THE ATOMIC PROJECT. MANAGEMENT LESSONS

Such a breakthrough became possible thanks to the Nuclear Arms Limitation Treaty, also known as START-3, signed by Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama on April 8, 2010 in Prague (entered into force on February 5, 2011), according to which by 2021 it is planned to reduce the nuclear warheads of the parties to 1,550 units, and carriers (intercontinental ballistic missiles, ballistic missiles of submarines and heavy bombers) – up to 700 units. This was the first agreement in the strategic field, after the treacherous policy of the “perestroika” and the Democrats, in which Russia managed to achieve significant advantages for itself. In it, for the first time, the Americans pledged to REDUCE their strategic potential, while Russia was given the opportunity to increase it. In addition, within its framework, the most important restrictions that existed in the previous START-1 and 2 treaties were lifted from Russia: on the size of the deployment areas of mobile ICBMs, on the number of multi-charged ICBMs, on the possibility of creating railway ICBMs. Russia has not made any concessions. Having written off Moscow as a serious geopolitical competitor and believing in the myth of its unattainable military and technological superiority, Washington has driven itself into such a trap, the way out of which – at least in the near and medium term – is not even visible. And it’s not just about strategic nuclear forces. Recently, there has been a lot of talk about the so-called “sixth generation wars” and high-precision long-range weapons, which are designed to ensure victory over the enemy without coming into direct contact with its armed forces. But apart from the fact that this concept itself is very doubtful (neither in Iraq nor in Afghanistan could the United States retain the victory achieved in this way), Russia is also reaching a parity line here. The proof of this is the new generation of long–range cruise missiles, which will soon be deployed on submarines of the Black Sea Fleet and missile ships of the Caspian Flotilla.

In Russia today, many people find it hard to believe

Such distrust is especially widespread in the circles of the so-called “patriotic public” due to the fact that our public opinion is firmly and selflessly held captive by numerous myths about Russia’s total “weakness” and total Western “superiority”. These myths were formed back in the “dashing 90s” under the influence of Yeltsin’s betrayal of our national interests and the brutal Russophobia of the then-dominant liberal-democratic “masters” of Russia. It must be admitted that in those days they fully corresponded to the sad reality. But times have changed. And this can be easily understood if you do not try to replace a sober analysis with slogans and chants, and facts with fictions and fantasies.

