Once again the ranch is in a state of low-grade chaos, with brother against brother, alpaca against alpaca, and the chickens henpecking everyone. Some of the herd have become big fans of a show called Louder With Crowder, a mix of comedy and politics hosted (usually) by comedian Steven Crowder. It’s sort of Jon Stewart for conservatives, but without the nice suits and prized late night time slot. It’s the twenty-first century and the guys in the logo T-shirts are now the Republicans, while the secret lair under the volcano has been sublet to a cabal of Democrats. It’s truly a world turned upside down.

Mr. Crowder was out of the office recently having his funny bone replaced, which is apparently located in the rib cage rather than near the elbow as was previously believed. During his absence the T-shirt tiki torch was passed to an associate, who covered a topic disturbingly dear to the alpacas—the war in Ukraine. Apparently grazing contentedly all day is boring so they’ve taken up studying geopolitics, with the exact result one would expect from a species of herd animals. Regardless of whether they even understand the question they all either agree or disagree strongly about the answer. They also all have accounts on X (which they still call Twitter) so by default they are Experts On Everything.

The unanimity of the herd has been destroyed, however, by one of the claims made by the host pro tempore. According to him “Russia is suffering 30 to 45,00 casualties per month for no gain.” This number is far in excess of reported Ukrainian casualties in a war now dominated by artillery and small drones. That’s somewhat hard to swallow given even the Ukrainians admit the Russians build many times more shells, drones, bombs, missiles, and everything else that blows people up than they do.

We may be skeptical, but the folks at Louder With Crowder have provided a list of references for all key claims made in their show (as is their custom), and two of those address this topic. So today we’re doing another round of Check the References to see if Crowder’s team is any more circumspect than a typical university professor. Based on a quick set of quotes shown on the screen the claim of 30 to 45,000 per month comes from an estimate of 1,000 to 1,500 casualties per day (the highlighted bit on the lower right side).

The loss numbers on the left of the screen come from a June 4, 2026 Yahoo! News story titled Russia Loses 1,550 soldiers over past day. This is a list of estimated losses for a single day, and the screenshot leaves out the part of the story where their source is listed. Here’s the relevant quote from the Yahoo! News article:

Russia has lost 1,550 soldiers killed and wounded over the past day, bringing its total number of personnel losses to 1,370,890.

Source: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Facebook. (Diakonov, 2026)

This isn’t helpful at all; the 1,550 casualties is a claim for a single day rather than a daily or monthly average. As explained further down in the article, the 1,370,890 total casualties covers losses from 24 February 2022 to 5 June 2026. This is 1,562 days (per this online calculator) for an average of 878 per day. The source for this is the Ukrainian armed forces, who per our understanding are the guys fighting the Russians. The Public Relations office of one side’s military is not, to be blunt, a valid reference for the losses of the other side. The alpacas aren’t very bright, but they do understand the idea that one side might want to exaggerate the losses of the other side or minimize their own.

This first reference isn’t really a news story at all; it’s just Yahoo! News posting numbers from the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine without comment or independent verification. We could ask the Russian military the same question and would no doubt receive the same answer, but in reverse. Even grazing livestock can tell the difference between a reporter and a stenographer, and this is the latter not the former. At least the Yahoo story gives a link to the original source, the Facebook page of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Welcome to modern war, where Facebook is our primary source for key battle data. We’ll know when the nukes come because Aunt Betty’s status will change to “irradiated.”

The other reference was much more fun to check. The link provided on Crowder’s website is to a story in the National Security Journal with the title shown on the screen: Russia Is Losing Up to 1,500 Men a Day in the Ukraine War — and Putin Has Built an Entire Secret System to Avoid Admitting It (Latham 2026). Unfortunately for the morbidly curious, the Latham article doesn’t really explain the second part of its title about the system to hide casualties. The alpacas were expecting gruesome stories about giant cremation ovens or hidden graveyards in the frozen tundra of Siberia. However the “system” being described is just the several different recruitment paths being used, and the writer implies using these various tools is a mechanism to hide enormous casualty numbers.

The referenced article is really just about the recruitment mechanisms and is not an analysis of battlefield casualties. The quote used by Team Crowder is the only mention of total casualty numbers, but it does at least include a link to its source.

Russia is losing somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500 men a day on the Ukrainian front. Not wounded — lost, killed, and incapacitated, gone from the line of battle. (Latham 2026)

Luckily the alpacas have mastered the hoof dexterity necessary to click an internet link, which led us to a data brief from the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) titled “Russia’s Grinding War in Ukraine” (Jones & McCabe, 2026). That report doesn’t actually provide a per-day or per-month number of casualties so it’s not clear where Latham obtained his 1,000 to 1,500 per day estimate. The CSIS report lists total casualties (dead and wounded) for the war through December 2025, total casualties for just 2025, and the total of just fatalities through December 2025.

Assessing casualties and fatalities in wartime is difficult and imprecise, and various sides have incentives to inflate or shrink the numbers for political purposes. According to CSIS estimates, Russian forces suffered nearly 1.2 million battlefield casualties, which include killed, wounded, and missing, between February 2022 and December 2025, as highlighted in Figure 2. There were roughly 415,000 Russian casualties in 2025 alone, with an average of nearly 35,000 casualties per month. In addition, there were roughly 275,000 to 325,000 Russian battlefield fatalities between February 2022 and December 2025. (Jones & McCabe, 2026)

We went back to that handy online calculator and found from 24 February 2022 to the end of December 2025 is 1,406 days. Dividing this into the 1.2 million casualties number from CSIS gave us an average of 853 casualties per day. If we just look at the estimate for 2025 (and taking the 415,000 number at face value) we get about 1,137 per day for that whole year.

Alpaca wool isn’t itchy but we’re still scratching our heads trying to figure our where Latham found his 1,000 to 1,500 estimate, because it’s not directly in this data brief. Our best guess is that he used alpaca math and rounded 853 up to 1,000. Alternately, he may have decided to split the difference between the total for the whole war and the total just for 2025 and arrived at 1,000 per day. Who knows? We have no clue about the 1,500 number since nothing in the CSIS report he links to supports it. Perhaps he also saw a Yahoo! News story, or simply felt this was a reasonable upper limit. Latham doesn’t explain, he just drops the numbers like a Monaco prostitute quoting hourly rates.

The CSIS report at least has some numbers in the correct range for the lower end of the claim, but where did they get their estimates? Of course (we note with sarcasm) the data brief itself isn’t the original source for the casualty figures. The CSIS quote above has three distinct claims, and each includes a footnote. All three notes have exactly the same wording, and the second is the only one to include a link to a specific source. According to all three their sources are:

CSIS estimates; UK Ministry of Defense; analysis of data collected by Russian news outlet Mediazona and the BBC Russian Service; and interviews with U.S., European, Ukrainian, and other government officials. (Jones & McCabe, 2026)

We were of course expecting something sensible, like a reference to other reports generated by CSIS where they show how these numbers were calculated. What UK report? Which BBC or Mediazona news stories? This footnote is basically “trust us, bro” from people who refuse to show their work.

So we have no idea how Jones and McCabe compiled their numbers, and they have given us almost nothing we can use to verify their claims. Once again the Ukrainian government is one of the listed sources, making us suspect they’re the original source for all these claims. The single link the authors provide is at the end of the second footnote, and like the puck in a game of Link Hockey we’re off to yet another source. That source is a campaign assessment by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) titled Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, December 9, 2025 (ISW, 2025). Anyone expecting this reference to be useful will be disappointed—the word “casualties” only occurs twice in the entire assessment, in a paragraph near the beginning.

ISW has observed evidence to assess that Russian forces have seized roughly 4,669 square kilometers since January 1, 2025. Data from the Ukrainian General Staff (emphasis added) indicates that Russian forces have suffered a total of 391,270 casualties in that time – or about 83 casualties per square kilometer. (ISW, 2025)

The only listed source from ISW is the Ukrainian General Staff, so we’ve circled all the way back to the other side’s propaganda office for data on Russian casualties. The ISW assessment itself is an overview of the campaign, not an analysis of battlefield casualties, and makes no attempt to verify the Ukrainian claim. The 391,270 casualties in the ISW report is through December 9, and this became 415,000 total casualties in 2025 in the CSIS report. Naturally no explanation is given by CSIS; once again the alpacas were forced to whip out their giant abacus, and prorating for the remainder of December would mean 416,372 total for the year.1

We’ve checked Crowder’s sources but haven’t found anything to support the claim of 30 to 45,000 per month in casualties—or at least, anything we can verify. The upper end of the daily average just magically appears in one of the sources, and that source’s own reference doesn’t support the claim. The CSIS report gives us a vague list of sources but no raw numbers, no spreadsheet of totals, nothing showing how they arrived at their numbers. For all we know they’re just Facebook friends with the Ukrainian General Staff, grabbing casualty numbers from screens intermingled with recipes for The World’s Best Pound Cake.

In fact all the casualty claims come filtered through a series of sources who appear to be pointing back to the same PR office of the Ukrainian military.2 To be perfectly blunt, what Crowder’s team is reporting are the claims made by the Ukrainian military about Russian casualty numbers, nothing more. At no point have we found hard evidence of an independent assessment by any credible and unbiased source. What we found instead is a kind of source-laundering, where we follow link after link but no specific source providing actual numbers is ever named except one.

We here at the ranch don’t dislike Steven Crowder—he’s a funny guy. But his assertion about backing up all factual statements with references is not really accurate. The casual watcher, confronted with the long lists of references provided for each show, may be impressed (or intimidated, depending). Few of the more skeptical viewers will have the time to check every one of these references to see if they actually support the claims. In this example a claim from a dubious source has not only been passed along as verified truth, the number has also been stretched slightly beyond the claims of the original sources.3

If this is typical of the sourcing used by the show then they don’t really have useful sources at all. Repeating this process for every claim would mean hours of reading to verify the claims from each show, which (again, if typical) would mean it’s not a useful source of information. There’s noting inherently wrong with that, but in the end it’s no different from The Daily Show (the funny Jon Stewart version, not the terrible Stephen Colbert version) in that facts and sources can be used selectively to paint whatever picture they wish.4 It’s sometimes entertaining, but it’s not news. We should all take care to recognize the difference.

We are in the midst of the latest Crisis du Jour, which this time is a war against a supposed scary country instead of a supposed scary virus. Those of us who didn’t buy into the last incipient apocalypse are understandably reluctant to purchase stock in the new one. As is always the case public support, or at least acquiescence, is obtained through an array of marketing and propaganda techniques. The crisis may change, but the methods used to sell it stay much the same.

One theme of this Substack is that details matter, and presenting the truth but minus some essential details is one of the most effective methods of manipulation. Basing a lie in a truth has an important benefit; the intended audience can verify key facts and thereby engender confidence in the intended message. If the original statement is carefully framed then any fact checking exercise will appear to confirm it, and this will simply reinforce belief in the pre-programmed conclusion. The latest unnecessary military adventure came with many different justifications, as though ten inadequate reasons can add up to a valid casus belli (“occasion for war”).

One of the primary justifications for the current war is literally true but not a valid reason for a preemptive war: the public has been told repeatedly that Iran is two weeks away from having a usable nuclear weapon. In an example of astoundingly poor messaging the Trump administration used the exact same framing in June 2025 when airstrikes were carried out against Iranian nuclear infrastructure based on the same premise. The talking-point-recycling was so blatant it became the fodder for repeated internet memes, as exemplified by a short, AI generated video titled “Iran War. The movie.” Written as a satire and posted on a the social media site X, the exchange between the Netanyahu and Trump characters unintentionally manages to present the issue perfectly:

This bit of dialogue pokes fun at the continued use of the same claim, as though Iran is somehow perpetually two weeks away from possessing a working nuclear weapon yet also unable to complete it. This claim is actually true in a sense, but the useful lessons to draw are obfuscated by omitting all the important details. So today we get to learn about uranium enrichment, nuclear weapons, and how using a nuclear weapons program for strategic deterrence can require walking a very carefully selected path.

The following explanation is an example of something called strategic empathy. Rather than seeing international relations through the filter of what we want to be true, successful strategy requires understanding the motivations and goals of the other side—even if we disagree with those goals. Using strategic empathy doesn’t mean taking the other group’s side or making moral judgments about their actions, and it’s a useful tool to prevent mistakes based on wishful thinking about how we hope the other side will respond versus how they could respond.

Nuclear weapons proliferation occurred very rapidly following their first successful use in 1945. The Soviet Union immediately prioritized their nuclear weapons program based on the threat posed by the US, and the Soviet threat was the incentive for the British and French programs. China’s own bomb came after the Korean War, stimulated by the US threat and the breakdown of China-Soviet relations. India followed China, and Pakistan followed India.1 International efforts eventually slowed this expansion of capability to a near halt, with several countries agreeing to entirely abandon their nuclear ambitions. When discussing nuclear proliferation in the Middle East the two important examples are Iraq under Saddam Hussein and Libya under Muammar al-Qadaffi, which pursued opposing strategies but with the same eventual result.

Iraq and Saddam Hussein

Iraq’s nuclear program began in the 1950s, with no immediate evidence the intent was to develop weapons. The country signed on to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 1968, but by sometime in the 1970s appears to have begun work on a bomb under the leadership of Saddam Hussein. By the 1980s the country may have been within a few years of a working weapon.2

Hussein saw nuclear weapons as more than just a defensive strategy to shield the country from attack. The Iraqi program could be viewed as part of a larger offensive strategy to enable conventional war against his nuclear-armed adversary, Israel.

If the Arabs attacked Israel without nuclear weapons, Saddam believed, their advances could be halted by Israeli nuclear threats. Yet if Iraq also possessed nuclear weapons, it could neutralize these threats by holding the Israeli citizenry hostage. This mutual deterrence would allow a conventional war of attrition that, Saddam believed, would favor the Arabs with their larger armies and greater tolerance for casualties, allowing them to liberate the Golan Heights and perhaps the West Bank. (Brands & Palkki, 2011)3

After the 1990-1991 Gulf War Iraq was forced to give up its nuclear weapons program, and by 1994 the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) had confirmed the removal or destruction of all nuclear materials and facilities. In 1998 Saddam ended cooperation with the UN inspections team, but fearing threat of a US invasion he allowed the inspectors back in 2002. Those inspectors found no evidence of a revived program, but there was no way to prove beyond doubt Iraq wasn’t still working on nuclear weapons—and no way to effectively search the entire country to confirm it.4 The US went ahead with their invasion and the 2003 Gulf War saw the end of Saddam’s regime, the deaths of his two sons, and his own eventual hanging in 2006.

There are good reasons to believe Saddam actively sought to develop a small number of nuclear weapons as a means of shielding Iraq from other nuclear armed countries in the region. He thought Iraq would hold the advantage in any protracted conventional conflict, and a nuclear arsenal would put him in an advantageous strategic position. Ironically his rule, and his life, were both ended by conventional weapons wielded by an opponent with capabilities far in excess of anything those neighboring powers could have employed themselves. In the end Saddam’s strategy was, quite objectively, a failure.

Libya and Muammar al-Qaddafi

The invasion of Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein did not go unnoticed. Libya had also been pursuing a nuclear program, although one much smaller and much less advanced than Iraq’s. In December 2003 Libya suddenly announced it was unilaterally abandoning its nuclear program, likely due to a combination of several positive incentives and fear of a regime change war.

It appears clear that Libya’s decision was to some strong degree the result of diplomatic carrots and sticks, but certainly a variety of factors may have influenced Libya’s decision to renounce its WMD arsenal and pursue unilateral disarmament at this time. Among them, two of the most prominent considerations were the prospect of lifting American economic sanctions and the resumption of trade with the United States, and Libyan leader Mu’amar Gadhdhafi’s likely fear of a preemptive attack and regime change in Tripoli following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in the spring of 2003 and the ensuing occupation of Iraq by U.S.-led coalition forces. (NTI, 20045)

It’s hard to imagine the removal of Saddam Hussein just nine months prior had no impact on Qaddafi’s decision making. Libya renounced all nuclear weapons development, limited the range of its existing conventional missiles, and cut off military trade with North Korea. Their five Scud-C missiles, with a range of 800 km, were willingly transferred to the US. Libya’s nuclear program had been very small and many years away from a working weapon, and all evidence indicates the entire program was quickly dismantled.

This was a success for nuclear non-proliferation but did nothing to protect Qaddafi from foreign intervention in Libya. Protests against the regime in 2011 expanded into a civil war, and government troops used lethal force to attempt to put down the uprising. After many initial setbacks the pro-Qaddafi loyalists appeared to be successfully retaking control, leading to NATO intervention in the war.

By March the United Nations Security Council authorized, with Russia and China abstaining, that a no fly zone be established over Libya. Additionally the resolution authorized member nations and regional organizations to take actions necessary, short of occupation, to protect civilians from the actions of the regime pursuant to the doctrine of responsibility to protect. NATO carried out this mandate through a wide-ranging bombing campaign that not only dismantled the regimes air and anti-air capabilities, but also attacked regime ground forces in what has been equated to close air support for rebel forces. The NATO operation culminated in the fall of 2011 when rebel forces controlled Tripoli and most of the country except for a few loyalist holdouts. In October Gaddafi was captured and killed by rebel forces. (Clemmensen, 20156)

Although they did not provide ground troops the US and NATO acted as the air arm of the rebels, providing close air support against Qaddafi loyalists who possessed no effective response. This military aid ensured the regime lost and Qaddafi, like Saddam before him, was killed near the end of the civil war. From the perspective of the ruling regime, not pursuing nuclear weapons was no more a ward against western intervention than active pursuit of them had been. As the counter example of North Korea shows, the best insurance against western-led forces attempting to remove a regime is to secretly obtain working nuclear weapons and preempt any intervention plans by foreign powers.

The Iran Strategy

Iranian leadership developed a third option; neither Saddams’s all-or-nothing strategy of trying to hold off adversaries while he advanced his nuclear program, nor Qaddafi’s approach of simply abandoning all nuclear ambitions in exchange for normalizing relations with the west. As mentioned, details matter; to understand the Iranian Gambit we first need to learn a tiny bit about nuclear enrichment and weapons-grade uranium.

Mined uranium contains two isotopes, U-238 (99.3%) and U-235 (0.7%). Of these only U-235 can power a nuclear reactor, and the mined uranium must be enriched up to 3-5% U-235 for use as fuel. This is still much too low for use in a simple (non-plutonium7) nuclear weapon, which requires highly enriched uranium (HEU) of around 90% concentration of U-235. To make a very long explanation almost painfully short, this enrichment is not a linear process. Going from the 0.7% of mined uranium to 60% concentration (what the Iranians have stockpiled) takes a lot of time and energy, but the higher the concentration the lower the effort required to increase that concentration. The time required to go from 60% to 90% can be measured in days or weeks once the process is started.

Importantly, starting from the 60% enriched material, a single cascade of 175 IR-6 centrifuges could produce the “weapons-grade” material needed for one nuclear weapon every 25 days. With more cascades, this would go proportionally faster. According to the IAEA’s definitions, highly enriched uranium hexafluoride gas from a centrifuge is “direct use material” that can be converted to finished uranium metal components for use in nuclear weapons in 1–3 weeks. (Goldston, 20268)

These type of calculations are clearly the source of the estimated two weeks to complete a nuclear weapon. A country like Iran, with the proper equipment and with stockpiled 60% uranium, is perpetually two weeks away from being able to build a working warhead. Assuming they also have a medium range ballistic missile able to carry it, they can quickly produce a working nuclear tipped missile.

By stockpiling 60% enriched U-235 the Iranians have chosen an interesting path, one which retains nuclear deterrence but minimizes their own ability to present an immediate threat. They don’t maintain working nuclear missiles and therefore are not capable of a nuclear first strike, but if attacked with nuclear weapons they can complete the enrichment and produce a small number of weapons for a counter attack. The materials, machines, and medium range missiles are all kept deep underground where they cannot be destroyed in a hypothetical surprise attack on Iran, and there is no practical way to invade the country and seize these components before the Iranians can assemble their weapon. International inspectors can be allowed to verify the mostly-enriched uranium stays in its 60% state, providing a way to continually reassure other nations that Iran does not possess lethal first strike capability.

So they are always “two weeks away” from having a nuclear weapon, and this is intentional. It’s a strategy to possess convincing nuclear deterrence without actually having a working nuclear weapon. Regular inspections by an organization like the IAEA can be used to confirm the amount of nuclear material and level of enrichment. The current stockpile can be used to make ten, or perhaps as many as fifteen total warheads—not enough to pose a threat to the US unless the Iranian leadership suddenly becomes drunkenly suicidal. However this is likely sufficient to deter the use of nuclear weapons against Iran by neighboring countries. It’s essentially the bare minimum nuclear program a country can have and still possess a meaningful deterrent against use of such weapons against them.

This important perspective is lost with the propagandistic focus on the two week minimum time frame. Based on how this is presented many people infer Iran is actively working on a program to build a working weapon and is very (frighteningly) close to its completion. As the relevant details should have made clear, this is not what is actually happening. The framing, however, makes this program into a permanent justification for a preemptive war, and the US can attack Iran whenever and however it wishes. This logical yet ludicrous conclusion then begs the question of why such an extensive effort to end the program is occurring now and not last year, the year before, or the year before that.

Returning to the idea of strategic empathy, from the perspective of the Iranians there are few good options. Not having a nuclear program is no protection against the US interfering in their domestic affairs. We all like to believe nuclear proliferation can be stopped through treaties backed by the threat of economic sanctions, but countries following that path leave themselves exposed to attack based on a host of other justifications. Having a nuclear program is no better—the program itself becomes a permanent justification for the same interventions. Iran followed a middle course, clearly demonstrating their ability to develop nuclear weapons but also their restraint in not actually doing so, and this was still used as a cause for war.

It does not matter whether the American public views another government as “good guys” or “bad guys.” Foreign leaders will do what they perceive to be in their best interest, not what we wish them to do based on our own beliefs or principles. The Iranians tried to find a path for newly emerging powers to become insulated from the risk of nuclear attack without actually possessing nuclear weapons, creating nuclear deterrence without proliferation. The US has unilaterally decided that option is also not acceptable, and non-nuclear armed countries shall always be at the mercy of the nuclear armed powers. The US cannot topple foreign governments whenever it wishes while simultaneously preventing the nuclear proliferation that would have protected those same countries from its interference. This simply guarantees more countries will attempt to develop working weapons in secret, and inevitably many of them will succeed.

The fact that a country can develop nuclear weapons but has chosen not to cannot be treated as a casus belli if we want to discourage nuclear proliferation. Technological progress in other countries cannot be halted, and many countries will reach the same crossroads as Iran. Neither can the US permanently impose its will on all other nations, forcing them to adhere to its views of what is right and wrong. No military or technological advantage will enable four percent of the world’s population to indefinitely dominate and control the other ninety-six percent. By invalidating the Iranian strategy the US has left no alternatives to countries seeking a shield against foreign intervention, and this short sighted approach will help create a nuclear armed world forever on the precipice of an unthinkable event.

Update, 13 June 2026:

There is some evidence to indicate the theory laid out above is correct. For example, in a recent interview Iranian political analyst Seyed Marandi specifically stated the enrichment to 60% was specifically done for negotiating leverage. The video below begins at the time stamp (39:54) where this part of the discussion occurs.

If you found this discussion useful, here is a link to an index of my other posts on Substack. They cover several main topics and the index is organized accordingly.

Index to my other blabberings

It’s been quite a while since we’ve heard of any dramatic Ukrainian successes using Turkish-built Bayraktar TB2 drones (see this article for some background on the TB2). Indications are the Russians have worked out how to intercept them and the small fleet has suffered many losses.

The TB2 is a medium sized drone with long range and loiter time that carries a surveillance system mounted in a rotating ball below the nose. Although much cheaper than a manned plane and able to carry small air-to-ground weapons, they’re not the cheapest way to deliver ordnance. At several million dollars each, these drones are certainly worth the cost of a surface-to-air missile like the expensive American AMRAAM.

A bomb that’s a different kind of “smart”

But the Russians have been using a different type of drone, especially useful for strikes on fixed targets like infrastructure - the Iranian Shahed-136 (Geran-2 in Russian service) which are sometimes jokingly called “Doritos” due to their triangular shape.

Multiple photos and videos from Ukraine show the Shahed-136s carrying out their attacks today, which involve the drones flying a one-way mission to pre-planned coordinates, which they dive on and slam into before their explosive payload detonates. It seems the sheer numbers of these drones involved in the raids made their interception difficult, although they are by no means easy to counter at the best of times, despite their relatively low-end technology. They fly low and relatively slow and have small radar and infrared signatures, making them a challenge for even advanced air defense systems. (The Drive)

With a 100 lb warhead, each drone is roughly equivalent in destructive power to a 250 lb aircraft bomb (the American SDB 2, nominally a 250 lb bomb, carries a 100 lb warhead). The Shahed-136 isn’t a glamorous weapon system but it’s cheap and it works.

That “cost-exchange” issue is critical here because the missiles being used to counter the Doritos cost many times more than the drones. The drones are too big to shoot down with a rifle (and very hard to hit anyway), but those “advanced air systems” are too advanced for the task.

While the Shahed-136 is bigger and faster than many of the small commercial drones being used in the conflict, with a fairly substantial warhead and big standoff range, its relatively low cost (reportedly around $10,000 to $20,000 apiece) means it’s a significant cost-exchange mismatch to use surface-to-air missiles or even fighter jets firing missiles to defeat them. (The Drive)

Estimates of the cost vary but the $10k to $20k range is believable for volume orders - and reportedly the Russians have ordered another 2,400 already.

Why buy something like this from Iran? “It’s cheap” and “it works” are both good answers, but there’s a third reason hinted at by The Eurasian Times, in an article titled Shooting Down A $14,000 Geran-2 UAV With A Million Dollar Missile Cannot Win That War For Ukraine – Experts. (my highlighting below)

Iranian armed forces are known to operate more armed drones than many other nations that have twice their defense budget, and that too under crippling Western sanctions. (The Eurasian Times)

This isn’t a weapon that can be denied to the Russians by simply placing an embargo on critical parts. The Iranians have developed a weapon they can build no matter what pressure is brought to stop them. Expect to see lots and lots of these drones, unless Ukraine (or America) comes up with a cheaper, effective counter measure.

That won’t be easy. NATO air defense systems are designed to counter high tech aircraft and missiles. Those air defense systems are effective, but also very expensive - not surprising given they were designed to shoot down other expensive, advanced weapons. One such system is the IRIS-T, which fires missiles similar to the American Aim-9 Sidewinder.

For example, an average Shahed drone costs around $20,000, while an IRIS-T missile costs about $430,000, which is 20 times more than the cost of the Iranian-made kamikaze drone. (The Eurasian Times)

What happens when the airborne weapon you need to stop is so cheap that your enemy can afford many thousands of them?

