Russian Avantgard hypersonic missile officially commissioned

[Skybird]

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/avangard-russia-commissions-intercontinental-hypersonic-weapon-191227142922561.html


This is a potential game changer. If successful, it could neutralise a whole defence dogma. The US is working on such missiles itself, but lags behind by several years. A working defence against these missiles so far has not been proven to exist anywhere.



Who said the cold war ever ended?

[Onkel Neal]

The best move now is to join up with Russia.

[ikalugin]

This is not a new thing - HGVs have been in development for a long time. This specific desighn has roots in the Soviets counter SDI efforts and is going to be fielded in a very limited/nichie manner, with ~12 craft (2 now, 4 next year and 6 in 2021).

[mapuc]

I guess right now the best defense USA have is their THAAD.

I'm pretty sure in the future USA and it's allied will have developed some SAM-system to take care of these missile
Maybe not a 100 % safe system.

I remember when S-400 was developed. I remember how some of my friends said, there is no cure against these SAM...month perhaps years later I saw an interview with some high ranked office who said we have found a way to deal with this S-400 System.

Markus

[ikalugin]

The isssue with HGVs (and MaRVs for that matter) is that hit-to-kill exo atmospheric interceptors do not work well against them and this is what US is focussed on.


The other issue is with sensors - US would need to deploy a new sensor network to detect and reliably track them post boost (boost is detected just fine with existing space based sensors).


But yes, it is not magical and is there to compliment the overall Russian force, not to replace it. Now, the announcement of desire to buy 120 Sarmat heavy ICBMs by 2027 - that would be spicy.

[Jimbuna]

This certainly looks like a game changer if even for only a short while.

[Skybird]

This is not a new thing - HGVs have been in development for a long time. This specific desighn has roots in the Soviets counter SDI efforts and is going to be fielded in a very limited/nichie manner, with ~12 craft (2 now, 4 next year and 6 in 2021).
Even without being MIRVed, 12 of these missiles are fully sufficient to guarantee a fully believable second-strike capability. 12 such missiles could wipe out Paris, London, Berlin, New, Washington, Los Angeeles, Bejing, Tokyo...


Tracking the glider in flight and concluding on its target, is impossible, since it can change flight path while being enroute. Existing missile interceting technology cannot keep up with it due to tracking problems and the immense speed.


Right now, if its tehcnology works reliable, Putin is eright, This beast currently is invincible. And I think it will stay this way for long time. Laser weapons in space, a whole network of these, are still a long time away.


And I wonder if we really want to go this way. Its all madness, and its not as if on earth we already are running short in supply for madness.

[ikalugin]

Even without being MIRVed, 12 of these missiles are fully sufficient to guarantee a fully believable second-strike capability. 12 such missiles could wipe out Paris, London, Berlin, New, Washington, Los Angeeles, Bejing, Tokyo...
Tracking the glider in flight and concluding on its target, is impossible, since it can change flight path while being enroute. Existing missile interceting technology cannot keep up with it due to tracking problems and the immense speed.
Right now, if its tehcnology works reliable, Putin is eright, This beast currently is invincible. And I think it will stay this way for long time. Laser weapons in space, a whole network of these, are still a long time away.
And I wonder if we really want to go this way. Its all madness, and its not as if on earth we already are running short in supply for madness.


There is a bit more of nuance here. In order to work as a second strike weapon it needs to be launched on early warning data (so called LoW stance) before the enemy attack arrives, because with 12 silos it is not unlikely that the enemy may destroy them all in one go. If this is indeed the method that they are operating under then there is a trade off - the same booster can carry 6 independent RVs with penetration aids package, which present more targets to the enemy, have better destructive capability and so on.

My hypothesis is that those specific weapons (two regiments of six for total of twelve) are there to ensure the LoA stance (attacking after detonations are confirmed on home soil) for the rest of the force (surviving silos, mobile launchers, submarines and so on) by being on LoW stance themselves and taking out key missile defense enabling targets in US, which would allow other surviving missiles to pass through the now dead missile defenses.