THE PHENOMENON OF RUSSIAN POWER

Russian tanks in Europe

Consider, for example, the potential of conventional weapons of Russia and the West in the European theater of operations (Theater of Operations). In this area, as it is considered in a “decent patriotic society”, NATO is almost an order of magnitude superior to “weak” Russia. But the first encounter with reality leaves no stone unturned from such a delusion. As you know, the main striking force and the core of the combat power of the Ground Forces are tanks. By the time of the collapse of the USSR, our Armed Forces had about 20,000 tanks in their composition on the European Theater of Operations. The Americans, in turn, deployed a group of 6,000 heavy Abrams tanks on the territory of the Allies. But, despite this, the combined potential of NATO in Europe was still significantly inferior to the Soviet one. And NATO strategists were forced to compensate for this imbalance with the help of tactical nuclear weapons (TNW). Back in the first half of the 1950s, NATO conducted a study on what forces the bloc needed to have in order to reliably repel a large-scale land offensive by the superior forces of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact countries. Then the calculations showed that to solve this problem it is necessary to have at least 96 full-blooded divisions. Meanwhile, the cost of arming one such division alone exceeded $1 billion. (and this is not in current dollars, but in the prices of that time!). Plus, about 2-3 times more funds were required for the maintenance of such a huge group of troops and the creation of appropriate infrastructure. Such a burden was clearly beyond the power of the Western economy. The solution was found in deploying a grouping of American tactical nuclear weapons on the continent, which was soon done. By the beginning of the 1970s, the American arsenal of TNW, according to experts, already numbered about 7 thousand ammunition for various purposes, and the highest achievement in this field was considered to be the creation of selective action weapons – neutron charges (for 203 mm and 155 mm guns, as well as for Lance missiles) with a capacity of 1 to 10 kilotons, which were considered as the main means of combating the personnel of the ground forces, especially the crews of Soviet tanks. Taking into account the nuclear factor, in order to repel the “Soviet aggression”, NATO needed to deploy not 96, but only 30 divisions, and they were deployed. How are things in this area now? And here’s how: at the beginning of 2013, the last batch of heavy Abrams was withdrawn by the Americans from Europe. In the NATO countries, over the past 20 years, 10-15 “old”, but in fact – quite combat-ready vehicles were scrapped for one new tank that entered service. At the same time, Russia has hardly reduced its tanks. As a result, today OUR COUNTRY IS THE ABSOLUTE LEADER HERE: in mid-2014, there were as many as 18,177 tanks on the balance sheet of the Ministry of Defense (T–90 – 400 units, T–72B – 7144 units, T–80 – 4744 units, T–64 – 4000 units, T-62 – 689 units and T-55 – 1200 units). Of course, only a few thousand vehicles are deployed in the units of constant readiness, and most of them are located in storage bases, but the picture is exactly the same for NATO members. So the decisive superiority of Russian tanks has not gone anywhere since the Soviet era, strange as it may seem, “patriotic” mourners and all-sufferers will hear it! Okay, the corrosive reader will say. But some of these tanks should be kept in the Far East, because China has its own 8,000 armored vehicles. In addition, NATO, as before, can compensate for this imbalance with the help of tactical nuclear weapons. So, even more reliable and cheaper… And here another surprise awaits us. In the field of TNW, the superiority of modern Russia over NATO is absolutely crushing!

