The Sinking of the Moskva, Part 1
This is part 1. For part 2, go here...
As a wargamer and a former member of the US Navy, the sinking of the Russian Black Sea's flagship Moskva, is of extreme interest to me. A US Sailor has many jobs on a ship. My primary job was to maintain and operate anti-aircraft missile radars. The slew of secondary jobs included security watches, damage control, fire fighting (which is not the same thing as fire control), hull preservation and of course, cleaning.
Other than the Internet, warships are the most complected machines built by man. And they require countless man hours to keep the ready to fight. As such, the US Navy has extensive schools to train their personnel. In my case, I was trained in their advanced electronics program, and from boot camp to stepping onboard my first ship was 20 months. And after that another 27 weeks on other equipment and logistics. My example was higher than normal compared to the average sailor, but it offers an insight on how seriously the US Navy regards training to keeping their ships operational. But a machine can only take so much, and regardless of the quality of the crews, ships have to be retired.
The sea is a harsh environment. The salt air is corrosive, and choppy water is constantly vibrating the equipment, causing loose connections and breakages. And in high seas, both man and machine take a battering. I have a lot of stories my tenure in the Navy, from 1975 to 1982, and I wrote them up in a blog called, Stories of the Cold War at https://storiesofthecoldwar.blogspot.com/
My time in the navy has given me an insight into the sinking of the Russian Cruiser, Moskva, née Slava. When I was in, the Slava's were the Soviet's latest and greatest achievements. They were described as "Fleet Killers." Their specifications were amazing. 16 Vulkan missiles. Each missile weighs over 5 tons, carrying a 1 ton warhead at mach 3 to a range of 300 miles. And as impressive as that is, their fire control was amazing as well. The Vulkans were designed to operate in swarms, in order to overwhelm the defenses of their targets. One missile would go to altitude and scan the target area, and try to pick out the carrier in the fleet, and assign the targets to its mates that were traveling at 50 meters. If the targeting missile was shot down, another of the swarm would rise and take its place. In theory, half the swarm would target the carrier, the other half in 1's and 2's would target the carrier's escorts. Would it have worked? No one knows. If it had worked as designed, a single Slava would ruin the day for a carrier task force.
When the Slava was designed and built, this is what we Americans would have to defend a carrier. A couple of cruisers with twin Terrier AA missile batteries, a couple of destroyers with a single terrier or tarter missile battery. The Phalanx Close in Weapon System existed, but was not widely deployed. The Aegis system had not yet been deployed.
What does a Terrier or Tarter battery look like? Terrier was a mid range missile, official range was 40 miles. Tarter was 20 miles. Officially Terrier had already been renamed Standard Missile Extended Range, SM/ER
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Two Terrier missiles on the rails. Terrier has been renamed Standard Missile, Extended Range, SM/ER for short, while Tarter, was the same missile, sans booster was renamed Standard Missile, Medium Range.
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Terrier and Tarter were "Beam Riders", meaning they were launched into a radar beam that was pointing at the target. They had enough intelligence to stay in the beam until they got a signal to go active. The beam and the signals were radiated from their fire control radars.
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The Fire Control Radar AN/SPG-55B for Terrier. FYI, these were my babies for a couple of years.
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Fire control radars are designed to point exactly at the target. Right out that white Teflon dot in the middle of the lens. As long as they were pointing at the target, the missile was pretty assured of hitting it. In the final seconds before contact, the radar would send radiate a continuous wave signal, lighting up the target like a search light, and the missile would guide in on it in what was called, "terminal homing".
Why am I telling you this? This is to give you an idea of what it takes to defend against an incoming missile. There are a lot of steps involved.
It goes like this:
The search radar, the kind you may be familiar with, sweeps the sky at about an 8 second interval. If the target is high enough, they could see it at up to 300 miles away. A very comfortable distance. After a couple of sweeps, they get a vector and speed and decide if there is a need to assign a fire control radar to it. Remember, the range of the Terrier missile is 40 miles. Lots of time.
