The logic of Salvo Model and the issue of a leaker are well known to Houthis. I am sure Iranians did their due diligence in educating them that in the real missile exchange it is not that difficult to reach saturation threshold for enemy's air defense. You saturate it with cheap drones and low-cost subsonic missiles and you count. Same way as Dirty Harry Callahan did counting rounds. Or, if Houthis feel lucky and get the series of coordinated salvos, then they can hit opponents' ship even without those ships running out of SM-6s. So, there you go. Recall late brilliant great Captain Wayne Hughes:
Read the full title of the book and keep in mind--all of it has been predicted and these are just Houthies.
Judging by the stream of the news re: latest launch by Admiral Gorshkov of 3M22 Zircon, tests are very successful and as TASS reports (in Russian) another three launches from Gorshkov are planned by the end of the year. This includes the strike at the target imitating aircraft carrier. This is only natural and easy to foresee. Somewhere in these launches is supposed to be an underwater launch from one of the Yasen-class (project 885) SSGNs, last time it was Severodvinsk, I believe, which was planned to be used as a platform for this launch. As was expected, and guys on discussion boards already pointed out to this fact--there is a lot of butt-hurt and spin in Western media re: this launch. But then again, recall an initial reaction and then torturous (for the West) transition through Kubler-Ross Grief Model. It eneded up, of course, the United States demanding to include those non-existent weapons into the START treaty. I wonder why I don't hear anything yet from our great "strategist", prognosticator of prognosticators, exemplary military mind David Axe, but I am sure he will lend his expertise in Soviet/Russian weapons' programs any minute now.
I am on record, consistently, that moving into hyper-sonic paradigm IS a real revolution, cannot get any more real than that. It is a revolution because it changes the nature of warfare. Putin, when speaking to Valery Gerasimov upon Zircon's launch was explicit--it is event of a massive scale for Russia. Well, for the world too. Another "expert", Kyle Mizokami, writing about Zircon gets it all wrong.
As any Russian anti-shipping (or land-attack) missile Zircon has a multi-variant flight paths and it can approach target on different trajectories, including "diving" into the cone of radar blindness, attacking almost vertically, similar to X-32. But this is beyond the point, any intercept of maneuvering M=8+ missile is not the matter of "29" seconds (granted it will be detected at all--and there are reasons to assume that even detecting this type of missile is extremely difficult), it is physically impossible even under the best of circumstances to do anything. The salvo of 4 or 6 Zircons--it is beyond capability of the most advanced anti-air/missile systems to even react and will remain so for a long period of time.
There is no technological solution for stopping this type of weapons in the US currently. Ramifications are colossal: generally, it will be slow arduous reshaping of surface fleets towards smaller (frigate size) strike platforms. For Russian Navy, Zircon unties hands in terms of Sea Control not only in littoral and Green Water zones but, upon necessity, in the remote or ocean zone, allowing to guard surface strike groups against any attempts of US Navy to bring to bear its CBGs' fire power. Thus aircraft carriers are finally removed to the niche where they belong--primarily a power projection tool against unstable entities. Obviously a gigantic expenditure of building and maintaining any US Navy's CBG raises the serious question about a validity of the approach of having roughly $20 billion worth of hardware (CVN+escort ships+air wing) being commensurate with a rather very limited tasks this insanely expensive force can perform under present conditions. It is too expensive to bomb some shithole of a country somewhere, but attacking Russia? What a wonderful collection of expensive, prestigious targets.
