Sea Control - Sea Control 330 - Ukraine and Naval Guerrilla Warfare with David Strachan

Episode Date: March 24, 2022

Links1. “UKR and Guerilla Naval Warfare,” by David Strachan, Strikepod Systems, March 15, 2022.2. "Ukraine: Estonian cargo ship sinks in the Black Sea," BBC, March 3, 2022.3. "Navy: Saudi Frigate Attacked by Unmanned Bomb Boat, Likely Iranian," by Sam LaGrone, USNI News, February 20, 2017.4. "What We Know and Don't Know About the Beirut Port Explosions," by Austin Ramzy and Elian Peltier, The New York Times, August 5, 2020.5. "Anatomy of a Drone Boat," Conflict Armament Research, December 2017.   

Hey folks, Shared here. Today I'm joined by David Strand, and we'll be discussing his blog post on Ukraine's options for naval guerrilla warfare. This episode was edited and produced by Joshua Gruber. We're still looking for audio editors to add to our team, so if you're interested, reach out to us via email at ccontrol at simsec.org and send us your resume. I did want to highlight a couple of developments over at the main website. In the last two months, we've launched the Flotilla, SimSec's warfying society focused on tactics, and we also recently launched our Naval Wargaming Discord. You can find more information at SimSec.org. Finally, I want to take the opportunity to recommend our partners in the SimSec Podcast Network, The Bilge Pumps. You can find Alex, Jamie, Drack, and a pile of Iron Brew bottles wherever you download your podcasts.

And on that note, I'll turn it over to Kimber's men. You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International Maritime Security. Hello, HashiMates, and welcome back aboard Sea Control. My guest today is David Strand of StrikePod Systems, and we're going to discuss his post on Ukraine and guerrilla naval warfare. So, David, welcome. Would you mind introducing yourself to the audience, please? Sure thing. So thanks, Jared, for having me and to everyone at Sea Control for the opportunity to be here once again. So I'm David Strand, and I'm a defense analyst focusing primarily on autonomous undersea systems with an occasional focus on unmanned surface systems. I do business as StrikePod Systems, where I imagine what I call micro naval warfare, which is the application of these increasingly small autonomous platforms to naval operations.

So in a nutshell, I help defense intelligence and policy customers anticipate the threats and opportunities that these technologies will present in the future. Thanks. And as a reminder, all opinions are our own and not representative of any institution with which we might be otherwise associated. So we'll jump right into the questions here. As the invasion kicked off, what means did the Ukrainians have to deter or disrupt Russian naval operations in the Black Sea? Not very much. The power of the Ukrainian Navy was severely diminished as a result of the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea. The majority of their warships were seized by the Russians at that time, and what was left over was largely small patrol boats, cutters and support vessels. When war broke out last month, Ukraine was in possession of a single frigate, but they ultimately decided to scuttle it in port to prevent it from falling into Russian hands. Ukraine also, as of today, has no anti-ship missile capability. An indigenous Ukrainian anti-ship missile system called Neptune has been in development for about 10 years, but whether this system will actually be operational in time to make a material difference in this war is really unknown.

There have been reports that a full Neptune division could be operational by next month, and that would mean six launchers with a total of 72 missiles with a range of about 180 miles each, which could potentially, depending on where they're deployed, put much of the northern Black Sea and entire Sea of Azov within reach. That would certainly hold Russian warships at risk and disrupt their operations, but there remains to be seen whether Neptune will be a factor as the war unfolds. We've also seen pretty clear indications that Ukraine may possess some kind of mine warfare capability, which could be contributing at least in part to Russia's reluctance to commit to an amphibious assault on Odessa, but that has yet to be really confirmed. What have we seen Russia do with their naval forces in the Black Sea in the early stages of the conflict? Russian naval forces appear to be primarily focused on three missions, sea control, strike, and amphibious warfare. The first mission has been fairly straightforward. Without an opposing Navy to contend with, the

Russians have full control over the northern Black Sea, as well as the Sea of Azov, and there's been no commercial maritime activity in the region since late February. As far as strike, we know from Pentagon briefings that some Russian cruise missile attacks have come from the Black Sea, but in general, they seem to represent a small fraction of overall missile strikes. The last quoted number that I saw was six, but that was over a week ago. And at that time, the total number of Russian missiles launched into Ukraine was around 900. That number is over a thousand, I believe, as of today. I haven't seen any official accounting of how many Black Sea launches originated from surface ships versus submarines, if any. There are four Russian Kilo-class diesel-electric submarines operating in the Black Sea, all of which are capable of launching caliber cruise missiles. But I think it's unlikely that any missile strikes have been carried out by submarines, given that Russian surface ships have been operating uncontested and sub launches would expose their positions. But, of course, there's not really much for them to worry about from an ASW standpoint, but it would also just give Western intelligence more data to chew on.