Once assigned, the fire control radar points in the area where the search radar saw the target, and does some pattern searches until it finds it, then "locks on", meaning the electronics of the radar will keep the target in the center of the radar beam. Assuming speeds of mach 1, and the target is heading straight at the destroyer, we have about 12 minutes before the target is range.
The missile men pull a missile out and put it on the rails and point the launcher at target and wait.
The missile house has room for 4 missiles to be "Ready", the remaining missiles are stored in missile rings of 20 each deeper in the ship. It takes time to bring the missiles from the rings to the ready room. So the destroyer can fire 6 missiles fast, but after that, the rate of fire slows down somewhat.
Which is not really a defect, as the missile battery can only have 2 missiles in the air at the same time. One per fire control radar.
If swarmed, it was judged that a single battery could destroy 6 targets before being hit. Assuming they are at altitude, and traveling at a stately speed of mach 1.
But the Vulkan missiles are traveling at mach 3, and that changed the math of the game. Most of the Vulkan swarm is only 50 meters off the waves, where they are visible only at 20 miles. From the time they show up on radar to impact is now 33 seconds. Search radar has to pick it up, assign fire control, point the fire control radar, it begins to search for the target. By then, the first Vulkan hits, but the missile launcher is now synced with the fire control radar and another Vulkan hits, and we are done here. Time for damage control.
So even if you are ready, this was an impossible shot for the equipment of the day.
The answer was in the near future, with Aegis and Phalanx. But Aegis would require new hulls. Phalanx could be put anywhere, but was always the last defense It is always better to shoot things down "out there", rather than "right here.". As a stop gap measure, older ships were upgraded with New Threat Upgrade, or NTU, where the missiles could be fired in the general direction of the incoming threats.
Mid course guidance was handled by 4 receivers that were placed around the superstructure, through which the missiles updated the computers about every 4 seconds or so. The fire control system was then be used to send an uplink to the missiles if necessary, and during the final phases to illuminate the targets. This allowed for Terrier systems to engage 8 targets at a time, vice 2.
Fast forward to now. Aegis radars scan the entire sky at a sub second rate vice 8 second sweeps. The search and tracking radars are now one and the same, so no time lost for lock on. No missile launcher to point. The missiles just launch straight from their canisters. Targets that are missed are subject to SeaRam short range missiles, and if that fails, the Phalanx CWIS system. Providing 3 layers of defense that can effectively negate the swarm.
So why have I subjected you to 3 pages explaining fire control systems? To provide some insight as to how many pieces have to work together for a successful, and timely intercept. I hadn't gotten into command control, the computers or the 78 variables of the fire control problem.
All this brings us back to the Moskva. Remember the Moskva? This is an article about the Moskva. As built in the 70's, with the latest Soviet technology. So about equal to USA's late 60's tech. It's main function is to take out enemy fleets, it's secondary function is to serve as a flagship, its tertiary function is to provide anti aircraft missiles to defend the Black Sea fleet. For this it has an 64 SAN 6, "Grumble", missiles in canisters, not unlike the Aegis vertical launch system. They are mid to long range missiles, about 100 miles. And like the Terrier/Tarter missile systems, they have a low rate of fire, limited by their single fire control radar. Possibly they can have several missiles going in the same direction but different targets. But I doubt it. It also is armed with Anti-Submarine mortars and Anti-Ship torpedoes, both of which are not useful in a war with Ukraine, a nation without a fleet.
For short range, they have 40 SAN 4 missiles. The launcher is in what has been described as a "Pop-up Trash Can" launcher. With two fire control radars, one port, one starboard, and like the Terrier/Tarter systems of the day, probably can only have one salvo of missiles in the air per battery.
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| The nippled dome, upper left is the fire control radar for the long range SAN 6 anti aircraft missiles. The round can in the lower center is the pop up missile launcher for the short range SAN 4 AA missiles. Just forward of the SAN 4 launchers are their FC radars. |
Lastly, they have 6, 30mm, Close In Weapon Systems, like US Navy's Phalanx. If turned on, they have the short reaction time required to shoot down incoming missiles.
