Showing posts with label hypersonic weapons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hypersonic weapons. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 30, 2024

Who Said "Unclear"?

It is very clear and it consists of two parts:

1. Make weapon fly hypersonic while maneuvering;

2. Be able to control it, including by providing command updates if necessary.

None of it is achieved by the US, let alone Euros and will not be for a long time. So. 

The U.S. Army and the U.S. Navy recently “initiated” a test of a hypersonic weapon, but the U.S. military won’t say whether or not it was a success, what specific system was involved, or even if there was an actual launch. Previous testing of an Army ground-based hypersonic weapon system it is developing in cooperation with the Navy, known as Dark Eagle, has been particularly beset by problems.  The Army has been hoping to begin fielding Dark Eagle within the next two months, around a year later than originally planned, and in the wake three scrubbed test launches last year. In June, the Pentagon did announced a successful test of a common hypersonic missile designed to be used in both the Army’s Dark Eagle and the Navy’s sea-based Intermediate Range Conventional Prompt Strike (IRCPS) weapon systems. To date, there has been no known full end-to-end test of the missile involving a production-representative launch system.

There will not be IOC for some years and when it will be "announced", like all other previous announcements, it will be about system which will have dubious performance at best, in reality--unworkable system. Example of announcement is provided:

“The U.S. Army and Navy recently initiated a test of a conventional hypersonic system at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida,” a U.S. defense official told The War Zone in a statement. “This test was an essential benchmark in the development of operational hypersonic technology. Vital data on the performance of the hardware and software was collected that will inform the continued progress toward fielding hypersonic weapons.” “We have no additional details or information [about the test] to provide at this time,” the statement added.  

Russians, actually, miscalculated when stated that the US is behind about 5 to 7 years. As it turned out--it is more like 12-15, at best. Mind you--Russia had Kinzhals on combat patrols since 2017, seven years at least. The rest of systems are fully operational ranging from strategic Avangard to a terrifying 3M22 Zircon. Same goes for anti-hypersonic systems such as S-400, S-500, S-550 and S-300V4. Feel the difference. People may say that I gloat--I don't, I merely follow technological and operational facts. They look bad for NATO and the gap is, actually, growing. At this stage I am getting really tired sorting out the verbiage and semantics' games used to cover up utter failure of not just technological race, but primarily doctrinal and strategic one. And here we are--PR, PR and PR again. Everything is very clear.

Wednesday, June 19, 2024

The Hell You Say...

 ... this cannot be. Nah, I am screwing with you, of course. 

And how could this be, for years we have been told that any minute now those things will be developed and deployed. Ah, here it is:

Shielding hypersonic missiles’ sensitive electronics, understanding how various materials behave and predicting aerodynamics at temperatures as high as 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,649 degrees Celsius) will require extensive flight testing, the U.S. Congressional Budget Office said in a 2023 report, adding that test failures in recent years have delayed progress.

No shit, geniuses, pardon my French. How about "going back to school" and trying to develop supersonic missile, such as P-800 Onyx or, for that matter, Mach=4.2 Kh-32, both of which have been used to a devastating effect in SMO? How about getting those precious datasets, telemetry, develop materials, develop extremely high impulse fuels such as decilin, ability to control missile et al. Recall, two plus years ago I warned: 

Boy, was I overly optimistic. So, 20 years, eh. Hey, I merely report the news here. Remember 2018 and all those Western "experts" who spoke about those boutique weapons? And then suddenly the term hypersonic became so popular in the West. Well, as they say in Caucasus--no matter how many times you repeat the word baklava it will not get any sweeter in your mouth.

Monday, June 17, 2024

Meanwhile...

 ... why not take interview with some... French general. In related news--hypersonic weapons are hard, like really-really hard. PR, on the other hand, is easy. 

Didn't I warn about it like... two years ago? Let me translate this for you: "Problems with the launcher and launch sequence." (c) No, the problems are not with that, this all is utter BS. The problem is with gliding body, its inability to sustain hypersonic flight and, finally, inability to control it because this is the key to REAL hypersonic weapons. Now, this cretin from Defense One--a collection of butthurt US military amateurs tries to compensate:

U.S. officials have described an “arms race” against China for hypersonics development, a field that Russia also invests in. In 2023, Ukraine shot down six Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, although experts noted that they were not the maneuverable type of missile typically referred to under the umbrella term of “hypersonics.” In February, Russia attacked Ukraine with the Zircon hypersonic missile for the first time. 