A quick aside about weapon system costs

In manufacturing industries (my own specialty) we often talk about the “marginal cost” of a product. This is the cost of building just one more (or one less) of something than you’re currently building. It’s a very useful number, especially in high volume manufacturing, when you want to set pricing and budgets.

The U.S. military doesn’t readily give us enough information about any big-ticket weapon to determine the marginal cost. For this discussion, some cost estimates come from the FY 2023 Program Acquisition Costs by Weapon System published by the U.S. Department of Defense.

This document gives total dollar amounts for 2021, 2022 and 2023 as well the quantity purchased for the major weapon systems budgeted. But there are several caveats: some of the funding might be for upgrades to already purchased weapons, or conversely some of the money might be payments for weapons delivered in a different year. Some of the money might just be research or development expenses.

The cost per unit will often vary a lot and as a result we’ll often use a range rather than a single number. Here’s an example, from my favorite program to hate on: the F-35 Joint Wonder Strike Turkey.

The program management office has tossed around numbers below $100 million ($85 million is a common estimate) but not a single plane has been bought at anything close to that price. The program is just a big money funnel with no end in sight.

For some weapons we can occasionally find a specific contract (like the Stinger missile contract listed below) and these can give us a more precise idea of what something costs. Either way, keep in mind these estimates have large error margins.

Stinger vs. Dorito

One of the weapons sent to Ukraine to help counter Russian air superiority is the Stinger missile. This is the primary U.S. MANPADS missile (Man Portable Air Defense System) and 1,400 have already been sent by the U.S., plus more from NATO allies.

But there’s a teensy problem with replacing them in the U.S. stockpile - none have been built in the last ten years. Here’s National Defense telling us about the current state of American weapon stockpiles:

Other weapon systems face even more dire production challenges. The United States has delivered more than 1,400 Stinger anti-aircraft systems to Ukraine, helping prevent Russian domination of contested airspace. Having been focused on counterinsurgency operations over the past 20 years, the Pentagon has not procured Stingers in more than a decade. Raytheon Technologies — the manufacturer of the Stinger — reported earlier this year that several materials used in the production of the Stinger are no longer available. As such, Raytheon will not be able to resume Stinger production until 2023. (National Defense)

How many are left? According to the Center for Strategic & International Studies, the U.S. has already sent a third of its inventory to Ukraine.

The United States has probably given a third of its inventory to Ukraine… However, DOD is thinking about acquiring a follow-on missile rather than replacing the lost inventory with Stingers one-for-one. (CSIS)

Perhaps there’s isn’t a “follow-on” missile option to buy, because Raytheon received a big contract to get that production line restarted and build at least 1,300 Stingers.

TUCSON, Ariz., May 27, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Raytheon Missiles & Defense, a Raytheon Technologies (NYSE: RTX) business, was awarded a $624 million U.S. Army contract to produce 1,300 Stinger® missiles. The contract includes provisions for engineering support, as well as the test equipment and support needed to address obsolescence, modernize key components, and accelerate production. (Raytheon press release)

At $624 million you get 1,300 missiles, which means paying $480,000 for each one. So the American missile that could be used to shoot down one of those Iranian built suicide drones costs 24 times as much as the drone it’s targeting. Please don’t miss - if you fire two of these you’ve spent $1 million to stop a single 100 lb. warhead.

Some of that $624 million might be for production line re-tooling that Raytheon expects to amortize over more than just these 1,300 missiles, so the average price may change if another order is placed.

But for now the simple fact is Raytheon is being paid $624 million and they’re delivering 1,300 Stingers. Even if the successful interception rate is 100%, this is a lot of money to shoot down $26 million (1,300 x $20k each, assuming zero misses) worth of drones.

NASAMS vs. Dorito

The two standard American air-to-air missiles are the infrared guided AIM-9x (Sidewinder) and radar guided AMRAAM missiles. The AIM-9x costs somewhere around $500k-$600k each and the AMRAAM is $1.2 - $1.8 million each (this is per the defense budget summary mentioned earlier).

Norway designed a ground launch system for the AMRAAM missile called the NASAMS (Norwegian Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System), and Ukraine has received two (2) of these systems, delivered by Raytheon in October.

“We did just deliver two NASAMS systems. (...) We delivered two of them to the government a couple of weeks ago. They’re being installed in Ukraine today,” CEO Greg Hayes said on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” program. 

"NASAMS is a short-range air defense system (...) and it could knock down everything in the sky from drones to ballistic missiles to fighter jets,” Hayes said. (The Kyiv Independent)

Each one has six missile canisters and the latest version can fire either radar guided AMRAAM missiles or the (ahem) cheaper infrared guided AIM-9 “Sidewinder” missiles.

Mathematics break: If the Russians launch 12 drones at $20k each that’s $240k worth of drones. Assuming the NASAMS missiles actually track the missiles, and assuming a 100% kill rate, the system will fire either $3 million (AIM-9) or $9 million (AMRAAM) worth of missiles to intercept half the drones - and the target will still be destroyed.

We’re being as generous as possible (100% kill rate) but this is still a double loss for the Ukrainian side. The target will be destroyed, but trying to protect it will also cost millions of dollars and deplete very expensive air defense systems.

Expect the Russians to launch huge numbers of these drones over the next few months. The Ukrainians will be forced to choose between letting the drones through, or using up all their available air defense missiles and leaving themselves open to attack by Russian aircraft.

RAM vs. Dorito

Originally based on the Sidewinder, the U.S. Navy’s point-defense against anti-ship missiles is called the RAM (Rolling Airframe Missile). At about $1.1 million each (current budget) these aren’t any better than the Air Force solutions and would require the development of a ground based system.

If the thing you’re protecting is a multi-billion dollar warship these are a really good choice. But they’re not so attractive if you’re just trying to shoot down a $20k dumb drone. The Iranian designers of the Shahed-136 would laugh every time a RAM was launched to counter a Dorito.

Gepard vs. Dorito

The German military (Bundeswehr) has a different type of solution for air defense against small targets - the Flugabwehrkanonenpanzer Gepard (also called a SPAAG, or Self Propelled Anti Aircraft Gun). This is a tracked armored vehicle mounting a pair of radar guided cannons. The vehicle itself is expensive but at least the ammunition is cheap (compared to a missile).

Hundreds were built but the German military took the last of their Gepards out of service a decade ago. They recently refurbished 50 of them to give to Ukraine but there’s already an issue - not all of them have been delivered yet they’re already running out of ammunition. So factories are getting retooled to make more ammo right now, with deliveries starting next year.

The good news for the Ukrainians is the Germans should have lots of these in storage so they might be able to replace losses. The bad news is the range of the system is the range of the gun - so very short. With 50 spread out over a country almost as large as Texas they can only protect a few critical areas.

And, of course, the gun can only aim one direction at at time so swarm attacks from multiple directions will guarantee some of the drones always get through. We should also assume the Iranians will at some point modify the drone to fly a random, jerky path as it nears the target to make it harder to hit with a big gun.

Comparison: America’s glide bomb

For a little comparison of solutions to delivering ordnance on target cheaply and accurately, let’s look at an American weapon with precision targeting and a warhead weighing about 100 lbs - the SDB 2 (Small Diameter Bomb II).

In the days before precision guided munitions the expected error in impact point for a gravity bomb was very large. The way to compensate for this is with very large bombs (up to 1,000 lbs) or very many of them. But modern precision weapons actually hit the target (most of the time) so the Air Force now has a 250 lb bomb that can be just as effective in many cases, and with a special bomb rack four of these can be placed on the single pylon that previously carried that 1,000 lb bomb.

These new bombs have little wings that pop out so the can glide up to 46 miles to their targets. They can’t be programmed to follow a complex path like a drone but they’ll drop in much faster so they’re probably harder to stop.

According to the Air Force these cost $40,000 each - they have a fancy web page telling us all about it.

Except this is nothing like what’s in the budget. The original model (SDB 1) is being replaced by a “more capable” version (SDB 2) which is also - you guessed it - way more expensive. Like a lot of DoD programs, the price they like to advertise is the price before they added all the features they really wanted. Production of the cheap version is winding down while production of the new hotness is ramping up.

The new SDB costs 20x as much as the Shahed-136 in addition to requiring a big ol’ airplane to drop it. The SDB warhead probably works better than a Shahed-136, but is that extra capability needed for all types of targets? Apparently not, based on reports that indicate the Russians are doing a lot of damage with their little Doritos.

Summary: Let’s run the numbers

The Russian 2023 defense budget is something like $84 billion, maybe a tenth of the U.S. defense budget. But let’s assume they dedicate 0.5% of it to Crazy Iranian Dorito Drones, thereby getting the Fight The Great Satan discount price of $14,000 each. The Russians will then have 30,000 drones to launch into Ukrainian (NATO) air defenses, assuming the Iranians can build that many.

Trying to shoot them down with million dollar missiles would mean spending $30 billion - and would require more air defense missiles than NATO possesses. The reality is that extremely critical targets would be defended (but still mostly get destroyed), while the majority of the drones wouldn’t be countered at all. Any fixed targets that weren’t absolutely critical would be destroyed.

The enemy gets a vote

The Russians have exposed the great weakness of American weapon systems; the American military is, in a sense, very brittle. With the emphasis shifted over the last two decades to counterinsurgency operations, their weapons are really tailored for one of two things:

• Small, low intensity wars where the Americans control the battle space and can inflict a lot of damage while limiting their own casualties.

• Short, high intensity engagements using small numbers of very high tech weapons against similarly equipped enemies.

But many of their weapons are so expensive and time consuming to build and maintain that the Americans will never have enough of them when confronted by a near-peer adversary.

This is what we’re seeing now with the shortage of standard, unguided 155 mm artillery shells (see Wars Use Lots of Shells). Once its stockpiles are depleted to their minimum reserve level, America can’t support the pace of operations with new production.

One of the common sayings about war is that the enemy also gets a vote in what happens. The Russians, like the Chinese, are powerful enough to wage a war using very large numbers of cheap weapons, while the American equivalents get spread out so thin they’re ineffective.

From what we’ve seen so far, America is in no way prepared for this kind of war.

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War in Ukraine

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It was quite surprising to see the news blurb shown above from The Kyiv Independent. The publication is very definitely pro-Ukraine so I don’t see any reason to think they’re lying.

Ukraine was originally equipped with Soviet artillery and the standard calibers are 152 mm and 122 mm (it’s the same artillery the Russians use). They’re almost a year into the war and apparently just started production of artillery shells. Did they expect the war to end in a quick, easy victory?

Given how close the Ukrainian military came to disaster in 2015 (see previous article), it seems very unlikely the failure to start shell production is simply the result of arrogance. A few other possibilities come to mind, none of them especially positive:

• They assumed the U.S. and NATO would intervene early in the war and force the Russians to back down.

• They assumed the U.S. and NATO would supply whatever they needed to carry out a successful war by proxy.

• They were discouraged from ramping up production so NATO stocks would be depleted, resulting in large orders to western arms manufacturers.

We may be looking at options two and three at the same time, as the American Department of Defense has announced they’ve tripled their normal order for large caliber shells after sending a million shells to Ukraine. But that increase won’t be anywhere close to enough, as we’re about to see.

Like the former Soviet nations, NATO countries are standardized and they all use the same shells - the most common artillery1 caliber is 155 mm. So far the U.S. had supplied at least 140 M777 towed howitzers to Ukraine, and per The New York Times Ukraine has received about 350 western made howitzers total (although it’s not clear from whom all these were received).

But they’re useless without shells, and wars with countries that have modern economies use a lot of them.

How important is artillery in modern war?

The power of enormous artillery barrages was demonstrated in both World Wars, with millions of shells being fired by each side.

World War I

According to Medicine in World War I from the Yale online library, artillery fire caused the majority of all casualties.

In his book Trench: A History of Trench Warfare on the Western Front (2010), Stephen Bull concluded that in the western front, artillery was the biggest killer, responsible for “two-thirds of all deaths and injuries.” Of this total, perhaps a third resulted in death, two-thirds in injuries. (Yale)

How many shells did it take to produce these casualties? About 1.5 billion were produced during WWI.

In Germany, shell production of all calibers increased from 343,000 a month in 1914 to 11,000,000 a month in 1918… From 1914 to 1918, Germany and Austria-Hungary produced up to 680 million shells and the industries of the Allies France, Britain, Russia (to October 1917), Italy, the U.S. and Canada, produced up to 790 million shells (the statistics vary greatly). (Scientific American)

11,000,000 per month is a mind-boggling number - the Germans had to be firing hundreds of thousands per day at some point. Based on these numbers, by 1918 production of all countries combined must have reached a million shells per day.

World War II

Data from the next World War is similar, with artillery accounting for about 2/3 of casualties. From a more formal report on casualties in two U.S. armies deployed in the war (my highlighting):

1. Small arms fire accounted for between 14 and 31 percent of the total casualties, depending upon the theater of action: The Mediterranean theater, 14.0 percent; the European theater, 23.4 percent; and the Pacific theaters, 30.7 percent.

2. Artillery and mortar fire together accounted for 65 percent of the total casualties in the European and Mediterranean theaters, 64.0 and 69.1, respectively. In the Pacific, they accounted for 47.0 percent.

(Enemy Ordnance Materiel, Beyer et al.)

The Pacific Theater involved a lot of fighting in the jungle where artillery is less effective, and the Japanese military placed much less emphasis on artillery than the European powers did. But it still accounted for half of U.S. casualties in that theater.

The point of all this should be very clear. In modern war:

• Artillery is king, accounting for most casualties.

• Shell consumption isn’t measured in thousands, it’s measured in millions.

Propaganda vs. Reality

In the previous article we read part of Douglas Macgregor’s take on the war, and now it’s time to look at his sober assessment of the current situation. Despite all the hype in western media things aren’t going that well for the Ukrainians.

In an interview published in the Economist, head of Ukraine’s armed forces General Valery Zaluzhny admitted that Russian mobilization and tactics are working. He even hinted that Ukrainian forces might be unable to withstand the coming Russian onslaught. (Macgregor)

The Russians have called up several hundred thousand already-trained reservists (similar to the American National Guard) and are clearly planning another big offensive.

He went on to insist that with 300 new tanks, 600 to 700 new infantry fighting vehicles, and 500 new Howitzers, he could still win the war with Russia. Truthfully, General Zaluzhny is not asking for assistance, he’s asking for a new army. (Macgregor)

This is not an exaggeration by Macgregor. The German army, for example, keeps fewer than 300 Leopard 2 tanks (the combat equivalent of the American M1 Abrams but much less fuel-thirsty) and they have nowhere near 500 howitzers. Many other NATO countries are even less well supplied - for example Austria maintains about 50 Leopard 2 tanks and about 50 self-propelled 155 mm howitzers.

The Zaluzhny Interview

Obviously the head of the armed forces of Ukraine should be upbeat about their progress in the war, but in the Economist interview Macgregor mentions, General Zaluzhny’s description of his own troops doesn’t engender much optimism.

Our troops are all tied up in battles now, they are bleeding. They are bleeding and are being held together solely by courage, heroism and the ability of their commanders to keep the situation under control. (The Economist)

And for all those who have been deluged with Ukrainian propaganda about the quality of their air defense systems, here’s some sobering news. Despite their reporting many successful missile interceptions, the Ukrainian’s power grid is getting destroyed.

Now we have a ratio of 0.76. Russians are using this 0.76 coefficient of efficacy when they plan their attacks. This means that instead of 76 missiles, they launch 100. And 24 get through and reach their target. And what do two missiles do to a power station? It won’t work for two years. So it has to be built up. (The Economist)

It really doesn’t matter whether we believe the rate of missile interceptions or not. In the end, the Russians appear to have the resources they need to destroy the energy infrastructure of the country.

Zaluzhny understands the level of materiel support necessary to win, but he also realizes it’s just not available. The British are discussing giving Ukraine a paltry 50,000 shells.

We are talking about the scale of World War One…that is what Antony Radakin [Britain’s top soldier] told me. When I told him that the British Army fired a million shells in World War One, I was told, “We will lose Europe. We will have nothing to live on if you fire that many shells.” When they say, “You get 50,000 shells”, the people who count the money faint. The biggest problem is that they really don’t have it. (The Economist)

The comment about “we will lose Europe” is very interesting - we should probably assume someone was using a bit of hyperbole. Or is Radakin suggesting that if Ukraine doesn’t stop Russia, the rest of NATO Europe isn’t up to the task? If so, what’s keeping the Ukrainians alive at this point? (Hint: American arms shipments)

And why aren’t other NATO countries able to carry more of the burden of supplying Ukraine? The answer to that question is simple - the European partners in NATO have simply not been keeping their defense spending commitments. Here’s CNBC reporting in 2018:

NATO collects defense expenditure data from each member’s defense ministry. The latest data from the organization, released Tuesday, estimated that for 2018 the U.S. will spend 3.5 percent of GDP on defense, while NATO Europe and Canada are expected to both spend 1.47 percent. (CNBC)

And lots of European expenditures are for American style high-end systems that are very costly but also very unreliable (more on that in another article, where we’ll look at things like the German Puma infantry fighting vehicle which is a complete disaster). Russia, on the other hand, spends a similar percentage of its GDP as America.

Russia increased its military expenditure by 2.9 per cent in 2021, to $65.9 billion, at a time when it was building up its forces along the Ukrainian border. This was the third consecutive year of growth and Russia’s military spending reached 4.1 per cent of GDP in 2021. (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute)

The Russian love buying things like huge piles of cheap artillery shells and Iranian suicide drones. “Quantity has a quality all its own” is an old military adage2 and we’re seeing the net effect of massive quantities of artillery right now.

What about all the stuff America sent to Ukraine?

According to reports both American and NATO stocks of artillery shells are very low. Here’s The Wall Street Journal in an article discussing comments by French President Macron about the need to reduce reliance on the U.S.:

Delivering heavy artillery in large volumes for a conflict with no end in sight is a costly endeavor. The U.S., France and Germany are under pressure for new production after depleting their own stocks of weaponry. (WSJ)

“Depleting” implies they don’t have any left, which is almost certainly untrue. If other nations have followed the lead of the U.S., they may have sent a third of their total stocks (which, except for the U.S., were very small to begin with). Can new production help? The normal output isn’t very much.

U.S. Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth reported that the U.S. defense industry can currently produce about 14,000 155-mm howitzer shells per month, although manufacturing is planned to expand in the coming months. (New Voice of Ukraine)

That’s not much 155 mm ammunition at all. What about the former Soviet-aligned countries? They’ve exhausted their supplies of 152 mm shells and are discussing re-opening old factories.

U.S. newspaper The New York Times earlier reported that smaller NATO member states have already exhausted their potential to supply arms to Ukraine. According to the article, NATO countries are discussing investments in old factories in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Bulgaria to resume production of 152-mm shells for Ukraine’s remaining Soviet-era artillery systems. (New Voice of Ukraine)

Rather than swapping Victor Bout back to the Russians for a basketball player, perhaps the Americans should have paid him to source munitions. Instead the U.S. will increase output of shells and missiles for HIMARS systems.

“We are seeking over a couple of years to nearly triple our production of 155 [mm shells],” Bush said on Wednesday. Congress has been supportive; we have funding; we are executing and making that happen. We are also, through support from Congress, working to dramatically increase our production rate for GLMRS missiles – Guided MLRS [Multiple Launch Rocket System], HIMARS [High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems] launchers – in most cases doubling or more than doubling current production rates.” (taskandpurpose.com)

Current U.S. production is reported as 14,000 per month, so tripling output will bring the total to a little over 40,000 per month - and per the article it will take years to see this increase. How many are the Ukrainians using?

The fighting has become so intense that Oleksandr V. Danylyuk, an adviser to the Ukrainian government, told the Washington Post in June that Ukrainian forces were firing between 5,000 and 6,000 artillery rounds per day. He also said the Russians were firing up to 50,000 rounds per day. (taskandpurpose.com)

If the Ukrainians are firing 5,000-6,000 shells per day this means they use 150,000-180,000 per month. Even the planned increase in U.S. production would only meet a fourth of this need. And note the Russians are sometimes firing 50,000 per day. This is actually believable since they are sitting on old Soviet stockpiles of many millions of shells.

What about existing American stockpiles? The number sent to Ukraine keeps increasing, and at least a million shells have been sent so far (some reports state up to 1.5 million).

That’s close to 1 million shells in roughly six months, and that figure does not include the precision-guided rockets for the 16 M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, that the U.S. military has also given to Ukraine. (taskandpurpose.com)

The quantity and time frame tell us something important. If the U.S. has sent the Ukrainians 1,000,000 shells and those were used up in six months (180 days) then they were firing about 5,500 per day. Remember that estimate of 5-6,000 shells per day of usage? Now we know where that number came from. The Ukrainian military has been completely dependent on American supply of shells. Without U.S. support, they’re done.

As of June, Ukrainian forces were firing up to 6,000 shells a day, prompting the Defense Department to provide the Ukrainians with the HIMARS as well as more precise 155mm rounds in an attempt to slow the rate at which the Ukraine was burning through its ammunition. (taskandpurpose.com)

That reference to “more precise 155mm rounds” almost certainly means the Excalibur shell, a GPS and inertial3 guided shell that’s very precise compared to unguided rounds.

The U.S. military has used these to great effect in the middle east, where pinpoint strikes were used to destroy targets while limiting the risk to nearby American troops. But these shells also cost in the neighborhood of $100k each - much too expensive for massed barrages against prepared Russian positions. The U.S. military normally buys only a few hundred or a few thousand per year, not 150,000 (what had been planned for standard shells) or a million.

The guns are also wearing out

America has some great stuff, no doubt about it. The M777 is a 155 mm artillery piece that’s light enough to be easily (and therefore quickly) transportable, which can be a very big deal in a fast moving military operation. But there’s a downside to making something very, very light.

Ukrainian troops fire thousands of explosive shells at Russian targets every day, using high-tech cannons supplied by the United States and its allies. But those weapons are burning out after months of overuse, or being damaged or destroyed in combat, and dozens have been taken off the battlefield for repairs, according to U.S. and Ukrainian officials.

A third of the roughly 350 Western-made howitzers donated to Kyiv are out of action at any given time, according to U.S. defense officials and others familiar with Ukraine’s defense needs. (The New York Times)

What happens when barrels get worn out? The pressure generated by the propellant leaks past the shell, making the range less predictable. The wear also means a loss in absolute accuracy as the trajectory of each shell has greater error.

Currently, Ukrainian forces are firing 2,000 to 4,000 artillery shells a day, a number frequently outmatched by the Russians. Over time, that pace has caused problems for Ukrainian soldiers using M777 howitzers, such as shells not traveling as far or as accurately. (The New York Times)

Inaccurate shellfire is much less effective over the long ranges of artillery duels. The M777 is far from the only example of a high-tech but very delicate weapon system in the U.S. arsenal, and we’ll look more into that subject later.

The U.S. military is great at small, contained conflicts in distant countries where they control the air and the sea. They’re organized in large part around things like COIN (COunterINsurgency) operations, not fighting near-peer adversaries.

But the war in Ukraine is old-fashioned war with two large economies hammering away at each other. This is the kind of war the Soviets were always preparing for, and the Russians are very good at.

Benjamin Franklin’s disapproving gaze

Over at National Defense they’re big cheer leaders for the current war but are much less sanguine about America’s ability to engage in a wider conflict.

Behind this operational success lies an uncomfortable reality: the war in Ukraine has left U.S. defense stockpiles significantly depleted. Current inventories do not undergird a national security strategy that continues to support Ukraine while retaining the ability to assist Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. (National Defense)

If you invested early in defense stocks, this war is a huge boon. Many weapons manufacturers will now be operating at peak capacity to replenish American stockpiles, and these weapons are being ordered without competitive contract pricing.

A bipartisan group of senators recently introduced the Securing American ARMS Act, legislation that would allow the Defense Department to replenish depleted stockpiles through the award of noncompetitive contracts to defense industry members. Although noncompetitive procurement practices should not become the norm, this will allow for the backfilling of stockpiles without a lengthy procurement process. (National Defense)

When we’re not at war, the industry makes money by convincing the Pentagon to buy into ridiculously expensive, exotic weapon systems that spend more time in maintenance than in use (see Letter to the Pentagon and The Pentagon’s New Toy).

An actual war provides different opportunities - this time for no-bid, noncompetitive contracts in which the manufacturers are guaranteed large profits. Dan Grazier, who works for the Project On Government Oversight, summed up the conundrum of preparing for modern warfare very succinctly.

“Ever since I’ve been working on defense policy, all I’ve been hearing about is transformation of warfare, revolution in military affairs, the need to invest in AI. Then a big war kicks off and we’re taking about artillery rounds,” Dan Grazier, a defense policy fellow at the Project on Government Oversight, told Grid. “Look, 155-milimeter artillery rounds aren’t sexy. The money is in developing the next new thing.” (Grid)

But either way, someone always gets rich from the business of war.

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A pro-Russian account on Telegram posted the above image containing a map of the four Ukrainian oblasts (administrative regions) recently annexed by Russia. РОССИЯ is “RUSSIA” and the text underneath it says “map of southern Russia after carrying out the referendums in the liberated territories.”

In my earlier Substack article titled Grand Strategy, the strategic importance of controlling the area around the Sea of Azov was explained. The integration of Ukraine into NATO would present an enormous threat to Russia in multiple ways, one of which would be placing maritime trade from southern Russia into the Mediterranean in jeopardy in a hypothetical war.

Annexation by Russia of the four oblasts shown in yellow effectively gives them control of the Sea of Azov, guarantees access to Crimea, and effectively make the Black Sea a Russian lake. Interestingly, even in the very pro-Russian forum that was the source of this stylized map the assumption is that annexation stops with those four.

In my not-so-humble opinion the Russians, having gained control of these areas and held referendums on their independence from Ukraine, would have negotiated an end to the fighting. But the Ukrainians have been much more stubborn fighters than the Russians anticipated, and despite large losses of men and equipment they have refused to accept anything less than the complete removal of Russian troops - President Zelensky has even talked about retaking Crimea.

A war the Russians must win

A recent article by Douglas Macgregor, Col. (ret.) in The American Conservative titled Washington Is Prolonging Ukraine’s Suffering opens with a statement that reflects the idea from my own earlier article (Grand Strategy) about the Russian goals in Ukraine:

Washington’s refusal to acknowledge Russia’s legitimate security interests in Ukraine and negotiate an end to this war is the path to protracted conflict and human suffering. (Macgregor)

The expansion of NATO presents a very real threat both to Russian trade and to military security. Maritime access to the Mediterranean is very significant for Russian foreign trade, and moves being made in Ukraine since 2013 have made it possible to put that trade in great peril. Having a large NATO economy literally adjoining a very long border is also very threatening given the stated intention of many NATO leaders to break up Russia.

