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Mark Gaffney a lancé un cri d’alarme à propos du Sunburn russe
http://www.rense.com/general59/theSunburniransawesome.htm
Dans son long texte, empreint d’un pathos désagréable, il y a ces phrases éclairantes sur
l’état d’esprit matamoresque des States :

” Le problème est que beaucoup d’entre nous (Américains) souffrent de deux grandes erreurs de jugement. La première provient de notre hypothèse que la Russie est faible militairement, suite à l’effondrement de l’URSS. Actuellement, cela est vrai, mais ne rend pas compte des complexités (de la situation). Alors que la flotte (de guerre) russe se rouille dans les ports et que l’armée russe est en désordre, dans certains domaines-clé ,  la technologie russe est actuellement supérieure à la nôtre. Et c’est particulièrement vrai dans la sphère vitale de la technologie des missiles anti-navires, où les Russes ont au moins dix ans d’avance sur les USA. La seconde erreur réside dans notre assurance excessive envers les missiles en tant qu’armes, (suffisance) attribuable aux performances lamentables des Scuds de Saddam Hussein, durant la première guerre du Golfe : voilà une dangereuse illusion qu’il nous faudrait essayer de rectifier.”
——————
Une image de lancement du Sunburn est visible sur le site :

http://www.newprophecy.net/Sunburn_launch_in_the_Pacific.jpg <

Quelques réflexions à la lecture de cet article

Les missiles anti-“carrier-groups” sont une grande tradition russe. Dans les années 70, les russes ont mis au points des tactiques et des systèmes d’armes (backfire Tu-22M/26, bear Tu-95, Tu-16 Badger) pour défaire les carriers battle groups dans l’atlantique-nord.
Il n’y a dès lors rien de suprenant à l’avance qu’ils ont acquise et conservée. Le sunburn, et les autres et notamment le dernier, le BrahMos qui est le state of art des missile anti-forces navales (dont l’Iran n’est pas équipée) ne sont pas des scuds-like missile à la technologie retardée, loin de là. Cependant…
Plus que la technologie, c’est la tactique qui a été déterminante dans les rares occasions ou les missiles anti-navires ont été employés. Que ça soit en argentine ou durant les conflits israelo-arabes, tout démontre que les missiles anti-navires ne sont pas d’un emploi simplement rustique, comme on largue une bombe…
La tactique, l’entrainement, la parfaite connaissance et maitrise du couple super-étendard + exocet par les pilotes argentins sont la première cause du taux de réussite que ces derniers ont connus. Il existe aussi une tradition aeronavale argentine qui explique aussi le succès de ces opérations.

Il est clair que le golfe persique n’est pas du tout favorable à l’évolution d’un carrier battle group qui a besoin de centaines de kilomètres autour du porte avions pour déployer sa bulle protectrice. A ce titre, en effet, ça ressemble à un piège fermé par un detroit qu’il est relativement facile de rendre infranchissable à cause des hauts fonds et de la multitude d’iles et îlots d’où il est facie de lancer des attaques par des vedettes rapides et mettre les nerfs des militaires US a rude épreuve.

Il est intéressant qu’un debat similaire avait eu lieu lors de l’intervention de l’OTAN au Kosovo, concernant l’évolution des battle groups dans l’Adriatique, mer tout aussi étroite que le golfe.
Cela dit, Les forces serbes n’ayant pas été équipées de missile anti-navires ni ayant jamais eu un accès stable et permanent à la mer, font que la comparaison s’arrete là.

Il serait préférable de retirer toute la flotte US du golfe persique avant toute action contre l’Iran. D’ailleurs, cela peut être le signal de l’action offensive… C’est la seule bonne réponse tactique au problème posé par le sunburn.

Quand au ravitaillement des forces US en Iraq, les alternatives ne manquent pas: par la turquie voie terrestre ou par la mer rouge via l’arabie saoudite, pont aérien, etc…

Le ton de l’article est à juste titre alarmiste, on peut regretter que l’analyse ne soit pas suffisament approfondie.

Il est cependant evident que jamais les responsables militaires US ont eu a faire à pareille menace. Et comme vous le dites très justement dans vos différents articles, la psychologie est le facteur déterminant dans l’attitude US. C’est un point de vue que je partage.

Le Moskit et son petit frère le Yakhont sont les meilleurs missiles navals au monde. L’article suivant remet l’église au milieux du village…

Protection from russian antiship missile does not exist.