Yes, in fact--404 shot down all Zircon and Kinzhal missiles, because, you know, Patriot PAC3 is the best thing in universe like... ever. In general, most of Western military academies, let alone some shitty courses in "Security Studies" and other "Strategy" crap should simply be dissolved due to professional incompetence and their staffs moved to fiction writing departments in liberal arts colleges. To Sam Skove who penned this crap--he should take basic military courses from people who actually know how to fight real wars and maybe take intro courses in math and physics. But I feel his pain... tough to be a loser.

Sunday, August 6, 2023

For Those About To Read This;)

1. Some on the boards continue to be hysterical after every pinprick by 404 terrorists. Well, boohoo--this is war, however packaged into the SMO, and desperate crooks in Kiev will continue their attempts to strike at whatever Russian target they can reach. For those "concerned citizens" with basic arithmetic impairment (forget about algebra and calculus), here is Larry explaining it to them:

If those people who become hysterical each time some drone breaks windows in Russian skyscrapers or makes a hole in a civilian or, once in a while, naval vessel, I want to remind them--see highlighted above. Yes, if they could--they would kill as many Russians as possible, because this is what their masters in Washington and London want, but Russians are notoriously difficult to kill on the battlefield so attacks on civilians WILL continue until all terrorist infrastructure and Kiev regime will be annihilated. 

2. In funny news. No, I mean it. 

The stealth US Navy destroyer USS Zumwalt has been plagued by a wide range of problems throughout its development, including guns that are all but useless, but the ship on its way to do something about it. After a brief hiccup — an abrupt return to port for unexpected maintenance— the ship departed San Diego, California Wednesday for Pascagoula, Mississippi, home of Ingalls Shipbuilding, part of the major Navy shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries. The Zumwalt will "receive technology upgrades including the integration of the Conventional Prompt Strike weapons system," the Navy said in a statement, adding that the coming "upgrades will ensure Zumwalt remains one of the most technologically advanced and lethal ships in the US Navy." During the upgrade period, according to a USNI News report, shipbuilders will remove the impotent twin 155mm Advanced Gun Systems and replace them with missile tubes that altogether are expected to carry a dozen hypersonic missiles, weapons that are still in development and expected to be fielded in the next few years.

Can someone, please, make The Pentagon Wars 2 movie? This USS Zumwalt clusterfuck totally qualifies. For starters. 

This is SU-57. 

This is the only 5th generation fighter in the world with outstanding combat record both as air-to-air and as main node of the group of fighters. It carries a mind-boggling arsenal of weapons, including unrivaled R-37. And what SU-57 can do maneuvering-wise only other Sukhoi aircraft can do. Yet, this is GSh-301 30-mm gun this advanced fighter, with BVR score unmatched by anyone, carries. 

Even this flying brick carries 25-mm gun. 

Here is Gorshkov-class Frigate--for now it is the only combat ship in the world which carries hypersonic 3M22 Zircon. 

Gorshkov-class carries not only 1,500 km range Zircon but 4,500 km range 3M14M. In terms of its strike power it makes Zumwalt look like Ford model T against T-90M. But what do you see on the bow of this and other ships? Right--in this case a very respectable 130-mm gun, plus two other 30-mm CIWS Palash. Most modern Russian Navy ships carry guns. This is the only way navies will continue to evolve--they will continue to carry guns and not just for some remote possibility of fighting off Jack Sparrow, but for a vast number of combat contingencies, including coastal fire support and even AD defense. Russian Navy ships ALL, without exception, train their guns for participating in AD, including through the use of SMART munitions. And that is just one of a truckload of tasks assigned to naval guns. 

This is why I love watching one of my most favorite YT channels--a treasure, really.  

No, it is not sentimental, it is very educational and is STILL relevant. Why, is a separate issue. But not in the case of USS Zumwalt, which now will have NO guns and NO so called "hypersonic" Conventional Prompt Strike weapons. Good luck with that. Here is how "development" and "procurement" of those weapons happens nowadays, this is from Congressional Research Service. Remember the fanfare? Well, read yourself. 