And despite the propaganda of much western media, things are not going well for the Ukrainians.

Disaster wrapped in rhetoric is not the way to save the people of Ukraine. The war in Ukraine is not a Call of Duty fantasy. It is an enlargement of the human tragedy that NATO’s eastward expansion created. (Macgregor)

Since the end of the Soviet Union around 1990 America and its allies have been creeping towards Russia incrementally, with each step reducing Russian long term security. The current war is, from the Russian perspective, about the future existence of Russia - so it’s a war they must win.

The NATO ring around Russia

Beginning three decades ago with the breakup of both the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, NATO has been moving closer to Russia every few years. Without significant changes in actual borders, dramatic changes have occurred in political alignments in the region.

The Soviet Union: The Soviet Union in the 1980s included Russia as the largest and most dominant state, plus Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in the north, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova in the middle, and a group of countries in the southeast that included Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. (We’re disregarding former members in Asia for now.)

The Warsaw Pact: Like NATO, this was a defensive alliance and included the Soviet Union, plus Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia (now two separate countries), Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania.

NATO in 2022: Today NATO touches the Russian border in the north with Estonia and Latvia as members.

All of the former Warsaw Pact countries are part of NATO, along with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - plus Turkey, which controls access to the Black Sea via the Turkish Straits. So the ring of NATO countries around the western border of Russia goes from the Baltic Sea in the north, down through eastern Europe, and around the Black Sea.

Most Russian merchant shipping goes through the Baltic Sea in the north or the Black Sea in the south. Both of these routes can come under threat from NATO, and the only other viable alternative is to ship goods 6,000 miles east to the end of Asia and put them on ships there.

[With two long coastlines separated from potential enemies by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, Americans forget how close Russia’s adversaries are to the Russian border, and how easy it is to block shipping in that region. Imagine what the U.S. government would do if American access to the Panama Canal were suddenly blocked.]

Ukraine: With the Soviet Union breaking up the government of Ukraine held a referendum on independence in 1991 and became, for the first time in its history, an independent country. But the borders of this new country were based on the administrative state created by the Soviets, itself the result of different land transfers from Poland, Romania, Hungary and Russia following each of the World Wars.

In 2013 President Yanukovych rejected an agreement for closer economic ties with the EU, as well as a $17 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This led to protests which became increasingly violent and culminated in the Revolution of Dignity.

A new pro-western (pro NATO) government was elected, but the people in the southeast regions of Ukraine are ethnically Russian and very pro-Russia. They organized their own counter-revolution and held a referendum in which an overwhelming majority voted for independence from the rest of Ukraine.

Ethnically and politically Ukraine is essentially two countries, and this is readily visible from voting patterns, language, and polling. If the “international community” truly cared about the Ukrainian people, 2014 would have been the time to encourage separating the two parts of the country. This was successfully done in Czechoslovakia when it voluntarily dissolved and became the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic.

[Side comment: The Russians accuse the Americans of interfering in Ukraine to generate a revolution, and the Americans make essentially the same accusation of Russian interference in the Donbass region. Viewing either of these as simply right or wrong isn’t as practical as seeing all events in terms of Grand Strategy. One of those two countries shares a border with Ukraine, the other does not. Recall Macgregor’s comment about “legitimate security interests” then consider American actions in places like Cuba and Panama. Sometimes we find valuable lessons from the past.]

America leaves no room for compromise

American politicians have escalated their rhetoric, and their promises, to the point where conceding territory to the Russians would be a major blow to belief in American power. In a letter inviting President Zelensky to address the US. Congress Nancy Pelosi wrote:

America and our allies have proudly answered your call: imposing devastating sanctions on Putin and ensuring Ukraine has the resources it needs to win this war.

The fight for Ukraine is the fight for democracy itself. (Pelosi letter, 20 December)

So we’re told “democracy itself” is at stake if the Russians achieve their goals in Ukraine (whatever Pelosi thinks those goals are). This is a stupid statement, to be very generous. “Democracy” doesn’t cease to exist if Russia wins a war.

Both political parties are united in supporting American involvement. Here’s Mitch McConnell telling us the war is America’s number one priority.

President Biden is fully committed as well. He and President Zelensky just held a joint press conference in which Biden reassured everyone that America is in for the duration.

“The American people are with you every step of the way… we will stay with you for as long as it takes,” said Biden, adding, “I have no doubt that we will keep the flame of liberty bright.” (MSN)

This statement might not be appreciated by people in the Donbass who have been fighting for liberty from the government in Kiev for the last eight years. Do they not also have the right of self-determination, or is that reserved only for potential U.S. allies?

Donbass and the Minsk agreements

The mighty Ukrainian military that we’re told will soon send the Russian army running for the hills was unable to control the Donbass, despite those forces being mostly irregular militia types without heavy weapons or air support.

With the Ukrainian military suffering multiple defeats Germany and France helped Ukraine negotiate the Minsk 1 and Minsk 2 agreements (the link is to a detailed explanation by the think tank Chatham House).

Minks 1 was ineffective for many reasons, although the primary one seems to be that the actual people fighting in Donbass (both sides) couldn’t be convinced to stop. So it was followed by Minsk 2:

Minsk-2 is not an easy document to grasp. The product of hasty drafting, it tries valiantly to paper over yawning differences between the Ukrainian and Russian positions. As a result, it contains contradictory provisions and sets out a convoluted sequence of actions. It also has a gaping hole: although signed by Russia’s ambassador to Ukraine, Mikhail Zurabov, the agreement does not mention Russia – an omission that Russia has used to shirk responsibility for implementation and maintain the fiction that it is a disinterested arbiter. (Chatham House)

An article in the magazine Foreign Policy tells us that by the time of Minsk 2 the Ukrainians were getting desperate and agreed to a deal that in hindsight was not very favorable.

Ukraine agreed to the deal, as it was over a barrel after months of fierce fighting. “The Ukrainian military had largely been decimated on the battlefield,” said Kurt Volker, who served as a U.S. special envoy to Ukraine during the Trump administration. (FP)

But years after the signing of Minsk 2 some interesting details have been revealed.

Merkel’s interview in Die Zeit

The German periodical Die Zeit (The Time) generated quite a stir when they published an interview with former German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The interview covered a range of topics, one of which was the war in Ukraine and the impact of the Minsk agreements.

For those who claim there was no intention of integrating Ukraine into NATO, Merkel’s comments indicate this was indeed something being pushed - however she personally didn’t support the move.

[Please excuse the poor quality of the translations here. The original article is in German (obviously) and Google Translate isn’t perfect.]

The initiation of NATO accession in 2008 Ukraine and I thought Georgia was wrong. The countries neither provided the necessary conditions for this, nor was it thought to end what consequences such a decision would have had, both with regard to Russia's actions against Georgia and Ukraine as well as NATO and its rules of assistance. (Die Zeit)

One of those potential consequences Merkel mentions wound up being a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Here we get the part that has everyone excited (emphasis mine throughout):

And the 2014 Minsk Agreement was an attempt to give Ukraine time. She also used this time to get stronger, as you can see today. Ukraine of 2014/15 is not today's Ukraine. How to fight for Debalzewe ( Railway town in Donbass, Donetsk Oblast, d. Red. ) Seen in early 2015, Putin could easily have overrun her at the time. And I very much doubt that the NATO countries could have done as much as they do today to help Ukraine. (Die Zeit)

So from Russia’s perspective, they might have been better off starting this war in 2015 rather than 2022. Also of note, Russian gas exports were a significant factor in Merkel’s thinking even back in 2014.

It was clear to all of us that this was a frozen conflict, that the problem had not been solved, but that was exactly what gave Ukraine valuable time. Of course, the question can now be asked: Why did you still agree to the construction of Nord Stream 2 in such a situation? (Die Zeit)

Ukraine was demanding the return of Crimea and the fate of the Donbass remained uncertain, yet the Ukrainians still wanted Russian gas transiting their country. Even more interesting, Russia seized Crimea in 2014 and the German permit for Nord Stream 2 was issued in 2018.

On the one hand, Ukraine placed great emphasis on remaining transit countries for Russian gas. She wanted to gas through her area and not through the Baltic Sea. Today it is sometimes pretended that every Russian gas molecule was the devil. It wasn't like that, the gas was contested. On the other hand, it was not the case that the federal government had applied for approval from Nord Stream 2, the companies did. For the federal government and for me, the result was to decide whether we should make a new law as a political act in order to expressly refuse to approve Nord Stream 2. (Die Zeit)

So blocking the pipeline would have meant a special law to block a business investment - at a time when no one was at war. So the pipeline (currently not operating due to sabotage) was approved.

But Putin thinks very far ahead. In 2014 an agreement was reached with Turkey on construction of the TurkStream pipeline, and just this year Putin and Turkish President Erdoğan jointly announced that Turkey will be Russia’s new gas export hub to the west.

It also sounds like “climate friendly” energy policy in other EU countries had an enormous impact on Merkel’s decisions.

On the one hand, such a refusal in combination with the Minsk agreement would have dangerously worsened the climate with Russia in my view. On the other hand, the energy policy dependency arose because there was less gas from the Netherlands, Great Britain and limited production volumes in Norway. (Die Zeit)

This is Grand Strategy in the form of realpolitik1 - Merkel is weighing German interests against the military concerns of the Ukrainians, NATO expansion, energy policy in Europe, and natural gas imports from Russia. In the end the Ukrainians are given enough assistance to keep fighting, but not enough to jeopardize German energy consumption.

Update: 7 January 2023

I missed this story when it came out, but during the early stages of the war a Ukrainian colonel, discussing the stalled Russian offensive north of Kiev, essentially said the same thing as Merkel about the eight year window following the Minsk agreements.

The Ukrainian colonel told The Wall Street Journal: "The Russians thought they could break through and be in Kyiv in a couple of days. They didn't realize that we have learned how to wage war in the past eight years." (Business Insider)

One must wonder if Putin wishes he had conducted this war in 2015 instead.

Cracks in the dam

Patrick Wintour recently published an article in The Guardian that’s surprisingly realistic for that often hyperbolic publication.

In a little noticed intervention the former British prime minister Boris Johnson – seen as a bosom ally of Volodymyr Zelenskiy – made the startling statement that if Russian troops were returned to lands they held inside Ukraine before the 24 February invasion that would represent a basis for reopening talks between Ukraine and Russia. (The Guardian)

The implication here is that the return of Crimea should not be viewed as a precondition to a peace agreement. And Johnson isn’t the only person talking about this. Wintour mentions several unnamed diplomats, plus an article by Henry Kissinger making the same point.

Writing in the Spectator Henry Kissinger, the veteran diplomat, made a similar proposal, arguing Russia should only be required to disgorge territory gained since February this year. (The Guardian)

We’re all very curious to hear what’s included in “lands they held inside Ukraine before the 24 February invasion.” Since leaders in the west insist the Russians were already in southern Ukraine prior to the February invasion, does this mean they’re keeping those areas as well?

The fact that lots of folks are pointing out legitimate reasons why Crimea might remain part of Russia indicates a softening of the earlier hard line stance on the war.

European diplomats acknowledge Crimea’s special status. The Soviet leadership only ceded Crimea to Ukraine in 1954, and most of its population is Russian; many residents are retirees from the Black Sea navy. (The Guardian)

This is all very true - almost no one in Crimea wants to be a citizen of Ukraine.

Interlude: why are journalists afraid of maps?

Here’s yet another side note about how the staff at major news outlets seem unaware that Google Maps exists. One issue Wintour discusses is the re-opening of the canal carrying water to the Crimean peninsula:

At the start of the February 2022 invasion Russia recaptured the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam in southern Ukraine. The reservoir behind the Kakhovka dam allows water to flow down the 250-mile North Crimean canal, built in the Soviet era to supply fresh water from the Dnipro River to the arid areas of southern Ukraine and Crimea. (The Guardian)

Wintour is one of those journalists who have definitely picked a side. Notice that he’s using the romanization of the Ukrainian name of the river (Dnipro) despite the fact it has a name in English (Dnieper). It’s probably no surprise to the reader that I also wrote a blurb about that.

I’m not sure what Wintour means when he says the Russians “recaptured” the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam since presumably he views it as Ukrainian property, but otherwise this is basically accurate. But it isn’t where the water flow to Crimea was stopped - this was done by placing a small dam on the canal itself.

Once the full-scale Russian invasion started in February, Russian troops quickly reached Tavriisk, the town where the canal had been dammed, destroyed the dam and released 1.7m cubic metres of water from the Dnipro into Crimea. (The Guardian)

This part’s wrong. The town of Tavriisk is located on the bank of the Dnieper River where the canal starts (at the reservoir), but it’s clearly not where the canal was dammed.

Here’s the actual dam, about 110 km down the canal (70 km in a straight line) and right on the border of the Crimean and Kherson oblasts. The canal itself supplies water to more than just Crimea so it was blocked right on the border.

Obviously to ensure water to the peninsula the Russians will also need to control Tavriisk, but the push to Kakhovka accomplished different goals. There are only two railway bridges across the Dnieper River south of the city of Zaporizhzhia (so the lower 300 km of the river), one of which run across the Kakhovka dam. This railway line is important either for a Russian offensive across the river, or to stop Ukrainian supplies coming the other direction. As an added bonus the hydroelectric plant is on the southeast side of the river so the Russians control another 351 mW of the power grid.

I’m continually amazed at how little effort people will put into learning basic details of the country while opining about the war. Also, did you notice my clever use of “cracks in the dam?”

So where does the war go from here?

Zelensky continues to insist the only acceptable outcome is complete removal of all Russian forces from Ukraine and Crimea - something the Russians will resist with all their resources. But with the level of American backing we see currently a negotiated settlement seems only a distant possibility.

On the other hand, more western leaders are starting to talk about negotiation. Per The Wall Street Journal French President Macron has been discussing finding a way to reassure the Russians about their security.

Mr. Macron is walking a delicate line. He has already angered Ukraine and some of its allies by calling for the West to provide Russia with security guarantees as part of any negotiations to end the war in Ukraine and prevent the conflict from spreading across Europe. (WSJ)

Macron recognizes the legitimacy of Russia’s fear of NATO.

“This means that one of the essential points we must address—as President Putin has always said—is the fear that NATO comes right up to its doors, and the deployment of weapons that could threaten Russia,” Macron added. (WSJ)

Many western leaders seem to understand the war won’t end the way Zelensky wishes, but the Americans can’t afford their own loss of status if the Russians succeed. So they will keep pouring in weapons (and the American defense industry will make huge profits) until the Ukrainian people refuse to continue fighting.

The Russians can build more artillery shells than all of NATO, and although they don’t have all the fancy American equipment they will hold the upper hand - America isn’t directly involved in the war so those fancy stealth fighters and bombers are of no use.

The American military is great at small, contained conflicts where their technological advantage can be employed to greatest effect. But their equipment isn’t durable enough, and their output of basic things like shells isn’t nearly large enough, to enable the Ukrainians to win this war. Absent direct American involvement they cannot defeat the Russians.

[For example, an M1 Abrams tank uses so much fuel and requires so much maintenance that some U.S. military officials have already said they wouldn’t be useful to the Ukrainians. America has a more delicate military force than many people realize.]

What about Putin? After the Minsk agreements, can he trust whatever “assurances” he’s given by NATO members? It seems unlikely he can be convinced that any new agreement won’t just be Minsk 3 - a bid for time to rebuild the Ukrainian military and defense industry.

So the Russians will fortify, they will attack when they have the advantage, and they will continue to degrade the Ukrainian infrastructure. This will go on until the Ukrainian people have had enough of being the pawns in someone else’s proxy war. Let’s all hope some parts of Ukraine are still standing when that point is finally reached.

This is a war based on realpolitik, meaning practical objectives, rather than some idealized version of what we wish the world to be. But that perception of an ideal world is being used to propagandize the American people into unending support of a conflict instigated by their own government but which benefits the average American not at all.

Addendum: The joys of translating from a language you don’t actually speak

The text in the image in this article’s header uses the Greek letter lambda (Λ) which isn’t part of the formal Russian alphabet. It’s sometimes used, however, in place of El (Л) because in some typefaces the little hook at the bottom left of El (Л) isn’t very visible and the letter can be confused with Pe (П).

The image above, interestingly enough, uses both versions of El (Л and Λ). The city of Lugansk is spelled Луганск, and the abbreviation for the Lugansk People’s Republic (Луга́нская Наро́дная Респу́блика) uses the El character as well (ЛНР).

Google Translate does handle this, assuming you recognized the letter was Greek and choose the correct substitute on the Russian language keyboard they provide.

So if you didn’t know this little detail and therefore don’t know what letter to substitute you won’t be able to translate words using lambda (Λ).

Even more amusing, if you type the romanization of the word (posle instead of после) you will also get the correct translation (which is “after”). So you have a choice of using the Cyrillic spelling or the romanization (see this article for an explanation of romanization).

In a shameless attempt at self promotion, here’s an index of articles about the ongoing Russo-Ukraine war, propaganda, and the reporting on the war. Some relevant lessons from history are also occasionally discussed.

Grand Strategy

These cover the geopolitics of the war, possible strategic goals, trade, economics, etc.

• Grand Strategy

• Mines, Missiles, and Montreux

• No Easy Way Out

Modern War

• Part 1: Wars Use Lots of Shells

• Part 2: Cheap Drones, Expensive Solutions

The Fog of War

The full truth about the actual events on and around the now famous Snake Island won’t be known for years. But this tiny island and the handful of troops stationed there were featured much more prominently in the news than the strategic value of the island would normally warrant.

• Part 1: Attack of the Super Drones

• Part 2: Moskva

• Part 3: Rescuer

Propaganda Instead of Journalism

Much of mainstream media is now effectively just propaganda for one side or the other (although one of these two is mostly blocked in the west). In some cases this consists of blatant cheer leading for one side. In others, it’s uncritical acceptance of what are, with even a slight bit of analysis, clearly incorrect (or even manipulative) claims.

• The Misuse of History

• Propagarbage

• Київ

Relevant History

To help guide decisions in the current world, it’s often useful to look to the past - at what worked and what didn’t.

• Lessons from the past

U.S. Military/Acquisitions

As a bonus, here are some bits about the disaster that is the Pentagon.

An anonymous Twitter user responded with this after I criticized some reporting about the war in Ukraine. It’s ironic that my attempts to provide actual analysis that pierces the propaganda is met with responses from amateur propagandists.

In the modern world Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels would hardly need do any work at all.

Another letter to the Pentagon

To: The people in that big five-sided building where they burn all our tax money.

From: The Palo Verde Alpaca Ranch and Chicken Farm.

Date: Alpacas don’t use calendars, and apparently neither do you.

Dear Dingleberries,

The alpacas have noticed that you, while waiting for you inevitable future employment as Lockheed Martin and/or Northrup Grumman “consultants,” have been spending our money like drunk teenagers raiding a GameStop with a stolen credit card. We can only assume you did not read our previous missive on the disaster that is the typical Air Force acquisition program.

The recent video of a nose wheel snapping off an F-35 during routine towing on an airfield has done little to increase our confidence in your ability to source a usable airframe. Given it’s the third1 reported instance of this same failure, we’re beginning to wonder if you’re paying attention to anything besides your Nintendo.

In between snacking on Doritos and Red Bull you’ve started another New Thing that will cost us piles of money while probably doing little more than grace the interiors of some pricey, climate controlled hangars.

The New Thing we’re writing to you about is the B-21 Super Double Secret Wonder Bomber, recently “unveiled” at some cutesy little ceremony in which no one asked any questions worth hearing the answers to.

Since you refuse to tell us anything useful about your latest project to guarantee lucrative industry jobs for “retiring” Pentagon staff, we’re going to take a look at our current, operational, Big Bomb Dropping Thingies and try to make some guesses about the scope of the disaster we are inevitably facing.

B-52 Stratofortress

The last bomber program that can claim to approach a reasonable balance of cost and capability, this plane is so big the image barely fit on our computer screen:

First operational in the 1950s, this design is now 70 years old and will be approaching a century before final retirement. These poor planes are so old they can actually be heard groaning when their wheels touch down.

With a cost of only about $110 million each in today’s dollars, you bought 742 ariframes to serve as our chief nuclear deterrent during the Cold War. But today our standard airborne nuclear weapon is the svelte (700 lbs.) B61 nuclear bomb.

Since almost any plane in the inventory that carries bombs can also carry a B61, we no longer needed hundreds of B-52s and currently have a mere 62 still hanging around.

But apparently these still work quite well given the Air Force keeps flying them. In fact, all the maintenance you’ve done on them means the remaining airframes have more service life left than the plane that was supposed to replace them.

B-1 Lancer (The Bone)

First operational in 1986 there were 240 initially planned when the program was started in the 1970s (and then cancelled due to cost overruns), but about 100 were actually built after Reagan restarted the program. (For you youngsters, Reagan was President from 1980 - 1988). This final number is surprisingly close to the original goal by today’s standards (an amazing 40% of planned production!)

The Air Force tells us they cost $317 million each but the last update to that was in 2016 so maybe $400 million today? We’ll just go with “a s***ton” for the estimate.

Interlude: we hate Wikipedia

Per the unpaid stenographers at Wikipedia the top speed of the B-1B is 721 knots at 40,000 feet and 608 knots at 200 feet (so essentially at sea level). They also list the top speed by Mach number, as Mach 1.25.

First point of order: the speed of sound varies with temperature and pressure but is around 667 knots. 721/667 is 1.08, not 1.25. Neither top speed claim is referenced so we have no idea why these numbers contradict each other.

We assume the Air Force knows the top speed of their own plane, which they list as “900-plus mph (Mach 1.2 at sea level).” The Air Force can handle basic math so 900 mph really is Mach 1.2, and Wikipedia at least managed to bracket the correct number. But the interesting part of the error in Wikipedia is the altitude.

There’s a big difference in top speed numbers for aircraft at sea level versus top speed at high altitude because air density matters a lot. Mach 1.2 at sea level is very fast - about the same as an F-15. So listing “top speed” of only Mach 1.25 (without a corresponding altitude) is almost certainly wrong.

This is why we never, ever, use Wikipedia as an authoritative source for anything except a gauge of the media bias in current events.

Back to the bomber, the Air Force has decided to start retiring them early to save money.

In February, the Air Force announced that it will begin retiring the B-1B Lancer from service by divesting 17 bombers from the fleet of 62. (Business Insider2)

It would be nice to keep these all operational, but like everything else in the inventory they’re all worn out.

Mechanically, the constant deployments and bombing missions have taken a toll on the Lancers. In 2017, the Air Force reported that only half of the 62 bombers were combat-ready. In 2019, Air Force Global Strike Command said only seven were fully mission-capable. (Business Insider)

B-2 Spirit

We assume the name “Spirit” was a typo and you meant “spirits” given that anyone asked to approve the budget for this thing likely needed a bit of liquoring up first.

You told us you needed up to 150, but in a process that’s become Standard Operating Procedure for procurement the expenses ran so out of control that we could only afford 21 - so in the future we’ll just divide by seven whenever you give us a target number.

Moreover, the Defense Department has a long history of underestimating how much its major aircraft acquisition programs will cost. In the 1980s, the B-2 bomber program overran its cost so badly that a mere 20 aircraft emerged from a $40 billion program intended to buy 135 to 150 aircraft. (Defense One3)

Interlude: Next Generation Bomber

B-21 Raider

Since your goal is about 100 airframes for the new flying thing that’s so expensive we can’t afford to fly it, we assume the final delivery will actually be about 14 planes. We strongly urge that you make this the number of prototypes so we can be done with the whole program prior to serial production.

And what are the specifications? The plane will have either two or four engines, it will carry either more than or less than 30,000 pounds of munitions (still not clear) and the Not To Exceed cost is listed as $652 million per plane.

Do we look stupid? I guess most of us are alpacas so maybe that question doesn’t have quite have the impact it would, if we were all human. But still, the idea that you think that we think that labeling a cost number “Not To Exceed” means it won’t be exceeded is ludicrous. The only thing we can be absolutely certain of is this cost will be exceeded.

Key Facts

We simply could not resist commenting on this. Northrup Grumman has provided us a list of “key facts” about the B-21 on a page titled, unsurprisingly, Here are 10 key facts about the Northrop Grumman’s B-21 Raider.

The alpacas translated each one, and as you’ve probably already guessed there are no facts among the key facts.

1. Sixth Generation.

We’ve been doing stealth for 30 years and five generations, so this is the sixth. The plane will be super critical for something important, in places that are super dangerous.

2. Stealth.

It will be super-duper stealthy. Not sure why this wasn’t considered part of item 1.

3. Backbone of the Fleet.

Since the Air Force is dumping most of the other planes, this new bomber will be most of the fleet. They have “advanced sensors and weapons” and can carry nukes.

4. A Digital Bomber.

WTF? Something about how being “digital” means lower production risk (?) and modern sustainment (?) practices.

5. Cloud Technology.

All the data is in a cloud so Google can totally f*** with the new bomber. Some idiot also thinks “cloud-based digital infrastructure” will be better. We have no idea why, but it will be “more sustainable.”

6. Open Architecture.

The software can be updated so the plane can have capabilities added, like in-flight laundry service. Also, it will be able to meet “the evolving threat” for decades. We have no idea what “threat” they’re talking about.

7. A National Team.

They employ people in enough different Congressional districts to ensure the program isn’t cancelled. This is actually normal practice nowadays and it’s a big reason why the F-35 is an un-cancellable disaster.

8. Sustainment.

More blah blah blah about sustainment. It’s like someone just learned this is a word.

9. Global Reach.

The new bomber is super important for the future of our strategic something or other. It seems like we’ve covered this one already, and we’re just getting redundant.

10. Raider.

An actual combat pilot named Doolittle back in WWII led a raid that included just 16 planes but “changed the course of World War II.” So we’re using the name Raider to make sure everyone associates the new plane with one that worked. (The planes flown in the Doolittle raid were B-25 Mitchell bombers, also named for someone worth more than every current high ranking officer in the Pentagon.)

Most of these planes seem not to work

In reviewing these planes we were surprised (although we shouldn’t have been) by how much time they spend in maintenance.

The more complicated the plane, the less ready it is to fly. About 60 percent of the B-52 fleet has been fully ready to fly at any one time over the past five years, John Tirpak recently reported in Air Force Magazine. And while 60 percent is a D- in most schools, it sure beats the Fs earned by the B-1 (40 percent) and B-2 (35 percent). (Pogo4)

You guys barely even fly the B-2 and they’re still in constant maintenance. Do you disassemble and count every nut and bolt between flights?

