SOCHow do you figure the US was violating the ABM treaty?
SOCJust because the U.S. doesn’t do it doesn’t mean Russia can’t:
The US didn’t do it because it was outside the boundaries set by the ABM treaty. Russia’s nation-wide ABM network was a clear violation of said treaty. At any rate, you should find this book really interesting:
The ABM Treaty Charade: A Study in Elite Illusion and Delusion, by William T. Lee
It details the nationwide deployment of S-200s and S-300s as part of the ABM network, and how US intelligence chose to ignore the concept. A good bit of the history is taken straight from Russian sources and is probably the best work relating to the Russian and Soviet ABM programs that you can find in print outside of Russia right now, even though it was published in 1997.
SOCWell Jon, it seems your reading skills are on par with your writing… Not just from your pathetic misrepresentation of bring_it_on’s statement, but also from the very link you’ve posted (compliments for finding such an intellectually acclaimed source as Wikipedia, by the way):
Purposes of the line
The Maginot Line was built to fulfill several purposes:
1 To avoid a surprise attack and to give alarm.
2 To cover the mobilization of the French Army (which took between 2 and 3 weeks).
3 To save manpower (France counted 39,000,000 inhabitants, Germany 70,000,000).
4 To protect Alsace and Lorraine (returned to France in 1918) and their industrial basin.
5 To be used as a basis for a counter-offensive.
6 To push the enemy to circumvent it while passing by Switzerland or Belgium.
7 To hold the enemy while the main army could be brought up to reinforce the line.Now do tell me: which one of the above failed the Maginot line to do, except save time (which wasn’t the fault of the fortifications themselves, but of the French logistics and the speed of the German breakthrough)?
I replaced your asterisks with numbers to make this easier. The line failed to accomplish numbers 4 and 5, at the very least.
The main difference between the current ABM program, and the Soviet/Russian ring around Moscow (and the operational-for-a-day Sprint system) is that the old systems are ment to protect one specific area against a more or less omnidirectional saturation attack…Of course these systems were idle as well being limited to 64 missiles
First off, they were limited to 100 missiles. And secondly, the nuclear-armed S-200 and S-300 variants were likely developed and deployed specifically to operate as a nationwide ABM system. We didn’t count it as such, because the CIA decided that since they couldn’t prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt, it must not exist as such. CIA intelligence dork-ups are becoming a historical trend as you do more and more research on various issues…
SOCEven then does it even warrant a new RS-xx designation?
I think renumbering might have something to do with the START treaty. Something about agreeing not to MIRV non-MIRVed missiles. Making it a “new” design (learnign from Sukhoi, maybe…) might get around that restriction.
I think his RS-24 analysis is based on lots of speculation and BS really.
That might make him less than credible on the issue of the RS-24, but what about the rest of it? And his argument is based on analyzing images of both the RS-24 and the Topol-M, and they appear to be nearly identical missiles:
http://russianforces.org/blog/2007/07/rs24_and_topolm_side_by_side.shtml
At any rate, nobody is talking about the RS-24, so his speculation is as credible or worthwhile as anyone else’s at this point. Which has been confirmed by Russian sources, by the way:
http://www.vpk-news.ru/article.asp?pr_sign=archive.2007.200.articles.conception_02
So, it would appear that the RS-24 is a MIRV’ed Topol-M, and Podvig was right.
SOCFunny becuase it actually confirms what Austin said and you seemed confused by that.
No, you’re all confused. Yes, the RS-24 has been noted to be a MIRV’ed Topol-M missile. Yes, that may have come at the expense of some of the decoys and penaids. No, that does NOT mean that it is less survivable; the new anti-ABM technology is likely in the form of the MARV warheads recently tested, meaning that reducing the number of decoys and penaids to provide for multiple warheads may actually have resulted in a more survivable delivery platform.
Prove your sources are reliable
Why do you consider Podvig to be an unreliable source? Most of his material regarding recent developments comes from the Russian media, in the form of news articles and press releases from the Russian MoD. If his site is unreliable, then you’d have to agree that his source material is unreliable as well.
Personally, I find Podvig to be a far more accurate source to use regarding Russian strategic developments than anything published by a Western journalist or author. If you read through the endnotes in his book you’ll find that he has reached far and wide to find the most comprehensive list of sources imaginable without breaking into classified Russian files and getting arrested.
SOCI’m surprised by your response SOC – you aren’t normally so anti-Russian??:confused:
It wasn’t meant to come off that rough, I just find it interesting that the media makes such a big deal out of what the US military is admittedly calling a non-issue. I wasn’t thinking along the lines of an official Russian response, but more of what the response in the public would be. The statement was more of an indictment on the ability of the Western populace to blow anything having to do with Russia completely out of proportion.
But, then, have the Russians?????…..
Well, whatever happened in this case, I know they did it at least once with an Su-24 a few years ago. I have the pictures taken by the FENCER :diablo:
It is all western media hysteria……..
Precisely my point. The issue I find interesting is what the “hysteria” would be if the US did something like this. Would the Russians react like the US military in saying it was nothing big, or would the incident be overblown into some indictment on American imperialistic tendencies or something like that? A perfect opportunity for an examination of hypocricy if you ask me.
At any rate all of the attention on this is the medias doing. Like I said before, even the US military wasn’t concerned, so what exactly is the big deal here?
As long as you get different horse **** from all sides, you can triangulate.
Totally hilarious, yet completely true. Gathering all of your data from only one perspective will give you a skewed world view, but if you are smart enough to read between the lines from multiple sources you can get a better idea of what is really going on.
Do they have open press in America? Seems like most of the horse sh– is affiliated to some politcal party.
