I found this consideration by Robert Farley at 1945 of the sinking of the Russian warship Moskva interesting:
Early reports indicate that the Russian cruiser Moskva, flagship of the Black Sea Fleet, has been severely damaged or possibly sunk (NOTE: most reports at present indicate it was seriously damaged at the time of this writing) after a fire and explosion. Ukrainian authorities announced yesterday that the ship had been struck by two Neptune anti-ship missiles, and Russian officials have confirmed that the ship suffered a fire and that the crew has been evacuated. One report indicated that the Moskva air defense system was distracted by a Ukrainian TB2 drone, facilitating the missile strike. According to this report, Moskva then rolled onto her side. If the loss of the ship is confirmed, she will be the largest warship destroyed in combat since the sinking of the Argentinian cruiser General Belgrano (the former USS Phoenix) in the Falklands War in 1982. However, the full details of the attack may not be known for several days.
I believe it has been confirmed that the ship sank as it was being towed for repairs after the damage done by the missile attack.
This is interesting for a number of reasons not the least its implications for the United States. IIRC multiple wargames of naval action in the Persian Gulf found U. S. ships vulnerable to attack by missiles carried by much smaller vessels. The combined use of drones and missiles is thought-provoking as well.
The U. S. Navy makes considerable use of very large craft. The new age of warfare presents considerable risks to such vessels which we’ll need to start addressing.
The picture at the top of this post illustrates a recently-issued Ukrainian stamp depicting the Moskva and a gesture of defiance.
Its a good follow up to the piece by Arquilla. We have had asymmetrical warfare before but this is the first in a long time between state actors. Decentralized units with lots of precision munitions seems to offset an awful lot of the advantage in numbers and overall arms. Big vehicles and big ships make big targets for precision weapons.
It appears that the Russians dont seem to realize that refusing to admit they were hit by a missile and claiming that their flagship accidentally sank due to a fire in the middle of a war really isn’t a much better , if at all, claim.
Steve
The US fights its wars (up to now) thousands of miles away over big oceans. The US Navy needs big ships just to get there, because the big ships have longer combat ranges, carry more of everything, and ride out storms better. Both Russia and China have more warships than the US, but they are much smaller than ours. Chinese and Russian tonnage combined is much less than ours.
China has been building large warships lately; it has several 30,000 ton cruisers, and will soon have a 100,000 ton carrier. Eventually they will be a Blue Water Navy, too. Russia has some left over Soviet warships, which it refurbishes, but it builds mostly frigates and corvettes, which are very heavily armed.
Nowadays, large ships are not safe anywhere near a hostile coastline. Russia is learning that now. But the US Ruling Class is incapable of learning anything (worse than the Bourbons), and we will have to lose one or more carrier strike groups before we come out of our fog.
If big ships are passé, how will we maintain our empire?