Wrong Term ...

 ... "shelved" is not the applicable term. More like removed into the deep recesses of archives of naval curiosities, never to be shown to public again in order to avoid embarrassment. I always stress--it is sometimes even painful for me seeing mighty US Navy, with its glorious heroic history, becoming a butt of jokes around the world, and not only because of the obsolete carrier-centric concept, but this:

The US Navy’s Trump-class battleship will be 'quietly shelved'. Summary and Key Points: The proposed Trump-class “guided-missile battleship” (BBG(X)) is pitched as a revival of American sea power, but the concept clashes with how modern naval war is actually fought. The platform is missile-centric—more like a bloated destroyer than a true battleship—while remaining highly vulnerable to submarines, long-range missiles, and ISR-driven targeting. Exotic add-ons like railguns and shipborne lasers are power-hungry and still unreliable at sea, while bigger hulls simply create bigger, pricier targets. Worse, U.S. shipyards are already strained, meaning BBG(X) would likely crowd out submarines and logistics ships that matter more in a China fight.

Child-emperor loves expensive shiny toys and he doesn't care, nor can grasp modern warfare, naval or not.

This is the thing which many US generals (and Admirals) still cannot grasp--the opposite side has as good ISR as the US. ISR means targeting and firing solutions, after that--all bets are off. Salvo Model rules and real serious militaries plan and fight based on model, some of them being in the process of constant update and modifications, 24/7 literally. This is how Russian General Staff operates, its GOU--Main Operational Directorate. Same goes for Main Staff of the Russian Navy. And the author correctly states, when it comes to China and her PLAN--the US Navy has only one avenue to pursue--submarine forces which still (emphasis on "still") maintains a sizeable, generational, lead over PLAN's submarine force. In terms of surface fleet--US Navy's readiness is a huge question mark. But in the end, it is not just arithmetic of MK41 VLS, it is what is in those VLS which makes all the difference.   

When You Are A Cretin ...

 ... who still thinks that torpedoes are detected by ... radar (they never heard of sonar). Obviously, moron (or collection of morons) has no idea what modern ASW is, as well as what that is. 

R--being the range of detection and D--being the distance of avoidance and that the issue of Flaming Datum for MK48 today is just the matter of a few seconds for developing firing solution for such things as Otvet. And why the angle Alpha is arcsin of Vsub/Vship. The CO of a sub who attacks surface target from 5 nautical miles by torpedo commits the crime against his submarine and crew, because he just killed them. But not for these imbeciles who post this pseudo-military BS. 

Per JDAMs and QUICKSINK, seriously? The amount of this smut passing for "knowledge" about military is astonishing. Let me explain--the range of this QUICKSINK thingy is... drum roll ... 15 nautical miles (24 km). Modern shipborne air and surface radar will see air target and will develop firing solution for AD complex well in advance. But that is not even the point. If we take PLAN, the range of its Type 055 DDG's main striking anti-ship weapon YJ-18 (I avoid speculating here on all those YJ-21s) which is a version of Russian 3M54 Kalibr with the range of 540+ km with the speed at terminal reaching M=3. If we assume that the data on YJ-21 is correct--it is 1,500 km. Who's navy is useless then? Russians, meanwhile, shake in their boots ... from Homeric laughter while observing this "capability" from 1950s and are wondering, how much more BS will be produced by all those media and journalism degreed cretins before they have to face the reality of them being useless ignorant cucks who wouldn't even know what the Operational Sweep is. What can I say--cope harder. 

Gorshkov Is On Patrol...

These are next to be loaded with 3M22 Zircons and on to changing naval warfare forever. 

Admiral Kasatonov:

Admiral Golovko:

Marshal Shaposhnikov:

And Gremyaschyii of pr. 20385.
 

These are immediately available carriers of Zircons, each of such ships capable to sink CBG in a single salvo without entering the range of carrier-borne aviation, and getting targeting from both Liana and other assets, including submarines on patrol, and that spells the end of navies as we knew them. Next "stop" are Zircons on operational-strategic aircraft such as TU-22M3M or even tactical aircraft such as SU-34 (Indians managed to stick Brahmos under the belly of their SU-30MKIs) and, the next year, on the submarines of the pr.885 Yasen-class. As they say, Happy New Year. 

The Russian navy frigate ‘Admiral Gorshkov,’ has become the first warship carrying Zircon hypersonic cruise missiles to begin routine combat service. Russian President Vladimir Putin oversaw the ceremony on Wednesday via video link, declaring that the Zircon missile was a “unique weapon” and that “no other country has anything comparable.” “I am sure that such a powerful armament will allow us to steadfastly defend Russia from potential foreign threats. It will help to maintain the national interests of our country,” Putin stated.

