Or why amateurs, especially from Western military cultural milieu don't get it. People already posted here somewhere this video of new iteration of a venerable TU-160 Blackjack strategic bomber, TU-160M.
For more than 9 minutes they talk about how great this aircraft is, which it is, especially its new fully computer driven version TU-160M, but when it comes to actual capability of all TU-160s they mention good ol' Kh-15 and this:
Seriously, that's it? "Kh-55 family" with the range of 311 miles (500 kilometers). Really? First, those fanboys, evidently, have no idea that no matter how good and sophisticated TU-160(M) is, and it is, it is a PLATFORM whose combat value is defined by weapons it carries. And sure as hell, even the range of "Kh-55 family", namely Kh-555 cruise missiles (one of many) TU-160 carries is much longer than 500 kilometers. Namely it is 3,500 kilometers. But, of course, TU-160's MAIN strike weapon is Kh-101(102 in nuclear variant) cruise missile whose range is in excess of 4,500 kilometers, while its latest iteration has the range in excess of 6,500 kilometers.
While reviewers marvel at TU-160 capabilities as platform, they forget the main reason platforms exist and that is to carry and shoot weapons. And here we reach the main point--while all kinds of fanboys, including those who actually did or serve in NATO AF, masturbate to all kinds of impressive things of modern bombers, they forget the main thing: even good ol' non-stealthy, loud, rumbling Bears (TU-95 MCs) with their 1950s design can take off from ANY airfield in Russia and without even leaving Russia's airspace launch a salvo of 6,500 km range cruise missiles at any target in any NATO country, US included. Moreover, even SU-34s are capable now of such strategic strikes. And here is the point--the US is nowhere near to this arsenal. It simply doesn't have anything comparable to Kh-101 (X-101) in its previous or latest variants.
This is the sight, not just the sight of magnificent TU-160s, which gives Pentagon chills, because Russia has many of them, while the US continental Air Defense is an exercise in wishful thinking and futility against salvos of low flying, smart and stealthy Kh-101s. In the end, why do you think venerable B-52s still fly? Good platform if the US gets its hands, maybe, in a distant future, on something like Kh-101M. But don't hold your breath, Russia long ago won the arms race of ranges and, most importantly, air defense.
P.S. A truckload of Bears also undergo modernization--new navigation-targeting complex and EW for, and you guessed it, Kh-101s.
As you all know, I hate speculations. But, this is one of those cases where I want to give some context. It is JUST the context, nothing more. It shows the area where RKR Moskva, near Zmeinyi Island, was prior to the event and it shows the range to both Ukraine and Romania's shores.
It goes without saying that the range between 20 to 50 nautical miles from the shore is the exact range at which underwater diversionary forces (aka Frogs or, in Russian, PDSS) operate with ease assisted today by a variety of underwater drones capable both of mining and mine-hunting. So, this is just to keep in mind as a context, I imply nothing.
Translation:DUBAI, November 15. / TASS /. The newest S-550 complexes will have a greater target detection range and missile range. They will be able to intercept any targets, Sergei Chemezov, head of the Rostec state corporation, told reporters at the Dubai Airshow 2021 international air show.
"This is a work that never stops and will continue to be carried out in order to increase both the detection range and the range of the missile with the ability to intercept any targets. This is what the work on the S-550 is aimed at," he said.
Now, we may speculate more and assume with a very good level of reliability of our assumptions that we are looking at further development of S-500--incidentally, S-550 already exists as a weapon system--and we will be looking at a system with the range of intercept of aerodynamic and hyper-sonic targets of atmospheric variety (including gliders) at insane ranges. For purely anti-ballistic tasks we know A-235 Nudol is already in and its mobile version should start arriving to front-line units fairly soon. I am going out on a limb here and propose that S-550 is a system to basically ground any Air Force in the world permanently in Russia's immediate and medium-range geographic vicinity (up to 1000 kilometers) and address any issue of salvos of cruise missiles.
Generally speaking, the whole notion of S-550 deployed somewhere around St. Petersburg being able to shoot down any NATO aircraft taking off from airfields near Warsaw, or, if deployed in Kaliningrad, to shoot down combat aircraft taking off from Ramstein is a grim proposition for NATO, but that is how it works nowadays. It also means no AWACS and targeting, since even with S-500 it is basically a death sentence to any recon and EW aircraft on the theater of operations, with around 1000 kilometer range of AD missiles, come on. Rumor has it that E-3's AN/APY-2 radar has a maximum range of up to 500 kilometers, which is a bad proposition already now with S-500 arriving to front-line units and capable to hit aerial targets at precisely this range. So, make your own conclusions.
