I&A's Six Month Review

It occurs to me that I&A has now existed as a PDF version for about six months! With that in mind, I set my brain to work and I came to a few decisions about some of the PDF topics earlier today.

First off, the August air defense feature will cover Taiwan's SAM network. This will be an updated and expanded version of what I did here a while back. I've got a few updates and new site locations, and will rehash the old information to expand it and clarify a few things.

Additionally, future nationwide air defense topics may or may not showcase an individual nation. There are some clusters of nations where SAM sites are few and far between, predominantly in Africa. I plan to do a lot of them at once in a large feature. Or, they may all technically be listed separately, but I'll do a bunch at once for a given issue.

I'm still looking for additional content areas. Air Defense, Strategic Warfare, Facility Analysis...all are great focus areas, but I can always use more. That'll enable me to broaden the scope of each issue. So, if you have any ideas, let me know. Or better yet, write one and send it in!

This brings me to my next point: contributors. I'm extremely grateful for the effort put forth by I&A's current contributors, and hope they will continue to sumbit articles in the future. That being said, I'm certainly open to incorporating new authors into the system. Articles don't even need to have an imagery theme; the current issue has an article describing the PLAAF's new BVR AAM, for example. As long as it relates to either a military theme, or an application of imagery technology or analysis, it's more than welcome. You can even take a stab at the Links or Reading List content areas if you wish. So, if you have any ideas, contact me and we'll get talking.

As it stands now, the PDF has survived the first six months, and speaking for myself I'm definitely pleased with the results. My only two major gripes at this juncture are that 1) I could really use a bit more graphic design brainpower to, I don't know, give it a decent cover (and maybe an official I&A logo?), and 2) I need to try and make things more consistent in terms of length. Adding more features or additional topics in a given content area like Facility Analysis will help that, and I'm working on it. I'm also working on number 1, but don't hold your breath on seeing results anytime soon. Frankly you guys are lucky I can generate profile views of weapon systems, actual serious graphic design is another beast altogether!

That about sums everything up. Hopefully you're as pleased with everything as I am to this point. And if you aren't, drop me a line. As I mention in each issue, comments are always welcome and encouraged!

Oh, you may have noticed that the SAM Site Overview actually got updated yesterday...don't worry, it's still an active project and will always remain so. It's just that fewer and fewer new sites are being found, making it less important to update it every month when only, say, ten new EW sites have been ID'ed.

July/August PDF updates

The July I&A PDF is being finalized right now and will begin distribution tomorrow afternoon. I'm basically working through the issue adding placemarks to the supplementary KMZ file right now.

August topics in the works so far are as follows:

-Facility Analysis: the Tabriz silo complex (far more detailed than what was presented in March)
-Software Review: SpaceEye
-Historical Perspective: Former Warsaw Pact nation SAM Sites
-Air Defense: Taiwan, maybe? The DPRK? Any other ideas?

More will be added as the process continues, but apart from the Tabriz piece and maybe the AD piece don't expect a gigantic amount of content. The idea is to actually get back on the "release these around the 15th of the month" schedule.

I'm also planning ahead for October, which I've decided will be a Russian-themed issue. That one will have a Facility Analysis of Sary Shagan, the Russian SAM Network, and the RVSN all in one gigantoid issue. I will probably keep the Russian SAM Network in October, updating it each year, with a different significant Facility Analysis.

Iranian Silos Unveiled

So Iran is conducting another wargame, Great Prophet 6. No big deal, everybody does it. Apart from the military and political benefits, they present fun opportunities for politicians and military officials to make bold, asinine, and non-credible statements to the press. Plus, you often get nice videos showing things like missile firings.

Speaking of videos and Iranian exercises, here's a link to a Youtube video purportedly showing some of the Great Prophet 6 exercise footage:

Youtube


Pay attention to what shows up at the 15 second mark: that'd be the inside of an apparent Iranian missile silo. Iran claims that the silos are automated, allowing remote firing of the weapons.

For amusement, let's quote Lebanon's Daily Star:

"An officer in Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard, which is in charge of the missile program, said Tehran has constructed “numerous” underground missile silos which satellites can’t detect."

Except, you know, for the ones near Tabriz.

Another Lebanese source, Al-Manar, claims that the silos were used on the 27th.

What does all of this mean? First off, it means that Iranian silo-based missiles should certainly be considered an operational element in the ballistic missile force. Additionally, it raises a few questions about Iranian silo-building capabilities. Why did it take this long for the capability to be revealed? Were there issues with the communication and control system? Will this prevent a more widespread deployment of silo-based weapons? Or was Iran merely taking its time to work everything out, prior to initiating a large-scale silo-based deployment system?

Whatever the answers, perhaps Iranian silo-based deployment concepts, including coffin-launched systems elsewhere in the nation, will now get more attention. Look for more on this to appear here in the future.

June I&A PDF Update (again...)

All:

The June PDF is now being distributed. Depending on where you are on the list, you'll get it today or tomorrow. The delay was caused by an error in the PDF conversion process, requiring me to go back and recreate some of the graphics.

I&A June Update, July topics

I&A's June issue is being finalized today and tomorrow and should begin to be distributed on Saturday.

July topics are shaping up as follows:
Air Defense: Azerbaijan
Facility Analysis: The PN port in Karachi
Tech Notes: A new IADS classification methodology

More content will be incorporated into the July issue as soon as I decide what to include.

New I&A Features?

I&A subscribers: the April issue of I&A was pretty big. The May issue, not so much. The June issue is going to be bigger than the April issue, potentially by a significant margin, thanks to both the Soviet/Russian ABM feature and the Chinese Strategic SAM Network feature.

I'd be interested to hear any ideas for new feature types. Not specific topics (although those are also always welcome), but different feature types like Historical Perspective or Current Events.

My goal is to bring in a few new feature types to help flesh things out a bit and keep the issues "fuller". I don't want to type just for the sake of meeting a pagecount, or half-ass something to have something published. And yeah, some topics are just by nature going to be huge, like the two mentioned above, or the S-300P/S-400 feature from April. But some new features would be a nice set of additions to keep things a bit more interesting and help offset the times when the content just isn't going to be that huge.

One idea I will be debuting this month is basically similar to the old Image of the Week. My tentative title is Imagery Highlight. The idea is to focus on one specific image (maybe two if a comparison is in order), with a small bit of text describing the significance of what you see.

Any other ideas?

I&A May Update and June Topics

I&A's May PDF is being finalized and will begin to be distributed on Wednesday. The text is complete, right now I'm annotating and inserting imagery. There's been one change: the Soviet/Russian ABM piece has been pushed back to the June issue. I was basically faced with the choices of rushing it and not really doing anything substantial, or pushing it back to allow it to be fully developed. Fortunately one of I&A's contributors submitted an article on Armenian air defenses to replace the ABM piece, so the overall content of the May issue will not suffer.

The June issue is shaping up nicely (and will be released on time and on target around the 15th of June) and should feature the following topics:

Current Events: Chinese Naval Air Power developments
Air Defense: China's Strategic SAM Network
Strategic Warfare: Soviet/Russian ABM Systems
Historical Perspective: undecided for now
Software Review: Google Earth
Reading List: Resources for the IMINT Analyst
And the usual extra bits.

Some of you might ask why I'm doing a software review of Google Earth, a program that should at this point be well known to everyone. The reason for doing Google Earth first is to establish a baseline for comparison. In the future I'll start reviewing and examining some other programs and tools, and being able to compare them to Google Earth will make their usefulness and unique features far more apparent. Plus, evaluating a well-known program first will allow me to focus more on the format and content of the Software Analysis piece, making future entries that much easier to generate.