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Originally Posted by Kapitan
This is true however there are some areas where we in the west lack namely AShM capability, we are still reliant on the subsonic 1977 Harpoon and a modernized version (Maritime strike) of the subsonic Tomahawk, LRASM is merely a stop gap, we actually need to start looking closely at this area.
As for the 2018 decision by the UK to remove harpoon from service from all RN ships its just one of those head in hands moments for me.
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The Ukrainian Neptune-class anti-ship missiles are essentially Russian copies of the Harpoon missile. They are subsonic missiles with about a 145 kilogram warhead. To be fair, the Moskva did not have it's air defense radars in operation. This is incompetence and ineptitude on a whole new level. It's a matter of conjecture if the Moskva could have stopped the missile attack if it had been alerted in time. This is based on photos taken after the attack that show it's radar emitters were stowed.
The point is Subsonic missiles under the right circumstances are still effective. The Russian Frigate Makarov has also been hit with Ukrainian missiles and certainly, it was aware of the dangers that the Ukraine posed and yet, was unable to stop the attack. The photos and video are courtesy of Turkey.
Certainly, the U.S will apply hyper-sonic technology to it's next generation Tomahawk ASM inventory. Tomahawks employ a much larger warhead yield over Harpoon missiles.
https://news.usni.org/2022/05/05/war...analysis-shows
https://www.skynews.com.au/world-new...9a86deee92f996