This post endeavors, at a very high level, to discuss how the US/NATO shortcomings against Russia and the so-called West’s geostrategic competitors, are more foundational than most commentators recognize. This is due at least in part to an onslaught of propaganda maintaining long-standing prejudices against Slavs and non-white countries that industrialized after Europe.1
Even so, the seeming cognitive block to admitting Russia prowess is leading to bizarre and self-defeating responses, such as acting as if Russia will agree to a ceasefire or a pause on Ukraine NATO entry (when any discussion of “NATO entry” is a big red flag to the Russians) to US and NATO doubling down. They are insisting they will continue to violate Russia’s red lines by launching more “deep missile strikes” into Russia even after the successful demonstration of Russia’s formidable Oreshnik missile. France authorized the use of its long-range Scalp missiles against undisputed Russian territory after the Oreshink strike.
We’ll discuss a bit below some of accounts of the Oreshink works and why it is so significant (keep in mind I can’t independently verify either the information or the analyses; hopefully we’ll get more detail soon). The West ought to be reacting to the Oreshnik the same way the US did to the 1957 Sputnik launch: that it demonstrated that the US was seriously behind the USSR in key areas of expertise. There was a panicked acceleration of space-related spending as well as a broader push to increase math and sciences education.
But in fact the US and NATO have gotten many proofs of how their capability level is behind and if anything falling further behind, from Russian success in GPS signal-jamming and blocking Starlink to its air-defense prowess to Russia regularly using hypersonic missiles, while the US has only recently had a successful test.2
Now the US is the clear leader in some important weapons categories, such as submarines. But an even bigger from the perspective of capabilities is that the US and its allies seem to be operating from a dated playbook. And this problem appears to be deep seated. This goes beyond the problem identified by many experts early on, that NATO was optimized only for very local defense and for regional wars against insurgent forces (read mainly men in sandals with AK-47s and shoulder-launched missiles), not a peer power. ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) capabilities are not simply more important than ever but now drive battlefield operations.
Yet many former military officers have pointed out that the US concept of war remains mired in World War II notions like big arrow attacks. For instance, Andrei Martyanov has discussed how Russian weapons are “net centric” as in they communicate with each other. I believe this goes beyond tanks being able to say, “Here I am!” but sending back battlefield information.
I hope knowledgeable readers can opine, but I wonder if the US has also become complacent due to its satellite and in some cases, radar capabilities (the point of sending the THADD system to Israel was per either Lawrence Wilkerson or Douglas Macgregor not its small stock of missiles but its spectacular radar, which can “see” small objects at extremely long distances). We may be kidding ourselves as to the effectiveness of our current systems versus highly-intensive, multi-perspective surveillance of active battlefields.
Similarly (and I did listen to this clip 2x, so my recounting should be ), after his last visit to Russia, Scott Ritter described a long conversation with a military officer. Ritter’s interlocutor said he bet he knew how Ritter would plan an attack and Ritter obligingly provided the “right” response, as in classic combined arms operation with logistical support, with air strikes first, then air cover for a tank and infantry advance.
The Russia said, “That’s not how we do it.” The first step is to plan the drone map, as in to grid out the area and how to deploy drones to cover the theater of battle. The drones are also the first line of combat: “The drones lead the way.”
Mind you, the Russians can’t regard these as advanced ideas if an officer would casually pass them on to a foreign commentator. Yet Ritter found the information to be novel3
A second issue is that the West has not adapted to the related rise of the importance and power of unmanned weapons, witness the demonstrated impotence against Ansar Allah’s attacks on shipping.
One example is the great summer counteroffensive of 2023. It seemed ludicrous from the outset to think it would get much of anywhere. The West announced its plans well in advance, so Russia has ample time to make its Surovkin line even more robust that it might otherwise have. Russia could see Ukraine forces assembling. Bizarrely, the attack did not include meaningful air cover. Instead, US and NATO planners vested their hopes in idea that Russia troops would run away when the encountered Western weapons.
As readers know, the fight did not get as far as Russia’s first fortified line. Russians mined the tanks and armored vehicle approaches with drones, forcing them (mainly) to follow narrow paths cleared by mine-clearers. Taking out a single vehicle would stop an advance. When the vehicles tried to retreat, they would typically find that Russia had drone-mined their rear. Ukraine adapted by instead moving men in via armored personnel carriers, close to tree lines, and having them advance on foot. That made them vulnerable to drone attacks again, illustrating that Russia had drones in such abundance that it could afford to use them against small groups and even single soldiers.
This encounter should have been seen as a humiliating defeat. Perhaps I missed it, but I have not heard of any come across signs that that has been internalized by NATO or the US, meaning no/not enough of a post mortem much the less recognition of the need for a serious rethink of how the West wages war.
In June 2022, a landmark article published by the Royal United Services Institute, The Return of Industrial Warfare by Alex Vershinin, described how Russia was outproducing the West in artillery and it would take ten years of concerted effort by the West to catch up. Since then, Russia has increased its shell output considerably while Western efforts have floundered.
But even more important than the gap in what the West no doubt likes to see as comparatively crude weaponry is the West’s ever-more dated vision of what war is about. The Oreshnik ought to be a wake-up call but muted reactions suggest otherwise.4 Another sign is a new article in the Financial Times that discusses what Europe would need to do to defend itself without US backing.
What the Oreshnik Signifies
Let’s start in “sentence first, verdict afterward” mode. A reason Western officials are so upset about the Oreshnik is that it shows that Russia (sensibly) restarted work on intermediate range ballistic missiles after Trump exited the INF treaty in 2019, which had disallowed them. One obviously uncomfortable fact is that the fact that this missile is not just “merely hypersonic” but travels at >Mach 10. That means it can hit European targets at double-plus speed and cannot be intercepted.
Russia has been trolling:5
New Oreshnik (Hazel) missile, what we know so far:
– a new weapon, not an upgrade
– high-precision, medium-range, with hypersonic speed
– first used in combat on November 21, 2024, when it struck a Ukrainian defense facility in Dnepropetrovsk
Another important feature is that the missile has MIRV-like capabilities (more expert commentary objects to calling it MIRV) in that the missile can and here did separate into 6 capsules which in turn each delivered 6 warheads, for a total of 36. I have weirdly seen a video that estimates the cost of the Oreshnik at “several million” and depicts that as expensive, when for 36 delivered warheads, even before getting to their impact, seems cheap.
But let’s turn to what seems to be the real showstopper, which is not the impressive flight speed and distance per se but the destructive effect:
Eyewitnesses: "Yuzhmash is gone"
In Ukraine, the SBU has completely classified the consequences of the strike by the "Oreshnik" on the defense plant "Yuzhmash" in Dnepropetrovsk. Despite the blockade in the Kiev media, residents of the city began to say for the first time that… pic.twitter.com/5tRGUbiHgU
As we’ll unpack in a bit, many commentators have seemed to discount the sheer kinetic and heat force of this weapon. We’ll work in a minute from the widely reported fact, supposedly based on estimates using the impact videos, that the missiles hit the ground at hypersonic speed.6 If that is accurate, that represents a vast increase in power.
