File image.
The Russian Ministry of Defense on August 29 announced the destruction of a Ukrainian Neptune cruise missile launcher near the settlement of Lyubitskoye in the Zaporozhye region.
“As a result of the Iskander operational-tactical missile system’s missile attack with a high-explosive combat unit, the Neptune missile system was completely obliterated along with its crew of 10 AFU (Armed Forces of Ukraine) servicemen,” the ministry said in a brief statement.
A video released by the ministry shows the Iskander missile landing just meters away from the Neptune launcher. As a result of the explosion, one of the missiles loaded in the launcher ignites prematurely, very much completely destroying the vehicle.
The Iskander-M is reported to have a range of nearly 500 kilometers. The highly-maneuverable missile can be armed with different conventional warheads weighting 710-800 kg, including a cluster munitions warhead, a fuel-air explosive enhanced-blast warhead, a high-explosive fragmentation warhead, an earth penetrator for bunker busting and an electromagnetic pulse device for anti-radar missions.
Originally, the R-360 Neptune was developed as a subsonic anti-ship cruise missile with active radar guidance and a range of just over 200 kilometers.
A land-attack version of the missile dubbed by some analysts the Neptune-MD appeared following the start of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine.
Both versions utilize the same USPU-360 launcher, which is based on a Czech-made Tatra T815-7 truck. A single launcher is typically armed with four missiles.
The strike in Zaporozhye came just a few days after Ukraine unveiled a long-range, land-attack version of the missile dubbed “Long Neptune”. This new version, which features an extended fuselage with enlarged central section, is claimed to have a range of up to 1,000 kilometers.
The pinpoint strike shows how much the intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance, also known as ISTAR, capabilities of the Russian military has evolved since the start of the special military operation in Ukraine more than three years ago.
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a lot of the new military information is down to the russian spy satellite buildup.
umm that was like 100 meters away it completely missed.. got lucky though with a secondary detonation
in my ugly burgerland we are inferior species losers
iskanders have a cep of just 3m (some say 0). who commited the mistake? clearly of the target, only he make it ignites… by the way, why use iskanders to take “neptunes”? isn´t better lancets? at least lancets have a 0 cep and drone operators apparently didn´t miss the cep!
i´ve noticed a lack of lancets on the frontline… maybe it´s just impression… maybe the very well capable zala aero are working of new variants, etc… using a tbm when you can use a loitering munition or a fpv drone?