December 21, 2008 at 10:11 pm
It isn’t naval aviation but it is naval…
I have a question about Russia’s Black Sea Fleet’s current capability to strike targets on land. I’m not the most educated when it comes to naval technology so I don’t know if the P-500 missiles it carries are able to be directed to targets on land, like coastal SAM sites.
Basically, I’m asking what capability, if any, the Black Sea Fleet has to attack coastal defenses. And what ships would that capability be attached to?
By: kato - 23rd December 2008 at 22:28
Well, there’s always guns. And it always depends on what we call “coastal defense” – the four Ropuchas in the fleet each have two 122mm Grad-M MLRS for such purposes, although of course primarily for clearing beaches from hostile troops. Doubt these could reach far beyond the beach really.
By: RSM55 - 23rd December 2008 at 17:03
Basically, I’m asking what capability, if any, the Black Sea Fleet has to attack coastal defenses. And what ships would that capability be attached to?
In the current doctrine, coastal defenses around the Black Sea theatre have to be dealt with aviation assets.
It is true that the RuN does not have real land-attack capabilities as it was designed to inflict major damage on NATO/US navy task forces.
On the other hand, the modern ASM in the RuN have a “radio-contrast” and inertial firing and targeting mode, so theoretically the Moskva could strike some high rise buildings in Kiev – for example. But that would be a waste of taxpayer’s money 😀
For minor tasks, of course you have the obiquitous ship arty and some MLRS on landing ships, for example.
By: CayceG - 23rd December 2008 at 16:21
So no known capability then… Thank you guys.
By: Nicolas - 23rd December 2008 at 09:53
As far as i know there is no land attack weapons for the Black Sea Fleet. In fact russia today do not have land attack capabilties at all from surface ships. There have been some rumors about a land attack version of the Shipwreck missile, but that info is not reliabe. Some SSN are equipped with Sampson missiles which is a land attack weapon, but no SSN available for the Black Sea Fleet. They could of course have modified the Black Sea Kilo class with Club-system, not sure if “Alrosa” have this upgrade. This is basically an export weapon-package, not sure if russian Kilo´s receive this upgrade
By: sealordlawrence - 23rd December 2008 at 09:43
Unless there the fleets AShM’s have land attack capability then the answer is very limited. I have no reason to believe that any of the AShM’s in the Black Sea Fleet have land attack capability.
By: CayceG - 23rd December 2008 at 05:10
I see that I’ve had quite a few views on the topic. I don’t mean to double post, but I would like to know if any of you people that have seen this topic knows anything about the capability.