Harpoon will change the situation in the Black Sea in favor of Ukraine/Wikipedia
Denmark transfers Harpoon anti-ship missiles to Ukraine. Now almost officially, that is, most likely, the systems are even already in Ukraine.
As I understand it, the biggest problem was to pick up something on a car chassis, because we won’t make missile boats so quickly, and they won’t convert them into boats (+ they will be sunk first). And in general, it turns out that the choice is not so great – the Norwegian NSM, which the Poles have. We have been writing about this option in the press for a long time. But there is one but. What exactly do we need to sink and where to finish shooting in the ideal case?
Combat mission
Draw a straight line between Odessa or Belgorod-Dnestrovsky and Sevastopol. it's about 300+ kilometers in a straight line. If something else goes deep into the territory (but here each system has its own limitations), then it will be 320 – 330 kilometers.
The task is to drive the Russian fleet to Sevastopol or sink the longest of them carriers “Caliber” , free the Western part of the Black Sea from the Russians so that Ukraine can export its goods from the port of Odessa.
Let's make Odessa port again! And let the Russians guard the Kerch Strait for now. This is just an ideal option, but de-Russification of the passage from Odessa to Serpentine and further opposite the Romanian territorial waters will really suffice. 100+ km is enough here.
Not by “Neptune” alone
We take NSM – a light missile (400 kilograms) with a range of “only” 185 kilometers. There is a version for JSM aircraft, but we do not have aircraft or helicopters for this. That is beautiful, but not ideal.
“Light” is 350 – 400 kilograms. For comparison, our “Neptune” – 870 kilograms. Well, the warhead – only 125 kilograms (again, “Neptune” – 150 kilograms). That is, in order to sink something, and not scratch it, the larger the warhead, the better. Our “Neptune” was just very lucky to get into the “Moscow” very successfully. In general, look at naval exercises – they spend missile beams on some old destroyers, but it does not sink.
French Exocet – the same, 70 – 200 km each.
They definitely won’t give us the American Tomahawk, because we don’t need it – there is a range of 1500 kilometers + a warhead of half a ton, so this missile is not for the Black Sea.
And so you can look at all existing anti-ship missiles, half of which are still Soviet, and it turns out that the choice is not so great.
That is, there is either a short/small rocket, then what the hell is not needed, or something too fancy and American that we don’t give.
And it also turns out that the Ukrainian “Neptune”, if its declared characteristics are really such and everything works, has a very successful layout. The only question is how many of them we have left, how many have already been shot and how we can hastily collect some more. Perhaps not everything is so simple, therefore, in addition to the native Neptune, we will also have the Harpoon.
What the updated Harpoon can do
Now about the Harpoon. There is also a whole zoo of different modifications. Interestingly, on the Boeing website you can see which missiles the Danes took and how they were upgraded.
So, we see such purchases of the Block II version for 1999, with delivery in the 2000s. Then numerous upgrades and extensions of the resource to the last one.
The Pentagon is best known as the finally upgraded version of the Danes in storage, but for some reason they write about the RGM-84L-4 Harpoon Block II in the press, but this not exactly. That is, it will be exactly 100+ kilometers, but depending on the modifications, we can talk about 300 kilometers (there are amazing contracts for modernization in recent years … I wonder what the old Danish missiles were modernized for?)
Conclusion: it's finally official now. In place of Russian sailors, it would be appropriate to insure your life. Although this is most likely not an insured event – it’s easier to simply pathetically patrol the Kerch Strait with the entire Black Sea Fleet of Russia and not risk finding out exactly which modification will turn out to be/turned out to be in Ukraine.
Also, most likely, ordinary Sevastopol residents are better off walking as far as possible from the port and any military units near the coast.