Washington’s Fatal Miscalculation

And the Americans are well aware of this. Russian just used to think that Russia would never rise again, that the possibility of a big war in Europe was reduced to zero and the Russian TNW, along with Russian tanks, would eventually crumble from old age and uselessness. And now… now they’ve woken up, but it’s too late – the train has left! Here it must be said that this nuclear weapon can be called “tactical” very conditionally. Sometimes it significantly exceeds the power of warheads mounted on strategic ICBMs. I will point out for example that the range of safe firing of Russian 65-76K torpedoes in the nuclear version is eleven and a half kilometers, otherwise you can get under the blast wave of your own torpedo. And this despite the fact that the range of these torpedoes does not exceed 50 km. And, for example, the tactical bombs of the USA (B-61, 170 kt) and Russia (up to 350 kt) significantly exceed the warheads of the strategic American ICBMs Minuteman-2 (170 kt) and the Poseidon SLBM (40 kt) in their power. It would be useful to recall here that only two atomic bombs with a capacity of 15 kt (tactical, according to the current classification), dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, brought Japan out of the war three weeks later… So, NATO countries currently have only 260 tactical nuclear munitions in the European Theater of Operations. The United States has 200 aerial bombs with a total capacity of 18 megatons. They are stationed at six air bases in Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Turkey. France has another 60 atomic bombs. That’s it! And Russia today, according to the most conservative estimates, has no less than five thousand units of TNW of different classes – from warheads for Iskanders to torpedo, aviation and artillery missiles! True, the United States has 300 more tactical B-61 bombs on its own territory, but with such an imbalance, this, you know, does not change things. And the United States cannot change this imbalance: they have destroyed the rest of the “legacy of the Cold War” — tactical nuclear shells, land–based missiles, and nuclear warheads of Tomahawk sea-based cruise missiles.And the Americans are well aware of this. Russian just used to think that Russia would never rise again, that the possibility of a big war in Europe was reduced to zero and the Russian TNW, along with Russian tanks, would eventually crumble from old age and uselessness. And now… now they’ve woken up, but it’s too late – the train has left! Here it must be said that this nuclear weapon can be called “tactical” very conditionally. Sometimes it significantly exceeds the power of warheads mounted on strategic ICBMs. I will point out for example that the range of safe firing of Russian 65-76K torpedoes in the nuclear version is eleven and a half kilometers, otherwise you can get under the blast wave of your own torpedo. And this despite the fact that the range of these torpedoes does not exceed 50 km. And, for example, the tactical bombs of the USA (B-61, 170 kt) and Russia (up to 350 kt) significantly exceed the warheads of the strategic American ICBMs Minuteman-2 (170 kt) and the Poseidon SLBM (40 kt) in their power. It would be useful to recall here that only two atomic bombs with a capacity of 15 kt (tactical, according to the current classification), dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, brought Japan out of the war three weeks later… So, NATO countries currently have only 260 tactical nuclear munitions in the European Theater of Operations. The United States has 200 aerial bombs with a total capacity of 18 megatons. They are stationed at six air bases in Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Turkey. France has another 60 atomic bombs. That’s it! And Russia today, according to the most conservative estimates, has no less than five thousand units of TNW of different classes – from warheads for Iskanders to torpedo, aviation and artillery missiles! True, the United States has 300 more tactical B-61 bombs on its own territory, but with such an imbalance, this, you know, does not change things. And the United States cannot change this imbalance: they have destroyed the rest of the “legacy of the Cold War” — tactical nuclear shells, land–based missiles, and nuclear warheads of Tomahawk sea-based cruise missiles. In order to understand how it happened that Russia, which “lost” the Cold War, is now an ORDER of MAGNITUDE superior to NATO in this important area, it is necessary to turn to the history of the issue. It is believed that by the beginning of 1991, the USSR had approximately 20-22 000 units of tactical nuclear weapons. These are nuclear charges of aerial bombs, warheads of tactical missiles “Luna”, “Tochka”, “Oka”, nuclear warheads of anti-submarine and anti-ship weapons of the fleet, special warheads of air defense and missile defense missiles, nuclear mines and nuclear artillery shells of the Ground Forces. This impressive arsenal was the result of a forty-year intense arms race, initiated, by the way, not by the “totalitarian” USSR, but by the quite democratic and liberal USA, which already in the early 1950s began to develop and test various types of TNW. The first example of a warhead of this class was a projectile for a 280-mm cannon, with a capacity of 15 kt, tested in May 1953. With the miniaturization of nuclear warheads, projectiles for self-propelled howitzers of 203 mm and 155 mm caliber were subsequently adopted, which had a power of 1 to 10 kt and until recently were in the arsenal of American troops in Europe. Subsequently, tactical missiles with nuclear warheads were put into service: “Redstone” (range 370 kilometers), “Corporal” (125 kilometers), “Sergeant” (140 kilometers), “Lance” (130 kilometers) and a number of others. In the mid-1960s, the development of the Pershing-1 tactical missile (740 kilometers) was completed. In turn, the Soviet military-political leadership decided that the saturation of American troops in Europe with TNW creates a fundamentally new balance of forces on the continent. Decisive measures were taken to create and deploy numerous types of Soviet TNW. Already in the early 1960s, tactical missiles T-5, T-7, and Luna began to arrive in the troops. Later, the non-strategic nuclear arsenal included medium-range missiles RSD-10, R-12, R-14, medium-range bombers Tu-22, Tu-16, tactical missiles OTR–22, OTR-23, tactical – R-17, “Dot”, 152 mm caliber nuclear artillery, 203 mm and 240 mm, tactical aircraft Su-17, Su-24, MiG-21, MiG-23, sea-based vehicles. By the way, the Soviet leadership has repeatedly offered Western leaders to start negotiations on reducing tactical nuclear weapons. But NATO for a long time stubbornly rejected all the proposals of the USSR on this topic. The situation changed radically only when the Union staggered under the blows of Gorbachev’s “perestroika”. Then Washington felt that it was necessary to use the moment to weaken and disarm its main geopolitical opponent as much as possible. In September 1991, US President George W. Bush took the initiative to reduce and even eliminate certain types of TNW. Gorbachev, in turn, also announced plans for a radical reduction of similar weapons in the USSR. Subsequently, these plans were developed in the statement of Russian President Boris Yeltsin “On Russia’s policy in the field of arms limitation and reduction” of January 29, 1992. It indicated that the production of nuclear artillery shells and warheads for ground-based missiles had been discontinued in Russia, and all stocks of such warheads would be destroyed. Russia will remove all TNW from surface ships and multipurpose submarines and eliminate one third. Half of the warheads for anti-aircraft missiles and aviation ammunition will also be eliminated. After these reductions, Russia and the United States were supposed to have 2500-3000 tactical nuclear warheads in the arsenals of TNW. But it turned out differently. The illusion of world hegemony played a cruel joke on Washington. “Democratic” Russia, after the terrible pogrom that their liberal agents staged here, was written off by American strategists. At the same time, after their high–precision weapons successfully coped with some combat tasks previously planned for TNW during the Gulf War, Washington bet on a technological breakthrough. But this led to the fact that “smart” weapons became more and more expensive, less and less of them were produced, and in the end, NATO’s “high-precision ammunition” turned out to be completely insufficient for conducting large-scale hostilities with an enemy at least approximately equal to the West in terms of its technological level.

