The amazing number of multi-layer air defense systems of the Crimean Bridge
Crimean Bridge
A new bridge, an 11-mile long bridge will connect the Ukrainian Crimean Peninsula, which has been occupied by Russia since 2014, with the Russian mainland. The $3.6 billion reinforced concrete bridge features parallel roads and railroads, with up to 15,000 cars passing the bridge every day.
As Russia's wider war against Ukraine is entering its sixth month, it is clearly the target of the Ukrainian army - the Russian army knows this. The Russian army placed bait barge on the edge of the bridge and tried to cover it with smoke. Ukrainian has always made it clear that Kerch Strait Bridge is a legal target of attack. After all, dozens of Russian military camps launched attacks on the Ukrainian mainland from Crimea . Crimean Peninsula also has the Russian Black Sea Fleet, Air Defense Company and Fighter Squadron. This bridge helps maintain all this power.
Ukrainian Major General Dmitry Malchenko said in June: "The Kerch Strait Bridge is the number one target of the Ukrainian armed forces, which is no secret to their army or our army. It is not for their civilians and our civilians. It will be the number one target to hit."
In the early days of the war, the Russians took measures to protect the bridge, deployed police ships on the water, and deployed divers under the water to resist potential saboteurs. The air defense system on the peninsula, including S-400 missile and Su-30 fighter , can defend against air and missile attacks.
Olexi Danilov, secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and National Defense Commission, said that the Russian army began to protect the Crimean Bridge with "amazing" air defense systems. He said: "The Russian army is nervous on the Crimean Bridge. It is protected very carefully. Air defense drills are conducted there almost every day. The number of air defense defense systems deployed to protect this bridge is crazy."
Long-range strike weapons of Ukraine
Ukrainian armed forces have not yet managed to attack the bridge. The S-400 air defense system alone can make the attack risk of drones, manned attack aircraft or helicopters extremely high. The Ukrainian Air Force, which has a meter-24 helicopter, a Su-27 fighter and a TB-2 drone, , have successfully launched a deep strike on Russian facilities. Back in April, Ukrainian military production hit fuel bank in Belgorod, Russia, located 25 miles north of the border with Ukraine. The Ukrainian Air Force began bombing Russian garrisons on the Snake Island in the western Black Sea, 80 miles south of Ukrainian strategic port Odessa .
The bridge is a harder target, one of the reasons is that it is more than 200 miles from Ukrainian territory. Its strong structure allows it to withstand a smaller amount of ammunition.
may require thousands of pounds of explosives to destroy the base, let alone make them collapse. This requires greater firepower than several Su-27s that launch rocket Mi-24, non- guided bomb , or TB-2s carrying short-range missiles.
However, Ukraine's in-depth strike capabilities are improving. Obviously, Russian officials are worried. As part of the assault exercise, Russian military TDA-3 smoke vehicles shaded the Crimea Bridge, and at least one accident occurred on the road bridge. Around the same time, people noticed that the bait barge of the Russian Navy was equipped with large radar reflectors on the water surface around the bridge. Smoke can confuse drone crews and pilots, and if it contains certain chemicals, it can also hinder infrared-guided munitions. Barges can interfere with missiles equipped with radar seekers.
Ukrainian troops have been firing more and more Soviet vintage polka dot U ballistic missiles, targeting Russian supply centers, oil depots and airports 75 miles away. Meanwhile, the Himas rocket launcher system obtained by the Ukrainian Army is hitting the 50-mile Russian ammunition database in Russia.
To bomb the bridge, the Ukrainians must obtain new, more-range rockets—or get closer and use existing weapons in new ways.
ATACMS
It is worth noting that the Himas rocket system is compatible with the GPS guided 200 miles rocket known as the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS). The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has assured Kremlin that it will not provide Ukraine with ATACMS or any other long-range ammunition that could strike deep targets in Russia.
But the Russians didn't buy it. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: "To trust, you need to have case experience of keeping your promises. Unfortunately, we have no such experience at all."
is closer?
In order to put the Crimean Bridge at risk without obtaining new ammunition, the Ukrainian army needs to recapture the Ukrainian coast along the Azov Sea east of Crimea. In essence, this means liberating the Russian-occupied Melitopol. In fact, the Ukrainians first need to liberate the more western Khlsong .
With its foothold on the Azov coast, Ukrainian Navy can launch some new Harpoon anti-ship missiles provided by foreign countries on the Crimea Bridge. Thanks to its radar seeker, Harpoon has the accuracy of crossing the Azov Sea to reach the bridge and hitting the bridge.
However, the 500-pound warhead of the Harpoon missile is used to sink ships, which are much more fragile than any bridge. If the Ukrainians reach the Sea of Azov and they manage to deploy harpoons to act as an anti-bridge, they may need to fire more than one missile.
This is a lot of assumptions and possibilities. But the Russians did not take risks with their priceless bridges.
Ukrainian military expert Alexander Kovarenko said that Neptune and Harpoon missiles can be used at the same time, but the problem is range. He said: "The effectiveness of defeating objects like Kerchi Bridge mainly depends on the maximum shortening of the distance from launch to destruction, so the air defense system cannot operate well."
