Some Clarifications Re: Mi-28NE ...

... and shoot and forget weapon systems. Here is a demonstration  of an extremely low signal-to-noise ratio in Western media sphere when it comes to Russian technology. For some reason this video popped up for me today. I don't know why, because I am more interested in music and old sci-fi flicks from 1950s and 60s. But here it is. 

I was stunned with "technical" minutiae of this narration with a pathetic attempt to compare non-existent features of US helicopters, such as ... and you guessed it--"stealth" (if AH-64 Apache is "stealth" then I am Mickey Mouse) and combat record which is simply incomparable. But then, of course, they also say that the cockpit is ... analogue. And the cherry on the top is that US helicopters use "shoot-and-forget" weapons while Russians use Ataka ... only? 

Well, let's take a look at Mi-28NE cockpit, OK?

If multi-function LCDs are analogue, then ... yeah--I am Mickey Mouse. What many still do not understand is that some analogue instruments such as artificial horizon, RPMs and fuel gauge are DOUBLE-redundancy for the machine which can take the punishment which would pulverize any US helicopter. But then there is another pile of bovine excrement. Here are some photos of Mi-28s shooting not Ataka but "shoot-and-forget" Izdelie-305 LMUR in combat.

 Here is how this nasty missile looks like when carried by Mi-28s. 

And for those who haven't heard about this ground-attack missile, well--here it is. No, not from WiKi where the range of this missile is posted as ... 14 kilometers. Nope, actually depending on the profile it is 25 kilometers. 

But even here they continue to use wrong data--it is not 14, it is 25 kilometer range. But why they continue to use this "data", the explanation is simple--main AH-64 Apache's weapon AGM-114 Hellfire has a range of around 11-12 kilometers, the Maverick has a range of up to 22 kilometers. The newest AIM-179 JAGM has a range of 8 kilometers or so. This cannot stand, of course, because as we all know, the US procures bestest of the bestests. And do not even mention a family of Russian guided missiles Hermes with ranges, depending on guidance, up to ... 100 kilometers. But yes, Russians are still using monkey wrenches, hammers and steam to power their equipment. Butthurt and coping are strong ... 

But here is a bit of actual combat use (it is tested now) of a swarm of Supercam loitering munitions capable of operating in groups of up to 10, searching, detecting, classifying and attacking a variety of targets completely on their own. 

If operator needs to interfere--satellite comms are at their disposal, or any other comm network if needed, including those pesky retranslators. Here is how Russian control rooms look like:

And I love art deco. I really do). 

LOL. Yes, Warning My Ass.

Before that--the author of this drivel. 

He is a former U.S. Army Infantry officer and Distinguished Military Graduate with five years of military experience. Brent has earned a PhD in Political Science/ Public Policy, an MA in Political Science/ International Relations, an MS in Journalism, and a BA in English. Brent lives with his wife and son in Washington, DC.

In other words he has no idea that sinking decommissioned ships for training is as old as the artillery in the navies around the world. Today you add missiles, torpedoes, what have you. 

SINKEX: Why the U.S. Navy Sinks Its Own Warships as a Warning to Russia and China.

I have news for Mr. Brent M. Eastwood--with such background as his:

It will be nearly impossible to explain to him why Russians are not impressed. I assume he can handle basic tables in Excel where he should put ranges and velocities of missiles, torpedoes and AD capabilities of two respective navies and maybe he will get the message. I doubt, though. Especially difficult to do so against the background of the US losing the arms race by a knockout. What's left is coping. But then again--he should know basics, forget about in depth.

I doubt he has a tool kit to grasp it. So, cope harder. 

When Cope Harder Phrase ...

 ... fully applies))

US wins against Russian and Chinese air defenses in other countries risk teaching the wrong lessons. US forces that executed a raid in Venezuela to capture its now-former leader walked away with no aircraft lost to the country's Russian-made air-defense systems and Chinese-made radars. In the aftermath, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said that it "seems those Russian air defenses didn't quite work so well, did they?" He didn't elaborate any further, but in briefings, the top US general spoke about how US forces dismantled and destroyed enemy air defenses. While the US can draw a certain degree of confidence in its capabilities from the success of the mission, there's a risk of reading too much into that success, especially when it comes to weapons made by American rivals in the hands of other militaries. Some of the failures of the Venezuelan-operated foreign air defenses, for example, have been attributed to issues like inactivity, incompetence, and a dearth of functional cohesion between different systems.

Some? You mean Venezuelan military being corrupt and bought out and thus disabling air defense?  WOW! There is a reason why Russia was wrapping up her presence in Venezuela in a duration of the last five years or so. I know, many people from Latin America are afraid of facing reality, but it was exposed in Venezuela and how it gladly sold its President to the US. Moreover, Pete Hegseth with his basic education in "Politics", whatever that means, and ROTC (a euphemism for pseudo-military "training") wouldn't know a first thing about Air Defense, nor will understand it due to a complete lack of an academic and experience tool kit for that. 

Having said all that, people with a much broader (still amateurish) grasp of technological realities in Pentagon (yes, there are still some there) put their input into the 2026 National Defense Strategy and tacitly admitted what I was warning about for the last almost two decades. 

Russia will remain a persistent but manageable threat to NATO’s eastern members for the foreseeable future. Indeed, although Russia suffers from a variety of demographic and economic difficulties, its ongoing war in Ukraine shows that it still retains deep reservoirs of military and industrial power. Russia has also shown that it has the national resolve required to sustain a protracted war in its near abroad. In addition, although the Russian military threat is primarily focused on Eastern Europe, Russia also possesses the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, which it continues to modernize and diversify, as well as undersea, space, and cyber capabilities that it could employ against the U.S. Homeland.

