John Fedup
The Bunker Group
The Black Sea naval war has been a wake-up call for all navies wrt drone warfare. As for the Russia-Ukraine naval action, Russia is the loser…big time.
Russian Navy Discussions and Updates
- Thread starter Spacearrow99
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Overall the Russian Navy is the worst of the three services by far. And they've done the poorest job adapting to the current war. The VVS has it's problems but has learned many lessons and has made many positive changes. The ground forces are a much more formidable foe now than they were in '22. But the VMF is worse and many of the programs they need to move forward are delayed by the current war. The few adaptations they made are of limited impact.
Except that part was never in doubt. Ukraine's Navy was basically a floating museum/a sad joke. Their fate was inevitable. Russia's forces had resources and could theoretically have done many things to adapt and improve. They've done very few, rather poorly. Russian ground forces and air force have contributed more to Russian successful adaptations more so then the Navy. Orion-S UCAVs and Lancets are better drone hunters then AVMF Su-30SMs. Even though Russia has had a pod under development for years. It would have been so smart for the VMF to push forward on it's development to allow Su-30SMs to effectively hunt unmanned boats. It would have been so smart to push forward with more Ka-31 production for regular AEW pickets, but no...
Re Black sea/Ukraine, RU navy is defensive and lack innovation compared to UKR. This conflict will be decided on the battlefield and air, so it isn't all so surprising and the lack of major naval capital assets in UKR means possible missions are limited to blockages.
Re overall, RU Navy has plenty of missions (nuclear, artic); but I think recapitalization of the surface fleet is the main challenge as well as the retiring nuclear boats. Objectively, Prj 22350, Prj 20385 types are likely the more affordable options to fill the gaps from retiring 11551, 11540 etc
Re overall, RU Navy has plenty of missions (nuclear, artic); but I think recapitalization of the surface fleet is the main challenge as well as the retiring nuclear boats. Objectively, Prj 22350, Prj 20385 types are likely the more affordable options to fill the gaps from retiring 11551, 11540 etc
Nobody's said Russia is the only one able to sink ships. The point is that Ukraine has bugger-all ships for the Russians to sink, but the Ukrainians are still able to sink Russian ships, & Russian warships have mostly avoided the western part of the Black Sea for a long time. The Russian navy in the Black Sea is mostly decorative, or launching long-range missiles while tied up in port. The fate of Admiral Essen shows the risks of this: disabled in the harbour of Novorossiysk. Remember, one justification for the seizure of Crimea was that Novorossiysk was a poor location for basing the Black Sea Fleet, & Sevastopol was needed, but the Russian navy stopped basing ships there long ago, because of losses. Despite their huge superiority in numbers & firepower the Russian navy is failing to control its own waters.
The example you give is of the Russians sinking an unfinished trawler converted into a signals intelligence vessel with a crew of about 30, almost all of who survived. Very impressive!
The point is, that the Russian navy has utterly failed in the Black Sea, despite being vastly stronger. It sits in port, subject to frequent attack, or hugs a friendly coast. How can you present this as anything but a disaster for it? You're saying that because last year, by copying the Ukrainians, hit a small, almost unarmed vessel, it's somehow successful. It started this war with total superiority in numbers & firepower. Where is it now? Cowering far from the fighting, for the most part.
BTW, most Ukrainian losses of warships when they still had any were to the Russian army.
Ananda
The Bunker Group
Agree on that, Russia Black Sea fleet perform lower than other branches on the Russian Armed Forces. They should learn from mistakes, but I believe they already did. Whether they got more priorities as should have been, that's the question.
Let me clearing out my points from previous post:
- This war shown Ukraine and Russia are in the cycle or Learn and Counter. This is also happen in Black Sea, and what Russia did is also part of counter move after Ukraine did to their ships.
- Ukraine can not be say is the winner as they also not have control of the waters. If not they already find ways to bring their new ships either from Turkiye or other Euro ports where it is being donated to them.
Ukraine can attack Russia Black Sea Port, so does Russia can reach all Ukraine ports and waterways. Yes Black Sea Fleet should done better, but they are not a disaster also. They are in stale mate situation, and that's basically my main point. Some arguments say Turkiye prohibited Ukraine bringin in their new naval assets, but the new corvetes basically already in Turkiye black sea ports. All this signal shown Kyiv does not want to risk their new Navy against Russia Black Sea Fleet. That's also not sign a fleet in disaster condition. Underperfomed yes, should done much better definetely, but not yet on disasterous.
