Russian Navy Confirms Severe Damage to Black Sea Flagship, Cruiser Moskva, Crew Abandoned Ship

@whowasthatmaskedman Why? The US is not an imperialist warmonger like Russia.

@whowasthatmaskedman

Our naval ships have a far better anti-missile defense system than the Ruskies.

And a command ship of that size in the U.S. Navy wouldn't be put in such a vulnerable position during a war.

Still, we shouldn 't be decommissioning [i]Ticonderoga[/i]-class cruisers because of so-called "old age." They were designed to shoot down missiles, planes and protect our carriers.

@beckyromero Please dont start the old "unsinkable" argument. Any local adversary can simply keep sending more planes missiles and drones than the ship can handle. "We can shoot down 50 incoming missiles" so they send 60.. But on the other point you are correct. The US cant afford, politically to lose a supercarrier to battle damage. Which means they cant use it as a weapon against any other developed Military force. They are fast becoming Dinosaurs.😷

@RedBaron If you were anything but American I would be certain you were being sarcastic.. As it is I am just not sure.....😷

@whowasthatmaskedman I completely serious. You are just ignorant.

@RedBaron Then I am truly sorry. But we have nothing to discuss. I suggest you go drive some First nations people from their land and call it progress. You clearly cant tell the difference between an invasion and enlightenment.😷

@whowasthatmaskedman [quote]Please dont start the old "unsinkable" argument. [/quote]

Not at all.

Just making a difference between a ship that was apparently sailing around by itself in a predicable pattern, observed by opposition drones and hit from 60 miles away.

The U.S. Navy wouldn't put a capital ship in such a precarious position.

[quote]The US cant afford, politically to lose a supercarrier to battle damage.[/quote]

Which is why we need a few more. We need to get back up to at least 15 carrier battle groups - and the battle groups themselves need to include a couple of [i]Ticos [/i]and several [i]Burke[/i] destroyers each, along with a few frigates and support ships. Since the second Iraq War we've not only reduced the amount of battle groups, but thinned them out, usually only assigned one [i]Tico[/i] to a given carrier.

But because a U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier being lost or severely damaged would lead to such a great loss of American blood and treasure, any adversary would need to seriously think about attempting to strike one unless we were already at war.

Meaning, China would suffer from a huge retailiatory military strike if it dared conduct a "bolt out of the blue" attack. Any such attack would be tantamount to a declaration of war against the United States (unless Humpty Dumpty Trump were in office). You can rest assured it wouldn't be one of the tit-for-tat measures we've too often engaged in the past with Libya, Iran, etc.

Our carriers have a complement of E-2C Hawkeyes, designated as a "Airborne Command & Control Squadron." Packed with sophisticated radar and observation equipment, the planes give an early warning to fleet combatants of what is "over the horizon" (over 400+ miles) as well as provide air control direction for a carriers' attack wing. With four or five Hawkeyes assigned to an air wing, continious coverage can be provided 24/7. A single Hawkeye can track over 2,000 targets as well as guide air-to-air and or air-to-surface missiles during a combant mission.

The [i]Ticonderoga[/i]-class cruisers, slightly smaller in size than the [i]Moskva[/i], have the Aegis Combat System (Aegis being Greel for "shield") we first commissioned in the mid-1980s. While their offensive fire power is enormous (carrying Tomahawk cruise missiles as well as Harpoon surface-to-surface missiles), their main mission is to protect our aircraft carriers, being able to track and engage over 100 targets simultaneously.

The Royal Australian Navy has three Aegis destoyers.

@beckyromero Every logistical fact you state is correct. Its the strategic situations, tactical options and the political will we will need to armwrestle on. But lets not. My belief put simply is that a carrier group in a way of pushing US military might anywhere in the world. (We can debate about the politics of that elsewhere) And its usually used either as a strike option to destroy a target from the air. Mostly this has been used against nations thatcouldnt reach out to the carriers to return the favour. But there have been some anxious moments in the Persian Gulf over the years.
However. Floating a couple of these groups intro the South China Sea brings them into a Rats nest of narrow passages and non friendly small nations who owe China and some who have deals in place to allow Chinese deployments. What John Wayne would have called "Injun country" And the Chinese have forces to match and weapons to reach. They can let you in and keep you there and keep coming until you run out of ammo. Assuming they dont just send in a few drones with small nukes and boil a few miles of ocean and everything on it. If I can work that out, I am sure everyone on both sides has, And therefore, They cant send them in. In which case, they are useless relics.😷

@whowasthatmaskedman

If war broke out with China over Taiwan, rest assured the U.S. Navy won't be sending aircraft carrier battle groups into the Taiwan Strait.

