I Plan To Talk About It ...

 ... tomorrow. The implications are enormous. I want to repeat--when I say that the West lost the arms race, it is not a hyperbole or a figure of speech. I mean it as I say it. I made my career and reputation of the last 11 years precisely by describing and documenting this process. So, today: 

МОСКВА, 15 июл — РИА Новости. Президент Владимир Путин встретился с главой РАН Геннадием Красниковым. Руководитель академии рассказал про гиперзвуковое оружие, учебники и международные контакты. Ключевые заявления — в материале РИА Новости.

• Российская академия наук проводит фундаментальные исследования в интересах обороны и безопасности страны, получен уникальный результат в области гиперзвука.
• Все исследования по этой программе востребованы, они согласованы с генеральными конструкторами по вооружению.
• Красников отдельно доложит Путину по итогам этой работы.

Translation: MOSCOW, July 15 — RIA Novosti. President Vladimir Putin met with the head of the Russian Academy of Sciences Gennady Krasnikov. The head of the academy spoke about hypersonic weapons, textbooks and international contacts. Key statements — in the RIA Novosti material.

--The Russian Academy of Sciences conducts fundamental research in the interests of the country's defense and security, and has obtained a unique result in the field of hypersonics. --All research on this program is in demand, they have been agreed upon with the chief designers of weapons. --Krasnikov will separately report to Putin on the results of this work.

What does it all mean? Consider this: after the Vladimir Putin's Address to the Federal Assembly on March 1, 2018 it became clear that there was an immense qualitative leap in technologies which made now fully combat tested weapons systems possible. Weapons such as Kinzhal or Zircon render any NATO AD system useless, with the exception of the fantasies of NATO fanboys and amateurs. I spoke about "rumors" of new generation of 3M22 Zircon getting to the parameters such is M=13+ and the range of 2,500 + km. I think we can reasonably expect something even more impressive which completely redefines such things as naval and air warfare. Having something which is launched from some Yasen-class SSGN or latest versions of Gorshkov-M class FFGs which flies at M=15 at 3,000 km. Yes, that makes NATO surface fleets completely not just obsolete, they already are, but a scrap metal.

Mind you, this is not just enormous velocity and range, this is yet another leap in materials, sensors and C4. And what else comes after that? Who knows. We'll have to wait and see how this will further affect strategic nuclear forces, but one thing is clear--NATO has nothing which can even come close, especially in terms of AD, and it will have even more than nothing (if such thing is possible at all) and the only "military" action they can possibly take will be, and you have guessed it already, sabotage and terrorism, which, as we all know--the weapon of the weak.

I Want To Remind You All ...

... that number. This was a moment of clarity from Hegseth--he didn't pull those numbers out of his ass, he had them discussed in his military environment. This is omega--mathematical expectation: 15 hypersonic weapons against 10 carriers. 

We are still waiting for photos from Yuzhmash--there is a reason they are not made public, while all kinds of people calculate energies of Oreshnik. The main question, however, is--what comes next, and it is coming. And it is going to be even more terrifying than 3M22 Zircon, or Kinzhal or even Oreshnik. So, Omega for a hypersonic weapon, the average number of missiles required to destroy US Navy's CVN is 15/10 = 1.5 missiles. Let's be prudent and round it to 2. That tells you everything you need to know about the global balance of power. 

Yes! UK Should Also...

... enter the race for creating Lunar Base and nuclear propulsion space tugs. 

Britain aims to develop and field its first hypersonic cruise missile by 2030, The Telegraph reported on Saturday. However, the project is reportedly in its early stages, and even if London sticks to its schedule, the weapon will be deployed more than a decade after Russia’s first hypersonic missile entered service. The British Defense Ministry aims to design and build a missile capable of reaching speeds of Mach 5 entirely domestically, and to have it enter service before the end of the decade, the newspaper reported, citing anonymous sources. The project will be one of several funded by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s planned £75 billion ($95 billion) hike in military spending, which was announced earlier this week and will be implemented over the next six years, the sources said. “Cutting-edge projects like this are only possible because of the massive new investment the government has made this week in defense innovation,” a ministry official told the newspaper, adding that “continuing this project would be impossible” if the Labour Party took power and “refused to match our investment.”

Of course, it would have been just swell to go through the solid supersonic missilery development phase, but, hey, who cares, right? Judging by the non-stop American "successes" (this is sarcasm, just in case) in developing hypersonic anything and all those declarations of, say, LRHW to be in initial operational capability (IOC) in 2021, 2022, 2023 and now 2024. 

SIMI VALLEY, Calif. — After a series of hiccups and schedule slippage, the Army is revising its approach to testing its long-range hypersonic weapon. And the service’s acquisition chief hopes the missiles can be fielded next summer. Multiple scheduled flight tests of the Dark Eagle have been called off, most recently one that was slated for Oct. 26. Now, officials are charting a new course. A “big meeting” was held this past week, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology Doug Bush told DefenseScoop on Saturday. It included his Navy counterpart Frederick “Jay” Stefany, their military deputies, and prime contractor Lockheed Martin. The Army and Navy have been partnering on the development of hypersonics-related tech.

