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To: Spktyr

Wasn’t the Moskva also sort of an AWACS of the sea, with all sorts of electronics the other ships did not have and connected anti-aircraft missiles to use to protect the rest of the fleet?


37 posted on 04/14/2022 7:11:33 PM PDT by Paladin2
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To: Paladin2
Yes and no. She sacrificed a lot to be able to carry those sixteen cap ship killers on her deck. She did have eight VLS clusters, each carrying eight SA-N-6 long range SAMs - roughly similar to our Standard missiles. (These are public domain images, not classified any more these days, and are old shots of her sister ship, the Marshal Ustinov, but the Moskva had this same config.)

It also has two twenty cell short range SA-N-4 launchers towards the stern. (The two white 'half beer cans.')

It also has not one, not two, but *six* CIWS equivalents mounted to it. These are generally only usable for self-defense at knife range and not sector defense.

She didn't get the big late 2010s update that her sister got, so she's actually got (or had) the 1990-1998 refit radars. It also only got small, partial refits and those when the ship could be spared from duty. It's not the 1983 standard, but it's not its sister ship, the Marshal Ustinov. That one got a full overhaul and update as of 2018.

One of the things missing from the Moskva was a full datalink. The Moskva was not able to fight datalinked with the modern Russian fleet - so it could basically only fight to defend itself with some token 'area defense' capability, which was reportedly not good. The Russians didn't develop battle networks until the 2000s and the Moskva got left behind.

Compare that to a US Burke class destroyer: 96 VLS cells, datalink capable, one CIWS (sometimes two), recent radar upgrades. So what you have is a cruiser that's *less* capable of air defense than a Burke destroyer in general and far less capable of group or sector defense. It can defend a flotilla in the sense that any modern naval vessel with AA armament can, but it is far more oriented towards *self* defense (note the large number of short range only defense missiles and CIWS installations) than intentional group or sector defense. It sacrificed that capability to be able to mount that sixteen cap ship killer missile punch.

Put another way, there are upgraded Udaloy-class destroyers (older than the Moskva) that have better AA than the Moskva had.

41 posted on 04/14/2022 8:17:43 PM PDT by Spktyr (Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)
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