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Comment by Tarragon | Hacker News Reader

"due to damage to the hull received during the fire from the detonation of ammunition"

The Ministry of Defense didn't clarify whose ammunition it was that exploded.

More seriously that was the flagship of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea. That's gotta put the fear of god into the other ship captains.

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Seeing as it sank many hours after it first caught fire, I’d imagine it was its own ammunition that caused the big fire (alongside fuel, lubricants etc).

What set its own ammunition on fire is the follow-up question. Seems like the Ukrainian missile, though after what we’ve seen, nothing would surprise me.

Sure, I'll believe that an ammunition fire on the Moskva is what sank it. Hower that fire was caused by... Top contenders are missile and inept crew.

Looks like Russia would rather we accept that the crew was inept than it was sun by a Ukrainian made missile

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximate_and_ultimate_causati... note the very first example is a sinking ship

"Top contenders are missile and inept crew."

It could also be sabotage by a Russian crewmember or foreign infiltrator.

You forgot the aliens.

Literally in this same thread people are referencing a well-known case of sabotage on an American ship not that long ago. Said to have caused severe damage.

On a Russian ship, though, it's as absurd an idea as space aliens?

I don't wish to debate hypotheticals, because I generally am not certain about uncertain things.

On a meta level, though, I am very curious where other people get their certainty from. I would like to hear more about how you identify paranoid fantasies.

On a Russian ship currently actively involved in a war that was claimed to have been hit by a missile that stands off-shore way over the horizon yes, sabotage is just as absurd as space aliens.

>On a Russian ship currently actively involved in a war that was claimed to have been hit by a missile that stands off-shore way over the horizon yes, sabotage is just as absurd as space aliens.

I don't understand what you are saying at all.

Sabotage can't happen during a war?

Or sabotage can't happen on a ship that wasn't hit by a missile?

Or sabotage can't happen on a ship that was hit by a missile?

Or sabotage can't happen to Russians at all?

Or sabotage by Russians can't happen on one of their ships?

Someone should remake "The front fell off" video[1] but fitting the context: A Russian reporter interviewing the Russian defense minister.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM

Any answer besides "Ukrainian missile" is going to be even more embarrassing for Russia. At least a missile strike is enemy action. Any alternative explanation for the sinking of your flagship is just incompetence.

Fires on ships are very harsh and dangerous environments. The US recently lost an entire carrier while in drydock with the maximum resources available, not even out at sea. Once it gets going, it's extraordinarily difficult to get under control.

To be fair, the ship was considered to be not worth repairing, but did not sink. It could have been repaired. But your point is accurate that it in drydock and it is embarrassing that the fire couldn't be put out sooner.

Any insight as to why fires on ships are hard to control? I hear it and believe. On the other hand I've been inside of military ships before and they are partitioned, with lots of metal doors to section off and contain damage, so I don't understand the difficulty.

Flammable materials like paint, lubricants, furniture, sailors are quite common inside those metal rooms. I have read of cases where the fires were so hot as to cause combustion through the bulkheads by radiant heat, regardless of the compartments being shut to section off the fires. The weight of water from firefighting efforts can cause stability issues, especially if it starts to slosh and compound any damage-related listing.

On top of these reasons, the segmented and compartmented nature of ships tends to intensify and concentrate heat. The segments that can burn, will burn hotter, much hotter, especially if they can establish a direction of airflow.

Flashover is always a major concern, everything emits flammable gasses nowadays when heated to sufficient temperature, and ship fires absolutely reach sufficient temperature readily.

I highly encourage everyone to watch this video, this is not just important on this but it's really important to understand the rapidity of fire progression in general. It's worth a watch from the start but I'm going to link to the point where it gets colorful. Imagine this is all taking place in a steel blast furnace with locked bulkheads - it's literally a matter of 30 seconds between "my trash can fire is out of control" and "everything in the room is literally on fire".

https://youtu.be/BtMmymOxdjc?t=138

That fire was set by sabotage and the saboteur disabled many of the fire control systems before setting the fire[0]. Embarrassing for sure, but not quite maximum resources.

[0]:https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/military/story/202...

Damage control was turned off because of maintenance.[0] A single 19-year-old junior sailor being able to single-handedly cause billions of dollars of damage in normal conditions would have been a very bad design flaw itself, anyway, but from what I've read, that wasn't the case here.

Anyway, until the trial occurs, I wouldn't be so hasty to judge whether the sailor was actually responsible for deliberately setting the fire, or just the scapegoat for a multifaceted failure.

[0]: https://news.usni.org/2021/10/19/long-chain-of-failures-left...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Bonhomme_Richard_(LHD-6)

A "Wasp-class amphibious assault ship", not a CVN. But yes, capable of launching harriers/F-35s.

by the standards of the rest of the world, that's a carrier. The US just also has a supercarrier fleet in addition ;)

Do you have a source for this? My poor google skills can't find anything after the '67 fire for an American carrier.

I also had trouble finding anything, but this sibling has a link.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31033854

My impression is that Russia is more concerned with not making Ukraine look good than with making themselves look good.

> Seeing as it sank many hours after it first caught fire

I may have missed some info, but I think the jury is still out on that. The Ukrainians announced the sinking a day before the Russians did. At least one of them must have been incorrect, I would guess for propaganda reasons.

My money would be on the Russians lying. An Ukrainian lie would be very embarrassing if Russia subsequently invited some journalists over to look at the ship.

The cruise missile tubes are right there on the deck; I don't doubt they exploded after getting hit with a Neptune or two. Neptunes are only rated to take out 5k tonnage ships, and Moskva is 12k tons. I bet you Moskva's own ordnance exploding after being hit by Ukraine's missiles is what actually killed it. Still a point for Ukraine for sure.

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