MOSCOW, October 9 - RIA Novosti, Nikolai Protopopov. Ukraine continues to actively arm itself - this year the Ukroboronprom state concern transferred 3,500 pieces of equipment and weapons to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. President Petro Poroshenko claims that in the future the Ukrainian military-industrial complex will focus on creating its own high-precision missile weapons, which is not inferior in characteristics to the best world samples. Whether this task is within the power of Kyiv - in the material of RIA Novosti.
Napoleonic ambitions
Kyiv politicians and military leadership have been talking for years about the revival of the military-industrial complex. The catalyst, as they emphasize, was a kind of "Russian aggression", in response to which the military-industrial complex mobilized and now regularly reports on innovations. Including in the field of rocket and artillery weapons.So, two years ago, the Grom-2 operational-tactical complex was announced, which should replace the Soviet Tochka-U OTRK and become an analogue of the Russian Iskander. The complex is being developed by Yuzhnoye Design Bureau, and the money for R & D was allocated Saudi Arabia. Maximum range shooting, as the designers say, will be 300 kilometers with the possibility of increasing to five hundred.
One of the potential targets of the complex Ukrainian military experts, of course, immediately called the Crimean bridge and some Russian cities- Kursk, Belgorod and Voronezh. Moreover, in their opinion, the Russian S-300 and even S-400 will be powerless in front of the Thunder, because its missile can maneuver and change its flight path, breaking through the most powerful air defense systems. This weapon, they are sure in Kyiv, will radically change the situation in the region.
However, according to the Obozrevatel publication, the Ukrainians began developing the Grom-2 OTRK 15 years ago, but never brought the project to completion. The reason is simple - lack of funding. They remembered the project after they had exhausted the stocks of missiles for Tochka-U, having shot them in battles in the south-east of the country.
© Yuzhnoye Design Bureau
Launcher "Grom-2" without containers with missiles
Another promising development is the first Ukrainian cruise missile"Neptune", flight tests of which took place in August in the south of the Odessa region. Ship, land and air based options are provided. The missile is designed to destroy sea targets and coastal targets at a distance of up to 280 kilometers, and in tests it hit the target at a distance of one hundred kilometers. Oleksandr Turchynov, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (NSDC), personally reported this, putting Neptune on a par with Russian Kalibr and American Tomahawks. According to Ukrainian experts, it is not difficult to achieve a thousand-kilometer range - screw the fuel tanks in more volume, and the job is done. Even the carriers have already been decided - the boats of the so-called "mosquito fleet" of Ukraine in the Sea of Azov.The next stage of rearmament is high-precision medium-range missiles. One of the Ukrainian military experts, Valentin Badrak, in an interview with the online publication Ukrlife, said that Ukraine would create a missile capable of hitting targets at a distance of one and a half thousand kilometers and even "reaching Moscow." According to him, the new weapon is designed to "change the rhetoric of negotiations," since Ukraine with "a hundred or two such missiles" will be able to "dictate its terms" and "defend its position in the field of Euro-Atlantic integration."
© Photo: apparatus for the sake of national security and defense of Ukraine
Tests of the Ukrainian cruise missile "Neptune"
A squandered heritage However, all these high-profile statements crash against the harsh reality. From the USSR, Ukraine inherited dozens of research, production enterprises and design bureaus, but after perestroika, they mostly degraded to such an extent that today they are hardly capable of creating something "not inferior to the best world standards." This also applies to the rocket and artillery sphere.
“In order to produce high-quality weapons, a certain scientific and technical reserve is needed,” military expert Alexei Leonkov tells RIA Novosti. Military-industrial complex Ukraine is in stagnation. They can produce single samples of weapons - a maximum of small batches. Large-scale production is too costly and too expensive for the country. It was very easy to squander everything, it is much more difficult to create something new.”
Viktor Murakhovsky, a member of the expert council of the board of the Russian military-industrial complex, believes that Kyiv is unlikely to be able to develop a missile capable of "reaching Moscow." "In Ukraine, of course, there is the Yuzhnoye design bureau and the Yuzhmash plant, which produced intercontinental ballistic missiles, he commented to RIA Novosti. - But how will they make such rockets today? Firstly, the situation of the design bureau itself and the plant, to be honest, is catastrophic. Secondly, a huge number of components for these products came from Russia, that is, there was no full production cycle on the territory of Ukraine.In addition, there is another factor - the treaty on the missile technology control regime, signed, among other things, by the United States and Russia. This document obliges not to disseminate technologies that can lead to the creation of missiles with a range of more than 300 kilometers and a payload of more than 500 kilograms.
