Posted on 10/08/2015 10:28:08 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
On Oct. 7, Russian warships in the Caspian Sea fired 26 high-tech cruise missiles at rebel targets in Syria—a staggering 1,000 miles away.
The missiles in question, which the Pentagon calls SS-N-30s, were mostly unknown to the outside world before the Oct. 7 raid. Even close watchers of the Russian military were surprised to see them. The missile attack was also highly visible. In many ways, it was an announcement to the world, and America in particular, that the once-dilapidated Russian navy is back in action—and that Putin’s missileers are now among the planet’s most advanced.
Planning for the missile attack began on Oct. 5, six days after Moscow’s warplanes conducted their first bombing runs on rebel holdouts in western Syria. Russia is intervening in Syria ostensibly to help the Damascus regime defeat ISIS, but the Russian attacks seem to be hitting ISIS’s enemies more than the terror army itself. What’s more, critics point out, Syria provides Moscow strategic access to the Mediterranean Sea.
“Russian reconnaissance had discovered a number of important objects of militants, which were to be destroyed immediately,” the Russian Defense Ministry explained in a statement. Drones, surveillance satellites, radio interception, and human spies on the ground helped planners select the targets, the ministry added.
“The strikes engaged plants producing ammunition and explosives, command centers, storages of munitions, armament, and [oil], as well as a training camp of terrorists on the territory of Raqqa, Idlib, and Aleppo,” according to the ministry. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said the missiles struck all 11 planned targets.
The Russian military celebrated the raid with a press release and an official video, and Shoigu went on national TV to praise the operation. Kurdish militiamen shot video they claimed depicted the missiles flying over northern Iraq. And the U.S. military apparently closely tracked the rocket-powered, guided munitions—and later claimed that several malfunctioned and crashed in Iran.
The media coverage was at least as important as the destruction of the alleged rebel facilities, U.S. defense officials told The Daily Beast on Wednesday. “This is Russia demonstrating on a global stage that it has a lot of reach,” one official explained.
Eric Wertheim, an independent U.S. naval analyst and author of the definitive Combat Fleets of the World, a reference guide to warships and their weapons, agrees, saying of the missile volley: “I think it was a demonstration to the world.”
The missiles in question, which the Pentagon calls SS-N-30s, were mostly unknown to the outside world before the Oct. 7 raid. Wertheim and other foreign analysts were familiar with an earlier version of the SS-N-30 called the SS-N-27, but the latter is an anti-ship missile and the analysts assumed it could only fly 150 miles or so— a fraction of the roughly thousand miles the rockets traveled during the recent raid.
The SS-N-30 obviously boasts much a much greater range than its predecessor missiles and can also strike targets on dry land. That makes it broadly similar to the American Tomahawk missile, which the U.S. military traditionally fires in large numbers from ships and submarines in order to wipe out enemy air defenses before conducting aerial bombing campaigns. The U.S. Navy fired Tomahawks to hit the most heavily defended ISIS targets at the beginning of the American-led air war over Syria in September 2014.
Very few countries posses Tomahawks or similar munitions—and only the United States and Great Britain have ever successfully used them in combat. Now Russia has joined that exclusive club of global military powers. And that should worry the Pentagon, Wertheim said: “It should be a wakeup call that we don’t have a monopoly on the capability.”
What’s particularly striking is that Moscow has been able to build this long-range naval strike capability with much smaller vessels than anyone thought possible. In the U.S. Navy, large destroyers, cruisers, and submarines carry Tomahawk cruise missiles—and those vessels are typically at least 500 feet long and displace as many as 9,000 tons of water.
Russia has joined an exclusive club of global military powers. And that should worry the Pentagon. The four brand-new warships that launched the SS-N-30s were much, much smaller—ranging in length from 200 to 330 feet and displacing no more than 1,500 tons. “Small ships, big firepower,” Wertheim commented.
That matters because, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia’s shipbuilding industry suffered a long period of deep decline that the Kremlin lately has struggled to reverse. That has had a profound effect on the Russian navy. “There are relatively few new warships in service at present and the ones that have been commissioned in recent years are all relatively small,” Dmitry Gorenburg, from Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, wrote in a recent analysis.
But the October barrage proves that even the small warships that Russia is building can strike hard and far—something that, once upon a time, only the United States and its closest allies could do. Moscow’s missile raid helps re-establish Russia as a global military power. “They’re very serious about this,” Wertheim said.
Russia has had long-range land-attack cruise missile capability for over three decades. The Kalibr has a lower range than its earlier Samspon missile.
http://missilethreat.com/missiles/rk-55-ss-n-21ssc-x-4/
No, I just think it’s interesting that the article is so enamored of the Russians missile as if it the bestest most perfectest thing since sex.
Israel is cool with what Pootie Poot is up to, Bammy Baby no
>>>Did they violate the airspace of other countries?<<<
If they did, they don’t really care.
That was kind of my point. You are right. They don't a rat's rear end whose airspace they violate. They will do it, and dare anyone to do something about it.
Lay all the Bravodo behind. They’re gaining and we’re losing.
