Bigger
anti-ship firepower.
Its true: 8* (flight 1) or 0* Harpoons (flight 2 & 3) vs 8* Sizzler supersonic or longer-range sub-sonic Kalibr =
Buyan-M has more anti-ship firepower.
Obviously not anything like the overall abilities & nobody said 'able to singlehandedly beat a Burke' but in that particular metric yes more firepower.
...At least until they start mounting VLS LRASM in
Burkes.
I see 3 basic interpretations of the
Buyan-M/22800:
They can be considered an example of the US
Streetfighter concept of small cheap ships with distributed lethality, closer to the original idea in several respects than the LCS.
But in the Russian tradition/strategic position they can be seen as primarily defensive missile boats 'mosquito fleet' which has its ancestry in the post-Tsushima era where Imperial Russia adopted the ideas of the French Jeune Ecole school, producing a bunch of torpedo boats & the first 'modern' Destroyers.
Again in the early Soviet era they turned initially to small Destroyers/Gunboats.
Then in the later Soviet period we have large numbers of
Tarantul &
Nanuchka missile boats.
The other interpretation is being evolved from the
Buyan which was designed primarily for shore bombardment with 100mm gun & Grad rockets the long range Kalibr strike from Caspian may have been the primary goal of the enlarged -M version.
(I picture some young newbie presenting his brainstorm getting chewed out harshly before the value of the concept sunk in
)
22800 then takes that same concept but mixes in more missile boat, puts it on a more seaworthy hull & adds both Onyx and Pantsir-M -> back to the Streetfighter style.
Individually yes for launching land attack strikes 8 missiles is not all that powerful against a defended opponent but is proven useful for surgical strikes against a weaker opponent.
The squadrons of 6 that they are being built in gives a pretty healthy 48 missile throw at quite low cost & requiring 6 separate hits to neutralise.
Currently with 3*
Buyan-M, 3*
Grigorovich & 6*
Kilo the BSF has a theoretical 84 missile salvo (with up to 72 more reloads in the
Kilos).
With the plan for 6*
Buyan-M, 6*
Grigorovich, 6*
Kilo & 6* 22160 (2*4 containerised Kalibr) the throw would be 180 missiles.