Regarding the Russian crew. As I mentioned earlier. Western navies are crewed by well trained men and women. Some do come nearly straight from boot camp. But not many. The core of the service are the enlisted Petty Officers. The Officers are largely in the role of business managers.
In the Russian system, a fair portion of the crew is straight out of boot camp. Enlisted men that are trained on the systems get that training only after serving a period of service, and that training is offered as an incentive to reenlist. It is the Officers that provide most of the technical expertise, when their time as managers allows. It was said that the Alpha Class submarines, the worlds deepest diving and fastest subs, with titanium hulls, had a 100% Officer crew. Someone will correct me if I am wrong.
Whoever was crewing this ship, they were not as well trained as their western counterparts, and this has been blamed for the loss of the ship in the news media, most of which are just repeating themselves.
I have written much about the threat the Moskva poses to an enemy fleet. But for this war, it is not going to use those hypersonic missiles for shore bombardment. The main reason for that is the Vulkans just too expensive, and they probably don't have many of them to reload with. There is no mention that the admiral was on board, so being a flag ship is out. So it's mission seems relegated to what technically, is what the Moskva does third best, providing anti aircraft protection for the Black Sea Fleet.
Lets look at the Neptune Anti Ship Missile.
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Image stolen from the Washington Post without permission.
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This missile weighs in at about a ton, one fifth the size of the Moskva's Vulkans. It carries 330 pound warhead at a speed of about mach 1. For comparison, a French Exocet is about 350 pounds, and a Harpoon, 500 pounds. In WWII, most anti-ship bombs were in the 500-1000 pound range. While a tidy little package, it is a bit on the light side.
The Neptune travels about 50 feet above the water line, and so only becomes visible to radar at about 9.5 miles. From there to impact is about 50 seconds.
For the Moskva's missile batteries to even have a shot, they would have to be radiating and pointing in the correct direction. For the long range SAN-6, no. Because the missiles launch vertically, and then have to roll over towards the target. By the time the radar was assigned, locked on, missile launched, rolls over, the Neptune would be within the minimum range.
The SAN 4 could have a shot, just one, if everything is working correctly.
Their AK 630's, 30mm Close In Weapon Systems should have been able to handle the engagement though. They have 4 on a side. If they were turned on. And probably they were not.
How do I know they were not on? Because there is no report of the Moskva defending itself. They would have at least shot at the incoming Neptune's. They didn't, so they must not have been turned on. The Soviets had a policy of leaving equipment off when not needed. Because equipment that is off, doesn't break. They never had enough trained men, or parts, to keep their equipment functioning. Corporate culture is a hard thing to change, and the Russian Navy seems to be still run like it did with under the Soviet rule.
I have some experience here. In 1981 I was onboard the USS King, and we had an encounter with the flagship of the Soviet Mediterranean fleet, the Leningrad. She was the sister ship of the Moskva's predecessor. We snuck up on the Leningrad one morning. And during that encounter, the Leningrad broke down!. The details I wrote up in my blog post, A Bad Day For Communism.
Once hit, the Moskva is nothing but exposed fuel and explosives. That it went down fast was not surprising. Where it took it's hits is conjecture. The Neptune's seem to just go straight into the ship at an altitude of about 50 feet. It doesn't seem to have a fancy curve at the terminal homing phase for a straight down shot into the engine room, like Harpoons do. Also they do not hit below the waterline. But the Moskva did take on water, so the hull had to be cracked by the fires that ravaged her.
Along the side of the Moskva is a lot of space dedicated to weaponry. Note the large missile canisters from midships to the twin 4 inch gun mount near the bow. They each contain a Vulkan missile. These missiles are liquid fueled and have a 1 ton warhead, and there are 8 on a side. I don't think they took a direct hit, because ship would blown up and just gone down. The captain of the Moskva is reported KIA from the initial explosion, and he was likely in his sea cabin behind the bridge. So a hit near the Vulkans is a strong possibility. Causing the casings and missiles to crack, spilling tons of volatile fuel waiting for a the spark that would doom the ship.