I remember a time when The United States of America was both Feared and Respected.
When you are not Feared and Respected, those who mean you harm may decide it’s time to test your will.
We live in extremely dangerous times. At least Half the Population of this Country hasn’t a clue what they are facing.
I find it simply amazing how far we have sunk since Ronald Reagan showed the Nation how special it was.
Those days are long gone and only the People that pay attention really care. The rest live in blissful Ignorance, many of them purposely so.
Looks like there are a number of people in Iraq that are also cool with Mr. Putin’s actions:
‘Even close watchers of the Russian military were surprised to see them.’
Especially those ISIS clowns, I’ll wager.
The last thing they ever saw.
Yes, willful ignorance, but they will be swept away when the Russian, Chinese, North Korean or Muzzie hordes assert themselves.
It’s much simpler. You get the target coordinates from Intel. You digitally load the coordinates into the missiles. You start up and calibrate the inertial navigation and Glonass GPS systems. You press the red button.
Everything is built into the missiles nowadays. All that’s needed is an input computer and wiring to enter the targeting info.
The US could put them in smaller ships but bigger ships means bigger funds and greater operational range. Which of course has been figured out by the Russians. Lacking the funds they extended the range of their missiles to reduce the operational range required of the ships firing them hence allowing them to use smaller ships, closer to port.
These four missiles landed in a different country. I don’t think it means the rest hit their targets. Maybe these merely managed to get the country right?
They knew what was likely to happen - they simply didn’t want to warn the Obama military in the Middle East, aka ISIS.
We are almost out of Tomahawks - the new improved version will not ready for some time ... maybe the Russians will sell us some of there’s?
probably due to the usual hi level of Russian quality assurance, rather than targeting errors.
Anyone that is surprised that the Russians or Chinese have advanced military capabilities haven’t been paying much attention. There are more communists on the U.S. Governments payroll right now than there are in their homelands.
I think it was Henry Ford II who said, “small cars make small profits.” I spent 30 years in military contracting. Small vehicles make small profits. Further, if there is a bigger, absurdly expensive alternative, that is the one most likely to get funded. The bigger the project, the bigger the profits and award fees. Even when the actual customer is begging for something small and light, the system that procures it is biased to produce large, heavy and expensive. That means expensive to buy, maintain, repair and update.
The bias is so pervasive that it is impossible to overcome. The FCS combat vehicle was supposed to be light, cheap and all the things you’d want if you had to pay from your own pocket. But the contract was larded down with ridiculous agenda requirements from Green to Gay.
I was in charge of the FCS miniaturization integrated product team. If miniaturization was important it would have been handled at the very top. Instead, I was several subcontractors down the pyramid. Why? It was an impossible job. Every contract already stated the allocated height, width, length and weight for every box. There was zero incentive to give up an inch or an ounce. These allocations were made years before the vehicle was designed and were insurance for the companies involved that they’d be able to build their box with their existing technology with no risky innovation required. When I suggested we surface redoing the incentive fees by which corporate CEO’s got their million dollar checks to incentivize size and weight instead of spending to plan, I was told I’d be fired if I even mentioned it.
Amazing insight. The general in charge of the program insisted the companies involved set up a suggestion program to solicit size and weight reduction ideas from the employees. I was in the cafeteria when my boss and a rep from Boeing came in and proceeded to introduce the plan. Not a single employee in that cafeteria other than me was even on the program. They all worked for a sister division with no FCS contract. Further, you needed something called an ACE (Advanced Collaborative Environment) account to put in your suggestion. These were parceled out like gold. I was the only one in that room with an ACE account. When I asked my boss what he was doing, giving this pitch to people who could not possibly help, he said, “following orders.” He was the best man I’ve ever seen at the bureaucratic slow-roll. Well, I had an ACE account and I had lots of suggestions. So, I logged on and…found it impossible to use the mechanism. I called the administrator and he said he could use it just fine. I sent them to him and he said it wasn’t his job to enter them. Nobody else could use it either. We concluded they really, really, didn’t want the ideas.
Ships are slightly different in that the bigger and more impressive, the higher the status for everybody involved, from Senators to CEO’s to admirals. That’s why we have mega-aircraft carriers in an age of cheap Mach 3 missiles. I presume once we’ve lost all of them and are financially too strapped to build more that we’ll slim the Navy down to survivable sized ships and spread them over a larger distance.
Clearly a minority opinion. So how much safer would you feel if the USA had no A/C carriers? Why I every other country trying to develop and build blue water aviation capabilities?
Your screed could have been written by an Obama operative.
Your experiences could make a Pentagon Wars series.
LOL, I would say you must be new around here, but I know you aren’t.
There is blather in every thread about carriers!
The General is right about one thing, though...due to the tender ministrations of liberal policies over the last 30 years, their end goal of “being broke” so we can’t afford to spend money on defense is going to come true. So he is going to get his wish there.
However, we will never be too broke to spend money on social programs, though, and those on the left (and many people who support their end goals) have always looked at military spending as an impediment to allocating more money to those.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.