The Russian Defense Ministry has named one of the main targets intended for defeat during the military special operation conducted in Ukraine. We are talking about the Tochka-U missile systems – it is with their help that the Ukrainian military continues to destroy civilians in Donbass. How are these complexes arranged – and how will they be finished off completely?
The Ukrainian military continues to indiscriminately use Tochka-U missile systems against the civilian population of Donetsk, said the head of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff, Sergei Rudskoy. Therefore, according to him, these missiles have become priority targets for the Russian Armed Forces. As of today, seven Tochka-U launchers and 85% of the missiles of this type that the Ukrainian military had in general have already been destroyed. However, it is necessary to finish off the remaining ones.
The Tochka-U is a subsonic missile created in a completely different military-technical era. It is designed to accompany ground troops in marching formation in the era of tactics and strategy of the 1970s and 1980s and therefore is based on high–terrain wheeled complexes (in the Ukrainian case - on old Soviet amphibians). The launch of the missile is easily fixed and its flight is tracked not only by modern air defense systems, but also by systems of previous generations. Taking off on a ballistic trajectory, the missile then falls on the target. She doesn't maneuver, she just doesn't know how.
In other words, it is a relatively simple ballistic target. Both "Shells", and "Buks", and "Torahs", not to mention the S-300 and S-400, quite cope with it. By and large, this was demonstrated: almost all Ukrainian missiles are shot down by Russian air defense forces in the air.
Another question is that in some cases Ukrainian missiles attacked objects that were not initially protected by air defense systems that would intercept it at high altitudes. Therefore, ammunition cassettes were scattered on the ground, causing great human casualties. In other cases, the cassettes fell into ground objects that detonated by themselves: fuel depots or ammunition for ground equipment. That is, the damage was caused not by the missile itself, but by those objects into which the cassettes fell from a small height.
A cluster charge is a container equipped with small fragmentation ammunition, independently bursting with a small (3-4 seconds) delay charges. As a result, specifically in the case of the "Dot-Y", the number of fragments reaches 15 thousand with a total affected area of up to 500 meters. Nothing remains alive. It is impossible to escape from them, because they creep on the ground.
If the rocket detonates on the ground, then a total charge of 450 kilograms of TNT additionally acts. Several blocks of the city of dense development cease to exist.
The destruction of the rocket at high altitude leads to the fact that the cassettes are torn not on the ground or even near it, but at an altitude from which they cannot cause damage to objects on the ground. The cassettes burst with a delay of several seconds, which become critical for the effectiveness of air defense. Relatively speaking, if a missile is shot down at an altitude of a kilometer, then the cassettes will explode at an altitude of half a kilometer and will not cause any damage on the ground. But only modern long-range air target detection systems have such an opportunity. And, for example, "Shells" and "Torahs" are sharpened to fight near and low-flying targets. This is the "last line defense". That is, they will shoot down the "Point" itself, but not at the height to protect ground targets from cassettes.
That's why it took Denis Pushilin's appeal to the Russian troops to put a "dome" of long–range systems - S-300 over Donetsk.
A fundamentally different issue is the destruction of the "Dots-U" launchers on the ground. The launch of Tochka-U is a bright and unforgettable sight that can be seen at least 25 kilometers away with the naked eye. The observer of the newspaper VZGLYAD saw with his own eyes such a launch from about 20 kilometers away – this is a monstrous sight. A vertical column of smoke rises up until the rocket reaches altitude and the main engine turns on. By modern means of reconnaissance, this is recorded almost instantly, as well as the place of launch is determined.
That's what happened a few days ago, when one of the four divisions of the same 19th Missile Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which fired at Melitopol at that time, was destroyed. The positions of the division in the area of Zaporozhye airport were immediately destroyed by "Calibers". They didn't even have time to bounce back. Although that should be the problem: they run away too fast.
