Russia has leveraged its diverse array of long-range missile weapons to bombard targets beyond the frontlines in Ukraine for nearly six months now. By August 8, that reportedly totaled 3,650 missiles launched at Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began on February 24, implying an average of nearly 22 missiles daily.
But a steep decline in attacks in August suggests the bottom may be falling out of Russia’s missile campaign as it runs out of hi-tech weapons, which it can only replace very slowly.
Since early in the war, Tu-22M and Tu-160 bombers approaching from different vectors have daily lobbed new Kh-101 and older Kh-555 cruise missiles while safely outside the range of Ukrainian air defenses. They were supplemented by Kalibr cruise missiles fired by ships, and submarines. Russia also had in its arsenal truck-launched Iskander-M ballistic missiles, Iskander-K cruise missiles, and even old Tochka ballistic missiles Moscow claimed to have retired.
Earlier in the war, these attacks occasionally achieved militarily relevant results by knocking out fuel depots, weapons factories, hangars with non-operational aircraft, or barracks full of sleeping Ukrainian personnel.
But just as often, and seemingly with increasing frequency, the attacks went astray – or were deliberately targeted against the civilian population – and demolished apartment buildings and shopping malls, performance halls, and civic centers, killing between them hundreds of civilians.
Strikes also sporadically targeted Ukraine’s agricultural sector – on which many impoverished countries depend to avoid starvation – with two missiles striking port facilities in Odesa on July 23, the day after Moscow agreed to a deal giving Ukrainian ships laden with grain free passage. Then at night on July 30-31, eight Kalibr missiles plastered the Odesa home of Ukrainian agro-export tycoon Oleksiy Vadatursky. One precisely struck his bedroom, killing him and his wife Raisa.
But Russia’s missile campaign always had a major sustainability problem: cruise and ballistic missiles are expensive weapons and Russia’s inventory only ran so deep, particularly given Moscow’s need to set aside a reserve in case of a war with NATO.
U.S. intelligence officials also alleged in March they had observed a failure rate varying daily between 20 percent and 60 percent for Russian air-launched cruise missiles, an unverified claim which may relate to severe accuracy problems earlier observed in Russian missile strikes in Syria.
Russia began using weapons not primarily designed to attack land targets, including brand new Bastion anti-ship missiles, old Soviet-era Kh-22 carrier killers cruise missiles, and even S-300 air defense missiles. This rendered the attacks even less accurate and more prone to inflict collateral damage than before.
Now in August, the once-furious missile campaign seems to have petered out, with missiles hurled at Ukraine more sporadically and in smaller numbers. Russia may have finally exhausted most of the missiles not held in its war-with-NATO reserve.
Aviation historian Tom Cooper writes “Russians have run their stocks of ballistic- and cruise missiles ‘dry’. That is: they’ve had much less than [the Kremlin] were claiming, and have spent nearly everything … Net result: they’re down to using whatever their factories manage to assemble.”
Cooper concedes that shorter-range Kh-31 and Kh-59M missiles are still being used effectively for tactical strikes and that Russia also carried out its second-ever strike with the Kh-47 Kinzhal ballistic missiles, air-launched by a MiG-31 fighter on August 7 targeting a factory in Vinnytsia following an initial attack in March. Though the Kinzhal is highly difficult to intercept, it’s only available in pre-production quantities, and therefore can only be employed on a limited basis.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian air defenses have become more effective at shooting down the incoming missiles, forcing Russia to launch larger salvoes to guarantee some make it through the gauntlet. Cooper notes that Ukrainian air defenses destroyed all four Kalibr missiles launched at Odesa on August 8 (including one shot down by a fighter), and three out of four on July 24.
Rocket science: not as easy as you’ve been told
Can’t Russia just spend the money needed to increase missile production to compensate?
According to analysts, the answer is basically, no—even though Moscow is trying to.
A June article by Maxim Starchak spells out how slowly Russia will be able to replace its exhausted cruise and ballistic missiles despite attempts to increase the pace of production by working three shifts and hiring more workers. Shortages of skilled workers, inability to purchase Western microelectronics and failure to develop domestic components are all culprits.
Based on his figures, monthly missile production rates are as follows:
– Novator plant: 8-10 Kalibr naval cruise missiles* per month
– Novator plant: 3-6 Iskander-K cruise missiles per month (“several dozen [annually]”) per month
– Votkinsk plant: 5 Iskander-M ballistic missiles per month (increased from 4)
[from other sources] 2-4 Oniks anti-ship missiles per month (“several dozen annually”) or 4.5 per month (55 annually) used in Bastion coastal defense system and Russian ships
*The Kalibr comes in faster, shorter-range anti-ship variants; and slower, longer-range land-attack models. Depending on how production is allocated, not all may be built in the land-attack configuration.
According to Starchak, Moscow’s measures will not increase output beyond 20 percent due to a lack of skilled workers. And by June those measures had yet to be implemented at the Tactical Missiles Corporation, a manufacturer of air-launched cruise missiles – which he believes are built at a similar rate as the Kalibr or Iskander missiles.
Furthermore, as Russia scrambles to source alternatives to Western components, the changes will require costly testing and likely reduce reliability and accuracy. Meanwhile, stocks of old Kh-555, Kh-22, and Tochka missiles liberally will of course not be replaced at all as they are obsolete and out of production.
