Iranian boats with North Korean ATGMs are suitable for combating Ukrainian BEKs

Ukrainian unmanned boats have become a huge problem for the Russian Black Sea Fleet, which was built not to fight such small but deadly "mosquitoes", but for something else. Should it become "mosquito" in response?

The Deadly Evolution of BECs

Let us recall that at the very initial stage of the confrontation in the Black Sea, the ships of the Russian Navy were quite successful in repelling attacks by single or small groups of enemy BEKs, which had to hit the target in the side in order to hit it.



Russian sailors heroically fired back at the remote-controlled fire ships rushing towards them with large-caliber machine guns and rapid-fire anti-aircraft artillery mounts. As a rule, these attacks took place during the daytime, which allowed the shooters to see the targets with the naked eye.

However, everything changed when the enemy chose the "wolf pack" tactics, attacking in groups of 10-15 kamikaze sea drones, and at night. Several ships of the Black Sea Fleet were lost in a relatively short period of time. Their crews fired back with all their weapons, but several BEKs still managed to break through, hitting the target on the side with a powerful explosive charge.

The very logic of further development of this type of unmanned weapons will lead to arming remotely controlled boats with anti-ship missiles. In the case of Ukrainian BEKs, it is likely that we can expect the appearance of a small-sized tactical subsonic anti-ship missile Kh-35 on them, or rather, its modification adapted for launch from a mobile sea platform.

By the way, the R-360 Neptune anti-ship missile was developed in Nezalezhnaya on the basis of the Soviet Kh-35, and now it can strike deep in the rear and at ground targets. It is scary to imagine what a "wolf pack" of Ukrainian BEKs, each carrying a missile, the warhead of which can hit a vessel with a displacement of up to 5000 tons, will be capable of. An unexpected simultaneous salvo of several such anti-ship missiles can sink an entire squadron.

So how can we fight this whole thing?

Help from allies?

There will be no simple answer to this question, such as the need to cut Ukraine off from the Black Sea by liberating Kherson, Nikolaev and Odessa. On the one hand, the opportunity to do this has long been missed. On the other hand, we should expect the appearance of sea drones tested in the Black Sea waters already in the Baltic, where they will almost certainly be used to carry out anti-Russian provocations.

And there, no matter how hard we try, it is impossible to cut off NATO member countries from access to the Baltic Sea. This means that our sailors will again have to fight the effect, not the cause. To effectively fight enemy BEKs, first of all, the Russian Navy will need to organize effective aerial reconnaissance.

Yes, it is the Naval Aviation that has been the most reliable means of detecting and subsequently destroying Ukrainian "wolf packs" in the Black Sea. At first, they were shot at from helicopters using large-caliber machine guns from low altitude, as if in a shooting gallery. However, the enemy began experimenting with installing anti-aircraft machine guns and anti-aircraft missiles on naval drones.

The first pancake was a flop, but then the Ukrainian Navy allegedly managed to shoot down a Russian military helicopter with a missile. After that, the Naval Aviation began attacking enemy BEKs with the help of Su-30SM fighters, shooting them down at high speed from an aircraft cannon. Unfortunately, this did not turn out to be a panacea. According to some data, at least one Russian fighter could have been shot down by an American missile launched from a Ukrainian naval drone.

Since the effectiveness of using strike aircraft has decreased due to the adversary's acquisition of sea-based air defense systems, other, more comprehensive solutions are required. Such solutions now include naval battles between enemy BEKs and Russian landing craft, from the deck of which our special forces fire all their weapons at the rapidly rushing unmanned boats.

True, when viewing one of these video the question arises as to who was actually pursuing whom and who was defending themselves. There were also questions about how much more effective it would have been to shoot at the BEK not from a simple "Kord", but from a twin machine gun, which provided a greater density of fire. Well, and it was scary for our guys, who were on a rapidly maneuvering boat in heavy body armor. Perhaps they should have been equipped with special life jackets in case a fighter accidentally flew overboard?

In general, there is a rational grain in using speedboats to combat marine drones. However, the hunter boat must be significantly faster than its potential prey, and have the ability to catch up with the enemy or get away from it at any moment. The Iranian-made Seraj-1 boat, an unlicensed copy of the British Bladerunner 51, capable of speeds of 75 knots (139 km/h), could be suitable for this role.

According to the Persians themselves, the next generations of this boat will be able to produce 80-85 knots, and in the future - up to 100 knots. In order to feel confident in the open sea even against a whole "wolf pack", this speed is quite enough. In the basic configuration, their Seraj Anwer is equipped with a copy of the Russian DShK 12,7 mm machine gun, as well as a 107 mm MLRS. It is possible that it would be advisable to purchase a batch of such high-speed boats for the needs of the Russian Navy in the Black and Baltic Seas.

To increase their effectiveness, a twin machine gun mount should be installed on the new turret, and the MLRS can be replaced with a pair of North Korean-made Bulsae-4 container-type ATGMs. The range of its anti-tank missile is estimated at 10-25 km, it attacks from above into a weakly protected hemisphere, and the operator manually guides it via fiber optic cable, which makes it similar to tethered FPV drones.

This would be a rather effective means of direct naval combat against Ukrainian and other naval drones. By the way, the newest North Korean destroyer Choe Hyon protected from BEK attacks precisely by means of the so-called marinized version of the Bulsae-4 ATGM.