Damage to “Rostov-on-Don”.
Via social media
The Ukrainian Storm Shadow cruise missile that knocked out the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s Rostov-on-Don submarine in a nighttime attack on the fleet’s anchorage in Sevastopol in occupied Crimea on September 13 not only damaged the Kilo-class boat in its dry dock – it blew it up from the inside.
photos The depiction of the submarine wreckage, which appeared on the Internet on Monday, tells a clear message. The outwardly curling metal at Storm Shadow’s impact point, amidships on the 240-foot-long, 3,100-ton Rostov-on-Don, indicates that the missile penetrated the nine-year-old ship’s hull before exploding.
That was intentional. British company BAE Systems developed the Storm Shadow’s 880-pound Bomb Royal Ordnance Augmented Charge warhead specifically for destroying hard targets such as underground bunkers. But the “tandem” arrangement with two warheads obviously works just as well against ships.
The Ukrainian Air Force and Navy have additional deep-strike weapons with a range of nearly 200 miles to attack Sevastopol within Ukrainian lines. For example, the Navy’s ground-based Harpoon and Neptune anti-ship missiles in land attack mode. Or the Air Force’s huge S-200 anti-aircraft missiles, which the Ukrainians are now using in ground attack mode.
But planners in Kiev wanted to destroy warships. In particular, warships resting in the dry dock of the 13th Ship Repair Plant in Sevastopol. The layers of concrete and steel that Ukrainian ammunition would have to contend with called for a tandem warhead.
BAE Systems
And while the 2,900-pound Storm Shadow — which the Ukrainian Air Force has integrated into its Sukhoi Su-24M bombers — isn’t the only missile in Ukraine’s inventory with a tandem warhead, it might be the best.
Here’s how it works: When a low-flying storm shadow – guided by a combination of GPS, terrain tracking and infrared imaging – finally hits its target, a detonator in the nose first triggers a small warhead with a shaped charge. This warhead blasts a hole in the outermost layer of earth, concrete or metal, clearing the way for the missile’s second warhead to penetrate the target before exploding.
“This warhead design enables cruise missiles to achieve the level of hard target penetration previously only possible with laser-guided gravity bombs.” explained Fabian Hoffmann, proliferation researcher at the University of Oslo. “In this respect, Storm Shadow represents an incredibly effective weapon against hardened targets if you can get it to the target.”
The Kremlin insisted on repairing and returning to service the two warships that burned in Sevastopol dry dock on September 13. But the damage inflicted by the Storm Shadow on Rostov-on-Don makes this claim ridiculous. As dramatic as the external damage to the submarine appears to be, the damage inside the boat is clearly much, much worse.
Rostov-on-Don is destroyed beyond repair, making it the first submarine lost in combat by the Russian or Soviet navies since World War II.
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