Re: Joe Vialls: some corroborative research…

2003-11-24

Richard Moore

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Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 09:35:21 -0800
To: •••@••.•••
From: "Fred V. Cook" <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Re: Joe Vialls:  An amazing geopolitical assessment!

Dear Richard,

This is a very important (if true) piece of information which (to
date) has not gotten the attention it deserves in the US
commercial media. I would like to verify the facts behind it. 
How much verification do YOU know of to date?

Have "mainstream" or even "alternative media known for good
fact-checking" published the basics of this story yet?

Thanks,
Fred

----

Dear Fred,

I searched the web for "Sunburn" and found a number of things. 
The Sunburn missile seems to be real enough, with the
capabilities Viall claims. Russia did sell the missile to China,
causing concern in Congress, and it has been deployed on ships
and planes. I didn't find another report claiming deployment in
Syria or Iraq. I found a Washington Post article mentioning
the Sunburn and describing the heightening tensions between
Washington and Bejing. I'd say the credibility rating of Viall's
material stands rather high at this point.

I'll paste in some of the material I found below with URLs.

rkm

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http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/moskit.htm

Moskit
SS-N-22 Sunburn     

The NATO designation SS-N-22 'Sunburn' is believed to be
designated P270 Moskit, the air-breathing variant of the naval
missile 3M80 (the designation 3M80 apparently referring to the
Mach 3 speed of 1980 weapons). It may have been designed
originally to enhance the effectiveness of Missile Cutter
Brigades (that is, units of missile-equipped FACs) and Destroyer
Brigades hitherto dependent upon the Malachit or SS-N-9 'Siren'.
It is used on "Sovremennyy" destroyers (eight missiles on each)
and on "Tarantul [Tarantula] III patrol ships (four missiles on
each). A high supersonic speed was specified to reduce the
target's time to deploy self-defense weapons, indeed the weapon
was designed specifically to strike ships with the Aegis command
and weapon control system and the SM-2 surface-to-air missile.

The Moskit (3M80) is a ramjet-powered missile with a slim forward
body and ovoid nose, and a fatter rear half with four divided air
intakes. There are four clipped delta platform wings and four
smaller tail surfaces of similar shape organized in cruciform
configuration around the fuselage. All the wings and tail
surfaces are folded when the missile is in the launcher.
Internally the radar seeker is in the nose with the guidance
system, batteries and radio altimeter in the remainder of the
front compartment, and the 300 kg semi-armor-piercing warhead
immediately behind. A fuel tank, presumably with a kerosene-type
fuel, occupies the area to the leading edges of the wing and the
area almost to the rear edges is occupied by the ramjet. Much of
the rear of the missile is occupied by a solid propellant booster
through which runs the ramjet nozzle. Actuators are to be found
below the tail surfaces.

The 3M82 "Mosquito" missiles have the fastest flying speed among
all antiship missiles in today's world. It reaches Mach 3 at a
high altitude and its maximum low-altitude speed is M2.2, triple
the speed of the American Harpoon. The missile takes only 2
minutes to cover its full range and manufacturers state that 1-2
missiles could incapacitate a destroyer while 1-5 missiles could
sink a 20000 ton merchantman. An extended range missile, 9M80E is
now available.

When slower missiles, like the French Exocet are used, the
maximum theoretical response time for the defending ship is
150-120 seconds. This provides time to launch countermeasures and
employ jamming before deploying "hard" defense tactics such as
launching missiles and using quick-firing artillery. But the 3M82
"Mosquito" missiles are extremely fast and give the defending
side a maximum theoretical response time of merely 25-30 seconds,
rendering it extremely difficult employ jamming and
countermeasures, let alone fire missiles and quick-firing
artillery.

The air-launched version, officially called ASM-MMS and
apparently also Kh-4, is intended specially for Su-27K (Su-33)
carrier-based fighter aircraft. It was for the first time shown
to the CIS leaders in February 1992 in Machulishche and then to
the public in August 1992 at the Moscow Air Show in Zhukovskiy.
The missile is propelled by a dual (rocket-jet) engine operating
by the same principle as the Kh-31 engine. The missile, suspended
under the aircraft, has a folding wing. The missile is guided by
an autopilot during the initial fight stage, with possible
correction by the aircraft pilot, and by active radar during the
final flight stage.

Specifications
    Contractor  Raduga 
    Entered Service   
    Total length  9.745 m 
    Diameter    
    Wingspan  2.10 m 
    Weight  4500 kg 
    Warhead Weight  320 kg 
    Propulsion    
    Maximum Speed Mach 2 [some claim Mach 3] 
    Maximum effective range 48 nm (90 km)
    65 nm (120 km) in 3M80E
    some sources claim 250 km 
    Flight Altitude   20 meters above sea level 
    Guidance mode active radar 
    Single-shot hit probability   
 
References
* "Survey of Russian Guided Air-to-Ground and Anti-Ship
Missiles" by Piotr Butowski, NOWA TEKHNIKA WOJSKOWA March 1995 No
3, pp 15-19 [JPRS-UMA-95-023: 7 June 1995]

Maintained by John Pike Last Modified: July 15, 2002 - 13:36
Copyright © 2000-2003 GlobalSecurity.org All Rights Reserved

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http://www.fas.org/news/taiwan/2000/e-03-28-00-11.htm

CONGRESSMEN SEEK RESOLUTION TO HALT RUSSIAN MISSILE SALES TO
CHINA

Washington, March 27 (CNA) Sixteen US congressmen have
co-sponsored a House resolution seeking to prevent Russia from
further providing Communist China with Sunburn anti-ship missiles
that they say endanger America's national security.

