The Death of the Cruiser Moscow: Who was the "murderer" who sank the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet?

On April 14, 2022, the Russian Defense Ministry painfully announced that its Guided-Missile Cruiser Moscow, the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet, sank during towing due to bad weather after an explosion and fire the day before. When the news came, many people felt incredulous.

With a displacement of 11,200 tons, the heroic Cruiser Moscow is the pride of the Russian Navy and the hegemon of the Black Sea.

Saying that Moscow is the overlord of the Black Sea is estimated that not many people will doubt it until April 14, 2022. Of the many countries along the Black Sea coast, only the Turkish Navy's Anatolia helipad landing ship (Erdogan also intends to turn it into the country's first aircraft carrier) is larger than it, but it is not expected to enter service until the end of this year. Even more impressive is the Armed Moscow, which belongs to the Glorious class of guided-missile cruisers that have been famous since the Soviet era – in fact, its original name was "Glory", the first of its kind.

The Black Sea Fleet originally had a non-donkey, non-horse "air cruiser" Moscow, which was decommissioned in 1996 (dismantled in India in 1997) before the Glory class received the name Moscow.

The Glory-class cruiser is Russia's most powerful conventionally powered warship besides the aircraft carrier Kuznetsov, featuring eight huge "sandbox" missile launch tubes on each side of the portboard, which can launch "granite" anti-ship missiles with a range of 550 kilometers, which the Soviet era is ready to use to launch saturation attacks on U.S. aircraft carriers.

Relying on this powerful anti-ship missile, three Glory-class cruisers, including the Moscow, had forced the three Aircraft Carriers of the United States, France and Italy in the Mediterranean to be cornered in the Mediterranean before the war between Russia and Ukraine — in a narrow sea area like the Mediterranean, it is difficult for aircraft carriers to find sea areas that can interfere in the situation in Ukraine and are not within the range of the Glory-class missiles. Therefore, although the Glory class has been around 40 years old, after recent modernization and modification, its combat effectiveness is still not to be insulted.

At the beginning of the war between Russia and Ukraine, Moscow also played a pioneering role, leading the wingmen of the Black Sea Fleet to blockade the Ukrainian coast in advance and launch attacks on various Ukrainian coastal defense points from the sea. The tonnage of all the ships of the Ukrainian Navy combined was not as good as that of a Moscow, and it was once withdrawn from the war stage with a posture of almost being killed in a second.

The flagship of the Ukrainian Navy, The Commander Sahadashne, sank in the port of Nikolayev – it is worth mentioning that the cruiser Moscow was built in this Ukrainian port.

However, it is such a seemingly unshakable battleship that ushered in the fate of sinking in one day, who and with what "murdered" it?

The Ukrainian side claimed that its coastal defense forces hit moscow with a Neptune missile, causing it to catch fire and sink; the Russian Defense Ministry claimed that moscow was forced to abandon the ship due to a fire detonation of ammunition on board, and did not recognize that the ship was sunk after being attacked.

Who is telling the truth?

Speaking of which, the Ukrainian "Neptune" missile that just entered service last year is not advanced in terms of design source, it is a type of sea-skimming anti-ship missile similar to the American "Harpoon" anti-ship missile, which is quite similar to the "Flying Fish" missile that made a big splash in the Battle of Anglo-Armamar Island, but it uses inertial guidance + active radar search guidance, so that its range has increased to 280 kilometers.

This missile uses active radar to find targets at the end, so it always looks for the part with the highest radar reflection of the target battleship as the hit point, and the British Navy destroyer Sheffield was hit by the "Flying Fish" missile under the bridge of the combat intelligence center, resulting in the ship eventually sinking.

The glorious class's tall bridges, chimneys and tail helicopter hangars will be the most attractive locations for Neptune.

However, if a Ukrainian missile hit the Moscow, it also has a certain degree of reasonableness. Because Ukraine is not only the place where the Glory class was built, but also has a Glory class cruiser "Komsomolskaya", although it has not been put into use, it has a full understanding of the performance parameters, advantages and disadvantages of this type of warship.

Ukraine's Komsomolskaya Glorious-class guided-missile cruiser has never been completed.

