8. Right, NBCDQ 35 head on.

    From those pictures you cannot really say where she was hit, its just not clear enough.
    On the main picture there is a salvage tug on the stbd side shooting off its water monitors. If the tug is on that side I would hazard a guess that the seat of the fire and damaged area is on that, the stbd side.
    The list to port can be due to a number of reasons and its maybe not due to holes and damage.

    1. Excessive firefighting water in the ship causing a free surface flood (That is V bad in a ship if its high up) leading to a LOLL condition where you get an unstable list and very possibly it can lead to a capsize.
    2. Counter flooding on the port side to raise holes and damaged areas up out of the water on the stbd side.

    Lots of smoke damage. She was 40 yrs old so its cabling is pre Falklands era.(Lots of issues in RN vessels then with choking black smoke when they where hit) Lots of black smoke from rubber insulation and PVC and PTFE coating and burning dieso. A lot of the smoke blotches on the ships side appear to coincide with portholes/scuppers, indicating that the smoke spread was pretty uncontrolled, fwd to aft.

    The accom ladder aft (Below the hangar) is in the water. This is the area where the life rafts where stowed and they are not there now so maybe some crew got off? Getting 500 people off a ship into life rafts at night without a mass evacuation system would be massively difficult. If its not been practised the rafts can easily blow away or flip. The idea is to embark into a raft in a dry condition. Jumping in and swimming to a raft is the last resort and without a survival suit or a life jacket with a face hood , you stand a good chance of dying from secondary drowning or exposure.

    Without a decent view of the fwd area and stbd side its currently guess work on the damage.
    So purely conjecture, If the Ukrainian missiles caused sympathetic detonations of stored ammunition fwd then I would expect a large loss of life. Not just from the hit but looking at the smoke blotches also the subsequent fire. Its the smoke that gets you.
    Regarding the video of the crew on a parade ground which has been circulated. If they had suffered smoke inhalation from burning PVC/PTFE cable coatings you get flu like symptoms for a few days afterwards. The symptoms are treated with oxygen therapy. No oxygen and they last a lot longer. Nobody on the parade looked like they had a cold, runny nose of difficulty breathing.

    • Maybe my mind playing tricks here but sure in one of the pics I have seen where it’s a bit clearer that dark area towards the left of the pic level with the funnel on the ship looks much better defined as a jagged hole than just a dark blur, indeed rather like a missile strike penetration. Would also fit in with written description of where the missile(s) supposedly hit.

    • To be honest I’ve treated a whole fire crew who got a really nasty smoke inhalation in a factory fire and within 6 hours of high flow oxygen they were back to normal blood gasses.

      I also had a young lad who sleep through a house fire ( closed space controlled the fire and it burnt out). He was literally head to toe black with soot ( I was never sure why he woke up at all, some people just don’t die when they should). But again high flow oxygen for half a shift and he was golden.

  9. The first thing anyone in the RN is taught about damage control is that fire does much more damage than water, and I reckon this illustrates the point. And I am very impressed that the ship survived for so long in such rough seas, the comment about a boating lake refers!
    But at least they managed to get all the crew off safely, …not.

  11. As expected. Looks like the Ukranian Neptune/ Harpoon missiles hit the ship and triggered secondary explosions of the S1000 missile cannisters mounted on deck. In this picture all the cannisters except the front pair have detonated.
    Not surprised she floundered whilst under tow. Already listing heavily in this picture.

    • The S-1000 didnt go up or there would be much more extensive forward blast damage and all the tubes on this side at least look intact, the fire damage is primarily located around the funnels in the centre of mass of the ship (which missiles aim at) and home to the crane, main air search radar, and AK-630 30mm point defence guns. The damage however is most likely indicative that the ships powerplant was hit in the initial strikes killing main power and the engine fire spread throughout the internal spaces of the ship. The ammunition for the 30mm guns may well have cooked off though.