A lot of military mambo-jumbo talk will be initiated now on all kinds of "military" forums and in "military" media by fanboys and ignorant journos, but the simple truth expressed in layman's lingo is that if you have a bow and arrows and a good eye-sight and if I have a AK-12 with collimator night vision sight, guess from three attempts who is going to win. Remarkably, as I state this for years and years, and years--there is nothing unexpected in Russia's weapons' development. In fact, it is boring and predictable: if Russia has 500 kilometer range AD complex, you can bet your own dear ass on the next complex with the range of 800 or 1,000 kilometers and faster and better missiles being in works. It's the same with Russia's anti-shipping missiles, just follow the speeds since 1960s: M-0.95 for Malakhits, M=1.3-1.5 for P-6/35, M=1.5-2.5 for P-700 Granit and P-270 Moskit, M=2.5-3.0 for P-800 Onyx, M=3.5 for X-31, M=4.2 for X-32, M=8-9 for 3M22 Zircon. GZURs with M=12+ and the range of 1,500 kilometers are coming. See any pattern? Same with AD complexes, or, for that matter, with anything else. If one can launch Zircon at 1,000 kilometers at M=9, then, as the logic goes, one will have little trouble creating AD missile of the same range and speed.
Twenty five years ago one US Navy SEAL wrote a book with a telling title--Never Fight Fair. This is exactly what war is and following Clausewitz dictum that the main object of war is "to compel enemy to do our will", there is nothing better for doing it than fielding a massively superior military technology, which breaks completely old warfare paradigms and sets up new ones. This is called Real Revolution in Military Affairs. In related news, Russia flew her MC-21 with PD-14 engines to Dubai.
I know, Russia is collapsing especially strongly today. (/s).
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:
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.
Now to the most important part. Recall what I wrote about ASW and missile attack in the previous three posts? Now forget it all because today it matters only under some extremely limited circumstances. Here is a simple illustration about CBG's relative scale to modern ranges.
In this case, as you can easily see, it really doesn't matter how you configure your ASW for CBG, we don't even talk about a group of ships on their own, with only MH-60R Seahawks as air ASW assets at their disposal. Those are magnificent and advanced machines but their problem for modern ocean-wide warfare is the fact that they have a speed of 270 kilometers per hour and a maximum range of 830 kilometers, that is the range at which they can fly in ASW configuration in a straight line, but as you can already surmise, ASW is a very energy costly affair (with all this hovering and dipping at the Datum), granted that this Datum is (was) provided by good ol' Soviet Charlie-IIs and Malakhits.
This time is over. Introduction of P-700 Granit with its range of 600 kilometers and fully networked salvo of these missiles in early 1980s was the thing which finally transferred ocean warfare from a combination of ASW and Air Defense to almost strictly Air Defense problem, granted huge Project 949A (Oscar-IIs) SSGNs could be tracked by the US SSNs at the ranges beyond CBG's ASW ranges. Sometimes they could track Oscars, sometimes they couldn't. But there was one thingy about those pesky P-700 Granits--unlike with Malakhits and other older anti-shipping missiles, there were a significant chances to miss a Flaming Datum when Oscars launched their Grantis. Once they were airborne it was entirely up to E-2 Hawkeyes to detect such a salvo and vector on-duty F-18s and F-14s for an intercept. Let's fast forward a bit, P-800 Onyx emerges and while officially its range is 660 kilometers, it is a much more advanced missile and its latest versions are reported to have a range in excess of 800 kilometers and speeds in excess of Mach=3. Look above at the illustration. What's left then? How to deal with this threat? Right--one needs Aegis and Standard missiles which theoretically can handle a salvo of...P-700 Granits. Theoretically.
But P-700s are old missiles, what are you going to do against Onyx with submerged start? Welcome to a missile exchange paradigm and welcome to Salvo Equations. But since we discuss a real war not some fanboys' rah-rah bullshit from Popular Mechanics or Forbes, we have to recall that the war is a probabilistic event. So, what are, then, ways both warring sides approach and tackle this problem? Remarkably they are very similar because the same math and physics is used. For a commanding officer of ANY sub in the world carrying anti-shipping (or even TLAM) missiles the first thing which comes to mind is the assessment of Probability of a Success of whatever his sub is going to do, in our particular case--shooting and destroying a surface target(s). In old times poor lads and their navigator and weps guys would calculate this probability by hand, by calculators etc. Until Combat Informational Control Systems or Battle Management Systems (Computers) which started to appear in their advanced forms precisely starting from the times mentioned many times before Charlies started to deploy, they started to calculate those probabilities based on the fusion of incoming data ranging from targeting to tactical and operational data from many sources (sonar, comms, visual, radar etc.).
As we all know from the basic probability course, the probability of just about any event is calculated by multiplying probabilities of many related events which must occur in order for us to have a shot at achieving what we set to achieve.
As you can see yourself a lot has to be done to kill a target. Even if you have a probability of detecting a target Pdetection =0.95, and the reliability of our targeting Ptargeting=0.95 and we have a probability of remaining undetected by enemy equaling 0.9 and whatever other probabilities factor in our probability of killing our target Pn=0.9, we will get: Pkill= 0.95 x 0.95 x 0.9 x 0.9 = 0.731. These are not the best chances but they are solid. We would love our chances to be within 0.9-0.99 (wink, wink) range. So, how do we increase our chances? Range and speed and excellent combat training.
Once tactical characteristics of 3M22 Zircon have been confirmed, a man, who unlike me has an impeccable background in submarine warfare, Captain 1st Rank Igor Kurdin, who is usually very reserved about weapons, went on record:
Translation:“The range of the Zircon is from 500 to 1000 kilometers.From such a distance, no one will spot our submarine, unless they have been tracking it for a long time and purposefully, "said the chairman of the St. Petersburg Navy Submariners' Club, Captain 1st Rank Igor Kurdin.The interlocutor recalled that the task of the American anti-submarine forces is to detect our nuclear submarine before it launches missile launches.“The hypersonic speed suggests that once the Zircon is launched it is almost impossible to destroy,” he added.
