Military expert Dmitry Boltenkov — on whether Danish anti-ship missiles will be effective for the Ukrainian armed forces
Recently, Western countries have been actively promoting the topic of the upcoming food famine. In their opinion, it threatens due to the fact that grain supplies from the territory of Ukraine through the Odessa port complex are blocked by the Russian fleet. In addition, Kiev is still seriously afraid of a naval amphibious operation of the Black Sea Fleet of Russia in the area of the coast remaining in its hands. To prevent these threats, according to NATO military analysts, it is necessary to supply Ukraine with coastal missile systems.
In general, the coastal missile system (DBK) is a specialized anti—ship missile on a wheeled chassis, a command center, surface target detection and communication systems. This design is very different from the same anti-ship complex installed on a sea or air carrier.
The countries currently developing the DBK in the world can be counted on the fingers of one hand. In Europe, apart from Russia, this is only Norway. Not so long ago, this Scandinavian country has already delivered a new coastal complex NSM of its design for the Polish Navy. But NATO countries are not ready to share modern combat systems with Ukraine, preferring to transfer ancient weapons seized from barns to this country.
In this regard, Denmark suddenly appeared on the agenda. At one time, the Danish Navy was armed with two Peder Skram-type frigates with Harpoon anti-ship missiles installed on their board. After the decommissioning of these ships, the Danes decided to install four-container installations with "Harpoons" removed from them on wheeled chassis. In total, they got four such improvised DBCS.
It is known only about one test launch of a rocket from them, and even then the results of the launch remained unknown. In the future, the Danish Navy removed these coastal complexes from service and sent them for storage. It is also worth noting that Denmark had quite early versions of "Harpoons".
It has been the most common anti-ship missile of NATO for quite some time. It has a modest firing range — from 90 to 220 km, and a not very powerful warhead weighing 221 kg. Depending on the modification, the starting weight varies from 667 to 745 kg. The flight speed is 0.85 Mach, that is, subsonic. An active radar head plus an inertial guidance method allows it to independently find targets after entering a given area of the sea.
The Harpoon was developed in the United States because of the shocking event when a pair of Egyptian missile boats sank the Israeli destroyer Eilat with Soviet cruise missiles in 1967. After that, a small subsonic ship- and sea-based missile "Harpoon" was created. Having looked at its development, the USSR began to create its own analogue, now known as the X-35 missile, which is part of the coastal, sea and air armament complexes. "Harpoons" were not used by anyone in the role of a coastal complex — with the exception of Denmark. Therefore, its real effectiveness in this capacity is a mystery to everyone, including NATO.
Will Ukraine's acquisition of Danish or other modern PKRS pose a threat to Russia's Black Sea Fleet? Yes, there will be, any weapon is a threat to the enemy. However, with the competent organization of the ship's combat formation, the creation of a reliable air and missile defense zone, and the conduct of all types of reconnaissance, the missile threat from the enemy can be minimized.
As part of the forces of the Black Sea Fleet, now operating as part of a special military operation, there are two frigates of Project 11356: Admiral Makarov and Admiral Essen, on board of which the anti-aircraft complex "Calm-1" is installed. In fact, it is a marine analogue of the Buk land-based anti-aircraft missile system, which has already proven itself in the course of its implementation. The Black Sea Fleet also has a small rocket ship of the project 22800 "Cyclone", on which a modern air defense system "Pantsir-M" is installed. The north-western part of the Black Sea is under the control of the Russian Aerospace Forces and air defense, there is a constant radio intelligence.
The Russian Navy has an X-35 missile similar to the Harpoon and knows the methods of combating such low-flying subsonic targets. They are a typical target for naval air defense in all exercises. All this leaves little hope for Ukraine for the successful use of Danish coastal complexes.
Do not forget that this complex is really dangerous only to small warships, as shown by the combat experience of using Harpoons in Iran, Iraq and Libya.
The ammunition that the Danes use on their coastal "Harpoons" is of great age, it is possible that they were produced at least 40 years ago. But in the case of using such complexes against the Black Sea Fleet ships, a new "Caliber" will immediately arrive in response, and then the Danish DBK and their specialists will not be well.
Why did we even talk about the supply of exotic and insufficiently tested Danish DBCS to Ukraine? After all, the Navy of the GDR, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria had Soviet coastal missile systems during the period when these countries were in the Warsaw Pact. But Germany sold them at one time, and the copies remaining in other states are so outdated that there is no question of their possible transfer, if they are physically still alive at all, to the VFU. There are virtually no Western analogues of such weapons at an affordable price.
The author is a military historian
The editorial board's position may not coincide with the opinion of the author