"The purpose of this Act is to prohibit the forgiveness or
rescheduling of any bilateral debt owed by the Russian Federation
to the US until it has terminated all sales and transfers of
Moskit (Sunburn) anti-ship missiles," said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher
(R-Calif), chairman of the House International Relations
Asia-Pacific Subcommittee, when introducing the resolution on
March 16.

The resolution noted that within weeks after the arrival in
February of the first of the two Russian-built Sovremenny-class
destroyers sold to Beijing, the Russians are scheduled to
transfer the first of several of the ship's most lethal weapon,
the radar-guided Sunburn anti-ship missiles, which can carry
either conventional or nuclear warheads.

The supersonic Sunburn missile, which can be mounted on a naval
or mobile land platform, was designed specifically to destroy
American aircraft carriers and other warships equipped with
advanced Aegis radar and combat management systems. The US Navy
considers the missile to be extremely difficult to defend
against, adds the resolution.

It continues that the Sunburn missile has an over-the-horizon
range of 65 miles and can deliver a 200-kiloton warhead in under
two minutes. One conventional Sunburn missile can sink a warship
or disable an aircraft carrier, causing the deaths of hundreds of
American military personnel.

Russia is also helping the air force of the People's Liberation
Army to assemble Sukhoi SU-27 fighter aircraft, which are capable
of carrying an air-launched version of the Sunburn missile, which
has an even longer range than the sea-launched one. Russia is
reportedly discussing the sale of these air-launched Sunburn
missiles to China, notes the resolution.

It points out that land, sea, or air-launched Sunburn missiles
raise the potential for American casualties and could affect the
outcome in any future conflict in the Taiwan Straits or South
China Sea. Moreover, the transfer of the missile by Beijing to
Iran or other belligerent nations in the Persian Gulf region
would increase the potential for conflict and for American
casualties.

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the resolution says,
the president shall not reschedule or forgive any outstanding
debt owed to the United States by Russia until the president
certifies to Congress that Russia has permanently terminated all
transfers of Sunburn anti-ship missiles, particularly transfers
to mainland China.

The resolution requires the president to submit within 30 days
after the resolution's enactment and every six months thereafter
to both houses of Congress a report identifying the status of any
contract and the date of the transfer of any version of the
Sunburn missile, particularly transfers to China on or after Feb.
1, 2000. (By Nelson Chung)

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http://www.google.ie/search?q=cache:_b7MpclnMj4J:www.csis.org/isp/pubs/a_010408_campbell.pdf+sunburn+missile&hl=en&ie=UTF-8


Old Game, New Risks 
The Washington Post 
April 08, 2001 
By Kurt M. Campbell 

A U.S. reconnaissance plane monitoring another nation's air
defense radars and ground communications is intercepted
aggressively by armed fighter jets. Once on the ground, the spy
plane is stormed by the other nation's troops and searched while
the crew is sequestered and questioned. Accusations fly;
positions harden; tensions mount. The episode conjures up images
of Cold War-era standoffs, like Gary Powers's fateful U-2 flight
over the Soviet Union, the USS Pueblo incident with North Korea,
and the capture of the merchant ship Mayaguez during the Vietnam
War. Except the Cold War is 10 years dead and the other nation
involved is China. And while the United States and China are not
exactly friends, they are far from enemies. In recent years the
two governments have been working together on a range of
significant initiatives, from seeking Chinese entry into the
World Trade Organization to trying to prevent conflict on the
Korean peninsula.

So we are acting out a familiar scenario -- but without the
familiar safeguards of the Cold War years. The long, almost
ritualistic competition between the Soviet and U.S. armed forces
was kept in check by a host of mechanisms that came into play
when military maneuvering threatened to trigger a crisis.
Berlin's Four-Power Air Control Center was jointly manned to
avoid mishaps in the crowded skies over divided Berlin; the 1972
Incidents at Sea Agreement helped defuse tension when Soviet and
U.S. warships, staking out rival versions of Soviet territorial
waters, actually bumped; the Dangerous Military Incidents
Agreement of 1988 was designed to forestall problems exactly like
the standoff over the American EP-3 spy plane. Over time, these
military meetings helped successive governments in Washington and
Moscow build a modicum of trust and develop unwritten "rules of
the road."

