Russian navy being defeated by a country with no navy
Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
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I'm a little ignorant about this - is the Black Sea Fleet considered a major part of Russia's overall navy? I've read that Putin is (was) incredibly proud of it but I've never really understood what proportion of the overall navy they make up.
It's the fleet that had access to the Mediterranean sea, so all of Russias power projection towards the near east (most importantly in recent years Syria) relied on that fleet. That's why it's one of the more significant fleets.
Yeah. But the crown jewel of the Russian Navy are the submarines, no?
It's the only fleet with direct access to warm sea ports and warm seas in general.
During late autumn/winter/early spring the baltics freeze, sometimes entirely, which makes naval transits for military vessels incredibly difficult. Furthermore it has to traverse through practically NATO lakes.
The other option is the Murmansk fleet at Polyarnyy which requires a huge route around through NATO controlled waters through the Norwegian sea and they also freeze, even more so, during winter months.
Before he invaded Crimea in 2014, he had a lease with Ukraine to allow the Russian Navy to use Sevastopol until 2042 in exchange for a 30% price reduction on Russian gas to Ukraine. Had he not invaded, that deal would still be in effect and Russian ships would have an unimpeded staging point for the Black Sea and by extension into the Mediterranean. He probably thought invading Crimea would expand his naval presence, but instead its resulted in him having to evacuate his ships back to Russia friendly waters. He also happens to have at least one palace along the Black Sea.
The answer is both yes and no, dependent on what you mean.
To answer this questions requires to go back over a century and look at Russian naval history and traditions, of which it barely has none. Navies are one of those things which relies on decades and decades of culture and traditions to be set within a group of sailors for it to be effective. You can't just hand some sailors a state of the art warship and expect it to perform well. This has been proven time and time again, for example during the Napoleonic wars where French ships of the line with more cannon, thicker hulls and larger sterns were being beaten in 1 on 1 combat with British frigates. This really came to fruit during the Russian-Japanese war at the battle of Tsushima strait where state of the art Russian battleships were brutalized by Japanese warships, because of ill discipline, lack of sailor culture, institutional knowledge and poor training.
This defeat basically ended all Russian hopes of having an "Imperial Global Navy" and with the onset of WWI, it was further stepped back. By the time of the Bolshevik Revolution and when Stalinism really kicked in, the Navy was all but abandoned. During WWII, of all the threats the Soviet Union faced by the Wehrmacht, the Kreigsmarine was not one of them, so again, there was no real development of naval warfare on the surface ship level. All their major surface combatants were hand me downs from either lend-lease (for example, HMS Royal Sovereign) or relics and pre-dreadnaughts from the Russian Empire days. What they did manage to build was domestic submarines, which played a part well during 1944-45 when the Germans tried to evacuate the Baltics and East Prussia.
Come the Cold war, the Soviet Union knew they could not even try to attempt to outmatch the NATO fleets on surface combatants. So their doctrine was very similar to what Germany did in WWI/WWII. Have a surface fleet that was large enough for it to be a reasonable consideration (essentially a Fleet-in-being, much like Scheer's WWI High Seas Fleet) but have a horde of submarines breach the NATO lines at the GIUK seas and cause havoc within supply lines in the Atlantic Ocean. (it was actually more nuanced than this, with late cold war the Soviets realized that breaching GIUK was impossible). With this setup, funding and money was thrown into Submarine warfare development much more than surface fleet development. This also forced counties, like UK, to focus much more on ASW as opposed to ASuW, hence you have embarrassing situations like the Falklands where the UK were ill equipped to handle low-flying anti-ship cruise missiles.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, all of Russia's military suffered a budget crisis, the navy included. Everything was scaled back, but because there were so many submarines and subs were the one thing that there had been decades of institutional knowledge bought in, Submarines were the ones that managed to recover the quickest and actually further their development lifecycles.
Since 2000, Russia has put forward 23 "modern" Submarines into its fleet. It has put 0 "capital ships" on its surface fleet (atleast the western classification of them) and the best they could do is bring out some semi modern frigates.
So if your question was "Are the Submarines the best ships of the Russian Navy compared to a global standard?" The answer is Yes.
If the question was, "Is it fully intended to be that way?" The answer is, no.
Submarines on their own lack a lot of strategic and tactical flexibility - this was why the Soviet Union still had a very large Surface fleet. The flagship of the navy has never been a submarine because, quite simply put, a Submarine does not have the necessary facilitation for flagship operations, it lacks command modules, integrated command and control sensors and datalinks to aerial assets or battlefield control modules.
