History, Politics And Current Affairs

And this is something that only just clicked into place for me now. https://www.generalstaff.org/WW3/Docs/ABM/Special_SALT_BriefNotes_MAY-1972.htm These were special briefing notes prepared by Kissinger's team in advance of the signing of the ABM Treaty + SALT I and they have a few key points: The A...

FYI, one of the major program achievements of the Standard Missile - LEAP program in the early 1990s was that it got 5 MIPS processing performance out of a hardened computing unit about the diameter of a CD-ROM which could fit inside the diameter of the Standard Missile Body. Compare that to the 20 ...

Stuart in 2000 on the old, old, old board: ABM and the Soviet Collapse I think it was one of the impossible black programs that lead them to believe that it was all over. I'd better clarify that. As you know, I'm a strong believer in ABM defenses and recognize that the technology needed to establish...

This is something I cooked together for IDK where: MIRV for the Soviets worked the same way -- more targets for less $$$ -- important as there were elements in the USSR which wanted to pull away from mass spending on the arms industries and put more of it into the consumer economy. There's also anot...

Stuart's Nuclear Winter essay was originally posted long ago on Duchess of Zeon's Divine Salamis, FYI in response to this: I remeber throughout the years hearing about nuclear winter and then I find out that the explosion of several volcanoes, Tamboro I believe is one, have dwarved the energy of eve...

BoxerLubeOil.png For the casualty that occurred back in July 2023... How do you even... https://www.kpbs.org/news/military/2024/03/04/cost-cutting-crew-complacency-to-blame-for-uss-boxers-engine-problems-navy-says Bad leaders, a complacent crew and maintenance cost-cutting by the Navy contributed t...

Some commentary on this from twitter:

"CEPs should only be believed if shown on a Velocity-Reentry Angle-Range Map. They can be highly variable."

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/19349-national-security-archive-doc-21-c-h-builder-d-c C.H. Builder, D. C. Kephart, A. Laupa, "The U.S. ICBM Force: Current Issues and Future Options," RAND Corporation, PR-1754-R, October 1975, Secret, excised copy LMAO.png Stuart may have seen this as t...

Poohbah wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2023 4:49 amWe need a USS USTAFISH in honor of everyone's previous boat.

Now there's a name I haven't heard in a long time...

So I ran across this thread: https://twitter.com/PutinIsAVirus/status/1706005281950314608 Navy day in Italy and got to get on board of this beauty. Crew got chatty and was very proud of their world class Anti Submarine perf. told of how they got to track for 3 months a Russian sub without ever losin...

Meanwhile, the russians have placed SATAN II on "combat duty".

This is a missile that failed 50% of the two tests it has conducted.

Again, POTEMKIN VILLAGE

The cruise missile side track made me lose sight of things. Russia never really went through BRAC. In 1991-1992, the prototypical NIMITZ Air Wing had roughly: 2 x F-14A/B Squadrons (18) 2 x F-18A/C Squadrons (20) 2 x A-6E Squadrons (20) 1 x E-2C Squadron (5) 1 x SH-3H Squadron (6) 1 x EA-6B Squadron...

Pulse jet engine and all commercial components for easy production. You can parametrically determine the major performance characteristics of interest for anti-surface missiles such as land attack cruise missiles (BGM-109 Tomahawk, V-1 Buzz Bomb) or anti-tank missiles (BGM-71 TOW) with the Breguet ...

BZ Shep, I like your cruise missile discussion especially. The most effective Russian naval units in this war have been the Admiral Grigorovich frigates of 4000t full load displacement; they routinely launch Kalibr cruise missiles and survive Ukrainian attacks. Meanwhile, the only Russian naval uni...

Russia is basically Dick Jones from Robocop.

"I had a guaranteed military sale with ED 209 - renovation program, spare parts for twenty-five years... Who cares if it worked or not?"

The simplest (and cheapest) alternative to US ABM would be to develop a conventionally powered ICCM (intercontinental cruise missile). The biggest constraint on cruise missile performance has been for cruise missiles to fit inside existing launch systems. In the case of the US Tomahawk missile – the...

December 8: 6:00 p.m. The first snow of the season. My wife and I sat for hours watching the huge soft flakes drift down from heaven. So romantic we felt like newlyweds again. I love snow! December 9: Woke to a beautiful blanket of crystal white snow. Moving here was the best idea I've ever had. Sho...

You're forgetting that most of the heavy ultralong range gun design expertise was "lost" after WW1. There's a reason the V-2 program was started -- as a way to sidestep treaty limits on a new paris gun, before it took on a life of it's own.

I don't think that a lot of things are going to happen in the 2020s now. DOD just has too much on their plate now: GBSD / Sentinel ICBM for Minuteman Replacement Columbia SSBNs for Ohio Replacement Ford CVNs for Nimitz Replacements Constellation FFGs B-21 Raiders And we're coming off a whole clutch ...

So... Way back in the old days, Stuart (PBUH) essentially said that Moscow was a high level Soviet/Russian Mashkirova deception asset -- i.e. nations like the UK where a significant fraction of national GDP and assets were tied up in the Capital (aka London) mirror imaged what teh loss of London to ...