Ukraine War Day #842: How The Russian Army Blinded HIMARS, Created A Drone Army, Deceived Starlink, and Tested Tsar-Bomb – Part IV

“A poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more…” (Shakespeare, Coriolanus)

Dear Readers:

Continuing my review of this long piece by military correspondent Dmitry Steshin. I personally think this is a very good way to sit down and review the last 2 years on the battlefield and recall nostalgically each new Westie super-weapon as it entered onto the stage, strutted and fretted, and then departed ignobly.

Steshin’s piece is so long that I nurture this fantasy: On the final day of my review, just as I type the words THE END, I will suddenly see a news flash that the war is finally over! And Russia won, of course! Well, we shall have to see…

Dmitry Steshin

Anyhow, where we left off: Steshin has gotten around to showing us that the Germans, Americans and Turks were not the only people making innovations in weaponry. The Russians also came up with a “new” guidance and correction system (УМПК) that became the “hit” of the Special Military Operation (SMO). Steshin thinks it’s okay to call it a “super-weapon”, even though it’s cheap and simple. And not actually “new” at all.

Steshin: In April of 2022, while embedded with the “Vostok” storm troopers, I was lying in a corridor of Building #20 on the outskirts of AzovSteel. I was just lying there and praying. With every bomb falling, the wall of the corridor seemed to bend and shake, in waves. I said to myself: “Dear pilots, please don’t miss your target!” It was our guys, they were laying down bombs not far away from me, about 300 meters, trying to blast out the Azovites from the neighboring tool shop. The bombs were of the “free-falling” type, and the Azovites possessed quite a lot of Stingers, so one can understand our pilots: They were tossing the bombs from far away, not risking to venture into the strike zone of these Stingers…

It was precisely the storm of AzovSteel which motivated our guys to resurrect a dormant program from 2003: Modules that guided and corrected bombs. It turns out, this module is quite cheap to build and can be attached, just a few hours before use, to any dumb cast-iron bomb weighing between 165 – 1500 kilograms. With this attachment, the dumb bomb becomes a little smarter: It can detach itself from the plane 10 kilometers from the target and then just fly itself the rest of the way. Its accuracy is to within a few meters. The proof of the pudding was the taking of the Avdeevka coke plant. Aviation scouts armed with drones worked hand in hand with “big aviation”, and were able to push the resistance out of the factory in just a few weeks. My “corrector” friends later took a walking tour through the entire plant, noting down the results of their work. The data they collected is secret, but the looks of satisfaction on their faces told us everything we needed to know.

A Sudden Vortex

In June of 2023, the Ukrainian army for the first time applied NATO armor on a massive scale, but on a narrow sector of the front. Their plan was to break through the front, send their reserves into the breach and then, according to the fantasies of the Ukrainian command and their Western advisors, “drive the Moskals into the Azov Sea”.

Anti-tank guided weapon Vikhr

What came as a surprise to them was our anti-tank avia-complex called Vikhr (“Vortex”) which, up until that point, held no interest for anyone. Our Military-Industrial Complex had been producing these things since the 1990’s and trotting them around to various weapons salons. But nobody was exactly standing in line to buy them. Although, they are actually kind of cool, with their laser-guidance system, hypersonic speed, distance of 12 kilometers, ability to punch through homogeneous steel of a thickness of 1.2 meters.

And then came the summer of 2023. The moment the enemy’s armor group moved into the breach, our K-52 helicopters came flying in, unleashing Vikhr rockets which hit their targets. In the words of one of our generals, who commanded the 58th army: “There was one example where two helicopters destroyed between 5-7 armored objects of the enemy on a single pass.” One of my pals from that same army, the sniper with the call-sign “Moskva”, who participated in the battle to push back the Ukrainian offensive in Rabotino: “Our helicopter guys performed VERY well against their armor.” This sounds like only faint praise, but if you knew “Moskva” and how sparse he is with words, this is practically a standing ovation.

A representative of the Kalashnikov company who has worked on developing the Vikhr, stated the following: “On a scale of 0 to 1, these rockets demonstrated a .9 probability of striking their targets.” Translating into ordinary language: One Vikhr rocket equals one destroyed Leopard, or whatever other armor the Western allies of the Banderites brought onto the front.

It goes without saying that purchase orders are up. The world is watching this conflict with its notebook in hand, writing down: Whose weaponry is pure fire, and whose is garbage.

[to be continued]