“Borjom” for decomposed kidneys

Meanwhile, in Russia, experts quickly agreed that in the geostrategic situation that has developed since the collapse of the USSR, a landslide reduction and destruction of TNW is unacceptable. After all, it is TNW, which has quite high indicators according to the criterion of “efficiency-cost”, can serve as a kind of universal equalizer of forces, depriving NATO of their military advantage. Under the circumstances, Russia simply borrowed from NATO the thesis that was recently used by the alliance about the need to compensate for enemy superiority in conventional weapons by deploying a tactical nuclear arsenal on the European Theater of Operations.

This is how the situation has been developing for two decades

The West, having written off Russia, cut its tanks, destroyed tactical nuclear ammunition. Russia, feeling its weakness, left both tanks and tactical nuclear ammunition as an “armored train on a siding.” This is what has led to the fact that now – after Russia has overcome the inertia of disintegration and has begun a systematic revival of its power, and the West, lulled by sweet dreams of a liberal “end of history”, has castrated its armed forces to the point where they are capable of waging only colonial wars with a weak, technically backward enemy – The balance of power in Europe has radically changed in our favor. Realizing this, the Americans caught on, but it was too late. In December 2010, the Assistant Secretary of State for Verification, Compliance and Implementation of Agreements, Rose Gottemoeller, sounded the alarm: “The Russians have more tactical nuclear systems than we do, and Congress strongly recommends that these issues be addressed… The next step should be the reduction of tactical nuclear weapons.” Even more active in the same year were the Europeans in the person of the foreign ministers of Poland and Sweden, who blindly demanded from Russia the unilateral creation of two nuclear–free zones – the Kaliningrad Region and the Kola Peninsula – territories of priority deployment of the Russian TNW, including the main areas of the Baltic and Northern Fleets (in the case of the Northern Fleet, this is also the area where a significant part of the Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces are based). Since then, the Americans have repeatedly offered our country a flawed way to solve the “TNW problem”, stubbornly insisting on developing an agreement “to eliminate inequality in tactical nuclear weapons stocks.” They even tried to condition the entry into force of the OSV-3 treaty on the start of negotiations on TNW. Thus, in accordance with Senator Sene Lemieux’s amendment (Amendment 4/S.AMDN.4908), the final entry into force of the OSV-3 should take place only after the consent of the Russian side to negotiations on the issue of the so-called “elimination of the imbalance” in the tactical nuclear weapons of Russia and the United States. And already on February 3, 2011, Barack Obama, in a letter sent to a number of key senators, announced “the beginning of negotiations with Russia in the near future on eliminating the disparity between tactical nuclear weapons of the Russian Federation and the United States and reducing the number of tactical nuclear warheads in a verifiable way.” But alas! In 2012, Putin returned to the Kremlin and the West’s hopes of “diluting” Russia by inclining it to unilateral disarmament failed.

