Ukraine’s Bayraktar Drone Helped Take Out Russian Flagship

Russian media has confirmed that the cruiser Moskva, its 12,000-ton Black Sea flagship, suffered a major explosion and has been abandoned due to fire. Ukraine claims to have struck the ship with two Neptune missiles, which Russia denies, saying only there was an ammunition explosion. Some reports say the ship has rolled on its side and/or sunk — this is also denied. At least one Ukrainian Bayraktar TB2 drone appears to have observed the event, and played a role in the destruction.

Ukrainian officials say that Bayraktar was used to distract the Moskva’s air defenses. This is possible, but seems unlikely, as the Moskva’s anti-aircraft and anti-missile defenses are carried out by two distinct systems –long-range SA-N-6 Grumble long-range missiles would have been used against the Bayraktar, leaving its multibarreled AK-630 cannons — the Russian equivalent to the U.S. Phalanx system – free to engage incoming missiles.

We know that the dynamic combat drone was involved from a couple of sources. One of them is a video the Russian military released in a tweet on Tuesday showing a missile launch from the Russian frigate Admiral Essen, claiming it shot down a Bayraktar (no impact is shown), indicating that the drones were in the area and possibly harassing the Russian vessels.

We also have a Ukrainian video shot from the air with a night vision scope showing a burning warship in the distance, said to be the Moskva. It is not possible to verify this, but it tallies with the Ukrainian claim of Bayraktar in the area.

As noted by defense blog Oryx, Ukraine’s naval aviation wing received its first Bayraktar TB2 last July. Although the drone is best known as a highly effective hunter-killer for taking out land targets with laser-guided missiles, it can also carry out missions over water. Specifically, it was bought to act as a spotter for Ukraine’s Neptune anti-ship missiles. The idea is that the drone visually locates a target, so the missile battery only has to turn on its truck-mounted Mineral-U radar momentarily to cue and launch missiles before switching off and becoming invisible again.

However, before the war it seemed highly unlikely that the Neptune missiles would be ready in time, as they were not due to be operational until later this year. When Ukraine claimed to have hit the warship Admiral Essen with a Neptune on April 4, there was considerable skepticism. The Russians did not release any information, there was no imagery, and the ship has continued its mission as normal.

It is also puzzling that Moskva’s multibarreled, radar-guided AK-630 cannons failed to do their job. Moskva has six of them positioned to give all-round protection. Any incoming missile should be targeted by at least two weapons, each firing seventy rounds per second. And while the U.S. Navy’s 20mm Phalanx rounds rely on impact, the 30mm Russian versions are explosive fragmentation rounds and in theory have a larger kill radius. Russian air defenses have consistently underperformed in this campaign, which may be all the explanation needed. Did the Bayraktars fire a wave of small missiles to distract the AK-630s at a critical time?

Nor do there appear to be any pictures or video of the Neptune batteries in action, or the missiles on their way. This is likely just good operational security, but it may be that the missiles are phantoms.

As Oryx notes, the Bayraktar TB2’s four MAM-L laser-guided missiles can also be used against naval targets, with a range of up to 14 km. Such comparatively tiny missiles – about 50 pounds compared to Neptune’s 2,000 pounds – could not do any real damage to a major warship. Unless they hit it in exactly the right spot.

Defence source OSINT Technical tweeted:

“One of the things to remember is that the Russian cruiser Moskva carries 16 × P-500 Bazalt ASMs [Anti-Ship Missiles] in external launch tubes. Each weighs about 10,600lbs, and is made up of mostly explosive stuff. A hit to any of these units may cause some serious damage, or an “ammunition explosion.”

This might help explain why the previous claimed Neptune strike on the Admiral Essen did so little, but the Moskva appears to have been completely destroyed. A small, precise weapon can ‘bring the detonator’ and destroy targets filled with fuel and explosive which are waiting to go off, but will have no effect if it hits a random bulkhead.

The Moskva is also protected by PK-2 chaff dispensers. These are essentially short-barreled 140mm mortars firing shells which burst in the air to scatter clouds of ‘chaff,’ strips of metallic foil which have a large radar signature. Incoming missiles will either aim at the cloud of chaff rather than the ship, or simply lose sight of the ship in the mass of radar reflections. (Of course, chaff is ineffective against laser-guided missiles.)

Western analysts are already hurrying to stress that the destruction of the Moskva does not mean that our warships are equally vulnerable to anti-ship missiles. It may be simply that the ship was not on high alert and so defenses were not activated in time – the U.S.S. Stark was struck by Exocet missiles during the Iran-Iraq war in 1987 for this reason — neither its Phalanx nor chaff dispensers were engaged.

It has always been assumed that it would take a whole barrage of anti-ship missiles to take out a modern warship. Ironically enough, this was what Moskva was designed for: those sixteen Bazalt were intended to overwhelm the defenses of an American carrier force. Now it may have been felled by an explosion of those same missiles. We may not find out for some time exactly what caused that explosion, but whoever was operating that Bayraktar certainly knows.