Originally Posted by
WideScreen
Good catch, and nice to see a high-res version of this picture.
Checking further, it looks like, the helo desk does have a big hole in it, with, as it seems, penetration from the top and a subsequent big explosion underneath the deck, maybe even 1 or 2 decks lower, inside the ship. Not to mention the crumbling and burn damage visible all over the port side on the deck below the helo deck.
Could it be Neptune Nr 2 did penetrate the helo deck and just blew up the whole inside of the stern section ? Given there will be not that many explosives and/or fuel around there, the only igniting stuff would be the neptune warhead itself with maybe some residual neptune fuel.
This could certainly explain the damage to the rear part of the ship and in front of the helo hangar, the structure below the rear radar dome itself. That part seems to be completely blown up from the inside out.
I think this gives the position (45°10’43.39″N, 30°55’30.54″E), which seems to be about 40-50m depth which is certainly within jackup depths. This is East of Snake Island which can be seen on the Google map if you zoom in enough. But whether that is the correct position I do not know. It certainly seems rather close to the Ukraine coast for the Russians to want to be carrying out any form of activity.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/...194!4d30.92515
The more southerly location where some folk are reporting AIS activity in 100m+ is definitely not the position above. It seems about 60km to the south. If she took approx 20-hours from impact to sinking, and if the wind was from the north, then that would be a drift of ~3km/h = 1.6 knots. But if it was only 10-hours from hit to sink, then that is 3kts drift. (Excellent timeline @jeepjeep btw.) (Recall the only timing info we have of the hit is the vauge "
Maksym Marchenko said their forces hit Moskva in the late hours of 13 April 2022, with two R-360 Neptuneanti-ship missiles, and she was on fire around 7 p.m. local time (GMT+3)"., so we really are unsure still regarding time of impact. Might be possible to drift at those rates. Maybe some towing was indeed attempted.
(as a possibly-related aside TB2 use has seemingly been mostly a night-time affair)
If there was any drift the wind was likely the dominant effect vs the currents. Here is a research paper. That area might have had a weak north-setting current from the northern gyre, but seems somewhat inconclusive.
https://tos.org/oceanography/assets/...8-2_stanev.pdf
Many folk use offshore 'rig' terminology incorrectly, it is conceivable that they don't know the difference between a semi-sub and a jack-up. For sure if Moskva went down in the 100m+ zone then it will be semi subs they will be needing. Retreiving any special devices from a wreck of this nature at that depth has got to be awkward.
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I've seen some reports of a third Neptune being involved, but no corroboration ,or indeed any public commentary as to how many were launched. No information out there as to what the TB2 did after the Neptune struck the Moskva. Or even if there were one or more TB2s. They might have been armed, who knows if they contributed with the smaller ordnance that they can carry. A Neptune hitting at that range (given that we don't know how far inland it originated from, or what doglegs were flown) would likely only have expended about half the fuel at the time of impact so remaining propellant would have been pretty significant contributor.