***

The price of this failure became more or less clear during the Ukrainian crisis. And this price is as follows: the West has lost its former military superiority over Russia, and in the European theater of operations it turned out to be MANY TIMES WEAKER than Moscow. And there are no ways to correct this disparity, neither Washington, nor London, nor Berlin, nor Paris.

The post PUTIN’S NUCLEAR SURPRISE first appeared on Global Policy.

I think no one will deny the fact that the war in the sense in which we understood and knew it, if we do not talk about a full-scale war with fronts and nuclear weapons, has undergone significant changes, and I think the Russian defense Ministry should pay close attention to this fact.

The war in Ukraine, the civil war in Libya, the war in Syria, armed conflicts in Yemen and other regions, all indicate that small wars now go by completely different rules.

The time when guided weapons were available only to privileged militants has passed without a trace. In contemporary armed conflicts, anti-tank, anti-tank systems and MANPADS, sticking out from almost every bump…

How could anyone have imagined 10 years ago that the militants of the so-called Syrian opposition, during the armed conflict in Syria, will use chemical warfare agents and attack drones. How could anyone imagine that the Yemeni Houthis would resist the Arab coalition for four years and even launch rocket and bomb attacks on the cities of Saudi Arabia?

Probably, somewhere in the gallery of military-political thought, there were such theses, but no one seriously talked about it. And today, it’s the harsh truth of our lives.

If we look closely at the range of weapons used in the so-called small wars or armed conflicts, we can see that such a class of weapons as precision and guided weapons has become a direct attribute of all the recent wars on our planet. And this is not counting EW systems, intelligence, communications and combat control.

What used to be available only to the leading powers of the world, today is actively used in every military conflict on our planet.

When I was at the Army-2019 forum, I was interested in how our modern weapons and military equipment correspond to the challenges and threats that are dictated by the realities of the same war in Syria. And I have to admit the fact that while our weapons and military equipment generally correspond to the concept of waging a modern major war, there is still work to be done in relation to the armed conflicts that are taking place today in Libya, Syria, Yemen, Donbas, and even in Africa.

Let’s start with the sore spot, with the connection

Let us, for example, take KAMAZ-63968 “Typhoon”, which is armed with the military police of the Ministry of defense of the Russian Federation and is actively exploited in Syria. Modern wars follow different rules. Precision weapons have become commonplace even in the hands of “rebels»

KAMAZ-63968 ” TYPHOON»

Typhoon K-63968 is equipped with five video cameras for all-around view in the landing module and cockpit. The cabin is equipped with folding monitors, showing both the condition of the car and the external review.

The vehicle is equipped with on-Board Information and Control System (bius) GALS-D1M to monitor and regulate the engine, calculate the roll of the machine, the slope of the road, speed, location, etc. the Machine is excellent. I’d take one.

However, the problem is that those design bureaus that created it, they did it, based on those technical specifications and conceptual approaches that inevitably rely on the tactics of the Russian armed forces in the war described by the old combat regulations. This machine is not equipped with the telecommunications and information media it needs as part of the functions it performs in Syria.

Simply put, Typhoon K-63968 has the means of communication that would be necessary for this technique, if it was used as part of a motorized rifle battalion, but these means of communication and transmission of information are absolutely insufficient in the performance of patrol functions of the military police on this machine.

Russian communication troops are present in Syria, and they really provide reliable communication and data transmission, but only within the Hmeimim air base and the port of Tartus, and then Hello to my favorites from the company “NGO Angstrom” with their budget P-187 “Azart” and TETRA mode, since outside the bases of the Russian armed forces in Syria, everyone uses mobile phones and Chinese “balalaika” working in the bands of Syrian trunking communications.

