New Russian heavy ICBM - Sarmatian

But the fuel used in rockets like R-36 isn't supposed to be worse than LOX/Kerosene in performance. wrote:

Yes, but UDMH / N2O2 can be stored in a missile for 30 years. The missile is always in combat readiness.

Plus, like kvs said, the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle itself should provide greater range to the payload wrote:

How does HGV increase ICBM range? After all, HGV does not have an independent drive. In addition, it flies much lower than the RV entering the atmosphere. Does the atmosphere reflectivity give extra energy?

kvs wrote:

lancelot wrote:So these engines are supposed to have higher thrust-weight? And perhaps the whole rocket is lighter? Only way to increase ascent speed like that.

The diameter is essentially the same as the RS-36 (Vojevoda) but the overall length is greater by a non-trivial amount.  
According to Wiki the mass is almost the same.   I am not so sure about this given the difference in length.   Assuming
that they are the same mass, a faster burn means longer range.

The advertising of the its potential use on trajectories over the south pole tells me that its range is substantially greater
than the RS-36.   Going from high latitudes in the northern hemisphere over the south pole to middle latitudes in the northern
hemisphere is well over 20,000 km (*).   It is likely that hypersonic glide vehicle range is being included in the total range.  But
the ICBM range increase has to be substantial in any case.

(*) Circumnavigation range is about 40,000 km ignoring the oblate spheroid geometry and altitude of flight corrections.  

Sarmat, being a successor to the RS-36, is clearly of a lift category that allows it to operate as a FOBS system, so in exchange for a slight reduction of payload mass on target the range is essentially limitless. Not actually news, but worth repeating

And SS-18s known in the west as Satan could carry 10 warheads or in the single warhead version a single 20 megaton warhead.

I would think this new missile should be able to do better than 8 megatons.

The different weights are for different roles... normally very powerful warheads don't make a lot of sense because of the law of diminished returns.

If you have a 1KT bomb it wont even destroy most modern cities which are simply too big... life wont continue as normal after it goes off but to really kill everyone a single bomb is not very efficient.

In some cases in hilly areas even a 10 MT bomb might not give you good coverage but the odd thing is that while one 10 MT warhead might not do a great job larger numbers of smaller warheads can be much more efficient.

The issue is energy distribution... the fireball and damage from a 1KT explosion is not 10 times smaller than the fireball and damage from a 10KT explosion.

In fact a 1KT probably does more damage with radiation than it does with explosive force... the range it kills people from lethal doses of radiation is greater than the range it would kill people by flash and blast.

As the explosive power gets bigger the radiation range increases very very slowly compared with the blast radius until you get to bigger bombs where the distance the radiation will kill you doesn't matter because it is inside the fireball so the blast will kill you anyway.

If you are trying to destroy a flat open city of a large area it is more efficient to use five or more smaller warheads than to use one big one... a 10MT warhead in the centre of a big city will create intense destruction in the centre below the blast point but the radius of damage might only be 2 or 3 times bigger than a 1MT warhead, but if you use three 1MT warheads and spread them around the centre of the city then the damage radius will be much much bigger despite using much less explosive power.

It is like a cluster bomb vs a conventional bomb... if the target is troops in an open field then a cluster bomb spreading 200 x 2.5kg HE fragmentation bombs you could kill everyone in the field... a 500kg bomb which is the same weight landing in the middle of the field and the point of impact will have a huge crater and there will be no remains of the men standing there but 100m away the soldiers could survive such an explosion.

The difference is the target... if the target is Cheyanne mountain defence complex in the US then a penetrating 20MT nuke is what that was designed for, if it is a city like new york then 10 x 300KT warheads would actually be much more effective despite being much less powerful.

More importantly if you have a target like New York you wont launch one Sarmat with 10 warheads at it... because if it failed in flight then NY would not be hit.

What you would do is take say 5 different SLBMs and 5 ICBMs and in each one there will be one warhead in each missile that will have NY as its target with the rest of the warheads hitting other targets on the way there... they wont arrive all at the same time but all will hit specific locations to ensure it gets lethal coverage.

If an ABM system shoots down one or two warheads it doesn't matter because the remaining 8 will do the job... 5 would probably do the job but you use extra to make sure.

Precision means you can get the same job done with less power... to the degree that in 1985 if the Soviet Union wanted to destroy a factory from 1,000km away with a cruise missile their only option would be a nuclear warhead. These days they have the precision and accuracy to use a HE equipped missile to do the same thing.... obviously ammo dumps or fuel dumps require less missiles than an HQ or Barracks might of course.

Precision with navigation and targeting as well as improvements in C4IRSTAR means you can find the targets too... having the precision means nothing if you don't know where the targets are.

I know there is no plan to base Sarmat in Kaliningrad (there are no silos there anyway) but they can base some mobile Yars there surely and the times depicted here would still be valid.

I suspect it is all just attempts by Russia and the West to step back from confrontation and realise that this is not all just about Ukrainians killing Ukrainians and Russians and that the west is only going to notice because their fuel bills are going to go up along with everything else.

This is a reminder that screwing with the Bear can result in a trip to accident and emergency... but another potential trip to the Morgue is also possible... even if the attack means the Bear gets put to sleep the damage will be done.

Sarmation is just a place holder... an example of what they have and could do if further pressured through HATO escalation of an already difficult situation.

Sarmatian could probably have its middle stage removed, which would massively reduce weight and increase the acceleration of the weapon even further as a very potent IRBM that could probably be fitted to the back of a truck for use anywhere they want to use it from...

Next gen scramjet powered weapons will be just as deadly and much much smaller and more mobile... a Zircon from a Yasen launched off the coast of Africa could hit targets in Europe without warning very very quickly too.

Russia already said they wouldn't put intermediate range weapons in Europe unless the US puts them there first.

They have already tested Tomahawk in AEGIS Ashore so Russias hands are free.

Any way the SM-6 has a ballistic range of about 1,000km and could be fitted with a nuclear warhead and launched at ground targets...

The Bastion "coastal defence" complexes will be equipped with Tsirkon. Up to 1.500km range against ground targets. They will show up in Kaliningrad.

The Bastion "coastal defence" complexes will be equipped with Tsirkon. Up to 1.500km range against ground targets. They will show up in Kaliningrad.

Would not be possible under the INF agreement banning intermediate and medium range surface launched missiles... thank you America...

@Arrow... Nice vid.

Clearly shows the cold launch...

Hole wrote:The Bastion "coastal defence" complexes will be equipped with Tsirkon. Up to 1.500km range against ground targets. They will show up in Kaliningrad.

Which coast is that?

One more high-quality video


Many sources say CEP Sarmata at about 10m. This is a huge improvement even in relation to the modern Yars, where the CEP is estimated at around 100-150m.
It looks like the huge Sarmat accelerates even faster than Yars