The open nature of the American press is precisely what has enabled networks and other media outlets to dominate their products (which is what they provide anymore, a commercial product and not a factual account of anything) with one side of the agenda or another. They ALL do it. MSNBC and CNN are vehemently liberal, while Fox is vehemently conservative.
SOCOne has to wonder what the Russian response would be if we flew a P-3 directly over the Kuznetsov. Would they be “suprised by the commotion” in the open press?
SOCYour post implys they don’t have them anymore, the second part f your post you imly they just “worked” on them, after reading those links if you insist they just “worked” on them, I can’t help you, your living in denile, BTW why can’t YOU just look it up your self, what the problem:confused:
There are quite a few ASAT programs that are no longer active (Skif-DM, MiG-31D, Almaz, Terra-3, to name a few). Does that imply that no more exist? No it doesn’t.
SOCBecause the post cold war disarmament treaties, only alow small amount of silo’s, and from what I hear what Russia did was take 80% of there silio based missiles and put them on moble launchers, and only about 10% of the silo’s Russia had in the cold war are still operational.
Here’s START I:
http://www.state.gov/www/global/arms/starthtm/start/start1.html
Silos themselves are not restricted, it is the missiles and the warheads that are restricted. 1100 warheads are allowed to be based on mobile launchers, with another 4900 on fixed ICBMs. There is a cap of 1900-2100 ICBMs as well, but no mention of any restriction on the numbers that can be mobile or non-mobile.
Then there’s the 2002 SORT treaty:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/05/20020524-3.html
That one just limits warheads to 1700-2200.
As far as I know Russia has not removed silo-based missiles and converted them to mobile use. In fact, a lot of the road-mobile SS-25 units have been disbanding. While the new road-mobile SS-27 variant is entering service, they still rely heavily on silo-based weapons.
Some figures from http://russianforces.org/missiles/:
452 missiles in service (January 2008)
-6 mobile Topol-Ms
-48 Topol-Ms in silos
-213 Topols, road mobile
-110 SS-19s, silo based
-75 SS-18s, silo based
That means that currently, 51.5% of the nuclear missiles are silo based.
like Starwars it was about lasers knocking out Russia’s lasers
Eh what? Star Wars was intended to produce a missile shield for the United States. It wasn’t targeted at the Skif-DM or any other laser program. A space-based component using lasers was examined, but I think the final idea they came up with was BRILLIANT PEBBLES, a KKV. That should not be suprising at all, as the USSR did appear to be ahead in the field of laser research. Most of the laser systems tested by the USA didn’t work all that well. MIRACL blasted a bunch of endoatospheric targets, but didn’t work all that great exoatmospherically. The X-ray laser program was a flop.
SOCThe U.S.’s ASAT capabilites are NO WHERE near what Russia has is Technology AND in numbers, please give us the info if ya disagrea,
Where did I say anything at all about the types or numbers of systems developed? All I said was that it is a fact that both the USA and USSR were developing ASAT systems for a rather long time. Why you have to make that simple comment into some sort of “us vs them” debate, when I was in fact trying to back you up, is beyond me.
and I said around 10% of Russia’s silo’s are still “Operational” go back and re-read.
I know what you said, and your 10% figure is debatable. Where did you find such a pitifully low number, especially given the rearmament of older silos (for example, the silos near Tatischevo) with SS-27s?
SOCOK I’ll say it – I seriously believe Boeing is incapable of producing a tanker that the USAF needs.
Wheres the evidence I hear you cry….
KC-45, is the Tanker the USAF needs
Why didn’t Boeing offer the hypothetical tanker they could have produced?.
You can blame time constraintsoff the shelf etc (Europe had exactly the same problem which lend lease helped with), simple truth is Boeing couldn’t hit the ‘sweet spot’..
There no shame in it…
Cheers
The USAF felt that the Northrop/EADS aircraft offered better value and better capability over the smaller Boeing entrant. Now, how that implies that Boeing couldn’t have developed a new airframe to fit the bill (i.e. “incapable of producing a tanker that the USAF needs) is beyond me. Had they done so, of course, they still would’ve lost, as the jet would’ve cost a lot more anyway, being a new design. And I still do not understand how this has anything to do with Europe during WWII.
SOCErrrr… you had a competition to see if if anyone could offer what was wanted, and one offered something that wasn’t wanted… If they could produce what was actually wanted why didn’t Boeing do that???.. Modesty??:)
Based on your logic, Europe can’t produce a stealth aircraft because it will be sourcing the JSF from the United States. Having seen some of the German and British stealth concepts, I know that to be a severe error in logic. The same thing applies here. Just because one tender was accepted and one was not, does not mean that the US aerospace industry has all of a sudden become incapable of producing an inflight refueling platform, it means that when all the factors were considered the USAF decided that the Northrop/EADS tender was better suited to fulfill the requirement. Bringing Lend-Lease into the argument looks like an attempt at playing a nationalistic game of one-upmanship to me.
SOCSure, but only if they take everything out of Lockheed Martin as gospel as well :diablo:
SOCOh, and as an aside, yes, the Russians have had ASAT programs for a very long time. So has the USA. Big deal, move on.
SOCAround 10% of Russia’s silo ICBM’s have been scrapped, and only around 10% are still opperational, and from the early 90’s onward the mass majority of the silo ICBM’s have bbbeeeeennn put on “Mobile Launch Platforms”
The road-mobile SS-27s are relatively recent service entrants (there have been SS-25s for a good while though), and I’m not sure if your 10% figure for silo-based missiles is accurate either as there are a number of silo-based SS-25s and SS-27s operational.
[color=red]And people. Come on. Quit it with the petty bickering already. Jon James and 1MAN, if you two cannot coexist here civilly, I suggest that you both find another place to debate.[/color]
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