Something happened at a Russian air base
And we don’t know how or why:
Russia’s Saki Air Base, safely tucked away 120 miles or more behind the front lines, lost as many as 10 warplanes and various buildings in a series of explosions on Tuesday — but how it happened remains a mystery…
Saki (sometimes spelled Saky) was thought to be unreachable by Ukraine’s missile forces, and it’s certainly too far behind the lines to get hit by Ukraine’s artillery.
But maybe the Ukrainians used this weapon? Or maybe a Russian screwup?:
…[T]he Russian Ministry of Defense claimed on August 9 that munitions had been detonated at a storage site at the airfield due to negligence, not an attack, and claimed that no aircraft were damaged. Russian milblogger Rybar claimed on August 10 that the explosion was likely not caused by a missile strike and hypothesized that the explosions could be due to negligence and non-compliance with safety regulations or to a small helicopter with a bomb attacking a nearby parking lot.
Clear as mud.
With as much as been made about the U.S. giving HIMARS rocket launchers to Ukraine, I’m surprised that nobody has asked if we gave them any ATACMS missiles, which the HIMARS can launch. One ATACMS missile can be placed inside the HIMARS launch box, in place of the standard 6 rocket pod.
The ATACMS has a published range of 190 miles (300 km), which I think would be enough for that target, as long as you had multiple missiles and launchers.
I remember when the Northern Fleet Ordnance Depot blew up in Murmansk, back in the early 80’s. Perhaps that was a small helicopter bombing a nearby parking lot, as well?
I am thinking careless handling of explosives.
Officially, the US has not supplied Ukraine with ATACMS. The Kerch bridge that connects the eastern tip of Crimea to Russia is a prime target for ATACMS. The Ukrainians don’t have other means to down the Ketch bridge without ATACMS.
streif at redstate.com posted an article about the “Roosian” airfield feint on Tuesday 8/9/22; I gave the link in that day’s Open Thread comment thread.
ATACMS could be used to cripple the air defences around the Crimean bridge but they don’t have enough boom power to seriously damage it.
Once air defences are taken down, then a few 500 kg bombs should do it.
One theory that makes sense is that was a special ops unit using kamikaze drones against weapons depots
My default assumption is that every word of this is false. Occam’s razor suggests sabotage.
Satellite images show at least three large craters in places where even the most incompetent Russians would not have stacked munitions. The Pentagon is notorious for understating weapons range for its various delivery systems so I do believe we’re looking at a successful ATACMS strike.
WAU-23/B – 500 lbs of boom in ATACMS. Existing HIMARS rockets have shown the ability to perforate the steel reinforced concrete bridge deck of the bridge south and east of Kerson. I suspect those rockets are not carrying 500 lbs warheads. Time will tell.
om. You think maybe some huge HEAT head? Squash head?
Jeez, thinking of some hundreds of pounds of plastic slapped onto the bridge…..
Ukraine’s Neptune antiship cruise missile’s publicly stated range is 280km (~175 mi) and it was reported pre-war as having an internal-navigation land attack mode.
That being said, Ukraine is cleverly being coy in suggesting Ukrainian special forces walked onto the base at the head of a marching band to plant some explosives, just to add to the intrinsic fun level and potential for shouting and fistfights in meetings between Russian base command, resident naval aviation unit survivors, local air defense units, FSB, and local law enforcement.
Richard Aubrey:
The interwebs only said the WAU-23/B was a penetrator blast fragmentation design. It didn’t go into specifics about how much HE is involved. IIRC the non-ATACM HIMARS rockets are a “unitary” (not submunitions) warhead of around 200 lbs.
streif mentioned the possibility that the Ukrainian’s may have used their Neptune system in a land attack mode IIRC. You would have thought the Roosian AA/SAM systems could deal with subsonic cruise missile atack, oops, Moskva part two?
om. The only way to deal with nap-of-the-earth is everybody shoots straight up when the siren blows. Full mag and then try to shrink into your helmet.
There is, half a dozen times a year, a fast-mover–T38 maybe–which comes high balling up the shore–we overlook Lake Michigan and have a pretty good command of north, south, and west–and, about a half a mile past climbs up and right. Never figure out what he’s doing–long way to Grayling where the reserves and NG train–but the point is, he’s about two hundred feet up and from the first sound to out of sight is…under five seconds if you’re standing on the dune looking south. If you’re outside doing yard work with a few trees around…might not look up in time at all.
It’s hard to grasp how FAST these things go and how little time you have to react. And with nap-of-the-earth, a lot of radars, should there be one, are ineffective anyway.
Now, you might hear one go by, and if you’re on an airfield with long sight lines and happen to be looking, you might see one approaching, but it would probably be low enough not to be skylined and…you wouldn’t see it immediately it made its final approach turn. But a couple of seconds. And if you weren’t looking, and if one of your own aircraft is taking off, landing, or taxiing, you wouldn’t hear it, either. Just this big explosion.
From time to time, you’ll see some up to date light flak vehicles and one of the things to notice is the rate of traverse. Not that you’re going to track a fast mover but you maybe can get in front of it for a second.
Now as to keeping them guessing, if the Ukes want the Russians to think there’s a sleeper agent in the field maintenance crew–probably couldn’t get one up to that actual aircraft–with five pounds of C4 and a timer in his lunch box…well, that diverts some command attention.
The Russians took it in 2014, with no bloodloss, the odds they would have much cooperation from ukrainian partisans seems unlikely
Richard Aubrey:
Roosia can’t afford to have an AWACs type aircraft running a circuit to keep the nappies at bay?
Welcome to the world of 24/7/365 risk, Vlad. That’s why he can’t have nice things?
