An Under Reported War Bonus Issue - ORESHNIK SPECIAL
A parable of Russia’s military and technical incompetence
This story has a lot more content than I normally supply for a single item in the weekly summary, so I thought it best to break it out into another bonus issue.
Russia fired an Oreshnik ballistic missile at Ukraine again last weekend. Here are a few developments you may not have heard since the initial reports. The story just gets wilder and wilder until you just shrug because when it comes to incompetence, the Russian armed forces have no equal.
By the way, today is Day 1,554 of Putin’s 3-Day Special Military Operation.
A HAMMER TO CRACK A NUT
Oreshnik (Hazel) is a variant of the RS-26 Rubezh IRBM (intermediate Range Ballistic Missile), tested but never deployed in 2011. So it is nothing new. Far from being one of Russia’s hypersonic ‘wonder weapons’ it is a relatively toothless missile by modern standards.
It can carry 36 submunitions in six clusters (known as MIIRVs—Multiple Independent Re-entry Vehicles). The MIRVs open up in they approach the target, each releasing their six warheads.
Russia has not managed to manufacture explosive warheads for the Oreshnik, let alone nuclear ones. Instead, the submunitions are simply slugs of solid metal travelling at hypersonic speeds (above Mach 5). These are known as kinetic weapons, and the last place you want to aim them is at the ground since solid earth and rock are very good at absorbing such impacts. Light engineering, depots, and ships might make good targets. Anything else is pretty meh.
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MAY 23rd-24th
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An Oreshnik ballistic missile was launched at Ukraine as part of an immense drone and missile barrage last Sunday 24th. The track of the Oreshnik is marked in violet on the map below.
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GROUND ZERO
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The missile struck the medium-sized city of Bila Tserkva, about 80km south of Kyiv. If you watch the videos below, you can see the submunitions falling in clusters of six. Note there are none of the detonations explosive warheads would produce.
Video of the Russian Oreshnik IRBM strike on Bila Tserkva (VIDEO)
linkFootage from Russia’s Oreshnik strike (VIDEO)
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PUTIN DECLARES WAR ON GARAGE OWNERS
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The hypersonic ‘Rods from God’ slammed down and took out… [cue fanfare] …some garages on the edge of the city. The garage owners are not happy.
Footage from the ‘secret NATO military facilities’ inside garages in Bila Tserkva (VIDEO)
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“[“Putin] I am showing you exactly where you’ve blown millions of dollars… It’s a garage co-operative… It was in this garage that we were supposed to repair [our] engine… these are the kind of strategic facilities we have.”
Pretty soon a guided video tour of one of the not-very-impressive impact craters behind the garages was available:
Oreshnik impact crater in Bila Tserkva [Video]
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“One of the impact craters left by Oreshnik inert kinetic rod after the strike on Bila Tserkva, Kyiv Oblast…
“…and after falling from 70km up, it left a crater about the size of one made by a 152mm artillery shell.””
There are literally millions of similar sized craters in Ukraine, all left by standard artillery shells. Each of these new holes cost Russia a little less than $1m USD to dig.
Impact Site Analysis Challenges Russian Claims About Oreshnik “Kinetic Superweapon”
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“Russian propaganda claims that the Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile, when equipped with a so-called kinetic warhead, possesses enormous destructive capability and can destroy deeply buried targets using tungsten penetrator rods. However, examination of what is now the third known impact site suggests a very different reality.”
Assuming that the garages were not targeted deliberately by a missile technician with a grudge against weatherproof shelters for cars, the obvious question is: what went wrong?
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THE TWO POSSIBLE TARGETS
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Clearly, the Oreshnik was off-target. There may be two options. Either it was aimed at Kyiv but flew 80km off target. Or it was aimed at the Bila Tserkva airbase and missed by a few kilometres.
Could Oreshnik Have Missed by As Much As 80 km?
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“[Russia] struck the city of Bila Tserkva, in the Kyiv region, with this weapon at around 1 am on Sunday, May 24.”
Russia’s $30 Million Missile Blew Up Some Garages. The Real Targets May Have Been Parked Bombers.
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“What did the Oreshnik missile target in Bila Tserkva?”
The only problem with the second option is that the airbase does not fly operational aircraft. It is a repair and storage site for inoperative Su-24 fighter-bombers. Thirty of them. But is it worth expending one very expensive ballistic missiles on a pile of aviation junk?
Modern ballistic missiles are considered inaccurate if their CEP (Circular Error Probable)—the distance from their target in which they are expected to land—is more than a hundred metres. And that is being generous. The Oreshnik has a CEP measured in kilometres, There is one thing ‘super’ about this weapon: it is super-inaccurate.
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BUT THERE IS MORE
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It now appears a SECOND Oreshnik was launched, but went so far astray that it landed on the Russian side of the frontline in the Donbas.
Russia May Have Launched Two Oreshnik
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“Seems 1 Failed, 1 Missed… The $30-million missile is unreliable and inaccurate.”
Here’s the video that was posted on Telegram. It is poor quality but you can see clearly a stream of MIRV submunitions nearing the ground, again with no subsequent explosive detonations: a clear sign of kinetic warheads.
Oreshnik MIRV strikes wrong side
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“The second “Oreshnik” struck the territory temporarily controlled by Russia in the area of Avdiivka or Yasynuvata, in the suburbs of Donetsk.
We think that the guys from CyberBoroshna will be able to accurately geolocate the place of the second missile.”
Subsequent OSINT geolocation by Cyber Boroshno has indeed identified the likely area of the second Oreshnik impact. They quickly geolocated the camera’s position and orientation.
Video reportedly showing Oreshnik warhead [MIRV} opening geolocated to occupied Donetsk
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“The unfinished Rose Park mall visible. The camera faces north-northwest, but the exact impact area cannot be determined. “
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RUSSIAN MILBLOGGERS ARE ANGRY AND DELUDED
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Finally, if you are interested in some mind-melting ranting from the Russian side, try this:
Oreshnik - Russian Milbloggers Have their Say
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“A humiliating circus, a clown dance on the bones of Russians.”
Just remember, Russia is a land where nothing is real and anything is possible (Ⓒ Peter Pomeranstev). Thus, the Oreshnik is apparently a kinetic superweapon. Except it’s not. A standard artillery shell does as much damage. There is no mention inside Russia of a second Oreshnik launch that strayed far off target to land in Russian occupied territory. Except it happened. We have the video. This particular long-planned wide-scale missile and drone attack on Ukraine was apparently in immediate response to Ukraine allegedly killing some students (AKA trainee FPV drone pilots). And on, and on.
So there you have it. In an act of intimidation, the Kremlin launched two huge, very expensive ballistic missiles at Ukraine. Both missed. One was so wildly off-target that it landed on the Russian side of the frontline. The other demolished some garages 80km south of Kyiv.
As far as intimidation goes, it’s fair to say this backfired.
That’s all for now. See you next weekend.
Oreshnik’s kinetic rod is certainly “super“ using ONLY a $1 million shot to make a big hole. Wow! I’m really impressed! Love this reporting. Ukraine is definitely winning!