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Gone: Ukrainian Neptune Missiles Put Putin’s Pride on the Bottom of the Black Sea

Gone: Ukrainian Neptune Missiles Put Putin's Pride on the Bottom of the Black Sea

How could the Russian flagship Moskva sink after a couple of hits from Ukrainian Neptune missiles? As Putin’s pride sits on the bottom of the Black Sea, the men of Right Angle weigh the price of the massive loss of hardware and morale.

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24 replies on “Gone: Ukrainian Neptune Missiles Put Putin’s Pride on the Bottom of the Black Sea”

Firefighting is indeed every sailor’s job aboard a ship. Our first objective is prevention. Our second objective is preparedness, organization, communication. I was an electronic technician. I was way up on the 04 level, all the radar, communications, gps, all of that. We had a main space fire, I was the number one nozzlemen. You get down there in the black smoke, you can’t see a thing. From the time the bells rang to the time of extinguishing a JP5 fuel oil fire was about 14 minutes. AFFF and the fact that we train so much. It is uncanny how synchronized and coordinated everything becomes. The after action report is also a key factor in what makes American Military different. Everyone comes together and we figure out what we did right, what we could do better, is there a need to make changes to equipment? The MM’s, BT’s, EM’s, DC’s, basically all the red stripes in the engineering rates, gather around and try to figure out how to prevent that particular fire from ever happening again. The American Military is the most professional organization in the world. At least it was. I got out in 1995.

I’ve been everything from a pipe patcher to a fire fighter to a repair locker leader. Actual job – Aviation Maintenance Officer. If you’re assigned to a ship, you’re involved in damage control.

With the possible exception of the Royal Navy, no other navy in the world emphasizes DC like ours. I was sent to firefighting school or damage control school at least 7 times (plus myriad mini-refreshers in between) that I can remember, and only 8 of my 28 years were on active duty.

It shouldn’t have been possible at all. The fact that it obviously was speaks not only to equipment that is vastly inferior to what we thought it was, but more importantly, vastly inferior training, discipline and morale. I have little doubt that these later deficiencies are at least partly a function of what you pointed out in earlier videos Bill, about how the rule of law is less of a factor than who you know and who owes favors to whom.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6NnfRT_OZA
The mass conflagration aboard USS Forrestal was 55 years ago. John McCain was a young Lieutenant who escaped one of the first planes involved. Even in 1967, the crew pulled together and fought the fire as “an all-hands evolution,” but they learned back then that willing but poorly trained help was often worse than nothing. Fuel fires constantly re-started because untrained crews used water to wash off the foam that was smothering it.
As you see, the above video (that I saw in boot camp in 1986) has been declassified long enough for it to be on YouTube. In other words, the chance that the Russians did not have the chance to learn the same lessons we did from the Forrestal fire is zero.
As for the US, by the time the USS Stark was hit in 1987, the lessons had been well and truly learned. Every ship in the fleet had “mass conflagration drills” as part of its regular training schedule. The missiles that hit the Stark killed 37. The resulting fire killed none.
The other reason it shouldn’t be possible lies in the word “flagship.” To be fair, in the US Navy “the flagship” is typically an aircraft carrier, not a cruiser like Moskva. But to hit the flagship of a US strike group requires getting through the defense of a couple of Ticonderoga class cruisers, probably 3 or 4 Arleigh Burke class destroyers, and several frigates, not to mention the carrier airwing and lord knows how many Phalanx CIWS systems.
No, Moskva wasn’t a carrier, but it was a flagship. In order to hit it, the Ukrainians should have had to fool not only its air defense systems, but those of its escorts as well. And even assuming 2 missile hits, a properly trained and disciplined crew should have been able to go to full watertight integrity and gotten towed home with no more than a need to be constantly pumping out.