Consider the old normal. a href=”https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/3m22-zircon-debunking-misconceptions/comments” rel=”nofollow”>Here is a typical recap; I recall Simplicius saying something very similar in an extensive treatment of hypersonic missiles but search is not being sufficiently helpful in tracking it down:
No missile is hypersonic in the terminal phase. The heat generated by lower atmospheric pressure would destroy it before it reached its target. The key to the success of hypersonic speed in the upper atmosphere is the plasma bubble that generates, which makes the missile invisible to radar. By the time it’s on its reentry track and has slowed down (still travelling fast) it’s too late to effectively target.
Now how could Russia have achieved what was heretofore deemed impossible? If the missiles indeed struck the ground at hypersonic speed, it’s due to new alloys to withstand the incredible re-entry heat.
Some have argued that the lack of apparent secondary explosions shows the Oreshnik was not impressive. That’s a misreading because the missiles drove deep into the ground and the great energy was dispersed and did its main damage there. Even so, this longer video shows some secondary blasts:
Even though Black Mountain Analysis concedes that claims about the actual destruction of the Yuzhmash plant vary, the lack of explosions at impact actually confirm the kinetic force of the weapons. From Black Mountain Analysis:
The impact on the target in this missile attack is astonishing. What is also interesting is that there are no visual signs of explosions typical for surface or near-surface detonations. This means the warheads likely penetrated deep into the ground with incredible momentum and hit the underground locations (workshops) with a force as powerful as if they had “detonated.” The kinetic shock wave will likely be enhanced by the instantaneous expansion of the soil moisture when exposed to the high temperatures caused by the warhead and the friction of intrusion into the ground at such depths…..
The missile is unknown, but the effect of its payload is a fascinating subject to cover. The “Oreshnik” missile system has extraordinary characteristics regarding the kinetic hit-to-kill mode. Warheads consist of special metals, and motors can achieve 10-11 Mach for these blocks, turning them into kinetic killers. The logic is simple – the higher the speed, the more energy is delivered. Therefore, this terminal block requires no explosive material but heavy, hard, and high-melting-point metal. At such high speeds, penetration into the target causes massive destruction on impact through the shockwaves, creating a mini-high concentrated localized earthquake. It does not need to hit the target precisely (just in the vicinity), and the sheer energy and momentum transfer will produce such shockwaves that will break the concrete structures deep underground. To do this, a camouflet explosion is developed. A camouflet explosion is an explosion at a relatively great depth, where no visible changes on the ground surface are formed.
The destruction of underground objects occurs when the object is within the fracture zone.
From https://impact.uwo.ca/impact-craters/products-of-impact-crater/
The video below also endorses the notion that the impact speed is ~Mach 10 and provides some views early on of its small launch vehicle:
According to some analysts, the plant and its design bureau are among the most extensive underground military bases, serving as a model for North Korean underground complexes
Even though the French statement authorizing the use of its Scalp missiles means that the significance of Oreshnik has not yet penetrated some of the thicker skulls in the Collective West, perhaps they are telling themselves that Russia does not have others in reserve yet. That is a dangerous bet. However, in a discussion with Daniel Davis, John Mearsheimer pointed out that Russia is winning in Ukraine and just needs to stay the course. Responding to Western provocations will distract from Russia’s larger objectives.
“Just as important,” the [Russian] source says, “the Russian ground offensive in the east will remain slow, patient, maybe for two years more. The priority is on preventing Russian casualties, conserving Russian lives. This is essential once you realize that the [Putin] presidential succession also depends, not only on winning the war on Russian terms, but ensuring the protection of Russian lives.”
And the reason for the Scalp missile barking may be that the Yuzhmash strike directly undercut more ATACMS and Storm Shadow missile salvos. Again from Helmer:
Although satellite images of the plant after Thursday’s attack have not been declassified or published in the open, what is likely is that the bunker stocks of ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles being prepared at the plant for launching against Russia were destroyed, along with the factory-floor and machine capacities of the plant to service HIMARS, other rocket and missile firing equipment delivered by the US and NATO states to the Zelensky regime.
Mearsheimer pointed out that if the West again hit pre-2014 Russia, Putin’s druthers would be to mess with the US and its allies out of theater, such as by better arming Ansar Allah. Keep in mind that Western officials (even recently Jake Sullivan) have pointed out that ATACMS (and by extension Storm Shadow and Scalp) strikes will not change the outcome of the conflict. However, Mearsheimer pointed out that if politically-meaningful damage were done, Putin may have to respond to domestic pressure to make a visible and painful counterattack.
The West Does Not Appear to be Adapting to New Realities
Due to this post already being a bit long, we’ll give only cursory treatment to our second topic, that of the Collective West being wedded to an outdated mental model of how to wage war, and that in turn leading to misguided priorities. We will use a new story in the Financial Times, Can Europe defend itself with less American help?, as an object lesson.
We’ll put aside the considerable internal decision-making and coordination issues that NATO faces in the absence of US knocking heads together leadership. Auerlien has described them in gory detail over many posts, with NATO’s Phantom Armies as good one-stop shopping.
One can argue that the Financial Times would not represent the most advanced thinking in NATO, Perhaps that is true. But the Financial Times is fairly well plugged into political orthodoxy and what I call “leading edge conventional wisdom”. So it would seem reasonable to take its account of big priorities and impediments at face value.
One glaring issue is the way, as in the US, procuring and contracting drive the bus. This is an issue that Brian Berletic has repeatedly mentioned that is an impediment to Collective West military effectiveness, that our weapons-making is profit rather than purpose driven. In the EU, there’s an additional level of complexity, as in wrangling over who produces what. We have pointed out that NATO, as an actually administratively very weak and lose alliance, has mainly had inefficient national produced weapons, such as the afore-mentioned UK Storm Shadow versus French Scalp versus German Taurus missiles, and several national flavors of tanks and armored personnel carries, and even reports that 155mm shells are not as well standardized as they ought to be. The article confirms that by citing a McKinsey finding, that the US has 32 types of weapons systems versus 172 for Europe.
But what is striking about the piece is that it emphasizes what one might consider to be conventional warfare and with that, current major weapons categories. Not that that won’t remain important going forward. But there is a bizarre failure to recognize that some currently perceived-to-be-important weapons types are being made less potent or even irrelevant. Larry Johnson has argued that manned aircraft are going the way of the cavalry.
