Tuesday, May 7, 2019

A crowd under the bed

First, National Security Adviser Bolton spotted a Russian under  Maduro's bed, then Secretary of State Pompeo spotted both a Russian and an Iranian under Bolton's bed. It's time for sharp elbows down there.

It's hard to know what Pompeo is up to, although the fact that he finished first on his class at the Military Academy suggests he wouldn't know either. Bolton is trying to force war with Iran. Chickenhawks do that.

If I had a child serving on the Lincoln or the Stennis -- the two carriers  in the 6th Fleet, and was there ever a pair less felicitously named/ -- I would be extremely worried about his safety. Bolton talks tough but his never displayed the slightest military knowledge, which is not surprising in a chicken-- hawk.

The big winner here is at least potentially -- if it sees its opportunity -- China. China is an ally of sorts of Iran's, although it is hard to believe that the Chinese are very deeply invested in Iran for Iran's sake. Nevertheless, for a very small investment and if they can control the hotheads among the Iranians and the Iranians' stooge groups, the Chinese can take the US Navy 7th Fleet off the board in the Western Pacific.

Here's how that's done:

The Chinese we know have intermediate range ballistic missiles that can hit a steamer trunk size target traveling at 15,000 miles an hour. A thousand foot long aircraft carrier maneuvering at 40 miles an hour will not provide much of a challenge, especially as the carriers' Aegis defense system has never worked in operational settings in its 30 year history.

So all the Chinese have to do is to move two or three or four IRBMs to some remote spot -- and Iran has lots of those -- and wait for Bolton's saber rattling to produce a pretext. And then the Iranians  launch IRBM strikes against the 6th Fleet which has no chance against them.

Within 60 minutes the 7th Fleet will be skedaddling for Sasebo never to emerge again.

31 comments:

  1. The Chinese we know have intermediate range ballistic missiles that can hit a steamer trunk size target traveling at 15,000 miles an hour. [sic] A thousand foot long aircraft carrier maneuvering at 40 miles an hour will not provide much of a challenge, especially as the carriers' Aegis defense system has never worked in operational settings in its 30 year history.

    Seeing as you are a military genius who knows so much that there is nothing you could possibly learn, then I am sure you know the answer to these questions:

    Those Chinese IRBMs: What kind of guidance system do they use? What kind of warhead will they carry?

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  2. No warhead necessary for this application. Kinetic force would work. Don't know what guidance system it uses.

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  3. You don’t know what guidance system it uses?

    There’s your problem, right there.

    Figure it out, and revise your post accordingly.

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  4. Let me help. Quoting your post:

    The Chinese we know have intermediate range ballistic missiles ...

    That word, ballistic, has a very specific meaning.

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  5. And I know what it means. It means an Aegis -- even if the military could make it work, which has never happened -- is no defense. Apparently you slept through the MIRV debates back on the '60s. Ballistic missile warheads are steerable.

    It is interesting -- to thoe who understand military technology -- how some systems (Aegis) never work, while others (some IRBMs, for example) that were designed for area targets prove capable of precision targeting.

    I understand that as a member of the USAF you have no interest in aiming. Other militaries may think differently.

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  6. Apparently you slept through the MIRV debates back on the '60s. Ballistic missile warheads are steerable.

    Some ballistic warheads are maneuverable, as a defensive measure against ABMs. But they are only altering their trajectory towards an aimpoint determined before launch.

    IRBMs do not do target acquisition and tracking.

    Your ignorance is weapons-grade as it comes.

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  7. Oh, and I understand that as a journalist, you don't care about facts.

    Other people think.

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  8. The idea of using IRBMs is not mine; it is current in military thinking. Nor is the idea of using stooges to cover your activity.

    The Iranians also have cavitating torpedoes, and if I were them
    I'd put them in bomb-proof land launchers and shut down Hormuz. Again, not an original thought of mine; just knowing some history.

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  9. The idea of using IRBMs is not mine; it is current in military thinking.

    No, it isn't.

    Why do you think I asked what kind of warhead?

    The Iranians also have cavitating torpedoes, and if I were them I'd put them in bomb-proof land launchers and shut down Hormuz.

    To what end?

    Let's say that Iran [fill in the blank here yourself, because firing torpedoes must have some larger purpose than fluffing your vanity]. Then what?

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  10. Of course, you can provide a link to where it is current in military thinking.

    As if.

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  11. Current military thinking on supercavitating torpedoes.

    If I was Iranian, you would be absolutely the last person I'd listen to.

