The Russian-Ukrainian War Thread

Arji

Active Member

If this really work being done by Neptune SSM, it will increase the marketability (assuming Ukraine still able to produce it). Some rumours on Ukraine try to find partner by selling their design and systems, due to condition of their Military Industrial Complex.
Could be a nice alternative (or addition) to the C-705 Reverse Engineering Project. It might even be cheaper in cost and effort than trying to reverse engineer a Chinese missile.
 

Scott Elaurant

Well-Known Member
USNI reports that the RFS Moskva, flagship of their Black Sea fleet, was hit by 2 Ukrainian Neptune SSMs and either crippled or sunk. Russia has denied the Ukrainian missile hits, saying it was a result of an on-board fire that detonated ammunition, but confirming the crew had abandoned ship.

There seem to be multiple implications of this for naval military balance and the Ukraine war.

From a purely naval viewpoint, if the Russian navy's version of events is correct, the crew of their flagship allowed a fire to reach magazines and effectively destroy their largest warship in the Black Sea. That does nto speak well of standards of crew seamanship or damage control, or the safety and volatility of stocks of old missiles carried aboard.

If the Ukrainian version of events is correct, it means a Russian (cold war era) cruiser with multi-layered air defence cannnot stop 2 out of 4 Harpoon-sized sub-sonic sea-skimming SSMs hitting it. The lack of a phased array radar is still a serious gap in defences against Sea Skimming SSMs. If true, that means other old ships still in the Russian Navy inventory like 2 more Slavas, Sovremennys and Udaloys, are worth very little and should be scrapped.

Fro the Ukraine War Southern Front, this is significant in several respects. Although old, the Moskva carried over 100 SAMs and had a long range radar. It was a key asset in providing air defence and controlling the air space in the Black Sea. No other Russian Black Sea fleet ship carries long range SAMS. The remaining ships in their Black Sea fleet are all smaller frigates or corvettes. So the ability of Russian armed forces to achieve air superiority on the Black Sea Coast is greatly reduced. They might also find it difficult to prevent air flights over the Black Sea.

The Moskva cannot easily be replaced. It was home ported in the Black Sea, but other large Russian cruisers are not, and hence they cannot sail through the Bosphorus. Russia's Black Sea fleet has been greatly weakened, and probably permanently.

Strategically, this would seem to make an amphibious assault/beach landing from Russian ships very unlikely for the rest of the war. Without the SAM umbrella of the Moskva, the remaining small escorts and landing ships in the Black Sea fleet would not easily defend themselves against Ukrainian missiles if they came near the land. That would make the Odessa front for Ukraine now relatively safe, and the Russian troops in Transnistria quite isolated.
 

OPSSG

Super Moderator
Staff member
Broadcasting to help others hear Zelenskyy’s call for more weapons. The German government, led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz (from the same party - SPD - as Steinmeier) is not seen by Kyiv and others as having done enough to support Ukraine.

IMO, German policy under Scholz is not a failure but a disappointment; because it could be so much better.

Team Biden, through his Secretary of Defense has heard the call. 200 M113s and 11 Mi-17s are significant additions for Ukrainian troop mobility.
 
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ngatimozart

Super Moderator
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
USNI reports that the RFS Moskva, flagship of their Black Sea fleet, was hit by 2 Ukrainian Neptune SSMs and either crippled or sunk. Russia has denied the Ukrainian missile hits, saying it was a result of an on-board fire that detonated ammunition, but confirming the crew had abandoned ship.

There seem to be multiple implications of this for naval military balance and the Ukraine war.

From a purely naval viewpoint, if the Russian navy's version of events is correct, the crew of their flagship allowed a fire to reach magazines and effectively destroy their largest warship in the Black Sea. That does nto speak well of standards of crew seamanship or damage control, or the safety and volatility of stocks of old missiles carried aboard.

If the Ukrainian version of events is correct, it means a Russian (cold war era) cruiser with multi-layered air defence cannnot stop 2 out of 4 Harpoon-sized sub-sonic sea-skimming SSMs hitting it. The lack of a phased array radar is still a serious gap in defences against Sea Skimming SSMs. If true, that means other old ships still in the Russian Navy inventory like 2 more Slavas, Sovremennys and Udaloys, are worth very little and should be scrapped.

Fro the Ukraine War Southern Front, this is significant in several respects. Although old, the Moskva carried over 100 SAMs and had a long range radar. It was a key asset in providing air defence and controlling the air space in the Black Sea. No other Russian Black Sea fleet ship carries long range SAMS. The remaining ships in their Black Sea fleet are all smaller frigates or corvettes. So the ability of Russian armed forces to achieve air superiority on the Black Sea Coast is greatly reduced. They might also find it difficult to prevent air flights over the Black Sea.

The Moskva cannot easily be replaced. It was home ported in the Black Sea, but other large Russian cruisers are not, and hence they cannot sail through the Bosphorus. Russia's Black Sea fleet has been greatly weakened, and probably permanently.