In light of the short discussion at the top of the paramount role of ISR and the increasingly powerful role of drones, this section reads as if Europe aspires to fight yesterday’s war:
And all that is in addition to what Europe would need to do should America withdraw from Nato. In that scenario, the things at the top of any hypothetical “to-do” list are what Edward Stringer, a former British RAF air marshal, calls the “boring stuff”.
“It’s ‘boring war’ — stuff like ammunition stockpiles, transport and logistics — that really matters,” says Stringer, who has written about a possible post-US Nato. “It’s also what almost nobody does properly at scale, except for the US.”
But some of what the US provides to Nato — such as its fleet of C17 cargo planes, which cost $340mn apiece and can carry 75 tonnes of equipment almost 4,500km without refuelling — is all but irreplaceable. US-made F-35s also increasingly sit at the heart of Nato’s combat air power, with more than 500 of the fighter jets expected to operate in Europe by the mid-2030s, IISS estimates.
The visuals confirm a love of older tech in the form of fighter jets. Note these are the only graphics in the piece:
Contrast this with increasing evidence of these jets being rendered less potent by Russian air defenses. From Simplicius:
Western pundits rejoice that the strike [into Kursk by Storm Shadows] “proves” how F-16s or other platform are able to hit Russia with Western missiles. The problem is, this strike proves—thus far at least—they’re too scared to launch them deep. The fact they targeted something right near the LOC indicates that the Su-24s, Mig-29s, or other carrying platforms (F-16s almost certainly not risked from their far-west Ukraine refuge) were terrified of coming anywhere close to the Russian border, as they would be shot down by S-400 or related systems.
You see, Ukraine’s export variant Storm Shadows are said to go 300km max, which means just to reach the compound in Kursk, the planes likely released the missiles at maximum distance all the way over the Dnieper river, safely out of Russian AD range
Ironically, the reason the command center in Kursk was vulnerable was that Russia was loath to put its S-400 launchers too close to Ukraine, so Western planners do look to have correctly identified an area of coverage weakness.
But the bigger point is this article no where mentions drones (which could allow Europe to leapfrog some of its older and overlapping weapons systems) and barely alludes to air defense, per a passing mention of Patriots:
That includes Germany’s Rheinmetall, Nordic multinational Nammo and MBDA, a European multinational that produces missiles, including Storm Shadows, and which started a $5.5bn joint venture this year with the US’s Raytheon to produce Patriot air defence missiles in Germany.
Patriot systems are widely considered to be inferior to the Russian S-400. Russia is already on to S-500 andS-550 systems. Perhaps I missed it, but I have not read that the Patriot has been upgraded.
Apologies for limiting ourselves to this new Financial Times story as a case study. However, it does strongly suggest, even if it cannot amount to definitive proof, that the Western understanding of its military capabilities is sorely dated.
______
1 One staple is that even articles that concede that Russia is winning in Ukraine still include ritual denigration of the Russian military. A recent example depicting Russia as primitive, even barbaric. From the BBC in Ukraine front could ‘collapse’ as Russia gains accelerate, experts warn:
The losses are compounded by the “meat grinder” approach said to be favoured by Russian commanders – describing the waves of recruits thrown towards Ukrainian positions in a bid to exhaust troops.
2 A related issue is Russia’s success in achieving close coordination of its battlefield forces and its arms manufacture. Russia has been feeding information from combat failures and successes back to weapons makers and has been making adaptations in time frames that are simply impossible in the US contracting process.
3 Ritter’s surprise is credible to me based on many years of competitor interviews. I was the only person at McKinsey to have the nerve to call direct competitors of my client Citibank and then get them to talk to me (not hiding that I was from McKinsey, engaged by a client in their space) and then more competitor interviews in my later life. The usual way to get them to agree was to remind them that they were in charge, they could terminate the talk at any time, and that I was seeking general market information. Inevitably, I would learn at least one item per interview of what the subject really did think was general market information that was new and useful to Citibank.
4 One example is a new, prominent story at the Wall Street Journal: Ukraine Clings to Shrinking Sliver of Russia, Expecting Trump to Push for Peace Talks. It mentions the Storm Shadow strike into Kursk and depicts it as killing a North Korean general (dubious) and providing a morale boost. Admittedly this article presents itself as having a tight focus, but works in unverified British claims like Russia having suffered 700,000 casualties, without mentioninng the Oreshnik strike.
5 Last night, this little RT video came up many times on a Twitter search on “Oreshnik” without even wanting to see it. It seems to have been significantly scrubbed; it took a lot of effort today to find the clip, although stills from it were more abundant.
6 This section admittedly relies heavily on Black Mountain Analysis, but I have seen other accounts make claims similar to his, so for convenience I will again cite this source:
Looking at the time lapse between the light flash and the reentry vehicle (or the warhead) disappear, and combined with the estimated height of the clouds of cc 600 m as per Ukrainian weather report at 02:00 AM. The warhead hit the ground about 0.15 seconds from the break from the clouds. The calculated speed is about 4 km/s or Mach 11.8. Anyone can play with the time by adding or reducing milliseconds but the calculated speed will be in the range of Mach 10+.
– I have been drafting this just this moment. I rather post than not at all. Must do stuff. Many thanks for the outstanding work above with this speed. Will try to get people read it. –
re: Martyanov and Oreshnik as game changer:
As I am trying to gather the reasons why Oreshnik is a game changer the way Zircon/Kinzhals are not (hypersonic attributes would come with all of the models) – Martyanov in his latest video has a helpful example and that is destruction of army units assembling before attacks.
i.e. that Oreshnik basically replaces tactical nukes.
12.000 men e.g. could be wiped out in this particular example judging from the area destroyed in Dnepro.
Of course it would be “interesting” to know how much area 36 munition items (with 6 warheads and 6 sub-munitions) could cover at maximum in such a fashion on the surface.
Before that he briefly shows Bremerhaven as a landing spot of eminent importance to US logistics that too would be wiped out without nukes.
This is the true nature of the game changing term. And I assume it is only the beginning as yield and power/might are concerned.
Eventually, do nukes with all their harmful side effects become obsolete?
Those aspects that forbid their use?
“Clean”, “surgical” nukes with minium fallout and civilian casualties was one intention behind US nuclear first strike/counterstrike strategies as first publicly laid out by Lieber & Press in 2006 and made widely known through informing the public about the super-fuze.
a.k.a. “US nuclear primacy and the end of MAD”. A short lived assumption apparently. Wonder if Stratcom will understand.
Which would have made nuclear war admissible.
However – and forgive me for over-stretching here – if a final stage of a new “clean” weapons system would replace nukes even on a strategic level that would have implications, not only good ones.
Because what made one uneasy already with Tridents that could be super-accurate and therefore be “not a problem” would apply here too.
