Project 21631: Buyan-M missile ship

GarryB wrote:Russia has developed missile launchers based in shipping containers... which means any commercial truck can be used as a missile launching platform.

In a country with hundreds of thousands of trucks, not to mention tens of thousands of trains with probably millions of cargo containers in yards in storage, or moving around the place, they already have plenty of launch options... but they also need patrol boats and their patrol boats can carry more missiles too.

A river barge three shipping containers wide and ten shipping containers long can carry 30 x 4 missiles ready to fire... or they might be exercise bikes and bean bags in those shipping crates... the satellite wont be able to tell.

Good luck trying to destroy every shipping crate in Russia.

As tempting as those promotional videos of the Kalibr missiles from 15 years back were, all such schemes will amount to rather nasty violations of the Geneva Convention and there's 0 chance of Russia putting missiles into shipping containers or whatever

Someone like the Houthis or Hezbollah, on the other hand..

We are not talking about them here. I don't see the point.

Russia should build missile boats that have very low value in a real war as shown in Ukraine because they have civilian containers able to to launch missiles ? What's the logic ?

And even if they are invisible, roads offer the possibility to either come closer or find the best launching position than a river. Those containers can go on a truck.

Isos wrote:We are not talking about them here. I don't see the point.

Russia should build missile boats that have very low value in a real war as shown in Ukraine because they have civilian containers able to to launch missiles ? What's the logic ?

And even if they are invisible, roads offer the possibility to either come closer or find the best launching position than a river. Those containers can go on a truck.

You still need to be able to patrol ship routes and maintain a presence

And these ships make it affordable to do so in spite of the threats that exist by virtue of the fact they are cheap and small vessels relative to huge destroyers

It’s a miracle they can install UKSK and Pantsir or even Gibka on them

But if you take a look at the shipping in the Black Sea you can understand why these ships do have a good purpose

I guess adding missiles and air defense was seen as necessity instead of a luxury in these ships

And in reality that’s what they are, a luxury that gives the VMF a better capability on what are essentially offshore patrol vessels

We look at them as if they need to be star destroyers or else they suck

But they really are just OPV ships with Kalibr and SHORADS lmao

They are good for peace time. Once war starts they patrol nothing. Get real they are useless. In peace time they can patrol with even cheaper coast guad vessels.

Their use in protecting the black sea is non existant. They are kept at port and even there they are not safe.

If you want to protect shipping lines, you need big ships, same as in the past, same as in the future.

Isos wrote:They are good for peace time. Once war starts they patrol nothing. Get real they are useless. In peace time they can patrol with even cheaper coast guad vessels.

Their use in protecting the black sea is non existant. They are kept at port and even there they are not safe.

If you want to protect shipping lines, you need big ships, same as in the past, same as in the future.

Yeah but check the shipping to Odessa and to Novorossiysk

You can’t guard those routes with big ships

Either way you need something small and slightly better armed than a coast guard ship

There’s not really much else to do in a closed sea like Black Sea

As tempting as those promotional videos of the Kalibr missiles from 15 years back were, all such schemes will amount to rather nasty violations of the Geneva Convention and there's 0 chance of Russia putting missiles into shipping containers or whatever

Yeah, because all the military equipment going from HATO to Kiev is clearly marked as military equipment because the west never breaks international laws...

Having a mechanism where the transport container also allows the launch of missiles and have that launch container based on a standard shipping crate to make transport and storage easier is just common sense.

Russia should build missile boats that have very low value in a real war as shown in Ukraine because they have civilian containers able to to launch missiles ? What's the logic ?

It is not really a missile boat, it is a multifunction patrol boat that has a missile launcher that can carry a wide range of different weapons in its universal launcher.

And even if they are invisible, roads offer the possibility to either come closer or find the best launching position than a river. Those containers can go on a truck.

Truck, train, boat/ship, even transport planes can move them around...

You could have a large area with shipping crates being stored that is actually a missile site ready to attack Europe... a quarter can be long range subsonic stealthy cruise missiles and half can be hypersonic land attack missiles that go first and take out all the enemy air defences and aircraft bases and major radar sites, and the other quarter can be S-350 SAMs to protect the missile site and area nearby.

They are good for peace time. Once war starts they patrol nothing

The equivalent in the west would have a mounted 50 cal HMG or 20mm cannon that some poor bastard has to stand out in the weather to fire and some Stinger or Mistral MANPADS.

This vessel has a 100mm gun, 30mm gatling guns, and a Gibka turret with all weather optics and missiles ready to fire.

It will also have mounting points for three or four HMGs with probably thermal imager optics these days for use against airborne and sea surface drones and likely with new equipment and weapons for use against drones being developed as we speak.

Their use in protecting the black sea is non existant. They are kept at port and even there they are not safe.

If the Orcs want to waste Storm Shadow and Scalp super dooper stealthy cruise missiles on such targets then good for them... the risk reward ratio is poor.

It is like Australia playing Afghanistan at the 20/20 cricket world cup... if Australia beats Afghanistan then no one cares because Australia is world cup champions, but if Afghanistan beats Australia... they got beaten by a third world country... how embarrassing... and they did beat them... hahahaha.

If the enemy wants to waste limited attack strength and capacity on these patrol boats then they are dumber than they think.

More often a patrol boat like this might come across drones on their way to other targets... in which case it can take down a few and warn that the rest are coming...

If you want to protect shipping lines, you need big ships, same as in the past, same as in the future.

So you say, but you seem to think these ships will operate on their own and are helpless.

Wrong on both counts I would say.

With such limited options to hide and manouver I would say you wouldn't want an aircraft carrier in the Black Sea.... it would be too tempting a target and the enemy would go all out to try to hit it.

I have watched this video and post it here because it is relevant I think as it includes the Gibka.



The main reason I post it here is because I forgot it could fire not just Igla-S and Verba missiles but it can also fire Ataka and presumably also Khrisantema missiles which should be ideal for hitting sea surface drones and also ground targets and slow moving aerial targets with no or poor radar and IR signature... like small drones.

The anti aircraft Ataka missile has a proximity fuse for very small targets.