The historic bar is closed. For sale. What were once farms, complete with herds of cattle that looked like Texas, closed. For sale. Here the streets of Quirra, once an agricultural hamlet on the eastern coast of Sardinia, close to the most warm-hearted polygon in the Mediterranean, are as deserted as ever. In the presence of a polygon as secret as it is mysterious, silence is still in force: it is forbidden to poke one's nose into war affairs.
From Beelzebub to today
Beyond that barbed wire unfolded for kilometers you cannot go, at least since the time of the national Beelzebub, that Giulio Andreotti who right here, in great secrecy, planned the Italian nuclear missiles capable of striking, from the sea ravine between San Lorenzo and the hamlet of Quirra, distant Russia. All secret in the affairs of state, the most hidden ones, hidden by pseudo civilian missions which, on the other hand, in reality, were nothing more than an American appendage of nuclear proliferation in the West. Little has changed since then, the rule is always the same: mitigate curiosity with proclamations of research and science.
Other than "dual"
Today the most popular word in these parts is "dual", or experiments with a dual function, civil and military. Something, however, must have escaped the rigorous control of the Ministry of Military Communications, always striving to represent the war ranges of Sardinia as givers of peace and well-being, work and development. Those devastating images that ended up in the armored circuits of arms sellers around the world, complete with beaches and coasts of the was enchanted island of Sardinia, cannot be explained differently. Of course, there is no Italian Defense brand, but the seal is all from the Bel Paese. The cables tell of an all-Sardinian experiment complete with a triple experimental launch of surface-air-sea missiles intended to hit every enemy ship or similar target that presents itself on the hypothetical proscenium to be destroyed at a distance of one hundred kilometers. Experiments, says the official version.
Where, if not here?
And where to experiment if not in Sardinia? All in that war hermitage, on the coast between Ogliastra and Gerrei, with a stretch of coast forbidden like no other. After a lull that was dormant from state trials, the boldness of the warmongering industries exploded all of a sudden, taking advantage of the imposed silences and the ancient scourge of "they are too few and far away to complain and make themselves heard". It is thus that, on the eve of the last New Year, the one marked by the collapse of the dreams of justice of the victims of Quirra, the joint polygon of Perdasdefogu resumed the ancient simulated war, interrupted only to face the emotional wave of unwanted spotlights on those lands expropriated by force to the shepherds and breeders of the area. You can start over, as if nothing had happened, as if the land, air and sea of Sardinia belonged to a state that is preparing here the wars that the Constitution has forbidden it forever. The latest to wrest the sky and the sea from winter silence is the most powerful of all, the MBDA that has put together the most impressive Western missile divisions led by the old EADS, now Airbus, by the former Finmeccanica, now Leonardo and by BAE Systems. .
Billions of business
The economic accounts are teeming with astronomical figures. The last financial year surveyed is 2020 with orders for 3.3 billion euros and an order backlog of 16.6 billion euros. MBDA provides "daily bread", missiles of all kinds, to over 90 armed forces around the world. It is for this reason that for the launches at the end of the year in the land of the Nuraghi they have deployed a direction with six cameras, close-up and long-range shots. All for the magnificence of the new anti-ship missile "Mars ER" to be presented to generals around the world as the new frontier for sinking ships in the midst of the oceans and beyond. Theater of war Sardinia, its coast, the untouched and forbidden beach of Murtas and its sea, with a range that crosses the crossroads of the routes of the ships that tranship from Cagliari to Naples and from Tunis to Genoa. The note that travels in the rooms of the most aggressive Defenses is a panegyric: «A fundamental shot in the system validation process was carried out at an Italian shooting range in Sardinia, which highlighted a very high level of performance and total reliability». The message is encrypted: “A standard telemetry missile with all functional capabilities and production hardware was used for validation. The only exception was the use of an inert warhead instead of an explosive. The ground launch system used was also in its final hardware and software configuration ».
Gimkane and tacks
The only concession was that of a missile which does not explode, but which strikes inexorably, which pursues its prey «with a long-range low-flying flight, making three main turns and an up and down maneuver during the last turn». They tell it in the presence of the warmongers on duty as if in those expanses of air and sea there was a desert, where life stopped to "play" the war, with turns and gymkane, roller coasters and moving targets to sink.
Desert, like in Texas
All in Sardinia, in its skies and in its sea, as in the endless expanses of Texas in the United States, where life is far away and the desert prairies are uninhabited. The story of the Sardinian ship-sinking missile is as accurate as if the vaunted skills induced anyone to soon stock them up for ever more abundant arsenals. The confidential report explains details as if the Sardinian challenge had no rivals: «The missile - they write - then followed a straight path to the point of activation of the seeker. Target identification, selection, and tracking were extremely quick, and teleguiding began soon after. The missile successfully performed the anti-artillery maneuver, hitting the target just above the waterline, at high transonic speed ».
Hit and sunk
In short, the ship, in theory, was hit and sunk with millimeter precision. All with a speed described in the smallest details: "The test - the military reports write - also showed how the turbojet engine of the" Marte ER "behaves in an excellent way both for the ignition phase in flight, and for the thrust level. . This validation is the latest in the missile development path, which will enter into operation as early as this year ". From the Quirra launch base, the Texas desert of Europe, that's all.
Forbidden skies and sea
Now, here, of those who were exterminated almost Texan herds, only the sky remained: banned as that of the American state most affected by the air restrictions for the exercises of the American Air Force. Here it is the same, except that the cattle have long since disappeared. The sky and the sea are closed off like nothing else in Europe. The Notams, the flight plans to arrive in Sardinia, (in the photo the bans) for domestic and foreign civil aircraft, are a battlefield, indeed of war. As if to go to Rome from Milan one had to go through Madrid. The east coast of the island of Sardinia, one of the most exclusive in the world, is literally forbidden on land, in the sky and in the sea for a good part of the year. Here, in 2022, missiles and warheads are still launched.
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