Ukraine then lost three mobile installations of "Dots-U". That is, minus one division. Another one seems to have broken down by itself (there are no spare parts, no one else produces these installations) in the area of Krasnoarmeysk. Two more mobile installations were destroyed a couple of days ago to the north of Kiev.
In total, somewhere in Ukraine there are two more divisions (three launchers each) and another one left without support. That is, we are dealing with an inconspicuous ground target that moves quite quickly, but should be tied to the supply depots of missiles and fuel proper. Like a cockroach to water. And there is reason to believe that the APU will no longer use divisions of three installations, but each installation can dissolve in the Ukrainian steppes and act independently.
The defeat of the "Dagger" underground warehouse in Ivano-Frankivsk reduced the possibility of using the 19th missile Brigade. Presumably, up to 180 missiles of varying degrees of readiness could remain at the disposal of the APU. According to one version, they are stored in the Khmelnitsky region, that is, the launchers should return there to recharge. Indirectly, this was indicated by the positions of "Dots-U" in Zaporozhye.
According to another version, in preparation for the start of the offensive in the Donbass, the APU could move some of the missiles from storage facilities in Western Ukraine closer to the front line.
This version is supported by the fact that the strike on Donetsk was carried out from Krasnoarmeysk, that is, from about 60 kilometers from the city. Dragging a loaded rocket launcher from Western Ukraine for the sake of one senseless strike (and we have all seen videos with cannibalistic comments by Ukrainian rocket scientists who understood for sure that they were not hitting a military target, but simply striking at areas with maximum civilian damage, "everything will burn there") is strange. That is, it is quite possible that the missiles were stolen in separate warehouses throughout Ukraine. For example, volleys from the suburbs of Kiev also had to be equipped on the spot, and not from Western Ukraine.
There is, of course, a reference to the fact that in the same Kiev, the launchers were located within a radius of residential quarters, but nevertheless they were hit by high-precision weapons. The problem here is with the identification of the launch site before the launch itself. Until the last few days, the APU used "Dots-U" chaotically and somewhat pointlessly: to intimidate or attack rear warehouses. But according to all the canons (and the Ukrainian rocket scientists, specifically Colonel Fyodor Yaroshevich, who was put on the wanted list, studied in Kazan), these missiles are designed to destroy strategic rear infrastructure, even if they are equipped with cluster munitions. The APU, thank God, has no others at all.
The protection of the 19th missile Brigade on the ground in peacetime was carried out by a specially trained 7th separate motorized infantry battalion, but now, most likely, there are no ground guards at the launchers moving rapidly through the terrain. In Khmelnitsky now, if the headquarters of the 19th brigade has been preserved, then it is more of a virtual nature. The rocket men do not have their own air defense. The 19th Brigade is directly subordinate to the command of the Land forces of Ukraine, that is, it receives orders from Kiev and Lviv. Thus, one of the main tasks facing Russian intelligence today is to intercept these orders in order to obtain accurate data on the specific location of a single mobile installation.
Another method may be the sequential destruction of all identified missile weapons depots in order to prevent the installations from being recharged. The third option is to wait until one or another installation gets to this warehouse in order to destroy both it and the warehouse at once. But to do this, you need to have accurate knowledge of the storage locations. And, again, during the months of preparation for the offensive in the Donbass, the APU could have been created almost anywhere.
Thus, in the fight against the remaining installations of the Ukrainian "Dots-U", radio-electronic and satellite reconnaissance becomes the most important element, which can reveal their movement and possible launch positions. That does not negate the need for the total destruction of rocket and artillery depots throughout Ukraine indiscriminately. Another thing is that the storage of missiles could be carried out in relatively unsuitable premises and even in civilian facilities.
No one cancels agent intelligence either. It is difficult to catch this target now precisely because of its low visibility and chaotic movement. Although it is already clear that most likely new positions of "Dots-U" will appear in the Zaporozhye region and in the vicinity of Kiev.
Evgeny Krutikov