Some believe Russia’s productive capacity may be even more limited. An article by Pavel Luzvin estimates ponderous production by United Engine Corporation of the two variants of TRDD-50 turbojet engines used in missiles will limit annual output to just 45-50 Iskander-K and Kh-59 cruise missiles; and 45-50 Kh-101 and Kalibr cruise missiles.
He more broadly concludes that Russian production of all land-attack cruise and ballistic missiles caps out to 225 annually or about 19 per month. That said, Luzvin’s calculations are in part extrapolated from labor productivity statistics, not directly reported production rates.
He concludes: “In these circumstances, Russia may be limited to carrying out singular but regular missile strikes designed mostly to have a psychological effect, while every few months or so, firing off salvos of tens of missiles against industrial and/or infrastructure objects.”
However, improvements to Ukrainian air defenses (such as Ukraine’s eventual deployment of Western NASAMS and IRIS-T air defense batteries) could render even that limited strategy ineffective, requiring large volleys to over-saturate air defenses.
Ironically, Ukraine has proven more capable of carrying out a missile campaign that delivers militarily impactful results with accurate strikes on Russian ammunition depots, headquarters, bridges, airbases, and air-defense sites well behind the frontline.
These have caused heavy casualties, drastically reduced the volume of Russian artillery fire, and forced Russia to relocate its supply hubs and warplanes even further from the frontline, significantly decreasing logistical efficiency.
Of course, Ukraine’s standoff-strike campaign has been enabled by GPS-guided rockets/missiles and extensive intelligence assistance for target acquisition supplied by the United States and its NATO allies.
Nonetheless, Russia has burned through over 3,000 expensive long-range missiles with relatively limited results for the effort besides the many Ukrainians angered by death and devastation visited more often than not on civilians in commercial and residential areas as plausible military targets—whether due to inaccuracy or out of a deliberate strategy to shock and terrorize.
Expert Biography: Sébastien Roblin writes on the technical, historical, and political aspects of international security and conflict for publications including The National Interest, NBC News, Forbes.com, War is Boring and 19FortyFive, where he is Defense-in-Depth editor. He holds a Master’s degree from Georgetown University and served with the Peace Corps in China. You can follow his articles on Twitter.
Friend
August 20, 2022 at 5:12 am
Low tech, high manpower used to be the recipe. Russia is waging this campaign amidst a demographic disaster in Russia. Highest rates of AIDS, alcoholism, drug addiction in the world. One-quarter population carry TBC bac. The underpowered and undermanned army in shambles is nowhere near capable of defending the borders. The rockets that are made are for show. They have no strategic value.
from Russia with love
August 20, 2022 at 9:29 am
it’s funny that this article was published on the same day when the RF Ministry of Defense announced a massive strike on objects in Nikolaev and the Nikolaev region. I wonder if these “experts” publish such articles in the hope that they will someday guess? try again in winter.? cheer me up before the new year?
Vlad is a thug
August 20, 2022 at 11:38 am
How long before Vlad succumbs to poison from within? The fool has destroyed his country’s economy, future and lowered Russian world standing…if that is even possible!
Nobody is afraid of his continuous sniveling and threats…a paper tiger that has been publicly humiliated as a third rate military.
Now they are whining about Russian soldiers being poisoned in Ukraine! Too bad they didn’t show the same concern for raping, killing innocent women and children.
Fluffy Dog
August 20, 2022 at 11:40 am
That’s a pretty good summary of the war. The Russian “western replacement” campaign was a failure. The result is that all that missile production is not only constrained by the labor shortage, but also by the lack of western hi-tech. It affects not only cruise missiles. For instance, many Russian trucks were equipped with German engines, which need repairs now and then. The long and the short of it is that Russian military capabilities are on the decline while Ukrainian ones are on the rise.
Jacksonian Libertarian
August 20, 2022 at 12:45 pm
The 1st World is the 1st World for real reasons.
Authoritarian cultures can neither create nor maintain Modern Civilization without continuous 1st World input. Cheap low quality knock offs from pirated western IP, are the Best Authoritarian Nations can produce.
Authoritarian countries are always doomed to playing catch up. And while following in the West’s footsteps is easy, with all the development and design work already done. Monopolistic Authoritarian Cultures are incompetent at following those footsteps. The result is smart weapons whose reliability is about 50%, while western smart weapons reliability is in the mid to high 90% range.
This reliability is very important, in the “mature precision strike regime”. Logistically Authoritarians need nearly twice as many smart weapons to achieve similar results. Authoritarian Troops also face double the risk in using the weapons, as revealing your position in the “mature precision strike regime” is a death sentence. Also, Authoritarian Troops know their weapons are inferior, and they are forced to use them timidly to avoid dying.
What we see in Ukrainian Troops is Authoritarian Troops in transition. Timidly wanting to sit back and fire ineffective dumb artillery at the Russians, while a relative hand full armed with smart weapons are attacking and doing the majority of the damage to the Russians. Ukraine needs to fire the Authoritarian trained Generals begging for more dumb weapons. And find the fighting Generals demanding enough smart weapons to be victorious.