Extrapolating from here, of the 14 B-21 bombers we’re now expecting to be the final number, and with a mission ready rate of less than 35%, we anticipate having four available for use at any one time.

This will at least make it easy to keep track of them.

Program Review

Since you refuse to tell us peons anything useful about the B-21 program (besides the types of promises that you’ve never kept in the past), we’ll use existing planes to try and figure out what this exciting new program will actually deliver.

B-52 Stratofortress

At $110 million each we built 742 of them (so a total spend of $82 billion today) over a ten year period, and in return had an big fleet of useful airplanes, some of which will be still be flying long after we’re all dead.

It’s an impressive sum, but not surprising given their importance (back in the 50s and 60s) as a nuclear deterrent in the age before small, cheap nukes.

B-1B Lancer

At $400 million each for 100 planes this one cost us $40 billion dollars - which sounds like a big improvement until we notice that these planes don’t do seven and a half times as much as their predecessors.

This is a price increase of 4x from the previous plane and a reduction in planned build from 240 to 100. They’re all worn out now, though, so maybe we should have just built some more new B-52s.

B-2 Spirit

This time our $40 billion only bought us 21 planes. They require special hangers and cost a fortune to maintain. But they’re great for fly-overs at sporting events so we’re really getting some value from these.

This time the price increase is 5x from the previous design and the planned build went from an ambiguous 130-150 down to a disappointing 21.

B-21 Raider

The only thing being raided here is the defense budget. The price per plane seems to increase in predictable increments:

• B-52: $110 million

• B1-B: $400 million

• B-2: $2 billion

These are inflation adjusted dollars - A B-2 cost us almost 20 times as much as a B-52.

For the New Hotness you’ve already suggested $700 million each for 100 planes, which is a $70 billion dollar expenditure. So our estimate of cost per plane is somewhere between $5 billion ($70 billion divided by 14 planes) and $10 billion (the cost of the previous thing times 5).

Whether the total cost is $70 billion or $140 billion, in the end, will depend on the size of the ball sacks on our Congress members so we’re not optimistic about the smaller number. The saddest part of this analysis is that it’s still many times cheaper than the F-35 program. Please make these so the wheels don’t fall off, though.

We assume this thing will be built from gold-plated diamonds and decorated with rare artworks in order to hit what’s starting to look like a minimum expected cost rather than a maximum.

No wonder one of the secrets in this program is the cost of the plane.

The recent excursion of a Ukrainian air defense missile over the border into Poland has given us an opportunity to observe the rapid evolution of propaganda along with the rapid devolution of mainstream media.

Two unfortunate Polish farmers, minding their own business and probably with no interest in the war occurring hundreds of kilometers away, became accidental victims of what appears to be an air defense missile gone off course.

The Associated Press immediately published a story, blaming an off-course Russian missile, based on a single anonymous quote. They were then forced to withdraw the story - and then fired the reported who provided the quote (here’s the current retraction). The folks at Zerohedge have some details on that story, which sounds like a case of scapegoating the reporter for decisions made by his editors.

While the Associated Press still pretends to be a news organization, The Telegraph has no such aspirations. Their original story was updated over the first few hours, reaching its current version at 1:37 am on 16 November. It’s less-than stellar work. For example, here’s the third paragraph:

Poland's foreign ministry confirmed that the missile was Russian-made, and summoned the Russian ambassador to give "immediate detailed explanations". (The Telegraph)

The initial story (filed the previous evening) indicated the missile was fired by the Russians, but by the sixteenth the staff had talked to some people who actually know something about military hardware, and way down at paragraph 36 we learn:

Dr Justin Bronk, a specialist at defence and security think tank Rusi, said the missile that landed in Poland could have been fired by either side. (The Telegraph)

Big shocker - the Ukrainians launch missiles too. And at paragraph 39:

Rob Lee, a defence analyst at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said that Poland's statement that it was a Russian-made missile, left open the possibility it was not launched by Moscow. (The Telegraph)

So at least the corrected (but still garbage) version of the story has clarified the source of the missile could have been the Russians or the Ukrainians. In an explanation that’s becoming a theme on this Substack, we’ll see later why this couldn’t have been one of the missiles fired by the Russians - and why this fact should have been obvious.

Headlines from The Telegraph

The image above is from that article in The Telegraph, published breathlessly on 15 November after the missile hit was reported in Poland (first version here, current version here). The original headline (at least, the earliest one captured by the Internet Archive) tells us “Russian rockets hit Poland killing two.”

We’re going to spend some time looking at that article’s headline changes before going into some details on why missiles with 1,000 lb warheads do a bit more than flip a trailer on its side.

Here are some of the versions, each time the headline was changed (and that change was captured by someone on the Wayback Machine, so we may have missed some).

6:50 pm:

Mr. Joe Barnes files his original, very short story about “rockets” hitting Poland, apparently not aware that Poland is out of range of artillery rockets (and not by a little bit). We don’t know what type or how many, but they’re definitely Russian because we already know the Russians are the bad guys, and all bad things are their fault.

Two stray rockets were said to have landed in the Polish border town of Przewodow, north of Lviv, Ukraine’s most western city, killing two people. (The Telegraph)

It would come as the first time someone has been killed on Nato territory as the result of an apparent Russian strike. (The Telegraph)

7:11 pm:

But soon after initial publication, somebody called Joe to let him know the correct term is “missiles.” Also, Joe found someone who used the words “crisis situation” and his editor told him to stress this point. Because we totally think this was intentional, I guess.

At least we’re sure at this point that the Russians did it. It must be true, because the U.S. said so.

Stray Russian missiles landed in Poland on Tuesday, killing two people on Nato territory, the US has confirmed. (The Telegraph)

Luckily for Joe the Russians can’t sue him for libel - because at this point he’s flat out saying they killed two Poles.

The deadly incident marks the first time a Russian attack on Ukraine has killed someone inside neighbouring Nato territory since the start of the war. (The Telegraph)

7:25 pm:

Joe is the junior varsity team (after all, he is the poor fool they sent to Odessa during a war), so they brought in some heavy hitters. Now the story is co-written by Joe, Matthew, Danielle and Nick. It took half an hour from Joe’s initial filing because they had to get Nick from the squash court.

We’re now emphasizing for our forgetful readers that Poland is a NATO country. (I’m not sure why the style guide at the The Telegraph doesn’t tell them to capitalize all the letters in an acronym.)

We’ve walked back a bit, though, and only claim “one or two projectiles struck a tractor.” We’ve only seen one crater, so I’m going with one missile for now. Also, based on their own picture it looks like something hit near the trailer, not the tractor. Whatever.

The headline’s been updated but we’re sticking to the “Russian missiles” part of the story.

Stray Russian missiles landed in Poland on Tuesday, killing two people on Nato territory, the US has confirmed.

Well, the U.S. source may have confirmed it, but Polish sources didn’t.

A Polish minister told the Telegraph the "investigation is still ongoing" into the missile strike. (The Telegraph)

It’s interesting that the confirmation from the American source comes before the quote from someone in the Polish government who says they’re still investigating.

9:14 pm:

We’ve added a Senior Foreign Correspondent, so this story must be a big deal. Rest easy everyone - Roland is on the case, and now we know for sure it’s only one missile. (I’m assuming he sent Joe out to count impact craters.)

Roland: “How many missile craters did you find?”
   Joe: "One."
Roland: "Are you sure? Did you count twice?"

But the entire city of Warsaw is engaged in “urgent talks.” What did The Telegraph expect? Lackadaisical talks?

But now it’s an “apparent” Russian missile, and two people were killed but we’re not quite as blatant about Russians wantonly killing Poles.

Two people were killed on Tuesday when an apparent Russian missile landed in Poland, triggering warnings of a major escalation by Nato allies. (The Telegraph)

1:37 am:

Joe is kind of a boob, so he’s been kicked off his own story. Tough break, kid. It looks like we settled on blaming Russia so at least we have the villain of the story correct.

The final version of the story in The Telegraph ambiguously says a “Russian missile” hit Poland. This is some low-caliber propaganda and the editors should be ashamed, were they capable of it. The Ukrainian air defense systems are Soviet-era and many of the missiles were built in what is now Russia, hence “Russian missile.”

Poland stepped up its military readiness on Tuesday night and Nato prepared to hold emergency talks after Russia was blamed for a missile landing within an alliance member's territory. (The Telegraph)

Although we’re now just saying the missile was Russian made, don’t worry - regardless of who launched the missile we’re assured “Russia blamed for strike.”

Great big missiles

Let’s pretend we’re not incompetent stenographers who repeat whatever our anonymous “source” at the local Starbucks tells us, and ask whether the damage shown in the image could have been caused by the same missiles the Russians are using to target the Ukrainian power grid.

The front line is so far from the Polish border that this can’t possibly be the result of rocket artillery. The Russians, have, however, been attacking the Ukrainian electrical grid with longer ranged missiles - and they have both air launched and ground launched missiles with the necessary range.

From the impact point in Poland (roughly 50°28′28″N 23°55′23″E if you want to look it up on Google Maps) the nearest location in Russia is 600 km away - but launching from there would mean overflying Belarus. Some reasonable places from which to launch ground based missiles would be behind the front lines (800 km away), Crimea, or the region of Belgorod in Russia (both almost 900 km away). This limits the options for ground-launched missiles.

Many of the strikes are air-launched missiles, and Russian aircraft can get much closer than 800 km safely before launching. In addition, ship-borne missiles like the Kalibr have ranges of thousands of kilometers so these can be launched from the Black Sea.

Here are the main types of ground, ship, and air launched missiles the Russians currently have that are suitable for long range attacks on infrastructure targets:

• Kh-101 “Izdeliye” (400-450 kg warhead)

• Kh-47M2 “Kinzhal” (450 kg warhead)

• Kh-59 “Gadfly” (320 kg warhead)

• 9M728 “Iskander-K” (450 kg warhead)

• 3M-14 “Kalibr” (450 kg warhead)

News reports indicate the Russians launched only two types of missiles (Kh-101 “Izdeliye” and 3M-14 “Kalibr”) that day, but we like to be thorough. The smallest and shortest-ranged in the bunch has a warhead of 320 kg - which is huge. How much damage does a warhead this size do?

Ka-boom

The Russians aren’t going to email me pictures of their warhead tests, so it’s time to see what’s available on other weapons. Most missiles used by the Russians are 1,000 lb class (450 kg) but we’re going to look at something much smaller.

The standard 500 lb-class bomb in U.S. inventory is the GBU-38. Here’s a stunning picture of some being used in combat.

Per the photographer, this is a series of six GBU-38 munitions being dropped in Iraq in 2008. The GBU-38 is a 500 lb (nominally) Mk 82 gravity bomb, with a GPS guidance kit attached. The actual weight of the Mk 82 is 241 kg, and it contains 87 kg of explosive.

Here’s a picture of a test of the Mk 82 bomb, reproduced from a report by the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD). Weapons of this type can be set to detonate slightly above ground to maximize damage to the building, or shortly after impact if the goal is to detonate inside a reinforced structure.

According to news reports the Russian were using missiles with 400-450 kg warheads. As I hope is obvious to anyone seeing these pictures and the image of the overturned trailer, there’s no way the missile hit in Poland was an off-course Russian missile that was intended to disable a power plant.

That trailer would be in pieces, spread out hundreds of meters from the impact point. Any news organization covering a war should know at least this much, and have known as soon as the first picture was published that the missile wasn’t fired by the Russians.

But we could be seeing the impact of an air defense missile.

What happens when air defense missiles miss?

To intercept Russian missiles, the Ukrainians have their Soviet-built S-300 air defense systems. The standard missiles used by those systems are from the 5V55 family, with a range of up to 150 km and a 130 kg blast fragmentation warhead (so the warhead is just over half the size of the Mk 82 bomb above).

With a warhead of 130 kg one might expect a larger crater from an errant 5V55. But keep in mind the use of a blast fragmentation warhead means most of the warhead is the projectile fragments, not the explosive. We should expect a smaller blast than an equivalent high explosive warhead.

What in that general area have the Russians been aiming at? Power generating plants, most likely. Here’s a map of the impact point in Poland and the nearest Ukrainian power plant, the coal-fired Dobrotvir power plant.

On the big map, the two points are very close to each other, and an air defense missile chasing a Russian missile could easily be heading toward the Polish order. Zooming in, these two points are only about 43 km (27 miles) apart.

It’s very believable that an air defense missile, after missing its intended target, would have the range necessary to reach the other side of the Polish border. In fact, the impact point may be so close to the border because the Ukrainians sited the missiles where, they hoped, the border would be just out of range.

Air defense missiles are usually designed to self-destruct when they reach their range limit, so the Ukrainians probably sited the launchers such that any misses would detonate just short of the border and the debris would fall in Ukraine. But given the size of the crater (and its location), it’s likely the missile failed to self-destruct and continued on a ballistic path into Poland, detonating when it struck the ground.

An article in the Kyiv Post quotes a member of the Polish government saying this is exactly what happened:

On Nov. 17, Jakub Kumoch, head of the International Policy Bureau, said that there is a lot of evidence that one of the missiles that were supposed to shoot down the Russian missile did not hit the target.

“The self-destruct system did not work, and this missile led to a tragedy.” (Kyiv Post)

The article ends, however, by reminding us that everyone blames the Russians for invading in the first place.

Poland, U.S. and NATO stressed that Moscow was ultimately to blame for attacking Ukraine. The Kremlin said it had “nothing to do with the incident.” (Kyiv Post)

That’s a sloppy way to quote the Russian response - but perhaps something was lost in the translation from Ukrainian to English. Here’s the quote from the original AP story about the incident:

The Russian Defense Ministry denied being behind “any strikes on targets near the Ukrainian-Polish border” and said in a statement that photos of purported damage “have nothing to do” with Russian weapons. (AP)

Whether a bit over 20 miles is “near” the border is certainly open to debate. But the Russians are also emphatically stating that the damage wasn’t caused by one of their missiles, which is very probably true.

By the way, the final version of the story in The Telegraph still tells us a Russian missile hit Poland. Why bother with precise language when there are so many other propaganda pieces to work on? I assume at some point they’ll claim the core issue is that Russians build poor self-destruct mechanisms.

Some NATO reaction

All of the fawning media coverage from the west has apparently made President Zelensky a bit arrogant. Blaming Russia immediately for something that can be easily disproved is proving damaging to his credibility.

Fortunately for Zelensky, western media will continue to lob him softball questions like he’s Joe Biden.

Wrapping up

Once again, we have multiple versions of the same event - but in this case we can be fairly certain which is more accurate.

The simple, probably accurate version of events

The Russians are targeting the Ukrainian power grid using modern, long range missiles designed to destroy large targets. Some of those targets are power plants near the Polish-Ukrainian border, and one of the air defense missiles launched by the Ukrainians missed its interception.

It’s self-destruct having failed, the air defense missile ultimately detonated when it hit the ground in Poland, where it tragically killed two people. No one intended this outcome, and in fact the Ukrainians may have taken some precautions to prevent just such a event - such as the location of the air defense system, and the use of a self-destruct in the missile. What happened is tragic, but not malicious.

The initial, propaganda version of events

In a large single-day attack on the Ukrainian power grid, one of the Russian missiles missed it’s intended target and instead exploded in a neighboring NATO country.

The missile strike (and the death of two Poles from the impact) demonstrates the Russians are willing to strike NATO countries, so NATO should become actively involved in the war.

Reviewing the not-journalism

First, it was obvious almost immediately that this incident was not a Russian missile going astray into Poland. But by accusing Russia of something, the Ukrainians have at least temporarily moved the focus from defending their own actions to attacking Russia's. The propaganda never stops.

But as we’ve seen before, even a small amount of knowledge of weapons (or in other cases geography, strategy, etc.) makes clear the allegation isn’t anything close to reasonable. New organizations publishing articles like this should have zero credibility, considering how little effort or knowledge is required to see the problem with the original claim.

Once again, truth was also a victim in the ongoing war. Let’s hope that before the end of the conflict, trust in The Telegraph becomes a victim as well.

Спасатель Василий Бех (Spasatel Vasiliy Bekh)

The second ship claimed sunk by the Ukrainians near Snake Island, this time using two American Harpoon missiles, was a Project 22870 rescue tug named the Spasatel Vasiliy Bekh.

Spasatel (спасатель) means rescuer, so the tug’s name was Rescuer Vasiliy Bekh. One of six in service with the Russian Navy, it was launched in 2016 and was a modern and well-equipped ship.

The Project 22870 rescue tugs are built to tow damaged ships (and can even re-float sunken ships), aid damaged ships by extinguishing fires, evacuate crew and provide medical aid, even supply electricity. They’re also equipped to perform dive operations, including cutting and welding, as well as cleanup of oil spills, and, finally, perform underwater survey work. They’re packed full of very expensive, very useful equipment.

Reports on the sinking

Sources (including the Russians) agree the ship was sunk after being struck by two American supplied Harpoon anti-ship missiles. This is very believable - with a 500 lb warhead, a single Harpoon should be more than sufficient to sink a ship this size. Ukraine recently received two Harpoon coastal defense systems, which carry four missiles each, so the use of two of them is a significant expenditure of valuable munitions.

An article in the NZ Herald captured a screenshot of the Ukrainian government announcing the sinking via Twitter on 17 June:

The Ukrainian Navy claimed on Friday that it struck a Russian boat carrying air defence systems to a strategic island in the Black Sea.

In a statement on social media, the Navy said the Vasily Bekh was used to transport ammunition, weapons and personnel to Snake Island, which is vital for protecting sea lanes out of the key port of Odesa. It did not say how much damage it inflicted with the strike. (NZ Herald1)

The air-defense system in question is a Tor-M2KM. We’ll look into that system before addressing the use of the tug as a troop transport. (This report says “systems” - plural - but it’s not clear even one would fit.)

Lugging a Tor around the Black Sea

The sinking was reported by many news sources, and the article in The Times UK provides us one example (among many) of journalists who have better things to do than study military hardware:

Spasatel Vasiliy Bekh, a Russian naval tugboat, was delivering weapons and personnel to Snake Island when it was struck last Friday. The vessel had a Tor-M2MK [sic] anti-aircraft missile system on board but it was not clear if it was being transported to the Russian-controlled island or whether it was acting as an air defence for the tug. (The Times UK2)

The Tor missiles system is a short range air defense system for use against helicopters, cruise missiles, and unmanned aerial vehicles. The standard system is mounted on a tracked, armored vehicle chassis and weighs around 34 tons total.

The Tor-M2KM is a 15 ton module containing just the missile system, and is intended for mounting in a fixed location. In June the Russians tested one after mounting it on the helicopter pad of the Vasily Bykov, a Project 22160 patrol ship.

According to information published by Военный Осведомитель on June 7, 2022, new pictures have been released of the Russian Project 22160 patrol ship Vasily Bykov has been published showing the installation of the Tor-M2KM system. (Navy Recognition3 - their mangled grammar, not mine)

The 1,300 ton patrol ship (up to 1,700 tons fully loaded) weighs slightly more than the tug but is almost twice as long. Mounting the system on the helipad means, of course, that the helicopter can’t be used.

Based on this report, at the very least the Russians were testing this idea in early June (possibly earlier, of course - we only know what they disclose), but there are no comparable images of a Tor mounted on one of the tugs. Here’s a view of just the stern of the patrol ship:

Now compare to the stern of the tug:

The space is much smaller, and contains a lot of equipment - it’s hard to tell if the Tor missile system will fit. And with a Tor-M2KM mounted on the back it’s no longer usable as a tug.

Was the tug just delivering the system to Snake Island? This is very unlikely given the system weighs 15 tons, while the crane on the tug is only rated for 8 tons. And there are no dock cranes on Snake Island - there’s barely a dock at all. (As we’ll see later, the Russians have been using other means to deliver air defense systems to Snake Island.)

So although it’s possible the tug was carrying a Tor-M2KM system, it was not trying to deliver the system to Snake Island. And if the system were being carried for self defense, it’s hard to see how the tug could carry much else.

The Project 22870 Rescue Tug: Very useful little ships

Information on the Russian navy in English is hard to come by. According to a Russian website that documents the Black Sea Fleet:

The ship is intended for towing ships in distress, fire fighting on crafts, vessels, floating and shore facilities, water pumping and electricity supply to emergency vessels, evacuation and medical treatment of rescued people, diving works at depth down to 60 m, rescue and inspection operations as well as petroleum product recovery. (https://www.kchf.ru/eng/)

With only six of the Project 22870 tugs built so far (and one under construction), that same site lists three more in the Black Sea fleet as part of the 314th Rescue Ship Squad (based in Novorossiysk).

Specifications for the Project 22870 rescue tugs are also difficult to find, but here’s some info4 from the English language version of a Russian website. In addition to towing equipment, these tugs also carry:

• Auxiliary diesel generator (216 kW)

• Emergency diesel generator (112 kW)

• Hot water boiler-incinerator (2 units, 232 kW each)

• Drop-type rafts (6, capacity 25 people each)

• Hydraulic cargo crane (capacity 8 tons)

• Swivel crane-beam (capacity 1/4 ton)

• Two-compartment pressure chamber

• Diving compressors (3)

• Diving beam crane (capacity 1/4 ton)

• Remote-controlled unmanned underwater vehicle (1)

• Diving equipment (12 sets)

• Equipment for underwater welding and cutting

• Underwater photography equipment

• Booms (total length 560 m)

• Boom-laying boat

• Skimmer

• Oil collection tanks (capacity 125 cubic meters)

• High-speed rescue boat (capacity 6 people)

• Device for lifting people from the water

• Fire-fighting pumps (3 units, 1,000 cubic meters per hour)

• Fire-fighting foam tank (capacity 10 cubic meters)

They are packed full of useful things - and crew trained to use them. The only open space is the aft deck, which is rated to hold up to 60 cold, wet sailors who have just been plucked out of the water.

Testing the Tor-M2KM on a ship

The Ukrainian claim, that the ship was carrying a Tor air defense system, has been repeated many times by western media. Here’s an example from The Drive:

There are also reports from Ukraine that the Vasily Bekh was carrying a Tor-M2 series surface-to-air missile (SAM) system on board; these systems have been appearing with increasing regularity on Russian warships operating in the Black Sea and especially around Snake Island, as well as being deployed on the island itself. (The Drive, 17 June5)

The statement about “appearing with increasing regularity” is backed up with a link to another article on the same site, but the only current use on a ship mentioned is the Vasily Bykov, and the article is discussing the same test disclosed by the Russians in early June. (The article calls the Vasily Bykov a corvette, while the Russian Navy classifies Project 22160 as patrol ships.)

The Drive went from telling us this on 7 June:

Images emerging on social media show a Russian Vasily Bykov class corvette (Project 22160 class) fitted with a ground-based Tor surface-to-air missile system on its flight deck.

While it isn’t the first time Russia has tinkered with placing ground-based SAM systems onto its ships… (The Drive, 7 June6)

To this just ten days later:

…these systems have been appearing with increasing regularity on Russian warships… (The Drive, 17 June)

Apparently it only took ten days to go from “tinkering” with the idea, to it being used with “increasing regularity.” And by the way, these ships have been active around Snake Island, yet somehow none of them have been hit by missiles.

The Project 22160 corvettes are very active in the region, with four being based there as part of the Black Sea Fleet. In fact, there have been rampant rumors that Ukraine had struck examples of these ships before, but they turned out to be inaccurate. (The Drive, 7 June)

But the Ukrainians did manage to blast the s*** out of Thomas the Tugboat.

Is it reasonable to think the valuable but slow (14 knots at full speed) tug was carrying an air defense system, and delivering troops, supplies and ammunition to a tiny slab of rock in the Black Sea?

Lots of other options

The Russian navy has several types of boats stationed in the Black Sea for landing men and equipment on shore. Here are some of the various boats that have actually been used to transport troops and equipment to Snake Island.

Project 11770 (Serna Class) Air-cavity Fast Landing Craft (est. 3 available in the Black Sea)

Specifically designed to land troops and heavy equipment on shore, these high speed (30 knot) ships are each capable of carrying a main battle tank or up to 92 troops. Something like a Tor missile system is well within their capacity - in fact the Russians used these to deliver several air defense systems to Snake Island.

Project 02510 (BK-16) High-Speed Landing Craft (est. 3)

Designed to transport troops and light weapons, the Project 02510 craft have a top speed of 42 knots and a range of 400 nautical miles. Able to carry up to 19 troops, they are typically armed with machine guns and grenade launchers. With an armored compartment and a bow ramp for disembarking, these ships are designed to deliver troops under fire.

Project 03160 (Raptor Class) Anti-Saboteur Boat (est. 11)

Due to their close similarity with the Project 02510 landing craft, the two types are often mistaken for each other.

These are called “Anti-Saboteur” boats because one of the uses is to guard other navy ships in harbor from attack by divers or small craft. They’re also used for patrolling coastal waters, search and rescue, or transport of troops. They have armored windows and armored panels in the hull to protect the crew and occupants. With a range of 300 nautical miles and a top speed of 48 knots these are very fast boats.

Project 22160 Patrol Ship

Instead of the three small boats they’ve been using, if the Russians wanted a larger ship they could send one of the Project 22160 patrol ships that the Ukrainians have tried and failed to sink repeatedly. Let’s go back and look again at the stern of one of these ships:

There’s already a launching area at the back of the ship, and it comes with its own combat boat. Why would the Russians use the tug instead of one of these patrol ships? They’re twice as fast, armed, have air defense systems, and are designed to work with small boats like the one shown.

And yet more options

If, for some reason, none of the above mentioned options available, here’s a list of other ships in the Black Sea fleet that could be used instead of the brand-new, specialized rescue tug:

• Ten missiles corvettes (with air defenses)

• Six anti-submarine corvettes (with air defenses)

• Six large landing ships (some with air defenses)

• Four salvage tugs (similar to Project 22870 but slightly older)

• Five other seagoing tugs

What was the tug really doing?

Back in April the Ukrainians claimed to have sunk the Moskva using two of their own Neptune missiles (see my previous article on this). The exact location where it sank is currently unknown (to us, probably not to the Russians). The last satellite image of the damaged ship showed it at about 45°10′43″N and 30°55′31″E.

The ship sank a few hours later while being towed toward the Russian naval base at Sevastopol, which is east and slightly south of that location. The location of the Spasatel Vasiliy Bekh when it was hit by Harpoon missiles was 45°12′14″N and 30°36′54″E. Here are those two locations on the map:

The two points are about 15 miles apart, and the tug was along the path the Moskva was being towed. Stricken ships are towed at very low speed, so several hours after the satellite image was taken, the tug’s location is about where we would expect the wreck of the Moskva to be.

