I'm sure they could slap a rocket on their boats to get the necessary speed.
Potentially kicking off in Russia
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I'm sure they could slap a rocket on their boats to get the necessary speed.
IIRC Russia traded advanced aircraft developments for those diesel engines as well... by all reports they were performing not far behind the Western equivalents when used in their tanks but seem to have had a fair few issues in their ships resulting in some being laid up for maintenance for extended periods. (I'm guessing they were never designed for naval application but that is just a guess).
I didn’t say you did need to, I was saying for the sake of argument suppose that…
I don’t know the legalities, whether the rules only apply to straits or whether there are some other rules conventions applying to recognised shipping lanes in general but the British ship certainly seemed to be making reference to it though and it’s worth highlighting regardless of any chat re the waters being Ukrainian or Russian.
Okay, fair enough, lets put aside territorial/coast claims.
Just for the record what MoD is not that it was a shipping lane, they said its Ukrainian waters and it's a shipping lane, a combination of two that makes that route legal in eyes of the British millitary, that is a very important part of MoD's statement. In fact I have never heard of shipping lane passage rights. I've heard of innocent passage and Transit passage.
Transit passage under UNCLOS seems to be specifically for straits, hence it applies to the strait of Dover. There is another detail like not everybody has signed/ratified UNCLOS, for examples the US never ratified and thus does not believe they should adhere to UNCLOS rules but routinely enforces compliance of these rules upon other countries. Both UK and Russia ratified that agreement so both should adhere to these rules.
To my knowledge transit passage would not apply under this case and if we set aside ownership of the peninsula it does not apply.
Then we go into innocent passage for warships. Look into 1988 Black sea bumping incident. There's a lot of nuance and complexity to all of this even before we take into account de jure/de facto situation of Crimea. It is not straightforward as this is a shipping lane and we can do what we want.
If any warship could go into nation's territorial waters under the guise of innocent passage then I am sure Russians would do that to the US and the UK and NATO would do that to Russia far more frequently.
So to sum up - I don't know but I don't think innocent passage holds water in this case.
I want to know details and legal aspect of this satiation regarding shipping lane argument as well but this maritime law situation seems to have a lot of grey areas.
In any case, I believe if the local coast guard tells you to change the course, then you would have to do this even if following innocent passage rules.
Soldato
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Read this article on the legalities. Apparently innocent passage would stand up, because the helicopters were below deck and the guns were covered, but only on its own. Because they also claim it is Ukranian waters they paint it as a freedom of navigation exercise, which is mutually exclusive from innocent passage, as a legal defence.
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You are probably right. All this UN/international law stuff is a bit redundant since the UN can only bring it to bear on smaller nations, like Serbia. The US, Russia, and China can pretty much carry on unchecked by the UN. They have to police each other.
Interesting. But from what I understand it is quite easy to make cases that the passage is not innocent (in general terms and in this instance). For examples if the warship is suspected of collecting intelligence then it makes the passage non-innocent. The article you linked claims the coast guard should have explained to HMS Defender why they do not consider this an innocent passage but then another article I had read claimed that the Russians could ask the British warship to alter the course but use of warning shots or alleged bombing would have been against international law.
Edit: The article I mentioned although have no idea of validity or reputability of the website as I can't find anything reputable other than just UNCLOS definitions https://www.lawfareblog.com/déjà-vu-russias-illegal-restrictions-innocent-passage-black-sea
I have no interest in military stuff, but surely Russia can build diesel engines? No? But they can send people into space, so why can't they build their own diesel engines
It would be amazing if they had to buy engines from China because they couldn't build their own.
I have no interest in military stuff, but surely Russia can build diesel engines? No? But they can send people into space, so why can't they build their own diesel engines
It would be amazing if they had to buy engines from China because they couldn't build their own.
They've built plenty of diesel engines - I don't know the ins and outs of why they did the deal with China.
Googling it looks like they specifically ordered naval ones, which are having issues, separate to the tank stuff.
Going back to the comments about hypersonic missiles - a successful test from Russia - nearly Mach 7 - a long way short of the hysterical claims of like 60,000km/h, etc.
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/rus...sia-test-fires-zircon-hypersonic-missile-ship
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/rus...sia-test-fires-zircon-hypersonic-missile-ship
I believe they've already achieved speeds higher than that with the Zircon. Stuck in a Yasen, the US and NATO have a huge headache with this.
Higher speeds have been achieved in testing specific elements - but AFAIK this is the best complete end to end, fully successful in all aspects, test to date and likely the baseline performance for a combat reliable platform though that will likely be refined upwards somewhat over time. You aren't going to see those silly high speeds some talk of.
EDIT: As things stand higher speeds aren't really that useful anyhow - the current profile is very hard to intercept (or jam) unless you know the target ahead of time - which means that an ABM shield, etc. will struggle to deal with it unless the ABM installation itself was at or the target.
