Thursday, April 26, 2018

Missile Trivia

1] Mazkirovka:

Soon after Trump made his magic missile tweet on 11 April, a former CinC of the Russian Navy, Admiral Masorin, stated the USS Donald Cook could easily be taken out by torpedos if they launched missiles on Syria.  The Cook, and many other US, French and Brit ships were operating in the Eastern Mediterranean at the time not far off the coast of Syria..  Not sure why he focused on the Cook, but that ship has had many run-ins with Russian ships and aircraft in the past especially in the Black Sea when on FON Operations.   Plus there were stories in the US and British media that the Cook was on station and as an Arleigh Burke class destroyer was capable of launching Tomahawks on Assad's purported chemical weapon sites.  I believe there were similar reports in Turkish newspapers.  In the lead-up to the 14 April missile strike the Cook was shadowed closely by the Russian Navy and buzzed repeatedly by Russian air.  The same thing happened to the British submarine HMS Astute armed with Tomahawks.  She was followed closely by one (or two?) Russian Kilo-class submarines, two frigates and antisubmarine aircraft.

Neither was involved in the missile strike.  That strike was launched by aircraft from Cyprus, France and Qatar;  and by ships in the Red Sea, the northern Persian Gulf, and from an unwatched French Frigate and US submarine in the Med. 

The Cook media stories were plants.  Hmmm?  Sounds like SecDef Mattis is finally returning to our Revolutionary War roots of 240 years ago to mislead the enemy as to our force disposition and plans.  Or did the deception idea come from our allies, the wily Sassenachs in Whitehall, instead of the Pentagon?

BTW, nice hat. 


2] Dezinformatsia

Lots of discussion going on throughout the web about the 14 April missile strike on Barzah and Him-Shinsar in Syria.  Aficianados of RU, RT, Sputnik, TASS and other Russian newsites have bought into the meme that 71 of the missiles never made it to their intended targets either by being shot down by Syrian AD.  Or by Russian Electronic Counter Measures or magic wand Cyberwarfare tricks that deflected the missiles.  Or by plain old  missile malfunction.  The Pentagon claimed all missiles made it through.  Perhaps one side is lying?  Or perhaps both sides are employing a wee bit of dezinformatsia.   For me I don't really care which.  But I think those rooting for the Russian point of view are missing the main point. 

105 cruise missiles (66 TLAM, 19 JASSM-A, nine SCALP, eight Storm Shadow, and three MdCN), each with a 1000 pound warhead is pure overkill for three targets.   It appears 'swarm tactics' were used.   Definitely not one of the autonomous, cooperative robotic swarm dreams of DARPA or AFRL.  But still a swarm launched by 20 separate platforms from six or seven widely dispersed locations.   The Russian General Staff freely admits only 71 missiles or just under 70% did not make it to the target.  So it seems to me that if the Russian claim is correct (and I am not conceding that point) then 34 did get through, therefore validating the tactic.  If we get in a major conflict, would we do any better defending an aircraft carrier against 100 plus anti-ship missiles?  Just one hit out of 100 with a 1000 pound warhead would at the least cripple her with massive casualties, and at the worst could send her to the bottom.  I know we are working on anti-swarm tactics, but would surmise we are far from perfecting them.
 

21 comments:

  1. A good and relevant post.

    As a guy who used to help plan these kinds of operations, I'm sure deception was a big part of it. At you're right about swarming, what we used to call saturation. It's all strike 101.

    I'm also pretty sure the US claims are much closer to the truth.

    It's a bit weird the Russians are claiming we targeted 8 targets instead of three and that we used some GBU-38's. How would they know that?

    I think it's telling that Syria and Russia have not provided any evidence (like wreckage) from any of these supposed shoot-downs. But we shouldn't be surprised - the Russian MoD is dishonest with just about everything that comes out of their official and troll mouthpieces - the litany of bald-faced and verifiable lies is quite long.

