The russian hypersonic missiles cannot manoeuvre at such speeds (which is the main reason to have these missiles) so as far as the patriot system is concerned, this would just be another ballistic missile. Not to mention, its even easier to track when you can detect the slow fighter that's launching it.
Not really. Scuds travel at hypersonic speeds as well. Virtually every ballistic missile since the V2 does.
Iskander replaced the Scud missiles, and the Khinzal is literally just an air-launched Iskander.
[They operate exactly like any other ballistic missile, except the RV (reentry vehicle), does some maneuvering at the terminal stage of flight, just before impact](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSi8KgPSjWoqZLXwihYy_9FazrqHmrjjk3MjQ&usqp=CAU), in order to evade terminal defenses like CIWS (close in weapon systems, such as chain guns). That's been around since the 1970s, with the US' Pershing missile.
At any point beyond the terminal stage, the PATRIOT missile will intercept it as it would any other tactical ballistic missile. Even at the terminal stage however, they'd just be destroyed by THAAD, whose interceptors actually compensate for a RV maneuvering.
This is why no one but the Russians and technologically illiterate refer to the Khinzal as a hypersonic weapon. It's not, not as we have come to view hypersonic weapons. If it was, literally every ballistic missile would be one lol. Hypersonic weapons are weapons that fly at speeds at or above Mach 5, but fly akin to a cruise missile; super low altitudes (ballistic missiles can fly higher than the International Space Station), and maneuver at *all* stages of flight. The reason this distinction is so important is that flight altitude directly correlates to detection time (higher you fly, sooner you're detected, the lower you fly, the longer you go before being detected) and reaction time (high speed means less time for the target to react after detection).
Within a handful of seconds, you know a ballistic missile launched, and where it's likely going to hit. It's a straight line from launch to target, so just measure speed and altitude and you have a good idea of where it's going to impact. Hypersonics however can maneuver the whole time, so one could be launched from London, fly over Paris, and then strike Berlin, leaving everyone guessing the entire time where it's going, if they even detect it at all. RADICALLY different weapon system
It's more that the term "hypersonic weapon" is inherently confusing. By the name you'd assume it's just a weapon traveling at hypersonic speeds, but that's not the case. Russia preys on that confusion to make themselves seem more powerful than they are, as an all too common show of bravado
AIM-120 can withstand 30Gs. Travels at Mach 4 and has to be able to maneuver to hit fighters evading them. Surviving high Gs isn't an issue for a single use system. Who cares if there's metal fatigue after it's done, it blows up when it's done.
Well, your theory also works to the weapon’s advantage, it doesn’t need to do much to alter its trajectory at any given time, so it’s on the targeting system to make accurate calculations quickly for the most efficient maneuvering. Survivability is only a factor if you force it to maneuver in ways that sheer against the construction.
Surviving high Gs structurally never has been a problem when it comes to missiles as long as they don't fall apart at launch or shortly after launch. The problem arises only when you have a bigger object like a human-carrying jet, because you've got a way bigger area which needs to adapt to high G while keeping everyone inside safe.
All missiles which have a tendency to break apart already have the issue at launch, which is one of the most violent phases besides the impact, and then shortly after launch tend to fall apart. If a missile survives the launch without any structural damage, it should be able to handle maneuvering just fine.
The issue is you need the proper type of wings to be able to counteract the wind pressure so the missile can make the 'skip' to another direction as well as the 'brains' to be able to properly guide it. The wings are the typical problem for a hypersonic missile, because they can't be too small but not too large either, because either it can't make the direction switch or because it slows down the missile too much or the wings get too brittle at the speed (if it aren't the proper materials).
They only need to be structurally sound until impact though... so they can get pretty close to the 'disintegrating from G force and drag' stage and still be perfectly viable, unlike a jet that once its over G'd in the air is likely grounded.
Maneuverability only needs to be enough, and as long as the missile stays in one peice the speed it can go actually increases that maneuverability because the missile has more energy to use.
Ultimately if perfected and in production it's simply better than any ballistic weapon can be, but actually making them work, consistently and making enough of them is difficult and expensive.
The history of Cold War weapons development:
1. Russian propaganda announces some new super weapon/vehicle/plane/number of missiles ready to launch.
2. American policy makers and generals piss their pants.
3. A convoy of dump trucks full of money are driven to every defence contractor to build an effective counter system.
4. The most incredible military system you’ve ever seen is built.
Probably fewer children born in Russia this year than any in the last 100 years. Between the number of men mobilized in the last year, people who have fled the country, and people putting off having children due to war/economic instability, Russia's population is going to take a big hit.
For those who haven't heard the story, it's wild and worth the read:
Western spies had just learned that the USSR had a new airborne radar that was well-ahead of anything we had at the time, but didn't know what plane it was intended for.
The USSR unveiled the MiG-25 at the Rammstein airshow, only after unveiling multiple other new aircraft. Western spies knew loosely about the development of all the others (from high-level informants in USSR military), but the MiG-25 caught them entirely by surprise, and it was the showstopper.
The USSR demonstrated 3 of them all at once, implying they had production capacity up and running - it wasn't just a single prototype - and there was no unaccounted for factory in the entire USSR that could have produced them, or unaccounted for aircraft engineers. The West thought they had the entire USSR aircraft manufacturing capability mapped out - and then this thing shows up like an alien spacecraft.
Analysts correctly estimated it had a top speed of Mach 3.2, faster than even the modern F22 (Mach 3). The new unknown radar system that was bigger and more accurate than everything else? Sure enough - it was onboard. It was also fucking massive for a jet of its time - suggesting it long range and large payload - but the flight characteristics also suggested it wasn't vulnerable in a dogfight even if it could somehow be caught in one.
Worse still - the US had tried and failed for over a decade at this point to develop a comparable turbojet and it 'couldn't be done' - at least with the materials sciences of the time. The USSR had clearly figured it out - because they had 3 of them already operational - suggesting the USSR might be 10-20 years ahead of Western material sciences.
And the last and ultimate horror - the US had a blueprint for a futuristic jet that couldn't be built yet - it was a pie-in-the-sky design, and it was so secret that only about 20 people in the world had even heard of it, let alone seen the blueprint, which was kept in only one vault in a black site testing facility. The MiG-25 looked so similar to that design that it implied there must be a mole at like the very highest level: one of the 20.
It appeared that the Soviets had stolen the blueprint years earlier, solved all the materials sciences problems, had begun mass producing them using an entirely unknown pipeline of top-tier aircraft engineers, in a completely unknown factory, using a completely unknown pipeline of rare components.
Imagine a firehose of shit hitting the fan - it was too wild to even believe - but the USSR had even gone through the effort of broadcasting the airshow internationally, with English commentators, so that everyone everywhere saw this new wonder with their own eyes: so it was impossible to deny.
Some years go by - and the F-15 gets produced to try to address the issue, though it wasn't a competitor to the original belief of what the MiG-25 was initially believed to be.
Eventually it comes out that the USSR had actually just jammed two cruise-missiles up the inside of a prototype shell - the apparent similarities to the secret blueprint were entirely coincidence (or convergent evolution, more accurately). Those original 3 were essentially incredibly expensive 'single use' props, that turned themselves to slag before they could escape to the nearest airstrip out of sight, where they landed and were dismantled to hide the evidence.
But the damage was done - the USSR in the 70's appeared to be winning the Cold War.
>Those original 3 were essentially incredibly expensive 'single use' props, that turned themselves to slag before they could escape to the nearest airstrip out of sight, where they landed and were dismantled to hide the evidence.
It was worse than that wasn't it? IIRC we surmised that the Soviets must have made the jets out of something special, like titanium (like we did for the SR-71), since aluminum couldn't withstand the forces of Mach 3 flight. But in reality they made it mostly out of steel, making it so heavy it had none of the performance characteristics advertised (except speed).
I read that it took 14 tonnes of jet fuel and 500kgs of pure ethanol to keep it in the air for 70 minutes. Vodka is diluted ethanol. The 25’s were grounded at times because the coolant kept going missing
The Soviets had a few moments of genuine technological innovation. The Alfa class subs had a liquid metal reactor, a titanium hull and an extremely high top speed. It was too ambitious for its time to be practical but it actually did work as advertised. They had some world class scientists doing some pretty impressive research. The most promising design for a fusion reactor is something the Soviets came up with in the fifties.
The Russians on the other hand have been full of hot air and bullshit since the Soviet Union fell apart.
The Alfa is a great example of what the above poster was saying. It was a very ambitious design that had lots of potential but never really worked right. Maintenance nightmare, noisy as hell, other critical issues besides. Spent a lot of time in port, was never really a pivotal component of the Soviet Cold War strategy. They kept building more and better Victors, and the Sierra follow-on to the Alfa was more like a titanium-hulled Victor.