TotallyNotBiased
August 20, 2022 at 1:36 pm
@from Russia with love, btw how is that ruski offensive going? last time I checked u promised Seversk and Bahmut to be taken till 10th of August?
seems like they spent all budget on 15 rubles trolls instead of modern weaponry
from Russia with love
August 20, 2022 at 7:50 pm
@TotallyNotBiased
Can you at least write something and not lie? ? when I wrote about “August 10”? I wrote that the battles were already going on in Bakhmut and half of Soledar was taken. I wrote this in the middle of this week. do you think they won’t take it? naive?
how is the attack going? doesn’t go bad. they took settlements in the Nekalaevsky direction, from the south of Bakhmut, there is a promotion in the Kharkov direction. what about the Ukrainians? nothing? retreat? happens?
PS
today there is an air raid throughout Ukraine. and the central and western regions? this definitely indicates that Russia has run out of missiles?
PS PS Serial production of the Zircon rocket started today ??
well, you can continue to believe in fairy tales that are written by people who are not connected with the defense industry, but based on articles by the same journalists who take numbers by looking at the ceiling and picking their nose … well, read Motyl that Putin has cancer? so defeat Russia for sure ? idiots…
from Russia with love
August 20, 2022 at 7:58 pm
@TotallyNotBiased
I have 2 questions for you…
1) on the basis of what did you decide that what is written in this article is true? (Secretly, this entire article is speculation written on the basis of another article based on speculation too. I mean, this is fantasy squared?)
2) you write that authoritarian countries are always catching up … the United States does not have hypersonic missiles. Russia is already the second generation of hypersonic missiles went into mass production.
Are you saying that the USA is an authoritarian country??
Jdawg
August 21, 2022 at 8:19 am
@from Russian with hate
That’s the best you can do, “The U.S. does not have hypersonic weapons…”
Hell, the U.S. had hypersonic weapons in 1964.
Oh, you mean missiles. Our missiles actually hit the targets, unlike so other two bit dicktator’s missiles.
Exnavynuke
August 21, 2022 at 9:20 am
With Respect Jack,
Your math regarding comparative reliability figures is off somewhat. Given the example you gave: 50% vs 90% effective accuracy for strike weapons, the second tier power would need far more weapons to ensure an adequate level of success.
Say, military planners have found a target that must be destroyed – a bridge, a factory, a headquarters. Happily, the target doesn’t yet have any significant air defense. A western military would sling two missiles at the target, knowing they’ve got a 99% chance of success. If a second-tier military flings two of their missiles, they’ve got a 75% chance of taking out their target. (25% chance of 2 hits, 50% chance of 1 hit, 25% chance of both missing) Using the parenthetical expression, it would take quite literally ten missiles to get the roughly the same success chance as with what the First World military would achieve with two.
Admittedly, the Western folks’ missiles are significantly more expensive, but doubtfully five times as expensive. Also, in war expense isn’t usually the most important consideration – time is far more valuable. Especially in this case, time isn’t on the Russians’ side.
Exnavynuke
August 21, 2022 at 9:42 am
@from Russia with love
If I may jump in: (and if not, I’m still going to)
You asked Biased three questions. The second is about hypersonic missiles, with the third about authoritarian nations.
For the second: the USA currently doesn’t admit to having in production hypersonic glide vehicles, although they are in testing – for what that’s worth. I’m not involved anywhere in the planning and procurement chain, so all I have is supposition; but here it is: the US military is familiar with these weapons (we’ve had ICMBs for over 70 years), but didn’t consider them high priorities. Instead they focused their attention on increasingly capable stealthy aircraft, directed energy weapons, and ever more autonomous drones. It might have been a bad call, might not – we’ll see. In any event, the Pentagon is rectifying the issue currently.
And your third question was a throwaway zinger. However, an increasing number of people in the USA would tend to agree with your assessment. This can increase domestic unrest. Before you, or any other agents of unfriendly foreign powers start gleefully rubbing your hands, consider: the most effective way to make a population less restive is a “short, victorious war”. Who do you think the ChiCom-corrupted President select as an enemy to redirect his domestic angst?
Yeah, that’s right. I don’t want war with Russia – no sane person wants war between the USA and USSR (err… Russian Federation); however, it is commonly believed our President can’t be considered to be in his right mind anymore.
from Russia with love
August 21, 2022 at 10:16 am
@Jdawg
does the US have hypersonic weapons?? amazing fantasy? and where is it based? to Arleigh Burke? no, they don’t have. maybe B-52? also no. maybe F-35? and again no. so where is it? in your fantasies??
do your missiles hit? on the Antonovsky bridge from a salvo of 36 missiles hit 6. they are just so good, don’t you think??
what about Russian missiles?
? High-precision long-range sea-based missiles “Caliber” in the area of \u200b\u200bMayorskoye, Odessa region, destroyed an ammunition depot with missiles for American Himars multiple launch rocket systems and Western-made anti-aircraft systems.
this is from the report of the RF Ministry of Defense for the past day. and this every day.?
george
August 21, 2022 at 10:17 am
Is this the monthly Russia is running out off “pick your weapon here” from the 1945 team? I am old enough to remember this nugget https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/06/putins-next-ukraine-disaster-the-russian-army-is-running-out-of-ammo/ and then of course almost a month later https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/07/putin-cant-fix-this-the-russian-military-is-running-out-of-soldiers-in-ukraine/.