That is to say, he implied that the Ukrainian army would occupy the Zaporoze and Khlsson areas because in this case, the most favorable position of firing at Kerchi Bridge will be opened - Melitopol, Berkansk, Gnichesk.
According to Kovarenko, Ukrainian armed forces have counterattacked in the Khlson region and have made progress in some settlements. He said: "In fact, all the forces and means that the Russian military can use to prevent this strike are already in use. This is a layered air defense system, an radar trap barge. But all of this can be inefficient. Everyone remembers the story of the cruiser "Moscow". Russia's air defense system is invalid for anti-ship missile systems. We now see the temporary occupied territories, which are also covered by layered air defense systems, but layered air defense systems are not helpful in defending against the Himas rockets." Why can't the
S-4-00 air defense system prevent the Himas rockets?
Russian S-400 air defense missile
S-400 was developed by Russia in the 1990s. It is an upgraded model of S-300. It served in the Russian Armed Forces in 2007. It is the third-generation air defense missile system of the Russian Land Air Defense Force. It is a mobile surface-to-air missile and other systems, used to deal with dense multi-target air strikes from ultra-low altitude to high altitude, close to ultra-long range, and can intercept various air targets such as aircraft, drones, cruise missiles and , and has terminal ballistic missile defense capabilities. The
S-400 system can use up to five types of missiles, namely the 9M96E missile has a range of 40 kilometers, the 9M96E2 missile has a range of 120 kilometers, the 48N6E2 missile has a range of 200 kilometers, the 48N6E3 missile has a range of 250 kilometers, and the 40N6 missile has a range of 400 kilometers and the 40N6 missile has a range of 40N6 missiles. All of these missiles use high-explosive disc warheads, and their accuracy may not be very high.
Although Russia's S-400 missile defense system was developed in 1990 as an upgrade of the S-300 missile defense system (more than 30 years ago), it was only put into operation in April 2007, a huge time gap of 17 years since the upgrade attempt was made.What is the real change and why it takes so long to serve ( disintegration of the Soviet Union is one of the reasons) is a matter of detail, but the absolute truth is that it has been in service for 15 years and its technology and capabilities are thirty years behind. This may be one of the reasons Russia has come up with the S-500 missile defense system, which is a further upgraded version of the S-400. It is also believed that the S-500 missile defense system is equipped with Russian armed forces in 2021, although there are no more details in the open source field.
In the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the Russian army's S-400 missile defense system has been deployed in large quantities in Ukraine. However, it destroyed only one Ukrainian Air Force Su-27 fighter and an MI-17 helicopter , one of the reasons may be that the Ukrainian Air Force did not conduct a large number of air strikes.
Russian military sources said that during the attack on the Russian military base in Kharzizk, the Ukrainian army fired a Himas rocket that destroyed the S400 complex that was supposed to cover the area from air strikes. In other words, the S400 air defense complex worth $1.1 billion not only fails to protect airspace, but even itself cannot protect!
Former Colonel of the Russian Federal Security Bureau , who helped plan Russia's capture of the Crimean Peninsula in Ukraine, and served as the pro-Russian armed leader during the war in Donbas, Ukraine. Igor Ivanovic Strerkov, former Minister of Defense of the Donetsk Republic, also said on the 10th that Russia's air defense weapons (probably the S-400 that boasts on paper) have been unable to shoot down the Himas rocket, resulting in the destruction of 10 Russian ammunition storage facilities and serious casualties in Russian soldiers.
Russian military blogger Неофициальный Безсонов "Z" posted that our soldiers noticed a new tactic of the Ukrainian armed forces, which sometimes brings results. First, the enemy volleyed two Hurricane multi-tube rockets on the selected target to suppress our air defense capabilities, and then volleyed more expensive and more accurate Himas rockets. This tactic is not completely new. For a long time, Ukraine has been fighting against Chernobayevka in the Khlsong region in this way. They fired the tornado rockets and then fired the dot-U missile.
Given that 4 Himas multiple rocket launchers had sailed into Nikolayev the other day, now, obviously, it was launched after dot-U or replaced. Many of these large ammunition depots are likely to be hit by Dot-U, which is not as accurate as the Himas 's GMLRS rockets, but have a longer range and can hit large facilities. The smaller command post is the target of the Himas GMLRS rocket.
Russian military doctor telegram channel "Voennyi Obozrevatel" said that the fight against systems like Himas must begin before any hostilities begin. With a highly centralized command system and an outdated communication system, it is simply impossible to "disperse" the headquarters. Dispersion of ammunition stocks is possible, but for this purpose the loading and unloading of ammunition must be greatly simplified and automated, as we have already talked about, but the process is still based on manual labor and basic ammunition boxes. Therefore, a complete set of preparations must be made in advance. In the current situation, it will take up to a few years or months, which is too late.
The physical destruction of this rocket requires advanced reconnaissance systems, mainly aviation, but it also needs to control the battlefield at least tens of kilometers deep. Without the large number of air warning aircraft we do not have, we do not have that many air warning aircraft , which makes the 4-8 Himas system freely maneuver from Kharkov to Kherson and successfully perform fire suppression.
can be said a lot, but in the current situation, we have not seen a general and fast solution.
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