As previously discussed, the Army has experienced a number of test delays and “no-tests” since 2021. In addition, the DOD Inspector General has undertaken an evaluation “to determine whether the Army Long Range Hypersonic Weapon and the Navy Conventional Prompt Strike Program Offices are meeting their weapons systems development and fielding timelines and milestones.” Despite these events, the Army seemingly remains publicly committed to fielding its first operational prototype LRHW battery by the end of FY2023. If the LRHW testing program is “at least six months behind schedule” as has been suggested, policymakers could examine if the Army’s 2023 LRHW fielding plans are realistic and if additional testing to account for “no-test” events and past test failures might be warranted. 

Again, remember the fanfare about deploying some empty launchers? Yes, just about the time when they reported also that the Russian Army is about to disintegrate. Haven't we heard this story before? Poor late Elmo Zumwalt who, should he have been alive today, would be terrified by useless overpriced monstrosity which was given his name. And no guns now? Needless to say, Elmo Zumwalt served not only on destroyers but also as a navigator on USS Wisconsin. These four of the class have been magnificent mighty carriers of 16-inch guns...

Ah yes, those are still one of the most beautiful ships built, unlike three ugly and horrendously expensive contraptions which are absolutely useless in modern day combat and their "stealth" not only makes them preposterously ugly but is useless in modern ISR environment and that means that they will be detected, tracked, the targeting will be issued and... well, make your own conclusions.

Saturday, April 22, 2023

An Impulse.

In therapeutic sense a large portion of the UTube is dedicated to coming soon, very soon, any minute now some sort of the breakthrough in developing of hypersonic for US military. Because of that, such videos like this,

gather millions of views of the same type of people who applaud each Musk's rocket explosion as yet another success which for sure, very soon, any minute now will ensure humanity's (meaning the US) travel to Mars and beyond. Russians launching shitload of stuff and people to space, evidently, is not as exciting as watching failures of dubious concepts being sold to the public as an achievement. Same applies to this video, which still didn't account for the cancellation of the AARW hypersonic program last month, and the fact that the US still doesn't have:

1. High impulse fuel, such as Decilin-M developed by Russians for their hypersonic weapons which allows them to maintain hypersonic speeds throughout the duration of the whole flight. Unlike it is the case with this "sled" in the video which is hailed as some kind of achievement, you can accelerate the thing at a 10 mile-long track to M=8 by all kinds of means. But you need a consistent high impulse fuel to maintain the hypersonic flight not at 10 mile long track, but more along a complex trajectory ranging from tens to thousands of miles. That's the issue. 

As we know, Impulse is a change of the momentum (mv) of the physical body, which is 

Obviously, this is for a simplified case when the mass of a body remains constant, in case of 3M22 Zircon its mass will be constantly reduced due to expenditure of its fuel (Decilin-M). Looks like the US is still in search of such a fuel. 

2. Even more important is the ability to control missile (communicate with it) and allow missile to use its targeting system. That is the whole other can of worms and this one Russia did solve. How? I don't know--I can speculate--but I don't want to. But I am sure a wealth of data from SMO on a successful use of hypersonic weapons by Russia will continue to contribute to constant improvement of such weapons and the gap will only grow, especially in the field of the powered hypersonic flight. Rumor has it, new versions of Zircons will have an astonishing range in excess of 2,000 kilometers and speeds reaching M=15. If not already.

But speaking of an impulse, in a larger, metaphysical sense--this impulse was applied to Russia after seeing a complete insanity in Washington in the last 25 years. Necessity feeds the progress, and Russians never treated weapons lightly. And often used most advanced weapons first. But unlike artillery shells, REAL hypersonic weapons club is so exclusive and technologies ranging from fuels, materials, electronics and propulsion are so advanced, that for now it is only Russia who has them and used them to a devastating effect in 404.

Thursday, March 16, 2023

Well, Start Stop-watches, Gentlemen.

It is not just India which has JV with Russia known as Brahmos. Nope, the deputy head of Corporation Tactical Missile Armaments (KRTV) would have never articulated this without OK from higher-ups. 

МОСКВА, 17 мар - РИА Новости. В корпорации "Тактическое ракетное вооружение" (КТРВ) не исключают возможность передачи в будущем гиперзвуковых технологий дружественным странам в случае принятия соответствующего политического решения, сообщил РИА Новости заместитель генерального директора КТРВ Константин Бирюлин. "Вопрос о том, насколько мы готовы передать эти новые технологии нашим друзьям, тем, кто с нами дружит и является нашими не какими-то, а настоящими партнерами. Это решение политическое. Если будет такое решение, я думаю, что мы найдем возможность передать эти технологии", - сказал Бирюлин, отвечая на соответствующий вопрос.