This is indeed a fact, since in the Idlib zone of joint patrol, the Russian military police have to use mobile phones. I know of at least four such cases. You can say it’s not much, but that’s just what I know…

Sergei Pavlovich Korolev attribute the phrase – ” I do not agree-criticize, criticize-offer, offer-do, do-answer!»

Do, until not in my competence. Did would-responded. In the meantime, I can only offer.

For some reason, in Russia, the means of space communication are considered as an attribute of elite affiliation, although those satellite groups that are in service with the Ministry of defense and that provide communication to our troops, at best, are used with 20% efficiency.

On the contrary, satellite communication in the us army, is not an attribute of the authorities and is quite available even in the company link.

Even the militants, the so-called “Syrian opposition”, are armed with American base terminals AN/PRC-155 Manpack from General Dynamics, which not only create a secure mobile communication cell, but also allow via satellite is constantly in touch with its American curator.

Modern wars follow different rules

Precision weapons became commonplace even in the hands of “rebels”. Alas, in our armed forces, there are no such terminals. In the best case, if some special forces group will be given a satellite phone and strictly forbidden to call it.

In my opinion, all high-security vehicles used by the military police, and ideally, most of the military equipment of the armed forces of the Russian Federation, should be equipped with satellite communications and telecommunications. This is due to the fact that in those armed conflicts in which our armed forces take part, communication is not only an element of tactical control, but also the possibility of operational influence on the information and political situation of the conflict. And in the conditions of hybrid wars, it is sometimes more important than maintaining radio silence. But that’s not all.

To date, our military communications facilities, which are installed on military equipment and operated in the armed forces do not have the technical capability to support self-organizing broadband decentralized digital data networks. In other words, the radio station, which is installed on the same Typhoon K-63968 is unable to function as a base station, providing stronger coverage of the territory where the crew of this military equipment performs its tasks.

Not let us far stray from KAMAZ-63968 “Typhoon” and turn to the second issue

Looking through the reports of hostilities in Yemen, Syria, Donbas and even in Israel, we can notice a certain pattern and similarity of these military conflicts.

Anti-tank guided weapons systems, perhaps, have become the main attribute of the war. In addition to artillery, the main losses in manpower and equipment, the parties to these armed conflicts are from the use of ATGM and ATGM.

Those who are interested in the problems of modern armed conflicts, know perfectly well that the entire YouTube is littered with footage of the Houthis, where in Yemen they burn guided missiles military equipment of Saudi Arabia. Modern military equipment, which is made to the same standards of protection as the Russian KAMAZ-63968 “Typhoon”.

It is important to note that the American armored vehicles, which are armed with Saudi Arabia, that the Russian “Typhoon”, perfectly protect from bullets and mines,but they are completely defenseless before the ATGM and ATGM.

The war in Syria was no exception

During this armed conflict, the militants of the so-called Syrian opposition, as well as militants of terrorist groups, repeatedly demonstrated footage of the use of ATGM and ATGM on military equipment of the Syrian army and it should be noted that this type of weapons caused significant damage to government units.

To this day, Syria retains those areas, especially adjacent to Idlib or the terrorist enclave in Al-TANF, under the control of the United States, where there are ambushes of opposition fighters and terrorists with the use of ATGM and ATGM.

As an example of the use of ATGM and ATGM can lead the war in the Donbass, where in the conditions of positional conflict, this type of weapons is actively used not only to defeat military equipment, but also to damage personnel located in fortifications.

The modern concept of the use of weapons and military equipment by the main armies of the world as a whole is similar and develops quite linearly.

To date, the classic army consider the use of active protection systems against ATGM and ATGM exclusively on heavy and medium armored vehicles-tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and APCS.

Even Israel, which is in a state of armed conflict with the Hezbollah group, only in 2006, after the second Lebanese war, decided to equip merkav tanks with active protection complexes “Trophy”.

In modern wars, when the use of light armored vehicles, such as MRAP has become quite widespread, and the role of armored vehicles, tanks, IFVs, APCS was reduced to fire support, the role of ATGM and ATGM on the battlefield is often crucial.