It apears that the multi-billion-dollar anti-missile Aegis system intended to protect America against a nuclear missile strike is vulnerable to attack from Russian-made supersonic cruise missiles.

“The Aegis ABM interceptor is not designed to deal with the supersonic cruise missile threat,” explains Baker Spring, a defense analyst for the Heritage Foundation.

“The supersonic cruise missile threat is also a Navy big problem,” stated Spring. “The Navy will have to deal with the cruise missile threat no matter what the mission—whether it’s ABM defense or sea control.” The U.S. Navy Aegis system is reported to be unable to defend against the latest Russian supersonic cruise missiles: the “Moskit” made by Raduga and the new “Yakhont” made by Mashinostroyenya.

the Moskit

These Russian cruise missiles are huge, weighing nearly five tons each, and both can fly a few feet over the sea surface at almost three time the speed of sound. In July 1999, Richard Fisher, a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, wrote an evaluation of the Raduga Moskit missile that was recently sold to China. Fisher says the U.S. Navy cannot stop the Moskit. “The Raduga Moskit anti-ship missile is certainly the most lethal anti-ship missile in the world,” wrote Fisher in a review of the Chinese navy.

“The Moskit combines an almost Mach 3 speed with a very low-level flight pattern that uses violent end maneuvers to throw off defenses. After detecting the Moskit, the U.S. Navy Phalanx defense system may have only 2.5 seconds to calculate a fire solution—not enough time before the devastating impact of a 750-lb. warhead.”

The Moskit missile has been sold to China for use on a Russian-built Sovremenny-class destroyer serving in the People’s Liberation Navy. The Chinese Moskit missiles are reported to carry a 200-kiloton nuclear warhead—packing a punch 10 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

There is evidence from the U.S. Navy itself that the warships are totaly vulnerable to the Moskit. The Navy’s Aegis system failed to defend itself in live-fire tests even against a little U.S supersonic target missile called the Vandal. Vandal target drones, flying 10 feet over the ground at speeds of over 1,500 miles per hour, defeated the Aegis defenses and scored direct hits on simulated Navy targets.

Logicon Corp. is the U.S. Navy contractor responsible for testing the Aegis warship air defenses. According to an internal Logicon Corp. memo, the Navy had to make a deal with Russian missile maker Zvezda for a new target drone. Russia is now providing the U.S. Navy its only supersonic target missile—the Zvezda MA-31. The U.S. Navy bought the Russian Zvezda MA-31 supersonic target missile and now depends on Russia for all its future Aegis targets and testings. According to Logicon, the Navy “plans to procure 37 additional (Russian Zvezda) MA-31 targets in the future.”

But Official U.S. Navy sources noted the 1,100-pound MA-31 does not replicate the massive 9,920-pound Moskit threat, and the little target missile does not carry any Russian electronics. In response to allegations that the MA-31 could not replicate the Moskit threat, the U.S. Navy announced a program to acquire Moskit anti-ship missiles from Russia to be able to test them. The U.S. Navy purchase of Russian-made missiles, including the no. 1 threat against the Aegis warships, moved Congress to pass a special legislation in order to allow it. But the Russian did not agree. Sen. Rohrabacher recently introduced a bill that would permit debt re-scheduling with Russia if the Russian military discontinues sales of the Moskit to China.

“THe U.S. tested an older supersonic anti-ship missile that has none of the “goodies” the Moskit have, and the U.S. Navy was “shocked” at the result. Defending against a supersonic missile is very hard and in the case of the Moskit, I would say impossible. The Taiwanese, in response to China’s acqusistion of these missile developed a strategy to counter it. The strategy is to “try not get into the range of a Sovremenny”, said Fisher.

the Yakhont

Russian missile makers are now offering China the very latest in supersonic killing technology, the NPO Mashinostroyenya “Yakhont”. “The Yakhont is fast, compact, and is considerably better than the lethal Moskit. As the Moskit, it is designed to evade countermeasures and is impossible to stop.What is freightening is you can place a large number of them on a very small platform.” stated Fisher.

The Yakhont is powered by an air-breathing ramjet engine giving it a top speed of Mach 2.8 at 45,000 feet. The Yahont is reported to deliver a 440-pound warhead at an impact velocity of 2,500 feet per second - much faster than a rifle bullet!

According to defense intelligence sources, Russia is offering to sell China up to eight more Sovremenny destroyers armed with eight nuclear-tipped Moskit missiles each. In addition, the Sovremenny will also be armed with Yakhont missiles and a naval version of the SA-10C “Grumble” advanced surface-to-air defense missile.

