Downfall of the Musson
| Downfall of the Musson | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Summary | |
| date | April 16, 1987 |
| Type of accident | Shooting accident |
| place | Japanese sea |
| Killed | 39 |
| Injured | unknown |
| Corvette Musson | |
| Ship type | Project 1234 |
| operator | Soviet Navy |
| home port | Vladivostok |
| crew | 76 |
| Survivors | 37 |
| Corvette RK-42 | |
| Ship type | Project 1241.1 |
| operator | Soviet Navy |
| home port | Vladivostok |
| crew | about 38 |
| Survivors | all |
The sinking of the Musson was an accident that occurred as part of an anti-aircraft exercise by the Soviet Navy on April 16, 1987, in which 39 seamen were killed.
location
In the mid-1980s, the Soviet Navy concentrated on the defense of coastal sea areas and, in the event of war, prepared for disruptive actions that were intended to hinder the movements of NATO forces in areas up to 2,000 kilometers from the Soviet coast .
The exercise activity of the Soviet Navy and the Navy Air Force had slackened significantly from 1986. Western analysts attributed this to austerity measures.
For the beginning of 1987, the Soviet Navy planned a spring maneuver of its Pacific fleet , but only missile ships of the 165th Missile Boat Brigade took part.
Schedule of the exercise
Rear Admiral Leonid Golovko was responsible for the exercise. The plan that had been worked out provided that the flotilla should be divided into two units and that up to three practice cruise missiles should be fired from one of these units at the other. The ships of the unit attacked in this way were supposed to take up the most effective anti-aircraft formation possible and then shoot down the incoming cruise missiles with their anti-aircraft missiles . The anti-aircraft formation should be a diamond formation in which the Briz should take the lead, Wichr and MPK-117 should follow it aft, offset to port and starboard, and the Musson should form the end of the formation.
The ships of the flotilla scheduled for the exercise were:
Association 1 (defense):
- Anti- submarine corvette MPK-117 (Russian: МПК-117), project 1124
- Corvette Wichr (Russian: Вихрь; "cyclone"), project 1234
- Corvette Bris (Russian: Бриз; "sea wind", "breeze"), project 1234
- Corvette Musson (Russian: Муссон; "Monsun"), project 1234
Bandage 2 (attack):
- Missile corvette RK-42 (Russian: РК-42), project 1241.1
- Missile speedboat RK-87 (Russian: РК-87), project 205 U
The four ships in formation 1 were able to use modern anti-aircraft missiles. Each ship had a launch device that could keep two rockets ready. Possible missile types were two variants of the 9M33 missile:
- 9M33, minimum altitude of the target> 50 m
- 9M33M, target minimum altitude> 25 m
The two ships in formation 2 were able to use two different types of cruise missiles:
- P-15 (Russian: П-15) NATO code: SS-N-2B Styx , range 50 km, altitude between 100 and 400 meters
- P-15M (Russian: П-15M) NATO code: SS-N-2C Styx , range 80 km, altitude between 25 and 50 meters
In addition, an unmanned missile , a drone of the type La-17 (Russian: Ла-17), could have taken on the role of cruise missile.
Delays
Initially planned for the last week of March, the exercise date was delayed several times. The first delay resulted from delivery problems with the anti-aircraft missiles for two ships of the fleet association. After these missiles were delivered, the exercise date was postponed further due to various disruptive factors in the exercise area.
Two US warships, the frigates USS Francis Hammond and USS Knox , were sighted near the training area in the first few days of April. The exercise was postponed, but afterwards the air security in the target area could not be guaranteed until April 7, so that there was another delay.
The next day visibility was poor and fishing boats were reported in the training area. On Saturday April 11, 1987, two boats of the association, the submarine corvette MPK-117 and the corvette Bris , finally reported technical difficulties, and the departure was postponed again.
Actual course
After postponing the exercise several times, it was finally rescheduled for Thursday, April 16. The corvette Bris had to remain in port because of the damage that had not yet been repaired. Anti-aircraft missiles of the type 4K33-Osa-M were loaded into the magazine of the Corvette Musson for this exercise . The simulated attacker RK-42 received P-15M missiles.
planning
With the knowledge of Rear Admiral Golowko, the participants changed the schedule of the exercise so that the distance between the two formations was drastically shortened at the moment of the rocket launch and the marching speed of the anti-aircraft formation was significantly reduced during the interception phase.