Of course, the drawback to Russia running out of conventional weapons is that if Ukraine takes out a couple more important daughters and wives, Russia has more than enough unconventional weapons to turn things really ugly.
from Russia with love
August 21, 2022 at 11:38 am
@exnavynuke
1) why did you decide that time is not on the side of Russia? the American alliance against Russia is now raging with a fuel crisis, an energy crisis, record-breaking inflation, a recession and the looming prospects of a food crisis. what is in Russia? inflation has returned to the level before the special operation, the ruble is recognized as the strongest currency this year, production growth in some industries amounted to more than 100% in the second quarter, everything is fine with food, with the prices of gasoline and gas too.
all Russia needs is to wait until the Western parasitic economy crumbles and Russia has enough resources to do so.
2) your calculations of the ratio of guided and unguided missiles to hit one target make little sense. Before engaging in this nonsense, I recommend that you familiarize yourself with the range of missiles used by Russia in this conflict. read what Tornado-S shoots and about 9K515 ammunition. it has a range of 120 km (unlike 70 km HIMARs) and not only an inertial guidance system like the American MLRS, but also the ability to adjust guidance from a satellite. here, too, the United States in the role of catching up.?
3) “If I may jump in: (and if not, I’m still going to)”
of course get in bro! ??
I addressed my questions to a person who hardly understands what he writes? but since you decided to participate, I will comment…
yes, the United States is working on hypersonic weapons and someday they will get it if they don’t fall apart from the economic crisis earlier? here 2 problems need to be solved. the first is to accelerate the object to hypersonic speed. the second is to control flight at hypersonic speed. The United States has one successful launch, which means that the first problem will be able to be solved in the near future. nothing is known about the second. from here we come to the conclusion that the United States has not yet coped with the management of hypersonic objects. Let me remind you that Russia has already adopted the second generation of hypersonic missiles.
4) “small victorious war” is an American pill.? but suppose that China (where things are much better than in the EU and other countries that, for incomprehensible reasons, call themselves “the whole world”) has a need for a small victorious war. who will they attack? the answer is obvious! on whose territory China has driven its fleet, aircraft and tactical missile systems. of course to Taiwan!? let’s say thanks to the American congressmen who completely removed the ambiguity of the question of which direction China will use force.??
5) fortunately, sleepy Joe will not be able to single-handedly decide on a nuclear war. those who will make such a decision are primarily interested in profiting from the war, but in the event of a conflict with Russia, there will only be losses. very big losses. so this is a very unlikely scenario.
Exnavynuke
August 21, 2022 at 11:44 am
Really, @Russia?
You’re honestly going to ignore the original hypersonic weapons, the ICBMs? Dunno why, your side has ’em too. Now, the question truly should be “why hypersonic missiles”; after all, they are a stupendously expensive way of getting a comparatively small bomb on target. Simple, really. You spies have told your planners that modern air defenses are currently really tough to muscle through, and once the lasers and whatnot nearing deployment reach production they’ll be nigh on impossible for your tech level to beat. So, you guys go really, really fast and hope a limited maneuverability will help you penetrate the next war’s air defenses. The US, with it’s decades long lead is stealth technology, decided their approach would be more like a thief in the night.
Nobody knows which approach will be better; and I hope we never truly have to find out.
Insofar as accuracy is concerned, Ukraine did get some HIMARS systems and fired them, suboptimally at a bridge. The ordinance wasn’t designed for that application, so it didn’t do so hot. Totally different branch, but the Army guys have toys that’d knock it down. IIRC, those rounds for the MLRS systems have a much longer range than the US government would be comfortable giving Ukraine. So there you go… the defenders were using a shotgun to snipe deer.
I don’t know about the logistics levels within Russia, nor do I have any reliable information regarding morale amongst the soldiers nor civilians. I do know that here, in the USA, we’re nowhere near a war footing. Its also not looking like that’s anywhere on the horizon, either.
The USA is, apparently, supplying Ukraine with some of our stuff. Notably, we’re not supplying Patriot air defense batteries, Abrams tanks, F-35 figher/bombers, nor Virginia subs. For that, tovarish, we should all be thankful.
from Russia with love
August 21, 2022 at 11:45 am
@exnavynuke
1) why did you decide that time is not on the side of Russia? the American alliance against Russia is now raging with a fuel crisis, an energy crisis, record-breaking inflation, a recession and the looming prospects of a food crisis. what is in Russia? inflation has returned to the level before the special operation, the ruble is recognized as the strongest currency this year, production growth in some industries amounted to more than 100% in the second quarter, everything is fine with food, with the prices of gasoline and gas too.
all Russia needs is to wait until the Western parasitic economy crumbles and Russia has enough resources to do so.
2) your calculations of the ratio of guided and unguided missiles to hit one target make little sense. Before engaging in this nonsense, I recommend that you familiarize yourself with the range of missiles used by Russia in this conflict. read what Tornado-S shoots and about 9K515 ammunition. it has a range of 120 km (unlike 70 km HIMARs) and not only an inertial guidance system like the American MLRS, but also the ability to adjust guidance from a satellite. here, too, the United States in the role of catching up.?
