Probably less than 400km. There is really little point in subsonic anti-ship missiles with ranges of hundreds of kilometres. Flight time is so long that unless they get constant input of good quality targeting data, they aren’t going to hit anything.

not sure if posted yet

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=13c_1446038768

That’s a Syrian Hind.
Pretty pointless to use helicopter that way: at altitude they are less effective (bet those bombs didn’t kill any enemy fighters) AND more vulnerable. Attack heloes are not to be used in timid fashion.

U.S. Said to Approve $11 Billion Saudi Buy of Littoral Ships

Well that’s a funny typo, the comma is in wrong place and makes it look like Saudis are paying $11 billion from four frigates.

Is that how the second pair will look like? I thought they were going to be almost exact repeat of the first pair, as variant number was the same (3.9) and it was only mentioned that they would be “more ASW oriented”.
Is that a 100mm gun?

Such systems do exist, Trophy for example.

*Raises Hand*

The land attack implications of Kalibr entering navy service were pretty big; the Caspian Flotilla at this point has arguably a more potent long range precision land attack capability than the rest of the Russian fleet!

Well…entire Caspian flotilla has 32 silos, that is one-third of capacity of single Arleigh Burke… 🙂

Grigorovich also has only one 8-cell UKSK, so it’s not going to be a major strike asset. Of course, on the other hand, the BSF ships currently located at Syrian coast have no strike capability at all. Well I guess in theory a P-500 could be directed to land target.

Any way, I think this is going to be one-off event. It’s not cost-effective to blow up some shacks with expensive cruise missiles. Or at best they do it once or twice more on smaller scale, once they have reloaded some silos. Russia can’t have large stock of these missiles.

However, I do expect that at some point there will be submarine-launched cruise missile strike. Are 971’s Kalibr-capable?

There are ~200 new attack helos with modern optics in service, and they send in Mi-24P?
The only logic behind that is they don’t care if a few are damaged and lost, as they will be retired soon anyways.

Sounds like pretty good logic if you ask me. In CAS operations, helicopter losses are a virtual certainty, why not send some crappy old airframes first. Since SAA probably can’t perform nighttime operations too well anyway, daylight capability should be good enough for most purposes. Some better helicopters can be sent later if need arises.

Re: Su-25T. So it’s retired, shame. Wouldn’t it actually now come in real handy against mobile ISIS forces with their technicals and whatnot?

Man, those are some SWANK looking Hinds. If I ever build a 1/72 Hind, now I know what scheme it will be.