MarmiteLover123 [comrade/them, comrade/them]

Statement was changed now, from “military strike” to “military action”. Still not good at all. Honestly that could be worse. A strike implies a limited action by India, but a generic claim of “action” could mean anything from a limited strike to a full on incursion into Pakistani territory. If you read the article below you’ll understand what I mean by that potentially being worse.

Decker Eveleth, 26 April 2025 - Pakistan and Missile Defense Defeat Strategies

US, and UK airstrikes now, continue on Yemen for the 46th night in a row. For the first time in this phase of the air campaign against Yemen, the UK has carried out airstrikes. The UK Royal Air Force (RAF) have already been carrying out refueling support operations out of Cyprus, and with assets from Operation Shader (anti ISIS air patrol on the Iraq and Syrian border) for US airstrikes during the past 46 days, but this is the first time they have carried out airstrikes during this 46 day period. The airstrikes were carried out by RAF Eurofighter Typhoon GR4 4.5 generation aircraft out of Cyprus, with laser guided Paveway stand-in bombs in Sana’a, so the corridor to directly bomb Sana’a with stand-in weapons from fighter aircraft is still open. This is likely being done in preparation for the UK Royal Navy’s (RN) HMS Prince of Wales aircraft carrier joining the US Navy in the Red Sea in the next few days. The HMS Prince of Wales has F-35B 5th generation stealth Vertical/Short Takeoff and Landing (V/STOL) fighter aircraft. Expect a lot more UK RAF and RN airstrikes on Yemen over the coming weeks. The F-35 platform (in B and C variants) is seeing a lot of combat now in strike missions.

Full UK MoD statement

Airstrikes hit the following governorates in Yemen:

Saada:

• 4 airstrikes on Sahar District.

Sana’a:

• Multiple intense waves of US and UK airstrikes on the capital city, Sana’a, fighter jets audible.
• An airstrike on Wadi Al-Hayd area, southeast of the capital.
• Multiple airstrikes on Al Husn, Hamdan, Bani Hushaysh, and Bani Matar Districts.

Al Bayda:

• Multiple airstikes on As Sawadiyah District.

Al Jawf:

• Multiple airstrikes on Al Hazm District

Hodeidah:

• No airstrikes reported, but fighter jets audible.

Warning for potential graphic imagery during ongoing airstrikes:

Al Masirah TV twitter

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The only thing you can really say it’s that there was a reduction (not elimination) of ballistic missile attacks on Israel, and a reduction of anti ship ballistic missile attacks, but that’s more due to the US Navy warships remaining outside of ballistic missile range than anything else, as demonstrated by yesterday’s ballistic missile attack on the USS Harry Truman aircraft carrier.

At one point there was over two weeks of no ballistic missile attacks on Israel, but they’ve now resumed, at a reduced rate.

After 30 days of airstrikes there was an attempt to move to “phase 2” of the campaign, with more close range airstrikes, reconnaissance, and support, essentially loitering over the battle space with drones and manned close air support aircraft, but that led to a number of MQ-9 Reaper drones being shot down, so that phase is on hold. From a US perspective, this is a problem because until they move to phase 2, Ansarallah can rebuild their capabilities that get destroyed by airstrikes or even advance their capabilities (very likely with Iranian help), and the movements of their leaders at various underground facilities are difficult to track without solid intelligence. Which is why Ansarallah may consider a continued confrontation with the United States in their interest, the more they can prove to be a reliable partner to Iran in confronting the US (including using their own resources for local manufacturing), the more support they can get from Iran. For Iran, the more they can fight the US on another front, the more they can avoid fighting the US on the home front.

US airstrikes continued on Yemen for the 45th night, and 46th day, in a row.

Nighttime airstrikes hit the following governorates:

Sana’a

• Multiple airstrikes on Bilad Ar Rus district.
• 4 airstrikes on Jabal Nuqum.
• Multiple rounds of airstrikes on various areas of the capital itself, US Navy fighter jets were heard over Sana’a.

Amran

• 3 airstrikes on Harf Sufyan district.

Saada

• An airstrike on Sahar District.

Dhamar

• airstrike hit unknown area.

Daytime airstrikes hit the following governorates:

Al Jawf

• 6 airstrikes on Bart Al-Anan District.

Ta’izz

• 4 airstrikes on Maqbanah District.

