"All of Vlad's forces and all of Vlad's men, are out to put Humpty together again." (18 Viewers)

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JDCAVE said:
The article stated "The claim reveals that the Top Pair radar couldn't distinguish the Neptunes flying over the sea from the crests of the waves due to the stormy weather."

I'd be surprised if this was the case. Even my 4' open array radar has anti sea clutter capability. Surely the Russians would have some pretty sophisticated systems that would have the capability to filter interference from sea-state. I think the radar operators just weren't paying attention. Or for some reason had turned off alarms/alerts possibly due to false alarms received to that point.
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Just after that the article dismiss that idea:

"These claims lack a solid basis, as the ship in question is a cruiser with good air defense capabilities."

And further below elaborate why dismessed it:

"On the other hand, it is not reasonable to compare a search radar (MR -800 Voshkod/Top Pair) with a tracking radar (3P41 Volna). Prior to the introduction of fixed face AESA radar technology, warships use search radars to detect air contacts. If the air operator believes the contact is a threat, he/she forwards the contact to the tracking radar to illuminate the target for surface-to-air missiles. Tracking radars are not there to "detect" a target, but to illuminate the contact that has already been detected by the search radar. These two types of radars are pieces of a puzzle that serve the same purpose.

Also, these radars may have some blind sectors due to the structure of the ship, but there are other radars to cover the blind sectors, just like the Slava class cruisers have more than one radar (Top Dome, 2xPop Group, 3xBass Tilt, Kite Screech fire control radar). So this ship can continuously track the air contacts, even if the contact moves into the blind sector of the radar, the operator can forward the contact to another tracker and keep following.


As mentioned above, the sea state was not tough to hide the sea-skimming missile from radar. Even if there was a tough sea, the search radar would detect it, but it might have some difficulties in maintaining the contact due to the sea clutter. When the sea state is high, the missile's flying altitude gets higher because the missile's altimeter adjusts the altitude from the wavetop.

Slava-class cruisers are equipped with the 4xRum Tub electronic support system, which can detect Neptune anti-ship missiles' radar seekers. After detecting the radar seeker, the ship would have about 2 minutes to defend against the missile. In addition, the Moskva was armed with 6x30mm/AK630 close-in weapon systems that have their own radar and are capable of detecting and engaging the incoming missiles themselves."
 
Suitable poignant Death's Head image of the War:

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Some time ago (~20 years) I read a summary on the radars of the then most advanced ships in the Russian fleet. One of the things that stuck in my mind is that the non-phased array search radars did not have automated detection alert, ie they relied on the operator to sort the return from the clutter. Some sort of hand-off system was then employed by the operator to give the target to the fire control radar. It was considered a significant weakness. Also, the AK630 weapons system was not used in the automatic mode unless the ship knew it was under attack (not sure why, the report did not give operational reasons).

Also, if the Ukrainians had solid targeting intel, it is possible that the Neptunes did not need to turn on their radar until about 20 sec before impact.

Edit: To clarify, the non-phased array radars had capabilities like moving target indicator, and some included track while scan, but the operator had to tell the radar what was important and had to inform/hand-off the target to the fire control system operator/radar. Kind of like the early AWG-9 system in the F-14 Tomcat.
 
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Obviously I don't know but my suspicion is that it's the training and culture of the crew and the service is likely to have been the major problem. Not the equipment on board the ship itself.

The maximum time the crew would have had was approx. two minutes. As the article rightly says the response needs to be instant, there is no time to pass anything up the chain of command. Immediately the ship would need to start strong evasive manoeuvres, chaff and other decoys fired/initiated and the defensive weapons activated.

In a culture where no one is allowed to show initiative, this is a big ask. It's one that would go against every fibre in the crews lifetime experience and that, in a situation where every second counts, could easily have been the recipe for disaster.

People would want to double check before pushing the alarms because they were afraid of making a mistake. Alternatively, or possibly as well as decisions could have been escalated because they were afraid of making a decision. It all takes time that they didn't have.
 
