On the occasion of the sinking of the Moskva, it is worth spending a moment thinking about how the Great Powers of the Black Sea waged naval war against one another in the 20th century, because Moskva is hardly the first modern warship to find her way to the bottom of the Pontus Euxinus.
For Russia, the Black Sea has long represented a problem that remains stunningly obvious today; it is a critical theater of naval operations, the control of which can threaten amphibious attacks along its coastlines as well as conduct or prevent blockades of trade from crucial ports. At the same time, the Black Sea is distant from Russia’s other major ports and is easy to cut off from support and resupply. Generally, this has meant that during wartime what happens in the Black Sea stays in the Black Sea.
With control over the Dardanelles, Turkey effectively has a permanent veto on the transit of warships into and out of the Black Sea, even when (as today) Turkey is not a direct party to the conflict. Indeed, the five battleships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet were the only major Russian units to survive the Russo-Japanese War, largely because the Ottoman Empire refused to allow the fleet to join its ill-fated companions at Tsushima.
This meant that the five ships were available to the Russians when war broke out between the Russian and Ottoman Empires in late 1914. While naval operations in the Black Sea in World War I represented one of the most exciting and complex naval campaigns of the war, observers at the time preferred to concentrate on events in the North Sea. The Russians had their five pre-dreadnoughts while the Turks surprisingly had the battlecruiser Yavuz Sultan Selim, a modern German warship (originally named Goeben) crewed by Germans that had been transferred to the Ottomans after fleeing British battlecruisers in the Mediterranean.
Yavuz Sultan Selim sparred with the Russians several times over the first two years of the war, trying to use her superior speed and firepower to separate one or more victims from the herd. The Russians showed admirable discipline and seamanship, however, consistently preventing the former Goeben from dominating the sea. And the Russians had reinforcements on the way; over the course of the war, the Russians slowly built three dreadnought battleships at the Mykolaiv shipyards which Russia and Ukraine have bitterly contested over the past two months.
These ships gave the Russians the advantage from 1916 on, but events on sea and land would prevent them from enjoying this superiority. One of the dreadnoughts succumbed to an accidental fire in Sevastopol in 1916, another was scuttled by her crew in order to prevent capture by the Germans, and the third enjoyed a colorful career in German, Ukrainian, British, and finally White Russian service before ending her service life in exile at the port of Bizerte in French Tunisia. Her guns were donated to Finland for use in the Winter War, then captured by Russia and kept in service into the 1990s. For its part, Yavuz Sultan Selim (eventually renamed Yavuz Selim) would remain in Turkish service off and on for the next forty years.
World War II operations were more limited, mostly because of Turkey’s neutrality. Nevertheless, the Soviet Navy conducted amphibious and fire support operations against German forces on Ukraine’s southern coast for much of the war. The Soviets enjoyed a significant advantage in available naval forces because of the pre-war transfer of the battleship Sevastopol from the Baltic as well as the construction of new ships. The Germans relied primarily upon the Romanian Navy, although they also managed to transfer some light craft and submarines by rail and through river networks. The Germans also enjoyed a significant airpower advantage for most of this war, although this waned as the Combined Bomber Offensive took its toll in 1944. In the waning days of the war, the Soviet Black Sea Fleet operated in much the same way as its modern counterpart, supporting the advance of Red Army ground forces and threatening amphibious flank attacks on German defenders. The remaining German forces scuttled themselves when Bulgaria and Romania defected to the Soviets in 1944.
Moskva Cruiser. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Today the Turkish Navy is almost certainly the most powerful force in the Black Sea, with the Ukrainian Navy destroyed and the Russian Black Sea Fleet has suffered from attrition and old age. Turkey’s neutrality ensures that the Russians will likely be able to maintain at least a long-distance blockade for the duration of the war. The long-term prospects look bleak for Russian naval power in the Black Sea, however.
In any case, ships operating in the Black Sea will in the future be particularly vulnerable to modern shore artillery (land-based missiles) because of the confines of the body of water. This means that Ukraine can still put a hurting on Russia even without many active warships.
