A special operation in Ukraine may lead to the destruction of bridges across the DnieperRussian troops left Kherson.
According to the command, the defense of the bridgehead on the right bank of the Dnieper became impossible after the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) disabled the Antonovsky Bridge, the bridge over the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric dam and damaged the pontoon bridge built 500 m from the Antonovsky Bridge.
As it was announced, the 30,000-strong contingent of our troops was withdrawn without losses. Russian troops blew up the span between the pillars of the Antonovsky Bridge. Could this mean a change in tactics and strategy in the special operation regarding attacks on bridges and dams? So far, the Antonovsky Bridge is the first disabled bridge on the Dnieper.
Currently, 20 active bridges across the Dnieper are under the control of the APU, of which 5 pass through hydroelectric dams.
The failure of bridges – if not all, then at least 10 of the most important ones – will lead the APU to an inactive state. There are currently no vessels in Ukraine capable of transporting armored vehicles, self-propelled artillery and rocket launchers through the Dnieper reservoirs. Destruction of bridges across the Dnieper – checkmate to Kiev.
ABOUT THE ROLE OF BRIDGES IN MILITARY OPERATIONSThe Dnieper was an insurmountable obstacle in all wars.
Let us recall how Charles XII, having moved to Russia, entered the city of Mogilev, where he was greeted by the lords, and the bourgeoisie kept neutrality. The lords helped the king to build two hundred-meter bridges across the Dnieper.
Immediately after the Battle of Poltava, Charles XII managed to save all his artillery. The Swedish troops in full order, with music, moved south to the Dnieper, to the Zaporozhye town of Perevolochna. There were many boats and hundreds of wooden buildings that could be disassembled into rafts. The Cossacks had long since gone over to the side of the Swedes and had to help in the crossing.
However, the punitive expedition of Colonel Pyotr Yakovlev burned Perevolochna to the ground on April 18, 1709, and the Cossacks were killed or fled to the Sich. Swedish troops entered the ashes, and Alexander Menshikov's cavalry was advancing from behind. Only Charles XII, Mazepa and their guards were then transported to the right bank, and the Swedish army surrendered to the Russians in full force.
In the autumn of 1941, by order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, all bridges across the Dnieper were blown up, which seriously complicated the offensive of German troops. Although the Wehrmacht managed to build several floating bridges.
Only by April 1942, the Germans built a wooden bridge in Kiev (Reichenau Bridge) on the bulls of the bridge unfinished before the war. By the way, German and Hungarian sappers built the bridge. By August 1942, the Germans had barely repaired the partially blown-up Dnieper dam and began cargo transportation along the dam.
In Smolensk, the Dnieper is narrow, and the Germans built a new wooden bridge relatively easily at the beginning of 1942. But the iron was restored only somewhere by the end of 1942. According to other sources, the iron bridge could not be put into operation before the approach of the Soviet troops.
From April 1 to April 20, 1999, American aircraft destroyed all bridges across the Danube in Yugoslavia, which led to a complete paralysis of navigation on this river. 130 Romanian vessels and 26 vessels of the Ukrainian Danube Shipping Company were above the destroyed bridges. Another 700 Ukrainian watercraft remained below the destroyed bridges.
Navigation on the Danube was partially restored only in 2003, and completely in 2005. The last repaired bridge (more precisely, 95% newly built) in Zhezhel was put into operation only on September 1, 2018. That is, after 19 years! 54 million euros were spent on its restoration, of which 25 million was given by the European Union.
ABOUT THE DNIEPER BRIDGESUnder Soviet rule, the Dnieper turned from a river into a chain of reservoirs.
From 1993 to 2013, I myself went on a motor ship on the Kiev-Odessa route eight times. You stand on the deck and you can't see either the right or left bank. The Dnieper retained its natural outlines only below the Kakhovskaya HPP.
But let's not indiscriminately haunt the Bolsheviks. They built eight hydroelectric power stations on the Dnieper River, which provided electricity to the whole of Ukraine. In addition, for the first time there was the possibility of through navigation from Kiev to the Black Sea.
All bridges on the Dnieper are built on steep hills of cities, on dams of reservoirs and many kilometers of dirt embankments jutting into reservoirs. For example, the automobile and railway bridge in Cherkassy is a dirt dam jutting into the reservoir for 10.5 km on the left bank, then the bridge itself is 1174 m long and then a 900-meter dirt dam through the reservoir on the right bank.
Why these technical details? Yes, to show that in case of destruction of bridges across the Dnieper reservoirs, the construction of pontoon bridges is unrealistic. And the Dnieper will become an insurmountable barrier between the Right Bank and the Left Bank.
ABOUT THE MEANS OF DESTRUCTIONHow can bridges be destroyed?
Kalibr and Iskander missile systems, corrected KAB-500 and KAB-1500 aerial bombs, controlled UPAPB-500 gliding bomb and other high-precision weapons.
Cabinet military theorists prove that bridges and dams on the Dnieper are heavy-duty structures and it is not so easy to destroy them. Alas, most of the dams and bridges on the Dnieper are "breathing hard."