U.S. defense analysis indicates that Yakhont comes in a nuclear-tipped land attack version, enabling it to strike ground targets such as the land-based missile site in Alaska or U.S. cities. Each Yakhont is produced in a launch canister, enabling the missile to be fired from simple and low cost platforms such as a diesel submarine or even a common truck.

The low maintenance cost and compact size associated with the Yahont appeal greatly to third-world militaries. North Korea, Iran, Syria, Algeria, Vietnam, Malaysia, and India are all considering supersonic cruise missile purchases from Russia.

The missile’s designers assume, that enemy would detect the launch of the missile and take measures to destroy it. However, being resistant to jamming, having a very high flight velocity and making complex maneuvers during flight, the Yakhont shall anyway reach the target. It’s far not only his high speed or jamming protection that makes Yakhont an advanced weapon system. It’s major advantage, not too much advertised by NPO Mashinostroyeniya representatives, is the guidance system which has accumulated all the NPO experience in developing electronic systems of AI (Artificial Intelligence) enabling to fight against single warships (one missile - one ship) or against a group of warships (a flock of missiles against a group of warships).

Due to the Yakhont’s short flying time and the long effective range of its seeker head, the targeting of the missile need not be very accurate. The ability to observe the entire target area from a high altitude (45’000 feet), augmented by the enhanced capabilities of the control system, make it possible to cue missiles to hostile ships in a group and discriminate false targets.

It is salvo launching that shows all unsurpassed tactical capabilities of this weapon. The missiles most perfect guidance system allocate and range targets by their importance and choose the attack implementation plan itself. The independent control system keeps in memory not only of the ECM (Electronic Countermeasures) and ECCM (Electronic Counter-Countermeasures) data, but also the methods of evading the fire of the enemy’s air defense systems such as the US’ Phalanx. Having destroyed the main target in a carrier group, the next missiles attack other ships of the group. So even just a single salvo launch can destoy a full navy battle group.

The missiles’s designer says: “The missiles’s compactness and maintainability on board is due to it’s unique construction unrivaled in terms of the degree of integration of components. Basically, the entire missile - from the nose air intake to the exit section - is a propulsion plant arranged in an airframe. The missile size provides a two or three time increase in the number of missiles carried on board a platform. The missile is dispatched from the manufacturing plant, shipped and delivered to the user in its launch-container ready for use at all times. The missile’s systems check-out is made without removing the weapon from its launch-container.

The launch-container, with the missile in it, is very simple to operate and maintain. It requires neither any liquid or gas for maintenance nor specific microclimate for storage on board. All this simplifies operation and maintenance procedures and enhances the weapon’s reliability”.

As the missile’s basic features include a wide range of launch angles and an advanced firing method which does not require flame deflectors, the missile can easily be blended into the architecture of various platforms. It should be noted that launchers of different designs can be used: from very simple rack launchers intended for installation on low-tonnage vessels, to vertical-launch modular systems designed for installation on large surface ships, like frigates, destroyers and cruisers.

According to the tactical-technical characteristics the “Yakhont” considerably exceeds rockets like the “Harpoon” (USA), “Otomat” (Italy), “Exocet” (France): The Yakhont flying range - is more than 300 km at the speed almost three times the speed of sound. The weight of the warhead of the rocket - 200 kg. The American military arsenal has no weapon to match the Yahont or the Moskit since the closest American counterparts, the Tomahawk and Harpoon missiles, fly at low subsonic speeds. The best French antiship missile, the Exocet, has a range of only 45 miles and is subsonic too.

The U.S. Air Force ALCM, and the U.S. Navy Tomahawk have been both shot down by conventional anti-aircraft fire in Iraq as well as in Serbia. In the opinion of experts, “Yakhont” will not have competitors on the world market into nearest 30 years.

Taking into account current trends in the development of the navies in the world, this fact is of paramount importance. Owing to the unique characteristics of the Yakhont missile, even light warships armed with it will be able to perform missions that before could only be handled by large combatants ships.

“There isn’t even defence for the Moskit and the Yakhont is smaller, faster and more advanced. It will smoke an aircraft-carrier before the battle group even detect it. The new Sovremenny can carry 24 of those missiles. They are more than enough to take out a carrier battle group. As the Moskit, the Yakhont is designed to counter the AEGIS system which the U.S. Navy relies very heavily on and is the best availble in US military forces. In fact, Russia is at least one generation ahead of the U.S. in missile and supersonic torpedos (yes, supersonic. The Kursk was testing it when it went down.) Besides being fast, and having violent end game maneuvers, jamming is impossible because of Moskit and Yakhont’s 100% fire-and-forget system making countering it absolutely impossible. The chinese government is currently buying some Yakhont and may incorporate the technology into their own missiles. This is a clear warning. If the U.S. send carrier battle groups to Taiwan, then the U.S. navy can consider them as lost” sated Fisher.

