In Blowing Up A Russian Minesweeper, Ukraine May Have Revealed A Secret: It Has ATACMS Rockets With 470-Pound Warheads

The Ukrainian military sank another warship from the Russian Black Sea Fleet on Sunday.

The Ukrainian defense ministry claimed its forces sank the minesweeper Kovrovets in an overnight strike on the port of Sevastopol in Russian-occupied Crimea, 150 miles south of the front line. Russian Telegram channels confirmed the loss.

“Another bad day for the Russian Black Sea Fleet,” the Ukrainian defense ministry quipped.

In 27 months of hard fighting since Russia widened its war on Ukraine, the Ukrainians have sunk or badly damaged more than a dozen of the Black Sea Fleet’s pre-war force of around three dozen large warships. So sinking a 200-foot minesweeper—one of two belonging to the Black Sea Fleet—isn’t all that remarkable.

What is remarkable is how the Ukrainians may have sunk Kovrovets: with a pair of American-supplied Army Tactical Missile Systems rockets, or ATACMS.

The two-ton, ground-launched ATACMS isn’t usually an anti-ship weapon. It’s for attacks on land. That’s because the inertially-guided ATACMS is, according to most sources, accurate to within 30 feet of its target. That’s not accurate enough to reliably hit a ship with a single large warhead.

Some ATACMS models, including the 100-mile M39 and 190-mile M-39A1 models Ukraine has received from the United States in at least two batches totaling at least 120 missiles, scatter hundreds of grenade-sized submunitions. That mitigates a lack of pinpoint accuracy.

But while submunitions can damage a ship’s topside, they’re unlikely to sink it, as sinking it requires breaching the hull.

If Ukraine did indeed hit Kovrovets with ATACMS, it could mean two things. First, Ukraine has gotten 170-mile M48 or 190-mile M57 ATACMS with 470-pound warheads in addition to getting M39 and M39A1 ATACMs with submunitions.

Second, the M48 and M57 are more accurate than many observers assumed.

The implications are enormous. For starters, what remains of the Black Sea Fleet that’s still anchoring at Sevastopol, well within range of the M39A1, M48 and M57, is in big trouble. “If ATACMS are taking out Russian warships in Sevastopol, hard to see the base having much utility left for the Russians,” pointed out Phillips O’Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

After all, the frequently-damaged S-400 long-range air defense battery that protects Sevastopol and nearby Belbek air base hasn’t been able to intercept incoming ATACMS. “Russians have almost no capability to deal with them,” noted Nuno Felix, a Portuguese military consultant.

Equally troubling for the Russians, accurate ATACMS with unitary warheads could represent a serious danger to the Kerch Bridge, which connects southern Russia to occupied Crimea. The same precision that would allow an M48 or M57 to hit a ship should also allow it to hit a bridge, explained Fabian Hoffmann, a researcher with the Oslo Nuclear Project in Norway.

The Kerch Bridge isn’t the Russians’ only supply line into Crimea—there’s also a railroad threading toward the peninsula through Russian-held southern Ukraine. But if Ukraine can interdict the railroad and drop the Kerch Bridge, it could cut off Russian troops in Crimea.

“ATACMS make a serious difference in making untenable the key terrain of the war: Crimea,” Felix wrote. That the rockets may have sunk a Russian minesweeper is just a bonus for Ukraine.