Meanwhile Russia is successfully fielding hypersonic weapons in it's invasion of Ukraine. Additionally, US air defense tech is severely lacking compared to Russia's multilayered systems. Yet US spends much much more. Where is the money going?
Given all the ammo dumps on fire this past week, it is clear that the Russian air defense system fails at subsonic rockets, let alone supersonic or hypersonic.
We'll seriously discuss air defense the moment Russia can deal with cheap rockets / Missiles (HIMARS or Neptune).
But Moskova sank and now S300 /S400 systems are getting wrecked. The Russian systems have proven to be a complete joke to a degree no one expected.
Against the Russian adversary, it has become clear that hypersonics are not needed. Neptune (subsonic sea skimming cruise missiles) and HIMARS (ballistic semi-guided subsonic rockets) are all that's actually required.
Even Israel, with limited territory that it wants to protect isn't successful in 100% of times. Currently air defense of all military powerful countries is able to defend against limited attack of ballistic missiles, not against every single rocket that MRLS spews in a span of 20 seconds.
btw Iran rocked US bases in Iraq just fine with not terribly modern rockets.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Martyr_Soleimani
12 missiles, zero deaths, some concussions, advance warning to the Iraqis, and targeting a lightly-defended base; "due to the lack of a missile defense system at the bases, no missiles were intercepted".
Wouldn't read too much into it. It was a tit-for-tat response to the US droning an Iranian commander.
Vice versa. I know this.
Which is why I'm arguing in favor of missile swarms, rather than hypersonic missiles. A missile swarm will accomplish the same thing as hypersonic, in that it will overwhelm the enemy's air defenses and allow you to prioritize specific targets with high chance of success.
HIMARS rockets, launched 6 at a time (or at least, 6 in a minute), seem impossible for the Russian army to stop. They may have some systems shooting down some of these missiles, but the Ukrainians are clearly hitting a lot of important targets with just 4 HIMARS systems.
Just saturating with 6+-HIMARS coordinating and massing fire would probably be cheaper than deploying hypersonic missiles (!!!). Don't get me wrong, HIMARS are expensive... but hypersonics are __REALLY__ expensive.
Future "Swarms" of missiles can enable missile-to-missile communications (who is still alive? Anyone sensing enemy RADAR signatures that we need to dodge? Etc. etc.) to improve overall missile performance.
HIMARS rockets are small, fast ... S300 was supposed to stop them, but we can't be sure how many are getting hit even then I don't think we can accept to get a volley of 6 rockets interceded.
That said, of course Russia's used of supposed 'hypersonics' is a pointless distraction.
There isn't an obvious gap anywhere here, other than it seems PAC/Patriot systems are so expensive there are few deployed, which is a bit scary.
Also, no matter how good your AA, where there is a ton of missiles and jets, some things get through.
If you can't stop 6x $150,000 missiles, why would I ever shoot you with a $20,000,000 hypersonic missile?
> Also, no matter how good your AA, where there is a ton of missiles and jets, some things get through.
I think swarming missiles is a better idea to overwhelm missile defense systems, rather than Hypersonics.
You don't get a swarm just because you deploy multiple missiles at the same time.
What you are describing is a saturation attack.
https://www.defensenews.com/air/2021/02/04/air-forces-golden...
> You don't get a swarm just because you deploy multiple missiles at the same time.
A missile swarm knows that Missile #5, and #10 were shot down, and that missile #5's target was more important than Missile #1's target. A "saturation attack" won't have this effect.
Simple intelligence, not even "AI level", but some basic communications between missiles, can lead to better mission success.
A "saturation attack" means hitting an area with maybe 30 missiles and hoping all the targets get blown up. A missile swarm on the other hand, has those 30 missiles communicate, prioritizes, and focuses upon target locations as they get intercepted, all automatically. If 25 missiles get shot down, the remaining 5 missiles still hit the top 5 most important targets. If 15 missiles get shot down, the 15 missiles spread out and hit lower priority targets (rather than redundantly making the craters bigger).
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A "Swarm" is just an incremental upgrade to the already well performing "saturation attack" strategy. But we have enough communication systems that coordination and prioritization should be in our next-generation missile systems.
