A LOST WARSHIP

So, we learn that the Russian Navy’s Black Sea flagship RTS Moskva (121) has sunk while being towed toward Sevastopol, Crimea, after sustaining major damage in a fire Wednesday.  I have little doubt that the Kremlin chose not to say that the "fire" was caused by two of Ukraine's "Neptune" anti-ship cruise missiles striking the ship and causing fires that reached the vessel's ammunition magazines, igniting secondary explosions that made the ship a flaming, leaking hulk that finally succumbed to bad weather.  

My guess is that she was a constructive total loss long before she slipped beneath the waves.  It could hardly be otherwise if the entire crew was ordered to abandon the ship because "damage control" was both impossible and pointless.

I am, of course, not "rooting for the Russians" in this war. Russia's aggression, wanton destruction, and countless war crimes immediately perish the thought.  The only way this war will end properly is if Russia suffers such enormous losses that not even a monster like Putin will consider embarking on another such "noble cause" in the future.  

Even so, I felt a strange twinge of sadness hearing that the ship had gone down.  There is a finality to a major warship sinking that approximates a human death.  It's gone.  You can't bring it back.  In contrast, even a horribly damaged warship can be brought back if the hull is sound.  Consider the USS Belknap (DLG-26) after a collision with the Navy carrier John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1975. 

 

The Navy really did bring it back, though I suspect it was a matter of prestige to the brass as much as it was a question of cost.

I write about this because, quite improbably, in a prior life I had my own Moskva or Belknap moment.

In 1974 I was Lieutenant (j g.) assigned during my last six months of active duty service to the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard.  I was one of a number of "ship superintendents" assigned to monitor and report up the chain of command to the shipyard commander on the status of overhaul and repair work. The ship I was assigned to was the USS MacDonough (DLG-8), which was undergoing a complete modernization. So great was the scope of the "rip out" and deconstruction that the ship was actually decommissioned, and under the control of the shipyard rather than the active fleet.

After the ship's propulsion plant had been rebuilt and tested at the pier, it was time to get underway and go to sea to see how well it really functioned.  (Think of driving an auto with a new engine and transmission on a comprehensive test drive, only with 1200-lb steam boilers and large steam turbines as the means of propulsion.) Thus, we steamed down the Delaware River to the "Virginia Capes" for "machinery trials." I was a bit sobered by a "collateral duty" assigned to me at the last minute -- I would be the "damage control officer" during the cruise.

Shipboard damage control is a significant subspecialty in and of itself, although every officer and sailor is supposed to know the rudiments of "DC," as it is called. However in this case the people I would be in charge of were a motley crew of "yardbirds" and future crew members of the ship.  A complication was that I didn't have any real authority over the future crew members on the ship or the civilian workers aboard.  The whole setup was hopelessly ad hoc and dodgy.

One evening I was just crawling into my rack (bed) in the after part of the ship when I heard a large "ka-blam" forward, like a cannon blast.  The "1-MC" (public address system) on the bridge barked out a warning: "Explosion in #1 Boiler Room!!  Damage Control Party to #1 Boiler Room!!"  I jumped out of the rack like lightning, pulled on my shirt, pants, and a pair of socks, and idiotically ran up one of the main passageways forward towards the mess decks above the boiler room while holding my shoes as I didn't want to waste time lacing them up.

Forward of the messdecks amidships next to the passageway were bulkheads that looked like a compartment, but behind them were the boiler uptakes that discharged smoke and gas up to the forward smoke funnel.  There was a bolted but detachable inspection panel right next to the passageway.  As I went past it I saw the paint on it melt and curl off the metal from the heat on the other side.

You can bet that I put my shoes on after seeing this! I thought, "My God, there must be an inferno under my feet if the fire is in the uptakes!  How many people down there have we lost!?"  Then, more ominously, "Hell, are we going to lose the ship!?" And somewhat selfishly: "How bad will my court-martial be if I survive this?"  After all, I was the "Damage Control Officer."

After running to one of the deck hatches leading into the boiler room below I saw more steam and smoke coming up, but no fire.  I ran to the bridge, told those driving the ship what I saw, and headed back down to "Damage Control Central," a space deep in the bowels of the ship.  It was my station, but I felt like a jerk being there.  I actually had no one to command, so I went back to the scene.

It won't surprise you that my participation in this emergency was less than heroic. While I was heading to the bridge and then to "Damage Control Central," petty officers from the future crew with real expertise in engineering and damage control went into the space. Remarkably, there was no fire. What happened was this.

One of the major engineering changes made in the ship's propulsion system was a switch in fuel from the old black oil known as Navy Special Fuel Oil (NSFO) to a late 20th-century fuel known as Navy Distillate Fuel Oil. (NDFO).  The latter was clear and much lighter, and prone to evaporate. The difference in viscosity and other characteristics of the two fuels caused a large build-up of unburned NDFO gas fumes to accumulate at the top of the boiler. 

The boiler had been shut down for a while and the fires inside extinguished. When one of the boiler technicians was instructed to relight the boiler he did what was normal. He opened a small door at the base of the boiler and inserted a soaked flaming rag at the end of a long metal stick to ignite a new supply of fuel being sprayed into the furnace space.  The heat and flame rose to the top of the boiler and the accumulated gas blew up. The force of the explosion went up through the boiler uptakes blowing the whole top of the boiler apart. This was the heat that I observed on the opposite side of the bulkhead in the passageway.

The technician lighting off the boiler was thrown back about five feet on his behind, but aside from the shock and somewhat sore bottom suffered no injuries. There were no other injuries among the boiler crew down there. However, the force of the explosion not only greatly damaged the uptakes but also caused the intricate brickwork on the inside of the boiler to collapse. The yard would have to do substantial additional work to repair it.

Because of the extra time and transfer of my more senior colleagues who were ship superintendents, I became the sole ship superintendent noting progress on the work until the ship was finally recommissioned. I had only a few days of active service left at this point, but the repair superintendent, a Navy captain, asked me to serve as an observer and ride to ship down from Philly to its new homeport in Charleston, South Carolina. It was my last sea voyage in the Navy, a pleasant trip as a true "supercargo."

In the years since I left the Navy, I always think of that incident and what could have gone wrong whenever I hear of a shipboard disaster or sinking, especially of a military vessel. I have been marked by that panicked thought, "Are we going to lose the ship?" I have a sense of empathy for the sailors on the Moskva who were not as lucky as I was.  (No question in my mind that some were killed.  In fact, I read today that the ship's captain was killed.)  There is no greater shipboard risk than fire at sea, and the ocean is a common enemy.

I wish this stupid and senseless war was over.  There is no reason for any of this, other than the imperial fantasies of a psychopathic dictator for whom human life holds no value.