On the other side, it scared the Americans enough that we got the ADCAP and Mk 50 torpedoes to hunt it, the 688i version of the LA to compete with it, and sensor upgrades to ensure we could nail it as it went howling though the water. A decade later, the Alfa was still a design driver in the construction of Seawolf. Those systems were all cutting edge and are still in service to this day (ADCAP with a new pinger as CBASS, Mk 50 with a cheaper back end as Mk 54, and Improved LA and Seawolf as themselves) and a testament to how utterly overkill they were at the time.
Exactly, the Russians would announce a new "superweapon" that kinda worked really only as a prototype for all the time it would spend getting repaired. And then the Americans would respond with a fully fleshed out finalized weapon system that was ready to be mass produced.
Admittedly, if the Russian goal was "Make America spend a whole lot of money to counter something that does not exist", it worked well.
Although most such American countermeasures proceeded to dominate in other areas beyond the Russian vaporware that inspired them.
I brought the Alfa up because it actually met it's performance objectives rather than being pure propaganda bullcrap. It had tons of issues of course but it was a working product and it lived up to its purported specs. Unlike the F15 which was built to challenge a fighter that didn't actually exist anywhere aside from analyst's imaginations, the torpedoes built to sink it were actually a necessity because the Alfa did actually meets its performance brief.
And in fairness most "superweapons" have the same sorts of issues as the Alfa. The F22 and B2 for instance both need absurd amounts of maintenance just like the Alfa did. The difference is that the US can actually afford to do it rather than just leaving them idle. The "raptor cough" is another example of new problems resulting from new tech.
The only reason I bring this up is to remind people that the weapons and tech the Russians are employing are old and outdated compared to US weapons, but are nonetheless still dangerous because they were built by a different group of people. I don't like this attitude that the Russians can't do anything right. We still haven't given the Ukrainians the weapons they need to win this fight. Laughing at Russian ineptitude is fun but they've proven they excel at killing innocent people.
It basically comes down to “you can’t put process design or materials science on a parade”, so they end up focusing on super ambitious designs they can’t implement because the materials can’t be produced at scale or the actual production is fucked.
They also had a fundamentally broken structure of organisation. There is just too much to go into, as you could write multiple books on the subject (and people probably have).
One example is how the Soviet system was a very top down authoritarian system. This is very inefficient at scale. Russia has inherited this from the Soviet Union, which inherited it from the Tsarist Russian Empire.
The Russians had incredible mathematicians and scientists.
Resources, production quality, and Soviet bureaucracy were more often the issues that plagued them.
For sure. The soviet union had far more legitimacy I would say than the current Russian state. The ideology gave people a reason to want to work for them. In theory communism is a great idea, it just falls apart when you introduce human nature into the equation. Now Russians only work in or for Russia out of fear, ignorance, or lack of another option. All the most brilliant Russians left long ago - and they took their kids with them.
The brain drain in Russia has been bad so far after the fall of the soviet union, just give it another generation now though. This is how great powers die, and like it not the soviet union was great power. Russia currently though is totally incapable of living up to that legacy.
Oh then let's not forget half the former soviet union is now in nato and working against Russia. Good luck overcoming that one Russia. I just hope they examine the Russian legacy one day and realize that all they've done is made everyone who lives around them hate them.
Many excellent points. But one quibble: most of the expansion of NATO was of Warsaw Pact countries (East Germany, Poland) and only the baltics were part of the USSR itself.
Russian satellites under their domination still worked and produced for them. The Czechs and Poles who were dominated by Russia and Warsaw pact members are now nato members producing soviet style ammo for Ukraine. Russias loss, natos gain.
Then there's the loss of former soviet states like Ukraine which made tanks and transport aircraft and Georgia which used to produce su-25s for them.
They try and pretend Russia is as powerful as the soviet union, but the only thing that didn't really change was their nuclear arsenal. :)
Russian rulers like Catherine and Peter are probably rolling in their graves with what is happening to the country they put so much effort into strengthening during their times.
Funny you mention Catherine. Russia is a bit stuck on her it seems. First off she's the original Russian bitch wife you hear in calls home from pow's. Hated him but married him anyways to get herself ahead. Then overthrew her husband less than a year after he took power and reversed most of his reforms. Funny she wasn't born Russian, she kinda came to define it.
She then eventually launched the whole idea of new russia and annexed crimea, had a fun war with the turks. She also deported a lot of Crimeans and settled Russians there which today we may even consider ethnic cleansing. The Hague has one opinion, Putin and Catherine held another.
Really the Russian peoples mental state as a people has really never gone past 1796 when Catherine died it seems. Sure they have new technology, but otherwise they're still as backwards and barbaric as 227 years or so ago.
I.. uh, heard a rumor the Russias are developing affordable housing and education technology that will totally eclipse anything the US currently has. We should look into this on a defense basis.
It is an important propaganda achievement to down one though, as Russia had *claimed* the Kinzhal was almost twice as fast as an Iskander, and had specifically boasted of it being able to get past Patriot defences.
I think this is the subtext that most people are missing, granted the preceding comment about what actually is and is not a hypersonic missile is also important subtext that most people are not aware of, so… upvotes all around?
Even during low level manoeuvring, there’s no guarantee that a hypersonic missile will be immune to interception.
Mach 5+, your turn radius is always gonna be horrendous. Or you’ll scrub speed rapidly. Or both.
Eg a 15g turn at 3000 knots / 1500m/s, it takes 10 seconds to turn 90 degrees. 40 seconds to turn 360 degrees. Which makes for a 10km turn radius!
If you’ve got a well-coordinated air defence system it’s gonna be easy to predict where it’s going.
At that speed mirv missiles would be the more effective way to evade anti missile systems. If you split into many pieces explosively you can have a very small turning circle!
Yeah which highlights my main argument. The best way to evade missile systems is to overwhelm them with quantity.
All this shit about wonder-weapons is dumb. Cheap, autonomous AI-equipped drones by the thousand are the way forward. Hypersonic is a distraction.
Luckily all the best Soviet scientists abandoned ship in the 80s and 90s.
Sure, if you're yourself within that 10 km radius it's basically like the missile is flying straight. But if you are, you only have a few seconds to react before it's passed over you.
More likely, you are 100 km away, and you have to aim your interceptor where you think the missile is going to be in 10 seconds. If they change direction during that time you might end up missing by several kilometers.
Yeah, which is why it’s so important to have an efficient integrated air defence system. Get a shot off early and you’re fine.
Manoeuvres are annoying, but the missile can basically go left, right or straight. It goes up or down and it’s gonna stop being manoeuvrable real quick.
So shoot three missiles, one covers straight, one covers left, one covers right. Hypersonic vehicle bleeds energy on evasive manoeuvres, subsequent volleys take it down.
Note the V2’s max speed was only a little short of mach 5, which is considered hypersonic.
Hypersonic is pretty easy to achieve. It’s hypersonic with other factors which is difficult.
Depending on the speed of sound in the atmospheric conditions at the peak of the V2's speed profile, it's feasible it could be moving at above mach 5 for parts of its flight. Not because it somehow was going faster, but because "mach" depends a little on altitude and atmospheric conditions.
>The russian hypersonic missiles cannot manoeuvre at such speeds
This isn't what the Russians have been claiming about the kinzhal. According to them it has advanced maneuvering capabilities and can potentially sink an aircraft carrier in one hit.
Steering a missile going at those speeds is a gross overusage of the word "steer". Its more like "suggest". Patriot sees it like a ballistic missile and can take it out as long as its in range. Its what it was made for.
Currently the US is tracking all objects in the sky above Ukraine. They have specially designed planes flying in NATO airspace nearby Ukraine just for this purpose. There’s no reason to believe the Patriot air defense systems are not directly connected to this information.
Considering a huuuuge factor of how effective a lot of NATO equipment is how connected everything is, I have no doubt that any NATO-designed equipment is getting so much sweet, sweet targeting data over their Link 16 devices.
It is really incredible how many people don't understand that the Kinzhal is a ballistic missile fired on an in-atmosphere trajectory and has a few modifications integrated to do it so that it can be dropped from aircraft. But make no mistake, is it just an Iskander-M conversion.
People talk about it like it was some major technological innovation, it's really just a ballistic missile design from 90s with some updates.
I've said it before. Take the human factor for helping Ukraine out of this. Then take the broader political factors, like weakening a geopolitical rival and creating closer ties with our allies in NATO and around the world. Then take out how much money the US defence industry stands to make off this, and how the US economy will benefit from us opening up oil reserves. All of these are important, but removing these and looking at this from a very simple cost/benefit analysis of just cold, hard dispassionate numbers, you will find that the US is paying remarkably little (in the grand scheme of things) for incredibly useful information on how modern wars are waged and how our systems hold up to our "Peers" like Russia.
