When Shoigu Speaks...

....world listens. Or, using the old Russian proverb: if there is a gun hanging from the wall on the stage in the first act of the play in theater, in the last act this gun will shoot. It was clear that if anti-shipping and land-attack cruise missiles appeared in the first act of a massive geopolitical play in 1950s (a venerable P-15 Styx), and continued to hang on the wall throughout a whole play, in the final act of this particular play they were supposed to shoot. They did. Speaking to Vladimir Solovyov Shoigu stated some pretty obvious truths, simple ones, really, as TASS reports:

"... если говорить, у нас в перспективе, причем совсем недалекой, увеличение дальности гиперзвукового оружия. Это увеличение скоростей, если говорить о том же самом гиперзвуке, это повышение точности, это, конечно, адаптация носителей к новым видам оружия".

Translation: If to speak about what we have in the nearest future, it is increase in ranges of hyper-sonic weapons. This also means increase in speeds (!!!!), if to talk about these hyper-sonic weapons, it is increase in accuracy, this, also means adaptation of carriers to these new weapons systems.   

OK, we know that Kinzhal alone has a range of 2000 kilometers on its own (without the range of carrier--MiG-31K), 3M22 Zircon has a range of 1000+ kilometers, while upcoming GZUR has a range of 1,500 kilometers. All of it at speeds of M=9+ (GZUR M=12+). So, what Shoigu is talking about then? Recall, I asked this question for years, the last time--exactly a year ago. 

What's next, ASM with 3,000 kilometer range? Absolutely. This is the reality of the Real Revolution in Military Affairs and it completely rewrites tactical, operational and strategic manuals and directives. It completely redefines naval (and other three domains) warfare and don't tell me that I didn't warn you.

I would say that I am still pretty conservative in my estimates of 3,000 kilometer range ASM, because judging by the dynamics of hyper-sonic weapons' development in Russia, it is highly likely that within next few years (3-5) we will see M=15+, 5,000 kilometer anti-shipping missiles (with land-attack capability) which will further redefine the outlook for surface fleets and will mark the start for a very protracted period for the combined West, primarily the United States, attempting to develop at least something which can be presented to public as "effective" air-defense means against such threats, which, of course, will be primarily PR.  As I warned for years--the warfare between state actors as we know it is no more. 

Shoigu, however, being in the top three trolls in Russia after Putin and Lavrov, answering the tongue in cheek question on why he still didn't present himself to Ukrainian Court which demands Shoigu to appear personally in a front of it and be sentenced for Crimea's return, admitted:

"Виноват, исправлюсь" (Guilty, I will correct that). 

Ukraine, of course, when trying to state her case in such terms as it did with Shoigu, should always question what does she wish for, since, at some point of time, her wishes could be granted, which, in case of Shoigu, could mean, indeed, appearance in person together with couple of combined arms corps at the steps of Ukraine's whichever court will hear Shoigu. 

Just for fun, ARMY-2021 took place all over Eurasia and in China (the Chinese part of ARMY-2021 has a title of Clear Skies), one of the competitions was a use of the manpad (in our case Igla) against fast aerial target. Here is the ONLY guy (Russian officer) who managed to shoot down Chinese TY-300D target missile. 

This whole thing is now circulating all over the internet, so I decided to circulate it further. It is fun and good military porn.      

Rezonans (Resonance) In Sakhalin.

Russia already operates three of these radar systems in the North, as units of the 45th Air and Air Defense Army of Northern Fleet. Yes, Northern Fleet is more than just a fleet, it is a formation which is a Military District onto itself and as such operates organic forces, such as this 45th Army. Now, TASS reports (in Russian), new Resonance-N Radar will be deployed to Sakhalin. The funny thing about this radar is that it is a meter wave-length diapason (that is HF-VHF per wave-length standard) but, unlike urban myth about this type of radar not being able to provide targeting, this one does and it officially declared as having range on aerodynamic targets of 600 kilometers, ballistic targets--1000 kilometers, and the elevation of 100 kilometers. It detects, tracks and develops targeting on any "stealth" target and hypersonic targets moving with the speed of M=20. They say this is Rezonans:

Certainly looks like, including obvious northerly location.

As Western sources reported in 2019:

Carlo Kopp noted in 2010 that the VHF band Rezonans N/NE, which is explicitly marketed as “Stealth Air Target Early Warning Radar.” Like the Nebo U/UE series, it takes 24 hours to deploy and is intended for static long-range air defense applications. Production quantities remain unknown at this time. Unlike the Nebo U/UE, it uses electronic beam steering techniques.  

At this stage we all need to stop this charade and cut the bullshit and start using RLOA (RELATIVELY Low Observable Aircraft) because these fairy tales about "stealth" by now have become so tired and beaten to death cliches that it is not even funny. Like this abused verbal stupidity: Stealth Submarines. Really. Well, here is the piece of history, during the reign of Peter the Great, yeah, early eighteen's century, one of the first proposition for crude submarine to Czar was titled as Потаённое Судно, which in English is, well, Stealth (Clandestine) Vessel. Every submarine which ever was built, is in operation or ever will be built is "stealth" by definition. And even these, original stealth weapons, are detectable and in many cases were destroyed. But this verbal, semantic garbage persists--such as "the high rate of speed" (speed IS the rate by definition and the rate of the rate is acceleration, in this particular case) used to describe car chases by journos in criminal chronicles--so is stealth, which long ago, when applied to aircraft, is not an impediment to being detected, tracked and have firing solution developed. I wrote about this so many times.

New types of the anti-aircraft missiles being deployed now for years have active multi-channel warheads totally capable of performing a refined search and lock on target using a very "crude" initial targeting data which gives a "rough" position of target. They are full-blown "shoot-and-forget" weapons and that spells the end for hi-end attempts to cloak aerial targets (aircraft, missiles) against all those L-S-C-X band radar which with modern signal processing and networking see those targets anyway. You may ask, of course, but what about SU-57 or SU-75 Checkmate? Russians still build "stealth" aircraft--yes, they do. It is like an additional scarf and sweater under parka which slightly increase your chances of not being frost bitten or die from cold when you step outside your house in Yakutsk in the middle of Winter. It helps but it only works as a system of measures of a general reduction of physical fields (optical, magnetic, acoustic, radio etc.) which all modern weapon systems have. On the level of such players as Russia it means little for air-defense. You all saw what happened couple days ago in Syria--a shocking proof of obsolescence of West's (Israel is the West in operational sense) weapons. Once ROFAR technology becomes operational, combination of ROFAR, classic radar, optics, passive detection methods and advanced signal processing based on sensors' fusion--they spell the doom to air-combat as we used to know it. 

In Russia, tests of a prototype of an active phased antenna array based on radio photonics – ROFAR – have been completed.

That was last year. Now Russia holds new, ARMY-2021 International Military-Technical Forum and some news from it are already interesting. 

Expect a lot of military porn this coming week. The new contract for Kinzhals has been already signed. But I think we are in for some surprises. They are always present.