  12. I’d take an education guess and say-a considerable number of the 510 crew were lost or injured. The recent parade of the crew shoreside was probably any number of Russian sailors they could get hold of and chuck into uniform. The Russians totally deserve this loss, but feel for any service personnel lost at sea. Most of the crew will have been very young, and probably pretty unaware of what is happening in the wider Ukraine conflict.

    • Let’s be honest.. they could be anyone. Random sailors, civvies, surviving crew, crew who had shore leave.. it could even be file footage for all we know. They certainly don’t look like they have survived a missile strike or accident, poisonous fumes and time adrift at sea that’s for sure. I know a lot of our lads were fairly excited when they came home in ’82, but that was largely due to the crowds, victory and time spent recovering. And yes, they probably have no idea about some of what has happened.

      • The Russian propaganda machine is truly appalling. How they can get away with such blatant lies in 2022 is shameful to say the least. They haven’t changed one bit since the days of the USSR. It seems the online information/media war is as important as the guns and missiles these day’s.

  13. I know what the Russians are doing is abhorrent but I get no pleasure in seeing young conscripted men sent to their deaths by Putin. It’s a horrible way to die in what amounts to an oven that is now at the bottom of the sea.

  14. Makes you think, doesn’t it? In modern terms we’re looking at a billion pound frigate/destroyer going down for the cost of a couple of missiles. It brings into focus the problems with littoral warfare in particular. I don’t know whether the human toll is being reported correctly but what an awful waste for one man’s lust.

    • To be honest it was a 40 year old relic of a different age, it was the literal equivalent the general Belgrano….it simply was not designed to survive modern threats.

  15. A couple of things to note from the image:

    The majority of the ship’s lifeboats have been deployed. That means at least some men managed to get away from the ship. Similarly, the ship’s crane has been used, likely to deploy her sea boats. This implies that there was a period of at least some coordination, and it does tie in with the evacuation line spread by the Russians.

    Her hangar doors are wide open. This either means that the helicopter was on patrol at the time, or someone had the bright idea of saving it. Judging by the way they have been left, it’s likely the latter, although that could have been due to secondary explosions or the evacuation itself.

    The red decks aren’t noteworthy. Some non-naval types are claiming that’s the heat causing the decks to rust, buuuuut the Russians like red decks. It’s only their anti-corrosion paint minus the grey topcoat that other nations apply. Some of the newer Russian vessels have followed the Western model, but photos of Moskva clearly show her decks.

    The smoke damage looks fairly widespread, and there must have been smoke and water damage to most of her compartments… poor damage control? Most certainly. It looks like her obnoxious anti-ship missiles are intact, and there’s no evidence that her defensive weaponry fired. Perhaps her CWIS and decoys did, but I can’t spot an open silo or disabled rail launchers.

    At least two of the ship’s fire hoses are still going. I don’t know how Ruskie ship’s are configured, but to me, that would mean there’s still some power there if some sort.

    The seas are pretty much perfect. She might have been hit in a storm, but the claim that she sank in one carries less weight. I can buy the line that she sank under tow, however. That’s not uncommon.

    I have heard reports that Turkey has now denied rescuing anyone. As for the video, are we really going to trust Russia? Seriously? That video could be anything. File footage of the crew, random sailors or civilians lined up, or even members of the crew who were on leave and would therefore have survived anyway.

    We’ll never know how many were on board. We’ll also never know how many died and how many were saved. That’s the sad fact of war, and the sad fact of Putin’s Russia. Deny. Cover up. Kill. Show no respect to your own.

    • I thought that too about the hoses onboard working, until I read another post about there being a tug on the other side of the ship and both those jets are from the tug. You can make out the tug’s mast just behind the rear radar dome.

      • I was literally coming back to add an addendum stating that! Thanks.

        Also to expand on my post above (I can’t edit more in as it was written on a different device):

        These are the first images we have seen of the ship after the ‘incident’ (let’s just call it that). A lot of fake images have circulated on social media recently. That footage of a ship burning among a host of other vessels? That’s doctored footage from 2019. The video of a ship being hit by a missile? That’s one of Norway’s missile tests from 2013. The images of a listing and burning Moskva? Mostly done by a few trolls who want their internet points.

