Russia tests the new Topol-M missile that can subdue USA's $50-billion missile shield

The unpredictable flight trajectory of the Russian missile makes it immune to destruction

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 maneuvers, as performed by the missile on its flight trajectory, would not let foreign air defense troops intercept and destroy the missile.

The Russian Topol-M missile system has unique technical details. The length of the missile is 22.7 meters, it is 1.95 meters in diameter, the range ability reaches over 10,000 kilometers. The starting weight of the missile is 47.2 tons; the missile gathers speed a lot faster than all previous types with the help of its three engines. In addition, the missile performs unpredictable flight maneuvers owing to several tens of its auxiliary engines.

Topol-M engineers say that the complex is totally immune to electromagnetic impacts.

english.pravda.ru...

Hmmm... this missile is impressive to say the least.

Maybe, if what they say is accurate. The US is very familiar with MARV's and built them back in the 80's for their MX and Trident II missiles.
I have no doubt the US will be experiemting with technologies to defeat missiles such as these.
Hell manouvering isn't any help if, the weapon is being attacked by a high powered laser.

Im intrigued to why Russia would need a missile like this. The US missile defense could never stop a Russian ICBM attack even with its older generations of missiles. The sheer numbers would over overwhelm any defense system. Missile defense was not really any threat concerning MAD with Russia and the US.

Its main role seems to be defense from nuclear armed nations like N Korea that could only launch a modest amount of nuclear missiles at the US.

I hope they don't have plans to sell this missile to countries like N Korea.

you have to build it before you can sell it...that seems to be Russia's plan.

Rogue1 - The bulk of the missile shield it missile interceptors...not lasers.

Russia doesnt sell all its latest tech to every single country or share them, they only do it to good allies like China,Iran,India etc..... i doubt N.Korea would be getting such powerfull tech...

[edit on 3-11-2005 by NR]

Impressive, yes. A threat to U.S MD, probably not. Since it's primarily for shooting down North Korean and maybe Chinese ballistic missiles, not Russian ones. Russia seriously needs to face the fact that they lost the Cold War, and stop trying to make new weapons systems designed to specifically harm America.

Im assuming that there is a limit to the amount of manuvering the warhead bus of the Topol can actually make.I mean it must be on a fairly predictable trajectory from launch to a position where its ready to start dispensing warheads.Judging from the article it has an accelerated launch speed to reduce the time a potential adversary could shoot it down over Russia.
However i agree with NWguy83,they need to face the realities of the 21st century and worry more about their large neighbour to the south.

link

In a question-and-answer session with members of the Russian public broadcast live by Russian RTR television, President Putin spoke of Russia’s plans to rearm its military forces with advanced new weapons, including strategic missiles capable of penetrating foreign defenses. Putin discussed in particular hypersonic strategic systems capable of maneuvering both in course and altitude which are capable of evading ballistic missile defenses such as those being developed by “partner countries”—a probable reference to the midcourse defenses gradually being fielded by the United States. Putin has spoken of these maneuverable systems on several occasions. Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov referred to them as well in a recent television interview.

link

Any of our Russian friends in the forums today??? I was just wondering what it must be like over there trying to re-live the cold war with America? Did it ever occur to Putin or any of your military masterminds that your super-maneuverable missile's ability to evade out MD isn't really an issue??? While your missile is hurtling towrd us, we are not going to wait to see if our defenses take it out - we are going to throw the whole enchilada at you guys and leave Russia a charred and radioactive mess. So the fact that your country spent billions of dollars, that you don't even have, to develop a missile to foil defenses that we really don't have doesn't change a thing - it's still a guarantee of Mutual Assured Destruction. What a stupidass waste of time and money!

Oh, and by the way - anyone want to bet who Russia's first customer for this new missile will be??? Anyone???

> It will be hard for a laser to be kept focussed on a missile that is manuvering madly at hypersonic speeds

> There was an article that came out like ~last year about Russia coating its missiles with laser reflectors and adding reinforcements along the body of the missile that would make it resistant to laser attack.

> Laser defence is still in the early development stage and by media reports the first test will only be in 2009.

> The Russian defence minister has alredy said that Russia is working on ways to prevent boost phase destruction of missiles.

> Additional note :
link

The way i see it, Russia is only maintaining the MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) status at present.

If Russia had not come up with this, it would be seriously disadvantaged by not being able to effectively hit back to the US if it was attacked by the latter, by its missile defence systems.

No offence, but I find your response as a bit of an over reaction.



Well there are some international non-proliferation treaties of which Russia (& the US) is a signatory of, which prevents it from exporting these missiles.

I can remember reading about the Russians bypassing the missile defence ideas before by simply having stealthed ICBM's that don't actually leave the atmosphere.
I can't remember where i read it and i don't know if it's related to this in anyways though but i thought they already had them and had tested them.

How ironic!

Interesting thought I wonder if this new missile could be evidence that Russia was losing confidence in how effective its current ICBM fleet would be in a MAD type situation with the US?

Could their older ICBMs have been alot easier to shoot down then we thought?

Stealth Spy,

The warhead has been described as moving in a zig-zag flight path, I'm sure a laser could shoot that down.

And why would the U.S even have a reason to nuke Russia, unless Russia is affraid the U.S will catch it selling nukes to terrorists or preparing a surprise attack...

This is so old news, it is not even funny anymore.
Russia Test-Fires New Topol-M Ballistic Missile..
Russia to Field New Set of Topol-M
Hypersonic Russian ICBM tested!!

And more can be found here:
Topol-M

Btw, would the Russian version of hypersonic be the same as the American version?
The first Topol-M (RS-12M, SS-27) test-launched in 1994.
Apparently, the Russian's have periodically been firing them off to check their capabilities since 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, and now....2005. Again, nothing new here.
Incidentally, how does a missile that was first test fired in 1994 still retain the label of new, unless of course, the recent missiles tested were just built?

Reads like nothing but further Russian exaggerated claims, especially those given by the state-sanctioned Pravda, in the endless game of chess with no checkmate.





seekerof

[edit on 3-11-2005 by Seekerof]

How long does the ABL has to illuminate a reentry vehicle to properly destroy it? If that time is long enough, couldn't some kind of instant vector change system be mounted on a warhead to immaediatly change vectors once it is illuminated?

The ABL will be used for the missiles beginning stage, not when its will be going hypersonic and zig zaging.

BTW, I believe it takes a few seconds, but of course it all depends on how far away it is and how well the missile was built.

iirc the beam is 6meters in diameter its not a starwars movie beam that is 3" wide, the cold war is over but its seems there are hardliners in Russia that want to get back to thier Cold War Glory and a bit of payback. I still think the "missile shield" is a cover for something else or maybe just a project to line some people's pockets.