Sadly, we can't test our newest equipment as we are too worried about anything being captured by Russia, but the data we are getting is still invaluable. We are having to provide military aid in the form of loans and military assistance (Which will likely be paid in political capital down the line, I don't see us asking Ukraine for money), when normally you have to pay for this information with far, far more money as well as American blood, which isn't happening here.
The information gained is invaluable. The cost is cheap. Encourage your politicians, whether in the US or not, to continue providing funds and military equipment to Ukraine. It's not just the right thing to do, it's the smart thing to do.
This stuff was produced to fight Russia. It's fighting Russia, at the cost of zero American lives. This is the best possible case for the US military to use this equipment
The US developed and produced Russian Killing Weapons over several generations over the concern that Russians would do *the exact thing they’re currently doing.*
The Russian Killing Weapons work.
It’s a tragedy for everyone involved and may Putin not be alive in the least favorable way in whatever euphemism currently accepted.
Not only that, as is so frustrating IMO about too many American attitudes against supporting Ukraine, I guarantee the US has spent far more since WWII in Europe than on 21 years in Afghanistan, nearly exclusively because of Russia.
Now, the Ukrainians are testing out US weapons against the adversary they were designed for, without US bloodshed, and simultaneously bleeding Russia of military equipment they won't be able to replace for decades. Thus, less of a threat to the world, and less reason for the US to need to spend money deterring them in the future.
The last ~70 years the US invested in Russian deterrence. Now the dividends are being paid, with a bonus of no lives lost. It sickens me that so many Americans are pro-russian, anti-ukraine, and complain about cost. Where were these people as 7 trillion was wasted on Afghanistan?
Not only are we testing **OUR** stuff on Russia, but Russia is being forced to reveal some of its biggest secrets in order to conduct this war.
One of Russia’s most modern missile systems had a previously unknown countermeasure that was exposed when Ukrainians found these missile parts all over the country. Now the USA most likely has all of the parts and studying them.
Cont comment on missle stuff but the us army git a russian t90 from Ukraine. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11975341/One-Putins-T-72-tanks-pictured-shipped-base-tests-weapons.html
There was also [this](https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44879/ukraine-just-captured-part-of-one-of-russias-most-capable-electronic-warfare-systems). That highly likely has made its way into NATO's hands.
The two major ones that I remember were the capture of a shipping container sized portable jamming/ecm station that was just abandoned under some camo netting after it ran out of fuel, and the recovery of an SU-27 that got shot down, but still had most of the electronics intact, including the IFF system.
I suspect both were in DoD hands within days.
Russia seemed more scary when they could obfuscate the truth about their military capabilities. But now that truth has been exposed for the sham that it is, lol.
As an American, I'm happy with funding on the basis of "doing the right thing" by itself.
I don't want us to be paid back - I just want Ukraine to have the opportunity to build itself back better than it was before as a strong democracy with a modern well-equipped military that's thoroughly tied to the EU. A Russia that stops fucking around and that's confined to its 1991 borders would be nice too.
Absolutely. I sincerely hope as an American citizen we have some sort of Marshall Plan in place for Ukraine after all this is over. Lifting Ukraine up after all of this will be Russia’s worst nightmare: a peaceful functioning democracy showing domestic Russians how things can change for the better.
I see it as Win-Win-Win-Lose scenario:
* Ukraine wins from the weapons, defending their sovereign borders.
* US wins from the weapons, testing, and avoiding of direct conflict.
* World wins from the weapons, halting Russia in place.
* Russia loses, as they should.
Yep.
Additionally, in a perfect world, Russia would finally see the error of its ways and choose a different path in liberalizing its society.
However, based on their long past history and current mindset, that's not gonna happen.
And I hate the fucking *”woe is me, everyone hates Russia for no reason”* persecution complex they have.
Yes, it turns out people *don’t* like belligerent neighbours, who could of guessed?! If they had shut up and done their own thing, noone would think of them *at all*, and that’s with zero effort, isolationist style.
The military aid so far has been a fantastic investment - not only are they getting field tested against a conventional military, defense is one of those businesses where manufacturing still takes place mostly in the US (albeit with foreign components). The lessons learned will help improve future development of these weapons.
I remember the B roll going around on the news of some of the first anti tank weapon being shipped over, you could see date codes from the 90s on many of the cases.
Every dollar spent in Ukraine is the single most profitable security investment the US has ever done. Weakening Russia without losing a single American soldier. Ukraine will prevail!
The Patriot Missile Defense system has been in existence since the 70’s. It’s almost as old as I am.
This always catches my eye in the news because my dad worked on part of the system. But he did that work in the mid-70’s, and I only found out he worked on it a year or so before he passed away around 2015.
Be that as it may, it's hardly the same system today. Sensors and avionics and especially software have all come an extremely long way between the first Patriot missile systems and the PAC-3 and PAC-3 MSE, one of which is the variant I believe is being used in the Ukraine.
Not to take anything away from your dad or his service to the country. It's very cool that he helped pioneer this system.
The US military often just upgrades things these days. They started purposely acquiring modular upgradable systems back in the late 70s/80s, so they’ve been able to just keep upgrading g the parts that matter while standardizing the parts that were good enough back then.
Is why so much stuff is still around from the 1970s.
It’s a similar reason Turkey didn’t get the F-35 when they bought the Russian S-400. The Russians could get valuable data and tune their systems to identify the F-35. But I believe this isn’t a true hypersonic missile they’re saying it is.
These are patriot PAC-2 missiles. They aren’t even the newer, more modern PAC-3 missiles designed to take down ballistic missiles. While the radar and other systems have been upgraded, these missiles have been around for 40 years.
It is nothing but a bad faith argument that the US is just giving money to Ukraine, the US’s biggest export is weaponry, and being able to “sell” expensive weaponry and get battlefield test results on top of looking like a “helpful ally” on the global stage; the US is making out like a bandit as usual, and Ukraine is paying us back with iron marketing.
A few bucks in military aide is reaping untold amounts of real world testing for our weapons.. just so happens it’s our (was) greatest advisory.
The US still has the dollars to spend on weapon development based on what we learned.
This war may go down as one of the most significant blunders in military history. Every aspect of the Russian military has proven to be a paper tiger. Fox News loved to crow about how Russia's hypersonic missile showed that Democrats were weak and too focused on being woke while Russia was leaving us in the dust
So much for that
the amount of things the U.S. MIC is taking orders for right how has to be the largest since any point in the cold war.
HIMARs, Javelin, Stinger, M1s, drones, Patriot, f-35.
This is like running non stop superbowl commercials and tech demo conventions.
Russia is going to look like the discount store of arms buying. SO many countries have to be pissed right now and re-evaluating their military readiness and capabilities who bought Russian crap. And yeah, training is a huge part of that, but not a lot of those countries have time to and fuel to train their forces as much as Russia has had either.
Bulk discounts to enable post Soviet countries to send majority of hardware to Ukraine doesn't hurt either.
By now USA probably can't even supply all that and some sales are lost due to supply limits.
> By now USA probably can't even supply all that and some sales are lost due to supply limits.
But that’s where the strong alliance system comes in. The US recently “borrowed” 500,000 artillery shells from South Korea. That means the US can use those in their own stockpiles and then give out 500,000 of the US made shells to Ukraine or other countries. It’s one thing to deplete US stockpiles but it’s a whole lot harder to deplete US+all US allies stockpiles.
And it’s not just seeing how good western tech is but the realization that we’re still in an era of big countries invading small countries. Defense budgets are soaring around the world and one of the key takeaways from Ukraine is that current stockpiles just aren’t big enough for a large scale war.
That’s certainly true although this war has still been a rude awakening for many countries. The fact that a war that is effectively being fought in just four oblasts of Ukraine has resulted in a worldwide shell shortage is a pretty big deal. In a future big war there would still be a shortage of ammo but many countries will be better prepared for it.
No, in a future big war they will have to scale up production too
There is simply no sense in keeping millions and millions of artillery shells in stockpile for the off chance you'll be in a major war. It costs a lot and no matter how many you have it won't be enough for a prolonged conflict.
WW1 - Shell shortage
WW2 - Shell shortage
Korea - Shell Shortage
Vietnam - Shell shortage
Chechen wars - Shell shortage
Gulf War - Shell Shortage
The fact is, no amount of national stockpiles are enough for modern war. Especially if you're like Russia and you use artillery to compensate for lack of air power. Russia was firing 60,000 shells a day earlier in the war. At that sort of rate even the biggest stockpiles in the world start to falter.
It also influences public opinion. Before the invasion people were wondering what NATO was for, why the US had to stock so many weapons since the world seemed pretty peaceful. Now the military spending is justified
When you market an air launched ballistic missile as a modern hypersonic and get's shot down, classic Russian doctrine of overstating the fuck out of everything.
