Ukraine War, 31 May 2024: Zombies, ATACMS, Neptunes and Arguses

Hello everybody!

As much as I was terribly busy this week, it was funny to keep an eye on this war. Especially all the winding of western Zombie Idiots. For example: when Blinken was caught lying that the USA are not constraining Ukraine from deploying US/western weapons against targets inside the Russian Federation….and how all the other Zombies in Canada plus western Europe then all rushed to declare their permissions for Kyiv to do so, ‘too’…

…but, it was not only Blinken who was lying. The entire US leadership: the same that is bitterly complaining for decades already, how buying arms from Russia and/or Europe comes ‘with political strings attached’. Kind of: if you buy Russian or European, you can only use your arms with permission from Moscow, Paris, London, and you are buying their political influence in your home affairs, too etc…. but, if you buy American…  

….and then it turns out, nope: it’s the US arms that are delivered with not only a Gordian Knot, but an outright shipload of strings attached. Indeed, it seems the Americans expect some of their customers not to fire a single bullet 7.62mm without their permission. Can’t be used even against al-Qaeda without ‘yea’ from the White House, Capitol Hill, and few other places behind the Great Barn…

…what a surprise then, when one of my ex-USMC contacts now feels reminded of the ‘Rules of Engagement’ for him and his troops during the Vietnam War…

Well, I’m a weirdo, and nerd, and controversial too. So they say. And, I certainly tend to call a spade a spade in such cases and then to follow up with my famous - or notorious - unpleasant questions. And, so it happens that I think, this is making it obvious that in this regards the Ukrainian government must – urgently – request advice from three very specific different governments.

OK, OK… make that two – because the Israelis are so ‘neutral’ in this conflict, and ‘it’s complex’ to explain that Bibby can’t disappoint his buddy Pudding and offer serious advice or help to Ukraine. And the Israelis are all so very super-special-God’s-hand-picked-ones that nobody else matters and they can get away even with a genocide conducted live on TV…

But, the other two are at least as good.

Take Pakistan as example. I mean: by side the sheer stupidity of not only successive US presidents and their administrations, but the US Congress and the Senate, too; except for Israelis, there’s hardly any other nation screwing up the USA (and the entire West) as well as Pakistan is doing that. Yes, sure: Emiratis, Bahrainis, Qataris, Kuwaitis, Saudis, etc are doing that to the USA even better – and that at least since the 1980s. But, at least there is always a simple explanation for how do they manage that: it’s money and corruption. Plain obvious. Means: they at least pay for screwing us up and that’s nothing especial.

But, the way the permanently bankrupt Pakistan is doing that… oh dear: that’s so super-special. And that for decades already. They’ve trained Ramzi Yousef - the mastermind behind the idea of flying hijacked airliners into skyscrapers - at home, by their own variant of the CIA (in Pakistan, this is called the ISI; stands for ‘Inter-Service Intelligence). The'y’ve developed, organised and trained the Taliban, and were hiding OBL; then helped the Taliban take-over in Afghanistan. For 30 years. And that while using US-made F-16 to shoot US-made AIM-120s, all delivered in the name of ‘war against terror’, at Indian Su-30s, MiG-21s and Mirages….and the Pakistanis not only came away with it: they’ve even convinced all the top Zombie Idiots that Pakistan is the ‘most-important non-NATO ally’ of the USA even at the time Pakistan was borrowing Chinese nukes so it could fake it’s a nuclear power and blow these up ‘for testing purposes’.

Cool, isn’t it?

I find that super-cool.

And, compared to Pakistan, the other good example is ‘diminutive’. Almost unimportant.

It’s Croatia. A country for which the US leadership has rich traditions of being unable to stand it. Yup. Washington, actually, hates Croatia. And still, back in 1994-1994, the Croats have managed to get enough US help to drive the Serbian occupators out and completely liberate their country. And, subsequently, they joined NATO and then the EU…

Hey, thinking of this, I wonder: wouldn’t it be simple, actually, for Ukrainians to follow the Croat example? See: they let the IRGC and Saudis trying to outmatch each other while supporting Ukrainians Muslims, like back in the 1990s the IRGC and Saudis were trying to outmatch each other while helping Bosnian Muslims. Back then, this was what prompted Washington into supporting Croatia….

I’m sure, if certain, super-cool and glorious general in Kyiv spends more than 5 minutes with thinking about this solution, something of that kind is going to work well in the case of Ukraine, too.

At least such a plot would – definitely – be a better idea than sending Ukrainian special forces to risk their backsides while helping the Sudanese military regime, for this then – as soon as halfway safe from a Russo-Emirati ally RSF – enter a major arms deal with Moscow, so that now it can happily cash from shipping artillery ammo and other heavy arms to Russia.