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    1. This has been a Soviet/Russian thing for as long as I can remember, and that goes back to the Sixties. The Five-Year Plan always exceeds the target, the Glorious Red Army is always smashing through to victory...at this point I think it's hardwired into the Russian politico-military mindset

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  2. I wonder about the shelf life for those cruise missiles. All that fancy wiring and tightly machined parts have got to degrade over time. I wonder if part of the motivation for the swarm (and it really was huge overkill) was to purge inventories of some of the older missiles in order to get shiny new ones to replace them.

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    1. Those fancy weapons have maintenance cycles similar to other equipment - they also tend to be modular so parts that go bad can be replaced. So I think it's unlikely they were getting rid of old stocks.

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  3. I think the whole business is ridiculously comical, like arguing about who's the world's biggest midget, given that this all ended up being Explosive Theater of the most pointless sort, except for the people on the ground who got blown up, xin loi for you, Abdul (or Ivan...).

    It's just lovely that We the Good People of the Earth can blow shit up whenever we want to.

    It'd be even lovelier if We the People's brain cell wasn't so goddamn lonely, so we'd be able to look at this for what it was; a failure of everything from strategic planning to political commonsense. Sometimes our inability to see past the Beauty of our Weapons is positively blinding.

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  4. The Russian claim of the 71 shootdowns is primarily for two reasons.
    1] saving face, and
    2] overseas sales of their AD systems.

    Although on the #2 above, I note that the Russians have now said may 'gift' S-300 SAM systems to Syria instead of selling them. Here I thought that SyADF forces already had S300s but what the hell do I know? I was probably confusing that with their S-200s.

    https://www.military.com/defensetech/2018/04/25/russia-may-gift-s-300-anti-air-missiles-syria-beef-defenses.html

    In any case I doubt seriously it will be a totally free gift, they will undoubtedly get additional concessions from Syria regarding facilities in Tartus Naval Base and Hmeimim Airbase. But I wonder: Why sell the S-400 to Turkey and India but only the much older (1979 design) S-300 for Syria? Will Syria get the latest upgrade?

    More significant than the S-300 in my unschooled opinion is that just ten days after the the strike a probable SA-15 (Tor) was seen in Syria for the first time.

    https://syria.liveuamap.com/en/2018/26-april-russian-sam-tor-m2-spot-in-syria-for-the-first-time

    Tor was designed to specifically take out low flying cruise missiles. My guess is that it is under strict Russian control to protect assets at Hmeimim Airbase. Was it here all the time? Or just shipped in after the strike?

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    1. My question would be; why did the Russians feel the need to supply an anti-CM system, and the Syrians want it? Are their plans to continue sliming the rebels whenever they hole up in urban terrain? Because, if so, then this entire episode becomes even more ridiculous.

      When you "send a message" with high explosive and the recipient comes back with a response like "Whaaa? Did you say something? Hello? Is this thing on?" then you've pretty much Failed at "message sending".

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    2. My sense is the Russians are rotating a lot of equipment in to give it some operational testing. Syria, as a client state, will get a lot of stuff for "free." They won't be able to pay for much for a long time.

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  5. FDC -

    I agree we should not have sent any HE messages. Despite the success, the mission never should have happened IMO. We gave away free information to potential enemies of our capabilities in spoofing AD systems. And for what? Just to blow up some buildings. Sounds like a confused attempt at communication to me.

    Even Trump lovers are saying "the attack was made to placate a president who is easily motivated with propaganda images."

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    1. But that's kinda the point; this nonsense CAN'T be remotely described as a "success". Yes, the HE got to where it was supposed to. No, it did nothing - or very, very little - when it did.

      What I'm reminded of is one of Dave Hackworth's stories about reading a USAF report of effects on target and one of the categories was"emplacements destroyed . Hackworth - who'sAO this was and so had been on the ground, made the acrid comment; "How do you destroy a hole by blowing it into a BIGGER hole?"

      Ummm...yeah.