        This is the real deal as it were. No doubt Ukrainian and Western officials will be pouring over images like this (though they probably already have).

        Remember when they described HMS Queen Elizabeth as a ‘large, convenient target’….?

        • There was a video taken from a circling aircraft with a Boat going under posted Sunday 17th too the off key tune from the Titanic could well be the the Moskva as I couldn’t see Jack and Rose in the water

        • Yes, ouch, a bit like when they laughed at the propulsion problems on the T45s only for short time later a crane to collapse onto their aircraft carrier and effectively sink it.

    • Thanks for that detailed overview mate.

      Interestingly, I’ve asked about the reddy brown paint before as to why Russia paint their decks like that.

      • You’re welcome, though I do stand corrected on the hoses. I have been looking at the image on and off for a bit now, as well as the video. I agree with Civvy’s take on it.

        Hope you’re well.

          • Even the capstans on the FX were painted port red and white strbd green and white Decks were green paint with sand in the mix too makeit nonskid masts were black along with funnel conning HMS Exeter had a sky blue boot topping an area from the waterline about 3 foot up the shipside all round the Hull after 82 we all went grey

    • Lusty, Unless we get a picture of Fwd or the stbd side there is no saying what the damage was like. The list could be counter flooding to lift the friken big hole that may be in Stbd out of the water!
      Smoke spread looks total though, fwd to aft and it was the thick black choking stuff that kills in mins few. Bet they dont do Elsas so anyone inside was going to be in a world of hurt trying to find an upper deck exit.

      • Indeed! I don’t want to speculate too much on the damage. One can’t quite see enough, though I would hope for images from the other side to help our analysis!

    • It is starkly obvious that her S300 and OSA missiles systems either failed to work or simply were not used! In another photo of the ship, the photo clearly shows the S300 rotary launchers. None of them have their hatches open. Furthermore, the S300’s tracking radar (cone shaped antenna on hangar roof) is in the parked position, i.e. facing aft. The two OSA silos either side of the flight deck, have not been deployed. Also both if their tracking radars are in the parked position facing aft. If there was a power failure they would have stayed in the deployed position along with the radars facing the threat. With regards to the Ak603 CIWS. There are two located behind the twin 130mm gun mount plus another two pairs mounted either side amidships next to the second lower mast. They use three tracking radars, one just in front of the bridge, with one each either side above the AK603 mounts.

      The position of the port AK603s is where the majority of the smoke was coming from. Which was covering the AK603s, so it wasn’t possible to see if they were pointing away from the ship.

      It may be that the ship’s crew believed much like the INS Hanit, there was no threat and therefore did not have the S300 and OSA or the AK603 radars operating. But there is also the more likely probability that the ship’s 3D search radars simply did not see the two Neptunes. The ship’s ESM “should” have detected the Neptune’s active radar. Which would then have cascaded events to activate the ship’s defences. Clearly looking at the status of the S300 hatches/radar and the OSA silos and its tracking radar, this didn’t happen!

  16. Looks to me as if she was hit amidships well above the waterline which caused a fire. Pretty much like poor old HMS Sheffield. Which begs the question why is she listing? Either exploding ammunition has caused hull damage or, more likely, the water pumped in to fight the fire has collected in open compartments. Now I’m not a navy type but I would have thought that if you are in a warzone you’d have all of your compartments closed up as a matter of routine? Also I would expect that you’d make some effort to counter flood opposite compartments to even up the list? Seems to me that the management of the damage control is pretty poor.

  17. That ship was horrifically mauled by whatever hit it. Just seeing that image, and not having many other hard facts, I would imagine the loss of life to have been pretty high.

  18. Hopefully plenty of crew remain on board to ensure success on its special underwater operation. Would hate to see it fail.