As for amphibious operations, a large number of Russian naval infantry came ashore near Mariupol in late February. And again, during an operation that took place just a few days ago near Berdyansk, which is also near Mariupol. And of course, all indications are that an assault on Odessa could come at any time. But as of today, March 19th, the Russians continue to be in a holding pattern. There was some reporting that Ukraine did have one notable naval success, sinking a Russian Corvette. But that does seem to have been premature. So what happened there? Rumors of its death have been greatly exaggerated, apparently. So, you know, events are quite fluid, and with the fog of war and social media being what they are, that report has now, in fact, been proven false.

The original reporting from Ukrainian sources was that a Ukrainian MLRS, multiple launch rocket system, had engaged a surface target operating in the Black Sea, a Russian corvette, the Vasily Baikov. There was imagery circulating on social media of what appeared to be a ship smoking in the distance, and the story was that Ukrainian forces had lured a vessel into range of the MLRS, where it was then struck by rocket fire and eventually sank. But then, just a few days ago, much to everyone's chagrin, the Baikov was spotted offshore, and then shortly thereafter was seen heading into Sevastopol with no visible damage at all. So, yes, misinformation is absolutely running rampant out there, and it's been very challenging to verify things and to reconcile all of these claims and counterclaims. But this is yet another example of just how powerful and influential the information environment can be during a rapidly evolving time of war. Well, I mean, there are two kind of lenses that I viewed that through. One is the misinformation-disinformation lens, but the other one I thought it's a good indication of how difficult battle damage assessment is at sea. And we don't have a lot of experience doing that battle damage assessment.

The recent, quote-unquote, battle damage or damage that we've suffered was pretty much reported immediately because we wanted to report it immediately, whether you're talking about the collisions back from 2017 or the coal in 2001, those were all reported immediately. But I think if you're talking about a contested space further out to sea that can't be observed, and if the two parties involved don't want to talk about that or can't confirm that something has happened, everyone's going to be in the dark to a certain extent. Right, absolutely. Has Turkey's decision to close the Turkish straits to warships had any impact on the Russians? I would say probably not, but that might be about to change. So for a bit of background, there is an international agreement called the Montreux Convention, which has been around since 1936, and which allows Turkey to regulate the flow of maritime traffic through the Bosporus and Dardanelles,

which are the two narrow straits that connect the Black Sea to the Mediterranean via the Aegean Sea. What's interesting is that Montreux specifically allows Turkey to restrict the movement of warships through the straits during time of war. And so in late February, Turkey decided that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was, in fact, war, and it did just that, effectively blocking Russia's access to the Black Sea. Except Montreux has a loophole that Russia can exploit, and that is that ships returning to their home base in the Black Sea are allowed to pass through the straits. And this, of course, would include Russian warships attached to the Black Sea fleet. So from that perspective, Turkey invoking Montreux wouldn't really have an impact. If Russia needed to augment or reinforce their naval presence in the Black Sea, however, that might be a different story. But by the time Turkey's decision was made, ships attached to other Russian fleets, such as the landing ships from the Baltic fleet that have been taking part in amphibious operations, they had already passed through the straits and had taken up position in the Black Sea.

The closure may have prevented the passage of two Slava-class missile cruisers, which, of course, would have brought a considerable amount of additional firepower. But other than that, it doesn't appear to have had any material impact on Russia's naval operations. Where things could get dicey, though, is that now there are reports that more Russian landing ships may be inbound. Four of them were reportedly spotted by Japan, by the JDF near Japan. And there's, of course, speculation, though no actual confirmation by knowledge. that they could be bound for Ukraine. Assuming that's the case, and assuming that they're not attached to the Black Sea fleet, with the Straits now effectively closed to warships, it's unclear how they would expect to gain access to the Black Sea. Maybe Russia plans to test Turkey's resolve

to force a confrontation. It seems that Turkey would have no choice but to block the Straits to enforce its rights under the Montreux Convention. And this, of course, would mean a direct confrontation with the NATO ally, with all the implications that come along with that. Of course, events continue to unfold. There are rumors now that the ships may have turned around and are headed back to Vladivostok, in which case this would do about nothing. But it's certainly something that bears watching until we can get confirmation. We keep seeing reports of the Russian amphibious ships that are loitering off the Ukrainian coast. Are those ships just demonstrating or is there an actual expectation that they're going to put troops ashore at some point? So this has been one of the more puzzling things, I suppose, in a conflict of many puzzling things.