This is the United States, mind you, whose economic and scientific potential dwarfs that of the UK. But hey, PR is PR, this is how Western "democracies" do things. You know, BS. After all, there is always CGI and an army of fanboys who post videos on YouTube about soon, really really soon, coming of the NATO's yet another wunderwaffe conceived in the deep recesses of doctrines on how to fleece an unsuspecting public by selling it all kinds of propaganda and military porn.

Well, That's BBC For Ya...

British Bullshit Corporation, you know. But it applies generally to the majority of modern media class everywhere. 

Oh dear. Could things get any worse for the fledgling BBC Verify, launched to combat the scourge of fake news? The fact-checking service has already faced criticism for failing to spot the BBC’s own blunders – such as the Corporation’s misfired reporting on Nigel Farage and Coutts. Now though it looks like the service’s star reporter could be in a bit of hot water.  According to the New European, the BBC’s disinformation correspondent Marianna Spring was allegedly caught embellishing her CV when applying for a job in 2018. The paper alleges that five years ago Spring wanted to work as a Moscow stringer for the US-based outlet Coda Story and wrote on her CV:  

No surprise here, Western media establishment produces primarily professional BSers with zero real life applicable skills, while purging real journalists who do report facts. Very much same applies to many sectors of academia, especially so in the humanities field, but not exclusively. 

What many do not recognize, is the fact that constant BSing inevitably leads to the atrophy of remaining actual skills in any field. One of my patrons today shared with me an outstanding piece by former Airbus Chief Scientist on why the West most likely will not get any hypersonic weapons any time soon--he blames education, or, rather, lack thereof in the modern West (In French). 

INTELLIGENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND ARMAMENT NOTE N°61 / August 2023 What could be the reasons for Western delay in hypersonic weapons? Jean-François GENESTE Jean-François Geneste has nearly 40 years of experience in the aeronautics, space and defense fields. He was scientific director of the EADS group, now Airbus Group, for 10 years. He was a professor at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology in Moscow. He is currently the CEO of the startup WARPA which has just been awarded a patent for its infinite specific impulse space propulsion engine.

Enjoy, this piece hits all proper nails on their heads. One cannot BS non-stop in anything, eventually BS catches up and voila'...

Manila Chan And Me...

... talk hypersonic weapons. The video was recorded a couple of weeks back.   Enjoy, if you will.

You Will Hardly Find This In The News...

 ... in the West, unless it is in the cellar of the news streams, but... heads of central banks of ASEAN nations have in the agenda of their upcoming meeting in Indonesia... well, judge for yourself. 

Страны АСЕАН — Ассоциации государств Юго-Восточной Азии — обсудят отказ от основных валют, таких как доллар и евро, и переход к расчетам в местной валюте. Этот вопрос будет на повестке встречи министров финансов и управляющих центральными банками стран, которая пройдет в Индонезии. Издание уточняет, что речь идет о цифровой системе, благодаря которой жители одной страны объединения смогут платить за товары и услуги другой страны в собственной валюте. Индонезия, Малайзия, Сингапур, Филиппины и Таиланд уже подписали соглашение о сотрудничестве по этому проекту. Стоит напомнить, что в середине марта президент Индонезии Джоко Видодо призвал региональные власти отказаться от Mastercard и Visa. Он предложил использовать кредитные карты, выпущенные местными банками, чтобы защитить денежные транзакции от «возможных геополитических последствий».

Translation: The ASEAN countries - the Association of Southeast Asian Nations - will discuss moving away from major currencies such as the dollar and the euro and moving to local currency settlements. This issue will be on the agenda of the meeting of finance ministers and central bankers of the countries, which will be held in Indonesia. The publication clarifies that we are talking about a digital system, thanks to which residents of one country of the association will be able to pay for goods and services of another country in their own currency. Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines and Thailand have already signed a cooperation agreement on this project. It is worth recalling that in mid-March, Indonesian President Joko Widodo called on regional authorities to abandon Mastercard and Visa. He suggested using credit cards issued by local banks to protect money transactions from "possible geopolitical consequences."

It is happening right now, right here. Two major geopolitical factors are at play here:

1. Sanctions on Russia and stealing Russia's assets;

2. The way Russia successfully stands alone (initially) against combined West and grinds its combined forces into dust.

Now, with Saudi Arabia moving closer to becoming a full fledged member of Shanghai Cooperation Organization, one can only imagine what resources the BRICS will command, since Saudi Arabia is very keen on joining BRICS too. 

That's strategy, meaning matching your resources to political ends, because any war, a real one, not some PR BS which US elites "fight" primarily in media, and the outcomes are calculated and predicted with certain probabilities. Ah, yes, those Markov Chains, probability matrices and Graph Theory which serious organizations such as general staffs and strategic forecast entities use, after collecting and systematizing all available facts. Unlike it is done in Washington D.C. where they are primarily into the business of juxtapositioning things to produce easily consumed BS by political shysters who infest today America's decision-making circles.

But to succeed in forecasting one must operate with verifiable data--this is not the case with the West. Do we even comprehend a true depth of a crisis. I can only speculate. I speak about it in my latest video:

Elmo Zumwalt's fears have come true in the 21st century. And don't tell me that I didn't warn about it, wink, wink;))

Meanwhile...

 ... the world continues to move on. 

