James Holmes On OODA.

As some of you may have noticed I don't take The National Interest magazine seriously--most of its publications are wet dreams of "professionals" from political pseudo-science and technophile amateurs who love those big guns and sexy planes. But once in a while even TNI publishes a very good piece which is worth paying attention to. Recently it was an excellent piece by Lieutenant Colonel Davies and now it is the piece by James Holmes, a Professor of Strategy from Naval War College:

       War at Sea: How to Win (And Lose) a Littoral Battle Royal  

I want to remind you all, that I started this blog by going into the nature of Colonel Boyd's OODA Loop and how it is being discarded by most US political and military "elites".  Holmes also goes into this issue and argues with late Admiral Cebrowski--the father of the Net Centric Warfare. While doing this, Holmes references one of the greatest contemporary naval minds, Captain Wayne Hughes (and others) with his Mesh Network In Littoral Operations.  

This is an extraordinarily important discussion, which may not generate much in terms of comments--people simply do not like math and fairly complex (not really, wink-wink) constructs but I want to stake this discussion for the future since view it as the most important issue of modern naval combat, which already is having a major strategic implications, with tectonic geopolitical ramifications. While discussing technological dimension of war is very important (and it is fun for many), its operational and human dimensions are no less, if not more, important. So, here it is. meanwhile, if someone wants to refresh some basic facts related to Boyd's OODA Loop--welcome to  Sand Castle Geopolitics, where I go in some depth into the OODA issue as applied to geopolitics. 

             

Admiral Gorshkov In Base

 

It Was About 25 Years Ago.....

That Soviet firm Melodiya produced Alexey Rybnykov's greatest masterpiece Rock Opera Juno And Avost--a Russian Orthodox Melodic Intoxication, songs which became prayers. It suddenly dawned on me again today. Paris in 1988 packed its best venues demanding more and more and The Theater Of Lenisnky Komsomol performed week after week for adoring sold out Paris crowds. Today, quarter century later--it seems that this anthem (a closing theme of rock-opera) to lovers, man and a woman, suddenly is as relevant as ever. Hallelujah to beloved couple............Hallelujah to love......Hallelujah to all future children....we will respond with smile to the hatred........

  

And The Bird Is Out.....

And she is a beauty!!

  

This is a major development not only for Russia, with MC-21 already having 175 firm orders and 100 options from Russia's airlines, but also for global market. This jet is a direct and powerful competitor at the most voluminous market of mid-range aircraft with anything out there available today. In this roll out, MC-21, named after legendary Soviet/Russian aircraft designer Alexander Yakovlev (initially, the plane was known as Yak-242), is equipped with Pratt & Whitney engines--this configuration will be used for promotion in the international markets. Russian versions will be equipped with newest PD-14, which will be in series production by 2018. 

MC-21 is a remarkably thoroughly Russian-made plane with a very high percentage of localization--from avionics to composites, which constitute 40% of aircraft air frame, including all-composite wings. A lot could be said about all that, but what must be said is that it is a milestone and a massive comeback of Russian civil (commercial) aviation which about 10 years ago was all but "buried" by all kinds of "experts".                 

This aircraft has a massive export potential but for now it must be oriented towards Russian  market.

                  

   

Now, onto flight tests and certification. This aircraft is badly needed in Russia. As they say--Godspeed.

  

Oh the 1970s.....;-)

Yes, I am that old, and yes we danced to it at our school parties;-)

Have a nice weekend..............

Short Bypass (Military Power Related).

Me and others speak constantly on the "bang for a buck" issue of the national military power. Here is an example of real economy translating directly (or almost directly) into the military power. I want to express, before elaborating on the issue, my deepest gratitude to all those OSINT naval enthusiasts from famous Balancer's Air Base Forum for doing a yeomanry work in squeezing out all available open information on Russian Navy. Enter second in Project 11356 class frigates, Admiral Essen. 