So around March 1st, someone posted a video on social media of a flotilla of amphibious ships and escorts stationed off the coast of Western Crimea. Four days later, commercial satellite imagery indicated that they were still there. And all indications were that an amphibious assault on Odessa was in the works and could possibly come really at any time. Like many aspects of this war, it was being telegraphed well in advance. And since Russian naval operations have been unopposed, the Russians basically had the luxury of anchoring offshore and waiting for the go order. There was speculation that this was strategic signaling of some kind, or maybe they were waiting for mine clearance operations to be completed. Or maybe it was a feint designed to pull Ukrainian forces further south. But without an integrated, like an open source integrated real-time picture of the environment, it was difficult to really have a sense of what was actually happening.

But then suddenly on March 15th, satellite imagery revealed that the landing ships and escorts were moving closer to Odessa. The imagery also appeared to show a Russian mine sweeper towing what could be an influence sweep system, which would indicate an intention to either clear or channel through a known minefield. But here we are four days later, and there's been no further reporting on the flotilla's movements or operations, at least that I'm aware of. I haven't checked my timeline in the last five minutes, so who knows? There's been social media video of intermittent shelling along the Odessa coastline, but this seems to be more for purposes of intimidation rather than softening up Ukrainian defenses. So we appear, once again, to be in a holding pattern. Thanks. And yeah, I should clarify, we are recording this March 19th. So if something

occurs uh at sea between now and when we air this uh that's why we're not talking about it i guess part of my skepticism and you can tell me whether or not you share this with the amphibious pieces given all the logistical problems that we've seen the land force have just advancing from their own country supplying an amphibious uh lodgement seems like it would be a bridge too far yeah i mean it absolutely seems like given all of the problems with logistics and everything they've been having that this maybe would not be the best idea i've also seen and i'm not a ground warfare guy you know but i've seen a lot of analysis of exactly what it would mean for an amphibious force landing at odessa in terms of what you know who they would link up with and it seems like all indications

from that perspective are that it would be a bit of a fool's errand and that you know the losses that they because it would be contested and the losses that they would sustain the risk reward trade-off would not be in their favor. What is your assessment of Ukraine's mine warfare capability? Circumstantial evidence does seem to indicate that Ukraine possesses some kind of offensive mine warfare capability and that they may have deployed mines in the approaches to Odessa. We have the satellite imagery that I mentioned before showing possible Russian mine sweeping operations. But also at the beginning of this month, there were indications that Ukrainian tugs were making short runs back and forth out of Odessa, which seemed to suggest that mine laying

operations were underway. And it was also around that time that commercial traffic pretty much ground to a halt. A couple days later, an Estonian cargo ship, the Helt, was reportedly commandeered by Russian forces while anchored just off Odessa and then driven into what media reports were calling a, quote, danger zone, where it subsequently sank. Speculation, of course, was that it had struck a mine, but to date there's been no actual confirmation of this that I'm aware of. For me, though, it did appear as though the HALT had been forced into service as a minesweeper and that Russian forces were either using her to probe for a Ukrainian minefield or maybe even attempting to channel through it. Cargo ships are actually pretty rugged, more so than warships, and they're

actually capable of withstanding a mine strike, one that might even severely damage a warship. But the help was actually a smaller displacement cargo vessel. And if Ukraine had laid moored contact mines, then the strike may have opened up a pretty good gash in her keel or at the waterline. And maybe that's what sent her to the bottom. In terms of what Ukraine might possess, it's really hard to say. I'm inclined to believe that they probably have a cache of Soviet-era moored contact mines or bottom mines, either of which could be deployed over the side of a tug. I saw one report that suggested that help was struck by a drifting contact mine, but those are essentially uncontrollable. And to the extent that international law has any weight

in this conflict, for all intents and purposes, drifting contact mines are heavily regulated, if not outright banned. It's also possible that Ukraine has acquired more advanced bottom mines from other European nations. For example, there are two Finnish companies, the DA Group and force at defense that both manufacture and export bottom mines. DA Group, interestingly, also manufactures a rail deployment system that's housed right inside of a 20-foot shipping container, which could fit on the back of a tug. The mines are essentially on wheels, and you just roll them right along this rail system right off the back into the water. But you don't necessarily need an advanced capability for mine warfare to be effective. All it takes is one strike to throw

adversary's plans to disarray, to delay an impending attack, and give yourself some time to mobilize resistance. And so with this sort of stalled or slow motion Russian amphibious operation off of Odessa, it's possible we're seeing the effect of Ukrainian mine warfare playing out right now. Yeah, I guess the other thing to clarify for any listener who might not be familiar is what constitutes a quote-unquote offensive mine capability, because it's a So it's a loaded phrase. It sounds very advanced, but really all it means is that you have a boat that's flat on the back and you can roll a mine off the side of it. I mean, is it any more sophisticated than that to have a credible offensive mining capability? Not really. You know, and I guess I'm always careful to use that term because I feel like mine warfare also for a lot of people means mine countermeasures.

