Russia tests Topol-M missile to subdue USA's $50-billion air defense

Pravda.ru ^ | November 2, 2005

[r9etb]

The Topol-M missile:

There have apparently been bugs in the target selection algorithms. "On the other hand...."

[Banjoguy]

IMO..another justification for pre-emption.

[Solamente]

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?

[MonroeDNA]

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?

[MonroeDNA]

"I imagine that if a fighter jet could not maneuver out of the way of one of our patriot missiles, then the Russians may be in for a big surprise with their touting that their missile is harder to hit."

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.

[COEXERJ145]

The Russian's still have some SS-18's (R-36M2) armed with single, 20 Megaton warheads, deployed and are used to kill targets like NORAD and other deeply buried targets.

[COEXERJ145]

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.

[Vinnie_Vidi_Vici]

I thought new warheads were prohibited by the arms control treaties with the Russians.

[BillCompton]

That said, I would guess the upper limit of missiles would be around 50 G's or so. Just a guess.

That would be getting really expensive. Fighter jets have the advantage of air. In order to generate 50 G's in space, you need one heck of a large rocket or one heck of a small payload.

[dhuffman@awod.com]

'Unpredictable trajectory' is about as close to an oxymoron as I can imagine.

[PsyOp]

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.

[HereInTheHeartland]

The missle is guided by "Tradition...............

[Thunder90]

More proof of Russia's Arms buildup!

[Thunder90]

He also thinks that China is a miminal threat at best.

[texassizednightcrawler]

Do have of Russia's weapons that work?

[GarySpFc]

I don't think they've stopped being backrupt yet.

Are you kidding? Russia had $186 billion in reserves as of a couple of months ago, and had almost paid off all of its debts.