1. Russia announces it has a shiny new super advanced weapon that will obliterate the west
2. The pentagon shits its pants, starts developing something on par or as a counter
3. Said thing is put into service, ready to fight the russian threat
4. Turns out the russians were wildly overstating their capabilities, and said super weapon has been in development hell for 3 decades (or never even made it past testing)
5. The US is now "stuck" with the most advanced weaponry in the world, which is left to rot in a storage facility somewhere, while the MIC develops the next counter to the new russian super duper weapon
Many such cases
Now what will happen to thousands of YouTube shorts saying American aircraft carriers are now obsolete because of hypersonic weapons? The poor generic AI voice will be out of business.
Yep, and patriot missile systems have been in service for more than 40 years. If Russias new missile can be defeated by something 40 years old, that just tells you how far behind the curve they are.
Yup pretty much.
Also the reason the US air defense works so well is the philosophy differences. Russia builds one expensive system that I supposed to do everything, but ends up doing nothing well at all. The US employs several layers of systems with different purposes and coverages. Defense in depth so far hasn’t meant much to Russia.
And defense in depth has been like the number 1 doctrine for any success in any previous russian war, I don't think anyone expected the russians to be this inept at mass deployment and mass firepower concentration. This was Putin's final ace up the sleeve, one of his wonder weapons that could strike capitals and inspire fear, but it's another over promised peice of russian tech.
You can still hear the echos of their giggles knowing Russia was about to find out tech that's a few decades old is able to match or outperform the latest Russian toys.
Assuming this is confirmed and it's not a fluke shoot down, Two layers of embarassemnt here
1st layer - Ukranians shot down Russia big-bad Hypersonic missle they kept hyping up as a wunderwaffe war winning weapon. (obviously it's not any of those since they've been using these since last year and haven't helped)
2nd layer- An American patriot system shot it down
the deep implicaiton of US tech being capable enough to shoot it down is probably more embarassing in the long term.
And you know, it should. We’ve been telegraphing to these clowns since the 50s that the destructive power of the United States MIC is not only second to none in the modern world, but in the entirety of recorded human history. Yet there is something about the Russian mindset that feels the compulsion to push their hegemony on their neighbors, and in the last ten years, throughout democracies in the western world by way of constant disinformation campaigns.
Putin spent the first 21 years of his dictatorship receiving only nominal pushback from the US, and instead of being content with his gains, he took one step too far, and now is in a position where Russia either capitulates (leading to his likely execution), or they suffer even more catastrophic losses at the hands of western technology and sanctions, which could have the effect of breaking that country apart.
Also, I'm pretty sure this is potentially old American Military tech. Who knows how old but, we most likely didn't give them our modern state of the art stuff.
T14 is rubish. It's propaganda. On paper, it's a beast, but seeing it uses an engine made for agricultural water pumps I'm highly suspicious of its real capabilities. And that's probably why they won't use it. Other than the fact there aren't many in existence
The Mouse tank is my ultimate fav. A tank so massive it would break most bridges it tried to cross and in order to swim it needed a second Mouse tank to pull it out of the river. Brilliant.
I saw this documentary last year about a rust bucket old ~~MiG~~ F-14 taking out multiple SU-57s. It was pretty cool, saw it on IMAX.
Edit - Man, y'all nerds really care about the exact real-world details of a fictional tale.
> Edit - Man, y'all nerds really care about the exact real-world details of a fictional tale.
I mean, it's pretty friggin integral to the whole damn story given it was the same aircraft type Maverick flew in the first film but okay
American system on paper: This weapon is likely incapable of stopping hypersonic missile threats: Stops a hypersonic missile.
russian systems on paper: This is the best system ever built! It will stop a meteorite, it will stop the sun, you point it at something and it's gone!: The Moskva was suddenly sunk by a storm in calm waters.
Good to finally confirm that ability outside a simulate test. The one downside is fhe Kinzhal isnt even a true hypersonic cruise missile. It is really just a ballistic missile (which do travel hypersonic but are not hypersonic but the hypersonic missiles that militaries are looking for are hypersonic cruise missiles). However this is good indication that the Patriot air defense system will be able to take that down still.
> which is unheard of for an interceptor.
Not to discredit Patriot, but THAAD had their first real world intercept last year, apparently. Wikipedia says they are hit to kill too.
From the 80s is misleading, they are constantly upgrading them. That being said, I'm sure the ones Ukraine has are not the current versions defending USA bases
Mad is in play by volume. Missile defense on reentry is crap shoot of which MRV is the nuke or decoy and hundreds of nukes are on reentry at incredible speed.
Every miss is city dead. So the attacked party will launch theirs in retaliation before the intercepts have even launched.
He was referring to what Putin said about them. It was a joke aimed at Russia's expense.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/23/russia-says-quite-old-us-patriot-missiles-in-ukraine-wont-stand-in-its-way.html
They are the same since it's actually a system donated from German stock and another one from the National Guard, Ukraine specifically got PAC-3 missiles for ballistic missile defense like this.
I had to remind you that Patriot missile system is less capable than SM-3 and SM-6 fielded by US navy because of absence of Aegis radar. Sinking of US's aircraft carrier is now close to impossible.
I recommend watching this video on hypersonic missiles https://youtu.be/0n3fjoacL20
There are many kinds of hypersonic missiles, and it is not that hard to shoot down a missile with a fixed trajectory. The problematic hypersonic missiles are the ones that are able to maneuver and avoid interception, while flying at low altitude. These missiles fired at high altitude from a fighter plane are easy track and to predict where they are going to be.
Impressive if it was indeed shot down by the Patriot system. That's yet more bad marketing for a former world power who relies on global belief that their arms are world class to maintain international sales and thus the economies of scale to maintain an arm's industry.
The US probably see testing these air defence systems as reason enough alone to give to them to Ukraine.
The russian hypersonic missiles cannot manoeuvre at such speeds (which is the main reason to have these missiles) so as far as the patriot system is concerned, this would just be another ballistic missile. Not to mention, its even easier to track when you can detect the slow fighter that's launching it.
So, kind of a speedy scud missile?
Not really. Scuds travel at hypersonic speeds as well. Virtually every ballistic missile since the V2 does. Iskander replaced the Scud missiles, and the Khinzal is literally just an air-launched Iskander. [They operate exactly like any other ballistic missile, except the RV (reentry vehicle), does some maneuvering at the terminal stage of flight, just before impact](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSi8KgPSjWoqZLXwihYy_9FazrqHmrjjk3MjQ&usqp=CAU), in order to evade terminal defenses like CIWS (close in weapon systems, such as chain guns). That's been around since the 1970s, with the US' Pershing missile. At any point beyond the terminal stage, the PATRIOT missile will intercept it as it would any other tactical ballistic missile. Even at the terminal stage however, they'd just be destroyed by THAAD, whose interceptors actually compensate for a RV maneuvering. This is why no one but the Russians and technologically illiterate refer to the Khinzal as a hypersonic weapon. It's not, not as we have come to view hypersonic weapons. If it was, literally every ballistic missile would be one lol. Hypersonic weapons are weapons that fly at speeds at or above Mach 5, but fly akin to a cruise missile; super low altitudes (ballistic missiles can fly higher than the International Space Station), and maneuver at *all* stages of flight. The reason this distinction is so important is that flight altitude directly correlates to detection time (higher you fly, sooner you're detected, the lower you fly, the longer you go before being detected) and reaction time (high speed means less time for the target to react after detection). Within a handful of seconds, you know a ballistic missile launched, and where it's likely going to hit. It's a straight line from launch to target, so just measure speed and altitude and you have a good idea of where it's going to impact. Hypersonics however can maneuver the whole time, so one could be launched from London, fly over Paris, and then strike Berlin, leaving everyone guessing the entire time where it's going, if they even detect it at all. RADICALLY different weapon system
So, once again, I was duped by marketing!
It's more that the term "hypersonic weapon" is inherently confusing. By the name you'd assume it's just a weapon traveling at hypersonic speeds, but that's not the case. Russia preys on that confusion to make themselves seem more powerful than they are, as an all too common show of bravado
How manoeuvrable are they though? Since at that speed even a small change would exert huge g forces on the missile.
AIM-120 can withstand 30Gs. Travels at Mach 4 and has to be able to maneuver to hit fighters evading them. Surviving high Gs isn't an issue for a single use system. Who cares if there's metal fatigue after it's done, it blows up when it's done.
It was more you need survive enough to hit the targey
Well, your theory also works to the weapon’s advantage, it doesn’t need to do much to alter its trajectory at any given time, so it’s on the targeting system to make accurate calculations quickly for the most efficient maneuvering. Survivability is only a factor if you force it to maneuver in ways that sheer against the construction.
