If You Wonder.

Yes, this is in China and yes, this is Ka-52M with Chinese markings. 

Is this a real photo or neural network creation? Well, you'll be the judge of that, but since 2021 China was mulling the idea of buying a ship's version of Ka-52 Katran. 

The possible contract was reported by the American magazine The National Interest. The publication notes that there is no official confirmation of this information by Beijing or Moscow yet, but the likelihood of concluding an agreement is "very high." The topic of a potential agreement is also actively discussed in the Chinese media. "Heavy attack helicopters are needed to equip the latest Chinese landing ships. After its own unsuccessful developments, China is asking for help from Russia. In addition, the agreement will demonstrate to the United States active cooperation between the PRC and the Russian Federation, which will reduce American aggression,"- quotes the words of researcher Zhou Chenming from the Defense University of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China, the Chinese newspaper South China Morning Post. Earlier, the American edition of Military Watch called the Ka-52 Alligator helicopter, the shipborne version of which is the Ka-52K, "the most dangerous attack helicopter in the world."

A lot has changed since then. Ka-52 proved itself (already proven in Syria) but in SMO as a premier combat helicopter. But then again, everybody have been guessing about Iranian Mi-28s until they have been spotted in the Iranian skies. Same goes for Algerian Su-57s. They are seen and not one or two anymore. 

Which brings us to morons from Stockholm SIPRI who still continue to pour BS of dollar-expressed world arms trade to all kinds of "analysts" as a viable data. Only complete cretins judge combat power in expenditure in US Dollars while not understanding the essence of this power as a combination of ADJUSTED expenditure, technological, doctrinal, industrial and operational factors--precisely the combination which NATO people are incapable to grasp. 

I want to remind you this dawning of realization on ... USMC officer, a revelation for him really:

We allow ourselves to look at our impressive defense budget and expensive systems and throw around hyperbole about the United States having the greatest military in the world. How, then, have we been bested by malnourished and undereducated men with antiquated and improvised weaponry whilst spending trillions of dollars in national treasure and costing the lives of thousands of servicemen and hundreds of thousands of civilians? Judging military capability by the metric of defense expenditures is a false equivalency. All that matters are raw, quantifiable capabilities and measures of effectiveness. For example: a multi-billion dollar aircraft carrier that can be bested by a few million dollars in the form of a swarming missile barrage or a small unmanned aircraft system (UAS) capable of rendering its flight deck unusable does not retain its dollar value in real terms. Neither does the M1A1 tank, which is defeated by $20 worth of household items and scrap metal rendered into an explosively-formed projectile. The Joint Improvised Threat Defeat Organization has a library full of examples like these, and that is without touching the weaponized return on investment in terms of industrial output and capability development currently being employed by our conventional adversaries.

Yep, combat effectiveness calculated against serious enemy force and for high-intensity tactical and operational environment is the ONLY thing that matters. ATGMs Hermes or LMUR plugged into the profile of deployed force run by Battle Management System such as Andromeda, among others--they don't care how much your tank costs, they care only about where is this tank, or strong-point for that matter, and at what range they should blow those expensive toys to smithereens. Yes, Correlation of Forces and Means, like IDF discovered for itself (again) in Southern Lebanon. You know, those Hezbollah's pesky UAVs and, yes, Kornets again. 

I also have news for these "dreamers" who continue to defraud US taxpayers. 

The United States will struggle to defend itself against advanced missile systems developed by China and Russia, senior Pentagon officials told lawmakers as they called for funding for the proposed Golden Dome missile defense program.

I have news, it could be Golden, it could be Brilliant or any other name you find fit to stick to this Pentagon's another "big thing" but it is not going to stop shit--the US AD capabilities fell behind so bad that any mentioning of "anti-hypersonic" by any US military or policy-makers should be corrected immediately by asking the question how this Golden thing will be able to intercept something like 3M22 Zircon? Well, the US doesn't have hypersonic technology (after Russians, obviously, "stole" it from the US) to even initiate a test phase. If you think that computer simulation will do the trick--I have a bridge to sell you. You need a physical REAL hypersonic weapon (forget about having a variety of them, like Russia has) to conduct exhaustive life testing to gather data sets and test your whole damn thing--from detection (good luck detecting hypersonic weapons in flight. Launch? Maybe.) to tracking to developing firing solution by ... exactly--you need AD systems with missiles which are the next thing in energy capacity for maneuvering. The US doesn't have any. 