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  6. Andy -

    Good to hear from you. It's been a long time. Where are you hanging out lately? Do you have your own blog now? Clue us in.

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    1. Hey Mike!

      No, I was never able to get into blogging. I tried many years ago, it's just not my thing.

      Wife and I are both retired and for the last year we've been on a sabbatical of sorts travelling around this great country in our RV with our kids. We're gonna settle down this fall in Colorado, so the kids can go to high school. I'm working part-time on the road doing consulting, writing and education on cellular internet.

      The longer I'm away from the intel and government world the less I want to go back. So who knows what the future holds.

      That's about it, hope everyone her is doing well. Anyone heard from Aviator, Publius or Seydlitz lately?

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    2. Sadly, Andy, Al passed away this past spring. In the way of these epistolary friendships all I - or any of us - knew was that we stopped hearing from him last year. Just recently we heard from another commentor who passed on his obit.

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    3. Wow, I'm really sorry to hear that, thanks for letting me know.

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  7. Of Publius no news. I keep hoping, but hope is fading.

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  8. Andy -

    Haven't heard from Seydlitz here for ages either. But I believe he still occasionally posts on clauswitz.com.

    Great to hear you are settling down. But with your background I would think you would be a natural to work for one of the hundreds(?) of aerospace outfits in Colorado. Many of those dumba$$ engineers and coneheads only know academics and need a real-world user to keep them on the right track during design, or during systems testing or fielding.

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    1. Seydlitz is one of a small handful of people I've only met online who really influenced my thinking.

      Going back to work in the natsec machine would be the natural thing to do, but I don't think it's for me anymore. We'll see. I'm lucky that I married well and that we are frugal so I don't need to make a ton of money. Once we get settled I plan to do more volunteering, but we'll see what happens.

      What have you been up to and where are you hanging your hat these days?

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  9. Andy -

    I'm 75 now so mostly I just camp out in an armchair or the hammock reading books the old fashioned way - page by page. Or I putter around with yardwork and home maintenance here in the great state of Washington. But every winter I play rainbird and head south to the desert for some sunshine. I do a small bit of volunteering to stay active: Toys for Tots, visiting old WW2 and Korean vets or driving them to the VA or wherever. Keeps me from vegetating.

    If you ever get the urge, you are more than welcome to publish a guest post here on MilPub. No deadlines and no pressure. I for one have always had a lot of respect for your experience and insights. It would be an honor. But with kids in high school I know you will probably be busier than a bull ensign or a one-legged marathon runner. Or even just drop us a hint of some thought-provoking matters or nuts and bolts mil topics that spark your interest.

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    1. Thank you for the kind words - I'll definitely think about something I could contribute that might be worthwhile.

      I love Washington State - if it weren't for family, we'd probably move there or somewhere else in the PNW. My first duty station in the Navy was at Whidbey Island. The winters can be pretty wet and gloomy though! We spent this past winter in the desert SW - I'm ready for a change for sure.

      I assume Chief is still in the Portland area - Chief, I remember you are/were a geologist, is that correct?

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    2. Yep. Still doing fieldwork for my soils engineer at 60.5. Thatnks to the 401K Economy I joke with my wife that I'll be able to afford to retire 14 months after the doctor declares me clinically dead.

      I've lived in Portland now for 28 years; I was thinking how that I spent my first 30-odd years moving every couple of years from birth - my pop was a classic Fifties and Sixties corporate gypsy - until I got out of the RA at the end of the Eighties. And now I've been here half my life; I get to be all "You kids have NO idea what Old Portland was like!" and wave my cane at them.

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  10. Syrian state TV said today, Sunday the 29th, that more missiles had struck military bases in the Hama and Aleppo countryside.

    No peep from the Pentagon. Maybe Israeli, as one of the bases hit was reportedly an Iranian IRGC recruiting center for Shiite militias? Or maybe just a rocket attack by jihadis? And no peep from Moscow (yet) that another huge percentage of the inbound missiles had been shot down.

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