It would make the use of non-nuclear super-bombs an easy moral decision.
We are approaching the scenarios known from Sic-Fi movies (“THE CREATOR” e.g.) and computer strategy games of the 1990s, like the “Command & Conquer” series where a Western US-led NATO clone had a super-weapon that could pulverize anything with laser-accuracy on a large scale. With a weapon safely stationed in space – god-like powers.
What if the US will acquire this not in 20-30 years time? But much earlier.
Russia has always had overwhelming conventional superiority over the West, that’s why NATO has a fetish for nuclear brinksmanship. It’s the only card in the deck in case of a ground war with RU.
RU planes, tanks, AA, missile tech, small arms all historically superior to western equivalents AND they have quantity advantage too.
The best analysis I’ve seen is from Millennium7*, which is hosted by a former military aerospace engineer. Unlike most of the people who’ve been posting on this, he knows how to do the calculations. I’d recommend watching his video.
He doesn’t believe it’s a new weapon – it’s most likely a land based version of the R-30 (RSM-56), the main submarine launched ballistic missile used by Russia. The flight characteristics match what you’d expect from it (i.e. a fairly flat trajectory), and the size of the payload matches one thats been adopted for short range and a high load – probably around 3-4 metric tonnes. It’s most likely the MIRVs are adopted standard ones – these are very expensive and high tech, but a mature technology, they’ve been around since the 1960’s. There is no need for wild speculations about super duper hypersonics, these have been around for a long time, but generally used only for nukes, for a variety of reasons, not least cost.
The damage is likely substantial – as the video points out, it’s quite easy to work out the potential energy release of the strikes, on the assumption that they came in at Mach 8-10. It’s about 2-3 times that of the W-88, the standard 2,000lb of the USAF – roughly similar to the biggest conventional thermobaric weapons used by the Russians. The damage to such a huge and heavily reinforced structure like the target will depend largely on accuracy. The MIRVs are likely to have CEP’s of around 100 metres. To be more accurate (if needed), they would probably need a slower entry so some kind of terminal target acquisition is possible – this isn’t possible with a heat shielded hypersonic, at least not as far as we know.
I’ve seen Ukrainian reports that they’ve recovered parts from both Yars/Topol and Bulava (R-30) missile families. So it’s likely that the missile is a distinct weapon, but assembled using existing technologies and parts from both of these missile families. Given that US exited the INF treaty in 2019, it’s reasonable that Russians could develop such a weapon in 5 years.
It’s also worth noting that Budanov/GUR is claiming that this missile is from Kedr missile family, which is being developed as a lighter and more mobile replacement for Yars/Topol family.
Please note that this post did not make any claims regarding HOW the Oreshink operates. I find that much less important, as I indicated in the post, than the proof of the pudding, which is the hypersonic speed at impact and what that means in terms of the potency of the weapon, as in the damage done by raw kinetic force and additional effect of the super high heat.
The hypersonic speed through the terminal phase also renders it credibly non-interceptible, while before Ukraine could claim it got super lucky and intercepted earlier Russian hypersonic missiles.
The second additional key design feature is the combination of the MIRV-like behavior. That means Russia can send a big payload of warheads and be sure they will get through.
Note that with other weapons that target infrastructure, you do not want an exact hit. For reasons over my pay grade, you do more damage by hitting very close by rather than exactly.
Not, this was NOT “scuttlebutt.” These were formal meetings with executives in the same line of business in their offices who knew I was engaged by a direct, albeit unnamed, competitor. They understood this was all on the record, as opposed to, say daisy chaining through contacts, setting up a meeting over drinks and pretending I was merely general background.
edit: “What if the US will acquire this not in 20-30 years time? But much earlier.”
Of course referring to RU-style hypersonics. Not computer game sci-fi technology
The Friedmanites started by attacking the public education system in parallel to the launch of The Powell Memo back in my childhood.
The dependence of US weapons quality on procurement methodology is just the last link in a long and serially broken causal chain.
Primary physics research, because its interesting rather than profitable, requires math and science education because its interesting rather than profitable which implies rebuilding US science and math education from the ground up. This is a generational problem it seems to me.
It seems to me that it shows Russia has no need to escalate to nuclear except in ultimate retaliation. If Nato wants to continue the fight “for as long as it takes”, they are more likely to go nuclear, particularly as many US commanders appear to think such a war would be confined to Eurasia, and going all in on targets in Russia will decapitate the country that will then collapse. A fatal misunderstanding, along with unverified claims that Russia uses meatgrinder tactics, has lost hundreds of thousands of men, and needs Korean and now other non-Russian troop reinforcements.
The west does not want to learn the military lessons of the Ukrainian war which you would think are vital to learn. I have read of a few changes here and a few changes there but nothing substantial. I’m going to call it and say that the reason that this is so is because we are too financially committed to the present weapons systems. No way will the F-35 contracts be allowed to be cancelled. Same with those new Ford-class super carriers. There is too far too much money involved. Too many people in the military and in the MIC that utterly depend on nothing changing. It does not matter if those weapons systems even work so long as people are making money. And if things go t*** up, then the US can fall back on the threat of all the nukes that they have. One day, US troops will go into battle against either a peer enemy or a second tier military and will experience an out and out defeat not seen since the Korean war. So maybe the Pentagon will fight against any deployment to a place where this could happen.
“Sunk cost fallacy” might be a great rebranding for the US surface fleet following the quip that there are two kinds of navy ships, submarines and destroyed ones.
Because those sunk costs have created not just weapons but sinecures that have mature into duchies and fiefdoms. The corruption is so deep and wide that it cannot be eliminated at this time no matter what Trump claims. It will take, at minimum, a decade before the Pentagon can field a credible threat to Russia/China and maybe even Iran. l
Interesting post. It sounds like the Russians put their tech geniuses to making weapons whereas the EuroAmericans (which includes the Israelis) put theirs–per Conor’s post yesterday–to work on surveillance. The former see an external threat and the latter an internal threat no matter how much they pretend to be afraid of Russia or China.
And if this new missile is a kinetic weapon then we’ve come full circle back to Napoleon time when cannon balls used kinetic force to mow down opponents. The explosions took place inside the gun barrels and not out on the field as per Hollywood (there were a few weapons that used fused shells). Napoleon called artillery the king of battles.
Important 19th century safety tip. If you see a cannonball slowly rolling along the ground, do not try to stop it with your foot. It will still take your foot right off.
I am sorry it I implied this is only a kinetic weapon. It can carry payloads, including a nuclear weapon.
It appears, but we are not yet sure, that this first deployment showcases only its kinetic + heat effects. Upon reflection, the Russians may have been interested in isolating that.
A wise man I knew told me that he remembered Sputnik as a child because, as a child prodigy, the quality of his education suddenly improved. He got more attention at school and so on.
