Russian special military operation in Ukraine #19

Nothing can defend against missiles 100%, even subsonic.

Not every single time, but we are talking problem and solution and the problem of mass subsonic missile attacks on shipping has traditionally been AWACS and fighter aircraft along with AEGIS class cruisers that work together to shoot down the problem.

Next generation Russian destroyers will have thousands of missiles... the Russians are already working on Active Radar Homing mini missiles to protect vehicles carried in their hundreds on each vehicle to defend against artillery shells, so how many missiles do you think a Destroyer or Cruiser might be carrying?

They already have land based S-400 missiles that can reach 250km or 400km range targets... and with friendly fighter aircraft near the incoming threats that means they can engage targets at 400km down to sea level... S-400 missiles also have a back up surface to surface role too (with A-100 support most likely) where the AWACS platform finds the targets and directs the S-400 to the area where the enemy targets are for them to find and lock on to as they approach them... coordinated by the A-100.

By the time they have new build destroyers in service which will be a minimum of 5 years away possibly 8-10, the new models of the long range missiles with mini missile payloads where a big heavy missile like S-400 or R-37 launch and carry the payload ballistically 300-400km where the payload (150kgs or 60kgs) respectively for each missile might contain mini missiles of perhaps 10kgs each, which means 15 missiles for the S-400 and 6 missiles for the R-37 which will fly a high parabolic flight path for max range and as they descend the mini missiles are release and start to scan for viable targets or maybe the nose mounted radar on the missile finds targets and allocates them to missiles as it releases them on their way through enemy territory.

I'd wager real odds are like 70-80% vs. supersonic and 80-90% vs. subsonic of a shootdown of a cruise missile. Only takes a one or a few to disable a carrier or sink an escort.

But that is the thing... comparing a group of ships with an aircraft carrier to a group of ships without the aircraft carrier... the first warning the ships without a carrier might be missile heat signatures coming over the horizon 20km away or so... takes quite a few minutes to power up large radar and big SAM systems so they would be fucked even with a moderate number of incoming missiles... they would only have CIWS to defend themselves, whcih in the west is a bit thin and weak... a few Phalanx and some SEA RAM and maybe a couple of Goal Keepers.

With a carrier you will detect the incoming enemy forces at extended ranges... time to power everything up and be ready and to launch extra aircraft armed with AAMs in decent numbers...

And each ring of defence will have an effectiveness rating... in Syria TOR and Pantsir and BUK had 100% shoot down records... not perfect because sometimes more than one missile was launched at a target but all the air threats were shot down... the famous attack with 103 missiles launched and 71 shot down... others were jammed and flew into the ground... the weapons that hit their target hit disused buildings that were not defended so of course they didn't get shot down.

Now to be clear that was a US and western attack at a time when Syria didn't have an IADS... it was just vehicles working by themselves... using their own radars and shooting down what they could and quite frankly they did a much better job that has traditionally been done by Arab states defending themselves from western missile strikes.

WIth carrier support that group of ships will be ready for the incoming threats, radars on and missiles warmed up and ready, guns ready... sensors and radars listening and looking... friendly aircraft can use their radar to monitor incoming threats... no hills or river valleys to hide in or sneek through.

With aircraft spotting targets for them their very long range SAMs can engage targets out to max range effectively making the significantly more powerful than the same missiles on the same ships with no air support.

In my opinion one thing sorely missing from the Russian air-based AShM arsenal is a long-range (1200-1500km) subsonic (maybe terminal supersonic) missile capable of being carried by Su-27 family planes (maybe even MiG-29s). 4x per plane for Flankers, 2x per MiG-29 size plane.

You do know there are air launched versions of Club...

And likely upgraded hypersonic scramjet powered versions of Kh-31....

Ukraine has a seemingly endless supply of Tochkas (and Su-25s and MiG-29s).

As they repair them and use them they get shot down and intercepted respectively... most of the time they don't reach their targets and are shot down while revealing their launch positions each time...

Sometimes they will get their home base and other times not... as long as they are not doing a lot of damage it does not matter.

TOR is ideal for shooting down Tochka and they have a range of missiles ideal for aircraft even flying very low.

To be fair flying as low as these pilots are flying requires enormous skill but flying so low and so fast likely means their chances of survival after being shot down would be quite low... how many flight crew do they have?

It is not like their attacks are devastating or anything.

What in the world in going to launch Kalibr-M? It's going to be a ship or a bomber. Maybe the Iskander system (1 per ground vehicle?).

Might come as a shock but the Russians and Soviets were not as air centric as the west... it is easier to shoot planes every time they take off than wipe out all the trucks and shipping crates on trucks and rail wagons and ships in any country...

Kinzhals are expensive.

