Strategic Rocket Forces (RVSN): Discussion & News

Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces to get 4G control systems


Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces will receive advanced automated command-and-control systems, SMF chief Lt. Gen. Sergei Karakayev said on Friday.

New, “fourth-generation systems” will start to be deployed next year at command posts and fixed-site and road-mobile missile complexes, he said.

The system is designed to ensure effective control of new-generation nuclear weapons.

At the moment one SMF army and two SMF divisions are preparing to use the new system, the general said.

http://www.en.ria.ru/mlitary_news/20111216/170305534.html

Interview: The commander of the Strategic Missile Forces, Lieutenant General Sergei Karakayev

"Vladimir Putin was right - we can destroy the United States in less than half an hour"

Well, duh! It takes less than 30 minutes to land Topols all over the US. People often forget just how fast an ICBM gets from place to place.

The interesting part of the interview is he confirms for the first time officially the existance of Perimeter system , also referred to as Dead Hand in the West which has been the discussion of few books from western Authors.

There was a recent report that the strategic rocket forces C4IR system will be upgraded to a 4g network.

I think the purpose of reminding the US of the facts is to help them put into perspective that building ABM systems against threats that don't exist is making a real threat from very real ICBMs and real nuclear warheads that will work as advertised a bigger threat to the US.

Not that the US seems to have noticed.

Perhaps historians might look back and identify this warning as a clue to why there are no humans left and the world is ruled by the Dolphins.

I've met these so-called "Conservative" Americans. They're absolute maniacs. When you think what sort of country Germany became in the 30s and 40s, its not at all hard to imagine a waning America going the same way.

I remember trying to do business with one. It was a difficult negotiation, not least because there was the possibility he was a crook. So I had to be pretty forceful in discussions. At the end I said, "I hope u don't mind me being so blunt like this". His reply was "I wouldn't respect you if you weren't".

That encapsulated the whole situation. He was someone who would only respect a greater force, or even someone who would bully and cheat, the way he had grown accustomed to.
A genuine "Conservative" of that type would have no problems pushing us all towards WW3.
If it happened, he'd blame it all on "liberals", politicians, or "the enemies of freedom". etc. They're completely detached from any form of reality.

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There's a 2nd problem with all of this. And thats the question of who "lost" the Cold War, and who will "lose" future ones. I look at it this way. In 1990, I remember China and India were poor, REALLY poor compared to the US's materialism and also compared to the USSR. But in just 15 yrs, both these Asian nations moved towards genuine superpower status. In that time they're leapt 40, maybe 50 yrs forward in many technologies esp military tech.

I can't help but feel both the US and Russia have paid for the last arms race, by losing some of their massive advantage. But the difference between them is that Russia is renewing itself, and not engulfed in hubris and Nationalist narcissism. Now its time for America to start looking at itself a bit, IMO...

I would have loved to have seen the US have a really good president that instead of setting a goal to beat the Soviets to the moon to get over not getting into space first (another misnoma... the US claims to have won the space race, when in actual fact it won the race to put a man on the moon... it lost the race to space in every regard... first satellite, first animal, first man in space, first man in orbit, first to take photos of the far side of the moon that is never visible from earth, first to land stuff on the moon etc etc were all Soviet victories...), that they had set the goal to do the opposite of their invention of consumerism... to develop green technology that will more efficiently use the resources we have and get us off our dirty energy dependencies on Coal and Oil and the technology to make plastic that wont pollute the earth for a million years.

It would take advantage of the American spirit with clear and achievable goals, and the result would probably be that we would already be on Mars now because the technology needed for humans to efficiently use less rather than more would mean we could set up self sufficient colonies in space and on the moon and all over the place.

Instead of the west dependent on foreign places for oil and other energy resources the US cold be making money selling these new green technologies to Africa and other countries that could use high tech solutions that don't pollute and create seas of rubbish like the consumer society the US is exporting does.

Opportunity missed. Could have been an opportunity for Obama, but he was made largely toothless because Republicans cared more about making Obama look bad than actually doing something that might benefit the people of the US.

No great surprise... all that money for bailouts for the banks and they are either hanging on to it or investing it in foreign countries to get the best return on their dollar. The US government should have made demands to ensure the money was invested in the US economy to create jobs and get things going, but for a slightly higher return they spent most of the money in China or they are hanging on to it for a rainy day and multi million dollar retirement packages for the CEOs.

