INF Treaty - coming to the end of its life

A first strike would simply not work not even the greatest of military strategists could possible hope to conceal hundreds of missile launches for over 15 minutes. If Russia sees a few hundred incoming missiles on their radar they will begin the atlantic barbecue and the be sure do do the us american style, that is to say quite exessivly "well done".

Anyway I know Russia does not need to place its missiles outside of its borders in order to deliver the packages implicitly ordered by US diplomats, the Idea of missiles in South America and Cuba wold be more in the vain of getting the message through the fecal matter that fills the scull of the creatures in washington launderington and get straight through to the amidala in hopes that one might appeal to thier survival instincts.

Austin wrote:Russia may have violated the INF Treaty. Here’s how the United States appears to have done the same - Theodore A. Postol

Eye-opening!
Great article!

The Russian Defence Ministry informs the US party on strict compliance with the INF Treaty requirements

«The Russian Defence Ministry is aware of the contents of the US Department of State’s note on suspending participation of the American side in the INF Treaty and the start of withdrawal from it». The Russian defence department categorically denies unfounded statements that Russia allegedly violated its obligations under the Treaty.

The US statements do not correspond to reality.

Despite that the Russian Defence Ministry is fully open to substantive dialogue concerning fulfillment of obligations by the sides under the INF Treaty, the American side has failed to provide any evidence to support the stated position.

At the same time, the USA has not taken necessary measures to eliminate their violation of the obligations under the Treaty.

It is to be stressed that it is not the first year as the United States have been violating requirements of the INF Treaty. In fact, they created conditions for missile production which is prohibited by the Treaty.

Therefore, the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation suggests that the American side should take all necessary measures before termination of the Treaty to return to strict compliance with the Treaty by eliminating:

Mk-41 ground-based vertical launching systems designed for firing the Tomahawk cruise missiles;

target-missiles that has similar characteristics to ground-based intermediate-range ballistic missiles;

attack unmanned aerial vehicles which fall with their characteristics under the definition of the term “ground-based cruise missile” provided for in the Treaty.

The military attaché of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow is invited to the Russian Defence Ministry to be presented with the note.»

Russian MoD.

JohninMK wrote:........Not just the subs. Its very unlikely all the air or ground based systems will nave been hit. Very difficult to do a first strike and keep it totally secret. Spys etc.

Excellent observation

I was about to type huge reply on how successful discrete first strike is near impossible due to technical issues and I completely forgos something as simple and obvious as human factor.



As for effect of intermediate missiles on Russian Military lets't go point by point.


Nuclear Forces:

At most couple of hundred missiles will have nuclear warhead (more likely even less) but more than enough to deliver Darwin Award to European population.



Land Army:

Pretty straightforward, they go from being super powerful to Satan Incarnate. Hundreds, maybe even thousands long range missiles capable of hitting any point where Russian Military is likely to fight wars all mounted on dirt-cheap trucks and highly mobile and dispersed across huge territory.



Coastal defense:

North Atlantic and especially North Pacific become what Black Seas is today: missile shooting gallery for Russian Navy. Once US ship leaves West Coast it's immediately in cross-hairs of Russian long-range coastal missiles. It will be crazy.



Surface fleet:

All vessels will be freed up from need to carry LACMs and will be fully armed with anti-ship missiles. Only exception will be Buyan-Ms (and maybe Grigorevich frigates) since they don't have required radars but it won't matter because  they will be operating in Mediterranean, Caspian and Black Sea where it's good to have some LACMs just in case (Middle East)

Entire fleet will be fully focused on fighting other ships and subs while being under cover of long range coastal missiles.



Submarine fleet:

Need for VLS tubes on new submarines is erased. New attack subs (Husky) can omit VLS segments in the middle which will speed up construction and reduce costs. They will still carry cruises missiles of course but will need much less and can just launch them from torpedo tubes.



Air-force:

Bombers are freed up from anti-ship work (mostly that is) and entire branch will focus on naval recon.



This all will translate (in addition to massive power increase) into huge financial savings. Slam dunk if there ever was one.

