With Genuine Respect For Laymen...

... and this is in some sense a repetition (or reiteration) of what I am writing about for years and what happens when the issue is being obfuscated without proper understanding of the issue. I am talking about writing of some Simplicius guy (whoever he or they are) about some "revelations" on the issue by some colonel Falichev whose real biography, except that he was an editor of a number of military publications, is completely absent, except that he was a military journalist and was in some hot spots. The whole writing discusses what basically amounts to comparison of satellite constellations of Russia and the US (NATO) with obvious advantage to the US in, and I underscore it, NON-war conditions and discussion of the tactical front end of what amounts to a battlefield management system also known in Russia as ASU--Автоматические Системы Управления--also known as BIUS (Боевые Информационные Управляющие Системы), aka CICS (Combat Information Control Systems). Oh, look, someone on the tactical level introduced "symbol"  on some pad and it went out--cool, netcentric warfare. Well, not so fast and I have good friends, former senior officers who graduated both military officer college of communications and then famous Academy of Communications (Signal Corps) (2 year war college) of Budyonny. Has a shitload of combat awards and some serious wounds. We discussed these things. 

And here is where despicable me comes in and says that it is all fine and dandy: satellites, CICS and netcentricity, but as practice of Russian RUK/ROK in SMO has demonstrated, including the reduction in reaction time from 7 minutes to less than 1 minute it is Russia who teaches the United States with all of her satellite constellations and hare-brain schemes of C4ISR what real netcentricity is and how it is applied in REAL operations of scale, also how it evolves. And here comes this, o-o-o-o-h, secretive secret of warfare (not really, but you have to have serious military background to know it and I wrote a book about it)--ISR exists for... drum roll--RESOLUTION of UNCERTAINTIES, and without understanding what it is, which is probabilistic matter, which is a measure of uncertainty, all these talks about satellites and pads are meaningless because what matters is what happens in the back-end of all those symbols, pads and targeting. Here is one of the pages with partial table of content of February 2024 issue of Voennaya Mysl' (Military Thought):

As you can see yourself it all is highly mathematical. Just to give you example of the background, apparatus behind C3 and how it relates to networks, that article from the same issue:
 

So, four Ph.Ds in technical and physics-mathematics sciences, all four cadre senior officers, one of them general, write about all those Graph Theory, networks, constrains et al. These are the solutions which bring about proper technology through realization of the concepts. Here is another example, directly related to Bayesian and Kalman Filters which are critical in such things as targeting, guidance, netcentric operations and other military applications:

Everything in the modern war is about resolving of uncertainties and this is what is studied in serious military academies, not how to push buttons. And while at it, I want to reiterate, if you look at the "core" of modern C2 and netcentric operations it is all about, and I reiterate, what, what kind of info you feed into the data links and how this information is processed and uncertainties resolved. After that comes data/sensor fusion. Boy, that shit is funny. Here is US Navy explaining it on fingers:

Often, multiple sensors may be looking at the same contact—radars on different manned and unmanned surface vehicles in a group, for example, or different types of sensors, such as radar and SIGINT, on the same platform. In the next phase—sensor- data fusion—the AI brings together and evaluates all the relevant data streams, to produce a more comprehensive score for the commander. Sensor-data fusion assigns weights to each of the data streams, largely based on the quality of its data. There are a number of reasons why sensor data quality can vary. For example, one sensor might generate a lower resolution than others, based on its location. Or, the sensor might be older, and have a lower sensitivity than newer versions. Some sensors—such as those on unmanned vehicles—may have smaller optics than large, complex sensors, and so might generate less robust results. Once the AI assigns weights to the different data streams—based on their strengths and weakness—it fuses the results, refining the overarching confidence score.

Ah yes, weighted data, data streams, probabilistic analysis--yep, that is what military staffs used to do--fusing data from sensors for developing tactical and operational decisions. Today computers help to do so within combat networks. Of course a pompous title of "AI" is not really an AI but simply algorithms which handle inputs, but I let it slide--this is all fad. So, what is it in the end about these satellites' constellations and the piece of Colonel Falichev which Mr. Simplicius quoted? I would go out on a limb here and say that it is the tempest in the teacup, especially after Russian RUK/ROK and their performance provided a cultural shock to Pentagon, which has about zero experience with combined arms and netcentric operations of such scale as SMO, while the state of Russian industry and science allows to confidently state that the armed forces of Russia which are emerging through SMO not only already are the most advanced armed forces in the world with arsenal which is unrivaled by anyone, but with its ISR complex improving not only qualitatively, but in quantity. Just to demonstrate:

Today, Roskosmos published photos from Russian "research" and totally civilian (wink, wink), no, without jokes--it is civilian, satellite Canopus-B of the hapless Baltimore bridge and Dali vessel which destroyed it. Ask yourself a question, if civilian Russian satellite has a pretty darn good resolution, what do those Russian military satellites see. I'll give you a hint: in real war, suitable time stamped photo with acceptable data obsolescence even from Canopus will be more than enough for provision of targeting for any Russian made anti-shipping missiles against any surface ship. In related news, Iran also has Canopus (titled Khayyam) operating since 2022 and plans three more. Just a message. A hint... about resolving uncertainties. Now, if anybody would find me the background (what he graduated, when, what is his VUS--military-registration specialty et al.) of this Colonel Falichev. But I don't hold my breath.