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DDE

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  1. DDE
    To be pedantic, I'm not sure Scott's sources are credible enough for such a certain claim. A lot of statements about novel Russian weapons systems are a product of citogenesis - someone extrapolates from prior systems, puts it on Wikipedia, then the Russian media reads off the infobox, and the result gets cited as an official confirmation. See, for example, the mystery of the torpedo tube count of the Yasens. You see all sorts of numbers and calibers thrown around when the only certainty is this one image:
  2. DDE
    I do not believe they have appreciably changed. As I was telling @FleshJeb above, in the mid-1980s Russian IR thinking had moved from Bolshevik orthodoxy to Realpolitik - the former dictated the US society was indeed strung along by The Blob but sought to subvert it, whereas the latter discounts US society entirely as a passive non-entity, and focuses solely on The Blob and its 25+ years of adversarial actions. The lack of successes in 'soft power' creates a self-reinforcing cycle for such thinking
  3. DDE
    Secrecy, persistence, subordination (most recently, USSF Delta 9 Orbital Warfare), sufficient payload capacity, ability to conduct aerodynamic plane change maneuvers via atmospheric skips, past releases of subsatellites not reported to the UN (compare and contrast with Russian inspector subsatellite and sub-subsatellite releases). It seems perfectly serviceable as, say, a retrievable/serviceable Brilliant Pebbles garage. Besides, remember the recent Chinese FOBS+HGV hype? Well, the X-37 is technically an orbital HGV too. However, as mentioned above, the term used lumps together space-to-space and space-to-ground systems, so I digress. As a space-to-space system, conventional weaponry would be adequate... and beaides there's always the nebulous Weapons Based on New Physical Principles. As implied by current accusations of an armed X-37 already being in orbit, such spaceplanes would be predeployed in the "threatening period". The latest mission was onboard a Falcon 9, so launch costs could crater if need be... and then you have the prospects of a USSF Starship.
  4. DDE
    I've found three or four exact matches on the Russian internet bazaars and I agree with your ID. In fact, Yandex image search was able to identify it from OP's photos.
  5. DDE
    Likely not from the viewpoint of those performing the analysis, who have grown accustomed to uniformly bad PR - and who, more importantly, aren't terribly concerned with the broader public. As a consequence of the predominance of the realist brand of International Relations since the mid-1980s (please enjoy this very Russian explanation), the Russian state (as opposed to grant-eaters profiteering at its feet, who often hold drastically different views) is almost exclusively concerned about communicating with their peers - the military, diplomatic and intelligence leadership ("The Blob"). This is reinforced by perceived long-time and institutionalized animosity and bad faith, so hard bargains and dissuasion through show of force are seen as the only usable tools at its disposal; the Foreign Ministry, by comparison, is rumored to have become derided and despondent for its inability to deliver (see here, sections "Their 2014" and "Their MFA"). I largely suspect that Ru MoD was fully aware of the consequences of this test, and they were intentional - anything less nasty would produce comparable amounts of noise, while failing to get the attention of the people they're communicating with - the people who were quite aware of what prior Plesetsk tests inferred, and were still utterly non-responsive. This is a show of resolve as much as capability. Or, for some low-hanging fruit, just consider how Starlink is at risk whereas OneWeb is largely not.
  6. DDE
    I imagine the Chinese bureaucrats have euphemisms for many, many various degrees of "broken down".
  7. DDE
    Yay. That attitude definitely doesn't encourage more missiles and more blasted satellites.
  8. DDE
    MG-44: the Red Army Spinlaunch Literally powered by a Jeep, a huge advantage over prior electrically-powered testbeds as well as Gauss guns. 520 g HE "pucks", clip-fed, firing range... wildly unpredictable.
  9. DDE
    Because lifting a 200 g styrofoam object is easy? Otherwise he's just a 69-year-old male of below-average height and in seemingly adequate physical condition, rumors of body doubles notwithstanding.
  10. DDE
    Interesting of RIA to call Prichal "the last Rusdian module for the ISS" https://ria.ru/20211119/baykonur-1759845651.html
  11. DDE
    *shrug*
  12. DDE
    The Laser Broom. I believe Sandia Labs at one point approched Russian optronics experts with such a suggestion... and there is an ongoing weaponization effort at one of the space lidar facilities in Altai. So, quite possibly, soon™. @sh1pman Edit: oh, not Altai https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=46485.0
  13. DDE
  14. DDE
    Anyway, let's get this thread back to its roots. 17D and 22D were attempts to boost the S-75 SAM system while getting rid of the Tonka-IRFNA propellant pair, and without changing the size of the vehicle much. Hence the outboard second-stage combination rocket-ramjets (the magnesium rocket engine casings would catch fire and burn by design).
  15. DDE
    And now the civvies are joining in. Look carefully at the livery at 2:07: Now I believe it's actually an Aeroflot Boeing 737-800, so it's a double twist!
  16. DDE
  17. DDE
    Some ships still dump their exhaust into the water (e.g. the Karakurt missile boats), and there is a type of counter-sonar system that involves coating the hull in a flow of air bubbles
  18. DDE
    Creative... forestry?
  19. DDE
    Oh, part 2!
  20. DDE
    Insufficient elevation? No problem!
  21. DDE
    About a month ago, our Healthcare Ministry has acknowledged the fact that most people have two shoulders, and so authorized jabbing one with Sputnik-Light, and the other with the year's flu vaccine.
  22. DDE
    When Andropov is the one introducing a unilateral moratorium, you know you've crossed all the lines. Anyway, just had a bit of a heated argument. https://www.n2yo.com/?s=13552 Ru MoD never admitted to shooting down Kosmos 1408. It did shoot down a Tselina-D launched in 1982, one of four. And since the above website seems to be projecting from the latest NORAD TLIs as if it's still around, while also listing a "Kosmos 1408 Debris (decayed)", I had to deal with a loud claim that the Pentagon and everyone else couldn't even correctly identify the destroyed satellite.
  23. DDE
    It nicely partitions green projects away into a silo where they don't impact your "brown" legacy operations. And it's orobably easier to shift the pricetag of a standalone green project onto the taxpayer than it is to solicit public funding for a full overahul of your private enterprise. There is a high to be had in contrarianism. Some people outright chase it over having an actual opinion.
  24. DDE
  25. DDE
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