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  12. You started off this execrable post by accusing Pompeo of being a moron so moronic he can't comprehend the specter of an IRBM threat against our carriers, and Bolton so war-bent he doesn't care.

    Pretty much typical, vile, progressive fare, so convinced of your moral and intellectual superiority that everyone who disagrees must be either stupid or evil.

    That's a pretty bad lead for your stygian ignorance: there are three reasons glaringly obvious to anyone with even a casual grasp on reality why targeting carriers with anything smaller than a nuclear weapon is a jaw droppingly foolish notion.

    Yet not jaw droppingly foolish enough for you. "Current in military thinking"? Liar.

    And it didn't go any better with those cavitating torpedoes, either.

    If you had any integrity -- as both a journalist and progressive, that is vanishingly unlikely -- you would append a note to this post, regretting its existence due to it being based upon your crippling misapprehensions.

    As if.

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  13. Looks like you aren't going to own your buffoonery.

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  14. Why you should target a carrier only with nuclear weapons, Skipper?

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  15. In case it wasn’t clear, because I left it out of the sentence, an IRBM can’t track a moving target, so anything smaller than a nuc will have no impact on a carrier.

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  16. Is the carrier always on the move, Skipper? Or does it stop for extended periods? A Iranian or Chinese rocket could target it after checking by satellite that it is not moving?

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  17. There are other ways than waiting for it to stop; The Soviets were unable to track a U2 but they shot Powers down by a work-around.

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  18. Clovis: Harry wrote "The Chinese we know have intermediate range ballistic missiles [traveling at 15,000 miles per hour] that can hit a steamer trunk size target. A thousand foot long aircraft carrier maneuvering at 40 miles an hour will not provide much of a challenge ..."

    I changed the sentence so it made sense. It was clear what Harry meant to say; just didn't come out right.

    Unless it is port, a carrier task force never stops moving.

    [Harry:] There are other ways than waiting for it to stop;

    And those other ways are?

    ... The Soviets were unable to track a U2 but they shot Powers down by a work-around.

    I detect a problem here. You are so convinced that every thing you think is correct merely because you think it that you fail to make even the most cursory checks before you blow something onto the screen.

    The Soviets perfectly capable of tracking a U2; that you think otherwise is very puzzling. Unfortunately, the US thought the SA-2 Guideline -- a guided, not ballistic, missile -- was incapable of reaching the U-2 at altitude.

    Turns out the US was wrong.

    So, Harry, how about correcting your post in light of your errors?

    That's what a responsible journalist would do, after all.


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  19. The SA2 was unable to track a U2, so the Soviets brought down the plane by salvoing. The US should have seen that coming since we had adopted the Squid/Hedgehog weapon from the British for that reason.

    It is incorrect that the US thought the SA2 incapable of altitude. The government was warned that the flights should be stopped but the intelligence apparat insisted it needed one more flight.

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  20. The SA2 was unable to track a U2, so the Soviets brought down the plane by salvoing.

    Don't you ever get tired of being epically wrong? In the vast expanse of wrongness that is RtO, this is a particular dumpster fire of nonsense, even more impenetrably ignorant than the insistence that an IRBM can acquire and track an aircraft carrier.

    There isn't a snowball's chance in hell that an unguided SAM will hit anything but the ground. That the Soviets fired more than one missile at the target was indicative of nothing more than the realization that missiles do not have a Pk of 1.

    Here are some facts:

    In 2000, Sergei Khrushchev wrote about the experience of his father, Nikita Khrushchev, in the incident. He described how Mentyukov attempted to intercept the U-2, but failed to gain visual contact. Major Mikhail Voronov, in control of a battery of anti-aircraft missiles, fired three SA-2s at the radar contact but only one ignited. It quickly rose toward the target and exploded in the air behind the U-2 but near enough to violently shake the aircraft, tearing off its long wings. At a lower altitude, Powers climbed out of the falling fuselage and parachuted to the ground. Uncertainty about the initial shootdown success resulted in 13 further anti-aircraft missiles being fired by neighboring batteries, but the later missiles only hit a pursuing MiG-19 piloted by Sr. Lt. Sergei Safronov, mortally wounding him. This account of the events that occurred during the mission match the details that were given to the CIA by Gary Powers. According to Powers, a missile exploded behind him and after this occurred his U-2 began to nosedive. It is at this point that Powers began to make all of the preparations to eject. Powers landed safely and tried to hide in the Russian countryside until he could get help. His attempts to do this failed and he was captured. Sergei Safronov was posthumously awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

    And just as with IRBMs, you clearly have absolutely no idea how the SA2's guidance system worked. Do some investigation to relieve your abysmal ignorance.