Now a 1945 Contributing Editor, Dr. Robert Farley is a Senior Lecturer at the Patterson School at the University of Kentucky. Dr. Farley is the author of Grounded: The Case for Abolishing the United States Air Force (University Press of Kentucky, 2014), the Battleship Book (Wildside, 2016), and Patents for Power: Intellectual Property Law and the Diffusion of Military Technology (University of Chicago, 2020).
CK
May 3, 2022 at 7:47 am
They certainly seem eager for a repeat, if reports they keep appearing on the horizon near Odessa and Moldova are to be taken seriously. Maybe what happened to their two little patrol boats near Snake Island has given them food for thought, though?
CK
May 3, 2022 at 7:47 am
Oh, I almost forgot. Here you go Alex, just for you. Feels like leaving feed for the birds, doesn’t it?
Ah yes, our prophet of blood and thunder returns. Here Alex, have a soapbox so you can more transparently proclaim your tidings.
Alex: “[screaming] … and the bezan shall be huge and black, and the eyes thereof red with the blood of living creatures… [Bandera Nazis] and the whore of Babylon [Zelensky] shall ride forth on a three-headed serpent, and throughout the lands, there will be a great rubbing of parts. Yeeah…
[yelling] … for the demon shall bear a nine-bladed sword. NINE-bladed! [NATO] Not two or five or seven, but NINE, which he will wield on all wretched sinners, sinners just like you, sir, [Alex] there, and the horns shall be on the head, with which he will…
[Fumbles a few pages of his script]
…there shall, in that time, be *rumors* of things going astray, errrm, and there shall be a great confusion as to where things really are, [Orcs in Kyiv? Kharkhiv? Azovstal?] and nobody will really know where lieth those little things wi – with the sort of raffia work base that has an attachment. [The tops of Russian tanks] At this time, a friend shall lose his friend’s hammer and the young shall not know where lieth the things possessed by their fathers that their fathers put there only just the night before, about eight o’clock. Yea, it is written in the book of Cyril that…
No nonsens shall remain unuttered, no lie too grand for the peoples of the earth, and that blessed are the cheesemakers [Ukrainians] because surely, they will inherit the earth. Meanwhile, a donkey will don his mother’s skirt, where he shall fart out a smaller, faeces-kissed version of himself [Putin] who shall make of his believers, meat-bicycles, with which he may show them buckets, if only they bring him buckets, notwhistanding his faeces smelling mien.
See, that’s the difference between you and the prophets of Monty Python. Their random gibberish is at least, entertaining. If only we could say the same of yours.
There, I made up some nonsense today, so you don’t have to!
Slack
May 3, 2022 at 7:48 am
Moskva was(is) a highly obsolete ship similar to oliver perry ships.
Another one:the sovremenny ship.Don’t forget this ship!
In an ALL-OUT nuclear war, the black sea is the MOST ideal place to concentrate nuclear firepower on a NATO member that has long been a nuisance, even a threat to humanity. Tutkey.
Modern warships should possess lasers, gatling cannons all around, railguns, hypersonic missiles and ucav patrol-attack aerial vehicles.
The moskva was lacking in all the modern requirements.
So are american aircraft carriers, even the nimitz class.
mcswell
May 3, 2022 at 10:57 am
No, the Russian Moskva cruiser was in almost no ways similar to the American Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates. The Moskva displaced three times as much as a Perry class ship, and carried an entirely different kind of weapons load (notably the missiles in the cannisters along each side).
It’s also noteworthy that the Perry class ships were more resistant to sinking. In an American SINKEX exercise (an exercise intended to see how well weapons perform against ships, and contrariwise how a ship does against the missiles), the USS Thach (FFG-43) took seven cruise missiles, a 2000 pound bomb, a 500 pound bomb and a torpedo before it finally went down–over 12 hours after the first hits. And that was with no crew on board to do damage control. Compare that to the Moskva…
Alex
May 3, 2022 at 9:51 am
The official reasons for the death of the cruiser:
1. Fire during an emergency.
2. Rockets of Norwegian production with the help of guidance by the American Orion satellite over Romania.
William Scott Ritter, Jr. is an American military analyst. Intelligence officer in the United States Marine Corps. He served in this position for about 12 years. He became the Marine Rapid Deployment Force’s lead analyst on the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Iran-Iraq War. United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq.