Moreover, newly developed Russian air defense missiles such as the SA-10C “Grumble” are capable of easily defeating Tomahawk and ALCM attacks. The Russian maker of the SA-10C states that it has a kill ratio ranging from 85 to 98% against Tomahawk-class cruise missiles. Russia is exporting large numbers of the new air defense missile. Russia has exported the SA-10C Grumble to China where it is produced under license and has made offers to India, Syria and Cyprus.

Iran tests second new radar avoiding missile
  (AP)

  4 April 2006

  TEHERAN - A top Iranian military official said Tuesday the country can now defend against any invasion originating from outside the region - a clear reference to the United States - as it tested a second new radar-avoiding missile.

  Iran CraftThe new surface-to-sea missile is equipped with remote-control and searching systems, state-run television reported. It said the new missile, called Kowsar after the name of a river in paradise, was a medium-range weapon that Iran had the capability to mass-produce.

  It also asserted that the Kowsar’s guidance system could not be scrambled, and that it had been designed to sink ships.

  Shortly after the test, the chief of the elite Revolutionary Guards, Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi, warned that Iran was now able to “confront any extra-regional invasion,” referring to the United States without mentioning it by name.

  “The missile command of the Guards’ naval force ... via positioning various types of surface-to-sea missiles, is able, while defending the coastlines and islands, to confront any extra-territorial invasion,” the official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Safavi as saying.

  Safavi also called for foreign forces to leave the region. The US 5th fleet is based in Bahrain, from where it patrols the Gulf.

  “Iran wants durable peace in the Persian Gulf and it can’t be achieved without foreign forces and those which invaded Iraq leaving (the region),” IRNA quoted Safavi as saying.

  On Friday, the country tested the Fajr-3, a missile that it said can avoid radars and hit several targets simultaneously using multiple warheads. Since the war games began, the country also has tested what it calls two new torpedoes.

  The second torpedo, unveiled Monday, was tested in the Straits of Hormuz, the narrow entrance to the Gulf that is a vital corridor for oil supplies. That seemed designed to be a clear warning to the United States that Iran believes it has the capability to disable oil tankers moving through the Gulf, if it should so choose.

  ‘Technology appears Russian-made’

  But military analysts in Moscow said the high-speed torpedoes tested by Iran this week were likely Russian-built weapons and may have been acquired from China or the ex-Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan. Judging by the fuzzy television pictures showing the tests, the missiles appeared very similar to the Russian-made VA-111 Shkval, the world’s fastest known underwater missile, they said.

  Ruslan Pukhov, an expert with the Center for Strategic Analysis and Technologies, said that he believed the Shkval technology was too sophisticated for the Iranians to produce themselves.

  Pukhov noted that the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan once had a Soviet top-secret torpedo and naval testing center located on the remote mountain lake, Issyk Kul. He said in the mid-1990s, in the turmoil that followed the Soviet breakup, Kyrgyz authorities had sold Shkvals to the Chinese, a major importer of Iranian oil.

  Others experts said it would be easy to gather up sunken torpedoes used in tests in Issyk Kul and develop the technology with the help of Russian scientists who had gone to Iran in search of well-paying jobs.

  Others have questioned just how radar-evading the missiles are. Iran’s radars are not as advanced as those of Israel, for example - meaning that perhaps the new weapons can avoid the radar that Iran has access to, but not more advanced types.

  The United States said Monday - after the second torpedo test - that while Iran may have made “some strides” in its military, it is likely to be exaggerating its capabilities.

  Nevertheless, the country has made clear it aims to send a message of strength to the United States amid heightened tensions over Iran’s nuclear program.

  On Tuesday, state-run television also said the elite Revolutionary Guards had tested what it called a “super modern flying boat” capable of evading radar. TV showed a brief clip of the boat’s launch.

  “Due to its advanced design, no radar at sea or in the air can detect it. It can lift out of the water,” the television said. It said the boat was “all Iranian-made and can launch missiles with precise targeting while moving.”

  The television showed the boat, looking like an aircraft, taking off from the sea and flying low over the surface of the water. It said the craft could fly with a speed of 100 nautical miles per hour.

