The Russian Defense Ministry has issued a statement Friday reporting that they’ve conducted a second test of the Sarmat system, a super-heavy intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that is intended to counter growing Western investment in missile defenses.
Dubbed a “powerful and modern” system by Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month, the Sarmat system is intended to have a worldwide rage, and to be able to bypass any current missile defense system.
The Sarmat has a payload of 10 tonnes, meaning it could hold 10 heavy warheads, or fewer warheads and a massive amount of countermeasures designed to combat missile defenses. Because of the range, the missile could travel across the South Pole, and by extension bypass every extent missile interceptor. It is intended to replace the SS-18 Satan, a Soviet heavy ICBM.
Putin has made much of developing such “invincible” systems as a counter to costly US missile defense programs. The US missile defense systems, however, are very limited, and their ability to intercept a series nuclear salvo is virtually non-existent.
Its hard to say with certainty that the U.S. is totally out of the missile defense game.
In both WWI and WWII, the U.S. staged come-from-behind victories against opponents who were at the time one step ahead in the technologies of the day. Germany and Japan started fighting one-up in the arms race game, only to get buried when the U.S. next gen weapons came online.
Germany and Japan were mired in costly wars they thought could be ended quickly, and found they could not update their forces on the fly, while the U.S. was just economically depressed but fighting no wars…. whups, the formula seems a little off this time…
We are not thinking about Germany and Japan . We are talking about Russia .Which developed the Russian tank and the AK47 both weapons superior to anything the Germans or anybody else had . And Russia developed these on the fly . Now Russia has been partnering with China and preparing for their dismemberment for more than 18 years . I don’t care how poor Russia is or how little they spend compared to the USA .. Russia has never once been defeated and taken over in their hundreds years of history . The Russian people are proud and very much United behind Putin . War does not necessarily go by how much money you spend . It is more likely to go by how wisely the money is spent . You can bet with Russia only having 50 billion to spend they spent it where the can do the most damage per buck .
What tank did the Soviet Union develop “on the fly?” If you’re talking about the T-34, it went into development in 1937 and into production into full production in 1940, nine months before the German attack. That’s not to say the Soviet Union wasn’t at war during that period (incidents with Japan, Finland, invasion of Poland, etc.), but they weren’t under the pressure of a massive invasion or anything.
Yes, that’s a key point.
Actually I was thinking about how the U.S. was manically at war and proxy war while trying to upgrade its armed forces at the same time simultaneously saddled with peacetime corruption instead of being bombed.
The AK-47 was developed shortly after WWII, based on the German Sturmgewehr 44, There was no real pressure on the Soviets to build a better rifle; the U.S. fielded the M1 Garand well into the 1950s and the SKS carbine was a good match.
Russia didn’t invent PGS warfare either; it was an American concept they realized they needed to get a handle on the same way they developed their own tanks after the British and French examples.
The Germans had a lot of creative weapon ideas but not enough time to implement them as the Allies bombed from the West and Russian army stormed back from the East.
Russia, as you intuitively recognize, is not disadvantaged as the Germans and Japanese were – and U.S. is, now..
Ballistic missiles and mini nukes that scatter into population zones along with nuclear guided smart missiles have been in development hypersonic missiles are in testing phase America has always let it’s adversaries show there capabilities and have always responded by producing something so lethal it scares the world and keeps the fine people on this site with something to cry about.
This is reminiscent of the deadly game which the Krupp company played in the 19th century except that it is now played by states. Here is what Krupp did. Krupp would develop a gun which could penetrate all existing steel plates of warships. A few years later Krupp would announce that it had developed a new steel plate which could not be breached by any existing cannon including Krupp’s best. A few years later…well you can guess what happened.