Naval News 21 September 2023

Click to Enlarge. Evidence suggests that the missile entered the submarine’s hull in the area of the torpedo room. The blast, and/or fire passed aft through the control room and exited on the side. Photos of damage via CIT.

Russian Submarine Hit By Missile, Rostov-On-Don, Gone

The Russian Navy submarine Rostov-on-Don, which was hit by a missile in Sevastopol on September 13, is likely a total loss. Statements from the Russian Government that it will be returned to service appear wholly unrealistic. Images of the exterior hint at the extent of the internal damage.

H I Sutton  20 Sep 2023

Ukraine’s strike on Rostov-on-Don, a Russian Navy Kilo-class submarine, on September 13 was a major event in the naval war so far. In an instant, one of the four Improved Kilo-class submarines in the Black Sea was taken out of action. This submarine was used to launch Kalibr cruise missiles at Ukrainian targets. Nearby a landing ship, Minsk, was also severely damaged.

Images have been shared online which show the extent of damage. The Russian Ministry of Defense has stated that the submarine will be repaired. This is unrealistic.

The images were shared online by Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), a group specializing in open source intelligence (OSINT). The images seen, including in this article, have been partially pixelated to protect the source. Naval News has had access to the original unredacted images and can confirm their credibility.

Storm Shadow Strike on Rostov-on-Don

British supplied Storm Shadow, and the essentially identical French supplied SCALP-EG, is an air-launched cruise missile. Ukraine has adapted the Soviet-era Su-24 Fencer jet to carrying two missiles. Russian sources claim that 10 missiles were employed in the attack with 7 intercepted. What is clear is that at least 3 got through, with 1 hitting the submarine and 2 hitting the landing ship.

Storm Shadow uses the BROACH warhead. This stands for Bomb Royal Ordnance Augmented Charge and means a two stage delayed explosion. The missile dives into the target and the first charge creates a hole in the structure for the second warhead to pass through. The main detonation then occurs inside or below the target, depending on the fuse settings.

The warhead likely penetrated the forward hull close to the front end of the pressure hull. The Kilo class is a double-hull submarine with an outer casing enclosing the inner pressure hull. The first stage of the tandem warhead, which is designed to penetrate reinforced concrete, probably drove the missile through both the outer and inner hulls. The main warhead would have them exploded inside the submarine.

Indications of this are visible in the upper casing of the submarine which is peeled back, consistent with an explosion blowing outward. Although the hit was in the torpedo room, that was likely empty. So the explosion will have been from the missile’s own warhead.

Total Devastation

The wrecked outside is only a hint of the damage done inside. We have not seen images of the interior, but we can infer several things. The detonation of the warhead will have gutted the submarine’s innards. Pipes will have been ripped from their supports, valves broken and surfaces buckled. The smoke seen in the photos rising out of the hole on the hull, is evidence that it started one or more fires. These will have melted and fried electrical systems and further damaged the hull separately to the initial hole.

Smoke will have added to the mess and damage. As will the gallons of harbor water which were likely sprayed through the hole in the hull in an effort to extinguish the fire.

Second Hole Shows Greater Extent Of Damage

There is a second area of visible damage for the aft, on the starboard (right) side. This is another large hole with signs that it was blown outward. Again, smoke can be seen riding out of a large hole in the inner pressure hull. Some rubber tiles, used to make the submarine more stealthy, have been blown off the side.

Although there has been speculation that this could be a second missile, it appears more probable that it is an exit wound. Possibly the missile passed through the submarine. By implications the bulkhead (wall) across the submarine in front of the control room, either wasn’t sealed or didn’t offer much protection. This hole is just ahead of another bulkhead which separates the control room area from the engine room. Possibly this bulkhead was sealed and offered better protection. The explosion may have found a weak point in the side of the submarine.

Another scenario might be that the second hole is the result of a secondary explosion within the submarine. The details of the chain of events is anyway moot. What is clear is that the hole inside of the boat will have been damaged by the explosion, then a fire which burnt and smoldered for hours, and provably by water and fire suppressants. Not just the pressure hull, but many vital internal components will have been wrecked.

Not Realistic To Recover Rostov-on-Don

Despite the Russian Ministry of Defense’s claims to the contrary, it does not appear at all realistic that the submarine will be repaired. Work would be extremely expensive and time consuming. And it would have to be moved to a suitable shipyard, such as the Admiralty yard in St. Petersburg.

If the submarine is moved to a shipyard the hull will need to be patched before it can be towed. But the Russians have begun covering the wreck in nettings, a sign that it might not be going anywhere any time soon. So Russia’s already serious shortage of dry dock spaces in the Black Sea just got much worse.