Translation: MOSCOW, March 17 - RIA Novosti. The Tactical Missile Weapons Corporation (KTRV) does not exclude the possibility of transferring hypersonic technologies to friendly countries in the future if an appropriate political decision is made, Deputy General Director of KTRV Konstantin Biryulin told RIA Novosti. "The question is how ready we are to transfer these new technologies to our friends, to those who are friends with us and are our real partners. This is a political decision. If there is such a decision, I think that we will find an opportunity to transfer these technologies," Biryulin said, answering a related question.

Oh, well, we all know what "friendly countries" Konstantin Biryulin is talking about.  Dear Comrade Xi arrives to Moscow on the 21st. I am 100% positive that his good close friend Vladimir will gladly discuss and "acquiesce" to the proposition of Chinese friends to help out a bit in an around First Island Chain, or maybe even beyond, by means of sharing some knowledge and hardware with China. Kinzhal is a mature weapons system which sees combat use to a devastating effect almost daily in 404. How strange, Bashar Assad also said that, hey, how about some Kinzhals in Syria? 

Will Zircons follow? Let me remind you that development of shorter (up to 1,000 km) and "lighter" version of 3M22 Zircon for small missile ships of Russian Navy was already declared a few years back. Who says that Russia cannot supply those to "friendly countries". After all, since Russia paused her START participation, who said that Russia should keep a gentleman's agreement on non-proliferation of the cruise missile technologies limiting their range to 300 kilometers. Hey, India already launches her Brahmos at the range of 800+ kilometers and is getting ready to enter hyper-sonic territory by 2027-28. It was coming and now people of import confirm--Russia is ready to help out. Boy, those A2/AD "bubbles" suddenly look very dangerous and grow in size.  Start your stop-watches, gents, before you will hear moans of desperation from the swamp.      

Friday, February 3, 2023

Butthurt Is Strong On This One.

The Popular Mechanics rag is called popular, because it is not designed for reading by people who have serious technical education (background). Generally, anyone who employs Kyle Mizokami has to have the remnants of one's credibility removed. Now another clown, Darren Orf, with degree in, and you have guessed it, journalism ejaculates: Turns Out Russia Is Overselling Its 'Unstoppable' Hypersonic Missile

In fact, just this week, Vladimir Putin announced imminent plans to test his frigate-launched Zircon hypersonic missile, which can supposedly reach speeds of Mach 9. The embattled Russian leader took part in the farewell ceremony (albeit remotely) of the Admiral Gorshkov frigate back in January, and the ship will launch the missile during a training exercise with South Africa and China navies later this month. Russia says it’ll be “the first-ever [launch] during an event of this kind,” though the launch is likely a show of force to the West more than anything. While an “unstoppable” Russian missile would certainly be a problem for the U.S. (along with most of Europe), Putin might be overselling the weapon’s capabilities. In 2021, Nikolai Yevmenov, commander-in-chief of the Russian Navy, told a Russian news site that the weapon still had problems—and some of those problems are likely highlighted in a new report by the U.S. Congressional Budget Office. While the 72-page report did find that hypersonic missiles “have the speed to be useful in the early stages of a conflict,” the report also threw some cold water on the red-hot hype surrounding hypersonic technology. The biggest dose of reality is that the technology still hasn’t found a way to manage the immense amount of heat produced by a system traveling in excess of Mach 5.

Poor boy, obviously, missed the whole "news" that Admiral Gorshkov tested Zircon 3M22 for the last couple years and that Zircon completely passed its IOC phase and is already in serial production since 2022, and is a fully developed weapon. But can you imagine explaining this to a graduate of the University of Missouri-Columbia with degree in English (Journalism), who cannot even understand that Congressional Budget Office's Report discusses ONLY US programs in this field. Even the title of Report speaks for itself:

U.S. Hypersonic Weapons and Alternatives  

Somebody, please, explain to this fool that CBO discusses in this report general issues of hypersonic flight as related to the United States only. The only reason this "expert" produces this volume of coping is because being Western journo ignoramus he cannot come to terms that the United States not just lags dramatically behind Russia in terms of hypersonic weapons, but that it has no defense whatsoever against those weapons. The only thing which the US has been able to accomplish recently so far was the launch of a prototype of sorts of a booster aeroballistic vehicle which, reportedly, performed as expected. The US is nowhere near to fielding anything comparable to 3M22 Zircon and is not going to be there for a very long time. 