You know, and I see that used, you know, which is fine. It absolutely is part of mine warfare. But if you're talking about actually laying mines with the intention to actually, you know, block or to cause damage to the adversary, then it's more an offensive nature. And so, right. You know, mine warfare tends to be a pretty, pretty big area. So sometimes like to be a little more specific. So define naval guerrilla warfare in this circumstance and what Ukraine could do in the absence of more traditional means. So guerrilla warfare, generally speaking, is the use of irregular, unconventional tactics by a comparatively weaker actor against a stronger, more powerful adversary, right? A term often associated with guerrilla warfare is asymmetric, where the weaker actor leverages whatever skills, advantages, or resources they may have to either blunt the more powerful adversary's capabilities or to undermine and gradually chip away at their will to fight. guerrilla warfare is most often associated with rebel or insurgent movements and terrorist

organizations groups are typically the underdog in the fight right with less access to financing or advanced weaponry and so they're forced to be creative to stretch their resources as best they can and so it occurred to me that it would seem that ukraine is kind of in this position uh naval warfare wise russian naval forces have controlled the northern black sea and ukrainian naval and maritime operations have ground to a halt. Ukraine has no anti-ship missile capability, at least not yet. And you've got Russian warships operating with impunity, launching calibers, landing large amphibious assaults, and massing another large amphibious force just offshore. So with the balance so tilted in Russia's favor, sea denial for Ukraine would seem to be a lost cause.

But what if Ukraine wanted to upset the balance and maybe even wanted to hold the Russian Navy at risk. So how would they go about doing that? Well, one guerrilla naval tactic that's been particularly successful for terrorists has been the use of waterborne improvised explosive devices or WBIEDs. These are essentially small boats loaded down with explosives that are rigged to detonate on contact with a high value target like a warship or coastal infrastructure. They can be manned as in a martyrdom operation, or they can be remotely controlled, which requires access to certain technologies and a bit of engineering know-how. A manned waterborne IED was, of course, used in the 2000 Al-Qaeda attack on the USS Cole while she was anchored in the port of Aden,

and that resulted in the deaths of 17 sailors, and it took the Cole out of action. In 2017, a remotely controlled Houthi waterborne IED was used to attack a Saudi frigate, the Al-Madinah, which killed two and also achieved a mission kill on that vessel as well. The Houthis also have been employing waterborne IEDs successfully against cargo ships operating in the Red Sea as well, sometimes combining manned and unmanned boats in swarming attacks. So needless to say, these weapons can be quite effective and quite devastating as well. And so it occurred to me that if Ukraine was looking to blunt Russian naval power in the Black Sea, they could potentially take a page from the Houthi playbook and launch waterborne IEDs against Russian warships. If you take a look at satellite imagery of the Ukrainian coastline and even north along the Dnepr River, you'll find that there are lots of marinas and yacht clubs, all of them with numerous powerboats and yachts, either docked or in storage. And when I say yacht, I'm not talking about luxury mega yachts like, you know, I'm talking about the larger cabin cruisers like 30 or 40 feet in length.

Now, there's no way to easily identify the make or model of these craft from the satellite imagery, but it's probably safe to assume that some, if not many of them, have an autopilot system installed, which is basically like cruise control for boats, except in the case of boats, it also controls steering, either by using a programmable compass heading or waypoint navigation using GPS. What's also apparent when you look at satellite imagery is all of the farmland to the west of Odessa. Of course, something you'll find around farmland is fertilizer, and it's quite possible that you'd find ammonium nitrate, which is in addition to nourishing crops, can be combined with other elements to create a really powerful explosive. Ammonium nitrate was, of course, used in the Oklahoma City bombing. It's been used in roadside IEDs, and most recently it was responsible for an absolutely enormous explosion in Beirut, Lebanon, which was one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history.