(….just don’t anybody tell me I didn’t tell you, back then! OK? Thank you…)

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Having ranted myself down to the ground again, now another disclaimer: due to numerous related latest developments, this update is going to be ‘limited’ to

AIR WAR

Except for it being funny to monitor all the Zombie Idiots in the West, it was also a funny week to monitor the Russians.

For your easier orientation, dear reader: the Russians and all the possible Pudding fans in the West can’t stop bragging how the Russians are jamming the western-made weapons – ATACMS, HIMARS, MLRS’, GLSBDs, Excaliburs… you name it – so hard, and so well, none are hitting them, and none can hurt them. And if they do not manage to jam them, then they are shooting everything down.

So much so, one is left to wonder why then – and this according to Russian contacts – the 31^st Air Defence Division of the VKS (Russian Airspace Force) ‘protecting’ the occupied Crimea had to be reinforced by an S-300V-4 SAM-site of the Russian Ground Forces/Army (see what NATO calls the ‘SA-23 Gladiator’)?

A 9A83M TELAR (combined launcher and fire-control radar) of the S-300V4 SAM-system. BTW, back in October 2022, the Russians claimed that one of their Army’s S-300V4s has shot down two Ukrainian jets - a Su-24 and escorting Su-27 - over a range of 217km, and then another Su-27 over a range of 150km in March 2023. All using its 40N6 missiles.

Yup. A simple question: why deploying a weapon specialised for shooting down ballistic missiles (S-300V4) if S-400 is so good in shooting down ATACMS’?

….and why constructing ‘sun shelters’ at bases like Marinovka, if neither Ukrainian UAVs nor western weaponry can hit these?

None of the Russians I happen to know – nor any of Pudding fans abroad that love bragging about another success of S-400s etc. – could answer this question. Which is leaving me shocked.

….almost as shocked as the Russians, when Ukrainians in the night from 29 to 30 May then deployed eight of their Neptune anti-ship missiles (which are flying low but slow; contrary to ATACMS that fly high and fast), to attack multiple Russian ships in the Kerch area. Reportedly, these have damaged ferries Avangard and Conroe Trader, sunk the pilot boat Mechat and two landing boats, while damaging two other landing boats.

….and the S-300V4 was so successful against Ukrainian Neptunes, that it ‘shot down all eight ATACMS’ that night…

…which reminds me of Konashenkov’s reporting about air-sea-battles over the Snake Island, back from summer of 2022… as I’m sure you all can recall, the Russians came out super-victorious out of that one, too…

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BTW, that was in addition to another of the Russian over-the-horizont (OTH) radars that was knocked out early on 27 May – by Ukrainian UAVs: this time, the turn was on the Voronezh-M radar in the Orsk area.

…of course, because the primary purpose of such radars is detection and tracking of ballistic missiles, all the possible Russians are promptly explaining this with ‘preparation for a massive US nuclear strike on Russia’. It’s not like if it was Russia that invaded Ukraine, and Ukraine would never attack these radars if Russia would only withdraw from Ukraine… No. For them, it’s also unimportant that, as reported already days ago, the Russians are using these radars to jam GPS signals and satellite communications of Ukraine, including the StarLink… or that they can be used to detect and track aircraft airborne over western Ukraine, too, and thus it might be opportune for the PSZSU to get rid of them before actually receiving any of F-16s from the West.

Nah. This is all another major Western conspiracy to destroy Russia. Because, you know, the holy Pudding is not excelling in doing that on his own…

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Ah yes, and then… there were several ATACMS strikes on different targets in the Luhansk area. Plus at least one in the Donetsk. All of this was explained with ‘burning grass’ by the Russians, until it turned out not only were the Russian air defences deployed there knocked out, but one or two of missiles have destroyed a better part of the fuel reserves of the Group Tsentr. At least the ‘local Russians’ are bitterly complaining about the lack of fuels and how they now are forced to use civilian petrol stations to re-fill empty tanks of their vehicles….

Really nasty, these Ukrainians: got a few ATACMS and now blowing up Russian depots all over ‘Novorossia’… one must brace for reactions from Biden-Blinken-Sullivan…

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Finally, earlier this week, the government of Sweeden announced that it’s going to supply arms and other aid worth over €1 billion to Ukraine. This ‘package’ is going to include two Saab ACS.890 airborne early warning/surveillance aircraft.

I’ve promptly, yet logically, received lots of questions like, ‘and what do you think of this?’…

Well, my fist reaction was: ‘are the Swedes completely insane now?’