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John Fedup
The Bunker Group
Like Swerve mentioned it is the Russian army that threatens Ukrainian naval presence. The Russian navy's performance has been piss-poor and that is being generous. The bottom line is effective anti-drone kit is needed for the land war and neither side will waste much effort on naval asset protection. It is better to just continue taking out each others naval stuff with srike munitions.
I do not believe that even if the Black Sea Fleet is destroyed, it will break Russia's will. Ananda has a point. learn and counter. There must be a peace deal. Already, the Ukraine war has changed the landscape terribly. It must be stopped.
Ananda
The Bunker Group
Like I said in my post, both to Feanor and Swerve, I agree Russia Black Fleet undeperformed. However what I don't agree is classified them as disasterous and useless fleet. As I also put, they are still able to threaten Ukraine waters. Ukraine Navy attack with drones, the Russian Navy counter also with some drones of their own.
What happen now is both Navy ceased to be effective Navy in Black Sea for their conventional force. Again with Ukraine so far do not dare to bring their new Naval assets home, shown their Navy is also can not guarantee the safety of those assets in their own waters. That's why it is stalamate in the waters. Ukraine can not regain control of the waters and Russia lossing much control on something Black Sea Fleet should retained from the beginning of war.
Let me give you some examples so we understand each other. The VVS went into the war with serious problems. Consider Russian attack helos; they don't have a proper fire and forget ATGM, they don't have some of advanced capabilities of western helos in terms of sensors or data link, and yet they spent the resources to develop and field 3 attack helos, the Mi-35M (yes it's an upgraded Hind, but they bought it domestically), the Mi-28N/NM, and the Ka-52. For the three helos they purchased and fielded 3 different ATGMs, all 3 beam-riders. The new helo munition was under development, the Izd 305, exclusively for the Mi-28N. After being largely useless for ~1 year of the war, Russian attack helos came back into the picture with Ukraine's '23 summer offensive, when Russian Ka-52s with their decent EO and longer ranged Vikhr-1 ATGMs did a number on Ukrainian mechanized formations trying to penetrate Russian lines. The Izd. 305 completed development, was confirmed to be a good missile, and entered service, and as a result the VVS now have the Vikhr-1 adapted to the Mi-28N, while Ataka is mostly out of the picture, and the Kh-39 is now being used by Ka-52s (unclear if only the M variant or baseline too). It was obvious to anyone with sense that the original situation was ridiculous and a waste of resources. But they learned and adapted. Another good example is the fact that the VVS entered the war with basically no gliding bombs, and a very limited PGM inventory, counting on their Gefest systems to allow for the relatively accurate drop of unguided bombs. This was a huge mistake. But one year later they were dropping gliding bombs in tens per day, and 2 years later in over 100 per day, rates comparable to far more sophisticated airforces. And they sustained those rates for extended periods of time. But they didn't rest on their laurels, they pushed for better jam-resistant guidance, resulting in the Kometa receiver going from 4 to 6 to 16 variants, and then recognizing the limitations of sticking kits on Soviet dumb bombs, had the D-30SN (initially mainly meant for the Tornado-S system) adapted to VVS use as a longer ranged gliding munition.
