Ukrainian Bombers Drop Storm Shadow Cruise Missiles From Low Altitude. They Could Go Lower.
A new video depicts at least one Sukhoi Su-24 dropping Storm Shadows from around 2,000 feet.
The first public video of Ukrainian air force Sukhoi Su-24 bombers firing British-made Storm Shadow cruise missiles in combat hints at how the Ukrainians are using the 2,900-pound missiles.
They’re launching them at low altitude. But they could go even lower.
The video depicts what appears to be a pair of swing-wing Su-24M/MRs, at least one of which clutches two Storm Shadows. The bombers are flying low—perhaps lower than 2,000 feet—when at least one of them drops both of its Storm Shadows.
The missiles free-fall for a few tens of feet before their stowed wings deploy and their turbojet engines switch on. A GPS-guided Storm Shadow ranges nearly 200 miles with a thousand-pound tandem warhead. Each missile is usually accurate to with a few feet of its aim-point.
Flying low, sometimes very low, is how Ukrainian pilots survive in what is one of the most dangerous air-defense environments in the world. The Russian air force’s S-400 surface-to-air missiles and R-37M air-to-air missiles range far enough to hit Ukrainian planes practically anywhere in Ukraine from launch points near the front line. But not if the planes hug the ground, where they can hide among the radar clutter.
But low means different things to different pilots. According to missile-maker MBDA, a Storm Shadow can be dropped from as low as 500 feet. Dropping it from 2,000 feet actually is pretty conservative.
It might be indicative of the Ukrainians’ confidence that they’re not launching Storm Shadows from just a few hundred feet over the ground. It’s worth noting that Ukrainian forces—including those Storm Shadow-armed Su-24s—relentlessly are targeting Russian air-defenses in occupied southern Ukraine, the Su-24s’ main hunting ground.
In recent months, Ukrainian drones and missiles have knocked out several S-300 and S-400 air-defense batteries in southern Ukraine, and may also have hit the sole S-500 battery in the Russian inventory.
The fraying of the Russian air-defense network in and around Crimea could explain how a Ukrainian bomber can launch a cruise missile from 2,000 feet instead of 500 feet—and survive.
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