  Iran said the torpedo tests were conducted on Sunday and Monday. The torpedo - called a “Hoot,” or “whale” - is able to move at up to 223 mph, too fast for any enemy ship to elude.

  Iran has routinely held war games over the past two decades to improve its combat readiness and test locally made equipment such as missiles, tanks and armored personnel carriers.

  Iran launched an arms development program during its 1980-88 war with Iraq to compensate for a US weapons embargo. Since 1992, Iran has produced its own tanks, armored personnel carriers, missiles and a fighter plane.

VA-111 Shkval underwater rocket

a revolutionary secret-weapons technology that could turn battles

  In 1995 it was revealed that Russia had developed an exceptionally high-speed underwater missile which has no equivalent in the West. Code-named the Shkval (Squall), the new weapon travels at a velocity that would give a targeted vessel very little or no chance to perform evasive action. The missile has been characterized as a “revenge” weapon, which would be fired along the bearing of an incoming enemy torpedo. The Shkval may be considered a follow-on to the Russian BGT class of evasion torpedoes, which are fired in the direction of an incoming torpedo to try to force an attacking to evade (and hopefully snap the torpedo’s guidance wires). The weapon was deployed in the early 1990s, and had been in service for years when the fact of its existence was disclosed.

  Development begain in the 1960s, when the Research Institute NII-24 (Chief Designer Mikhail Merkulov) involved in the artillery ammunition research was instructed to develop an underwater high-speed missile to fight nuclear-powered submarines. On 14 May 1969, pursuant to a government resolution, NII-24 and GSKB-47 merged into the Research Institute of Applied Hydromechanics (NII PGM), which formed the basis of the present day ‘Region’ Scientific Production Association. Advances in the development of jet engines and fuel technologies, as well as outstanding results in the research of body motion under cavitation made it possible to design a unique missile with a dived speed much greater than that of conventional torpedoes.

  When the suction on the low-pressure side of the propeller blade dips below ambient pressure [atmospheric plus hydrostatic head] the propeller blade cavitates—a vacuum cavity forms. There is water vapor in the cavity, and the pressure is not a true vacuum, but equal to the vapor pressure of the water. High-speed propellers are often designed to operate in a fully-cavitating (supercavitating) mode. A high speed supercavitating projectile, while moving in the forward direction, rotates inside the cavity. This rotation leads to a series of impacts between the projectile tail and the cavity wall. The impacts affect the trajectory as well as the stability of motion of the projectile. The present paper discusses the in-flight dynamics of such a projectile. Despite the impacts with the cavity wall, the projectile nearly follows a straight line path. The frequency of the impacts between the projectile tail and cavity boundary increases initially, reaches a maximum, and then decreases gradually. The frequency of impacts decreases with the projectile’s moment of inertia.

  Apparently fired from standard 533mm torpedo tubes, Shkval has a range of about 7,500 yards. The weapon clears the tube at fifty knots, upon which its rocket fires, propelling the missile through the water at 360 kph - some reports say in excess of 300 mph (483 kmh) - four times as fast as conventional torpedoes. The solid-rocket propelled “torpedo” achieves high speeds by producing a high-pressure stream of bubbles from its nose and skin, which coats the torpedo in a thin layer of gas and forms a local “envelope” of supercavitating bubbles. Carrying a tactical nuclear warhead initiated by a timer, it would destroy the hostile submarine and the torpedo it fired. The Shkval high-speed underwater missile is guided by an auto-pilot rather than by a homing head as on most torpedoes.

  There are no evident countermeasures to such a weapon, its employment could put adversary naval forces as a considerable disadvantage. One such scenario is a rapid attack situation wherein a sudden detection of a threat submarine is made, perhaps at relatively short range, requiring an immediate response to achieve weapon on target and to ensure survival. Apparently guidance is a problem, and the initial version of the Shkval was unguided However, the Russians have been advertising a homing version, which runs out at very high speed, then slows to search.

  A prototype of the modernised “Shkval”, which was exhibited at the 1995 international armaments show in Abu Dhabi, was discarded. An improved model was designed with a conventional (non-nuclear) warhead and a guided targeting system, which substantially enhances its combat effectiveness. The first tests of the modernised Shkval torpedo were held by the Russian Pacific Fleet in the spring of 1998.