  19. Some in the media, harp on that the Moskva was a bigger loss than the Belgrano. The public info, I have to hand, says Moskva 12500t full load, 613 ft long (Conway’s fighting ships). Belgrano 12403 tonnes full load, 608 ft long (Whitley, Cruisers of WW2). So, not a lot in it really.

  20. Sorry to say this but hopefully a lot more Russian ships can be sunk at sea and along the southern coast thd Asov. Like lots of people I’m absolutely appalled at the comprehensive destruction Mariupol. What absolute evil bastards Putin and his forces are! May 🇺🇦 sink as many 🇷🇺 ships as they can, shoot their bloody helicopters and aircraft and missiles put of the sky and… if all the Russian forcesare standing around gloating waiting for the last of Ukrainian forces to give in I hope somehow that a counter attack can be launched to blast all their tanks, trucks to smitherines!!
    And may God almighty or somebody do something pretty spectacular to absolutely F up their May 9th Red Square parade!!! Strength to Ukraine 🇺🇦, its people , its forces and its president! 🇦🇺 🇳🇿 🇬🇧 We’re with you in spirit and armaments!!

      • The Ukrainians have mentioned just that little idea , Russia have stated anything like that would be an act of Terrorism , Well they started it dishing out terror and now they don’t like the taste of their own medicine Hope the Ukrainians do it

        • It gave me an idea.

          The Ukrainians have one of Moskva’s sister ships in one of their ports. They should just paint it to look a bit like a Russian ship, fire up the engines and stuff it full of explosives. When that’s done, they should ram Putin’s bridge with it, evacuate (I mean, the could blag it?) and set the explosives off. Call it a modern HMS Campbletown!

          (Yes, internet, I am mostly joking)

  21. Some very interesting questions raised on this thread as well as some very knowledgeable answers. Whilst not a matlow , I feel that the Western navies took heed of what happened to:
    INS Eilat 1967
    Sheffield/Atlantic Conveyer/Glamorgan 1982
    USS Stark 1987
    INS Hanit 2006
    As mentioned, the RN took to mitigating the effects of a strike by making the inside of the ship as fire proof as they could. But there’s more since the 2000s Western (and Russian) ships have taken to stealth The Moskva was anything but stealth its radar cross section stood out worse than I would at a National front barn dance, as somebody mentioned on another thread, the CIWS on Western Ships work independently , going back to the list above:
    Israel taking note of the Eilat went out of its way to develop jamming tech, which is why 6 years later at the Battle of Latakia they took on the Syrian Navy off the coast of Syria taking on Russian supplied missile boats armed with the Styx Missile which had twice the legs of the Israel Gabriel they took out the ships the Syrian Navy sent and successfully jammed the incoming missiles.

    Sheffield shouldn’t have happened as the radar was turned off in which to allow the Marisat to be used. Atlantic Conveyor huge civy ship nothing more could be done, Glamorgan was interesting as the Captain had time to turn the ship so the stern was facing the incoming missile which mitigated the effect of the missile somewhat.

    USS Stark was hit by 2 missiles , both of which the ships radar and CIWS failed to pick up, but what I found interesting is the ships Captain had the starboard side flooded in which to keep the holes in the portside above the water line.

    The Hanit was pure stupidity after receiving warnings that Hezballah may have the 802 anti-ship missile one of the officer disabled the ships anti-missile defence system, but by sheer luck the incoming missile hit the ships crane which detonated the missile outside the ship and which took the brunt of the attack, unfortunately 4 sailors died , but it could have been a lot worse.

    As other have stated lessons have been learnt by the West, as mentioned fireproofing the internals of the ship, not underestimating the enemy , then there’s the ECM and the anti-missile systems.
    HMS Gloucester shot down a silkworm missile aimed at the USS Missouri in 1991

    In Oct 2016 the USS Mason was targeted on 3 separate occasions by 9 anti-ship missiles (2-2-5) due to ECM. AAA , decoys and luck all 9 missiles failed to hit a target.

