Saturday, December 30, 2017

Milspeak II.

This is coolbert:

Concluding!

From an article as seen in Aviation Week we have a comment as extracted that most extreme and egregious example of Milspeak you are ever going to find!!

"We didn’t know what 90 percent of the switches did"

From Glaaar on Jun 25, 2017. Most specifically with regard to an American understanding of the Soviet era MiG-23 combat warplane.

That comment by GLAAR: My explanation as best as I understand it in bold:

"Nothing is useful if it doesn't come with the full GTW kit."

GTW = Global Thermonuclear War.

"A MiG-23 is a Kuban Shelf or In trail Snapup platform for the R-23/24 in which dealing with the lead elements gets you zapped by the stingers."

Kuban Shelf = ?

In trail Snapup = ?

R-23/24 =  AA-7 Apex air-air missile.

Stingers = American air-air missile infra-red guided?

"If you have a 23E with the Jaybird nose instead of Sapfir, how can you test the Apex?"

23E = Flogger E MiG-23.

Jaybird =  Airborne Radar.

Saphir =  Airborne Radar.

Apex = AA-7 air-to-air missile.

"If it is a Silent Runner working a broadcast LINK from Warpac ADGE, how do you emulate that ability in a jammer interactive environment?"

Silent Runner = Radar guided missile receiving target data passively?

Warpac = Warsaw Pact.

ADGE = Air Defense Ground Environment

"You can simulate the performance and you can work the angles and edges of envelope that makes it kill-able at visual range but if it's a rocket-on-a-rail, 'fire now', platform for two AAM, it's functioning is that of an assembly line. Zip, Ramp, Shoot, Break, Run, Land, Turn, Launch, repeat."

AAM = Air-to-air missile.

"The Soviet system didn't have to win the OCA fight, they just had to keep NATO BAI/INT from killing their logistics. The frontal and beyond AD battle was a SAM solved problem to them so that their tanks could advance under a constant S2A umbrella. Not an A2A one."

AD = Air Defense.

SAM = Surface to Air Missile.

OCA = Offensive Counter Air

BAI = Battlefield Air Interdiction

INT = Intelligence

S2A = Surface-to-air

A2A = Air-To-Air (weapon)

"And to me, especially as ARH-on-missile (GAI/SAGG/TVM) makes salvo launch multi-kill, possible until ONE SIDE runs out of weapons, it certainly looks like they got that part right."

ARH =  Anti radiation homing. [?]

GAI =  General Aircraft Information.

SAGG =  Seeker Aided Ground Guidance.

TVM =  Threat and Vulnerability Management.

"Our problem is that we have a Knights Of Sky mentality dating back to Midway and Schweinfurt if not Richtofen in which there is a /struggle/ as sense of 'overcoming' something. Like a great game."

"Shrug. Why not just overfly it instead?"

"Kelly Johnson once said: 'We don't give the Russian's near enough headaches in the high right part of the envelope.' He was talking about SRAMs and SR-71's but I am thinking Hoplites (300n) and HSSW (900nm). It's one way and it's done between 80 and 200K which means it can be blisteringly fast. And the cost per round means you have 25-50 for each F-35 you _don't_ buy."

SRAM = Short Range Attack Missile.

Hoplite =  Indirect Precision Attack Missile.

HSSW =  High Speed Strike Weapon.

SR-71 =  Long-range, Mach 3+ strategic reconnaissance aircraft.

"Each F-35 which, shot down being predictable, within 12nm of a JDAM target, costs you 400 billion and 15 years of Gen 5."

Gen 5 =  Fifth Generation warplane.

JDAM = Joint Direct Attack Munition.

"Since double or even quadruple the price of a Tomahawk is still barely break even on a 9M96 or a 48N6E3, the reality then becomes killing arrows with arrows is a bad cost-:loss trade for the few systems (nothing less than an SA-10) which can hit them."

SA-10 =  Grumble SAM. [Surface-air-missile]

9M96 = Short-range S-400 SAM.

48N6E3 = Medium-range S-400 SAM

"Instant obsolescence of an entire class of 3rd World SAM systems along with everything up to about SA-11/17 which is still in the Russian inventory leaves you with a pretty thin defense of just a couple hundred S-300/400 batteries."

SA-11 = Gadfly SAM.

SA-17 = Grizzly SAM.

"Have you seen a map of Russia?"

"Anorexic."

"Chuck Myers once said: 'JAST was fine until they switched 'Advanced' for 'Air' and came up with the F-35. I think he was pretty clever too.

JAST = Joint Advanced Strike Technology.

"Contempt of Engagement is about selectivity and saturation the same way that DMPIs per day drives LER decisions about attrition and frag list reduction on theater strategy."

LER = Loss Exchange Ratio.

DMPI = Desired Mean Point of Impact.

"If you can push a lot of shots downrange and into terminals which stress threat defense reaction windows, even if the individual delivered warheads are only in the 100-300lb range (couple to a Mach 5-9 kinetic strike), you can take the measure:counter variable out of knowing how the platform works, how the weapons system uses the platform capabilities and how the 'kompleks' (system of systems, i.e. IADS) synergizes."

IADS = Integrated Air Defense System.

Personally and honestly I am not really sure if any of this qualifies as milspeak as would understood by Colonel Bay. I leave it to the devoted reader to the blog to decide for themselves.

coolbert.








2 comments:

Anonymous said...

My best estimates from a lifetime of being an enthusiast of military aircraft and flight sims:

Kuban Shelf = An arrangement of fighters stacked vertically

In trail Snapup = Presumably a low-to-high shot from a rearward, pursuing aircraft

Jaybird = Predecessor to the Saphir radar; incapable of AA-7 guidance

Saphir = Successor to the Jaybird; capable of AA-7 guidance

Silent Runner working a broadcast LINK from Warpac ADGE = Soviet aircraft could be guided by ground radar stations "silently," without using their onboard radars

SRAM: Boeing AGM-69 SRAM; nuclear air-to-surface missile with 50 mile range

The general jist of the rant is that SAMs which are capable enough to shoot down cruise missiles are more expensive than the cruise missiles which they target and hence the attacker can afford to shoot more than the defender.

Anonymous said...

Though usually GTOW, GTW likely means "Gross Take-off Weight". I think the comment author was trying to speak to the inadequacies of evaluating an aircraft that does not have all its usual armaments and equipment installed.
I don't know what Kuban Shelf is but "In Trail Snapup" is an interception method where the interceptor closes from behind ("in trail") and below. A missile capable of gaining altitude ("snapup") is usually employed.

For what it's worth, I found your site while searching for a meaning behind "Kuban shelf" :)