I don’t see anything happening like that now. American academic science is largely held up by graduate students and postdocs from India, China, Iran, etc, there won’t be any appetite to many any large investments into human capital.
And the question also becomes: who cares about the USA as country and not just a marketplace? A place where it only matters to make some money by any means necessary?
Ted Postal’s immediate reaction on seeing the video (appearing on Daniel Davis’s channel) was that this involved significant new technology. Among other things, he pointed out the orientation of the sub-munitions to achieve stable destinations but arriving at staggered times.
Martyanov has commented that form for Putin is to announce production of a new capability only after production is well underway. US should assume more are available for immediate use and the stockpile will be growing.
Great article. However, I have one disagreement. “Now the US is the clear leader in some important weapons categories, such as submarines.” This is no longer true. First, Russia now has more subs than the US. Their latest subs, the Yasen is extremely quiet. It carries the hypersonic Zircon missile. which travels at Mach 9 and is nuclear capable. Yes, the US is probably silghtly ahead of the Russians in that we have 3 Seawolfs and more Virginia class subs than they have Yasens. But in submarine warfare if you can’t find the other guy numerical superiority doesn’t matter as much. For instance in 2018 a Yasen class sub entered the Atlantic and the US looked for weeks and couldn’t find it. This was reported on 60 minutes. Getting trail on your opponent and staying there important. Once you lose the guy its almost impossible to find them unless they cross a well surveilled choke point. I know. I personally spent long hours on watch while in trail on Russian subs during the cold war. And I can tell you even then, many times we were sent out to find one that we knew was somewhere in the area, but couldn’t locate it. And those were the older subs. All of this to say, yes, the US might have a slight edge in capability, but not enough to make a difference. And the US has no hypersonic weapons. One Yasen could launch, clear datum, and take out a carrier battle group hundreds of miles away, destroying every surface ship in minutes before they even knew what hit them.
Andrei Martyanov, who was a former Russian naval officer, and a huge Russia cheerleader, says US subs are the best and by more than a tiny margin. The fact that they can now serve as platforms for more formidable weapons does not make them better subs. I defer to Martyanov.
Yes Jack has a point. And additionally, the US is short of both enough technically able crew, and ship repair / shipbuilding facilities. I read an article the other day (sorry, can’t remember where) where a US Admiral was complaining that they should be building something like 2.5 subs per year but are only managing 1.2 (approximate figures from memory).
Also, here:
is a short video showing US and Russian fighter plane comparison. Logically, this disparity will be widespread over many other areas.
Russian research in war technology seems to be very advanced, and while this may be a disadvantage to the larger economy just now, spin-offs from this research may be useful for civilian products later (as in non-stick Teflon was).
Lastly, US military technology has been distinguished in the last couple of decades by a large number of conspicuous failures, From Zumwalt to F-22 etc
Unmanned air vehicles are a non starter for USAF: who would run the AF if there were no pilots. Those wings on the chests are “universal management” badges!
As to air cover for Ukraine 2023 offensive: that would have required air dominance: suppression of air defenses and MiG sweeps as did not work in South/North Vietnam. Such air dominance requires a large number of aircraft, serving varied roles/missions, and too much of logistics a long way from USA. The available bases from the Dneiper west are totally inadequate, and would be targeted. In short the size of tactical air force for the 2023 offensive would have been much bigger than US deployed in Southeast Asia in the late 1960’s. There are now inadequate forces, with low readiness and even less logistics!
Oreshnik: Interesting, I cannot speculate on flight pattern or trajectories. Rocket science: accuracy, keeping MIRV’s with submunitions accurate and clustered (!!!), heat shielding (!!!).
I have not seen that US’ usual MIC suppliers have kept any hypersonic object from losing control! Matybe Spacex can do for this what they do for attaining orbit.
Oreshnik is probably very expensive, multistage rocket with exceptional controls for accuracy.
The warhead is Putin’s “new laws of physics”.
Russia has always been far advanced in basic science! The perceived difficulty was making the science a product such as a weapon. Seems that is no longer an issue for Russia.
US on the other hand seems to have become inept at delivering new weapons. See F-35, which needs a new power plant when no technical break through is coming in power! See Ford class where US Navy gets ships that take years to shake out!
The US problems include: profit and lobbyists (root of rest), inept science, inadequate testing of product (or corrupt: tests not performed are passes), technology “gates” too loose (inept tech gets built).
Permanent war has consumed a large part of the US’ huge national security budget! R&D and procurement as inept as it is consumes around 30% of the war spending!
Given the MIC system I do not see how a race over Oreshnik will do anything but pay dividends!
The west reminds me of 1939 Japan right now where the IJN was building super-heavy battleships like Yamato/Musashi in an era where it had already been clearly shown that the aircraft carrier had made them completely obsolete. This has always been mysterious to me why they leaned in so heavily to an easily countered unit.
The US/UK is doing the same thing, but with the aircraft carrier. Mindlessly building force projection strategies around super-heavy carriers that would be smoldering hulks within minutes of any hot war with a peer adversary. One hypersonic at a couple million looks like a deal when the target is the $13 Billion Gerald R Ford.
The battleship became obsolete once torpedoes could be dropped from a cheap biplane (see the Bismark). Now the aircraft carrier will go the same way because drones and heavy missiles are economic and plentiful.
Aircraft carriers have had operational limits from land air power since the beginning!
I am reading Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942. (1st of 3 books) I am USAF vet.
IJN (as USN) had an intrenched battleships corps (black shoe), versus a very small (brown shoe) air dominance corps. Yamamoto, believed in aircraft carriers, was the last serving officer who was at the Battle of Tsushima victory over the Russians. He had commanded battleships, but became brown shoe!
18 inch guns on Yamato and Musashi would have donminated even the 16 inchers on USS Missouri!!
An unexamined aspect of the Russian clustered hypersonic impact munitions is that that they can be installed in much greater numbers as the payload of the largest Russian ICBMs, e.g., the Sarmat. This means it would be feasible to deliver hundreds of hypersonic striking elements with a single missile with global reach. Russia can now destroy almost any military facility, hardened or not, anywhere, at its discretion.
Good essay and responses. I applaud the sensible impulse to concede areas where the West may still retain a technological or functional advantage, but, as in the previous post, it probably isn’t submarines. The Yasens, the diesel-electrics, which US has almost none of, not to mention that Poseidon launching Borei– ships are platforms whose real measure is what they can launch, and Zircons tip the balance quite heavily Russia’s way.
Radar? Color me skeptical.
F-35s may single-handedly disarm NATO airpower by being unreliable, unsustainable, and unaffordable and under-performing.
Satellites, maybe? Keyhole satellites, number of satellites, breadth of coverage. But, then again, Russia leads in satellite killing capabilities. So, there’s that.
