A new intercontinental missile «Sarmat» is being prepared for flight tests. It will become the basis of the Russian nuclear shield for 30-40 years, as Dmitry Rogozin said. The head of Roscosmos explained that the unique range and speed of the missile’s rise allow its combat units to overcome any missile defense system. In fact, this is not the main thing by which “Sarmat” scares enemies. In an attempt to counter it, America will need trillions of real, not exchange dollars and three decades to learn how to shoot it down. But in that time, Russia will make the next generation of ICBM…
Talking about strategic nuclear weapons is not exactly the specialization of the head of Roscosmos. But you can’t call this person uninformed in any way. And the areas are adjacent – after all, it was the R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile that opened the space age of mankind.
So when during his speech at the marathon “Novoe Znanie” («New Knowledge»), the head of Roscosmos said that the promising strategic missile complex «Sarmat» will become the basis of Russia’s nuclear shield of the future and «at least 30-40 years this complex will ensure the defense of the country» — that’s probably how it’s gonna be.
The missile has now completed its ground and impact tests and is beginning flight design tests. The first launch of the ICBM is planned for the autumn of 2021, two launches are planned by the end of the year. Already in 2022, the first complexes will be transferred to the troops.
What is «Sarmat»?
ICBM15A28 or RS-28 «Sarmat» should replace our same world’s most powerful ICBM RS-20V «Voivode» or «Satan» in the NATO classification. However, the American press already had a nickname for «Sarmat» — «Satan-2». And, in general, it’s fair.
The starting mass of RS-28 is 208.1 tons. The weight of the payload is about 10 tons, which are thrown on 18 thousand kilometers. This is twice as far beyond the ICBM in service today: with such a radius, a missile launched from a position area in the Orenburg oblast will reach any point in the United States from any direction. At least through the South Pole, bypassing the U.S. missile defense system, deployed in a semicircle to the north. Anyway, it will fly from the back door to the backyard.
Next, the big question is, what exactly is it going to throw in the backyard of the enemy? From what has gone through the press, one can understand the following: from 10 to 12 battle blocks, although, for example, the famous military expert Victor Litovkin believes that this is not the limit. Both 15 and 17 smaller warheads can be placed on the same carrier, but due to the precision of the guidance and a small radius of circle of equal probability (CEP) with the same destructive effect.
But that’s not a fact either. Because at one time, the developers of «Sarmat» promised to achieve CEP in general only a few meters by using warheads maneuvering at hypersonic speed complex «Vanguard» — they are the hypersonic gliders U-71. It is known that they can fly at a speed of up to 20 Machs, which makes them invulnerable to any existing and even promising American missile defense system. For no one, not even the best supercomputer, can calculate where it is possible to intercept the flying in the plasma cloud and the unyielding radio-electron suppression unit moving on an arbitrary bend trajectory. And especially not able to hit the anti-missile SM-3 Block IIA, which has only once managed to intercept a training target, very far from the hypersonic missile and even more — from maneuvering in the «tube trajectory» hypersonic glider U-71.
Thus, the RS-28 ICBM alone is capable of delivering from 6.75 to 7.5 megatons to the USA in a roundabout way and with a guarantee. It’s going to be hot in the backyard of the USA…
In the front yard, however, too: logic suggests that the first attack will be on the main and reserve command posts of the American anti-ballistic missile defense. It will be enough to cut down Cheyenne Mountain, which is the permanent command post of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), with a pair of three-megaton warheads capable of punching hard rocks and concrete. There are. Then the «Minitmen III» rocket launcher sites in Montana, Wyoming and North Dakota are to be destroyed. At the same time, US naval bases Norfolk and San Diego, as well as Guam, Pearl Harbor, Okinawa in Japan, Al-Isa in Bahrain and Al-Udaid in Qatar, need to be disabled.
So, a dozen «Sarmats» is enough, and get America dirty… But who would want it then?
But «Sarmat» is not just 200 tons of deadly mass…
And all this is not a bloodthirsty reasoning, although America deserves them. Just the military skills do not like equivocations and omissions. War is a way of killing, there’s no denying it. At least, at the present stage of human development.
But «Sarmat» turns out to be such an interesting weapon, which actually doesn’t need to kill anyone to make the US redundant.
For several years in the United States, there has been a debate in narrow circles, the fragments of which have occasionally flown into print. The debate is whether Russia can be critically hit by America’s intercontinental ballistic arsenal at all or whether it is worth wasting money to avoid the goal.
The important thing is that this is not about the goal. If they hadn’t feared a crushingly murderous response, the Americans would have tried to reach it long ago. After all, the tens of thousands of «Tomahawks» they made so to crush Russia in one first disarming blow. No, they are talking about whether to expect to catch up with the Russians in the sector of ground-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, if only «Sarmat» («the most perfect product in its class, the Americans write) makes the 39-ton «Minitmen» just a «reactive toothpick». And no matter how you modernize them, America’s ground-based ICBM is stuck by its own ideology in the 1970s.
But even that is not the most important thing.
So what?
«Sarmat» is terrible to the enemy not that it does not have and not soon will be adequate ABM means that can neutralize it. Neither the most advanced SM-3 Block IIA, nor the really well-developed THAAD system, nor the lasers, where America reaches increasingly promising peaks in building up their power, all doesn’t work against «Sarmat». And even if it would, in order to effectively counteract the pack of «Sarmats» coming from the side of Honduras, America needs to rebuild to begin the entire North American missile defense system — the NORAD.
And it turns out that after «Sarmats» in a convincing number — it is two or three regiments for a start — will stand on combat duty, Washington will need to show not the dry cams Moscow, but to sit as quietly as possible and behave peacefully, when Russia will, as Vladimir Putin promised, conduct its red lines wherever it sees fit. Otherwise, the United States will need trillions of real, not inflated dollars and a decade and three years to close from the south and learn to shoot down «Sarmats».
But in that time, Russia will clearly create the next generation of ICBM. And yes, it will hang over the planet its indestructible control point in the form of its own space station, which plans an orbit with an inclination of 71.6 degrees to observe the polar regions of the Earth.
What will remain for our precious overseas partner? Apparently, to go back to the same closed circle. In which the Americans will only have to pay. And repent. That in time they did not offer the Russians the same thing that they agreed with…
However, let’s not talk about the Afghan rope in the US house. After all, a closed circle is so similar to a loop…