3) “If I may jump in: (and if not, I’m still going to)”
of course get in bro! ??
I addressed my questions to a person who hardly understands what he writes? but since you decided to participate, I will comment…
yes, the United States is working on hypersonic weapons and someday they will get it if they don’t fall apart from the economic crisis earlier? here 2 problems need to be solved. the first is to accelerate the object to hypersonic speed. the second is to control flight at hypersonic speed. The United States has one successful launch, which means that the first problem will be able to be solved in the near future. nothing is known about the second. from here we come to the conclusion that the United States has not yet coped with the management of hypersonic objects. Let me remind you that Russia has already adopted the second generation of hypersonic missiles.
4) “small victorious war” is an American pill.? but suppose that China (where things are much better than in the EU and other countries that, for incomprehensible reasons, call themselves “the whole world”) has a need for a small victorious war. who will they attack? the answer is obvious! on whose territory China has driven its fleet, aircraft and tactical missile systems. of course to Taiwan!? let’s say thanks to the American congressmen who completely removed the ambiguity of the question of which direction China will use force.??
5) fortunately, sleepy Joe will not be able to single-handedly decide on a nuclear war. those who will make such a decision are primarily interested in profiting from the war, but in the event of a conflict with Russia, there will only be losses. very big losses. so this is a very unlikely scenario.
Jim
August 21, 2022 at 1:36 pm
Look at a map every few weeks and the front doesn’t seem to change much.
Which suggests the Ukrainians are holding their own.
The theme of the present author is “Russia is running out of missiles.”
But, often, in attrition warfare, it does appear lines are stable, until one side or the other, is exhausted… and “Crack” like an eggshell, then the cumulative effect is evident as significant gains are made.
Russia is lower on missiles than when the war started.
But are they out… who knows?
Those on this comment board who dismiss Russian technical ability are arrogant… their arrogance (given power) will cause disaster for America.
A first rule of thumb, don’t underestimate your opponent.
It already has: the U. S. government, via, “pound sand diplomacy” precipitated & provoked this war from a position of weakness.
And the Cardinal Rule: don’t get into a war from a position of weakness.
Is the U. S. Military the strongest in the world?
Yes.
But here in the present situation, a proxy war, the local situation does not favor our proxy in the conflict.
The U. S. (we) had a good thing going.
But because of our actions, things are unraveling, particularly in Europe, but also all over the world.
Let’s see what happens… but should the Russians prevail… we need to hold to account the people in positions of power who brought this debacle on our great country.
Dismissal from positions of power may be all we get… but let’s be clear… this policy was and is criminally reckless, and in a perfect world… prison should be their just deserts.
Bob
August 21, 2022 at 2:43 pm
This guy just plagiarizes your article word for word. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PImhLfClLyI
Fluffy Dog
August 21, 2022 at 3:47 pm
@from Russia…
If by hypersonic weapons you mean those that travel with Mach5 and more, they were introduced by the first ICBMs. If you mean well-controlled gliding or powered vehicles with high accuracy and reliability traveling at >Mach5 speed, then Russia does not have them.
The US had those for at least 20 years. What the US did not want to do is make a weapon out of it. The reason is not that the offensive weapons could not be made, but that defensive weapons would be very expensive to produce.
Russian “hypersonic” Kinzhal is a piece of garbage that hits randomly, mostly civilian targets. It works much like Katyusha, Grad, etc. – it hits the area, not a target. Russia has no defensive tools against hypersonics either and will not produce them in the foreseeable future – you guys just don’t have the computing power to deal with target tracking. Your S-400 had been taken out in Ukraine with a few strikes and no misses, like swatting flies. Moskva was sunk by Ukrainian Neptun built with 20-15-year-old tech.
When I look at the inside of the S-300 AA system and see steam gauges in the control room, I understand why Israelis are so dismissive of the Russians in Syria: they go through those S-300 without even triggering an alarm. I saw one image with LCDs, but that’s just a display: everything behind it is still analog.
I could go on, but I have doubts that you understand what I am talking about….
Gary Jacobs
August 21, 2022 at 4:42 pm
to From Russia with Hate – I guess you are back, and still licking Putin’s boots. You’re the guy who was pretending so hard that everything exploding in Crimea was due to ‘accidents’, and not Ukrainian action. You’re in a no-win situation there. Either Russians are complete idiots and a bunch of sites are exploding, or there are a lot of Ukrainians bombing Crimea. Even the Russian Occupation overlords finally had to admit there was sabotage happening.
And you are still pretending that HIMARS is ineffective, and ignoring all the exploding ammo depots and HQs around the areas Russia has illegally occupied. You point to the picture of 36 HIMARS launching in a salvo, and pretend they were all shot at the bridge at the same time. Hahaha. Never mind all the other targets in the area.
Your desperation to cling to the hope that Russia has a competent military is as funny as it is pathetic. The way you have bought into Putin’s propaganda is as funny as it is pathetic. The fact that you decided to come back and post here after being proven so wrong in Crimea, Belgorod, on HIMARs and just about everything else you spew is as funny as it is pathetic.
