The Neptune anti-ship missile is one of the iconic weapons of Russia’s wider war against Ukraine. Two of the 17-foot missiles, fired through a Ukrainian Navy battery, sank the cruiser Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
But the thirteenth April coup at Moskva is not the beginning of the battle of Neptune. In his definitive history of Neptune, Ukrainska Pravda journalist Roman Romaniuk shows the chaotic beginnings of the missile fight.
When Russian Navy amphibious ships approached Ukraine’s southern coast in late February, the Ukrainian Navy’s only Neptune battery fired its first missiles angrily.
Luch’s design bureau in Kyiv had controlled the production of a four-projectile Neptune launcher only on February 24, the day Russian forces attacked. Neptune’s team moved away from the Luch plant with its valuable launcher on Feb. 20, days before Russian missiles hit the facility. .
The Neptune battery (the launcher, automobiles and at least one Mineral-U cellular radar) gathered near Odessa in southern Russia. On February 26, 3 amphibious ships of the Russian Navy departed from occupied Crimea, bound for the Ukrainian coast near Mykolaiv.
“It was to defeat those ships that the first 3 Neptunes were launched,” Romaniuk wrote.
The missiles had to fly over Odessa to succeed in their targets, so for the protection of civilians on the ground, the team programmed them to sail at about 400 feet from the optimal 20 feet.
But that made them less difficult for the Russians to detect. Russian shipping and aircraft destroyed all 3 Neptunes. But in the melee, a Black Sea Fleet dispatch also shot down a Russian Sukhoi Su-30 fighter, according to Romaniuk.
The Ukrainian General Staff also reported on the incident of the Russian-friendly shooting, but outside analysts never found direct evidence of the shootdown.
Anyway, the Neptune Dam scared the Russian commanders. They canceled the planned landing near Mykolaiv.
The lingering risk of Ukrainian anti-ship missiles, which increased when Kyiv acquired Harpoon missiles from its foreign allies, since February has deterred a Russian amphibious assault.
The near misses at Mykolaiv were the first victory of the Neptune battery over the Russian fleet. The second, seven weeks later, was even greater. Taking credit for atmospheric conditions, the Neptune battery aimed at Moskva and sent it to the rear of the Black Sea.