We look again at the illustration in the beginning of this post and take in the range of 800 km. If such a range is viewed for regular Onyx with its varying speed on the flight path in excess of Mach=1.5-2.0 with acceleration to M=3.0 at the terminal, we are looking at the average velocity of M=2.0, which gives us Time = 800 km/2450 km/hr = 0.32 of an hour or roughly 19-20 minutes. With Zircon and its average of Mach=9 we are looking at 800/11025= 0.072 of an hour, which is around 4 minutes. No system can react to this, nor there are any air defense means which can intercept such a missile in any quarters, be it head on or, let alone, in pursuit, granted it is even detected, not to speak of a Datum which may stop being a Flaming one. This is for only one 3M22, when they fly in salvo of 2 or more...take a guess. It comes down to merely reliability of missile itself, its ability to perform strictly on its technical merit which defines the probability of a kill. Here is what I wrote three years ago in my book:
A going and reasonable assumption today in regard to the latest anti-shipping hyper-sonic weapons is that the probability of intercept of such weapons, capable of Mach=9+, well in excess of any existing anti-missile weapons, even without maneuvering on terminal approach, is statistically insignificant. That is, in a basic Salvo Model for the losses of attacked force:
Where b1 is staying power of ships in enemy force B, which is the number of the missiles required to take out of action those respective ships. It takes a single missile of such a class to put any large combatant, with the possible exception of a nuclear aircraft carrier, completely out of action, thus making b1 =1. Coefficient b3 denotes a defensive power of the ships in B, which is the number of good enemy shots which will be destroyed or deflected by the defender—there is really no objective evidence of modern AD systems being capable of intercepting hyper sonic missiles. This makes b3 = 0 and, consequently, makes the multiple of b3 B = 0 ; this is a definition of a turkey shoot, in which the attrition ΔB of the opposing force, depends strictly on a number of hyper sonic missiles in A’s salvo at B. In other words, the equation is reduced to: because b1 =1 Alpha (α ) denotes the striking power of A, which is the number of missiles which would hit the target if there were no defense. There is no defense currently and this effectively eliminates B as a player in case of a missile exchange with A, thus making the exchange mostly a matter of reliability of missiles themselves.
We will review those salvo transformations later, but for now a juicy piece of math with formula for a salvo by a group of subs, or missile carriers on the surface, just tweak some coefficients.
One of our readers posted this interview of some Swedish Ph.D in something-something waxing technological about (Russian) weapon systems. And since this was posted, I think I owe some explanation of the abyss of technological incompetence and outright imbecility this Ph.D from Sweden exhibits.
I could last only about 8 minutes before I had to do this:
As you may have foreseen, any search on this Swedish military "luminary" produced an incredibly dry little about him, other than his working for some Swedish military-political "think-tank". And this:
Immediately few question arise from this short CV on this dude.
1. What his Ph.D thesis--he received his degree from King's College London--was about? After a brief review of King's College London courses related to warfare I discovered same ol' list of "study" courses which provide mostly zero educational value in actual warfare (and its history) and are remarkably along the same lines as courses in political pseudo-science, including same ol' "security studies" and other primarily "humanities"-driven courses which are specifically designed for people with zero STEM education and serious serious background in weapon systems and their tactics and operational dimension. Just to be completely clear on that--my degree reads like this: Navigator-engineer, a specialist in gyro-inertial navigational complexes of naval strategic missile systems. Based primarily around strategic missile submarines of pr. 667 B-BD (NATO: Delta I-II). This is not to mention the fact of receiving equivalent of B.S. in Military Sciences (a subject non-existent in the most Western world), not to mention the fact having second specialty as an officer of tactical command (platoon+) of naval infantry (marines). My graduate thesis was ASW based. Plus I graduated from some funny officer school, or, rather, school for officers. So, feel the "academic" difference.
2. As it turned out M.S.F.S. from Georgetown is nothing more than Master of Science (really?) in Foreign Service, which, of course, is yet another iteration of the political science, and teaches zero serious warfare-related skills. It is primarily designed for people with, you guessed it, mostly interest in generalities and not learning any practical skills as the record of whopping failures of the United States in the "international (or foreign) relations" demonstrates so profoundly.