But even here, the atrocious level of incompetence in the US military and intel circles shines through:

Fortunately, our NATO allies are substantially more powerful than Russia—it is not even close. Germany’s economy alone dwarfs that of Russia.

You cannot fix stupid and that is why US loses all of its wars and will continue to do so because it learns nothing and American military institutions do not provide advanced military education for the XXI century other than Hollywood mode representation of the warfare. So, they cope, they lie to themselves, they lie to the world because they have no guts to admit that the "finest fighting force in history" would crumble in real war within a few weeks and will immediately escalate to the nuclear threshold. I know, it hurts. But today, in Russia, it is a Day of General Staff. 

It was established by the Order of Catherine the Great in 1763 based on the Quartermaster Office of Russian Army established by Peter the Great in 1711. The US will try to emulate it, it will continuously fail--there is no staff and national and military culture which exists in the US capable to support that--US "operations" in 404 exposed what kind of delusion the US military lives in. Nor will the issue of procurement be fixed because you have to have a system in place which the US doesn't have. Just to demonstrate how Russia's General Staff and Russian economy won the arms race. 

Here is comparison of Sarmat and Minuteman III. Yes, hypersonic weapons (such as Avangard), unlimited range and almost 10 times larger payload. But I am sure Germany can replicate it, after all its economy "dwarfs" Russia's. Good luck and cope harder. 

In A Fairy Tales World...

Pardon me, I mean today's Pentagon's press-conference. I have no problem with Lord Austin parading himself as a hack, who he is, but at least we all know his serious attachment to Raytheon and those perks one gets in connection to this corporation. So, saying stupid things is Austin's task, despite the fig leaf of officialdom afforded to him by his SecDef position. But Milley, My God! Dude, any self-respect left in you? 

GEN. MILLEY: So Missy, the -- I'd offer two things. One is, you know, what's the military problem to solve here with the air power? And it's control of the airspace, and you can do that two ways. You can do that air-to-air or you can do that from the ground to the air. In terms of the most effective and efficient and cost-effective way to do that right now for the Ukrainians is from ground to air through air defense systems, and that's what they've been provided from the beginning if this war 'til now. And that's important, because what you want to do is protect those assault forces from Russian close-air support and/or attack-helicopter support, and they've got air defense systems, the Ru- -- Ukrainians do, that can do that. The casualties that the Ukrainians are suffering on this offensive are not so much from Russian airpower; they're from minefields, minefields that are covered with direct fire from anti-tank hunter-killer teams, that sort of thing. So it's minefields. So the problem to solve is minefields, not the air piece right this minute. And that's what the coalition is trying to provide them: additional mine clearing, MICLICs, line charges, Bangalores -- that sort of thing, in order to continue to work their way through the minefields.

And then he proceeds:

So I'm confident that they can do this, and especially if they execute the tactics, techniques and procedures that they've been taught, which they are doing, and execute these operations at night, which would deny the Russians the ability to use any of their airpower anyway. So the real problem is the minefields. It's not right now the airpower. Now, having said that, just do a quick math drill here. Ten F-16s are $2 billion, so the Russians have hundreds of fourth- and fifth-generation airframes. So if they're going to try to match the Russians one for one, or even, you know, two-to-one, you're talking about a large number of aircraft. That's going to take years to train the pilots, years to do the maintenance and sustainment, years to generate that degree of financial support to do that. You're talking way more billions of dollars than has already been generated. So the key thing is to focus on air defense, focus on the blocking-and-tackling sort of offensive combined arms maneuver, which is artillery, as both long-range and short-range artillery, and then get in your engineers and your mine-breaching equipment. That's the kind of stuff they need. That's what they want. That's what they're asking for. When I talk to Zaluzhny, that's what he's asking for, so --

Comrade General Milley, I have news for you--US Army (in general, NATO) "training" is laughed at by... Ukies themselves. The reason being that the US Armed Forces have exactly zero people who know how to fight modern multi-domain war of such scale. Zilch, nada and, in related news, Russians have very good Night Vision/FLIR systems on all of their attack helis and all fighter and CAS aircraft. But the passage about "matching" and Air Defense is stupefying. The US (and NATO) do not have AD survivable on the modern battlefield. This has been demonstrated to a dramatic effect. And this applies to each and every weapon system supplied by NATO to 404. So, I have a "secret" for Milley--US fighting doctrine is a joke built around mythology of the "dominant" air-power, which didn't encounter REAL air defenses and air forces like... NEVER. Today's statements by Jake Sullivan are really telling.  Boy, how I wish to quote Tolstoy again, but I will not. 

Just to demonstrate. Here is Ka-52 cockpit with both pilot and weps having very good night vision/FLIR cameras and MFDs.

Here is SU-35 cockpit with very good night capability.

Same goes for SU-30SMs, and I am not even talking here about full netcentricity in the A-50, Su-57, Su-35, Su-34 and Su-30SM2 combat circuit allowing both sensor/data fusion and constant exchange of data/targeting between each-other. This is "slightly" more complex than just having a number of aircraft as opposed to integrated combat force whose combat score, including both air (especially BVR) and ground kills makes many people in USAF very uncomfortable. Hey, at least Milley learned that real AD matters. Didn't Jake Sullivan point this out today? 

And here is the deal. Real professionals know that what is transpiring today is THE FIRST real modern age war in which NATO's best ever military proxy has been torn apart by Russia and one can almost smell the fear in NATO today. Naturally, they never saw anything like this and are not designed to fight like this, not to mention the level of casualties VSU sustains every day. No NATO country, especially the US, is capable of sustaining that. So, naturally, professional envy, sour grapes and hatred begin to affect the thinking in Pentagon. And it shows, because the only coping mechanism today is to tell tactical, operational and technological fairy tales, spiced up with a lot of wet dreaming and fantasies. We saw it at this Pentagon's press-conference.