During Desert Storm, he served as an adviser to General Norman Schwarzkopf on ballistic missiles. Ritter later worked as a security and military consultant for the Fox News network. According to an interview he gave to Democracy Now! in 2003, he also had a long official relationship with the British foreign intelligence agency MI6.
If the Bandera Nazis start squealing that he was bought by Putin, then let them shove their squeal up their ass.
Here are Scott Ritter’s words:
“Do you want to name the best students of military science today? These are Russian officers! And we treat them like children – “these are Russians.” And they are the most educated and trained officers of all who can be found. They understand everything better than us. They didn’t spend 20 years kicking down doors and slaughtering families in Iraq or crawling up hills in Afghanistan to kill a shepherd, that’s what we did, and the Russians think big.
We think in small arrows. We watch a video of how a Russian column is destroyed or three tanks are knocked out. War is hell, people die there, and if you look at the little arrows, you will think that the Russians are defeated. But look at the big arrows! The Russians kept the 100,000-strong group of Ukraine in Kyiv. If they are not threatened, they will move forward for reinforcements.
Therefore, you (Russians) send 40 thousand soldiers from Belarus and hold the enemy in place. You have 80,000 enemy forces in Odessa, you send 30,000 soldiers from Crimea – their (Security Council of Ukraine) group is stuck. You have 100,000 enemies in the Donbass, and you, the Russian troops, cannot let them go to Kyiv. You send the militia of Donetsk and Lugansk to the front line. The most difficult situation! But you clung to the enemy and hold him, don’t let him move!
You are conducting a through attack to break through the corridor to the Crimea. And Mariupol is a key city on the way, we had to take it. The only city for which the Russians fought. Why? Because he was the only one that mattered. The rest played no role.
You will not take 3 million Kyiv with a force of 40 thousand. It doesn’t happen! You will not take 1.6 million Kharkiv with a force of 50 thousand. But you will take Mariupol. They had to take it. This was a strategic necessity.
This whole phase was the preparation of the battlefield. The Russians have destroyed fuel storage facilities in Ukraine. What is a tank without fuel? Coffin! And the truck? Another coffin. Warehouses of ammunition and food are blown up. A soldier who is hungry and thirsty will be killed.
The Russians have rearranged everything for themselves in order to prepare for a massive pincer attack that will fall into the forces of the Ukrainians, who will have no food, no water, no fuel, no ammunition. Here’s what the second phase will look like.
The Russians have moved away from Kyiv, they no longer need to hold that grouping, it will not be able to move without fuel anyway. They’re stuck! If they leave the city, Russian aircraft will destroy them. There will be no reinforcements, the enemy in Donbas cannot move. They are trapped.
The Russians have closed the ring and will destroy everyone. Or they will capture a huge part of the Ukrainian army. And when that happens, there will be nothing left. And the Russians will be able to demand whatever they want. That’s why I say the Russians will win. Because I see the situation. I do not flatter myself with the illusions that “the Russians could not take Kyiv and Odessa.” THEY DIDN’T TRY!”
CK
May 3, 2022 at 12:01 pm
Putin: Day 49.
Our special naval operation to make the Moskva 100% tractor-proof is finally complete.
The ship will never have to worry about such threats again.
I remain a master strategist.
Alex
May 3, 2022 at 6:28 pm
William Scott Ritter, Jr. is an American military analyst. Intelligence officer in the United States Marine Corps. He served in this position for about 12 years. He became the Marine Rapid Deployment Force’s lead analyst on the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Iran-Iraq War. United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq.
During Desert Storm, he served as an adviser to General Norman Schwarzkopf on ballistic missiles. Ritter later worked as a security and military consultant for the Fox News network. According to an interview he gave to Democracy Now! in 2003, he also had a long official relationship with the British foreign intelligence agency MI6.
If the Bandera Nazis start squealing that he was bought by Putin, then let them shove their squeal up their ass.
