New weapons and the new tactics which they make
possible: three examples
By The Saker
October 06, 2019 "Information
Clearing House" -
There are probably hundreds of books out there about
the so-called “Revolution in Military Affairs”, some
of them pretty good, most of them very bad, and a
few very good ones (especially
this one). For a rather dull and mainstream
discussion, you can check the
Wikipedia article on the RMA. Today I don’t
really want to talk this or similar buzzwords (like
“hybrid warfare” for example). Frankly, in my
experience, these buzzwords serve two purposes:
to sell (books, articles, interviews, etc.)
to hide a person’s lack of understanding of
tactics, operational art and strategy.
This being said, there *are* new things happening
in the realm of warfare, new technologies are being
developed, tested and deployed, some extremely
successfully.
In his now famous speech, Putin revealed some of
these new weapons systems, although he did not say
much about how they would be engaged (which is quite
logical, since he was making a political speech, not
a military-technical report). For those would be
interested in this topic, you can check
here,
here,
here,
here,
here and
here.
The recent Houthi drone and missile strike on the
Saudi oil installations has shown to the world
something which the Russians have known for several
years: that even rather primitive drones can be a
real threat. Sophisticated drones are a major
threat to every military out there, though Russia
has developed truly effective (including
cost-effective, which is absolutely crucial, more
about that later) anti-drone capabilities.
First, lets look at the very low-cost end
of the spectrum: drones
Let’s begin with the primitive drones. These are
devices which, according to one Russian military
expert, roughly need a 486 CPU, about 1MB of RAM,
1GB of harddisk space and some (now extremely cheap)
sensors to capture the signals from the US GPS, the
Russian GLONASS or both (called “GNSS”). In fact,
the “good terrorists” in Syria, financed, assisted
and trained by the “Axis of Kindness”
(USA/KSA/Israel) have been attacking the Russian
base in Khmeimim with swarms of such drones for
years.
According to the commander of the air defenses of
Khmeimin, over 120(!) drones
were shot down or disabled by Russian air defenses
in just the last two years. Obviously, the Russians
know something that some “Axis of Kindness” does
not.
The biggest problem: missile systems
should not be used against drones
Some self-described “specialists” have wondered
why Patriot missiles did not shoot down the Houthi
drones. This is asking the wrong question because
missiles are completely ineffective in engaging
attacking drone swarms. And, for once, this is not
about the poor performance of Patriot SAMs. Even
Russian S-400s are the wrong systems to use on
individual drones or drone swarms. Why? Because of
the following characteristics of drones:
they are typically small, with a very
special low profile, extremely light and made up
of materials which minimally reflect radar
signals;
they are very slow, which does not make it
easier to shoot them down, but much harder,
especially since most radars are designed to
track and engage very fast targets (aircraft,
ballistic missiles, etc.);
they can fly *extremely* low, which allows
them to hide; even lower than cruise missiles
flying
NOE;
they are extremely cheap, thus wasting
multi-million dollar missiles on drones costing
maybe 10-20 dollars (or even say, 30,000 dollars
for the very high end) makes no sense
whatsoever;
they can come in swarms with huge numbers;
much larger than the number of missiles a
battery can fire.
From the above, it is obvious how drones should
be engaged: either with AA cannons or by EW systems.
[Sidebar: In theory, they could also be
destroyed by lasers, but these would require a
lot of power, thus engaging cheapo drones with
them is possible, but not optimal]
It just so happens that the Russians have both,
hence their success in Khmeimim.
One ideal anti-drone weapon would be the
formidable
Pantsir which combines multi-channel detection
and tracking (optoelectronics,
radar, IR, visual, third-party datalinks, etc.) and
a powerful cannon. And, even better, the Pantsir
also has powerful medium range missiles which can
engage targets supporting the drone attack.
The other no less formidable anti-drone system
would be the various Russian EW systems deployed in
Syria.
Why are they so effective?
Are You Tired Of
The Lies And
Non-Stop Propaganda?
