Air power YouTuber breaks down Russian MIRV attack on Ukraine

[jmdrake]

[WarriorLiberty]

Do not Forget it was the Trump admin that Withdraw from the INF Treaty.

[jmdrake]

Do not Forget it was the Trump admin that Withdraw from the INF Treaty.

You are correct. I saw Scott Ritter bring that up on the Sabby Sabs podcast.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to WarriorLiberty again.

[Dr.3D]

The video looked to me like a launch of multiple missiles, played in reverse.

Where are the explosions one would see if it were real and those had just hit the ground?

[WarriorLiberty]

The video looked to me like a launch of multiple missiles, played in reverse.

Where are the explosions one would see if it were real and those had just hit the ground?

I Suggest you watch this.
The Russians are not bluffing around.

These NeoCons, Hawks are pushing the West into a point where they will nothing to defend against Russia systems.
Who knows what else Russia has.

The clowns who think they convince Russia to withdraw from Eastern Ukraine are idiots. If they somehow can convince Russia by going with the nonsense.

"position of strength"

[Dr.3D]

I Suggest you watch this.
The Russians are not bluffing around.

These NeoCons, Hawks are pushing the West into a point where they will nothing to defend against Russia systems.
Who knows what else Russia has.

The clowns who think they convince Russia to withdraw from Eastern Ukraine are idiots. If they somehow can convince Russia by going with the nonsense.

"position of strength"

That's the video I'm talking about.

Those flashes are being played in reverse. That is a video of a multiple missile launch being played backwards to make it look like multiple war heads landed.

For one thing, they wouldn't be visible if they were coming down.

If they were coming down, they would be exploding at ground level and there are no explosions.

The video appears to be fake!

[vita3]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NEhNRM...NvbiB1a3JhaW5l

[vita3]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h8LvIk...Bvc3RvbA%3D%3D

[vita3]

Scott Ritter:

The Oreshnik missile attack against the Yuzmash factory outside Dnipropetrovsk produced stunning visual images of six separate impact “events,” each comprised of six luminescent “rods” impacting the factory grounds. The Russian government had alluded to the destruction caused by this attack as being devastating; the Ukrainians, on the other hand, have minimized the damage done as negligible.



In theory, the destructive potential of kinetic “rods” striking the earth at hypersonic speeds is enormous. A 2003 US Air Force study on what were called “Hypervelocity Rod Bundles (HRB)” speculated that 20-foot by six-foot rods of Tungsten, when dropped from a space-based platform and impacting the earth at a speed of ten times the speed of sound, would produce results equivalent to a nuclear explosion.

In 2018, Chinese researchers from the North University of China located in the city of Taiyuan, Shanxi province, working with the university's Intelligent Weapon Research Institute, test-fired a tungsten rod from an unnamed high-altitude platform. In the test, a 140-kilogram tungsten rod was fired at a speed of over four kilometers per second and produced a crater with a depth of three meters and a width of over four and a half meters—far from the effect one would expect from a nuclear weapon. Moreover, the penetration effect of the tungsten rod was reduced at speeds over three and a half times the speed of sound.


The Oreshnik submunitions impacting Dnipropetrovsk on November 21, 2024
The physics surrounding the effects of the Oreshnik payload remain confusing to even those who have spent a lifetime studying the physics of such weapons. Dr. Theodore Postol, a weapons expert from MIT, has done some preliminary studies on the Oreshnik which mirror the assessment of the researchers from the North University of China.

But Russian experts have spoken about advances made by Russia in material sciences associated with the performance of materials at hypersonic speed, advances which may alter the physics in question (for instance, the pure tungsten rod envisioned by the US Air Force and tested by the Chinese may, in the case of the Oreshnik, have had a coating of an advanced alloy formed from tantalum carbide and hafnium carbide, materials used by Russia in reentry operations from space, where heat absorption is desired).

The Russians point out that the Oreshnik “rods,” whatever their precise composition, would, once heated to 4,000 degrees Celsius (7,232 degrees Fahrenheit), would vaporize steel and concrete, including reinforced concrete, on contact. “It would vaporize,” as President Putin observed, “everything that is in the epicenter of the explosion is divided into fractions, into elementary particles, everything turns essentially into dust.”