With Russia having officially announced 7 subs and 5 frigates already planned for being armed with Zircon, plus having potentially other 6 modernized Udaloys (project 1155M) armed with a full version (1000+ km range), not to speak of a massive fleet of Russia's small missile ships (pr. 21631 and 22800) slanted to receive Zircon Light (around 500+ kilometer range) version, one is forced to ask a question--What Now? Now Marshal Billingslea will try to, yet again, pretend that Russia will negotiate on her newest arsenal and he will "press" Russians who, probably, will giggle in private about being "pressed", into some sort of compliance with... whatever will be the flavor of the month in D.C. Of course, the most terrifying prospect for the US is appearance of some sort of similar weapon in China's hands. Not that it will happen necessarily, but who knows--Russia will not allow China to fall militarily if the shit will hit the fan (God forbids) and some crazies (and there is plenty of those) in D.C. will decide to finally direct America's implosion outside by starting a "little victorious" war. Even old fool Kissinger noticed:
The United States simply has no good options currently. None. The less bad option, however, is to talk to Russians and not in terms of geopolitical BS and wet dreams that the United States, somehow, can convince Russia "to abandon" China--US has nothing, zero, to offer Russia to do so. But at least Russians and Americans may finally settle peacefully this "hegemony" BS between themselves and then convince China to finally sit as a Big Three at the table and finally decide how to run the world. This is the only chance for the US to stay relevant in the new world. US either negotiates and accepts limits of its influence or it will vanish one way or another. Anyway, there is a lot to ponder on this issue,because the world changes with the insane speed. Bad timing, I picked the wrong week to finish my third book, LOL.
God, do you remember those times when America was fun and laughed at itself sincerely. MAFA--Make America Fun Again, I kid, I kid;)
What Russian Internet is abuzz since this morning, then the radical change of whole naval paradigm is much closer than even most optimistic prognoses predicted. This morning Russian media broke news of nuclear missile cruiser Admiral Nakhimov, which is currently undergoing deep modernization, (after the list of state purchases for this modernization was published) to be armed with newest hyper-sonic ASM 3M22, aka Zirkon.
Very little is known about this missile other than it is true hyper-sonic (M=5 +) High Precision Weapon and that it will change naval warfare drastically. The rumors about this missile were circulating for some years and some of them were absolute rubbish. What was clear, though, was the fact that Russia was well on her way in the advanced hyper-sonic R&D. This, at some point of time was confirmed by none other than Dmitri Rogozin. Procurement of the ASM, against which no defense exists, is a true game changer. I will not go into the details of this game-changing but the future of naval warfare looks very different from hyper-sonic vantage point than it was drawn by many contemporary military thinkers. We'll wait and see.....
The idea of a small ship capable of carrying out large tasks is, certainly, not new. After all, already mentioned, Jeune Ecole imagined naval combat being conducted by the swarms of small torpedo and cannon-boats, which would be controlled by the telegraph. One of the main factors which influenced Jeune Ecole was the invention of the shell and Canon-obusier (or shell-firing cannon) by Henri-Joseph Paixhans, which changed drastically, including an improvement in accuracy, the main striking weapon of the fleets--naval gun. Russians demonstrated the effectiveness of Canon-obusier in the Battle Of Sinop in 1853, when Russian Squadron defeated Turkish Fleet. The shell-firing cannon came of age in this battle. It also made it onto the small ships.
We know the rest of the story, that is until new weapon emerged.
This weapon sent shock waves through naval world, when on 21 October 1967, Israeli Navy's INS Eilat was sunk by a two-missile salvo of Soviet-made Anti-Shipping Missiles (ASM) P-15 Termit (Styx), launched from Egyptian Soviet-made Komar-class (Project 183) small missile boat. The fact that the boat with 61 ton of displacement could sink a 1700 ton destroyer not by a torpedo seemed obscene at the time. Well, it is not obscene anymore. As Operation Trident by Indian Navy in 1971 demonstrated to a devastating effect--few Osa-class (project 205) boats armed with Styx ASMs were capable to achieve a strategic result despite a minuscule displacement of combatants. And then, of course, came Falkland War which was an eye-opening experience for many in Anglo-Saxon naval community. Royal Navy did its duty well and won the war but paid a steep price. ASM not only has arrived as a viable naval strike weapon, it has arrived as THE weapon of the naval warfare, which was a really bad news for the US Navy's carrier trade union.
Sure, one may say (and many do) that mosquito ASM capabilities are really not that great. Sure they are not by the very fact that this kind of fleet is called Mosquito for an engineering (and Russian convention of naming its missile boats classes after mosquitoes) reasons and is not capable to carry an immensely important component of ship's defense--a capable Air Defense Complex. Left to its own devices, any missile boat ends like the Libyan Fleet in the action in the Gulf Of Sidra in March of 1986 against....US Navy. The chances of these few Libyan boats, armed only with Osa Air Defense Missile Complexes against overwhelming fire-power of the US Fleet were, frankly, approaching zero. But in this operation, as well as in Falkland War, both US and Royal Navies fought what was essentially Sea Control Battles against the opponents who would attempt to challenge them in what today could be termed as A2/AD (Anti-Access/ Area Denial) framework. Argentinians, although defeated, fared incomparably better than Libyans. It took Royal Navy's HMS Conqueror and outstanding performance of RN's pilots from British carriers to break Argentina's attempts to deny Royal Navy access to the occupied islands.