Москва. 29 марта. INTERFAX.RU - Россия и Индия рассматривают возможность создания трансарктической контейнерной линии и строительства перерабатывающих мощностей рядом с Северным морским путем (СМП), заявил министр РФ по развитию Дальнего Востока и Арктики Алексей Чекунков в ходе рабочего визита в Индию. Как сообщает Минвостокразвития, главной темой состоявшейся во вторник встречи российской делегации с министром портов, судоходства и водных путей Индии Сарбанандой Соновалом стало использование СМП для надежной и безопасной транспортировки грузов. "Обсуждалось создание альтернативного пути доставки грузов из Индии в Европу - не по южному или западному маршрутам, а по восточному, через СМП, с задействованием как российских, так и индийских портовых мощностей. Особо отмечено, что стоимость доставки контейнера из Владивостока до Индии на треть ниже, чем стоимость доставки контейнера из Москвы", - приводятся в сообщении слова Чекункова.

Translation: Moscow. March 29. INTERFAX.RU - Russia and India are considering the possibility of creating a trans-Arctic container line and building processing facilities near the Northern Sea Route (NSR), Russian Minister for the Development of the Far East and the Arctic Alexei Chekunkov said during a working visit to India. According to the Ministry for the Development of the Far East, the main topic of the meeting of the Russian delegation on Tuesday with the Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways of India Sarbananda Sonoval was the use of the NSR for reliable and safe transportation of goods. "They discussed the creation of an alternative route for the delivery of goods from India to Europe - not along the southern or western routes, but along the eastern one, through the NSR, using both Russian and Indian port facilities. It was especially noted that the cost of delivering a container from Vladivostok to India is one third lower than the cost of shipping a container from Moscow," Chekunkov said in the message.

Not to be outdone, Saudi Arabia adopted the memorandum on the partnership with the members of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as reported by Saudi media and by TASS (in Russian). Also, barely noticed Russia finished the final preparation for the serial production of TU-214 and... launched it. This year three new TU-214 will be transferred to airlines and by 2025 the manufacturing will ramp up to 20 a year. Before 2025 eleven more of reborn and modernized TU-214 will be transferred to customers (in Russian). Mind you, Russia continues to manufacture SSJ-New and MC-21. 

Finally, about the failed test of the USAF very own hypersonic ARRW.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force’s March 13 test of a hypersonic weapon was “not a success,” the service secretary told lawmakers Tuesday.Frank Kendall indicated the Lockheed Martin-made AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon program may be in jeopardy. The service, he said, is “more committed to HACM [the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile, the service’s other major hypersonic weapon program] at this point in time than we are to ARRW.” The ARRW effort “has struggled a little bit in its testing program,” Kendall told the House Appropriations Committee’s defense panel during a hearing on the fiscal 2024 budget request. He said an ultimate decision on whether to continue with the program could come as part of the FY25 budget process next year following a study of the failed March test and possibly two more test launches. Hypersonic weapons travel at speeds topping Mach 5 and are highly maneuverable, making them difficult to track and shoot down. China and Russia have invested considerable resources in developing these weapons for their militaries, and several U.S. lawmakers have expressed concern that the country is not doing enough to field its own hypersonic capabilities.

Again, read my lips: the US eventually will be able to come up with some type of hypersonic weapon, most likely of a glider variety but neither China nor US will have anything even remotely equal to 3M22 Zircon. Moreover, it seems that US legislators and journos need a constant reminder of a huge difference between quasi ballistic systems and full power systems such as serially produced and deployed to Russian Navy's surface fleet Zircon. The only hypersonic thing which allegedly could get IOC is US Army's Dark Eagle but it is clear that there are "issues" with this system too. Well, doesn't look like Russia sweats too much about it. Plus S-300V4 and S-500 are specifically designed for dealing with such kind of threats and those are in serial production. 

Last, but not least--two can play "strategic ambiguity" game. Russia's Foreign Ministry has stated that Russia will stop prior informing of the American side about launches of her strategic weapon systems. Well, let them guess and start calling Moscow each time. In conclusion about strategy of SMO:

There is no possible political or diplomatic solution to the ongoing conflict with Ukraine at the moment, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has insisted. He added that Moscow regrets other avenues for resolution are not open. Speaking to Russian journalists on Wednesday, Peskov reiterated Moscow’s resolve to reach its goals, which were outlined by President Vladimir Putin at the start of the military operation over a year ago. “We have repeatedly said that Russia’s goals … can be achieved in various ways. These are politico-diplomatic or – if politico-diplomatic are currently impossible, and in the case of Ukraine, they are impossible, to our regret – through military means, that is, through the special military operation,” Peskov stated.

The annihilation of the remnants of VSU and its "allies" from NATO continues and will continue till utter demilitarization of NATO. This is your primer for Wednesday.

"Expertise" Porn. The Case of Dark Eagle.

People asked me to comment on this "Dark Eagle" thing:

I'd really love Andrei's comment on this, what is even more stupid IMO is that Tyler doesn't challenge any of the statements there

And the way a bunch of office plankton from ZeroHedge re-posted an utter BS from British tabloidThe Sun about this super-duper hyper-sonic missile "Dark Eagle" which, actually, doesn't exists as a weapon and I highly doubt it will in 2023. Here is the "picture" from The Sun, which we all know is a respectable expert publication (wink, wink) and which follows a fine British tradition of selling shit to its public packaged as news. Incidentally, same goes for US media.