Have the Russians been conducting salvage operations on the Moskva? Yes, according to the chief of Ukrainian intelligence. Here’s a quote from him:

"From 5 to 7 ships were involved. Most of them were rescue ships, boats, [and] tug boats, which retrieved the bodies, removed all the equipment that was classified, and cleaned up this cruiser - retrieved what was left there, and what should not fall into the hands of a third country." (Yahoo News7)

It’s not even relevant if he’s wrong - maybe the Russians were conducting salvage work on the ship, or maybe the Ukrainians just thought they were. Either way, the Ukrainians chose to fire on a ship in the same area - then claimed it was carrying troops and weapons.

The most reasonable interpretation

The Ukrainians sank a rescue tug in the area east of Snake Island. They claim it was carrying an air defense system as well as troops and supplies to the island. This is a ridiculous claim - which is obvious after just a little bit of research. The tug is very valuable but completely unsuited for delivering troops and supplies to the island. There are many other boats equipped for the task and known to be operating in the same area.

What was the Rescuer Vasiliy Bekh doing there? Based on available information, the logical conclusion is that the ship was engaged in diving and salvage operations on the sunken Moskva. It was in the right location, it’s the right ship for the task, and we’ve been told the Russians were conducting such work on the wreck.

But instead the Ukrainians claim the tug was carrying an air defense system, shortly after testing of that same system was reported on a patrol ship. They also claim the tug was carrying troops and supplies to Snake Island, despite it being one of the worst possible choices among the available options.

It’s much more likely the Ukrainians spotted it with one of their TB2 drones, and either not bothering to confirm it was unarmed, or just not caring, they wasted two valuable coastal defense missiles (out of a very tiny number given to them by the U.S.) to sink a ship with no military capability.

They then claimed the tug was carrying troops and weapons to justify the sinking - and in fact turn it into a propaganda victory.

The saddest part is this: all it took to spread this story uncritically through all of western mainstream media was a few tweets. Welcome to the new fog of war - a fog created by the media as much as by the war itself.

A small note

Some may feel that I criticize the Ukrainians quite a lot, but the Russians very little. What I’m really criticizing is journalists.

Russian news is blocked in a lot of the west, so we mostly get the Ukrainian version of events. This version is reported uncritically, and by people who have no knowledge of the subject they’re covering.

As a result, even the worst propaganda from one side gets widely distributed in western media - providing me with much grist for my mill. If we ever start getting unfiltered reports from the Russians, and they’re full of propaganda, those reports will be ground under the millstone as well.

The research for the first article in this series, Attack of the Super Drones, included reading quite a lot about the sinking of the Moskva and the rescue tug Spasatel Vasiliy Bekh. One interesting aspect of the available information is how little of it there is, and how hard it is to assess with certainty what actually happened.

The currently accepted version of events is straightforward: On 13 April the Moskva was hit by two Ukrainian-built Neptune missiles and sank the next day. Two months later, on 17 June, the Spasatel Vasiliy Bekh was struck by two American-built Harpoon missiles and sank shortly afterward.

The Russians have confirmed the sinking of both vessels, but not the missile hits on the Moskva, which they claim sank after a fire led to an ammunition explosion.

Москва (Moskva)

The Moskva (originally named the Slava) and was the first in a planned class of ten ships, of which only three were actually completed (their current names are Moskva, Marshal Ustinov, and Varyag). At about 12,500 tons fully loaded, their primary armament is 16 long range anti-ship missiles and 64 anti-aircraft missiles.

With another 40 short range surface to air missiles and six close in weapons systems for missile defense, a pair of 130 mm guns, plus anti-submarine weapons, these are well-armed ships. Although built 30 - 40 years ago, these ships are still some of the most valuable assets in the Russian Navy. Here’s a photo of the Moskva from roughly the same angle as the picture of the damaged ship above.

Everyone agrees the Moskva was damaged on 13 April and sank the next day. The Russians claim a fire on board led to ammunition blowing up, while the Ukrainians are claiming the initial damage was caused by two Neptune anti-ship missiles.

The flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, the Moskva missile cruiser, was badly damaged when ammunition on board blew up, Interfax news agency quoted the defense ministry as saying on Thursday.

Interfax said the crew had been evacuated. It blamed the blast on a fire and said the cause was being investigated.

A Ukrainian official earlier said the Moskva had been hit by two missiles but did not give any evidence. (gCaptain1)

In the image of the sinking ship, the hull number (121) is blocked by smoke and the ship’s name on the stern is below the waterline due to the list to port. But the ship shown in the leaked image is consistent with the Moskva, and no other ships in the Russian Navy look enough like this class to be mistaken for them.

This statement in a story from Military Times is representative of what’s appeared in multiple news reports:

Photographs of the burning ship reveal at least one hole in the port side to indicate a missile hit, but how many were fired remain unknown, along with how at least two could have penetrated Moskva’s considerable defenses. (Military Times2)

Let’s look at that statement about the indication of a missile hit. As far as I know there aren’t many photos of the damaged ship, and only the image reproduced at the top of this article has useful detail. Here’s an enhancement of the damaged area:

There appears to be a square hole in the side of the hull right above the water line, with smoke coming from the square hole. The square shape could be an image artifact caused by low resolution, but in this case it looks like a section of the hull has blown out the side of the ship. (The round portholes still look round, so the square hole probably isn’t an artifact of image enhancement.)

Taking the image of the undamaged ship and zooming in on the same spot, we can see the sides of the hull are made from large, square plates. These squares are visible on many images of the ship, and the plates are the same size as the hole in the image.

Engineering drawings of the internal layouts of Russian warships aren’t easy to find, but this one appears accurate:

The damage appears to be in or near one of the two engine rooms. The Moskva had two gas turbine engines, one for cruising (47, маршевые ГТД) and one for high speed (44, форсажные ГТД), in two separate compartments. The engines themselves are located slightly below the waterline, and there are fuel tanks (40, топливные цистерны) directly below them.

Since we can’t see below the water line we don’t know if the ship was struck with missiles lower on the hull. The square looking hole above the water line may be due to pressure from inside blowing out the whole panel. This could be from an explosion in the engine room due to a missile hit (that we possibly can’t see due to the list), or due to an explosion caused by a fire in the engine room.

In the image of the damaged Moskva, blackening can also be seen in and around the portholes along the side of the hull, including alongside the large S-300 missile system aft of the engine rooms. The S-300 system contains 64 long range missiles in vertical launch tubes.

The blackening at the portholes is a very bad sign - warships have internal hatches and those hatches should have been closed, preventing fires from reaching this area. If the final cause of the ship’s loss was an ammunition fire, then it may have been the fuel or warheads on the S-300 system’s missiles.

Missiles from nowhere

Untangling the events around the sinking is made more difficult by the poor quality of some of the journalism. For example, an article3 in The Telegraph confirms that the Ukrainians claim hitting the cruiser with two of their new Neptune missiles, but then goes on to damage the author’s credibility with the included map:

Like journalists we’ve criticized in other articles, this one also can’t be bothered with simple details. The only land mass in the circled area of “suspected origin of missile” is Snake Island, a 40 acre rock that by 13 April was occupied by the Russians. So no Ukrainian missiles were launched from there. (It would also be a dumb place to base those missiles, see Part 1 of this series).

However, the location given for the Moskva on 13 April appears correct, and is well within range of shore based American Harpoon missiles or Ukrainian Neptune missiles. So it’s not unreasonable to believe the ship was struck by either of those. If the ship was being towed to Sevastopol when it sank then the 14 April location also makes sense.

Although the initial damage might have been from a missile hit, it’s also possible the damage was caused by a fire in the engine room (the ship wasn’t exactly new, and engine fires do happen on warships).

Some history on the Moskva

David Axe is a journalist who covers military hardware, and given the potential importance of the Moskva, back in January 2022 he wrote an article in Forbes about the ship. It was hit by a missile in 2008 but survived (and was repaired), then was overhauled starting in 2016:

Aging and reportedly vulnerable to fire, Moskva in 2016 sailed back to Sevastopol in Crimea for a three-year overhaul. She emerged with P-1000 anti-ship missiles in place of her older P-500s. The overhaul extends her service life by a decade or so. (Forbes4)

Axe isn’t the only one to mention the issue of vulnerability to fire. According to description given by globalsecurity.org for the whole class:

The design is said to be marred by large quantities of flammable material and poor damage-control capabilities. (globalsecurity.org5)

If this is accurate, then a fire leading to an ammunition explosion and loss of the ship is a strong possibility. Going back to the Forbes article, prior to the sinking not everyone was optimistic about the chances of the Ukrainians taking out the Moskva.

The only Ukrainian forces that might have any realistic shot at Moskva are the new Neptune anti-ship missile batteries. (Forbes)

And as we’ll see, no one knows how many Neptune missiles Ukraine has.

It’s not clear how many Neptunes it might take to punch through Moskva’s defenses. Nor is it clear how many Neptunes the Ukrainians possess. (Forbes)

Either way, it sounds like secondary explosions of munitions caused the final sinking, which doesn’t speak well for Russian damage control. Regardless of the actual cause, the loss of the Moskva is unexpected and embarrassing for the Russian Navy.

Neptune missiles

The Ukrainians claim to have struck the Moskva with two of their brand new Neptune anti-ship missiles. Development began shortly after Russia seized Crimea in 2014, resulting in the loss of Ukraine’s coastal defense missiles (also begging the question of why all the missiles were in Crimea). The new system was accepted by the Ukrainian military in early 2021.

Oleksiy Arestovych, adviser to the office of the president of Ukraine, claimed that it had been hit by a Ukrainian-made anti-ship guided missile called the Neptune. The Russians made no comment, but the missile in question, introduced to the Ukrainian armed forces little more than a year earlier, was about to take its own place in history. (Military Times)

The Neptune missile has a 150 kg (330 lb) warhead and was designed for use against vessels up to 5,000 tons - less than half the displacement of the Moskva. Per the official story the ship was hit by two of these missiles, but the Ukrainians haven’t specifically said how many they launched to get those two hits. It’s also not clear how they know how many hits were obtained - they could be claiming two based on the general belief that one Neptune would not be able to sink a ship the size of the Moskva.

The entire system, like many such, includes missiles, launchers, re-loaders, and a command and control system.

Along with the Neptune itself, Ukraine has produced six USPU-360 mobile launchers, each capable of carrying and firing four missiles. They are backed up by six TZM-360 and six TM-360 transport vehicles, each carrying four additional Neptunes. (Military Times)

This implies they had at least 48 Neptune missiles prior to firing a pair of them at the Moskva. But it’s not clear how many of the missiles have actually been delivered. According to the Kyiv Post, the production contract was part of the 2021 budget:

Nonetheless, the project faced constant delays due to bureaucratic hurdles in the government. Finally, amid enormous public pressure, the Ministry of Defense signed a contract to produce the weapon system as part of the country’s military acquisition program in 2021. (Kyiv Post6)

The initial six launchers and support vehicles are described as a “training missile division” by the Ukrainians. A lot of training is done without live-firing of missiles so it’s possible the launchers were delivered prior to the missiles. Or, if the launchers and re-loaders are all carrying missiles, the Ukrainians have at least 48 Neptune missiles (or 46, subtracting at least two they already claim to have used).

If Neptune missiles were used, this would be their first (and apparently only) use in combat - and less than a year after their introduction. Given the Russian control of the Black Sea and use of their navy in the war so far, it’s curious that the only known use of Neptune missiles was to sink the Moskva. There have been many other, valuable targets within range throughout the war, especially during the initial invasion.

Spasatel Vasiliy Bekh

Two months after the loss of the Moskva the Ukrainians sank a different ship in the same general area, this time using American Harpoon missiles. This was a Project 22870 rescue tug named the Spasatel Vasiliy Bekh (The project number is like a vessel class). Launched in 2016, this was a modern and well-equipped ship but carried no weapons.

The Project 22870 tugs are designed to tow damaged vessels, have firefighting equipment, can supply electricity and water to other ships, and have diving equipment for rescuing crew trapped underwater.

We’ll look into the sinking of this boat in more detail (I have a lot of questions), but for now what matters is the use of Harpoon missiles. At only 1,200 tons this ship is not difficult to sink with missiles like the Neptune or Harpoon.

It’s not clear exactly when the Ukrainians first had operational Harpoon missile batteries but it should have been early enough to use them to sink the Spasatel Vasiliy Bekh. They probably received one launcher from the U.S. and one from Denmark.

The U.S. doesn’t currently have a truck-borne coastal defense system based on the Harpoon but one is in development for sale to Taiwan (the deal is for 100 launchers). In the meantime, it sounds like a system was built from scratch:

The Harpoon missiles were removed from the ship by one of the US allies (which was not disclosed). Launchers were installed on the chassis of a truck. A power supply was placed on another truck. The launch and power source were connected by wires. (mil.in.ua7)

After the Americans were convinced that such a configuration would work, the system was delivered to Ukraine. The Ukrainian military held a training session at the end of May. (mil.in.ua)

“And the next week, two Russian ships were sunk with these Harpoons,” the Under Secretary of Defense of the United States said. (mil.in.ua)

This should be a different system from the one sent by Denmark, which was already a full, working system:

In May 2022, Denmark announced its intention to transfer the Harpoon AShM to Ukraine. The Royal Danish Navy was one of the few operators of the coastal version of the Harpoon missile anti-ship system. According to open data, the Danish fleet, as part of coastal artillery, had two batteries of this system. (mil.in.ua)

It seems likely Ukraine received two Harpoon coastal defense systems and at least eight missiles. But why use the Harpoon missiles to sink a tugboat? In fact, why have the Ukrainians been so anxious to obtain a few Harpoon missiles if they already have 48 (or 46?) Neptune missiles capable of sinking one of the most well-armed ships in the Russian Navy?

So what happened?

Currently, I’m a little incredulous of the Ukrainian version of events. There are a few reasonable possibilities for how the Moskva was sunk:

1. The ship was hit by Ukrainian Neptune missiles. A new design and only recently put in service, the missiles were effective in their first and only use in combat, sinking a ship that analysts expected to survive the attack.

2. The ship had an engine room fire. A combination of known issues with the ship combined with extremely poor damage control resulted in an ammunition explosion. For the Russians, this might be more embarrassing than a loss to missiles.

3. The ship was hit by American built Harpoon missiles. The Harpoon has a more powerful warhead (two Harpoon warheads weigh as much as three Neptune warheads) and are more likely to be effective against a ship this size.

Neptune missiles

If Neptune missiles were used, it begs the question of why those same missiles weren’t used a few weeks later to sink another ship operating just a few miles to the east where the Moskva was hit. But after this one use, they haven’t been used again despite the presence of other valuable targets - ones without the extensive air defense systems of the Moskva.

Although possible, The Ukrainian story seems very fortuitous. They recently received this new system and a handful of missiles, then successfully used those few missiles to sink the most valuable target in the Black Sea. But they haven’t used it since, opting instead to use the more expensive American built Harpoon missiles.

Engine room fire

Alternately, the ship could just be the victim of an engine room fire as the Russians claim. The main damage appears to be in one of the engine rooms, each of which contains lots of fuel - and is where one would expect an accidental fire to start

This is believable (it’s something that happens to warships) but it makes the Russian Navy look incompetent - if this is their most valuable asset, why isn’t it better maintained? Why is the crew not better trained?

Harpoon missiles

Finally, using American-built Harpoon missiles would mean the Ukrainians had these missiles prior to when we’re told they were delivered, but this wouldn’t be unusual in a war. Using a new weapon system before telling your enemy you have it makes sense.

In this option, it may be that the American trainers had some hand in targeting and firing the missiles, but the U.S. government doesn’t want this known. Since the Harpoon missiles weren’t formally online yet, it would have made sense to just have the Ukrainians claim it was their own, new missiles. Without parts of the missiles to analyze, no one would ever know.

Some closing thoughts

If the Russians stick to their version of events, and the Ukrainians stick to theirs, then what you think happened will come down to which side you think is more credible - we may never get definitive proof.

Right now, I’m leaning toward the Russian version of events. An engine room fire got out of control, leading to munition explosions that sank the ship.

The Ukrainian version sounds more like a post hoc explanation of events: they hit this particular ship with Neptunes (since officially Harpoons hadn’t yet arrived) but none of the other ships near Snake Island; they hit it with two missiles so sinking it with Neptunes is believable; the missiles got through because they used a TB2 drone to confuse the radar; etc.

Given the number of claims that turned out to be propaganda (remember the Ghost of Kiev?) I suspect they’re using the sinking to claim a military victory, knowing their claims can’t easily be challenged. Again, we won’t be getting verified, undeniable information any time soon.

But as a little mental exercise, assume I’m the Russians. If I’ve lost a ship to incompetence but the enemy thinks it’s due to their superior weapon system, I’m probably not going to try too hard to correct their misinterpretation. They will think their own system is more effective than it actually is, which may save another ship later.

If instead the ship was hit by anti-ship missiles, then confirming the number and location of the hits provides valuable feedback to the enemy on how their system performed.

Either way, it will be unsurprising if the Russians continue to say very little about the loss of the ship. They have nothing to gain by providing western media any more information than they already have. Unless and until someone can dive the wreck for evidence, both sides can make whatever claims they want.

Part 3: Rescuer

The headline above is from an article1 about the fighting on Snake Island, published by France 24. Before getting into the article let’s take a look at the mission statement for France 24. According to their website:

The networks of France Médias Monde - France 24, RFI and MCD - are dedicated to providing news that is based on facts. Impartial, factual reporting is the best weapon against all kinds of fake news : rumour, propaganda and clickbait. (France 24)

This is a fascinating statement to read immediately after looking at their own clickbait article about Snake Island. They managed to hit at least two out of three from the “rumor, propaganda and clickbait” trifecta.

The entire thing is so preposterous I was forced to consult an online thesaurus2 because I was running out of ways to say “absurd.”

France 24 on Snake Island

The well researched and balanced article3 opens by explaining the crucial-ness of the island, which apparently stems from its symbolic importance rather than its strategic importance.

Snake Island, a tiny piece of land in the Black Sea near the Ukrainian port city of Odesa, has taken on symbolic importance for both sides in the conflict. (France 24)

It’s not clear who, on the Russian side, ever said the island had symbolic importance to the Russians - but let’s not have that get in the way of good propaganda. The writer did, at one point, talk to someone who studies military strategy for a living. From later in the same article:

Nevertheless, some analysts raise their eyebrows at the fighting over Snake Island. “It has very limited strategic importance in terms of who controls the Black Sea”, said Jeff Hawn, an expert on Russian military issues and a non-resident fellow at the New Lines Institute, a US geopolitical research centre. (France 24)

Contradicting his own source, the author goes on to explain that no, Snake Island is super critical because it controls the access to Odessa where the Ukrainian grain is loaded onto ships.

Snake Island’s most significant quality is its proximity to Odesa; it has often been described as a gateway to Ukraine’s pre-eminent port. In theory, whoever controls this piece of land also controls access to Odesa. Snake Island could thus be vital to preventing a full-blown global food crisis, given that Ukraine once exported some 4.5 million tons of food per month through Odesa before the port was blockaded by Russia. (France 24)

If you read my article titled Mines, Missiles, and Montreux you know that shipments in and out of Odessa have been stopped without Russian control of Snake Island. But according to the author, whichever country has a handful of troops sitting on a tiny rock in the Black Sea will determine whether there’s a “full-blown global food crisis” incoming. The article is simply using emotionally manipulative propaganda to boost the relevance of Snake Island.

Another expert quoted by the article points out the limited usefulness of the island, and the defensive nature of the equipment the Russians have attempted to put on it.

But Tack suggested Snake Island’s strategic value is overestimated in this regard: “The military equipment stationed there is essentially defensive and has a very limited range,” he said. (France 24)

But the the author at France 24 keeps contradicting his own sources (and common sense).

Like a warship, Snake Island provides an observation post from which to detect enemy movements in the area and can be used to bombard passing ships and planes. Ukraine must also keep an eye out to ensure that Russia does not launch an amphibious assault using Snake Island as an outpost. (France 24)

The phrase “launch and amphibious assault using Snake Island” is simply ludicrous to anyone who’s bothered to even look at a map.

острів Змії́ний (ostriv Zmiinyi) AKA Snake Island

So where is this little island that’s so crucial to writers of bad new articles? According to the article, the island is …

… a piece of rock smaller than 0.7 square kilometres located about 40km southwest of Odesa. (France 24)

That’s all wrong, of course. The island is 0.17 square kilometers, not 0.7 - so that’s smaller, I suppose. But 40 km southwest of Odessa isn’t even in the Black Sea, it’s the bottom of the Dnister River where it widens out to a few miles before flowing into the Black Sea.

In reality, Snake Island is tiny (about 500 yards wide, and a total of about 40 acres) island in the Black Sea, about 36 km (22 miles) offshore from the southern tip of Ukraine. It has no water, useful resources or indigenous population. No fortifications, deep bunkers or other protection for military equipment, and no place to hide - it’s just a tiny, almost flat, rock.

The island is about 140 km (87 miles) south of the city of Odessa in the Black Sea. To the west of the island is the very southern tip of Ukraine, and just below that is Romania. There’s not much of strategic value in this part of Ukraine.

The Ukrainians and Romanians previously disputed ownership of the island, which was left under the control of Ukraine after the breakup of the Soviet Union. That dispute centered around the exclusive economic zones of each country, which are defined using shorelines of occupied territory.

During these negotiations, the Ukrainians established a small town on the island so it would be “inhabited.” But this forty acre rock in the Black Sea is so far south it’s barely in Ukraine.

Beyond this dispute over economic rights, the island’s strategic value to the Ukrainians is zero. Basing Ukrainian missiles on the island only adds a fraction to their effective range, at the cost of putting them in an exposed location where they would likely be destroyed.

How about the Russians using it for an amphibious assault? Did I already mention the island is only about 40 acres? The island has a tiny, wooden dock that can’t take the weight of a single vehicle, so how would this assault disembark? And the idea of packing a significant “amphibious assault” force into an area this small is absurd.

A single American HIMARS rocket contains cluster munitions that spread out over an area of several acres - and each HIMARS truck carries six of them. No anti-missile system is going to stop everything fired at it so any forces assembled on this rock could be obliterated by a single strike with rocket artillery. No one is stupid enough to mass troops this close together and this exposed.

And of course, what would these troops be assaulting? The very southern tip of Ukraine? There are no major cities, no valuable prizes on shore near Snake Island. And as already pointed out, it’s a very long drive up the coast if the Russians are trying to outflank Ukrainian troops near Odessa using the handful of troops they could pack onto this tiny island.

Are we to believe the Russian plan is to put their troops on transports, go west from Crimea about 170 km, then stop 30 km short of the Ukrainian shoreline to take a pee break on Snake Island? The entire idea is ridiculous. Daffy? Nonsensical? I need to check that Thesaurus again.

“The Snake Island Campaign”

The article in France 24 is one of the references used by whoever put together the Wikipedia page titled 2022 Snake Island campaign. Today is one of the very few time we’ll use Wikipedia as a reference - in this case as an example of how difficult it is to determine what actually happened. Here’s a quote from that page:

Despite being a small and almost unremarkable island, Snake Island has been described as strategically valuable, besides the symbolic value for Ukrainian resistance which the island attained due to the famous exchange between the Ukrainian garrisons and the Moskva at the onset of the invasion. Control over the island would allow Russia to establish long-range air defense, cruise missiles, and electronic warfare assets to cover the north-western part of the Black Sea and southern Ukraine, as well as help the Russian navy reinforce its naval blockade and control the flow of civilian vessels. (Wikipedia)

The phrase “Snake Island has been described as strategically valuable” certainly leaves the editors at Wikipedia a lot of wiggle room. Actual analysts who study military strategy generally agree that the island has no practical value for the Ukrainians. The Russians could make some use of the island but anything they put on it would be very vulnerable.

A quick bit about the S-300/S-400 missile systems

The suggestion of “long range air defense” is a reference to siting a system like the S-300 (or the newer S-400) on the island. Able to engage dozens of targets at once, the S-300 is designed to counter ballistic missiles but can also shoot down aircraft at high speeds and altitudes, and from long ranges.

The system can include different types and numbers of radars and launchers depending on need. A typical S-300 battery includes a command vehicle, two radar vehicles (one for surveillance and one for missile guidance), and six to twelve launchers, plus reloading vehicles. The vehicles are normally placed singly, in different locations, and can be tens of kilometers apart. The individual launchers can move immediately after launching missiles to reduce the chance of them being located and destroyed.

The idea that the Russians would put this huge, expensive system on a tiny, flat rock is simply ridiculous. It’s also difficult to take seriously the commentary of journalists who don’t realize this (or choose to ignore it).

Taking claims at face value

Per the Wikipedia page, here are the claims of equipment destroyed by the Ukrainians during the “campaign,” and what they claim destroyed each one in parentheses:

• 2 Strela-10 short range surface to air missile systems (using a Baykar Bayraktar TB2 drone)

• 2 Tor short range surface to air missile systems (TB2)

• 2 Pantsir-S1 medium-range surface-to-air missile and anti-aircraft artillery systems (not stated)

• 3-4 Raptor class patrol boats (TB2)

• 1 Serna class landing craft (TB2)

• 1 Mi-8 transport helicopter (TB2)

• 1 Ka-52 attack helicopter (not stated)

• Moskva cruiser sunk (using Neptune missiles, but aided by a TB2 confusing the ship’s radar)

• Spasatel Vasily Bekh rescue tug sunk (using Harpoon missiles)

• Vsevolod Bobrov logistics support ship damaged (not stated)

The Ka-52 helicopter was, according to the Ukrainians, one of four helicopters engaged in a search and rescue operation.

Based on these claims the Ukrainians have apparently been making excellent use of TB2 drones. One wonders why every western military doesn’t have a thousand of them on order right now.

On to the Super Drones! The Baykar Bayraktar TB2

The Ukrainian military has been using Turkish-built Baykar Bayraktar TB2 drones - although the exact number they have is unclear. Back in 2020 a deal was announced to purchase 48 of them, but it’s unlikely all of these have been delivered.

The drone, manufactured by Baykar of Turkey, is an Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) drone. Propeller driven and with a whopping 105 horsepower, it has a top speed of only about 140 mph but an endurance of over 24 hours. I’s designed for low speed, low and medium altitude surveillance.

The drone also has four weapons pylons with a capacity of 150 kg (330 lbs.), so it can launch things like small precision weapons and anti-tank missiles. It has a wingspan of about 40 feet and a maximum takeoff weight of only about 1,500 lbs.

For an idea of the size of the drone, here’s an image of a TB2 next to a Su-25 attack aircraft.

[Side note: many stock images of the TB2 in flight (for example, on Shutterstock) show all three landing gear, or none. The no-gear pictures are, well, wrong. When in flight the nose wheel is retracted to give the optics a better forward view, but the rear wheels are fixed. Here’s one of the rare photos of one in flight. The good news is that I’m not the only person to buy this photo, so other people do care.]

