The ‘Storm Shadow’ and ‘Scalp-EG’ long-range air-to-ground cruise missiles provided to Ukraine by the UK and France last year succeeded in ‘pinpoint striking’ one after another major targets, including Russian landing ships. It is attracting attention. These missiles, which have been deployed in the Ukraine war since June of last year, fly relatively low, making it difficult for the enemy to detect and intercept, and can precisely strike targets up to 250 km away.
In the early morning of December 26 last year, the Ukrainian military launched a long-range air-to-ground cruise missile attack on the southern port city of the Krum Peninsula and sank the large landing ship ‘Novocherkassk’ belonging to the Russian Black Sea Fleet. The Norocherkassk is a Lopucha-class landing ship, similar to the Minsk, which was destroyed in an attack on Ukraine in September last year.
Storm Shadow long-range air-to-ground cruise missile provided by the UK to Ukraine. It can precisely strike targets up to 250km away. /MBDA Corporation
It has a displacement of 3,450 tons and can transport more than 200 landing troops and 25 armored vehicles. It is known that at the time of the sinking, it was transporting Iranian-made Shahed suicide drones, which are being used in large quantities to attack Ukraine. Previously, in September of last year, the Ukrainian military fired 10 Storm Shadows, striking the Russian Black Sea Fleet and sinking (devastating) one Lopucha-class landing ship and one Kilo-class submarine.
A photo of a Kilo-class submarine being destroyed by a Storm Shadow missile attack became a hot topic online. In July of last year, Storm Shadow attacked the 58th Army reserve command post where Russian Lieutenant General Oleg Chokov was located and succeeded in killing him.
‘Storm Shadow’ and ‘Scalp EG’, which are active in attacks against Russia, are air-to-ground cruise missiles jointly developed by the UK and France and have been deployed since 2002. The UK calls it ‘Storm Shadow’ and France calls it ‘Scalp-EG’, but it is the same missile with a different name.
It is 5.1m long, 48cm in diameter, and has a warhead weight of 450kg out of the total weight of 1.3t. It is a subsonic missile with a maximum speed of 1000 km/h. The maximum range is 560 km, but export use is limited to 250 km, so only the 250 km range is provided to Ukraine.
The Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), a non-profit private organization that tracks Russian military activities, revealed the wrecked image of a Russian Kilo-class submarine on its Telegram channel in September 2023. It is reported that it was hit by the Ukrainian military’s Storm Shadow missile. /Dispute Information Team Social Media
It is launched from a fighter-bomber, a ship, or a submarine, is guided by GPS, inertial navigation system (INS), and digital terrain contrast, and flies at a low altitude of 30 to 40 meters to avoid enemy radar networks. In the final stage, it can hit stationary or moving ground targets or ships with its own infrared guidance. The accuracy is excellent, within 1m. To date, a total of more than 3,000 missiles have been produced, and in addition to the orders from the UK and France, which were joint developers, more than 1,700 missiles have been exported overseas.
It is pointed out that the performance of long-range air-to-ground missiles in the Ukraine War has many implications for the South Korean military’s operations against North Korea in times of emergency. Our Air Force owns about 260 Taurus air-to-ground missiles, which have a longer range and are more powerful than Storm Shadow and Scalp-EG, purchased from Germany’s MBDA.
The maximum range of Taurus is about 500 km, which is twice that of Storm Shadow and Scalp-EG provided to Ukraine. It is also known to have the most powerful penetration capability among existing long-range air-to-ground cruise missiles. Thanks to the special ammunition (double warhead) called ‘MEPHISTO’, it consists of a penetrating warhead and a penetrating warhead, and uses an intelligent fuse to explode the bomb at an appropriate time according to the target characteristics.
Mephisto can penetrate reinforced concrete up to 6 meters thick. When attacking North Korea’s underground facilities, the penetrating warhead explodes first, causing the penetrating warhead to burrow beneath the surface. The intelligent fuse recognizes empty space within the underground facility, slows down the explosion of the penetrating warhead, and then explodes at the point of explosion. For ground targets, both penetrating and penetrating warheads explode simultaneously, destroying the target.
Maintenance workers are examining the long-range air-to-ground cruise missile ‘TAURUS’ mounted on an F-15K fighter jet at the 11th Fighter Wing hangar in Daegu in 2016. /air Force
Considering these capabilities of the Taurus, military authorities plan to mainly use it to strike North Korea’s nuclear and missile underground facilities and war leadership in case of emergency. Accordingly, North Korea is also showing a sensitive response to the point where it requested Germany, the producer of the Taurus, to stop exporting it through a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2016.
Military authorities are also developing the Korean Taurus long-range air-to-ground cruise missile (maximum range 550 km) to be installed on the KF-21 Korean fighter jet, targeting 2028. In September 2021, a video of a test firing of a Korean long-range air-to-ground missile was released for the first time.
It is said that calls for support for the Taurus, which has a longer range than Storm Shadow, are growing in Ukraine and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). When attacking a large bridge, Storm Shadow and Scalp penetrate the first layer of the bridge, but do not cause fatal damage to the bridge structure, so recovery is achieved within a short period of time.
It is known that this is why the Ukrainian military continues to attack the Chongar Bridge with Storm Shadow, launches SA-5 surface-to-air missiles on the Krum Bridge in a surface-to-surface manner, and deploys unmanned submarines. .
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2024-01-07 05:30:09