She was fully completed and ready to be transferred to Russian Navy two days ago. Thanks to our enthusiasts and, obviously, 1st Federal TV Channel Rossiya, we have a glimpse into the main document which finalized the completion of this ship. Here it is:

                    

One doesn't have to know Russian to see that the final cost of this frigate is 13,650,240,000 Rubles. Let us do some very simple and not so prudent economic math. The exchange rate for Ruble today is 66.2 Rubles for 1 US Dollar. Let's see how much in US Dollars Admiral Essen's cost will be? We divide:

  

      13,650,240,000 ÷ 66.2 ≈ 206,196,978 US Dollars.

Yes, my friends, this ship of 4,000 ton displacement, packing a serious long range and anti-shipping punch in a form of now very well known Kalibrs, having impressive medium range air defense system, robust ASW capability (including 1 ASW helicopter), state of the art sensor and processing suite, good guns, excellent sea keeping properties etc. For 200 million bucks? Yes, exactly--you are not mistaken. Mind you, this is the cost, or, rather, value which will be calculated by all kinds of monetarists, Western and domestic-alike, when "calculating" Russia's GDP. In this case, irresistible and highly warranted question arises--how much such kind of ship would cost in NATO? Well, that is an interesting question. If we are talking about US Navy's LCS, also known as self-propelled 57-mm gun, a single ship of this class, whose combat capabilities compared to Admiral Essen are puny, to put it mildly, costs....drum roll...362 million US Dollars. 1.8 times more for a platform which in the case of Surface Warfare scenarios will not even see what hit it and will have no means of defending itself, forget strike missions. Yet, Admiral Essen (as well as Admiral Grigorovich) is totally capable to strike to a strategic depth and is capable to sink any ship with a single strike with, possibly, one exception of US Navy's massive aircraft carriers. 

You may say, comparison with LCS is not correct (it is, but for the sake of argument), let's see what are the costs of something really comparable, something more frigatish. OK, let's take a look at so called FREMM frigate by France. First, the ship with the displacement in excess of 6,000 tons is not really a frigate, Italy's version of FREMM has a 6,700 ton displacement. Really? How about calling this thing a DDG, not FFG. After all, it is almost twice the standard displacement of Admiral ESSEN. But let's see what this FREMM really packs. It has a very respectable Air-Defense complex and a more advanced, phased array antenna, it also has a very robust ASW suite. It also carries long-range land-attack missile SCALP whose long-range capabilities of about 1,000 km are not even in the same universe as those of Kalibr's  3M14T whose range is 2,500 km. Anti-shipping weapons are represented by venerable subsonic Exocet Block 3 missile, whose range is about 97 nautical miles (180 km). Here, FREMM, whose cost is 670 million Euros (that is 758 million US Dollars) loses massively on both costs and on some very crucial combat capabilities. In the end, anti-shipping version of Kalibr, 3M54T out-ranges Exocet by 480 km while reaching Mach=3 in its terminal phase. 

So, my friends, here we are--a very short review of a bang for a buck. We, of course, could delve into the all kinds of actual coefficients of combat effectiveness, combat stability, probabilities etc. But I suspect, that in the average model of ship to ship engagement of similar FFG classes, Admiral Essen will come out on top most of the time. For a fraction of a price, mind you. But then, of course, we could also compare more expensive, but still way more affordable, Project 22350 Admiral Gorshkov class frigates--here, the combat advantage becomes even more startling while the cost gap narrows somewhat. 

    

               

        

What does it all mean, then? Well, it means only one thing about which I was talking since the inception of this blog--Russia simply produces better weapons for a fraction of the cost and it is true for all of them. This also demonstrates what a pile of steaming shit all those GDP "calculations" are by all kind of international financial shyster organizations. While the relation between exchange rates and costs is, of course, more complex--this simple comparison is more than valid, none the less. Russia can afford to sell state-of-the-art SU-35 for 65 million US Dollars and make a killing, while, US is forced to sell F-35, a wreck of a plane, for....well, judge for yourself. In general, Russia's economy is much smaller than that of, say, US but:

1. It is not as smaller as many try to convince us. In reality the gap, while still fairly large, is not as dramatic;

2. Realities of Russia's economy allow Russia to compete directly in weapons and fields related to them with the combined West and, in fact, beat it in very many fields. As per famous coefficient combat effectiveness/cost--the combined West is not even a real competitor here. 

