Posted on 04/16/2022 8:43:36 AM PDT by fugazi
While we cannot say with total certainty whether the Russian cruiser Moskva was sunk due to a Ukrainian anti-ship missile or just a fire that crews were unable to control, we know that it is lost. Soon we will find out what happened, but regardless of if it was an unfortunate series of events or enemy action, what we do know is the Russian navy is about as big of a joke as the Bad News Bears baseball team from the 1970s movie.
The Russians have admitted that the flagship of their Black Sea Fleet — the ship that was famously told to “go f–k yourselves” by a small Ukrainians force on Snake Island — has sunk, but attribute the loss to a fire that caused munitions to explode. While you can trust virtually nothing the Russians say, the Ukrainians are not above using propaganda, and fog of war is always a factor, so we will just have to wait for the facts to come out. But the Russians have egg on their face regardless of whether the ship was lost due to enemy action or not.
If it was in fact a Ukrainian missile then it evaded multiple layers of defensive systems that should have protected the ship. Open-source intelligence indicates that a Turkish-produced drone may have distracted the crew, but are Russian radars and their operators so bad that they can somehow only process one potential threat?
On the other hand, if the loss was solely due to fire then that calls into question the competency of the ship’s crew. Fire is a serious threat to all ships at sea, and a cruiser would certainly have plenty of munitions on board that could
(Excerpt) Read more at untothebreach.net ...
It isn’t the ship that catches fire, it’s the contents. There are lots of combustible material like laundry, mattresses, furniture, food stores, etc, and flammable liquids used for maintenance where a fire could start from smoking or electrical problems. Steel isn’t combustible, but it weakens under intense and prolonged heat leading to structural collapse. If common compressed gases are present, heat from a fire will cause them to explode, leading to more fire and more explosions. I could see things escalating pretty quickly.
That reminds me of a scene in a movie: a frail old lady is sitting in a rocker on her front porch, and a motorcycle gang shows up & starts trashing her property. Granny pulls out a 12 gauge shotgun, starts blasting motorcycles, and scares off the gang. Pure Hollywood comedy, but it raises a valid point - will a former "super power", well past its prime, use nuclear weapons to defend itself?
Americans tend to assume the answer is "no", but I suspect that is because we 'project' our values on others (which can be a hazardous approach, indeed ;>)...
Russian and Chinese leadership certainly do not have the same values as we do and I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if a Chinese/Russian conflict went nuclear. There would be a lot of logistical challenges for the Chinese if they decided to invade, but nuclear weapons would be about the only option the Russians would have to defend themselves.
Think of it less like a fire in a steel barrel than as a barbeque smoker made like a maze. Fire makes heat and smoke, and if you have to put out a fire, trying to get your firefighters through a hot smoky environment quickly becomes very difficult, especially if you can't get to the places you need to be because of said fire blocking access and you aren't already kitted up like a firefighter to do it.
A modern sailing vessel has a few very large chambers that are super duper flammable and explosive, a crew that is dispersed all over the boat in many other, different chambers (making mustering manpower and distributing equipment quickly difficult), and there are many many miles of pipe snaking through the boat containing different substances, some which help put out fires, some of which help feed fires. If you add water into the mix because of broken pipes or hull compromise, now you're also trying to wade or swim through inundated chambers to get to where you need to be, and you're fighting the fire sideways. It gets bad quickly, which is why navies drill on fire suppression a lot.
Ukrainians have been fighting Russia for 8 years since they invaded Crimea. The Ukes are pretty battle hardened already, and the US has been training them well, it looks like. The training took better in Ukraine than it did in Afghanistan.
1) Seems like I've read that (on commercial vessels at least) even the paint can burn? Obviously, steel surfaces are coated with something to prevent rust, and some coatings may be flammable.
2) I also may have read that some ships have been built with aluminum superstructures (to reduce topside weight), and the aluminum can actually melt in a fire and spread the flames?
Thanks again for the posts!
;>)
Being reported in daily mail, all crew have perished. No survivors. All 510 dead. The only way this could happen is magazine went up like HMS Hood.
Less than that. It went up like the HMS Hood after the magazine was hit.
If I remember right, that was the problem with the USS Stark also. Aluminum Superstructure. Aluminum doesn’t just melt, it will burn when it gets hot enough.
Interesting if they were expecting aluminum.
When I first began working with titanium after working with aluminum, stainless steel, and chrome moly, but I didn’t know that it was magnetic.
It has similar properties to aluminum (weight), stainless steel (corrosion resistant), and carbon steel (magnetic). I was amazed it can be cut with a cutting torch instead of a plasma cutter.
Aluminum is great for boats because it is lightweight, easily worked and non-ferrous (doesn’t rust, and magnetic mines won’t stick to it). It’s also more easily bent and has a much lower melt point than steel though.
Probably what would make an aluminum superstructure most dangerous in a ship fire is that compared to steel, it would weaken first and possibly create structural failures, which could introduce the fire to things that makes a fire worse like oxygen, other burny things, or people who aren’t prepared to stop the fire.
You don’t design boats to be floating torches though, fire prevention and survivability is a consideration but not the only one. all of it is a matter of risk management and requirements tradeoffs.
Yes.
Russia should have invaded Ukraine beyond Crimea and Donbass 8 years ago. Now the Ukrainians are much better armed and experienced, Putin underestimated them.
Yes, even though aluminum isn’t technically a combustible metal (like, say, magnesium or sodium) if exposed to high heat, it will not only melt, but if it is in a fine form (like machined shavings, etc.) it can spontaneously combust if contaminated with grease or oil and exposed to high heat (even a closed container in a hot room or compartment).
(Amateur Simulation.)
How Well Defended Was The Russian Slava Class Cruiser “Moskva”? | DCS
https://youtu.be/Bxwh6MGLJNc
Reportedly Brezhnev's representatives approached the US to get our reaction to their nuking the Chinese. Nixon & Kissinger said 'no'. There were other signs that the Soviets and the Chinese were no longer as friendly as they had been but the Russian reaction to this skirmish alarmed everybody.
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