In the 1990s, Ukraine was among the world's top ten arms exporters due to the sale of Soviet stocks. The country cannot mass-produce its own weapons, since all production was closely tied to cooperation with Russia. Today cooperation is destroyed and there is nothing to replace it.
Obviously, all statements by the Ukrainian leadership about the revival of the military-industrial complex are pure propaganda aimed at knocking out another million from the state budget and helping Western partners. The matter, most likely, will not go further than exhibition samples and single copies of the "latest" military equipment.
Ballistic missiles have been and remain a reliable shield of Russia's national security. A shield, ready, if necessary, to turn into a sword.
R-36M "Satan"
Developer: Design Bureau Yuzhnoye
Length: 33.65 m
Diameter: 3 m
Starting weight: 208 300 kg
Flight range: 16000 km
Soviet strategic missile system of the third generation, with a heavy two-stage liquid-propellant, ampulized intercontinental ballistic missile 15A14 for placement in a silo launcher 15P714 of increased security type OS.
The Americans called the Soviet strategic missile system "Satan". At the time of the first test in 1973, this missile became the most powerful ballistic system ever developed. Not a single missile defense system was able to withstand the SS-18, the radius of destruction of which was as much as 16 thousand meters. After the creation of the R-36M, Soviet Union could not worry about the "arms race". However, in the 1980s, the Satan was modified, and in 1988, a new version of the SS-18, the R-36M2 Voyevoda, entered service with the Soviet army, against which even modern American missile defense systems cannot do anything.
RT-2PM2. "Topol M"
Length: 22.7 m
Diameter: 1.86 m
Starting weight: 47.1 t
Flight range: 11000 km
The RT-2PM2 rocket is made in the form of a three-stage rocket with a powerful mixed solid-propellant power plant and a fiberglass body. Rocket testing began in 1994. The first launch was carried out from the mine launcher at the Plesetsk cosmodrome on December 20, 1994. In 1997, after four successful launches, mass production of these missiles began. The act on the adoption by the Strategic Missile Forces of the Russian Federation of the Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile was approved by the State Commission on April 28, 2000. As of the end of 2012, there were 60 mine-based and 18 mobile-based Topol-M missiles on combat duty. All silo-based missiles are on combat duty in the Taman missile division (Svetly, Saratov region).
PC-24 "Yars"
Developer: MIT
Length: 23 m
Diameter: 2 m
Flight range: 11000 km
The first rocket launch took place in 2007. Unlike Topol-M, it has multiple warheads. In addition to warheads, Yars also carries a set of missile defense breakthrough tools, which makes it difficult for the enemy to detect and intercept it. This innovation makes the RS-24 the most successful combat missile in the context of the deployment of the global American missile defense system.
SRK UR-100N UTTH with 15A35 rocket
Developer: Central Design Bureau of Mechanical Engineering
Length: 24.3 m
Diameter: 2.5m
Starting weight: 105.6 t
Flight range: 10000 km
Intercontinental ballistic liquid rocket 15A30 (UR-100N) of the third generation with a multiple reentry vehicle (MIRV) was developed at the Central Design Bureau of Mechanical Engineering under the leadership of V.N. Chelomey. Flight design tests of the ICBM 15A30 were carried out at the Baikonur training ground (chairman of the state commission - Lieutenant General E.B. Volkov). The first launch of the ICBM 15A30 took place on April 9, 1973. According to official data, as of July 2009, the Strategic Missile Forces of the Russian Federation had 70 deployed 15A35 ICBMs: 1. 60th Missile Division (Tatishchevo), 41 UR-100N UTTKh UR-100N UTTH.
15Ж60 "Well done"
Developer: Design Bureau Yuzhnoye
Length: 22.6 m
Diameter: 2.4m
Starting weight: 104.5 t
Flight range: 10000 km
RT-23 UTTH "Molodets" - strategic missile systems with solid-fuel three-stage intercontinental ballistic missiles 15Zh61 and 15Zh60, mobile railway and stationary mine-based, respectively. It was a further development of the RT-23 complex. They were put into service in 1987. Aerodynamic rudders are placed on the outer surface of the fairing, allowing you to control the rocket in a roll in the areas of operation of the first and second stages. After passing through the dense layers of the atmosphere, the fairing is reset.