Here are Scott Ritter’s words:
“Do you want to name the best students of military science today? These are Russian officers! And we treat them like children – “these are Russians.” And they are the most educated and trained officers of all who can be found. They understand everything better than us. They didn’t spend 20 years kicking down doors and slaughtering families in Iraq or crawling up hills in Afghanistan to kill a shepherd, that’s what we did, and the Russians think big.
We think in small arrows. We watch a video of how a Russian column is destroyed or three tanks are knocked out. War is hell, people die there, and if you look at the little arrows, you will think that the Russians are defeated. But look at the big arrows! The Russians kept the 100,000-strong group of Ukraine in Kyiv. If they are not threatened, they will move forward for reinforcements.
Therefore, you (Russians) send 40 thousand soldiers from Belarus and hold the enemy in place. You have 80,000 enemy forces in Odessa, you send 30,000 soldiers from Crimea – their (Security Council of Ukraine) group is stuck. You have 100,000 enemies in the Donbass, and you, the Russian troops, cannot let them go to Kyiv. You send the militia of Donetsk and Lugansk to the front line. The most difficult situation! But you clung to the enemy and hold him, don’t let him move!
You are conducting a through attack to break through the corridor to the Crimea. And Mariupol is a key city on the way, we had to take it. The only city for which the Russians fought. Why? Because he was the only one that mattered. The rest played no role.
You will not take 3 million Kyiv with a force of 40 thousand. It doesn’t happen! You will not take 1.6 million Kharkiv with a force of 50 thousand. But you will take Mariupol. They had to take it. This was a strategic necessity.
This whole phase was the preparation of the battlefield. The Russians have destroyed fuel storage facilities in Ukraine. What is a tank without fuel? Coffin! And the truck? Another coffin. Warehouses of ammunition and food are blown up. A soldier who is hungry and thirsty will be killed.
The Russians have rearranged everything for themselves in order to prepare for a massive pincer attack that will fall into the forces of the Ukrainians, who will have no food, no water, no fuel, no ammunition. Here’s what the second phase will look like.
The Russians have moved away from Kyiv, they no longer need to hold that grouping, it will not be able to move without fuel anyway. They’re stuck! If they leave the city, Russian aircraft will destroy them. There will be no reinforcements, the enemy in Donbas cannot move. They are trapped.
The Russians have closed the ring and will destroy everyone. Or they will capture a huge part of the Ukrainian army. And when that happens, there will be nothing left. And the Russians will be able to demand whatever they want. That’s why I say the Russians will win. Because I see the situation. I do not flatter myself with the illusions that “the Russians could not take Kyiv and Odessa.” THEY DIDN’T TRY!”
Alex
May 3, 2022 at 6:29 pm
ZZZ
William Scott Ritter, Jr. is an American military analyst. Intelligence officer in the United States Marine Corps. He served in this position for about 12 years. He became the Marine Rapid Deployment Force’s lead analyst on the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Iran-Iraq War. United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq.
During Desert Storm, he served as an adviser to General Norman Schwarzkopf on ballistic missiles. Ritter later worked as a security and military consultant for the Fox News network. According to an interview he gave to Democracy Now! in 2003, he also had a long official relationship with the British foreign intelligence agency MI6.
If the Bandera Nazis start squealing that he was bought by Putin, then let them shove their squeal up their ass.
Here are Scott Ritter’s words:
“Do you want to name the best students of military science today? These are Russian officers! And we treat them like children – “these are Russians.” And they are the most educated and trained officers of all who can be found. They understand everything better than us. They didn’t spend 20 years kicking down doors and slaughtering families in Iraq or crawling up hills in Afghanistan to kill a shepherd, that’s what we did, and the Russians think big.
We think in small arrows. We watch a video of how a Russian column is destroyed or three tanks are knocked out. War is hell, people die there, and if you look at the little arrows, you will think that the Russians are defeated. But look at the big arrows! The Russians kept the 100,000-strong group of Ukraine in Kyiv. If they are not threatened, they will move forward for reinforcements.