So, here are my comments:

1. Dark Eagle does not exist as a weapon system yet. Some prototype was tested couple of times and I don't doubt very much that activity which happens right now in Germany, such as "deployment" of ground infrastructure for this future missile is nothing more than PR. In fact, I am almost 100% positive that it is a PR in a desperate attempt to address concerns about actual hyper-sonic gap between the US and Russia (and China), so the grandiose statements followed. 

2. Obviously, for a Mach=17 missile, which is roughly 5.8 kilometers per second, even if to consider a short and slower boost phase, it should cover the range of exactly 2000 kilometers between Mainz-Kastel launch site in Germany and Moscow in: 2000/5.8=344 seconds or 5.7 minutes, which was stated originally in the low quality picture in The Sun. But then, something happened (a call?) and...

3. The time to reach Moscow was increased to 21 minutes 30 seconds. Why? Well, Russians know what the US is working on in this program (you can find it in Russian media space if you want to) and some military people pointed out that the United States is basically trying to recreate a longer version of Iskander and place some version of Common-Hypersonic Glide Body on top of it and it is not a Mach=17 weapon. Probably Mach=5-7 weapon accelerated by some inter-mediate range booster, maybe enlarged SM-3 motor or whatever will be used. 

4. What it will not be--it will not be a real hyper-sonic cruise missile capable to strike moving targets on land and on the surface of the sea. In other words, it will be neither 3M22 Zircon nor Kinzhal which are bona fide cruise missiles (Kinzhal being aeroballistic one). So...

5. If we are talking about defense from such a missile which is not even in IOC and is primarily a PR action designed to forestall  streaming in constantly news about successful tests of Russian and Chinese hyper-sonic weapons and technologies, so much so that warmonger and neocon-in-chief in the US Senate, Lindsey Graham demanded a classified briefing on the latest tests by Chinese of their glider. On a defense side from this future Dark Eagle missile, enough to take a look at S-300V4 and its organic 9M82M/ME missile with its range of 200 kilometers and speed of 4,500 meters per second, that is M=13.2 to understand that Russia's AD/AM systems long ago covered the performance envelope of possible future US hyper-sonic weapons. In the end, I wrote today about S-500 already in serial production and deployment and S-550 which will be available in 2025.

6. But here we also hit this impenetrable cognitive wall, a deliberate semantic goal post moving device invented in the West to cover its very own loss of the arms race, which confuses people completely and they fail to grasp this tremendous difference between real hyper-sonic, atmosphere-riding, fully controllable and guided high precision weaponry such as 3M22 Zircon (or Kinzhal) designed to attack and annihilate any types of targets: moving and stationary, ground and sea, and all those primarily fixed ground targets attackers such as this Dark Eagle thing, not to speak of any other ballistic inter-mediate and long range missilery which is "hyper-sonic" by definition since flies with speeds of higher than M=5. But nobody calls International Space Station (ISS) a hyper-sonic space station.  

7. And here is the main point: the United States is nowhere near in fielding high supersonic, forget about genuine hyper-sonic, anti-shipping and land-attack missile. The US tried once to develop an indigenous supersonic anti-shipping missile--the missile prototype came out so underwhelming in performance and so expensive that all attempts have been abandoned. The situation became so bad that famous scandal hit headlines in 1990s. 

What do you do when you need to combat an enemy weapons system but can’t do so without understanding it? Well, in America, you buy the enemy’s weapons system. Such a strange tactic was carried out in the mid 1990s when, following frustrations in learning how to accurately develop a high-speed target to test anti-supersonic weapons platforms, the US Navy simply decided to buy the MA-31, a variant of Russia’s air-launched rocket-ramjet-powered Kh-31 missile. In 1995, as an effort to meet the Navy’s requirement for a Supersonic Sea-Skimming Target (SSST), McDonnell Douglas received Kh-31as for evaluation from Zveda-Strela, resulting in the  MA-31. Known by NATO as the AS-17 Krypton, the missile was designed to hunt Aegis vessels and Patriot missile batteries, entering service in the 1980s.

These are X-31s in their 1980s configuration. 

Let me tell you, the amount of advanced military tech both US and China got from Russia is immense. You can read the whole article about X-31s here. So, all in all, the US still doesn't know how to produce even a remote analog to nearing obsolescence P-700 Granit, let alone latest versions of P-800 Onyx. At this stage, hyper-sonic weapons of 3M22-class are simply beyond the reach as are the defense systems capable to deal with those with any, even minimal, chance of a success. 

So, whenever I hear such "news" as Dark Eagle's hype, I understand that people are being, as is standard today, lied to in order to allay their concerns and give them some comfort with a notion that at least "something is being done". In reality however, this hype is designed to avoid a disclosure of the scale of the West's loss across the board from economy, to culture to military, not to mention the fact that media everywhere long ago stopped being news organizations and are either pushers of suicidal policies or providers of everyday entertainment in which only hype sells. Plus, of course, who can forget a good ol' panem et circenses. One gets what one paid for. As for Germany. German "elites" are bought by the US and, in fact, are people with no principles nor national pride. US will tell them to jump, they will ask how high. Germany is also no friend of Russia and the hatred of Russia among much of the political and intellectual class in Germany, as well as among some substantial segments of population is genuine, not to mention being exacerbated by German media which compete with British tabloids and US MSM for the title of the best collection of human and info trash. And this is my comment for today on this Dark Eagle thing. 

Reminder: please support me on Patreon. I will post this piece there too.

