Military Power (Cont'd 3)

Previous parts of this Military Power "thought-stream" by me are here:

Military Power, Start 

here:

Continued 1 

and here:

Continued 2 

Culture. As was stated not for once by many military people--brains are not enough. Of course, they are necessary condition for any successful military but, alone, are not sufficient. Culture, defined as behavioral matrix, based in values, in perception and feeling of right and wrong, the way duty is defined, societal attitude towards the war, among many other factors, that is what makes a huge difference. In the end, the war itself is a cultural affair. Even the way morale (high, average or low) asserts itself within military is a cultural matter, esprit de corps'  is a derivative of culture. It is only when "brains" and culture coalesce into a single entity, the assessment of Military Personnel could be given with some degree of accuracy. It is then, that some, however conditional (and inaccurate), numerical value  can be assigned to this coefficient "C", and even then, this number being a mathematical expectation, that is weighted average of all possible states of, say, military morale. Let us get back to Napoleon's maxims: "An army's effectiveness depends on its size, training, experience, and morale, and morale is worth more than any of the other factors combined". 

We can review a simple example of such mathematical expectation of morale. Other factors which go into this coefficient "C" could also be viewed through the prism of mathematical expectations since the war...well--it is probabilistic in  nature. Nothing is certain in war. Consider this: let's say we have an abstract army which fights a prolonged campaign with different outcomes. Throughout the campaign all sub-units of this army, from platoon, company and way up to a division level, provide honest (good luck with that) reports on the morale (or fighting spirit) after each engagement with the enemy. This sum is then calculated and averaged, in the army's staff, for the whole army. If we to assign (for the sake of experiment, it could be useful later for other applications) three different values to the morale's states, we can get something like that: 

Low Morale: 3
Average Morale: 5
High Morale: 7 

Calculating the average of these three values (which is 5) makes absolutely no sense until we can really figure out how to get this army's performance based on weighted morale values. But let's say, that this army fought a total of 10 battles in this campaign. In 2 of these battles, the army performed poorly and exhibited a low morale, that is 3. So, we can calculate now the probability, based on this campaign, of low morale: it is 2/10=1/5 or 0.2, that is 2 battles fought with low morale divided by total number of battles in this campaign, which is 10. Say, in 4 of these battles, the army exhibited an average, that is 5, morale. By analogy, the probability of an average morale, based on this campaign, is 4/10=2/5 or 0.4. What is left are 4 battles fought with high morale and that gives us the probability of high morale as 4/10=2/5 or 0.4. Now, we are ready to calculate our mathematical expectation for morale:


  E[Morale]= 3 x 0.2+5 x 0.4+7 x 0.4=0.6+2.0+2.8=5.4

In other words, when comparing this imagined army to other armies which were judged by the same, or similar, metric we can say that we can expect, based on described campaign, the morale in our army to be slightly above average, 5.4, which, in the end, can be used as an element while calculating our coefficient "C', being one of its constituent parts. Of course, this example is just that--an extremely simplified, to the point of being vulgar, example, but what this example opens for us is a window into the importance of history. After all, we calculated our expected value based on historic performance of the army in 10 battles of a campaign. Of course, we can play with mathematics and metrics all we want, we can expand our sample space, we can give different values to morale and expand grades from low-average-high to twenty or even thirty grades. In fact, we can tie morale to outcomes and even create some graphs (with the best fit) but none of it ever will give number to this "unquantifiable", in the words of Israeli flight leader, connection to own culture and history which, in military terms, define WHAT FOR and HOW TO. 