The naval association left its base near Vladivostok and ran south into the Sea of Japan.
After several individual exercises had already been carried out, RK-42 started a simulated attack on the Musson .
The training missile used for this was a fully functional weapon, in which only the explosives had been removed and replaced with a counterweight.
Launch
The crew on the ship launching the missile should, in accordance with the regulations for such exercises, manually determine a distant target area in which the cruise missile should search for a target ship. The homing systems of the cruise missile should be deactivated. The missile's course between the starting point and the target area should then lead it aft past the ship that was conducting the anti-aircraft exercise.
The control systems on board the Tarantul-class Corvette RK-42 , however, did not allow such programming, but instead forced the operators to aim directly at a recognized contact. Due to the deactivated search systems in the cruise missile, there was still hardly any possibility that the missile actually hit the targeted Musson . Even if the estimated position of the target at the time of take-off were to correspond to its actual position when the missile arrived, the deactivated search system would not issue a command to approach the target, so that the cruise missile would fly over its target.
The corvette RK-42 changed its course in the direction of the target point and launched a cruise missile of the type P-15M (П-15M) at 18:42 local time. The distance to the corvette Musson was around 21 kilometers at that time, the simulated attacker RK-42 was at 340 ° from the Musson . The Musson ran at a speed of only 9 knots.
After its solid fuel booster burned out, the cruise missile accelerated to 320 meters per second and began to burn its liquid fuel. Its altitude was between 25 and 50 meters, constantly checked by the built-in altitude radar. The time to reach the Musson was about a minute.
The crew of the Musson recorded the approaching target with their ship's radar sensors and launched two of the 9K33 (SA-N-4) anti-aircraft missiles in a row to intercept it. Controlled by radio signal from the Musson , the rockets accelerated to over 420 meters per second and flew towards the target. Despite the remote control by the specialists on the corvette and the radar-based distance fuses in the anti-aircraft missiles, neither of the two 9K33s was able to destroy the approaching cruise missile.
Corvette Captain Wiktor Rekisch also had the AK-725 turret aft with its two 57 mm L / 75 cannons opened fire on the SS-N-2C. In the 22 seconds it took the cruise missile to travel the distance it was within range of the guns, only five 57mm shells were fired, but they too failed to destroy the target.
The cruise missile abruptly changed course to port in the direction of the Musson about 2.5 kilometers in front of the ship and began to lose altitude before it hit the corvette.
A hit
The cruise missile hit the Musson's superstructure below the bridge, roughly level with the radio room on the port side, about seven to eight meters above the waterline. The missile broke through the wall of the bridge structure and broke on its way through the structure. Its debris broke through the starboard wall. The remaining 75% of his rocket fuel was burning in and around the structure. The remaining 480 kg of the oxidizer and 160 kg of fuel from the missile destroyed the radio room, the bridge and parts of the weather deck.
The combination of the fire and the vibration during the impact triggered a short circuit in the energy supply and warped parts of the structure, so that some bulkheads could no longer be opened and, in combination with destroyed lines, the automatic fire extinguishing system failed. The power failure blocked the anti-aircraft missile mechanism, so that the loading mechanism no longer lowered completely into the magazine, but stopped moving. The starboard launch container with the SS-N-9 siren missiles of the Musson went overboard due to the force of the impact, the port container burned out and later also went overboard. The bulk of the life-saving appliances were damaged by fire or they were in areas of the ship that were no longer accessible, so that only a few life jackets were available. The commander of the Musson , Corvette Captain Rekisch, the flotilla commander of the 192nd Division, Frigate Captain Kimasov, the deputy commander of the coastal defense fleet, the sea captain Timirkhanov and 36 other seamen were killed.
The fire began to set the aluminum parts of the superstructure on fire, so that some of them collapsed and went overboard to starboard. During the construction of the ship, aluminum-magnesium components had been used in all the areas in which no high load was to be expected, which now turned out to be particularly disastrous, since the corresponding parts burned at such high temperatures that they burned with the ones still existing On-board resources from the ship's security could not be deleted.
