Bob Homans April 14

20220415

Bob didn’t write yesterday, and I did not know because my email service was out all morning.

Ukraine – 4/14 Sitrep
By: Robert Homans
@rhomansjr
April 14, 2022
My Aplogies

I had completed the 4/13 Sitrep, but I had trouble uploading the file to my email system, because for some reason the file was corrupted.   Consequently, I not only couldn’t send, but I no longer have the file.    Today my collaborator is taking the day off, so you’ll have to put up with my own musings.   More tomorrow.

The Moskva

As most everyone knows, last night the Russian Navy lost the 12,500 ton cruiser “Moskva,” the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet.   Depending on which side you believe, Moskva was either sunk by 2 Neptune anti-ship cruise missiles, if you believe Ukraine’s version or, if you believe Russia’s version, suffered a catastrophic shipboard fire that likely included her ammunition magazine, she likely burned to her waterline, her crew evacuated, and she is now under tow back to Sevastopol, the base of the Black Sea Fleet.  

No matter which account you believe, the Russian or the Ukrainian, the loss of the Moskva is extremely damning to Russia’s prestige, especially to Russia’s Navy.   A catastrophic shipboard fire, the reason given by Russia for the virtual loss of a warship, especially a flagship, speaks very ill of damage control practices in the Russian Navy.   It is unclear where the fire started, in the magazine or elsewhere in the ship.  Based on Russia’s version of events, it appears that the crew had no way of controlling the fire on “Moskva,” and the crew was forced to abandon ship.  

Having served in the U.S. Navy, I can attest that damage control is almost a religion in the U.S. Navy.  Every officer and enlisted man in the U.S. Navy must take a course in firefighting.   Every U.S. Navy ship has continuing training in damage control.   However in the Russian Navy, it seems that damage control is not treated as a religion.  Another example of the laxity of damage control in the Russian Navy may have been the cause of the loss of the nuclear submarine “Kursk.”

Another example of a Navy that didn’t treat damage control as a religion was the Imperial Japanese Navy.  Had they viewed damage control as a religion, the Japanese may well have lost fewer than 4 aircraft carriers at the Battle of Midway, along with their irreplaceable pilots.  This could’ve made a significant difference in battles fought later in 1942, and 1943, especially around the Solomon Islands.

An excellent account of the Ukrainian version of events can be found in a thread on Twitter, posted by @ChrisO_wiki.   Here is a chronology based on his post:

·       The Moskva was built in Mykolaiv in 1979, one of the Black Sea cities now under Russian attack.   It is likely that Ukrainian intelligence had extensive information about Moskva’s, armament, radars and electronic warfare capabilities.

·       The Neptune anti-ship missile was produced in Ukraine.  It has a range of 300km, and it is truck mounted (I have been eagerly waiting for Ukraine to use it).

·       It was a stormy night, likely making it difficult for those manning Moskva’s Combat Information Center to distinguish between breaking waves and a sea-skimming missile like the Neptune, thereby making it difficult for Moskva’s lookouts looking for activity on-shore or the exhaust trail.

·       According to the post, Ukraine used a Turkish Bayraktar TB-2 drone to divert the attention of the Moskva, forcing the Moskva to point its air search and air defense radar (the same air defense radar used in the S-300 anti-aircraft missile system), away from the tracks of the Neptunes and toward the drone.    According to the post, their air defense radar only has a 180-degree field of vision.

I remember the first time a cruise missile was fired in action.

On October 21, 1967, the Israeli frigate “Elat” was sunk by 4 Soviet “Styx” cruise missiles (2 salvos), fired by 2 Egyptian torpedo boats while they were lying at anchor in the harbor of Port Said, Egypt.   Elat had already sunk before the 2nd salvo landed where the Elat had been. 

The Styx missile used a passive homing system, meaning that the missile used the target’s fire control radar to home in on its target but, at the same time, the missile didn’t emit any signals of its own.   Therefore, the only way that the Elat could defend itself was to turn off its own air search and fire control radar, or visually observe the incoming missile traveling at several hundred miles per hour, and try to shoot it down.

The U.S. Navy, along with other western navies, belatedly realized that they had no defense for cruise missiles like the Styx.   Since the end of WW-II, anti-aircraft batteries were removed from U.S.  aircraft carriers, to make room for more aircraft.

In June 1969, I was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Navy.  One of my jobs, and officers on destroyers like the one in which I  was serving have many jobs, was Electronic Warfare Officer.   After the sinking of Elat, my job got more attention from management.