In immortal War And Peace, Leo Tolstoy came up with the idea of differential of history. Yes, I know, damn calculus again. Tolstoy writes: "To study the laws of history we must completely change the subject of our observation, must leave aside kings, ministers, and generals, and study the common, infinitesimally small elements by which the masses are moved.....Only by taking infinitesimally small units for observation (the differential of history, that is, the individual tendencies of men) and attaining to the art of integrating them (that is, finding the sum of these infinitesimals) can we hope to arrive at the laws of history....To the imperfect human mind not all information can be available in a snapshot, and so it is reduced to ignorance or at best probabilistic reasoning." Indeed, Obercommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) thought that in 1941 it would have to merely, in the words of Hitler, "kick the door" and the whole building of USSR would collapse. The probabilistic reasoning was so strong, especially after the lightning victory in the West and gross miscalculations on the issue of Soviet morale and combat qualities, which provided Wehrmacht with cultural shock of facing the enemy who simply refused to give up. But then again, the outcome was per-determined by Nazis' refusal to see Russians (and other peoples of the USSR) for what they really were, not untermensch as overall Third Reich's state doctrine prescribed. But the issue of the Eastern Front and quality of military personnel on both sides in WW II (or Great Patriotic War as it is known in former USSR) is a separate topic in itself and it is NOT within the "Western" military paradigm for a number of strategic reasons, among which is "West's"  having nothing of like in its history is one of the most important ones. It is this reason which gives a very good explanation to "West's" infatuation with some of the most despicable a-historic propagandists and hacks of Solzhenitsyn or Victor Rezun (aka Suvorov) "caliber" who "interpreted" Great Patriotic War into the only lingo which "western elites" understand--self-congratulatory mythology of own might and self-righteousness. Where it all led to we can observe today all over the world and the picture is not pretty. But then again--this is what happens when prescriptions on how to fight wars are written by incompetent triumphalist lawyers, journos and "political scientists" who have no touch with military realities or real history. But, to be fair, a significant number of "Western" military scholars DID attempt to study war for what it is and, when speaking about  real war, that is war of nation-states, came up  with or, rather, noticed one determinant of Military Personnel which Russians discovered long ago and which is an axiom, whether seen through the eyes of Marxists or  Herbert Spencer's liberals--The Social Dimension Of Strategy.

 In 1984, Michael Howard noted in his "The Forgotten Dimension Of Strategy": "But Marxist military thinkers, without differing in essentials from their contemporaries in the West, naturally devoted greater attention to the social dimension of strategy--the structure and cohesiveness of the belligerent societies....Their picture of the world in which oppressed peoples are kept in a state of backward subjection by a small group of exploitative imperialist powers bears little resemblance to the complex reality...But the West is in no position to criticize. The stereotypes which we have imposed, consciously or unconsciously, on the political structures that surround us, have in the past been no less misleading...We appear to be depending on the technological dimension of strategy to the detriment of its operational requirements, while we ignore its societal implications altogether. "
"The Art And Practice Of Military Strategy", National Defense University, Washington D.C., 1984, pages 88-92. 

The importance of Howard's succinct observation is in the fact that NO serious discussion of Military personnel (if to follow CINC model which we are following here) is reasonable without overall assessment of the society, which produces the said Military Personnel, as a whole. The quality of this Military Personnel IS the quality of the belligerent society, because REAL wars are fought by societies, not just by armies. Sure, the conventional wisdom must tell us that throughout the XX century, at least, the best Military personnel was that of a Germany. Arguably, Wehrmacht's personnel was the best throughout 1940-1943. But, in the end, be it in WW I and, especially so, in WW II, Germany lost both wars as a nation, as a state, as a belligerent society. In social metric, which covers also this personnel quality, Nazi Germany turned out to be  no match for Soviet people, their tenacity, heroism, sacrifice and  will. Neither were soldiers of Napoleonic France, nor Polish invaders, nor Teutonic Knights and the list is very long.  As David Glantz and Jonathan House observe about WW II:

 The bulk of "Western" scholars of warfare would rather not deal with these conclusions. It is especially true for Anglophone world, which never experienced, nor could it, by the virtue of its safe geographical position, anything comparable in scale. When the issue of the Military Personnel is taken for consideration outside of the social, that is structural, framework it is inevitably reduced to what amounts to fanboys' penis measuring contests in linear comparison of, very often dubious, statistics within particular operation or battle. This is an amateurish approach when dealing with the primary issue of military power since, as was stated already before, it is not linear and it rings especially true for the factor of Military Personnel. In the end, as conventional wisdom goes, winning a battle and a war could be two very different propositions. During WW II, American and British soldiers exhibited more than enough heroism and military professionalism which earned them respect and admiration among peers. But neither British soldiers nor, especially, American ones fought  what would be defined a continental warfare in which soldiers would require, in the words of Chesterton, to not so much hate what was in front of them, but rather love deeply what was left behind their backs. British defeats in North Africa and humiliating escape from Dunkirk did not bring British State down, nor could they in the short run. Realistically, for Britain proper, that is not for the empire, naval warfare, especially  ASW and convoy component, that is keeping SLOC (Shipping Lines Of Communications) open, were way more important for national survival than the fortunes  of the 8th Army in North Africa. No British citizen saw or experienced, despite some of them being bombed, any horrors of the warfare on the grand scale which would require, in Clausewitz lingo, the maximum exertion of force not only on the battlefield but across whole society. This is even more true in the American case, where the United States Army could have never landed in Normandy and that would not in any way endanger the existence of American nation, which never experienced anything on the scale of the siege of Leningrad, mass executions of its civilians, destruction of its cities and infrastructure on the industrial scale.  