The outlook for the Mosquito fleet, however, changes drastically when it is deployed and used properly. And, as both successful (sinking of Eilat) and disastrous (Battle Of Latakia) for Arabs use of the missile boats demonstrates, they can be used from the naval base location, without any deployment even within nations' littorals. The problem with Arabs, though, was in the fact that....well, to put it mildly, they had neither means nor abilities to use their boats effectively. In fact, in this funny business of Sea Denial, A2/AD, what have you, the main thing is, as Admiral Sergei Gorshkov pointed out in his The Sea Power Of The State (not the Sea Power AND The State as it is known in the West), interaction. In other words--you want to deny the enemy access, say, to your littoral, be ready to do it with the use of heterogeneous forces which will be able to interact--that is act in concert towards achieving the same A2/AD goal. For the green water fleets, and it is there where the bulk of the "mosquitoes" to be found, which are run by even mildly competent leaders--the main task will remain to provide conditions for the missile boats to launch their main weapon. To do so, they will need to avoid the fate of Libyan missile boats in the Gulf Of Sidra. That means two major conditions to be fulfilled against the navies which count Force Projection as their main doctrinal goal and that leaves us with very few navies in the world, headed, of course, by the US Navy and its whole structure honed for blowing shit up anywhere in the world where alleged US national interests are "threatened"--these conditions are viable Air Defense and ASW (Anti Submarine Warfare). Today, there is only one navy in the world, which can provide, however barely, the existence and survival of its mosquito component against any adversary--Russian Navy. Russians always had pretty good understanding (and experience) of the shortcomings and advantages of the missile boats and that is why today, Russia develops not one but two different types of the missile boats, which will be able to fill the niche inside the heterogeneous forces package, capable to deliver needed amount of high explosives to the pre-determined location at the pre-determined time. In fact, Russian navy deploys today the only boats in the world capable of purely naval combat (that is against surface targets) and for the strikes to a strategic depth on such theaters as Europe or launch missiles from Caspian Sea to Persian Gulf.
I propose, that the development of these kinds of ships (boats) and of the missile complexes they carry is completely new, paradigm-shifting, development but before I continue, hopefully during the Labor Day weekend, I want to make some important points.
Disclaimer: I know, there are armies of internet "warriors" who browse world-wide-web constantly in search of the virtual fights and who do not understand that behind all this fancy military lingo is the reality of the combat with blood, suffering, torn limbs, horrible burns, torturous deaths. I am terrified by the possibility of Russia and US going to war, but I am also terrified by the blood-thirst of all kinds of patriots who are ready to fight somebody, while sitting in the chairs as I am doing now.
I have a profound respect to US Navy, its glorious history and many people, who served and still serve there, some of those people are my closest and dearest friends and they are not war mongers. However, the continuation of the posts on mosquito fleet, inevitably, will lead to a description of the scenario which is in the air, but, hopefully is not becoming a reality, in which US Navy will try to test Russia's littoral defenses and this scenario will, certainly, involve participation on a massive scale of Russian Navy's mosquito capabilities, which, as some already guessed, will be covered in the air and from beneath by necessary means which, in Russian language, are called Naryad Sil (Required Force--what is Naryad and why it is called as such, in English it means dressed, is a separate discussion;-) Meanwhile, I leave you with the question of why late Admiral Cebrowsky's (hell, try Zumwalt and his Project 60) ideas of Street Fighter will not work in US.
When incomparable Captain Wayne Hughes published his seminal Fleet Tactics And Coastal Combat, I guess, Mahan worshipers and Carrier Trade Union (c) went apoplectic.
