Footage launched on November 26 confirmed Russian Navy Su-30SM fighters deployed to neutralise Ukrainian Navy unmanned boats, which have been utilised in rising numbers for assaults on Russian targets within the Black Sea together with key infrastructure and navy bases. The ships had been reportedly destroyed utilizing each weapons and bombs. Su-30SMs had been joined by older Su-24M strike fighters for the operation, with each plane deployed within the Russian Navy the place Su-30s have steadily phased Su-24s out of service. The Su-30SM can also be broadly used within the Russian Air Drive, and is a ‘4+ era’ fighter developed based mostly on the Su-30MKI fighter design customised for the necessities of the Indian Air Drive. Whereas inheriting the Su-30MKI’s very excessive endurance and excessive manoeuvrability, a significant enchancment seen on the Su-30SM design is the combination of the N011M Bars phased array radar with a most detection vary 400 km. The radar is among the largest ever built-in onto a fighter, and gives a really excessive diploma of situational consciousness towards air, floor and naval targets facilitating efficient focusing on by past visible vary weaponry. Not like the Su-35 and Su-34 that are specialised air superiority and strike fighters respectively, the Su-30SM is a multirole plane effectively balanced between all mission varieties.
Ukraine has obtained appreciable help from quite a lot of NATO member states to modernise its drone warfare capabilities, which has included the provision of tons of of drone boats alongside 1000’s of unmanned plane. Unmanned ships started for use broadly fight from October 2022, together with for strikes on the Russian Navy intelligence ship Ivan Khurs within the Black Sea. One of many newest developments in such operations was the seize of the Ukrainian Maritime Autonomous Guard Unmanned Robotic Equipment (MAGURA) V5 drone boat by Russian forces within the penultimate week of November, fuelling expectations that the warship class could be studied to develop appropriate countermeasures. The ship class carries a 320kg payload and has a spread of near 850km. With Ukraine having negligible manned naval capabilities, it’s anticipated that related courses of unmanned assault ships will proceed to be relied on closely alongside cellular land based mostly missile methods to asymmetrically threaten Russian naval and coastal targets.