First, drones are either remotely controlled, or
have onboard navigation systems. Obviously, just
like any signal, the remote signal can be jammed and
since jammers are typically closer to the intended
target than the remote control station, it is easier
for it to produce a much stronger signal since the
strength of a signal diminishes according to the
so-called “inverse
square law“. Thus in terms of raw emission
power, even a powerful transmitted far away is
likely to lose to a smaller, weaker, signal if that
one is closer to the drone (i.e. near the intended
target along the likely axis of attack). Oh sure,
in theory one could use all sorts of fancy
techniques to try to avoid that (for example
frequency-hopping, etc.) but these very quickly
dramatically raise the weight and cost of the
drone. You also need to consider that the stronger
the signal from the drone, the bigger and heavier
the onboard power cells need to be, and the heavier
the drone is.
Second, some drones rely on either satellite
signals (GPS/GLONASS) or inertial guidance. Problem
#1: satellite signals can be spoofed. Problem #2
inertial guidance is either not that accurate or,
again, heavier and more costly.
Some very expensive and advanced cruise missiles
use TERCOM, terrain contour matching, but that is
too expensive for light and cheap drones (such
advanced cruise missiles and their launchers is what
the S-3/400s were designed to engage, and that at
least makes sense financially). There are even more
fancy and extremely expensive cruise missile
guidance technologies out there, but these are
simply not applicable to weapons like drones with
their biggest advantage being simple technology and
low costs.
The truth is that even a non-tech guy like me
could build a drone ordering all the parts from
online stores such as Amazon, AliBaba, Banggood and
tons of others and build pretty effective drones to,
say, drop a hand grenade or some other explosive on
an enemy position. Somebody with an engineering
background could easily build the kind of drones the
“good terrorists” have used against the Russians in
Syria. A country, even a poor one and devastated by
a genocidal war, like Yemen, could very easily build
the kind of drones used by the Houthis, especially
with Iranian and Hezbollah help (the latter two have
already successfully taken remote control of US and
Israeli drones respectively).
Finally, I can promise you that right now, in
countries like the DPRK, China, Russia, Iran, Iraq,
Syria, Yemen, Venezuela, Cuba, etc, there are teams
of engineers working on the development of very low
cost drones just like there are teams of military
analysts developing new tactics of engagement.
This is, I submit, is the first not-so-noticed
(yet) kinda-revolution in military affairs.
Second, lets look at the very high end:
5th+ generation aircraft and 5-6th generation UAVs
While some in India have declared (for political
reasons and to please the USA) that the Su-57 was
not “really” a 5th generation aircraft (on the
pretext that the first ones were deployed with 4th
gen engines and because the Su-57 did not have the
same kind of all-aspect RCS which the F-22 has), in
Russia and China the debate is now whether the Su-57
is really only a 5th generation aircraft or really a
5th+
or even 6th generation one. Why?
For one thing, rumors coming out of the Sukhoi KB
and the Russian military is that the pilot in the
Su-57 is really an “option”, meaning that the Su-57
was designed from the start to operate without any
pilot at all. My personal belief is that the Su-57
has an extremely modular design which currently does
require a human pilot and that the first batch of
S-57s will probably not fly all alone, but that the
capability to remove the human pilot to be replaced
by a number of advanced systems has been built-in,
and that the Russians will deploy pilot-less Su-57’s
in the future.
[Sidebar: this 3rd, 4th, 5th and now even 6th
generation business is a little too fuzzy for my
taste, so I rather avoid these categories and I
don’t see a point in dwelling on them. What is
important is what weapons systems can do, not
how we define them, especially for a
non-technical article like this one]
In the meantime, the Russians have for the first
time shown this:
What you are seeing here is the following:
A Su-57 flies together with the new long range
Russian strike drone: the Heavy Strike UAV
S-70 Hunter and here is what the Russian
MoD has recently revealed about this drone:
Range: 6,000km (3,700 miles)
Ceiling: 18,000m (60,000 feet)
Max speed: 1,400km/h (1,000mph)
Max load: 6,000kg (12,000lbs)
Furthermore, Russian experts are now saying that
this UAV can fly alone, or in a swarm, or in a joint
flight with a manned Su-57. I also believe that in
the future, one Su-57 will probably control several
such heavy strike drones.