    My point the West appear to have learnt from the above incidents (and no doubt others) But the Russians appear not to have, for a start they completely underestimated the Ukrainians, maybe the very public request for anti-ship missiles from the Uk a few days before lulled them into complacency, which could explain why the ship was on a rail road track affording the Ukrainians the ability to plot exactly where the ship was going to be, finally the ship was built in the Ukraine so Kyiv knew only too well the limits of the ships weapons, electronics, radar coverage etc. Which kind of sums up the entire bunfight where Russia is coming out with never mind the quality feel the width, and the Ukraine is doing the the exact opposite

    So once again thanks for all the informative posts

    • “ was built in the Ukraine so Kyiv knew only too well the limits of the ships weapons, electronics, radar coverage etc”

      Just like the Argentinians understood T42?

    • Very informative Farouk. Thx. Russian tech seems pretty poor ( as is training etc). So the Moskova was just a big target. Didn’t see incoming. Got hit. BIG fire and lots LOTs of smoke thro ship. Power goes out straight away so minimal firefighting from crew. Water sprayed in, surface effect….capsizes.

    • Stealthy design great for Radar Cross section Destroyer the size of a Canoe But heat ammission is still a dead give away

  22. Just thinking out loud here…sometimes dangerous and I cede any point I make to the Navy types. Is it at all practical for us to send the Mastiff’s etc. by sea, given that we would be in international waters until we got to within Ukranian national waters. I was thinking about one of the Point class with an escort?

    • That would be asking for trouble. Better to send overload, using numerous border crossings from the several neighbouring NATO countries.

      Even if Turkey allowed a Point class through the straits, it wouldn’t allow an escort warship. Assuming the Point made it to Odessa, the Russians would just target the offloading site with cruise-missiles to destroy them in a single strike.

    • Turkey has closed the Bosphorus/Dardanelles to warships of all nations. They’re only allowing vessels returning to their Black Sea bases through. They’re unlikely to allow an escort through, and a Point might be considered as a military vessel if it had such a cargo.

      Not only that, but there are reports that the sea has been mined, Russia still has numerous warships in the area and both sides have a lot of individuals with very itchy trigger fingers right now. The fog of war is dangerous. It would be a disaster if either side were to let loose with a volley of missiles, drone strikes or air strikes. I can imagine the first NATO vessels into the Black Sea after the war will be MCM and survey ships.

      It is a lot safer to train/truck/fly the equipment in.

  23. Google Maps ‘opens access to satellite imagery of Russian military bases’

    Google Maps has reportedly opened access to high-resolution satellite imagery of Russian military bases.

    Iuliia, Mendel, a former spokesperson for President Zelensky, wrote: “Google revealed on its maps all strategic and military objects of the Russian Federation. Thank you @Google!”

    • Deluded dictator invaded peaceful, democratic neighbor on trumped up excuses while that Uklraines “allies” sat on their hands failing to deter or stop it.

    • Only Dr Robert Ballard and the team that found the Titanic if they find the Moskva they would give a non bias opinion on what happened such as that the Titanic actually broke in two prior too sinking

  25. Forgive my perhaps slightly ignorant question, what are the oddly equally spaced burn marks along the top of the hull caused by?

    • Hi Ross. Imagine the ship like a burning log; It doesn’t all burn at once. The fire has swept forward from just before the flight deck. Those marks are made from smoke staining. The fact that that part of the ship is no longer burning means that the fire has burnt everything burnable in that part of the ship and moved on.

    • Portholes/scuppers. The fires blew the glass out and hence the smoke marks. Its a good indication that the spread of smoke was not controlled and the inside was probably full of toxic choking smoke.
      Its the smoke that kills you. A few lung fulls and you are fewked. In the RN Post Falklands we had ELSA. You stuck a plastic bag on your head(ignore what your mum said to you as a kid!) and turn on the compressed air supply. Gave you maybe 5 – 8mins to escape to the upper deck. Nowadays the kit is a bit more advanced but still involves a bag on your head!

