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..

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.

The new project of the RTO "Sarsar" was developed on the basis of small missile ships of the project 21631 "Buyan-M"

Russian fleet can get small missile ships of the new Project 21635 "Sarsar", developed by the shipbuilding corporation "Ak Bars" on the basis of the small missile ship of the "Buyan-M" project. This was reported by the general director of the corporation Renat Mistakhov.

A series of RTOs of project 21631 "Buyan-M" was limited to 12 ships, ten of which have already been built and two are being completed at the Zelenodolsk Shipyard. The Buyans were replaced by RTOs of project 22800 Karakurt, but the Ak Bars shipbuilding corporation announced plans to develop a new version of the RTOs based on the Buyan last year, noting the huge modernization potential of the ships of this project. And this year, the designers presented a new project of a small rocket ship.

As the developers explained, at the moment a draft design of RTOs of project 21635 "Sarsar" has been created. In the guise of the base model, the new one has an increased displacement, improved seaworthiness, a replacement of the propulsion unit and an increase in the number of cruise missiles. The result was an RTO for operations at sea, armed with 16 Kalibr cruise missiles instead of eight.

https://en.topwar.ru/204129-novyj-proekt-mrk-sarsar-razrabotan-na-baze-malyh-raketnyh-korablej-proekta-21631-bujan-m.html

Again : Buyan is a river class boat that can operate along the Russian canals.
20380 is twice the size of 1124.
Germany build 133 type was even smaller.

Why instead?

They could do with more Corvettes, and improving designs just makes sense anyway.

This is already being done in the Pacific Fleet and is providing a much needed capability given the lack of frigates and destroyers. Project 20380 is basically a light frigate.

So what they should really be doing in producing Frigates and improved Frigates and existing Corvettes and start looking at starting Destroyers.

As I said, those are river boats - the same as Karakurts.
Compromised for small drought to operate according to canal specification.
Which is a very wise move, but those can't replace a bigger ocean going ships.
I highly doubt if it can operate effectively 4+ Beaufort, and can't use a weapon at that point almost for sure.
It is not even a matter of size and displacement, but a project.
Still, it can replace both Grisha and Parchims, as those were about the same size, and operated close to the shore as well. Using a 20380 hull for the job is a waste of buoyancy.

They have had a bit of experience with the Buyan design and clearly find it useful, but also clearly find it a bit lacking for other duties so they have designed an enlarged version of it.

That makes perfect sense to me.

They did the same with the Gorshkov frigates where they built a few and then redesigned it to carry a heavier payload.

It makes sense for small scale upgrades but of course they wont be looking a Buyan-M5 Cruiser designs.

The first boats they make are a bit conservative and relatively light and after confirmation of their performance they up the ante with more weapons and better weapons... and presumably better sensors and propulsion etc etc.

Ironically it was the French Mistral class that reveals their ambition where experience with a 23 K ton helicopter carrier has led to them laying down two 40K ton helicopter landing ships.

What they really need is large serial orders so they can build up fleet numbers. The multirole nature of their new designs will make things much easier...

Instead of having to decide how many Sovremmenys and how many Udaloys they need they can just make Improved Gorshkovs that can do both roles at the same time.... rather better than the older ships could. (Sovs had 8 Moskits and Udaloys had 8 SS-N-14s, while a current Gorshkov with 8 Zircons and 8 Ovtet missiles is better than either with both operating together.)