Image is Israeli interceptors trying and failing to intercept missiles over their cities.
Israel just carried out a widespread bombing of Iran, which has killed a number of senior officials inside Iran (though it seems the leadership is more-or-less intact) as well as a number of civilians. Important facilities have been targeted, but the amount of damage is unknown so far (note that many important Iranian facilities are deep underground, making them both hard to damage but also hard to determine if they are damaged from just satellite imagery, so reports of damage will be he-said-she-said).
It appears the attack took Iran by surprise, given that a residential block was targeted that contained some senior officials - if one saw an attack coming, one would imagine they'd be in bunkers. Nonetheless, like the rest of the Resistance Axis, I suspect that Iran has adapted their military structures to be resistant to decapitation strikes by ensuring that replacement figures are ready to take the place of killed officials.
Iran has delivered a massive missile barrage in response to Israeli aggression, even though Israel is continuing to bomb Iran. Iran is now aware of the location of many important Israeli sites, including secret nuclear sites, due to their recent intelligence haul, giving them a distinct edge.
Last week's thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
These arent hyperosnic missiles. I mean, yes, they travel that fast, but they're ballistic in their flight path (ie. arced to and from space) so they're classed as ballistic.
Hypersonic missiles will travel in the atmosphere in erratic and low altitudes fo avoid interception
I think it’s more accurate to say “hypersonic cruise missiles” to clear this up, as you said nearly all ballistic missiles travel at hypersonic speeds but that’s not what people mean when they say “hypersonic missiles”
Not all ballistic missiles travel at hypersonic speed either, though many can reach above Mach 5 (hypersonic speed) at terminal phase - for example, the Iskandrs. But their much lower speed during midcourse makes them more vulnerable to interception.
Many people are confused:
Kinzhal, for example, is a hypersonic ballistic missile because it is air launched at high speed high altitude by a carrier (e.g. MiG-31) and the inertia gave it the initial boost to reach hypersonic speed during midcourse.
Then you have hypersonic glide vehicles which are the more “conventional” type of hypersonic missiles that several countries have developed, that have maneuverable capability though their accuracy is contentious (nobody knows for sure). The accuracy is not so much of a problem if it is designed to be used as part of a strategic arsenal that carries nuclear warhead. The point is that it is virtually impossible to be intercepted during midcourse. For example, Avangard can reach Mach 27 and are maneuverable, though we don’t know how accurate they actually are. Not a problem though if it’s going to be a nuke anyway.
And finally you have the hypersonic cruise missiles, which fly just above the sea level and are very difficult to be detected by radar until close distance, are maneuverable, and can perform precision targeting just like a cruise missile could. The Tsirkon (Mach 9) is the only hypersonic cruise missile that exists in the world today.
Another marmite banger
Checks username
lmao! some people don’t like that some of my posts don’t fit their idyllic picture of China, so a news mega poster has gotta survive somehow by pretending to be an expert in another domain.
MMT posting but about ballistic missiles: the thing about ballistic missiles is that the government issues them so the "missile gap" is completely fake
You've been wrong before, therefore we never need to listen to anything you have to say :smuglord
(Though I think a major part of it is people in the west comparing their western governments to China's, which, while far from perfect, even with massive liberal infiltration, is still leagues better than anything in the west)
While there is a substantial drop in a missiles velocity at the peak of it's apogee in the midcourse phase, these longer range ballistic missiles are still pretty fast in the midcourse phase while outside of the earth's atmosphere, they are much slower at the beginning of the boost phase and end of the terminal phase. Peaks in velocity are at burnout/the end of the boost phase, and just before re-entering the thicker layers of the atmosphere (30-35km altitude) in the terminal phase. Aerodynamic drag is the enemy. t's quite confusing, but the chart below should help.
This is a velocity vs range chart from a Chinese research paper on Pershing-II or DF-21 trajectory planning.
Iskander-M and other shorter range ballistic missiles are a bit different, they never go exoatmospheric (above 100km altitude), the maximum altitude of an Iskander-M is 50km. So you could have aerodynamic control at all stages of flight theoretically, though it would be extremely limited at peak apogee in reality, because the air is too thin for the control surfaces to have any authority at 50km altitude. Iskander-1000 and Kinzhal fly higher, most estimates put peak altitude at 120-130km. Before Iskander-1000, the altitude and high speed of a launch from a Mig-31 was needed to extend range and reach higher speeds, fully correct there.
I don't think hypersonic cruise missiles are sea skimming for most of their flight, the amount of energy and heat shielding to achieve Mach 5 at sea level would be crazy. Most hypersonic cruise missiles probably fly at higher altitudes, maybe even up to 35km. Problem with going any higher is that you lose aerodynamic control, the air is just too thin. Also the whole point of hypersonic weapons is to fly low enough to avoid midcourse anti ballistic missile interception systems and appearing on early warning radars.
That's really interesting! I already asked Marmite to share some stuff where I can learn more about this, do you have any suggestions if I want to read up on this stuff?