Moreover if the attack is not confirmed (via detonations on the home soil) they, unlike ICBMs, may, in theory atleast, be recalled if proper measures are taken (ie comm gear on the gliders themselves) before striking their targets and thus removing the most significant problem with LoW stance - launch on false warning.
There is some circumstancial evidence towards this being the case but nothing conclusive so far that I am aware of.

In any case - this is a low scale (12 vs 1200) early adoption type deal - to work out how the new technology works, how it should be employed and so on.

[Skybird]

Thats a bit like concluding from that a Tomahawk cruise missiles can be emergency-detonated via remote control this means it was the primary intention to design a weapon that can break off an attack it was laucnhed on. Or that a plane was designed with the primary purose of ejecting the pilot with a rocket seat.

All this is secondary, and backup. Not the project-leading idea. You do not buy a car so that you can wear seat-belts. You buy a car to drive from A to B. Seat-belts are just part of the deal.

And personally I found this differentiation between first and second strike weapons, defensive and offensive weapons, always misleadding and more aiming at the PR and propaganda side of things. There are just defensive and offensive decisions. And if i decide to strike the enemy first, then even a shield that I use to break the other's head turns into an offensive weapon.

[ikalugin]

Thats a bit like concluding from that a Tomahawk cruise missiles can be emergency-detonated via remote control this means it was the primary intention to design a weapon that can break off an attack it was laucnhed on. Or that a plane was designed with the primary purose of ejecting the pilot with a rocket seat.

All this is secondary, and backup. Not the project-leading idea. You do not buy a car so that you can wear seat-belts. You buy a car to drive from A to B. Seat-belts are just part of the deal.

Yes and no. For example while manned bombers are indeed built as delivery systems one of the main reasons why they are maintained in Russian and US use despite many disadvantages is that they can be recalled in flight, both passively (when they reach positive control points and do not receive orders to go forward with the attack) and actively (via recall orders).

The ability to recall the attack has it's merits that I have described above. To re-iterate: it can significantly decrease the risks of accidental launch or launch on false warning while retaining the advantages of enabling the rest of your force to deliver the attack by killing the BMD.

For context - 12 Avanguards used in such a way would enable est. 115 RVs from SLBMs and 34 RVs from ICBM TELs (for mobile forces, I do not discuss other silo based ICBMs here) to reach their targets with ease. So you spend 12 RVs to ensure arrival of ~150.

[Skybird]

Aboard a strategic bomber, the same mishaps and technical incidents and human errors can strike like inside the control capsule of a missile silo. I think your description owes a lot to self-deception. Its academically interesting, but practically doubtful to me.


It remains to be a play with fire. Nuclear bombs in the cold war lost from their planes, or that famous incident in September 1983, speak evidence of that. Nuclear weapons are tools of political defence - and weapons of military offensive, always. You want to fire them BEFORE the enemy can reach them. And this again brings the whole question of quality of safety gained from them back to the level of where the decisions are made, and the quality of the decision makers. Thats why the times today probably are far more dangerous than they were during the cold war. The political personnell is in a lousy state, namely in North Korea and the USA. Xi has a feudal self-understanding and wants to establish his family clan as the new imperial house ruling China, thta makes hiom not too much differfent from Kim Yong Il, but Putin at least has the ability to calculate cooly - something that the emotional moralists in Europe and the idiot in Washington are not supicious of.

[ikalugin]

The key here is time and pressure, which create different conditions and as you may expect this is a well studied topic today. Let me run you through the decision making process.

The decision makers (National Command Authority) receive the early warning messages. They can either (1) believe that the warning is true and launch their quick responding and vulnerable weapons (~360 RVs for US, ~830 for Russia) or (2) to wait untill there are confirmed reports of nuclear detonations happening on the home soil, ie the point that they are certain that the attack was actually real. This decision has to be made under 5 minutes in most scenarios because you need to transmit the launch orders sufficiently before the enemy attack arrives to launch.

