6 ms·

Sinking a ship via missile isn't a new thing (1980's, HMS Sheffield). One should be extremely careful drawing conclusions about military tech based on Russian p

Sinking a ship via missile isn't a new thing (1980's, HMS Sheffield). One should be extremely careful drawing conclusions about military tech based on Russian performance. If I was an American captain, I wouldn't be worried about a lucky pair of missiles. A swarm of dozens of missiles would be a different story, however.

Ichthypresbyter 4y ago
>Sinking a ship via missile isn't a new thing (1980's, HMS Sheffield). Earlier than that- the Israelis lost the destroyer Eilat to Egyptian SS-N-2 Styx missiles in 1967. In fact, the Germans had quite a lot of success with air-launched anti-ship missiles in WW2, although it's debatable whether those count- they were more like guided bombs. Interestingly, though, this does seem to be the first case of a large warship being successfully sunk by a missile launched from dry land. Argentina hit HMS Glamorgan with a truck-launched Exocet in 1982, killing 14 of the crew, destroying the embarked helicopter, and achieving a successful mission kill, but it didn't sink. And Yugoslavia used an anti-tank missile to sink a small Croatian armed speedboat during the 1991 Siege of Dubrovnik. Every other sinking of a ship by a missile has involved one launched from the sea or air.
nradov 4y ago
In fact a US warship did successfully defend against a similar attack in 2016. https://news.usni.org/2016/10/11/uss-mason-fired-3-missiles-to-defend-from-yemen-cruise-missiles-attack https://news.usni.org/2016/10/11/uss-mason-fired-3-missiles-...
bell-cot 4y ago
You might want to read up on how the Sheffield sank - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Sheffield_(D80)#Board_of_inquiry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Sheffield_(D80)#Board_of_i... . Some choice bits: - Argentine forces carefully analyzed their target, studied, trained, practiced, and drilled for the attack. Over and over and over. Almost as if they believed there was a real war on, and actually wanted to hit an enemy with their weapons... - British forces mostly couldn't be bothered to analyze their defenses for weaknesses. Let alone train, practice, or drill. Then they footgunned their best warning system, and didn't realize they were under attack until human-eyeball lookouts saw smoke from the rocket motors of the incoming missiles. Once warned, the bridge officers basically sat on their hands and gawked. (Vs., say, alerting the crew. Or trying to use some of the various anti-missile defense systems that the ship had.) - The ~5,000 ton "warship" was designed so poorly that one modest hit knocked out both her electrical and fire-fighting systems. Even back in WWII, having redundant critical systems was a well-known and much-valued feature of all real warships. - Hours into the crew's efforts to fight the fires (resulting from the missile hit), coordination and command of the fire-fighting efforts were somewhere between underwhelming and non-existent. Blunt Summary: The aircraft, missile, and anti-missile technologies used (or available) during the attack on the HMS Sheffield were no more than costumes and props in a play. The real meat of the play was a human story that would fit quite comfortably into the Old Testament. On one side was a small group of skilled and determined warriors, intensely focused on winning. On the other side was a crowd of clueless noobs, wandering through the scenery and telling themselves that they were a real army.
- rm445 4y ago
  Can I ask, did you lose a relative on the Sheffield? It's quite rare to see the Falklands conflict through the human lens rather than the almost irresistible chance to see just how effective cold-war technologies were: - naval area denial: even if the threat of the Exocet missile was overstated, it caused the British aircraft carrier to hang back. Conversely, having a nuclear-powered attack submarine in the area was highly effective for the British. - Aerial combat: the carrier-borne Harriers were outnumbered and outclassed, but the Sidewinder missile was devastating. The twin of your human factors story is the infantry engagements in the Falklands: a small force of professionals with good night-vision equipment was effective against unmotivated conscripts.
  - bell-cot 4y ago
    Fortunately no, I did not. Though several relatives have returned or not, from various wars, with long-term damage visible or not. Mostly, my perspective is from being (by HN standards) extremely old. It was 1808 when Napoleon wrote (paraphrasing) that military power is 3/4 the quality of the people and 1/4 the supplies and equipment. The Atlantic gushes about the sinking of the Moskva as if wooden sailing ships were about to be replaced with steam-driven iron ones. I don't see much difference between the Moskva and the IJN's Akagi and Shinano (being sunk) back in WWII. Arguably, one lone dive bomber sunk the former. Certainly one little submarine sunk the latter. (Which was, at the time, by far the heaviest aircraft carrier ever built.) Atlantic-quality journalists at the time could have gushed about how the dive bomber would be new queen of the naval battlefield (they were pretty much obsolete by the end of WWII), and how aircraft carriers would have to get tiny or they'd be doomed (again, reality was quite the opposite). Actually competent journalists could have noted that the Akagi was an extremely vulnerable ship by nature (stuffed full of airplanes, gasoline, bombs), and that damage control efforts on the latter were hopelessly incompetent. From what I've seen, the Moskva was a very vulnerable ship by design. And the performance of the Russian Army gives no reason to suspect that the Russian Navy might be up to scratch on damage control. But that sort of cold, people-centric old man's analysis of events is not what most folks want to hear.

Ichthypresbyter 4y ago

>Sinking a ship via missile isn't a new thing (1980's, HMS Sheffield). Earlier than that- the Israelis lost the destroyer Eilat to Egyptian SS-N-2 Styx missiles in 1967. In fact, the Germans had quite a lot of success with air-launched anti-ship missiles in WW2, although it's debatable whether those count- they were more like guided bombs. Interestingly, though, this does seem to be the first case of a large warship being successfully sunk by a missile launched from dry land. Argentina hit HMS Glamorgan with a truck-launched Exocet in 1982, killing 14 of the crew, destroying the embarked helicopter, and achieving a successful mission kill, but it didn't sink. And Yugoslavia used an anti-tank missile to sink a small Croatian armed speedboat during the 1991 Siege of Dubrovnik. Every other sinking of a ship by a missile has involved one launched from the sea or air.

nradov 4y ago

In fact a US warship did successfully defend against a similar attack in 2016. https://news.usni.org/2016/10/11/uss-mason-fired-3-missiles-to-defend-from-yemen-cruise-missiles-attack https://news.usni.org/2016/10/11/uss-mason-fired-3-missiles-...

bell-cot 4y ago

You might want to read up on how the Sheffield sank - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Sheffield_(D80)#Board_of_inquiry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Sheffield_(D80)#Board_of_i... . Some choice bits: - Argentine forces carefully analyzed their target, studied, trained, practiced, and drilled for the attack. Over and over and over. Almost as if they believed there was a real war on, and actually wanted to hit an enemy with their weapons... - British forces mostly couldn't be bothered to analyze their defenses for weaknesses. Let alone train, practice, or drill. Then they footgunned their best warning system, and didn't realize they were under attack until human-eyeball lookouts saw smoke from the rocket motors of the incoming missiles. Once warned, the bridge officers basically sat on their hands and gawked. (Vs., say, alerting the crew. Or trying to use some of the various anti-missile defense systems that the ship had.) - The ~5,000 ton "warship" was designed so poorly that one modest hit knocked out both her electrical and fire-fighting systems. Even back in WWII, having redundant critical systems was a well-known and much-valued feature of all real warships. - Hours into the crew's efforts to fight the fires (resulting from the missile hit), coordination and command of the fire-fighting efforts were somewhere between underwhelming and non-existent. Blunt Summary: The aircraft, missile, and anti-missile technologies used (or available) during the attack on the HMS Sheffield were no more than costumes and props in a play. The real meat of the play was a human story that would fit quite comfortably into the Old Testament. On one side was a small group of skilled and determined warriors, intensely focused on winning. On the other side was a crowd of clueless noobs, wandering through the scenery and telling themselves that they were a real army.

rm445 4y ago
Can I ask, did you lose a relative on the Sheffield? It's quite rare to see the Falklands conflict through the human lens rather than the almost irresistible chance to see just how effective cold-war technologies were: - naval area denial: even if the threat of the Exocet missile was overstated, it caused the British aircraft carrier to hang back. Conversely, having a nuclear-powered attack submarine in the area was highly effective for the British. - Aerial combat: the carrier-borne Harriers were outnumbered and outclassed, but the Sidewinder missile was devastating. The twin of your human factors story is the infantry engagements in the Falklands: a small force of professionals with good night-vision equipment was effective against unmotivated conscripts.
- bell-cot 4y ago
  Fortunately no, I did not. Though several relatives have returned or not, from various wars, with long-term damage visible or not. Mostly, my perspective is from being (by HN standards) extremely old. It was 1808 when Napoleon wrote (paraphrasing) that military power is 3/4 the quality of the people and 1/4 the supplies and equipment. The Atlantic gushes about the sinking of the Moskva as if wooden sailing ships were about to be replaced with steam-driven iron ones. I don't see much difference between the Moskva and the IJN's Akagi and Shinano (being sunk) back in WWII. Arguably, one lone dive bomber sunk the former. Certainly one little submarine sunk the latter. (Which was, at the time, by far the heaviest aircraft carrier ever built.) Atlantic-quality journalists at the time could have gushed about how the dive bomber would be new queen of the naval battlefield (they were pretty much obsolete by the end of WWII), and how aircraft carriers would have to get tiny or they'd be doomed (again, reality was quite the opposite). Actually competent journalists could have noted that the Akagi was an extremely vulnerable ship by nature (stuffed full of airplanes, gasoline, bombs), and that damage control efforts on the latter were hopelessly incompetent. From what I've seen, the Moskva was a very vulnerable ship by design. And the performance of the Russian Army gives no reason to suspect that the Russian Navy might be up to scratch on damage control. But that sort of cold, people-centric old man's analysis of events is not what most folks want to hear.