Ukraine has been making increasing use of underwater suicide drones to make up for its lack of navy and target Russian naval ships in the Black sea. On 24/05, the Ivan Kurs was targeted by such USV, although Russia claimed its counter-measure proved effective. On 04/08, the landing ship Olenegorsky Gornyak was damaged in the port of Novorossiysk by one such drone.
However, since the sinking of the Moskva in april of 2022, Ukraine has struggled to actually sink ships rather than damage them.
This question resolves YES if a ship operated by the Russian Navy is sunk by Ukraine by 30/09. The attack doesn't have to be done by USVs.
For the purpose of this question, small boats such as RHIB do not count.
See related question: "Will Ukraine damages another Russian Navy ship by september 30"
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If anyone is interested I created new versions of the questions for the coming month, hopefully this time we will have clear resolution. If anyone can think of how to make the resolution criteria even more precise now, comments are welcome!
https://manifold.markets/SebastianWorms/will-ukraine-destroy-another-russia
https://manifold.markets/SebastianWorms/will-ukraine-damage-another-russian-ed6cd42eabed?r=U2ViYXN0aWFuV29ybXM
I will say that there is a pretty decisive difference between putting a big hole in a ship on dry dock and a ship in sea. In the first case, it's possible to repair the ship, but if you sink it, it's permanently lost.
That seems like a pretty fundamental difference to me.
You can also see it in the reporting of media - all the reports are about the Ukrainians "damaging" or "badly damaging" the ships, not sinking them.
In any case, it seems to me that most of the market movement today is due to uncertainty on how @SebastianWorms will treat the event, not on forecasting or any doubt about the event. So Sebastian, can you please be more categorical - is damaging the ships in dry dock equal to sinking them?
@PeterBuyukliev I was waiting to see if there was a consensus I terpretation of the description. As it seems to be disputed, I'll resolve N/A.
@PeterBuyukliev Ehhh, ships aren't just a bunch of metal plates glued together, they're carefully created clockwork, that needs to be kept within very tight balances and parameters, or things start going horribly wrong. Often times a ship is destined to go to a scrapyard because of what would seem to an untrained eye to be light damage, but which, if you'd expose the ship to any adverse conditions, would cause a cascade of catastrophic failures. (E. g Moskva, and that wasn't even damage, that was just sloppiness with maintenance.)
If a ship is unusable without being built again, because it's a wreck, the location of the wreck matters less than the fact that the ship for example cannot ferry supplies anymore or use its cruise missile launching capacities without you building it again.
@PeterBuyukliev Latest reports say that the ships in the drydock were completely destroyed.
@rafalzwolak I'm think that if it can't be recovered I'll rule that as a yes. Might have issue with Russia claiming it can be recovered for propaganda purpose.
@SebastianWorms I think I'll probably go with Oryx's list and count them as sunk if they're counted as lost rather than damaged. Will mull it over a bit more before modifying the resolution criteria, open to comment until then.
@SebastianWorms modifying the resolution criteria after an event happens in order to meet the event negates the entire point of these markets -- they should be set in place when the market is opened and kept that way, barring any major changes
destruction of a boat in a dry dock is absolutely NOT "sinking" a boat, no honest person could possibly make this argument, and i'm saying this entirely separately from whatever bet i am making with play money on here.
@dieselbaby1337 Sure, the issue is when ambiguous situation comes up that weren't foreseen ahead of time. I certainly did think that ship could be sunk in harbor when I created the market and was interested in whether Ukraine could cause more than temporary damage to the Russian navy. But the fact that a ship could be destroyed in drydock where there is no water to sink into didn't cross my mind at all. Plus, if it turns out tomorrow that the drydock gate where damaged and flood, is that then sinking?
I'm genuinely unsure what's the best way to proceed here. Possibilities that are at least colorable IMO are:
-Rule that the destruction of the Minsk constitute sinking.
-Rule that it's not sunk.
-N/A the entire market now.