The explosive power of the fuel cannot be ignored. I worked with Talos Missiles, at 4 tons each, and were close to the size of a Vulkan and also liquid fueled. At Talos school, there was a picture of a target ship that took just one hit from a Talos. Above the waterline was a bow, a stern, and nothing else. And that was mainly from the fuel, as Talos had only a 60 pound warhead.
I'm pretty sure the Neptune's did not hit the bow or stern. Because damage there would have been easily contained. I think one of the hits occurred just behind the engine funnel. Where the SAN-6's are stored in their canisters. It's about the right altitude. There are 64 missiles there, and once they start cooking off, the fire would be inextinguishable. The US vertical launch systems have a quenching system that violently fills the containers with water. I don't know if the Moskva had a similar system, or if it just didn't work.
Setting off the solid fuel rocket motors could be violent enough to crack the hull. There is evidence of this in a satellite image of the Moskva that night where the brightest point is in the center of the ship.
One report had the Moskva on it's side within 90 minutes. That would require a couple of thousand tons of seawater. So the hull had to have been cracked.
The Moskva is not the first Russian warship sunk by a fire. In 1981 a Krivak class destroyer was lost in the Black Sea when it caught fire and sank.
This is one of the reasons EVERY sailor in the US Navy goes to fire fighting school.
But the indescribable hell that that kind of missile storm would cause wasn't going to be put out by any crew, no matter how well trained. This is evidenced that a Turkish ship was already picking up survivors at 2am, a little more than an hour after the strike.
So what sank the Moskva? Much blame is placed on the lack of a well trained crew. I contend that no amount of training was going to save this ship. They had 50 seconds, maximum, warning of an incoming missile to impact. For systems designed in the 70's, that is just not enough time.
Their CIWS could have made the shot, but how many of them were operational? The number could be zero. They would have to have been up and running before missile detection. If they were off to keep them from breaking, then they are not a factor. This ship has been war time steaming for 6 weeks. So what equipment they did have running in February was probably having issues.
What sank the Moskva was a design philosophy emphasizing weaponry over survivability, followed with decades of corporate culture that relegated maintenance to the lowest priority. The ship had no escorts, had no warning, was assigned a mission it was not prepared for, or even capable of performing. The crew quality at this point is irrelevant to the equation. It was clearly and upper management issue.
I blame first the design bureau for designing what can only be described as a glass cannon. Then upper brass in the 90's for keeping the ship when it was going to be sent to the scrap yard. And finally the Russian Admiralty for deploying a ship, alone, for a mission it was technically unprepared for (providing AA cover for the fleet) when all it was designed to do was make one large bombardment strike, then run home for more ammo.
How many sailors died here? Reports are across the board. Russian propaganda has stated all were rescued. The Turks pulled about 50 out of the water. So the number is between 0 and 450.
But then consider where did those two missiles hit? Warships do not have a lot of spaces that are not either occupied by crew, or occupied by flammable liquids and or explosives. Yes there is the chain locker, and a couple dozen fan rooms, or the laundry room was unoccupied, but then if strikes hit those spots, there would not have been the catastrophic fire that was in evidence. We know how catastrophic it was because a Turkish ship that was first on the scene about an hour after the hit, was pulling sailors out of the water.
But for a warship to go from wartime steaming to abandon ship, within an hour, and not take casualties in an attempt to save the ship, defies credulity. I will say, unequivocally, that a sailor will go into cold water, at night, only when he knows for certain he will die otherwise, and probably has proof that his death is imminent.
Additional...
This is not the first Moskva to have been sunk by enemy action in the Black Sea. On June 26, 1941, the Soviet destroyer Moskva was sunk while bombarding the oil storage facilities in Romanian city of Constanta. It and its other ships were successful in their mission, but the Moskva was lost during the bombardment. https://xray-mag.com/content/what-sank-soviet-destroyer-moscow