Hopefully one day you wake up and realise just how silly Russia propaganda is. Have a nice day.
TMark
August 21, 2022 at 7:05 pm
This 21st Century will be marked by two overarching geopolitical conclusions: 1. Europe’s largest superpower can’t take Europe’s poorest nation despite bordering it, and, 2. Asia’s largest superpower can’t take an island 1/58th its size just off its shores.
Jim
August 21, 2022 at 7:48 pm
I’m struck by all the stupid bravado coming from warhawks on this comment board.
The U. S. can’t beat a bunch of goat herders in Afghanistan (and given 20 years to do it) and had a hard time in Iraq after admittedly an easy opening march to Baghdad (but overall a strategic failure).
You guys must be really smarting over Afghanistan… because the way you come off, here, makes you look like you’re just itching to get in the next war.
I swear, warhawks can seem as stupid as a box of rocks, no matter how high their IQ.
Exnavynuke
August 22, 2022 at 12:59 am
@From Russia with love
Sir, thank you for your well-considered and polite response. Although we may be on differing sides and have differing opinions, I salute you.
Insofar as hypersonics are concerned: I agree there are two issues. The first is getting going, which we agree has been decisively licked by all major powers. The second is guidance, which I’ll posit has been solved by the United States for over four decades. To wit: the space shuttle was a hypersonic glide vehicle that re-entered the atmosphere and slowed itself to a controlled landing. The X-37 is of a similar design, and is currently operational. The technical mating of the two into a weapon system doesn’t require any new science or technology; but is rather an engineering challenge – and not a horribly difficult one at that.
That being said, congratulations are in order for your nation for being the first to start serial production of an entirely new type of weapon system.
Now, onto the US economy. As an American, and in my nation’s manufacturing sector, I’m rather intimately aware of what is happening here; I’d be interested to see what news that’s available where you are is reporting on our condition. One note: our media seems to have been tainted by a strong anti-American bias. (strange, but true) We, the USA, are in the grips of a market correction that is long overdue, and it will be a doozy. Far too easy access to capital, with lax regulation, coupled with an insane devaluation of the currency has led to the current crisis. The solution, not a symptom, is inflation – which is used to sop up much of the excess liquidity sloshing about the bilges of the economy. There are significant repercussions, including to me personally, but it’s necessary because our elected leaders are either criminally incompetent or just plain criminal.
That being said, the fundamentals of the US economy are relatively sound. The USA is a massive net exporter of food. We will not starve. Even if we suffer record low yields, there is more than enough food for American citizens. I do fear for Africa, China, and the Middle East. The US has outsourced much of its manufacturing over the last several decades, but much of that is in the form of luxuries. Much of the critical stuff is still made here, and onshoring has become popular even before the covid nightmare had snarled logistics. One of the two major areas of concern is microchip manufacturing – which does exist ashore, but not in sufficient supply for the large (60 to 95 nm scale) chips; recently my government threw a significant chunk of change to rectify that. We’ll readdress this weakness in two years; but currently there is more than enough production to keep our arms industry operational indefinitely… which is by malice aforethought.
The current fuel debacle is driven entirely by domestic politics. May I point out that immediately prior to the assumption of the current officeholder, the US was a net exporter of energy? Again, the fundamentals are sound – we just have an asshat getting in the way temporarily.
Onto my math: not sure what part you disagree with. Is it the nature of the law of diminishing returns? I can put it another way: if you absolutely must kill something, and your weapons aren’t (for whatever reason) 100% reliable, you gotta pound it over and over again. Look at the horrifically wasteful strategic bombing campaign of WWII (I think you guys call it the Great Patriotic War). The simple solution is to keep rolling the dice until you’re virtually assured of a winner, with the clear knowledge that you’re likely to have hit the target several times – but you keep hitting it because when you launch you don’t KNOW any particular strike WILL hit. Weapon ranges are completely irrelevant for this discussion. The only important considerations are blast radius and circular error probable (CEP). Put another way, if you’ve got a weapon that has a CEP of five hundred meters and blast area of 5 meters, you’ve got a pretty useless weapon… or a V-2, which amounts to the same thing. If, you’ve got a CEP of 500m, but a blast area of 5000m, you’re more than good enough – and the guys from the IAEA want to know where you got a strategic nuke.
Actually “short victorious war” is a deliberate corruption of something attributed to a the Russian Interior Minister on the eve of the disastrous Russo-Japanese war. A fuller quote is: “What this country needs is a short victorious war to stem the tide of revolution.” I probably could’ve resisted, but the irony was simply too delicious. Please forgive my humor.
We are in agreement of what direction the Panda is looking, it just depends on what Sleepy Joe (or more to the point, his handlers) decides to do… which brings up the final point.
