"All of Vlad's forces and all of Vlad's men, are out to put Humpty together again." (254 Viewers)

[BobB]

"Rumours have also began circulating in Ukrainian media that Admiral Igor Osipov - the commander of Russia's Black Sea fleet which the Moskva led - has been arrested in what would be the latest in a string of detentions linked to the bungled invasion.

Leonid Nevzlin, a Russian-Israeli businessman who fled the country in 2003 after being targeted by Putin, said yesterday that 20 Russian generals have been arrested over the military's failings along with 150 FSB officers for providing false information about Ukraine's defences."

 

[buffnut453]

Photo allegedly shows damaged Moskva. Take it at whatever value you place on Tweets:

 

[GrauGeist]

wow...looks like she was hit hard amidship, possibly in the superstructure, too.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Photo allegedly shows damaged Moskva. Take it at whatever value you place on Tweets:

Looks like a legit pic.

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[Thumpalumpacus]

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..

A one-year hitch is not a lot of time. Even a dingbat fireman like myself had 16 weeks of BMT and tech-school, just to grad as an apprentice, entrusted with a firehose when SHTF but nothing else. It took another six months of OJT and some book study to get my -50 level appointment as a "journeyman" -- USAF term.

Now how much more complex is a ship and its systems? It sounds to me like the RF military is in the habit of plugging warm bodies into personnel slots and calling it a day ... but anyone who's served knows that on stuff like this 1) recruits make mistakes in direct proportion to their inexperience and 2) mistakes in combat (or a fireground, for that matter) can and do kill people.

U.S.S. Stark, frigate, 2 Exocets, remained afloat. Moskva, guided missie cruiser, 2 Neptuns , sunk.

If the Ukrainian reports are accurate. they hit it with two 330-lb warheads. An Exocet has a slightly larger ~370-lb warhead so the Stark took a little more payload onto a smaller hull. But where they hit matters. A bridge hit hurts. An engineering hit is dangerous. A magazine hit ... well, you know ... The Stark was knocked out of action, but the captain and crew took action to keep the second hit -- which actually exploded and blew out some hull -- out of the water.

I'm kinda second-guessing myself right now and wondering if those Russian sailors saved their ship from a magazine hit? It would explain the two apparently-contradictory accounts.

In any event, 650-700 lbs of explosive coming aboard quickly is bad for your health. Given the Russian butthurt being shown, I'm in agreement that Ukrainian missiles docked it on the seabed.

It looks like Putin's in "oh yeah?!" mode.

 

[Admiral Beez]

But where they hit matters. A bridge hit hurts. An engineering hit is dangerous. A magazine hit ... well, you know ... The Stark was knocked out of action, but the captain and crew took action to keep the second hit -- which actually exploded and blew out some hull -- out of the water.

Agreed. HMS Glamorgan managed to turn the ship so that the detected incoming Exocet partially glanced off. Her radar ops and command folks were up to the task.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Photo allegedly shows damaged Moskva. Take it at whatever value you place on Tweets:

The damage to the stern bespeaks a major and long-lasting fire.

 

[GrauGeist]

The damage to the stern bespeaks a major and long-lasting fire.

Look at the superstructure in that photo, damn-near all of it's radar array is gone along with what appears to be portions of the structure itself.
One of the Neptunes had to have hit at or near to cause such damage.

 

[SaparotRob]

To paraphrase a reply to the tweet, wasn't there supposed to be bad weather?

 

[GrauGeist]

To paraphrase a reply to the tweet, wasn't there supposed to be bad weather?

I think the Russians meant to say it was "bad whether or not".
You know how translating Cyrillic to English can have it's complications

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Look at the superstructure in that photo, damn-near all of it's radar array is gone along with what appears to be portions of the structure itself.
One of the Neptunes had to have hit at or near to cause such damage.

Sure, it's holed upper-side and from the color of the smoke it's clear that there's some fire that hasn't met water.

I just wanted to point out that the stern damage bespeaks something very bad happening there. Missing plating, discoloration, and what seems to be structural damage to the hull.

 

[ThomasP]

 

[GrauGeist]

Sure, it's holed upper-side and from the color of the smoke it's clear that there's some fire that hasn't met water.

I just wanted to point out that the stern damage bespeaks something very bad happening there. Missing plating, discoloration, and what seems to be structural damage to the hull.

And the hangar door blown open, too.

 

[GrauGeist]

View attachment 665098

русский корабль, иди нахуй !

 

[WARSPITER]

In any event, 650-700 lbs of explosive coming aboard quickly is bad for your health. Given the Russian butthurt being shown, I'm in agreement that Ukrainian missiles docked it on the seabed.

Just to put that in perspective, the AP mk8 16" shell as used on the Iowa class had a bursting charge of 40.9 pounds.

 

[XBe02Drvr]

Just to put that in perspective, the AP mk8 16" shell as used on the Iowa class had a bursting charge of 40.9 pounds.

Creates its own shrapnel as it plows through the armor. Doesn't need too much charge to spread it around once it's in. Guaranteed to set off any flammables or explodables inside.

 

[XBe02Drvr]

Photo allegedly shows damaged Moskva. Take it at whatever value you place on Tweets:

A hit in a missile magazine? Doesn't look good for the bridge crew. Skipper was KIA, wasn't he? Not good for damage control management.

 

[swampyankee]

A hit in a missile magazine? Doesn't look good for the bridge crew. Skipper was KIA, wasn't he? Not good for damage control management.

A friend and former USN officer (he retired as the captain of a DDG) said he was told the Exocet destroyed the damage control center, making it more difficult to deal with the fires.

 

[Denniss]

So the russians were not lying when they stated a fire aboard caused an ammo explosion. They just omitted the cause of the fire (did not self-ignite) and made up the storm as final cause of sinking.
The fire and smoke marks show a blast rocking through the whole ship indicating the crew on a weekend trip but not in a combat zone where you would have your watertight doors closed. With that fire still raging near/around the big missiles it just needs to get hot enought to set off their propellant and it's gone.

 

[J_P_C]

something about quality of soviet/russian ship defense systems in compare to US made. When ive served in Polish Navy we have been donated by US two old OHP frigates which replaced ORP Warszawa - 1980 era mod Kashin class destroyer. Till this even very often my unit have been tasked with simulating sea skimmer attack on Warszawa with TS-11 advanced trainer jets. Basically take off from OPCE airfield and flying very low profile to the position of the ship trying to surprise it's AD systems. When OHPs being introduced my friend serving in CIC of the one of the OHPs said that this exercise has loosed all sense - "we have seen this airplane basically when they started taxing on the runway and keep tracking them independently to the best efforts of pilots" - polish coastal is quite flat - there is no terrain profile you may really hide, but russian radar was unable to detect the same airplane in the same training condition until pilot made error or crossed Hel peninsula line.