So the TB2 is a surveillance drone that can also be used to drop small, precision munitions, and it’s been used in several conflicts globally. They saw use in places like Syria, where several were apparently shot down using the same missile systems the Ukrainians claim to have destroyed with them.

A few words on kill claims in war

Few people study military history at the level of detail of comparing battlefield kill claims, and almost no one in the general public has any exposure to this subject.

Kill claims are always exaggerated. This isn’t necessarily because people are trying to lie - flying low over a knocked-out tank to take a nice, pretty picture of it is asking to get shot down. It’s also hard to tell the difference between “damaged” and “destroyed.” It’s very common for kill claims to be much greater than actual losses.

This topic will require a lot more discussion in the context of the current war, so for now just be aware that no one takes all kill claims at face value.

The Russians disagree with many of the claims

The Russians, of course, dispute many of the claims. For example, Ukraine says on 21 June they destroyed several vehicles and an anti-aircraft missile system, probably a Pantsir-S1. The quote we saw earlier was part of the second paragraph in the France 24 article:

Authorities in Kyiv said Ukrainian forces had launched missile strikes and drones from the coast on June 21, destroying Russian military vehicles, anti-aircraft defences and a radar system on Snake Island, a piece of rock smaller than 0.7 square kilometres located about 40km southwest of Odesa. (France 24)

We’re going to give France 24 a nod here for at least including the Russian response:

The Russian military denied the claims, saying its defences held up as its forces on the island intercepted all the Ukrainian missiles and shot down 13 of the 15 drones. (France 24)

The author has written an article that, for the most part, ignores the statements of its own sources. But there’s a method to the madness:

This ferocious contestation of the narrative says a lot about how important Snake Island is to both Kyiv and Moscow. (France 24)

Once again, the author is trying to create a narrative of the importance of Snake Island. The Russians disagreeing with Ukrainian kill claims isn’t “ferocious contestation.” But phrasing it this way makes it seem the island has much greater importance to the Russians.

Vsevolod Bobrov

Good old Wikipedia has a page about the Vsevolod Bobrov (the damaged logistics ship), and the editors of that page are more skeptical of the claims listed on the “Snake Island campaign” page. Here’s one of the references from the page on the ship itself:

U.S.-backed media outlet Radio Svoboda has confirmed reports that the Russian naval auxiliary Vsevolod Bobrov has returned safely to Sebastopol, without apparent signs of damage. (The Maritime Executive4)

The Ukrainians claimed the ship was damaged and on fire. The Russian navy released several photos of the ship docked at Sevastopol, and there are no signs of damage at all. Things like this tend to make me a bit skeptical of Wikipedia’s reliability, and of Ukrainian claims.

We’re going to look into ship losses more in the next article. There are a lot of confusing and sometimes illogical bits to the accepted stories on these ships, and going into why means looking at a lot of details.

The same pattern holds for most of the claims - the Ukrainians claim their wonder drones have been wrecking the Russian troops on the island, while the Russians disagree. The only evidence available to substantiate the claims are poor resolution images or video that may or may not be showing what is claimed.

What about Russian claims? They claim having repelled multiple attempts by the Ukrainians to retake the island, as well as having shot down over a dozen drones, at least two aircraft, and many missiles.

One thing is very likely true - the drones haven’t been nearly as significant as the Ukrainians claim.

What weapons are the Ukrainians really using?

Did the Ukrainians really inflict all this damage with some Turkish-built drones? Doubtful. The drones are a good purchase, but they represent only a tiny portion of the munitions aimed at Snake Island.

Both sides admit the Ukrainians have hit the island with Su-24 and Su-25 aircraft - and the Russians claimed to have shot down one of each. Per the Russians, the Ukrainians have also been hitting the island with missiles and artillery from shore.

The Ukrainians have also claimed they hit the island with 155 mm (NATO standard) howitzers, 122 mm (Russian/Soviet) rocket artillery, airstrikes, and drone strikes.

Snake Island is too far from shore to be hit with most howitzer rounds, except maybe for some long range munitions like the American Excaliber round. Excalibers are very expensive and it’s not clear the Ukrainians have even received any, but the island is in range of a lot of rocket artillery and they definitely have that.

What about the TB2 drones? The majority of the Ukrainian kill claims state the targets were destroyed by drones - which could only have carried a tiny fraction of the munitions actually used. A TB2 carries 150 kg of weapons, while a HIMARS system’s six rockets carry 550 kg of munitions and a single Su-24 carries 8,000 kg.

Since the U.S. never signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions, the HIMARS rockets are effectively 200 pound cluster bombs, whose individual munitions cover up to a few acres. Not many of these would need to make it through Russian air defenses to cause a lot of damage on a place as exposed as Snake Island.

It’s much more likely the majority of the damage was caused by rockets and airstrikes.

So what’s a reasonable take on Snake Island?

First, Snake Island is not a significant piece of real estate. It has no strategic value to the Ukrainians, and limited value to the Russians. Russia invaded Ukraine with 190,000 troops and have called up 300,000 reserves - but there have never been more than a few dozen troops, from either side, on Snake Island. It’s a sideshow in this war.

I suspect the Russians thought, given the limited value of air defense systems stationed on the island, that the Ukrainians wouldn’t waste a lot of resources responding. The Ukrainians, however, saw an opportunity to make the island into a propaganda win - they even released of a commemorative stamp.

So they used drones, aircraft and rocket artillery to hit the island repeatedly - and with such a small space to hit, and so few places to hide, they have forced the Russians to withdraw their troops.

Losing the Moskva looks bad, but emphasizing (or exaggerating) Ukrainian attempts at amphibious landings makes the Russians appear effective despite its loss - so maybe that’s a bunch of propaganda too.

In the end Ukraine has declared a great “victory” and news outlets like France 24 have amplified this message, telling their readers the island has great strategic and symbolic value.

A more realistic view of events is that Ukraine probably used large numbers of difficult to replace artillery rockets, and lost a significant fraction of their TB2 drones as well as some aircraft, attacking the island. It’s a large expenditure of valuable munitions to force the withdrawal of a few dozen Russian troops from a little rock. It looks like an impressive victory until we remember that there wasn’t much value in holding the island to being with.

The most significant event associated with Snake Island is the loss of the Moskva, which was a valuable part of the Black Sea Fleet. The Russians are being very tight-lipped about the loss and the Ukrainians are making a claim that’s difficult to substantiate, so we’re going to look into it in a lot more detail in the next article. For the Ukrainians, the loss of the Moskva is a huge addition to the propaganda value of hyping the importance of Snake Island.

Some final thoughts on propaganda (for now)

The article told us “Snake Island’s most significant quality is its proximity to Odesa” then the author proceeded to mis-locate the island (and even get the size wrong).

We’re told the island is potentially very useful for staging an amphibious assault (it’s not) or for placing a long range air defense system (also wrong).

We’re told control of the island is vital for preventing a global food crisis (also not true). With or without the island, commercial shipping is halted.

The reality of which side is winning (whatever that means for each of them) is independent of our own desire for a particular outcome, or our own view of the morality of the conflict.

Getting accurate information during a war is hard enough, but in this case a lot of western media is effectively just propaganda. We’ll be reviewing other claims in the future, and this analysis has provided some perspective on how out of touch much of the reporting can be.

Trying to unravel what happened even in a small, isolated theater of the war turned out to be very difficult, and a lot of western reporting is not just unreliable - it’s laughably bad. This is making the “fog of war” in Ukraine almost impenetrable.

Part 2: Moskva

Pictured above is the world’s first operational jet fighter, the Messerschmitt ME 262. According to the Smithsonian’s website:

Nicknamed Schwalbe (Swallow), the Messerschmitt Me 262 surpassed the performance of every other World War II fighter. Faster than the North American P-51 Mustang by 190 kilometers (120 miles) per hour, the Schwalbe restored to the faltering German Luftwaffe a short-lived qualitative superiority that it had enjoyed earlier in the war.

Coming very late during the Second World War, only about 300 of these planes were used in combat. Estimates on the number of air-to-air kills using the ME 262 vary, but generally range from about 500 to over 700 kills for the loss of about 100 of the jets.

This success came despite the German pilots being drastically outnumbered and with their air bases under regular attack. In fact, most of the ME 262 losses occurred either on the airfields or during landing and takeoff, when the lower air speeds made the planes more vulnerable.

Fortunately for the allies, 300 or so of these planes weren’t nearly enough to make a significant difference in the outcome of the war. But the fielding of this plane, along with other advanced weapons like the V-1 flying bomb, demonstrated scientific and engineering prowess not just on par with the Allies, but sometimes even superior.

Simply Abysmal Scholarship

Why am I bringing this up? Because I recently read the article1 referenced by this:

The general point of the article is that a “woke” military (his words, by the way) will always defeat a “hyper-masculine” military, and the author (O’Brien) tries to support this statement with a grossly incorrect summary of combat in the Second World War.

The resulting op-ed is an insult to history, facts and common sense. The author’s version of history gets nearly everything backwards; he claims the U.S. and Great Britain had an enormous technological advantage over the Germans (they didn’t). He claims the Germans had vastly more weapons than the U.S. and Great Britain (they didn’t).

In fact, almost nothing about the Second World War in this article is correct. In an impressive display of anti-scholarship, the author has destroyed all his credibility with a single article.

Let’s start with a comparison of troop losses that sounds impressive:

The combination of education and technology overcame brute force during World War II, when the most militarily skillful and adaptable countries—the United States and the United Kingdom—were able to fight their enemies at a relatively small cost in casualties. The U.K., even though it fought around the world from 1939 to 1945, lost only 384,000 soldiers in combat. The U.S. lost even fewer, suffering approximately 290,000 battle deaths. The German armed forces, by contrast, lost more than 4 million soldiers. (O’Brien)

This statement conveniently leaves out the fact that the majority of German casualties were caused by the Soviet Red Army, not the British and Americans. The losses appear extremely lop-sided if your summary leaves out an entire country (the USSR) and the fighting on the eastern front.

He does admit to a “sickening number of human casualties” on the eastern front while insisting that most of Germany’s strength was in the west. Apparently the German soldiers fighting in Russia were equipped with the equivalent of butter knives.

That the British and American armed forces kept their casualties comparatively low is especially notable because they were confronted with an overwhelming majority of German arms, planes, and ammunition. Because of the sickening number of human casualties, the fighting on the Eastern Front between the Nazis and Soviets is widely deemed World War II’s largest engagement, but Germany had to send far more of its war production to fight the British and Americans than it did to fight the U.S.S.R. (O’Brien)

This entire paragraph is so ridiculous that the English language contains no words strong enough to characterize such an extreme disconnect from reality. The Allies outproduced the Axis countries in every important category of military equipment, and by huge margins. O’Brien’s assertion is so wrong that the average reader would be better informed if he had never written the article at all.

Let’s talk about tanks

The Second World War saw the first widespread use of tanks, and the German military pioneered the best tactics with them. But did they have “overwhelming” numbers? No, instead the situation was the other way around.

Jane Information Service is a highly respected publisher of military history and data, and is a frequently relied upon source. Here are tank production numbers from Jane’s World War II Tanks and Fighting Vehicles by Leland Ness:

The Second World War spanned from 1939 to 1945. Ness has started with 1937 tank production, which makes sense given many of those vehicles saw service in the war. Ness has stopped after 1944, which again makes sense since 1945 was only a partial year - German production stopped, (it’s hard to build tanks with Allied troops in the building) and the Allies were ramping down their own production as well. Tanks built in the U.S. in early 1945 wouldn’t get to the front lines in Europe in time to be of use, so there was no sense building more of them.

The difference in numbers is staggering, but in the opposite direction from what is stated in the op-ed. All Axis tank production is less than 49,000, while U.S. and British production alone is 116,000, with the Soviets adding another 94,000 by themselves. Allied tank production exceeded Axis production by a factor of four. And note the U.S. and Britain were actually slowing down production after 1943 - they clearly felt they had more than enough tanks.

Nearly all these tanks were used in the European theater (eastern and western fronts). Only a small number of Allied tanks were used in the Pacific, where the jungle terrain severely limited their usefulness. In Europe the Germans were nearly always outnumbered in tanks.

The Allies built more aircraft too

As another quick example aircraft production was also lopsided, although in this case Japan’s output is large enough to be a significant fraction of the total.

Sources vary on these numbers, but generally show about 200,000 for American production, 100,000 each for the UK and USSR, and fewer than 100,000 for for Germany. These totals are for combat aircraft - the numbers are even more lopsided if we include transports, trainers, etc.

Also keep in mind the U.S. and UK were building large numbers of big strategic bombers, each of which cost as much as several smaller aircraft - while the Axis powers built virtually none.

The numbers for nearly everything (artillery, machine guns, etc.) follow this pattern - the Allies built several times more of all the types of weapons needed in a modern war. The Second World War was really a war of competing economies, and the Germans were operating at a huge disadvantage even before the US formally entered the war. This overwhelming numerical superiority was due to the enormous size of the combined manufacturing base of the Allies.

How did this work out in the field? Britannica has concise summary of the Second World War, so let’s look at a few sections about combat on the western front (note how easy this research is - we’re just reading an encyclopedia). The Allied superiority in the amount of war material is mentioned constantly.

Invasion of Italy

After defeating the relatively weak German and Italian forces in North Africa, the first major invasion of the European continent by the British and Americans was in Sicily.

Sicily

Most of the defenders were Italian troops, supported by two German divisions and the German Luftwaffe (air force).

Having failed to save its forces in Tunisia, the Axis had only 10 Italian divisions of various sorts and two German panzer2 units stationed on the island of Sicily at midsummer 1943. The Allies, meanwhile, were preparing to throw some 478,000 men into the island—150,000 of them in the first three days of the invasion. (Britannica)

The Italians had around 200,000 troops on the island and the two German units added about 30,000 ground troops and 30,000 Luftwaffe personnel. But the Allies had an important advantage.

The Allies’ air superiority in the Mediterranean theatre was so great by this time—more than 4,000 aircraft against some 1,500 German and Italian ones—that the Axis bombers had been withdrawn from Sicily in June to bases in north-central Italy. (Britannica)

So the Italian and German troops operated without air support for the duration of the campaign. Between lack of German air support, and the big guns of the Allied ships offshore, the defenders on Sicily were heavily outmatched.

Salerno

On the Italian mainland the allies landed 170,000 men at Salerno, which was initially defended by only a single German division. Despite this massive advantage, the allies needed six days to secure the landing areas.

The landing on the “shin” of Italy, at Salerno, just south of Naples, was begun on September 9, by the mixed U.S.–British 5th Army, under U.S. General Mark Clark. Transported by 700 ships, 55,000 men made the initial assault, and 115,000 more followed up. At first they were faced only by the German 16th Panzer Division; but Kesselring, though he had only eight weak divisions to defend all southern and central Italy, had had time to plan since the fall of Mussolini and had been expecting a blow at the “shin.” His counterstroke made the success of the Salerno landing precarious for six days, and it was not until October 1 that the 5th Army entered Naples. (Britannica)

The Allied forces eventually succeeded - with a massive advantage in artillery and air support, plus support from large caliber naval guns.

Invasion of France

The D-Day landings were on 6 June 1944 and by November the British and Americans were already approaching the German frontier, stopping as their supply lines became dangerously stretched. How did they manage this advance? More men, and way more tanks, aircraft and artillery.

The Allies’ amazing advance of 350 miles in a few weeks was thus brought to a halt. In early September the U.S. and British forces had had a combined superiority of 20 to 1 in tanks and 25 to 1 in aircraft over the Germans, but by November 1944 the Germans still held both the Ruhr Valley and the Saarland, after having been so near collapse in the west in early September that one or the other of those prizes could have easily been taken by the Allies. (Britannica)

This is an actual example of an “overwhelming majority” in war material, but to the advantage of the Allies, not the Germans. O’Brien has inverted history. Italy and France were the two main operating areas for the Allies in western Europe, and the balance of forces was consistently the opposite of what O’Brien tells us.

Why are the Germans so weak on the western front from the moment Britain and America start invading the continent? Because the bulk of the German military was in the east, being ground down by the Red Army.

In the west, the Allies treated equipment as cheap but the lives of soldiers as very dear. So when they ran into strong resistance, they brought in massive amounts of artillery, aircraft and tanks, to hammer away at the defenders before continuing their advance.

And in fact, the low American and British casualties were a result of the exact tactics for which the O’Brien criticizes the Russians: the use of massive artillery and aerial bombardment prior to risking any ground troops.

Some big tank battles

To emphasize the relative commitment of material the Germans made to the eastern and western fronts, let’s look at some significant events. First, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 was simply massive:

For the campaign against the Soviet Union, the Germans allotted almost 150 divisions containing a total of about 3,000,000 men. Among these were 19 panzer divisions, and in total the “Barbarossa” force had about 3,000 tanks, 7,000 artillery pieces, and 2,500 aircraft. It was in effect the largest and most powerful invasion force in human history. (Britannica)

Even with this huge force, the Germans were numerically inferior. One example of the fighting was the Battle of Raseiniai, which saw 240 German tanks versus 750 Soviet tanks, with the Germans destroying 700 Soviet tanks thanks to skillful coordination with tactical aircraft.

Also during Barbarossa, the Battle of Brody involved 1,000 German tanks facing 3,000 Soviet tanks, but once again their superior tactics combined with the use of air support resulted in a big German victory.

At Kursk, two years after Barbarossa, a series of battles took place over several weeks that saw 3,000 German tanks and 5,000 Soviet tanks employed. By this time in the war, the Red Army’s tactics had improved significantly and although the Germans again lost fewer men and tanks, they failed to achieve their main objective.

The Germans employed millions of troops and thousands of tanks against the Soviets, but there were few tank battles of this scope on the western front. Two are of the same scale as the battles that had been occurring for years on the eastern front.

The largest tank battle in the west after D-Day was Operation Goodwood, a British offensive with 1,100 British tanks attacking a German force with 370 tanks. But the Germans by this time had the powerful Tiger I and Tiger II, and the British ended up losing 250-300 tanks while destroying only about 75. Most of the German losses were to attacks from the air, where the British and Americans had complete dominance.

The only major German offensive on the western front after D-Day was the Battle of the Bulge. The Germans secretly massed their forces for months, then attacked with over 1,000 tanks and tank destroyers. The Allies countered by reinforcing with thousands (plural) of tanks, tank destroyers and other vehicles. The battle ended after the weather cleared and the Allies sent in 5,000 aircraft to overwhelm the German formations.

Unlike O’Brien’s characterization of the war, the bulk of the German tanks were on the eastern front, and they were consistently facing numerically superior forces on both fronts. Superior German tactics are credited for many of their victories, and in other cases they have a technological advantage that results in lopsided losses - in their favor.

Everything is backwards

Reading O’Brien’s op-ed, anyone who is ignorant of the details of WWII would finish with a gross misunderstanding of the war. In reality, this is a more accurate view of the war:

1. Germany began the war with a slight technological advantage. The advantage in weapons technology went back and forth between the two sides, but the Germans were able to produce technologically competitive weapons up to the end.

2. The Allies out produced the Axis countries, several times over, in every category. This was mostly due to their combined economies being much larger, and partially due to superior manufacturing techniques.

3. Most of the German war production went to the eastern front, not the western front. A partial exception to this was in aircraft - Britain and America were building huge numbers of high altitude bombers to attack German cities, so the best German planes were in the west.

4. The vast majority of German casualties were caused by the Red Army, not Britain and America. This wasn’t because the Germans on the eastern front were poorly equipped, it’s because that’s where most of the fighting took place. In addition, the combat effectiveness of the Red Army improved significantly throughout the war.

5. The German Luftwaffe (air force) was destroyed by the American and British air forces - and this was arguably the biggest American contribution to the actual fighting.

6. As the war progressed the British and Americans used their enormous superiority in material, and their complete control of the air, to win battles while limiting casualties. (The sensible approach if one has these advantages.)

The article made no mention of strategic resources, but I would be remiss not to mention that Germany was almost completely lacking in oil. Fuel shortages plagued the Germans throughout the war, and some of their advances were stopped by lack of fuel rather than by enemy action. (Remember, amateurs talk tactics but experts study logistics.)

O’Brien completely mischaracterizes the largest war in human history, and tries to use this as support for his argument that the Ukrainians will win the war because their military is so very progressive. And by extension, this means the US military should be the same.

Now on to Russia and Ukraine

Here’s how O’Brien opens his op-ed:

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his generals aren’t the only people who think that the more ruthless, hypermasculine, and reflexively brutal an army is, the better it performs on the battlefield. That view also has fans in the United States. (O’Brien)

He begins by conflating “masculine” with “ruthless” and “brutal” as though these things naturally occur together, a neat rhetorical trick. But there’s no evidence Putin, or the Russians in general, think a “reflexively brutal” army is more effective - he’s trying to tell us what other people think, based on his perception of recruiting ads.

Last year, Senator Ted Cruz recirculated a TikTok video that contrasted a Russian military-recruitment ad, which showed a male soldier getting ready to kill people, with an American recruitment video that told the story of a female soldier—the daughter of two mothers—who enlisted partly to challenge stereotypes. (O’Brien)

So prior to regaling us with tales of the huge losses inflicted on the Germans, O’Brien explains that training soldiers to kill is not as important as challenging stereotypes.

He then tells us that Ted Cruz and Tucker Carlson (both of whom have criticized “woke” ideology in the American military) are of the same misguided mindset as Putin. And of course they’re all wrong:

Arguments like these were much easier to make before Putin unleashed his muscle-bound and decidedly unwoke fighting machine on the ostensibly weak Ukrainians, only to see it perform catastrophically. (O’Brien)

O’Brien hasn’t told us what he thinks the Russian’s strategic aims are for this war, so we have no marker against which to measure their success or failure. My first article about the war, Grand Strategy, proposes what would be a sensible goal for the Russians, which is strategic control of the Sea of Azov. If this is truly their goal then they’re doing well.

O’Brien, on the other hand, seems to be living in some kind of bubble of unreality, in which the Ukrainians win every battle but can’t win the war.

From the moment the Russian military crossed the border, the Ukrainians have outfought it, revealing it to be inflexible and intellectually vapid. (O’Brien)

Somehow the Ukrainians are outfighting the Russians at every turn, but the Russians are still occupying large (and critical) areas of Ukraine. For example, the Russians took control of the city of Enerhodar (“Energy’s gift”) early - a city which contains the largest nuclear power plant in Europe plus a thermal power plant, for a total of about 15% of all the electrical generating capacity in Ukraine.

But this is how O’Brien sees the war:

The Battle of the Donbas, the war’s longest engagement, which started in late April and is still under way, exposed the Russian army at its worst. For months, it directed the bulk of personnel and equipment toward the center of a battle line running approximately from Izyum to Donetsk. (O’Brien)

In an article complaining about what the author perceives as the simplistic approach to war as conducted by the “hyper-masculine,” the author has demonstrated the simplistic thinking he’s mocking. He has ignored (or is unaware of) the significance of the Russian advance to Kherson in the west, or the importance of clearing out resistance in Mariopol early in the war.

Instead of breaking through Ukrainian lines and sending armored forces streaking forward rapidly, as many analysts had predicted, the Russian army opted to make painfully slow, incremental advances, by simply blasting the area directly in front of it. (O’Brien)

This may simply mean the analysts O’Brien is consulting were wrong about Russian strategy, which wouldn’t be surprising given the bubble in which he appears to operate. But also of importance, what he’s describing is exactly what the Americans and British were doing in Europe in WWII, and it’s the opposite of stupid. If you have more big guns than your enemy, use them.

Just like those analysts he mentions, the author assumes he understands the overall Russian strategic plan for the war. Because it’s not playing out the way he thinks it should the Russians must be incompetent. In fact, O’Brien makes a ridiculous statement that again destroys his own credibility.

I struggle to think of another case in the past 100 years when a major military power has performed as poorly against an adversary it was heavily favored to defeat. (O’Brien)

And how, one wonders, would the author rate the American military in the Vietnam War? The contrast in military might between the two sides could hardly be more extreme, yet America was unable to dictate the outcome of the war.

Going back to his own example of WWII, prior to the war the French army was seen as the most powerful in Europe. Yet France fell to the Germans in only six weeks - an outcome that military experts at the time viewed as simply impossible.

On the other hand the Soviet Union, originally viewed as much weaker than France, was the country that broke Hitler’s military.

Study history, not propaganda

The current war is ongoing, and the propaganda is rampant - making it very difficult to assess the progress of both sides in real time. We won’t know the full story behind the major engagements until sometime after the war, but in the meantime O’Brien assumes he has an accurate view of events, and he declares that it supports his opinions about how a modern military should operate. Given how clearly biased he is on the war, none of his assertions about the fighting can be given any weight.

As for the op-ed itself, the entire screed is just naked propaganda for O’Brien’s own “woke” agenda for the American military. And like most advocates of that agenda, he won’t let something as inconsequential as facts get in the way.

When I was a youngster attending school back in 19-something-something, the Cuban Missile Crisis was taught as an American triumph in which President Kennedy stared down an aggressive Soviet Union, bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war but eventually resulting in the removal of Soviet nuclear weapons from Cuba.

A 2012 article by Leslie H. Gelb, The Myth That Screwed Up 50 Years of U.S. Foreign Policy1, began by summarizing this perspective.

U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s skillful management of the Cuban missile crisis, 50 years ago this autumn, has been elevated into the central myth of the Cold War. At its core is the tale that, by virtue of U.S. military superiority and his steely will, Kennedy forced Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to capitulate and remove the nuclear missiles he had secretly deployed to Cuba. (Gelb)

The official story, however, is a version so simplistic that the most important lessons from the crisis are lost. The picture above shows one of the central pieces of the story - the Jupiter Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM).

In fact, the crisis concluded not with Moscow’s unconditional diplomatic whimper, but with mutual concessions. The Soviets withdrew their missiles from Cuba in return for U.S. pledges not to invade Fidel Castro’s island and to remove Jupiter missiles from Turkey. (Gelb)

The Jupiter missiles were based in Turkey and Italy, and both groups of missiles were disassembled and removed. In addition, the Americans withdrew sixty Thor missiles, each carrying the same warhead as the Jupiters, that had been deployed in the UK.

For their part, the Soviets withdrew their IL-28 bombers from Cuba and disassembled their SS-4 and SS-5 nuclear missile launch sites. Rather than a one-sided triumph for America, the deal was closer to being an even trade of offensive firepower.

The Big Board

Although the most well known, the Cuban Missile Crisis was just one event occurring on the Big Board of geopolitics during the Cold War. Whether at war or at peace, governments are constantly making moves and countermoves as each tries to strengthen their own position on the Board.

