Half-Baked Alaska

I Need To Explain What "Half-Baked" Means

Briefly, this means 'Foolish or stupid', and is represented by dough that has not been properly risen or baked, so that it is inedible.  Believe me, half-baked dough is NOT edible, and will render you stricken with severe stomach pains were you to try it out of either curiosity or greed.  Conrad once tried to bake a Genoa sponge, took it out of the oven, removed the baking tin, and the uncooked interior broke through the baked crust and proved the phrase.  A minor tragedy.  Art!

Baked Alaska

     I thought I'd better put up a picture of the dessert or the Facebook twod mods will be peering over my shoulder and snorting with derision, and perhaps sinus trouble.

     ANYWAY I have hinted about this blog over the past few days, because Conrad is one of those people who goes all-out on the slightest proposition, in a demonstration of what obsession and pedantry are all about.  Please bear in mind that this blog will be a single long entry, without any other items, and it will be O so serious.  So very serious.  Though we will still take the mickey out of Putinpot and his orc hordes.  Art!

     Are the South Canadians really worried about this prospect?

     No.

     Further, Hell No.

     Why is this so?  O I thought you'd never ask!  Art!

     Take a good look at the Bering Sea, because that's what Ruffians would have to cross to get to Alaska.  Ignore the Bering Strait.  Yes, it's only 40 kilometres wide, but THERE IS NO WAY TO GET THERE.  No roads nor railways nor airbases.  The only major road from European Ruffia to their Far East Military District ends at Magadan, a full thousand kilometres from the coastline.  There are railways that reach the ports of Komsomolsk-na-Amure and Vladivostok, on the Kamchatka peninsula, which requires a rail journey of 5,000 kilometres.  Thus Ruffia's logistics infrastructure in the region is sparse and under-developed, and would have severe problems trying to sustain any invasion effort.  Art!

     Okay, let's look at what poseurs call 'aviation assets' in this region.  Their headquarters is at Komsomolsk-na-Amure, with airbases at: Khurba; Dzyomgi; Uglovoye; Chernigovka; Domna; Step; Vozdvishenko; Khabarovsk-Tsentralny; Chita.  Bear in mind that the distance from these airbases to the Alaskan mainland is 2,600 miles or 4,164 kilometres.

     The thing is, these bases are equipped with lots of Air Defence Regiments with SAMs, and fighter aircraft.  Take Uglovoye as an example; it is equipped with Su-35 fighter jets, that have a range of - 

Fast!  Deadly!  Short-ranged!

     2,200 miles (3,500 kilometres) maximum OR a combat range (fully-loaded with ordnance) of 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometres).  Don't forget, they can only travel half that distance from base or they'll crash after they run out of fuel on the trip home.  Art!

     This is the Su-25, which has an even shorter combat range: 500 miles (800 kilometres).

     The Ruffian set-up in their Far Eastern Military district is overwhelmingly DEFENSIVE.  The only way they could 'project' air power within range of mainland Alaska is by using an aircraft carrier, and they just sent the crew of their sole (port-locked immobile damaged obsolete) AC to fight as ground troops in Ukraine.

     What about making an airborne assault, á la Hostomel (except successfully)?

     Nope.  Their Mil-8 helicopters have a range of only 300 miles, or 500 kilometres.  Art!

     They do have the Il-76, which has a heavy-lift capability and can carry 400 paratroopers.  Once again range is the problem.  It has a range of 2,700 miles, or 4,300 kilometres, so they might be able to make a one-way journey if the wind isn't against them, and they'd have to do it unescorted by fighter aircraft to protect them.  A single F-16 would wreak absolute havok once they got picked up on radar, and if they did manage to survive that, are they going to try and land at Alaskan airports to disgorge their troops?  Very, very problematic.

     Numbers might be another problem.  At least 6 of these aircraft, from a potential total of 120, have been destroyed by the Ukrainians.  Another 5 have been taken out of service due to fake ball-bearings being used in their undercarriage.  Also, Conrad is unsure whether they can operate from airfield runways designed for far smaller, nimbler fighter jets.  Art!

     Then there is the quality of the Ruffian paratroopers themselves.  All the experienced ones are long since sunflower-fodder.  The current crop might have high morale, but they also lack experience and training, which guarantees high losses in combat.  Nor can Putin just remove them from the Special Idiotic Operation in Ukraine, since they're used to plug holes in the front lines, and to rob Ruffian shops in Kursk.

     Now, you might be thinking to yourselves, "Ah, but, Conrad, have you and your splendid moustache taken into account the Ruffian's proud naval tradition and how they could mount an enormous amphibious invasion?"

     Pausing only to preen said hirsute appendage, I shall explicate.  Art!

     Again, distance plays it's part, because from the above-named naval base and Vladivostok, it's 2,258 miles, or 3,600 kilometres to mainland Alaska.  Check out that first map above.

     So, what does Ruffia have in it's naval locker in the far-flung Pacific?

     That's the question.  The answer?  Not a lot.

     To wit: one cruiser, the 'Varyag', which was launched in 1989 and is probably in no better nick than the 'Moskva', which is to say, barely afloat; four destroyers and five corvettes.  Ten warships total.  I should point out that corvettes are the smallest warship that it's possible to be, and the Ruffians simply do not have the dockyard capability to build anything larger than a destroyer at present.

     Guess where all their big ticket naval vessels were built, and if you said 'Ukraine' then you win fifty brownie points.  Art!

     Say what?  No!  Art, this is the one from 1899!

Cruiser 'Varyag'

     They have another 19 Anti-Submarine Warfare corvettes, which are extra-small warships only able to defend their littoral, so short is their range.

     Again, their Pacific Fleet's posture is overwhelmingly DEFENSIVE.

     If they were to go in for an amphibious task force, they have all of four - FOUR - landing ships.  Three of the 'Ropucha' class and one 'Alligator' class which is over 50 years old.  They can carry as many as 10 tanks and 200 troops.  Art!

     40 tanks and 800 troops are not going to get very far in conquering an area that constitutes 1/4 of Continental South Canada.  This is quite beside those cold equations of time and space again, because a Ropucha's top speed is 18 knots, which is 21 m.p.h. in sensible measurements.  It would thus take them 156 hours, or 6.5 days, to cross the Bering Sea and make landfall on the Alaskan coastline, as long as there weren't any storms, icebergs or mechanical problems.  Art!

"Moskvaya Pekhota"

     Why your regimental symbol would be a tiger impaled by an anchor-shaft escapes me, except Ruffia.  This is the regimental patch of the Ruffian 155th Marine Infantry Brigade, whom you would expect to take part in any amphibious invasion attempt.  Er - yes - well - the thing is, the 155th has been used to plug gaps in the lines in Ukraine so many times that it's been destroyed and rebuilt at least three times.  As with the paratroopers of the VDV, they may have high morale - or more probably they do not - yet they lack experience and training.  Art!

     

     There you go, a succinct TLDR from Vinnie: NO!