I’m sorry but for this, you get to now share my nightmare. In the American system, the President is the Commander in Chief of the military. Nobody has the authority to gainsay him. Our 25th Amendment to our Constitution allows for the removal of the President due to incapacitation, but the process can take a significant amount of time. The President, and the President alone, can authorize a nuclear strike… and nobody can countermand it. Sleep well, my friend.
from Russia with love
August 22, 2022 at 3:35 am
@exnavynuke
once again … hypersonic weapons fly at a speed of more than 5MAX and CONTROL at a speed of more than 5MAX (the Russian “Dagger” has 10MAX ?). the ballistic missile is NOT CONTROLLED at speeds greater than 5 MAX. the ballistic missile falls at this speed. if you throw a brick, he will also fly, but he will not become an airplane?
about IIRC. have you seen HIMARs with this missile? it is a tactical missile. this rocket is 1 in a package. in fact, this is the same as Tochka-U but with a range of 300 km (Tochka-u – 170 km). Russia has an Iskander in this class with 2 missiles with a range of 500 km and cruise missiles with an unknown range (1000-2000). the problem with such missiles as IIRC and Tochka-U is that they are not able to overload missile defense and their effectiveness is less than 10%. they are just knocked down.
The United States supplies both Abrams and Patriots and submarines, but not to Ukraine. The United States is supplying all this to replace what was supplied to Ukraine. except for submarines. they are promised to Australia.? but all this is not free and deliveries are stalled. customers don’t have money. some realties of Moldova don’t even have money for gas, but they dream of a Patriot. instead of their own sent to Ukraine, the Poles received M1A1 in incomparably small quantities. but I don’t understand, if your policies are as incompetent as you write, then why don’t you change them? you have a democracy. you can’t replace incompetent leaders with competent ones? why? Are you sure you’re not a dictatorship? at the moment I see that you are led by people who you do not like, but there is nothing you can do about it.?♂️
from Russia with love
August 22, 2022 at 3:46 am
@FluffyDog
I will repeat to you what I wrote above … hypersonic weapons fly at a speed of more than 5MAX and CONTROL at a speed of more than 5MAX (the Russian “Dagger” has 10MAX ?). the ballistic missile is NOT CONTROLLED at speeds greater than 5 MAX. the ballistic missile falls at this speed. if you throw a brick, he will also fly, but he will not become an airplane?
everything else your blah blah blah causes only laughter?
from Russia with love
August 22, 2022 at 4:17 am
@Jim
Are you sure that the US army is the strongest in the world? most recently you were told that the US economy is No. 1 in the world and what do we see? in 6 months, the “strongest economy” of the United States, in alliance with top economies such as France, Germany and the rest of the EU, can do NOTHING with the Russian economy, which was called a “third world country” and a “gas station country”? worse than that, the top economies themselves were on the verge of collapse as a result of this confrontation. Do you, in the USA, still not recommend the authorities to wash with a wet cloth and heat only 1 room in winter? already recommended in Germany. and who after that “countries of the third world”? it turns out that all these figures and data on GDP are nothing more than informational noise, but in reality these “top economies of the world” turned out to be just parasites, unable to exist on their own.
But back to the army. objectively, the US army is the second largest after China. you are sure that the US army is the strongest in the world, but in what part of the world? The US military is thinly spread all over the world and in no part of this world is not able to withstand a major enemy such as Russia or China. yes, it’s still possible to drive the Bedouins in the desert, but they couldn’t overthrow Assad. will the US army stop China if China decides to take Taiwan by force? as? by the pathetic 2 AUGs and 90000 marines in Okinawa? against the first largest army in China and the entire fleet of China, who already outnumbers the US fleet? face the truth…
Jim be careful with fantasies about an ideal world? those who in the last post-war years staged dozens of wars and killed more than 20 million people in them are not sent to prison. such criminals are hanged. Do you remember what you did to Germany after World War II? If I were you, I would be afraid of your “ideal world” like hell.
from Russia with love
August 22, 2022 at 4:28 am
@TMark
regarding paragraph (1), it is very strange … a year ago, Ukraine claimed that the Armed Forces of Ukraine are the most powerful army in Europe. you want to say that Ukraine is lying?
you forgot points 3) and 4)
3) a very strong US army shamefully fled from Afghanistan from guys in slippers and with AK assault rifles.
4) an alliance of the most powerful economies in the world, led by the United States, are losing the economic war to Russia, which they considered an economy of the level of third world countries.
Exnavynuke
August 22, 2022 at 8:56 am
@Russia
Sir, from my reading, pretty much everyone – including Russia – is using a rocket of some kind to get initial thrust. The US is toying with using a scramjet for one of its potential designs, however. The maneuverability part is with the kill vehicle; and there is where the US has many decades of experience (both with kill vehicles in general, and controlling hypersonic glide bodies in specific).
I did a quick internet search to verify a bit of information. As my alias suggests, I’m a sailor and not a soldier by trade; so please do forgive me. Anyway, HIMARS is isn’t the only system to use these missiles, she has a big sister who has two separate pods instead of HIMARS’ one. Also, the unitary missile currently does have a 300km range; with a new one coming soon that pushes into the until recently restricted Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile envelope. Please note, none of these weapons have been supplied to Ukraine. It seems nobody wants the comedian to be able to realistically threaten Moscow.
Which brings up a huge point. This whole deal is sort of a half proxy war. You’ve got Russia fighting on one side, with Ukraine fighting on the other; but Ukraine is being logistically propped up by the West. This is not, in any way, a direct Great Powers competition. The stakes, if that where to happen, would escalate very quickly. Let’s stick to competing medal counts in the Olympics, yes?