In fact, CBO's report IS about horrendous costs--color me surprised, not--it takes to develop anything workable hypersonic. The amount of copium and BS in this PopMech article is astonishing. The problems described in the report are the problems the US Military-Industrial Complex hasn't been able to resolve so far, and is having a huge issue with observing Russia and China fielding a variety of hypersonic weapons, but especially so such as 3M22 Zircon. As I am on record--you cannot explain a person with Master's Degree in "journalism" the physics, let alone tactical and operation implications of hypersonic weapons--they simply will not understand that. That is why average Western journos lie for a living, because they do not know how to do anything else. 

P.S. I omit here well documented combat use of Kinzhals in 404. Obviously Orf never heard of that.

Thursday, July 7, 2022

My Talking Head On Hypersonic Weapons Again.

My talking head on hypersonic issues and how they relate to policies.  

Pershing II was never a "hypersonic" weapon. Speed alone is NOT what defines a weapon as hypersonic. The issue of required force aka наряд сил. Believe me, Google translate will not provide a proper translation. 

Thursday, December 23, 2021

Merry Christmas.

To everyone and let there be peace and calm. Of course, we know that this is impossible with neocons in charge in D.C. but for good people of this planet--let your wishes come true and stay healthy and prosper. Just to remind how Putin now weeps in his Main Kremlin Palace because he is denied shopping in Paris by Germany's Defense Minister and how he gazes across the Red Square at GUM.


To find solace there, I guess))) Moscow is magical at Christmas(es) (both Catholic and Orthodox) and New Year. 

But still sticking to my business, Bernhard of MoA published an interesting piece on, and you may have guessed it, hypersonic weapons and the paper from Naval Post Graduate School. Worthy of reading, believe me.

   U.S. Navy Acknowledges Russian Weapon Superiority

I will gladly elaborate more on this issue, including within the larger framework of European (in)security and will explain why things maybe changing faster than we may expect. In fact I was already preparing this explanation for video too. The gap is growing and the US is trying desperately to do something about it but there is very little what could be done. Now that Putin admits that Russia and China work on joint projects in developing advanced weaponry I doubt that the combined West can do anything about it. As I am on record--the gap is not years, it is generational, weapons and CONOPS of the 20th century against the warfare of the 21st. 

Scott Ritter is pretty straight-forward in his predictions. 

But I have my doubts about timetable for Dark Eagle to start with and, once and if deployed, about its real capabilities, especially against Russia's anti-missile systems which are already in place. As Scott notes further:

Moreover, Russia may very well deploy hypersonic weapons into the Caribbean, either in Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, or a combination thereof, to counter the threat to Moscow posed by U.S. systems in Europe.  

True, but (K-329) Belgorod is already in IOC and Khabarovsk is getting ready, that is 12 Poseidons. But even 6 of them is enough to... well, I don't want to go there. 

This is K-329 in June.
So, there are options... many of them.

Wednesday, October 28, 2020

Is It New Strategic Or Inter-Mediate Range LOL?

Are they THAT dumb that they do not even understand that they are already a laughing stock? Here is Hudson Institute meeting today with Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Robert O’Brien. Do not miss first few minutes of introduction of O'Brien and his professional background and experience. 


I know, it is a torturous hour-long molasses of pseudo-scholar bloviation, beaten to death false cliches and tropes about US "national security" to the audience of one of the most neocon and war-mongering "think tanks" (more like a wagon) and this non-event of a typical pre-election chest-thumping and BS spin would have gone unnoticed if not for O'Brien's threat to Russia. Russians even reported it. You can listen to this starting at 56:00. 

Translation: We quit INF Treaty, we are developing hypersonic weapons, systems of delivery by ballistic missiles... We will deploy same weapons, if necessary, in Europe to contain Russia.  

