I Didn't Want To Do It...

... but a bunch of fanboys write about alleged "response" to me by this Simplicius guy. Comments appear in this blog under my video etc.  So, let me demonstrate to you how to obfuscate this issue:

1. Recall my constant requests since ISR "piece" by this S guy (in reality compilation of headlines), I even did my own research, trying to answer simple question: WHO IS Colonel Falichev, no serious data? Guess what, this is response from the S guy:

While I certainly don’t begrudge him such thoroughness and demanding standards, I will simply note that nothing Falichev said was debunked but rather his military standing was merely called into question. This is not a response directly to Martyanov, of whom I am a fan though he appears to be less so one of me, but rather an answer to the few requests of my own audience I’ve gotten to make a response on the matter. I like for people to have their own minds and agency in making determinations, so the only things I’ll say is that firstly, Falichev’s piece was obviously published in the official Russian Army journal, hosted on their own official site:

And then he proceeds to "answer" whatever BUT the question of WHO Colonel Falichev is.  He certainly goes into copious amount of "elaborations", including, for some reason, posting biographies of the Editorial Boards of Army Digest and Military Thought (the latter one featuring prominently in my latest book's bibliography), remarkably, with all those board members having their bios known, their academic backgrounds and service being public, Mr. S still doesn't answer the question I posited from the get go: WHO Colonel Falichev is. I later elaborated--WHAT, namely military academy, did he graduate from, which will constitute his VUS (Military Registration Specialty). No answer, but Falichev bio matters a great deal. Yet, Mr. S speculates:

In this case, for instance, the takedown of Falichev could imply that I don’t use good sources in my research—but you can clearly see the contrary is the case. Not only is the Russian Army journal I used a top source, its own Editor-in-Chief has an unassailably storied career, having graduated from three different top command schools:    

You see how it is done? "Implied", I do not imply anything:

2. ... I specifically ask a simple question of military-academic background of Colonel Falichev, which determines if he has professional engineering background to pass his opinions on the issue of ISR in general and netcentric operations in particular or is he merely a military journalist with anecdotal (and rumor collection) "knowledge" of the issue. If Falichev has engineering command VUS, has experience serving as officer-operator of TsAMO (General Staff) or operational level staff officer among many other things, then his opinion is worth something. If he is not, then he merely provided a compilation of "facts" based on somebody's opinions which can differ dramatically on many issues, including what is known as "smoking room bashing" by officers. That's what professional military magazines exist for--to publish all kinds of views.

3. Then comes this issue of ISR and netcentricity in which there are satellites and there are Satellites. Starlink is called such because it is primarily communications constellation whose main purpose is to provide broad band data-links. It can provide some valuable sign-int but that's about it. The main threat for Russian Armed Forces in the field (and the sea) are the so called "spy satellites" which provide the "view" of the battlefield in optical and electromagnetic diapasons and this is primarily anchored to air assets such as E-Sentry, P-8 Poseidon, RC-135, drones and other aircraft. If Falichev doesn't understand that ALL of them fly in the international air space near Russia's borders (especially Crimea) and CAN NOT be shot down without escalating the conflict to the WW III levels, I don't know then why he begins to talk about two different ISR systems operating under completely different sets of circumstances, with NATO ISR having a gigantic advantage operating behind the wall of International Laws and Conventions regulating air and space activity in peace time. Does Falichev know the effects of RUK/ROKs in SMO zone? Does he understand what "R" stands there for? 

And here is the main issue, again, can somebody finally tell me who Colonel Falichev is? Having his full article would help too, I cannot access Army Digest, I have access to Military Thought, though. For those who want to read up of Netcentricity, at some time Lt. Colonel Kondratiev wrote extensively on that. Now, here is how I explain (for laymen) what Sensor/Data Fusion is which is in the foundation of modern ISR in 2019. 

Here I post some pages--the introductory level explanation of NCW and Fusion. 

Why the area in the lake in which the boat can possibly be located becomes not quadrangle but ellipse--that's the whole science of probabilistic analysis and based on sensor fusion and it is some damn serious math (algorithms) which are operating at the back end of network.  Here is a very basic representation:

If you want to see some math behind it, here is some interactive Kalman Filter. These are very basic things required (imperative) for understanding of modern ISR. But the question remains: WHO is Colonel Falichev because he should understand the unprecedented scale of netcentric operations Russian Armed Forces conduct in 404 and conduct extremely successfully granted with some hiccups, but this is a normal process. 

Why I Pay Little Attention To Explosions And Military Porn.

Yesterday, one of our friends, Andrew, provided a link to a wonderful discussion between Col. Macgregor and LTC. Shaffer:

Is the Outcome of the Russia-Ukraine Conflict Preordained? Col. Douglas Macgregor and LTC Tony Shaffer

It is an excellent discussion of two professionals, granted I strongly agree with Macgregor on George C. Marshall and, naturally, completely disagree on Patton complaining about "constantly relieving everybody". Patton wouldn't last a month on the Eastern Front. Here is the video extract of the audio of this very same podcast, which is crucial in identifying operational and strategic realities of SMO. 

It is crucial because Macgregor correctly points out the fact of ISR complex being continuously employed by Russian forces and providing targeting 24/7. What Macgregor doesn't call by its name is, in fact, a first strategic use in history of fully networked battlefield against NATO, which, naturally, thought that it knew how to fight Netcentric war. 

I dedicate a large portion of my second book describing what it is and how it works. I explained, giving a proper due to late Admiral Cebrowski, that already in Soviet Union issues of netcentricity were being developed at a very rapid pace, without calling them such. Russians certainly used the term "network" (сеть) but didn't call it netcentric yet. 

Such an idea is not a new one. The Soviet Navy realized similar principles in its premier anti-shipping missiles of the 1980s and 90s, P-700 Granit (NATO SS-N-19 Shipwreck), which were fully networked in the salvo, able to communicate with each other, and capable of completely autonomous operations, including targets’ distribution within the salvo, and Electronic Counter-Countermeasures (ECCM), and they were fully shoot-and-forget weapons. For the mid-1980s this was an extremely impressive and, in many senses, revolutionary capability which was due to an explosive development of data processing technologies. 

We also should not forget MiG-31 and its ability to serve as a node in the network of up to six similar fighters and ability to distribute a salvo of air-to-air missiles. And, of course, Soviet Air Defense was into both networking and sensor fusion since 1960s. And that is what Russia's ISR complex does in SMO--it "leverages" netcentricity and provides excellent sensor and data fusion. Macgregor speaks about only 7 minutes it took Russian Navy from receiving the intel about VSU moving its forces into one of the storage facilities near Kiev, receive targeting, develop firing solution and launch. Macgregor admits that this is an impossible task for the US Forces. 

This, not some explosion of the NATO equipment propagated by all kinds of TG channels, is what drives NATO completely mad. This, plus the fact that Russian forces operate on a completely different strategic and operational logic which is NOT present and developed in the Western militaries. The fact that national economy, armed forces, foreign policy, security apparatus and political top operate as a unified and well coordinated mechanism is beyond West's in general and American in particular experiences. It is simply NOT there. 

So, start your stop-watches, ladies and gentlemen, before two Euro-poodles, Macron and Von Der Lugen, will be told by Comrade Xi to go pound sand when they visit Beijing in a desperate attempt to... whatever those Euro-losers are trying to accomplish, which is primarily a PR. Can you imagine a 6 year old kindergarten kid trying to sell penny-stock to a 60 year old successful hedge fund manager? There you go. It is the world of  tangibles, not BS. And winning the SMO is the most tangible of them all and they sense it in the West now. But it is too late.