Evening raids by unmanned Ukrainian floor vessels have turn into a big concern for the Russian Black Sea Fleet. This isn’t new; we’ve seen a excessive success fee with these Ukrainian assaults. Russia has misplaced quite a few ships from its Black Sea Fleet attributable to this tactic, which leverages the quilt of night time. Throughout these hours, visibility is low, and the readiness of Russian ship crews sometimes isn’t as excessive as it’s through the day.
This tactic’s effectiveness has even caught the eye of native Russian companies. Denis Oslomenko, Basic Director of the PPSH Laboratory, remarked that Moscow is searching for thermal imaging programs to bolster the safety of its Black Sea Fleet. Whereas these programs gained’t fully cease Ukrainian floor assaults, Oslomenko believes they may considerably scale back their success fee. The PPSH Laboratory makes a speciality of growing thermal imaging cameras, lenses, and sights.
Presently, the Protection Forces of Ukraine use numerous modifications of unmanned floor kamikaze autos to focus on Russian ships. These assaults have inflicted notable injury on the Russian Black Sea Fleet, exemplifying a situation the place costly army gear is weak to cheaper technique of destruction.
The shortage of thermal imaging
Contemplating that these assaults predominantly happen throughout nighttime, it poses a higher problem for the Russians to counter Ukrainian kamikazes. Oslomenko underscored this concern, particularly highlighting “the issue of the dearth of thermal imaging gear among the many fighters.”
He talked about that the PPSh laboratory, in collaboration with the Black Sea Fleet, has plans to implement new capabilities: “We manufacture thermal imaging sights and sighting programs, that are at the moment being tailored for PKM, Kord, and all small arms utilized by our forces to fight drones.”
In line with him, these gadgets can detect targets over a distance of greater than 1 km. Moreover, Oslomenko advocates for deck watches to be geared up with thermal imaging binoculars to “alert the Russian army with machine weapons” in regards to the azimuth of approaching boats.
Machine weapons vs. drones
Beforehand, the Russian Federation demonstrated its coaching workouts to fend off assaults by Ukrainian Magura V5 kamikaze floor boats within the Pacific Ocean. Over 15 ships and cutters participated in these drills, together with three of the Russian Navy’s most superior Mission 20380 corvettes, notably the most recent fleet member, Rezky, which was commissioned in September 2023.
Current footage means that the Russians are planning to counter drones utilizing machine weapons and assault rifles. Notably, you possibly can spot the DShK machine gun, which has been in service since 1938, together with sailors attempting to goal at targets utilizing standard machine weapons.
Actually, each soldier performs a job in defending the integrity of their ship. Nevertheless, the puzzling half is why they use Kalashnikov assault rifles when Russian ships are geared up with superior rapid-fire artillery programs just like the AK-630?
AK-360 30mm cannon
The AK-630 is a 30-mm computerized cannon able to firing as much as 5,000 rounds per minute. It’s built-in right into a unified fight management system that includes its personal radar and the Puma 5P-10 hearth management system. This superior Russian know-how is designed to concurrently observe as much as 4 targets with automated management over a number of artillery installations on the ship.
Strikingly, within the Russian Federation’s Pacific Fleet, even probably the most trendy ships, together with 4 corvettes from Mission 20380 delivered between 2017 and 2023—with two extra anticipated by 2027—are being outfitted with the dated DShK machine gun.
Moreover, the video highlights the apply of looking for marine drones utilizing vertical takeoff and touchdown UAVs. It’s value noting that on trendy Russian ships, beginning with corvettes, these UAVs are commonly deployed alongside Ka-27 helicopters.
Ukrainian Magura V5 vessel
Ukraine is regularly enhancing its floor drones, testing numerous strategies to guard them from assaults. Lately, pictures emerged of Magura V5 surface-to-air boats geared up with R-73 missiles, marking a historic milestone in a number of facets. This occasion represents the primary identified use of a multi-role maritime drone in fight towards an enemy at sea. For context, the USA and Turkey have their very own multi-purpose armed unmanned ships and cutters in improvement, however these have but to be “battle-tested.”
Furthermore, the Magura V5 with the R-73 may be thought-about the world’s first remote-controlled air protection system, albeit meant for short-range air targets. Earlier than this, there have been no identified developments of this sort globally.
Given this context, it’s affordable to imagine that the Protection Forces of Ukraine are nearing the potential to not solely conduct assaults on key targets utilizing a “swarm” of marine kamikaze drones but in addition to guard these drones utilizing multi-purpose unmanned cutters. This might probably enhance the strain on the Russian Federation’s Black Sea navy.
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