Indeed... all this time St Petersburg and Moscow could be hit from pro US states with missiles with ranges of less than 500km from land bases or from air launched and sea launched weapons in a few minutes too... but think about it... how many Russian ICBMs are kept in StP or Moscow?

None.

Destroying both those cities would mean nothing in the sense of defeating Russia... all it would guarantee is the launch of weapons to wipe out the US and the EU.

Also defensively Moscow and StPberg are vastly better protected from ballistic missile attack than Berlin, Paris, London, Washington, or any other NATO seat of power, so allowing both sides to now develop IRBMs is not really much of a big deal for Russia except that now they can develop much smaller much cheaper missiles that can be better optimised for the job at hand.

4,500km range hypersonic manouvering missiles would be ideal for taking out US AEGIS cruisers in the north pacific and arctic oceans and also the med sea, which cripples its proposed ABM shield based on SM-3 missiles based at sea.

It also makes all of Japan and Alaska and a large area of the US west coast vulnerable to Russian missiles based in the far east, not to mention most of Canada from missiles in the Russian arctic.

Oh, but you say... now US missiles can be based in Canada and Japan to target Russia... well Canadian and Japanese IRBMs were always an option before if they wanted it because they are not bound by the INF treaty either.

The US wants a global strike system and it was going to be naval driven but in the end they wanted land based units as well and this is what all of this is about... ironically the Russians might get their counter system up and running first and are much closer to having a defence to deal with such systems than the US or EU are without having to spend trillions to build a new IADS system...

Simply Russia has viable hypersonic weapon first, which also means they have viable hypersonic targets to test their air defence systems against so they will have more options to develop defences and more time... so they will probably have viable defences first too.

Putin said not to bother with engaging and negotiating in INF. I think the Russians had it up to their heads with US shitty tactics.

The US like the EU does not negotiate... it makes accusations and then demands... and then it does what it fully intended to do all along... ie rip up a treaty or impose sanctions or invade.

Russian Defense Ministry suggests US eliminate ground-based MK 41 launching systems

The US defense attache has been summoned to receive the ministry's note

MOSCOW, February 7. /TASS/. The Russian Defense Ministry proposes the United States to destroy the MK 41 launching systems, target missiles and drones that violate the INF Treaty, the US defense attache has been summoned to receive the note, Defense Ministry Spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov told reporters on Thursday.

"The Russian Defense Ministry is inviting the US side, in the period prior to the termination of the INF Treaty, to take the necessary measures to return to strict compliance with the Treaty by destroying the ground-based MK 41 launching systems developed for launching Tomahawk cruise missiles, target missiles with characteristics similar to ground-based medium-and shorter-range missiles, destroying strike unmanned aerial vehicles falling within the definition of the ground-based missile term envisaged by the Treaty," the Defense Ministry said.

"The defense attache at the US Embassy in Moscow has been invited to the Russian Defense Ministry to be handed a note," the ministry stressed.


More:
http://tass.com/defense/1043734

great trolling by MoD

US is going to regret this step. Very much

PapaDragon wrote:
Nuclear Forces:

At most couple of hundred missiles will have nuclear warhead (more likely even less) but more than enough to deliver Darwin Award to European population.

let's see if euro-peons have enough brain to struggle against US missiles instillation first. Which is BTW great political move to damage "unity".

Land Army:
Hundreds, maybe even thousands long range missiles capable of hitting any point where Russian Military is likely to fight wars all mounted on dirt-cheap trucks and highly mobile and dispersed across huge territory.

Chukotka, Arctic, Caucasus (- to reach Persian Gulf).

Coastal defense:
North Atlantic and especially North Pacific become what Black Seas is today: missile shooting gallery for Russian Navy. Once US ship leaves West Coast it's immediately in cross-hairs of Russian long-range coastal missiles. It will be crazy.

RS-26 Rubezh was tested 2,000-6,000km some time ago Can carry Avangards.

Surface fleet:
All vessels will be freed up from need to carry LACMs and will be fully armed with anti-ship missiles. {}
Entire fleet will be fully focused on fighting other ships and subs while being under cover of long range coastal missiles.

