The goal is to strike at Moscow. Ukraine modernizes Neptune anti-ship missiles
The journalists report that back in April 2023, a source told The War Zone that Ukraine was working on converting the P-360 Neptune into a ground-launched weapon, but that the missile needed a new guidance system, which it did not have at the time.
In particular, certain types of microcircuits were needed to complete the work, but the system was close to completion, according to an article by The War Zone project in The Drive.
According to the publication, which cites a representative of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, Ukraine has plans to eventually strike Moscow and other targets inside Russia using variants of the Neptune missile. To do this, it is planned to modify it into a surface-to-surface munition.
A Ukrainian official said that the attack on Russia’s S-400 air defense system near the village of Olenivka on Cape Tarkhankut on August 24 “was 100 percent carried out by a modified Neptune.
On August 28, a Defense Ministry spokesperson said that Ukraine had developed a GPS guidance system that delivers a missile to a predetermined location.
The converted Neptune, which is launched from the same launcher as the anti-ship version, has a range of about 400 km and a payload of about 350 kg. According to him, only a couple dozen such missiles have been produced so far.
On the ground, the missile’s infrared homing head (IHH) searches for and locks onto a target based on a preloaded image, and then launches a final attack on that target. If the missile fails to hit the target, it stops attacking.
The War Zone experts note that such a modification would be a major leap in capabilities, as the missiles would be impossible to jam with electronic warfare and would be very difficult to detect at the stage of the final attack due to the fact that their warheads are passive by nature.
Despite the success of the re-equipment, the Defense Ministry notes that modern Russian air defense systems can prevent the missile from reaching its target.
As a reminder, the Neptune coastal missile system is a development of the Luch State Design Bureau, located in Kyiv. It has existed since 1965. It was once the main developer of automated control and diagnostic systems for special aviation equipment in the USSR.
It turns out that the first Neptunes did not hit the target due to a missing part. And nature helped to hit Moscow.