Therefore, you (Russians) send 40 thousand soldiers from Belarus and hold the enemy in place. You have 80,000 enemy forces in Odessa, you send 30,000 soldiers from Crimea – their (Security Council of Ukraine) group is stuck. You have 100,000 enemies in the Donbass, and you, the Russian troops, cannot let them go to Kyiv. You send the militia of Donetsk and Lugansk to the front line. The most difficult situation! But you clung to the enemy and hold him, don’t let him move!
You are conducting a through attack to break through the corridor to the Crimea. And Mariupol is a key city on the way, we had to take it. The only city for which the Russians fought. Why? Because he was the only one that mattered. The rest played no role.
You will not take 3 million Kyiv with a force of 40 thousand. It doesn’t happen! You will not take 1.6 million Kharkiv with a force of 50 thousand. But you will take Mariupol. They had to take it. This was a strategic necessity.
This whole phase was the preparation of the battlefield. The Russians have destroyed fuel storage facilities in Ukraine. What is a tank without fuel? Coffin! And the truck? Another coffin. Warehouses of ammunition and food are blown up. A soldier who is hungry and thirsty will be killed.
The Russians have rearranged everything for themselves in order to prepare for a massive pincer attack that will fall into the forces of the Ukrainians, who will have no food, no water, no fuel, no ammunition. Here’s what the second phase will look like.
The Russians have moved away from Kyiv, they no longer need to hold that grouping, it will not be able to move without fuel anyway. They’re stuck! If they leave the city, Russian aircraft will destroy them. There will be no reinforcements, the enemy in Donbas cannot move. They are trapped.
The Russians have closed the ring and will destroy everyone. Or they will capture a huge part of the Ukrainian army. And when that happens, there will be nothing left. And the Russians will be able to demand whatever they want. That’s why I say the Russians will win. Because I see the situation. I do not flatter myself with the illusions that “the Russians could not take Kyiv and Odessa.” THEY DIDN’T TRY!”
Alex
May 4, 2022 at 7:59 am
German journalist Thomas Röper: Ukrainians are very afraid that the Russians will leave.
The journalist spoke about the distortion of facts in the Western media:
“I was three times in the south (Ukraine). The first trip was also to Melitopol. And so, on this trip, I was most impressed by the fact, or the fear that you see there in the eyes of people. And not among those who do not agree with the military operation, and according to my estimates, this is a minority. It is they who swear, the camera writes, and they will say how much they disagree. And those who agree are the majority.
I see it in the squares, when there are hundreds of people, they walk past the soldiers and say in a whisper: “Thank you guys, don’t leave.” They are very afraid, and they said it directly. They are very afraid that the Russians will leave and there will be reprisals. What, in my understanding, happened in Bucha, by the way.
And the fact that now, Alina said, from Mariupol is another such example. The woman was afraid to just speak the truth. Afraid that, God forbid, the Russians would leave and there would be reprisals. I don’t want to take too much time now, I just want to give one example, because the West always says it’s Russian propaganda if they say that Azov and other units of the Ukrainian troops use civilians as a “human shield”.
I write in German, and the other day I read an article in the German magazine Spiegel, which is probably known to many. And there was a very surprising offer. So they wrote… Everything, of course, sounded very positive, but they wrote that in Mariupol… More precisely, they (the newspaper) were told by people in Zaporozhye who had come from Mariupol, telling them that their national battalions held them, “politely of course”, held peaceful residents to the basement, and took positions in the apartments above these basements. It sounds in the Western media as if they are protecting them. Excuse me, what is this? If the fighters take up their combat positions above the basements where civilians are sitting, and how voluntarily they went to this basement.
Most people know the truth, but the Western media do not need this truth, they have a different manual, you need to do everything the other way around, and if it doesn’t work out the way America wants, you get sanctions, but the EU countries, not Russia, they will die after the first package of sanctions.
Alex
May 4, 2022 at 8:33 am
Finally our lands are back!
The ex-deputy of the Rada announced the beginning of the “attachment” of the west of Ukraine to Poland.
Ex-deputy of the Rada Ilya Kiva announced the first stage of the annexation of Western Ukraine by Poland.