Warning for potential graphic imagery during ongoing airstrikes:

Al Masirah TV twitter

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That image is from April 25, four days ago, and was taken when the USS Harry Truman was 870km away from Yemen, between Jeddah and Yanbu, where it has spent the vast majority of it’s time operating. So it has very little to do with what happened today. It could be an evasive maneuver from a previous attack.

I think what happened today is that the aircraft carrier tried to get closer to Yemen, (and out of it’s usual operational zone, so to speak), and then came under fire (a mixture of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones) and lost an aircraft while carrying out evasive maneuvers. I don’t think the aircraft carrier will try to come closer to Yemen again anytime soon.

Most of what is being sent to the front line in Ukraine is old and refurbished Soviet-era arms.

Yeah even the “new production” T-80s mostly use Soviet era hulls from stockpiles. The thing is though, those stockpiles are finally drying up. And 300 completely new production T-90s a year is not enough to meet the current rate of attrition. If they are being saved for a second force that will come in once the attrition phase is done, I don’t know if the attrition phase will finish quick enough for that. If the US withdraws support, that would change things though. Ukraine without US support, military aid and intelligence sharing is completely different to Ukraine with all that.

On the loss of an F/A-18E Super Hornet aircraft and a tow truck/tractor during an evasive turn by the USS Harry Truman aircraft carrier during an Ansarallah/Houthi attack (as confirmed by US sources), here’s the statement from the Yemeni Armed Forces on the attack (this statement was released before the news of the loss of the F-18).

This is the first time that an Anti Ship Ballistic Missile (ASBM) has been fired at US Navy warships in over 20 days from what I recall (there was one launch at a supply ship, not a warship, during this time with a ballistic missile). This, along with the statement about “fleeing north” afterwards, suggests that the USS Harry Truman aircraft carrier tried to get closer to Yemen, including coming within ASBM range. During this, it came under attack, including by ASBMs and evidently there was some big error that led to the F-18 going overboard while evading this attack.

I don’t think that the Harry Truman will try get closer to Yemen again anytime soon, and will continue to stay between Jeddah and Yanbu, between 700km-1000km away from Yemen. ASBMs, by all evidence of the current US Navy campaign, seem to be a “game changer” weapon in area denial capabilities. Even without landing a single hit so far, these weapons have been very effective in area denial against US Carrier Strike Groups (CSGs). While their not magic wands that erase CSGs, they can keep them further away (area denial). Ansarallah/the Houthis were the first ever military force to use ASBMs in warfare, and have been highly innovative with these locally manufactured, Iranian designed, weapons. The CSGs don’t dare to come within 700km of Yemen (Zulfiqar Basir ASBM range). This is the first time they’ve tried to in three weeks, and it resulted in a fighter jet going overboard during evasive maneuvers. It’s no wonder that the US Army wants ASBMs, and other longer range ballistic missiles, now.

Overall this was a very expensive “test” by the US Navy in my opinion, they wanted to see if Yemeni ASBM capability remained intact after over 40 days of airstrikes, reduced amount of Yemeni missile attacks, and over 20 days without without an ASBM being fired, so they sailed closer to Yemen to find out. It turns out that yes, Yemeni ASBM capability was (and is) still very much intact, and an F-18 and tow truck have been lost as a result of evading a Yemeni attack.

Apparently this was because of evasive maneuvers during an attack I wasn’t aware of, so Ansarallah were still involved in actuality.

They’ve likely been conducting evasive maneuvers ever since they deployed so still a big error, but yes this happened because of a an Ansarallah attack so not an unforced one, I wasn’t aware of it at the time. You have to be in the game to win it in the first place, and Ansarallah stays in it with their constant attacks. Eventually something has to give.

It’s a backronym that stands for Composite Training Unit Exercise, the training a aircraft carrier and it’s air wing undergo before before deployment.

This one wasn’t lost during takeoff or landing, but when getting it out of hangar bay, along with the tractor towing it. This is purely on the US Navy lol.

Apparently parts of Netherlands and Belgium are affected too now, which might lend credibility to the cyberattack theory? Or it could be just because of the heat and poorly maintained equipment? It’s way too early to tell now though.

Very insightful article to read with regards to the situation in India and Pakistan, and their respective nuclear doctrines.