Yes, I am sure that is what Putin meant--Happy New Year.  US submariners' life has just got much more interesting;)) 

In related news, you have got to love the guy--his enthusiasm for developing firing solution is contagious. 

Yes, those great, legendary American battleships of WW II.

Some Explanations.

 Some explanations by me talking into camera. 

FYI, definition of Navalism.

It Is Official--3M22 Is Operational.

OK, what many suspected all along was confirmed today by former Commander of Russian Air Force, currently the Chairman of the Defense and Security Committee of the Federation Council (Senate) Viktor Bondarev--3M22 Zircon is operational, together with exotic Skif (Scythian).  That, my friends, marks the end of the naval warfare as we know it--no worries, it was coming for some years now and should not represent any surprise. I wrote a lot on the effect which this weapon will have on the warfare, now it is in at least what usually is called IOC (Initial Operational Capability) and that means that all new Russian ships and submarines will be armed (if not already) with it. There is NO way today, and in the nearest future, that Zircon can be intercepted--simply does not exist in nature bar some CGI cartoons about some lasers. The fact that Russian-Indian project of Brahmos was confidently stating as early as two years ago that is was on its way of completing its Mach=5+ Brahmos version of hyper-sonic weapon should have served as a clue. Evidently Zircon is capable of Mach=8, that is roughly 340 meters per second x 8 = 2720 meters per second, or 2.7 kilometers per second, or roughly 1.7 miles per second. Good luck shooting that down. So, I have to now take it a little bit in since this whole thing changes completely Russian outlook on aircraft carriers and it explains a bit what I wrote in USNI Blog:

On 18 July, Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov dropped a bomb when he revealed that discussion on the development and production of a brand new Yakovlev STOVL (based on the ideas of the Yak-141) aircraft is in full swing must enter serious production in 2025.12 For the Russian CVN “trade union” and global navalists the news was devastating. Yet, this announcement by Borisov indicated clearly Russia’s ever intensive doctrinal debate and struggle with the carrier issue because it was the Soviet/Russian Navy that developed and today deploys an array of ASCMs designed precisely to make large, expensive CVNs obsolete. The Russian Navy knows the capabilities of its missiles. It also understands that the U.S. Navy, as well as other serious navies, inevitably will break the hypersonic barrier, as well as develop a genuine distributed lethality, and this will rewrite the rules of naval warfare. Already, the U.S. Navy deploys some long-range subsonic missiles, such as the LRASM, whose salvo is extremely difficult to defend against. With long-range hypersonic technology, in a hypothetical Russian case, something as expensive as the proposed Storm-class carrier in battle is simply providing for a fat, expensive, and prestigious target. In real combat, even damage to the decks of carriers makes them nothing more than a huge pile of metal incapable to launch or land fixed-wing aircraft. Russia’s power projection needs can be met by other means, especially against the background of the mediocre performance of the Admiral Kuznetsov carrier in Syria.

So,  here is your new brave new world of warfare straight out of comic books--let us just hope that it remains such, just pictures in some magazine.

The Coming Of Zircon.

As Interfax reports (In Russian), the first launch of a brand new hyper-sonic missile Zircon (3M22) from the sea platform will happen in the Spring of 2017. The missile, upon completion of trials, will be deployed on both surface ships and subs. Initially those will be both Russian Navy's Nuclear Missile Cruisers Admiral Nakhimov and Peter The Great, and all Yasen-class (project.885) SSGNs, and their follow up Husky-class SSGNs. 

I am not going to lie, I am impressed with the speed with which Zirkon is coming but then again, it is a revolutionary weapon which will change the naval paradigm and most people with even rudimentary understanding of missile weapons can appreciate the fact that even a single missile capable of M=6 and the range of somewhere between 400 and 1000 kilometers is, basically, not interceptable by any existing naval air-defense system. Russia invested a lot in it. A salvo of such weapons will, with a very high probability, ensure a defeat of an opponent. Zircon is an ultimate Sea Denial weapon, albeit, depending on the naval views it can be construed as a Sea Control one. But, considering the philosophy behind Soviet/Russian anti-shipping missile development, Zircon is a Sea Denial weapon which fits perfectly into the Russian view of A2/AD. Russia's A2/AD starts in what is known as DMZ (Remote Sea Zone) and it is this edge (aka Kromka) where platforms carrying this weapon will have to counter any effort to undermine Russia's security. Zircon also, undeniably, is the part of Russia's conventional strategic containment  and ocean deployment of the latest Russia Navy's SSGNs armed with this missile will serve this purpose. It will be fascinating to observe the change in naval thinking in the coming years.