The crown jewel of a navy should always be a surface vessel, but because of institutional stagnation and a lack of focus, the Submarines are the best Russia has and right now their flagship is the Makarov in the Black Sea Fleet. Ultimately, a frigate is going to miss a lot of facilities for proper command and control, but it's much better than a Submarine. Their previous flagship, the Moskva, was sunk over a year ago.
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Thanks all who responded to that Q. I do remember now, reading about the importance to Russia of that warm water base in Syria.
I've read a fair bit about this, it's an element of naval history that rarely makes it as far as Western Europe. I gather the Russian elite went into that conflict convinced of the superiority of their navy, and had a rude awakening.
If you also want more information around flagships and "Crown of the Fleet", I would recommend reading into the design of the Ticonderoga Class Cruiser, and what facilitations the US Navy had to specifically build to allow for Command and Control on a 10,000 tonne cruiser so that they could be used for flagship operations.
There were some comical incompetencies displayed by the Russian Navy during that whole period too.
As the northern routes were frozen, the Russian Fleet had to sail all the way around the world to where the war was being fought.
When they were crossing the North sea, they spotted British fishing boats and, hilariously and insanely, thought they were Japanese Destroyers. (Yes, Russian captains thought Fishing boats in the North Sea were Japanese Destroyers).
So they launched a barrage of shells at them, only for most of them to miss. They fired over 2500 shells, and had a hit ratio of 0.4%.
Then, after the fishing boats were "dealt with", the vanguard scouting group of the Russian navy sailed back into the main fleet battle-line, only for the Russian Navy to believe that they were more Japanese Destroyers...
So...obviously the battle line fired upon their own destroyers. Thankfully, most of them missed, (Again) but there were some hits and some light casualties.
Overall, absolute embarassing showing. Honestly, the commander should have seen that as a massive sign they were not ready to fight high intensity pitched naval battles but alas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogger_Bank_incident
It also nearly bought UK and Russia to war, as the UK deployed the "Home Fleet" to shadow that Russian Fleet transiting the north sea, before the Russians issued an apology and offered a court-martial and investigation.
For context, the UK had the worlds largest fleet at that point and the Home Fleet was absolutely absurd in size, with 150 destroyers and 28 Dreadnoughts.
There were some comical incompetencies displayed by the Russian Navy during that whole period too.
As the northern routes were frozen, the Russian Fleet had to sail all the way around the world to where the war was being fought.
When they were crossing the North sea, they spotted British fishing boats and, hilariously and insanely, thought they were Japanese Destroyers. (Yes, Russian captains thought Fishing boats in the North Sea were Japanese Destroyers).
So they launched a barrage of shells at them, only for most of them to miss. They fired over 2500 shells, and had a hit ratio of 0.4%.
Then, after the fishing boats were "dealt with", the vanguard scouting group of the Russian navy sailed back into the main fleet battle-line, only for the Russian Navy to believe that they were more Japanese Destroyers...
So...obviously the battle line fired upon their own destroyers. Thankfully, most of them missed, (Again) but there were some hits and some light casualties.
Overall, absolute embarassing showing. Honestly, the commander should have seen that as a massive sign they were not ready to fight high intensity pitched naval battles but alas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogger_Bank_incident
It also nearly bought UK and Russia to war, as the UK deployed the "Home Fleet" to shadow that Russian Fleet transiting the north sea, before the Russians issued an apology and offered a court-martial and investigation.
For context, the UK had the worlds largest fleet at that point and the Home Fleet was absolutely absurd in size, with 150 destroyers and 28 Dreadnoughts.
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Great post - you know your stuff, and I'm very grateful that you take the time to share on here.
This clip posted from last nights drone attack on the port of Novorrosiysk says a lot about the quality of training within the Russian armed forces.
With all due respect, I think you are way over your head with all the nonsense you are writing here. You are diminishing the sacrifices of all Ukrainians in their struggle to defend their sovereign country and decide their own future, against a brutal dictatorship with past and present colonial ambitions.
Great post.
Anytime you want to talk more about naval stuff, head to the Military Enthusiasts thread in the General. I love this stuff.
