Thats a criminal use of the word 'only'. Are you letting the parents of all the 'missing but not in combat ops' crew know that its 'only' one ship that was lost??
Ukraine has done pretty well at being a PITA for the glorious Russian Navy, at a significantly lower cost that buying an actual Navy would have been.
Getting emotional about human losses won't change anything, aside from being out of topic.
And yes,
only one combat ship got effectively sunk by AShM, since the reasons behind the Saratov going down are divided between TB2, Tochka-U and accidental fire (thus no AShM).
As I said,
only one has been effectively sunk (Moskva) and another virtually sunk (Bekh).
Has the Ukrainian been a PITA to Russian navy? Absolutely.
Russia has lost quite a number of naval units in fact. But, then we have to consider what kind of unit and to what they were lost.
Most of the Russian recorded losses are riverines (Raptors) and small landing ships (Serna and Ondatra). Losses inflicted by either ATGM (Kornets) or TB2. Not by Neptunes.
Now, we could argue about how appropriate it would be to use a Neptune (all things considered, an advanced AShM, expensive and likely complicated to make in the current circumstances) on such small targets, namely the Raptors, Serna and Ondatra. Would it be worth it? Doubtful, since the same result can be, and has been, achieved by other, safer and cheaper, means.
To go back to the the Neptunes themselves, and their use against relevant surface units, it is not the lack of target that stopped Ukrainian from sinking anything.
We should remember the build up of Ropuchas LCS close to the Kherson peninsula at the beginning of the war for instance. Their sole escort being one Grigorovich class frigate.
Or the various sorties made by Pr22160 (that have virtually no counter-measure systems or even CIWS). Which, amusingly enough, the first and only claim of one of these being hit and sunk reportedly was by a salvo fired from a BM21.
But
only the Moskva fell to these AShM.
Which could, and should, raise questions as to why is the kill count so low for a platform that is supposed to be an improved version of the Kh35.
Is the kill count low because the missiles got successfully intercepted? In other words, the missile works just fine, but so does the Russian CIWS.
Is the kill count low because the missiles missed their targets? In other words, the missile does not work that well.
Is the kill count low because the missiles were used parsimoniously? Low stocks to begin with? Stocks destroyed by Russian strikes? Launch platforms and viable launching sites too exposed?
And before gets jake gets an aneurysm reading my comment: no, nuancing the successes registered by Ukraine against the Russian navy is not being "RuSsIia StRonK".
Kuznetsov's powerplant has been "repaired" multiple times since she was commissioned. They have never managed to get it operating properly. Nor will they this time. It's a patch and bodge job designed to keep it more or less afloat and able to move for the sake of prestige.
I completely agree.
If Russia is that attached to the Kuznetsov, let them have her turn into a museum or something. Having her go through repeated, and unsuccessful "repairs" and "upgrades", is more akin to futile medical care than anything else. In addition to being hazardous to those employed to do these repairs/upgrades, the crew afterwards, and a financial blackhole.
