Russia is Running Out of Missiles

Russia is

running

out of precision guided

missiles

. But here's the thing: while many see this as a good thing, in reality, this could be bad news for Ukraine and could cause more terror and suffering for the Ukrainian people. Additionally, some US military analysts believe that Russia

running

out of

missiles

may force them to escalate. You see, this whole “Russia is running out of missiles” headline is actually a much more complicated topic than one might think, requiring some serious debunking to understand what's really going on. According to Russia, they have sufficient reserves of precision-guided weapons and their factories are producing them non-stop.

That said, the Russians never revealed how many missiles they have used and how many remain. So, is Russia running out of missiles? If so, which is it? And why is this bad for Ukraine? But wait a minute, dude, this is fucking American propaganda. How the hell is Russia running out of missiles when it recently had a massive missile attack that destroyed 30% of the Ukrainian electrical infrastructure? Yes, on October 10, 2022, Russia launched a massive attack against Ukrainian infrastructure consisting of 84 missiles and 24 Iranian-made Shahed loitering munition drones. President Putin described this attack as retaliation for the attack on the Crimean bridge that occurred on October 8.

But according to Ukrainian and Western intelligence, preparations for this massive attack began on October 2, before the Crimean bridge was attacked. Ukraine reported that it shot down at least 43 missiles out of 83, while Russia claimed it fired 70 missiles with each of them hitting its target. As a result of the attack, Ukrainians suffered prolonged blackouts as their energy facilities and other infrastructure were affected. At least one missile ended up hitting a children's playground and an intersection in kyiv. It is unclear whether those missiles landed there after being shot down or not. Forbes estimated that the attack cost Russia between $400 million and $700 million.

Following the missile attack, British Defense Intelligence issued a statement saying that “these attacks represent a further degradation of Russia's long-range missile stockpile, which is likely to limit its ability to strike the volume of targets it they want in the future.” And they are right, because missile attacks, like the last one, are quite rare. In fact, the last missile attack of similar size occurred months ago, on June 25-26, when Russia expended up to 80 missiles during those two days. Before that, Russia used that many missiles only during the first days of the invasion. The fact that missile attacks of this size are rare indicates that Russia is becoming exhausted.

On October 12, 2022, Ukraine published a chart of the approximate Russian arsenal of high-precision missiles remaining according to its intelligence. The ground-launched Iskander missile is arguably the best missile in Russia's arsenal. This short-range ballistic missile has a range of up to 500 kilometers, traveling at a hypersonic speed of Mach 6 at a height of about 50 kilometers above the ground. The missile has a warhead capable of destroying everything in an area of ​​about two football fields and has an accuracy the size of a building window when launched from tens of kilometers away. Because this missile is ballistic and travels at hypersonic speed, it is incredibly difficult to intercept.

It is unlikely that the Ukrainians managed to intercept any of the Iskander missiles and, if they did, the number would be small. According to the Ukrainians, the Russians have fired about 800 Iskanders since the start of the invasion, leaving only about 14% of their original stock. Whatever Iskander missiles remain will only be used for high-value targets. In contrast to the low stockpile of Iskander missiles, Russia has more than half of its Kalibr missiles left. But there is a reason for it. Kalibr is a family of Russian cruise missiles that are primarily launched from the sea, either from warships or submarines.

Depending on the model, Kalibr has a range of 600 to 2,500 km. But for most of the flight, Kalibr missiles travel at a subsonic speed of about Mach 0.8, making them much easier to intercept. For this reason, Kalibr missiles are usually launched in salvos. The Ukrainians claim that they intercept between 50% and 100% of Kalibr cruise missiles, depending on the launch platform. If launched from a warship, it is much easier to intercept the missile because you know the launch location. After all, it is much easier to track a warship than a submarine. In contrast, if launched from a submarine submerged at 50 meters, the missile's departure location may not be known early enough or at all, making it much more difficult to intercept.

Finally, according to the Ukrainians, Russia still has about half of its air-launched cruise missiles. Missiles such as the X-101 and X-555 are launched from the Tu-160 Blackjack or the Tu-95 Bear. These missiles have a range of up to 3,000 km and travel at a subsonic speed of approximately Mach 0.75. Like the Kalibr cruise missile, these are also easy to intercept. In total, according to the Ukrainians, Russia has just over 600 precision-guided missiles left, but only 20% of them, the Iskander missiles, are the biggest threat. The rest can be easily intercepted. According to Oleksiy Arestovych, the current Ukrainian air defenses, which mainly consist of S-300 surface-to-air missile systems, are capable of intercepting more than 70% of missiles when launched in small quantities, but the interception percentage drops to 50 %. during massive attacks.

It is believed that once the Ukrainians receive sufficient quantities of IRIS-T and NASAMS air defense systems, they will be able to intercept more than 90% of cruise missiles and even intercept Iskander ballistic missiles. But is there any other evidence that the Russians are running out of precision-guided missiles besides tweets from Ukrainian officials? Yes, the fact that the Russians started using some incredibly old Soviet missiles and that they acquired weapons from Iran. The biggest sign that Russia is running out of precision-guided missiles is the fact that it has resorted to using older S-300 surface-to-air missile systems to attack ground targets.