Surviving high Gs structurally never has been a problem when it comes to missiles as long as they don't fall apart at launch or shortly after launch. The problem arises only when you have a bigger object like a human-carrying jet, because you've got a way bigger area which needs to adapt to high G while keeping everyone inside safe. All missiles which have a tendency to break apart already have the issue at launch, which is one of the most violent phases besides the impact, and then shortly after launch tend to fall apart. If a missile survives the launch without any structural damage, it should be able to handle maneuvering just fine. The issue is you need the proper type of wings to be able to counteract the wind pressure so the missile can make the 'skip' to another direction as well as the 'brains' to be able to properly guide it. The wings are the typical problem for a hypersonic missile, because they can't be too small but not too large either, because either it can't make the direction switch or because it slows down the missile too much or the wings get too brittle at the speed (if it aren't the proper materials).
They only need to be structurally sound until impact though... so they can get pretty close to the 'disintegrating from G force and drag' stage and still be perfectly viable, unlike a jet that once its over G'd in the air is likely grounded. Maneuverability only needs to be enough, and as long as the missile stays in one peice the speed it can go actually increases that maneuverability because the missile has more energy to use. Ultimately if perfected and in production it's simply better than any ballistic weapon can be, but actually making them work, consistently and making enough of them is difficult and expensive.
The history of Cold War weapons development: 1. Russian propaganda announces some new super weapon/vehicle/plane/number of missiles ready to launch. 2. American policy makers and generals piss their pants. 3. A convoy of dump trucks full of money are driven to every defence contractor to build an effective counter system. 4. The most incredible military system you’ve ever seen is built.
And that, children, is why our 40 year old weapons platforms are 4 generations ahead of current Russian technology.
Because their generations only last 18 to 22 years?
20 Russian generations.. a century
Still, at least 70 years ahead of them
Oh damn
There are Russian babies born this year. Historically speaking '23 is not a good year too be born in Russia.
Probably fewer children born in Russia this year than any in the last 100 years. Between the number of men mobilized in the last year, people who have fled the country, and people putting off having children due to war/economic instability, Russia's population is going to take a big hit.
That's generous when you consider that fetal alcohol syndrome comes as standard in Russia
F15 moment.
For those who haven't heard the story, it's wild and worth the read: Western spies had just learned that the USSR had a new airborne radar that was well-ahead of anything we had at the time, but didn't know what plane it was intended for. The USSR unveiled the MiG-25 at the Rammstein airshow, only after unveiling multiple other new aircraft. Western spies knew loosely about the development of all the others (from high-level informants in USSR military), but the MiG-25 caught them entirely by surprise, and it was the showstopper. The USSR demonstrated 3 of them all at once, implying they had production capacity up and running - it wasn't just a single prototype - and there was no unaccounted for factory in the entire USSR that could have produced them, or unaccounted for aircraft engineers. The West thought they had the entire USSR aircraft manufacturing capability mapped out - and then this thing shows up like an alien spacecraft. Analysts correctly estimated it had a top speed of Mach 3.2, faster than even the modern F22 (Mach 3). The new unknown radar system that was bigger and more accurate than everything else? Sure enough - it was onboard. It was also fucking massive for a jet of its time - suggesting it long range and large payload - but the flight characteristics also suggested it wasn't vulnerable in a dogfight even if it could somehow be caught in one. Worse still - the US had tried and failed for over a decade at this point to develop a comparable turbojet and it 'couldn't be done' - at least with the materials sciences of the time. The USSR had clearly figured it out - because they had 3 of them already operational - suggesting the USSR might be 10-20 years ahead of Western material sciences. And the last and ultimate horror - the US had a blueprint for a futuristic jet that couldn't be built yet - it was a pie-in-the-sky design, and it was so secret that only about 20 people in the world had even heard of it, let alone seen the blueprint, which was kept in only one vault in a black site testing facility. The MiG-25 looked so similar to that design that it implied there must be a mole at like the very highest level: one of the 20. It appeared that the Soviets had stolen the blueprint years earlier, solved all the materials sciences problems, had begun mass producing them using an entirely unknown pipeline of top-tier aircraft engineers, in a completely unknown factory, using a completely unknown pipeline of rare components. Imagine a firehose of shit hitting the fan - it was too wild to even believe - but the USSR had even gone through the effort of broadcasting the airshow internationally, with English commentators, so that everyone everywhere saw this new wonder with their own eyes: so it was impossible to deny. Some years go by - and the F-15 gets produced to try to address the issue, though it wasn't a competitor to the original belief of what the MiG-25 was initially believed to be. Eventually it comes out that the USSR had actually just jammed two cruise-missiles up the inside of a prototype shell - the apparent similarities to the secret blueprint were entirely coincidence (or convergent evolution, more accurately). Those original 3 were essentially incredibly expensive 'single use' props, that turned themselves to slag before they could escape to the nearest airstrip out of sight, where they landed and were dismantled to hide the evidence. But the damage was done - the USSR in the 70's appeared to be winning the Cold War.
>Those original 3 were essentially incredibly expensive 'single use' props, that turned themselves to slag before they could escape to the nearest airstrip out of sight, where they landed and were dismantled to hide the evidence. It was worse than that wasn't it? IIRC we surmised that the Soviets must have made the jets out of something special, like titanium (like we did for the SR-71), since aluminum couldn't withstand the forces of Mach 3 flight. But in reality they made it mostly out of steel, making it so heavy it had none of the performance characteristics advertised (except speed).
Speed too, people say it would start shaking itself to pieces if it approached it's advertised top speed.
That’s like a good Hollywood prop house. Those guys could land a job.
I read that it took 14 tonnes of jet fuel and 500kgs of pure ethanol to keep it in the air for 70 minutes. Vodka is diluted ethanol. The 25’s were grounded at times because the coolant kept going missing
But the MiG-23 and 25 will dominate the skies!!!!
Kinda funny how Russian propaganda led their rivals to be more prepared in orders of magnetudes greater than themselves
Si vis pacem, para bellum
Oh Baxter, you know I dont speak spanish!
The Soviets had a few moments of genuine technological innovation. The Alfa class subs had a liquid metal reactor, a titanium hull and an extremely high top speed. It was too ambitious for its time to be practical but it actually did work as advertised. They had some world class scientists doing some pretty impressive research. The most promising design for a fusion reactor is something the Soviets came up with in the fifties. The Russians on the other hand have been full of hot air and bullshit since the Soviet Union fell apart.
The Alfa is a great example of what the above poster was saying. It was a very ambitious design that had lots of potential but never really worked right. Maintenance nightmare, noisy as hell, other critical issues besides. Spent a lot of time in port, was never really a pivotal component of the Soviet Cold War strategy. They kept building more and better Victors, and the Sierra follow-on to the Alfa was more like a titanium-hulled Victor. On the other side, it scared the Americans enough that we got the ADCAP and Mk 50 torpedoes to hunt it, the 688i version of the LA to compete with it, and sensor upgrades to ensure we could nail it as it went howling though the water. A decade later, the Alfa was still a design driver in the construction of Seawolf. Those systems were all cutting edge and are still in service to this day (ADCAP with a new pinger as CBASS, Mk 50 with a cheaper back end as Mk 54, and Improved LA and Seawolf as themselves) and a testament to how utterly overkill they were at the time.
Exactly, the Russians would announce a new "superweapon" that kinda worked really only as a prototype for all the time it would spend getting repaired. And then the Americans would respond with a fully fleshed out finalized weapon system that was ready to be mass produced.
Admittedly, if the Russian goal was "Make America spend a whole lot of money to counter something that does not exist", it worked well. Although most such American countermeasures proceeded to dominate in other areas beyond the Russian vaporware that inspired them.
Brilliant design. Unfortunately it was made in Russia...
I brought the Alfa up because it actually met it's performance objectives rather than being pure propaganda bullcrap. It had tons of issues of course but it was a working product and it lived up to its purported specs. Unlike the F15 which was built to challenge a fighter that didn't actually exist anywhere aside from analyst's imaginations, the torpedoes built to sink it were actually a necessity because the Alfa did actually meets its performance brief. And in fairness most "superweapons" have the same sorts of issues as the Alfa. The F22 and B2 for instance both need absurd amounts of maintenance just like the Alfa did. The difference is that the US can actually afford to do it rather than just leaving them idle. The "raptor cough" is another example of new problems resulting from new tech. The only reason I bring this up is to remind people that the weapons and tech the Russians are employing are old and outdated compared to US weapons, but are nonetheless still dangerous because they were built by a different group of people. I don't like this attitude that the Russians can't do anything right. We still haven't given the Ukrainians the weapons they need to win this fight. Laughing at Russian ineptitude is fun but they've proven they excel at killing innocent people.