Strategically, this would seem to make an amphibious assault/beach landing from Russian ships very unlikely for the rest of the war. Without the SAM umbrella of the Moskva, the remaining small escorts and landing ships in the Black Sea fleet would not easily defend themselves against Ukrainian missiles if they came near the land. That would make the Odessa front for Ukraine now relatively safe, and the Russian troops in Transnistria quite isolated.
If the Ukrainians have enough of the Neptunes, they should begin targeting the remaining Russian frigates and corvettes in the Black Sea, forcing the VMF to keep them well back from any Ukrainian held coastline. They should also consider retaking Snake Island. Maybe NATO could convince the Bulgarians or Romanians to sell them a couple of frigates from their navy and they will be replaced with modern ones. They have three ex Belgian navy frigates and one ex Soviet frigate. All are of 1970s vintage. The Romanians have three frigates, two ex RN Type 22 and local built frigate from the Warsaw Pact era. They are replacing the frigates with French GoWind frigates. I read somewhere that the Romanians sees Putin in a won't supply lethal aid to Ukraine but will provide humanitarian aid. Apparently their current leader sees Putin in a favourable light. I could be wrong though and can't remember where I saw it. That's the only way that I can see the Ukrainian Navy being able to acquire new warships in quick time.
 

KiwiRob

Well-Known Member
Russia could bomb the rail line and rail bridges ahead and behind the train thus forcing the train to stop in the middle of the field. Then bomb the static target. Or bomb the train during loading/unloading. There are ways to do it if they would think creatively.

However, I think the main reason why Russia is not doing this is because they have no intention to launch the offensive in Donbas. Their (in)actions do not corroborate with an intention of launching a massive attack. If this was true they would show more intense testing of enemy positions and more aerial bombing, interdiction of supply lines and so on. In my view they simply move units around to use that as a pressure point in the negotiations. What Russians wanted from the get go was Mariupol and eliminating its capacity to interdict land, air and sea links with Crimea in case of a major war. Mariupol as a NATO base could have served very well as a counterweight to Crimea, blocking the Russian movement until Crimea would fall. So, with this primary objective achieved and with Lugansk oblast captured almost entirely the Russians could just sit and look threatening until Ukraine is willing to concede.
the trains would have to stop at a rail yard or yards to unload the cargo, that’s probably the best time to strike, hit them with cruise missiles when they are stationary and unloading.
 

T.C.P

Well-Known Member
Jokes aside, can some one tell me if the Moskva lacked the ability to track multiple objects? The claim on UA social media is that they used a TB to distract it. But how does that work? I thought most ships post 2000 could track multiple objects.

Sea skimming missiles arent new either, does it take a different quality of detection to track sea skimming missiles and how come a flag ship does not have the ability to track those? And was the flagship of a fleet floating around alone? Arent they supposed to have escort ships to help detect stuff like this?
 
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STURM

Well-Known Member
Irrespective of whether it was indeed hit by cruise missiles or suffered an internal explosion caused by non combat factors; losing a Slava class cruise named Moskva is a major embarrassment and a blow to morale. If indeed it was the work of cruise missiles the obvious question is where didn't the ship's CIWSs do their job and what about soft kill options?

A question I've long wondered is did the Russians make any attempts to eliminate Zelensky by hitting his official residence or office?
 

STURM

Well-Known Member
Sea skimming missiles arent new either, does it take a different quality of detection to track sea skimming missiles
The Moskva's ESM should have raised the alarm when the shore based radar went active and when it was on search mode; prior to the missile being launched. If the missile had an active seeker the minute it went active; the ship's ESM should also have been alerted; giving the ship 1-2 minutes of early warning.
 

Jed Fischer

New Member
If things keep going the way they are I can see the Russians getting frustrated with numerous military setbacks and do something really reckless. Either use something serious on Kiev or hit something in a NATO country.
I keep hearing people moot this as an option. However Russia have said that they reserve the option to use nuclear weapons only for existential threats. Also would detonating one of these be just another disastrous error due to risk of fall out on nearby Russian towns or cities?

As an aside, I'm trying to find up to date images of the damaged Moskva. Apparently due to cloud conditions in The Black Sea, satellites have not managed to pick up anything yet. Could the lack of images indeed be a clue as to her ultimate fate?
 