I Am Abusing This Expression...

But again, what can I do under present circumstances, so it goes: no shit, geniuses. Get a load of this:

Boy, what a novel concept--creating a weapon which has a targeting. Wow! I am sure "intel community" in NATO was surprised, because considering the development of modern weapon systems in the West it is supposed to dominate...everything. Which it does not, not even close, that is why for them the news that Soviets/Russians were into the business of providing "targeting capabilities" since 1960s comes as a surprise. This is not to mention the fact of, obviously, not fully understanding of how targeting for anti-shipping cruise missiles is provided especially such missiles as hyper-sonic Kinzhal and Zircon. 

There is a strong empirical evidence that "intel community" was not really intelling anything since once Russians....ah, let me quote myself, because this is becoming tiresome commenting on "surprised experts" all the time:

USSR/Russia were in business of over-the-horizon targeting and shooting for a long, very long time. Since 1960s, and most important Soviet anti-shipping missiles had combat ranges in hundreds of kilometers since then. Those who read my latest book know--I concentrate on this issue--how important it is to know coordinates of a target and the rate of their obsolescence for developing a firing solution (or a flight plan, if one wishes) for a salvo of missiles. For that, in 1970s USSR created MKRC Legenda, which, for some of its shortcomings did provide good recon and targeting on which a number over-the-horizon launches were executed with excellent precision.  

Some people still cannot grasp the idea that USSR/Russia (as was disclosed by Russia's General Staff) practiced the long-to very long over-the-horizon salvos both on the platform-based (see Mineral radar, among many other things) and external targeting including based on the space assets such as modern day Liana and it really DOES NOT matter for targeting if its is 500 km or 2000. Modern targeting being an issue of datum concerns itself either with Bearing (Azimuth) and Range to target, or with Phi Lambda (geographic coordinates) of same. Period. Modern day systems provide virtually real time picture of surface and ground assets and can easily, based on the so called motion elements of the target--its course and velocity--provide initial targeting which in case of such weapon as Zirkon, at the range of salvo of about 800 kilometers, will have Tau (the delay time) of arrival to initial position of target a circle with the radius of R=Vtarget x Tau, or, if one wants to play with numbers:

1. Tau (at Mach=9) for Zircon = 4 minutes (for Kinzhal at M=11-12 will be around 3);

2. For target, say high speed carrier or DDG--30 knots, this is 30/6=5 cables per minute. 

3. Thus, the circle (pay attention--this is if we don't know target's course, if we do--the circle will become a sector) will have a radius:

         R=5 x 4=20 cables or 2 nautical miles, or roughly 4 kilometers. 

We know for sure (based on data on high selection-high ECM resistant radar seekers of such weapons as P-800 Onyx) that the minimal range of both radio and optronic seekers on either Kinzhal or Zircon is at least +-45 degrees angular coverage and range is at least 40 kilometers.  So, even if we shoot a single Zircon at the latest known position of target with Tau of 4 minutes, the range and width of coverage allow to find the target even if it has the speed of 60 and even 80 knots. In reality the width of the front will be:

                 W=R*2sin45=40 (км) *2*0,707=40*1,414=56.56 

or roughly 57 kilometers. 

So, even in this primitive scenario, for the target (the ship) to be able to escape beyond the width of the frontal coverage of Zircon (or Kinzhal) it will have to have the speed of 57 kilometers / 4 minutes = 14 + kilometers per minute or 870 kilometers per hour which also happens to be the average speed of a commercial jet such as A-320 or B-757. Obviously there are no known surface ships which are capable to do so. I doubt there ever will be, but, as you already all know in a missile exchange you launch a salvo of 2-4-6 etc. missiles whose task is to provide a leaker, or a missile which will break through air defense. 

So, you see. Once we omit here a rather complex issue of a resolution of uncertainties, sensor fusion and probabilities, as well as the issue of a Zircon's systems working properly (INS, updates, seekers, propulsion etc.) we arrive to a rather obvious conclusion that those who view targeting as a requirement to "pointing" target's position with the accuracy of 1 inch, they better update themselves on a modern missile tech, like since 1970s, when rules of missiles' launch were all about delivering missile to the range of detection by the missile's seeker (they vary from purely TV, to more complex optronics to radar to other things, wink, wink) and then... Well, some Soviet vessels and ships, such as hapless Musson (Monsoon) where my classmate lost his legs, learned it the hard way what happens when seeker captures the wrong target. Things changed dramatically since then, and what I wrote here is merely to underscore, yet again, how backward and badly educated those "experts" are if they think that receiving the targeting  and hitting the target 500 kilometers away is such a big deal. Not for Russians--they did it for decades and decades.

Read my lips: this is not a bravado, this is not an arrogance but the fact is that Soviet Navy was built around this concept--massive missile salvos at the maximum ranges which grew from 40-60 kilometers for venerable P-15 Styx to underwater start of the 600 kilometers-capable P-700 Granit and now 1000+ kilometer ranges. Russians have been at this longer than anyone else, simple as that. Good ol' MKRZ Legenda provided accurate targeting for Soviet Navy... even at the Royal Navy's assets during Falkland War. South Atlantic, guys, no less. Why they remain "surprised" dumbfounds me completely. Soviet/Russian anti-shipping missile developments has been documented extremely well and since 1990s Russians never made a secret out of it. In fact, they warned non-stop for the last three decades that hyper-sonic weapons and their enablers are in works and they are coming. Well, they came--now live with them. And don't tell anyone that you haven't been warned. 

