October 19th, 2015 -
Fort Russ - PolitRussia -
video and text translation by Soviet Bear -
The military operation in Syria for the Russian Armed forces was an opportunity not only to test their skills in practice and to show the force of arms of the Russian Federation in action, but also to teach n our Western partners a lesson
As for the skill test, the results of the first week of the operation speak for themselves. On October 7, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to the President, noting the achievement of significant results. From September 30 to October 7, the Russian Aerospace forces destroyed 19 command posts, 12 ammunition depots, 71 armored vehicles, 6 factories and workshops for the manufacture of explosives and improvised explosive devices.
Very impressive, compared it to the effectiveness of the U.S. army and their allies action against ISIS (according to unconfirmed reports, over 7,000 sorties, killing on average 0.4 man for each sortie).
If we talk about military operation in Syria as "the next" demonstration of arms, which would help us to conclude a couple of new contracts for the supply of weapons, it is worth noting that initially the prospects were poor. The fact that initially we used the old but proven aircraft and helicopters in the Syrian operation. Such as:
Squadron (12 pieces) front bombers su-24;
Squadron (12 pieces) of su-25;
6 Su-34 multifunctional fighter-bombers (the only new bomber);
4 Su-30SM heavy multi-purpose fighters;
12 Mi-24 attack helicopters;
12 Mi-17 helicopters.
Among them the most interesting for buyers could be the Su-30SM and Su-34, since they are currently the most modern. However, the export data of the aircraft is still not widely established. A few new the Su-30SM’s entered the service in the air forces of Kazakhstan, India, and the export of Su-34 at all has not begun, until the formation of a sufficient number of squadrons of these fighter-bombers in the Aerospace Forces of the Russian Federation. According to recent estimates, there are 73 Su-34’s in total.
Capabilities of other machines have been known throughout the world for a long time. But this does not mean that our weapons in Syria could not once again smack of our rivals or attract the attention of potential buyers. Especially since with an assistant.
On the night of October 7th "naval strike group of the Russian Navy from a designated area of the Caspian sea launched massive strikes with the “Caliber" sea-based cruise missiles against infrastructure objects of ISIS in Syria. Cruise missiles successfully hit all targets. The accuracy of engagement of targets at long range was not more than 3 meters", — reported on the website of the Ministry of Defense
News about the use of cruise missiles really excited the world community. Many journalists even managed to say that "the funeral of the whole system have taken place almost in front of our eyes ".
You can see this “funeral” firsthand:
I think it is symbolic that they took place on our President’s birthday.
"To defeat the militants, in addition to aviation, this morning the ships of the Caspian flotilla were engaged, the four rocket ships have conducted 26 launches of sea-based “Caliber” cruise missiles at 11 targets the results of the strikes confirmed high efficiency of the missiles at great distance — almost 1.5 thousand kilometers” - Sergey Shoigu to “Russia 1” channel
Many American experts have already managed to express their concerns. The use of cruise missiles by us even became a central topic of discussion at the Atlantic Council – one of the think tanks and U.S. foreign policy. Thus, chief of the NATO joint command of aerospace defense Admiral William Gortney expressed his concern about the situation:
"They are deploying missiles that are very accurate and have very long range to such an extent that their long range aircraft now can now stay within the Russian airspace and fire nuclear warheads against targets and critical infrastructure in Canada, USA and the North-Western Pacific coast. It forces us to catch the arrows instead of trying to shoot the archers".
It is understandable to worry about something here. We first had to produce a couple of dozen missiles and almost hit the American drone. But "Caliber" missile system, which have been used in Syria, for the first time was presented at the exhibition of defense systems in Asia in spring 2009, they entered service in 2012. The missile system was developed in 1983 by the "Innovator" design Bureau
The “Caliber” Integrated missile systems are designed to engage ground, sea surface and underwater targets.
The 3M14 missiles in various configurations are part of:
"Caliber-PL" missile complex for submarines;
"Caliber-NK" missile complex for surface ships;
"Caliber-M" mobile missile complex;
"Caliber-A" air-based missile system;
All complexes have common means of combat:
anti-ship missiles 3M-54;
high-precision cruise missiles to destroy ground targets 3M-14;
anti-submarine missiles 91RT2 ("Caliber-NK") and 91RT1 ("Caliber-PL").
The missile 3M-14 is the descendant of the legendary missile 3M-10 "Granat" and 3M-E (export version representing a shortened "Granat" with a small range).
Unfortunately, the specifications of the rocket, which made a noise, in Syria are not available online. Data can be collected only by certain statements of higher-level commanders. So, the commander of the Caspian flotilla rear-Admiral Sergei Alekminsky said that the flight range of the new missiles is about 2600 km, black sea fleet Commander Alexander Vitko called the figure of 1500 kilometers. Such discrepancy in figures is explained quite simple. All depends on the design of missiles: nuclear or "high-explosive" (fitting the missiles with special warheads). Judging by leaked reports, missiles which were launched on October 7 were "high explosive".
As for the rest of its performance characteristics, we include only estimated values based on analogies with the characteristics for missiles developed earlier. In comparison with the characteristics of the American missile Tomahawk ("Tomahawk" Block IV is taken from the website of the U.S. Navy and from the fair brochure of the "Raytheon" company) in various versions of “Granat" and 3M-14E, "Caliber" specifications are as follows: