NEWS UPDATE: THE "ORESHNIK" ("Hazel Tree") MISSILE

 

NEWS UPDATES: I caught a vid from Nima Alkhorshid’s “Dialogue Matters” YouTube podcast a couple of days ago that had Professor Ted Postol back to discuss the November 21^st launch of Russia’s new, hypersonic “Oreshnik” missile, used to target a manufacturing plant in Dnipro, East Ukraine. There are several questions concerning the missile’s speed and destructive capabilities that remain in the realm of speculation. In his update, Professor Postol notes the ballistic missile traveled at hypersonic speed* from its launch site at Kapustin Yar, in Russia’s Astrakhan region, to Dnipro, in eastern Ukraine. It traveled the approximately 800 km distance in around 15 minutes. It used an advanced Russian ICBM booster engine to reach an altitude of seventy-five kilometers and entered the upper atmosphere at Mach 10 speed.

 

    DIAGRAM 1

In Diagram #1 on the right-hand chart, we see the missile’s ballistic arc upwards and its rapid descent to towards Dnipro. IIUC, the chart indicates the missile reached its apogee (highest point) in about seven minutes. After which it continued its lateral journey to Dnipro while rapidly descending from the stratosphere. The arrow pointing to “minute 14” means that the missile was traveling at a speed of Mach 11.2 when it was roughly 200 km out from the target. The red arc represents the number of minutes the “Oreshnik” was in flight. (Don’t worry about the greyed arc.)

 

    DIAGRAM 2

In Diagram #2 on the left-hand chart, we see the speed of the Oreshnik’s munitions¹ as they hit the ground. Again, IIUC, the red ‘stars’ with greyed “velocity at impact” represent the spread pattern of the munitions and their speeds at impact. The grey arrows with speeds (from right to left) represent the missile’s trajectory just before impact (at Mach 11), to first impact (Mach 9.6) to final impact (Mach 8.7). So six strikes per warhead times the number of warheads (6) equals thirty-six strikes, coming in waves of six and impacting the ground in a line of about one kilometre in length.

👉A couple more points on this new missile: Professor Postol notes that photographs taken at the time of the attack do not suggest a major strike or damage to the military-industrial facility in Dnipro, and certainly nothing resembling the destruction that a tactical nuclear missile would have done (as some commentators speculated the Oreshnik's speed alone at impact would cause). There was some damage, yes, but not as much as first reported. The kinetic effects of the “Oreshnik” munitions hitting the ground (as they slowed down due to friction in the atmosphere) were less than predicted.

 

TED SUGGESTS that President Putin may have been given inaccurate information that inflated the “Oreshnik’s” capabilities when he made his announcements earlier about what the missile could do. [Some egg-on-face time, I would guess. Ed.]

👉HOWEVER, these missiles and their various payloads remain all but impossible for air defenses to shoot down.

👉The November 21 “Oreshnik” was called a “test” by Putin, and further refinements to the missile may be forthcoming.

 

👉NOTE: The pattern of munitions was such that they struck ground over distance of almost a kilometre. They weren’t grouped tightly together, in other words. But they could have been, as Professor Postol speculates. By adjusting small firing nozzles on each of the warheads as they ejected from the missile in high orbit, a tighter grouping of each warhead's munitions could be achieved. The resulting strikes would be much more consequential at the narrower point of impact. 

👉AND there is some suggestion that the missile did not contain any explosive munitions and struck using only the kinetic energy from their individual payloads. PERHAPS the strike was to make a point with the pinheads in Washington and in Western European capitals that the Russians have a hypersonic missile that could hit targets, with virtual impunity, anywhere in Europe and this demonstration of the "Oreshnik's" capabilities serves as a warning to back off because next time the missile will be loaded with explosives. Perhaps, we should heed the warning. Maybe?

 

The target on November 21 was a huge Ukrainian military-industrial plant, itself almost a kilometre in length. Some of the “Oreshnik’” munitions fell on neighbouring areas of the city. Damage to the factory is not known at this writing.

