A new thread with some brief, top level thoughts on the missile statistics. I think people are misreading a couple of the statistics. We are still not that far out from the end of the war, so treat everything I saw as having imaginary error bars of about 10%. I've seen multiple statements about number of Iranian missiles launched. Some say 500, some say 550, some say 591, some say 631. That's a big delta, probably produced by counting uncertainties.

Brief, top level review of Iranian missile performance: of the 30 or so hits on Israel, very few missiles actually struck anything important. There are 2-3 hits on Ramon AB, but not on anything important (they hit taxiways), and some possible hits at other airbases. Once again, the demonstrated accuracy of Iranian missile systems just isn't all that great. Even the big salvo they got through at Glilot shows only 1/5 hits, and that "hit" is assuming the Iranians were targeting a warehouse, which I'm very skeptical of.

Couple of incomplete thoughts at this point:
Iranian missiles have been, so far, about as effective as previously thought. Huge variation in accuracy, and only some are getting through. Israeli military capabilities are also basically as good as previously thought. The surprising thing was not Israeli air dominance, but that they chose to undertake a much wider campaign than previously predicted.

Some notes, given Iran's "new" missile base (I have some theories on where that thing is but nothing definitive) on Iran's missile production: Iran has at this point rebuilt the buildings destroyed in Israel's raid. There's been what appears to be a lull in production given # of missile crates moving about, but in the grand scheme of things I'm skeptical its going to make that much of a difference.

We counted! 32 impact points at Nevatim, with a small degree of clustering. They landed multiple hits in the area of F-35 hangers, with one possible direct hit, but not a lot of damage.
Takeaway: some F-35s got really lucky.

https://twitter.com/ArmsControlWonk/status/1841985294368964944

In one instance, two impact craters were observed inside a set of F-35 hangers, just narrowly missing any of them.
Next time, Israel may not be so lucky.

Short thread on the potential benefits of conducting an abnormal ICBM test like the one the PLARF just conducted from Hainan Island: Generally the PLARF tests ICBMs from the interior of the country, out in the northern desert shooting east to west. This is satisfactory for most systems tests (many missile tests are actually conducted to test a specific subsystem)

I've been at it again. Russia is building a deployment facility likely for the operation of the Burevestnik nuclear cruise missile at a nuclear warhead storage facility outside Vologda.
reuters.com/world/europe/u… Couple of major points:
Nuclear warhead and missile checkout facilities are both present at this facility. This will likely be a high readiness system.

We noted when I found Yumen silo field that the lids were odd! Wonder what precisely the problem is, perhaps the hydraulics for the system don't work.

https://twitter.com/ArmsControlWonk/status/1743635612291219818

I expect that this is going to have reverberations that is going to manifest into tangible changes to China's order of battle in five years. If the PLARF can't be trusted to build a working missile force, well, give it to the Navy instead (I'm sure 董军 would love it!)

Folks, I am DELIGHTED to announce that my long-delayed PLARF order of battle has finally been released as a @JamesMartinCNS occasional paper. Let's dig into it, shall we?
https://t.co/9S9fQZeRNXnonproliferation.org/peoples-libera…
This is a 73-page report that details changes to China's land-based cruise and ballistic missile force. The PLARF continues to both expand and modernize their missile forces, with a massive expansion in ICBMs and the continued modernization of their MRBM and IRBM range forces.

North Korea has launched an SRBM from a recently dug silo at the Sohae Space Launch Center. Some important implications: North Korea is threatened with a myriad of fast or stealthy South Korean and American systems that can accurately strike targets in the DPRK in under five minutes. There are two possible solutions to this problem, and the DPRK is experimenting with both of them.

Interesting article, with pictures, of one of the ROC's new anti-ship missile units. This one is in Hualien, at 24.039459°, 121.619632°. I have two observations:

https://twitter.com/LiaWong__/status/1604344052391874561

Point one: the ROC protects critical sites with fixed hardened missile sites built into mountains. One base at Hetian Mountian south of Hualien is pretty well known. The ROC seems to have increasingly moved in the direction of mobile launchers instead recently.

1960s Soviet war films are great. I assume if you were a director you could just call up the Soviet Army and be like "hey can I borrow a tank division or two and dress them up in German uniforms? It's for a movie" and they'd be like "sure boss go for it" "What if we also did some sick jumps with the T-34s were borrowing?"

I have finished Andor and I am not exaggerating when I say it is possibly one of the best pieces of media about authoritarianism I think I've ever seen It's also amazing that Disney let this get made in the way that it was considering its episode structure...entire episodes where nothing explodes solely dedicated to hammering home the idea that authoritarianism is inescapable no matter what you do or where you go

The 2022 CMPR is out. Let's go through it! I mostly agree with the assessment, with some caveats: The table of launchers and missiles is interesting. DoD now counts some of the new silos as deployed launchers, but not all. If DoD was counting all, the number would be closer to 400. I assume that DoD is judging some of the new silos to be finished or close to it.

A couple of thoughts datapoints on this thread: first, It's very possible we know the name of this TEL: the HTF5700HEV, which they showed us two years ago. When they showed us this vehicle, it operated in tandem with a DF-17 TEL.

https://twitter.com/roderick_s_lee/status/1568325676725321729

Two observations that make this vehicle more likely to be a transporter/reloader than a TEL IMO: first, as I pointed out in a previous thread, the vehicle doesn't appear to have any stands that would allow for the launching of a ballistic missile.

https://twitter.com/dex_eve/status/1555717356625739780