Moskva Cruiser: What You Need To Know

Explainer of the Russian Navy's Slava Class cruiser. Why they were built and how they have played a role in the Ukraine Invasion. Three are in service but one, Moskva, has been seriously damaged in the Black Sea. Unscripted and unedited.

[ftffighter]

Can we just take the time to appriciate how this man made all of the drawings in MS Paint? Skills!

[antonleimbach]

I was in the USN for 6 years and operated + maintained the surface to air missile system MK-74 and also the CIWS. I’ve been on flattops and Destroyers. It’s beyond belief that this ship was sunk so easily. This ship should have seen those missiles incoming and shot them down with no problem. I would hope we get to see underwater video of whatever remains.

[bigredracingdog]

I was able to tour the Marshall Ustinov when it visited Norfolk in 1989. I was amazed at the poor quality of the welds and the crude joints that were simply overlapping steel sheets connected with immense rivets. There was rust everywhere. Of the equipment we were allowed to see, most of it had a crude, 1950s-esque appearance to it. Everything was grossly oversized, as if miniaturization hadn't occurred to the Russians yet.

[benlewis]

The Neptune missile is based off of the KH-35 Uranus missile (Nato Designation Switchblade) From what I can gather the Uranus was designed to cruise at a 10-15m altitude and at the terminal attack phase go down to 4m to hit near the waterline. We can presume that the Ukrainians have improved on these figures (The Ukrainians tout "much improved electronics"). It travels subsonically ('bout 330m/s).

The S300F has a minimum engagement altitude of 25m from what I understand- so unless the Russians deployed an upgraded version we can discount it from the engagement completely. The Osa has a minimum engagement altitude of 10m, so it certainly cannot fire during the terminal phase. With a 12KM range the crew has at best 30 seconds to identify the target, aim, deploy the launchers and fire, and even then the launcher only carries two missiles. The AK-630's can definitely engage, but with a 4000m range they have at best only 12 seconds to engage, probably less due to minimum range, gun barrel elevation and operator delay. Even if you manage to intercept here it is likely that you will be pelted with 500kg+ of hot metal fragments. Even if done perfectly you do not have a 100% chance of not being hit by the missile at this point.

All this assumes that the RADAR operators pick these low flying targets up and inform the command staff in a timely enough fashion and the command staff pass this on to the weapon operators. Seconds matter here.

TLDR: 1970's AA tech does not beat 2020 missile tech.

[piccalillipit]

*I USED TO SEE THIS SHIP ALL THE TIME* Its primary role was menacing other ships around the black sea - I live at the port city of Burgas in Bulgaria and it was here on a regular basis just loitering and being a "threat"

this was especially prevalent every time there was an international argument with Russia.

[brianchiasson]

“I normally write about submarines..”

Well congratulations, because now Moskva is in your wheelhouse.

[MostlyPennyCat]

As far as I've been able to ascertain, Moskva had been playing Fleet Air Defense and Goalkeeper for the black sea fleet, very much putting her between Ukraine and the fleet.
She bristles with a 3 layered air defence:
64 Grumbles (S300F 90km semi active SAM, requires _5 radars to function)_
40 Geckos (9M33 OSA-M, 2 10km missiles on trainable launcher, RF CLOS, requires 2 radars to function)
6 AK-630s (30mm Gatling CIWS, 2 port, 2 starboard, 2 fore, each pair requires a separate radar)

So S300 has a fair old chance against Neptune on a high flight path.
As a sea skimmer, S300 might be a bit too long range when they come over the radar horizon at 30km range. With minimum range at 50m and 3-5 seconds to launch. Requires A LOT of radars to work and if they don't, it'll do nothing (that's what got Coventry in the Falklands, computer failure on the Type 22 it was paired with)
Gecko is pretty old hat, radio control only on, CEP of 5m and designed for helicopters and aircraft, not missiles.
AK-630 they can bring 4 of these to bear!
Needs two radars and can be user controlled if needed with a TV sight.
These are very much designed for this purpose, however Neptune will likely gain height and perform a plunging attack which makes for a difficulty target for CIWS.