-Wait until september 30 to see if another ship sink, if not N/A the market. (But that would make the market a one-sided YES bet).
I have limited experience of potentially controversial resolution, so if anyone has good arguments or ressources on what part of the community guidelines could enlighten me I'll welcome them.
I've just sold some of my NO because I don't see a dry dock attack as a 'sinking'. I also don't think that flooding a dry dock with a destroyed boat at the bottom of it is a sinking either.
The case for appears to be that sinking a ship is shorthand for its destruction and that this is what the market was trying to capture. I'm sympathetic to that, but here it just feels too much like Diesel is correct to say that the ship wasn't sunk and they shouldn't be denied mana they bet under that assumption.
I'd count this as 'not sinking', leave the market open for the rest of the month and then resolve accordingly.
Then I'd clarify this on my next market and make it clear that destruction counts ;)
@dieselbaby1337 To be entirely fair, ships are often referred to as having been sunk if they had been destroyed, even if the cause of destruction wasn't water, when you look at Attack on Pearl Harbour, USS Arizona wasn't really sunk, it exploded so hard ship was torn in two and some parts of it had vaporized. That would not count as being sunk using the logic of ship getting destroyed =|= not sunk unless destruction is caused by water. But anyone who has even mild education in the field still will say that 4 US battleships at Pearl Harbour were sunk, not 3.
This feels a bit too hard like trying to overfit a rule and cause it to go against its spirit, because well, If Ropucha is destined to end up in scrapyard, and Submarine is a burned down wreck, then yes, Russian Fleet lost two vessels, but since the water wasn't a main cause of their destruction, you may solve market as a 'no', because, once again, water haven't destroyed them, therefore they weren't sunk. The same could apply to USS Arizona, she was exploded, not sunk, so US lost only 3 battleships at Pearl Harbour, but the issue here is the fact nobody in the field approaches it that way.
To expand on my point, if Kilo class will look in better quality pictures as bad as it looks right now, it's a burned down Husk that has lost its operational ability to act (In this case being able to lunch cruise missiles at Ukraine), that will get scrapped. Let's use a short test:
Has Russia permanently lost ability to use this warship?
Yes.
Is the warship going to be put in a state where it can be used without constructing a new ship?
No.
If such condition holds, I do not believe there is any sense behind arguing over exact wording of the market, as the case it was quite obviously attempting to predict has occurred, that being a loss of capacity by Russian State to use one of its war ships, unless they rebuild it from grounds up.
(The images I was referencing, first ones are of the ships before the strike, next ones, of ships after the strike)
Voices of the Army 🇺🇦🔊 on X: "Fellow Cat made it more clear for you. https://t.co/uNNKM7Pyhe" / X (twitter.com)
... I have just found an even better satellite image of the ships after the strike.
F562LbaX0AMqEf4 (690×470) (twimg.com)
I will allow it to speak for itself.
@Betrayer I will allow myself an addendum, here is a peer-reviewed article from Springer Nature, about USS Nevada, which mentions that USS Arizona was sunk (despite being hit with a bomb that caused an explosion and only after being torn in two, being flooded with water.)
Discovery and Initial Documentation of USS NEVADA (BB-36): An Artifact of Two World Wars and the Advent of the Cold War - PMC (nih.gov)
Which, using rules that were earlier proposed here in the comments, would count as false. (Ship was bombed, exploded, and then was submerged after being torn in two. Just like Ropucha was at first hit by a bomb, and then flooded after.)
And a second argument that just came into my head as I sit here bored. Allow me to introduce you to the French battleship Dunkerque, she is listed in official French records as being scuttled, which, according to Wikipedia means that:
"A ship is scuttled when its crew deliberately sinks it"
At the time when Dunkerque was scuttled, she was in a drydock being repaired.
https://twitter.com/ukraine_map/status/1701796050531455197?t=VB9KqRE4Okd8chCPFc3bIg&s=19
This ship would count if it ends up sinking.