While this is straying well beyond the scope of commenting on the article, I’ll briefly summarize American government. Firstly, we’re not a Democracy, we’re a Republic. Usually. It’s complicated. Additionally, there are – by design – nesting and competing authorities with overlapping jurisdictions. Most Americans, for example, live in at least 4 such sets of jurisdictions simultaneously; with some having 6 or more. I think. (I’m living with 4 – or depending on how you count them – 5) The level you, as foreign actor not living here, will have to deal is the national. Note that level is arguably not the most powerful, at least as intended. Even here, however, there is much complication and confusion for outsiders. The single most powerful American is the President. Except he can be thwarted by two other groups, and often is. I’m sure America looks insane and ineffective from the outside (because we are) but that’s largely by design.
For an external perspective, I think we look something like a bumbling, stumbling public drunkard. Sure he’s a big guy, and his flailing arms would hurt if he connected; but he’s crazy and incompetent. Except this bum is a war veteran who never quite left the war behind… and every so often he becomes a deadly serious threat for a while before forgetting why he was killing with his bare hands and goes back to drinking vodka while loudly singing off-key.
And you know what? I’m okay with that. Pass the bottle, friend.
from Russia with love
August 22, 2022 at 4:21 pm
@exnavynuke
Sir, our discussion has broken into 2 parts. I will try to be concise and combine it into one. For convenience, let’s break it down into points.
1) Let’s start with a joke. I appreciated your humor! ?? Yes, Plehve said this phrase. By the way, it didn’t work and all these guys ended up very badly. The plehve was killed by the Essers. BUT! There is a version that the primary source is US Secretary of State John Hay, who wrote to Theodore Roosevelt about “a splendid little war” before the Spanish American War.?
2) now about your math. everything is fine with your math!?? but it makes no sense in the context in which it was demonstrated. you answered the guy who claimed that Ukraine is winning because Ukraine has high-precision weapons, but Russia does not. the original postulate is complete nonsense and attempts to confirm or refute it maktematically do not make sense. Russia has a lot of high-precision weapons and they are used many times more intensively than the Ukrainian side.
each “tool” in the war has its own purpose. high-precision weapons are needed to hit pinpoint targets, cheap conventional shells are needed to hit targets occupying a large area (Russia has a Grad MLRS with 40 missiles in a package and TOS-M1 (aka Pinocchio) with thermobaric ammunition for such purposes ).
3) there really is an M270 MLRS with 12 or 2 guides, but both KHIMARS and M270 MLRS with missiles with a range of 300 km are no longer MLRS. it’s 1-2 missiles. it doesn’t matter what range they are, the important thing is that there are 1-8 of them in a salvo and they cannot overcome the air defense system. Russian air defense shot down 30 missiles from a salvo of 36 missiles. if you launch 1-8 missiles, then they simply will not reach the target. and now we come to what hypersound is for ?
4) you cite the Shuttle as an example, but you yourself write that he was able to maneuver only after slowing down, like the X-37. from their hybrid, you will only get an object that can maneuver by reducing the speed below 5MAX. intercepting an object moving at a speed greater than 5MAX along a known trajectory is also not a problem. the window for interception is quite enough to put a cloud of fragments on the trajectory of the object and it will destroy itself … BUT! if this object maneuvers at a speed of more than 5MAX, then you have big problems. you need an interceptor missile with a speed greater than that of the object and maneuverability greater than that of the object. this task is many times more difficult than the maneuvering hypersonic missile itself.
5) the economy… IMHO the US economy is a gigantic financial bubble. for myself, I drew conclusions about the effectiveness of US GDP after the story that the Fed issued a bad report, as a result of which the stock market collapsed. trading on the exchange stopped and the Fed released another report with positive data and the stock market recovered. just exchanged one piece of paper for another. all this will collapse like the NFT market where at the beginning of the year a man bought the first tweet in twitter for 2 million and at the end of the year could no longer sell it for $1000. the US economy is not factories and farms, the US economy is the dollar and speculation. in the USSR they were shot for spiculation. for banditry, murder, large-scale theft – they were sent to prison, but they were shot for speculation. think why. think, if inflation continues and prices for materials double, what will happen to your plant? doubling the price of a product? products must not only be produced but also sold. Will it be bought at twice the price of what it was?
yes, the USA has the necessary resources to provide the USA itself (without colonies and influence around the world), but this does not mean that everything will be fine with the USA. If you are interested, I can tell you a story about how one country, which is now a leader in food production, 30 years ago asked for food supplies to avoid hunger?
6) politics… about the internal political structure, you puzzled me… could you clarify what 4-5 jurisdictions means. you’re right, it’s very strange for me… you can write me here “[email protected]”.
while I observe a severe personnel crisis in American political circles. Biden is an old wolf and he was good back in 2015, but now he has insanity and is very dangerous for everyone, given the possibility of single-handedly starting a nuclear war. Bolten is not bad, but he is also old and constantly gives way to someone. they both have curators. Trump is relatively peppy and independent, but impulsive. the rest are a bunch of LGBT demogogs and helicopter gunships who can’t figure out their gender.
7) I have a strange question for you… if you had to live in Korea, which Korea would you choose – North or South? argue … you can also in the mail.