I had a think, tried to put myself in the shoes of the commander of the Neptune battery.
These are our only missiles, this will probably be their only chance to attack, they have probably got though position from NATO and a RB2 is relaying precise coordinates while distracting the ship and no doubt streaming lovely pretty video back to the battery.

How many missiles do I launch?
Doctrine says 2, perhaps 2 flights of 2, staggered.

I've just decided to launch them all, in pairs in fairly quick succession.
They attack as a team, popping one up above the horizon to check their fix.

Now, at Mach 0.8 to go the last 30km takes 109s

S300 can fire 21 times in that space
Gecko
OSA-M is obsolete as it uses a trainable launcher, it will be able to get 2, maybe 4 off the rail before defeated
AK-630 should be able to handle Neptune, but I've no idea what it's saturation rate is. What happens when it's faced with 8 missiles? How deep are it's magazines? Will it empty all 4 guns into the first target or can it handle multiple incoming and make the right decision?

Obviously the answer is "not good enough"
Russia send to be in the same position as the Royal Navy was in the Falklands
And now, with fleet air defense gone, can Ukraine rally the air force and does it have air launched AShMs to take on the other frigates with?

[georgej.dorner]

The Moskva is presently pioneering in underwater exploration.

[justnotgd]

Odd that in several news and other broadcasts, so called "expert" pointing to the front of the ship and stating that they were the S300 missiles. I suppose the fact that the two experts I saw were "Generals" and not Admirals might be the reason. So many people claim to be experts. Thank you for the clearer understanding of this ship.

[sadlerbw]

If the ship was near one of its 'usual' locations, and a missile was fired from the Odessa area, that would likely give a Neptune missile something like a 4 to 7 minute flight time. That should have been plenty of time to identify and attempt to intercept any missiles. If it was, in fact, a missile strike, I can see why Russia would prefer the narrative of a fire that they were not able to put out. While Russia would not usually want its Navy to look incompetent, that is probably preferable to making it look like their anti-missile defenses don't work. Russia has made a tidy profit selling these systems to other countries, and if it turns out that they can't stop even a regular subsonic cruise missile, they stand to loose a decent amount of money in foreign sales.

[jamesm]

Whenever I saw those Soviet, Cold War era “battlecruisers” like the Kirov or even the little fun-size ones like the Slava class, absolutely stocked to the gills with missiles, rockets, torpedoes and everything else that can go “boom!” I couldn’t help but think I was looking at the world’s worst explosive reactive armor. Like those WW2, Japanese heavy cruisers piled high with type 93 torpedoes. One of these ships gets popped in the wrong spot, and then the whole thing just goes “KABLOOEY!!”

[agwhitaker]

Happy to see a factual, accurate review on this ship type.
Elsewhere they call it a Russian battleship and pride of the modern navy.

[Corsair]

Regarding the other 2 ships not being able to join Moskva in the Black Sea - didn't Turkey close the straights to ALL military warships unless they were returning to their homeport? That's probably why the other 2 are drilling circles in the Med.

[vasopel]

this class of ships were were made in Ukraine in soviet times...nobody seems to point that out.

[bowlampar]

I am amazed at the speed Moskva can transformed into a submarine from a cruiser so quickly after a brightly lit fireworks, it shows that Russia Federation Black Sea fleet naval warfare technology is very advanced compared to the western technology. It is a real eye opener! Hope we get see more of this outstanding transformation of Russian warships in the day ahead. 😘🤗

[cliffwoodbury]

when i was a kid i used to check out so many books on Soviet military systems, and now its almost impossible to find books like that, so i don't know as much as i wish i did about all the Soviet and Russian systems i have never read or forgot about. I hope u make a lot more Soviet/Russian military system videos. Even back then the navy system books were the rarest so its cool to get more information on these ships!

[brinx]

I built a model of this ship last year, and I'm of two minds about its sinking.

On the one hand I'm the other hand I'm overjoyed. 🤔

[jeffcamp]

If Ukrainian Neptune missiles didn’t hit it, why has the Russian navy moved all their ships further out to sea or out of the area?

[DGFishRfine]

I'm so glad to have you and Sub Brief right now.

[cccooooooolllllllll]

I was waiting for such a video, but not that fast.