
Russia Shows Off Its New Nuclear Intercontinental Ballistic Missle - Golddisk
https://thesurge.net/russia-shows-off-its-new-nuclear-intercontinental-ballistic-missle/
======
philipkglass
_The missile, officially called the RS-28 Sarmat (pictured left), has been
nicknamed Satan 2 and it serves as a replacement for the RS-36M, which was
often called “Satan” by NATO.

...

The new missile is believed to be mostly an upgrade in electronic systems,
with little or no changes to the ICBM’s range or power according to Robert
Kelley, a former nuclear weapons expert from the U.S, Dept of Energy. Its
important to note, however, that only one of these missiles is powerful enough
to destroy huge landmasses – it is estimated that one could destroy an area as
large as Texas or France, with each warhead capable of carrying 10 tons of
nukes._

Absolutely ridiculous. If this is an upgrade to the R-36 family that doesn't
upgrade the warheads, then we can look at the the 10-warhead variants of R-36
("RS-36M" must be a typo; there is no such commonly used missile designation):
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-36_(missile)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-36_\(missile\))

Observe that the R-36 configuration with 10 warheads delivers at most 1
megaton per warhead. That's enough to ruin any nation-state's day, but it
falls woefully short of destroying the Texan/French landmass. The widest-
ranging immediate effect of large nuclear explosions is burns from radiant
energy; for a 1 megaton airburst you can expect third degree burns from
radiant energy out to a 12.6 km radius (497 km^2 area). With 10 warheads you
can inflict that level of destruction across 4970 km^2, or about 0.7%/0.8% of
the total area of Texas/France. No doubt it could kill a much larger fraction
of the population in either location, because humans are very concentrated in
urban areas, but there's another twist: the R-36M2 Voevoda (SS-18 Mod 5) that
this new missile will replace is designed for _hard target kills_ , e.g.
attacking underground bunkers or missile silos with surface bursts. That's why
the new missile will have accuracy upgrades: it's easy to destroy a city via
ICBM even with sloppy guidance, but hardened targets need a relatively close
hit to ensure destruction. This hard target attack role means that the lethal-
to-humans radius is going to be smaller and that the targets are going to be
missile silos out in the middle of nowhere rather than e.g. Houston or San
Antonio.

You can play with Nukemap here to see the effects:
[http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/](http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/)

All in all this was an impressively high level of stupid exaggeration for a
topic that needs no exaggeration at all to be sobering.

~~~
Golddisk
You are correct. While this could be used against a city, its real purpose is
to focus on attacking bunkers where other countries' nukes are stored.

------
godzillabrennus
Cold War 2.0 is not something I'm excited about...

~~~
Golddisk
Nope, but it looks like we could be heading in that direction if relations
don't improve.

~~~
dmix
Foreign Policy has a reporter at Russia's main "national-security brain trust"
and apparently Russia's top leaders are very scared that Clinton will start a
war with Russia: [https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/09/07/the-kremlin-really-
beli...](https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/09/07/the-kremlin-really-believes-
that-hillary-clinton-will-start-a-war-with-russia-donald-trump-vladimir-
putin/) So it's not surprising that they continue to sabre rattle.

Especially considering that creating a 'no-fly zone' in Russia is being thrown
around by a number of American politicians and seemed to be a core Hillary
position regarding Syria. A US general recently said that doing so would
basically involve starting a war with Russia and Syria:
[https://youtu.be/8mNgElVy7eQ?t=3m20s](https://youtu.be/8mNgElVy7eQ?t=3m20s)

I another recently heard on the War Nerd podcast that an influential US
foriegn adviser was talking on Twitter (can't find the tweet just now) that we
shouldn't be so scared of Russian's air defense in Syria since their S-300 [1]
has been around since the 1970s, and surely we know their weaknesses by now.
But this weapon is still a serious threat and this isn't even considering the
fact S-400 could also be deployed. It's scary to see these threats downplayed
by the people who have politician's ears while the military still takes them
seriously.

So I really hope the US treads carefully in the future because the world
doesn't really benefit from an escalation here. It's sad that Russia is being
used as a political gambit rather carelessly. Considering there's almost
always a diplomatic avenue that could be taken to avoid war but it takes
careful handling which I feel is largely ignored, likely because they don't
see a war with Russia as a real possibility so they don't feel the need to
hold back their vitriol. But it seems those words are being taken seriously in
Russia by the people who matter.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-300_(missile_system)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-300_\(missile_system\))

------
ommunist
Do not worry, this one does not fly. It is not even fully tested. In fact, it
is not even assembled. Not a single one. It could be a weapon of mass
destruction, but everything military in Russia after 1991 is more like a
weapon of mass amusement.

------
jonathanstrange
Human stupidity has no limits. :(

------
boznz
IOT Enabled?

~~~
foxyv
SMS: Your nuclear missile is running low on (Hydrazine) press your Amazon Dash
button to purchase $1M of replacement barrels and have it shipped to your silo
today!

SMS: Your warhead is getting old. Purchase a new Uranium cartridge from HP for
$100M dollars.