[Sidebar: flag-waving patriots will
immediately declare that the S-70 is a copy of
the B-2. In appearance that is quite true. But
consider this: the max speed of the B-2 is,
according to Wikipedia, 900km/h (560 mph).
Compare that with the 1,400km/h (1,000mph) and
realize that a flying wing design and a supersonic flying wing design
at completely different platforms (the
supersonic stresses require a completely
different structural design)]
What can a Su-57 do when flying together with the
S-70?
Well, for one thing since the S-70 has a lower
RCS than the Su-57 (this according to Russian
sources) the Su-57 uses the S-70 as a long range
hostile air defense penetrator tasked with
collecting signals intelligence and relaying those
back to the Su-57. But that is not all. The Su-57
can also use the S-70 to attack ground targets
(including SEAD) and even execute air-to-air
attacks. Here the formidable speed and huge 6 tons
max load of the S-70 offer truly formidable
capabilities, including the deployment of heavy
Russian air-to-air, air-to-ground and air-to-ship
capabilities.
[Sidebar: some Russian analysts have
speculated that in order to operate with the
S-70 the Su-57 has to be modified into a
two-seater with a
WSO operating the S-70 from the back seat.
Well, nobody knows yet, this is all top secret
right now, but I think that this idea clashes
with the Sukhoi philosophy of maximally reduce
the workload of the pilot. True, the formidable
MiG-31 has a WSO, even the new MiG-31BM, but the
design philosophy at the MiG bureau is often
very different from what the folks at Sukhoi
develop and, besides, 4 decades stand between
the MiG-31 and the Su-57. My personal guess is
that the operations of the S-70 will be mostly
full automated and even distributed along the
network connecting all integrated air and ground
based air defense systems. If an an engineer
reads these lines, I would appreciate any
comments or corrections! After all, this is
just my best guess]
The usual gang of trolls will probably object
that the Russian computer/chip industry is so far
behind the supposedly much superior western
solid-state electronics that this is all nonsense;
there was a human sitting inside the S-70; this
thing don’t fly; the Su-57 is a 4th gen aircraft
much inferior to the amazingly superb F-22/F-35; and
all the rest of it. Especially for them, I want to
remind everybody that Russia was the first country
to deploy airborne phased array radars on her
MiG-31s which, to boot, were capable of exchanging
targeting data by encrypted datalinks with FOUR (!)
other aircraft maintaining EM silence (while using
their optoelectronics
and relaying that data back). Furthermore, these
MiG-31s could also exchange data with airborne
(AWACS) and ground-based (SAMs) radars. And that
was in the early 1980s, almost 40 years ago!
The truth is that the Soviet armed forces
deployed plenty of network-centric systems long
before the West, especially in the Soviet Air Force
and Navy (while the Soviet Ground-Forces pioneered
the use of so-called RSC “reconnaissance-strike
complexes” which were the nightmare of NATO
during the Cold War). Nowadays, all we need to do
is parse the NATO whining about Russian Anti
Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) capabilities to see that
the Russians are still pioneering advanced
military-technical capabilities which the West can
only dream of.
Now let’s revisit some of the recent
criticisms of the Su-57
So what about the fact that the Su-57 does not
have all-around very low
RCS? What if the Su-57 was never
intended to spearhead the penetration of advanced
and integrated air defense systems? What if
from day 1 the Sukhoi designers were warned by their
colleagues at
Almaz-Antey,
Novator,
KRET or even the good folks at the
OSNAZ (SIGINT) and the 6th Directorate of the GRU
that “stealth” is vastly over-rated? What if
it was clear to the Russians from day 1 that a low
frontal-RCS did not compromise other capabilities as
much as a quasi-total reliance on all-aspect low-RCS
never to be detected in the first place?