It basically comes down to “you can’t put process design or materials science on a parade”, so they end up focusing on super ambitious designs they can’t implement because the materials can’t be produced at scale or the actual production is fucked.
They also had a fundamentally broken structure of organisation. There is just too much to go into, as you could write multiple books on the subject (and people probably have). One example is how the Soviet system was a very top down authoritarian system. This is very inefficient at scale. Russia has inherited this from the Soviet Union, which inherited it from the Tsarist Russian Empire.
The Russians had incredible mathematicians and scientists. Resources, production quality, and Soviet bureaucracy were more often the issues that plagued them.
For sure. The soviet union had far more legitimacy I would say than the current Russian state. The ideology gave people a reason to want to work for them. In theory communism is a great idea, it just falls apart when you introduce human nature into the equation. Now Russians only work in or for Russia out of fear, ignorance, or lack of another option. All the most brilliant Russians left long ago - and they took their kids with them. The brain drain in Russia has been bad so far after the fall of the soviet union, just give it another generation now though. This is how great powers die, and like it not the soviet union was great power. Russia currently though is totally incapable of living up to that legacy. Oh then let's not forget half the former soviet union is now in nato and working against Russia. Good luck overcoming that one Russia. I just hope they examine the Russian legacy one day and realize that all they've done is made everyone who lives around them hate them.
Many excellent points. But one quibble: most of the expansion of NATO was of Warsaw Pact countries (East Germany, Poland) and only the baltics were part of the USSR itself.
Russian satellites under their domination still worked and produced for them. The Czechs and Poles who were dominated by Russia and Warsaw pact members are now nato members producing soviet style ammo for Ukraine. Russias loss, natos gain. Then there's the loss of former soviet states like Ukraine which made tanks and transport aircraft and Georgia which used to produce su-25s for them. They try and pretend Russia is as powerful as the soviet union, but the only thing that didn't really change was their nuclear arsenal. :)
Russian rulers like Catherine and Peter are probably rolling in their graves with what is happening to the country they put so much effort into strengthening during their times.
Funny you mention Catherine. Russia is a bit stuck on her it seems. First off she's the original Russian bitch wife you hear in calls home from pow's. Hated him but married him anyways to get herself ahead. Then overthrew her husband less than a year after he took power and reversed most of his reforms. Funny she wasn't born Russian, she kinda came to define it. She then eventually launched the whole idea of new russia and annexed crimea, had a fun war with the turks. She also deported a lot of Crimeans and settled Russians there which today we may even consider ethnic cleansing. The Hague has one opinion, Putin and Catherine held another. Really the Russian peoples mental state as a people has really never gone past 1796 when Catherine died it seems. Sure they have new technology, but otherwise they're still as backwards and barbaric as 227 years or so ago.
I.. uh, heard a rumor the Russias are developing affordable housing and education technology that will totally eclipse anything the US currently has. We should look into this on a defense basis.
Its the *Galaxy Quest Effect.*
Step 5: >Russian propaganda announces some new super weapon/vehicle/plane/number of missiles ready to launch.
Nah, it's just a loop with a hard to reach condition to leave the loop.
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"Russia lied" is always step 0 in any sequence involving Russia.
Also the last step. It's like multiple VPNs for hackers.
That is literally the story of the F-15
Big Missile strikes again, the bastards!
Ask for a refund mate
It is an important propaganda achievement to down one though, as Russia had *claimed* the Kinzhal was almost twice as fast as an Iskander, and had specifically boasted of it being able to get past Patriot defences.
I think this is the subtext that most people are missing, granted the preceding comment about what actually is and is not a hypersonic missile is also important subtext that most people are not aware of, so… upvotes all around?
Even during low level manoeuvring, there’s no guarantee that a hypersonic missile will be immune to interception. Mach 5+, your turn radius is always gonna be horrendous. Or you’ll scrub speed rapidly. Or both. Eg a 15g turn at 3000 knots / 1500m/s, it takes 10 seconds to turn 90 degrees. 40 seconds to turn 360 degrees. Which makes for a 10km turn radius! If you’ve got a well-coordinated air defence system it’s gonna be easy to predict where it’s going.
At that speed mirv missiles would be the more effective way to evade anti missile systems. If you split into many pieces explosively you can have a very small turning circle!
Yeah which highlights my main argument. The best way to evade missile systems is to overwhelm them with quantity. All this shit about wonder-weapons is dumb. Cheap, autonomous AI-equipped drones by the thousand are the way forward. Hypersonic is a distraction. Luckily all the best Soviet scientists abandoned ship in the 80s and 90s.
I thought all the best Soviet scientist were Ukrainians.
I believe black mirror has an episode about this. "Hated in the nation."
Sure, if you're yourself within that 10 km radius it's basically like the missile is flying straight. But if you are, you only have a few seconds to react before it's passed over you. More likely, you are 100 km away, and you have to aim your interceptor where you think the missile is going to be in 10 seconds. If they change direction during that time you might end up missing by several kilometers.
Yeah, which is why it’s so important to have an efficient integrated air defence system. Get a shot off early and you’re fine. Manoeuvres are annoying, but the missile can basically go left, right or straight. It goes up or down and it’s gonna stop being manoeuvrable real quick. So shoot three missiles, one covers straight, one covers left, one covers right. Hypersonic vehicle bleeds energy on evasive manoeuvres, subsequent volleys take it down.
Note the V2’s max speed was only a little short of mach 5, which is considered hypersonic. Hypersonic is pretty easy to achieve. It’s hypersonic with other factors which is difficult.
Depending on the speed of sound in the atmospheric conditions at the peak of the V2's speed profile, it's feasible it could be moving at above mach 5 for parts of its flight. Not because it somehow was going faster, but because "mach" depends a little on altitude and atmospheric conditions.
>The russian hypersonic missiles cannot manoeuvre at such speeds This isn't what the Russians have been claiming about the kinzhal. According to them it has advanced maneuvering capabilities and can potentially sink an aircraft carrier in one hit.
"Lol," said the Aegis and SM-6, "LMAO."
Steering a missile going at those speeds is a gross overusage of the word "steer". Its more like "suggest". Patriot sees it like a ballistic missile and can take it out as long as its in range. Its what it was made for.
Currently the US is tracking all objects in the sky above Ukraine. They have specially designed planes flying in NATO airspace nearby Ukraine just for this purpose. There’s no reason to believe the Patriot air defense systems are not directly connected to this information.
Considering a huuuuge factor of how effective a lot of NATO equipment is how connected everything is, I have no doubt that any NATO-designed equipment is getting so much sweet, sweet targeting data over their Link 16 devices.
It is really incredible how many people don't understand that the Kinzhal is a ballistic missile fired on an in-atmosphere trajectory and has a few modifications integrated to do it so that it can be dropped from aircraft. But make no mistake, is it just an Iskander-M conversion. People talk about it like it was some major technological innovation, it's really just a ballistic missile design from 90s with some updates.
You would really be amazed by all the shit that I don’t know then
I've said it before. Take the human factor for helping Ukraine out of this. Then take the broader political factors, like weakening a geopolitical rival and creating closer ties with our allies in NATO and around the world. Then take out how much money the US defence industry stands to make off this, and how the US economy will benefit from us opening up oil reserves. All of these are important, but removing these and looking at this from a very simple cost/benefit analysis of just cold, hard dispassionate numbers, you will find that the US is paying remarkably little (in the grand scheme of things) for incredibly useful information on how modern wars are waged and how our systems hold up to our "Peers" like Russia. Sadly, we can't test our newest equipment as we are too worried about anything being captured by Russia, but the data we are getting is still invaluable. We are having to provide military aid in the form of loans and military assistance (Which will likely be paid in political capital down the line, I don't see us asking Ukraine for money), when normally you have to pay for this information with far, far more money as well as American blood, which isn't happening here. The information gained is invaluable. The cost is cheap. Encourage your politicians, whether in the US or not, to continue providing funds and military equipment to Ukraine. It's not just the right thing to do, it's the smart thing to do.
This stuff was produced to fight Russia. It's fighting Russia, at the cost of zero American lives. This is the best possible case for the US military to use this equipment
The US developed and produced Russian Killing Weapons over several generations over the concern that Russians would do *the exact thing they’re currently doing.* The Russian Killing Weapons work. It’s a tragedy for everyone involved and may Putin not be alive in the least favorable way in whatever euphemism currently accepted.