If the search radar system operator did not detect/notice the target at max detection range (say 20 miles), and the missile did not turn on its radar until a time of 20 sec before impact, it is possible the missile would not have been detected/noticed by the RWR/ECM system until it was at a range of 2.5-3 miles.
 
Regarding automatic mode on the Moskva's CIGS, I've been told that the USN had to turn off the auto mode of its Phalanx due to its propensity (possibly fixed) to shoot the tips off helicopter rotor blades.
 
swampyankee said:
Regarding automatic mode on the Moskva's CIGS, I've been told that the USN had to turn off the auto mode of its Phalanx due to its propensity (possibly fixed) to shoot the tips off helicopter rotor blades.
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I recall a similar story when Phalanx first entered service. It was reputedly so sensitive that it would engage an incoming missile...and then proceed to shoot down all the debris after the missile exploded. It sounds cool except that the system was expending all its rounds trying to hit ever smaller pieces of shrapnel. I understand they fixed that "feature".
 
Update on the Moskva:

Some 40 sailors were killed, several are missing and many more were wounded in the sinking of the warship Moskva, the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta Europe reports quoting the mother of a sailor believed to be on board.

The mother said her son told her in a phone call that the Moskva, the flagship of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, had been hit by three missiles from land, from Ukrainian territory.

"He called me and was crying because of what he had seen. It was terrifying," she said, adding that she herself was terrified of having to wait for him to finish his service.

He said he would not give her the details of what he had seen because it was so terrible, adding that many of the wounded had lost limbs because of the explosions.

The newspaper has not named the sailor or his mother to protect them.

But it says it has documentary evidence which makes it plausible that the sailor was serving on the Moskva.

Russia's defence ministry has so far given no word of any casualties in the sinking. However, earlier we reported that Radio Liberty had confirmed the death of Midshipman Ivan Vakhrushev.

Meanwhile the ministry on Saturday posted video which it says is of the ship's sailors meeting the commander of the Russian Navy in Sevastopol.

It blames the sinking on a fire on board the ship and stormy weather. Ukraine says it hit the Moskva with two missiles.

Novaya Gazeta Europe was set up earlier this month to get around Russia's crackdown on media freedom. Its Russian counterpart suspended its operations in March after being repeatedly threatened with closure over its coverage of the invasion of Ukraine.
 
Glider said:
People would want to double check before pushing the alarms because they were afraid of making a mistake. Alternatively, or possibly as well as decisions could have been escalated because they were afraid of making a decision. It all takes time that they didn't have.
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As Cary Grant said in Destination Tokio: "That's all right, son. I'd rather submerge for one hundred birds, than NOT submerge for one plane." when they submerge due to a bird sighting.

BTW, is kind of puzzling for me that the RF army, navy, AF and security services don't incentive low rank autonomy for the battlefield. They are fighting like the Red Army in WW2.

Man, that was some 80 years ago! The battlefield has evolved!

If is true that Uncle Vlad is so interested in history, specially for the USSR and its falla, It seems that he didn't learn anything. Or he had been fed truely awful lies about the readiness state of the RF armed forces.
 
Escuadrilla Azul said:
BTW, is kind of puzzling for me that the RF army, navy, AF and security services don't incentive low rank autonomy for the battlefield. They are fighting like the Red Army in WW2.
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That would be flying in the face of centuries of Russian/Soviet/Imperial culture. Overly capable and overly autonomous subordinates are unruly and threats to the command structure. Their society is not geared to produce the educated, self-motivated, and self-disciplined young folks that our recruiters get to chose from, nor are they economically able to provide the standard of living and professional pride that would make voluntary enlistment attractive enough to retire the conscription system. Now before you burst out in criticism of American youth, realize I'm talking relative terms here.
Before you can trust your troops with any level of initiative and autonomy, you've got to make them more capable and competent than can be expected in a one year enlistment. And you've got to change the training, habits, and attitudes of the officers and NCOs, which is well nigh impossible in a paranoid, top-down power structure such as exists in Stalin/Putin-land.
I was in the Navy when CNO Zumwalt tried to initiate modest changes in the deeply ingrained culture of the service, and the reactions were seismic, culminating In racial tensions and turf riots on ships in combat ops on Yankee Station and Dixie Station..
 
