It’s the deepest Ukrainian drone strike of the war, so far
A month after Ukraine began bombarding targets inside Russia with explosives-laden sports planes modified for remote flight, one of the do-it-yourself drones has struck an oil refinery in the city of Salavat, more than 800 miles from the front line of Russia’s wider war on Ukraine.
It is, by far, Ukraine’s longest-range raid—and an escalation of Ukraine’s deep-strike campaign targeting Russian refineries, factories and strategic military sites.
And it’s at least the fourth attempted deep strike involving Ukraine’s sport-plane drones. Videos shot by people on the ground in Salavat clearly depict the wide straight wings, fixed wheels and propeller that are typical of an inexpensive sport plane, the kind a middle-class pilot can build at home from a kit costing as little as $90,000.
I thought maybe the thumbnail was just some generic small plane, but nope. That’s the same model that keeps making successful attacks in Russia. The Aeroprakt A-22. That little prop plane. Top speed 127 mph/204 kph. That’s what Russia can’t find and shoot down.
They must have done something to it, because Wikipedia puts its max range as 680 miles.
Empty weight 260 kg. So a normal Pilot 70-80 kg adds 25-30% weight on top. Plus the weight for seat, steering wheels etc. So with a small payload they probably safe quite some weight.
We aren’t talking about the weight of the payload though. Don’t you need a fairly hefty bomb to meaningfully damage a refinery?
If the answer is no, I would love to see this strategy implemented in a longer ranged plane. Russia’s main tank production factory is about 2000 miles from the nominal Ukrainian border.
A refinery has a tank with millions of liters of gasoline. It already has the bomb. All you really need is a penetrator and an igniter.
A refinery has a tank with millions of liters of gasoline
Typically buried underground.
You… got a source for that?
Twenty years in O&G
Don’t you need a fairly hefty bomb to meaningfully damage a refinery?
Depends on where you drop it.
But otherwise, the headline is almost certainly overstated. It makes for some sexy war propaganda, though.
It does also show Russia that Ukraine is capable of bypassing their defenses and successfully attacking infrastructure (or military installations/encampments) several hundred kilometers inside Russia.
And doing it multiple times.
Ukraine is capable of bypassing their defenses
That’s never been in doubt. It’s been a war of attrition from day one.
The extended range in a gonzo mission is notable precisely because it’s so desperate.
Which is most effective at evading Russian air defense? The F-35, an exquisitely designed $110M jet with among the best stealth that Lockheed Skunkworks can create, or the Ukrainian equivalent of a Cessna trainer aircraft?
Depends heavily on what air defense it’s stacked against and who coordinated the mission.
Low speed, low altitude aircraft are excellent at evading higher end air defenses, particularly if you’ve scouted out the anti-air surveillance in advance.
Riminder the Bismarck wasnt critically damaged by top of the line aircraft, it was sunk by a bunch of biplanes which were effectively immune to its AA.
A great example, setting aside the fact that battleships have always been more trouble than they were worth.
Although, modern aircraft carriers are approaching that kind of outdated-ness. I’m genuinely curious to see what happens when America loses it’s first $50B floating fortress.
Saying they were always more trouble than they were worth is a bit of a miss though: They completely dominated for a period, to the point where entire columns would be redirected or kept in port if intelligence arrived saying that a certain battleship had left port and was on the hunt.
As for the “modern” aircraft carrier: I think it will remain viable until we see a fundamental paradigm shift in how naval warfare is conducted. A carrier is at the centre of a carrier strike group, and is probably one of the most well protected places on the planet at any time, and can move at over 40 knots. I have a hard time imagining what could locate and take out an alert carrier in reasonable distance from shore, other than another carrier group.
I have a hard time imagining what could locate and take out an alert carrier in reasonable distance from shore, other than another carrier group.
Bombers and long range torpedos spring to mind, particularly when the carrier is moving through a relatively right corridor, like the Red Sea.
The Houthis have already functionally shut down the Suez against commercial traffic just by threatening from the coast. And they’re employing relatively unsophisticated artillery.
I specified “a reasonable distance from shore” because an important part of the point of a carrier is exactly that it can stay easily 100 km from shore and still strike far inland. If a carrier is in range of shore-based torpedoes, they’ve likely messed up long ago.
As for bombers: They’re historically the major threat to carriers, but I don’t see any modern developments that make modern bombers any more of a threat to modern carriers than WW2 era bombers were to WW2 era carriers.