+AM/AAD

Submarine fleet:
Need for VLS tubes on new submarines is erased. New attack subs (Husky) can omit VLS segments in the middle which will speed up construction and reduce costs. They will still carry cruises missiles of course but will need much less and can just launch them from torpedo tubes.

unlikely, you cant fit Onyx to torpedo lunch tube not to mention Zircon. Unless you introduce 700mm tubes

Air-force:
Bombers are freed up from anti-ship work (mostly that is) and entire branch will focus on naval recon.

Not sure bout this. You dont put all eggs into one basket. Perhaps Tu-22/m3m wont be first to welcome US CSGs tho.

This all will translate (in addition to massive power increase) into huge financial savings. Slam dunk if there ever was one.

historically US started negotiations with USSR after Pioneer IRBM were deployed to Chukotka...

Warning attack of one nuk against a US base in japan in case US start moving and being aggressive doesn't mean that WWIII will start. They would both calm down but Japan will lose again a city.

I am pretty sure America thinks it can develop some IRBMs and put them in Asia and in Europe and threaten Russia with them, but what they don't realise is that Russia can easily respond simply by stating publicly that the presence of US nuclear weapons in a country makes that country a target for Russian missiles which will have a launch to impact time of less than 10 minutes so if you accept US missiles you are signing your own death warrant.

If the US can swing things to make it appear Russias fault they might get away with it but I seriously doubt all the people in that country are going to ignore the fact that before the US weapons there were no Russian warheads pointed at them and now there are... once they start protesting then they might demand more than just US missiles go from their country...

I personally think Russia should take advantage of the situation and state that US troops will be targeted too as well as US missiles and bombs and that the local population of any country hosting US forces or NATO forces will be targeted for genocide in the event of WWIII as they would be likely directions of a conventional attack during WWIII and therefore need to be destroyed.

Hundreds, maybe even thousands long range missiles capable of hitting any point where Russian Military is likely to fight wars all mounted on dirt-cheap trucks and highly mobile and dispersed across huge territory.

Such systems can be loaded into even rather small aircraft... like the Il-276 and flown to almost anywhere... driven out the back of the aircraft and launched and then flown elsewhere...

GarryB wrote:any country hosting US forces or NATO forces will be targeted for genocide in the event of WWIII as they would be likely directions of a conventional attack during WWIII and therefore need to be destroyed.

I thought that was already the case but was just not explicitly stated.

Anyway more missiles with witch to barbecue means everyone can get "well done".

GunshipDemocracy wrote:

PapaDragon wrote:Submarine fleet:
Need for VLS tubes on new submarines is erased. New attack subs (Husky) can omit VLS segments in the middle which will speed up construction and reduce costs. They will still carry cruises missiles of course but will need much less and can just launch them from torpedo tubes.

unlikely, you cant fit Onyx to torpedo lunch tube not to mention Zircon. Unless you introduce 700mm tubes

If that concept for Husky sub is accurate then it already has 8 VLS cells in the front by default so they can still skip center VLS segment.

GunshipDemocracy wrote:

PapaDragon wrote:Air-force:
Bombers are freed up from anti-ship work (mostly that is) and entire branch will focus on naval recon.

Not sure bout this. You dont put all eggs into one basket. Perhaps Tu-22/m3m wont be first to welcome US CSGs tho

I don't mean to completely drop anti ship work but their workload can be greatly reduced. They just need to keep tabs on hostile ships and transmit locations to coastal systems.

I thought that was already the case but was just not explicitly stated.

It probably is, but Russia needs to really spell it out to make it clear that US troops means boom... an emphasise the main reason these weapons were banned was because of the very short flight times of the old weapons pretty much made retaliation decisions a hair trigger at very short notice creating a lot of potential for false alarms and mistaken launches in response...

So you can have a unit of American soldiers in your country and you might think it makes you safer but if we think we are being attacked we will nuke you first... sorry in advance if it is all a mistake, because if it is we wont be able to apologise to you because you will all be dead. Mistakes happen... but the US wants a first strike capability against us so we have to be able to retaliate fast and very hard to try to stop it... America wont realise their mistake for 15-30 minutes, but you will know in about 5 minutes.