“This is the first stage before secession and the creation of a “pro-Western Ukraine” with its capital in Lviv. With subsequent accession, through a referendum, to Poland,” he said.
According to the ex-people’s deputy, Kyiv has changed the strategy for the use of weapons that it receives from Europe. Now they are not transported to the war zone, but left in the west. Thus, a “new line of defense” is being formed, thanks to which it will be possible to achieve the annexation of this region by Poland, Kiva believes.
Last week, the head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergei Naryshkin, said that Poland intends to establish tight military-political control over “its historical possessions” in western Ukraine. According to him, Warsaw expects that the consolidation in these territories will most likely lead to a split in the country, and Poland will receive control over the lands occupied by “peacekeepers”.
Alex
May 4, 2022 at 11:17 am
Director Oliver Stone described the scenario of US nuclear sabotage.
The author of the films “Ukraine on Fire” and “In the Struggle for Ukraine” noted that now the West is already masterfully and with the use of brute force is waging an information war against Russia.
American director Oliver Stone said that the most gloomy scenario for the development of the conflict in Ukraine remains a nuclear provocation by the United States. He shared this message on Twitter.
According to him, in this case, Washington will not even have to cover its tracks, since Russia is considered to be the main initiator of all atrocities. Stone wondered if the United States was creating “the conditions for a high-yield nuclear explosion of unknown origin somewhere in the Donbass” that would incur the deaths of thousands of Ukrainians.
“Of course, if this, God forbid, happens, the whole world, like Pavlov’s trained dog, will blame Russia for everything. This guilt has already been established in advance, regardless of who presses the button,” the director wrote.
The United States deliberately hushed up the crimes of the Kyiv regime against the civilian population in Ukraine, which have been going on since 2014, Stone recalled. He also stressed that now the West “with skill and brute force” is waging an information war against Russia.
Earlier, US General Mark Milley said that the likelihood of a clash between the great powers is growing. The military also spoke about the events in Ukraine, calling them the biggest security threat in Europe, and possibly the whole world, for “more than 40 years of his military career.”
Alex
May 4, 2022 at 1:37 pm
Hysteria, fantasies, lies, madness – this is all that is left of the Bandera trolls. These bastards can’t even comment on the words of respected people all over the world. Project “Ukraine” is closed forever.
Illurion
May 12, 2022 at 11:22 am
It has been a month since the Moskva was sunk by the Ukrainian military.
Russia is still lying about how many died.
There were almost 500 sailors on board.
The Russians presented a “picture” showing 122 sailors in a formation afterward, BUT, GIVEN THAT IT IS WINTER IN RUSSIA, AND THE PICTURE WAS OBVIOUSLY TAKEN IN THE SUMMER, THE PICTURE WAS OBVIOUSLY FAKED.
The Father of one of the dead Russian sailors said publicly that he saw almost 200 horribly burned sailors in a hospital.
So, if we subtract “200 wounded” from the “500 TOTAL CREW”, that leaves “OVER 300 RUSSIAN SAILORS NOT ACCOUNTED FOR.”
And yet, Putin announced that there “WAS ONLY ONE (1) DEAD RUSSIAN SAILOR, AND ONLY THIRTY-SEVEN (37) RUSSIAN SAILORS MISSING.”
So, using Putin’s numbers, and subtract the “38” from the “300” not accounted for:
IT APPEARS THAT AT THE VERY LEAST, THERE ARE APPROXIMATELY “262” RUSSIAN SAILORS THAT ARE STILL NOT ACCOUNTED FOR FROM THE MOSKVA.
ie:
– 262 not accounted for
– 37 declared missing by Putin
– 1 declared dead by Putin
– 200 declared burned/wounded in hospital by a Russian Sailors father
_______
500
So it appears that Putin is still hiding the deaths of about 262 sailors.
Illurion
May 12, 2022 at 11:26 am
ps: i wonder if some enterprising undersea diver has dove down to the sunken wreck of the Moskva, and retrieved the “SHIPS FLAG” from the fantail, and the “SHIPS BELL” from the aft bridge.
if not by now, it won’t be long before someone does.