To blow up Russian S-400 battery in Crimea, Ukraine modified its cruise-sinking Neptune missile

the ukrainian navy supposedly used some of its Neptune anti-ship missiles in secondary ground attack mode to blow up a Russian air force S-400 air defense battery in western Crimea on Wednesday.

That the one-tonne Neptune can hit targets on the ground should come as no surprise. Ukraine’s Luch Design Bureau modeled the Neptune after the Russian Kh-35, which is itself a response to the US Harpoon anti-ship missile, which also It has a ground 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 engage aircraft and missiles up to 200 miles away, giving it control over the entire western Black Sea to the southern Ukrainian port of Odessa.

The S-400, Podlet radar and other weapons at the Crimean cape, including a battery of Bastion anti-ship missiles, topped the list of possible targets as Ukraine expanded its deep strike capability this year.

To extend the range to which its forces can attack Russian forces, Ukraine has acquired American-made Harpoon ground-launched anti-ship missiles, in addition to Western-made air-launched cruise missiles: the British Storm Shadows and the French SCALP.

At the same time, Ukraine has developed its own deep-attack munitions, including ground-launched S-200 air defense missiles that the Ukrainian air force modified into ground attack weapons. The Ukrainian navy made similar modifications to its ground-launched Neptune anti-ship missiles, which pierced and sank the Russian navy cruiser. Moscow in April 2022.

The low-flying, subsonic Neptune lends itself to the ground-attack role, just as its predecessor missiles, the Kh-35 and Harpoon, do. To give the first-generation, anti-ship-only Harpoon a ground-attack mode on its Block II model in the late 1990s, American missile maker Boeing added GPS-assisted inertial navigation, complementing the original Harpoon’s radar seeker. .

A radar seeker alone is sufficient to attack ships, as a ship reflects a clear radar signature relative to the surrounding flat water. Ground targets, by contrast, are surrounded by a clutter of buildings, trees, and uneven terrain. But if you use a GPS-enabled radar-guided missile, you might get enough discrimination to steer the munition through the clutter.

Luch, in his wisdom, equipped the Neptune with GPS from the start. But the design bureau recently made additional adjustments to the missile’s seeker to optimize its ground-attack mode, according to a Ukrainian official. said the war zone this spring. “Once we get it, the Neptunes will be able to hit targets (225 miles) away,” the official said. “We’re pretty close.”

With a range of 225 miles, a Neptune battery could fire from the relative safety of Odessa and engage Russian forces in most of Crimea. Wednesday’s attack on the S-400 battery could be the first time Ukraine has used the modified Neptune in anger. Russian air force officials are surely wondering why the S-400 (their best air defense system) failed to intercept the very Neptunes that destroyed it.

The S-400 raid probably won’t be the last for the updated Neptune. While the exiled Ukrainian mayor of Russian-occupied Mariupol, reclaimed Although Wednesday’s attack destroyed a Russian battery of Bastion anti-ship missiles, it is becoming clear that the Bastion was not damaged. But it could be next on the target list as the Ukrainians intensify their attacks on Russian forces in Crimea.