A Ukrainian sport plane drone just flew 800 miles (1300 km) into Russia to blow up an oil refinery
It’s the deepest Ukrainian drone strike of the war, so far
A month after Ukraine began bombarding targets inside Russia with explosives-laden sports planes modified for remote flight, one of the do-it-yourself drones has struck an oil refinery in the city of Salavat, more than 800 miles from the front line of Russia’s wider war on Ukraine.
It is, by far, Ukraine’s longest-range raid—and an escalation of Ukraine’s deep-strike campaign targeting Russian refineries, factories and strategic military sites.
And it’s at least the fourth attempted deep strike involving Ukraine’s sport-plane drones. Videos shot by people on the ground in Salavat clearly depict the wide straight wings, fixed wheels and propeller that are typical of an inexpensive sport plane, the kind a middle-class pilot can build at home from a kit costing as little as $90,000.
I thought maybe the thumbnail was just some generic small plane, but nope. That's the same model that keeps making successful attacks in Russia. The Aeroprakt A-22. That little prop plane. Top speed 127 mph/204 kph. That's what Russia can't find and shoot down.
Girkin is in jail, you know, so now they have issues shooting down civilian aircraft
Which is most effective at evading Russian air defense? The F-35, an exquisitely designed $110M jet with among the best stealth that Lockheed Skunkworks can create, or the Ukrainian equivalent of a Cessna trainer aircraft?
Depends heavily on what air defense it's stacked against and who coordinated the mission.
Low speed, low altitude aircraft are excellent at evading higher end air defenses, particularly if you've scouted out the anti-air surveillance in advance.
Riminder the Bismarck wasnt critically damaged by top of the line aircraft, it was sunk by a bunch of biplanes which were effectively immune to its AA.
A great example, setting aside the fact that battleships have always been more trouble than they were worth.
Although, modern aircraft carriers are approaching that kind of outdated-ness. I'm genuinely curious to see what happens when America loses it's first $50B floating fortress.
Battlships filled roughly the same position heavy tanks once filled, big heavy hitters that could take a beating. But with the march of progress came their downfall, that and the adoption of different fleet tactics.
I suspect that the big Carriers will be replaced with something more akin to smaller carriers, kinda like what Japan uses. Though those are definitely just destroyers no carriers here. But yeah with VTOL large aircraft carriers will most likely end up being decommissioned or turned into portable hospitals or soemthing specifically the nuclear ones.
Saying they were always more trouble than they were worth is a bit of a miss though: They completely dominated for a period, to the point where entire columns would be redirected or kept in port if intelligence arrived saying that a certain battleship had left port and was on the hunt.
As for the "modern" aircraft carrier: I think it will remain viable until we see a fundamental paradigm shift in how naval warfare is conducted. A carrier is at the centre of a carrier strike group, and is probably one of the most well protected places on the planet at any time, and can move at over 40 knots. I have a hard time imagining what could locate and take out an alert carrier in reasonable distance from shore, other than another carrier group.
Bombers and long range torpedos spring to mind, particularly when the carrier is moving through a relatively right corridor, like the Red Sea.
The Houthis have already functionally shut down the Suez against commercial traffic just by threatening from the coast. And they're employing relatively unsophisticated artillery.
I specified "a reasonable distance from shore" because an important part of the point of a carrier is exactly that it can stay easily 100 km from shore and still strike far inland. If a carrier is in range of shore-based torpedoes, they've likely messed up long ago.
As for bombers: They're historically the major threat to carriers, but I don't see any modern developments that make modern bombers any more of a threat to modern carriers than WW2 era bombers were to WW2 era carriers.
Gets farther and farther away as long range artillery improves.
Jet engines have been a BFD for some time. They've forced significant investment in countermeasures, few of which have been tested in combat.
Long range artillery has pretty hard limits, and once you approach the 100km range, time to target becomes a real issue, even for missiles that can be shot down.
Modern anti-air hat a range of several hundred km, and has been combat tested. More short-range systems (< 50 km) are in use (with huge success) every day in Ukraine. Of course bombers have also improved, but I wouldn't put money on the bombers having improved relative to the AA.
Ps. I'm not the person downvoting you, I think you make a decent point, I just disagree :)
The Red Sea is at most 300 km wide, and tightens up quiet a bit as you approach the Suez.
And Iran has supersonic torpedos capable of closing that distance in very short order.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoot_(torpedo)
Anything that isn't reflexively nationalist gets an ambient amount of hate on Lemmy.world.
Is this essentially a piper cub or something entirely different?
Similar, yeah. More modern construction and side-by-side seating instead of tandem. But otherwise, similar size and weight.
They must have done something to it, because Wikipedia puts its max range as 680 miles.
Adding a 5 gallons gas tank isn't that hard.
Empty weight 260 kg. So a normal Pilot 70-80 kg adds 25-30% weight on top. Plus the weight for seat, steering wheels etc. So with a small payload they probably safe quite some weight.