The second option is preferable as under it there is less risk of launch on false warning and this risk is significant as there were several historical cases where there was false warning (ie 1979 NORAD alert) or where a peaceful launch was misinterpreted (1995 Norwegian sounding rocket incident).

However under this second option Russia (this is less of a problem for US) has only ~210 RVs if we use reasonably optimistic assumptions regarding SSBN/TEL alert rates, silo survivability and so on.
The problem here is that US may conceivably build a system to stop said ~210 RVs from arriving to CONUS and hitting targets there.

This leads to leadership requiring to make a choice from two bad options - either risk the launch on false warning and killing millions in both countries over nothing or to drop the threat of adequate response - which undermines the deterrence.

Historically Soviet and then Russian leadership has been in favour of the 2nd option, which lead to development of survivable command and control (so called dead hand system), other systems, formed the response during the 1995 crisis etc.
The deployement of Avanguard in such a way would make this option viable again.

[ikalugin]

In this context the ability to recall creates the option to mix the best of the two options - reducing the risk of attack on false warning, as you can wait till detonations on home soil are confirmed before you commit (ie allow bombers to pass their positive control points) and assuring sufficient force to saturate the enemy defense, to inflict unaccaptable losses.

Incidentally the preference for this second option is fairly universal in academic circles - the US scholars call for cutting the land based ICBM leg in the US use or atleast de-alerting it, precisely due to the false early warning problem, as well as LoW.

There are also other aspects there - for example LoW stance requires quick decisionmaking which means that irrational leadership may launch without a proper cause before anyone could stop it (particularly relevant to current discussions due to Trump).

[Skybird]

Thjats a Potemkian improrvement, if I may lend from that metaphor. The quality of the deciison is the same and thus the enbemy must take into account retaliation anyway by the nation he attacks. The hope is for that MAD creates deterrance. And this deterrance is not improved by your argument on bombers.



The reasoning you give is in itself logical, but practically not relevant. Its an academical finger excercise, if I may say so.

[ikalugin]

Thjats a Potemkian improrvement, if I may lend from that metaphor. The quality of the deciison is the same and thus the enbemy must take into account retaliation anyway by the nation he attacks. The hope is for that MAD creates deterrance. And this deterrance is not improved by your argument on bombers.



The reasoning you give is in itself logical, but practically not relevant. Its an academical finger excercise, if I may say so.

I would point out that missile defense may deny the deterrence credibility of the second (prefered) option by defeating surviving missiles/RVs.
And that Avanguard is a way to fix this without falling into the other problem of attacking US with nuclear weapons on false warning without confirming detonations first.

Otherwise - we can agree to disagree as civilised people.

[Skybird]

We do.

[ikalugin]

Some interesting graphs:


https://cdn1.savepice.ru/uploads/2019/12/29/ccc9ecb79d8ac97229f9dcddaae69018-full.png
Source:
https://www.cna.org/CNA_files/PDF/IOP-2019-U-021955-Final.pdf
Further discussion:
https://warontherocks.com/2019/12/why-russian-military-expenditure-is-much-higher-than-commonly-understood-as-is-chinas/


This may be interesting because many western observers have illusions regarding the scale of Russian economy and defense spending and as such experience some cognitive dissonance when observing the scale of the Russian defense programs.

[Skybird]

Why have they left out Germany - its the fourth biggest arms exporter wordwide until 2018.


https://www.thelocal.de/userdata/images/1552303283_waffenhandel.jpg


The irony is that the Germans were oh so loud over banning exports to Saudi Arabia due to the Kashoggi-murdering, and for Turkey a partial ban was mulled and claimed as well - but both countries received a record total of arms from Germany this year.

[ikalugin]

Because this discusses military power, not weapon exports (except in context of how weapon imports affect the purchasing power).

[Skybird]

Heck, I just seemed to have suffered a total blackout. Sorry.