3. Why it is so--the answer is in Russia's 20th century history, a real one. Learning it is beyond the grasp of most "experts" in the West. But we knew that all along, didn't we?

IL-96 (and IL-114) Are Back.

This was in November 2015. But that was just an intention. A week ago an intention started to become practical steps. 

Russia Bets On Aircraft From Soviet Past (In Russian). 

This development is strategic, to put it mildly. Of course, the cabal of "experts", many of them, and you may have guessed it already, with financial degrees are "skeptical". One of those "experts" went as far as to complain that it is impossible to improve on the air frame developed  in 1980s. He is such an "expert" that he, of course, forgot that venerable and superbly modern Boeing-747-400, a plane currently still in production, goes back as far as...1968. Many object for a reason of 4 engines and economic issues which arise from that. The problem with this reasoning is that those who object they either can only see what is going on in the West or they have no idea that passenger aviation is a bit more important than production of espresso machines. In the end, one can make a decent living on the import of foreign-made espresso machines. For country such as Russia, which has an outstanding history and tradition of commercial aviation, and whose air frames are universally admired, it is a national shame to buy, especially as it was in 1990s-early 2000-s, Western second hand, some of it--dangerous junk. 

Currently Russia is producing a fairly successful Sukhoi Superjet-100, which is a regional jet, slow produces a number of other decent commercial jets and she also is getting ready to roll out Irkut MC-21. This plane is a wowser. This will be a first serious attack, initially primarily on the internal Russian market,  on the niche which currently is occupied by B-737 MAX and Airbus A321 NEO.  With firm orders for this aircraft topping 200 and PD-14 engine having very successful trials, the implications are obvious. MC-21 is a thoroughly Russian aircraft, albeit capable of being equipped with Pratt & Whitney engines for prospective foreign buyers, who are more used to P&W. As real experts point out:

The MC-21 has its own profile. It is not a copy of a Western aircraft. It has a wider cabin than the A320, a wing which allows a higher cruise speed and a higher capacity in its base variant, the MC-21-300.

And while MC-21 development is not without its share of problems and delays, it seems that 2016 should be the year when this jet will  make its maiden flight.
  

Russia is a country created by nature for commercial aviation--11 time zones, vast spaces, huge distances between major urban centers. And in late 1980s, early 1990s Russia had her own jumbo. The world knows it by its slightly shortened 300 version of President Of Russian Federation Ilyushin IL-96 300 Rossiya.
    
               

Its commercial version IL-96 400 is used by Aeroflot and Cubana. These are magnificent planes. 

               

   
The way Russian aerospace industry was being destroyed by the so called "reformers" in 1990s can only be described as economic state crime. It is nothing short of miracle that Russia's aerospace not only survived but is finally poised to break out into the vast Russian commercial flight market and it seems that this will be done with state-of-the-art jet aircraft, including, finally, a wide body ones. There is no doubt that new iteration of IL-96s will be updated with composites where it is needed, the older glass cockpit will be updated to the newest ones by KRET and, in foreseeable future, by newest engines. These aircraft have a very bright future in Russia and are genuine tough competitors to Boeing and Airbus on Russian market. It is a very healthy development for Russia, economic nationalism is the way to go for real recovery. In the end, none other than Donald Trump embodies this vision in the US and good for the US, I say, if this vision becomes a set of policies--it is certainly happening in Russia. 

No amount of financial manipulations or speculation ever produced anything of value, it only destroys. Building things is a completely different proposition and money must be in the subordinate position to these higher goals, not define them. Otherwise we will have what Russia was in 1990s or what US has become today--a market of office plankton and entry level service jobs. In the end, European people are in dire need of producing and building things, without that--the best in our culture is lost. 

Russian Warning

Dmitry Orlov and The Saker wrote an interesting declaration. While I do not subscribe to everything in this declaration, hence no my signature, I do find this piece important and gladly post it in my blog. You may also read it on both Saker's and Orlov's sites. 