R-30 "Mace"
Developer: MIT
Length: 11.5 m
Diameter: 2 m
Starting weight: 36.8 tons.
Flight range: 9300 km
Russian solid-propellant ballistic missile of the D-30 complex for placement on Project 955 submarines. The first launch of the Bulava took place in 2005. Domestic authors often criticize the Bulava missile system under development for a fairly large share of unsuccessful tests. According to critics, the Bulava appeared due to Russia's banal desire to save money: the country's desire to reduce development costs by unifying the Bulava with land-based missiles made its production cheaper , than usual.
X-101/X-102
Developer: MKB "Rainbow"
Length: 7.45 m
Diameter: 742mm
Wingspan: 3 m
Starting weight: 2200-2400
Flight range: 5000-5500 km
New generation strategic cruise missile. Its hull is a low wing, but has a flattened transverse section and side surfaces. The warhead of a rocket weighing 400 kg can hit 2 targets at once at a distance of 100 km from each other. The first target will be hit by ammunition descending on a parachute, and the second directly when a missile hits. With a flight range of 5000 km, the circular probable deviation (CEP) is only 5-6 meters, and with a range of 10,000 km does not exceed 10 m.
The intercontinental ballistic missile is a very impressive human creation. Huge size, thermonuclear power, a column of flame, the roar of engines and the menacing rumble of launch ... However, all this exists only on earth and in the first minutes of launch. After their expiration, the rocket ceases to exist. Further into the flight and the performance of the combat mission, only what remains of the rocket after acceleration - its payload - goes.
With long launch ranges, the payload of an intercontinental ballistic missile goes into space for many hundreds of kilometers. It rises into the layer of low-orbit satellites, 1000-1200 km above the Earth, and briefly settles among them, only slightly behind their general run. And then, along an elliptical trajectory, it begins to slide down ...
What exactly is this load?
A ballistic missile consists of two main parts - an accelerating part and another, for the sake of which acceleration is started. The accelerating part is a pair or three large multi-ton stages, stuffed to capacity with fuel and with engines from below. They give the necessary speed and direction to the movement of the other main part of the rocket - the head. The accelerating stages, replacing each other in the launch relay, accelerate this warhead in the direction of the area of its future fall.
The head of a rocket is a complex cargo of many elements. It contains a warhead (one or more), a platform on which these warheads are placed along with the rest of the economy (such as means of deceiving enemy radars and anti-missiles), and a fairing. Even in the head part there is fuel and compressed gases. The entire warhead will not fly to the target. It, like the ballistic missile itself before, will be divided into many elements and simply cease to exist as a whole. The fairing will separate from it not far from the launch area, during the operation of the second stage, and somewhere along the road it will fall. The platform will fall apart upon entering the air of the impact area. Elements of only one type will reach the target through the atmosphere. Warheads. Close up, the warhead looks like an elongated cone a meter or a half long, at the base as thick as a human torso. The nose of the cone is pointed or slightly blunt. This cone is a special aircraft whose task is to deliver weapons to the target. We will return to warheads later and get to know them better.
Pull or push?
In a missile, all of the warheads are located in what is known as the disengagement stage, or "bus". Why a bus? Because, having freed itself first from the fairing, and then from the last booster stage, the breeding stage carries the warheads, like passengers, to the given stops, along their trajectories, along which the deadly cones will disperse to their targets.
Another "bus" is called the combat stage, because its work determines the accuracy of pointing the warhead at the target point, and hence combat effectiveness. The breeding stage and its operation is one of the biggest secrets in a rocket. But we will still take a little, schematically, look at this mysterious step and its difficult dance in space.
The breeding stage has different forms. Most often, it looks like a round stump or a wide loaf of bread, on which warheads are mounted on top with their points forward, each on its own spring pusher. The warheads are pre-positioned at precise separation angles (on a missile base, manually, with the help of theodolites) and look in different directions, like a bunch of carrots, like a hedgehog's needles. The platform, bristling with warheads, occupies a predetermined, gyro-stabilized position in space in flight. And at the right moments, warheads are pushed out of it one by one. They are ejected immediately after the completion of the acceleration and separation from the last accelerating stage. Until (you never know?) they shot down this entire unbred hive with anti-missile weapons or something failed on board the breeding stage.