They could operate far to the [i]east[/i] of Taiwan and still achieve air superiority over the Strait.

Our nuclear-powered submarines [i]alone[/i] can ravage Chinese military installations all along their coast with convention weaponry if China dared attack a U.S. carrier. If China wishes to cease to exist and turn the world into a radioactive inferno, it would use nukes.

@beckyromero OK. Now we are arguing tactics, and I see a Taiwan conflict progressing similar to Ukraine, in sofas as it would be fighting on Taiwan and surrounding waters and conventional weapona at first. American cant fire nukes at China over it, and They sure cant nuke Taiwan. And can bet they wont be @$$ing around ill prepped like Putin has. They will declare no fly zones within hours..😷

@whowasthatmaskedman

Chinese overseas trade will vanish within hours, too, if they attack U.S. Navy ships. They won't be able to sail a junk thru our naval blockade.

Well, they can always trade with Russia. 😂

If Russia has a poor claim to Ukraine, China's claim on Taiwan is even worse - since the Red Chinese have NEVER been in power in Taiwan.

@beckyromero Yeah...but Nah! China has a massive internal market as well as internal resources and a huge trade surpluses with everyone. In a trade war they can out wait anyone..😷

@whowasthatmaskedman [quote]China has a massive internal market as well as internal resources...[/quote]

I couldn't find just the clip I wanted, but thanks to Google I did find the whole episode online. Go to the 19:00 minute mark and you'll get the idea.

https://ms-my.facebook.com/Jess-Ross-104370788581819/videos/hogans-heroes-s01e14-oil-for-the-lamps-of-hogan/609189670084983/

@whowasthatmaskedman I think what happened to the British in the Falkland Islands was burned into the minds pf planners at the time...

@SomeMichGuy

The losses the British took in the Falklands was the result of their stupidity to retire HMS [i]Vanguard[/i] in 1960, which with her eight 15" guns would have made the Port Stanley airfield look like the surface of the moon in about 15 minutes.

@beckyromero

I am referring to the first loss of a Royal Navy ship in action after WWII, the [i]HMS Sheffield[/i] (the 40th anniversary of which will be on 4 May, just next week).

*One* Exocet missile, well-placed, started a process which led to the [i]Sheffield[/i] sinking. For me, that gives pause regarding the "keep spending huge amounts of money to build very expensive ships" way of doing things.

The use of remotely-piloted vehicles--which need not only be aircraft; they could be very small subs to attach bombs to a ship, or even simply *be* bombs--shows a much cheaper way to attack enemy targets with a significantly reduced risk cross-section, as well as maintaining the safety of the real asset (the pilot).

I know that the 9/11 attacks have shaped you very very much, but the answer is not always MacArthur's "solution" for China, to "blow the fuckers up" (my eliding of what he expressed).

I think big things make you feel safe. On 9/11, planes were taken over and used as bombs. Not the large cross-section "Guppy" transports, not big troop carriers, not the really huge Boeing's, not Shuttles...just commercial aircraft.

Bigger is not always better, and bigger is no guarantee of safety.

@SomeMichGuy Small and agile is the modern way..😷

@SomeMichGuy

The Exocet missile that fatally damaged [i]Sheffield[/i] struck her on the starboard side just under 8' above the waterline. It would have been traveling about 1,050 feet per second, weighing about 1,700 lbs (364 lbs was the warhead itself). Unspent rocket fuel fed the fires that soon engulfed [i]Sheffield[/i], as the missile easily penetrated the thin aluminum side of the ship. (An Exocet can also penetrate 2 3/4" of armor, but [i]Sheffield[/i] didn't even have that).

In contrast, [i]Vanguard[/i]'s armor belt at the waterline (as well as at a comparable height to the strike that [i]Sheffield[/i] took) was 14" thick, with the thickness tapering down to 4.5" at the bottom of the belt. The belt was 24' in height. The belt ran nearly the entire length of the vessel. That gave her protection (at 14") against a 15" armor-piercing shell from 15,000 yards. The British 15" Mk I gun could fire a 2,000 lb. shell at the velocity of about 2,500 feet per second. Much of the superstructure was also armored. The deck was armored anywhere from 2.5" to 6", the barbettes at 13" and the conning tower at 3".

[i]Vanguard[/i] would have easily survived the hit Sheffield took. In fact, the missile would not even have penetrated the armor belt.