Ahem, as I already stated it not for once, most US top political echelon speeches today have a surreal similarity to North Korean party gatherings in their sloganeering, catch phrases, but go even further from North Korea in a full detachment from reality. I listened to O'Brien's hollow boilerplate that you would spare your personal time by not doing this. But claim about hypersonic weapons was so ridiculous that Russians started... laughing. Sure, US threatening Russia with weapon systems it doesn't have is a good ol' American tradition. But, unlike it was with corrupted and cowardly Gorbachev and his surrounding, times are different in Moscow today and nobody, really, buys this BS anymore, because everyone knows that the gap is generational and the Air-Defense/Anti-Missile system which Russia deploys today, from a mind-boggling ABM position area around Moscow, which simply has no analogues anywhere, to systems designed specifically for working against perspective hyper-sonic weapons--S-300V4--S-400--S-500--is simply unbridgeable anymore. So, sure, a deployment of non-existing weapons is such a threat. 

And here is the deal, me being a US citizen and having America as my (our) home, it is absolutely demoralizing and embarrassing to see these clowns, who are laughed at all over the world and who wouldn't be able to run a convenience store, much less nuclear superpower, who pretend that they know something. They don't, world at large has already figured it out. Russians know this for decade, Chinese too, so does Iran. Instead of initiating a global settlement between the Great Three, a globalist cabal in the US is not only driving the country into the ground but humiliates it constantly, first by cringe-worthy flattery and praising what is not there and never was, and then by parading it as an Exhibit A of political and ideological dysfunction and inability to govern itself. It is mind-boggling. There is nothing more pathetic than in the street fight some bully quitting a bloody bare knuckle pleasantries and suddenly stating that the fight should be fought differently and that he will call now a posse of transformers or Captain America if the opponent will not put his fists in the gloves. Hollow threats, hollow promises, now down right comical bluffing which both sides know is just that, a crock o' shit.  

You already know that my third book is getting ready. I post here an excerpt, highly unedited (so, pardon my Runglish and punctuation), about American idiosyncrasies which lead today to what we all have on our hands--a systemic crisis of the United States. It is not a military analysis book per se. In fact, most of it about economy, culture, energy, what have you, but you know that I wouldn't be me if I wouldn't stick couple of chapters on RRMA, whose "evangelist" I was for many many years. So, here it is:

US Naval War College publication NWCR (Naval War College Review) is known for decades to publish wonderful introspective into the American military thought known as Newport Papers, Newport, Rhode Island, being a location of the Naval War College. A fascinating collection of thoughts and reports on war gaming was and continues to be numbered. One such Newport Paper 20, submitted in 2004 was titled Global War Game. Second Series 1984-1988. It is a monograph on global war-gaming between NATO and Warsaw pact and as foreword to this paper states that it:

“…recounts a uniquely interesting and challenging period in the Naval War College’s engagement with naval and national strategies through the war-gaming process. The games examined the ability of the United States to sustain conventional warfare with the Soviet Union until full mobilization of the nation’s resources could be achieved. Through a sustained set of sequential and interlocking games, the Global process identified a number of important and controversial findings. …these games pointed to the importance of offensive action, including maritime operations; the ability of “Blue” (the West, broadly speaking) to win without resorting to nuclear weapons; and the extensive planning necessary to conduct high-intensity combat over a lengthy period.”[i]   

The monograph is instructive in many important respects, including an attempt to look at such a massive conflict only within conventional, non-nuclear that is, framework. It is also instructive in terms of a rather severe constrains which the carrier-centricity of the US Navy imposed on an imagination of the American planners who still could not recognize an unfolding of new paradigm. The most peculiar phrase of the report on the mutual casualties of war is contained on the page 134: “D+38 Red OSCAR SSGN launches only successful ASCM attack of war.”[ii] It is an extremely important note which tells that on the 38th day of imaginary, or simulated if one wishes, 1984 war between USSR and the West, project 949 Oscar-class missile submarine scored the only hit by the anti-shipping missiles P-700 Granit (NATO: SS-N-21 Shipwreck) on any NATO target of significance. The brief review of the mutually inflicted casualties by no means shows Western “technological superiority”, which was and continues to be tune du jour since the early days of the Cold War, and even the main asset of the US Navy, its aircraft carriers, is being torpedoed left and right and even being heavily damaged by the salvos of cruise missiles by Soviet long-range Naval Missile-carrying Aviation (MRA). It is a peculiar conclusion since unlike Soviet MRA which at that time in 1980s carried very high supersonic (Mach=4.6) missile Kh-22 with active radar homing warhead, its range was around 600 kilometers which was making the mission of Soviet carriers of this missile—Tupolev TU-22—a very calamitous affair against any Carrier Battle Group if it was on alert and had E-2 Hawkeyes and its F-14s Tomcats, with allegedly effective, long-range Aim-54 Phoenix air-to-air missiles, in the air and ready to take on those swarms of TU-22s. Soviets did recognize that the early versions of a Kh-22’s homing devices were vulnerable to jamming and serious losses were expected among TU-22s.   