In related news. It seems that CIA Director Burns spoke to Putin while visiting Moscow, and since the visit was requested by the American side, there is very little doubt that Burns had a message to Putin from Biden (or whoever is controlling Biden). Dems need something from Russia. They know their hold on power is tenuous now (not that GOP is much better, only marginally) and some arrangements are needed and, possibly, related to China.  

Short Explanation.

Andrei Raevsky sent me this first and now I noticed our friend Marko also had his hand on the pulse. So, here it is: 

(CNN)The US suffered a setback in the race with China and Russia to develop hypersonic weapons when its latest test failed, the Pentagon said in a statement Thursday. A booster stack, which is the rocket used to accelerate the projectile to hypersonic speeds, failed and the test of the projectile, the hypersonic glide body, could not proceed, the statement said.Because the rocket failed the Pentagon was not able to test the hypersonic glide body, which is the key component needed to develop a hypersonic weapon.Officials have started a review of the test, which took place Thursday at the Pacific Spaceport Complex in Kodiak, Alaska, to understand the cause of the booster failure. 

As I repeat ad nauseam: there are hyper-sonic weapons and there are hyper-sonic weapons. The United States is trying to come up with something like both Avangard (long-range) and Kinzhal (medium range) which are either ballistic or quasi-ballistic weapons which do fly either inside the atmosphere or bounce from its edge, such as those gliders akin to Avangard. Eventually, the United States will be able to come up with something like that and the US desperately wants something like Kinzhal (in effect an advanced airborne version of Iskander). These are weapons which have only a boost phase, after which they fly and maneuver without propulsion. Look also up project Kholod. 

Now, 3M22 Zircon is a whole other animal altogether because it has a propulsion which works till the very end and thus provides this missile with the atmospheric speed of M=10 and the range of 1000 kilometers, coming modification of GZUR and Zircon will have the range of 1500 km and speed in excess of M=12-13. These weapons can attack both moving targets (like ships) and, obviously, stationary objects. These are the real game changers in a real war. If strategic weapons such as Avangard are what the United States wants, those, like any other deterrent exists to... deter merely by the threat of their use in case shit hits the fan. Kinzhal with Zircon, however, are the weapons of battlefield, because their main task is to sink enemy's ships and blow up military facilities using non-nuclear ordnance, albeit these weapons too can carry nuclear warhead and can destroy a good size city. If Avangard was created to be uninterceptable  by dedicated weapons of (strategic) Anti-Missile Defense, both Kinzhal and Zircon cannot be intercepted by existing air-defense and anti-missile systems such as THAAD or SM3/SM6 variety integrated with the AEGIS.   

While Avangard, and Sarmat (especially Sarmat) render any anti-missile defense useless, Kinzhal and Zircon are the most impactful, because they change modern warfare radically and already made modern surface fleets obsolete even within non-nuclear paradigm. As I repeat ad nauseam about repeating this ad nauseam--this is a strategic catastrophe for NATO (and US) because everything what NATO's "fighting doctrine" was built around in the last 40-50 years has become simply useless. I will give some ASW math on that later, but a single Yasen-class (pr. 885) with 15-20 Zircons "parked" somewhere  in the Atlantic in 1000 kilometer range from D.C. is not only extremely hard to detect and will require enormous forces dedicated to this kind of ASW, but controls the movement of any US naval asset from Norfolk or any other base on the East Coast which in case of (God forbids) real war will not be able to deploy. Granted, of course, that Russia builds 10 of such subs, modernizes couple of pr. 949A to AMs (that is 72 cruise missiles, including God knows how many Zircons) and there you go. So, in other words, it is not going to be a single sub. 

In related news, Russia officially announced the increase of range of venerable X-35 (of Bal complex) to 500+ kilometer, after Russkies were scared shitless by great American "strategist", prognosticator, second coming of Clausewitz and Sun Tzu wrapped in one, really, the great heir to the intellectual prowess of Mahan and Zumwalt, David Axe who promised to starve Kaliningrad by Estonian 300 km range anti-shipping missiles. As you know,  Shoigu and Gerasimov start their every morning by going to Forbes site trying to learn if David Axe has come up with a new stratagem designed to defeat those pesky Russkies. So, they went, saw the article on Estonian missiles, got scared and decided that covering both Baltic and Black Seas with the salvos (each of them) capable to contain between 16 to 32 X-35s is a really bad news for any NATO forces there, especially mighty Estonian ones. I would love to explain to David Axe basic math behind Salvo Equations and distribution of probabilities, but I don't think he wants to lower himself to my primitive level, so I have to live with that and I am sure Shoigu and Gerasimov will continue visiting those "military" sites such as Forbes or The National Interests to partake in strategic and operational wisdom of their "experts".

The Fate of the West.

