Thread on Russian missile defense countermeasures I couldn't find a home for. According to V.C. Belous, Soviet design bureaus began development of balloon decoys and dipole chaff in the early 1960s; projects dubbed "Willow," "Cactus," and "Mole."
(Belous 2002)
It's hard to find which entities were involved, but the Central Research Radiotechnical Institute (CNIRTI) was the only one I found explicitly named. They reportedly developed varieties of chaff, decoys, jammers, and other devices since the 1950s.
(Spassky et al 2004)
Between 1960 and 1970, the Corporation of Research and Development establishments and other entities developed 9 decoy systems, named "List," "Pa'lma," "Ledokol," "Kiparis," "Bereza," "Kashtan," "Magnolia," "Lavr," and "Vyaz."
(Sergeev et al 2004)
Subsequent programs reportedly focused on low-observable warhead coatings, heavy decoys, and miniaturized active jammers. 3 countermeasures have known GRAU designations: 2 endoatmospheric decoys and one unspecified decoy type.
@russianforces also mentioned that the USSR developed a few penetration aid sets for the UR-100 ICBM, weighing 176 to 436 kg depending on configuration.
...And that's about all I could find. Here's a final overview from Solomonov (prominent solid-fueled missile designer responsible for Topol-M, Yars, Bulava) on the matter, and my poorly-translated version of the table.
"Cosmosols" apparently refer to aerosol obscurants which are released in space. Supposedly intended to block SDI lasers.
More from Solomonov. "Figure 7.2. The layout of the missile's head units;"
a - monoblock with a centered RV;
b - monoblock with an offset RV;
c - separating with three RVs without a penetration aid;
1 - RV; 2 - TLC; 3 - platform; 4 - SM cassette; 5 - fairing
And per request, here are some of the sources used.
See also: militaryrussia.ru/blog/topic-869…
IIRC Pavel Podvig's figures on weight came from a special collection of correspondence at Stanford library.
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USAF Chief Scientist Victoria Coleman later noted ARRW was "the most mature weapon that we have" Disclosed prev. unreported successful Tactical Boost Glide flight test on Dec 8, 2020, over the Pacific, "an amazing day." Was coy on whether ARRW was fully zeroed out
Progress continuing on HACM, Congress and Global Strike Command apparently "huge fans and can't wait" for it to be in inventory. flight test next year will happen in Australia. This is why AUKUS matters.
Here's the top-level portfolio from Dr. Weber on current hypersonic acquisition programs.
[1/3] Real vs. AI-generated images: check out the Fourier patterns yourself. At right: the FFT output, which captures info on repeating patterns in images. You can generate them easily with ImageJ, as I've done here.
Fake:
Left: the infrared scene data we imported into our simulation. Right: a more detailed pic of the hypersonic model, with diff temps assigned to the leeward & windward sides, leading edges, and rear. It's not just distance; the diff in viewing aspects are modelled in.
It won't just be IR. @tomkarako and I have prev said that hypersonic weapons have unique kinematic vulns. But they also have unique, exploitable signatures. We don't model those, but see slide from Dr. Iain Boyd—complex interactions on vehicle surface => novel plumes & sigs.
There's so much buzz around new missiles; rockets are inherently attention-grabbing. But over time, you learn that it's everything upstream—the sensors, battle management systems, comms, command & control—that matters most. defensenews.com/opinion/commen…
But those things are murky. There's no easy way to prove to adversaries that you have software that speeds up your targeting cycles, or EW/cyber that bogs up theirs. Russia could see Ukraine's meager missile stocks, but couldn't see the murky stuff that actually wins wars.
Massive stakes on the assumption that deterrence works. As wars are increasingly decided by the murky stuff, that gets harder. The fact Russia was caught unprepared represents a failure of deterrence; their failure to understand they'd lose, our failure to show why we'd win.
Thread on post-Cold-War glow-ups. In 1993, Russia converted some Topol ICBMs to civilian space launch vehicles: "Start" and "Start-1". They took the same mobile missile launcher (left) and added a spiffy paint job. Could lift ~360 - 450 kg to LEO.
Before/After: The Fukuyama edit. Military version (left), civilian version (right). Both the 4-stage and 5-stage SLVs had a 5 km altitude, 2.5 s period, and 6 MoA inclination orbital injection accuracy.
Before/After: Armageddon (left), cool and normal satellite launch (right). The Topol missile (SS-25) still remains in service but is slated for replacement by Russia's new Topol-M and Yars ICBMs.
Why did the B-21 stay in budget? Lots of factors. Here are a few: 1) Production-representative lines. First ~100 F-35 prototypes didn't use similar lines to prod. models. B-21's proto line took longer to make, but it was more prod.-representative. Fewer surprises to EMD.
2) The fruits of the 2009 Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act. Before, services had incentives to underestimate costs, to get more programs in their budgets. WSARA made services fund independent cost estimates from OSD CAPE, including for B-21.
3) B-21 was acquired thru USAF Rapid Capabilities Office. RCO had the "cream of the crop" of acquisition specialists, experienced hands with DoD process. Also had good USAF board attention, so funds available to reduce risk early in the program, instead of deferring to later.