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Zach Profile picture
Zach
@ThrustWR
For occasional musings, maps, and my writings about Defense-related things now and then. Website and contact at https://t.co/3325NU6RdV
Sep 17, 2024 • 16 tweets • 3 min read
You can't just hit up a few documents or flip through a few books on something like this. This stuff takes years to fully grasp. There's like five different perspectives you have to view this from. You have to learn about each system separately: naval aviation, naval platforms, naval missiles, naval combat systems, supporting intelligence system, and then understanding the overarching political/military strategies at work.
Aug 22, 2024 • 13 tweets • 6 min read
Although Tomahawk may not look like it, the missile was designed with stealth in mind. In the past, I have discussed the early stealth considerations for the missile, as mentioned by the program manager in 1981. But some newly released GD/Convair briefings shed more light on this
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Cruise Missile System Design, Rear Admiral Walter M. Locke, USN Director, Joint Cruise Missiles Project at the AlAA 1981 ANNUAL MEETING AND TECHNICAL DISPLAY “FRONTIERS OF ACHIEVEMENT” (1981) For years, the San Diego Air & Space Museum has been digitizing old GD/Convair scans/photos and uploading them to their Flickr. The recent batches (like 5 years) have been heavily Tomahawk focused, but the images were sort of all over the place and hard to understand.
Jul 27, 2024 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
STARS (Strategic Target System) is definitely one of the coolest target delivery vehicles out there. It was apparently pursued due to fears that we would eventually run out of Minuteman boosters to use. Here's a neat cutaway of it showing multiple payloads loaded.
Image STARS has three variants. STARS I has first and second stages made out of Polaris booster sections and a commercially sourced Orbus 1 third stage. The system can deploy a single or multiple payloads. Image
Feb 26, 2024 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Patriot and Aegis (the two major automated AD systems in the US that have seen combat) had three friendly/auto-related incidents, which were so different.

Patriot: Operators had little training and trusted the system too much
Aegis: Operators didn't trust the system at all The Aegis Combat System's doctrine stuff is like leagues ahead of what Patriot had in its autonomous mode. As the paper describes, it was "all-or-none." On the other hand, Aegis (due to distrust for the machine) had so many layers aka “decision leverage points” built in.
Feb 3, 2024 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
The US Navy's latest SM-2 variant, the SM-2 IIIC, will be the latest no more. The SM-2 IIICU will be the "newest" version soon. The new missile will feature hardware changes to address obsolescence issues with the TDD (fuze) and GS. Image The SM-2IIICU will be a follow-up to the IIIC. The IIIC itself is a new variant that is a major improvement over the current IIIB variant. The IIIC changes the dorsal fin of the missile, adds a new active-radar homing seeker, and a jet-tab steering system for TVC.
Jan 26, 2024 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
Is bro serious? bro, can't be serious. Well, I guess we have to do this again:

Arleigh-Burke Flight I cost
1990: $700M ($1.6B today)
1991: $788M ($1.7B today)
1992: $867M ($1.8B today)
Flight IIA cost
2005: $1,362M ($2.1B today)
Flight III cost
2023: $2.2-2.3B
Image Not to mention, the Burkes being built now are very different from the Burkes in 91.

1993
2023
2005 Additions
Jan 13, 2024 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
They haven't demonstrated "impressive" warship construction. The article is a clickbait piece that somehow ranks a Maya or the Sejong the Great (Burke-bases designs) as somehow being "better" than the latest Flight IIIs, despite in reality both being closer to Flight II/IIAs. These vessels run with older Aegis baselines and have nothing on a Baseline 9 IAMD equipped Flight I. The same goes for the Type 055.
Dec 21, 2023 • 7 tweets • 4 min read
US Air Force's Expedient Small Asset Protection (ESAP) shelter that went up on Andersen AFB earlier this year. The structure measures 30 meters (length) by 20 meters (width), which makes it big enough for every fighter in service.


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Image In FY18, USAF paid $12.396M to procure:
8 ESAP Type I Fighter Aircraft Shelters for $7.2M
6 ESAP Type II Equipment shelters for $2.490M

They also paid $2.706M for shelter support. The USAF is looking to buy 70 shelters a year between FY2024-28.
Dec 7, 2023 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
The recent NDAA grants the US Air Force the authority to enter into contracts to procure six over-the-horizon radars to meet Northern Command requirements for detecting threats facing the homeland. Image The authority allows the AF to procure the first two radars in a sole source contract if it deems that option being more applicable. But the third and follow-on radars have to be procured under competitive procedures. Image
Nov 26, 2023 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
If you guys don't believe me, here are the words straight from Norman Friedman's mouth. Being able to only defend 45-60° arc would suck because the Soviets were considering throwing multiple MRA regiments at CBGs. This means multi-axis attacks along a very wide arc.



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Image Yeah, the Navy had to convince the AF to pitch in and reduce the load lol. They were so desperate for missile shooters we thought about modifying the A-6 to throw AAM. The introduction of AMRAAM and Hornet was a major step up.
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Nov 19, 2023 • 17 tweets • 5 min read
Your daily reminder that Russia is yet to fully and repeatably demonstrate this. On the other hand, as part of the Forward Pass and NIFC-CA, the US has been working on this problem for close to 50 years (and largely solved it in two distinct ways 30 years ago). To approach the topic of AWACS-controlled missiles or fighters to AWACS hand-over of missiles, one has to understand how missiles are controlled.
Oct 25, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
This is a RIM-116 appreciation post. The earlier RIM-116 uses a combination of a passive RF and an infrared seeker. The IR element has an 80-element linear detector array that operates in the mid-wave band. The seeker is gimble-mounted on a space-stable gyro. Image
Oct 1, 2023 • 22 tweets • 6 min read
Today, we'll briefly discuss the U.S. Navy's multi-decade R&D effort to pull off an integrated (all-in-one) setup that would combine EW/Comms and a Radar into a single array and what spurred this. We will also look at the platform SWaP limitations the USN currently faces. Some of this is mostly a translation of the great work done by @hone_hone_bone_ in his piece, but I also add a few thoughts of my own: orca-oruka.hatenablog.com/entry/2023/07/…
Jun 18, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Unfortunately, Twitter is a bad format for sharing info about something like this. This thread barely skimmed the surface of these systems and I have much more to share. The best way to do this would be an article, I plan to publish this future piece on defensearchives.org In the meantime, you can check out our other pieces from our contributors.
Jun 18, 2023 • 13 tweets • 6 min read
One of these days I would like to write about the history of various targets that led up to the GQM-163A Coyote. Call it something like "In Pursuit of Performance: The History of U.S. Navy Anti-Ship Targets" And it starts with the target shown below, the BQM-111 Firebrand. ImageImage The BQM-111 came into existence after the cancellation of the BQM-90 program. The objective was to create a target system that could replicate supersonic anti-ship missiles. The system used solid rocket motors, which allowed it to be brought up to speed for ramjet takeover. Image