It’s the deepest Ukrainian drone strike of the war, so far
A month after Ukraine began bombarding targets inside Russia with explosives-laden sports planes modified for remote flight, one of the do-it-yourself drones has struck an oil refinery in the city of Salavat, more than 800 miles from the front line of Russia’s wider war on Ukraine.
It is, by far, Ukraine’s longest-range raid—and an escalation of Ukraine’s deep-strike campaign targeting Russian refineries, factories and strategic military sites.
And it’s at least the fourth attempted deep strike involving Ukraine’s sport-plane drones. Videos shot by people on the ground in Salavat clearly depict the wide straight wings, fixed wheels and propeller that are typical of an inexpensive sport plane, the kind a middle-class pilot can build at home from a kit costing as little as $90,000.
We aren’t talking about the weight of the payload though. Don’t you need a fairly hefty bomb to meaningfully damage a refinery?
If the answer is no, I would love to see this strategy implemented in a longer ranged plane. Russia’s main tank production factory is about 2000 miles from the nominal Ukrainian border.
Total weight is crucial for how far a plane can fly. So - Pilot weight + Payload weight needs to be considered.
In terms of damage, if you hit the right spot without redundancies you can shut down or severely limit operations of a plant even with only a small material damage. Even if there is no visible damage, reducing the structural integrity of pressure pipes and the like can force a shutdown of that equipment until the damage is properly investigated.
In 2019 Houthis successfully attacked two Saudi refineries with a small swarm of drones, forcing a shutdown.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abqaiq–Khurais_attack
Good context, cheers
A refinery has a tank with millions of liters of gasoline. It already has the bomb. All you really need is a penetrator and an igniter.
Typically buried underground.
You… got a source for that?
Twenty years in O&G
Fifteen here. Underground tanks are not that common. They are a maintenance and environmental nightmare. But it would be nice if you could provide with any evidence other than “trust me bro”.
https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/2015/10/19/124674/on-edge-of-houston-underground-caverns-store-huge-quantities-of-natural-gas-liquids/
http://www.gazprominfo.com/articles/gas-storage/
Underground salt plumes are some of the most efficient natural forms of liquid and gas storage.
So all you need to do to build a tank is to move your entire facility to where natural geology favors not building a tank?
That still says nothing about the prevalence of above ground vs underground tanks.
Large storage facilities are located where geology makes storing energy underground cheap.
From the pictures on twitter damage seems pretty minimal.
Depends on where you drop it.
But otherwise, the headline is almost certainly overstated. It makes for some sexy war propaganda, though.
It does also show Russia that Ukraine is capable of bypassing their defenses and successfully attacking infrastructure (or military installations/encampments) several hundred kilometers inside Russia.
And doing it multiple times.
That’s never been in doubt. It’s been a war of attrition from day one.
The extended range in a gonzo mission is notable precisely because it’s so desperate.