Neither United States nor Great Britain fought any real war for the survival of their respective nations. Overwhelming majority of the Anglo-warfare is expeditionary and that requires a very different  set of morals and qualities of military personnel, since fighting in some backward  shithole 7 000 miles from the glitz of downtowns and shopping malls of major urban centers and peaceful safety of middle town USA IS NOT the same as fighting at the outskirts of own burning town knowing what comes to it if the battle is lost. The proof of such utter un-preparadness, and of the lack of social and cultural institutions came on a tragic morning of 9/11. These were not, however horrible, terrorist acts, despite being a major failure of US security apparatus, which demonstrated a complete lack of any real American national experience with real war, this was a knee-jerk reaction which followed. To a nation utterly unprepared and unconditioned historically by the realities of the warfare it was easy, to the point of being surreal, to sell "War On terror" which, after 15 years, produced a global mayhem, destroyed nations who had nothing to do with 9/11, saw United States lose a bulk of its political, financial and military capital and, for all intents and purposes, lose wars. Seeing today totally divided American nation, which is the first and foremost symptom of demoralization, it goes without saying that it reflects on US Armed Forces. Even humiliation in Ukraine, when US Army "instructors" to Ukrainian Army were forced themselves to learn, instead of "instructing" was a case in the point: "Our soldiers are doing the training with the Ukrainians and we've learned a lot from the Ukrainians," said Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges. "A third of the [Ukrainian] soldiers have served in the ... combat zone, and no Americans have been under Russian artillery or rocket fire, or significant Russian electronic warfare, jamming or collecting — and these Ukrainians have. It's interesting to hear what they have learned." (c)

The Real War 
       
Thus the conclusion is not only warranted, but irresistible. Until one fought with the enemy at the gates, facing real extermination of not only oneself but much of what is beloved and treasured, until one faced equal enemy, capable of dealing equal fire impact (ognevoye vozdeistvie), until one has a historic record and culture of defending own nation--NO accurate comparison of military personnel is possible. I know of no such record in Anglo-sphere. In the end, even after 25 years of liberal brain-washing, after years of neglect and open sabotage, the speed with which people of Crimea and Novorossya showed their St.George guards ribbons in direct reference to the heroes of Great patriotic War stunned even me. It took "Western" presstitudes about two months to even notice those ribbons, let alone understand their meaning. A single symbol of defiance against all odds was a testament of high morale and determination. This was confirmed later time after time when much smaller armed forces of Donbass dealt one defeat after another to the Ukrainian Army. A genetic historic memory simply kicked in. 

People of Russia, century after century, fought off one invader after another. After losing some battles, Russia usually won her wars. From the battlefields to the industrial and agricultural rear, to the diplomatic cabinets, no nation in the world has even remotely comparable record of consistent defense of her realm. Despite incessant attempts of the "western" historiography to diminish, misinterpret or openly steal valor or Russia, no citizen or soldier in the world can state that he truly stood as one with his own people with the sword at the gates, against the best the world could throw at him, for thousand years as Russians did. And that is the best testament to the quality of the Military Personnel. It is not difficult, then, to come up with some mathematical expectation of what some values of military personnel quality could be....


To be continued.....  

The Perils Of Mosquito--III

The existence of the missile boats as a class of ships, in Soviet/Russian case, was predetermined not just by their relatively low costs but because of the operational concept, which later became known as Gorshkov's Line. Or, in other words, the farthest edge (kromka) of the area from which the enemy attack on Soviet coast could be launched. The idea was to deny the enemy operational freedom on this line. Surely, capital ships of the Russian Navy theoretically could deal with this threat but, the thinking went, they were far more effective in meeting the enemy beyond the limits of 800-1000 mile ranges, on the high seas, way beyond the ranges of enemy's weapon systems. 

