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New aircraft shelter at Marinovka Air Base: deception, protection or strategic defense?
Satellite images show an aircraft shelter at the Marinovka Air Force Base in Russia's Volgograd region, 300 km from the Ukrainian border. This follows the Ukrainian ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) attack on the Belbek Air Base in Crimea on May 15, 2024, and the destruction of the S-400 AD (air defense) system at Mospine on May 22-23. It will.
The attack on Belbek destroyed MiG-31, MiG-29 and Su-27 fighters, satellite images from Maxar later showed.
Maxar photos show destroyed Russian MiG-31s, MiG-29s and Su-27s and bases at Belbek Air Base in Russian-occupied Crimea. This would significantly reduce Russia's air strike capabilities. Imagine what these ATACMS could do at the Belgorod airfield where Russia bombed Kharkiv. pic.twitter.com/PmJpkMYvdZ
— Sergej Sumlenny, LL.M (@sumlenny) May 17, 2024
There are various assessments of the effectiveness of the Marinovka shelter. Even Russia-affiliated military commentators point out that Russian air bases have long missed such protective hangars, arriving late in the war. The Google Earth image shows “a hangar in anticipation of a major Ukrainian airstrike,” said Ukrainian military blogger Igor Sushko.
Russia is currently building hangars in anticipation of a major attack from Ukraine. The Marinovka airfield is located 300 km from Ukraine and is home to Su-24 and S-34 attack bombers.
It must be a good thing that Russia has been able to do this for almost 2.5 years because its allies in Ukraine have been actively protecting those targets. pic.twitter.com/yHAhphMURl— Igor Sushko (@igorushko) May 30, 2024
The base is home to Su-24 Fencer and Su-34 Fullback fighter-bombers. “It must be a good thing that Russia has been able to do this for almost 2.5 years because its allies in Ukraine have been actively protecting those targets.” Photos show 12 hangars and four exposed Su-24 jets lined up side by side.
Trick, protect, or both?
The September 2023 case may shed some light on current practice. Satellite images show that Russia has installed rubber “tires” on bombers at Engels Air Force Base, possibly to provide additional protection from drone and Neptune missile attacks. The base is home to Russian Tu-95 and Tu-160 strategic bombers.
This is because the Ukrainian Neptune, an anti-ship missile originally modified for a land-strike role, has new heat-seeking devices that do not match the aircraft's altered infrared signature loaded into memory.
Car tires were placed on the wings and fuselage. Experts at the time said the tires could have caused the attacking UAV to bounce before hitting the plane's fuselage. Even a single low-explosive warhead will render the aircraft unusable for a long time.
On February 26, 2023, the Ukrainian-affiliated Belarusian partisan group BYPOL claimed to have damaged an A-50U AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) by landing a kamikaze quadcopter on the radar disk of Machulishchy Air Force Base in Belarus.
russian thoughts
So the idea behind the tires or hangars may be to make the aircraft difficult to spot by optical cameras. We cannot rule out the possibility that an aircraft with tires nearby is a decoy. Deception forces the attacker to attack the wrong target, and is expected to complicate the enemy's plans, even if it is not always successful. It raises doubts as to whether the identified object is fake or real.
Russia says Ukraine relies heavily on Western munitions, electronic intelligence (ELINT), optical reconnaissance and airborne radar guidance from NATO aircraft such as the E-3 Sentry AWACS, RQ-4 Global Hawk, RC-135 Rivet and MQ-9 Reaper. I know that. Western military advisors are also unofficially stationed at the site.
This means that a lot of resources and manpower are devoted to screening and analyzing optical and electronic information to plan and carry out attacks. As for Marinovoka, it is difficult for Ukraine to judge its value because it does not know exactly how many aircraft the base has. Neither Ukraine nor NATO want to spend resources and time making decisions focused on just one base.
Another remote expectation of Russian planners could be to actually guide an attack in Ukraine and gain further insight into its plans and NATO's surveillance tactics. However, the above conclusions remain in the realm of broad speculation.
This reasoning is based solely on the fact that Moscow chose an attritional and long war, compensating for a few tactical mistakes for gradual strategic gains. Otherwise, it could be a haphazard attempt by the Russian Ministry of Defense (RuMoD) to protect its aircraft, which lack reinforced shelters, especially after the Belbek attack.
'A little late, but not useless'
The leading Russian Telegram channel 'FighterBomber' mentioned both possibilities. “This arched canopy was clearly built in a hurry and there was nowhere else to go.”
The channel speculated how new shelters could be built with 'donations' from citizens, an ongoing crowdfunding effort by Russian Telegram 'Milbloggers' to meet the military's daily battlefield requirements. This is intended to fill the gap created by greater bureaucratic and public financing hurdles in meeting capital expenditures. These efforts have the Kremlin's blessing, as seen in his public meeting with President Vladimir Putin.
“It appears that some authorities in the Ministry of Defense are reluctantly broadening their minds,” Fighterbomber said, adding that finer details such as the number of hangars per airfield, how they will be installed and whether they will be “reinforced with blocks or embankments” are unknown. Everyone knows it.
Weapons A tactical possibility could be to defend against bomb-releasing 'area weapons', such as the M39 or M39A1 ATACMS missiles used in the Belbek and Mospyne attacks. Both carry M74 submunitions in their warheads: the M39 carries 950 bombs and the M39A1 carries 300 bombs, enough to permanently disable thin-body systems such as aircraft and AD radars. The “hangars” are “intended to protect aircraft from attack drones and missiles equipped with cluster warheads,” Militarnyi said.
But FighterBomber rejects this possibility. These appear to be 'lightweight shelters' built with funds from 'beloved citizen supporters'. “We need large reinforced concrete shelters. “Citizens won’t be able to afford it,” he said.
But FighterBomber also recognized its merits. “First of all, you can’t see how many planes there are. Not specifically where it is located or whether it is located at all. “Even if a strike occurs, it will be difficult and in some cases impossible to achieve actual defeat,” he said.