They are air launched Iskanders, of which the Russian Army has quite a large number of batteries in service and the missile in full scale production.

They wont be free but a fraction of the price of western equivalents like Lance and ATACMS missiles...

Is Kalibr-M confirmed hypersonic? 4500KM range and hypersonic? That's gotta be one hell of a big rocket.

No, it is the navy version equivalent of the Kh-101/102 subsonic missile.

The first missiles were 3,000km range and 6m long and about 1.5 tons each... Kh-55 and the naval Calibr... which was 533mm calibre and could be launched through torpedo tubes. With a solid rocket booster they could be launched from vertical tubes like the UKSK, which was scaled to accomodate the Yakhont/Onyx/Brahmos missile... so tubes big enough for 750mm calibre 10m long 3 ton missiles were being loaded with Calibr missiles... 1.5 tons and 6m long and 533mm calibre so when loaded into a UKSK launch tube or indeed the 11 metre long weapon bays on the Tu-160 there was a lot of empty space not really being used.

The solution for aircraft was the Kh-101/102 that is a 7.4m long 750mm calibre missile that weighs 2.5 tons and has a flight range of 5,000km... the same problem with ships so they applied the same solution... older missiles still produced as they can be launched through torpedo tubes, but bigger Calibres mean much longer flight range while filling up the tube better.

There will be a bigger Calibre missile with a rocket final stage for low altitude high speed terminal phase attack of course... not much information around except for the exported old model.

They need a cheap, partially stealthy (Kh-59MK2 style), medium-size, Flanker family capable (for very high # of launch platforms, unlike Kinzhal), subsonic or sub-supersonic combo, very long range AshM that will have satellite targeting capabilities to really deny NATO navy any leeway to move around.

They are getting a new range of missiles that can be carried externally or internally with quite impressive performance... one missile to replace the Kh-15 is a short range attack missile... mach 6 ramjet powered, 1,500km range, 1.5 ton weight. amongst other new designs like the new Kh-50 compact subsonic attack missile.

Kalibr-M is hypersonic and said to be somewhat longer than the current Kalibr at 11m?, but is launched from subs, ships and aircraft.

it is longer than the current Kalibre because the current Kalibre is 6m long... and like the difference between the Kh-55SM 3,000km range subsonic land attack cruise missile and the Kh-102 5,000km range subsonic cruise missile that is 7.4m long and of rather larger calibre (533mm compatible with torpedo tubes for Calibre, vs 750mm calibre-M... same diameter as the Onyx/Yakhont/UKSK missile tube...)

Personally I am very happy with the Russian ASM type missiles - even the old Kh-22's can enter a building through the front door!

Who needs subsonic when you have supersonic and even hypersonic!

Exactly... they seem to be rather effective against air defences that started otu more formidible than any HATO air defences... one of the reasons they adapted their anti ship missiles to land attack capacity too.

They definitively have too much solutions to deal with nato ships.

They do, but they are seriously limited by their antiquated bigger ships to their own waters, so supporting allies in Africa simply would be a real problem.

They need to get a few Corvettes into serial production and decide on the standard Gorshkov or the new enlarged design... which they can only do after testing the new boat which will have to wait till it is in the water and they can test it of course... and then get some Destroyers laid down... serial production of smaller boats will free up their older boats like Kirovs and Slavas and Udaloys to operate further afield with perhaps a few support frigates... but ultimately they will be able to use ship upgrades for teh older vessels to test new hardware like big radar and sonar and new gun mounts... they could replace the 130mm gun on the later Kirovs with a 152mm gun to put on to destroyers.

Imagine attacking a small group of enemy ships... at 150km you open fire with your 152mm gun firing 90 rounds per minute from two guns with autoloaders... the shells have GLONASS guidance and small control fins to steer them to specific coordinates... the warhead payloads will be tiny but could potentaily take out radar and optics or even the bridge... the Sovremmeny destroyer carried over 1,000 130mm shells... a ship like a cruiser could carry more than that... how do you deal with guided HE rounds falling from the sky with dozens in the air at a time... and they still haven't launched any missiles at you... some shells could be jamming rounds attracting your missiles to them... some could release chaff and flares to make the job of defence much harder.

Couldn't find anything concrete myself but I am pretty damn sure that I read somewhere that the Kalibr-M will be part of a new generation of hypersonic missiles under development - but I could be wrong about this.

I do remember reports making claims it was hypersonic, but I think it is just journalist BS... like calling the MiG-41 PAK-DP a 6th gen fighter.... just ignorance.

Besides a low flying subsonic missile for land attack is still a difficult problem for the defender and the extra range means it can be routed to come from an unexpected direction... the orcs launched Tu-141 drones that flew through several HATO countries and was not intercepted at all despite their likely intense attention being focused on the region to help their nazis.