In 1992 US Navy produced its famous operational concept From The Sea, which later, in 1994, was updated to Forward From The Sea.  

Forward From The Sea 

In this document US Navy clearly stated its purpose, which since then changed very little. The United States would attack anyone who has access to sea if it thinks it is necessary: 

How the Navy Operates

Forward...From the Sea provides the basis for a simple, yet powerful, operational concept of how we will operate to carry out expeditionary operations. We conduct forward naval operations both to ensure unimpeded use of the seas and to project American influence and power into the littoral areas of the world. Expeditionary operations achieve U.S. objectives across the spectrum of the National Military Strategy. They are a potent and cost-effective alternative to power projection from the continental United States and are suited ideally for the many contingencies that can be deterred or quickly handled by forward-deployed forces. Expeditionary operations complement, enable and dramatically enhance the effectiveness of continental power-projection forces when a larger military response is needed.

  Our attention and efforts will continue to be focused on operating in and from the littorals. The landward side of the littoral can be supported and defended directly from the sea. It encompasses areas of strategic importance to the United States. Seventy-five percent of the Earth's population and a similar proportion of national capitals and major commercial centers lie in the littorals. These are the places where American influence and power have the greatest impact and are needed most often. For forward-deployed naval forces, the littorals are a starting point as well as a destination. Tactically, the distance we reach inland from the sea depends on terrain and weather, the contributions of joint and coalition forces, the potential adversary's capabilities, and the nature of our mission. The mission may require us to exercise our considerable reach and operate far inland.(C)
 

For any, even removed from naval realities, observer the language and the spirit of this concept is obvious. It is global, it is aggressive and it is, well, good only against the third rate navies. The collapse of the Soviet Union and, with it, disappearance of US Navy's only rival on the high seas played a very bad trick with US naval doctrinal thinking. Conventionally US Navy could easily defeat the remnants of the Soviet, now Russian, Navy but there was a slight "problem"--Russian Navy didn't want to fight on the high seas. In fact, in 1990s, it could barely deploy there. But things changed since. The change was in electronics and computers and, well, in the way Russia was governed. While the army of US "analysts" and "Russia experts" was busy compiling, yet again (what's new), a picture of rusty, drunk, incompetent Russia, Russian Navy was thinking in the framework which was diametrically opposite to From The Sea concept--it can only be described as From The Shore. Indeed, Russia has no business of "Force Projection" globally. In fact, even if Russia wanted to get herself into this business of blowing shit up on the remote shores, where would she "project" it, against whom? As of today, Russian naval assets either have or are on the way to the full blown conventional stand-off capability against any shore, including against targets in North America, and even these capabilities are deployed in purely  defensive posture.                          
      
Thus, the defense of the nation's shores  from the sea, which is known today as fancy abbreviation A2/AD (anti-access/access-denial) becomes the foundation of Russia's naval thinking as it should and for a very simple reason--Russia does not want to fight with the US near its coast line, the United States, on the other hand, sleeps and dreams about dominating coast lines of the states it considers hostile to the US national interests (whatever those may be between Monday and Friday of the same week) and Russia fits the bill here perfectly. President Obama, after all, compared Russia to E-bola and ISIS. Recent developments in the Black Sea (Sea Breeze, anyone) obviously have a flavor of good ole' Cold War and the statements coming from high positioned US military people testify to the fact that many in Pentagon and its neocon political handlers are barely fighting urges to get Russia into some sort of the confrontation with the "West". Russia does not want to fight, so, as the old saying goes, if the mountain doesn't walk to Mohamed, Mohamed walks to the mountain. USS Donald Cook was playing Mohamed, together with other NATO ships, for quite some time. 

USS Donald Cook and Ukrainian ship Hetman Sagaydachnyi maneuver near Crimean shores.  