During the towing of the cruiser Moskvа to the destinаtion port, the ship lost its stаbility due to hull dаmаge sustаined in а fire cаused by аmmunition detonаtion. The ship sаnk becаuse of rough seаs, аccording to the Russiаn Defense Ministry. While clаiming to investigаte the cаuses of the disаster, he previously stаted thаt the fire on boаrd wаs “contаined” аnd thаt the cruiser “kept its buoyаncy.”

If the fire was “contained,” ammo explosions shouldn’t have been a danger.

Oh and by the way, I want to give a shout-out to someone whose name I have never learned, and who may not even exist. You see, the difference between a fairy tale and a sea story is that a sea story begins, “This is no shit…”
I referenced the missile hit on the Stark in 1987. There was a story I heard from that event, but being a story I heard from sailors, I can’t attest to whether it ever actually happened at all. I like to think it did. I like to think, “That’s my Navy.”
https://i.redd.it/2f1n0lv7wzl11.jpg
https://www.sott.net/image/s19/396451/full/1053707464.jpg
As you can see at the second link, the missiles hit portside just below the break of the poop. As I understand it, the one that did the real damage was a dud that did not explode. Instead, it jammed against a bulkhead and sprayed burning missile fuel all over the berthing compartment, which instantly turned into a major fire.
Now look at the first link. See the “carousel” missile launcher on the focsle just forward of where the missile hit? The missile magazine is just under it. In other words, just forward of where the fire was hottest.
I don’t claim to know, but to the best of my knowledge there are either 36 or 38 missiles in that magazine. Supposedly, up to 2 of them can be nuclear. There are only about half a dozen people aboard that are allowed access to that magazine. Yes, that includes even in a fire.
The story goes that the fire aboard USS Stark was an all-hands evolution… except for one guy. He was a GMM3 who not only didn’t turn out to fight the fires, he didn’t even attempt to. He just went to the fire station nearest the entrance to that magazine, broke out a fire hose, charged it, and carried it into the magazine.
According to the story, that man spent the next 19 hours in the missile magazine, hosing down the missiles and keeping them cool so they would not cook off. Had that magazine cooked off, in all likelihood everything forward of the break of the poop would have “vanished mysteriously,” so there is little doubt in my mind that he did at least as much to save the ship as anyone else aboard. Had the forward third of the ship been blown to atoms and another third warped out of shape by the blast, she would have sank like a stone.
The story goes that that unknown sailor is the lowest paygrade (E-4) and the youngest sailor ever in the history of the US Navy to receive the Navy Cross.
I don’t know if that story is true. I hope it is. I don’t consider myself worthy to be a “shipmate” of someone like that, but it’s nice to think I am one anyway.

Russians losing face, particularly Putin losing face, while in possession of bunches of nuclear weapons is crazy frightening to me. If the Russian military is a joke, the Russian nukes are not, even if poorly maintained and only partially deployable because of resulting malfunctions and the possibility of explosions at launch, etc.
The image in my head is from “Dr. Strangelove” with Putin instead of Peter Sellars riding a nuke to the ground giving a big “F U” to the world.

That was Slim Pickens (in the role of Major T.J. “King” Kong) who rode the nuke to the ground but I get your point.

I’m not quite as worried as you say you are by this situation. Because even Vladimir Putin cannot launch those missiles all by himself. It takes a whole chain of people to both agree with a launch order and to carry it out, knowing they and their families are going to die in the next few minutes if they do what Putin says.

Putin may be ultimately suicidal or not. Someone below him is most definitely not going to be suicidal and Putin knows that too. Ol’ Vlad knows that giving an order like that will one way or another be the end of him. Either from the loss of power when it’s disobeyed or a bullet to the back of the head. He may be willing to take out human civilization in a blaze of thermonuclear glory but happily that prerogative does not lie solely with him.

You can see how the Russian command and control structure obviously fails at nearly every loci. The idea that the one command and control structure that will work infallibly is the nuclear weapons launch system is unrealistic and unmerited in light of real world examples. It is less not more likely that something that drastic will work at all.