      • I haven’t seen any “before” photos of the Moskva with portholes. It’s possible they are only on one side. But, I think not.

        • She had portholes down both sides, as well as a hatch covering her torpedo tubes. You can’t really see them in this image, but I expect the smoke damage will marry up to some of the portholes.

      • The cellophane hood did get us worried too start with but we were reassured by Staff that if it had started too melt you were already a goner Such uplifting advice cheers FOST

          • Jonathan They fed us with duty free booze and Fags hoping we wouldn’t reach retirement age unlucky MOD and I’ll never have too wear a once only suit ,A noddy suit s10 or get my hair cut now what do I do I’ve been put out to pasture I know get a bus pass and annoy Civvies looking at the ships in Portsmouth

    • I suspect, the Ukrianian Navy learned from their attack on Admiral Essen on the 4th, and used heat imagery of their dual mode seeker. Which translates to very short reaction times.

      The hits are in the main machinery in the center, setting off the aft Bazalt-battery and creating a big hole at the waterline, the aft hit into the aux machinery, setting up a blast through the vessel. So, those smoke plumes are going outside forward. I suspect, most people in the interior of the aft section had been death, instantly.

      We should talk about the strategic implications.

      The close blockade of the coast has become impossible, the threath of an amphibious assault is gone, and the Russian Navy cannot risk vessels to support the fighting in Cherson.

      So, the Ukrianians will regroup and try to encircle the 22nd army group at Cherson, which happens to be the formation defending Crimea.

      I cannot think of a single event having a larger strategic impact.

  26. So just come across this vid of a counter attack by Ukrainian troops (UAV camera) in Maripul, whislt not graphic it is somewhat disturbing in that you are seeing the last minutes of somebodies life. That said, it shows that the Russians are taking a beating also at the 1 minute 10 mark+ the Ukrainian soldier lobs Grenades over a wall, which gives me the impression that they are using UAVs as eyes in the sky in real time.

    • The worst one I have seen by far is a group of Ukrainian soldiers clustered around a captured BMP. They had been taking photos of it and examining the area (it looked to be in a ditch at the side of a roadblock). At that point, two or three tanks turn up and just blast them. It sounds like they were Russian tanks, although they might have been Ukrainians mistaking them for the enemy. It was filmed from two locations: one guy was in a car in the middle of the road and one guy filmed his own death. It looked like a few guys were off to the sides.. no idea what happened to them.

      The thing about social media is that the public are seeing things that would normally only torture the guys who were there. We have seen it arguably since 2010 or so, with the Arab Spring.

      • That was a really terrible incident. If you have seen the full version (from the dead guy’s phone) there are two tanks coming down the road. The soldiers see them and ignore them, as they are Ukrainian, concentrating on getting souveniers off the Russian BMP in the ditch. For some reason the lead tank gunner thinks that the soldiers are Russians out of said BMP and fires at them. The site was geo-located and the nearest Russians were 10 or more miles away.

    • Also the Russkies are using civvy vehicles and a red van! Attempts at being covert to either escape or get to their objective, or just shit logistics and they have to rob civvy motors?

      • They’ve had to resort to civilian vehicles in some areas and roles since about mid way through their push on Kyiv due to shortages.

      • Both sides are. The Ukrainians are too as its often now easier to get petrol for cars than it is diesel for military or similar transport. An estimated third of Ukrainian garages are now shut due to lack of fuel supply.

        • But then again the Ukrainian vehicles used will be Ukrainian owned and the ones used by the Russian rapists will be stolen Ukrainian! But if your Russian amateurs stopped running away and leaving their kit unattended then they may still have some green fleet to utilise!

      • They have been for a while mate. There’s a video somewhere of a train loaded with civilian vehicles heading for the front. I guess it might make sense to use civilian lorries for logistical support, but the train looked like a mobile classic car auction!