Given these circumstances, there is an urgent need to ensure the protection of light armored wheeled vehicles, such as MRAP, from the defeat of guided weapons such as ATGM and ATGM.

To date, not all manufacturers of active protection systems of armored vehicles are ready to install their developments on light wheeled armored vehicles. Perhaps the only solution in the field of active protection systems of light armored vehicles presented by the German company IBD Deisenroth Engineering. Their KAZ AMAP-ADS system can be adapted for passenger transport applications.

As for the Russian systems of active protection of armored vehicles, the most advanced KAZ “Afganit” is installed on those types of weapons that are created within the framework of the Armata project and due to these circumstances KAZ “Afganit” does not have a sufficiently wide distribution.

I believe that the Russian defense Ministry should somewhat revise and adjust the specifications that it issues to our manufacturers of weapons and military equipment.

In my opinion, the military equipment, such as MRAP, which is supplied to the Russian army, should by default be equipped with active protection systems, such as KAZ “Afganit”. This is due to the trends that dictate modern armed conflicts, because the probability of getting under fire ATGM and ATGM, for example, in Syria, the military police unit of the Russian Federation on KAMAZ-63968 “Typhoon”, is much higher than the tank of the 25th division of the SPN” tiger Forces”, which provides fire support for offensives.

Of course, active protection systems are expensive, and they significantly increase the cost of military equipment.

But the question of price is a relative question. Just the other day, Yemeni Houthis attacked an oil refinery in Saudi Arabia using UAVs and ballistic missiles.

Even if we assume that these strike UAVs cost several tens of thousands of dollars, and missiles hundreds of thousands of dollars, the damage to Saudi Arabia is estimated in billions of losses, and the world economy will lose trillions from rising prices for energy resources.

And in this case, the actual practice of modern armed conflicts shows us that the question of the need to equip light armored vehicles, such as MRAP, with active protection systems, is completely irrelevant. Of course you need to equip. And the sooner this is done, the more likely it is that Russian units that in one way or another are involved in modern armed conflicts will not suffer from the fire of ATGM and ATGM.

The question of additional protection is fair not only in relation to light armored vehicles, such as KAMAZ-63968 “Typhoon”, it is more than fair even in relation to such types of weapons as zrpk “Armor” and SAM ” TOR ” and others…

Ask what does the active protection and air defense systems?

And despite the fact that there is a characteristic example that directly indicates that all military air defense systems must have such protection.

This example is in Syria, where during combat use, one of the zrpk “Shell”, was destroyed by a guided missile from an Israeli air force aircraft.

Of course, we can say that this complex was destroyed as a consequence of the negligence of the combat crew, which did not change position after the exhaustion of ammunition, and we can say that the zrpk “Armor” after the exhaustion of ammunition, became defenseless for attacks of guided weapons of the air – surface class. And then, and then, to be fair. Of course, you can rely on the qualification of combat calculations of military air defense systems, but in my opinion, additional insurance would not be superfluous.

I think it would be wise on the basis of the active protection system, to create for existing and future systems military air defense the last line of defense that was intended to ensure the safety and protection of the car’s air defense against possible missile attacks. Not only when this system has exhausted ammunition, but also in those cases when the air defense is broken and the air defense installation itself comes under attack.

There is another point that in my opinion requires attention

The experience of the armed conflict in Syria has shown that the protection systems that are installed on the aircraft of the Russian aerospace forces, on the equipment of the army aviation, is not a panacea for a possible attack using guided missiles or MANPADS.

We all remember how on February 3, 2018, a su-25 attack aircraft was shot down from MANPADS near Idlib. Pilot major Roman Filipov ejected and died in battle with terrorists Dzhebhat al-Nusra.

On 8 July 2016, a Russian mi-35M helicopter under the control of Russian instructor pilots Ryafagat Khabibulin and Yevgeny Dolgin was shot down by ISIS militants from the ATGM “TOW”. The helicopter crashed in an area controlled by the Syrian government army, the pilots were killed. Even from the fire of militants, Russia lost 3 helicopters.

