from
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2022/12/14/as-russian-amphibious-ships-bore-down-on-southern-ukraine-in-february-the-ukrainians-sole-anti-ship-battery-opened-fire/?sh=27de454c6bb1

As Russian Amphibious Ships Bore Down On Southern Ukraine In February,
The Ukrainians’ Sole Anti-Ship Battery Opened Fire
David AxeForbes Staff
I write about ships, planes, tanks, drones, missiles and satellites.
Follow
2

The Neptune anti-ship missile is one of the iconic weapons of Russia’s
wider war on Ukraine. Two of the 17-foot missiles, fired by a Ukrainian
navy battery, sank the cruiser Moskva, the flagship of the Russian Black
Sea Fleet.

But the April 13 strike on Moskva wasn’t the Neptune’s combat debut. In
his definitive history of the Neptune, Ukrainska Pravda reporter Roman
Romaniuk reveals the missile’s chaotic combat debut.

As Russian navy amphibious ships neared Ukraine’s southern coast in late
February, the Ukrainian navy’s sole Neptune battery fired its first
missiles in anger.

The Luch Design Bureau in Kyiv had managed to produce just one
four-round Neptune launcher by Feb. 24, the day Russian forces attacked.
The Neptune crew speeded away from the Luch factory with their precious
launcher on Feb. 20, just days before Russian missiles struck the facility.

The Neptune battery—the launcher, support vehicles and at least one
mobile Mineral-U radar—assembled near Odesa in southern Russia. On Feb.
26, three Russian navy amphibious ships sailed from occupied Crimea,
bound for the Ukrainian coast near Mykolaiv.

“It was to defeat these ships that the first three Neptunes were
launched,” Romaniuk wrote.

The missiles had to fly over Odesa to reach their targets, so—for the
safety of civilians on the ground—the crew programmed them to cruise at
nearly 400 feet instead of the optimal 20 feet.

But that made them easier for the Russians to detect. Russian ships and
planes apparently destroyed all three Neptunes. But in the melee, a
Black Sea Fleet vessel also shot down a Russian Sukhoi Su-30 fighter,
according to Romaniuk.

The Ukrainian general staff also reported the Russian friendly-fire
incident, but outside analysts never have found any direct evidence of
the shoot-down.

In any event, the Neptune barrage apparently spooked Russian commanders.
They canceled the planned landing near Mykolaiv.

The persistent threat from Ukraine’s anti-ship missiles—which only grew
as Kyiv acquired Harpoon missiles from its foreign allies—since February
has deterred a Russian amphibious assault.

The Mykolaiv near-misses were the Neptune battery’s first victory over
the Russian fleet. The second, seven weeks later, was even bigger.
Taking advantage of unusual atmospheric conditions, the Neptune battery
zeroed in on Moskva, and sent her to the bottom of the Black Sea.

Follow me on Twitter. Check out my website or some of my other work
here. Send me a secure tip.
David Axe
David Axe
Follow
I'm a journalist, author and filmmaker based in Columbia, South Carolina.

Editorial Standards
Print
Reprints & Permissions

Join Our Conversation2 Comments
One Community. Many Voices. Create a free account to share your
thoughts. Read our community guidelines here
Commenting as Guest

Log in

Sign up

Sort by

Best

Peter H.
1 hour ago

David, Are you using up articles that were saved to be posted . You're
waiting for the Big Move!

Reply

Share

Peter H.
49 minutes ago

I see this was news reported in Ukrainian Pravda. But I'm still waiting
the ground to freeze.

Reply

Share
Powered by
TermsPrivacyFeedback

TIM PANNELL/FORBES
BUSINESS
DAILY COVER
Meet The Unknown Immigrant Billionaire Betting Her Fortune To Take On
Musk In Space
Lauren DebterForbes Staff
Forbes Digital CoversContributor Group
Jul 12, 2018,06:00am EDT
Even in the bloated-budget world of aerospace, $650 million is a lot of
money. It's approximately the price of six of Boeing's workhorse 737s
or, for the more militarily inclined, about the cost of seven F-35
stealth fighter jets. It's also the amount of money NASA and the Sierra
Nevada Corp. spent developing the Dream Chaser, a reusable spacecraft
designed to take astronauts into orbit. Sierra Nevada, which is based in
Sparks, Nevada, and 100% owned by Eren Ozmen and her husband, Fatih, put
in $300 million; NASA ponied up the other $350 million. The Dream
Chaser's first free flight was in October 2013 when it was dropped
12,500 feet from a helicopter. The landing gear malfunctioned, and the
vehicle skidded off the runway upon landing. A year later, NASA passed
on Sierra Nevada's space plane and awarded the multibillion-dollar
contracts to Boeing and SpaceX.