  The ‘Region’ Scientific Production Association has developed an export modification of the missile, ‘Shkval-E’. Russia began marketing this conventionally armed version of the Shkval high-speed underwater rocket at the IDEX 99 exhibition in Abu Dhabi in early 1999. The concept of operations for this missile requires the crew of a submarine, ship or the coast guard define the target’s parameters—speed, distance and vector—and feeds the data to the missile’s automatic pilot. The missile is fired, achieves its optimum depth and switches on its engines. The missile does not have a homing warhead and follows a computer-generated program.

  On 05 April 2000 the Russian Federal Security Service [FSB] in Moscow arrested an American businessman, Edmond Pope, and a Russian accomplice, on charges of stealing scientific secrets. Pope is a retired US Navy captain who spent much of his career working in naval intelligence. He had founded the navy’s Foreign Science and Technologies Program, which promoted the exchange of scientific information between former Soviet nations and the U.S. When he retired from military service, Pope started two companies that specialized in bringing foreign maritime technology to the West. Observers believe that Pope was actually an American intelligence officer posing as a businessman.

    Pope was caught red-handed trying to buy the design details of the Shkval from a Russian scientist who had helped develop it. The FSB charged Pope with paying $30,000 to Anatoliy Babkin, head of the rocket engineering department at the Bauman Moscow State Technical University, for information on the Shkval. According to Russian media reports, Babkin was in fact a double agent who set Pope up, a belief supported by Babkin’s rapid release by the FSB.

  The arrest of Daniel Howard Kiely, deputy head of the Applied Research Laboratory at Pennsylvania State University, came almost simultaneously. The laboratory led by Mr. Kiely has for many years been developing torpedoes for US warships and submarines. Professor Kiely had joined Pope in Moscow to offer technical advice and determine the tasks for Pope’s further activity. Kiely was interrogated as a witness. His testimony and objects confiscated during the search proved his involvement in Pope’s activities. Pope spent eight months in the Lefortovo prison awaiting trial. He was convicted of espionage and sentenced to 20 years. On Dec. 14, 2000, Russian President Vladimir Putin pardoned Pope on humanitarian grounds; the American has been suffering from bone cancer.

Russia reportedly sold China 40 conventionally armed Shkval-E in the mid-1990s.

“L’aveugle au pistolet”(*)

Il est interessant de noter qu’avant les attaques précédentes de l’Irak, des tentatives de surévaluations des capacités militaires de ce pays ont eu lieu: “Irak, troisième armée du monde”, “ils vont se défendre sur leur terrain”, etc… Les faits les ont rapidement contredites.

D’identiques initiatives avaient précédé certaines offensives israeliennes, notamment contre la Syrie et plus spécifiquement la vallée de la Bekaa, “plus grand concentration de missiles anti-aériens du monde” dont les missiles sol-air se sont avérés sans effet grâce aux appareils de contre-mesure récents livrés par les américains.

Je crains que nous ne soyons à nouveau dans le même procédé. Quel pourraient être les buts recherchés:
- justifier le déploiement du matériel le plus récent
- justifier les demandes de crédits pour de nouvelles folies technologiques
- augmenter la tension
- augmenter le “challenge” et donc “l’héroisme” de nos p’tits gars et échauffer leurs esprits.
- détourner les esprits de la discussion du bien fondé de l’attaque vers des détails techniques, répliquant ainsi la fameuse technique commerciale: “allez-vous m’acheter une voiture verte ou bleue” alors que la question est de savoir si on va acheter une voiture.

Enfin demandons-nous de quoi nous parlons: si j’ai bien lu, nous parlons de 40 missiles vendus à la Chine, pays d’un autre format que l’Iran qui en détiendra combien: 4 à 10 pièces ? Ce ne sont guère des chiffres favorables à des tirs de saturation. Vu le prix unitaire de ces joujoux, c’est d’ailleurs peu réaliste.

Ils seront lancés depuis le sol ou depuis des lanceurs proches des côtes puisque le ciel et la mer sont acquits aux forces étatsuniennes. Nous savons que les sous-marins sont repérés par les satellites, sauf en eau profonde. Où est l’eau profonde dans ce “grand lac” ?

Nous parlons aussi de la nécessité d’équipes bien entrainées ! Par qui et depuis quand ?

Enfin, là où le Yakhont peu “lire” sa propre carte depuis 45.000 pieds -sous réserve que son radar ne soit pas brouillé- le Moskit doit être lancé en direction de cibles dont au moins les emplacements approximatifs ont été définis. Comment acquérir de telles informations sans satellites, avions de reconnaissances, Awacs, etc… ?

JDV

(*) “L’aveugle au pistolet” Chester Himes, Gallimard, 1970.