How US, French and Israeli troops could destroy the Crimean Bridge – possible scenarios

The task of destroying the Crimean bridge, even for countries with significant long-range capabilities and powerful air forces, will not be easy, provided that only conventional weapons are used

The practical aspect of the destruction of the Crimean bridge again surfaced through the wiretapping of the Bundeswehr Air Force Inspector (a position similar to the Air Force Commander) Ingo Gerhartz, in which he and his subordinates discussed the use of Taurus cruise missiles for this purpose.

At the same time, the German military itself was somewhat skeptical of the idea of using these cruise missiles, as it would most likely only lead to holes in the structure, not to the collapse of the entire structure. At the same time, the consumption of missiles is measured in figures of more than 30 units. And given that the Taurus is all that the Bundeswehr has in terms of long-range capabilities, this means that the German armed forces simply cannot solve this problem.

And in this situation, Defense Express can only use conventional methods to assess the capabilities of other countries, such as the United States, France, and Israel. In fact, we are talking about three countries that have nuclear weapons (in the case of Israel, it does not officially have them, but will use them if necessary) and the means of their delivery.

Finally, it should be recalled that the Crimean bridge is a capital structure protected by powerful air defense systems, including the S-400, and there are several air bases around it from which fighter jets are supposed to take off. In addition, the Black Sea is almost entirely fired by anti-ship missiles. Another important condition is the task of completely disabling it by destroying a significant part of the spans.

How the US would destroy the Crimean bridge

Although the United States does have the widest arsenal of long-range weapons, some of them are unlikely to be useful in destroying the Crimean bridge. In particular, it is indeed possible to try to attack the bridge with Tomahawk cruise missiles, but their 340-kg warhead is not really designed for this. As well as the 220-kg ATACMS warhead.

At the same time, the Pentagon’s concept of warfare does not always prioritize gaining total air superiority, which means that the area of operations must be cleared of aircraft and air defense systems in any case. Therefore, Tomahawk and other JASSM cruise missiles, as well as ATACMS, if possible, will be aimed at airfields and Russian air defense positions while the airspace is being cleared by fighters.

And when this goal has been achieved and the main condition for using aviation is to fly above 5-6 km to avoid getting under fire from man-portable air defense systems, the destruction of the Crimean bridge will be a relatively trivial task. For this purpose, the US Air Force has special high-precision concrete bombs in its arsenal.

It is possible to start with the high-precision GBU-28 weighing 2.1 tons and the semi-active guidance system used with the F-15E. The impact of such bombs on the bridge supports will be fatal for the bridge, as they penetrate up to 5 meters of reinforced concrete. As an alternative, the 874-kg BLU-109 with a JDAM kit can be dropped from an F-16.

And if this is not enough, there is a special non-nuclear bomb

GBU-57 for B-2 weighing 12.3 tons. This is actually a piece of equipment that can penetrate up to 16 meters of concrete structures. After it is used, it is unlikely that anything will remain of any support at all, and seismic shifts will most likely be the verdict of the entire structure.

How Israel would destroy the Crimean bridge

Despite the fact that Israel also has a powerful air component, in the event of such a fantastic confrontation, its resources would not be sufficient for a full-fledged lightning operation to gain total air superiority. Because for such tasks, about 340 combat aircraft, of which 39 are F-35i Adir, are objectively too few, or such an operation would be too risky.

But that is why Israel has the LORA tactical missile system, although it is not officially in service with the IDF. It has a range of up to 430 km, and the size of the penetrating warhead is about 600 kg.

But it will still be a complex task involving the use of false targets, possibly additional distraction strikes with planning bombs, air defense suppression, etc.

How would France destroy the Crimean Bridge

In fact, such a task would be the most difficult for France among the three, because it has very few stocks of long-range weapons, such as Tomahawk analogs – Missile de Croisière Naval – MdCN. The Air Force is about 220 combat aircraft, of which the Rafale is 137, including deck-mounted aircraft. And France simply does not have ballistic missiles, except for intercontinental ones with nuclear warheads.

Therefore, it will be a rather difficult task for the French armed forces to destroy the Crimean bridge. And among the possible tools, only SCALP cruise missiles, their first specific version Apache, and AASM Hammer precision long-range bombs can be used.

As for the SCALPs themselves, just like Taurus, they can only “make holes”. But the French Air Force already has an Apache in its arsenal for this task. This is actually the first version of this missile that was designed to destroy enemy airfields and it carries 10 50-kg Kriss concrete-piercing munitions. In other words, such missiles can make much larger “holes” in the roadway. But the problem is that Apache has a shorter range of 140 km.

However, to hit the bridge with full-fledged concrete-piercing munitions, it would still be necessary to fly closer – 70 kilometers to use the AASM Hammer. This jet engine and guidance system kit can be mounted on the already mentioned BLU-109, an 874-kg American anti-bunker bomb.

Thus, although each of these countries has the appropriate means to defeat targets in such a fantastic scenario, it clearly demonstrates that this is far from a trivial task.

At the same time, the meaning of the destruction of the Crimean bridge has long been in a more political plane, because, as the head of the Security Service of Ukraine Vasyl Malyuk recently said during the Ukraine. The year 2024: “The Crimean bridge has not been fully restored by the enemy, and it is not currently used for enemy logistics, namely, for the movement of weapons and munitions.” And this result was achieved without airplanes, ballistic and cruise missiles, or anti-bunker munitions.