Today the Strategic Rocket Forces celebrate their 50th anniversary. To mark the occasion, Kommersant-Vlast published a very nice overview of the current status of the Russian missile force (with my introduction).
As an anniversary gift to his service, the commander of the Rocket Forces, Lt.-General Andrei Shvaichenko announced that RVSN is expected to receive a new "heavy missile" by 2016. As far as I know, nothing has started yet, but the Rocket Forces has indeed issued a call for proposals for a new missile. It is hard to say at this point what kind of project will emerge out of this effort, but most likely it is going to be a silo-based MIRVed missile. The SS-19 follow-on discussed earlier is the obvious candidate, but other options are possible as well.
This is not an unexpected development - it is clear that the Rocket Forces want to preserve their position as the dominant leg of the Russian strategic triad and to do so they would need a new MIRVed missile. Of course, if the disarmament momentum is preserved, a new missile would not be necessary. But if it is not, then the new missile may well materialize.
The book
Comments
Pavel, is there any English version of that article (about RVSN)in Kommersant?
Hi Pavel , if the current agreed warhead of ~ 1600 is taken into account will they need a new missile to replace the SS-18 and SS-19 ?
One will allegedly be developed.
On a related note an SS-18 was launched recently to certify that their lifetime can be extended to 23 years.
Hi,
a bit OT, but are there any information on RSD-10 (SS-20) deplI already deployments outside the USSR? I already had a look in the INF MOU and there are just bases within the USSR listed, but I am in a discussion about the time before INF. Some "eye witnesses" from the former East German army believe that they have seen SS-20 complexes in GDR, but for me that makes no sense. Thanks for any information and documents on that.
Hi Martin!
Writing from Germany I can assure you there were no RSD-10 deployments in East-Germany. The logistic needed for such movements couldn't be kept secret.
I know such East-German "eye witnesses" telling their storys on how they manage to "approach" highly guarded objects and who are otherwise not be able to distinguish the Temp (SS-12) missile and a MAZ547 TEL, or a MiG-23BN from MiG-27, or a T-64 from T-72 :-)
There are no evidence for this claim...
Moreover the RSD-10 was able to hit any european target from bases let's say in Ukraine or Belo-Russia.
Cheers
@Bernd.
Thanks for the help. That was also my point that putting the RSD-10 so close to the West would make no sense at all. There are also some rumors about "silos" on some former Soviet bases in Thuringia, but as far as I know the only theater silo weapons were the R-12U and R-14U which were never deployed outside USSR, except Cuba of course. Are there any reliable documents on forward depployment of Soviet nuclear weapons in Eastern Europe? You can find a lot of stuff about that for the US during cold war, but I haven't found anything for the USSR yet.
-> Martin:
>Are there any reliable documents on forward depployment of Soviet nuclear weapons in Eastern Europe?
I don't know such sources (-> google).
The only thing I know is that along with the deployment of the "biggest" missile which saw service in East-Germany, namely the R-5 (SS-3) back in 1959, there were storages at Fürstenberg (53.206630° 13.200914°) and at Vogelsang (53.056575° 13.370056°) each with two launchers and six missiles along with an unknown amount of nuclear warheads at this sites.
Moreover there was definitely a nuc warhead storage at Templin AB (53.026481° 13.548886°).
For sure there were several more at locations unknown to me.
The Temp missile (SS-12) was deployed on their mobile TELs back in the 80ties at the following locations:
Waren (53.543064° 12.633421°) with 22 Missiles, 12 TEL Launchers;
Wokuhl ( 53.299032° 13.140553°) with 5 Missiles, 6 TEL Launchers;
Koenigsbrueck (51.278056° 13.890556°) with 19 Missiles, 11 TEL Launchers;
Bischofswerda (51.132345° 14.197043°) with 8 Missiles, 5 TEL Launchers.
Moreover we saw deployment of Orka missiles (SS-23) at two sites:
Weissenfels (51.198153° 11.994029°) with 6 Missiles, 4 TEL Launchers;
Jena-Fürst (50.914433° 11.541742°) with 47 Missiles, 12 TEL Launchers.
My guess is that we can assume nuc. warhead deployment along with these locations too.
There were definitely no silo launch systems in East-Germany.
Cheers and a happy new year to all
bernd reuter
martin
Gentlemen, a very interesting conversation. A question regarding the SS-12 Scaleboard TR-1 Temp (9M76). As this was a theater missile system with a range of 900 km or so, what was its mission?
Was the TR-1 Temp designed to give Soviet battlefield generals the ability to strike, with nuclear weapons, any attacking NATO force crossing the East German or Czech borders or was this an offensive system? Was the purpose of this weapon to attack rear NATO targets such as airbases and logistical centers in the event of a Soviet push to the Rhine? Just curious.
Best regards and Happy New Years’ to you both!
Frank Shuler
USA
Frank
I personally don't know what tactical purpose these weapons served. Maybe to challenge the Pershing/cruise missile sites?
My guess is that it should be more understood by political aspects in the insane logic of threat and counter threat.
East places SS-20, West counter with Pershing II and Cruise missiles and thought that would be accepted as a balance, East apply "counter counter measures" and sent in SS-12/23...West think about "counter counter counter measures".....
I think there was already enough destructive power back in the midth 70ties to blow up whole Europe into the stone-age. I personally think there was no military need to enhance this destructive power.
In my opinion I'm thankful that Reagan / Gorbatshev try to change this spiral of nonsense....at least for a while.
But probably we are at the edge of new madness like this?
Cheers
Now you have all resourses nessessary to calculate nuke math and visualize it. After Martin Trolle located SS-3 positions in East Germany (1959)I used NRDC Nuke Effects Calculator and put on the best possible target: NATO HQ, Paris, France, using Google Earth. Add five hundred SS-4\5 deployed in Western USSR to see - it's overkill. Yet those were only "eurostrategic" nukes of only one side.
Soviet war plans called for practically burning a path westward with nuclear weapons. Legitimate targets for Eurostrategic nukes included cities (Paris, London, Madrid, etc.), large naval and air bases, and even significant concentrations of ground troops.
bernd reuter
I sincerely believe today the old Cold War strategy is gone from American policy thinking. If Russia wants a new START agreement based on the Putin Initiative, 1500 deployed warheads for each side, the United States will agree. If Russia is concerned about the up-loading potential of the American nuclear arsenal and wants to negotiate a follow-up treaty on the “vast number” of American “reserve nuclear warheads” held in storage, such an agreement is possible. For both to happen, two conditions must be met. START negotiations must not attempt to link ballistic missile defense within the scope of strategic nuclear arms reductions. Just as the original ABM Treaty stood outside of START, so should any future agreement on such defenses. And second, for an absolute limit on the number of reserve warheads to be negotiated with Washington, Russia must be willing to include all nuclear weapons in the agreement. President Obama sees little distinction in nuclear warheads; whether strategic or, so-called, tactical. I believe it could be possible to negotiate an absolute ceiling on all American-Russian nuclear warheads and that agreement could be made verifiable. Pick a number, say, 3500. Both Russia and the US would be able to have an absolute total of “only” 3500 nuclear weapons; it would be up to both sides to determine delivery systems based on the self-defense needs of each nation with only 1500 warheads operationally deployed.
However, trying to link ABM defenses to START will fail. And, the Kremlin’s desire to reduce the American up-load potential without being willing in turn to include the large Russian tactical warhead inventory, is a no-go. Neither approach will gain passage in the US Senate and nuclear arms treaties between Russia and the United States will go the way of START II. Nowhere...
Frank Shuler
USA