The pictures show breeding stages of the American heavy ICBM LGM0118A Peacekeeper, also known as MX. The missile was equipped with ten 300 kt multiple warheads. The missile was decommissioned in 2005.
But that was before, at the dawn of multiple warheads. Now breeding is a completely different picture. If earlier the warheads “sticked out” forward, now the stage itself is ahead along the way, and the warheads hang from below, with their tops back, turned upside down, like the bats. The “bus” itself in some rockets also lies upside down, in a special recess in the upper stage of the rocket. Now, after separation, the disengagement stage does not push, but drags the warheads along with it. Moreover, it drags, resting on four cross-shaped "paws" deployed in front. At the ends of these metal paws are rear-facing traction nozzles of the dilution stage. After separation from the booster stage, the "bus" very accurately, precisely sets its movement in the beginning space with the help of its own powerful guidance system. He himself occupies the exact path of the next warhead - its individual path.
Then, special inertia-free locks are opened, holding the next detachable warhead. And not even separated, but simply now not connected with the stage, the warhead remains motionless hanging here, in complete weightlessness. The moments of her own flight began and flowed. Like one single berry next to a bunch of grapes with other warhead grapes that have not yet been plucked from the stage by the breeding process.
K-551 "Vladimir Monomakh" is a Russian strategic nuclear submarine (Project 955 Borey), armed with 16 Bulava solid-propellant ICBMs with ten multiple warheads.
Delicate movements
Now the task of the stage is to crawl away from the warhead as delicately as possible, without violating its precisely set (targeted) movement of its nozzles by gas jets. If a supersonic nozzle jet hits a detached warhead, it will inevitably add its own additive to the parameters of its movement. During the subsequent flight time (and this is half an hour - fifty minutes, depending on the launch range), the warhead will drift from this exhaust “slap” of the jet half a kilometer-kilometer sideways from the target, or even further. It will drift without barriers: there is space there, they slapped it - it swam, not holding on to anything. But is a kilometer to the side an accuracy today?
Project 955 Borey submarines are a series of Russian nuclear submarines of the fourth generation strategic missile submarine class. Initially, the project was created for the Bark missile, which was replaced by the Bulava.
To avoid such effects, four upper “paws” with engines spaced apart are needed. The stage, as it were, is pulled forward on them so that the exhaust jets go to the sides and cannot catch the warhead detached by the belly of the stage. All thrust is divided between four nozzles, which reduces the power of each individual jet. There are other features as well. For example, if on a donut-shaped breeding stage (with a void in the middle - with this hole it is put on the booster stage of the rocket, as wedding ring on the finger) of the Trident-II D5 missile, the control system determines that the separated warhead still falls under the exhaust of one of the nozzles, then the control system turns off this nozzle. Makes "silence" over the warhead.
The step gently, like a mother from the cradle of a sleeping child, fearing to disturb his peace, tiptoes away in space on the three remaining nozzles in low thrust mode, and the warhead remains on the aiming trajectory. Then the “donut” of the stage with the cross of the traction nozzles rotates around the axis so that the warhead comes out from under the zone of the torch of the switched off nozzle. Now the stage moves away from the abandoned warhead already at all four nozzles, but so far also at low gas. When a sufficient distance is reached, the main thrust is turned on, and the stage moves vigorously into the area of the aiming trajectory of the next warhead. There it is calculated to slow down and again very accurately sets the parameters of its movement, after which it separates the next warhead from itself. And so on - until each warhead is landed on its trajectory. This process is fast, much faster than you read about it. In one and a half to two minutes, the combat stage breeds a dozen warheads.
The American Ohio-class submarines are the only type of missile carriers in service with the United States. Carries 24 Trident-II (D5) MIRVed ballistic missiles. The number of warheads (depending on power) is 8 or 16.
Abyss of mathematics
The foregoing is quite enough to understand how the warhead's own path begins. But if you open the door a little wider and look a little deeper, you will notice that today the turn in space of the disengagement stage carrying the warheads is the area of application of the quaternion calculus, where the onboard attitude control system processes the measured parameters of its movement with continuous construction of the orientation quaternion on board. A quaternion is such a complex number (over the field complex numbers lies the flat body of the quaternions, as mathematicians would say in their exact language of definitions). But not with the usual two parts, real and imaginary, but with one real and three imaginary. In total, the quaternion has four parts, which, in fact, is what the Latin root quatro says.