The crucial thing to keep in mind is that
new technological capabilities also generate new
tactics. By the way, western analysts
understand that, hence the new network-centric
capabilities of the F-35. This is especially true
since the F-35 will be a pathetic dogfighter whereas
the Su-57 might well be the most capable one out
there: did you know that the Su-57 has several
radars besides the main one, that they cover
different bands and that they give the Su-57 a 360
degree vision of the battlefield, even without using
the signals from the S-70, AWACS or ground based SAM
radars?). And in terms of maneuverability, I will
just show this and rest my case:
Lastly, the case of the invisible missile
container :-)
Remember the
Kalibr cruise-missile recently seen in the war
in Syria. Did you know that it can be shot from a
typical commercial container, like the ones you will
find on trucks, trains or ships? Check out this
excellent video which explains this:
Just remember that the Kalibr has a range of
anywhere between 50km to 4,000km and that it can
carry a nuclear warhead. How hard would it be for
Russia to deploy these cruise missiles right off the
US coast in regular container ships? Or just keep a
few containers in Cuba or Venezuela? This is a
system which is so undetectable that the Russians
could deploy it off the coast of Australia to hit
the NSA station in Alice Springs if they wanted, and
nobody would even see it coming. In fact, the
Russians could deploy such a system on any civilian
merchant ship, sailing under any imaginable flag,
and station it not only anywhere off the US
coastline, but even in a US port since most
containers are never examined anyways (and when they
are, it is typically for drugs or contraband). Once
we realize this, all the stupid scaremongering about
Russian subs off the coast of Florida become plain
silly, don’t they?
Now let’s look at some very interesting recent
footage from the recent maneuvers in Russia:
Here is what the person who posted that (Max
Fisher,
here is his YT channel) video wrote about this
coastal defense system, explaining it very well:
For the first time, during the tactical
exercises of the tactical group of the Northern
Fleet, carrying combat duty on the island of
Kotelny, the coastal missile system “Bastion”
was used The BRK was successful in firing a
supersonic Onyx anti-ship cruise missile at a
sea target located over 60 kilometers in the
Laptev Sea, which confirmed its readiness to
effectively carry out combat duty in the Arctic
and perform tasks to protect the island zone and
the Russian coast. Onyx is a universal anti-ship
cruise missile. It is designed to combat surface
naval groups and single ships in the face of
strong fire and electronic countermeasures. On
the basis of the rocket, there are two seemingly
absolutely identical export options: the Russian
Yakhont and the Indian BrahMos, but with
significantly reduced combat characteristics.
These vehicles are capable of starting from
under water: they have a flight speed of 750
meters per second and carry the crushing
high-explosive warhead with a weight of half a
ton. The range of their flight is more than 600
kilometers. Previously, Rubezh BRK was used as
the main coastal missile system of the tactical
group of the Northern Fleet. At the end of
August, he successfully hit two targets “Termit”
missiles installed in the Laptev Sea at a
distance of more than 50 kilometers from the
coast.
Now let me ask you this: how hard would you think
it would be for Russia to develop a container size
version coastal defense system using the
technologies used in the Bastion/Yakhont/BrahMos
missile systems? Since the AngloZionists have now
reneged on The
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the
Russians have *already* developed a land-based
version of their Kalibr missile which is ready to
deploy as soon as the US deploys any such missile in
Europe.
The fact is that Russia has perfected an entire
family of ballistic and cruise missiles which can be
completely hidden from detection and which can be
deployed literally anywhere on the planet. Even
with nuclear warheads.
This capability completely changes all the
previous US deterrence/containment strategies (which
are still halfway stuck in the Cold War and halfway
stuck with low-intensity/counter-insurgency
operations like what they have been doing (with no
success whatsoever!) in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria,
Yemen, Libya and in Latin America and Africa).
In the light of the above, what do you make of
the steady flow of NATO ships deployed in the Black
Sea to “deter” Russia? If you find it completely
suicidal, I agree. In fact, all these ships are
doing is allowing the Russians to train their crews
on the “real thing”. But should it ever come to a
shooting war, the life span of any and every NATO
ship in the Black Sea would be measured in minutes.
