The cruiser 'Moskva' - briefing
This article provides some comments and takes on the circumstances of the explosion, fire and subsequent sinking of the Russian Navy Black Sea flagship, 'Moskva'. Depending on the source of information, the ‘Moskva’ was either hit by 2x R-360 "Neptun" AShMs, hit a mine and consequently suffered a catastrophic ammunition explosion and fire. The 'Moskva' later sank in the night in stormy conditions.
The 'Moskva' was the first Project 1164 "Slava" built for the Soviet Navy, commissioned into service in 1982.
The photos and video clip
At the time the photos and video were taken, the weather and also the sea state was relatively calm, and it was before 20:00. The photo only shows a glimpse of the situation of the fire and operations at one specific moment in time. However, both the wind and waves picked up later, ultimately the vessel sunk, reportedly in the early hours of 14th of April.
In the photo, the ‘Moskva’ looks abandoned, as all the liferafts are gone from their storage position and there seems to be a ladder on the hull near the liferafts station. Behind the Moskva, aft, there is a Russian Navy tug with its fire monitors spraying in two opposite directions. It may even be possible that the tug is attached to the Mosvka, to turn it, to enable the dark smoke to go downwind, ( as the wind was NW), port side damage is the opposite side to where the alleged missiles ought to have come from. The dark smoke is indicative of a serious fire with intense burning, probably from the main engineering (boiler) space and ammunition storage area.
It is debatable whether the Moskva was hit by a ‘Neptun’ type missile. The photo certainly shows part of the ship shrouded in dark smoke, after a significant explosion. There are no other images of the opposite side to indicate a big hole and further damage. A lot of the damage on the port side is shrouded in smoke, rendering difficult to gauge the nature and extent of the damage. The second likely impact site doesn’t suggest an anti-ship missile strike, although it seems to be an impact hole. To note, the Ukrainians and U.S. claim that the ‘Moskva’ was hit twice.
The tug is alongside, which is indicative of ongoing salvage actions, with a view of a possible external cooling of fire damaged areas, prior to boarding with fire-fighting teams or the very least, to enable crewmembers to set up the towing line. Noticeably, the other ship is standing by, not actually cooling down the fire damaged areas. The other tug is keeping a safe distance because there is the possibility of a real danger of a secondary explosion from munitions and missiles stored aboard, bearing in mind that the armament for the CIWS systems is in the fire zone. Likewise, the P-1000 Vulkan supersonic ASCM, (if any were loaded in the missile compartments) could have leaked propellant and this also is a highly dangerous situation and another extreme fire risk).
According to the ship’s plan, the approximate area of damage on the hull is in compartment 8, where the boilers for the gas turbines are located. This is hugely problematic as this and the gas-turbine compartment are two critical areas, if flooded can lead to catastrophic flooding and sinking. Another critical element for survivability of a ship was also located in the fire zone area, was the main damage control post, (Post of Energy & Survivability - known as PEZH in Russian). If indeed the explosion occurred in the locality, this would have effectively crippled efforts to tackle the fires and carry out damage control tasks.
This area contains ammunition for the two AK-630, each compartment is reported to have at least 2000 30mm rounds. The resulting explosion and fire would have been catastrophic. Judging from the various smoke marks on the hull, smoke and fire had expanded considerably through the ship. Under this area is the heart of the ship, the main compartments for machinery, propulsion and electrical power for the ship.
At this stage, the vessel is clearly listing and flooded but still has reserve buoyancy and significant part of the ship is clear of smoke, which could at this stage allow fire-fighting teams to access the ship from the aft, (i.e. from the helicopter deck). No information is known about whether the fire was being contained or not at the time of the photo.
An analogy of the ‘Moskva’ photo is that of HMS Sheffield, struck by an Exocet missile in the 1982 South Atlantic War, ultimately the ship was abandoned after 4 hours due to the great risk of an ammunition explosion. Similarly, the vessel was later taken in tow but later sank, due to the extent of damage suffered and out of control fire.
It seems to me that an order was given to evacuate quickly, not being able to save everyone but to save most of the crew, transfer of the uninjured and injured to the nearby ships was done in daylight conditions, before worsening weather conditions prevailed.
Flaws
The ‘Moskva’ was built in the 1970’s, with just cosmetic refits and little modernisation since 2010, so the inherited outdated Soviet systems are likely to have sealed the fate of the ship.
Several sources mention some fundamental flaws in the design, fire-fighting systems, and damage control systems. So, it is worth noting these to understand better the circumstances that lead to the sinking.
The ‘Slava’ was designed as an aircraft carrier killer for the Soviet Navy; hence her mission was not one of enduring survivability after multiple hits, but a strong enough construction enough to carry out the allocated mission. As with ships of that era, most of the emergency fire-fighting pumps were centralised in the engineering spaces and not distributed around the ships, as would be the case in NATO navies. Equally, any explosion of the magnitude suffered would mean critical damage to the fire-suppression systems, rupture to fire mains and buckling of bulkheads. Likewise, the compartments were considered quite large by NATO standards, which would have made firefighting and smoke evacuation challenging.
Potentially sealing the demise was the issue of fire suppression systems. The Moskva was designed before 1980 and as such did not have a fully centralized fire alarm system installed. There had been plans to upgrade Moskva's fire suppression systems to a more modern standard, but this was shelved due to budgeting cuts, so this basically left the ship with a 1980’s system.
Not having a centralised, modern fire-suppression system meant that crewmembers would have to assess and physically act as messengers to pass messages along. This means going through hatches, rendering fire and smoke separation much harder to maintain. This and the evacuation of hundreds of crewmembers to the aft liferaft stations resulted in smoke spreading widely in the ship, as can be seen in the photos.
Significantly, the Damage Control teams operated from a space adjacent to the main machinery control room, the area that is visibly damaged in the images. Russian media did report on one casualty, Ivan Vakhrushev, where he was said to have been in a unit responsible for the ship's combat safety, more than likely involved in overseeing damage control efforts and rescue efforts from this area.
It is impossible to know fire-fighting equipment was kept in a serviceable condition and how many of the fire-fighting teams has modern self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA), (I’ve seen the Russian MoD post a medley of kit when showing naval exercise and training drills). Coupled with the possibility of inadequate training and drills, depending on the experience and knowledge of the crew, if according to some sources, just over half of the crew were conscripts, this left little margin for effective and well-trained fire-fighting teams.
Conversely, officers and petty officers seem to be overrepresented in the video of the survivors on parade on the 16th of April. It must be noted that the Russian Navy tend to use junior officers and petty officers in a wider capacity than their Western counterparts.
In short, possibility of poorly serviced equipment, as well as outdated systems, all of which would have severely hampered the response of the crew in fighting the fires.
Next: Foreign help and sinking in a storm