Russian Yahont Anti Ship Missile
I wrote an article last month about the possibility that Iran may have Sizzler or Sunburn anti ship missiles in its weapons arsenal. The article did not report on a new development, just updated news that the Russians were talking to Iran as early as 2001 about offering Iran this class of advanced missiles.
With the increasing tension between Iran and the US the missile article did receive a lot of attention. The writing of that article involved a bit of research and encouraged me to dig a little deeper into the capabilities of Russian developed missile systems. The Sizzler or Sunburn missiles have been upgraded over the years and are referred to by several names.
The Russians call it the Yahont and it is by all reports an extremely capable anti ship weapons system. With recent modifications the Yahont can also be used either with conventional or nuclear warheads against ground targets or against ships at sea.
While researching for this follow up article I admit to becoming a bit depressed. I read articles at web sites committed to keeping abreast with the arms industry, like Janes and GlobalSecurity and while not realizing it for the first time, I am not naive in these matters, the big business aspects of the arms business really did hit home.
Just take a few minutes to review the above web sites and the DefenseIndustryDaily and you will see exactly what I am writing about.
Folks the world is truly hooked on the business of producing weapons that give us the ability to destroy each other. There are reports of mega million dollar deals reported almost daily by those who report on the arms trade. The Chinese are buying from the Russians. The Russians are selling to the Iranians and Indians. The French and Americans compete for arms deals to the Saudis. It just goes on and on.
We will be lucky indeed if we manage to last long enough to have to deal with the worst of global warming. There is a good chance that the human preoccupation with warfare will destroy us all first.
And I’ve always been an optimist. Really.
But I digress. It seems to me that the development of the Yahont missile, and other fourth generation anti ship weapons, have changed the course of naval warfare. This is not a good thing for the world’s most powerful navy, that of the United States.
Even with the sophistication of the US Navy’s ship defense systems, like the Phalanx close-in ship defense guns, the difficulty of hitting a missile traveling at a final approach speed of Mach 2.5 at a few feet about the water and that is able to take evasive action as it approaches should not be minimized.
Way back in 1987 the Falklands war gave us a look at how much damage anti ship missiles can cause to first rate war ships. Argentina only had six French developed Exocet missiles at the start of the war. They were able to destroy two British Royal Navy warships. Lucky for the British the Argentines didn’t have more Exocets on hand. Otherwise Britain may have well lost that war.
The Yahont is a much more capable weapon than the sub sonic Exocet. It is able to single out the most important target in a battle group. That means that it will go for the carrier. If there are multiple launches in progress once the carrier is taken out the remaining missiles will target remaining ships. That means missiles will not be wasted hitting the same target.
Yahont missiles can be launched from land, sea, air, or underwater launching platforms. They are small enough and light enough so that they can be fitted to even relatively small high speed water craft. This means that even a small torpedo boat can be fitted with these missiles and be transformed into a heavy duty weapons launching platform.
This tilts the scales considerably away from major warships like aircraft carriers, cruisers, and destroyers. Small relatively cheap high speed patrol boats can be used in swarming packs to seek out and destroy principal warships like aircraft carriers. The range of the Yahont of up to 300 KM means that the small craft don’t even have to get too close to the carrier battle group to cause considerable damage.
As the Yahont can also be fired from the new class of extremely silent diesel Russian submarines, which the Russians have sold to the Chinese, Indians, and Iranians, the threat to US battle groups must be considered as tangible.
The question that I think war planners in all navies must be struggling with is how can they defend their expensive complicated war ships against this evolving anti ship missile threat? While the Yahont has not been tested in actual warfare Naval planners must be wary of a conflict that would put the inexpensive by comparison Yahont and their multiple launching platforms up against their navy’s major billion dollar plus warships.
If the Falkland war provided a preview of what may happen in a contest between anti ship missiles and first line warships the day of dominance and gun ship diplomacy by aircraft carrier battle groups may be coming to an end. Does it make an sense to build additional multi billion dollar aircraft carriers if a Yahont missile or two can take them out?
Admirals and defense contractors will always want to have new warships developed. But until a reliable defense system can be developed even the Admirals should want to avoid a live Yahont missile defense test situation in say the Persian Gulf or the Indian Ocean.
Should the Yahont missile take out even one American nuclear powered aircraft carrier the fallout would change the course of naval warfare forever.
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