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Suddenly lots of people talk about Europe needing cruise missiles to deter Russians.
Let's look at what this implies.
- It certainly implies that deep strike is important (and has deterrence value).
- It also implies that Europeans without the U.S. don't have enough deep strike capability.
- It also implies to add those cruise missiles remedies that deep strike capability deficit.
This is not wholly nonsense, but there's a really, really big 4th implication:
- It implies that these people understand there's another way of doing strategic air war (or specifically deep strikes) than the American way of (strategic air) war.
That's something I've been trying to convey, for I saw very little awareness for this.
To build a very expensive, very big air force with lots of specialised aircraft for a doctrine that requires very intricately-synchronised strike packages is not the only way how you can blow up an oil refinery 1,000 km deep in the enemy's rear area.
You can also simply send a missile that he doesn't intercept (maybe because he only intercepts the other missiles in the air at the same time or maybe because it's too difficult to intercept or maybe you launched when he's not ready to defend).
I'm waiting for more such insight breakthroughs by establishment types. Maybe they'll at some point recognise that our focus on the standing army is ill-advised compared to a focus on wartime strength (reserves!)? Maybe they'll understand that ships are targets and submarines can hardly sink anything that you cannot sink by land-based aircraft? Maybe they'll understand that generals, admirals and experts are very often in disagreement, which proves that they're not always correct? Maybe they might recognise that Russia is not about to invade NATO simply because mobilised Russia is badly outnumbered by a demobilised NATO minus Americans and the Russian armed forces are crap level forces comparable to Iraq 1990 at most?
related:
/2009/11/tacair-of-future.html
/2010/07/first-week-of-peer-vs-peer-air-war.html
/2016/01/air-force-strike-packages-and-peer-wars.html
/2018/03/luftwaffe-f-35-or-typhoon-for-airground.html
/2024/05/reviewing-my-theses-on-air-power-in.html
S O
defence_and_freedom@gmx.de
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I beg to disagree. Submarines are very good at sinking ships, ideally with missiles so that they don't need to close, and other submarines, with torpedoes. Aircraft are no good against submarines, since nuclear power and to a lesser extent AIP. However I agree that most ship sinking can be done by missiles launched by aircraft (faster turnaround / replenishment). As for Russia not wanting to invade NATO, I also disagree, as long as you have a criminal in the Kremlin, they may want to take some slices (Baltic russians minorities, Suwalki corridor ... etc.). And I believe that Russia has learned a lot against Ukraine, ie. drones ... etc., and they are stronger than ever against our legacy forces eg. 15M€ Leopard A8 ... and Lynx.
ReplyDeleteThe ease of getting aircraft to the right place for ship killing and their versatility (being good at other things) means that aircraft should be preferred. I consider submarines as ship killers for waters where your aircraft cannot reach (due to range or due to opposition).
DeleteThat's a small niche. Basically, NATO needs submarines in med and Baltic only as training sparring partner, not for killing.
The Russian armed forces are outnumbered by NATO minus U.S. without the latter having mobilised at all. They're barely on par with Ukraine in non-nuclear warfare. Finland would overrun Moscow in two days if it decided to do so (there are no significant Russian reserves left) - even quicker than completing its mobilisation.
Concerning numbers, what matters is what can be deployed. Russia can choose the timing and the location. Before Poland / the Baltics can be reinforced, there will be quite a few days of shooting gallery for Russia.
DeleteCan you remind me how long it will take for the armoured brigades of the Bundeswehr to be in position in Poland (and the other countries')
The situation has changed since I wrote that Baltic invasion scenario.
Deletehttps://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/2016/07/how-to-invade-baltic-countries-and-get.html
NATO now has a very long Scandinavian border with Russia, including at the doorsteps of St. Petersburg.
The Russians may dream of doing well in the first days, but they lack a credible scenario how they could hold onto their gains.
I'm not convinced. Russia needs only a few brigades to invade around Narva (Estonia russian minorities) and around Rezekne / Daugavpils / Preli (Latvia russian minorities). NATO combat groups are far away. By keeping close to the border they don't risk their lines of communication. Will NATO help the baltics kick the russians out ?
ReplyDeleteA direct counteroffensive to grab land may be unnecessary.