👉But we should think about the fact that the “Oreshnik” is nuclear-capable. It can carry a nuclear payload. Professor Postal made a ‘back-of-the-envelope’ guesstimate that Russia’s new missile could carry six 500-kiloton warheads [The Hiroshima atomic bomb had an explosive capacity of 12-15 kilotons.] Such kilo tonnage would:

 

“…set fires…over 150-200 square kilometres…with a fireball that’s hotter than the surface of the sun…causing firestorms and winds that are hurricane force…. It’s like being inside a gigantic fire with air temperatures well above the boiling point of water, and nobody lives through that. This is Hamburg or Dresden on a scale like we’ve never seen before.” (Daniel Davis Deep Dive)

 

WE WILL PROBABLY LEARN MORE about the “Oreshnik” in the days to come, chiefly because it will probably be used again by the Russians if (or when, most likely) Ukraine does their butt-fuck stupid launching of cruise missiles into Russian territory. This time the sub-munitions may carry high explosives and be configured to strike a target within a narrower zone of contact. BOOM-BOOM! 

So, there’s that.

 

Cheers, Jake.__________________________________________

 

* Ted says that there is no ‘dividing line’ that distinguishes a “super sonic” missile’s speed from that that of a “hypersonic” one. There is no technical barrier between the two. He gives hypersonic speed a ballpark estimate of Mach 3 (three times the speed of sound) and greater. Ted quips it means the missile is traveling “really fast”.😀

Related to that are the terms “strategic” and “tactical” when talking about nuclear warheads. A “strategic” missile is one that carries a heavier load and can travel thousands of miles with massive destructive capabilities. Warheads on these ICBMs (Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles) have an explosive force ranging from hundreds of kilotons to megatons.

 

“There is no exact definition of the "tactical" category in terms of range or yield of the nuclear weapon. The yield of tactical nuclear weapons is generally lower than that of strategic nuclear weapons, but larger ones are still very powerful, and some variable-yield warheads serve in both roles. Tactical nuclear weapons include gravity bombs, short-range missiles, artillery shells, land mines, [Imagine stepping on one of those! Ed.] depth charges, and torpedoes which are equipped with nuclear warheads.” (Wikipedia)

 

   Geeks At Foreplay

FOR EXAMPLE, tactical nuclear warheads can range from less than a kiloton “baby nukes” to tens or even hundreds of kilotons (though most are in the tens of kilotons). By comparison, the Hiroshima bomb had a yield of around 15 kilotons. “tactical” nukes are designed for “battlefield” use and for degrading an enemy’s ABM defenses, radars, communication links, etc., as well as well as on the battlefield against troop movements. “Strategic” missiles can range from hundreds of kilotons to two or more megatons, which are orders of magnitudes larger than the two bombs dropped on Japan in 1945. They are known as “city killers”, and though they may not be a “Death Star”, they get the job done, nevertheless. “Strategic” nuclear weapons generally travel greater distances and are designed to destroy an enemy’s society by attacking its cities, critical infrastructure, its command-and-control centres, and its populations.    

BTW: The largest nuclear detonation ever recorded was with the “Tsar Bomba”. In 1961, it was air-dropped by a Russian bomber at Mityushikha Bay Nuclear Testing Range in the Arctic Circle. It had a yield of 50 megatons. BOAKYAG!

 

1. Professor Postol speculates that the “Orshenik” contained six warheads. Each warhead, when released from the missile at high altitudes and speed, has individual thrusters to steer it into slightly different trajectories with respect to the other warheads, so that they come down in a pattern resembling the hazelnut tree’s hanging pods that were so distinctive in the night sky over Dnipro. In addition, those warheads each contained six “sub-munitions”, which are released from each warhead making for a total of 36 ground strikes. The 6 warheads release their six “sub-munitions” which then fall on their target in a patterned wave. This happened six times in a matter of minutes. What people saw in the sky were the “sub-munitions” as they streaked though the air to strike their targets, like “meteorites”, as President Putin characterized them in an interview shortly afterwards.

 

    "Tsar Bomba" Explosion 1961