Posted on 11/02/2005 12:32:53 PM PST by RDTF
The unpredictable flight trajectory of the Russian missile makes it immune to destruction
The successful test launch of the Topol-M missile has proved that the up-to-date Russian warhead is capable of subduing the USA's air defense, Russian military specialists say.
Russian strategic troops performed the test launch of the intercontinental ballistic missile RS-12M Topol on November 1. The chairman of the press service of the troops, Colonel Alexander Vovk, stated after the test launch that the missile successfully hit the conditional target on the Balkhash range ground in Kazakhstan.
It is worthy of note that yesterday's launch of the Topol-M missile became the sixth test of the system, which was created to subdue the US air defense. The Russian military command was keeping the entire flight data under control during the launch of the missile. The test showed that the maneuver, as performed by the missile on its flight trajectory, would not let foreign air defense troops intercept and destroy the missile.
According to the information obtained from the open sources, the arsenal of the Russian strategic troops currently has stationary Topol-M missile systems. It is planned to use the systems on both shaft and mobile bases in the future.
First shaft-based missile complexes RS-12M Topol-M (SS-X27 under the NATO classification) were added to the Russian defense arsenal in 1997. There are currently four missile units in the Russian troops working with Topol-M systems. Each of the units has up to ten intercontinental ballistic missiles, official sources say.
There have apparently been bugs in the target selection algorithms. "On the other hand...."
IMO..another justification for pre-emption.
I'm no rocket scientist, but wouldn't anything other than the shortest distance from A to B make for a much longer flight time?
Lol!
It may be able to outflank Patriots, or other mechanical defenses, but that's not all we have, IMHO.
Heck, I'm just a lowly EE, and I could write a program to fire a laser at about anything that can be detected. And I am not that smart.
And we do have lasers. IMHO.
We've even overcome atmospheric distortion. IMHO.
Did I say, IMHO?
The fighter jet can handle a lot more G's than the pilot (10 G's for pilot, or so).
That said, I would guess the upper limit of missiles would be around 50 G's or so. Just a guess.
The Peacekeepers (MX) are out of service. The last one was retired this year but all 50 are being stored indefinitely. They used to be armed with 10 W-87 Warheads with a yield of 300 kilotons per warhead. The 500 W-87 warheads will now arm our 500 Minuteman III ICBM's with one warhead per missile. The W-87 can be upgraded to 475 kliotons by putting an uranium tamper on the second stage.
I thought new warheads were prohibited by the arms control treaties with the Russians.
'Unpredictable trajectory' is about as close to an oxymoron as I can imagine.
I wonder if this just isn't a case of a "design flaw" being renamed a "feature".
In any case I doubt our up and coming airborne laser systems will have much trouble tracking and burning them to a crisp.
The missle is guided by "Tradition...............
More proof of Russia's Arms buildup!
He also thinks that China is a miminal threat at best.
Do have of Russia's weapons that work?
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