The War in the Ukraine
- Thread starter SampanViking
- Start date
Other than the subs, you can argue that Russian Navy is not really blue water. In fact, in all of USSR history, they were not really blue water on the level of the US, let alone combined NATO.
Also remember that Ukraine and Russia used to share personnel regularly in the Black Sea and descend from the same USSR structure, so they might be more aware of weaknesses.
Finally, "not travelling thousands of miles" is not an advantage, it is littoral operations. It is the kind of "nightmare" scenario that US envisioned since the "Tanker War" and facing now with Houthi attacks. AShM launched from anywhere, totally mobile, though in this case replace AShM with USV.
Most tanks at this point are basically just used as more artillery. M1 being knocked out is not really different from M109.
Better to lose a m1 than a m109 in their situation...
they're learning the wrong lessons by spending like 10+ cruise missiles and dozens of USVs just to sink patrol boats trapped in what is geographically a lake then.
In a conflict against certain maritime powers which have access to large stretches of open water, possibly like the South China Sea, East China Sea and Westpac, it isn't applicable. Remember that NATO controls the entire western and southern shores of the Black Sea, Russia only controls the east and northeast, and northwest is Ukraine.
The only analogous situation would be the Yellow Sea and even there, at least China controls half and North Korea controls the northerneastern 1/4. Everywhere else, it doesn't even come close to applying.
Footage has appeared of an attack by Ukrainian naval drones on the presumably Russian patrol ship "Sergey Kotov" of Project 22160. Project 22160 ships were stopped being built due to the discrepancy between their tactical and technical qualities and combat operating conditions. Previously, the patrol ship “Sergey Kotov” of the Russian Black Sea Fleet repelled attacks by Ukrainian naval drones, but it is not possible to repel an attack of about 10 drones at the moment. The attack was carried out on the night of March 4-5 by maritime drones “Magura V5” of the “Group 13” unit; information about everything is on the channel. According to Ukrainian media, the ship was damaged in the stern, right and left sides, the crew was rescued, this is not officially confirmed by Russian media, there is no footage of the ship sinking.
Maybe they just want to know how effective Storm Shadow/SCALP actually is. The whole US strategy is now centered around LRASM, JASSM and JASM, fairly similar types of missiles.
This is just a random essay in a sponsored contest, but it is probably reflective of the thinking which is why it was the winner
Won't get into detail since it is outside the scope of the thread.
Footage of the impact of the Russian kamikaze drone "Lancet-51" on the Ukrainian portable electronic warfare station Plastun RP-3000 in the Zaporozhye region. The Plastun electronic warfare system was developed in 2019 by the Infozashchit company and operates at a range of up to 15 kilometers. Electronic warfare is designed to identify communications equipment, determine the location and suppression of UAVs, determine the coordinates of electronic warfare stations and to fix digital control channels and information transmission. The Plastun RP-3000 electronic warfare station weighs 39 kilograms and deploys in 20 minutes, technical information is on the screen. As a result of a strike from the Lancet-51 drone, the Plastun electronic warfare station caught fire.
But patrol boats don't shoot back! So how does it test efficacy?
"Ukraine". They are using Western naval drones, US Starlink satellite network to remotely guide the drones, and Western satellite ISR to track Russian ships.
In an enclosed body of water like the Black Sea it is hard to defend against such types of strikes. Which is why the Russians moved most of their ships to Novorossiysk and are rebuilding a Soviet naval base in Abkhazia.
Still I think more could be done to improve ship defense against such attacks. And we will see such defenses get put into place sooner or later.
I wonder if these attacks would've been prevented if Russia maintained control of Snake Island.