[Goose]

More on Moskva sinking -

https://news.usni.org/2022/05/05/warship...ysis-shows

The review of images following the strike of the two Neptune anti-ship missiles from open-source naval analyst and retired Navy Capt. Chris Carlson told USNI News that the guided-missile cruiser did not have its radars activated and could not see the threat from the two weapons.




In the photo of Moskva after the strike, the radars “are in their normal stowed position,” Carlson told USNI News on Monday.




“If you look at the pictures of Moskva, when she’s just dancing around going from place to place, or she’s anchored as a showboat, those directors are all facing aft every time,” he said.

I hate to do this, but the article has several significant errors. If it ever shows up in Proceedings I am pretty sure it will be cleaned up. The statement the ship did not have it's radars operating is not supported by what is shown. What is true is that neither the Pop Group nor the Top Dome radars were attempting to track targets arriving from the port side of the ship. However, these are both fire control radars and do not attempt to track targets unless tasked to do so. That tasking normally comes from the air search radar, which on the Moskva would be a Top Pair or Top Steer. It is impossible from the picture to know if these radars were spinning at the time of the attack and even more impossible to know if these radars were emitting at that time. In times past Russian ships would operate in EMCON much more commonly that US ships do, but under the circumstances I would be amazed if both 3D air search radars were not operating. Possible, but unknowable from the pictures.

It is true that apparently neither the Pop Group or the Top Dome radars were tasked to provide fire control for a defensive missile. The Top Dome probably would not be used against a sea skimming missile in any case. It controls the S-300 missiles, which are oriented to more distant targets. It is doubtful they are even capable of maneuvering as required to hit a sea skimmer that is close aboard. The Pop Group controls SA-N-4 Gecko missiles, which would be the "weapon of choice". Either the inbound missiles were not detected by the air search radar or the CIC people did not designate and assign the inbound targets to a defensive weapons system. With a sea skimmer you don't have a lot of time to act, so poor training or bad doctrine could produce this result. We don't know at this point. There is also a slight chance that the CIC elected to engage the missiles only with the AK-630 weapons system, which is similar to the US CIWS. It uses a Bass Tilt fire control radar which we don't see either. This is an "automatic" system but due to false alarms it is not normally enabled. Maybe they detected a target and forgot to enable it. If they did detect an inbound sea skimmer enabling the CIWS to engage automatically is a pretty standard practice even if you are going to engage it with another weapon. What if you miss?

The second set of statements that I know for a fact are false is that you can't fire a harpoon missile using a position that is passed over a voice circuit. You most certainly can. It may be that the Captain has only had the experience of firing it via a data link, but that is by no means the only way to get target coordinates. These coordinates are only somewhat approximate anyway. The target will not be at that posit when the missile arrives. The missile has to acquire the target itself in all cases. I am virtually certain that a land based anti-ship missile in Ukraine can receive target positions in several ways. This is not to say I believe the P-8 passed such coordinates to the Ukrainians. I strongly suspect they didn't. But they could have.

[Goose]

More on Moskva sinking -

https://news.usni.org/2022/05/05/warship...ysis-shows

The review of images following the strike of the two Neptune anti-ship missiles from open-source naval analyst and retired Navy Capt. Chris Carlson told USNI News that the guided-missile cruiser did not have its radars activated and could not see the threat from the two weapons.




In the photo of Moskva after the strike, the radars “are in their normal stowed position,” Carlson told USNI News on Monday.




“If you look at the pictures of Moskva, when she’s just dancing around going from place to place, or she’s anchored as a showboat, those directors are all facing aft every time,” he said.

I hate to do this, but the article has several significant errors. If it ever shows up in Proceedings I am pretty sure it will be cleaned up. The statement the ship did not have it's radars operating is not supported by what is shown. What is true is that neither the Pop Group nor the Top Dome radars were attempting to track targets arriving from the port side of the ship. However, these are both fire control radars and do not attempt to track targets unless tasked to do so. That tasking normally comes from the air search radar, which on the Moskva would be a Top Pair or Top Steer. It is impossible from the picture to know if these radars were spinning at the time of the attack and even more impossible to know if these radars were emitting at that time. In times past Russian ships would operate in EMCON much more commonly that US ships do, but under the circumstances I would be amazed if both 3D air search radars were not operating. Possible, but unknowable from the pictures.

It is true that apparently neither the Pop Group or the Top Dome radars were tasked to provide fire control for a defensive missile. The Top Dome probably would not be used against a sea skimming missile in any case. It controls the S-300 missiles, which are oriented to more distant targets. It is doubtful they are even capable of maneuvering as required to hit a sea skimmer that is close aboard. The Pop Group controls SA-N-4 Gecko missiles, which would be the "weapon of choice". Either the inbound missiles were not detected by the air search radar or the CIC people did not designate and assign the inbound targets to a defensive weapons system. With a sea skimmer you don't have a lot of time to act, so poor training or bad doctrine could produce this result. We don't know at this point. There is also a slight chance that the CIC elected to engage the missiles only with the AK-630 weapons system, which is similar to the US CIWS. It uses a Bass Tilt fire control radar which we don't see either. This is an "automatic" system but due to false alarms it is not normally enabled. Maybe they detected a target and forgot to enable it. If they did detect an inbound sea skimmer enabling the CIWS to engage automatically is a pretty standard practice even if you are going to engage it with another weapon. What if you miss?

The second set of statements that I know for a fact are false is that you can't fire a harpoon missile using a position that is passed over a voice circuit. You most certainly can. It may be that the Captain has only had the experience of firing it via a data link, but that is by no means the only way to get target coordinates. These coordinates are only somewhat approximate anyway. The target will not be at that posit when the missile arrives. The missile has to acquire the target itself in all cases. I am virtually certain that a land based anti-ship missile in Ukraine can receive target positions in several ways. This is not to say I believe the P-8 passed such coordinates to the Ukrainians. I strongly suspect they didn't. But they could have.