But the general discussion around the emergence of conventional weapons with strategic effects seems on point. Regarding the Oreshnik specifically:
Brings US staging areas anywhere in Europe into the cross-hairs, this is even apart from the interdiction of sea lanes. Ditto air bases, which can take 100 missiles to destroy–and that may require many more than a hundred to get a hundred that get past AD. One Oreshnik would significantly disable an airfield, 3-4 to destroy it.
Ritter makes the point that these seem almost tailor-made to take out missile bases–potentially, we have a looming Cuban Missile Crisis in 2026 wherein Russia destroys Dark Eagle bases in Europe as soon as Dark Eagles are determined to have arrived. But the Aegis Ashore bases in Poland & Romania must be at the top of current target lists. So ports, staging areas, air bases, missile bases, and perhaps bases where nukes are stored.
It is of secondary nature but as the “LRHW” goes – it does not exist yet. And as someone Germany-based I seriously hope this remains true well after 2026. We cannot handle a situation where 5 minutes are on for verification.
But so far Berlin does not get it. The incompetence is astonishing considering that those missiles are suppsosed to be stationed on the very territory of Germany. As if it didn´t concern us.
I hope it´s possible to at least raise awareness for Oreshnik etc. with pieces as the lead above. One can only try and spread the info and give it to MPs, reporters, NGOs.
So if someone here knows people from Bundeswehr – because I don´t – tell them. That btw concerns the misgivings over F-35s too. Nobody talks about it. In the 1960s at least German press destroyed German DoD for the Starfighter scandal.
> the great summer counteroffensive of 2023 … should have been seen as a humiliating defeat. Perhaps I missed it, but I have not heard of any come across signs that that has been internalized by NATO or the US, meaning no/not enough of a post mortem much the less recognition of the need for a serious rethink of how the West wages war.
It’s even worse than this when we factor in that the AFU forces were large and well equipped compared to any European Nato force.
Each country must have military specialists who have a reasonable understanding of the situation but cannot say it. In The Emperor’s New Clothes the child blurts out the truth and the city people accept it but the parade goes on. In our reality, the city people can’t see that the cloths are old and worn out so the child’s words are dismissed.
– I have been drafting this just this moment. I rather post than not at all. Must do stuff. Many thanks for the outstanding work above with this speed. Will try to get people read it. –
re: Martyanov and Oreshnik as game changer:
As I am trying to gather the reasons why Oreshnik is a game changer the way Zircon/Kinzhals are not (hypersonic attributes would come with all of the models) – Martyanov in his latest video has a helpful example and that is destruction of army units assembling before attacks.
i.e. that Oreshnik basically replaces tactical nukes.
12.000 men e.g. could be wiped out in this particular example judging from the area destroyed in Dnepro.
Of course it would be “interesting” to know how much area 36 munition items (with 6 warheads and 6 sub-munitions) could cover at maximum in such a fashion on the surface.
TC 17:00-21:00
https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2024/11/there-is-issue-with-physics.html
Before that he briefly shows Bremerhaven as a landing spot of eminent importance to US logistics that too would be wiped out without nukes.
This is the true nature of the game changing term. And I assume it is only the beginning as yield and power/might are concerned.
Eventually, do nukes with all their harmful side effects become obsolete?
Those aspects that forbid their use?
“Clean”, “surgical” nukes with minium fallout and civilian casualties was one intention behind US nuclear first strike/counterstrike strategies as first publicly laid out by Lieber & Press in 2006 and made widely known through informing the public about the super-fuze.
a.k.a. “US nuclear primacy and the end of MAD”. A short lived assumption apparently. Wonder if Stratcom will understand.
Which would have made nuclear war admissible.
However – and forgive me for over-stretching here – if a final stage of a new “clean” weapons system would replace nukes even on a strategic level that would have implications, not only good ones.
Because what made one uneasy already with Tridents that could be super-accurate and therefore be “not a problem” would apply here too.
It would make the use of non-nuclear super-bombs an easy moral decision.
We are approaching the scenarios known from Sic-Fi movies (“THE CREATOR” e.g.) and computer strategy games of the 1990s, like the “Command & Conquer” series where a Western US-led NATO clone had a super-weapon that could pulverize anything with laser-accuracy on a large scale. With a weapon safely stationed in space – god-like powers.
What if the US will acquire this not in 20-30 years time? But much earlier.
Russia has always had overwhelming conventional superiority over the West, that’s why NATO has a fetish for nuclear brinksmanship. It’s the only card in the deck in case of a ground war with RU.
RU planes, tanks, AA, missile tech, small arms all historically superior to western equivalents AND they have quantity advantage too.
The best analysis I’ve seen is from Millennium7*, which is hosted by a former military aerospace engineer. Unlike most of the people who’ve been posting on this, he knows how to do the calculations. I’d recommend watching his video.
He doesn’t believe it’s a new weapon – it’s most likely a land based version of the R-30 (RSM-56), the main submarine launched ballistic missile used by Russia. The flight characteristics match what you’d expect from it (i.e. a fairly flat trajectory), and the size of the payload matches one thats been adopted for short range and a high load – probably around 3-4 metric tonnes. It’s most likely the MIRVs are adopted standard ones – these are very expensive and high tech, but a mature technology, they’ve been around since the 1960’s. There is no need for wild speculations about super duper hypersonics, these have been around for a long time, but generally used only for nukes, for a variety of reasons, not least cost.
The damage is likely substantial – as the video points out, it’s quite easy to work out the potential energy release of the strikes, on the assumption that they came in at Mach 8-10. It’s about 2-3 times that of the W-88, the standard 2,000lb of the USAF – roughly similar to the biggest conventional thermobaric weapons used by the Russians. The damage to such a huge and heavily reinforced structure like the target will depend largely on accuracy. The MIRVs are likely to have CEP’s of around 100 metres. To be more accurate (if needed), they would probably need a slower entry so some kind of terminal target acquisition is possible – this isn’t possible with a heat shielded hypersonic, at least not as far as we know.
I’ve seen Ukrainian reports that they’ve recovered parts from both Yars/Topol and Bulava (R-30) missile families. So it’s likely that the missile is a distinct weapon, but assembled using existing technologies and parts from both of these missile families. Given that US exited the INF treaty in 2019, it’s reasonable that Russians could develop such a weapon in 5 years.
It’s also worth noting that Budanov/GUR is claiming that this missile is from Kedr missile family, which is being developed as a lighter and more mobile replacement for Yars/Topol family.
Please note that this post did not make any claims regarding HOW the Oreshink operates. I find that much less important, as I indicated in the post, than the proof of the pudding, which is the hypersonic speed at impact and what that means in terms of the potency of the weapon, as in the damage done by raw kinetic force and additional effect of the super high heat.