A Russian Warning

We, the undersigned, are Russians living and working in the USA. We have been watching with increasing anxiety as the current US and NATO policies have set us on an extremely dangerous collision course with the Russian Federation, as well as with China. Many respected, patriotic Americans, such as Paul Craig Roberts, Stephen Cohen, Philip Giraldi, Ray McGovern and many others have been issuing warnings of a looming a Third World War. But their voices have been all but lost among the din of a mass media that is full of deceptive and inaccurate stories that characterize the Russian economy as being in shambles and the Russian military as weak—all based on no evidence. But we—knowing both Russian history and the current state of Russian society and the Russian military, cannot swallow these lies. We now feel that it is our duty, as Russians living in the US, to warn the American people that they are being lied to, and to tell them the truth. And the truth is simply this:

If there is going to be a war with Russia, then the United States

will most certainly be destroyed, and most of us will end up dead.

Let us take a step back and put what is happening in a historical context. Russia has suffered a great deal at the hands of foreign invaders, losing 22 million people in World War II. Most of the dead were civilians, because the country was invaded, and the Russians have vowed to never let such a disaster happen again. Each time Russia had been invaded, she emerged victorious. In 1812 Nepoleon invaded Russia; in 1814 Russian cavalry rode into Paris. On July 22, 1941, Hitler’s Luftwaffe bombed Kiev; On May 8, 1945, Soviet troops rolled into Berlin.

But times have changed since then. If Hitler were to attack Russia today, he would be dead 20 to 30 minutes later, his bunker reduced to glowing rubble by a strike from a Kalibr supersonic cruise missile launched from a small Russian navy ship somewhere in the Baltic Sea. The operational abilities of the new Russian military have been most persuasively demonstrated during the recent action against ISIS, Al Nusra and other foreign-funded terrorist groups operating in Syria. A long time ago Russia had to respond to provocations by fighting land battles on her own territory, then launching a counter-invasion; but this is no longer necessary. Russia’s new weapons make retaliation instant, undetectable, unstoppable and perfectly lethal.

Thus, if tomorrow a war were to break out between the US and Russia, it is guaranteed that the US would be obliterated. At a minimum, there would no longer be an electric grid, no internet, no oil and gas pipelines, no interstate highway system, no air transportation or GPS-based navigation. Financial centers would lie in ruins. Government at every level would cease to function. US armed forces, stationed all around the globe, would no longer be resupplied. At a maximum, the entire landmass of the US would be covered by a layer of radioactive ash. We tell you this not to be alarmist, but because, based on everything we know, we are ourselves alarmed. If attacked, Russia will not back down; she will retaliate, and she will utterly annihilate the United States.

The US leadership has done everything it could to push the situation to the brink of disaster. First, its anti-Russian policies have convinced the Russian leadership that making concessions or negotiating with the West is futile. It has become apparent that the West will always support any individual, movement or government that is anti-Russian, be it tax-cheating Russian oligarchs, convicted Ukrainian war criminals, Saudi-supported Wahhabi terrorists in Chechnya or cathedral-desecrating punks in Moscow. Now that NATO, in violation of its previous promises, has expanded right up to the Russian border, with US forces deployed in the Baltic states, within artillery range of St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city, the Russians have nowhere left to retreat. They will not attack; nor will they back down or surrender. The Russian leadership enjoys over 80% of popular support; the remaining 20% seems to feel that it is being too soft in opposing Western encroachment. But Russia will retaliate, and a provocation or a simple mistake could trigger a sequence of events that will end with millions of Americans dead and the US in ruins.

Unlike many Americans, who see war as an exciting, victorious foreign adventure, the Russians hate and fear war. But they are also ready for it, and they have been preparing for war for several years now. Their preparations have been most effective. Unlike the US, which squanders untold billions on dubious overpriced arms programs such as the F-35 joint task fighter, the Russians are extremely stingy with their defense rubles, getting as much as 10 times the bang for the buck compared to the bloated US defense industry. While it is true that the Russian economy has suffered from low energy prices, it is far from being in shambles, and a return to growth is expected as early as next year. Senator John McCain once called Russia “A gas station masquerading as a country.” Well, he lied. Yes, Russia is the world’s largest oil producer and second-largest oil exporter, but it is also world’s largest exporter of grain and nuclear power technology. It is as advanced and sophisticated a society as the United States. Russia’s armed forces, both conventional and nuclear, are now ready to fight, and they are more than a match for the US and NATO, especially if a war erupts anywhere near the Russian border.

