Despite the instant birth of 1,000 hilarious memes, it turns out that Russia’s Black Sea flagship, the Moskva (“Moscow”), isn’t currently being harvested by Ukrainian tractors scouring the seafloor. It is, however, reportedly being towed back to port after suffering serious damage and a fire resulting from the strike of two Neptune missiles launched by a shore battery.
Earlier this week, the site Small Wars Journal, warned that “Ukraine can easily achieve a resounding victory that would combine massive substantive defeats for the Russians with tremendous symbolism and loss of prestige for Russia in addition to greatly affecting the way ground combat plays out in the south and east. I am talking about the near-annihilation of the Russian Navy presence in the Black Sea, including the entirety or almost the entirety of the substantive portion of the Black Sea Fleet.”
That sentiment echoed statements from Daily Kos community member Kokopelli2018 who wrote back on April 5 about the possibility of sinking the Moskva and the rest of the Black Sea fleet.
On Thursday morning, it was clear that removing “Russian warship” from the battlefield was accomplished with a plan that took practice and timing. Still, the ultimate cost of a couple of Neptunes vs. hundreds of millions invested in the missile cruiser has elevated the question, “Is the age of warships over?” just as Russia’s loss of 500+ tanks has raised the question, “Is the age of tanks over?”
The answer to both is almost certainly “No.” But it’s a modified no.
Tanks—a device developed initially with the idea of countering trenches and machinegun nests—have proven themselves to be effective means of projecting force on the battlefield in a way that, for the last century, was hard to counter with anything short of another tank. That value is still there, but now that a tank can be taken down with handheld weaponry that can be produced at a fraction of the cost, its worth as a piece that can take, defend, and decisively occupy territory is greatly diminished. In a battlefield of drones and missiles, a tank is a relatively slow-moving target, and despite the cleverness of alloys and ceramics and active explosive defensive systems, its armor no longer means it’s all but immune to anything but another member of its own species.
Ships have held that role at sea for far, far longer. From Actium to Trafalgar to Leyte Gulf, ships have been the ultimate form of power projection. In the modern age, they’ve been both mobile gun platforms capable of targeting sites far inland with massive shells, landing strips for planes that can range out thousands of miles, and the launching points of both short-range and long-range missiles. What does Russia … or China … or the United States do when they want to show someone they mean business? They park a carrier group on their doorstep, putting an incredible nexus of power just seconds away.
But is that power now as questionable as that of land-based armor? In The Age of Missiles, where every nation with a coastline is capable of fielding low-cost weapons that punch out a hundred miles from shore, is a big ship sitting on the horizon anything but a target? The answer is … we don’t know.
There have been questions about the continued value of large ships for a long time. And there’s absolutely no doubt that the billions spent on ships ranging from cruisers to aircraft carriers are heavily swayed by feelings of tradition, national pride, and more than a little, “Hey, that’s a lot of jobs in my district.” Whether they are worth what they cost is an extremely good question.
But we really don’t know what the near-sinking of the Moskva says about naval power overall. Right now, we know that it says don’t build your missile cruisers with such a useless defensive system that if you’re directing your radar somewhere else, it can’t see an incoming missile. We don’t know a lot more than that. Both on land and at sea, Russia’s defensive systems have proved astoundingly flawed. However, that could be just another example of Russia’s vast and public grift-driven incompetence.
Naval actions are so incredibly rare, that the only active service ship in the U.S. Navy which has ever sunk another ship in battle is the U.S.S. Constitution, which did its damage during the War of 1812. The Moskva is only the second cruiser-class ship taken down since World War II (Argentina lost one during the Falklands War).
There’s a real danger in drawing a general example from a single incident. Even so, you can bet every admiral on the planet is sweating this morning. And when it comes to the Black Sea fleet, that sweat may be enough to raise the waterline.
It’s likely Moskva will be towed to Sevastopol, which is the home of Russia’s southern fleet. They even rented the spot from Ukraine before Putin decided to just take Crimea and save himself the monthly payments. Right now, the port at Sevastopol is about 140 miles from territory definitively controlled by Ukraine, making the ships in harbor safe from additional missile attacks. Probably. But every step that Ukraine takes in recapturing the territory north of Crimea is also a step toward making Sevastopol a scrapyard for the Russian navy.
And oh yeah, any idea Russia ever had about a naval invasion of Odesa? That is long gone.
Thursday, Apr 14, 2022 · 3:34:28 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
CNN has discovered what kos has been talking about since the war began — Russia has a problem with (say it with me) logistics.
Think about modern warfare and it's likely images of soldiers, tanks and missiles will spring to mind. But arguably more important than any of these is something on which they all rely: the humble truck. Armies need trucks to transport their soldiers to the front lines, to supply those tanks with shells and to deliver those missiles. In short, any army that neglects its trucks does so at its peril.
The article points out things that have gotten a lot of attention here—from rotten tires to leaking bearings—are signs that even the most important Russian gear hasn’t received the necessary levels of maintenance.
Thursday, Apr 14, 2022 · 4:32:57 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
There have been additional reports of shells landing in or around the village of Zhuravlevka. To give a sense of where that is, here’s a quick image of Kharkiv, Belgorod, and the location of the reported artillery strikes. For weeks, Russian forces near Belgorod have been lofting artillery shells over Zhuravlevka to strike at Kharkiv. A few shells landing in or around the village could be coming from Ukraine. They could also be very easily coming — accidentally or deliberately — from the Russian forces that are firing thousands of such rounds each day into Ukraine.
Thursday, Apr 14, 2022 · 4:41:43 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
One other thing about the site of the reported shelling. It’s very close to this:
This is the crossing point between Ukraine and Russia, east of Kharkiv. The image is from before the war began, and shows how this site was equipped to handle a large number of vehicles making the crossing each day. If Ukraine is directing artillery in this direction, it’s easy to believe that — like the fuel depot, and like a railway bridge damaged in the area — the target is damaging this highway which is the route along which Russian forces have been pouring into the area.
Thursday, Apr 14, 2022 · 5:04:45 PM +00:00 · kos
This thread has more info on that ridiculous radar with 180 degree field of vision.
However, the ship had several other self-defense systems that should’ve come online. The fact they failed means the Russian navy is afflicted by the same grift, incompetence, and vodka that have bedeviled the rest of its armed forces.
As I mentioned earlier, there is also the matter of the fleet, which is supposed to work together to identify and neutralize any threats. Apparently, Russian navy ships have the same communication issues that have made it impossible for Russia to coordinate large-scale assaults on the ground, or keep its Air Force operating at any real impactful tempo.