Decker Eveleth, 26 April 2025 - Pakistan and Missile Defense Defeat Strategies

Flying low keeps the HGV under the engagement envelope of mid course interception systems like Arrow-3, SM-3, and high altitude terminal interception systems like THAAD. These systems have a minimum altitude of anywhere from 40-150km, in that they can’t intercept targets flying lower than that, they’re designed to intercept ballistic missiles in the mid course phase, when they’re exoatmospheric. Flying low also keeps the HGV out of the detection range of ground based early warning radars and even over the horizon radars to a certain extent, thanks to the curvature of the Earth and concepts such as “plasma stealth”. Then there’s also the improved maneuverability, but this comes at a cost to energy every time a maneuver is made. So there are scenarios where HGVs are superior to MaRVs. But does this justify the very high development costs, for these limited scenarios? That’s what the article I linked talks about, are these advantages worth it, especially when they have trade offs.

As for tech that’s been abandoned for decades, the US military’s actually working hypersonic weapons program, in the Long Range Hypersonic Weapon/“Dark Eagle”, fitted with the Common-Hypersonic Glide Body, is based on a 1980s project called SWERE (Sandia Winged Energetic Reentry Vehicle Experiment). SWERVE was/is kind of a hybrid of an HGV and a MaRV, and uses many of the same technologies a MaRV equipped ballistic missile would use. Lockheed Martin has been heavily involved in the manufacturing of it. So technology wise, everything is there to make ballistic missiles and re entry vehicles. The main question, if they actually pass this proposal and get past the initial production phase, is what will the production rates look like. For instance, the US only has 2 400 ATACMS missiles in it’s stockpiles, with half of those being expired. ATACMS entered service 34 years ago. The US only gave 50 ATACMS to Ukraine, with no plans for further deliveries. However, the US plans to replace ATACMS with PrSM, and Lockheed Martin just scored an almost 5 billion dollar contract for PrSM production, an indefinite quantity contract, but realistically between 1000-2000 missiles. The US plans to obtain around 200 PrSM missiles this year. As for the “Dark Eagle”, they only are looking at producing 300 total for now. So I think production numbers for the proposed medium range ballistic missiles will probably be between 300-1000 total, anti ship and land attack variants combined, with a focus on quality over quantity. As for the proposed long range systems in IRBM range, easily less than 100 I’d estimate. These contracts will be worth tens of billions of dollars if this gets off of the ground. Big if though.

There’s still nearly 5 billion allocated for cruise missiles, so they’ll still play a big role. The cruise missile lobby is still very strong, despite being reigned in a bit for the first time in over 30 years. As for hypersonic weapons, the money allocated is similar to that of ballistic missiles (between 800 million to a billion dollars), but it’s all for testing and development, no production costs (unlike ballistic missiles, which include production costs). So it looks like the hype on hypersonic weapons is dying down if they’re just giving them a bunch of research projects with no forseeable move to production in the short term.

As for how long it would take to pivot, the USA is the inventor of the MaRV equipped ballistic missile, the Pershing-II was the world’s first MaRV. The Martin in Lockheed Martin made it. So if the right amount of money is thrown at at it, it shouldn’t take long. The US Space Force for instance calls MaRV equipped ballistic missiles “legacy systems”. That tells me that they think it’ll be relatively easy to get up and running again. That could be hubris though, it’s quite a technical challenge to get these systems operating correctly, it’s literally rocket science.

RSF has faced some large setbacks recently, they managed to regroup, but lost some key territory.

Big news in the announcement of the latest US Military budget plans. It seems that after being on the receiving end of Iranian designed ballistic missiles, and with the rise of ballistic missile proliferation in Russia, China, India, North Korea, Israel, and even Pakistan, and with the death of the INF treaty that previously banned the development of these weapons for the USA and Russia, the US wants advanced Maneuverable Re-entry Vehicle (MaRV) equipped ballistic missiles, including Anti Ship Ballistic Missiles (ASBMs) and their area denial capabilities, for themselves. This is a historic moment, and admission that these weapons are valuable battlefield assets (which I have been saying for years now), despite the distorted information from the cruise missile lobby. This cruise missile lobby in the US is being reigned in for the first time in over three decades (Pershing-II MaRV equipped ballistic missile was retired in 1991). ASBMs have acted as a very effective area denial weapon for Ansarallah/the Houthis in Yemen against US Navy warships and aircraft carriers, even without landing a single hit. The carriers don’t dare get within ASBM range.