To write about "missile era", "coastal combat" and describe small, missiles' armed US Navy's fictional Cushings to demonstrate an example of real naval combat--that is a heresy in the US Navy, which, as none other than Elmo Zumwalt put it, got used to "travel first class". Yet, Hughes' book gained a cult status among both naval aficionados and professionals, some of whom, such as Admiral Blair (at a time, C'n'C of Pacific Command) or Vice Admiral Lauthenbacher Jr. (at a time, Deputy CNO), gave the book and the author absolutely rave reviews. I can only join in my deepest admiration for Captain Hughes and his brilliant mind.
The ongoing disaster with LCSs and huge issues with AD/A2 for US Navy only underscored the problems which develop with the fundamental premise of the Sea Control (that is, largely, US Navy) fleet, as Hughes puts it, is "Saying that navies don't "purchase and possess real estate" as armies do is to emphasize the navy as a means toward the end of controlling an enemy on the ground. Rarely is the center of gravity of a conflict on the sea or in the air." The international consensus, at least for the last two decades, is that the US Navy is doing just fine when providing the freedom of the seas and keeping Shipping Lanes Of Communications (SLOC) open. The set of the problems emerges within littorals, the coastal combat and US Navy's function of Force Projection when it is against, and you may have guessed it already, peer or near-peer power. Of course, the US Navy thinks that it can fight and win the battle on the high seas, or open ocean, against any enemy and here US Navy has ample reasons to think so--it is, presently, undeniably the most powerful navy in the world with a superb naval tradition and combat history. But magnificent naval battles Americans won against Japan on the WW II teach only limited lessons on the modern combat. Why it is so is quite obvious--nuclear weapons and anti-shipping missiles.
US Navy, at least its Carrier Trade Union, doesn't like anti-shipping missiles. So much so, that I will simply post here the scan from Admiral Zumwalt's marvelous memoirs On Watch:
You can easily make your own conclusions on what can only be described as the sabotage of anti-shipping missiles (ASM) development in the US Navy. No surprise then, that even today US Navy cannot deploy any true supersonic, let alone hyper-sonic, ASM. But here is the issue--some other power, of which we speak not as of yet--does have those and, apart from understanding their utility for fighting on the high seas, it developed this absolutely atrocious idea that those Mach 2-3, long range ASMs, with the development of miniature solid state electronics and improvement in propulsion could be very valuable in the littoral. Moreover, one doesn't have to spent 12 billion dollars to attain the saturation threshold of ANY air defense system to solve this one and only, most important, contemporary problem of any navy--the problem of a "leaker". In fact, this could be done for a relatively small price and can (and it did) solve the issue of the safety of own littoral. After all, the final target the fleet is on the land. It is there, where hostile government has a seat.
For decades, during the Cold War, naval staffs of both US and USSR were calculating the probabilities of success, respectively, in attacking and defending the Soviet/Russia coast. And it was then that Russians invoked the spirits of Jeune Ecole and its radical, for its time, ideas that, as Theodore Ropp summarized it about Jeune Ecole:
1. The weaker fleet would stay at its bases and refuse combat.
2. The stronger would be forced to do the same, for fear of the torpedo.
3.The only significant naval activity would be commercial warfare.
4. Warfare would be absolutely merciless, disregarding the laws of war.
You can read Eric Dahl's brilliant expose on Jeune Ecole in Naval War College Review here:
We do not concern ourselves here with pps.3 and 4, since they require additional, and extensive, elaborations, but pps.1 and 2 capture the essence of the Coastal (or Littoral) Combat superbly, when pp.1 is corrected with addition of a single caveat:
The weaker fleet would stay at its bases and refuse combat on the high seas.
In the littoral, however, under the defensive umbrella of own coastal aviation, screens of SSKs, which are honed for operations in this type of waters, the weaker fleet, armed with modern ASMs and well networked, becomes a true deadly menace for any navy. What used to be called a mosquito fleet becomes capable of sinking any enemy ship thus rendering enemy's capital ships useless when trying to "project force" and that may have truly strategic, and even global, ramifications. Just like that. This reality is beginning to dawn on US Navy. Hence, however disastrous, program of LCS, which was based on Admiral Cebrowsky's "Street Fighter" concept (correct one, I may add). In the end, FERs (Fractional Exchange Rates) do define the outcome and there is no better exchange rate (including financially), then to provide conditions for 1 billion dollars worth of assets do the job on the force whose monetary value runs into tens of billions, while its mission could be killed by about 10 to 15 million dollars worth of leakers. This is an excellent exchange rate from any point of view. Thus is A2/AD issue which torments US Navy today--at least it is an indicator that the Navy with so much combat history is trying to stay realistic, despite a horrendous news of the production for the sequel for Top Gun ;-) That is scary......