[quote="GarryB"]

It probably is, but Russia needs to really spell it out to make it clear that US troops means boom... an emphasise the main reason these weapons were banned was because of the very short flight times of the old weapons pretty much made retaliation decisions a hair trigger at very short notice creating a lot of potential for false alarms and mistaken launches in response...

So you can have a unit of American soldiers in your country and you might think it makes you safer but if we think we are being attacked we will nuke you first... sorry in advance if it is all a mistake, because if it is we wont be able to apologise to you because you will all be dead. Mistakes happen... but the US wants a first strike capability against us so we have to be able to retaliate fast and very hard to try to stop it... America wont realise their mistake for 15-30 minutes, but you will know in about 5 minutes.

Absolutely although I doubt they it will penetrate all of the feces in their heads unless demonstrated on one of thoes filth little neo hitlerite countries... poland maybe?

Also will the new missiles be able to hit thoes annoying British cosplayers who are hilariously pretending to still be an empire and yet still have the audacity to continuously disrupt negotiations with their pathetic threats and accusation of plots so rediculous that they would be out of place in a low end B movie.

PapaDragon wrote:unlikely, you cant fit Onyx to torpedo lunch tube not to mention Zircon. Unless you introduce 700mm tubes

If that concept for Husky sub is accurate then it already has 8 VLS cells in the front by default so they can still skip center VLS segment.[/quote]

perhaps back segment is SSBN segment in this pic? Or better. Front container is for Poseidon

BTW Yassen has also 8 VLS. 3-4 missiles each

GunshipDemocracy wrote:I don't mean to completely drop anti ship work but their workload can be greatly reduced. They just need to keep tabs on hostile ships and transmit locations to coastal systems.

Very true but loitering drones or PAK-DA with shitload of missiles might be still welcome since US is gonna use DEW soon. I'd say first 1-2 will have EMP warheads. nullifying sensors/radars before "the main wave" comes into play.

You are going to be able to host a whole cadre of weapons that right now we can just start to dream about,” Richardson said. “We’re talking about electric weapons, high energy laser, high-powered microwave [and] very, very capable radars,” he told the crew. “These are all going to be part of your future.

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/02/06/a-fighting-ford-prepares-to-join-the-fleet/

LMFS wrote:Personally I have no idea, but I find this tritium issue very interesting. Maybe any of our nuclear experts (and I mean it seriously since there are people with good knowledge among us) can shed some light?

From my very very little knowledge about the issue      American H-bomb requires tritium to be functional. But tritium has a short half-life (12 yrs), which means stored tritium can be exhausted relatively quickly and it is relatively expensive to maintain a large number of tritium for H-bombs.

The Unites States closed its tritium manufacture facilities at Savannah River Site in 1988. In 1996 the US had 75kg Tritium. Assumed that no military tritium has been produced since then, in 2020 probably the US only had 19kg.

It should be noted that civillian tritium cannot be used for military uses, because that would be no different from selling nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile, Russian H-bomb does not need tritium and it uses more stable elements, which means Russia can maintain a larger available nuclear arsenal.

The first functional Russian non-tritium bomb was RDS-27. It had a modest explosion power, but the importance of RDS-27 is that it provided the solution for the issue of non-tritium H bomb for Russia.

So if all these above are right... then America was doomed to lose in the nuclear race against USSR and Russia, therefore a treaty for ICBMs and nuclear arsenal are better for America. If Trump wants to break a superweapon treaty, actually he is giving the advantage to Russia because now there is no treaty can restrict the superiority of Russia over the US in superweapons.

These are the very few things I know about the issue hopefully a nuclear expert here can provide a better comment.

The-thing-next-door wrote:

GarryB wrote:any country hosting US forces or NATO forces will be targeted for genocide in the event of WWIII as they would be likely directions of a conventional attack during WWIII and therefore need to be destroyed.

I thought that was already the case but was just not explicitly stated.

