KALININGRAD, June 5. /TASS/. The Baltic Fleet’s small air-cushion amphibious assault ships Yevgeny Kocheshkov and Mordovia successfully accomplished artillery firings against aerial and naval targets during drills, the Fleet’s press office reported on Wednesday.
"The artillery firings were conducted from 140mm Ogon rocket launchers (the seaborne version of the Grad multiple launch rocket system) against a special buoy field simulating an enemy coastal battery and small-size mobile targets designating seaborne drones," the press office said in a statement.
The crews of the small amphibious assault ships also fired 30mm AK-630 automatic artillery guns against simulated aerial targets. Illumination artillery shells fired by a 152mm Akatsiya battalion self-propelled artillery system from Taran Cape in the Kaliningrad Region simulated aerial targets in the drills, it said.
"The combat exercises were conducted at various altitudes and distances. As a result, all the targets were successfully destroyed," the press office said.
In fulfilling their combat training objectives, the crews of the small amphibious assault ships practiced loading personnel and equipment from a shore into a tank hold and then sealifted and landed an amphibious assault force on an unequipped coastline, it said.
The Yevgeny Kocheshkov is a Project 12322 Zubr-class air-cushion small amphibious assault ship. The Yevgeny Kocheshkov and the same-type combat ship Mordovia are the world’s largest amphibious assault hovercraft operational in the Russian Baltic Fleet.
These ships are designated to sealift amphibious assault forces with their military hardware from equipped and unequipped shores, land troops onto an adversary coast and provide fire support for the landing party. Thanks to their air-cushion design specifics, they can move on the ground, bypassing small obstacles (ditches and trenches) and minefields, advance through marshlands and land an amphibious assault force deep into the enemy defenses. Zubr-class hovercraft can land an assault force on up to 70% of the total length of the world’s coastline.