You don't really need to stick in a Yasen (ignoring range for a moment) - the combination of speed and manoeuvrability, even well below headline speed, makes for a significant nightmare - if a bunch of them are coming at you unless you know exactly the specific target of each one and have a high end air-defence installation in exactly the right spot to defend each target specifically you have way too many variables and not enough time to react once you do know where it is going well enough to start plotting counters.
It is a bit different situation in an anti-ship use against something like a Type 45 as if it assumes it is the target it can narrow down the variables considerably and much more rapidly calculate potential intercepts with enough time to do something about it.
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All this talk of these amazing hypersonic missiles, has one actually hit a moving target because I'm pretty sure that;
A: They have to fly high as they require lower air density so makes them more detectable.
B: No manoeuvrability, going at Mach 7 or even lower, that missile is not changing course to hit a warship taking avoiding action.
Fired from long range I see them as easily defeated, launched from a sub up close they may get away with the target not having sufficient time to out manoeuvre the missile.
Still sounds like typical Russian omgamazeballslazers weapons systems they seem to trot out all the time.
I stand to be corrected if thier is proof of an actual target being hit that's not stationary.
A: They have to fly high as they require lower air density so makes them more detectable.
B: No manoeuvrability, going at Mach 7 or even lower, that missile is not changing course to hit a warship taking avoiding action.
Fired from long range I see them as easily defeated, launched from a sub up close they may get away with the target not having sufficient time to out manoeuvre the missile.
Still sounds like typical Russian omgamazeballslazers weapons systems they seem to trot out all the time.
I stand to be corrected if thier is proof of an actual target being hit that's not stationary.
They slow down in the terminal stage - any inaccuracy gets hugely amplified at higher speeds. Their potential as ship killers is hugely overblown though but their ability to penetrate ABM shields against static ground targets another matter.
Very effective at attacking non moving targets I would say, but still traveling that high up and at that speed I would assume easier to detect and then slowing down to a final attack stage kind of negates any advantage, I'm not sure they can skim as low as a dedicated sub sonic sea skimmer/cruise missile.
However I guess fitting them with a nuclear warhead would work wonders, soviet planning was to nuke US/NATO naval battleground with nuclear torpedoes etc if I remember correctly.
The point is they travel so fast that they are practically impossible to shoot down. Then when they slow down in the terminal stage it is probably already too late to target.
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No doub USA'll get all hypocritical about China threatening to nuke Japan. I've been saying that Bid, Putin and Jinping're all equally to blame for what's going onand wirth modern nukes being more powerful than the ones dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, imagine what just one of the warheads could do to Taiwan if just three could wipe Japan out and then where will Jnping, Putin and Biden get military personnel to continue THEIR war and do THEIR fighting for them if they've all been wiped out like their gear and infrastructure. Think about that before opening your big annoying mouths and making threats, Biden, Jinping and Putin. Another question they should ask themselves is, apart from our national pride, egos, how well the people look up to us and how we look on the world stage if one of us backs down and calle the top brass in, can we really afford it and where's all the money coming from if the banks've been wiped out and the taxpayers're all dead and what have you gained becuase China won't have a Taiwan left,The USA/Arab world won't have any oil reserves and Russia won't have much of a Ukraine.
Contrary to what a lot of people think the challenges with hypersonics are detecting the launch early enough, having a rapid and accurate enough track on the missile and the computer power to plot potential trajectories and interceptions quickly enough taking into account the kill methods you have available. The actual capabilities of the kill vehicle are very much secondary though they help to make up deficiencies in the rest if capable enough especially more direct application methods like jamming or directed energy weapons, etc.
The biggest complications with hypersonics is if you are trying to defend against them on home territory using an ABMs shield or the likes as unlike more conventional missiles it is much harder to know where one is going especially if you have several in the air and so many possibilities with the way they can behave and speeds, etc. and by the time you've worked it out you just don't have enough time left to do anything about it unless you happen to have an advanced anti-air installation in exactly the right spot as you can't chase the missiles down with the technology we have currently.
If you are an air-defence destroyer you can pretty much assume it is coming at you and cut out a million equations - the question is the quality of PAAMS/Sea Viper and performance of radar/sensors more than the kill vehicle - but everyone gets all worked up about Aster missiles being slower as if it is some kind of Top Trumps scenario.
Obviously equation changes a bit if hypersonics get closer to their headline speeds but we are a long way from that yet.
China won't nuke Taiwan short of Taiwan being a threat to their existence in some way or things have gone so bad they say **** it - it is a matter of pride, etc. to reunify it with China. Failure to do that makes the leadership look weak.
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That's exactly my point as to why Biden, Putin or Jinping can't afford to back off . They're acting like two drunk yobs in a pub or bar or two rival gang leaders squaring up to eachother in front of their mates and girlfriends who're egging them on and neigher of them'll back down becuase they know how they'll look in front of their gangs and girlfriends if they do so, especially when their reputaions're on the line.
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