The underlying question remains, how much of an area does the “epicenter of the explosion” encompass? Ukraine has been surprisingly reticent about documenting its claims that the Oreshnik caused “minimal damage,” only noting that the warheads which struck Dnipropetrovsk carried no explosives and, as a result, did not cause significant damage. This conclusion was shared by German experts commenting in Bild Magazine. Jeffrey Lewis, the director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California, in a recent interview with Reuters, commented on the Oreshnik, noting that, “This is a new capability, but this is not a new capability that represents a dramatic change in the way that conventional weapons are developed.” He continued, “It’s a series of old technologies that have been put together in a new way.”


Oreshnik debris recovered by Ukraine
Lewis added that using the Oreshnik with conventional warheads was an expensive means "to deliver not that much destruction,” noting that, given the expense associated with ballistic missiles of the Oreshnik class, using this type of weapon to hit Ukraine was more likely designed to achieve a psychological effect than military impact. “If it were inherently terrifying, [Putin] would just use it. But that’s not quite enough,” Lewis said. “He had to use it and then do a press conference and then do another press conference and say: ‘Hey, this thing is really scary, you should be scared.’”

While Lewis’ analysis is open to scrutiny (his claim that the Oreshnik was simply a bunch of “old technologies” that have been “put together in new ways” is refuted by Russian statements and the evidence—his analysis of the reentry system is sophomoric, and does not take into account Russian reports which suggest the Oreshnik made use of new independent post-boost vehicles, or IPBVs, known in Russian as blok individualnogo razvedeniya (or BIR). Likewise, Lewis’ critique seems to simply parrot Ukrainian battle damage assessments without any attempt to delve further into the new technologies associated with the kinetic rods used by the Oreshnik.


Schematic of Oreshnik warhead by Theodore Postol incorporating new Russia BIR technology
(It should be noted that Theodore Postol, in conducting his analysis, has incorporated these new technologies in his work.)

Therein lies the rub—while President Putin undoubtedly employed the Oreshnik as a warning to Ukraine and its western allies about the consequences of striking Russian soil with US- and UK-manufactured and directed weapons such as the ATACMS and Storm Shadow, the deterrence value of the Oreshnik depends entirely upon its ability to inflict damage of such magnitude that Ukraine and its allies, when doing a risk-benefit analysis of the consequences of continuing to strike Russia with ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles, would opt to avoid escalation.

Assessments like those produced by Bild and Reuters, when backed by the statements made by Ukrainian officials, lend credence to the notion that the Oreshnik was all bark, with little or no bite. This mindset has resulted in Ukraine, with the blessing and assistance of its US and UK masters, continuing to strike targets in the Kursk region using ATACMS missiles.

This in turn has resulted in Russian President Putin warning that Russia may hit Ukraine again with one or more Oreshnik missiles. Putin indicated that the targets could include military, industrial, and national decision-making centers, including Bankova Street in Kiev, where the seat of the Ukrainian government is located.


Ukrainian Presidential administration building, Bankova Street, Kiev
It is in Russia’s interest to make the results of such an attack visible to a global audience and, by doing so, negate the analysis of western experts such as Jeffrey Lewis. If the Oreshnik, fired singly or as a multi-missile salvo, can impart on Ukrainian and western leaders the futility of continuing their missile strikes into Russia, then such an escalation would be of value.

If, however, the Oreshnik’s impact is hidden or—worse, for Russia—supports Jeffrey Lewis’ less than flattering assessment, then the deterrence value of the Oreshnik will be negligible, encouraging Ukraine to increase the scope and scale of its missile attacks on Russia, and putting Russia in a position where it must, given the political capital already invested in trying to deter Ukrainian missile attacks, escalate its response. This could include using new conventional weapons possessing massive destructive capability, such as the “father of all bombs” thermobaric weapon or the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle.

[vita3]

That's the video I'm talking about.

Those flashes are being played in reverse. That is a video of a multiple missile launch being played backwards to make it look like multiple war heads landed.

For one thing, they wouldn't be visible if they were coming down.

If they were coming down, they would be exploding at ground level and there are no explosions.

The video appears to be fake!