The original Dream Chaser, which looks like a mini space shuttle with
upturned wings, now serves as an extremely expensive lobby decoration
for Sierra Nevada's outpost in Louisville, Colorado. But the nine-figure
failure barely put a dent in the Ozmens' dream of joining the space
race. Within months of the snub, the company bid on another NASA
contract, to carry cargo, including food, water and science experiments,
to and from the International Space Station. This time it won. Sierra
Nevada and its competitors Orbital ATK and SpaceX will split a contract
worth up to $14 billion. (The exact amount will depend on a number of
factors, including successful missions.) The new unmanned cargo ship,
which has yet to be built, will also be called Dream Chaser.

The Ozmens, who are worth $1.3 billion each, are part of a growing wave
of the uber-rich who are racing into space, filling the void left by
NASA when it abandoned the space shuttle in the wake of the 2003
Columbia disaster. Elon Musk's SpaceX and Richard Branson's Virgin
Galactic are the best-known ventures, but everyone from Larry Page
(Planetary Resources) and Mark Cuban (Relativity Space) to Jeff Bezos
(Blue Origin) and Paul Allen (Stratolaunch) is in the game. Most are
passion projects, but the money is potentially good, too. Through 2017,
NASA awarded $17.8 billion toward private space transport: $8.5 billion
for crew and $9.3 billion for cargo.

"We're doing it because we have the drive and innovation, and we see an
opportunity--and need--for the U.S. to continue its leadership role in
this important frontier," says Eren Ozmen, 59, who ranks 19th on our
annual list of America's richest self-made women.

Until now, few had heard of the Ozmens or Sierra Nevada. Often confused
with the California beer company with the same name, the firm even
printed coasters that say #notthebeercompany. The Ozmens are Turkish
immigrants who came to America for graduate school in the early 1980s
and acquired Sierra Nevada, the small defense company where they both
worked, for less than $5 million in 1994, using their house as
collateral. Eren got a 51% stake and Fatih 49%. Starting in 1998, they
went on an acquisition binge financed with the cash flow from their
military contracts, buying up 19 aerospace and defense firms. Today
Sierra Nevada is the biggest female-owned government contractor in the
country, with $1.6 billion in 2017 sales and nearly 4,000 employees
across 33 locations. Eighty percent of its revenue comes from the U.S.
government (mostly the Air Force), to which it sells its military
planes, drones, anti-IED devices and navigation technology.

Space is a big departure for Sierra Nevada--and a big risk. The company
has never sent an aircraft into space, and it is largely known for
upgrading existing planes. But it is spending lavishly on the Dream
Chaser and working hard to overcome its underdog reputation.

"Space is more than a business for us," says Fatih, 60. "When we were
children, on the other side of the world, we watched the moon landing on
a black-and-white TV. It gave us goose bumps. It was so inspirational."
Eren, in her heavy Turkish accent, adds: "Look at the United States and
what women can do here, compared to the rest of the world. That is why
we feel we have a legacy to leave behind."

T

here are plenty of reasons that NASA gave Sierra Nevada the nod. Sure,
it had never built a functioning spacecraft, but few companies have, and
Sierra Nevada has already sent lots of components--like batteries,
hinges and slip rings--into space on more than 450 missions. Then
there's Dream Chaser's design. A quarter of the length of the space
shuttle, it promises to be the only spacecraft able to land on
commercial runways and then fly again (up to 15 times in total) to the
space station. And its ability to glide gently down to Earth ensures
that precious scientific cargo, like protein crystals, plants and mice,
won't get tossed around and compromised on reentry. That's an advantage
Sierra Nevada has over most other companies, whose capsules return to
Earth by slamming into the ocean. Today, the only way the U.S. can bring
cargo back from space is via Musk's SpaceX Dragon. "Quite frankly, that
is why NASA has us in this program, because we can transport the science
and nobody else can," says John Roth, a vice president in the company's
space division.