It is not very enviable. The acquaintance of mine who spent a good deal of time around the Atlanticist political top and knows many people there personally sent me his (her) thoughts on the issue of "elites" (I know the identity of this person, which should remain obscured for now) in which notes of this significance appear:

I saw all these people and many others like John Bolton, etc., and you are absolutely correct in that they are irredeemably obtuse - clever at manipulation of their own populations while driving their empire to ruin even as they fuck up one project after another and label it a triumph, leaving death, misery and disaster in their wake. I'm thankful they are as stupid as they are wicked (evil has that effect over generations), but that is also still dangerous for the rest of us. Regarding the France article, the evil is generational and (in my view) ultimately spiritual in nature. If you examine the Dutroux affair in Belgium, you will find a nexus of NATO, politicians and nobility, satanic cults, high finance, organized crime, media and the Catholic hierarchy, rather like P2/Gladio in Italy, Jimmy Savile and MPs in Britain, or the Franklin pedo scandal in America which also tied in to cults and Iran Contra. In the UK case, London residency of KGB FCD had identified these rings as being under the protection of British intelligence. Similar revelations have also come out of Australia. Not to mention Epstein...It is all extremely dark and people have lost their lives attempting to expose it. That's the nature of the "elite" that rules the crumbling West today. Not many people can handle that all the same.

Well, evidently some French journalists had it with Macron:

ENTRETIEN. Gérard Davet et Fabrice Lhomme : « Nous avons cherché à démasquer Emmanuel Macron » Les journalistes Gérard Davet et Fabrice Lhomme publient, cette semaine, « Le traître et le néant » aux éditions Fayard. Une enquête de 630 pages sur l’accession au pouvoir d’Emmanuel Macron et son quinquennat. « Certains trouveront que l’image renvoyée du Président n’est pas si mauvaise, d’autres qu’elle est accablante », expliquent-ils.

Translation: Gérard Davet and Fabrice Lhomme: "We sought to unmask Emmanuel Macron" The journalists Gérard Davet and Fabrice Lhomme publish, this week, “The traitor and the nothingness” with the editions Fayard. A 630-page investigation into the accession to power of Emmanuel Macron and his five-year term. "Some will find that the returned image of the President is not that bad, others that it is overwhelming," they explain.

Read the whole thing (use Google Translate) and you will get the idea how human "nothingness"  (an apt definition) do betray their countries. Here is one quote:

The "thing" of Emmanuel Macron is that he is flirtatious, charismatic, clever, making the person in front of him believe that he is the most important in the world. He sends back to his older interlocutors the image of who they were or what they wanted to be. And Brigitte Macron plays a major role in this mechanism. She is present at every important moment.

Yes, they all are--they all are avatars, holograms with zero capabilities to run anything and still, who is guilty that this kind of human material gets elected? In Macron's case, France. French people--they elected him, they fell for his utter BS and agreed for their country to be finished off. Same goes for the United States--no matter what were manipulations at the ballot box--the fact that half the country voted for a senile, demented, con-artist and swamp creature--sorry guys, you wanted, you got it. Now live with the consequences. This is how the decline of civilization looks like: perverts, pedophiles and con-artists on the top, ignorant "bread and circuses" masses on the bottom. 

This is the reason why today Vladimir Putin speaking at Valdai reiterated his (and many others') point that:

“Everyone says that the existing model of capitalism, which is now the basis of the social order in the vast majority of countries, has run out of steam,” Putin said. “There is no longer any way out of the tangle of more and more confusing contradictions.”

Obviously, this is not news to anyone who didn't slumber under the rock for the last 20 years and saw how modern model simply stopped producing real wealth and value. Now we have a new version of FIRE woke capitalism which is a direct path to a complete totalitarianism and a bacchanalia of human depravity, led by people akin to Macron and his ilk. So, expect new Macrons, new Bidens and new Epsteins emerging from the murky depths of the West's political machine. Yes, I know, sounds depressing but it is what it is. Modern West and globalism are one and the same and the rest of the world doesn't like it, and West's departure from its dominant position is one of the indicators that the system doesn't work anymore. There is a lot more to be said about this whole thing but for now I need to run to do some chores, after that we may discuss the issue of China's test of hyper-sonic weapon, which evidently, shook the United States and forced Pentagon to declare:

The U.S. Navy and Army tested hypersonic weapon component prototypes on Wednesday that will inform development of new weapons, the Pentagon said, calling the three tests successful.

Right. "Components" of "prototypes". In related news, the tests of components of the prototypes of apple pies, like flour and apples, have been conducted in a number of households around the world and those tests have been successful, so in the future some apple pies could be baked. As Scott Ritter stated commenting on this launch about US efforts:

Pro hint: It’s not an arms race if one side is spending all the money while losing ground.

I am more blunt for the last 10 years: the West lost the arms race because it was preparing for the war which nobody is going to fight. So, it is not just a technological gap, it is doctrinal, and this one is much harder to close.

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.      

Russia Steals Everything.

And Jesus Christ was an American and was born in Kalamazoo, MI. It is a well-known fact. So Donald Trump, evidently briefed by his utterly competent and crushingly precise aids, knows now that:

“We have a super duper rocket. I call it super duper because it is 5 times faster than conventional rockets. But Russia got this information from the Obama administration, it kidnapped it, and built its own rocket. But now we have such a (rocket) that is much, much faster.”

Absolutely, and, in fact, Yuri Gagarin was American too as are 3M22 Zircon and Avangard hypersonic system. Here is a video of Vladimir Putin congratulating and honoring a Chief Designer of Avangard system Gerbert Efremov. 