Larso66

Member
"If things keep going the way they are I can see the Russians getting frustrated with numerous military setbacks and do something really reckless. Either use something serious on Kiev or hit something in a NATO country." the Concerned

If 75% of the army has indeed been used in Ukraine, Russia doesn't have much of it left to cause trouble elsewhere. Even if they did launch a limited air campaign against Poland or Finland, NATO would be able to deal with it. I recall reading someone's view that Putin played a 'weak hand well'. That's no longer the case. He has a worse 'hand' than anyone expected and he's playing it terribly. This may well prompt a reckless act, where he might use a WMD on Kiev or somewhere near Ukraine's western border to send a serious message to NATO. In the current environment, I don't see that causing anyone to back down. Where that escalates to is quite scary.
 

koxinga

Well-Known Member
The Moskva's ESM should have raised the alarm when the shore based radar went active and when it was on search mode; prior to the missile being launched. If the missile had an active seeker the minute it went active; the ship's ESM should also have been alerted; giving the ship 1-2 minutes of early warning.
If they use a commercial marine radar for search, the Moskva would not know. It is feasible; the cueing is just a ARPA track which ARPA radars can provide via a RS232 port. We saw it with the Iranians which used a commercial radar to cue their C705 missiles when the Victoria was raided by the Israelis. I've done some work on extracting track data from commercial radars to a C2 systems on ships and shore based systems and it isn't rocket science.

Agree on the second part though.
 

Jed Fischer

New Member
I keep hearing people moot this as an option. However Russia have said that they reserve the option to use nuclear weapons only for existential threats. Also would detonating one of these be just another disastrous error due to risk of fall out on nearby Russian towns or cities?

As an aside, I'm trying to find up to date images of the damaged Moskva. Apparently due to cloud conditions in The Black Sea, satellites have not managed to pick up anything yet. Could the lack of images indeed be a clue as to her ultimate fate?
Reports out of Russia and locally indicating that she has gone down. Lots of posts on Twitter to this effect:

1649928450932.png


Apparently the Ukrainians distracted her defences with a TB2 UCAV then launched 2 Neptune ASM's.
 
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swerve

Super Moderator
US aid may help, but it may also have been Ukrainian Bayraktars. Some were specifically purchased for the Ukrainian navy, and there was a Russian report of a 11356 report shooting one down over the Black Sea. The reports I'm seeing also say it sank after munitions cooked off, and the crew evacuated.
Of course, the cooking off of munitions may have been initiated by a missile.

The timing of announcements tends to add credibility to Ukrainian claims, but as said, whatever the cause it looks bad for the Russians, both in terms of the course of the war & the perceived competence (or lack of it) of their armed forces.
 

Big_Zucchini

Well-Known Member
Genuine Question, Why can't Russia use their satellites to track the heavy equipment coming into Ukraine and just bomb them when they cross into the Ukranian border? They have long range missiles, what capability are the Russians lacking, that prevent them from doing this?
Satellites are easily tracked and otherwise generally predictable, and Russia's recon sats are too few and too old.
Optical recon sats, Russia is confirmed to have 2, which are old and of low quality.

To target said shipments Russia needs to have a tight ISR grip on the entire Western Ukraine, and it does not have nearly enough assets to do that especially when the area is also contested.

Russia has deep fires capability but it's not working in the frameworks needed for effective employment, and its masses of such weapons don't compensate for the incompatibility with modern weapon employment needs.
 

QEDdeq

Member
Strategically, this would seem to make an amphibious assault/beach landing from Russian ships very unlikely for the rest of the war. Without the SAM umbrella of the Moskva, the remaining small escorts and landing ships in the Black Sea fleet would not easily defend themselves against Ukrainian missiles if they came near the land. That would make the Odessa front for Ukraine now relatively safe, and the Russian troops in Transnistria quite isolated.
I think an amphibious assault on Odessa was already clearly off the table. It would have only worked if complete surprise would have been achieved. Odessa at this point in the war is too well entrenched and defended to make such an operation possible without taking huge risks. The only way Russians could have still envisaged some sort of beach landing operation was only in combination with a land attack, in which the land attack would carry most of the weight. In my view Odessa is safe since the Russians were pushed back from north of Nikolaev and Voznesensk, they clearly don't have the numbers for a push there.
 

Rock the kasbah

Active Member
The Moskva's ESM should have raised the alarm when the shore based radar went active and when it was on search mode; prior to the missile being launched. If the missile had an active seeker the minute it went active; the ship's ESM should also have been alerted; giving the ship 1-2 minutes of early warning.
Well put it this way
If they ( Ukraine ) were given everything they asked for, then perhaps the land based Moskva would be in their sights.
Nice little second best when your hands are tied behind your back
 

Scott Elaurant

Well-Known Member
This is my first post in the forum, I never served in the military but have always been militarily interested, my main reason to join was because I was curious about the situation in Mariupol and especially Kharkiv, but I'l address this later.

About the damaged/sunken ship this might be interesting information:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/u37l6x
I hate to say but there is another possibly grim morale aspect as well. So far Russia has reportedly lost eight generals in Ukraine War. The Moskva was the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet and by far the biggest ship. Was there an Admiral aboard? The Moskva bridge sits right between two rows of huge SSMs, and the Russians acknowledge an ammunition detonation. I would hate to be on that bridge if the SSN12s cooked off.
 
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