    It is incorrect that the US thought the SA2 incapable of altitude.

    More facts:

    The U-2 flew at altitudes that could not be reached by Soviet fighter jets of the era; it was believed to be beyond the reach of Soviet missiles as well. 

    Oh, by the way. Are you going to correct the errors in your post, or are you too much of a journalist for that?

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  21. Here's a conundrum for you: No SA-2 has been able to track a target ever. Nonetheless, SA-2s often do manage to end up in the vicinity of their targets.

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  22. So salvoing worked against the U2 (and many times subsequent to Powers). Got it.

    As for carriers maneuvering, that's really funny. Teflight time of an IRBM is 5 or 6 mintes. Nimitz-class carriers don't change course or speed that often. For purposes of targeting, it is easier than a satellite.

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  23. So salvoing worked against the U2

    No, you fool. You said the Soviets couldn't track the U2, so they pointed missiles in the direction of the U2 and prayed.

    That is weapons grade nonsense.

    Teflight time of an IRBM is 5 or 6 mintes. Nimitz-class carriers don't change course or speed that often. For purposes of targeting, it is easier than a satellite.

    And you are dumber than a box of rocks.

    The IRBM would be picked up, impact point quickly calculated, and avoided.

    For purposes of targeting, satellites aren't maneuvering targets. Carriers are. In 3 minutes, a carrier would create a mile and a half of miss distance.

    You are the idiot here, not Pompeo.

    When are you going to correct your post?

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  24. You're sure the IRBM would be picked up. Experience says no.

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  25. Harry, please point to experience to the contrary. I'm betting you cant.

    You started out insisting Pompeo is a moron because you were certain, in the ways only progressives can be, that a self guiding IRBM would put paid to our carriers. Anyone less certain of their inborn superiority would have seen, within the words you typed, three different reasons why that couldn't possibly be true.

    They are obvious by inspection, yet I'll bet you still can't identify them.

    Then you double down with your magic supercavitating torpedo, emphasis on magic, because gritty reality imposes itself on your most fervent wishes.

    But wait, there's more! One would think you'd consult The History before pronunciamentoing on the SA2. One would think.

    One would also think you'd be curious enough to find out IRBM CEP.

    One would think.

    (Pro-tip: hitting a "steamer trunk size target" is perfectly diagnostic of your impenetrable ignorance. Except for all the other diagnostics on display.)

    So instead of Restating the Obvious -- that as a card-carrying prog, you are immune to reality -- why don't append to your post something along the lines of: "Due to multiple conceptual shortcomings on the part of the author, this post is self-contradicting."

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  26. As everybody in Hawaii knows, the American supersecret ultra expensive missile detecting garage door opener doesn't work. It doesn't even open the garage doors any more.

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  27. As everybody with any reading comprehension knows, your post was holed below the waterline by your depthless ignorance. But that would be restating the obvious.

    Yet despite pointing out how wrong, in every regard, you are, you still haven't issued any sort of correction to your post.

    Over time, my respect for journalists has waned. Experience will do that.

    According to your bio, you were a journalist for 45 years.

    Your response? A total irrelevance.

    Restating the Obvious: you have absolutely no intellectual integrity, or professional pride.

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  28. The Navy can't get out of the way of a 9-knot freighter. Its radars don't work.

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  29. Goal post shift, much?

    That is as epic an example as you have provided, a very high-bar, indeed.

    Your original claim, now completely rubbished, was that the Chinese have guided IRBMs that are completely totally super hero effective against carriers, and Pompeo is a moron for not recognizing this.

    What does that make you for being so pig-ignorant that you couldn't figure out three screamingly obvious reasons for why such a thing doesn't exist.

    Here's another reason your super-prog brilliance didn't suss, but which was obvious from the outset: what is the turn-radius of a warhead traveling at 15,000 mph?

    Instead of shifting goal posts, how about, for once, demonstrating some professional integrity and correcting your post for its multiple, manifest, failures?

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  30. Sigh. I spent days explaining that you don't necessarily need guided weapons to score hits, and you want to know how guidance works. No surprise, since the USAF doesn't care whether it hits its targets or not.

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  31. The hell you did.

    The only thing you managed was to convince yourself that buzzwords you create in your own head have meaning in the real world.

    They don’t.

    Your post, and every comment you have provided, are epically wrong.

    Alternatively, you could provide an example, even one of an unguided IRBM scoring a direct hit on a moving target. Or an unguided missile hitting an airplane in flight.

    As if.

    Were you this bad as a journalist?

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