The breeding stage performs its work quite low, immediately after turning off the booster stages. That is, at an altitude of 100-150 km. And there the influence of gravitational anomalies of the Earth's surface, heterogeneities in the even gravitational field surrounding the Earth still affects. Where are they from? From uneven terrain, mountain systems, occurrence of rocks of different densities, oceanic depressions. Gravitational anomalies either attract the step to themselves with an additional attraction, or, on the contrary, slightly release it from the Earth.
In such heterogeneities, the complex ripples of the local gravity field, the disengagement stage must place the warheads with precision. To do this, it was necessary to create a more detailed map of the Earth's gravitational field. "Explaining" the features of the real field is better in systems differential equations describing precise ballistic motion. These are large, capacious (to include details) systems of several thousand differential equations, with several tens of thousands of constant numbers. And the gravitational field itself at low altitudes, in the immediate near-Earth region, is considered as a joint attraction of several hundred point masses of different "weights" located near the center of the Earth in a certain order. In this way, a more accurate simulation of the real gravitational field of the Earth on the flight path of the rocket is achieved. And more accurate operation of the flight control system with it. And yet ... but full! - let's not look further and close the door; we have had enough of what has been said.
The payload of an intercontinental ballistic missile spends most of the flight in the mode of a space object, rising to a height three times the height of the ISS. A trajectory of enormous length must be calculated with extreme precision.
Flight without warheads
The disengagement stage, dispersed by the missile in the direction of the same geographical area where the warheads should fall, continues its flight with them. After all, she can not lag behind, and why? After breeding the warheads, the stage is urgently engaged in other matters. She moves away from the warheads, knowing in advance that she will fly a little differently from the warheads, and not wanting to disturb them. The breeding stage also devotes all its further actions to warheads. This maternal desire to protect the flight of her “children” in every possible way continues for the rest of her short life. Short, but intense.
After the separated warheads, it is the turn of other wards. To the sides of the step, the most amusing gizmos begin to scatter. Like a magician, she releases into space a lot of inflating balloons, some metal things resembling open scissors, and objects of all sorts of other shapes. Durable balloons sparkle brightly in the cosmic sun with a mercury sheen of a metallized surface. They are quite large, some shaped like warheads flying nearby. Their surface, covered with aluminum sputtering, reflects the radar signal from a distance in much the same way as the warhead body. Enemy ground radars will perceive these inflatable warheads on a par with real ones. Of course, in the very first moments of entry into the atmosphere, these balls will fall behind and immediately burst. But before that, they will distract and load the computing power of ground-based radars - both early warning and guidance of anti-missile systems. In the language of ballistic missile interceptors, this is called "complicating the current ballistic situation." And the entire celestial host, inexorably moving towards the area of impact, including real and false warheads, inflatable balls, chaff and corner reflectors, this whole motley flock is called "multiple ballistic targets in a complicated ballistic environment."
The metal scissors open and become electric chaff - there are many of them, and they reflect well the radio signal of the early warning radar beam that probes them. Instead of ten required fat ducks, the radar sees a huge fuzzy flock of small sparrows, in which it is difficult to make out anything. Devices of all shapes and sizes reflect different wavelengths.
In addition to all this tinsel, the stage itself can theoretically emit radio signals that interfere with enemy anti-missiles. Or distract them. In the end, you never know what she can be busy with - after all, a whole step is flying, large and complex, why not load her with a good solo program?
In the photo - the launch of the Trident II intercontinental missile (USA) from a submarine. At the moment, Trident ("Trident") is the only family of ICBMs whose missiles are installed on American submarines. The maximum casting weight is 2800 kg.
