Thread by @navalspectator

There are so many unknowns about the details of the sinking of #Moskva. My two cents on the issue with some technical analysis.
1. The crew evacuated the ship, a rare situation and possibly means that the damage control efforts failed, unlike #Russia claimed.
#Ukraine #NATO

2. Warships have two/three damage control parties (forward, amidship, aft), and each has fire fighting and repair teams so that the crew can handle multiple fires/ damages concurrently.

3. Ammunitions are kept in highly protected compartments, and it is very difficult for an ordinary fire to spread to an arsenal onboard. If the fire was under control per #Russian MoD, and the ship can float why the crew abandon Moskva?

4. Lithuania's Defense Minister said distress signal was sent (it's the last resort), 54 sailors were rescued by a #Turkish ship. This refutes the claim that it was a planned evacuation after putting the fire under control. Why rushed to abandon the ship?
aa.com.tr/en/russia-ukra…

5. Warships have several emergency systems to sail in critical times. If the bridge is damaged, the ship can be sailed by using alternative, e.g., electronic, hydraulic, or manual to command rudder and engines from different places.

6. Engines are also installed into different parts of the ships to avoid being out of action. Hence, she must have suffered substantial damage led the crew to abandon the ship and her being towed.

7. Russian MoD blames the "stormy seas" for her capsize, it's inconsistent with winds btw 4-12 kts (nautical mile). It can be seen as moderate weather, at best. It can be a balance problem if the ship is flooded from fractures. In this case, it is not an issue with the weather.

8. What happened to the Air Defence?
#Ukrainians claim that they distracted the cruiser with #TB2 and hit Moskva with the cruise missiles. This story is not convincing for several reasons.

9. First, you cannot distract a warship with a drone, but only one operator in the CIC since there are many eyes following the tracks in different radars&consoles. Besides, there are supervisors who follow the big picture and communicate with the operators.

10. For the ship to be distracted by only one drone, the entire CIC (Combat Information Centre, seen as the brain of a warship) should be sleeping. Therefore, from a naval warfare perspective, it is nearly impossible.

11. We need to question why the ship did not engage the drone if she is aware of it.
Didn't they care about an armed drone operating in their vicinity? Highly unlikely. Couldn't they detect the drone due to the weather ? Highly unlikely. If yes, how did the drone detect the ship?

12. Maybe, the #Russians hit drone, but we do not know it yet. I could not see any information if the drone survived, or not. If it returned without a damage, then it may have some recordings. In that case, Ukraine would have shared videos or radar records.

13. A third likely scenario can be that Ukrainians received intel from the West, and distraction by a TB-2 can be a cover-up story. Having cruise missiles means nothing if you do not have radars and sensor which pinpoint the location of enemy targets.

https://twitter.com/itamilradar/status/1513868635730817034?s=21&t=X1hboVabbTgQR4E5RZE7Cw

14. Warships are designed with a layered defence approach. When a track is classified as a threat, it can be engaged with multiple weapons in order. If one fails, the next one will take care of it. And there can be several threats which needs to be engaged at the same time.

15. That is why #warships have several fire controls radars&many channels which can be connected to different weapons within those fire control radars enabling the crew to use different weapons against different assets. These assignments can happen instantly.

16. In #Moskva, there are three fire control radars (SA-N-4, Top Dome SA-N-6, and Bass Tilt belonged to AK-630 CIWS) and S-300F long-range SAMs, OSA-M shorth range SAMs and six AK-630 point defence systems.

17. If she had been able to detect incoming missiles, she is supposed to engage them S-300F, OSA-M RAM, naval guns, AK-630s, and chaffs, respectively. Given that capabilities, she can't only defend herself, but she can also provide air defence to other assets within her range.

18. #Neptune is a subsonic missile with a speed of 900 kmph and allegedly launched from 65 nautical miles (120 kms) away. So, the ship had almost 8 minutes to react, and it's not a short period if you are operating under the war conditions.

19. If the ship did not fire any missiles and employ countermeasures, then we can understand that the crew failed to detect the missiles. But why? She has two search radars. It can also be speculated she may have faced a sophisticated electronic warfare, i.e. jamming. Who knows?

20. Implications.
📌#A2AD matters a lot, in general.
📌 #NATO can provide coastal states with anti-ship and anti-air missiles.
📌🇷🇺 #BlackSea Fleet cannot approach to the Ukrainian coasts.
📌 A landing was very unlikely, and now it becomes impossible.
📌 Bad morale in the 🇷🇺 Navy

21. Implications-2

📌There's no ship with the same air defence capabilities in the Black Sea.
📌 The #Turkishstraits are closed to her sisters in the Mediterranean.
📌 How will 🇷🇺retaliate?

The story is still full of mysteries.

Image Credits: Wikipedia

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