The sinking of the Russian Black Sea Fleet flagship Moskva has added to the embarrassment and humiliation of the Russian military and of course, the author of the ill-considered invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin.
It has reinforced the appearance of inadequacies and incompetence of a military that was used to intimidating through physical presence and brute force whoever dared to stand up to it.
With all of the prestige and reputation that the Moskva represented, its apparent loss is astounding to naval analysts.
How might this have happened as a result of the impact of two cruise missiles? Here are my thoughts.
My background (from many years ago) which informs my opinions is that I served 6 years on active duty in the US Navy. As a midshipman, one of the semester long courses taught was on naval engineering fundamentals. As a student and later as a midshipman instructor, I gained a academic knowledge of ship's architecture, damage control and stability. When assigned to a ship, I received training in basic shipboard firefighting and maintenance of watertight integrity and damage control.
I make the assumption that the Russian Navy has policies and doctrine similar to those of the US Navy with respect to safeguarding the watertight integrity of their ships and maintaining readiness states that are consistent with the operating environment.
Naval ships underway set what are known as material conditions of readiness which determine the degree of watertight integrity. This is accomplished by closing doors and hatches between watertight compartments under the main deck (watertight when the doors/hatches are closed). The higher the potential for battle damage, the higher the condition of readiness and the more doors and hatches are closed. The US Navy has 3 conditions of readiness. These are, in increasing order XRAY, YOKE and ZEBRA, not to be interchanged with the NATO alphanumerics XRay, Yankee and Zulu. Each door/hatch has a plate with the letter X, Y or Z to denote under what conditions they must be closed. Condition XRAY is set when a ship is in port during peacetime. YOKE is set when underway and ZEBRA set whenever General Quarters or maximum battle readiness is declared.
I do not know if the Moskva and other Russian Navy ships employ similar conditions of readiness but am fairly certain they have a similar if not identical system. This means that the Moskva commanding officer was responsible for determining if his ship was in danger of attack and maintaining a General Quarters condition of readiness. Setting General Quarters/material condition ZEBRA or the Russian equivalent is a stringent and inconvenient state for the crew as doors must be opened and immediately closed to move about the ship. It is entirely possible that this condition was not enforced consistently throughout the ship which would allow for catastrophic flooding in the spaces below the waterline in the event of a hull breach. If the Moskva's command did not consider the possibility of a shore-based cruise missile attack and failed to consistently enforce the highest condition of readiness, this would have been a serious oversight.
Once the missiles struck, depending on their point of impact, major fires and flooding could have resulted. Fire is the bane of all sailors and the use of fire-fighting water can exacerbate the flooding and resultant degradation of stability. The reported explosion of ordnance and fires suggest that rocket motors may have ignited. Rocket motor fires are very difficult to control as they have their own source of oxygen and cannot be extinguished with CO2 or without using copious amounts of water. A hit near the waterline would cause massive flooding that might not have been able to be controlled. Maintaining a high condition of readiness, i.e. all hatches and doors shut might have helped control internal flooding but whether it was in place is unknown.
A ship's hull that is compromised at or below the waterline is very difficult to right or even move without the assistance of other ships. In stormy weather, that would be near impossible. Ships seldom go down upright. At some point, stability is so compromised they list steeply and usually capsize.
Survivability at sea depends on adherence to strict damage control protocols, assistance from other vessels and heroic, professional action by the surviving crew. I suspect one or more of these was MIA on the Moskva.