BTW I think the world will be a much better place with more dominant countries, rather than one or two dominant players.

A strong China and India and Brazil and Russia and South Africa and other nations is a good thing in my opinion.

The US and the west seems to want a bunch of yes men and for the international bodies like the UN to be a rubber stamp tool to meet their needs... which is clearly not healthy for anyone.

With more voices being heard and more players able to punnish other players for breaking the rules, their might not be fewer wars, but there will be fewer safe wars like the US interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan which have done absolutely nothing to make Americans safer.

I wonder about how superpower standoffs / arms races will be in the future.

The US missile shield is an absolute disgrace. The obvious solution is to start building big Russian bases in Cuba, Venezuela, the Caribbean etc. The justification is simple. America hides behind peaceful European nations that Russia has no intention of attacking. America continues to bully her neighbours, so Russia can protect them and equalise the harrassment she gets from Americans meddling in Europe.

The American "Conservatives" are really just loudmouths, bloodmongers and economic parasites. However, other states must consider the future direction of defence in order to guard against American problems.

Currently, its highly unlikely American missiles can "catch" many, if indeed any Russian ones.
However, I would consider the fact that smaller short range missiles don't have the weight, and may be developed as more manouverable and stealthy over a long time. An American base stationed near Russia, could "chase" a missile on its way to America.

Russia has numerous options here. It can take the potential war to America - a good idea. ie build reciprocal missile and anti-missile bases near the US. It should also solidify alliances more - with EU partners, India, Lat-Am and others.

Ironically, the easiest way for Russia to destroy America wouldn't even need ICBMs.
Suitcase nukes could be stored in American cities/ strategic sites. and no-one would have an inkling they were there.

The American generated arms race is as much about American Neo-Cons extracting money from an ignorant populance as anything else. You only need to look at their ridiculous Stealth fighter programme..

There was one interesting idea from Russia about a good cold war weapon that might apply, and that was a mini sub with a compact AIP nuclear reactor.

Imagine a small 1,000 ton or less mini sub with a nuclear power plant instead of a diesel plus batteries and electric drive.

The reactor is not a conventional reactor, it is of the type used to power satellites that are in the earths shadow too often to make solar panels useful. The reactor is like a big battery that generates a few hundred kilowatts for about 13 years.

The point is that with that power you can charge batteries and operate CO2 scrubbers, and once the batteries are charged you can operate on them in quiet conventional sub mode. Even when charging the batteries you are running quiet as there is no diesel engine.

The negative consequence is that your sub wont be fast, the positive consequence is that you have the underwater duration of a nuclear powered sub at much reduced cost.

The idea is basically have 30-40 of these mini subs with crews of 15-20 men with massive food reserves that can sail to the US coasts and operate there for a month at a time and then sail home... each sub will be armed with a few torpedos for self defence but as a main weapon payload these will be ballistic missile subs armed with a mini SLBM with a flight range of 3-4,000km. A load of 2-4 missiles that can pretty much all be fired at once from underwater means a very quiet sub to hunt with a deadly payload that has a short flight time to target on a depressed trajectory very very close to the US.

Note the nuclear power plant is safe and tested and has no moving parts and when it was fitted to a rather old SS the performance went from 350NM underwater range to 7,000NM underwater range, and the latter was mainly because the underwater speed is something like 4KNTs and they pretty much ran out of food... with one nuclear battery they had an unlimited supply of fresh water and air and continuous electrical power source of about 600 KW or so I believe.

With newer and more modern and efficient electronics and electrical hardware and newer power plants a future vessel would be a very interesting idea.

Of course they are currently developing an AIP for their new LADA class subs that uses fuel cell technology, except instead of using stored Hydrogen, which is a fire risk and an infrastructure problem at every port it operates from, it apparently uses chemicals drawn directly from diesel... which is carried on a diesel electric sub anyway.

nominal flight time of a ballistic missile traveling between the U.S. and Russia is about 30 minutes; it is 12 minutes for a missile launched by a submarine stationed off the coast

the entire process of detecting and evaluating the attack warning must be completed in less than 7 minutes. According to retired military officers, the President is then given a 30 second briefing. If the attack warning is still believed to be real, the president is then given a series of options, all of which have been planned well in advance.
If the attack is believed to come from a submarine, the President will be told that he then has as little as 10 seconds to make the decision whether or not to launch a responsive nuclear attack. This is because the nuclear warheads delivered by a SLBM will arrive in slightly more than four more minutes. The order to launch must be immediately conveyed to launch crews sitting in underground bunkers, who control the missiles. The missiles must then be fired and clear the upper atmosphere before the incoming warheads began to detonate.

www.wagingpeace.org/articles/pdfs/2011_06_24_starr.pdf

nominal flight time of a ballistic missile traveling between the U.S. and Russia is about 30 minutes; it is 12 minutes for a missile launched by a submarine stationed off the coast

Not strictly true as it really depends where the submarine is and where its targets are... a submarine can legally operate in US economic waters... it can get to just over 12 miles from US soil before the US actually has any rights to take any action.

