This Ukrainian Strategy Against Russian Navy Could Be Used By Pakistan In A War With India

Ukraine's novel strategy, of employing multiple cheap and small unmanned surface vessels (USVs) to sink large Russian ships, could be an asset to the Pakistan Navy against India.

Just a week ago (on 5 March), Ukrainians using multiple cheap Maritime Autonomous Guard Unmanned Robotic Apparatus (MAGURA) V5 USVs, attacking in a coordinated fashion, sank a Russian Project-22160 naval boat, Sergey Kotov.

A month before this attack (on 14 February), they used the same tactics to sink another Russian landing ship, Caesar Kunikov, and a fortnight before that (1 February), a missile boat, Ivanovets.

They used a group of five to ten MAGURA USVs, that are 5.5 metres long, have a range of at least 500 kilometres, and carry at least 320 kilograms of warhead, to first distract and attract fire from a targeted Russian ship. While the defenders are busy attacking the USVs using close-in weapon systems and machine guns, one USV sneaks through, blowing up and disabling the ship.

The remaining USVs then follow through and hit the same impact point as the first USV has hit and sink it.

This old and classic strategy of overwhelming the enemy with large numbers of cheap weapons, in this case, cheap USVs (relatively speaking — each USV cost anywhere from $250,000 to $100,000) against large Russian ships (which, in comparison costs more than $50 million), has worked wonders for the Ukrainians.

The Russians, with their much larger navy, have failed to maintain control of the shipping lanes of the Black Sea. And this is despite the Ukrainians virtually having no Navy (most of its navy was destroyed in the initial days of the war).

Closer to home, in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), the Pakistan Navy is in a similar situation to Ukraine (albeit not as bad — it is better equipped and much larger than the Ukrainian Navy ever was) against its bigger neighbour India.

Pakistan Navy's meager fleet of just nine frigates and five submarines (with eight more Chinese Yuan-class submarines on order) stands no chance against the larger Indian Navy's fleet, which has two aircraft carriers, 12 destroyers, 12 frigates, 16 submarines, other than the forty ships under construction.

The Indian Navy, in a warlike situation, will look to establish complete dominance in the IOR, virtually closing all shipping traffic coming to Pakistan from the Arabian Sea.

In fact, the Indian Navy has done this multiple times in the past.

From the complete destruction of fuel and ammo-depot at Karachi and destroying all shipping infrastructure in Bangladesh (erstwhile East-Pakistan) in 1971 to the Kargil war of 1999, the Indian Navy has done this repeatedly.

This is exactly what the Russians tried to do against the Ukrainians in the Black Sea, but failed.

The cash-strapped economy of Pakistan cannot afford to go toe-to-toe with the Indian Navy in terms of numbers, which they know fully well.

That is why the Pakistan Navy has inducted three midget submarines designed in Italy, from which it hopes to conduct asymmetric warfare against the Indian Navy — something which the Ukrainians have done quite effectively against the Russians.

The USVs are easy to manufacture and control, even easier to deploy at sea, have a range of 500 kilometres, and also have the ability to re-engage if it misses its target, all while being way cheaper than any anti-ship missile (they cost upwards of $1 million apiece).

Anti-ship missiles only have one shot to hit their target.

If it misses, that opportunity is gone.

In contrast, USVs can make multiple approaches, fooling their defenders before striking successfully.

Pakistan can either develop its own USVs, which is very easy to do, as all components going into the USV are available in the commercial market, or buy them straight from the international market — even from Ukraine (after the war ends) — and use them against India. The Ukrainians will also be very happy in helping Pakistan, since Pakistan supplied them with artillery ammunition (routed by the British).

Moreover, Ukraine is a traditional supplier of weapons to Pakistan, T-80 tanks being one example.

Pakistan and Ukraine can even jointly develop advanced versions of these USVs using artificial intelligence and machine learning-based algorithms, making multiple USVs talk to each other and act in a coordinated way with no inputs from the human controller and turning them into completely fire-and-forget weapons.

The only Achilles heel of these USVs (as far as we know) is that they are controlled by humans using a satellite communications link, which can be easily jammed.

Why the Russians were unable to do so, or come up with a counter (despite them getting their hands on a completely intact USV, and that too, twice, when it washed up on their shores) is quite perplexing.

The entire world is talking about the threat from aerial first-person view drones and loitering munitions, and the need to develop effective ways to counter them, but these USVs can have even bigger implications.

They can subdue even larger navies.

A single strike can put a large surface combatant out of action for many months or even years.

The Indian Navy would be well-served if it takes note of these tactics and comes up with a counter of its own, lest the Pakistanis get another Abhinandan moment.