Thread by @RobGilbey

Time for another thread.

A live fire Russian naval exercise has been scheduled inside the Irish EEZ, at a time when tensions on Russian military build ups relative to Ukraine are high.

What do we know and what can we speculate on?

Now, disclaimer, I am in no way a naval or ASW authority and will bow to the experience of others.

First question.

Why that location?

Let's explore the terrain. The Porcupine Seabright.

A deep, enclosed area, with only a western access point. Ideal for protecting a submarine?

It certainly helps if that western access point has an armed naval blocking force protecting it.

The red box is where the Russians will be firing into.

What's interesting is that this exercise box is 170 nautical miles off the south coast of Ireland.

Incidentally, so was a suspicious Russian trawler suspected of deploying submersibles back in July 2021 170nm away.

Could that previous event have been sub-surface reconnaissance?

Others may recall that the Russians flew their ASW TU-142 Bears over that location in March 2020 too.

Perhaps that was a sub surface signal mapping exercise? Testing 🇮🇪 reactions, or lack there of?

There's a lot to suggest battlespace preparation here.

Also worth noting there's a fair few subsea cables in that area too.

So perhaps there is a risk to data communications?

@Andy_Scollick makes an interesting point here.

If the Kalibr-M is in play, that changes the strategic and tactical dynamic for EU and Nato countries.

Assuming the max range of the Kalibr-M is 4500km, and can travel at a speed of Mach 2.5 (3087kmh), then the images below give an indication of what is in range of that capability and how long it would take to get to capital target from the Exercise Area inside Ireland's EEZ

We don't know what is going to happen.

We don't know what the Russians are doing.

We can't see what's happening in Irish skies.

We can't see what's happening under the surface of the water.

We have no way of preventing something bad happening.

What's your plan @simoncoveney?

On this, there is adequate reason to disregard my previous assumptions in this tweet.

@GrangerE04117 offers good analysis here.

Nonetheless, it may be worth looking at the known missile capabilities that have proven compatibility with existing platforms

Adding a correction and new assumptions here.