Dance of the Vampires

In 1986, I opened  the pages of the newest Tom Clancy novel, "Red Storm Rising," and immersed myself in a story that should have been a forewarning. In my days, we had certain assumptions about the Soviets and their Navy capabilities and tactics. Looking back it is easy to see that we assumed - and yes I know what that means - that the Soviets were tactical luddites, incapable of rapid adaptation to changing environments or tactical situations. Red Storm Rising certainly busted that myth, but.... it  was "just fiction." We have already discussed how the modern battle is effected by the proliferation of small, handheld missile launchers of all types. The equal growth of larger tactical missiles, specifically anti-ship missiles has been every bit as impressive, but perhaps, not really noticed. So there are a couple of things about yesterdays event in the Black Sea that we can observe and about which we can draw some limited conclusions, without straying into wild speculation and Twitter rumor...