Ukraine has not used long-range anti-ship missiles before, which may have caused the Russian military to produce a light enemy and deploy the warship too close to the Ukrainian coast. In recent days, the winds and waves in the northern Part of the Black Sea have been so high that the Ukrainian side may have taken advantage of the bad weather to launch this attack , which would force the Ka-27 helicopter on board the Moscow as a warning to stay on the ship and seriously affect the operating status of its alert radar. This would make the sea-skimming Neptune missile only be discovered by the Moscow at the last moment, when it is estimated that the ship will only have time to intercept it with machine guns, and the consequences can be imagined.

However, the Russian side claimed that the ship was forced to abandon the ship after the fire exploded, suggesting that it was an accident rather than an enemy attack, and there is also a certain possibility. This Black Sea Fleet had several precedents for the destruction of large ships due to accidents.

In 2014, the Black Sea Fleet's second largest ship, the Kara-class cruiser Kerch, caught fire in the harbor.

In the photo of the port of Sevastopol, the large ship in the center is the Kerch after the fire, which was forced to be decommissioned because of the serious damage, and has now been dismantled.

Earlier, on October 29, 1955, the battleship Novorossiysk, the largest warship ever owned by the Black Sea Fleet, was compensated by Italy for the Soviet Union, exploded.

Two hours later, the nearly 30,000-ton ship and more than 600 sailors were buried on the ocean floor.

So it wouldn't be strange if Russian sailors sank their battleships once again.

In this way, does it mean that the battleship is difficult to determine the "cause of death"? It can't be said that the "murderer" is easy to find, that should be the designer of the Glory class battleship.

Perhaps to allow the battleship to take on more tasks, the mighty Moscow was designed to resemble an ammunition depot, with armaments including large anti-ship missiles, two different anti-aircraft missiles, 533 mm anti-submarine torpedoes, 130 mm guns, and 30 mm near-fire guns. Some people describe the large ships designed by the Soviet Union as almost always stacking various weapons on the top, which makes it easy to seriously explode if it is hit or caught on fire.

Taking the missile attack as an example, the Neptune missile was originally used against a 5,000-ton battleship, and the more than 10,000-ton Moscow should have been able to withstand it, but looking at the three positions where it could be hit, it would be clear that any missile hit could be fatal.

If you hit position 1 shown above, the root of the tall bridge, it will land on the Granite anti-ship missile group, each of which weighs half a ton.

If it hits position 2, which is the side of the chimney, the second highest point of the ship, it will be centered under the six 30 mm close defense guns and detonate its prepared ammunition depot.

If you hit position 3, which is below the high point helicopter magazine at the rear of the warship, a slightly higher level will detonate the SA-N-4 Gecko anti-aircraft missile magazine there, and a slightly lower will detonate a 533 mm torpedo below.

According to the latest photos, the core area of the Moscow fire is exactly where the front of the middle cabin is located.

The end of the Moscow is already in front of people, the former Black Sea overlord looks very fierce, powerful, but once shot (or fire), almost everywhere is deadly. Its superstructure is tall and heavy, which makes the ship's center of gravity rise, and it is more likely to fall and sink after being hit into the water. All these weaknesses, combined with unexpected storm weather, can be said to be the biggest trigger for the sinking of the Moscow.

The sinking of the Moscow, for the Russian army in the Ukrainian battlefield, must have a double negative impact on morale and combat effectiveness, more seriously, due to the blockade of the Turkish Strait, it is difficult for the Russian army in the Black Sea to replenish such large warships, which will seriously weaken the combat effectiveness of the Black Sea Fleet - its largest ships at present, only the "Brave class" large anti-submarine ships, and very old.

This is even more depressing news for the Russians, who are fighting fiercely around Crimea. Even if they opened up land passages between the base of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and their own country, they may find that the fleet does not have enough warships large enough to use. To solve this problem, Russia may have a headache.

This also reminds ship designers that the design of any battleship must take into account both attack and defense, and "firepower X mobility X defense" is the life formula of a ship. Biased consideration of only unilateral requirements can easily lead to disastrous consequences. This is science, and no one can change it with wishful thinking.

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