Russian Iskanders Pointed at BMD Sites

[nevidimka]

I read somewhere in a Russian news online that the threat of the system is not necessarily on Russia's 1st strike missiles, rather it could be used to take out Russia's second strike ICBM's or whichever surviving land based missiles that are left after a successful 1st strike by the US.

And the potential of a system that is now just 10 missiles for a non existing threat, may well certainly increase in numbers and complexities in the future if Iran manages to build missiles capable of hitting the whole Europe.

Also on the issue of positions to place the missiles, it could well be placed in Germany or Italy?

 

[SkolZkiy]

I doubt that Germany or Italy will agree to place these systems on their territory.

 

[Feanor]

I have a more nuanced point here. What is the purpose of the BMD? To stop Iranian missiles (a handful) from hitting Europe. I.e. to prevent Iran from holding Europe hostage should America push ahead with military action. So the purpose of the BMD is to give America a free hand in Iran in military terms.

 

[nevidimka]

Russia can increase the threat.

http://www.en.rian.ru/russia/20081117/118359856.html

 

[Feanor]

Yeah. The article is a reference to the X-55 nuclear cruise missile. Here's a newsru.com article with more of the same.

http://newsru.com/russia/17nov2008/missiles.html

 

[Firehorse]

Bingo!

..среди адекватных мер по противодействию американской ПРО необходимо проработать вопрос о начале подготовки по созданию позиционного района в западных регионах РФ для российских ракет средней дальности.
http://newsru.com/russia/17nov2008/missiles.html

As I had guessed earlier:
"..among other measures to counter the American BMD it is necessary to work on the question of starting preparations to create IRBM base(s) in the Western part of Russian Federation."

It would be very unusial if they don't use other types of missiles to target BMD besides Iskanders.

 

[roberto]

The Georgian military was completely incapable of acting coherently as a large scale force. And no their equipment was not similar to the rest of the Soviet Union. The amount of aid they received was much smaller then the aid N. Vietnam got from the Soviet Union (which isn't surprising give the context). Their SAMs were mostly outdated, even the fairly dated S-200's weren't present. Their best units were the Buks which they recently acquired from Ukraine. Their airforce had no air superiority assets whatsoever.

Neither did Vietnamese acted coherently. and it is impossbile to for Soviet Union or China to give add on scale what was available to Georgia. Just one pipeline revenues are much more than what Vietnamese had. which were just backwater of the world. After World war 2. US was two generations ahead of Soviet Union and certainly three generations from Vientamese in training and tactics and weopons. Georgians were using eithter superior weopons or of the same generation as Russian.

 

[Feanor]

Neither did Vietnamese acted coherently. and it is impossbile to for Soviet Union or China to give add on scale what was available to Georgia. Just one pipeline revenues are much more than what Vietnamese had. which were just backwater of the world. After World war 2. US was two generations ahead of Soviet Union and certainly three generations from Vientamese in training and tactics and weopons. Georgians were using eithter superior weopons or of the same generation as Russian.

How you're counting generations here is beyond me. Your argument was in regards to the air-defense capabilities. The Georgians, on a relative scale, were far less capable then Vietnam in that area. If you fail to recognize this very very simple fact (seriously Georgia didn't have a single ATA fighter) then there is nothing more to talk about.

 

[S400]

Russia has plenty of liquidity - so not necessarily so. Perhaps it's just to manae hysterical stockbrokers?

Plenty of liquidity, so long as the price of oil remains near or above ~$80/barrel. Which currently isn't working out so well...

 

[Feanor]

An intersting point I found in an older article.

США планируют возвести РЛС с круговым сектором обзора, - уточнил генерал-полковник Поповкин, - а чтобы оградить себя от опасности со стороны Ирана, было бы вполне достаточно и 40 градусов. К тому же в таком случае они могли бы значительно сэкономить на затратах по электрообеспечению узла. На эти доводы я до сих пор не могу получить обстоятельного ответа. Поэтому, на мой взгляд, заявления руководства Соединенных Штатов Америки о ненаправленности американской ПРО в Европе против России имеют целью всего лишь успокоить общественность...

Basically, it says that only 40 degree coverage is needed to detect an Iranian launch, but the radar will have 360 degree coverage. This is more expensive to build and maintain, and obviously points to the fact that the radar at the very least is not purely against Iran.

http://www.redstar.ru/2008/01/30_01/1_08.html

This is from an interview with General-Colonel Vladimir Popovkin from January 30 2008.

 

[roberto]

How you're counting generations here is beyond me. Your argument was in regards to the air-defense capabilities. The Georgians, on a relative scale, were far less capable then Vietnam in that area. If you fail to recognize this very very simple fact (seriously Georgia didn't have a single ATA fighter) then there is nothing more to talk about.

Vietnamese got jet fighter two decades later than US and they certainly dont have training to execute it properly. It does not matter if Georiga had airforce of F-5 (Just two make sure that they ar two generation behind MIG-29/Su-27) to bring the same context of Vietnamese airforce vs USAF. it wont have made a difference.

 

[Feanor]

Vietnamese got jet fighter two decades later than US and they certainly dont have training to execute it properly. It does not matter if Georiga had airforce of F-5 (Just two make sure that they ar two generation behind MIG-29/Su-27) to bring the same context of Vietnamese airforce vs USAF. it wont have made a difference.

What are you talking about? The MiG-21 proved to be quite a match for the F-4's over Vietnam. And they're of the same generation. Not to mention that they were trained extensively by Soviet pilots. Anyways. This argument is pointless. The difference in capabilities between the NVA and the Georgians is huge, as well as their strength in relation to their opponents. If you honestly can't recognize this, then perhaps you should go back to trying to convince people that AEW&C is based around the airframe. At least that was funny.