Yes, insane… but, let me explain.

The ACS.890…AFAIK, that’s the Swedish military designation for what I know as Saab 340 Erieye. A a turboprop-powered airborne early warning aircraft based on a reconditioned S.100B business jet, of which only about a dozen was ever built.

Mind: ‘airborne early warning’, no ‘airborne early warning & control’ aircraft. Something like ‘pocket airborne early warning’ aircraft.

Sure, the Ericson PS-890 AESA radar installed on the 340 is quite a potent system. However, back when originally developed, it required additional computers and much bigger power supply to be exploited to its full - than could be packed into this airframe. Eventually, the Swedes found no other solution but to download its radar data to the ground station, where this was then processed and used (for control and communications). I.e. the aircraft is, literally, ‘just a flying radar’: all the ‘control & communications’-part of the mission are exercised from the ground….and if then the communication between the aircraft and the ground station are interrupted… for example by electronic warfare… well, you know what I mean… (except you’re one of the People in Need of Fresh Air and stubbornly refusing to accept the fact that, yes, the Russians can jam ‘such thingies, too’).

Unsurprisingly, some of more serious customers got rid of their 340s. For example, Greeks were not very happy with their two, and returned them; followed by the Emiratis. Finally, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia ordered a version installed on the much bigger Saab 2000 aircraft (ironically, some of Pakistani Saab 2000 AEW&Cs were then blown up by their very own Taliban they’re supporting, but that’s a different story…).

Finally, the Chinese – yes, Beijing has acquired even the licence for domestic production of the system, but lets now not talk about this in the public: might damage the reputation of such a decent company like Ericson, and such a proud nation like Sweden – installed their Erieye radars (and their own, further developed variants of the same) on local versions of the Antonov An-12 medium transport. Because this is offering enough space for all the necessary power supply, support equipment, and a sizeable crew. They call that the KJ-200, and it’s in service for about a dozen of years….

A KJ-200 AWACS of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (i.e. the Chinese Air Force).

But, back to Saab 340 AEW… As said, Erieye is a potent system. Sure, it’s blind towards the front and the rear (because it’s antennas can emit and receive only over the side). But, that’s not as important - if the aircraft is deployed in effective fashion. Like flying parallel to the frontline.

The Erieye can pick up fighter-sized targets from as far as 350km (200+ nautical miles) and ships from 300km away. That’s comparable to the performance of the Russian A-50U. It can simultaneously track 300 targets and control six own interceptors (which is also comparable to the A-50).

However, it’s the aircraft carrying the Erieye – the Saab S.100B – that is slow: its cruise speed is only 300km/h. Furthermore, its range is only some 2,800km (1,700 miles). Now, this might be nice if you’re rich enough to buy yourself one and fly it - in peace - to Mallorca or some similar place. But, at war…

Which means: it is going to be highly vulnerable to intercepts by Russian stuff like MiG-31s armed with R-37s long-range air-to-air missiles. Because a MiG-31 flying at, for example, Mach 2.2, and some 15,000m altitude, can launch an R-37 at an Erieye underway at some 7,000 metres altitude almost from outside its radar range, and the latter is going to be very slow to react – like trying to dive to low altitude – to a Mach 4+ missile like R-37.

Thus, and at most, the PSZSU is likely to deploy it for air defence purposes – i.e. to detect and track incoming Russian cruise missiles and Shahed attack UAVs – over western Ukraine. Trying to operate it anywhere east of the line connecting Kyiv with Kryvyi Rih… well, I wouldn’t recommend such ideas.

Indeed, the vulnerability of the Saab 340 AEW&C is such that, actually, my second thought after hearing about this Swedish announcement was something like, ‘oh… then this must be the first element in another, even bigger arms package for Ukraine, including JAS.39 Grippen and Meteor long-range air-to-air missiles.’

However, the way things are right now, nothing of this is going to happen. Indeed, the PSZSU is ‘eyebrows deep’ into just working up its first squadron of F-16s… and if depending on these to protect its two Saab 340s from MiG-31+R-37 combo – and that with something like AIM-120C-7s… well, I wouldn’t recommend such ideas, either.

Bottom line: the two Swedish 340s will be ‘nice to have’, no doubt, but… well, useful for defence of western Ukraine only.

(The optimist in me would love bursting out to express his hope that, perhaps the two are going to serve as a sort of ‘lead-in trainer’ for the Ukrainian Air Force, pending the same receiving… ‘something much better’ in this regards…? But, I stopped daring to daydream about such developments already back in summer 2022.)