The United States and China don't have such safety valves, at
least not yet. The only comparable arrangement we have managed to
agree upon is the 1998 Military Maritime Agreement, but its
mandate is vague and it has yet to be applied in any meaningful
way. Late in the week, the Bush administration was looking at the
possibility of using the pact, though exactly how was not clear.

So far, China appears reluctant to establish any real
confidence-building measures with Washington, particularly in the
security realm. The truth is, China simply wants to halt U.S.
military activities near its territory -- not create a mechanism
that by implication acknowledges the legitimacy of such forays.
What Chinese leaders fear most is that true engagement with the
United States would reveal their many weaknesses. They recognize
that their military capabilities are still far inferior to those
of the United States. The U.S.-Soviet competition was global,
involving activity in air, sea and space. By comparison, the
Chinese military is largely a land force.

Only in the past decade has China even been able to project air
power beyond its territorial waters. And that leads to another
Chinese concern: This limited range means that the areas where
U.S. and Chinese forces would most likely interact and possibly
confront each other are very close to China's national territory,
not America's. The Chinese don't send spy planes up and down our
coasts.

Imagine if they did: Imagine a Chinese reconnaissance plane
cruising off the Atlantic seaboard, purposely setting off defense
warning systems and monitoring the response. Imagine it colliding
with an F-15 fighter that scrambled to intercept it, killing the
American pilot. Imagine the damaged Chinese aircraft landing on
Martha's Vineyard, startling natives and tourists alike.

Would the United States let that plane fly right back to Beijing,
nosy electronics intact? Or would we take it apart, inspect it
and send it back to its owner in boxes -- as U.S. and Japanese
officials did after the pilot of a Soviet MiG-25 defected in
1976? And what would the United States do about the crew?
Actually, I'm certain our government would respect their rights
and send them home -- in another plane. In any case, Americans
would be furious and mistrustful.

At the moment, the Chinese don't have the capabilities to stage
that kind of reconnaissance mission. That doesn't mean, however,
that their military isn't increasingly focused on the United
States. Quite the contrary. In the past 50 years, China has had
military skirmishes or outright wars with virtually all of its
neighbors. These were land wars, which took advantage of the
chief strength of the People's Liberation Army -- its massive
size. But since the beginning of the 1990s, China's obsessive
focus has been reunification with Taiwan, and U.S. military
support for what China views as a "renegade province" is seen as
the prime obstacle. So China has begun fielding more
sophisticated naval and air assets, updating its technology, and
deploying advanced fighter aircraft, theater missiles, submarines
and warships. This process of military modernization has been
uneven at best, but demonstrates the sheer determination of
China's will.

In particular, beginning with the 1995-96 Taiwan Strait crisis --
when China sought to intimidate the Taiwanese by staging large
military exercises and firing missiles across the narrow body of
water that divides them -- the Chinese army has increased its
focus on Taiwan and, by association, its U.S. backers. The best
and brightest officers at the Command and Staff College outside
Beijing take classes in the weak spots in the vast American
military (I've seen the course syllabus), and write about it in
increasingly blunt language in their military journals. Last
fall, Russia sold the Chinese its fast-flying, sea- skimming
Sunburn missile -- a Soviet-era weapon specifically designed to
threaten U.S. aircraft carriers. Last month Beijing took the
unusually belligerent step of announcing an 18-percent increase
in military spending, saying it was required by a sudden rise in
"dark forces" (read: the USA).

Meanwhile, the United States -- even as it has worked to draw
China into the international economic community -- has been
strengthening its own military position in the Pacific. The fall
of the Soviet Union freed Pentagon planners to pay more attention
to tensions on the Korean peninsula and across the Taiwan Strait.
The United States has stepped up reconnaissance flights along
China's coast, revitalized security ties with allies such as
Japan and halted a downward slide in regional U.S. troop
strength, fixing the number of forward deployed forces at
100,000.

These trends intensified on both sides throughout the five years
I spent in the Pentagon. Simultaneously, of course, the other
track of U.S.-Chinese engagement -- permanent "most favored
nation" trading status for China, its attempt to join the WTO --
has continued. Both sides have an obvious stake in maintaining
this balance between working for commercial engagement in the
present, while preparing for less hopeful scenarios should the
grand experiment fail. But maintaining that balance is getting
trickier by the day.

It is too early in the crisis (some may say it's too early to
even call it a crisis) to evaluate how well President Bush's team
will handle it; and it is too early in his administration to know
how well he will manage the extraordinarily challenging
Washington-Beijing relationship. Conflict is not inevitable.
There were years, remember, when most people -- including the
third-grade teachers who made a generation of kids duck and cover
under their desks -- thought the Americans and Soviets would come
to nuclear war. An increasingly militarized U.S.-China
relationship does not have to mean war, either. Most likely, our
two nations will maintain a fuzzy status between friend and foe.
Ongoing trade negotiations and cooperation in regional hot spots
suggest that we are willing to improve our friendly relations.
The lesson we have to learn from the events on Hainan Island is
how to manage and control the ways in which we remain at odds.

Article reprinted with permission of The Washington Post, 2001. 

-- 

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