This isn't a revolution, its just a natural evolution to the age-old saturation strategy. Put simple dumb computers to make the strategy even better in the future.
And yes, there's no point in 'hypersonic missile' obviously if you can just shoot $100K rockets, but the hypersonic cruise missiles have a much bigger payload and much longer range, and, likely cannot be used in 'saturation level activities' most times.
'hypersonic' are just cruise missiles that go a bit faster.
I read somewhere the Ukrainians were mixing cheaper non guided missiles in with the guided ones to make it harder for the Russians to shoot them all down.
Literally getting S300 to go after HIMARS rockets will grind down Russia, they simply do not have the inventory.
Recently, Russia has been using S300 as 'ground attack' munitions, going after railway junctions etc..
Which is kind of neat actually, that's a pretty dynamic bit of kit!
But extremely desperate. Limited damage for enormous cost.
Also, at the start of this, Ukraine had around 100 S-300s - which is one of the reason Russia has had a difficult time. Those are effective systems. And there's a reason the US made a big deal about Turkey purchasing S-400s.
Their targeting is such shit they can’t avoid shooting down their own materiel. Russia’s menace is more akin to the Taliban than the USSR or China. A pest due to proximity.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1642804/Russia-weapons-...
There have been signs Russia's struggling to organize air operations.
https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/rusi-defe...
This by Andrei Martyanov (who's a US citizen fwiw) is worth a watch:
edit: respecting the Turks' rebrand, minus the special "u" character.
The alternative is that S-X00 systems are too expensive for Russians to deploy to protect their command posts and ammo dumps. Which... seems unlikely?
I think its more likely that the Russian systems failed, rather than the Russian army being too cheap / incompetent to deploy them to important locations like that.
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We also have the Moskova cruiser, which was using similar missile defense systems. Given that the Moskova sank vs a Ukrainian domestic cruise missile (the Neptune missile), we know its missile defense system was defeated by subsonic "normal" missiles.
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I really don't know why we'd ever invest into hypersonics, at least against Russia. Its abundantly clear to me that their missile defenses just can't handle normal missiles, let alone saturation attacks or hypersonics or whatnot.
If Russia needs to use hypersonic weapons against Ukraine, that's frankly a bit embarassing. They're either having a harder time than they should be against Ukranian air defenses, or they're low on conventional missiles.
> Additionally, US air defense tech is severely lacking compared to Russia's multilayered systems.
The continued existence of the Ukranian Air Force (including drones taking out SAM sites) and the sinking of the Moskva seem to indicate the Russian air defense advantage may have been overstated.
Additionally, an active war is the perfect time to test out new weapons systems. Plus there's no signs that Russia is running out of conventional missiles or other munitions: https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentar...
And remember, Ukrainian air defense is mostly made up of upgraded Soviet (Russian) systems which just prove that the S-x00 and others are work well. And regarding the Moskva - it was a sitting duck, and an old duck with very outdated systems.
"The stockpile is unknown, they've already burned through half their likely inventory thus far, produce only a few dozen a year, and are using balistic missiles on weird targets" seems to point to the opposite conclusion they're going for.
They can't even make cars internally right now (https://www.drive.com.au/news/russias-biggest-carmaker-lada-...) after first dropping antilock brakes and airbags (https://www.politico.eu/article/war-and-sanctions-force-lada...).
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Losing_Military_Suprema...
He also puts together frequent youtube videos. Despite is accent, his English is great:
The type of Hypersonic weapon mentioned in this thread is one that breaths air (either scram or ram jet, I forget)and so is an entirely different beast, one which Russia has no known capability of.
You seem to have a flawed interpretation of the events in Ukraine - if anything, this war seems to highlight just how utterly advanced NATO's weaponry is against an increasingly evident paper tiger. If Russia didn't have the nuclear card to play, the situation on the ground (and air, water) would be VERY different. I doubt Russia would exist in its current state by this stage, its military having been utterly routed. Sadly for Ukraine, they hold that card and threaten it often, like all decent states do... .
- https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentar...
- https://georgetownsecuritystudiesreview.org/2019/06/26/the-r...