Current players can’t alter previous moves - they can only deal with the strategic situation as it currently stands. President Kennedy inherited an already complex situation, the result of moves made by the Soviets and by the previous President. Combined with decisions made by Kennedy himself, this culminated in the famous standoff.

To better understand the lead up to, and resolution of, the Cuban Missile Crisis, we’re going to start by looking at some of the moves prior to the crisis, sixty years ago.

Prior to the crisis

The late fifties and early sixties were busy times in the world of geopolitics. Here are just some of the significant events adding to the tension of the Cold War:

• November 1956: The Hungarian Revolution ends in failure after the Soviet military invades, using huge numbers of tanks and other armored vehicles to put down the revolutionaries.

• October 1957: Sputnik 1 is the first successful satellite launch. Although the Americans will beat them to the moon, at this point the Soviets are still several years ahead in the Space Race.

• January 1959: The Cuban Revolution ends with Castro’s communists in power, and by 1960 the full American embargo is in place. This creates an opportunity for the Soviets, who begin providing military aid.

• May 1960: An American U-2 spy plane is shot down over Sverdlovsk, Russia. Many of the U-2 flights violate Soviet airspace, something which is now impossible for the Americans to deny.

• April 1961: The Bay of Pigs invasion. American supported counter revolutionaries attempt (and fail) to overthrow Castro’s government.

• May 1961: Kennedy escalates in Vietnam, sending 400 Army Special Forces trainers to South Vietnam. (By the time of Kennedy’s assassination this number will be around 16,000.)

• June 1961: The Berlin Crisis begins when Khrushchev demands the removal of NATO military units from Berlin by the end of 1961.

• June 1961: After years of diplomatic efforts, Jupiter missiles are installed and operational in Italy.

• November 1961: After a tense standoff, the Berlin Crisis ends when both Khrushchev and Kennedy agree to withdraw their tanks. Construction of the Berlin Wall begins.

• April 1962: Jupiter missiles are installed and operational in Turkey.

• October 1962: The Cuban Missile Crisis.

And this is only a partial list. A lot is happening around the world in the years before the crisis in Cuba, with the Americans and the Soviets both making moves on the Big Board while they’re also at the negotiating table.

One of these events requires some explanation to understand its strategic significance, and its relevance to the Cuban crisis - the world’s first successful satellite launch.

Sputnik

A smallish satellite that did nothing more than orbit the Earth for a few weeks emitting a cute little beep, Sputnik was a major propaganda victory for the Soviets.

But the strategic implications of Sputnik were also enormous, demonstrating a technology that would permanently change how we all view the Board. Philip Nash, in his book The Other Missiles of October2, describes the issue raised by the success of Sputnik.

In NATO Europe, Sputnik severely exacerbated what had become, by 1957, a fundamental problem confronting the Atlantic alliance: that even as NATO increased its dependence on nuclear weapons, European members increasingly doubted the reliability of the U.S. nuclear deterrent. (Nash)

Following the end of WWII, the Soviets had the most powerful land army in the world. This huge military force was seen as a very serious threat to the security of western Europe - so powerful that the NATO countries assumed nuclear weapons would be needed to stop it. But the Europeans had a concern:

If the Red Army attacked toward the Rhine, would the United States use its nuclear weapons and risk suicide, or let Europe fall in hope of surviving? (Nash)

With its geographic isolation created by two large oceans, America in the pre-ICBM era was virtually immune to meaningful attack, and could act without fear of repercussions for its civilian population. But the Sputnik program marked the beginning of a new strategic calculus:

The breakthrough represented many things for the Soviets, including a major propaganda coup, proof of their technological sophistication, and most important, confirmation of their ICBM capability, which they had first demonstrated in August. (Nash)

To be blunt, putting Sputnik into orbit demonstrated the Soviets also had the ability to put a nuclear-warhead-sized object anywhere on earth. This was a chess piece that could threaten parts of the Big Board that were previously unreachable.

For America, the board suddenly became much, much smaller. For its European allies, the prospect of America refusing to get involved in a continental European war became much more likely.

America tries to reassure its allies

Immediately following the success of Sputnik, at the semi-annual meeting of NATO’s governing body in December 1957, the U.S. made an offer to its European allies.

After the ailing Eisenhower delivered brief words of encouragement, his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, tabled the U.S. proposals. Chief among them was the U.S. offer, as Dulles put it, “to make available to other NATO countries intermediate-range ballistic missiles, for deployment in accordance with the plans of SACEUR,” NATO’s military commander. (Nash)

The plan was proposed by General Lauris Norstad (SACEUR stands for Supreme Allied Commander, Europe) and this offer would eventually culminate in the placement of the Jupiter missiles.

It wasn’t the only option available - both the U.S. and the Soviets had developed, and built, significant numbers of tactical nuclear weapons. As an example, the U.S. had nuclear artillery shells that could be fired from any standard American 155 mm howitzer, and which had an explosive force equivalent to the entire payload of several heavy bombers.

A few years earlier Norstad had proposed creating a joint NATO stockpile of these types of tactical weapons, so they would be immediately available to NATO allies in Europe in the event of a Soviet invasion.

This concept, which General Norstad and then the French had originally proposed in 1956, envisaged a joint stockpile of nuclear weapons of several types, including tactical, aircraft- and artillery-delivered, and air defense, pre-positioned for NATO’s use. (Nash)

Prior to the NATO meeting, Norstad had suggested making a public announcement of the availability of the tactical weapons in Europe, to reassure America’s allies about the American commitment to a nuclear defense.

However, even for the moment accepting the predicament in which Eisenhower and Dulles had placed themselves by calling the summit meeting, and the resulting need for a substantive proposal, the IRBM offer is questionable because other options existed. Perhaps the most feasible was suggested to Eisenhower by none other than Norstad, in late October, that is, before the administration announced the IRBM offer: the nuclear stockpile, standing alone and not in the shadow of the IRBM offer as actually occurred. (Nash)

Eisenhower instead moved forward with offering NATO allies the new IRBMs, which meant basing the new missiles in Europe - and under joint control with each host country.

Jupiter and Thor

The missiles being offered to America’s allies were the Jupiter and Thor IRBMs. Once based in Europe, the short flight time of these new missiles significantly increased the threat the US could present to the Soviets.

The IRBM deployment episode at least confirms the suggestion of revisionists that Eisenhower was no idiot. He recognized, in 1959, that IRBMs represented a new development in strategic weapons, in that NATO could now hit the Soviet Union while giving its forces little warning and no hope of defense. (Nash)

After years of negotiation with different NATO allies, 30 Jupiter missiles were installed in Italy, 15 Jupiters went to Turkey, and 60 Thor missiles were based in the UK. As Nash describes in his introduction, these missiles were fully operational.

Italian crews tended the missiles in their country, while in Turkey the U.S. Air Force did the honors as the Turks finished their training. In case of a serious alert, crews would pump their IRBMs’ fuel tanks full of a liquid oxygen-kerosene mix. Although originally intended to be kept in separate concrete “igloos” in USAF custody—in accordance with U.S. law—and mounted only at the last minute, the W-49 thermonuclear warheads already sat atop the missiles to quicken their reaction time. (Nash)

The willingness of Air Force leadership to ignore the law regarding something as significant as the handling of the most powerful weapons in the U.S. arsenal is more than just a little concerning.

One can almost hear Jack Nicholson’s monologue from A Few Good Men playing in the background. After all, the W-49 warhead was not exactly small:

Once over their destinations, the W-49S in their nose cones would each detonate with a force of 1.44 megatons, more than one hundred times the destructive power of the atomic bomb that had incinerated central Hiroshima seventeen years earlier. (Nash)

For those keeping count, that’s 45 Jupiter and 60 Thor missiles sited in Europe, each with a 1.44 megaton warhead and with the range to strike major cities in the Warsaw Pact and in western Russia.

Escalation and resolution in Cuba

While the US was looking for countries to host their new IRBMs, something important happened close to home - the Cuban Revolution. After six years of fighting, January of 1959 saw Castro and the Communists finally in control. The U.S. had placed an embargo on arms sales to Cuba in 1958 (so they started buying from the Soviets) and by 1960 this had been expanded to a trade embargo, allowing only the sale of food and medicine.

In 1961, American backed counter-revolutionaries attempted to overthrow the new government. This ended soon after it started, with the militarily and politically (for the U.S.) disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961.

After the failure of the American-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion, and with the US severing diplomatic ties and enacting sanctions against Cuba, Castro’s government moved closer to their new Soviet allies.

By 1961 the U.S. had successfully based the Jupiter and Thor missiles in Turkey, Italy and the UK, and by 1962 the Soviets had based IL-28 bombers in Cuba. Although their range was not sufficient to reach very far into the continental U.S., these bombers represented a threat similar to that posed by existing American bombers in Europe.

The Soviets also built bases in Cuba for their R-12 (NATO name SS-4) medium range ballistic missiles (MRBM) and R-14 (NATO name SS-5) intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBM).

After receiving confirmation of the missile bases in Cuba (as well as, likely, operational missiles already present), President Kennedy announced a blockade of Soviet ships heading to the island and the “crisis” part of the Cuban Missile Crisis had officially begun. When it ended a few weeks later, the official story was that Kennedy stood firm with the Soviets, and Khrushchev eventually backed down and withdrew the Soviet warships and nuclear missiles.

But we now know Kennedy had secretly offered removal of the Jupiter missiles during negotiations with Khrushchev.

So unknown to the American public a deal was struck: the Soviets agreed to remove their missiles and IL-28 bombers from Cuba, and the Americans agreed not to invade Cuba and to remove their Jupiter missiles. In the end the Americans also removed the Thor missiles, seeing them as no longer strategically important. With this secret deal in place, both sides began publicly deescalating over the next few weeks.

The American need for secrecy meant most of the people involved were kept in the dark, and the Soviets had to put a great deal of trust in the promises of the President.

In reality, the U.S.-Soviet missile agreement of 27 October existed not between the two governments but between only the highest levels of each government, to the exclusion and deception of all levels below. This fact led to two-tiered behavior among both Soviets and Americans. At the highest level, the Americans sought to fulfill their part of the missile bargain and dismantle the Jupiters by 1 April, and the Soviets sat and watched, hoping that Kennedy would keep his word. (Nash)

Kennedy kept his word, and within the promised five months all the Jupiters were disassembled.

Consequences of secrecy

Everyone involved in the deal made by Kennedy kept it secret until the late 1980s. Returning to the article in Foreign Policy:

It was not until 1988, however, that one among them clearly and openly acknowledged his decades-long hypocrisy and its costs. In his book Danger and Survival, McGeorge Bundy, Kennedy’s national security advisor, lamented: "Secrecy of this sort has its costs. By keeping to ourselves the assurance on the Jupiters, we misled our colleagues, our countrymen, our successors, and our allies" into concluding "that it had been enough to stand firm on that Saturday." It took 26 years, but there it was. (Gelb)

The following year Ted Sorenson confirmed the missile deal as well.

In Moscow at a retrospective on the crisis in 1989, JFK speechwriter and confidant Ted Sorensen touted Bobby Kennedy’s Thirteen Days as the definitive account. Dobrynin interrupted to say that the book omitted the Jupiters, to which Sorensen replied that Dobrynin was correct, but at the time, the deal was still "secret." "So I took it upon myself to edit that out," he said. (Gelb)

The Cuban Missile Crisis is seen by many as the pivotal moment in the Cold War - this was when Kennedy gained the upper hand, by using the threat of American military power to force the Soviets to back down.

In reality, although this was the event that arguably brought the world closest to nuclear war, it was one event among several that could potentially ignite a direct conflict. The balance of power moved back and forth between the two sides for most of the Cold War.

But an entire generation of young Americans had grown up with the mythical version of the standoff, and that may be influencing decisions even today. As Gelb puts it:

American leaders don’t like to compromise, and a lingering misunderstanding of those 13 days in October 1962 has a lot to do with it. (Gelb)

In dealing with current international events it would be better to admit, and take lessons from, Kennedy’s careful use of deals, threats, and compromises to successfully weave a path through a very dangerous time.

The article by Gelb in Foreign Policy is ten years old but still very relevant, so please read the whole thing: here’s a link to it if you have time.

The previous article discussed why it’s reasonable to believe a key (if not the key) Russian objective for the war in Ukraine is control of the Sea of Azov. But this is only part of the picture regarding commercial shipping.

There are actually three choke points for Russian ships between the Don River and the Mediterranean. In addition to the northern channel of the Sea of Azov, there’s the Kerch Strait and the Turkish Straits.

Transit to Russia temporarily stopped

Prior to 2014, the easiest place to blockade Russian shipping was the Kerch strait, on the east side of Crimea. Here’s the location of the strait, which provides access between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.

The two large Russian naval bases at Novorossiysk and Sevastopol are located south of the strait, so Russian navy ships must traverse the Kerch Strait to access the Sea of Azov.

Modern commercial vessels are tracked via GPS, and shortly after the start of the 2022 war this tracking data showed commercial ships accumulating in the Kerch Strait. It’s not clear whether these ships stopped in the strait because the Russian navy declared the Sea of Azov off-limits for commercial vessels, or if the shipping companies themselves were concerned about the risk of traveling within range of shore based missiles during a war.

Of course the Russians have also been taking steps to prevent commercial ships from reaching Ukraine, and on the other side of the Black Sea the Ukrainian ports are currently blocked.

Blockade of Odessa

Although Russia controls the ports in the Sea of Azov, Odessa and Mykolaiv are still under Ukrainian control. However, there have been very few ships calling at these ports.

On the commercial side, the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) designated the Northern Black Sea and the Sea of Azov a ‘Warlike Operations Area’ forcing shipping companies to think twice before sending ships manned by innocent civilians into Russian or Ukrain waters. This, combined with soaring insurance rates, has effectively blockaded Ukraine from commercial trade, military sealift, humanitarian aid, and refugee evacuation. (gcaptain.com1)

Russia didn’t immediately announce a formal blockade, but the remaining Ukrainian controlled ports were effectively shut down because commercial vessels won’t risk trying to reach them.

However, position data from container ships show that Ukraine is largely cut off from international maritime trade. No large container ship has called at the country’s most important port, Odesa on the Black Sea, since the outbreak of war. (gcaptain.com)

One of the risks faced by commercial vessels is the presence of mines in the Black Sea south of Odessa and Mykolaiv.

Mines

An interview with a Ukrainian official in Odessa discussed the use of mines by both the Russians and the Ukrainians.

Shortly after it invaded Ukraine at the end of February, Russia said that significant areas of the Black Sea were closed to commercial traffic. Since then, it has blocked safe passage to and from Ukraine by closing the Kerch Strait, tightening control of the Sea of Azov and stationing warships off Ukrainian ports. It also has set sea mines in the Black Sea and repeatedly has bombed infrastructure at the ports. (world-grain.com2)

According to the official being quoted by the article, the Ukrainians placed mines to block their ports from Russian naval vessels and the Russians put mines further out in the Black Sea.

In addition to some mines Ukraine used to block access to its ports from Russian warships, there are 400 to 600 mines that were spread out by Russia in the Black Sea as it moved toward Ukraine, Bratchuk said. (world-grain.com)

According to this same official, most of those mines originally belonged to the Ukrainians.

“Most of them were stolen by Russia when they occupied Crimea eight years ago,” he said. “Now they are using them to partially block Ukraine and partially to blame Ukraine if any other ships are hit by those mines, because they were owned by Ukraine before.” (world-grain.com)

This means Ukraine had hundreds of mines stockpiled in Crimea prior to 2014. Those mines could have been deployed in the Kerch Strait, but instead they’re being used to block access to ports in western Ukraine.

The mines weren’t the only anti-ship weapons the Russians obtained when they took control of Crimea.

Missiles

The Ukrainians also had coastal defense missile systems in Crimea. From the Kyiv Post, 2 August 20193:

Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014 was a crippling blow to Ukraine’s maritime missile power.

Together with up to 80 percent of the country’s naval force, all of the Rubezh mobile coastal defense missile systems (NATO reporting name SSC-3 Styx) were seized by Russian armed forces. (Kyiv Post)

An older system, the Rubezh uses Termit anti-ship cruise missiles with much shorter range than the American Harpoon.

Having lost all their Soviet-era anti-ship weapons, the Ukrainians needed to either build their own systems or obtain them from other countries, and appear to have been doing both.

Neptune, built in Ukraine

In 2016 Ukraine began developing their own coastal defense system. From the Kyiv Post again, on 15 March 20194:

Ukraine has moved closer to finally setting up its coastal defense against Russia as the country’s navy obtained the very first units of cruise missile system RK-360MC Neptune, despite long and painful hurdles on the way.

The first training missile battery joined the navy’s only artillery brigade on March 15, as part of the formation’s newly-created coastal defense missile battalion.

“This system was designed to defend Ukraine in the Azov and the Black seas,” as the navy’s top commanding officer, Rear Admiral Oleksiy Neizhpapa, asserted during the delivery ceremony in Odesa. (Kyiv Post)

It’s not clear how many of these missiles have been delivered, but this is the missile system the Ukrainians say was used to sink the Russian missile cruiser Moskva.

Harpoon and the HCDS

The Harpoon is the main anti ship weapon carried by most NATO ships, and has air launched and ground launched variants.

The A/U/RGM-84 Harpoon is an all-weather, over-the-horizon, anti-ship missile system that provides the Navy with a common missile for air and ship launches. The weapon system uses mid-course guidance with a radar seeker to attack surface ships. Its active radar guidance, low-level, sea-skimming cruise trajectory, terminal mode sea-skim or pop-up maneuvers and warhead design, assure high survivability and effectiveness. Harpoon is capable of being launched from surface ships, submarines, shore batteries or aircraft. (www.navair.navy.mil5)

The Harpoon Coastal Defense System (HCDS) consists (at a minimum) of a military truck with a launcher holding four Block II Harpoon missiles, plus the control system.

Denmark already possessed two Harpoon based coastal defense systems and announced they were sending one of them to Ukraine.

Denmark is to supply a Harpoon anti-ship launcher and an undisclosed number of missiles to Ukraine to help defend its coast, the US Secretary of Defence Lloyd J Austin III announced on 23 May. (Janes6)

Ukraine may have also received a separate working Harpoon system from the U.S. military. Bill Laplante, the Department of Defense acquisitions chief, was quoted about it in an article from Defense One.

Ukrainian forces who sank a Russian warship with Harpoon missiles in June were trained by the United States, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer said. (Defense One7)

Based on LaPlante’s description, it appears the U.S. put together a system similar to the HCDS and trained the Ukrainians on how to use it.

“We got them off the ship, put them on some flatbed trucks, put the Harpoons, the modules on the flatbed truck, and then a different flatbed truck for the power source, connected a cable between it, figured out was exportable, brought the Ukrainians to train on it over Memorial Day weekend, in our country, over Memorial Day weekend, and the next week two Russian ships were sunk with those Harpoons,” he said. (Defense One)

It’s not clear what two ships he’s referring to. The week after Memorial Day would be the end of May, but the Ukrainians haven’t claimed sinking any ships during that time.

Two Russian ship losses to missiles (?)

Moskva

On 14 April 2022 Russia reported the sinking of the Moskva, a guided missile cruiser and the flagship of the Black Sea fleet, east of Snake Island and about 50 nautical miles from the Ukrainian coast.

The Russians have not stated the cause of initial damage to the ship. The Ukrainians claim to have hit the ship with two Neptune cruise missiles on 13 April. Regardless of the cause of the initial fire, the Russians say the ship sunk the next day after the detonation of some ammunition on the ship.

“As the result of a fire on the Moskva missile cruiser, ammunition detonated. The ship was seriously damaged,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement. “The crew was completely evacuated.” (gcaptain.com8)

There has been much debate over this sinking, since warheads the size of those in the Neptune missile are not generally thought powerful enough to sink a naval vessel this large. However, poor damage control procedures (or just a lucky hit in the right location) can lead to the loss of a ship to damage that does not initially seem so serious.

Although the Ukrainians appear to have a working Neptune anti-ship system, that wasn’t the system used to sink another vessel in the same general area two months later.

Spasatel Vasiliy Bekh

As already mentioned, Bill LaPlante at the Pentagon has stated that two Russian warships were sunk using Harpoon missiles at the end of May, although the Ukrainians haven’t claimed any ships sunk at that time.

They do claim, and the Russian navy has confirmed, the sinking of a Russian naval vessel in mid-June by two Harpoon missiles.

That ship was a 1,200 ton rescue tug which is unarmed, but may have been carrying supplies for Russian ground forces. With no defensive weapons and a top speed of 14 knots, its sinking would not be a difficult task for two Harpoon missiles with 500 lb. warheads, and designed to sink much larger ships.

Spasatel Vasiliy Bekh, a Russian naval tugboat, was delivering weapons and personnel to Snake Island when it was struck last Friday. The vessel had a Tor-M2MK anti-aircraft missile system on board but it was not clear if it was being transported to the Russian-controlled island or whether it was acting as an air defence for the tug. (The Times UK9)

The Russians haven’t stated what the tug was doing in the area east of Snake Island. The missile system being referenced in the article is a self-contained system that can be crane loaded onto a ship, so the presence of a crane on the Spasatel Vasiliy Bekh could explain the use of a new and fairly valuable rescue tug to deliver equipment to the island.

It’s clear that a combination of mines and missiles could be used to block naval and commercial ships in the Kerch Strait and the northern Sea of Azov. Prior to 2014 Ukraine possessed a significant number of each, but lost those assets when the Russians seized Crimea.

But with control of the Sea of Azov and Crimea, and with the only significant naval forces in the Black Sea, Russia now controls merchant shipping in this area.

The last point of interest is the Turkish Straits.

The Montreux Convention

Transit from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean is through the Turkish Straits, which are inside Turkey.

Passage through the straits is controlled by Turkey per the Montreux Convention, in effect since 1936. The convention allows complete freedom of commercial shipping in times of peace, but there are strict limitations on access by naval vessels.

For warships, the peacetime rules are different depending on whether countries are riparian or not. Riparian States are countries which border the Black Sea (Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Georgia, and of course Turkey).

In wartime (if Turkey is not involved) warships cannot pass through the straits except to return to base. If Turkey is at war, the country may make any decision it wants about passage of warships.

The Turkish government provides a brief, clear explanation of the Convention. The page explains Turkey’s implementation of the convention, although the specifics about aircraft carriers in the convention itself are a bit more complicated than the blunt interpretation given here.

According to the Montreux Convention, merchant vessels enjoy freedom of passage through the Turkish Straits (Turkish Straits Vessel Traffic Services Centre regulates the passages according to the Maritime Traffic Regulations for the Turkish Straits dated 1998), while passages of vessels of war are subject to some restrictions which vary depending on whether these vessels belong to Black Sea riparian States or not.

Besides some general restrictions applicable to all, vessels of war belonging to non-riparian States are subject to specific restrictions such as those regarding maximum aggregate tonnage and duration of stay in the Black Sea.

Some of the important rules for warships during peacetime are:

• No aircraft carriers may pass through the straits.

• Only submarines of riparian states may pass through the straits, and only for the purpose of rejoining their base or for repair in dockyards outside the Black Sea.

• Warships of non-riparian states can only remain in the Black Sea for a maximum of 21 days.

• A single non-riparian state can only have a total of 30,000 tons of warships (combined) in the Black Sea at one time.

In February Turkey officially declared the fighting in Ukraine a war, and stated they would be implementing the convention.10 As a result, Russian warships can only transit the straits if they are returning to base and the warships of other, non-riparian nations can't pass through at all.

This makes the loss of the Moskva more significant, since passage through the Turkish Straits is the only way to get that large of a naval vessel into the Black Sea.

Summary

The annexation of Crimea in 2014 gave Russia control of the Kerch Strait between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. In seizing Crimea the Russians also obtained hundreds of mines, plus most of the Ukrainian anti-ship missile systems.

Ukraine, with few coastal defenses left, developed their own system based on a Soviet design, and deliveries of these systems began about the time the war began. They may have successfully used one of the first systems to sink a large warship, despite that warship having defensive systems designed to counter that type of missile.

Ukraine is also receiving Harpoon systems from NATO countries, and has already used one of those systems to sink a Russian naval vessel (although this one likely had no defensive weapons).

Now possessing the entire region around the Sea of Azov, plus its Black Sea Fleet, Russia controls commercial shipping in the Black Sea and their own vessels can move freely between Rostov and the north end of the Turkish Straits.

As long as Turkey continues to follow the Montreux Convention, all merchant vessels can transit through the Turkish Straits, but all warships are barred saving those which are returning to their home ports in the Black Sea.

Update: 14 October

The odds of Turkey closing the Turkish Straits to all Russian vessels just dropped to slightly above zero. According to an AP article11 this morning, Russia and Turkey have agreed to start making Turkey the main hub for natural gas from Russia.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday that Turkey and Russia have instructed their respective energy authorities to immediately begin technical work on a Russian proposal that would turn Turkey into a gas hub for Europe. (AP)

Although a NATO member, Turkey is much more impacted economically by Russia than by the NATO countries, and once this project is completed the economic futures of both countries will be even more intertwined.

The Turks will also have a very strong incentive to give the Russians unrestricted access to the Mediterranean and in the future, it’s possible Turkey will be a de jure NATO member but a de facto Russian ally, and might even give up its membership entirely.

This part of the article was also very interesting, less for what it says about Russia and Turkey and more for what it says about the AP:

Germany this week rejected another proposal by Putin to step up gas flows to Europe via a link of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline under the Baltic Sea — a pipeline that has never been operational. Moscow cut off the parallel Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline over what it claimed were technical problems. (AP)

It’s true that Nord Stream 2 has never been operational (it was completed but not yet carrying gas) and Russia has been using gas shipments as leverage with the EU, but there’s no mention in the AP article of the recent attack on both Nord Stream pipelines.

Local authorities have confirmed the attack but the source behind it is still unknown. It’s not clear whether the Russians have planned all along to stop gas flows directly to northern Europe, or if another country is trying to interfere with Russia economically.

But this omission, combined with the quote above, could lead the AP’s readers to a conclusion not yet justified by the available evidence, and possibly the opposite of what’s actually driving the deal. The attack on Nord Stream is extremely relevant in the context of this article, and it’s omission is something one would expect from a propaganda outlet, not from a news service.

Setting the trap

In 2021 Merriam-Webster changed their minds on how to spell the name of a Ukrainian city. Clearly this means we must have an argument about the English spelling of a Ukrainian city’s name. Common belief seems to be if you’re rooting for the Russians you spell it Kiev, and if you’re rooting for the Ukrainians you spell it Kyiv (not true, but it’s the dichotomy that’s been created). And this had led to endless, and useless, arguments over the “correct” spelling.

Merriam-Webster’ s English spelling, up until some time in 2021, was Kiev - as shown by the dictionary entry from 16 February 2021.