The hypersonic speed through the terminal phase also renders it credibly non-interceptible, while before Ukraine could claim it got super lucky and intercepted earlier Russian hypersonic missiles.
The second additional key design feature is the combination of the MIRV-like behavior. That means Russia can send a big payload of warheads and be sure they will get through.
Note that with other weapons that target infrastructure, you do not want an exact hit. For reasons over my pay grade, you do more damage by hitting very close by rather than exactly.
“I was the only person at McKinsey to have the nerve to call direct competitors of my client …” Phillip Fisher called this “scuttlebutt”. Good job.
Not, this was NOT “scuttlebutt.” These were formal meetings with executives in the same line of business in their offices who knew I was engaged by a direct, albeit unnamed, competitor. They understood this was all on the record, as opposed to, say daisy chaining through contacts, setting up a meeting over drinks and pretending I was merely general background.
edit: “What if the US will acquire this not in 20-30 years time? But much earlier.”
Of course referring to RU-style hypersonics. Not computer game sci-fi technology
The Friedmanites started by attacking the public education system in parallel to the launch of The Powell Memo back in my childhood.
The dependence of US weapons quality on procurement methodology is just the last link in a long and serially broken causal chain.
Primary physics research, because its interesting rather than profitable, requires math and science education because its interesting rather than profitable which implies rebuilding US science and math education from the ground up. This is a generational problem it seems to me.
It seems to me that it shows Russia has no need to escalate to nuclear except in ultimate retaliation. If Nato wants to continue the fight “for as long as it takes”, they are more likely to go nuclear, particularly as many US commanders appear to think such a war would be confined to Eurasia, and going all in on targets in Russia will decapitate the country that will then collapse. A fatal misunderstanding, along with unverified claims that Russia uses meatgrinder tactics, has lost hundreds of thousands of men, and needs Korean and now other non-Russian troop reinforcements.
The west does not want to learn the military lessons of the Ukrainian war which you would think are vital to learn. I have read of a few changes here and a few changes there but nothing substantial. I’m going to call it and say that the reason that this is so is because we are too financially committed to the present weapons systems. No way will the F-35 contracts be allowed to be cancelled. Same with those new Ford-class super carriers. There is too far too much money involved. Too many people in the military and in the MIC that utterly depend on nothing changing. It does not matter if those weapons systems even work so long as people are making money. And if things go t*** up, then the US can fall back on the threat of all the nukes that they have. One day, US troops will go into battle against either a peer enemy or a second tier military and will experience an out and out defeat not seen since the Korean war. So maybe the Pentagon will fight against any deployment to a place where this could happen.
Sunk cost fallacy is the MIC paradigm!
“Sunk cost fallacy” might be a great rebranding for the US surface fleet following the quip that there are two kinds of navy ships, submarines and destroyed ones.
Because those sunk costs have created not just weapons but sinecures that have mature into duchies and fiefdoms. The corruption is so deep and wide that it cannot be eliminated at this time no matter what Trump claims. It will take, at minimum, a decade before the Pentagon can field a credible threat to Russia/China and maybe even Iran. l
Interesting post. It sounds like the Russians put their tech geniuses to making weapons whereas the EuroAmericans (which includes the Israelis) put theirs–per Conor’s post yesterday–to work on surveillance. The former see an external threat and the latter an internal threat no matter how much they pretend to be afraid of Russia or China.
And if this new missile is a kinetic weapon then we’ve come full circle back to Napoleon time when cannon balls used kinetic force to mow down opponents. The explosions took place inside the gun barrels and not out on the field as per Hollywood (there were a few weapons that used fused shells). Napoleon called artillery the king of battles.
Yeah, you can see why-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrY81GZgrtg (2:00 mins)
Important 19th century safety tip. If you see a cannonball slowly rolling along the ground, do not try to stop it with your foot. It will still take your foot right off.
Or many of our EuroAmerican tech geniuses end up working for investment banks ? **rimshot**
Working on “financial products” that destroy. **drop mic**
I am sorry it I implied this is only a kinetic weapon. It can carry payloads, including a nuclear weapon.
It appears, but we are not yet sure, that this first deployment showcases only its kinetic + heat effects. Upon reflection, the Russians may have been interested in isolating that.
A wise man I knew told me that he remembered Sputnik as a child because, as a child prodigy, the quality of his education suddenly improved. He got more attention at school and so on.
I don’t see anything happening like that now. American academic science is largely held up by graduate students and postdocs from India, China, Iran, etc, there won’t be any appetite to many any large investments into human capital.
And the question also becomes: who cares about the USA as country and not just a marketplace? A place where it only matters to make some money by any means necessary?
Rule #1: Because markets.
Speaking of huge underground reinforced bunkers, aren’t aircraft carriers huge aboveground reinforced bunkers?
Ted Postal’s immediate reaction on seeing the video (appearing on Daniel Davis’s channel) was that this involved significant new technology. Among other things, he pointed out the orientation of the sub-munitions to achieve stable destinations but arriving at staggered times.
Martyanov has commented that form for Putin is to announce production of a new capability only after production is well underway. US should assume more are available for immediate use and the stockpile will be growing.
Great article. However, I have one disagreement. “Now the US is the clear leader in some important weapons categories, such as submarines.” This is no longer true. First, Russia now has more subs than the US. Their latest subs, the Yasen is extremely quiet. It carries the hypersonic Zircon missile. which travels at Mach 9 and is nuclear capable. Yes, the US is probably silghtly ahead of the Russians in that we have 3 Seawolfs and more Virginia class subs than they have Yasens. But in submarine warfare if you can’t find the other guy numerical superiority doesn’t matter as much. For instance in 2018 a Yasen class sub entered the Atlantic and the US looked for weeks and couldn’t find it. This was reported on 60 minutes. Getting trail on your opponent and staying there important. Once you lose the guy its almost impossible to find them unless they cross a well surveilled choke point. I know. I personally spent long hours on watch while in trail on Russian subs during the cold war. And I can tell you even then, many times we were sent out to find one that we knew was somewhere in the area, but couldn’t locate it. And those were the older subs. All of this to say, yes, the US might have a slight edge in capability, but not enough to make a difference. And the US has no hypersonic weapons. One Yasen could launch, clear datum, and take out a carrier battle group hundreds of miles away, destroying every surface ship in minutes before they even knew what hit them.
*Sigh*
Andrei Martyanov, who was a former Russian naval officer, and a huge Russia cheerleader, says US subs are the best and by more than a tiny margin. The fact that they can now serve as platforms for more formidable weapons does not make them better subs. I defer to Martyanov.
Yes Jack has a point. And additionally, the US is short of both enough technically able crew, and ship repair / shipbuilding facilities. I read an article the other day (sorry, can’t remember where) where a US Admiral was complaining that they should be building something like 2.5 subs per year but are only managing 1.2 (approximate figures from memory).
