Russian Defensive/Offencive/Reconnaissance Weapons

The Soviet Challenge In Space: Illustrating The Threat

When forming national security policy or conducting foreign affairs during times of peace as well as war, our leaders need to know the military capabilities and intentions of other nations. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) serves as the nation's chief collector and producer of foreign military intelligence.

During the Cold War, DIA analysis focused on the Soviet military. One product of this effort was a series of illustrations depicting Soviet weapons systems and advanced technology, which were made for official briefings and publications. The artists and intelligence analysts who created them drew upon eyewitness accounts, photography, overhead reconnaissance, and other sources. Many of the illustrations remain classified.

Most of the 9 paintings displayed here have never been seen in public. They depict Soviet systems in three areas of Cold War competition: offensive weapons, defensive weapons, and reconnaissance.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OFFENSIVE WEAPONS:

Soviet offensive forces grew dramatically in quality and quantity during the Cold War. These included missiles, submarines, and aircraft capable of delivering nuclear weapons. The United States devoted considerable resources to assessing and countering this threat. Both the United States and the Soviet Union produced thousands of offensive nuclear warheads capable of destroying both countries many times over. Arms control treaties during the last two decades have significantly reduced these nuclear arsenals.



Scud B
The Soviets first deployed the Scud B in the late 1950s. A tactical, mobile, ballistic missile, it could deliver a conventional, nuclear, biological, or chemical warhead to a target about 320 kilometers (200 miles) away. The Soviet Union exported Scud B missiles to its Warsaw Pact allies and to such countries as Iraq, China, and North Korea. The Iraqi use of Scuds during the Gulf War showed the continuing threat posed by these weapons. This illustration was prepared in 1972.



Delta III Submarine
This depiction of the Delta III nuclear-powered submarine was completed shortly after the warship entered service in the late 1970s. A Delta III could fire the nuclear-tipped SS-N-18 Stingray ballistic missile from 16 launch tubes. With a range of 6,500 kilometers (3,900 miles), Stingrays could hit targets in the United States form Soviet home ports or coastal waters. The Delta III is still deployed with the Russian navy today.



Sickle
The deployment of the mobile SS-25 Sickle intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in the 1980s made Soviet land-based nuclear forces harder to locate and destroy. As seen in this work from 1986, the missile and support equipment was mounted on massive off-road vehicles that enabled rapid dispersal. The Sickle carried a single nuclear warhead and was about the same size as the U.S. Minuteman ICBM. Post-Soviet Russia continues to deploy this missile.

DEFENSIVE WEAPONS

Beginning in the 1960s, the Soviet Union conducted a substantial research program to develop a defense against ballistic missiles. The Soviets built, and Russia continues to maintain, the world's only operational anti-ballistic missile system. Additional programs focused on the development of other ground- and space-based weapons using laser, particle beam, and kinetic energy technology.



Pushkino ABM Site
The Soviet Union built the world's only operational anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system around Moscow in the 1970s. Beginning in 1980, they improved and expanded this system. Two of these improvements are shown in this 1983 illustration: the silo-based, nuclear-tipped Gazelle interceptor missile and a new large radar intended to control ABM engagements.



Space Laser
Soviet research into ground- and space-based laser weapons systems began in the 1960s. The Soviets actually built several ground-based lasers in the 1980s, which reportedly could destroy or interfere with satellites and aircraft. The space-based laser system envisioned in this 1987 work was designed to destroy or incapacitate satellites and intercontinental ballistic missiles, but it was never built.



Particle Beam Weapon
The Soviets first explored the use of space-based particle beam weapons in the late 1960s. As portrayed in this 1987 illustration, the weapon would have targeted satellite or intercontinental ballistic missiles with high-velocity particle beams. The Soviet Union also studied other space-based directed-energy weapons, including some using laser and kinetic energy technology. None of these types of weapons was ever deployed.

RECONNAISSANCE SYSTEMS

The United States and the Soviet Union used many different reconnaissance systems during the Cold War. Some imaged military targets, others detected radar and radio emissions, and still others intercepted communications. Advances in technology enabled both nations to conduct these missions from the relative safety of space beginning in the 1960s. Soviet systems provided military and political leaders with information on U.S. military forces and developments.



Mandrake
American U-2 overflights of Soviet territory in the late 1950s prompted the Soviet Union to develop its own high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft, the Yak-25RD Mandrake, which is depicted in this 1972 illustration. Unlike the U-2, the Soviets designed the Mandrake around an existing airframe, the all-weather Yak-25 interceptor. Carrying cameras and signals intelligence equipment, the Mandrake flew missions in the early 1960s over the Middle East, South Asia, China, and the border regions of NATO nations.



Cosmos 389
This 1982 work shows the Cosmos 389 satellite, which was launched in December 1970 and performed electronic intelligence (ELINT) missions. Cosmos 389 was the first in a series of "ferret" satellites that pinpointed sources of radar and radio emissions to identify air defense sites and command and control centers. Transmitted to ground stations, the data was used for Soviet targeting and war planning.



RORSAT
This Soviet Union placed a series of radar-equipped ocean reconnaissance satellites (RORSATs) in low Earth orbit beginning in 1967. Employing powerful radars and working in pairs, they located and targeted U.S. ships for destruction by Soviet naval forces. Nuclear-powered RORSATs launched in the 1970s occasionally malfunctioned, including one that crashed and spread radioactive debris across northern Canada in 1978.



