What hit the Saky airbase?

[kevinkins]

Speculation surrounds the strike as the effect on the base emerge:
- US provided MRLS with some form of ATACMS or perhaps the Grim 2. All about extended range here.
- Suicide drone (like the attack on Russian refinery in June). Russian asleep at AA switch?
- Anti-ship missile modified for the airbase strike.

Or some combination of the above. The attack took place in broad daylight So, given the prestige associated with The Crimea, kudos to the tacticians puling this one off. Here is one of many reports being published.

Kevin

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2 ... 3e83c6772e

[BDukes]

Post strike imagery

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/stat ... 5730258945

Big craters-so guessing ballistic missiles of some sort were used.

Mike

[gennyo]

IMHO those craters may came from anything volatile already there.

If someone really was using cruise or ballistic missiles to blow up the ammo bunker, these craters I think should be counted as a miss.

Or they've got so many missiles they had a missile spam for rus.

[Gunner98]

Here is a Twitter thread from a guy (C Schmitz) who used CMO to plot out an ATACMS attack. https://twitter.com/chrisschmitz/status ... O8d943xRcw

Looks quite plausible.

[kevinkins]

Sort of did the same with the PrSM in the dataBase:

https://asc.army.mil/web/portfolio-item/ms-prsm/

Fired from 3 x HIMARS and it has plenty of range from Odesa and takes out reveted SU-30SMs at the Saki air base. Data shows the 500 pound munition arrives at 2400 knots. S-400 (12 TEL) can down them, but in other runs the SA-21s miss. Probably depends on WRA or other settings.

Saki AB.rar

(82.07 KiB) Downloaded 17 times

[bsq]

The scenario has a few issues.

There is no S-400 at Saki, it's a RFN base and they dont seem to share AD assets.

The nearest one (GE) is 45°13'7.16"N 33°15'36.82"E, an 8 TEL system with no visible 'big tubes'

There is no SA-22, RFN still seem to use SA-8

Adjust the scenario to this config and your rockets hit every time

[kevinkins]

Not really a scenario, just a test platform to play around with the PrSM capabilities vs some of the better SAMs Russia has. I did read that Russia tested the S-400 and Panstir systems at some point. Perhaps they should have kept them around. For what it's worth:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/2 ... eze-drills
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2019 ... ea/157642/
https://missilethreat.csis.org/russia-d ... in-crimea/

[SunlitZelkova]

Not really a scenario, just a test platform to play around with the PrSM capabilities vs some of the better SAMs Russia has. I did read that Russia tested the S-400 and Panstir systems at some point. Perhaps they should have kept them around. For what it's worth:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/2 ... eze-drills
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2019 ... ea/157642/
https://missilethreat.csis.org/russia-d ... in-crimea/

It may not have been a lack of air defence systems but instead a lack of early warning and tracking capabilities. The Ukrainians hit a 48Ya6-K1 Podlet-K1 radar a couple weeks ago with drones. It was in a position to detect an incoming strike.

The SOF story is difficult to believe for me. At this point in the war would an air base really be that unguarded? Once placed the explosives would have had to remain undiscovered all the way until they detonated during daylight, assuming the operation took place at night.

The SOF explanation gives me the vibe of how the US claimed a local islander had seen Yamamoto boarding his plane and then he was shot down, when in reality the US codebreaking effort had made the discovery and it needed to be kept secret.

Openly revealing either ATACMS or an indigenous ballistic missile like the Hrim-2 was used could lead to escalation.

[bsq]

Not really a scenario, just a test platform to play around with the PrSM capabilities vs some of the better SAMs Russia has. I did read that Russia tested the S-400 and Panstir systems at some point. Perhaps they should have kept them around. For what it's worth:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/2 ... eze-drills
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2019 ... ea/157642/
https://missilethreat.csis.org/russia-d ... in-crimea/

Sources are good and tally with (slightly older) GE data. 5 locations with S-400 giving good coverage of Crimea. PrSM does seem to be a bit of game changer and does need 'field' testing but doubt that it would be so blatant.

Not sure why the Partisan 'theories' arent gaining more traction, given the Slavic nations pretty much invented this type of assymetric warfare. Think we also need to stop thinking so one dimensionally too. Pre-planted bombs - really. More likely drones flown in to a 'sleepy' base and flown into armed and fuelled aircraft in the revetments, a good chain reaction, then bang!

They are hard to spot. Can be controlled from well outside the perimeter and easily coordinated via a simple plan and time hack. Would also explain other locations like bases in Belarus being hit too. Lots of people dont like Russia but live in places controlled by Russia and it doesnt take much these days to make an improvised 'flying bomb'. As for the craters, a FAB 250 cooked off by the fires would make a crater that size.

[Count Sessine]

Have you guys considered the UA HRIM missile?

[kevinkins]

Yes, but did it make its way into the CMO Data Base yet. Could not find it. But it could be there.

Kevin

[Nikel]

The Neptun was added in DB3K_494. But not this one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hrim-2


There are more details of the system in the ukrainian version.

https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%93%D1 ... %A0%D0%9A)