Yet, the appearance in 1980 of the project 949(A) Oscar-class anti-shipping cruise missile submarines, which were called carrier-killers, together with less-flattering moniker of nuclear loafs, due to their enormous width for housing of the revolutionary anti-shipping missile complex P-700 Granit, was one of the major factors contributing to the appearance of the Aegis-equipped cruisers of Ticonderoga-class and of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. Both ships were designed with a strong emphasis on AAW (Anti-Air Warfare) and despite their ability to carry many Tomahawk cruise missiles, were and are primarily viewed as an organic integral air-defense and anti-submarine escort of the aircraft carriers. First Aegis-equipped Ticonderoga-class cruisers began to be deployed since 1983 and instead of being equipped with MK-41 Vertical Launch System (VLS) carried outdated and slow MK-26 dual-rail launchers for its Standard MR SM -2 anti-air missiles—system simply not designed to deal with a massive salvo of anti-shipping missiles. Not until the end of 1986 would the US Navy see new ‘improved’ Ticonderoga-class cruisers, starting from USS Bunker Hill (CG 52), entering the fleet. These ships carried much more ‘productive’, meaning higher rate of fire, MK 41 VLS.[iii] Arleigh Burke-class destroyers would not appear in the US Navy until 1991 altogether. Moreover, the issues with much touted Aegis combat control system build around SPY-1 Radar would not only continue to plague it early on, but the whole system failed to intercept even slow and ‘one-after-another’—a scenario excluded from real combat—missiles in tests. Out of 16 missiles launched ‘one-after-another’ only 5 were shot down--a dismal and a deadly failure in case of a real war.[iv] Yet, even set in the realities of 1984 military-technological paradigm, US Naval War College assumed that some of its carriers will be damaged by torpedo salvos from Soviet submarines, while remaining largely impervious to newest supersonic and highly resistant to jamming state-of-the-art M=2.5 capable missile designed to operate in a artificial intelligence network of a large salvo, with missiles capable to communicate between each-other in the salvo, reassign targets by importance and decide on the further course of action. The whole notion that torpedo attacks from maximum distances of 30-40 kilometers, in reality much closer than that, at aircraft carrier would be more effective and less dangerous for the attacking submarine than a salvo of 10-12 supersonic P-700s from a distance of 300-650 kilometers, 650 kilometers being maximum distance at which such missile could be launched, seems at best contrived, at worst—delusional.

There is a vast record of foreign and domestic submarines breaking through ASW screens of the American carriers and ‘scoring’ a torpedo hit on them.[v] But that was under the conditions of however intense but simulated combat. Real life combat would make such a torpedo attack extremely dangerous for attacker which would have to face an intense search operation from both escorts and US submarines operating with the carrier battle group. Anti-shipping cruise missiles were invented and evolved specifically as stand-off weapons ensuring much better chances of survival for an attacker.

A favorite and false premise of the American strategists that modern wars will be fought by traditional weapons revealed a very American idiosyncrasy—lack of desire to adapt. It was this lack of desire which prevented the United States to see and follow an easily predictable evolution of the missiles and enablers, such as highly successful ‘Legenda’ to a modern fusion of sea, ground, air and space-based sensors capable to deliver a reliable targeting for any kind of modern supersonic and hypersonic weapons, capable to strike anywhere around the world.



[i] Global War Game. Second Series 1984-1988. Captain Robert H. Gile (U.S. Navy, Ret.). The Newport Papers. 20. August, 2004. Foreword.
https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/newport-papers/34

[ii] Ibid, 134.

[iii] The Naval Institute Guide to Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet. Eighteens Edition. Norman Polmar. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 2005, 138-142.

[iv] Lessons Not Learned: The U.S. Navy Status Quo Culture. Roger Thompson (Naval Institute Press, 2007), 176-177.

[v] Ibid, 45, 81.

So, here it is. US "elites" on display, who still live in their little bubble and who do not care about how they look from the outside. A complete intellectual and moral collapse.