• tal@lemmy.today
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    5 months ago

    I don’t think that there’s any realistic chance that Ukraine can make use of ships in the Black Sea. Russia built their military to contest the US in the Pacific – they’ve got a lot of long-range anti-ship weapons. That surplus capacity is why they’ve been blowing anti-ship missiles on land attack. I’d be pretty confident that Russia can keep a Ukrainian warship from surviving in the Black Sea. Where Ukraine’s pulling off naval attacks, it’s using either small, very-low-profile boats or even-lower-profile, mostly-submerged USVs. Russia apparently doesn’t have the sensor capability to reliably pick those up (and I imagine that Ukrainian strikes on radars probably also complicate that).

    I have wondered about maybe Ukraine using larger UUVs that surface to launch a weapon. Such a UUV would have to be something that could be transported on a trailer, so there are some size limitations. But it might permit for a more-capable platform than the small USVs that are currently being used.

    I don’t know what kind of anti-submarine-warfare tools Russia has available in the Black Sea, but if they aren’t able to detect the existing USVs, I would assume that they aren’t going to be doing better with UUVs.

    EDIT: There’s a reference to a Ukrainian UUV project in progress here; it says that Russia is improving their ability to detect the existing Ukrainian USVs, so UUVs are becoming more important.

    • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      5 months ago

      I was more referring to using a containership in the northern ice sea to launch a single wave of UAVs to destroy the Russian strategic bombers parked north of st petersburg. You know a one time strike option.

      Or use clandestine means to build Magura type drone boat in the Caspian sea and launch against a vessel. You know, even more asymmetric. Like what they do in Syria and Africa.

          • tal@lemmy.today
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            5 months ago

            Ah, okay, gotcha.

            So, there are a couple issues:

            • I’d guess that Russia is able to prevent a surface ship from approaching Russia in any ocean unless someone can fight an offensive air and naval war to get control of that ocean.

            • I’m guessing (you said “container ship”) that the idea might be to use a concealed civilian vessel that then unloads some kind of surprise attack. While disguised military ships have been used to conduct armed warfare before, the last time I can think of an example was British Q-ships in World War I; I’m not sure that this is still legal.

            • Turkey has closed the Turkish Straits to warships due to the conflict, so technically no warships are supposed to pass, from either side. I’m I believe that it violates the convention governing this to either tell Turkey that the warship isn’t actually a warship or if Turkey knows but preferentially lets warships through. That being said, I guess theoretically Ukraine could assemble such an attack using a ship somewhere far away from Ukraine.

            • My guess is that if Ukraine had a lot of long-range cruise missiles, they’d probably be using them in their own theater of operations, as they’re pretty short on them.

            • I don’t think that Russia is using strategic bombers for the glide bombing attacks, so whatever the benefits of hitting them, I’m not sure that it would be a counter to the glide bomb attacks. kagis Yeah, this has the (much more numerous) Su-34 being used:

              On or just before Thursday, an air force Sukhoi Su-34 fighter-bomber lobbed a single FAB-3000 bomb with pop-out wings and satellite guidance at a multi-story building Russian intelligence had identified as a staging base for Ukrainian troops in Lyptsi, 10 miles north of Kharkiv in northern Ukraine.

            • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              5 months ago

              Strategic bombers are used to launch the hypersonics at Ukraine. They are rarer so a high value target. If they can cut of kinzal at its roots.

              • tal@lemmy.today
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                5 months ago

                That’s true, though IIRC there are two planes, and I think that one of them – and the more-numerous one – is a variant of some multirole fighter.

                kagis

                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kh-47M2_Kinzhal

                Launch platform

                • MiG-31BM/K
                • Tu-22M3M
                • Su-34 (reportedly)
                • Su‐57 (planned)

                Looks like two confirmed, another possible, another eventually (though I can’t imagine using the rare, intended-for-another-purposes Su-57 if they could use the others).