Moskva Flag Ship

Might have been the folks who tried to tow him, or the Turks who rescued some of the crew.

Either way, he’s a SCUBA reef now. Good riddance!

Looks like the fire’s somewhere up forward near those SS-N-12 launchers; never a good thing.

I heard that he slowly listed to port, then capsized and sank. That’d be progressive, uncontrolled flooding.
 
Your large picture shows a lot of dark black smoke coming from the gas turbine exhaust stacks indicative of a major class Bravo fuel or lubricant fire, probably uncontrolled and midships, most likely in his main engineering spaces. That would render most firefighting and dewatering efforts ineffective.

Additionally, the smaller picture shows smoky marks along the deck edge from inside the ship on the main deck. There are a number of portholes down the length of the hull, and it’s probable that the crew opened them to improve ventilation and visibility. The amount of smudging along the hull indicates that internally, the ship was almost completely inundated with smoke along her main deck. Opening those, since you cannot now see much smoke emerging means that the airflow most likely reversed, drawing air in and feeding the internal fires like a chimney grating or flue.

Lastly, at about midships, just below the last SS-N-12 launcher pair, there is what appears to be a hole and a light internal to the ship which is either a hot fire, or an artifact of the photo. Either way, Moskva had no hatch along the hull there, so I would surmise that this may have been a missile impact and entry point. It’s about the right height for a sea-skimmer, and similar to what we saw on Stark.

If that is missile damage, there were reports of a strong port list, that hole alone if not mitigated, could have been the cause of progressive flooding and eventual capsize. Fires don’t sink ships, but they help. You have to either let the air out or the water in. We learned from experience that you can sink your own ship while trying to fight fires. Another lesson learned from Stark.

Either way, looks like they were asleep at the switch. Their main phased array radar for the SA-N-6 (the big gizmo aft) is sitting fore and aft, meaning it wasn’t being actively used for defense.

They’re sailors, like me, but I’ve dealt with Russians at sea for most of my career and although I should feel sympathy, given what this ship had done, my sympathies are for their families and loved ones.
 
Now if Ukraine had a couple spare Neptune Missiles just sitting around collecting dust... I wonder what excuses the Kremlin & Russian State TV would say about this salvage ship suddenly sinking.
 
Now if Ukraine had a couple spare Neptune Missiles just sitting around collecting dust... I wonder what excuses the Kremlin & Russian State TV would say about this salvage ship suddenly sinking.

It's over 100 years old. :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:

Tony
 
Now if Ukraine had a couple spare Neptune Missiles just sitting around collecting dust... I wonder what excuses the Kremlin & Russian State TV would say about this salvage ship suddenly sinking.
If you’ve ever seen pictures of what’s sitting pierside and rusting away in Vladivostok, Murmansk and Novaya Zemlya, you’d figure it might be just nature taking its course. Most of their hulls are either bright orange or grey painted over rust. The only thing that gets money are subs, and their number of submerging events is greater than the number of surfacings. 🫡
 
So, May I ask why you guys are talking shit about Russia and the sinking of their ship?

Do you not understand that Russia went into Ukraine to stop the atrocities of the Ukrainian military against the people of eastern Ukraine that have been happening since 2014?

I served our once great nation for 8 years as a US Marine. The USSR was my sworn mortal enemy. Since the break up of the USSR, Russia, as a nation, has experienced more liberties than we Americans have these past 2 years.

Ukraine on the other hand are Nazi socialists who are hell-bent on eliminating ALL Russian speaking Ukrainian citizens.

Wanna see the Ukrainians in action? Then watch this video by independent American journalist and US Navy veteran Patrick Lancaster.
Patrick has been covering the atrocities committed against the citizens of eastern Ukraine by the Ukrainian government (Azov Regiment) since 2014.
 
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