Bulletins and News Discussion from May 5th to May 11th, 2025 - Fuck Fascists Friday

Image is the famous photograph Raising a Flag Over the Reichstag, taken during the Battle of Berlin.

On Friday is May 9th, which is the 80th anniversary of Victory Day, which Russia, among other places, celebrates as the day when the Soviets defeated the Nazis. Naturally, one of the current hotspots of fascism in the world today, Ukraine, is essentially threatening that they might strike Russia or even Moscow itself during that timeframe. Any such strike would almost certainly be symbolic and not aimed at anything too important, as I doubt even Zelensky and his American handlers would actually want to kill a world leader, not least somebody like Xi Jinping. But I would not be surprised if they tried something nonetheless, if only to disrupt the event in some way and not actually kill anybody.

And, as we're on this topic, @EllenKelly@hexbear.net has reminded me that Tuesday is the anniversary of the Nazis burning the Institut für Sexualwissenschaf in 1933, an early institute advocating for the rights of LGBT people, and which also provided early forms of gender-affirming surgeries, as well as hormone therapies. We are currently seeing a crackdown on LGBT rights throughout swathes of the imperial core (as well as countries in the periphery, to the extent that those rights existed there already), and this Nazi-inspired movement will be similarly defeated in the future.

Last week's thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.

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With the ceasefire now in place between India and Pakistan (preliminary reports suggest that it has already been violated), it looks like much of the unconfirmed reports about large scale cyber attacks, both sides shooting down each others fighter aircraft, and within visual range engagements/dogfights, and entering each other's airspace, were exaggerated by both sides. There is no evidence for any of these claims.
What ended up actually happening was a tit for tat stand-off strike exchange aimed at each other's military bases and storage locations, with air launched cruise and ballistic missiles, and ground launched short range ballistic missiles and artillery rockets being used. The Indian Air Force managed to carry out stand off strikes without losing any aircraft this time, as they should've done during their first attack. That's the whole point of using stand-off weapons, minimal risk to the aircraft and pilots, high survivability. Lesson learnt by India, they carried out a successful attack on Pakistan this time, at the cost of 4 aircraft during the previous attack.
Pakistan responsed with thier own stand off strikes from their Air Force and rocket forces. Pakistani media published photos and videos of ground launched Fatah-1 guided artillery rockets, and Fatah-2 Short Range Ballistic Missiles, being used.
The most interesting claim from Pakistan is the "use of hypersonic weapons" launched from JF-17 fighter aircraft, to target an Indian S-400 air defence site at Adampur. With photos and videos released, the "hypersonic weapon" in question is the Chinese made CM-400AKG Air Launched Ballistic Missile (ALBM), with its passive radar anti ship seeker likely converted for anti radiation use against air defence radars (there is no official anti radiation version of the CM-400AKG). This makes a lot more sense than Pakistani aircraft entering Indian airspace to carry out some sort of Wild Weasel mission against the S-400 with short range anti radiation missiles, a puzzling initial claim. India has confirmed limited damage at Udhampur, Pathankot, Adampur and Bhuj, but denies that the S-400 system was hit. It is unclear what the truth is.
“Limited damage was sustained to equipment and personnel at Indian Air Force stations at Udhampur, Pathankot, Adampur and Bhuj,” said Indian Air Force officer Singh
“Pakistan Air Force’s JF-17 Thunder hypersonic missiles destroyed India’s S-400 system in Adampur,” state-run Pakistan TV had reported.
This is an “attempted misinformation campaign … India unequivocally rejects” it, said Misri, who was also joined by Col. Sofiya Qureshi.
India says Pakistan attacked with ‘high-speed’ missiles, targeted air bases
JF-17 with 2 CM-400AKG ALBMs.

Either way, hit or not, the S-400 system failed to intercept the CM-400AKG ALBM if there's damage. This is in line with previous performances of these high level air defence systems against ALBMs. Patriot systems in Ukraine have failed to intercept Kinzhal ALBMs, S-300P systems in Ukraine and Iran have failed to intercept Kinzhal and ROCKS ALBMs respectively. S-400s in Russia have even failed to intercept ground launched ATACMS short range ballistic missiles at times.
As for why these short range (250-500km) ALBMs, from ROCKS to Kinzhal to CM-400AKG are hard to intercept, one just needs to look at the flight trajectory. Even though they are ballistic missiles, their short range means that they don't exceed altitudes of 50km at apogee, remaining in the stratosphere and allowing for some form of aerodynamic control. They are even capable of pull up manoeuvres and long glide or cruise phases at altitudes above the maximum altitude ceiling of some lower altitude terminal ballistic intercept systems, similar to longer range MaRV equipped ballistic missiles. Time from launch from an aerial attack vector, to impact, is 300-400 seconds.
For defence against these kind of shorter range ballistic missiles, you need specialised systems, like the S-300V and it's variants, including the S-300V4, S-500 and Chinese equivalent HQ-18, the latest version of Patriot in PAC-3 MSE, Arrow-2. To increase their anti ballistic capabilities, some Russian S-400s have been fitted with the missiles from the S-300V4 or S-500 systems. India doesn't have that for their S-400, overall neither side has these systems, so expect more successful attacks if the conflict goes on. Even if India and Pakistan had these systems, these systems can and will fail. 100% intercept is impossible.
- Do you think there are long term implications to the hypothesis here?
  “ I couldn't [ID] it before, but after a fair conclusion:
  The first and second photos show Brahmos wreckage—debris from the May 7th Bahawalpur strike on grass, and pieces from the Jacobabad strike on dirt.
  On the morning of May 10th, the IAF launched Brahmos missile at Jacobabad. Damage to infrastructure was reported. The brahmos, previously considered untested, has now been used in strikes on 11 military sites..”
  https://t.me/DEQNEWS/12106
  
  BrahMos is a ramjet powered supersonic cruise missile, based on the Russian P-800 Oniks, with various hi-lo flight trajectories, capable of sea skimming at very low altitude (10m/33ft) and high supersonic speeds at all phases of flight (high Mach 2 to Mach 3+).
  Ukrainian interception rates for the P-800 Oniks are in the single figures, 5.7%. These are also very difficult weapons to intercept, and require specialised systems that can intercept high speed projectiles at low altitudes, especially at sea where the missile can fly at really low altitude (10m/33ft).
  However, there is no terrain following guidance on the missile, so really low altitude and terrain following trajectories over land are only possible over flat areas with no hills or mountains. In areas where there are hills or mountains, the missile must fly in a straight line at higher altitudes above these obstacles, unlike subsonic terrain following cruise missiles, which can maintain a low altitude in such environments with appropriate planning beforehand. Interception is still very difficult though. A supersonic cruise missile at a few hundred meters altitude is still a difficult target.
- The Pakistani Fatah-(1|2)s are not the same as Iran's hypersonic missiles, right?
  
  Yeah completely different. Pakistans are artillery rockets and short range ballistic missiles, Iran's are MaRV equipped medium range ballistic missiles and hypersonic weapons.
  
  Thanks for the clarification

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