Posted on 08/26/2023 12:38:39 PM PDT by dennisw
The low-flying, subsonic Neptune lends itself to the land-attack role, just like its predecessor missiles—the Kh-35 and Harpoon—do. To give the first-generation, anti-ship-only Harpoon a land-attack mode in its Block II model in the late 1990s, American missile-maker Boeing added GPS-aided inertial navigation, complementing the original Harpoon’s radar seeker.
The Ukrainian navy reportedly used some of its Neptune anti-ship missiles in the missiles’ secondary land-attack mode to blow up a Russian air force S-400 air-defense battery in western Crimea on Wednesday.
That the one-ton Neptune can strike targets on the ground should come as no surprise. Ukraine’s Luch Design Bureau modeled the Neptune on the Russian Kh-35, itself an answer to the American Harpoon anti-ship missile, which also has a land-attack mode.
The Russian air force deployed the S-400 battery to Cape Tarkhankut in Crimea in 2016, two years after Russian forces invaded the strategic peninsula. The S-400 and its attached Podlet K1 radar could detect and strike aircraft and missiles 200 miles away, allowing it to control the entire western Black Sea as far west as the port of Odesa in southern Ukraine.
The S-400, the Podlet radar and other weapons on the Crimean cape—including a battery of Bastion anti-ship missiles—topped the list of prospective targets as Ukraine expanded its deep-strike capability this year.
To extend the range at which its forces can attack Russia’s forces, Ukraine has acquired American-made Harpoon ground-launched anti-ship missiles plus Western-made air-launched cruise missiles: British Storm Shadows and French SCALPs.
At the same time, Ukraine has developed its own deep-strike munitions, including S-200 ground-launched air-defense missiles that the Ukrainian air force modified into land-attack weapons. The Ukrainian navy made similar modifications to its Neptune ground-launched anti-ship missiles, which most famously holed and sank the Russian navy cruiser Moskva in April 2022.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
This will put a dent in the Rooski sales of their S-400 anti-missile systems. The ones the Rooski like to brag, is the best air defense system that exists.
But here a modded Neptune blew it up in Crimea. Meaning the S-400 could not even defend itself against an air threat/ from a Ukie missile
It got their attention.
The $200m S-400 system was a more valuable target than the obsolete Moskva was. Good strategy on the part of the Ukrainians.
The next World War looks ever more likely.
Who benefits?
Why is there so little effort being spent to stop the killing and destruction?
Ukrainians are proving themselves to be highly skilled and inventive.
Russia is always one step behind now...
Why is there so little effort being spent to stop the killing and destruction?
Putin cannot back out because, as a dictator, he may end up overthrown.
Ukraine cannot back out because, they would cease to exist.
Who benefits?
China is the power which seems to benefit the most: Cheap Russian oil, and its main potential antagonists, Russia, the USA, and Europe expend enormous resources on the war.
However, India is also a potential antagonist, and it gains almost as much as China, with cheap oil.
So you want to increase funding to the UKR armed forces? They seem to be doing well so far.
Article is filled with falsehoods, as usual. Didn’t even identify the system correctly.
Item 1. Forbes journalists will not understand cepstral processing, nor even raw fourier transforms, and if you do not understand this, you understand nothing of modern weaponry.
1) The writer claims the S-400 SAM missile system is claimed by the Russians to be the finest in the world. The writer is not even up to speed on non technical realities. The S-500 has been fielded given operators were announced to be in training in 2021.
2) Ranges do matter. The S-500 is designed for 100s of miles of range. Most radars won’t see that far because it’s below the horizon. Airborne radar will see it and announce it, but there is no evidence counter battery ordinance can be deployed in any even remotely effective way since the S-500 and its 4 radar vehicles are just that. Vehicles. They will move. This is true of both sides, btw. Counter battery artillery is of nearly no use against a maneuvering weapon with the launch platform on the move.
3) The S-500 has anti satellite capability. Claimed. Not demonstrated. The Russians actually have a slight satellite recon advantage via sheer geometry and need not imagine an urgent need for anti satellite missions. Their multi spectral imaging vehicles have direct line of sight transmission to the ground stations in Russia that will process the info. US satellites must relay to NRO in Washington for analysis.
” The S-500 has been fielded given operators were announced to be in training in 2021.”
Is it more or real than the T-14 or Su-57 vaporware that Russian keeps promising?
Ukrainians are proving themselves to be highly skilled and inventive.
= = =
I’ll bet they are getting little ‘hints’ here and there.
.
I’m curious if you checked the SU-57 wiki for the list of deployments since 2018. There are several listed. Maybe you imagine vaporware to mean something different than fake aircraft vs real aircraft.
Did you mean software upgrades? I doubt the block release schedule is available and it’s pretty much certain the software version will not be visible on the fuselage as it flies overhead — so you could not have meant that. And thus did not note that it has been flying since 2018.
As for T14, I know nothing of it. The wiki indicates several existed pre 2020. No information from anywhere post 2022 has value so all that can be ignored. Regardless, if it exists, it’s not vaporware, and it clearly did pre 2020.
Your “research” consists of looking things up in Wikipedia? Perhaps you should leave threads like this to people who know something about the subject.
Look is that a yes or a no. The Wiki talked about photos from various airshows. And I went and looked at them.
Why are you doing this? You know perfectly well those aircraft have flown in Syria.
I’ll help you out. Here is what you need to learn about the on board systems. Learn the difference between the gain from a parabolic dish and an electronically scanned array. You’re helpless if you are not up to speed on at least that.
Track while scan dates back to F-16 days. There evolved to be a total target number that could be internally, electronically (meaning in the computer) tracked, while breaking lock on a target and rescanning the sky. The SU57 radar of course does this and the claim is 60 targets velocity vectors are stored while the phase changes on the antenna elements take place to do the scan.
This is very sophisticated stuff that is not new. Of course the SU57 will have this on its Belka radar. F-16 was built by Westinghouse. F35 by Northrop.
Go look for analyses showing how the F-35 suite is superior. This will be so in many instances, though not all. And the point will be after you actually learn these things . . . it would not even be an analysis to be performed if the pulse repetition frequency of the SU57 were not already measured in Syria.
Which means, btw, that it already flies.
you’re asking in the wrong language. if the Russians stop fighting today there would be peace, if the Ukrainians stop there would be no more Ukraine.
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