 

[S400]

What are you talking about? The MiG-21 proved to be quite a match for the F-4's over Vietnam. And they're of the same generation. Not to mention that they were trained extensively by Soviet pilots. Anyways. This argument is pointless. The difference in capabilities between the NVA and the Georgians is huge, as well as their strength in relation to their opponents. If you honestly can't recognize this, then perhaps you should go back to trying to convince people that AEW&C is based around the airframe. At least that was funny.

Indeed, IIRC in some instances they were Russian pilots.

 

[nevidimka]

An intersting point I found in an older article.



Basically, it says that only 40 degree coverage is needed to detect an Iranian launch, but the radar will have 360 degree coverage. This is more expensive to build and maintain, and obviously points to the fact that the radar at the very least is not purely against Iran.

http://www.redstar.ru/2008/01/30_01/1_08.html

This is from an interview with General-Colonel Vladimir Popovkin from January 30 2008.

Interesting, I wonder what new reasons the west can come up with this time to justify the need for a 360 degrees radar coverage as it is more expenive to build 1. AFAIK, 1 of the reason the Karbala? radar was not entertained because the cost of upgrading it was said to be more expensive than building a new station from ground up?

 

[roberto]

What are you talking about? The MiG-21 proved to be quite a match for the F-4's over Vietnam. And they're of the same generation. Not to mention that they were trained extensively by Soviet pilots. Anyways. This argument is pointless. The difference in capabilities between the NVA and the Georgians is huge, as well as their strength in relation to their opponents. If you honestly can't recognize this, then perhaps you should go back to trying to convince people that AEW&C is based around the airframe. At least that was funny.

Ur in serious delusions if u think that era MIG-21 is of same generation as F-4 of USAF and with associated training and tactics. Just look at MIG-21 record in Middleastern wars against Phantom and it was in flat desert enivornment where u dont need that much situational awarness. I said there Georgia has higher per capita income, train in both eastern and western concept and pretty much similar stock of weopons. (Ever thought about Israel/Ukraine).

 

[stigmata]

F-4 is optimized for long range and high speed, it was meant to engage only with missiles and in fact didnt have a gun in the beginning, it has a really poor manouverbility. In Vietnam it was equipped with poor missiles, Pk ~12%, and RUE was most of the time visual confirmation.
By the time they had visual confirmation they often were too close to use missiles, and no gun to back it up, their sidewinders also only had rear aspect.

By the time Israel went up, it had AIM 9L, an all aspect sidewinder, and at the time there was no effective countermeasures.

The two campaigns had very different circumstances.

 

[Firehorse]

Interesting, I wonder what new reasons the west can come up with this time to justify the need for a 360 degrees radar coverage as it is more expenive to build 1. AFAIK, 1 of the reason the Karbala? radar was not entertained because the cost of upgrading it was said to be more expensive than building a new station from ground up?

The "rogue state" label can be applied to any country, including Russia (or what may be left of it, if/when it desintagrates). Besides, if some non-state actors get a hold of real WMD (not just jumbo jets), 360 degree radar coverage will come handy. All this can't be declared openly as justification for these radars' capabilities, for political reasons.

“The world of the near future will be subject to an increased likelihood of conflict over scarce resources, including food and water, and will be haunted by the persistence of rogue states and terrorist groups with greater access to nuclear weapons,” said the report.

And if the goal is to have global situational awareness concerning BMs, I can expect EW/intercept radars appearing in the South Pac., Atlantic, Puerto Rico, bermuda, virgin islands, FL, HI, NC, Diego Garcia & Australia. That way if SSBNs target CONUS or American/allied interests elsewhere from the Southern Ocean ,there will be ways to deal with it.

Other southern islands belonging to NATO members:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Helena

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Georgia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerguelen_Islands

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouvet_Island

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Polynesia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipperton_Island

 

[nevidimka]

OK, based on this report US might arm or even station its own Air force to take out Iskanders in Kaliningrad. So why would US go so far as o build a 360 degrees looking radar, selling Patriots and possibly stationing Airforce to take out Russian Iskanders if the missiles were not aimed at Russia in the 1st place?

Russia can station all the missiles it wants, but if those GBI's are not meant for Russia and its only to be used against a "possible future" Iranian missile, the US dont have to be bothered or threatened isnt it? But these situations doesnt seem to help US case.


http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Sticking_An_Iskander_Missile_Into_The_ABM_Shield_Part_Two_999.html

 

[citicrab]

Again, Russia could care less about the dozen missiles. The whole fuss is about having US presence in the former client states. Russia just doesn't seem able to forget it used to be par to the US. There are no military threats to Russia from anywhere (maybe China in distant future). Europe is a joke, NATO or not. America's presence on Russia's borders is negligible, and going down. It's the idea of having stable democratic regimes, like Ukraine and Georgia whose legitimacy is confirmed, politically, by the membership of the NATO club of democracies that is destabilizing for Russia (regime, not the nation). As before, they want cordon sanitaire on the borders. The Baltics are gone, Ukraine and Georgia are on the way out... Who's left? Belarus? Won't hold for long if Ukraine goes. KZ? May just take a little longer.

 

[Feanor]

You're calling Georgia democratic? The same Georgia where the press is run by the government, and opposition protests are beaten and tear gassed? Look Russia may be an authoritarian country with little real political life. And I certainly harbor no love for Putin and Co. but compared to Georgia, Russia is a haven of political freedom.

As for Ukraine, I strongly suggest you read up on Ukranian politics. The country is practically split into 2, if not 3. If their leaders continue to play on divisive anti-Russian feelings, they will split the country down the middle.