And it was this man, Efremov, revealed to the public for the first time, who responded to Trump's claims. Speaking to Rossiyskaya Gazeta he was straight to the point (in Russian): "We experimented with hypersonic weapons in Soviet times, when Obama was still in his adolescence."

But as we all know, mathematics and physics were also invented in the United States and I am sure Trump will be briefed on this crucial fact shortly. But jokes aside, one can cut US desperation with the knife, this how dense and tense this desperation is. Spinning Bullshit, the only skill US pundits have, can go only so far, then cognitive dissonances, some of them extremely severe, begin their onset and people start experiencing all kinds of psychological and psychiatric disorders. 

There are fields in which the United States will never have advantage over Russia, in the best case scenario for the US, plus there are many fields in which the United States is not a competitor for Russia. Here is one such field:

WASHINGTON — Over recent days, officials from the newly minted U.S. Space Force and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence briefed multiple congressional committees on an “uptick” in Russian military activity in space targeting U.S. defense and intelligence satellites, according to two sources familiar with the matter. While the sources declined to comment on the specifics of recent incidents, which follow general increases in Chinese and Russian aggression in space, these recent actions were deemed “serious enough” to merit briefings on Capitol Hill, said one of the sources. Officials also briefed committees on plans to counter the Russian aggression, the source said.

Obviously a use of such terms as "aggression" is one such sign of a hysteria in the top echelons of American power and soon, even commercial space launches by Russians, including missions to ISS will also be termed as "aggression". We all know, that any loss in any field by the US is always a result of Russia's aggression. Remember B-737 Max and Boeing fvcking things up in the worst possible way? All was a result of Russia aggression. Do you know that commercial aircraft MC-21 is an exhibit A of Russian aggression. Russians are especially aggressive in energy or in Russia's education (that is altogether--a crime against humanity) which in STEM is a direct competitor to the US and even phony university "ratings" do not work anymore. Russian cities are extremely aggressive, because Moscow's and St. Pete's art and culture scene makes NYC look like a fvcking Wanker County fair. Everything is Russian aggression, including, of course, Russian aggression being responsible for US losing every single war in the last 25 years, having no functioning political system, and American elites being represented primarily by morons. 

But the field where Russian aggression reached its peak is the field of weapons, because, in act of criminal Russian aggression, Russia's military history and experience dwarf that of the United States and Russians simply produce better weapons than the US. They have to. As a result the United States is not even a viable competitor in few key military fields ranging from Air Defense Systems to high supersonic and hypersonic missile technologies. They never were for the last 50 years and the lag in these main strike weapons of modern and future war is not just huge--generational, really--it grows. US is desperate to stop advanced weapons' development in Russia, and, in his interview to Russia's ultra-liberal Kommersant (in Russian), Marshall Billingslea wasted 10 minutes of my valuable life time bloviating on the matters of START treaty extension, threatening Russia with new....whatever, and speaking in pseudo-strategic platitudes, which Russia, most likely, will ignore. Why shouldn't she, especially knowing that no discussion on serious matters is possible with the US. Non-agreement-capable, period. BTW, one of the funny features about Billingslea--his original Bachelor's Degree is in...History of Arts.  Get it, boys and girls? His formative humanly and academically years he spent studying useless crap, which provides zero background for any productive activity. 

US desperately needs all Russia's hypersonic weapons to be put under the umbrella of the US "inspections" and a treaty which will afford the US at least hypothetical chance at countering them. This is not going to happen since Russia is not the USSR and Putin is not Gorbachev.  Plus, what is most important, and I already mentioned it--US lag in modern weapon systems is generational. Yes, the United States can still create some advanced enabler technologies such as satellite constellations, advanced combat networks, proceed with advancement of Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC), may still build advanced state-of-the-art platforms such as US submarines, but these are platforms and enablers. They mean little without weapon systems they enable and carry. Some American military porn internet resources already count SM-6 AD missile as a "standard anti-shipping missile" on US Navy's Arleigh Burke-class DDGs. Really? Introduction of yet another "wave" of US and Norwegian subsonic anti-shipping missiles is hailed as some kind of a milestone, which it is not. So what that LRASM/JASSM is capable of EECM? Good ol' P-700 Granit already carried ECCM suites in 1970s.  Every Soviet (forget modern Russian) AD complex starting from Osa-M always had anti-surface attack mode as its reserve function. For lay people this may not sound important, but during 080808 war with Georgia, one of the Russian Black Sea Fleet's small missile ships sunk Georgian missile boat not by its main missile but by salvo from its Air Defense Complex Osa-M. 

As I am on record non-stop for years, US "defense" (in reality military aggression) issues are not just in technological field, some of the US technology is good. It is in understanding a war for what it is. NO US serviceman even fought in defense of his country, town, family. This is the main, metaphysical, reason why US top brass, once a generation which saw serious war departed, could never grasp an essence of the warfare, because they have no grasp what would happen if they lose not just the war, the US has a great record of that, but what they treasure in life. This is the obstacle which cannot be overcome by inventing some new fighting doctrine or by regurgitating same ol' and beaten to death strategic and operational truisms. One has to start thinking differently but that is precisely what is lacking in the decision-making circles in the US today, where reality and fantasy long ago lost a clear demarcation line between the two. Well, it is inevitable in the country where one of the main voices in defining military policy include such people as a graduate of a History of Arts program or a comic and con-artist. I guess, in the world of fantasy and fakes those skills are sufficient.