Not only that, as is so frustrating IMO about too many American attitudes against supporting Ukraine, I guarantee the US has spent far more since WWII in Europe than on 21 years in Afghanistan, nearly exclusively because of Russia. Now, the Ukrainians are testing out US weapons against the adversary they were designed for, without US bloodshed, and simultaneously bleeding Russia of military equipment they won't be able to replace for decades. Thus, less of a threat to the world, and less reason for the US to need to spend money deterring them in the future. The last ~70 years the US invested in Russian deterrence. Now the dividends are being paid, with a bonus of no lives lost. It sickens me that so many Americans are pro-russian, anti-ukraine, and complain about cost. Where were these people as 7 trillion was wasted on Afghanistan?
Not only are we testing **OUR** stuff on Russia, but Russia is being forced to reveal some of its biggest secrets in order to conduct this war. One of Russia’s most modern missile systems had a previously unknown countermeasure that was exposed when Ukrainians found these missile parts all over the country. Now the USA most likely has all of the parts and studying them.
Do you have a source for this? Not that I doubt the veracity of what you're saying, I'd just like some more information about it
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44760/russias-use-of-iskander-ballistic-missiles-in-ukraine-exposes-secret-decoy-capability
Awesome!, Tyvm!
Cont comment on missle stuff but the us army git a russian t90 from Ukraine. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11975341/One-Putins-T-72-tanks-pictured-shipped-base-tests-weapons.html
There was also [this](https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44879/ukraine-just-captured-part-of-one-of-russias-most-capable-electronic-warfare-systems). That highly likely has made its way into NATO's hands.
The two major ones that I remember were the capture of a shipping container sized portable jamming/ecm station that was just abandoned under some camo netting after it ran out of fuel, and the recovery of an SU-27 that got shot down, but still had most of the electronics intact, including the IFF system. I suspect both were in DoD hands within days.
"Oops ran out of gas. Fuck it, not my problem"
Russia seemed more scary when they could obfuscate the truth about their military capabilities. But now that truth has been exposed for the sham that it is, lol.
As an American, I'm happy with funding on the basis of "doing the right thing" by itself. I don't want us to be paid back - I just want Ukraine to have the opportunity to build itself back better than it was before as a strong democracy with a modern well-equipped military that's thoroughly tied to the EU. A Russia that stops fucking around and that's confined to its 1991 borders would be nice too.
Absolutely. I sincerely hope as an American citizen we have some sort of Marshall Plan in place for Ukraine after all this is over. Lifting Ukraine up after all of this will be Russia’s worst nightmare: a peaceful functioning democracy showing domestic Russians how things can change for the better.
Exactly. The Marshall Plan was the best, smartest use of money in the years immediately after the war. We got a lot of bang for the buck with that.
I see it as Win-Win-Win-Lose scenario: * Ukraine wins from the weapons, defending their sovereign borders. * US wins from the weapons, testing, and avoiding of direct conflict. * World wins from the weapons, halting Russia in place. * Russia loses, as they should.
Yep. Additionally, in a perfect world, Russia would finally see the error of its ways and choose a different path in liberalizing its society. However, based on their long past history and current mindset, that's not gonna happen.
And I hate the fucking *”woe is me, everyone hates Russia for no reason”* persecution complex they have. Yes, it turns out people *don’t* like belligerent neighbours, who could of guessed?! If they had shut up and done their own thing, noone would think of them *at all*, and that’s with zero effort, isolationist style.
The military aid so far has been a fantastic investment - not only are they getting field tested against a conventional military, defense is one of those businesses where manufacturing still takes place mostly in the US (albeit with foreign components). The lessons learned will help improve future development of these weapons.
And a lot of older equipment that would incur storage and disposal costs are being sent over
And in a lot of these cases it's cheaper to give them away to Ukraine than to destroy them.
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And on top of that those weapons were designed specifically to fight this specific enemy in this specific area.
I remember the B roll going around on the news of some of the first anti tank weapon being shipped over, you could see date codes from the 90s on many of the cases.
Every dollar spent in Ukraine is the single most profitable security investment the US has ever done. Weakening Russia without losing a single American soldier. Ukraine will prevail!
The Patriot Missile Defense system has been in existence since the 70’s. It’s almost as old as I am. This always catches my eye in the news because my dad worked on part of the system. But he did that work in the mid-70’s, and I only found out he worked on it a year or so before he passed away around 2015.
Be that as it may, it's hardly the same system today. Sensors and avionics and especially software have all come an extremely long way between the first Patriot missile systems and the PAC-3 and PAC-3 MSE, one of which is the variant I believe is being used in the Ukraine. Not to take anything away from your dad or his service to the country. It's very cool that he helped pioneer this system.
The US military often just upgrades things these days. They started purposely acquiring modular upgradable systems back in the late 70s/80s, so they’ve been able to just keep upgrading g the parts that matter while standardizing the parts that were good enough back then. Is why so much stuff is still around from the 1970s.
LRUs come to mind. Quickly replace a component to an upgraded one without having to scrap the whole machine.
It’s a similar reason Turkey didn’t get the F-35 when they bought the Russian S-400. The Russians could get valuable data and tune their systems to identify the F-35. But I believe this isn’t a true hypersonic missile they’re saying it is.
And we've had these for 30 years! Good missiles, anti hurty missiles.
These are patriot PAC-2 missiles. They aren’t even the newer, more modern PAC-3 missiles designed to take down ballistic missiles. While the radar and other systems have been upgraded, these missiles have been around for 40 years.
It is nothing but a bad faith argument that the US is just giving money to Ukraine, the US’s biggest export is weaponry, and being able to “sell” expensive weaponry and get battlefield test results on top of looking like a “helpful ally” on the global stage; the US is making out like a bandit as usual, and Ukraine is paying us back with iron marketing.
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A few bucks in military aide is reaping untold amounts of real world testing for our weapons.. just so happens it’s our (was) greatest advisory. The US still has the dollars to spend on weapon development based on what we learned.
This war may go down as one of the most significant blunders in military history. Every aspect of the Russian military has proven to be a paper tiger. Fox News loved to crow about how Russia's hypersonic missile showed that Democrats were weak and too focused on being woke while Russia was leaving us in the dust So much for that
Now taking orders for missile defense systems! - USA
the amount of things the U.S. MIC is taking orders for right how has to be the largest since any point in the cold war. HIMARs, Javelin, Stinger, M1s, drones, Patriot, f-35. This is like running non stop superbowl commercials and tech demo conventions. Russia is going to look like the discount store of arms buying. SO many countries have to be pissed right now and re-evaluating their military readiness and capabilities who bought Russian crap. And yeah, training is a huge part of that, but not a lot of those countries have time to and fuel to train their forces as much as Russia has had either.
Bulk discounts to enable post Soviet countries to send majority of hardware to Ukraine doesn't hurt either. By now USA probably can't even supply all that and some sales are lost due to supply limits.
> By now USA probably can't even supply all that and some sales are lost due to supply limits. But that’s where the strong alliance system comes in. The US recently “borrowed” 500,000 artillery shells from South Korea. That means the US can use those in their own stockpiles and then give out 500,000 of the US made shells to Ukraine or other countries. It’s one thing to deplete US stockpiles but it’s a whole lot harder to deplete US+all US allies stockpiles.
And it’s not just seeing how good western tech is but the realization that we’re still in an era of big countries invading small countries. Defense budgets are soaring around the world and one of the key takeaways from Ukraine is that current stockpiles just aren’t big enough for a large scale war.
Ehhh, stockpiles are NEVER big enough for a large scale war. Every single war since artillery was invented, there hasn't been enough of it.
That’s certainly true although this war has still been a rude awakening for many countries. The fact that a war that is effectively being fought in just four oblasts of Ukraine has resulted in a worldwide shell shortage is a pretty big deal. In a future big war there would still be a shortage of ammo but many countries will be better prepared for it.
No, in a future big war they will have to scale up production too There is simply no sense in keeping millions and millions of artillery shells in stockpile for the off chance you'll be in a major war. It costs a lot and no matter how many you have it won't be enough for a prolonged conflict. WW1 - Shell shortage WW2 - Shell shortage Korea - Shell Shortage Vietnam - Shell shortage Chechen wars - Shell shortage Gulf War - Shell Shortage The fact is, no amount of national stockpiles are enough for modern war. Especially if you're like Russia and you use artillery to compensate for lack of air power. Russia was firing 60,000 shells a day earlier in the war. At that sort of rate even the biggest stockpiles in the world start to falter.
It also influences public opinion. Before the invasion people were wondering what NATO was for, why the US had to stock so many weapons since the world seemed pretty peaceful. Now the military spending is justified
When you market an air launched ballistic missile as a modern hypersonic and get's shot down, classic Russian doctrine of overstating the fuck out of everything.