Source, PDF file format

As for why the focus worldwide is on MaRV capable ballistic missile systems and not hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs), with HGV programmes being cancelled or making up only a small amount of a missile force compared to MaRVs for say China, here’s some required reading: Hypersonic weapons are mediocre. It’s time to stop wasting money on them..

Main problem HGVs have is that their launch is the exact same of that as ballistic missile, a rocket booster straight up into the sky, easily detectable by early warning satellites. However, because HGVs spend a lot more time gliding in the atmosphere with large amounts of drag, they take longer to reach their targets than ballistic missiles, which spend the majority of their flight exoatmospheric. Another problem is that this drag effectively limits HGV maneuverability, even a perfectly performed turn can result in an HGV losing 10% of its energy, on a single turn! Here are some slides from a UK MoD analysis of HGVs, showing just how limited the turn capabilities are. And these calculations are based on an impact velocity of Mach 2, not even close to hypersonic (Mach 5). If the constraint was charged from Mach 2 to Mach 5, the turn/divert capability would be much less! Remember, HGVs have no propulsion system once seperated from the rocket booster, they’re gliders.

Expect future hypersonic weapons development to be focused hypersonic cruise missiles well above Mach 5 like the Russian Zircon (there’s no point in creating a hypersonic cruise missile that’s barely hypersonic, see the US Navy cancellation of the HALO missile), and hypersonic boost vehicles (attaching some sort of rocket motor to the HGV) like Iran’s Fattah-2 concept, to negate the energy loss from pure gliding. I also expect we’ll see some copies of Iran’s Fattah-1 MaRV equipped ballistic missile. The Fattah-1 MaRV was the first MaRV to put a thrust vector control sustainer rocket motor on the MaRV itself, allowing for trajectory changes or corrections while exoatmospheric, and for improved glide phase performance with an additional source of energy.

The fact of the matter is that MaRV equipped ballistic missiles can outperform HGVs in many scenarios (which is why I go on about MaRVs being “game changing” weapons all the time), and even if a MaRV equipped ballistic missile is expensive, HGVs are far more expensive still.

They’re working on it, not operational yet, but they’ve shown pictures of it’s construction and officially announced it.

North Korea unveils nuclear-powered submarine for the first time

This is also why the Ukraine war, especially the Kursk adventure, has been such a huge geopolitical catastrophe from the US perspective. They’ve made the Russia-China-Iran-North Korea Axis stronger and more united. North Korea and Iran have provided direct military assistance to Russia. North Korea has even provided troops to fight in Kursk. North Korea now has advanced technologies they never would have got so quickly otherwise, and their ballistic missile programme has made a decade of progress in one year. Iran’s one way attack Shahed drones get tested on the battlefield in Ukraine virtually every night. The only positive from a US perspective is that China has not provided direct military assistance to Russia, and that Iranian ballistic missiles did not proliferate to Russia. The Iranian ballistic missile programme is already a big issue for the US and Israel, imagine that with battlefield testing in Ukraine.

A competent US administration would have wrapped up project Ukraine after the failed summer counteroffensive of 2023, and would’ve never greenlit the Kursk adventure. Thankfully for us, Biden was at the helm asleep at the wheel. Because of continuing the war after these things, Russia waged a long range strike and de electrification campaign on Ukraine, which resulted in the US response of allowing long range strikes on Russia using US weapons, which lead to the unveiling of new ballistic missile systems by Russia like Oreshnik, designed with the specific intention of targeting NATO airbases, and also effectively killing the smallest of hopes that the INF treaty could return. North Korea also got directly involved and appear to have received a handsome payment of advanced military technology in return.

A lot of these new systems North Korea has are likely not viable in an actual war (they’re unicorns that would be taken out in the first hours of a war), but they’ll serve as excellent technology demonstrators and development platforms. Also for the strategic nuclear systems, their deterrence value is being able to get a shot off before they get destroyed.

US airstrikes on Yemen continue for the 44th night in a row.

The following governorates have been hit by airstrikes so far:

Sana’a

• 3 houses hit in Bani Al-Harith District.

Amran

• 3 airstrikes on al-Jabal al-Aswad (Monte Negro/Black Mountain). This mountain has been hit a lot over the past six weeks.
• Two airstrikes on Sufyan district.

Warning for potential graphic imagery during ongoing airstrikes:

Al Masirah TV twitter

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Opposition sources also report multiple rounds of airstrikes in Saada and Ta’izz Governorates, but this cannot be verified.