Last cut
However, in terms of aerodynamics, the stage is not a warhead. If that one is a small and heavy narrow carrot, then the stage is an empty spacious bucket, with echoing empty fuel tanks, a large non-streamlined body and a lack of orientation in the flow that begins to flow. With its wide body with a decent windage, the step responds much earlier to the first breaths of the oncoming flow. The warheads are also deployed along the stream, penetrating the atmosphere with the least aerodynamic resistance. The step, on the other hand, leans into the air with its vast sides and bottoms as it should. It cannot fight the braking force of the flow. Its ballistic coefficient - an "alloy" of massiveness and compactness - is much worse than a warhead. Immediately and strongly it begins to slow down and lag behind the warheads. But the forces of the flow are growing inexorably, at the same time the temperature warms up the thin unprotected metal, depriving it of strength. The rest of the fuel boils merrily in the hot tanks. Finally, there is a loss of stability of the hull structure under the aerodynamic load that has compressed it. Overload helps to break bulkheads inside. Krak! Fuck! The crumpled body is immediately enveloped by hypersonic shock waves, tearing the stage apart and scattering them. After flying a little in the condensing air, the pieces again break into smaller fragments. The remaining fuel reacts instantly. Scattered fragments of structural elements made of magnesium alloys are ignited by hot air and instantly burn out with a blinding flash, similar to a camera flash - it was not without reason that magnesium was set on fire in the first flashlights!
Everything now burns with fire, everything is covered with red-hot plasma and shines well around with the orange color of coals from the fire. The denser parts go forward to slow down, the lighter and sail parts are blown into the tail, stretching across the sky. All burning components give dense smoke plumes, although at such speeds these densest plumes cannot be due to the monstrous dilution by the flow. But from a distance, they can be seen perfectly. Ejected smoke particles stretch across the flight trail of this caravan of bits and pieces, filling the atmosphere with a wide trail of white. Impact ionization generates a nighttime greenish glow of this plume. Due to the irregular shape of the fragments, their deceleration is rapid: everything that has not burned down quickly loses speed, and with it the intoxicating effect of air. Supersonic is the strongest brake! Standing in the sky, like a train falling apart on the tracks, and immediately cooled by high-altitude frosty subsound, the band of fragments becomes visually indistinguishable, loses its shape and order and turns into a long, twenty minutes, quiet chaotic dispersion in the air. If you are in the right place, you can hear how a small, burnt piece of duralumin clanks softly against a birch trunk. Here you have arrived. Farewell, breeding stage!
A weighty argument: how Russia will put Sarmat missiles into operation
Two throw launches of the newest intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) "Sarmat", which showed the efficiency of the launch infrastructure of the new complex, made it possible to proceed to flight tests of the missile with real launches. They should start in 2019. "Izvestia" studied the history and prospects of the new weapons of the Strategic Missile Forces.
Replacement of "Voevoda"
The Sarmat missile system is designed as a replacement for the Soviet-designed R-36M2 Voevoda complex, which until now forms the basis of the ground grouping of strategic nuclear forces in terms of the number of deployed warheads (580 charges on 58 missiles in 2018). The need to develop a new missile was caused both by the physical obsolescence of the Voevod, the youngest of which were put on combat duty in 1992, and by the fact that the R-36M2 was produced in Ukraine, albeit with the wide participation of Russian suppliers.
For a long time after the collapse of the USSR, the question of replacing the "Voevod" was not raised - moreover, the agreement START-2 in principle, it assumed the elimination in the future of "multiple-charged" intercontinental missiles ground-based.
The first reports of the development in Russia of a new heavy intercontinental missile appeared in the early 2010s, against the background of a chronic deepening of contradictions between Moscow and Washington on missile defense issues.
By this time, many experts were convinced that it was necessary to develop, first of all, mobile missile systems as less vulnerable in the conditions of development precision weapons and the coordinates of mine launchers being known to the enemy.
At the same time, the development of technologies, which made it possible to reduce the time of prelaunch preparation of silo missiles to a few tens of seconds, the long service life and high reliability of ampoule ICBMs based on asymmetric dimethylhydrazine/nitrogen tetroxide, as well as their high performance characteristics made the development of a new mine missile a promising task, and the modernization of the missile attack warning system made it possible to count on the ability of the mine group to retaliate even in the event of a possible sudden first strike by the enemy.
How soon
The lead developer of missiles of the R-36M family in the USSR was the Dnepropetrovsk Design Bureau " Southern", and their manufacturer is the plant located in the same place" Yuzhmash". In Russia, the role of developers new system got Miass Design Bureau Makeev. The supplier of marching engines in both cases is Khimki " Energomash”, and mass production is planned to be deployed on Krasnoyarsk machine-building plant, currently producing intercontinental ballistic missiles " blue" and " Liner» for the navy. Let's try to predict the timing of the adoption of "Sarmat" into service, starting from the examples already known to us.