I keep recalling the high number of senior Russian field officers killed, and I wonder if there isn’t a weapon system involved that we civilians know nothing about. One that is too secret to risk using extensively, but too effective to forgo using altogether?
om. I suppose it could be done, bill to be paid later. So…the Ukes shoot someplace else.
Ray. One issue for the Russians is their lousy leadership, poor NCO corps, junior officers without initiative. Seems that some of the big shooters were shot doing captains’ jobs; trying to get a platoon in contact unstuck and moving or something. Risky business for anybody at that end of the business.
And other reports seem to imply some communications intell as to where these guys are and in what they are riding. And, lastly, they mostly hang out a some HQ and those are discernible from the burn pit. Hit it and you likely hit them.
I think people are giving the Russians too much credit. They are lying. The Ukrainians are not.
We have plenty of photographic evidence from private satellite fleets and local social media posts to confirm the Ukrainian version of events.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/widespread-destruction-seen-after-blasts-at-russian-base-in-crimea
This includes four distinct craters on the airfield, two buildings completely obliterated, and a whole lot of airplanes burned to rubble.
Now, I’m not up on the latest Russian aircraft design, but this aircraft looks damaged to me:
https://www.thedrive.com/uploads/2022/08/10/su-24-wreck-saki-air-base-ukraine-russia.jpg
“The Pentagon is notorious for understating weapons range for its various delivery systems so I do believe we’re looking at a successful ATACMS strike.”
That was my first thought too, but the Pentagon, the secretary of defense, and Biden himself have all said they are not giving Ukraine ATACMS. That’s different than what they did with HARM, which is to say nothing at all about it beforehand.
“streif mentioned the possibility that the Ukrainian’s may have used their Neptune system in a land attack mode IIRC. You would have thought the Roosian AA/SAM systems could deal with subsonic cruise missile atack, oops, Moskva part two?”
It has recently been revealed that the United States has given Ukraine the AGM-88 High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM). This was not acknowledged beforehand, but it was admitted by the U. S. after wreckage of HARM missile bodies was shown off by the Russians. It’s conceivable that parts of the Russian air defense system was taken out by HARMs first, providing a corridor through which the Neptunes could fly.
“I keep recalling the high number of senior Russian field officers killed, and I wonder if there isn’t a weapon system involved that we civilians know nothing about. One that is too secret to risk using extensively, but too effective to forgo using altogether?”
I think the strikes against multiple command posts and over 50 ammo dumps can be adequately explained by GMLRS. In fact, they are perfect applications of those weapons.
I think what we are seeing here is just how out-matched the Russians are. The Ukrainians have been holding their own with Soviet-era weapons. Now that they are getting some of our Gulf / Iraq-war-era weapons, they are starting to inflict some serious damage on the Russians. If the Russians were to face an entire military with those weapons, they’d be completely out-classed.
But our current weapons are a whole generation ahead of the Gulf / Iraq-war-era weapons. I’ve said it here before, but it bears repeating: If America were to face the Russians in Ukraine, it could roll-up the entire Russian army in a month. That’s with its current weapons.
But let me expand on that. Within a decade, America will leap ahead another generation of weapons while, with the sanctions now in place, Russia’s capability will actually recede. So within ten years, America will be able to roll-up the entire Russian army in a *day*.
And I’m being literal, not hyperbolic, in that assessment.
mkent:
Regarding the HARM systems being used against the Roosian radar assets. The Roosians have to light up the radar and you have to have something (usually a manned asset) close enough to send the HARM downrange (80 miles max).
Not something you can load onto a smallish drone that the Ukrainians usually use. HARM is 13 ft long, and weighs 783 lbs,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-88_HARM
Fog of war but it would seem to require a big strike package? Good to hear the Ukrainians are using them to degrade the Roosian systems.
mkent:
Be ready to defend yourself: 13 minutes, and Vlad is fighting the WEF/NWO/NATO/Davos cabal.
I need to walk back my statement above a little bit. I don’t think the US has admitted to providing Ukraine with HARMs per se — just with anti-radiation missiles. But HARM is the most likely candidate.
“Not something you can load onto a smallish drone that the Ukrainians usually use. “
Correct. If HARM is being employed, it’s likely launched from a manned aircraft such as an Su-24 or MiG-29. It would take a few months to integrate HARM onto a new aircraft, but given the interface documents, the Ukrainians have enough aerospace expertise to do it.
I’m not wedded to the idea that HARMs were used in the Saki attack, but it would explain why incoming Neptunes weren’t shot at, if indeed Neptunes were used in the attack.
Note also that an air-defense radar in southern Belarus went up in smoke today, so Saki isn’t an isolated incident — just the one most distant from the front lines.
The more the evidence, even somewhat flimsy evidence, points to various munitions, the more the Ukes should hint about spec ops and sleepers.
More to worry about.
Exaggeration for effect:
Suppose the head of Chicago’s DPW concluded that every employee had to be screened to see if grandparents, or spouse’s grandparents, had been born in Indiana. Those who were so discovered were no longer to be allowed to drive heavy equipment or be allowed near DPW fueling facilities.
For the OCD types, this is a hyperbolic analogy. Use it to picture what various levels of Russian command might think they have to do or be ordered to do. Who’s driving the local equivalent of the Gordons Food Service truck and what do we/should we know about him? Somebody’s going to be assigned to that question and will not be doing whatever else he’d been paid to do.
And if we can’t vet the guys what rearrangements do we make? Meet him outside the gate and transfer his load to a Russian military truck?
And if it turns out the Russians are ignoring the whole thing…well, that’s a dandy thing to know, isn’t it?
It’s a war. No one says anything.
Apparently, Putin has been hiding this war. That will be harder when all the Russian Vacationers come flocking home.