The Ministry of Defense of the russian federation showed an interesting video of the Pacific Fleet ships training to repel a kamikaze attack of marine drones.
It is known that more than 15 ships and boats took part in the military exercise. There are three state-of-the-art russian Steregushchiy class corvettes of Project 20380 among them. Rezkiy is the youngest ship, which was handed to the fleet in September 2023 are. It also took part in the training.
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This fleet, with a permanent base of deployment in Vladivostok and Kamchatka, is as far away from Ukraine as possible. This decision was made typically for all russian fleets as well as for the Black Sea Fleet. Because the Black Sea Fleet has already lost Caesar Kunikov landing ship, Sergei Kotov patrol ship, as well as Invanovets missile corvette due to such drones as Magura V5, not to mention smaller targets and damage.
To protect their fleet from drones, russians want to use additional machine guns and sailors with assault rifles. In particular, the footage shows a DShK heavy machine gun that has been in service since 1938. russians mount them on swivels.
The usage of DShK heavy machine gun means the lack of modern models of large-caliber machine guns, such as the NSV Utyos heavy machine gun, which has been in service since 1972. The report mentions the use of modern similar Kord machine guns, but they were not seen.
Sailors with Kalashnikov rifles are also supposed to repel the attack of kamikaze drones. At the same time, they shoot somewhere at an imaginary drone, not at a shooting target. In other words, such shooting is ineffective. Not to mention that drones usually attack at night.
So, why russians would conduct exercises if their ships are equipped with AK-630 rotary cannon.
This is a 30-mm automatic cannon with a rate of fire of up to 5,000 rounds per minute, which is integrated into a combat control system with its own radar and Puma 5P-10 fire control radar. This is a new russian development that is supposed to provide simultaneous tracking of up to four targets with automated control of several artillery on the ship.
But, for some reason, the russian federation is now installing DShK heavy machine gun on swivels of the most modern ships of the Pacific Fleet. We are talking about four corvettes of Project 20380 that were delivered from 2017 to 2023, and two more are to be delivered by 2027.
It should be noted that the video also shows the practice of searching for maritime drones using a vertical takeoff and landing UAV. They are routinely based along with Ka-27 helicopters at russian modern ships.
Earlier Defense Express reported that consequence of Ukraine's Magura drone attack in Vuzka bay had been sunken vessel.
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