In 1862 Russia emerged as the only American ally and she made sure that none would interfere in American internal affairs. Prince Aleksandr Mikhailovich Gortchakov assured the US charge d'affairs Bayrad Taylor:
"Russia alone has stood by you from the very first, and will continue to stand by you....We desire above all things the maintenance of the American Union as an indivisible nation....Proposals will be made to Russia to join some plan of interference. She will refuse any invitation of the kind...You may rely upon us."
Today Sergey Lavrov played it in Prince Gortchakov's manner:
MUNICH – Tensions between the United
States and Russia are running high over Ukraine but that didn't stop
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry from sharing some personal news with
Russia's foreign minister. Kerry's a grandfather — again. Kerry
and Sergey Lavrov (SEHR'-gay LAHV'-rahf) were meeting in Munich on
Saturday, and Kerry mentioned that his daughter Vanessa just had her
second child — a girl. Lavrov offered
congratulations — and gave a dig to the former Massachusetts senator
about the New England Patriots' Super Bowl victory over the Seattle
Seahawks. Here's what Lavrov said: "John, we always are happy when patriots beat hawks." Kerry paused and then replied, "I hadn't thought of it that way. I'm sure you do."
"A bad cause seldom
fails to betray itself", Federalist #41, Madison.
These are the ships Russian Navy is in dire need for. Gorshkov-class Frigates.
What was bound to
happen, did happen. Russia buying Mistral-class LHD from French DCNS turned
into something that could only be conceived under the influence of LSD-- that how
mind-boggling the surrealism of this
whole Mistral affair is. Not that Russian
political top wasn't warned--it was, but
the Russian top at the time of the contracting France for Mistrals was
afflicted with the same disease as its Western counterpart--both suffer from
the dictatorship of the managers and their stooges who serve them. When you
have the "class of managers" (that is how Vladimir Putin characterized
himself at some point of time-a manager for Russia, he may yet to reconsider) who
allegedly know HOW to run a system while not understanding how the system
works, one gets Mistral soap opera.
Lawyers, economists and doctrinal and operation requirements do not mix.
It was clear from the
get go that Mistral purchase was not just a furniture specialist turned Russian
Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov's
idea. The "deal" stunk to
heavens from the inception and was approved at the very top, allegedly by
Medvedev himself and, most likely, by Putin too.Being allegedly a political (and fiscal) favor
to Nicolas Sarkozy (and France) for
his role in mediating a Russo-Georgian conflict of 2008, for the Russian Navy
it would have been better if those 1.5 billion USD for these two French
glorified ferries were given directly, as cash, to whatever fund or trust in
France. But no, the Russian Navy was chosen as the lab rat for a bizarre
experiment. By buying Mistrals, whose actual combat value is dubious at best,
Russian Navy was forced to absorb, at the time of its still very fragile state,
the capability which not only was excessive but harmful for the plotting a
clear path to the future. In general,
loading any force with capability which it does not need impedes the
performance of this force greatly. Little
did John McCain know that calling for the halt to the sale of Mistrals by
France he was doing a favor to Russian Navy. Should he have known that, I am
pretty sure, he would reconsider.
The fundamental issue
with the Mistrals is very simple--Russia does not need such an amphibious
capability. All arguments of the Mistral's proponents about some mysterious needs
for Russia to project force (on land) are sunk by the geographic and strategic
maritime realities of Russia. Vessels of Mistral-class are not survivors in the
maritime peer-to-peer or peer-to-near-peer environments. In fact, the existence
of any amphibious asset in the serious combat environment depends almost entirely
on the ASW and Air Defense capability of the Amphibious Group which is formed
around such an expensive ship or ships and is provided by the escorts. As demonstrated here on the example of the US Navy's Expeditionary Strike Group.