I don’t want to chance that by provoking an all-out retaliatory spasm with a nuclear first strike against Russia but that’s the only scenario that results in the thing you’re “crazy scared” of. A first strike on our part pulls out all the stops and the command and control structure, knowing they’re going to die anyway, is then motivated by revenge rather than the idea of supporting something clearly insane coming from Putin.

I know, I know … You and others will say “I hope you’re right, but …”

One big, huge undeniable lesson I’ve learned in this life is that real life is not like the movies. In stories the Author is in control and the story proceeds according to what the writer thinks is most entertaining. The real world does not exist to entertain us and does not work the same way. Some scenarios are so unlikely as to only exist in fiction, the more unlikely they are, the more they live in fiction and not reality.

It might sound sort of weird but this juxtaposition of fiction vs. reality is not always an easy distinction to make. Here in the West we grow up with all the great fiction ever to spring from the mind of mankind, both old and new. We learn from fiction as well as non-fiction. The challenge is to apply the lessons learned from fiction (and there are many) while not creating a fictional view of the real world while we’re at it.

Russia is not going to launch its nukes in a spasm of humiliation over their poor conventional military performance by order of Vladimir Putin. That’s just not a realistic thing to be “crazy scared” over. There are much, much more realistic things to worry about.

I have to say the following because people tend to take what I say the wrong way …

I’m not picking on you, I’m not denigrating you, your thoughts or your words. I’m trying to comfort you because you used the words “crazy scared”. That kind of wording is significant and should be addressed. The comfort I’m attempting to provide you is the calm of rational, reasonable, truthful analysis and evaluation. If you want to discuss this further I’m happy to do that but don’t get mad and don’t read what I said above in a “voice” of condescension or criticism as it did not exist in my mind in that color.

I know that there is nearly zero risk of what you said you’re “crazy scared” of actually coming to pass. There is never no risk at all but the odds are hugely against such a thing. So far against it as to make the threat inconsequential. The world does not work that way.

Thanks for the well-defended and thorough argument against my fears. (Definitely not taken as negatively as you thought).
A long time since Dr. Strangelove, but forgot that it wasn’t Sir Sellars riding the bomb. Thx for the correction.

If Russians take historical pride in how they defeated Napoleon–burning their own cities before he could conquer them–it would make sense for Russian media to lie about having sunk their own ship.

As events unfold it becomes clearer and clearer that Russia is not, and probably never was, the superpower that it was thought to be.

Going as far back as Desert Shield, the first Gulf War that preceded Desert Storm, we see over and over again how Russian weapons, training, tactics and table of organization are not on a par with their Western counterparts. In fact, not even close.

Russia has TWO cash exports and lately the focus has only been on one of them. Petroleum. The other export that brings badly needed cash home to Mother Russia is armaments.

Iraq pre-Desert Shield was a major buyer of Russian weaponry and for all practical purposes a client state of Russia. Russia sold the Iraqis weaponry and trained the Iraqis in how to use them using the Russian model of military standards.

We all know how that turned out. Iraq was relatively easy to defeat militarily. Saddam Hussein had high confidence in his own military which at the time ranked in the top 5 on the globe. The rapid defeat of Iraq was largely laid at the feet of an inferior cadre not inferior weaponry.

It turns out that rapid defeat was due to inferior weaponry, tactics and personnel. The Russian model of military standards is largely at fault.

Fast forward to the next example of a major conflict of Western military standards against the Russian model — Which is Ukraine.

The Russians themselves appeared to believe they would take Kyiv in something less than 96 hours. We in the West were told by our own pundits that Russia would likely accomplish that goal as rapidly or very nearly so. Neither expectation panned out.

There is a pattern emerging here.

There’s an old saying that goes “Never underestimate your enemy”. That’s a true statement. Equally dangerous is to overestimate your enemy.