A bold, or clever captain could operate 12.5 miles off the coast in all electric super quiet mode for months on end... tests have shown that active sonar is needed to keep track of such a threat most of the time, so a Russian sub in Cuban or even Canadian or Mexican waters could enable less than 5 minutes warning depending on the target... much like the US Jupiter missiles in Turkey that created the Cuban missile crisis.

The Iskander is a tiny missile, they could develop a sub launched missile with similar design parameters that flys a non ballistic path with lots of manouvers that would make interception incredibly difficult as the missile speed would be quite high.

GarryB wrote:

nominal flight time of a ballistic missile traveling between the U.S. and Russia is about 30 minutes; it is 12 minutes for a missile launched by a submarine stationed off the coast

Not strictly true as it really depends where the submarine is and where its targets are... a submarine can legally operate in US economic waters... it can get to just over 12 miles from US soil before the US actually has any rights to take any action.

A bold, or clever captain could operate 12.5 miles off the coast in all electric super quiet mode for months on end... tests have shown that active sonar is needed to keep track of such a threat most of the time, so a Russian sub in Cuban or even Canadian or Mexican waters could enable less than 5 minutes warning depending on the target... much like the US Jupiter missiles in Turkey that created the Cuban missile crisis.

The Iskander is a tiny missile, they could develop a sub launched missile with similar design parameters that flys a non ballistic path with lots of manouvers that would make interception incredibly difficult as the missile speed would be quite high.

At the time of war , there is no economic water , U.S navy with ABM defences ,anti submarine forces will spread in any place that could reach thousands of miles to detect any threat,so there is no economic water line as i think,,

Is the economic line is 200 nautical miles from coast ?

At the time of war , there is no economic water , U.S navy with ABM defences ,anti submarine forces will spread in any place that could reach thousands of miles to detect any threat,so there is no economic water line as i think,,

Normally a diesel electric is easy to track, because its diesel engines are noisy and when it is running on batteries it is slow.

The use of a nuclear battery means this new type of sub will still be quite slow, but will never have to surface and run diesel engines to charge up its batteries.

Such a vessel would be the ultimate stealth vessel... large SSNs are much faster, but their reactors make noise so they are not as quiet as a nuke electric sub.

In times of peace the subs would lurk undetected in coastal waters off the US... they could even make the sub with spherical internal pressure hulls to allow it to go down very deep (ie 1,000m or more).

In the event of a war a signal sent to the subs would initiate the conflict... so even if they have SSNs shadowing them the launch procedure would likely be fire the missiles and dive to 1,000m or deeper where US weapons can't follow.

Potentially more dangerous than stealth bombers, and you could reassign them to regime change roles with conventional warheads in different regions... they would be useful as land attack subs and of course with torpedoes as an anti shipping vessel.

I think that unless we're at the epicentre of it, its all very difficult to speculate how Russia and America might resolve an escalating dispute.

Ofcourse Russian SSNBs in the Arctic are still pretty undetectable. And I believe weaponry will get more and more stealthy, so that pure "defence" will get harder.
Then there's the topics of plasma stealth, electromagnetic pulse type weapons etc.

Suitcase nukes are of "moderate" power. But another method might be to assembley larger nukes on enemy soil prior to any conflict. Pretty effective missiles could be launched from a standard sea container cover.
All of this makes me think that the whole missile shield debate seems to be a little bizarre.
I'd have to say that both superpowers will always be able to pretty much obliterate each other.

The big question is how the 2 might interrelate or have a balance of influence in the rest of the world. To me, thats pretty perplexing...

Russia test launches Stiletto missile


Russia successfully test launched an RS-18 (SS-19 Stiletto) intercontinental ballistic missile from the Baikonur Space Center in Kazakhstan on Tuesday, Defense Ministry spokesman Vadim Koval said.