Literally!
Now lets think of Iran. As I said many, many
times, Russia will not enter a full-scale war
against the combined powers of the “Axis of
Kindness” on behalf of Iran (or any other country on
the planet). But Russia very much might get
seriously fed up with the “Axis of Kindness” and
sell Iran any missile the Iranians would be willing
to acquire. In the past I have often written that
the real sign that Iran is about to be attacked
would not be the presence of USN ships in the Strait
of Hormuz or along the Iranian coast, but the
opposite: a flushing out of all ships from the
Strait itself and a careful repositioning of the
bulk of the USN ships inside sea and land based US
air defenses “umbrella” available at that moment. I
can only imagine the nightmare for CENTCOM if Iran
begins to acquire even a small number of Bastions or
Kalibers or Yakhont or BrahMos missiles :-)
Conclusion: the “Axis of Kindness”
countries are in big, big trouble!
The US and Israel have tremendous technological
capabilities, and in normal times US specialists
could gradually deploy systems capable of countering
the kind of capabilities (not only necessarily
Russian ones) we now see deployed in various areas
of operations. And there sure is enough money,
considering that the US alone spends more on the
“promotion of kindness” than the rest of the planet
combined! So what is the problem?
Simple, the US Congress, which might well be the
most corrupt parliament on the planet, is in the
business of:
Hysterically flag-waving and declaring any
naysayers “un-American”
Making billions for the US ruling
nomenklatura
Thus, to admit that the “shining city on the
hill” and its “best armed forces in history” are
rapidly falling behind foes which the US propaganda
has described as “primitive” and “inferior” for
decades is quite literally *unthinkable*
for US politicians. After all, the US public might
wonder why all these multi-billion dollar toys the
US MIC has been producing in the last decades have
not yielded a single success, never-mind a
meaningful victory! Trump in his campaign tried to
make that point. He was instantly attacked by the
Dems for not supporting the “best military in
history” and he quickly changed his tune. Now
even the weapons the US does not even have yet are
better than those already being tested and,
possibly, deployed by Russia.
This “feel good” approach to military issues is
very nice, warm and fuzzy. But it sure does not
make it possible to even identify present, or even
less so, future dangers.
Then, of course, there is the issue of money.
The US, in its short history, has deployed some
absolutely world class weapons systems in
technologies. My personal favorites: the Willys MBm,
also known as a Jeep, and the superb F-16. But
there are many, many more. The problem with these,
at least from the point of view of the US
nomenklatura, is that they were designed for
warfare, for the many and very different real-world
battlefields out there. They were never designed to
enrich the already fantastically rich!
Hence the country which produced the Jeep now
mostly produces massive hulks of metal which drive
like crap, which constantly break, but which give
the narcissistic and baseball cum
sunglasses hat wearing left-lane male drivers a
delightful feeling of macho superiority. And, of
course, the country which created and deployed the
formidable, yet economic, F-16 in the thousands
(well over 4000 I think) now produces the F-35 (good
thing that the US colonies like Poland or Japan are
willing to buy them to please their beloved Uncle
Shmuel).
From the point of view of the US nomenklatura,
the F-35 is a stunning, amazing, success, not a
high-tech flying brick! The costs of this system
are not the proof of the incompetence of US
engineers, or the cluelessness of US military
analysts. Rather, these costs are proof of the
combined effects of infinite greed and self-worship
of the US ruling class.
Sadly, one of the best ways to learn the
important lessons, is by means of a painful or
catastrophic defeat. The Russia of today would not
have been possible without the horrors of the
“democratic rule” of Eltsin in the 1990s. Think of
it: during the first Chechen war, the Russians had a
hard time even finding one complete combat capable
regiment and they had to use “combined battalions” (сводный
батальон) instead. This will probably also happen
to the USA.
This article was originally published by "The
Saker"--
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