    • Farouk Not worth trying too Duck and Cover when a grenade comes over the wall and there’s a UAV above you ,oh and you couldn’t get under the Van because of all yer Mates have selfishly blocked your way with their dead bodies whoops

  28. Saw a brief video with many lifeboats deployed. Surprised to see so many. Not wishing for dead conscripts, but, I think that is the only way to convince the Russian public that they are victims of a vast propaganda machine. That or a military coup is about the only way this ends.

    • Richard posts on soviet media websites I call Russian soviet now anyway posts about the crew of the Moskva losing their life’s had been posted by family members and then all of a sudden the posts disappeared just like the Moskva Soviet Propaganda and media strangle hold in action

      • You presume they could be activated. Probably half of the parts were broken or sold on the black market. Just like the Emperor the Russian armed Forces have no clothes.

      • Yes spanking number two on the way to the Russians. Putin is such a genius, launching his offensive with defeated troops at a time when all off road movement is impossible. Expect some pucker Ukrainian ambushes and lots of flying turret rings.

    • The Sheffield CIWs was a 7alpha 20mm oielikan a couple of Lmgs and some SLRs Not including Her Mk8 if you mean close in weapons systems Dan

  30. On a general note there are reports of a big increase in Russian air, both missile and aircraft, attacks tonight. Phase 2 may have started.

    • Yeah Putin hasn’t murdered enough innocent Ukrainians yet so he’s having another go. I guess this time he’s hoping his forces don’t get a severe beating like they did in the North before they were routed.

    • I’ve yet to work out what putin can get out of a new attack. Unless Russia can take over all of Ukraine and get the population on side, the fighting won’t stop. Some say he will try for Donbas and a land bridge to Crimea. What then? Ask Ukraine for peace? I think the answer will be no chance.
      Sooner Russia withdraw the better for all life involved

    • ‘Must try harder’.

      I don’t see how manoeuvring a poorly led and supplied army painfully slowly to a new front is going to improve its performance. It could stay in Russia and kill civilians – children, old people, human beings, – just as effectively from there.

    • Which means more targets for the Ukrainians to destroy, more rapists masquerading as soldiers to kill and more embarrassing footage for Putin of his army running like fuck away!

    • And phase 2? Don’t say it like it was planned, this is an excuse for the previous cluster fucks Putins incompetent military carried out! Phase 2, no such thing, it’s called “try to win something before May 9th”.

  32. Hopefully the resupplying of 🇺🇦 forces is happening apace in quantity, quality and effectiveness and we’ll be hearing of further push back against Russian forces around the country and to truly rain on 🇷🇺 May 9th parade.

  34. So the ship that caught fire after an explosion(caused by a missile), and all the crew (who were alive afterwards) evacuated, and sank during a stormy wave (caused by it rolling over and going under water), while they (tried to) tow it away. See its quite easy to write propaganda statements and put them in a positive light. Though the alternative that the fire was caused by poor training, poor ammunition stowage, poor damage control, poor design and maintenance could be equally plausible. And having all those rocket propelled explosive devices unprotected wouldn’t help.

    • Nick people like Putin understand that the normal Russian People would not be able too handle the truth if they did then people like Putin wouldn’t be alive There’d have been strung up and desecrated years ago ,So telling porkies is the only way he can stay in power

  35. Will Dr Robert Ballard be on standby too find the Moskva and put the story of what really happened too her to bed ,she’s not as deep as the Tiranic

  37. Not related but as UKDj hasnt got onto this issue yet. Janes defence news website has posted an article about Serbia wanting to purchase ex RAF Eurofighter typhoons and a smaller number of new jets as long as Meteor missile system included in sale.
    This is slightly dodgy in terms of advanced weaponry as Meteor is our best BVR missile. The chances of the missile ending up in Russian or Chinese hands are very high.
    I guess if UK refuses the sale then France will sell Rafale with the missile to Serbia

    • Serbia were also looking into Riafels too Purchase, probably as you put Buy, package up and ship to Russia or China Mr bell

    • As the missiles are designed and built by MBDA (UK). The UK Government will have a veto over their sale regardless of the platform they are intending to be fitted to.

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