So, as you can see, it is very difficult to find anything concrete on this type of "scholars" other than very general and short credentials rundown and that is about it. Ah yes, he also goes by the title of Military Generalist--I have no freaking idea what this is. You can download the publication by this dude and other Swedish "researches" here. It is a remarkable report written by people who can barely operate with basic mathematics and physics and are so butt-hurt that I, after suffering through this dude's commentaries on how Air Defense works, decided to address it. Feel free to listen to a delirium this "scholar" pushes as a fact on some British journo, he repeats merely the idiocy which is in his (and others) publication I mention above. It is a mental rape of warfare, physics, mathematics and, in the end, common sense which is totally EXPECTED from the field of so called Anglo (and lapdogs) military analysis saturated with people with zero understanding of modern warfare. Here is one such example:
The S-400 air defence system is often claimed to have a 400-km range, but FOI’s technical experts estimate that the effective range against maneuvering targets at low altitude is much less, even down to 20 km for smaller targets hugging the terrain.21 Russian specialists have estimated the effective range of the S-400 against old and un-stealthy Tomahawk cruise missiles to be 24–36 km in mixed terrain.22 At low altitudes, the masking effect of terrain, trees and buildings can cause a diagram of the effective range to resemble a Rorschach-blot rather than a neat circle. The S-400 system also has limitations when dealing with a large number of targets that appear within a short space of time, such as a swarm of cruise missiles.23
Let me do some autopsy on this steaming pile of ignorance:
Obviously while citing Roger McDermot's very understandably butt-hurt (I may add) "version" of the events mostly through approximation of what Mikhail Khodarenok or whoever else stated re: April 18, 2018 attacks in Syria, they forgot to mention that ANY air-defense complex has its tactical-technical parameters specified for the types of targets which are classified by, as a rule, their height (altitude), velocity, maneuvering parameters and RCS openly, and in EW environment secretly (that is classified). I will omit here the fact, that same Mikhail Khodarenok, while having an impressive air-defense and General Staff credentials, retired from service in 2000 and, as it is inevitable, had his Form 1A (I used to hold one too) clearance removed. S-400 became operational in 2007 and since then has been "improved" constantly. But, I know that they do not teach basic physics and radar technology, especially as it applies to military, in institutions which this Swedish "scholar" graduated from and let me explain why it is a problem,
1. I quote: The
S-400 air defence system is often claimed to have a 400-km range, but
FOI’s technical experts estimate that the effective range against
maneuvering targets at low altitude is much less, even down to 20 km for
smaller targets hugging the terrain.
If I deploy S-400 in 30 meters from the 100 meter high wall, S-400 range will be about...30 meters in the wall's "sector". But our Swedish friends need to be given a little lesson in the radar work. We will use the simplest physics without going into such parameters as RLP, which is radio-permeability of the environment, refraction and other physical phenomena which define the use of....read attentively, it will matter later in this post, INTEGRATED AIR-DEFENSE system. So, the terrain matters--everyone understand this, but what about this attack on Russia in Baltic region, which Swedish "scholar" dreams about. Well, consider the most primitive example:
Even the brief review of trees' height in Baltic Sea area reveals that the forest canopy of the region is somewhere around 35 meters.
There are many trees which are even higher, some forests in Finland (you see, if Sweden decides to attack Russia) reach even 45 meters in height, while some Polish trees can reach the height of 50 meters. That means that safe elevation of the salvo of NATO's (or Sweden's?) cruise missiles needs to be around 70 give and take some meters. Most likely more. We may assume the area to be mostly flat, which it generally is. So, we have a cruise altitude at around 70 meters while antenna of S-400 (pay attention, I take here now only ridiculous scenario of a salvo against single S-400 divizion), will most likely encounter this 76N6 thingy which reaches 127 ft. (42 meters) high and leads us to this:
2. See highlighted in yellow.
So, what's the deal with those "smaller targets hugging terrain" and less than 20 kilometers? Even when one considers horizon "interference adjustment" for SOME forests along the path. Of course, I omit here other factors, such as multilayered and easily reconfigured (by maneuver on wheels) fully integrated AD network which includes S1, Tor-M2 and Buk-M3 (S-350 Vityaz is coming soon too) and integrated with external targeting means such as over-the-horizon radar, AWACS such as A-50 and 100 and space-based assets, which allow same S-400 attack even low flying targets at the ranges well beyond the horizon by means of active radar homing missiles such as 9M96 which are specifically designed to kill small, high speed, maneuvering targets. NATO doesn't have high speed, maneuvering land-attack missiles. None exist--all of them are subsonic easily defeated missiles, yes, including Sweden's own (in cooperation with Germany) KEPD 350.
3. Obviously our Swedish friends missed this news too:
They could have at least bothered themselves with reading good ol' Soviet AD Combat Manuals. But it seems, these "analysts" are not well acquainted with the basics of AD tactics and combat schemes of deployment which seriously consider.
a) The terrain--limitations, as well as advantages. Elevations matter and increase autonomous (stand alone) detection range;
b) Expected threats and probable threat directions (sectors): cruise missiles, aircraft, ground threats;
c) Meteorological and electric state of the environment factors.
d) Maximization of coverage (overlap) of ground, air and space based means for proper detection, tracking and development of firing solutions with proper target designation between deployed AD means. As an example A-50U (not to speak of A-100) have a superb range (hundreds of kilometers) and clutter filtering specifically against low flying targets and are capable of providing targeting to all AD complexes such as S-300 or S-400.
And then, if you survive listening through the gibberish this "analyst" delivers to British journo, his pearl about Russian anti-shipping missiles is simply one of those WTF moments.
