Russia's main rival, the U.S has a true blue water navy.
A blue-water navy is a maritime force that is capable of operating globally in deep waters
of open oceans and is not restricted to only operation near the nation's homeland or in
shallow waters.
The U.S operates more that 10 nuclear powered super carriers that enables it to project
power far away from its mainland.
American Carrier Strike Group can be used to enforce naval blockade which makes them
a strategic tool.
Russia doesn’t have a budget to have such a massive navy , especially it can’t field
& operate so many highly expensive super carriers like America.
Taking this into consideration, Russia has taken up a different approach to counter the
U.S Navy.
One of the main component of this strategy is the deployment of anti ship missiles along
the Russian coastline.
This consists of a two tire concept - the Bal E and Bastion mobile coastal defence missile
systems.
The Bal E maintains tactical defence of the coast, while the Bastion engages targets at
longer ranges.
In this video, Defense Updates analyzes how powerful is the Russian Bal E& Bastion coastal
anti ship missile system ?
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The Bal E is the successor to Soviet era Redu.
It is meant to provide cover to territorial waters, naval bases, other coastal infrastructure.
It is designated as SSC-6 ‘Sennight’ by NATO
The system’s development was lead by SC RPC Konstruktorskoye Byuro Mashynostroyeniya
and included more that 10 corporations.
Bal E is capable of performing its duties in daytime and at night even in adverse weather
conditions.
It includes up to two mobile command control centres, up to 4 self-propelled launching
vehicles and up to 4 transport and refuelling vehicles.
The system uses Kh-35E missile.
The Kh-35E missile is a subsonic weapon capable of reaching speeds of Mach 0.8–Mach 0.95.
The missile is designed for sea-skimming flight and is capable of hitting targets located
up to 75 mi or 120 km away.
It uses a turbofan engine for propulsion and is guided by an active radar seeker.
It has a low radar return because of its small size and stealthy characteristics.
A Bal E system can launch a total of 32 Kh-35E missiles with a maximum interval of up to
three seconds.
It can be made combat ready in less than 10 minutes.
The Bastion coastal defense system is designed to engage surface fighting ships and auxiliaries
vessels that are operating standalone or are part of a Task Force.
The system is in development since the late 1970s but after major delays, it entered the
service in 2010 when the first three systems were delivered to the Russia’s Black Sea
Fleet.
It is manufactured by the NPO Mashinostroyeniya rocket design bureau.
A typical Bastion battery is composed of 1or 2 command and control vehicles based on the
Kamaz 43101 6×6 truck, one support vehicle, 4 launcher vehicles based on the MZKT-7930
8×8 chassis each having two missiles, and 4 loader vehicles.
Because of the mobility the system can be hard to neutralize with a pre emptive strike.
Bastion is a distributed system and the launcher vehicles can be located up to 16 mi or 25
km away from the Command & Control vehicles.
After the launchers take up a particular position for the, they can be readied for firing within
5 minutes
The system uses the Yakhont anti-ship cruise missile.
The missile has a range of 75 mi or 120 km when using low altitude sea skimming flight
path and around 180 mi or 300 km when using a high - low altitude fight path in which
the missile flies at high altitude and changes to sea skimming trajectory in the terminal
phase of the flight.
The missile is fired vertically from the launchers.
It uses a solid-fuel rocket booster for initial acceleration and then employs a liquid-fuel
ramjet engine which enables it to achieve a sustained speed of Mach 2.5.
Because of the supersonic speed it is very hard to defend against.
It has a 250 kg semi-armour piercing Hight Explosive warhead.
Yakhont uses GLONASS for navigation during the initial flight stage and switches to active
radar guidance for terminal phase guidance.
Russian plan of deploying sophisticated anti ship costal defenses is a classic asymmetric
warfare strategy.
A attempted strike from sea against Russia will be countered through barrage of anti
ship missile.
These could extract huge amount of toll on the rival navy.
Even for the U.S Navy a confrontation like this will be hard to manage, since the cost
of an anti ship missile is minuscule when compared to U.S Navy warships like Arleigh
Burke class destroyer or Nimitz or Ford Super carrier.
Russia will be able to launch a volley of these missile from different directions and
having different trajectory making it very difficult to intercept all of them.
A saturation strike like this will most likely see some of these missile penetrating the
elaborate defenses of the American Carrier Strike Group.
It is highly likely that even a single shot from these missile could disable or even sink
a warship.
This is an effective defensive posturing that makes the Russian homeland seem, like a fortress..