When I say that the US lost the arms race--this is not hyperbole or figure of speech, it literally did with a very few respectable capabilities remaining such as ISR, subs as platforms only, signal processing and ... PR. The rest--well, will say that it is very-very expensive. Ask Russians or ... Iran. 

This Golden Dome Thingy.

I speak about it today in my latest video, but this requires additional elaboration. But before, harking back to halcyon days of Reagan's weapons programs, which we all saw, failed miserably in real combat, I want to point this out :

The question that now remains is: How has the US Navy managed to conceal all its glaring faults, bad policies, and weaknesses for all these years? Part of the answer is that the Navy has a history of not telling the full truth to Congress. It is well known that senior US Navy officers have a tradition of omitting information about the Navy’s weaknesses and deficiencies during public testimony. For example, in the early 1980s, wrote Scammell, Navy officers tried to conceal the shortcomings of the new Aegis system by using unrealistically easy operational tests, then by classifying the poor results: “An amalgam of sophisticated seaborne radar, computers, and surface-to-air rockets ten years in development, Aegis was built to simultaneously track up to two hundred aerial targets and to control thirty killer missiles. But in sea tests against sixteen easy targets – easy because they were lobbed in one after another instead of all at the same time, as they would arrive in combat – the supershield missed all but five…” Consequently, “The results of the sea trials were immediately classified, ostensibly for reasons of national security, and it was announced that the tests had been successful. When Congressional overseers eventually learned they had been duped –a gain because not everyone in the fiasco interpreted ‘patriotic duty’ as ‘staying silent’—the Aegis program was very nearly scuttled.” According to Representative Denny Smith, a Republican from Oregon and former F-4 fighter pilot, Navy officers deliberately deleted key passages from their initial test reports on the Aegis system to keep him in the dark on its failings. 

You see. It is a fine American tradition of embellishing everything which relates to, well, just about anything when one needs to prove that everything American is the biggest, bestest and most democratic of them all. So, oversight and ACTUAL testing for real combat, not some BS of bombing backward nation into the stone age, is not required. Well ...

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s decision this week to cut more than half of the Pentagon’s test and evaluation office personnel was driven, in part, by concerns over the office’s plans to provide testing oversight for the Trump administration’s $175 billion Golden Dome missile defense project, multiple sources told Defense News. ... The decision sparked concerns from some congressional Democrats, including Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Jack Reed, D-RI, who called the move “reckless and damaging.” “With staffing reduced to a skeleton crew and limited contractor backing, DOT&E may be unable to provide adequate oversight for critical military programs, risking operational readiness and taxpayer dollars,” Reed said in a statement. “This kind of politically motivated interference undermines independent oversight and leaves warfighters and the public more vulnerable to untested, potentially flawed systems.”

Ahh, we all know what is this all about. I am on record--the US Air and Anti-missile Defense is a joke, as is the overall development of combat missilery. The idea behind Golden Dome is fabulous--stick a bunch of satellites into orbit that they can see and track launches of hypersonic weapons. OK, that's fine, you know--detect, track and even develop (allegedly, we know it is a BS but for the sake of argument) firing solution. And here comes the issue--firing solution for what? SM-2, SM-3, what else? As the story of the US high-end weapon systems demonstrated--most of it was always a carefully tailored propaganda which lacked substance (same goes for Euro chihuahuas). To hit hypersonic weapon one needs: S-300V4, S-500, S-550 or at least S-400. US has nothing, zilch which comes even close to these systems. 

And that is where we come to this rather shocking news, the oversight is being removed because Golden Dome will yet again be a Reaganesque allocation of funds for fat cats in the US military-industrial complex, which at this stage is stuck in the realities of 1990s and no amount of money can help close the gap in missilery which was opened and is being widened by Russia (and China) as I am typing this. It will be "Star Wars" cartoons (now CGI) all over again against the background of exposure of sheer military incompetence of Washington. Read my lips: bar some poor men's attempts or deploying some shrapnel in the path of the hypersonic weapon (a dubious proposition at best) or creating some super-pooper laser (also dubious in the extreme) and given the reality of incredibly difficult technological challenges, not to mention the fact that those devious Russkies design their weapons with the capability of fake targets, one needs to have a kinetic mean to hit the hypersonic missile. The US is not in this league hence the removal of oversight and testing--to sell to graduates of the school of advanced military studies of Top Gun: Maverick a cornucopia of exciting military porn BS. Hey, may be they will get lucky and will be able to hit 5 out of 16. 

P.S. Ah, yes, to test Golden Dome you need REAL hypersonic weapons. The US doesn't have any.