4. So, the dude obviously is so illiterate that he doesn't even know that since late 1970s-early 1980s Soviet (now Russian) targeting radar on ships had and still have (including for shore based complexes such as Bastion or Bal) OVER-THE-HORIZON channels which were realized in such systems as Mineral ME Radar, which can detect and develop firing solution over-the-horizon, way way over the horizon. That allows the use of Russian (and Chinese, I am sure Iranian too) anti-shipping missiles at the maximum range, including receiving of targeting data, which is either ephemerids (Lambda, Phi--Longitude, Altitude) or Azimuth (Bearing)--Range, plus maneuvering elements of targets from external sources (course, speed), such as Satellites (Liana), other ships, aircraft or what have you. He obviously never heard of refined final search (dorazvedka) by missiles with active heads. How the ellipses (2D for surface) and 3D for aerial targets are reduced and uncertainties are resolved--I think this is beyond the scope of this post and requires a very long and very mathematical elaborations. I will just add that it has everything to do with the weight of observations, which brings us to another pearl:
5. I quote: At
low altitudes, the masking effect of terrain, trees and buildings can
cause a diagram of the effective range to resemble a Rorschach-blot
rather than a neat circle.
Is this clown for real? He obviously never heard about resolution of uncertainties and data fusion within network which constantly exchanges and signal processes observation data from every RELEVANT node in it and those nodes are not just a single radar from S-400 but a complex of active radar, optronic, passive inputs from several, sometimes very many, sources. In the United States it has a designated term of CEC (Cooperative Engagement Capability)--an ability to collect, process and represent real time tactical and operational information as a combined PICTURE from multiple sources. This is how Ph.D in physics and long time generally respected naval analyst Norman Friedman defines it: Picture-Centric Warfare.
Mineral
So, in this case I have to ask (rhetorically) myself--if these "analysts" and "military generalist" consult Swedish MoD it is not surprising then that Swedish Navy constantly hunts Russian subs in Baltic and seems never to detect one, while being in the state of constant hysteria. It is not surprising then, that all these "analytical" materials all as one lack any serious numbers or at least competent elaborations on tactical and operational effects, because people who write them, with some very few exceptions, do not operate within a framework in which real military professionals operate. It is downright embarrassing to see a person who goes under the title of military "analyst" spreading a teenage fanboy BS as an "assessment" while having no grasp of basic physical principles realized in modern weapon systems--of course not, one must have serious background in it. So what gives then?
The answer is simple--Sweden is a radically Russophobic nation, to a hysterical pitch Russophobia. Partially it can be explained by Russia winning the Great Northern War thus removing Sweden from the position of Northern (not just Scandinavian) European superpowerdom. Part of it is a memory of embarrassing primarily for the USSR but also for Swedish Navy flop with Swedish Komsomolets in 1981 which fueled flames of Swedish anti-Russian paranoia. Part of it is Sweden turning into cuckold nation long ago and becoming the rape capital of Europe and fighting hard to become #1 in the world, while sticking to the suicidal and humiliating policies domestically. While Swedish women are being raped, sorry, culturally enriched, by hordes of "refugees" Swedes are being intimidated by their "free" media with those crude, Slavic subhumans to the East who are sleeping and dreaming about conquering free Sweden and finally stealing those tremendously important and coveted secrets of Ikea. They cannot conceive that Russians just do not give a damn about Sweden, or about Europe in general anymore and that Russia is long ago is in full defensive posture. In fact, Sweden must face the fact that the times of ABBA are over, and that while Volvo is a good car, Gripen still flies with licensed to Volvo US GE F404 engine. Sweden, of course, leads the world in discovering new genders. So, this, I believe, projected against the background of a general Western intellectual collapse what drives such "researchers" and "scholars" to go out and self-medicate with utter BS designed for consumption of a public which increasingly finds itself already in or ignores rigid shackles of totalitarianism and the death of the free thought and meritocracy in the West. And who can best serve as an exhibit A of this Orwellian reality--Sweden immediately comes to mind. And here you are.
I am always cranky whenever I see all kinds of taxonomies and "classifications", never more so than when those, mostly vague and, often, propaganda-driven distinction methods are applied to military affairs. Make no mistake, I am not against systematization, generalization and proper linguistic representation of military, or any other, phenomena--I am all for it, when done professionally, after all, there is a reason one of the first books on the table of any officer in Russian Navy or Army, as an example, is the small book called "Command Words" and phrases. Things, any things, need to be named correctly and have a very good reaction "path" to the brains of those to who they are addressed--be it a young soldier or an experienced rear-admiral. Clarity is the main requirement. Hm, maybe that is why I am published by Clarity Press. Maybe it wasn't accidental that I decided to go with them.
Well, here I am again, ranting. This time I had it with the term Blue Water Navy. I opened Yahoo News feed today and, bang--Dmitry Gorenburg of Center for Naval Analysis writes this:
While Gorenburg's piece, surprisingly more-or-less balanced (for "American" analyst), is not wrong in a matter-of-fact way, passage highlighted in yellow makes by eyebrows being raised pretty high. For starters, what are "blue-water aspirations"? Let's see. We go to WiKi, and why not.
Public discourse, of course, is important but I was getting away from this term for a long time now, since it makes NO operational sense whatsoever if it is not judged relative to its mission against PROBABLE adversaries. Here is how some people define these Blue-Water, Green-Water, what have you, capabilities.
