{"id":182364,"date":"2015-10-08T22:21:00","date_gmt":"2015-10-09T03:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/10\/08\/a-literal-shot-across-our-bow\/"},"modified":"2015-10-08T22:21:00","modified_gmt":"2015-10-09T03:21:00","slug":"a-literal-shot-across-our-bow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/10\/08\/a-literal-shot-across-our-bow\/","title":{"rendered":"A Literal Shot Across Our Bow"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"border: 1px solid black; float: right; margin: 0px 10px; padding: 5px; text-align: center; width: 360px;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"197\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/iMasnaAf_H4?rel=0\" width=\"350\"><\/iframe><br \/><i><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/tK0SHyt.jpg\" rel=\"lytebox\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/tK0SHyt.jpg\" width=\"350\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/n6BxKgg.jpg\" rel=\"lytebox\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/n6BxKgg.jpg\" width=\"350\" \/><\/a><\/i><\/div>\n<p>Russia just <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2015-10-07\/russia-may-accept-u-s-proposals-to-coordinate-syria-airstrikes\">launched precision cruise missile strikes against Salafi rebels in Syria<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The missiles were launched from their flotilla in the Caspian Sea, probably because they could get permission from the countries in the flight path, Iran, Iraq, and (of course) Syria, which makes it rather different from the US\/NATO airstrikes who have been conducted without Syria&#8217;s permission:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">Russia added a new dimension to its military campaign in Syria with warships firing cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea, while President Vladimir Putin urged the U.S. and countries in the region to form a coalition against Islamic State and other militant groups.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported that Russian bombers had hit 112 targets in Syria since the campaign began on Sept. 30 and that \u201cthe intensity of the strikes is increasing.\u201d Naval vessels in the Caspian 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) away fired 26 missiles at 11 objects on Wednesday, destroying them all, Shoigu said.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">Russia should \u201ccontinue to work with our foreign partners,\u201d Putin told Shoigu in a meeting shown on Rossiya One state television. \u201cWithout the participation of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United States of America, Iran, Iraq and neighboring states of course, this work is unlikely to be carried out successfully.\u201d<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">Russia is flexing its muscles in its first military campaign outside the former Soviet Union in three decades as it supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is also backed by Shiite-dominated Iran in the fight against predominantly Sunni groups. While the bombing campaign has escalated tensions between Moscow and NATO members, Shoigu said Russia is ready to accept what he called U.S. proposals on coordinating strikes against Islamic State, a notion dismissed later on Wednesday by Defense Secretary Ashton Carter.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\"><b>\u2018Precision\u2019 Strikes<\/b><\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">A <a href=\"http:\/\/function.mil.ru\/news_page\/country\/more.htm?id=12059977@egNews\">video<\/a> released by the Defense Ministry in Moscow showed what it said was a Russian naval strike group launching missiles from the Caspian that streaked across the night sky, then traced a route across Iran and Iraq, hugging terrain from as low as 50 meters, before hitting targets in Syria within a range of accuracy of as little as three meters.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>While these missile strikes might or might not make a big difference in the war in Syria, this is a significant milestone:&nbsp; This is the first combat use cruise missiles by a non-US military as far as I can tell.<\/p>\n<p>As such this constitutes a major development, particularly when one considers the fact a that there are about&nbsp; \u00bd dozen export customers.<\/p>\n<p>Also, there is a variant in which the missile is stowed in what appears to be a commercial shipping container, which makes detection that much more difficult.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, while I understand why they launched this from the Caspian, I was completely unaware that Russia had a significant naval presence there.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s the the largest completely enclosed body of water in the world, and only \u2153 as salty as the oceans.<\/p>\n<p>After some Googling, I determined that the Russians have a <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Volga%E2%80%93Don_Canal\">canal between the Don and the Volga<\/a>,&nbsp; which allows moderately sized ships to transit between the Black and Caspian seas.<\/p>\n<p>It appears that the missiles were launched from ships in the 1000-2000 ton range, which is in the range of Corvettes or small Frigates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Russia just launched precision cruise missile strikes against Salafi rebels in Syria. The missiles were launched from their flotilla in the Caspian Sea, probably because they could get permission from the countries in the flight path, Iran, Iraq, and (of course) Syria, which makes it rather different from the US\/NATO airstrikes who have been conducted &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[981,986,1180,1161],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civil-war","category-middle-east","category-missiles","category-naval"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182364"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182364\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}