This is because they have up to 10,000 of these missiles in their arsenal. Therefore, no rationing is necessary. The thing is that the S-300 missiles are designed to intercept air targets, so they do not have enough power to destroy hardened military targets. But they can destroy civilian buildings, which they do... almost every other day in Zaporizhya. Although, when used in ground attack mode, S-300 missiles are very inaccurate because they cannot hit the target they want to hit. Basically it's about firing the missile and seeing where it ends up. The fact that they are using S-300 missiles is a clear sign that Russia is running out of more advanced missiles.

In addition to the S-300, the Russians have also used older X-22 air-launched missiles that were produced in 1962. Leave us a comment if you were alive in 1962!! The X-22 is incredibly inaccurate, to the point that it can land within 600 meters of its intended target only 50% of the time! For example, on June 27, 2022, two X-22 missiles were used in an attack on Kremenchuk. One missile landed on a shopping mall, killing 21 people and injuring 59. The second missile landed on the edge of a concrete factory, injuring 2 people. Finally, the Russians are starting to rely more on Iranian drones than their own missiles.

Hundreds of Iranian drones have been delivered to Russia to be used against Ukraine. If anything, it is a sign of weakness in the Russian military industrial complex. The most widely used Iranian drone, the Shahed-136, is a low-cost munitions loitering drone that became known as the "kamikaze drone" because it can be programmed to reach a specific GPS location. They fly quite low and have a range of over 1000 kilometers. Ukrainians call them “mopeds” because they are very loud, like a moped! The weakness of Iranian drones is that they can only attack stationary targets, so they do not pose much of a threat to mobile forces on the battlefield.

For example, on October 17, 2022, Russia launched 62 Iranian drones, of which 36 were intercepted. The thing is that many surface-to-air rockets are used to intercept these drones and Ukraine has a limited amount. With Russia believed to have up to 2,400 Iranian-made drones, they may terrorize Ukraine for months to come. In addition to drones, Russia is also acquiring several hundred Fateh-110 and Zolfagar missiles, most of which have not yet been built. It is interesting how Russia, being one of the largest weapons producers in the world, has to depend on Iranian drones and missiles. It could be that Iran has more experience living under sanctions and knows how to get around them to get the Western components it needs for its weapons.

You see, Russia can't simply mass produce its most advanced missiles, since all the electronics needed are basically Western-made. In an in-depth report, Reuters examined the downed Russian Iskander and Kalibr missiles. It turns out that most, if not all, of the chips inside those missiles are made by Altera, Texas Instruments, Intel and AMD, all of them American. Due to sanctions, Russia can no longer simply order those chips directly, although it can order 1000 microwaves and harvest those exact same chips. Anyway, you get the point, and that's why Russia can only produce three X-101 missiles per month. Simply put, Russian manufacturers cannot make what the Russian Defense Ministry wants and therefore have to buy outside the country, in Iran.

Now the question is how the Russians were able to convince Iran to send them so many drones in such a short time. What did Iran ask for in return? I don't know, but I think Israel wouldn't like it. Before we conclude, we must talk about the accuracy of the missiles. Before this war, Russian missiles such as the X-101, Iskander and Kalibr were marketed as high-precision missiles, with a margin of error of just a few meters. But even in 2017, Kalibr was noted to have an accuracy of 30 meters and X-101 had an accuracy of 5 to 50 meters. But an accuracy of 30 to 50 meters is not considered precision guided.

Hitting a target the size of a shoebox is something HIMARS can do. Furthermore, Armenia, which had acquired Iskander-E missiles from Russia, reported that during tests, the missiles were only able to successfully hit the target 10% of the time. But that claim was later retracted, probably because Armenia did not want to anger Russia, which was its main arms supplier. From the beginning of the Russian invasion, the Pentagon noted that Russia was experiencing a significant number of missile failures. On March 25, 2022, the Pentagon stated that the failure rate of Russian missiles is 20 to 60 percent on any given day. Air-launched cruise missiles had the lowest fatality rate.

Missile failures were described as failure to launch, failure to reach the target, or failure to detonate upon reaching the target! One thing is certain: the huge spending on missiles that Russia is experiencing was not planned, as a quick victory in Ukraine was expected. The fact that they are running out of precision-guided missiles means that Russia will have to resort to increasing use of its inaccurate missiles, such as the S-300 and X-22. And that could benefit Russia, because the use of inaccurate missiles in Ukraine could increase panic levels, pushing Kiev toward peace talks, which Russia so badly wants, so it can rebuild its military before resuming its invasion again.

Russia's efforts to replace its missile arsenal will be difficult due to cost, production limitations and the impact of sanctions. Worse still, there are major problems with the performance of Russian cruise missiles. They are not as accurate as those of their Western counterparts. But they were never supposed to be. This is because the Russian Iskander, Kalibr and X-101 missiles were designed for dual use, meaning they can carry both conventional and nuclear warheads. Of course, with nuclear-armed missiles, accuracy is... less of a concern, since even a small tactical warhead is enormously more powerful than a large conventional warhead.

In fact, some American military analysts fear that Russia's experience with the lack of precision and high failure rate of its conventional missiles could lead Moscow to the wrong conclusion. Instead of improving the accuracy of conventional missiles, Russia may opt for the easier option of arming its missiles with small nuclear warheads, which are not prone to accuracy.