Unlike demonstration of flag in the littorals of Arab countries, operations near Russia's littoral can, but hopefully will not, present any NATO's navy, or combination of those, with the number of problems they never encountered before. Unlike previous encounters with, mostly Arab, navies and greatly talked up (a favorite term of media pundits is "integrated", e.g. "Saddam has integrated air defense") military capabilities or, rather, lack thereof, the encounter, as an example, in the Black Sea, in case of the hypothetical hostilities "from the sea" will have a very different profile, because Russia, unlike previously crushed "military powers", DOES posses genuinely integrated defenses. Every single element of Russia's A2/AD is truly integrated into the very complex system of national Command and Control which:

1. Is already partially capable of providing what Admiral Cebrowski (or Garstka, or Alberts) would call a GIG (Global Informational Grid)  aka Virtual Battle Space. Yes, Russian littoral defenses start at the bottom of the sea and go up, way up, in fact to the places Russians opened the door to others--space. Including this very important targeting system known today as Liana. Last rumors I heard is that it is already on-line, but what do I know. This is the system which provides targeting data to anti-ship missiles. For those who do not know what targeting data is I would say that it is a pretty simple thing: it is either bearing (azimuth) and distance (range) to the surface target or add here the elevation (or angle of elevation) for aerial ones. This data could also be, which is just fine for ASMs, such as Yakhont, geographic coordinates, aka lambda and phi, known as geographic altitude and longitude. That's targeting in the real time. 


2. Apart from space means, including the only other global positioning system--GLONASS, Russia has, on every theater, what NO other nation crushed by NATO ever had--Russia has actual, combat-capable Air Force. Including the planes which are known as AWACS and we are talking about arguably the best airborne radar in the world. We are talking A-50 Airborne Early Warning System.

Inside A-50

3. Russia's Black Sea Fleet, quite urgently, recreated the separate brigade of SSKs, with first hull arriving to Novorossiisk (via Sevastopol, I am sure) shortly, if not already. NATO DID NOT encounter a competent and state of the art submarine force...ever. 


4. And then, of course, came Mosquitoes, which I predicted were inevitable on the Black Sea Fleet even before return of Crimea home. Russia needs salvo on the Black Sea--that is, the number of the missiles which will reach and overcome saturation threshold of the NATO's naval missile defenses, that is, as we all understand, SPY-1D and Aegis. What is saturation threshold, that it is the number of missiles at which AD system implodes and allows the "leaker" through, remains the matter of speculations. However, judging by the late 1990s scandal with US Navy trying to obtain Russian target drones based on  AS-17 Kryptons remade into SSST (Supersonic Sea Skimming Target) for training--the issue is really serious. Since then M=3 ASMs with the active radar homing (Yakhont, for example, sees targets from 70 kilometers) and EECM package became mainstay of Russian Navy and not only that. Suddenly, fairly indefensible from the air, unless external air defense cover is used, project 21631 Buyan (you see, no Osas or Komars anymore) missile ships began to appear on the Black Sea. 

Here they are at Novorossiisk Naval Base getting ready to be included in the Fleet's order of battle

The thing with these ships is that with the displacement of about one ninth of Arleigh Burke-class destroyer and the price tag of about the same proportions, that is about nine times less expensive, they can provide the coverage for the whole Black Sea. One, of course, has to consider three points above that. The brigade of such ships can also provide a salvo to the strategic depth of land theater of operations or, speaking plain language, such ships can strike any city in Europe or, can strike land targets in the Persian Gulf while themselves being in the Caspian Sea. 

Suddenly getting small is becoming fashionable, after all, 1-2 Klubs will take out any large surface combatant. And single Yakhont, certainly, will have no problem destroying the target of LCS-1 or LCS-2 caliber, which, as we all remember, were designed to fight in littorals. Russia has it for small missile ships, the new project 22800 Karakurt, which will carry a navalized version of famous Pantsyr Air Defense Complex. 

Project 22800 Karakurt

  
And all that is just the start of what many already are calling a silent revolution in the naval warfare. 19th Century proponents of Jeune E'Cole would have been ecstatic today should they have lived to see the coming age of missile as a main striking weapon of the fleet. This and, well, this electronic mambo-jumbo with all those beyond horizon radar, multi static sonar, massive jamming capabilities (I should have put point 5 for that, I will), Net Centric Warfare and other things which moved navies away from pure platform-centric posture towards networks and integration with other forces. After all, it takes, under some conditions, 8 missile salvo by150-million dollar ship to destroy about 5-6 billion dollars of the hardware. And the numbers matter, as legendary Arleigh Burke told Elmo Zumwalt:"We need numbers"(c).

To be continued.........