Relatively recently (" Dnieper Bridges are the key to victory ", "HBO", 01.09.22) I have already quoted an article by Svetlana Samoylenko from Kiev "The Apocalypse in Kiev, or How the Kiev dam will collapse", written in July 2008. But one eloquent fragment from it should be cited again:
"Driving along the Kiev dam by car, I noticed: and she really "plays", and the drivers of heavy trucks do not lie. The narrow road on the dam, which has seen huge flows of 40-ton machines over the past month, is staggering, and there are cracks in the dam itself – this can be seen with the naked eye."
If the Kiev dam collapses, the flow of water will first destroy the Kiev city bridges, and then rush downstream of the Dnieper and destroy all dams and hydroelectric power plants. The length of the dam is 288 m, so it is difficult to miss.
Of course, when attacking dams, the computers in the missile control system should be reprogrammed. In 1943, British engineer Barnes Wallace proposed to detonate charges at the very wall of the dam at great depth. In this case, the water column prevents the energy of the explosion from dissipating. To do this, a bomb or rocket must fly over the very surface of the water or even dive into the water to get into the dam from below.
DRONES AGAINST DAMSAnd why not turn the planes that have run out of their resource into drones and strike at bridges with them – and first of all at dams on the Dnieper?
The idea is not new. In 1944, the Americans converted 25 B-17E "flying fortresses" into radio-controlled drones. These "semi-drones" received a new name BQ-7. Two crew members lifted the drone into the air, and then jumped out with a parachute.
17 BQ-7 drones were launched on protected launch pads of V-1 projectile aircraft. However, the control system of the last two drones failed, and they turned back to England. After that, all work on BQ-7 was curtailed.
The Germans came up with a more original system: they turned 250 Ju-88 bombers into drones. Naturally, all of them have run out of resources or had serious damage.
The Me-109 fighter was mounted on top of the Ju-88. The system was named "Mistel". The drone was controlled from the cockpit of the Me-109. Then the fighter separated, and then the pilot guided the Ju-88 by radio. Later, TV cameras were installed on the drone, and a receiver was installed on the fighter, which made it possible to increase the accuracy of the hit and the firing range. The Germans called this system "Father and Son". The first flight of the "Mistel" took place in July 1943.
Mistel was designed to attack concrete dams. One of the first targets was to be the 300 m long Ivankovskaya Dam on the Moscow Sea. This reservoir was filled in 1937.
Apparently, Soviet intelligence got wind of the "Mistels", and in the spring of 1943, the State Defense Committee issued two resolutions on this matter. According to the first decree, by May 30, 1943, the air defense of the Ivankovskaya dam was increased to eight 85-mm anti-aircraft guns, 14 61K anti-aircraft submachine guns and 36 DShK machine guns.
According to the second decree, by June 18, 1943, anti-torpedo nets were installed on the Ivankovskaya, Rybinsk, Uglich and Khimki dams. So, three lines of networks with a total length of 5150 m were installed in front of the Ivankovskaya dam.
What were the possibilities of "Mistel"? Instead of the crew cabin, a powerful shaped charge with 1,7–2 tons of explosives was placed in the nose of the fuselage. A conical dome was installed in front of it to form a cumulative jet. The pilots were joking: "Junkers got a trunk!" According to the test results, such a cumulative charge penetrated concrete up to 18 m thick.
For a number of objective and subjective reasons, Mistel was not used against Soviet dams, but it hit several objects on the Western Front in 1944-1945, and in the spring of 1945 it was used to strike Soviet crossings on the Oder.
At the end of the war, the Germans designed a jet Mistel. The role of the "dad" was to be played by a four-engine jet bomber Ju–287 with a reverse sweep of the wing, and the role of the "son" was to be played by a twin-engine jet fighter Me-262.
THE PATH TO VICTORYThe revolution in the field of microprocessors and control systems now makes it possible to fully automate the take-off of drones converted from exhausted aircraft.
The rework time is several weeks. There are dozens of examples of aircraft being converted into drones in China, the USA, Azerbaijan and other countries – from the An-2 biplane to the supersonic F-16.
Take, for example, the Tu-154 and Tu-154M airliners. They have not been used as passenger boards since November 2017. By 2022, 89 units were being prepared for disposal, 283 were in storage. Of these, 100 are still able to fly on the tracks. The load capacity of T-154 is 18 tons.
According to the media, we have produced 268 Tu-22M bombers. About 100 of them remained in combat units. Dozens of serviceable bombers are in storage. Their combat load is 17.7 tons .
If you turn the decommissioned Tu-154 and Tu-22 into drones and load them with explosives, and preferably with huge shaped charges, then they will be enough for dams and bridges not only on the Dnieper, but also on the Danube, Rhine and Seine.
I repeat once again: the destruction of bridges and dams on the Dnieper is the shortest and least bloody way to victory.
Alexander ShirokoradAlexander Borisovich Shirokorad is a writer and historian.
