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Russian Navy’s Slava-class Black Sea flagship Moskva
The Russian Navy’s Slava-class Black Sea flagship Moskva pulling into Sevastopol, Crimea in November 2021.
Reuters

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Antiship Missile Lessons from Sinking of the Moskva

By Commander Alan D. Zimm, U.S. Navy (Retired)
May 2022
Proceedings
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The Ukrainian missile attack that sank the Russian Navy Slava-class cruiser Moskva should revive discussion regarding the tradeoffs for antiship missiles.

The cruiser was struck by two Neptune antiship cruise missiles (ASCMs) with 330-pound warheads. Photographs show she had a significant fire in the forward superstructure; media reports state that she suffered a secondary explosion from a magazine or one of her own large missiles. After some hours, she sank while under tow.

The number of hits is significantly less than the number predicted by this common rule of thumb—the amount of thousand-pound bomb high-explosive equivalents to disable a ship is approximately equal to the cube root of one-thousandth of a ship’s tonnage. Roughly, this model indicates that it should have taken five Neptune ASCMs to put Moskva out of action, not two.

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Commander Alan D. Zimm, U.S. Navy (Retired)

Dr. Zimm is the author of Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions (Casemate, 2011) and contributed a chapter to The Sea and the Second World War: Maritime Aspects of a Global Conflict (Andarta Books, 2019). He was named 2016 Naval History Author of the Year for his article in the December issue, “Commander Fuchida’s Decision.”

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