When I wrote that the ship had initially been reported sunk then Moscow said it wasn’t. Later it did sink in apparently bad weather while being towed.
Firefighting is half of what crews train for. The fact that the missle was only rated to take out a 5k ton ship may mean that yes, an ammo explosion caused the major damage. This should have been controlled better by ship design and proper fire control procedures.
It’s not without historical precedent; magazine/munitions explosions have been a very common reason for ships to sink in the past century and a half.
Well if deploying a cruiser with the capacity to dive is not a new and surprising tactic I don’t know what is.
/ducks and dives…
Q: Why do new Russian navy ships have glass bottoms?
A: So they can see the old Russian navy ships.
Way longer than that - pretty much since ships first started carrying gunpowder. Happens a few times in the Aubrey/Maturin novels; the novels also describe the safety precautions in use at the time to safeguard against explosion. Hell, there’s a good chance a ships were lost when their stockpile of flaming arrows caught fire.
There is nothing particularly special about it at all. The T-80 was a fairly widely built model, this is just one with a few extra things bolted onto it. It’s like a car you stick a few extra aftermarket features on.
For a variety of reasons, the T-80 was never considered a ringing success, and Soviet/Russian crews always preferred the T-72. The newer T-90 is based on the 72, not the 80.
“This one burned down, fell over, and sank into the swamp sea.”
Competence and training may be necessary at times also.