This act of cost-ineffective public theater by Putin is his going away present to the Western escalation managers they so desperately need to justify their failed retread of appeasement policy jobs
The cost of an IRBM/ICBM is around 10-20 times the cost of an ALCM/GLCM/SLCM 1/
It is unlikely the Putin Regime has a significant warstock of such missiles, & every RS-26 Russia fires reduces the nuclear threat to the USA.
It is military madness...but it's great for impressing dullards in media and politics like @JakeSullivan46, German Chancellor Scholz 3/
...and Western corporate media reporters talking to the arms control community at the US State Department, which are trying to keep their now excess to US Federal government needs phony baloney jobs.🙄
4/
The cost of this attack to Russia is similar to a Pershing II during the 1980s, which was around $10million USD per round.
In real 2024 dollar terms an RS-26 would cost about the same, which accounting for inflation, is more like $20M USD now. 5/
In the late 1960's to 1973 Arab-Israeli War US EW contractors could meet a two week cycle time with "quick reaction capability program" to bypass normal procurement procedures and speed urgently needed electronic systems to the battlefield.
2/3
Given the the triple handicaps of Silicon Valley practice of outsourcing of engineering talent, counting foreigners as 'diversity hires,' and ITAR restrictions for defense work.
The USA lacks the electronic engineering talent it did in the Apollo/Vietnam era to do 'QRCP.'
3/3
The mass production of China's "Corvus Mulberry" tank landing barges proceeds apace in a shipyard also building freighters for a Taiwanese shipping firm.
Taiwanese capitalists are literally paying the Chinese shipyard that is building the means CCP will use to invade Taiwan! 1/
The US Navy doesn't have the tankers, salvage ships, tugs, fire boats & destroyer tenders to attempt running China's drone & anti-ship missile gauntlet when the CCP invades Taiwan.
China collapsing from a 3-4 year US naval blockade will disgorge Taiwan from the CCP's grip. 2/
Will someone please explain to me why the US Navy should impale it's carrier battle groups on Chinese anti-ship hypersonic, ballistic and cruise missiles to rescue Taiwan from this foolishness?
Distant naval blockade will collapse China's economy for for far fewer US lives.
The mass production of China's "Corvu Mulberry" tank landing barges proceeds apace in a shipyard also building freighters for a Taiwanese shipping firm.
Taiwanese capitalists are literally paying the Chinese shipyard that are building the means CCP will use to invade them.
Will someone please explain to me why the US Navy should impale it's carrier battle groups on Chinese anti-ship hypersonic, ballistic and cruise missiles to rescue Taiwan from this foolishness?
Distant naval blockade will collapse China's economy for far fewer US lives. 2/
The US Navy doesn't have the tankers, salvage ships, tugs, fire boats & destroyer tenders to attempt running China's drone & anti-ship missile gauntlet when the CCP invades Taiwan.
China collapsing from a 3-4 year US naval blockade will disgorge Taiwan from the CCP's grip.
It turns out that, in addition to "TAF-10" USMC SCR-270 radars, the USMC 90mm Heavy AA Battalion SCR-584 radars saw quite a few of the Japanese Balloon Radar Decoys at Okinawa in/near Hagushi Beach, Yonton & Kadena air fields.
The Marine AA troops didn't know what they were, but their descriptions match known aerodynamic templates for them.
The balloon decoy tended to fall through different levels of wind direction & updrafts. So the decoy often went in different directions than the ground wind. 2/
The 1st Marine Provisional Anti-Aircraft Group Hqtrs saw the radar decoy balloons most often when the Japanese engaged in a night time tactic they referred to as "Ice-Tong attacks."
Pairs of Japanese planes established themselves in orbits just outside effective 90mm gun
The one of the previous drawing is of a captured decoy from Roi island in March 1944.
Roi was subject to several IJN air raids using this decoy, as USS New Mexico reported its effects 14 Feb 1944, later reported in a Section 22 Current Statement dated 3 April 1944. 2/
Somehow the report in General Douglas MacArthur's Section 22 radar hunters current statement was scrubbed from all the Feb-March 1944 period after action reports and war diaries of USS New Mexico I've checked.
There is an tragi-comic story behind this Russian foreign ministry claim.
The Russian use the term "direct participation" because of a lie by Chancellor Scholz a year ago when he claimed the computer system used to program the Taurus missiles... 1/