Ammonium nitrate is heavily regulated because it's so volatile in several parts of the world, but it's still a very popular fertilizer. So if Ukrainian forces were unable to get their hands on a conventional explosive, say like C4, and it's possible that they might be able to manufacture one through locally sourced raw materials. And so if Ukrainian forces could gain access to these small autopilot-enabled civilian boats, along with some kind of explosive material and timely intelligence on the bearing and location of Russian warships, they could, at least in theory, turn them into waterborne IEDs, gas them up, create a shape charge, program a heading or waypoint, and send them on their way. Of course, there are disadvantages to using an autopilot versus remote control, but that region of the Black Sea is becoming somewhat of a target-rich environment now. And when you're talking about a target like a warship, the margin for error is kind of in the attacker's favor. And if you're able to launch a coordinated simultaneous attack using large numbers of vehicles approaching from different directions, Russian defenses could be saturated and overwhelmed pretty quickly. Of course, this is all theoretical, and creating a waterborne IED is not necessarily an easy task, particularly when you're talking about the warhead itself and what's called the explosive train, which is everything that has to happen for a detonation to take place. There's actually a really interesting report that was put out by Conflict Armament Research that analyzes the vehicle used in the attack on the Almadena.

It's called Anatomy of a Drone Boat, and it really shows just how much effort and know-how goes into something like this. So for your listeners who might be interested in learning more, I'd highly encourage them to check it out. Yeah, we'll find that and throw it into the show notes at the bottom, as well as notes about the Estonian vessel held, the Houthi attack on Al Medina, the attacks on cargo ships, the coal and the Bay report explosion. But what obstacles do you see that would prevent Ukraine from successfully employing waterborne IEDs? Well, probably the most formidable obstacle would be PNT attacks in the region. So for years, the Black Sea has been home to all kinds of what are called position navigation and timing attacks or PNT attacks, which are things like GPS jamming or AIS spoofing. So if a waterborne IED were to rely on GPS for navigation, Russian PNT operations could undermine or quite possibly neutralize their effect by effectively blinding them. right? But GPS isn't always necessary for an autopilot navigation, and PNT attacks could be

overcome by simply entering a heading and have the autopilot use the vessel's onboard compass for navigation. This would be more error-prone than GPS, but again, warships are large targets, and if the weapons are launched in large numbers in saturation-style attack, you know, the kill probability would only increase. Another obstacle would be the capability of the Russians to repel surface attacks. Russian surface ships are equipped with a range of point defense weapon systems that can easily engage small, fast-moving surface targets, 76 and 57 millimeter guns, close-in weapon systems. Also, we know that Russian warships can easily shell the Ukrainian coastline now, and so any IED staging areas could potentially be identified by Russian surveillance and come

under heavy fire as well. Vehicle range could be a limiting factor. The range of a waterborne IED will depend on the fuel capacity of the underlying watercraft, right? In general, the smaller the craft, the lower the range due to fuel storage constraints. And so the range of smaller vessels might be anywhere from 8 to 30 nautical miles, while larger cabin cruisers or yachts can operate for hundreds of nautical miles. So it would really depend on what boats the Ukrainian forces were able to actually get their hands on. Payload weight would be a factor depending on the vehicle's engine performance, and environmental conditions like wind and sea state would also play a role and fuel consumption, and therefore range. And these could also make it difficult for the

autopilot to maintain a steady course. And these are just a few considerations. There are lots of moving parts, lots of potential points of failure. But even if just one or two of these vehicles were able to reach their targets, it would likely deal a fairly significant psychological blow to Russian naval forces, and at the same time, achieve a significant propaganda victory for Ukraine. It potentially could force Russia to pull back from the Northern Black Sea, effectively nullifying their plans for an amphibious assault on Odessa. But whether Ukrainian forces would ultimately resort to guerrilla tactics in the face of overwhelming naval power is, you know, it's difficult to say. But I think it definitely would be a mistake to

underestimate the creativity and ingenuity of a people fighting for what they believe is the very future of their homeland. Well, unfortunately, that's all that we have time for. I'd like to thank my guest, David Strand. David, where can we find you online and what are you working on next? Sure. So you can find me on my website, which is strikepod.com. I'm also fairly active on Twitter at StrikePod. I operate a website called uuvbase.com, which provides current intelligence on UUVs and undersea systems, and also access to some databases on platforms and research that I maintain. And in terms of what I'm working on next, when I'm able to tear myself away from events in the Black Sea, I'm currently doing some modeling of semi-autonomous mobile minefields, strike pods, of course. And I'm hoping this will feed into some interesting and useful tabletop simulations or war games. I've also got a couple articles in the works on mine warfare and autonomous systems that I'm hoping we'll see the light of day here sometime soon. And that's about it.

Thank you again for joining us. To the listeners, thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next time. Thank you for watching.