The first officer of the Musson , Lieutenant Igor Goldobin, although seriously injured, reversed the order previously given to leave the ship, gathered the survivors still on board in a group and ordered the wounded to be gathered and life jackets to be collected and buoyant material. At around 6:55 p.m. he gave the order to leave the ship and jump into the 5 ° C cold water. The watertight transport containers of the SA-N-4 missiles, which were simply left on deck after the missile magazine was loaded, proved to be a useful substitute for the burned life rafts.
rescue
After it became clear that a serious accident had occurred, the exercise was stopped and a rescue operation initiated.
The corvette Wichr was the first to arrive at her burning sister ship, followed by MPK-117 . The entire section amidships, from the bridge to the turret at the stern, was shrouded in thick smoke, and survivors had huddled at the Musson's bow .
The sailors of the Wichr also tried to deposit life-saving appliances, but, according to a statement by their helmsman , they were unusable or stolen, so that only a few lifeboats were available. The commanders of Wichr and MPK-117 were forbidden to walk alongside, as Rear Admiral Golowko and the experts were not sure whether the cruise missiles in the Musson's launch containers, each containing 500 kilograms of explosives, would burn out or explode. The sailors were forbidden to row to the burning Musson in the few lifeboats . The sailors finally jumped into the water and took the survivors on board the Wichr one by one . Others were rescued by a boat from the MPK-117 , which had also arrived at the scene of the accident .
An Il-38 marine reconnaissance aircraft dropped life rafts, but the currents carried them away. In addition, there were no more survivors in the water at this point.
When it became clear that the cruise missiles no longer posed a threat on the burning wreck, a boarding team crossed over, but found only bodies on deck. All accesses to the interior of the ship were blocked, so that the seafarers left the ship without having achieved anything.
The surviving crew members of the Musson were later brought ashore by RK-87 .
Downfall
Finally, around 10:00 p.m., the fire reached a magazine and triggered an explosion of ammunition. As a result, water penetrated the hull and the Musson began to sink over the bow. At 11:10 p.m. the forecastle had already sunk to sea level, and at 11:30 p.m. the ship was at 42 ° 11 ′ N , 132 ° 27 ′ E perished.
Investigation and aftermath
Official investigation
Naval Admiral Nikolai Smirnow , deputy commander of the Soviet Navy, was entrusted with the management of the investigation commission, which should clarify the circumstances that had led to the loss of the Musson .
In the first phase of the investigation, a large amount of information was analyzed that was not directly related to maritime processes, such as party affiliation or ethnic origin of the participants.
According to journalist Grigori Pasko, the final report, classified as Top Secret , focused on the changes in the exercise routine that the participants had apparently made to make the exercise less dynamic in order to achieve better results.
- The shortening of the distance between the two formations to only 21 kilometers at the time of the cruise missile launch also shortened the duration of the exercise, as less time passed between launch and interception than originally intended. The distance had a negative effect on the response time for the Musson crew , which was reduced accordingly. In addition, the amount of fuel in the cruise missile when it reached the Musson was still very large due to the short flight distance, which significantly increased the intensity of the subsequent fire.
- The command of parts of the ship's security group during the exercise from their normal post to the bridge of the Musson , under the responsibility of the commander, turned out to be momentous, since so many of the specialists who could possibly have saved the ship died when the cruise missile hit the bridge structure.
- The cruise missile was damaged by the shelling from the Musson and got out of control: the damaged tail unit caused a change of course and a loss of altitude at 2500 meters. The subsequent hit on the corvette was accordingly an accidental accident , to the serious consequences of which the above-mentioned changes to the exercise sequence contributed.
(However, other sources emphasize that the aforementioned changes to the exercise plan were within the competence of the exercise leader.)
Contradictions
To answer the question of why the P-15M cruise missile hit the corvette and did not fly over it as intended, two different explanations exist:
Version 1: According to the official investigation mentioned above, the cruise missile had been launched properly with the homing system deactivated. One of the SA-N-4 missiles or the Musson's gunfire damaged the P-15M cruise missile slightly, so that it did not crash, but instead, due to damage to the rudder controls, accidentally turned in the direction of the corvette after a flight distance of 18,500 meters , lost altitude and into which Musson fell.