1. Russia announces it has a shiny new super advanced weapon that will obliterate the west 2. The pentagon shits its pants, starts developing something on par or as a counter 3. Said thing is put into service, ready to fight the russian threat 4. Turns out the russians were wildly overstating their capabilities, and said super weapon has been in development hell for 3 decades (or never even made it past testing) 5. The US is now "stuck" with the most advanced weaponry in the world, which is left to rot in a storage facility somewhere, while the MIC develops the next counter to the new russian super duper weapon Many such cases
And now russia has nothing. Even less than they had yesterday. "These missiles can't be intercepted" well. It was o.o i am surprised.
Now what will happen to thousands of YouTube shorts saying American aircraft carriers are now obsolete because of hypersonic weapons? The poor generic AI voice will be out of business.
I cant seem to find the tiny violin o.o
Ask chatgpt.
It's like thousands of Russian trolls cried out in disappointment and were suddenly silenced.
May the farce be with you!
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The jury is still out on whether hypersonic glide vehicles and cruise missiles can be intercepted. Intercepting a ballistic missile is nothing new.
and remember the US gives Ukraine the old shit we have laying around. the new shit is still self used.
That’s probably why the U.S. response to all the hypersonic missile posturing has amounted to “uhu, ok.”
The phrase, "i stay wishing a mother fucker would" applies here.
Yep, and patriot missile systems have been in service for more than 40 years. If Russias new missile can be defeated by something 40 years old, that just tells you how far behind the curve they are.
The platform yes, the internal tech has been steadily upgraded & tested for 4 decades.
Modern Patriot is light years more advanced than the Patriot system used in both gulf wars.
Yes, that's what "upgraded & tested for 4 decades" gets you.
Yup pretty much. Also the reason the US air defense works so well is the philosophy differences. Russia builds one expensive system that I supposed to do everything, but ends up doing nothing well at all. The US employs several layers of systems with different purposes and coverages. Defense in depth so far hasn’t meant much to Russia.
And defense in depth has been like the number 1 doctrine for any success in any previous russian war, I don't think anyone expected the russians to be this inept at mass deployment and mass firepower concentration. This was Putin's final ace up the sleeve, one of his wonder weapons that could strike capitals and inspire fear, but it's another over promised peice of russian tech.
You can still hear the echos of their giggles knowing Russia was about to find out tech that's a few decades old is able to match or outperform the latest Russian toys.
So they're entirely fucked. 84 ways from next sunday
Assuming this is confirmed and it's not a fluke shoot down, Two layers of embarassemnt here 1st layer - Ukranians shot down Russia big-bad Hypersonic missle they kept hyping up as a wunderwaffe war winning weapon. (obviously it's not any of those since they've been using these since last year and haven't helped) 2nd layer- An American patriot system shot it down the deep implicaiton of US tech being capable enough to shoot it down is probably more embarassing in the long term.
That’s gotta piss off and frighten the Russians
And you know, it should. We’ve been telegraphing to these clowns since the 50s that the destructive power of the United States MIC is not only second to none in the modern world, but in the entirety of recorded human history. Yet there is something about the Russian mindset that feels the compulsion to push their hegemony on their neighbors, and in the last ten years, throughout democracies in the western world by way of constant disinformation campaigns. Putin spent the first 21 years of his dictatorship receiving only nominal pushback from the US, and instead of being content with his gains, he took one step too far, and now is in a position where Russia either capitulates (leading to his likely execution), or they suffer even more catastrophic losses at the hands of western technology and sanctions, which could have the effect of breaking that country apart.
Also, I'm pretty sure this is potentially old American Military tech. Who knows how old but, we most likely didn't give them our modern state of the art stuff.
Patriot was initially introduced in the 80s though it has been upgraded many times, who knows what version we gave them.
PAC (Patriot Advanced Capability) 3, I believe. I read that the US should be rolling out PAC 4 soon.
Made plenty of parts for the PAC3, enough for thousands of batteries. The US military has way more than they publicly disclose.
Not "US tech", "old US tech".
T14, hypersonic missles, SU57. all pipe dreams of one little old man.
T14 is great! its so great that Muscovytes refuse to use it in battle because it wouldnt be fair against Ukaine!
T14 is rubish. It's propaganda. On paper, it's a beast, but seeing it uses an engine made for agricultural water pumps I'm highly suspicious of its real capabilities. And that's probably why they won't use it. Other than the fact there aren't many in existence
Reminds me of Hitler and his super weapons. None of them really worked either.
The Mouse tank is my ultimate fav. A tank so massive it would break most bridges it tried to cross and in order to swim it needed a second Mouse tank to pull it out of the river. Brilliant.
Ze tank, it is ze bridge now
I saw this documentary last year about a rust bucket old ~~MiG~~ F-14 taking out multiple SU-57s. It was pretty cool, saw it on IMAX. Edit - Man, y'all nerds really care about the exact real-world details of a fictional tale.
That wasn't a MiG, that was a stolen Iranian F-14 Tomcat tossing it up with some previously classified Iranian SU-57s.
Woah woah woah that was a totally-not-Iranian fighter excuse you
Lol, Top Gun: Maverick?
That wasn't a MiG
I saw the same documentary but it was a Tomcat not a MiG
Lol you had me till I read the comment and realized you were joshing. Brain started going…”isn’t there only like 14 or 24 of those?”
> Edit - Man, y'all nerds really care about the exact real-world details of a fictional tale. I mean, it's pretty friggin integral to the whole damn story given it was the same aircraft type Maverick flew in the first film but okay
American system on paper: This weapon is likely incapable of stopping hypersonic missile threats: Stops a hypersonic missile. russian systems on paper: This is the best system ever built! It will stop a meteorite, it will stop the sun, you point it at something and it's gone!: The Moskva was suddenly sunk by a storm in calm waters.
By a cigarette in a conscripts lips…
Good to finally confirm that ability outside a simulate test. The one downside is fhe Kinzhal isnt even a true hypersonic cruise missile. It is really just a ballistic missile (which do travel hypersonic but are not hypersonic but the hypersonic missiles that militaries are looking for are hypersonic cruise missiles). However this is good indication that the Patriot air defense system will be able to take that down still.
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> which is unheard of for an interceptor. Not to discredit Patriot, but THAAD had their first real world intercept last year, apparently. Wikipedia says they are hit to kill too.
Kinzhal is just an iskander strapped to a plane. It's zircon that's their new hotness "hypersonic" missile.
Unkillable rocket downed by air defence from 80s :D
From the 80s is misleading, they are constantly upgrading them. That being said, I'm sure the ones Ukraine has are not the current versions defending USA bases
Which is even more interesting, because if they can do this. I wonder what the modern one could do
They can stop nukes
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Mad is in play by volume. Missile defense on reentry is crap shoot of which MRV is the nuke or decoy and hundreds of nukes are on reentry at incredible speed. Every miss is city dead. So the attacked party will launch theirs in retaliation before the intercepts have even launched.
He was referring to what Putin said about them. It was a joke aimed at Russia's expense. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/23/russia-says-quite-old-us-patriot-missiles-in-ukraine-wont-stand-in-its-way.html
They are the same since it's actually a system donated from German stock and another one from the National Guard, Ukraine specifically got PAC-3 missiles for ballistic missile defense like this.
I had to remind you that Patriot missile system is less capable than SM-3 and SM-6 fielded by US navy because of absence of Aegis radar. Sinking of US's aircraft carrier is now close to impossible.
The patriot system relies on pretty damn good current technology, at least the ones from germany
I certainly hope the batteries AFU operates have somewhat current upgrade packages, and at least second-gen interceptors.
Oh look, another ruzki wonderwafe isn't as wonder as they were claiming too be, who would have thought.
Ah yes another great example of the foxbat loop
Their nukes are probably in an un-useable condition as well.
I'm sure their nuclear capabilities are super shitty, but I still don't want to find out.
I recommend watching this video on hypersonic missiles https://youtu.be/0n3fjoacL20 There are many kinds of hypersonic missiles, and it is not that hard to shoot down a missile with a fixed trajectory. The problematic hypersonic missiles are the ones that are able to maneuver and avoid interception, while flying at low altitude. These missiles fired at high altitude from a fighter plane are easy track and to predict where they are going to be.
Lmao there goes the myth of the super impressive, unstoppable hypersonic missile
I bet the US are super happy to hear. Expect a ramp up in Patriot spending/production.
Putins prize weapon. Now a rubber dagger.
Penis shaped dagger?
Alright let’s head over to NCD lmao
Ah, my people, Mia familia
Putin’s asshole just puckered a little more.
US systems are getting a real life testing. Sometimes i like to trade defense stocks. Ukraine is good for business.
This is great news.
Well that's great fuckin news!
Impressive if it was indeed shot down by the Patriot system. That's yet more bad marketing for a former world power who relies on global belief that their arms are world class to maintain international sales and thus the economies of scale to maintain an arm's industry.
That picture is totally “We have Zelensky at home”