The Soviet Challenge In Space: Illustrating The Threat

RORSAT Nuclear Satelite


ok, now, what do you think of that?


[edit on 16-9-2004 by titus]

That is some nasty-@$$ #!

Of course, Russia ain't so strong anymore. The stuff you presented is only in a Russian dream.

Originally posted by sweatmonicaIdo
That is some nasty-@$$ #!

Of course, Russia ain't so strong anymore. The stuff you presented is only in a Russian dream.

dream? i would call it nasty reality, my friend.

just look at those RORSAT Nuclear Powered Satelites. They da'n launched 32 of them!! first one in 1970!

The Soviets built, and Russia continues to maintain, the world's only operational anti-ballistic missile system.

The Soviets built several ground-based lasers in the 1980s, which reportedly could destroy or interfere with satellites and aircraft.
1980 - thats not far behind USA...

just imagine what would happen if cold war went hot .

All this tehnology is pretty ancient except for maybe some of the space based systems. But of course they were never deployed just like the US's 'Star Wars' in the 80's.

They launched RORSATs because the didn't care about environment.
US could have done same if they would have wanted. (actually some future probes to outer planets may well have real nuclear reactors)

"In this space.com article, it mentions a RORSAT satellite that has been leaking radioactive coolant, leaving little droplets of it in orbit around our planet. However, further down, it also mentions this, quoted here for maximum impact: 'After a RORSATs tour-of-duty was over, the reactor's fuel core was shot high above Earth into a "disposal orbit." Once at that altitude the power supply unit would take several hundred years before it reentered the Earth's atmosphere.' Wow. So ... our great-grandchildren can expect a lovely day, partly cloudy with the occasional nuclear reactor plummeting down from outer space."

science.slashdot.org...

Space.com article:
Havoc in the Heavens: Soviet-Era Satellite's Leaky Reactor's Lethal Legacy


About those missile defense systems:
Nuclear tipped interceptors aren't flawless, nuclear explosion in upper atmosphere creates huge EMP capable to frying electronics from radius of nearly thousand kilometers. (depending on yield)
Also there would have to be huge amounts of normal KE interceptors because of amount of warheads in war would have been thousands.

Titus nice pictures to bad that�s all they are. Russia having space lasers don�t make me laugh, maybe they do have them in their drawings and dreams but Russia don�t have the tech money or resources to make them. So all they can do is draw flashy shiny pictures

yes westy just keep thiking that. BTW when russian tech outdoes american tech one day YOU will be in for a shock.

Originally posted by WestPoint23
Titus nice pictures to bad that�s all they are. Russia having space lasers don�t make me laugh, maybe they do have them in their drawings and dreams but Russia don�t have the tech money or resources to make them. So all they can do is draw flashy shiny pictures

The Russianreaserach into laser's and particle beam weapons was well ahead of the US. I wouldn't be so arrogant if I were you westy.

The sad thing about a lot of Russian tech is that it has always been overestimated or underestimated by western analysts, critics and enthusiasts.

Nice pics Titus btw

i may be wrong in saying this but i guess the whole notion of the Pushkino ABM is to explode a nuke in space near incoming ICBM's to set off a EMP charge or to destroy the missiles with the nuke blast.

just a thought,
drfunk

[edit on 18-9-2004 by drfunk]

Originally posted by drfunk
i may be wrong in saying this but i guess the whole notion of the Pushkino ABM is to explode a nuke in space near incoming ICBM's to set off a EMP charge or to destroy the missiles with the nuke blast.

just a thought,
drfunk

[edit on 18-9-2004 by drfunk]

Yeah, it was probably meant to have a nuke on because of it's inaccuracy, so when the ABM interceptor came close, let's say a few thousand feet, the ABM interceptor would explode and destroy the threat nuke.

Yes, it does the ABM system uses megatonne range thermonuclear weapons, the aim being to vaporise the incoming threat not using EMP.

Originally posted by mad scientist
Yes, it does the ABM system uses megatonne range thermonuclear weapons, the aim being to vaporise the incoming threat not using EMP.

Yeah, goal of the system was to destroy incoming warhead by vaporising it or damaging it enough to cause air friction to destroy it.

But nuke explosion in upper (/above) atmosphere produces very strong EMP, wanted you it or not.


A high-altitude nuclear detonation produces an immediate flux of gamma rays from the nuclear reactions within the device. These photons in turn produce high energy free electrons by Compton scattering at altitudes between (roughly) 20 and 40 km. These electrons are then trapped in the Earth’s magnetic field, giving rise to an oscillating electric current. This current is asymmetric in general and gives rise to a rapidly rising radiated electromagnetic field called an electromagnetic pulse (EMP).

The pulse can easily span continent-sized areas, and this radiation can affect systems on land, sea, and air. The first recorded EMP incident accompanied a high-altitude nuclear test over the South Pacific and resulted in power system failures as far away as Hawaii. A large device detonated at 400–500 km over Kansas would affect all of CONUS. The signal from such an event extends to the visual horizon as seen from the burst point.
www.fas.org...

EMP is a side effect, it isn't the primary kill mechanism of the system.