Intercontinental ballistic missile R-36M
More than 40 years ago, in the first half of the 1970s, the USSR created and adopted a missile system 15P014 (R-36M) with a rocket 15А14, which received an index in NATO SS-18 Satan (SS-18 mod. 1-3). In February 1973, flight tests of the new complex began, which ended a little over two years later. The launches were carried out from the sites of the research test site No. 5 (better known as Baikonur Cosmodrome). In total, as part of the tests, it was launched 43 missiles, 36 launches were considered successful. The complex took up combat duty on November 30, 1975 and continued to improve over time.
Two years later, in the fall of 1977, the complex 15P018 (R-36M UTTH) with a rocket 15A18 (SS-18 mod. 4). The basis of the promising product was the first and second stages from 15A14. This borrowing allowed to reduce flight tests up to 19 starts, 17 of which ended successfully. In September 1979, two months before the official end of flight tests, 15P018 took up combat duty. The production of the new system was very active: within the first stage, three regiments were deployed at once: as part of the 57th Missile Division in Zhangiz-Tobe, 13th Missile Division in Dombarovsky and 62nd in Uzhure.
Seven years later, in 1986, the test went, in fact, R-36M2 "Voevoda" (15P018M) with a rocket 15A18M (SS-18 mod. 5, 6). In fact, despite the commonality of indices, it was a new rocket, the main hallmark which has become a sharply increased survivability. "Voevoda" could start almost through a cloud of nearby nuclear explosion, withstanding strong radiation, hitting large pieces of soil and other adverse effects. The trials lasted two years, during which time launched 26 missiles. 20 launches were successful. The causes of unsuccessful launches were eliminated, and in the future the rocket confirmed its reliability. In August 1988, the complex was put on duty, in November of the same year it was officially put into service.
The first strategic complex of post-Soviet Russia was the mine 15P165 (RT-2PM2) Topol-M with monobloc solid rocket 15Ж65. The tests, which began in 1994, continued until 2000 - from 11 launches one ended in failure, the deployment of the complex began in 1997.
– Deployment of the Sarmat will not lead to Russia exceeding the START-3 treaty credits in terms of the number of warheads. It is most likely that they will be deployed with a small number of charges, as due to the use of missiles on part larger and heavier planning blocks, and due to the withdrawal of part of the blocks into the return potential, - said in an interview with Izvestia, a researcher at the Center international security Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO) RAS Konstantin Bogdanov.
Test of the ballistic missile "Sarmat"
In addition, the editorial interlocutor drew attention to the fact that since the conclusion of the START-1 treaty in 1991, the parties have tried to get away from heavy ground-based multi-charge systems, considering them to be destabilizing weapons.
“The development of Sarmat was the first return of such a system,” Bogdanov noted.
In view of the foregoing, it can be assumed that the number of Sarmatians will exceed the current number of deployed Voevods (58 missiles), while the number of charges will be noticeably lower - perhaps no more than 300-320 charges against 580.
Speaking of planning units, one can also recall that the development of this means of delivering a nuclear charge under the conditions of anti-missile defense was also discussed back in the 2000s, and relevant research in the USSR began back in the Cold War years. Given that such blocks must have an appropriate shape and controls, their dimensions and weight inevitably grow. At the same time, the probability of their interception by traditional and advanced missile defense systems, which are mainly focused on combating targets with a predictable ballistic flight path, drops sharply.
Separately, it is worth noting that planning blocks flying in dense layers of the atmosphere are considered resistant to the space echelon of missile defense systems - hypothetical orbital-based lasers created in the United States for systems like " Diamond Pebbles” and so on, and are also much worse detected by missile attack warning systems.
At the same time, the status of planning blocks, or "gliders", is not defined by the current set of agreements on strategic offensive arms, and they are not included in the offset under current conditions.
Under these conditions, "Sarmat", like other promising complexes of strategic nuclear forces, will inevitably become the subject of bargaining at a new round of negotiations on strategic offensive arms. However, it is almost impossible to predict the course of such negotiations now. Even the possibility of extending the START-3 treaty is being questioned, and here, by the way, a return potential may come in handy, which will allow, if necessary, to increase the number of warheads on already deployed carriers in a short time.
More detailed and a variety of information about the events taking place in Russia, Ukraine and other countries of our beautiful planet, you can get on Internet conferences, constantly held on the website "Keys of Knowledge". All Conferences are open and completely free. We invite all waking up and interested ...
