About Zircon, Again.

Judging by the stream of the news re: latest launch by Admiral Gorshkov of 3M22 Zircon, tests are very successful and as TASS reports (in Russian) another three launches from Gorshkov are planned by the end of the year. This includes the strike at the target imitating aircraft carrier. This is only natural and easy to foresee. Somewhere in these launches is supposed to be an underwater launch from one of the Yasen-class (project 885) SSGNs, last time it was Severodvinsk, I believe, which was planned to be used as a platform for this launch. As was expected, and guys on discussion boards already pointed out to this fact--there is a lot of butt-hurt and spin in Western media re: this launch. But then again, recall an initial reaction and then torturous (for the West) transition through Kubler-Ross Grief Model. It eneded up, of course, the United States demanding to include those non-existent weapons into the START treaty. I wonder why I don't hear anything yet from our great "strategist", prognosticator of prognosticators, exemplary military mind David Axe, but I am sure he will lend his expertise in Soviet/Russian weapons' programs any minute now.

I am on record, consistently, that moving into hyper-sonic paradigm IS a real revolution, cannot get any more real than that. It is a revolution because it changes the nature of warfare. Putin, when speaking to Valery Gerasimov upon Zircon's launch was explicit--it is event  of a massive scale for Russia. Well, for the world too. Another "expert", Kyle Mizokami, writing about Zircon gets it all wrong. 

Zircon is designed to use white-hot speed to hit targets before they can mount an effective defense. If a defending ship has its search radar mounted 100 feet off the ground and Zircon flies at an altitude of 1,000 feet (the real number might be much lower), the radar should detect the missile around 50 miles. At 1.7 miles per second, Zircon will close the gap in just 29 seconds, meaning the defending ship will need to detect, track, identify, launch defensive missiles, and achieve intercept in less than half a minute. 

As any Russian anti-shipping (or land-attack) missile Zircon has a multi-variant flight paths and it can approach target on different trajectories, including "diving" into the cone of radar blindness, attacking almost vertically, similar to X-32. But this is beyond the point, any intercept of maneuvering M=8+ missile is not the matter of "29" seconds (granted it will be detected at all--and there are reasons to assume that even detecting this type of missile is extremely difficult), it is physically impossible even under the best of circumstances to do anything. The salvo of 4 or 6 Zircons--it is beyond capability of the most advanced anti-air/missile systems to even react and will remain so for a long period of time. 

There is no technological solution for stopping this type of weapons  in the US currently. Ramifications are colossal: generally, it will be slow arduous reshaping of surface fleets towards smaller (frigate size) strike platforms. For Russian Navy, Zircon unties hands in terms of Sea Control not only in littoral and Green Water zones but, upon necessity, in the remote or ocean zone, allowing to guard surface strike groups against any attempts of US Navy to bring to bear its CBGs' fire power. Thus aircraft carriers are finally removed to the niche where they belong--primarily a power projection tool against unstable entities. Obviously a gigantic expenditure of building and maintaining any US Navy's CBG  raises the serious question about a validity of the approach of having roughly $20 billion worth of hardware (CVN+escort ships+air wing) being commensurate with a rather very limited tasks this insanely expensive force can perform under present conditions. It is too expensive to bomb some shithole of a country somewhere, but attacking Russia? What a wonderful collection of expensive, prestigious targets. 

With Russia having officially announced 7 subs and 5 frigates already planned for being armed with Zircon, plus having potentially other 6 modernized Udaloys (project 1155M) armed with a full version (1000+ km range), not to speak of a massive fleet of Russia's small missile ships (pr. 21631 and 22800) slanted to receive Zircon Light (around 500+ kilometer range) version, one is forced to ask a question--What Now? Now Marshal Billingslea will try to, yet again, pretend that Russia will negotiate on her newest arsenal and he will "press" Russians who, probably, will giggle in private about being "pressed", into some sort of compliance with... whatever will be the flavor of the month in D.C. Of course, the most terrifying prospect for the US is appearance of some sort of similar weapon in China's hands. Not that it will happen necessarily, but who knows--Russia will not allow China to fall militarily if the shit will hit the fan (God forbids) and some crazies (and there is plenty of those) in D.C. will decide to finally direct America's implosion outside by starting a "little victorious" war. Even old fool Kissinger noticed:

The US needs to rethink its hegemony and talk to China about imposing limits on their competition, because the alternative is the creation of conditions similar to those that preceded World War I, Henry Kissinger has warned.“Our leaders and their leaders have to discuss the limits beyond which they will not push threats, and how to define that,” said Kissinger, a top diplomat during the Nixon administration, who is credited with orchestrating US rapprochement with China. “You can say this is totally impossible, but if it is, we will slide into a situation similar to World War I,” he warned.

The United States simply has no good options currently. None. The less bad option, however, is to talk to Russians and not in terms of geopolitical BS and wet dreams that the United States, somehow, can convince Russia "to abandon" China--US has nothing, zero, to offer Russia to do so. But at least Russians and Americans may finally settle peacefully this "hegemony" BS between themselves and then convince China to finally sit as a Big Three at the table and finally decide how to run the world. This is the only chance for the US to stay relevant in the new world. US either negotiates and accepts limits of its influence or it will vanish one way or another. Anyway, there is a lot to ponder on this issue, because the world changes with the insane speed. Bad timing, I picked the wrong week to finish my third book, LOL. 

God, do you remember those times when America was fun and laughed at itself sincerely. MAFA--Make America Fun Again, I kid, I kid;) 

A Very Interesting Moment With Brahmos.

One of those A-ha (no, not the band) moments which clarifies a lot.  As TASS reports (in Russian), Russian co-director of Russian-Indian Joint Venture Brahmos speaking to reporters at Malaysia's LIMA 2019 military exhibition, stated that in the nearest future Brahmos missile (which is a version of Russia's P-800 Onyx missile) after some modifications will reach speeds of M=4.5-5.0, thus making it effectively a hyper-sonic weapon which, as you may have guessed it already, have the most serious operational and strategic ramifications. 

Rumor has it that Russia's 3M22 Zircon capable of M=9 is built on Onyx's design, but it is one thing to have a new missile such as Zircon, totally another--to be able to upgrade own whole "fleet" of missiles from simply deadly (M=3) to uninterceptable. It is also clear that laser weapons will not become a reliable and effective counter-measure for such a threat any time soon, and I mean not soon at all. In the end, issues of attenuation and counter-measures from missiles themselves (from rotating frames, to reflective surfaces, among others) are more than sufficient to keep laser weapons as a niche weapon primarily against slow unprotected targets, such as drones, for a very long time. But my point here is this (I write about it in my new book)--what about proliferation? 

I think proliferation of a hyper-sonic weapons is inevitable, both as a military product and as a geopolitical one. The demand for it is huge because it means safety of own littorals from any kind of forces and threats. There will be many, in addition to already huge number, statements, declarations and documents about A2/AD "bubbles" and how to puncture them, but without radical transformation of the surface fleets away from what they are today and introduction of real weapons systems capable of stopping hyper-sonic missiles tens kilometers away from ships, all this will remain an operational and strategic (and doctrinal) pseudo-intellectual masturbation for all kinds of military "analysts" for a long time. Think for a second what happens even if one "blows" M=9 or even M=5 missile in 2-3 kilometers from own ship? How about, in the best case scenario, a shower of the hyper-sonic fragments still capable to disable the ship? Questions, questions....