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It has been mentioned up-thread, but I will bring it up the 'True Believer' again.

I do not think that most of us understand the mentality of the majority of ruling class in the RF, or as least maybe we can understand but continue to figure that they would think like us. Mind you, the majority of the RF population are not 'True Believers' - like in most other societies the majority just want to be allowed to live their lives in peace.

When the USSR went down, a new social hierarchy arose, populated by many of the same families that had controlled the society under the Soviet government/Communist Party since the end of the Stalin era. These people had lived and worked for years under the Soviet social system, where if you went along with the Party line you were more likely to succeed than people who did not go along with the Party line. Many parents, who wanted their children to succeed under the new/post-USSR system, continued much of the old Party social system. The parents sent their children to the 'right' schools - schools that taught only what the ruling class wanted taught, ie a structure of beliefs that aided their continued control of the country(s). In many ways it was continuation of the same system that existed under the Communist Party, except that the new ruling class had less visible successful reality to build their system on.

(In some ways this is no different than what goes on in other societies. Some parents send their children to the 'right' schools, where they meet the 'right' people, and make social connections that will hopefully help them succeed in life. Sound familiar?)

There are now at least 2 'True Believer' generations of people in the RF. The 1st from the post-WWII reality adjustment under the Communist Party, their children being the 2nd from the post-Iron Curtain reality adjustment, with a 3rd generation in the offing.

I first ran into a 'True Believer' who had immigrated to the US about 2015, at the American Airlines Cargo facility in Bloomington MN. While we waited for our respective packages to arrive, he proceeded to explain to me that Russia was the seat of western civilization, not Egypt, Greece, Rome, Persia, (whoever), etal. He then went on to explain how the Cyrillic alphabet is the basis for all western alphabets, not the Greek and Arabic. And that most of the significant sudden progress type of developments had originated in Russia, and spread to the other western nations. When I brought up that in most of the Western nations we are taught otherwise, he explained that we had been lied to, and brainwashed into believing alternate facts (he actually used that term). The reasoning and convoluted logic and history train he presented made a certain amount of sense - IF you had never been exposed to any real evidence of the contrary. He was 45 years old and was the son of a fairly well-to-do former Communist Party member, now a member of the RF government.

It needs to be remembered that Putin grew up in this culture - he was born in 1952.

It should be noted that the West did not help matters by continuously attempting to undermine the Soviet government from the time it formed at the end of WWI, through the 20s, with a brief respite during the Depression and WWII, and then beginning again in the late 40s and continuing through to the fall of the Iron Curtain. Then came the whole sanction thing over civil rights, the US unilaterally abrogating the SALT treaty, etc. This history of behavior would breed a paranoia in any society that had more brain cells than an amoeba.

There are many other things that can be said relate to the subject, but I think that would venture too far into the politics arena.
 
buffnut453 said:
I recall a similar story when Phalanx first entered service. It was reputedly so sensitive that it would engage an incoming missile...and then proceed to shoot down all the debris after the missile exploded. It sounds cool except that the system was expending all its rounds trying to hit ever smaller pieces of shrapnel. I understand they fixed that "feature".
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On USS Stark both the radar ops and Phalanx failed to detect and engage two Exocets. Bad luck happens, though FFG-31 luckily survived the event.
 
SaparotRob said:
U.S.S. Stark, frigate, 2 Exocets, remained afloat. Moskva, guided missie cruiser, 2 Neptuns , sunk.
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Yep, sometimes luck is not on your side. HMS Sheffield was sunk after a single Exocet hit that didn't even detonate. Meanwhile the destroyer HMS Glamorgan was hit by an Exocet and sailed herself back to Portsmouth.
 
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