If I remembered correctly, some Russian officials said similar things when mentioned the US "missile shields" in Eastern Europe... when a war break out these "missile shields" will be the first one to be targeted therefore US presence in Eastern Europe does not make these countries safer... but will make these countries become the first one appeared on the death list.

Arrow wrote:

But not to the USA.

Distance between Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky (PKC) and Seattle, WA (SEA)
5369.808 kilometers


Bering Strait width is max 82km.

Absolutely although I doubt they it will penetrate all of the feces in their heads unless demonstrated on one of thoes filth little neo hitlerite countries... poland maybe?

For many Europeans who think America and Europe can do no wrong will of course believe it is Russia threatening to attack them... even though it is pretty clear they were happy with the INF treaty as it was and it is the Americans stirring up all this rubbish.

Also will the new missiles be able to hit thoes annoying British cosplayers who are hilariously pretending to still be an empire and yet still have the audacity to continuously disrupt negotiations with their pathetic threats and accusation of plots so rediculous that they would be out of place in a low end B movie.

Perhaps when the UK is out of the EU but continues to think it can tell Europe what to do via its position in NATO and its special relations with the US perhaps the EU might find its own voice and its own opinion again... but I am not holding my breath... look at France trying to screw Germany over Russian gas pipes... personally if I was Russia I would sell all the gas to Turkey and Germany and let the rest of the EU buy from them on the conditions they want to set for themselves...

Very true but loitering drones or PAK-DA with shitload of missiles might be still welcome since US is gonna use DEW soon. I'd say first 1-2 will have EMP warheads. nullifying sensors/radars before "the main wave" comes into play.

Maybe convert some GLONASS satellites to EMP bombs and launch them into orbit as spares so that at least two are over the US and the far west EU at any one time... anything kicks off and start everything with a boom and a bright flash...

I would probably look into neutron bombs... or enhanced radiation bombs to get more effective nukes to kill more people without having to make super huge bombs....

targeted therefore US presence in Eastern Europe does not make these countries safer... but will make these countries become the first one appeared on the death list.

Of course ignorance is bliss... the majority of western audiences only see what the western media tells them, and most eastern european governments didn't hold referendums regarding US bases or missiles... a bright flash and it is over... probably not the worst way to go I suppose.

GarryB wrote:

Also will the new missiles be able to hit thoes annoying British cosplayers who are hilariously pretending to still be an empire and yet still have the audacity to continuously disrupt negotiations with their pathetic threats and accusation of plots so rediculous that they would be out of place in a low end B movie.

Perhaps when the UK is out of the EU but continues to think it can tell Europe what to do via its position in NATO and its special relations with the US perhaps the EU might find its own voice and its own opinion again... but I am not holding my breath... look at France trying to screw Germany over Russian gas pipes... personally if I was Russia I would sell all the gas to Turkey and Germany and let the rest of the EU buy from them on the conditions they want to set for themselves...

As long as zionist London bankers  influence FED , UK  is not any cosplyer. BTW they are going to open new bases abroad after brexit.   And not France really but this halfling  from Rotschildshire.

GB wrote:

Very true but loitering drones or PAK-DA with shitload of missiles might be still welcome since US is gonna use DEW soon. I'd say first 1-2 will have EMP warheads. nullifying sensors/radars before "the main wave" comes into play.

Maybe convert some GLONASS satellites to EMP bombs and launch them into orbit as spares so that at least two are over the US and the far west EU at any one time... anything kicks off and start everything with a boom and a bright flash...

not sure if you  can orbit nuke undetected to but the idea is cool       the best in EMP  is that you dont need any sophisticated sensors/navigation.
No sensors - one cannot blind it. No small CEP required either.

GB wrote:I would probably look into neutron bombs... or enhanced radiation bombs to get more effective nukes to kill more people without having to make super huge bombs....

well, not sure bout black PR because of N-bombs.  But again - a CSG without crews is not much of use.      

not sure if you can orbit nuke undetected to but the idea is cool

That is the point behind using GLONASS satellites... they normally have a specific number in orbit at any one time and often have a few spare in case something goes wrong, so having spares that don't normally do anything is OK... putting a nuclear bomb inside shouldn't be that hard... the Americans will of course be able to track it, but wont realise what it is until it is too late.