But such a fight would be suicidal for all sides. We strongly believe that a conventional war in Europe runs a strong chance of turning nuclear very rapidly, and that any US/NATO nuclear strike on Russian forces or territory will automatically trigger a retaliatory Russian nuclear strike on the continental US. Contrary to irresponsible statements made by some American propagandists, American antiballistic missile systems are incapable of shielding the American people from a Russian nuclear strike. Russia has the means to strike at targets in the USA with long-range nuclear as well as conventional weapons.

The sole reason why the USA and Russia have found themselves on a collision course, instead of defusing tensions and cooperating on a wide range of international problems, is the stubborn refusal by the US leadership to accept Russia as an equal partner: Washington is dead set on being the “world leader” and the “indispensable nation,” even as its influence steadily dwindles in the wake of a string of foreign policy and military disasters such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen and the Ukraine. Continued American global leadership is something that neither Russia, nor China, nor most of the other countries are willing to accept. This gradual but apparent loss of power and influence has caused the US leadership to become hysterical; and it is but a small step from hysterical to suicidal. America’s political leaders need to be placed under suicide watch.

First and foremost, we are appealing to the commanders of the US Armed Forces to follow the example of Admiral William Fallon, who, when asked about a war with Iran, reportedly replied “not on my watch.” We know that you are not suicidal, and that you do not wish to die for the sake of out-of-touch imperial hubris. If possible, please tell your staff, colleagues and, especially, your civilian superiors that a war with Russia will not happen on your watch. At the very least, take that pledge yourselves, and, should the day ever come when the suicidal order is issued, refuse to execute it on the grounds that it is criminal. Remember that according to the Nuremberg Tribunal “To initiate a war of aggression… is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” Since Nuremberg, “I was just following orders” is no longer a valid defense; please don’t be war criminals.

We also appeal to the American people to take peaceful but forceful action to oppose any politician or party that engages in irresponsible, provocative Russia-baiting, and that condones and supports a policy of needless confrontation with a nuclear superpower that is capable of destroying America in about an hour. Speak up, break through the barrier of mass media propaganda, and make your fellow Americans aware of the immense danger of a confrontation between Russia and the US.

There is no objective reason why US and Russia should consider each other adversaries. The current confrontation is entirely the result of the extremist views of the neoconservative cult, whose members were allowed to infiltrate the US Federal government under President Bill Clinton, and who consider any country that refuses to obey their dictates as an enemy to be crushed. Thanks to their tireless efforts, over a million innocent people have already died in the former Yugoslavia, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Pakistan, the Ukraine, Yemen, Somalia and in many other countries—all because of their maniacal insistence that the USA must be a world empire, not a just a regular, normal country, and that every national leader must either bow down before them, or be overthrown. In Russia, this irresistible force has finally encountered an immovable object. They must be forced to back down before they destroy us all.

We are absolutely and categorically certain that Russia will never attack the US, nor any EU member state, that Russia is not at all interested in recreating the USSR, and that there is no “Russian threat” or “Russian aggression.” Much of Russia’s recent economic success has a lot to do with the shedding of former Soviet dependencies, allowing her to pursue a “Russia first” policy. But we are just as certain that if Russia is attacked, or even threatened with attack, she will not back down, and that the Russian leadership will not “blink.” With great sadness and a heavy heart they will do their sworn duty and unleash a nuclear barrage from which the United States will never recover. Even if the entire Russian leadership is killed in a first strike, the so-called “Dead Hand” (the “Perimetr” system) will automatically launch enough nukes to wipe the USA off the political map. We feel that it is our duty to do all we can to prevent such a catastrophe.

Evgenia Gurevich, Ph.D.
http://thesaker.ru

Dmitry Orlov
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com

The Saker (A. Raevsky)