So, is the United States Navy a Blue-Water Navy? Absolutely--it is large, it can sail globally, it single-handedly can destroy some countries and in a civilian logic which still exists at the power-balance configuration circa 1999-2003 it is, it MUST be, a Blue-Water Navy. Well, I have issues with this statement in October, 2019. For starters, I took Stansfield Turner's (and not his only) operational truism to heart, long time ago.
“It isn’t the number of keels, or size of ships that count. It is the capacity to do what might be decisive in some particular situation.”(c)
Blue-Water Navy's definition is as operational (or strategic, if one wishes) as it is a geopolitical qualifier and here is, where Gorenburg, while making his point within old, and, I would dare to say, obsolete cognitive apparatus, born primarily within deep recesses of Pentagonese Newspeak and fantasies taught as "science" in the Political Science courses in US Universities, is wrong. Blue-Waterness or lack there of is defined primarily by such tactical, operational, strategic and geographical term as the RANGE, distance that is. The further one's navy sails, the bluer this navy becomes. But as of lately, this range thing turned into a peculiar category. Just on this merit alone, as in the distance one's navy assets sail, we cannot be particularly sure, or otherwise, that Russian nuclear subs are not hanging out somewhere in the Gulf of Alaska, or at the entrance to Gibraltar. Who knows, but if the prior experience is any indication, chances are that they are there. So, in this respect, Russian Navy is a Blue-Water Navy because ANY Navy which has nuclear submarine forces equaling in capability Russian one is a Blue-Water navy by definition, since it sails its serious assets globally. So, Gorenburg, basically contradicts himself immediately following what I highlighted in yellow. This is not the way to conduct analysis by contradicting oneself immediately after making statements.
He also forgets to mention that Project-885 (Yasen-class) SSGNs are armed not with just 3M14 but primarily with 800-km range capable P-800 Onyx supersonic anti-shipping missiles with 1000-km range 3M22 Zirkon slated for the first underwater launch from this very same class of subs next year. So, a single Yasen-class SSGN with Zircon creates an exclusion zone of area A=pi x r^2= 3.14 x 1,000^2=3.14 million square kilometers. "Parked" somewhere in or "near" GIUK Gap a single Yasen creates A2/AD "bubble" from roughly Greenland to UK. That is if this (or these) sub(s) operate there, if it moves beyond GIUK Gap in the South-Western direction roughly 700 miles (around 1,000 km), two subs of this class can completely wreck havoc on Atlantic SLOCs. If that is not Blue-Water operations, I don't know what is. Mind you, those have nothing in common with "power projection", those will be good ol' classic SLOCs' interdiction operations and, frankly, sinking the enemy fleet. That is how real wars are fought. As we may all know (not from me) US Navy has no viable defense against salvos of high supersonic missiles such as P-800 Onyx and will not have viable defense against hypersonic missiles any time soon. So, where all this leaves us with this Blue-Water thing. Here is what Dmitri Gorenburg thinks:
The Mediterranean will play a key role in Russian naval strategy because
of its strategic significance as an access point to southern Europe,
the Middle East, and North Africa. For Russia, the Mediterranean
symbolizes the larger competition between Moscow and Washington. By
building up its naval forces, Russia is hoping to circumscribe NATO
access to the region, protect Russia’s southern flank, and assist its
current and potential future client states in the region. At the same
time, maintaining forces in the eastern Mediterranean is less of a
priority for Russian strategy than defending the homeland. Maintaining
naval presence in the Mediterranean is a far more effective strategy for
the Russian Navy than pursuing a globally active blue-water navy
because Russia has neither the resources nor the global ambitions to
challenge U.S. naval supremacy around the world.
Here is a conundrum, for Gorenburg and the US Navy--Russia does not need a clone of US Navy to deny its "supremacy" which was, apart from being grossly overstated, dramatically reduced by consecutive denial its "Bluishness" by means of creation of vast impregnable exclusion zones around Eurasia. What's the point of moving enormously expensive assets, such as US Navy's CBGs, into such zones where they (CBGs) are simply not survivable, forget any effective use of their weapons. With Russia's M=10+ capable Kinzhal having own range of 2000 km (up to 3,000 with MiG-31K range), or X-32 with own 1,000 km range with TU-22M3 combat range of 2,500 kilometers, or with recently paraded China's DF-17 2,000 kilometer range hypersonic missiles, what kind of "supremacy" Gorenburg is talking about? What does this "supremacy" even mean? Russia doesn't really care if US Navy exercises its supremacy anywhere other than in a Russia's (and generally Eurasia) vicinity. South Atlantic sounds fine, Pacific Ocean? Sure. Hawaii is a lovely place. Why should one build a vast, ungainly, ridiculously expensive and dubiously combat effective force to meet a challenge, when the US Navy, for all its glorious combat history and impressive visuals was turned obsolete for a minute fraction of a price by introduction of weapons, force structure and operational concepts which created a synergistic effect? The answer is obvious--there is no justification for such a ridiculous waste of money and resources, not to mention the fact, which Gorenburg accurately omits, that the United States itself has no resources to support its grossly unrealistic ambitions. The nation is simply bankrupt and demoralized. But sure, US Navy still maintains "supremacy" in numbers of platforms most of which are fat and prestigious targets for new weapons which drive Real Revolution in Military Affairs.
