In the predawn darkness of Wednesday, September 13, Ukrainian forces mounted their most effective naval attack to date, launching 10 cruise missiles and an unknown number of uncrewed surface vessels (USVs, aka sea drones) toward Russian vessels docked in Sevastopol Shipyard in Crimea, home of the Black Sea Fleet. Two ships were damaged and 24 people were injured, according to Russian sources.
Russian blogs have assessed the damage: one is a Kilo-class diesel-powered submarine, the Rostov-on-Don, itself cruise missile platform; the other is a Ropucha-class landing ship, the Minsk. It is the Minsk that is on fire in the photo above. The submarine was in a dry dock.
The Black Sea Fleet
Sevastopol is the home of the Black Sea Fleet, which at the start of the conflict, had 50 warships, seven submarines and many support vessels—enough to exercise almost complete control of the Black Sea (which is about a sixth of the size of the Mediterranean). After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the fleet was divvied up between Russia and Ukraine, with Russia getting 82 percent of the vessels. Crimea, on which Sevastopol is located, was in Ukraine, however. The Russian seizure of Crimea was in large part to reunite the Black Sea Fleet and regain its home base of Sevastopol.
Even a partial victory, with damage to what was once their own, must be bittersweet for Ukraine. Nevertheless, the military celebrates the attack as it was able to launch off its shores and penetrate a heavily guarded target. Although the attack cannot be considered Russia’s Pearl Harbor (Russian officials have said that both vessels damaged can be repaired and returned to the fleet), it does attest to Ukraine’s ability to take the fight to behind enemy lines and its military’s continued ability to launch stand-off weapons—missiles that can travel hundreds of miles from their launch point—as well as its ability to penetrate space that Russia is trying desperately to deny.
Russia’s official news agency confirmed the attack if only to claim that it had successfully fended it off, but by saying it had downed 7 out of 10 cruise missiles, admitted to Ukraine’s partial success. Three Storm Shadow cruise missiles had hit their targets.
Compare that to a much larger attack on August 25 when Russia said it had shot down 9 drones and used electronic countermeasures against the remaining 33 others over Crimea as well as shot down an S-200 cruise missile less than 200 km (124 miles) from Moscow—a 100 percent kill rate. Ukraine officials do not, as a rule, comment on attacks on Russian-held territory, but they also have reported countering the vast majority of missiles sent against them.
The Age of the Cruise Missile
Those who have an impression of the cruise missile as an invincible long-range weapon able to hug the Earth while flying at jet-speed and remain unseen by ground-based radar, seeing the cruise missile getting shot down so often may be a bit of a surprise. But the cruise missile age is not over. The latest cruise missiles fly with a stealthy cloak.
Ukraine's Air Force commander, Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleshchuk, had praise for his pilots’ “nighttime bombardment.” His choice of words is at once misleading and revealing. A “bombardment” in the conventional sense—gravity bombs falling over a target—is not something Ukraine can afford. The beleaguered country had fewer than a hundred fighter/attack aircraft at the start of the war. Russia has many times more, plus robust air defense systems. Without stand-in aircraft or vessels (such as stealth, high-speed, high-altitude or deepwater craft), Ukraine has no choice but to use stand-off weapons, such as cruise missiles and drones. And because it was an Air Force general, not an Army or Navy officer, we can narrow down the aircraft and missiles involved.
Attack planes, like the Su-24 Fencer, can take off from airbases deep inside Ukraine and launch cruise missiles hundreds of miles away from Russian radar and missile batteries. The Su-24 and Su-27 aircraft are the only aircraft Ukraine has that can carry a cruise missile with the range required to reach Sevastopol without coming into range of Russian anti-aircraft defenses or radar.
Oleshchuk’s praise also reveals what cruise missile was used. Ukraine only has one cruise missile that can be launched from an aircraft: the U.K./French Storm Shadow/SCALP, which employs low observable (LO, commonly referred to as stealth) technology, has a range listed as 550 km (340 mi, although the export version is limited to 290 km, or 180 mi), and can fly at Mach 0.80 to 0.95 (depending on source). U.K. officials first announced that Ukraine had used the Storm Shadow successfully on May 18, 2023. The cost is estimated to be around $2.5 million.
The Storm Shadow is a big improvement over the Ukrainian-designed and built Neptune R-360, previously used by Ukraine to attack ships, as the Neptune can only be launched from mobile land vehicles that are launched from a land-based mobile unit, so it is limited to a range of 280 km (175 mi) from shore. Also, the Neptune carries a smaller warhead: 150 kg, compared the 450 kg warhead in the Storm Shadow. But the biggest improvement, as the reason 3 Storm Shadows were able to penetrate Russia's formidable anti-air defenses around Sevastopol Harbor, is the Storm Shadows stealth capability provided by radar absorbing or deflecting features.
References
Ukraine Strikes the Headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in Crimea, Marc Santora and Andrés R. Martínez, New York Times, September 12, 2023
Ukraine’s Storm Shadow Missiles Are A Big Problem For Russia, Thomas Newdick and Tyler Rogoway, The Drive, May 11, 2023