Of course the other option could be to use a MiG-31 to launch a semi orbital weapon from the north pacific to fly straight over to the US and boom...

The new hypersonic space drone could be useful for such a task.



First version will be for recon, but later…

Hole wrote:The new hypersonic space drone could be useful for such a task.

First version will be for recon, but later…    

The ultimate suicide drone! Makes the others look a bit mundane.

AlfaT8 wrote:From what i can see, the situation probly has more to do with the "full Spectrum Dominance" doctrine and the "Prompt Global Strike" initiative.

Absolutely.
Its not some Trump crazy unstable thing its part of the ongoing Neocon PNAC full spectrum dominance program that started with Bush2, continued in the background with a more pleasant face under Obama, now brought back out into the public forefront by Bolton & Pompeo.

GarryB wrote:More like Old Spice... Musk doesn't really come across to me as a real genius... some of his ideas seem actually pretty silly, and a lot of his businesses only seem to work when heavily subsidised by the US government... which is to say they don't really work.

Musk is symptomatic of the decay of US media/elite: far too many yanks believing their own bullshit so the media/'elites' live in their own echo-chamber of irreality.
On top of that is the unbridled & unpunished Defense contractor malfeasance, corruption & graft.

higurashihougi wrote:One opinion about the issue. What do you think ?

If the 9m279 cruise missile (which is what US is alleging to be non-compliant) range is software limited then its an INF breach.
INF says cruise missile range = range when you burn all the fuel.
For Iskander there is a possible loophole since INF says range = maximum range its been tested to -> the way I read it you could potentially make a missile with non-compliant range but only ever test to INF compliant distance.

Austin wrote:Russia may have violated the INF Treaty. Here’s how the United States appears to have done the same - Theodore A. Postol

I thought the US says the connectors on the Ashore launcher/canister are different -> not actually compatible.
But invisible & changeable without being remotely (ie satelite) obvious -> I would argue it fails the 'distinguishably different' standard of the INF.
There is also the bit where US launched LRASM from the AEGIS 'land ship' Mk41 in 2013. That facility has previously only launched SAMs, for which purpose standard Mk41s is OK but launching an anti-ship missile is an INF breach.

Hole wrote:The Russian Defence Ministry informs the US party on strict compliance with the INF Treaty requirements

Good but at least 6mths too late.
If Russia had done the missile demo & made this demand 6mths ago or a couple of years ago Western media might have paid some attention, now if they mention this at all its gonna be buried at the bottom of a big piece talking about how INF is a done deal & completely Russias' fault.

higurashihougi wrote:The Unites States closed its tritium manufacture facilities at Savannah River Site in 1988. In 1996 the US had 75kg Tritium. Assumed that no military tritium has been produced since then, in 2020 probably the US only had 19kg.

Thats very interesting, I seem to recall they don't even have a functioning Plutonium/Uranium enrichment plant either (maybe I'm misremembering this Tritium thing?), so US may be severely limited in its ability to retain let alone expand its arsenal.

GunshipDemocracy wrote:Distance between Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky (PKC) and Seattle, WA (SEA)
5369.808 kilometers

Implies that the psychos in Washington who are trying to be able to win a first strike actually give a shit about unimportant, liberal/progressive infested Seattle.
Seattle & some East European 'shitholes' for St Petersburg & Moscow, you think they wouldn't take that swap?
Besides thats barely within the upper limit of INF, it needs Strategic weapons to take out the actually important SF, LA & SD.

South Front, Say What!?

http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2019/02/south-front-say-what.html


I am wondering if they launch a IRBM from Chukotka's sites to US West Coast , Wont the BM would be travelling against the rotation of the earth hence would need a lot of energy to reach the West coast ? Or am I wrong in thinking this ?

The map clearly shows the entire North Pacific , US West Coast is open of Posedian and Nuclear Powered cruise missile