Has Ukraine 'Prevented' Russia From Using Its Navy?
Has Ukraine 'Prevented' Russia From Using Its Navy?
We're overstating Ukraine's capabilities, which could lead us to give poor military advice
It is a good thing that Russia’s fleet no longer looms over Ukraine’s coast. But let’s not get carried away with USV Fever.
This Pentagon analysis of the situation in the Black Sea is nonsense:
The Russian Naval presence in the Black Sea off the coast of Crimea has been decimated and simply “prevented” from operating in the region, a Ukrainian tactical and strategic accomplishment which prevents Russian forces from launching missile strikes from sea or conducting any amphibious assaults.
In a background discussion with reporters, a Senior Pentagon official said the Russian Navy has been cleared out of or removed from waters near Crimea.
Many recall the Russian amphibious assault off the coast of Odessa in the early days of the Russia-Ukraine war, yet it seems quite significant that there has not been another attempted Russian amphibious attack since.
Let’s put this situation in context.
First, Russia’s amphibious capability was low at the start of the war, even if you add in helicopters flying in troops from Crimea.
Russia’s amphibious threat to Odessa was premised on the assumption of the entire invasion that Ukrainians wouldn’t resist the invasion. Landings at Odessa were only really feasible if they were greeted as liberators like the ground invasion forces required from Ukrainians to succeed. Otherwise the troops landed would need to be relieved by overland advances of the invasion force. We saw what happened at Hostomel Airport when small lightly armed Russian troops were not rescued quickly by advancing overland forces.
Second, the decimation of Russia’s warships, while knocking out half of the “warship force”, wasn’t that many overall given the small size of the Black Sea Fleet. The war started in February 2022. The pace of losses isn’t exactly breathtaking, is it?
And that success has relied on Western naval surveillance data, no?
Third, have these losses “prevented” Russia from operating off the coast of Ukraine? Or have the Russians decided that no mission in the war Russia is in now justifies risking ships off the coast of Ukraine?
A small amphibious landing no longer makes sense in this firepower phase of the war as opposed to the planned parade phase. Russia doesn’t need to operate off the coast of Ukraine to fire missiles at Ukrainian territory. Russia has used its Black Sea Fleet vessels to bombard Ukraine from positions away from the Ukrainian coast.
So while Ukraine has not had to face Russian ships operating off the coast of Ukraine, it seems likely—as I noted in this post—that Russia has decided losses aren’t worth any objective Russia might achieve by committing their fleet to those waters. I mean, Russia has proven it is willing to lose men and materiel on the land front at horrifying levels for marginal tactical gains in the hope that if enough of those are accumulated it will lead to operational and then strategic success.
Ukraine should be careful about their coastal defenses because that calculation of costs versus benefits could change overnight.
If we take this Ukrainian achievement as a real lesson that can be generalized, will we decide suicide unmanned surface vessels (USVs) are the anti-ship weapon of the future? This conclusion seems very wrong. If you have the surveillance network, I think conventional weapons like anti-ship missiles, torpedoes, and mines are superior to slow-moving surface USVs.
And the author of the initial article recognizes that the reason the USVs succeeded as much as they did was the ISR network they were plugged into:
The extent of the targeting achieved by Unmanned Surface Vessels depends upon the extent to which the USVs were networked to one another and to other multi-domain nodes such as land-based command and control, satellites, aerial drones and surveillance aircraft.
Much of that was provided by NATO. There’s a reason the Russians sometimes throw elbows at NATO ISR planes flying over the Black Sea over international waters.
And God help us if we force Taiwan to base their defense on Ukraine’s “success” As I’ve noted, Ukraine’s kill record is almost irrelevant to Taiwan because that’s something Taiwan will need to inflict in the first hour of a war—and every hour after that for at least a day—and not over more than 2-1/2 years.
And even that might not be enough if the main invasion force isn’t coming from the sea. I’m just not convinced the Taiwanese are determined to fight on in adversity after the PLA makes it ashore.