The Perils Of Mosquito-II

The idea of a small ship capable of carrying out large tasks is, certainly, not new. After all, already mentioned, Jeune Ecole imagined naval combat being conducted by the swarms of small torpedo and cannon-boats, which would be controlled by the telegraph. One of the main factors which influenced Jeune Ecole was the invention of the shell and Canon-obusier (or shell-firing cannon) by Henri-Joseph Paixhans, which changed drastically, including an improvement in accuracy, the main striking weapon of the fleets--naval gun. Russians demonstrated the effectiveness of Canon-obusier in the Battle Of Sinop in 1853, when Russian Squadron defeated Turkish Fleet. The shell-firing cannon came of age in this battle. It also made it onto the small ships.

We know the rest of the story, that is until new weapon emerged. 

This weapon sent shock waves through naval world, when on 21 October  1967, Israeli Navy's INS Eilat was sunk by a two-missile salvo of Soviet-made Anti-Shipping Missiles (ASM) P-15 Termit (Styx), launched from Egyptian Soviet-made Komar-class (Project 183) small missile boat. The fact that the boat with 61 ton of displacement could sink a 1700 ton destroyer not by a torpedo seemed obscene at the time. Well, it is not obscene anymore. As Operation Trident by Indian Navy in 1971 demonstrated to a devastating effect--few Osa-class (project 205) boats armed with Styx  ASMs were capable to achieve a strategic result despite a minuscule displacement of combatants. And then, of course, came Falkland War which was an eye-opening experience for many in Anglo-Saxon naval community. Royal Navy did its duty well and won the war but paid a steep price. ASM not only has arrived as a viable naval strike weapon, it has arrived as THE weapon of the naval warfare, which was a really bad news for the US Navy's carrier trade union. 

Sure, one may say (and many do) that mosquito ASM capabilities are really not that great. Sure they are not by the very fact that this kind of fleet is called Mosquito for an engineering (and Russian convention of naming its missile boats classes after mosquitoes)  reasons and is not capable to carry an immensely important component of ship's defense--a capable Air Defense Complex. Left to its own devices, any missile boat ends like the Libyan Fleet in the action in the Gulf Of Sidra in March of 1986 against....US Navy. The chances of these few Libyan boats, armed only with Osa Air Defense Missile Complexes against overwhelming fire-power of the US Fleet were, frankly, approaching zero. But in this operation, as well as in Falkland War, both US and Royal Navies fought what was essentially Sea Control Battles against the opponents who would attempt to challenge them in what today could be termed as A2/AD  (Anti-Access/ Area Denial) framework. Argentinians, although defeated, fared incomparably better than Libyans. It took Royal Navy's HMS Conqueror and outstanding performance of RN's pilots from British carriers to break Argentina's attempts to deny Royal Navy access to the occupied islands. 

The outlook for the Mosquito fleet, however, changes drastically  when it is deployed and used  properly. And, as both successful (sinking of Eilat) and disastrous (Battle Of Latakia) for Arabs use of the missile boats demonstrates, they can be used from the naval base location, without any deployment even within nations' littorals. The problem with Arabs, though, was in the fact that....well, to put it mildly, they had neither means nor abilities to use their boats effectively. In fact, in this funny business of Sea Denial, A2/AD, what have you, the main thing is, as Admiral Sergei Gorshkov pointed out in his The Sea Power Of The State  (not the Sea Power AND The State as it is known in the West), interaction.  In other words--you want to deny the enemy access, say, to your littoral, be ready to do it with the use of heterogeneous forces which will be able to interact--that is act in concert towards achieving the same A2/AD goal. For the green water fleets, and it is there where the bulk of the "mosquitoes" to be found, which are run by even mildly competent leaders--the main task will remain to provide conditions for the missile boats to launch their main weapon. To do so, they will need to avoid the fate of Libyan missile boats in the Gulf Of Sidra. That means two major conditions to be fulfilled against the navies which count Force Projection as their main doctrinal goal and that leaves us with very few navies in the world, headed, of course, by the US Navy and its whole structure honed for blowing shit up anywhere in the world where alleged US national interests are "threatened"--these conditions are viable Air Defense and ASW (Anti Submarine Warfare). Today, there is only one navy in the world, which can provide, however barely, the existence and survival of its mosquito component against any adversary--Russian Navy. Russians always had pretty good understanding (and experience) of the shortcomings and advantages of the missile boats and that is why today, Russia develops not one but two different types of the missile boats, which will be able to fill the niche inside the heterogeneous forces package, capable to deliver needed amount of high explosives to the pre-determined location at the pre-determined time. In fact, Russian navy deploys today the only boats in the world capable of purely naval combat (that is against surface targets) and for the strikes to a strategic depth on such theaters as Europe or launch missiles from Caspian Sea to Persian Gulf. 