Furthermore, the reason why [i]Sheffield[/i] was where it was was because it was providing early air defense for carriers [i]Hermes[/i] and [i]Invincible[/i], that need not have been as close to the Falklands to repeatedly bomb an airfield (prior to the invasion to re-take the Islands) that [i]Vanguard[/i] would have destroyed for the rest of the war with a dozen or so full salvos. The crusier [i]General Belgrano[/i] would have stood no chance against [i]Vanguard[/i] and the Argentines would have likely kept her out of harms way.

Then again, had the Brits kept [i]Vanguard[/i] around and perhaps one battleship of the [i]King George V[/i] class, perhaps alternating them in reserve over the decades like the U.S. did with the [i]Iowas[/i], the Argentines may have scuttled their plans to invade the Falklands knowing what they would have faced. Ironically, had they waited another six months or so, the carrier [i]Hermes[/i] would have been retired and a British re-taking of the Falklands with only the carrier [i]Invincible[/i] would have been very doubtful.

When the U.S. Navy re-activated the [i]Iowas[/i] in the 1980s, the Marine Corps was among its greatest advocates, recognizing the need for fire support to obliterate shore defenses before sending troops ashore.

And the psychological effect of being shelled by a massive battleship cannot be underestimated.

In 1991 during the Gulf War, Iraqi soldiers "surrendered" to the battleship [i]Wisconsin[/i] when they saw a spotting drone from the battleship flying overhead. They had had enough of the 16" shells creating 25' deep craters around them.

@whowasthatmaskedman

You guys needs an aircraft carrier. You should have never decomissioned [i]Melbourne[/i] un til a replacement was built or found.

And you could have bought [i]Kitty Hawk[/i] for one cent!

@beckyromero No.. We dont need an aircraft carrier. The only purpose for an aircraft carrier if to project aggressive power way outside our region of the world. And we have no desire to do that. Just as the only practical purpose of a WW2 type battleship is to be a heavy artillary platform for bombarding ground far from home. America has a long and rich history of going places a long way from home, where they arent all that welcome to use the facilities of neighbouring states. My country doesnt. We tend to wait for trouble to come to us unless someone asks for our help in men and equipment...😷

@whowasthatmaskedman [quote]America has a long and rich history of going places a long way from home, where they arent all that welcome to use the facilities of neighbouring states.[/quote]

I would beg to differ.

Aussies were VERY welcoming to the U.S. Navy and Army in 1942.

[quote]We tend to wait for trouble to come to us...[/quote]

The idea of operating aircraft carriers away from home waters is to prevent tragedies like befell Darwin in February 1942 so that you DON'T have to wait for trouble to come to you. 😉

[quote]The only purpose for an aircraft carrier if to project aggressive power way outside our region of the world.[/quote]

One of the rationales for the 15 carrier navy in the 1980s (and why should get get back to 15 NOW) was the planning that FOUR aircraft carrier battlegroups would take the fight to the Soviets in and around the Kola peninsula to help blunt an invasion of NATO member Norway. As it was expected the Soviets would strike first and take out many NATO airbases, U.S. aircraft carriers, whose airwings would also be tasked with protecting shipping lanes to the continent, was crucial to the defense of Europe.

@beckyromero Re Aussies welcoming Yanks -- kind of, if you ignore the Battle of Brisbane. ;) "The Battle of Brisbane was a riot between United States military personnel on one side and Australian servicemen and civilians on the other, in Brisbane, Queensland's capital city, on 26 and 27 November 1942, during which time the two nations were allies. By the time the violence had been quelled, one Australian soldier was dead and hundreds of Australians and U.S. servicemen had been injured. News reports of these incidents were suppressed overseas, with the causes of the riot not made evident in the few newspaper reports of the event that were published within Australia."

@ChipmunkErnie

That incident happened because some Australian MEN thought that Australian WOMEN belonged exclusively to them.

But it's not just Australian MEN who have that "possession" gene. American men do as well.

[media=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzKoQuN10jk]

The above is a dramatization of a real-life event.

In reality, it was American [i]miners[/i] in Montana, not lumberjacks, who resented Canadian military personnel going out with local American women. The Canadian soldiers had gone to The Gold Bar and just as was portrayed in the movie, "The Devi's Brigade," American civilian men resented it and a fight resulted, with the American men of the unit defending the Canadians and pummeling the miners and throwing them out of the bar.

@ChipmunkErnie Another supressed incident was Australian officers having to shout orders to their men to restrain them from tearing Gen Douglas Macarthur apart when he insulted them for stopping the Japanese advance across the spine of New Guinea and holding them. Undertrained, under resourced and unsupported (except by native porters) Thereby denying MacArthur the honour of turning them back. Macarthurs retreat from that parade also went unreported.😷