Of course, new aircraft protection systems are being developed and implemented in Russia, the President-C system is already in place and is being put into service, which is capable of protecting aviation equipment not only from the Igla MANPADS, but also countering missiles of previous models, such as the Strela and foreign weapons of this class, such as the American-made Stinger systems.

This is really good, but this system at best provides protection for aircraft from missiles with infrared homing head and which are used on the principle of-shot and forgot.

However, there is a mass of guided weapons, which is armed with the same fighters of the Syrian opposition, which does not use the principles of automatic homing on the target. The same ATGM “TOW”, which terrorists shot down our helicopters, is corrected after a shot on wires. And our army aviation, which performs the main work in Syria, has no means of protection against such weapons. Heat traps, radio suppression, target simulators, laser illumination of homing heads, all this is useless against guided weapons, after which the missile flight is corrected by the shooter.

ATGM “TOW”

In my opinion, there is an urgent need to improve systems to counter such threats. In addition to thermal traps and laser illumination, which counteract the IR homing missiles, electronic jamming systems, which are designed to counteract the radio command and radar guidance, other systems of counteraction, it seems to me it is necessary to create elements of kinetic interception, both existing and prospective ammunition ATGM, ATGM and MANPADS.

What could it be

For example, special ammunition can be placed in the containers of shooting ltts, which when shooting move in the direction of an incoming missile ATGM, ATGM or MANPADS, and at a certain moment are undermined by a radio command fuse, thereby destroying fragments or knocking off course threatening ammunition.

For helicopters of army aviation, for example, you can create lateral rotating machine guns, which are used as machine-gun turret on the platform “Armata”, is paired with KAZ “Afghani”, in fact due to what military equipment on the platform has a protection upper hemisphere from potential attacks ATGM. As a special case, for these purposes, you can use a four-barreled aviation machine gun caliber 7.62 mm GSHG-7.62 Tula “design Bureau of instrumentation”. As it seems to me, it should cope with this function more than positively.

Another point that I would like to note as a trend of modern armed conflicts is the flow of the intensity of hostilities in conditions of limited visibility – that is, in the night.

Many have seen on YouTube summaries of the fighting, either on the channels of official sources, or on the channel AnnaNews, where you can see how the aircraft VKS strikes and hunt almost for individual cyclists militants.

In fact it is not for nothing

The fact is that the terrorists, understanding the technical capabilities of both the Syrian army and the Russian aerospace forces are trying to regroup and move their forces in such a way that it does not cause attention from the operators of UAVs and, as a consequence, air strikes.

To do this, the terrorists have developed a strategy of daily accumulation of forces and means in shelters, where the militants arrive in small groups or single order using individual vehicles in the form of mopeds, motorcycles or bicycles. And with the onset of darkness already carry out their sorties.

And if those units of the Syrian army, which operate in close conjunction with the Russian command of the Hmeimim air base, have the technical capabilities of reconnaissance and combat operations at night, then most of the units of the Syrian army do not have such a possibility and at night they bear significant losses from terrorist attacks.

In turn, the militants of the so-called Syrian opposition or terrorists operating under the auspices of the United States, are well equipped and have all the necessary technical capabilities to conduct combat operations at night.

Again, we can cite as an example the long-suffering Donbass, where the armed forces of Ukraine practically on a daily basis are shelling the territory of peaceful cities that are attached to the contact line. This armed conflict also predominantly takes place at night. This is due to the fact that it is much easier for armed formations of Ukraine to mask the advance of their equipment and fire groups from the OSCE monitoring mission at night.

As a conclusion, I would like to say that all these trends in modern armed conflicts certainly make new demands not only on the range of technical means that are designed to enable the Russian army to conduct combat operations at night, in the conditions of active use of guided weapons, but also requires the development of new tactics, new approaches to combat operations, which will be based, as well as on modern capabilities of weapons and military equipment, and features of hybrid warfare.

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