    

I propose, that the development of these kinds of ships (boats) and of the missile complexes they carry is completely new, paradigm-shifting, development but before I continue, hopefully during the Labor Day weekend, I want to make some important points. 

Disclaimer: I know, there are armies of internet "warriors" who browse world-wide-web constantly in search of the virtual fights and who do not understand that behind all this fancy military lingo is the reality of the combat with blood, suffering, torn limbs, horrible burns, torturous deaths. I am terrified by the possibility of Russia and US going to war, but I am also terrified by the blood-thirst of all kinds of patriots who are ready to fight somebody, while sitting in the chairs as I am doing now. 

I have a profound respect to US Navy, its glorious history and many people, who served and still serve there, some of those people are my closest and dearest friends and they are not war mongers. However, the continuation of the posts on mosquito fleet, inevitably, will lead to a description of the scenario which is in the air, but, hopefully is not becoming a reality, in which US Navy will try to test Russia's littoral defenses and this scenario will, certainly, involve participation on a massive scale of Russian Navy's mosquito capabilities, which, as some already guessed, will be covered in the air and from beneath by necessary means which, in Russian language, are called Naryad Sil  (Required Force--what is Naryad and why it is called as such, in English it means dressed, is a separate discussion;-)   Meanwhile, I leave you with the question of why late Admiral Cebrowsky's (hell, try Zumwalt and his Project 60) ideas of Street Fighter will not work in US. 

“Severodvinsk” launched cruise missile

Strange It Took So Long

"Our soldiers are doing the training with the Ukrainians and we've learned a lot from the Ukrainians," said Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges. "A third of the [Ukrainian] soldiers have served in the ... combat zone, and no Americans have been under Russian artillery or rocket fire, or significant Russian electronic warfare, jamming or collecting — and these Ukrainians have. It's interesting to hear what they have learned." (c)

This is from Joe Gould's piece in the Defense News:

Electronic Warfare: What US Army Can Learn From Ukraine

Ben Hodges, yet again, repeats here the, now standard in US media, baloney about "Russian artillery fire" and things of this nature. I want to reiterate yet again (especially for Mr. Ben Hodges) that if there would have been a "Russian artillery or rocket fire" in Ukraine--the Ukraine as we know it today would cease to exist in 72 to 96 hours, Ukrainian Armed Forces would cease to exist even faster. Ben Hodges, of course, knows this (or maybe he does believe in BS, akin to Orwell's 1984) and that is what important about this article in DN.

1. I said it many times, I will repeat it again--the US Army hasn't  encountered serious opponent, capable of conducting competent combined arms warfare operations, in ages. Turkey shoot against supremely incompetent Saddam's Army or low-intensity semi-police operations in Afghanistan are not the type of operations one really learns from in order to fight Continental War(fare) and defeat peer or near-peer, that is the nation-state. As Laurie Buckhout states "Our biggest problem is we have not fought in a comms-degraded environment for decades, so we don't know how to do it," Buckhout said. "We lack not only tactics, techniques and procedures but the training to fight in a comms-degraded environment." Well, Laurie, welcome to the real war. 

2. In the case of Ukraine's civil war, I am really surprised that it took so long for some news of a "culture shock", when dealing with actual serious warfare, to start trickling into the information universe of  American triumphalist "We are the best army in the galaxy" and "We can defeat anyone", despite stark evidence to the contrary. The article above is a good start and, possibly, a good argument for all kinds of the internet "warriors" convinced in their profound understanding of intricacies of the modern war and how Osipov-Lanchester Equations apply when fighting the enemy who, actually, has means and will to fight back. 