But by 19 August 2021 the English spelling had somehow become Kyiv.

Kiev, Kyiv, Kiyev, Kyyiv?

The Ukrainian language uses a variation of the Cyrillic alphabet - the correct Ukrainian spelling is Київ. The name can’t be spelled “correctly” using the Roman (or Latin) alphabet because it doesn’t contain the correct letters. It can only be approximated in the Roman alphabet, a process called romanization.

But there’s a difference between romanizing a name for something, and it having a different name in another language. Germany is called Deutschland in German - the word Germany isn’t a romanization of the German name, it’s the name of the country in English. The city of Cologne is Köln in German, Austria is Österreich and Vienna is actually Wien. The German language uses a version of the Roman alphabet, but we still use English names for these places.

And by the way, Москва is romanized to Moskva, but we still call the city Moscow. So is Kiev a romanization, or just the English name for the city? Let’s see what Britannica has to say on the subject.

How many ways can we spell the name of the same city?

Kidding aside, this entry is actually very helpful. The romanized Russian for the name is Kiyev, not Kiev. Just like in the example of Cologne/Köln cited earlier, Kiev isn’t a romanization of the “Russian” spelling, it’s the English name for the city. Both Britannica and Merriam-Webster are changing the English spelling.

Did everyone agree to this change in spelling?

Well, no. Other resources are still listing the original English spelling for the city:

There’s a big, long river too

Let’s look at another interesting thing in the definition of Kiev given us by the good people at Merriam-Webster. They also tell us it’s a city on the Dnieper River. Is Dnieper a romanization? Let’s use Google Translate for this one.

The spelling in Ukrainian (in the Cyrillic alphabet) is Дніпро, and Google tells us to romanize this as Dnipro. But the Dnieper River starts in Russia, so what’s the Russian name?

In Russian it’s Днепр, which is romanized to Dnepr. The river also goes through Belarus, and Britannica gives us that romanization as well.

Now we have three options in the Roman alphabet:

• Dnieper - the English name for the river

• Dnipro - romanization of the Ukrainian name

• Dnepr - romanization of the Russian name

• Dynapro - romanization of the Belarusian name

But clearly we don’t need to use the romanization of the name when writing in English, since we have an English name: Dnieper. Why all the names? So we can translate texts from other languages using an alphabet readers can understand - without them needing to learn the original language.

In the example of the Dnieper River, when translating from Russian one would use Dnepr, from Ukrainian Dnipro, from Belarusian Dynapro, and if the original work was in English it would already be spelled Dnieper.

Merriam-Webster changed from using the English name for the city (Kiev) to using the romanized Ukrainian (Kyiv), but still use the English name for the River (Dnieper) in the description of the city.

The Dnieper River actually starts deep in Russia but Google decided to use the romanization of the Ukrainian for the river even in Russia (which is most of the river). Here’s the river in Kiev, Ukraine -where romanizing it to Dnipro makes sense:

Here it is in Smolensk, Russia - but still romanized from the Ukrainian, not the Russian spelling:

According to Google Translate, when romanized from Ukrainian this city is Smolensʹk. Google makes distinctions between the spellings, and have deliberately chosen to use the Ukrainian romanization for the entire river - despite the fact there’s a correct English name for the same river as well as a romanized Russian spelling.

Google appears to have chosen sides.

Manipulation everywhere

Soon after Russia invaded Ukraine, the newest virtue signal was to put a Ukrainian flag on your social media and change from spelling the city Kiev to spelling it Kyiv. But Kiev wasn’t a romanization of the Russian name, so there was nothing nefarious (or even objectionable) about spelling the name Kiev in English in the first place.

That was just the correct spelling, and there was nothing wrong with using it when writing in English. Of course one could also choose to romanize the Ukrainian, and use Kyiv. Neither answer is wrong.

The Kafka trap

But someone latched onto this difference in spellings and began using it to demonstrate a political preference, pretending Kiev was the “Russian” spelling, and this put everyone who uses the original English name in the other camp by default.

No reasonable person wanted to argue over this, but those reasonable people were put in an awkward position - they never wanted to signal anything, but not changing the spelling was taken as a signal anyway.

It’s another version of the Kafka trap1, wherein simply denying there’s an issue with the spelling is taken as evidence of a (not politically correct) position. And since almost no one cares about the details the Kafka trap works - it helps shut down reasonable debate on the whole subject.

This, and the maps from Google, are examples of the small bits of manipulation and propaganda that seem to permeate everything on the internet today.

One last detail

The Russian invasion of Ukraine started on 24 February 2022, after which the online debate over spelling began.

But Merriam-Webster had already changed the spelling at least six months earlier. It seems they knew in advance that this would be a point of contention, and after years of the accepted English spelling being Kiev it suddenly needed changing.

Did they know something we didn’t?

Update 05 February 2024

It’s been a long time since making this post, but something interesting came to my attention. What we’ve been discussing is something called an exonym, which is a term linguists use to describe a word for a place in one language that is different from the name in the native language.

This is as opposed to romanization, which is basically just re-spelling the name using another alphabet (we see this all the time with people’s names). People writing about Ukraine today aren’t romanizing the Russian name, they’re using the correct exonym.

I don’t normally quote Wikipedia but they have a page about exonyms and this part about Kiev is just too interesting to pass up.

Even the government of Ukraine admits that Kiev is the traditional English exonym for the city. Of course when the name was derived, the nation of Ukraine didn’t exist and this is why the exonym was derived from the Russian.

But the bullet point from Wikipedia just reinforces the point that Kiev is, and always has been, the correct English spelling for the name of the city. Use another spelling if you like, but don’t insist that others are spelling it wrong. There can be more than one acceptable answer.

An open letter to the idiots at the Pentagon who gave full time jobs to the potheads who couldn’t even cut it as CDC interns but instead are in charge of military procurement.

Dear turdlets,

It is time to talk to you about your spending habits, which show clear signs of someone who is spending other people’s money. Here at the alpaca ranch/solar energy plant, the chickens found a story in Defense News about the Air Force and it has them squawking - all work on their new super weapon1 is at a standstill.

According to the article they (the U.S. Air Force, not Chicken Bomber Command) want to put 33 shiny F-22 Raptors in the “boneyard” where they store planes they’re bored of flying.

Officials want to divest 33 of the service’s oldest F-22s and use that money to instead research cutting-edge combat jet designs under the “Next-Generation Air Dominance” program. If Congress approves the idea, it would send all but three Block 20 Raptors to the “boneyard” at Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson, Arizona, and shrink the overall fleet from 186 to 153 fighters. (Defense News, 28 March 20222)

We are continually told the F-22 is the best fighter aircraft in the world, but apparently it’s not “cutting edge” enough. We’re curious of what this says about the crap everyone else is flying.

Also, we noticed that the cost of maintaining 33 of these things is enough money to start a whole other aircraft development program.

We found a swell little organization called POGO (Project On Government Oversight) and they’ve written a lot about the F-22 program. It looks like you originally wanted 800 of these things you’re now getting rid of.

The "Dream" of 800 fighters for $70 Billion fell to 648 for $64.2B (after a 1992 Selected Acquisition Report), to 442 for $64.2B (after the Bottom-Up Review of defense strategy), and to 339 for $64.2B (after a Quadrennial Defense Review). Study groups and the Congressional Budget Office seeking responsible funding are considering options of 175 and even 100 F–22s. (POGO, 10 August 20003)

Eventually the 800 number was cut to 187 working aircraft, and since the cost of just maintaining those 187 is exhausting your allowance we think cutting the original quantity was the right thing to do. Imagine if we had actually bought all 800! We’d be selling black market alpacas right now to pay for these things.

Now you’re going to 153, on the way to retiring the whole fleet because the hot sales chick at Lockheed Martin has you dreaming of the next new money pit wonder plane.

Per some general guy who does something important at the Pentagon, the Air Force is planning on reducing their whole inventory to a range of 4-5 main combat aircraft, and that plan doesn’t include the F-22 that you were begging us for just a few Christmases ago.

The general said the range will likely include the A-10 and F-16, the F-35, which 'will be the cornerstone' for the fleet, the F-15EX, and the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter. (MSN, 13 May 20214)

We’re retiring the best fighter in the world so we can replace it with an even more awesomer one, but in the meantime we’ll make do by purchasing more of the old stuff?

While you trash the “best fighter in the world” let’s review what these little things cost us - all we have to sell at the ranch are chicken eggs and irradiated alpaca wool and we have a limited supply of both. Here’s what POGO wrote back when you were asking for more of these things you’re now throwing away:

Instead of being such a close call, further production of F-22s ought to be laughed out of court. The F-22 is outrageously expensive. The 187 are costing just over $65 billion, about $350 million each. (POGO, 15 July 20095)

That was in 2009. Even chickens know what inflation is, and in 2022 money that’s $460 million each. We could have bought over 8 million Neil Diamond tickets for the cost of one of these but no, you had to have your precious super plane, and now Neil Diamond is retired and the chickens will never get to hear him croon.

You’re now buying more old planes to replace the super planes we already bought for you:

The F-15EX: It works because it was designed before you idiots were in charge

We’re just chickens, but we remember this is the plane you told us you were replacing with the F-22. Now you’re using them to replace F-22s, and you’ve already gone and bought almost as many new ones as the number of F-22s you’re keeping.

The USAF is set to procure at least 144 new F-15EX Eagles under an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract worth up to $22.89 billion, with the first 80 jets planned over the next five years. (Skiesmag, 19 February 20216)

Apparently you’ve been flying the bejeezus out of the F-15s you have, so this is an open-ended contract and the number will just go up.

The Air Force has been on a quest to replace its aging F-15C models. Officials in 2017 voiced concerns about the aircraft's longevity.

"We are already having serious problems with that airframe, with metal fatigue within the longerons on the side of the aircraft," Wilson said during a forum last May. (Military.com, 28 January 20207)

So we’ll still be flying the younger ones, plus the 144 new ones, plus an unknown number of additional new ones in the future. That’s instead of the nice super plane we just bought you.

While we have your attention, we would like to discuss an even bigger mess you created - the most wasteful weapons program in human or chicken history.

The F-35: The newer, even more expensive toy that you probably won’t even play with once you get it

Chickens know their useless birds, and way back in 2000 Congress approved this Wonder Turkey, with a planned purchase of 3,000 planes for a total program cost of $220 billion ($360 billion today, or $120 million per plane).

Current plans call for the production of more than 3,000 aircraft, the first of which are to be delivered in 2008. At a total estimated cost of nearly $220 billion, the JSF is the single largest weapons program ever. A selection of which of the two competing defense contractors -- Boeing and Lockheed Martin -- will be prime contractor on the program is scheduled for April, 2001. (POGO, 11 May 20008)

Originally designated the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), the program was to start in 2001 and begin deliveries in 2008. That plan didn’t last long. It went from 3,000 aircraft to 2,866, then down to 2,457.

Although the plane was originally billed as a low-cost solution, major cost increases have plagued the program throughout the last decade. Last year, Pentagon leadership told Congress the acquisition price had increased another 16 percent, from $328.3 billion to $379.4 billion for the 2,457 aircraft to be bought. Not to worry, however—they pledged to finally reverse the growth. (POGO, 2 May 20129)

And the price tag kept going up.

The result? This February, the price increased another 4 percent to $395.7 billion and then even further in April. (POGO, 2 May 2012)

$395.7 billion in 2012 is $489 billion today, which means for 2,457 planes we will have spent $200 million per plane delivered. Do we look like we’re made of money? The chickens lay regular eggs, not golden ones like in the fairy tales.

And the total buy is going to drop even further:

In fact, the Air Force Warfighting Integrating Capability (AFWIC) is at the center of a new fighter roadmap that abandons the notion that only stealthy fighters can provide a meaningful capability to the USAF’s Combat Air Forces. Instead, it argues that “legacy” platforms such as the F-15 and F-16 can play a critical role in the overall force mix. (Skiesmag, 19 February 2021)

We understand that “legacy” in this case is just another word for “really old” designs.

This has in turn led to a re-evaluation of how many fighters are actually required. Aviation Week reported in late 2020 that AFWIC’s plan by the end of 2018 had “capped F-35A deliveries at about 1,050 jets.” (Skiesmag, 19 February 2021)

That’s about 700 planes less than the previous commitment of 1,763 F-35s for the Air Force, so the 2,457 total is probably more like 1,750 now - you guys want the plane but you also don’t want the plane. Make up your damn minds.

The Joint Strike Wonder Turkey is also very late:

The F-35 isn't only expensive—it's way behind schedule. The first plan was to have an initial batch of F-35s available for combat in 2010. Then first deployment was to be 2012. More recently, the military services have said the deployment date is "to be determined." A new target date of 2019 has been informally suggested in testimony—almost ten years late. (POGO, 2 May 2012)

Let’s review: the plane was selected in 2001, with planned first deliveries in 2008, ready for combat by 2010 and actually deployed by 2012. The current year, for reference, is 2022.

You originally told us this “multi-role” thingy would replace all aircraft, farm equipment and food processors, but now we’re hearing it doesn’t even meet its original goals.

The Air Force chief admitted the F-35 would never be able to live up to its original purpose. And now, the chair of the House Armed Services Committee said we should stop throwing money down the F-35 “rathole.” (POGO, 19 March 202110)

You know, chickens can fly (if they really must) and we’re starting to think we should have invested in chicken combat harnesses so at least our troops will have some kind of close air support. Better to have a chicken grenade on time and on target than a useless plane in maintenance. Plus, each chicken combat loss results in about 32 chicken fajitas for the troops (assuming they brought their own pico de gallo).

And to make things even worse (which we didn’t think was possible) 108 of the existing F-35s are set to become something called “concurrency orphans.”11 They were purchased before the design was complete (?), and cost too much to upgrade so they’ll probably just be stripped for spare parts.

You bought brand new planes that have never seen combat, and you’re now going to strip them for spare parts. Why do we give you an allowance at all? Can we at least use the AESA radars as egg warmers?

We’re down to a planned 1,650 total Wonder Turkeys for all services (and still dropping), and it sounds like that might be 1,650 too many. So what are you asking for now?

First, more F-16s for the Air Force

The F-16 has been around a while and has been a consistent performer for us. But the ones we have are old and need a little work to keep flying.

At least 300 F-16 Fighting Falcons will receive structural and avionics upgrades that will allow them to fly until at least 2048, thanks to a Service Life Extension Program (SLEP) with Lockheed Martin. (arstechnica, 13 April 201712)

But you’re now looking for something other than F-35s to replace them.

The U.S. Air Force is thinking about buying a brand new fighter jet to partially replace the F-16 Fighting Falcon.

The Air Force will consider a “clean sheet design” for a new “four-and-a-half-gen or fifth-gen-minus” fighter as a direct replacement for the F-16s currently in service, Brown said. (Popular Mechanics, 18 February 202113)

That plane already exists, by the way - it’s called the Gripen, and is manufactured by SAAB. If you had the brains God gave broccoli you’d order 300 of them right now, but you don’t, so you won’t.

And lots of F-18s for the Navy

If we had been paying attention to your antics instead of counting our unhatched eggs, your abandoning the F-35 would not have been a surprise. The Navy warned us many years ago:

For some time now, the Navy has been signaling its waning interest in remaining a part of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter club along with the Marine Corps and Air Force.

Last week, Politico, citing an unnamed congressional source, reported that the Navy has requested a three-year pause in acquisition of the F-35C—the carrier-launched variant of the Joint Strike Fighter. (POGO, 14 February 201414)

The Navy is performing maintenance on their F-18s so fast they make a pro chop shop look like rank amateurs, but it’s still not enough and they need new planes.

Rear Admiral Michael Manazir, director of air warfare for the U.S. chief of naval operations, told lawmakers that the Navy was working to speed up maintenance of older-model F/A-18s, but would also need to buy more new F/A-18E/F jets to avert a shortfall in strike fighters for its aircraft carriers. (Reuters, 3 November 201515)

And in fact they cut their F-35 buys so much, the F-18 will remain their primary aircraft for the foreseeable future.

Despite the entry of the F-35C into Navy service in February 2019, the Super Hornet will remain backbone of the Navy’s carrier air wings. More than 600 Super Hornets and Growlers (the electronic warfare version of the Super Hornet) are in the fleet with no planned date for retirement according to the Navy. (Forbes, 22 June 202016)

This means F-18s will outnumber F-35s on our aircraft carriers, and the only service that will be primarily using the F-35 is the Marine Corps.

It turns out there’s an unpleasant reason for that, which is the next thing we need to discuss with you.

The AV-8B Harriers, which are so worn out we needed spares for the spares

The F-35 is so late, you had to buy spare Harrier parts from the British. In fact, you borrowed feed money from us to buy their entire fleet just to keep your planes in the air.

The U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) is paying $180 million to buy 72 BAE Harrier GR.9 V/STOL fighters that were axed from the Royal Air Force in last year’s British defense review. The airframes, engines and other parts will be used as a spares source for the USMC’s fleet of AV-8B Harriers, which are now scheduled to continue in service until 2026, four years later than previously planned. (AIN Online, 2 December 201117)

Of course these aren’t going to last long enough.

In previous years, the service had said it would replace its increasingly older fleet of original model Boeing F/A-18A – D Hornet strike fighters before retiring the Harriers before replacing both fighters with the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lighting II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).

Now, the Harrier will be retired in 2025 and the Hornets will hang on until 2029 for the active duty Marines. (USNI News, 3 November 201418)

The Marines will end up using their F-35s because they want a vertical lift plane and the Harriers will be nothing but rust and bolts by the end of the decade.

Let’s review this clusterchicken

We are truly amazed that you have managed to waste two entire decades of aircraft development and put us back to 1999. And we don’t mean “amazed” in a good way.

The new planes that were supposed to be awesome:

F-22 Raptor

We only have a small number due to cost overruns, it’s too expensive to maintain and fly, and it’s being retired early, so we can pay for development of the next new screw up.

F-35 Lightning II

More behind schedule than the original length of the schedule, it can’t perform its original missions so we’re keeping the planes it was supposed to replace. And it costs a fortune, to buy and to fly.

Old designs we’re keeping because we have no choice:

These were all slated for retirement but are now the cornerstones of the Air Force and Navy until we’re all dead or whenever.

F-15EX Eagle II

Was supposed to be replaced by the F-22. But it was too expensive so we kept these too. The current airframes are worn out so we’re buying new ones on an open-ended contract.

F-16 Viper

Was supposed to be replaced by the F-35. We’re upgrading hundreds of them, and we’ll be buying hundreds more, or something equivalent. (In theory. In reality you’ll buy whatever is the worst possible choice.)

F-18 Super Hornet

Was supposed to be replaced by the F-35. The current fleet is so old the Navy is buying piles of brand new ones. It will be their primary fighter/attack aircraft until the magic “next generation” plane is available.

AV-8B Harrier II

Was supposed to be replaced by the F-35. But F-35 delays meant we had to keep them, and we bought the entire UK fleet just for spare parts. The planes are still getting retired in just a few years because they’re going to actually crumble soon.

A simple conclusion

Every new aircraft looks more like a jobs program for Lockheed Martin than a serious weapon system. We’ve spent ridiculous sums of money for planes we’re not going to use in combat, and are now stuck buying new airframes of old design just to keep our pilots in the air.

We don’t have a modern, practical and affordable design to purchase. And given how you manage these programs, we never will.

You people are all either idiots or corrupt, and we’ve decided to go live here instead:

1

John Howard Roark

Chicken apocalypse

To take their minds off all their friends who recently became McNuggets, the chickens rented G.I. Joe: Retaliation. Chickens really like mindless violence. The movie has, quite unfortunately, given them an idea about how to avenge their fallen comrades - build a super weapo…

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5 years ago · 1 like · 2 comments · John Howard Roark

I’m bored so we’re talking about industrial metals today. I know, that seems like a non-sequitur. Who fights boredom with industrial metals? Engineers and crazy people, that’s who. I guess knife-wielding serial killers as well.

Among the many useless government agencies is the U.S. Department of the Interior, which does include one potentially useful part: the U.S. Geological Survey. The USGS produced a report called Mineral Commodity Summaries 20201 and it’s every bit as exciting as you might expect.

From the extremely dramatic and gripping Introduction:

Each chapter of the 2020 edition of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Mineral Commodity Summaries (MCS) includes information on events, trends, and issues for each mineral commodity as well as discussions and tabular presentations on domestic industry structure, Government programs, tariffs, 5-year salient statistics, and world production and resources. The MCS is the earliest comprehensive source of 2019 mineral production data for the world. More than 90 individual minerals and materials are covered by two-page synopses.

I can’t believe you actually read that part. Sucker. So what is Tungsten used for? Why am I bothering to type a boring Substack post about it?

Nearly 60% of the tungsten used in the United States was used in cemented carbide parts for cutting and wear-resistant applications, primarily in the construction, metalworking, mining, and oil and gas drilling industries. The remaining tungsten was used to make various alloys and specialty steels; electrodes, filaments, wires, and other components for electrical, electronic, heating, lighting, and welding applications; and chemicals for various applications. (USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2020)

Well, it’s not like the construction, metalworking, mining, and oil and gas industries are important. And heating and lighting are very overrated.

Let’s jump over to a website that’s all about engineering materials, azom.com for the world’s shortest history lesson about tungsten2. I suspect these folks go on fewer dates than I do (so a negative number of dates).

Tungsten (W) was one of the first alloying elements to be used methodically—as early as the mid-19th century—to enhance the properties of steel. One of the most significant alloying elements in constructional steels and tool steels, tungsten was added to improve the cutting efficiency, hardness, and speed of tools. (azom.com)

Without tungsten all sorts of industries run into trouble as soon as their existing tools wear out. There was just such a shortage of tungsten during the second world war, and an alternative was developed for for one type of steel, called high speed steel (HSS).

During World War II, due to the shortage of tungsten and growing demand for tools, the U.S. and European steel manufacturers were forced to find an alternative. Molybdenum (Mo) was selected as a substitute to tungsten in varying proportions. This was also economical as the cost was lower, and the atomic weight is only half that of tungsten (1% Mo is approximately equivalent to 2% of W). (azom.com)

So despite domestic production, the supply of tungsten in WWII was limited enough that new alloys were developed to try and fill the gap. Unfortunately HSS can only be used for some cutting applications.

Tungsten is very critical for manufacturing, so how much tungsten is produced in the U.S.?

There has been no known domestic commercial production of tungsten
concentrates since 2015. (USGS report)

Zero. Boy, I sure hope we’re not about to get into World War Number Three anytime soon. It’s hard to make tanks without cutting tools, unless your tanks are made of play-doh.

So where do we get all of that thing that’s super critical for all sorts of heavy industries?

World tungsten supply was dominated by production in China and exports from China. China’s Government regulated its tungsten industry by limiting the number of mining and export licenses, imposing quotas on concentrate production, and placing constraints on mining and processing. (USGS report)

From China of course. The report provides nice little tables for each mineral type and China is supplying over 80% of the entire world’s demand for tungsten.

It’s not like the U.S. doesn’t have any. We just don’t mine it because we’re too busy mining Bitcoin instead.

World Resources: World tungsten resources are geographically widespread. China ranks first in the world in terms of tungsten resources and reserves and has some of the largest deposits. Canada, Kazakhstan, Russia, and the United States also have significant tungsten resources. (USGS report)

Well, those resources are only significant if we use them. Otherwise they’re just fancy dirt. There are some substitutes, but these only replace a small amount of the total we use.

Substitutes: Potential substitutes for cemented tungsten carbides include cemented carbides based on molybdenum carbide, niobium carbide, or titanium carbide; ceramics; ceramic-metallic composites (cermets); and tool steels. Most of these options reduce, rather than replace, the amount of tungsten used. (USGS report)

Side trip to talk about armor piercing ammunition

Why? Because I’m an engineer and this is the kind of thing we talk about.

One interesting use for tungsten is armor piercing rifle ammunition. This is the cartridge for the M16 rifle and M4 carbine used by the U.S. military:

The military doesn’t use this ammunition for all purposes because it’s expensive, but the the good news is that we have an even more expensive substitute: depleted uranium.

Potential substitutes for other applications are as follows: … depleted uranium alloys or hardened steel for cemented tungsten carbides or tungsten alloys in armor-piercing projectiles. (USGS report)

Hardened steel is much cheaper than tungsten but doesn’t work nearly as well. Depleted uranium (DU) works even better than tungsten, and is a byproduct of the process of uranium enrichment to create U-235 for nuclear power plants3 (and nuclear weapons). We had plenty of it when the Department of Energy was enriching uranium but we don’t build a lot of those nuclear plants anymore.

The DU is also still radioactive so don’t use it at your local shooting range. Unless you want that range to start glowing in the dark after a few years of use. What I’m saying here is that you probably don’t want to use it for small arms ammunition unless you really have no other choice.

Well, it’s actually alpha particle radiation so it’s really only dangerous if you inhale it. Feel better now?

In a much more mundane application, tungsten is used to make high temperature steels. Where do we use those?

Heat-resistant steels are chromium/nickel steels consisting of up to 6% tungsten. The steels are mainly used as valve steels for combustion engines, with about 2% tungsten.

For example, such steels are used for the valves on the outlet area of automotive engines, where the red-hot hardness has to be integrated with high-temperature corrosion resistance. (azom.com)

No big deal - it’s just the whole automotive industry except for the Tesla part, which I suppose is a selling point for electric cars. Of course those use massive quantities of other minerals mined by underage children in Africa.

Just kidding - I haven’t looked up all the minerals used to make lithium ion batteries for electric cars. Lithium, though, is definitely one of them and it’s another example of something the U.S. has large reserves of but almost no production.

Similar to tungsten, almost 80% of the world’s lithium comes from just two countries: Australia and Chile. From that same USGS report:

Lithium supply security has become a top priority for technology companies in the United States and Asia. Strategic alliances and joint ventures among technology companies and exploration companies continued to be established to ensure a reliable, diversified supply of lithium for battery suppliers and vehicle manufacturers. (USGS report)

Imagine that: two minerals, without which the automotive industry is nearly crippled, are almost entirely imported. To make things more risky almost all production is from just three countries.

These are the things I worry about at night, which is why no one likes talking to me unless they’re already in a bad mood.

The not so subtle point

In the modern world we are incredibly dependent on foreign trade to keep critical industries running, even in the case of natural resources we possess in abundance.

If we experience some event with global consequences (like a war with a real country, perhaps China) we can in theory produce these minerals ourselves, but getting industrial-scale production up and running can easily take years.

In the geopolitical sphere, this is something we need to keep in mind when discussing national security - it’s about more than just how many tanks (and ammunition, and other things) we have, it’s also about how many we can build. Without China’s cooperation that won’t be very many for a while.