The war isn't going great for Ukraine as I warned many weeks/months ago. Not that I am an expert myself but I found a gem of a youtube channel known as parabellum were a former NATO general is usually invited in and which the argument is discussed in detail and at a level of detail I haven't seen anywhere else. They even wrote a book which is a best seller in Italy. It's called Le parole della guerra: Viaggio nel mondo dei termini militari - Esercito.
However let's be clear here. Ukraine has the right to defend itself and if it ever go down its a tragedy not only for Ukraine but every small/mid country in the world.
However let's be clear here. Ukraine has the right to defend itself and if it ever go down its a tragedy not only for Ukraine but every small/mid country in the world.
Surely will be a issue long term. Along with the inevitable brain drain that occurs whenever there is a mass migration of the youth. But I suppose when you're in an existential crisis and fighting for your existence as a nation, thats a secondary thought for the decision makers.
It's a pretty dire situation for them either way as I don't think the can sustain this war much longer without irrevocably damaging their future prospects on the whole, but on the other hand any peace treaty would involve giving major concessions to Russians which would both undermine their long term autonomy and deprive them of valuable land mass.
Thanks a lot for another amazing militar explanation.
As you know much more about these topics, could you expand more on the battle of tsushima. coincidentally I read about it a few weeks back that and i would like to know your opinion.
It seems, on your very short comment that the russian fleet, that in your opinion, was in an advantage against the japanese due to the russian state of the art vessels. I thought that the russians didn't have any chance because they feck up all the way from the baltic see, losing ships along the way at the african coast, shooting themselves thinking that they were enemies, losing ships around, and arriving to the Tsushima islands with less ships, with their moral destroyed and showing that their sailors were morons.
Also, the japanese navy had many more vessels and they were techonolgically superior to russians. So wasn't russian maritime dreams sunked not because their vessels were the state of the art, but because their navy was already poor in all levels? poor sailor level, poor leadership (sending the baltic fleet half the globe) and their vessles were much less in numbers and technologically less developed than the Japanese? And most likely even worse than UK, US and probably than France?
That discussion is probably best left for another thread, like the history thread.
It started because Russia invaded Ukraine and is committing atrocities there. Ukraine will never stop fighting.
As long as Ukraine is holding out, Putin is losing.
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Might be some hopeful/bias twitter accounts skewing my view, but I have a feeling Ukraine has intentionally overplayed the "unpreparedness" of the Kharkiv border region.
When Italy had a debt crisis a few years ago, and was negotiating its way out of that with the IMF, the head of that organisation deliberately stopped buying Italian debt while they talked. The interest rate went up steeply, and it effectively knocked the heads together of Italy’s leaders and the rest of the world. It was a ‘managed crisis’, with the aim of securing a focused and proportionate response by the world. I also think that that is what is happening here, and your hunch is correct. Don’t know why that popped into my mind, but it felt relevant.
US assesses Russia likely launched a counter space weapon last week
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/21/politics/us-assesses-russia-launched-counter-space-weapon/index.html
Noted. (Repeatedly)
Big news story here in Finland and elsewhere in the region today: Russia has announced that it will unilaterally move it's borders in the Baltic Sea.
According to Helsingin Sanomat, the Russian Defence Ministry argues that it believes that the current 1985 nautical charts are not fully accurate and do not reflect the "current geographical situation", and as a consequence, the maritime zones adopted by the Soviet Union some 40 years ago should in part be "invalidated".
According to Helsingin Sanomat, the Russian Defence Ministry argues that it believes that the current 1985 nautical charts are not fully accurate and do not reflect the "current geographical situation", and as a consequence, the maritime zones adopted by the Soviet Union some 40 years ago should in part be "invalidated".
What's this supposed to mean in practice? What are these borders?
Read a few articles but its unclear how much change is involved. But it seems like a clear sign that Russia is attempting to test NATO.
Bit late when you have lost a considerable amount of your fleets.
more empty threats.
more empty threats.
Seems like the warnings are increasing.
No one really knows as Russia didn't specify exactly how they want to change the borders. All information about it have been removed now from Russian government sites so maybe it was just a mistake or some kind of psychological warfare.
This is most likely bad news in the long run for Ukraine. They'll probably be replaced with competent officers.
Competent officers requires a competent military-academic system that values high intelligence and lots and lots of studying. Such institutions don't really exist anymore in Russia.
Maybe but the new ones will know better then to outright steal
Everyone steals, and everyone knows that everyone steals. It's just when you become inconvenient or suspicious when it suddenly becomes an issue.