“The goal of the test launch is to prove the stability and basic technical characteristics of missiles of this kind,” Koval said.

The Russian Strategic Missile Forces are considering the possibility of extending the RS-18 missiles’ service term by one year to 33 years, he added.

A source in Russia’s defense industry said RS-18 missiles are currently used to test advanced warheads designed to penetrate missile defenses.

Developed by the Chelomei Design Bureau, the RS-18 is a silo-based, liquid-propellant missile, which together with the RS-16 (SS-17) and RS-20 (SS-18) comprises the fourth generation of Russian strategic missiles. The missile is capable of carrying up to six warheads.

The first RS-18 missiles entered service in 1975, with its improved version being put into service five years later.

In late November, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered a series of steps intended to strengthen Russia’s missile defense capabilities in response to U.S.-European missile shield plans. Those plans include a possible deployment of Iskander tactical missiles near Russia’s Baltic Sea enclave of Kaliningrad “in the near future.”

Russia is seeking written, legally binding guarantees that the U.S. missile shield will not be directed against it. Washington, however, has refused to provide those guarantees to Moscow and said it will not alter its missile defense plans despite increasingly tough rhetoric from Moscow.

http://www.en.ria.ru/mlitary_news/20111227/170519962.html

Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces are holding a series of exercises to practice putting road-mobile missile systems on high alert, SMF spokesman Col. Vadim Koval said.

The exercises involve Topol (SS-25 Sikle), Topol-M (SS-27 Sickle B) and Yars (RS-24) mobile systems stationed in central Russia and Siberia.

“SMF units armed with Topol, Topol-M and Yars road-mobile missile systems will practice patrolling, camouflaging and launch preparation procedures during high alert drills from January 16 to February 3,” Koval told reporters on Monday.

The SMF are planning to hold over 100 tactical drills in the first half of 2012.

As of January 2012, the SMF operated at least 162 mobile Topol systems, 18 mobile Topol-M and 15 mobile Yars systems.


http://www.en.ria.ru/mlitary_news/20120117/170790557.html

Russian Strategic Missile Forces embark on war games

More than 8,000 servicemen and 300 military vehicles are involved in military maneuvers of the Russian Strategic Missile Forces which are getting under way on Tuesday.

The participants in the drills will hone practical steps to prevent a nuclear war in case of an armed conflict with the participation of Russia.

The war games, which will continue until September 7th, mark a closing stage in a series of command and post exercises and trainings held by the command of the Russian Strategic Missile Forces in 2012.

http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_09_04/Russian-Strategic-Missile-Forces-embark-on-war-games/

My look at the current and future state of Russian strategic forces, including the BMEW and ABM networks, is in the September issue of Jane's Intelligence Review (and is bolstered by a pretty badass satellite shot of the Armavir Voronezh). If any of you get ahold of a copy, let me know what I dorked up so I can do better next time!

May I ask what that satellite which you are referring? Thank you.

That one was a Geoeye image, from May of this year.

Teikovo Division Gets Full Arsenal of New Missile Systems

The Teikovo missile division of the Russian Strategic Missile Forces (SMF), based in central Russia, has been fully equipped with advanced Topol-M and Yars ballistic missile systems, the defense ministry said on Thursday.

“The Teikovo division has become the first SMF division fully rearmed with fifth-generation mobile missile systems,” the ministry spokesman Col. Vadim Koval said. Two regiments of the Teikovo division are equipped with Topol-M systems while the other two regiments of the division are equipped with Yars systems.
The Yars missile system is armed with the multiple-warhead RS-24 intercontinental ballistic missile that has considerably better combat and operational capabilities than the Topol-M (SS-27 Stalin).
Two more missile divisions have started receiving the Yars systems in 2012, Koval said. The Novosibirsk division (in Siberia) will receive mobile Yars systems, while the Kozelsk division (in central Russia) will be armed with the silo-based version of the system.
The SMF said last year that the Topol-M and RS-24 ballistic missiles would be the mainstay of the ground-based component of Russia's nuclear triad and would account for no less than 80% of the SMF's arsenal by 2016.

http://worldwide-defence.blogspot.com/2012/09/teikovo-division-gets-full-arsenal-of.html

Looks like russia is still testing missiles.

ssk1777 wrote:Looks like russia is still testing missiles.

It never stopped- all of the arsenal types are launched periodically, to determine the life of the entire fleet- if it works, like is extended .

Whats so important about a routine launch of an obsolete cold war missile?