A Russian missile strike hit civilian infrastructure in the Ukrainian city of Odesa, killing at least 20 people and injuring scores of others, Ukrainian officials said Friday.
Followup: Russia does apparently have a newer rocket-deployable antipersonnel mine that sounds kind of similar to the British anti-runway area-denial weapon above.
The POM-3 is a scatterable mine of roughly cylindrical shape, able to be deployed from the air or by ground forces. The Russian ISDM Zemledelie mine-laying rocket launcher, in service since 2021, can deploy the mines in a range from 5 to 15 km. Once the mine hits the ground, stabilized by a small parachute, it stands upright on six spring-loaded feet on hard ground, or sticks into the ground if it is soft.
The mine is activated by a seismic sensor forced into the ground. The sensor detects approaching footsteps and activates the mine if it determines that a person is within lethal range (about 16 meters). Upon activation, a fragmentation charge is ejected into the air and explodes. The mine has a self-destruct fuze that detonates the mine 8 or 24 hours after deployment.
The described rocket doesn’t have the kind of range needed to reach Odesa, though.
They’d have to use a cruise missile or drone or something.
considers
Nazi Germany had a similar problem with the US during World War II, where they couldn’t get rocket weapons in range of any US cities. Their proposed solution, which was never actually used, was to have a submarine tow a submerged launcher with a stabilized launch platform to within range of New York City, then surface it and launch from the Atlantic.
I suppose maybe it’d be hypothetically possible for Russia to do that without modifying the existing launcher. I’d guess that Russia’s got bigger problems in the war to deal with than trying to use complicated schemes that require a submarine to get antipersonnel mines into Odesa, though.
Followup: Russia does apparently have a newer rocket-deployable antipersonnel mine that sounds kind of similar to the British anti-runway area-denial weapon above.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POM-3_mine
The described rocket doesn’t have the kind of range needed to reach Odesa, though.
They’d have to use a cruise missile or drone or something.
considers
Nazi Germany had a similar problem with the US during World War II, where they couldn’t get rocket weapons in range of any US cities. Their proposed solution, which was never actually used, was to have a submarine tow a submerged launcher with a stabilized launch platform to within range of New York City, then surface it and launch from the Atlantic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_U-boat
I suppose maybe it’d be hypothetically possible for Russia to do that without modifying the existing launcher. I’d guess that Russia’s got bigger problems in the war to deal with than trying to use complicated schemes that require a submarine to get antipersonnel mines into Odesa, though.