How did we get it so wrong? That’s easy to answer. Much of our intel on Russian capability comes from the Russians themselves. Both what they have to say about their capability and what they actually believe themselves to be their own capacity. As it appears now, neither estimation was anything like correct.

The Russians are liars. They not only lie to the world they lie to themselves. In light of the emerging truth about Russian capabilities in real world examples the question now is how to determine just how much of what we think we know about Russia is false.

If the West can choke off cash imports from petroleum and discredit the quality of Russian arms on the global market we can starve Russia into submission without firing a shot.

To do that, the US has to lead and in order to lead we need our own leadership which is willing to take advantage of this situation.

Here’s a hint — The current leadership isn’t capable of doing what needs to be done in order to accomplish that. Which means the current leadership in the US is an existential threat not only to the American way of life but to the world at large. If the West is going to survive that needs to change and quickly.

I could not agree more with your final paragraph. The leadership change in the USA cannot happen soon enough. I can only hope it is not already too late.

Probably not really a comment on our Navy’s talent. Bonny Dick was coming out, or about to come out, of a major overhaul. She likely didn’t have anything like a full crew. Instead, the people aboard would have been mostly shipyard workers. Good people, but not trained in fire fighting or damage control. And overhaul makes many doors and hatches inoperable due to workers’ cables, hoses and air ducts being laid through them, which greatly increases the difficulty of fighting fires.

Thank you, truly, for pointing out those issues. I did not understand the context, and always am grateful to learn some new things. It also is why I prefer to have my name there in a posting. That way I believe I get honest information back. Again, thanks, James.

It was probably more than just distracting the ship with a drone. The missiles use active radar to find the ship. That makes the missiles easier to detect. If the drone was illuminating the ship or handing off its location then missiles are passive and invisible. The drone could also be running a jammer blinding all the radars. The area hit matches the command center so the second hit may have been a free shot with all the fire control systems wrecked.

The Moskva was sitting 60 miles off the mouth of the Danube river and there are several military assets that can move up the Rhine and down the Danube to the black sea. The connecting canal limits size. Largest allowed vessel is 190 metres (620 ft) long and 11.45 metres (37.6 ft) wide. Hight limit is about 8 meters from the ships I’ve seen. There are frigates, small riverine patrol boats and barges of weapons possible. Most of Europe’s diesel electric subs would fit in those locks surfaced, though they may need a little camouflage. With the Russian best ship gone and the rest pulled back 200 miles the supply route is open for quite a few small naval assets. 

Well, I disagree with you Bill on one point, the Ukrainians that did the attack were very skillful with the use of the weapons they had. My guess is that they had good intel on where the Moskva was at any given moment. No doubt that the Americans were feeding them the position in real-time from the Sat’s that are overlooking the area. Very professionally done. Since 2014 they have been going to school and preparing for this war. It’s kind of like the Arab- Israeli June ’67 war, The Israelis spent 8 years training and preparing for the war that was coming, while the Egyptians spent their time doing parades. I don’t have a dog in this, I kind of like the Russians there is a lot there that is worthwhile. This is just a god-awful mistake. But it also sends a message to another that is more or less organized in the same way, They take on the Republic of China, and they to are going to lose, that Navy of theirs will be turned into a razor blade so quick it will have their heads spinning. This makes the Russian-Ukraine War worth the cost, It stops any Ideas the Chi-Coms may have. Guile and resolve a bit of luck and a lot of friends. Who would have thought a Comedian would become a 21 century Winston Churchill!

Forget China looking at Taiwan. This has got to give pause, if not put downright fear into the “We’ve got nuclear weapons and F-15s” Swallwells and Bidens* leading The Radical Left that have seized control of our country

I’m not sure they have the intelligence to understand the situation well enough to get that much caution. If they did, the morons wouldn’t suggest the use of large scale weaponry for house to house fighting. They likely think that red areas are just as red as their own blue areas, and I am sure ignore the larger than 50% (I think) of the population that doesn’t vote but would be just as disagreeable with them.

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