Also, here:
https://militarywatchmagazine.com/video/russian-air-force-vs-us-air-force-summary-global-war
is a short video showing US and Russian fighter plane comparison. Logically, this disparity will be widespread over many other areas.
Russian research in war technology seems to be very advanced, and while this may be a disadvantage to the larger economy just now, spin-offs from this research may be useful for civilian products later (as in non-stick Teflon was).
Lastly, US military technology has been distinguished in the last couple of decades by a large number of conspicuous failures, From Zumwalt to F-22 etc
Unmanned air vehicles are a non starter for USAF: who would run the AF if there were no pilots. Those wings on the chests are “universal management” badges!
As to air cover for Ukraine 2023 offensive: that would have required air dominance: suppression of air defenses and MiG sweeps as did not work in South/North Vietnam. Such air dominance requires a large number of aircraft, serving varied roles/missions, and too much of logistics a long way from USA. The available bases from the Dneiper west are totally inadequate, and would be targeted. In short the size of tactical air force for the 2023 offensive would have been much bigger than US deployed in Southeast Asia in the late 1960’s. There are now inadequate forces, with low readiness and even less logistics!
Oreshnik: Interesting, I cannot speculate on flight pattern or trajectories. Rocket science: accuracy, keeping MIRV’s with submunitions accurate and clustered (!!!), heat shielding (!!!).
I have not seen that US’ usual MIC suppliers have kept any hypersonic object from losing control! Matybe Spacex can do for this what they do for attaining orbit.
Oreshnik is probably very expensive, multistage rocket with exceptional controls for accuracy.
The warhead is Putin’s “new laws of physics”.
Russia has always been far advanced in basic science! The perceived difficulty was making the science a product such as a weapon. Seems that is no longer an issue for Russia.
US on the other hand seems to have become inept at delivering new weapons. See F-35, which needs a new power plant when no technical break through is coming in power! See Ford class where US Navy gets ships that take years to shake out!
The US problems include: profit and lobbyists (root of rest), inept science, inadequate testing of product (or corrupt: tests not performed are passes), technology “gates” too loose (inept tech gets built).
Permanent war has consumed a large part of the US’ huge national security budget! R&D and procurement as inept as it is consumes around 30% of the war spending!
Given the MIC system I do not see how a race over Oreshnik will do anything but pay dividends!
US has spent itself into disarmament!
The west reminds me of 1939 Japan right now where the IJN was building super-heavy battleships like Yamato/Musashi in an era where it had already been clearly shown that the aircraft carrier had made them completely obsolete. This has always been mysterious to me why they leaned in so heavily to an easily countered unit.
The US/UK is doing the same thing, but with the aircraft carrier. Mindlessly building force projection strategies around super-heavy carriers that would be smoldering hulks within minutes of any hot war with a peer adversary. One hypersonic at a couple million looks like a deal when the target is the $13 Billion Gerald R Ford.
The battleship became obsolete once torpedoes could be dropped from a cheap biplane (see the Bismark). Now the aircraft carrier will go the same way because drones and heavy missiles are economic and plentiful.
Interesting!
Aircraft carriers have had operational limits from land air power since the beginning!
I am reading Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942. (1st of 3 books) I am USAF vet.
IJN (as USN) had an intrenched battleships corps (black shoe), versus a very small (brown shoe) air dominance corps. Yamamoto, believed in aircraft carriers, was the last serving officer who was at the Battle of Tsushima victory over the Russians. He had commanded battleships, but became brown shoe!
18 inch guns on Yamato and Musashi would have donminated even the 16 inchers on USS Missouri!!
An unexamined aspect of the Russian clustered hypersonic impact munitions is that that they can be installed in much greater numbers as the payload of the largest Russian ICBMs, e.g., the Sarmat. This means it would be feasible to deliver hundreds of hypersonic striking elements with a single missile with global reach. Russia can now destroy almost any military facility, hardened or not, anywhere, at its discretion.
Good essay and responses. I applaud the sensible impulse to concede areas where the West may still retain a technological or functional advantage, but, as in the previous post, it probably isn’t submarines. The Yasens, the diesel-electrics, which US has almost none of, not to mention that Poseidon launching Borei– ships are platforms whose real measure is what they can launch, and Zircons tip the balance quite heavily Russia’s way.
Radar? Color me skeptical.
F-35s may single-handedly disarm NATO airpower by being unreliable, unsustainable, and unaffordable and under-performing.
Satellites, maybe? Keyhole satellites, number of satellites, breadth of coverage. But, then again, Russia leads in satellite killing capabilities. So, there’s that.
But the general discussion around the emergence of conventional weapons with strategic effects seems on point. Regarding the Oreshnik specifically:
Brings US staging areas anywhere in Europe into the cross-hairs, this is even apart from the interdiction of sea lanes. Ditto air bases, which can take 100 missiles to destroy–and that may require many more than a hundred to get a hundred that get past AD. One Oreshnik would significantly disable an airfield, 3-4 to destroy it.
Ritter makes the point that these seem almost tailor-made to take out missile bases–potentially, we have a looming Cuban Missile Crisis in 2026 wherein Russia destroys Dark Eagle bases in Europe as soon as Dark Eagles are determined to have arrived. But the Aegis Ashore bases in Poland & Romania must be at the top of current target lists. So ports, staging areas, air bases, missile bases, and perhaps bases where nukes are stored.
It is of secondary nature but as the “LRHW” goes – it does not exist yet. And as someone Germany-based I seriously hope this remains true well after 2026. We cannot handle a situation where 5 minutes are on for verification.
But so far Berlin does not get it. The incompetence is astonishing considering that those missiles are suppsosed to be stationed on the very territory of Germany. As if it didn´t concern us.
I hope it´s possible to at least raise awareness for Oreshnik etc. with pieces as the lead above. One can only try and spread the info and give it to MPs, reporters, NGOs.
So if someone here knows people from Bundeswehr – because I don´t – tell them. That btw concerns the misgivings over F-35s too. Nobody talks about it. In the 1960s at least German press destroyed German DoD for the Starfighter scandal.
> the great summer counteroffensive of 2023 … should have been seen as a humiliating defeat. Perhaps I missed it, but I have not heard of any come across signs that that has been internalized by NATO or the US, meaning no/not enough of a post mortem much the less recognition of the need for a serious rethink of how the West wages war.
It’s even worse than this when we factor in that the AFU forces were large and well equipped compared to any European Nato force.
Each country must have military specialists who have a reasonable understanding of the situation but cannot say it. In The Emperor’s New Clothes the child blurts out the truth and the city people accept it but the parade goes on. In our reality, the city people can’t see that the cloths are old and worn out so the child’s words are dismissed.