So, what is a Blue-Water Navy then? The answer is simple--it is not what one may think or try to express it in Pentagonese or Political Scientinese. It is really sad that many complexities of modern warfare (and of geopolitics) have been reduced to a couple of obvious, to just about anybody, traits and memes while Turner's brilliant operational truism 'It is the capacity to do what might be decisive in some particular situation' was discarded in favor of propaganda expediency and inherent ignorance of political "scientists", which is in the foundation of the American economic, military, moral and intellectual decline. As per the American field of the so called "Russian Studies", as I stated it not for once--it is a wasteland of pseudo-"science", pseudo-"history" by pseudo-"academe" about the country which realistically never existed and which continues, being a civilization, to masquerade itself as a nation. As per warfare and "supremacy", reduced to a simple truism (or meme), this is how it is done, too bad few people took the lesson to heart. Maybe they need to learn a new language?
My quarrel with otherwise grimly (almost) realistic piece on US Sea-lift, symptomatically titled You Are On Your Own, is not even in the absurdity of NATO "fighting" Russia in Europe even under the assumption of fully secured Atlantic SLOCs--US military professionals (not some political D.C. generals) they know the conventional warfare score in Russia's vicinity and no amount of boasting and bluster can hide a simple fact that any configuration of NATO forces around Russia will be decimated conventionally. This is not to mention the obvious fact that Russia has no intentions whatsoever to attack Europe, so the scenario can only be discussed within the framework of NATO attacking Russia. My quarrel is with this:
The lessons from World War II are on the minds of many in the U.S. military’s high command when it comes to logistics.
And what those lessons might be, may I ask? What, building Mulberry? I don't know what those people think but even the strictest of EMCON is not going to make much difference in case of NATO's (well, mostly Anglo-American) war against Russia, since no one as of yet knows how to deal with Liana, specifically designed for targeting and what to do with the ranges of modern anti-shipping missiles which are now in many hundreds and even thousands of kilometers. So, I may ask, and how does this relate to tactical and operation reality of the naval combat of the 21st century?
In an Oct. 5 presentation at the Atlantic Council, Foggo pulled up an
image of the immense landing and sustainment force on the beaches of
northern France in 1945 to demonstrate what was made possible by
containing German submarine activity in the Atlantic.
“Operation Overlord. Look at all that stuff,” he said, pointing at the
picture. "That would not have happened if we had not won the Second
Battle of the Atlantic. That battle raged during the first few years of
the war and the Germans almost brought us to our knees using the Wolf
Pack tactics.”
Now they propose the Fourth Battle of Atlantic. Well, will Russia try to interdict Atlantic SLOCs in case of aggression against herself? You can bet your ass she will, but that will have very little to do with "Wolf Packs" and their "tactics". In fact, submarines will play only limited role in that. Today, any target, especially large merchant ships, is detectable and targeting information is provided in real time to weapon systems instantly. Not even strictest EMCON will prevent passive over-the-horizon means detecting and developing targeting for the opposing (well, Russian) forces. And then, of course, apart from modern C4ISR complex come all those funny high-supersonic or hyper-sonic missiles. That is where all those WW II "lessons" become absolutely irrelevant since ranges and velocities of modern cruise missiles is an entirely different combat paradigm which makes operational experiences of the past simply obsolete and inapplicable.
Indeed, it is possible to play with simplest Salvo Equations numbers when one begins to consider that most anti-shipping cruise and aero-ballistic missiles are launched beyond the ranges of carrier aviation, granted that carriers and their battle groups survive. In the end, it all comes down to how many bombers (and fighter bombers, such as SU-34) and their fighter escorts will Russia be able to provide. Something tells me that the number will be substantial, especially with mobile S-400s being redeployed closer to Russia's borders thus providing additional security for air-deployment from airbases in Russia. I guess simple middle-school compass and decent map will do in giving an idea that approaching Western Europe for any vessel will be an ordeal with very high probability of a tragic outcome. Any "flank" port facilities in Mediterranean and Baltic Sea become a complete exclusion zones, thus leaving only West-most extremities of French and Dutch port facilities tentatively (well, mostly theoretically) available for any kind of supply of this hypothetical US force which will be deployed in Europe to fight those aggressive Russkies. So, in this case, the title of the article is correct. One is also forced to appreciate Russian base at Khmeimim and the role it may (will) play in shutting down approaches to France and Portugal. Just as a reminder, the distance between Akrotiri AB and...well, let's put it this way--it is not going to last long. The question in this case which matters most is--because conventional campaign in Europe against Russia is unwinnable, when will the US in this scenario decide to use nuclear weapons as the last resort? We may only guess...
Make no mistake--I get it: new technology, electric power, some futuristic looking setup and a nice demo pictures and... and... drum roll--a promise of new capability. This is how the US Navy's Rail Gun program was and is being "sold". For people who are not well-versed in naval warfare I may make a simplified description of several major geometric figures which define it:
1. A straight line (angles--bearing, azimuth, course, path etc.). The derivative of this line is a directed segment aka vector--matters great deal;
2. A sector--well, it is self-explanatory;
3. Most important: A Circle--it's radius being a range of anything from radar to weapons. It's first derivative being a sphere which either protrudes (with great deformations) up--into the air, or down--into the water.
