Russian War on Ukraine

Ukraine: Massed Cruise Missiles to Swamp Russian Air Defences

The Trembita wants to be seen and heard…

A new ‘home brew’ cruise missile is being tested by Ukraine, with hope for production levels ultimately in the ‘thousand per month’ range.

Weapon concept

This Ukrainian missile is conceived for salvo firing of 20 to 50 missiles at effective depth of 50 to 140 km (87 miles), i.e., the area where the enemy concentrates the top priority targets protected with air defence systems.

Each missile presents an attractive radar cross-section and infrared profile to enemy air defence targeting systems. The idea is to overwhelm and exhaust Russian air defences protecting those targets when a swarm approaches.

It is designed to be noisy — a morale damaging effect that the Germans used in WWII with the Stuka dive bomber and the V1 ‘Buzz-bomb’.

Indeed, the Trembita could be seen as an updated version of the V1.

Manufacturing concept

This is conceived to be simple and cheap.

Described the ‘the people’s missile’, a key aspect of the project is distributed manufacture at small sites (such as garages). These sites are numerous, easy to conceal and difficult for Russia to target.

The missile is relatively simple to construct with basic tools and uses widely available components fabricated and assembled by welders and mechanics.

The expected production volume is hundreds of units per month, and production scale-up is straightforward — just add more garages and mechanics. The only constraint on ramping up volumes might be component availability such control/navigation electronics.

Engine

A cheap petrol (or diesel) powered pulse-jet engine is used.

The project’s chief engineer, Akym Kleymenov, says his low-tech bomb can be transported in the boot of a car. It is launched by pneumatic catapult or with a solid-fuel booster. Trembita uses a jet pulse engine and carries 30l of fuel. This is enough to send the rocket on a half-hour journey into enemy territory, though not quite far enough to hit the bridge connecting Russia with occupied Crimea. — The Guardian

The pictures in the story suggest that he has a very big car.

Launch and targeting

Launching of the missile does not require a high level of training for the battery operatives.

The German V1 used a basic autopilot for guidance. This relied on gyroscopes, a barometer and magnetic compass for altitude and direction. The navigation had to be done before-hand and set in the instrumentation. It was impossible to correct for crosswinds and navigate with certainty to a specific set of coordinates.

Modern GPS guidance and computer controlled flight systems are much accurate to a very high degree. Target coordinates are pre-programmed. But GPS is susceptible to jamming. It’s not known whether the Trembita is resilient to GPS jamming.

And to keep costs down, it will definitely not have a terminal phase guidance system.

In contrast the Storm Shadow has GPS and inertial guidance, with terrain-following capability and terminal phase infrared guidance, with a stealth design and ECM.

Warhead

With a warhead variously quoted as 35-40 kg weight, any one missile can do significant damage.

But the real opportunity come if the swarm is followed by heavier cruise missiles such as the Storm Shadow which is capable of penetrating and destroying hard targets with it ‘Broach’ penetrating’ warhead (total warhead weight 450 kg).

So far, the Storm Shadow has been very successful in Ukraine. There have been numerous claims by Russia about successful takedowns of the missile, but none have been substantiated. However, one suffered a technical failure and was captured by Russian forces.

And a Trembita swarm could also be followed up by Ukraine ground attack aircraft such as the Mig-29 with heavier weapons.

Cost

The cost of a Trembita is low — $3,000 to build the missile and another $7,000 to equip it with a modern navigation system. (The Guardian). So, $10,000 all in.

Compared with the cost of ‘conventional’ cruise missiles — the Storm Shadow is reported to cost $3.2m per missile — it’s peanuts, even though a one Trembita is much less powerful.

They are different beasts for different purposes and so a straight cost comparison is meaningless, except insofar as bangs per buck go.

It’s almost like comparing a single cluster munition artillery shell with an Excalibur guided artillery shell.

But both have their place in Ukraine’s armoury.

Challenges

The operational challenges would include:

Slow speed

Most subsonic cruise missiles use turbojets capable of driving them at 500–700 mph (Storm Shadow — Mach 0.95, 720 mph). With a simple pulse-jet, the speed of the Trembita is quoted to be 400 kph (about 250 mph). This makes them somewhat easier to intercept or hit with AA guns.

GPS jamming

This would seem to me to be a major issue, as ground to air missiles would not be required to bring them down. But I’m certainly not the first to think of that and Ukraine’s designers will surely have that covered.

And the name?

The Trembita is a long Alpine horn used by Ukrainian mountain tribes to signal weddings, deaths and funerals (Wikipedia).

The signaling to Russia is quite clear: More deaths and funerals to come.

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