DeleteImagine the Europeans busting all Russian oil refineries in European Russia. That's very well doable.
The big ace in the Russian sleeve was the threat with nukes. They wore that one out. It's not a credible threat anymore. So we could pommel them badly.
We could also simply wage war through Belarus or even only by deploying 500+ army troops to Ukraine.
The Russians cannot cope with European NATO's military power. It's all Potemkin' pretense. They're a pretend great power.
Their conventional might rested ~90% on Soviet era stocks of vehicles, artillery and munitions. They burned through that. Now Russia = Italy with unusable nukes, mobilised and on the brink of economic catastrophe.
I'm not sure European allies will bust russian oil refineries because in that case Russia will retaliate in kind - and has more drones / missiles to do so. Would Germany attack Russia because it has invaded a few square kilometres of Estonia, populated by a majority of russian minorities ?
ReplyDeleteRussia HAD more munitions. And it's vastly less capable than the Europeans to intercept cruise missiles. Russia has almost no AEW&C capacity left, Sweden alone and French navy alone have more than all of Russia.
DeleteThe functioning Link 16 datalinks between NATO combat aircraft enable them to keep an eye on vast regions, whereas in Russia fewer aircraft (afaik mostly MiG-31s, possibly the Su-3x) can do so and at lesser quality.
Germany would fight Russia if Estonia was under attack by it. Both North Atlantic Treaty and Lisbon Treaty compel us to do so and there would be no security for Germany without those treaties.
The British and French are better-equipped to strike deep, though.
There's lots of interest in one-way attack munitions (which include cruise missiles) on both sides of the pond.
ReplyDeleteJust be wary: if you think you need X munitions, you probably really need 10X or 100X and the industrial capacity to ramp up production, especially if you don't have an air force that can use inexpensive JDAM-style weapons.
Also, inexpensive, Shahed-style weapons aren't just for poor countries. A cheap weapon built in large numbers is complementary to more expensive systems.
Obviously you can do strategic air warfare via cruise missiles, that is after all what we have seen Ukraine and Russia do for the last 4+ years. But that isn't really the purpose of air forces in the context of a full war. Strategic bombing is a terrible return on investment; it's the air force equivalent of attrition warfare. Unless you use a substantial number of nukes, you will almost never win a war via strategic bombing alone. What you need an air force for is *operational* bombing, such as air interdiction and battlefield air interdiction. And the thing is, that once you have air superiority for AI and BAI, you also have it for strategic bombing and may as well use it, seeing as it's both cheaper and carrying a whole lot more payload than cruise missiles.
ReplyDeleteAnd AI and BAI are *very* impactful. We can currently witness what even the very leaky Ukrainian AI campaign in the south is doing to the Russians right now with drones carrying a 20kg warhead.
The only wars withclaim to have been won entirely by air were Kosovo Air War (strategic bombing + bombing whatever) and maybe the British poison gas bombing of Iraqi villages in 1920's. So if winning entirely from air was a sensible metric, it would not favour BAI.
DeleteI think strategic bombing holds great promise for a few big lever targets, but ill-disciplined more general strat bombing is BS.
It does not justify the expenses of building up the capability.
BAI makes sense, but it's mostly sensible as a temporary local impediment in support of an offensive or to slow down a red offensive buildup.
Permanent BAI can be replaced by crashing diesel supply via oil refinery strat bombing plus taking out a few transformers to knock out elecrtified rail.
You don't need permanent AI or BAI. AI and BAI is what serves as your ticket to smash the enemy army and occupy their territory. If the enemy has no territory and no army, the war is over. If you destroy things such as rail and fuel infrastructure, you're just making your own advance harder. Destroying them in the enemy strategic rear is one thing, but very inefficient, seeing as the enemy will have a far easier time replacing and rebuilding them and as the Russians found out, bombing transformers doesn't impede rail transport enough to be viable.
DeleteAttacks on road traffic are difficult to pull off in relation to the reward.
DeleteThere's but one case of decisive effect from BAI - France 1944 where thousands of tactical aircraft supported in air supremacy conditions.
BAI in Korea and Vietnam was expensive, destructive and ultimately non-decisive. The Ukrainian efforts have so far been indecisive as well.
BAI is smarter than CAS under mobile warfare conditions, but it's not a clear air war strategy favourite IMO.