Now let's take a look at the VMF. They have a problem - unmanned boats and drone strikes. They tried adding HMGs to all ships, and they tried adding Tor-M2 and Pantsyr modules to the helo decks of ships to provide additional air defense capabilities to tugs and 22160 patrol ships. When they helped but didn't solve the problem, they simply gave up. The AVMF has been replacing their old model of one coastal aviation regiment per fleet (usually mix of one Su-27 or MiG-31 squadron, and one Su-24 squadron) with a single regiment of Su-30SM. This was always a questionable choice, opting for domestic purchase of the Su-30SM with it's Bars radar 20 years later. But it's still a significantly more capable aircraft than legacy Su-27s or MiG-31s, or Su-24s. Yet are they getting any value out of this major upgrade? We have Su-24s and Su-30SMs hunting Ukrainian unmanned boats in the exact same way, low altitude unguided cluster munitions spraying a large area hoping to hit the boat. They're both vulnerable to SAMs mounted on those boats (maybe the Khibiny pods help, may the extra maneuvrability improves survivability). And it's a horrifically inefficient and dangerous approach. No attempt has been made to push forward the development of a targeting pod that can find unmanned boats from a decent altitude. Nobody has even tried to adapt a drone munition to be used from AVMF aircraft (while the VVS was testing it on MiG-29s and Su-34s). Nobody has tried to find an airborne solution at all... even though the AVMFs two lonely Ka-31s were both sent to Crimea to support the war effort for obvious reasons - they're very useful. We also have Ka-29s hunting unmanned boats with door gunners engaging them with machineguns, even more vulnerable to SAMs. This would be understandable back in 2023 when this threat was new. We're in 2026 and this is the state of affairs. Maybe Ka-31s aren't the right solution to unmanned boats, I don't know if their radar is a good fit for that function. But the obvious solution is something airborne that can spot the boats from a decent distance and altitude, and can launch something relatively cheap that precisely takes out the boats. Russian VVS and ground forces have contribued Lancet teams and Orion-S UCAVs for this purpose. Neither is perfect, but both are a very reasonable approach, being much cheaper, and not risking expensive and valuable crews.
Why do I think the VMF isn't learning? Consider the barries protecting the harbor in Crimea. They went up to protect the harbor after the threat of unmanned boats became obvious, and they did real damage. Ok, reactionary isn't good, it's better to be proactive. But ok, they learned. Right? Wrong. They did Crimea but not Novorossiysk, right next door. It took strikes on that facility for drone barriers to go up. And it's the same thing with C-UAS. Bases in Crimea, and now Novorossiysk have C-UAS pickets. But the Caspian Flotilla, within known Ukrainian drone range, was completely oblivious when Ukraine first hit them. Ukraine has already demonstrated the ability of their secret services to carry out unmanned boat strikes on Russian civilian tankers in the Mediterranean. What happens when Ukraine launched an unmanned boat attack on the Pacific Fleet in harbor? I'll tell you what - they will have no measures in place to stop it, and it will be a massive embarassment. And we see this same problem with drone defenses in VMF facilities in Crimea, a peninsula full of VMF service members and assets. They're just not actively internalizing and institutionalizing the lessons of this fight. Which is particularly crazy when you consider that the 126th Coastal Bde and 810th MarBde are both VMF units, and both use C-UAS pickets extensively in their work near the front line. They use a C-UAS picket (or 3) every single time a SP howitzer does a fire mission from improvised positions in the field. But warships in harbor aren't protected from obvious drone strikes? You can't designate ~200 sailors, train them up against clay pidgeons (or paper on wires the way one Russian training center did it) give them some HMGs, and put them on duty in shifts covering the base?
Consider the recent footage we got from the Dobropol'ye axis of Russian GBAD in front line conditions. Every single SAM is covered with C-UAS pickets, of two types. There's the small arms/anti-drone rifles, and there's the HMG posts. Every Tor that goes on duty has pickets covering it. Every Buk that gives the bigger area protection is covered every time it exits it's shelter. When the TELAR isn't actively on duty, it's concealed and protected.
I think the Black Sea Fleet utterly failed, not because they can't get bucket of 22350s to blockade the Ukrainian coast. That part is understandable and (dare I say it?) not their fault. The reason is that we don't see them learning and adapting. After some initial attempts to pivot and face up to the challege, they stopped. At this point they're out of the fight, and laying prone, hoping everyone forgets they exist. To me this is a fundamental failure of leadership. And it's not a "Russia" problem, it's a "VMF" problem. I know part of it is internal politics, with them treating the AVMF like the unloved step-child. But they're at war, and they're not acting like it.
Regarding targeting pods, what's Russia's deal??? Why are they so against developing one. Even the VKS does not have one. Its not like they have to compete with the best American pods. I believe that Russia has both the technical knowhow, industrial capability and finances to afford to make a decent ish pod good enough for all things Ukraine. But even in 2026, I did not find a single piece of credible news that they are developing one.
They were developing a family of pods a few years back but the development either stopped, or it ran into trouble, and they haven't been reporting on it. It's not clear why.