Every Military in The World ...

... loves to pat itself on the back, but it has to be understood that bragging often divorces people from the reality completely. The US Navy certainly has a magnificent combat history, and its submarine force remains if not the best then at least one of the two best submarine forces in the world. But statements like these: 

PERTH (Reuters) - In the control room of the American Virginia class attack submarine USS Minnesota, off the Western Australian coast, sonar operators adjust to the chatter of dolphins in new waters where the U.S. submarine presence will soon grow significantly. On a training exercise from its home port in Guam, USS Minnesota is a forerunner to four Virginia class submarines that will be hosted at a Western Australian naval base from 2027, under the AUKUS partnership to transfer nuclear submarine capability to Australia. Crew use video game joysticks to interrogate screen images from a photonic mast that has replaced a periscope. Life aboard can mean up to 100 days without seeing sunlight, and intermittent communication with families via email to maintain stealth. Commanding officer Jeffrey Corneille says the Virginia class submarine is "the most advanced warship in the world". "If someone wakes up and they say 'Is today the day?', we make sure that they say 'Maybe not'," he says, describing its deterrent role.

Well, it is all fine and dandy, and Virginias are, indeed, excellent platforms, but Commanding Officer of USS Minnesota should be reminded that other submarine forces also have all those wonderful gizmos such as cameras with NV/IR channels and joysticks of all kinds, including some damn advanced signal processing, data fusion and minimal acoustic signatures. Here is a reminder from 13 years ago. 

And then, of course, comes this simple fact--while being a very good platform, no Virginia-class sub can even touch the weapons' suite of such subs as pr. 885 Yasen-class. In fact, in terms of striking power it is pathetic. People who still think that venerable and largely obsolete Tomahawks can compare to this ...

No, really, let's be realistic--no US submarine has anything even remotely comparable to P-800 Oniks or hypersonic 3M22 Zircon all of which, including 3M14 Kalibr, are carried by Yasen-class subs. So, any talk about "most advanced" is nothing more than chest-thumping about what amounts to the main reason why Russians create state-of-the-art subs, both nuclear and SSKs, which pack an immense punch which simply cannot be countered. The rest of it is just a moot point--both subs are state-of-the-art, but these are weapons which make all the difference in the times of ASW becoming increasingly complex and ranges at which weapons are used growing dramatically and that makes all the difference. Such hubris is precisely the reason why the US was exposed as a paper tiger during SMO. 

Two Can Play The Game.

I write books (the third one is being written now) on a conflict being usually an affair between the two, at least. One has to have counter-part to have a conflict. The moment BS by Axe and Dismukes "hit the waves", people who still have some cognitive faculties going for them started to react. I wrote couple things, now Caitlin Johnstone from Australia has a word. A reasonable one. Caitlin became famous after her famous Please, Just Fucking Die Already, when addressing this to late John McCain. One may argue with a style, it is not ethical, really, to wish somebody to "fucking die", but there was very little doubt that late McCain was very close to a definition of a war criminal and insane warmonger, so I leave it just at that. 

Johnstone wrote today a good piece on RT. She writes: 

Forbes has published two back-to-back articles about the analysis of retired Navy captain and political scientist Bradford Dismukes titled 'To Defeat China In War, Strangle Its Economy' and 'If Russia Invades Europe, NATO Could Sweep The Seas Of Russian Merchant Ships.' The articles were authored by a man named David Axe, who is my new favorite small-time war propagandist because he’s so desperate to be recognized for his imperialist stenography that he often approaches his spin jobs in an informatively unskillful and ham-fisted way. The best one I’ve found so far is this 2013 piece about the time he spent with the “rebels” of Syria, who he takes great pains to assure us are not terrorists or extremists but brave freedom fighters who’d successfully “liberated” large swathes of Syrian territory.

And, in general, the piece is good. I do disagree, however, with "strangling" strategy because to strangle China is a massive task especially when she has such an ally as Russia guarding China's rear, literally and by providing necessary resources. Those resources are enough to keep China in the game even if the US Navy will decide to disrupt Chinese SLOCs in Indian Ocean. This, for now, US Navy can do. It will make Chinese uncomfortable but I doubt it will have serious influence on Chinese posture. And here is a funny fact. Today, Russian pacific Fleet held exercises in Alaska's vicinity with one of the pr. 949A Oscar-II SSGNs Omsk deliberately surfacing at Bering Sea after launching her SS-N-19 Granit (Shipwreck) missiles. Missile Cruiser Varyag also launched her Voulcans and the video of that got into circulation from Ria (in Russian). That's the signal and it is a serious one--Ocean Shield naval exercise. As I always say, two can play the game and, as was expected, there were some news from Army-2020 regarding specifically this topic of "strategic ASW" and submarine operations in the 21st century. 

As TASS reports from Army-2020, Defense Ministry sources confirmed that starting from already laid down improved pr.885M SSGNs Voronezh and Vladivostok, subs of this type will be armed with advanced Kalibr (3M14) land attack missiles with the range of more that 4,000 kilometers (in Russian). For professional this means only one thing--"strategic ASW" becomes just a fancy term for sale on Capitol Hill and if current 3M14 with the range of 2,500 kilometers was bad enough, new range of 4,500 kilometers makes the area which will be required to be searched a teeny-weeny  3.14 x 4,500^2 which is around 63.5 million square kilometers--good luck for David Axe or Mr. Dismukes calculating required force and required operational sweep to get even to moderately acceptable probabilities (can we say 50-50?) of detection in trying to prevent a salvo at the mainland USA. They will need couple more navies of present size of US Navy to have at least some shot at detection or reaction to Flaming Datum. 

Now, the main question is: will other subs receive updated Kalibrs? The answer is really simple--why not. In fact, it is highly likely. Just to demonstrate what it all means one just needs to take a look at the map. Yes, then comes this funny question--forget Zircons and other hypersonic weapons--are we in the age of anti-ship missiles with ranges counted not in hundreds but thousands of kilometers? Absolutely. X-32 (1,000+ km), Kinzhal (2,000 km), Zircon (1,000 km) are already in service or in IOC. 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. Good luck with "blockade" of China, let alone Russia.