3. While Russia does support Novorossia Armed Forces, including through numerous volunteers, she never demonstrated in full (which is reasonable) her electronic warfare capabilities. What was demonstrated, however, evidently produced an impression, and then comes this touchy-feely issue of US Army's "advisers" training Ukrainian forces. As many sources reported some Ukrainian veterans of war were, frankly, puzzled with what US Army can actually teach them since none of the "teachers" ever experienced what those Ukrainian veterans did--that is real warfare which, as Colonel Macgregor states in his article in Time magazine:

USMC: Under-utilized Superfluous Military Capability

"In 110 days of fighting the German army in France during 1918, the U.S. Army Expeditionary Force sustained 318,000 casualties, including 110,000 killed in action. That’s the kind of lethality waiting for U.S. forces in a future war with real armies, air forces, air defenses and naval power.

Ignoring this reality is the road to future defeats and American decline. It’s time to look beyond the stirring images of infantrymen storming machine-gun nests created by Hollywood and to see war for what it is and will be in the future: the ruthless extermination of the enemy with accurate, devastating firepower from the sea, from the air, from space and from mobile, armored firepower on land."

4. For those competent and thoughtful observers who still populate politically correct corridors of power in D.C., it was clear that what happened in Georgia on 08-08-08 (yes, it is 7th anniversary of Saakashvili's and his US curators' suicidal adventure) IS the real war, which involves whole complex of heterogeneous forces and does involve maneuverable combat by armor (including in MBGs--Maneuverable Battalion Groups). Ukraine's civil war only confirmed the dominance of artillery and armor in serious combat against peers. The COIN crowd should have noticed that, but I only assume. But at least  Gould comes to the correct conclusion in his article: 

          'Future of War Is in the Ukraine'

Or, I would rather say, not the "future" but never-interrupted evolution from the past (see the title of this blog) when nations fought nations with all they have got. Writing of the American "book" on war failed. The serious war WILL have large masses of troops, armor, aviation and full C4SIR complex involved in a Clausewitzian activity "to compel the enemy to do our will"(c). These are the bad news for US military. These are also horrible news for neocons in State Department, since they never had understanding of this process of "compelling" and what it takes, and fully bought into the alternative reality of US military blowing shit up with impunity by using stand-off weapons against supremely incompetent and backward opponents. Will we see tank armies again? Yes, we will:

Russia Forms Tank Armies     

 Now, in conclusion, to the ever important and crucial question for internet warriors and couch troops: Can US Army conventionally defeat Russian Army?

My answer is simple--not in Russia's immediate vicinity, such as Ukraine. The worst news here, in the same time, are not even that it can  not, but that Russia is not intent to "invade" Europe and this fact is very difficult to hide. Especially against the background of US-led "global democratization", which resulted in millions of civilians killed, maimed, displaced and their nations destroyed. As for war. War is NOT a linear affair, at the very least, in its foundation are differential equations of Osipov-Lanchester, which describe, in the most basic form, the Square Law. 

Here 

 and 

Here

 It is from here where serious subject of Theory Of Operations derives itself, but that is a separate topic in itself and, maybe, some time in the future, I will touch upon it. It will involve a lot of mathematics.  Because the war is more than just non-linear it is also probabilistic in nature and it is often up to people, their resolve, skills and courage, to change its outcome. Especially for people who fight on their own land.    

Russia's Navy Day

It is the last weekend of July and, as tradition goes, it is Navy Day in Russia.  It was celebrated on all 4 Fleets (including snafu in Sevastopol with URPK's dummy launch) and Caspian Flotilla. Celebration in Baltyisk (the main base of Twice Red Banner Baltic Fleet) was marked by the visit of Putin and a bad weather. They still did produce some bang for a buck (or, rather, for free) and all this showmanship for public, but most important things were happening on board of the newest Russian frigate Admiral Gorshkov (project 22350) and were hidden from the eyes of general public. 

There, on board of Russia's latest frigate, new Naval Doctrine was announced. Well, it is not really a doctrine, nor is it purely naval, but for a government run by journalists (Rogozin) or Civilian Engineers (Shoigu) the latest "edition" of the Foundation of the Marine Policy had some very important points. Those who can read (speak) Russian can find them here:

Marine Doctrine

Most important of those points is, finally, recognition of a simple fact that full independence from foreign technologies in shipbuilding industry is a must. This, plus, of course, recognition of NATO as a main threat to Russia's national interests. This alone signals a massive shift from "re-integration" with Europe to a completely independent maritime policy, which will, inevitably, lead to a development of both green water naval capabilities and, eventual, emergence of blue water capabilities which would lead to a global Sea Denial Force--what this author was calling for years. The more things change, the more they stay the same........