- https://missilethreat.csis.org/system/russian-air-defense/
Russia having lots of artillery tubes and shells has never been in doubt; it's other logistical aspects they seem to have struggled with. The gains in the Donbas are small, incremental, and balanced fairly well by losses near Kherson and Kharkiv. For the main axis of an invasion by one of the world's largest militaries, it's not much to brag about thus far.
And you believe that is a failure?
Considering that Russia's top objective is to take the Donbas, that seems like a success. Ukraine is not Iraq 2.0; they are/were the largest military in Europe outside of Russia. And that is without considering all the western weapons and training support.
Yes, it's a clear failure thus far. Unexpectedly slow progress, unexpectedly high losses, and "we just want the Donbas" was clearly not the original goal. They're having to settle for that, and they'll have to hold it.
> Considering that Russia's top objective is to take the Donbas, that seems like a success.
Maybe you can borrow George W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished" banner?
According to whom? TV news people?
> unexpectedly high losses
According to whom? Reddit armchair generals?
> clearly not the original goal
According to whom? The Kremlin never stated goals outside the original 4 or so.
I mean, state media had a victory article ready to go (https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60562240), and it's fairly clear they were hoping to capture or exile Zelensky and other officials in the first few days.
> According to whom? Reddit armchair generals?
As of May, they'd lost more troops than they lost in a decade of bloody war in Afghanistan.
On the geopolitical front, it appears Putin also managed an own-goal by driving Finland and Sweden towards NATO membership. Even the most tortured propaganda doesn't manage to portray that as a goal of his.
> According to whom? The Kremlin never stated goals outside the original 4 or so.
The same Kremlin that said they didn't plan to invade Ukraine? (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-17/russia-te...)
Even their stated goals included Ukraine's demilitarization and "denazification". Hard to do that if you stop at the Donbas.
Yeah, no. Do we consider western editorials as official government positions?
> As of May, they'd lost more troops than they lost in a decade of bloody war in Afghanistan.
Completely meaningless. We're talking a real (kinda) near-peer war vs playing in the sandbox vs guys in sandals with AKs. It's disingenuous to compare the two, and you know it. Iraq is not even a proper comparison. You'll need to compare what's going on now with WWII combined arms battles. Maybe some of the Korean battles.
> Even their stated goals included Ukraine's demilitarization and "denazification". Hard to do that if you stop at the Donbas.
Fair enough point. Guess we'll see.
If they're in state media, sure. Even our independent media is permitted to call it a war, though, not just a "special military operation".
> We're talking a real near-peer war
Sure. That it's near-peer is a surprise.
Ukraine wasn't supposed to be a a “near peer” for Russia.
> You'll need to compare what's going on now with WWII combined arms battles.
The question, really, is whether domestic public (and elite) opinion sees the costs like an outside existential threat like WWII or an external intervention of choice like Afghanistan.
I don't think anyone beyond the ever-optimistic has at any point disputed that Russia has huge stocks of weaponry to draw from - it just doesn't have a lot of particularly technological or, dare I say it, 'graceful' weaponry to deploy.
Anyway, point here being that Russia doesn't have hypersonic weaponry in the vein tested by America here.
They do appear to want to invest in Satan-class mega ICBMs and even a nuclear-powered [highly-polluting] cruise missile, or the submarine-based nuke which 'could wipe out the British Isles' which is Putin's wet dream. Subtle. Think of the outcry if anyone in the west even considered such ridiculousness in this day and age... .
ed - anti-speed edits
US military doctrine states that an invading force needs a 3:1 attacker:defender ratio. Russia went in with the inverse of that and is still winning.
> it just doesn't have a lot of particularly technological or, dare I say it, 'graceful' weaponry to deploy.
Russia is ahead of the US with electronic warfare, ballistics and air defense. And that's a fact well recognized by western experts.
> do appear to want to invest in Satan-class mega ICBM
They've already successfully tested Satan's and will be deploying it soon. Or it's all a fake production to scare the west. What do I know.
What do we define as winning here?, Ukraines tactic is to fall back to defensive positions when they are about to lose something so not to lose men. The gains Russia has made are very small and the amount of equipment and men it has taken to make them is huge.
Most of those games where made before long range heavy western weapons started being delivered too, I suspect their gains will slow down even further because of this.
Which one is it?
Hello from Kyiv.