Plis adding extra fuel tanks in spota for cargo/pilot etc. prob helps and striping it off anything unnecessary like seats breaks etc...
We aren't talking about the weight of the payload though. Don't you need a fairly hefty bomb to meaningfully damage a refinery?
If the answer is no, I would love to see this strategy implemented in a longer ranged plane. Russia's main tank production factory is about 2000 miles from the nominal Ukrainian border.
Total weight is crucial for how far a plane can fly. So - Pilot weight + Payload weight needs to be considered.
In terms of damage, if you hit the right spot without redundancies you can shut down or severely limit operations of a plant even with only a small material damage. Even if there is no visible damage, reducing the structural integrity of pressure pipes and the like can force a shutdown of that equipment until the damage is properly investigated.
In 2019 Houthis successfully attacked two Saudi refineries with a small swarm of drones, forcing a shutdown.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abqaiq%E2%80%93Khurais_attack
Good context, cheers
A refinery has a tank with millions of liters of gasoline. It already has the bomb. All you really need is a penetrator and an igniter.
Typically buried underground.
You… got a source for that?
Twenty years in O&G
Fifteen here. Underground tanks are not that common. They are a maintenance and environmental nightmare. But it would be nice if you could provide with any evidence other than “trust me bro”.
https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/2015/10/19/124674/on-edge-of-houston-underground-caverns-store-huge-quantities-of-natural-gas-liquids/
http://www.gazprominfo.com/articles/gas-storage/
Underground salt plumes are some of the most efficient natural forms of liquid and gas storage.
So all you need to do to build a tank is to move your entire facility to where natural geology favors not building a tank?
That still says nothing about the prevalence of above ground vs underground tanks.
Large storage facilities are located where geology makes storing energy underground cheap.
From the pictures on twitter damage seems pretty minimal.
Depends on where you drop it.
But otherwise, the headline is almost certainly overstated. It makes for some sexy war propaganda, though.
It does also show Russia that Ukraine is capable of bypassing their defenses and successfully attacking infrastructure (or military installations/encampments) several hundred kilometers inside Russia.
And doing it multiple times.
That's never been in doubt. It's been a war of attrition from day one.
The extended range in a gonzo mission is notable precisely because it's so desperate.
Slavi Ukraini! I hope they can fly 100 of these through.
This is kind of news I like to read. Go Ukraine!
Slava Ukraini, give them hell.
Awesome
Good. Fuck the blyats.
What? I thought they have reduced their oil refining? Not to mention, they've started to restrict oil exports(refined oil i believe) since these attacks have taken place all while increasing their unrefined oil exports. It feels like this is actually causing an impact, though definitely not something that directs directly to the front line, but this is long term damage and will make it harder for Russia to generate money.
How come they can't shoot it down before it arrives?
They're flying these in very low and slow, which is hard for SAM radars to detect and lock on to unless you're right up next to them -- and once they're past the front lines Russia doesn't have many (if any) point defense installations.
In fact I imagine that the economic impacts of these attacks may be a secondary goal, and the main intent is actually to force Russia to pull SAM systems off the front line and redeploy them across the Russian interior to defend facilities they thought were safely out of Ukraine's reach. The fewer defenses on the front line, the more capable Ukraine's air force is to support efforts on the ground.
Ukraine playing pro dota and forcing dire to ward their own jungle.
Ideally, they redeploy and still can't shoot the fuckers down lol
Russia's air defense had a backbone of Cold War era tech before the war started. Ukraine has been consistently plinking away at it. Most of it is naturally positioned near borders to prevent penetration. If you sneak past the coverage thins out quickly. Russia is a huge country so it's also understandable to not have high density coverage throughout.
At one point Russia had a great setup. But that time was long ago. And oil money going to modernization efforts means less yacht money. Air defense also isn't that critical when you're mostly concerned about beating up on small countries like Georgia and Chechnya that can't fight back.
I imagine it's too small, and perhaps made mostly of plastic and/or wood, so they might not show up on radar
Wood generally has enough water in it to show up on radar. Otherwise, there wouldn't be a point to expensive composite materials for stealth.
It's made of mostly metal, though.
That moment when anti-imperialism and climate activism align.
Idk about the fallout of exploding chemical refineries, especially explosives and fuel, but yeah it might be good long run if we cripple the industry.
Mathias Rust 1987
ffs
I thought the exact same thing! At the time, I'd heard rumors that the entirety of USSR's air defense was smoke and mirrors. This isn't helping to refute those decades old rumors, if there is anything to refute.
It is also possible that they chose not to shoot down the plane back then, because they didn't want a third world war and it became clear not to be a war plane.
Times change a few years later, but I wouldn't bank on that non-escalation theory here.
Korean Air flight 007
The difference there is that it didn't cross the border of a country where Russia was in the middle of an active invasion.
Again??
One more down, how many left?
He's a little confused, but he's got the spirit.