I do love the cocky no-fucks-given attitude, he knows he is untouchable

This guy has some balls on him and knows he will be allowed to keep them (unlike some poor shmucks who will spend rest of their lives as living jokes and will go unavenged)


Looking forward to seeing this guy getting released and walking away scott free just like his Nazi-bros yesterday

Best way to fight Nazism is to make sure that maximum possible amount of Nazis walks free, right? Good old Soviet WW2 approach

You get very bitter and pissy when things go the way you don't want them to go... even when they don't but you assume they will anyway.

Those balls will push him to go back on the front and get captured again.

Win win for russians that get back their soldiers.

Nobody has released this guy except PD... in his own head...

He is blaming the Russians for things they have not done yet.

The reason he is cocky is because he is being held by Russians... all they have to do is hand him over to his fellow Ukrainians in the Donbass or Lugansk for trial and he will sing a different song and likely not be released any time soon.

Had a talk with a guy who is captain in Serbian Army and he says that everyone he knows is flabbergasted both professionally and personally at that Russian river crossing fiasco (among other things, recent Nazi POW liberation fuckup included)

I was chatting to a squirrel the other day about the attack on the northern fleet by Kievs forces, led by the Ghost of Kiev, and all the damage that did to Russian prestige and we really agree that drinking that early in the day is not a good thing.

When we talked about Putin surrendering to HATO and Kiev and begging for mercy and hoping they can still be friends after he signs over ownership of OAK and Gasprom to Kiev in partial compensation, he had a little tear in his eye that western propaganda was getting more and more effective even as their situation was getting worse and worse.

Just putting that out there.

We do not know which vehicles those belonged to.

Actually we do because most were Ukrainian... those BMP-1s had 73mm gun turrets but the BMP-1s in the Russian military have had the 30mm gun turrets of the BTR-82 fitted to their BMP-1s.

That situation was discussed and in my opinion totally debunked in terms of the story Kiev was trying to sell.

Now I ain't no metallurgist, but it probably doesn't help that this thing is towed from the gun tube - something no other towed gun does!

Not really true actually... the D-30 Soviet 122mm howitzer has a towing attachment under its muzzle...



Very popular and quite accurate... not a huge range... but a very good piece.

They wanted light gun, at any cost, and traded robustness for it. It works for US, as it mostly relies on air power for fire support. Ukraine doesn't have that luxury.

It works OK for the US because they don't use towed artillery and use air support?

It should still be able to work.

I seem to remember spending days defending why Russia does not have an M777 equivalent and how wonderful and amazing it is and Russia needs to make their own equivalent blah blah blah...

This information puts things in a new light however.

Ukraine will not be settled until then, contingencies exist, but currently the Patriotic bloc of Russia understands that the victory of Trump already changes the chess board considerably

I think you overestimate the Orange man... he got elected promising more productive relations with Russia and ended up making them much worse... he was easily goaded into doing the opposite of what he said he wanted on multiple occasions by people who are not very smart to start with.

He sees himself as a great negotiator and clearly expected to break all the agreements the US had made with the Russians and Iranians and anyone else and then negotiate a new deal that is better for the US... he failed completely and made everything much worse... who will sign agreements with the US now?

As if China has anything to assist Russia in behind the scenes with its zero war experience.

China knows all it needs to do in that regard is to not join the west in their sanctions and accusations of war crimes, and Russia will do the same for China when the west manages to engineer a war in that region.

The head of the American intelligence: China supports the special operation and helps Russia in its conduct in Ukraine

Chinese authorities are providing Russia with "behind-the-scenes assistance in various ways" against the backdrop of a special operation in Ukraine, said Avril Haynes, director of national intelligence of the United States.

HAHAHA... maybe they are supplying them with WMDs?

Yeah and they will just keep killing all the russians their captured too including valuable sukhoi pilots that takes years to be trained and on which you spend millions of dollars just in kerosene to let them fly.


And just imagine the moral of the troops on the front that know their leaders won't exchange them and will end up shot if captured.

They are currently treating him well, but PD is claiming they will just let him go... there is no evidence this will happen at all.

Bloomberg notes that Hungary, on the one hand, decided to bring its position on Ukraine closer to EU policy , but at the same time continues to cooperate with Russia in the field of energy. Orban does not want to refuse Russian help to expand the Paks nuclear power plant.

If he is going to support the economic isolation of Russia from the entire EU then does he not realise that even if the EU does not stop buying Russian gas and oil and coal that Russia might decide in response to EU sanctions to impose their own sanctions... guess what is left to sanction... nuclear power stations, gas and oil and coal.... etc etc.