Why is this important? It is important since this is how any decent naval professional views the world around himself when at the sea on a combat patrol. Modern combat technology increased the radii of those naval circles tremendously, that, in its turn, brought a revolutionary change to naval and air (and even ground) combat. This became possible, apart from generally incredible development of C4ISR capabilities, due to the combat ranges of anti-shipping cruise missiles (ASCM) growing by the order of magnitude since 1960s. And here is the issue: we already know that we live in a hyper-sonic paradigm with modern ASCMs capable of launch almost 700 kilometers (700/1.852=378 nautical miles, or 437 statute miles) from the target just on target's current (or even obsolescent) geographic coordinates. For air-launched ASCMs such as X-32 the range grows to 1000 kilometers. The salvo of missiles launched from the surface combatant or from submarine from this maximum distance will reach the position in between 20 and 5 minutes--depends on the velocity. Now draw the circle with the radius of 700 kilometers--you may scale it (say, 7 centimeters) on the piece of paper to do so. We count the area: pi x 700^2= 1, 538, 600 sq. kilometers. This will be, roughly, of course, the area you would be able (granted reliable targeting information) to cover with you ASCMs, apart from the fact that your ASMC DO have active radar (and other) seekers which have the range of detection of surface targets up to 70 kilometers. Here is what the area of 1.5 million square kilometers looks like, roughly.
This is the circle--range which allows one to keep under the aim the territory which is roughly a half of Western Europe. By 2020s we all will live in a hyper-sonic (M=5+) cruise missile paradigm. We also know that 3M22 did reach M=8, we also can see ranges to grow even further, AI becoming even more sophisticated, trajectories varying from sea-skimming to stratospheric extreme maneuvering--all making those missiles NON-interceptible by any existing and short to mid-term perspective anti-missile means. And the question then is this: which new "capabilities" does the rail gun program provide? The answer is--none, zilch, nada.
It is an interesting piece but I disagree with the title--it is not "May End Up", it already "Ended Up" as nothing but some technology demonstrator for hipsters. A Tesla of the weapon systems. It became a classic case of "polishing a cannon ball in hopes that it will fly further." The projectile (which costs an arm and a leg) of rail gun flies with Mach=6? OK, did those rail gun enthusiasts check modern ships' designs as of lately? No, well--they better start learning fast that most modern ships will succumb to a regular high explosive shell of any modern naval gun with caliber of 76 mm and higher. But get this, boys and girls:
“In 2015, SCO realized that the HVP,
originally conceived as a specialized shell of the railgun, was just as
effective when fired from a conventional powder cannons like the Army’s
105mm and 155mm M109A6 Paladin self-propelled howitzers and the Navy’s
deck-mounted Mk 45 5-inch guns. A May 2016 report
from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment found that large
caliber guns could fire an HVP between 10 and 30 nautical miles at Mach
3, faster than conventional unguided rounds. We thought railguns were something we
were really going to go after,” then-Deputy Defense Secretary Robert
Work stated at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C. in May 2016.
“But it turns out that powder guns firing the same hypervelocity
projectiles gets you almost as much as you would get out of the
electromagnetic rail gun, but it’s something we can do much faster.”
But, but they said that the round originally should fly the whole 100 nautical miles when fired from the rail gun. Assuming it would have been that (I doubt it greatly, but just for the sake of argument), this is how rail gun range would compare (rail gun in blue) to a capability of ASCMs:
Some will say that I miss the point and those projectiles would be great against some third world shitholes, but, wait a minute, against shiholes without any competent and well armed forces even regular shells are doing just fine. Same effect for a much smaller expense. Does it mean that those whom the United States got used to bomb with impunity into the stone age now developed an immunity to a classic 5-inch shell or good ole Tomahawk and now could only be scared shitless by new projectile fired from the rail gun? Obviously not, but now, as it was the case with Israel attacking Syria in 2013, modern ASCMs can easily out-range and outperform any projectile fired from any rail gun, especially when they have a good targeting and can reach far beyond the horizon. Will such missiles proliferate? You bet. They already do. Iran eventually will reach some serious anti-shipping capabilities, China and India--they are getting there. So, what will be the point then to bring the knife to a gun fight? This is the main, existential question to American R&D and procurement practices, which Colonel Daniel Davies called "an outright danger to the nation. Perhaps nothing exemplifies this threat better than the Pentagon’s dysfunctional acquisition system."
We entered a missile paradigm some time ago and today missile technology takes us to a completely new capabilities that change not only tactics, they change the outlook of operations and of strategy. No amount of the prohibitively expensive exotic and useless in real combat technology is going to change it. Ranges, velocities, maneuverability, AI, stealthiness of missiles will only continue to grow until some new technological paradigm unfolds--probably with full robotics, actual combat lasers and other energy weapons which will change the nature of war, but for now: 100 miles range, projectile of M=6, try harder to impress anyone with any knowledge. For now, however, these good ol' guys don't go anywhere and they are there to provide relatively short range solutions both against surface baddies and against shore--a fraction of cost of the rail gun and a very satisfactory effect.