Assuming that the Ukrainian version of events is true, that Moskva was sunk by a cruise missile, history has repeated itself.   It was a brilliant job by Ukraine, to use the weaknesses of Moskva’s radars, combined with difficult operating conditions, to sink the largest combatant since WW-II.

Benjamin Franklin

Two nights ago, my wife, who is a Ukrainian Citizen, and I watched the 2nd Part a 2-part miniseries about Benjamin Franklin.  Part 2 covered the period between the drafting and signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the conduct of the American  Revolution, Franklin’s position as a commissioner negotiating the treaty with France, the drafting of the Constitution, and the Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolutionary War, through his death in 1790.   There are some interesting parallels with events in Ukraine, including:

·       Committees of Correspondence and Ukraine’s Civil Society Groups – In Ukraine, civil society plays a critical role, almost as a shadow government.   During Euromaidan, groups like the Lv’iv Entreprenaurs Group were set up to support the protests in Kyiv, coordinating groups of employees from member companies going to & from Kyiv, and providing money and supplies.

In the American Colonies, Committees of Correspondence and Committees of Public Safety, set up by American colonists in several Colonial cities as early as 1764, played a similar role.  The Committees served two purposes: to serve as a shadow government to the British Colonial Administration; to share information.    They also served to bring 13 disparate colonies together as one Country. 

In January 2014, while Euromaidan was going on, I was reading a book called “Robert Morris: Financier of the American Revolution,” by Charles Rappleye.[i]   Robert Morris established the means, much of it clandestine, for financing the American Revolution.    Individual Ukrainians, who were involved in providing money, supplies and people to Euromaidan were, whether they knew it or not, intellectual descendants of Robert Morris.   All individual Ukrainians who participated in Euromaidan are, whether they realize it or not, descendants of those who were members of the Committees of Correspondence and Public Safety in the American Colonies.

·       Reliance on Foreign Trainers – For over 15 years, Ukraine has relied on soldiers from western armies to provide critical training, especially on operating in small units and improving the authority of junior officers and non-commissioned officers.   This article, in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, does an excellent job in describing the relationship between the Ukrainian Army and those from western armies, mostly NATO Members, who came to Ukraine to offer the training.  Much of the effectiveness of the Ukrainian Army that we’re seeing today comes from a combination of the training and the combat experience they’ve received over the past 8 years.

During the American Revolution the Continental Army also relied on foreign experts.  One example was Baron Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin von Steuben.   According to his Wikipedia Page, Von Steuben was a Prussian military officer who played a leading role in the American Revolution, by reforming the into a disciplined and professional fighting force.[1] His contributions marked a significant improvement in the performance of American troops, and he is subsequently regarded as one of the fathers of the United States Army.  Much of his training took place in the Winter of 1777/1778, when the Continental Army was in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.  Many soldiers were wearing rags for shoes, and the ending of enlistments reduce the size of the Army down to a few thousand men, about the same size as the Ukrainian Army in March 2014.

·       Partisans – Both the Colonials and Ukrainians are making extensive use of partisans.   The victories of the Continental Army at Trenton, on Christmas Eve 1776, and at Princeton, NJ 10 days later are well-known.   What is less well-known is the beating the British Army took from American partisans, mostly New Jersey farmers and tradesmen, on their retreat from Princeton back to their base in New York.

·       Opponents’ Use of Mercenaries – In spite of their overwhelming numbers the British Army used mercenaries from the German State of Hesse, known as the Hessians.   It was the Hessians who were routed by the Colonials at Trenton.   Despite their overwhelming numbers, the Russians use contract soldiers from the Wagner Group along with Chechen mercenaries.

·       Foreign Assistance – Without the financial and military support of France, the Colonials might not have won their freedom from Great Britain.   The first treaty with France was signed in 1778.   Then, as is the case today, many Colonials felt that the assistance it was receiving from France was not nearly enough.   The aforementioned Robert Morris was very adept at obtaining additional “assistance,” on behalf of the Continental Army.   Finally, without the French fleet, under the command of Admiral François Joseph Paul, Comte de Grasse, Marquis of Grasse-Tilly, blocking the British Fleet from entering Chesapeake Bay in 1781, the outcome of the Battle of Yorktown, ending the American Revolution, might have been different.   Perhaps the French Fleet provided an early example of a “no fly zone.”

Sometimes, we in the United States need to have a longer memory.

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[i] Charles Rappleye, “Robert Morris: Financier of the American Revolution,” 2010, Simon & Schuster