Version 2: The P-15M cruise missile was launched with the homing system activated. According to his standard programming , he switched on his radar 6 nautical miles before reaching the previously calculated target point and began to scan the sea area in front of him for strong reflections. The corvette Musson was in the detection range of the cruise missile and offered the largest radar reflective surface of the three ships in the association . So it was recognized by the sensor and when the echo that the corvette generated on the sensor of the P-15M was large enough to justify an attack according to its programming, the missile changed its trajectory slightly and headed towards the ship. Following his saved attack pattern, he went into a slight descent shortly before the target and hit the corvette amidships in the superstructure.
This second, unofficial version, among other possibilities, was examined in more detail by Valery Mikhailov in a 2010 article. According to his investigations, the Musson had loaded 9K33 rockets, which could not independently fight a target flying at a height of 25 meters, because their distance fuses failed due to the reflection of the nearby water surface when approaching the target, which explains the two misses. He also reports a planned interception distance of 7000 meters, which - even in the event of a damaged cruise missile - makes a change in course of the weapon only 2500 meters from the target very unlikely. In addition, there was a defect in the fire control radar MR-103, which provided target data for the turret, so that the artillery officer had to visually aim at the target.
Accordingly, errors in the preparation of the exercise, especially at the land post, which was solely responsible for preparing the cruise missile and deactivating its homing systems, would have exposed Musson to an attack with a live weapon and at the same time deprived them of any defensive possibilities, while planning errors in weapon allocation and repair.
The Musson was thus after 1983 the second Soviet warship which was sunk by a P-15M cruise missiles Osa class -Boot P-82 was sunk during an exercise shooting after a navigational error by a P-15M.
monument
A memorial stone on the names and ranks of the dead was erected on a naval base near Vladivostok. A plate at the foot of the stone bears the inscription:
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ЛИЧНОМУ СОСТАВУ |
The crew of |
Evidence and references
Remarks
- ↑ The two American ships were en route to Busan , Korea, to take part in the Team Spirit '87 exercise, which began on the 15th.
- ↑ It was also scheduled for relocation to Cam Ranh Bay .
- ↑ капитан 3 ранга Рекиш
- ↑ капитан 2 ранга Кимасов
- ↑ капитан 1 ранга Тимирханов
- ↑ The height above the water line at which an active P-15M cruise missile hits its target varies between one and about eight meters, as was determined during the tests of the model between 1969 and 1972 - as described by AB Schirokorad (Russian: Александр Широкорад) in Wonder Weapons of the Soviet Union (Russian: Чудо-оружие СССР ), Chapter 5.
Web links
- Essay by Valery Mikhailov on the accident (Russian)
- Гибель ракетного корабля "Муссон" (Death of the missile ship Musson), Grigori Pasko (Russian)
- Трагедия “МУССОН”, tragedy of the missile ship Musson. Answer by Vladimir Ulyanich to the articles by G. Pasko (Russian)
literature
- The gun on the temple of imperialism. History of the ships of the project 1234. Original title: Пистолет у виска империализма. История кораблей проекта 1234. W. Kostritschenko, W. Kuzmichev, 2006, publisher: Военная книга, ISBN 5-902863-05-8 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Soviet Military Power: An Assessment Of The Threat - 1988. US Department of Defense, April 1988, p. 127.
- ^ Norman Polmar: The Naval Institute guide to the Soviet Navy. United States Naval Institute, 1986-1991, ISBN 978-0-87021-241-3 , p. 48.
- ^ Norman Friedman: The Naval Institute guide to world naval weapons systems, 1997-1998. US Naval Institute Press, 1997, ISBN 1-55750-268-4 , pp. 239-240.
- ↑ a b atrinaflot.narod.ru ( Memento of October 11, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ a b Essay by Valeri Michailow on the accident, viewed on January 11, 2011
- ↑ a b Article on Kreisers.narod.ru, viewed on January 17, 2011
- ↑ a b c Article on severnyflot.ru, viewed on November 10, 2010 (Russian)
- ↑ AK-725 at navweaps.com, viewed November 10, 2010
- ↑ ship.bsu.by, viewed November 11, 2010
- ↑ a b c d e f Гибель ракетного корабля "Муссон", article by Grigori Pasko, viewed on December 28, 2010
- ↑ Kreisers.narod.ru, viewed on November 10, 2010
- ↑ Alexander Schirokorad: Miracle Weapons of the Soviet Union. (Russian: Чудо-оружие СССР ), Chapter 5.