The only
real naval combat contribution such a vessel can offer is Command and
Controland ASW, when she carries ASW
helicopters. It is one thing to project the power against
some third world nation, totally another--to project it against any nation with
even a modicum of military capability. The events in Ukraine answered all
questions about Mistrals.
1. At this stage Russia
does not have necessary surface and submarine force to be herded into the
couple Amphibious (Strike) Groups and thus provide pre-conditions for the Sea
Control, on which any fixed or rotary wing aircraft carriers depend. Forming such group(s) means only one
thing--withdrawing surface and submarine assets from much more important tasks
of actually defending Russia's national interests;
2. Russia really doesn't
have any overseas interest which would necessitate any serious amphibious power
projection. None! Any ad nauseam talk about Kuril Islands, where, God forbids,
in the case of war, one of the Mistrals will encounter world-class Japanese
submarine force, or allusions to Russo-Georgian War of 08-08-08 serve only as a
pathetic shaky attempt to exonerate a horrendous strategic blunder. Existing
and prospective, domestically-made, amphibious capabilities will do just fine
for whatever power projection necessities Russia has. This is confirmed today
by the source in Russian Military-Industrial Complex. The ships of such class
are planned in Russia's Shipbuilding Program.....2050. Surely Russia needs this
capability so urgently that...well, no comments.
3. Famous Russian
(actually, Soviet) anecdote goes like this: one of the workers on the Soviet
weapons factory bought a crib, produced by the consumer goods department of
this factory (very many Soviet Military Industrial Complex facilities did
produce so called ShirPotreb, or consumer goods). The worker comes home with
the box containing disassembled crib and starts reading the instructions on how
to assemble the crib (IKEA routine). After couple of hours he finishes the
crib's assembly and gets as a final product....AK-74. He disassembles the crib
and reassembles it again, in different order. You may have guessed it
already--he gets AK-74, again. Russian Navy is akin to this crib--one cannot assemble
this force without getting as the final product a classic Sea Denial, or as it
is fashionable today to specify, Anti-Access/Access Denial (A2/AD) force.
Period. No other foundation, without betrayal of Russia's national interests is possible. The foundation
of the Sea Denial force as both Soviet Navy was and current Russian Navy is
beginning to emerge is the force capable to sink or deal an unacceptable losses
to any combination of the hostile naval force (or forces) trying to attack the
shores of Homeland--and that means powerful surface and submarine components,
it also means a shore based aviation. The role of Mistrals in that defense is zero,
other than to serve as a magnet for a couple torpedoes or guided missiles. This
is not the exchange rate one would like.
If France fails to
deliver Mistrals, Russia and her Navy should finally exhale with a relief, get
documents for arbitrage ready and find a better use for those 3 billion dollars
(that sum includes penalties) in the
newly emerging Cold War 2.0. Those funds in the times of a shrinking budget and
a full blown economic (for now) warfare by the West against Russia could,
certainly, help to expedite some truly crucial, for Russian Navy, programs such as new destroyer or will buy
three Yasen (Graney) class SSGNs. As for Serdyukov and his handlers...well,
Mistral embarrassment will be with them for a long time. John McCain, meanwhile, should
double his efforts to prevent Mistrals' delivery to Russia--there will be many
Russian naval professionals who would thank him for that.
This is the plaque of the blog which, I hope, will be fairly active. It will cover several large topics: 1. Military, and naval in particular, affairs; 2. Geopolitics and some "current events"; 3. Some key issues of history of the (especially) 20th Century. With military slant, of course; 4. As a rabid fan of progressive rock music and fusion (it used to be called jazz-rock many years ago), I may, sometimes, venture into the "cultural" issues. Yes, I do have an opinion, sadly. 5. As a former naval engineer, I may sometimes touch on some educational issues. That is pretty much, I think, what should be covered in this blog. I definitely have very little to say about quantum mechanics or ballet, despite the fact that Spartacus and Nutcracker are my favorite ballets of all time. The appearance of this blog is not accidental, pp. #1, 2 and 3 have everything to do with its appearance. Well, here it is--TA-DA! I finally became a blogger. Yours truly, Smoothie X12.
