On The Importnace Of Being Thrifty.

As you may have recalled, Vladimir Putin few months ago gave the order to develop anti-hyper-sonic missiles defenses. You also should remember that I spoke not for once on the "revelation" mode of Russia's defense industry and armed forces. It is a process of steady, incremental, exposure of military technological capability which is behind (sorry for repeating it ad nauseam) real revolution in military affairs. Such as this little piece of news:

МОСКВА, 2 окт - РИА Новости. Расчеты С-400 в Астраханской области отстрелялись по уникальным гиперзвуковым ракетам-мишеням "Фаворит РМ", уничтожив все цели, говорится в сообщении пресс-службы ЗВО. "Боевые расчёты зенитной ракетной системы С-400 "Триумф" зенитного ракетного полка соединения противовоздушной обороны Ленинградской армии ВВС и ПВО Западного военного округа провели успешные боевые стрельбы", - говорится в сообщении.

Translation: Combat crews of S-400, in Astrakhan Region, held combat exercises against hypersonic target-missiles "Favorit PM" and destroyed all targets. The statement of the press-service of Western Military District announced.  The crews of S-400 Triumphs were from the units of air-defense of Leningrad Army of Air Force and Air Defense of Western Military District.

And what this "Favorit PM" missile-target complex is? Very simple, it is deeply modernized good ol' S-300 P series which allows to use missiles of types 5V55 which have their explosives removed and are capable of atmospheric maneuverable flight with the velocities of Mach=6 (in excess of 7,000 kilometers per hour). These are genuine hyper-sonic missile-targets and, evidently, and I don't have any reasons to doubt it, S-400 had very little problems shooting them down. So, there you are. This whole thing also has an immense naval ramifications since Poliment-Redut complex installed on project 22350 frigates uses a number of same missiles as S-400 and we do not still know REAL parameters of these AD missiles. Obviously, everyone knows that 40 and 48 series long range missiles used by S-400 are Mach=14 capable, but it becomes really foggy once the talk about 9M series begins. Some sources state that those are capable of intercepting targets moving with the velocities of up to M=15. 

So, good luck launching subsonic ASMs at those ships. Evidently modernized pr. 1144 Admiral Nakhimov (with Peter The Great being next in line for modernization) will carry an ungodly number of these missiles. This all comes on the heels of my yesterday elaboration on Dmitry Gorenburg's piece on Russia's naval "strategy", which as I write since hell knows when, including in US Naval Institute publications, can ONLY be a sea-denial, I quote myself from more than two years ago:

The Russian Navy doesn’t need to fight for a global sea control. The Russian Navy is not going to challenge the U.S. Navy’s global maritime dominance. The Russian Navy’s main task is to provide a reliable defense of Russia’s shores and avoid war by presenting a defensive and forbidding posture. The Russian Navy is an organic part of the larger military force of Russia, whose only concern is preventing a global conflict. In this sense, the Russian Navy is completely integrated into the Russian tradition of national security, which spreads across the wide spectrum of activities, encompassing diplomacy, coherent foreign policy, intelligence and military force—a set of security imperatives erroneously dubbed in the West “hybrid warfare". 

But in general, I will lie, if I will say that I am not satisfied. I am satisfied in a sense that an arduous task I took upon myself of trying to open eyes of many in establishment to a military-political realities of a present historic moment is supported by empirical evidence. Unlike it is with a body of work on Russia, geopolitics and warfare concocted in the echo-chamber of the American think-tankdom. Nothing is wrong with stating: "I told you so." Yesterday's news is just another confirmation, including a good demonstration of importance of being very thrifty by not throwing away old but still very good things, such as S-300 P missile complexes.