Strategic Rocket Forces (RVSN): Discussion & News

Since the end of the INF treaty the US is developing medium and intermediate range ballistic weapons MRBM and IRBM... with ranges of between 500km and 5,500km (less than 500km are considered short range ballistic missiles and beyond 5,000km is Intercontinental BMs.. ICBMs of course.

Of course an important feature now is that an air breathing missile could have the range and speed of a rocket powered ballistic weapon in a much smaller and lighter package and because it would essentially fly inside the atmosphere on the way to the target it would be much harder to stop and deal with.

An Iskander with an extra solid rocket stage or an ICBM or SLBM with one stage removed would be the quickest easiest cheapest way of getting an IRBM into service quickly, but some sort of from scratch custom designed model would make more sense in terms of size and weight and performance..

Will these missiles be used to carry out a conventional strike or will they be used to launch a nuclear attack only?

With the precision of terminal guidance systems they can use I would expect a range of warhead types depending on the target and the mission.

A WWII bomber force of 1,000 planes each carrying 2 tons of bombs or more might drop their entire load trying to hit one factory situated in a German town, but might need repeat attacks over several nights to try to hit the target.

With a modern missile or guided bomb they would only need one weapon to get the job done.

In the 1980s an SS-N-21, called Granat by the soviets had only inertial guidance so the CEP was something like 250m, which meant it could not use a 400kg HE warhead to destroy a target.... it needed a nuclear warhead.

Current missiles can be accurate enough that a nuclear warhead is not needed... for instance a HATO SAM installation, your missile might be directed at the tracking or search radars or the command buildings, which when hit make the entire SAM system useless.

Of course these days with US forces in Eastern European countries Russia might decide that rather than pinprick surgical strikes they might want a sledge hammer to send a message so a powerful nuclear device might be launched to destroy the target and also a significant area of terrain around that target too.

START refers to strategic weapons so intermediate and medium as well as short range nuclear weapons are not included, so the withdrawal by the US of the INF treaty means Russia can now point all of its strategic missiles at the US and develop shorter range weapons for Europe and Japan and the Middle East etc.

It will allow them to get a much better coverage of targets in the US and Europe.

It also creates the opportunity for Russia to attack a target and destroy it without potentially starting a nuclear war.

A HATO supported Ukrainian attack on Russia itself might result in a hypersonic missile attack with a conventional warhead on an HQ in Brussels for instance... if they want to respond with nuclear weapons, well Russia is in a much better position to shoot down their weapon than they are of shooting down Russias missiles.

In any case a U.S MRBM or IRBM launch will be picked up by Russian early warning systems and it will be judged as a nuclear missile. This is because the technology to definitively distinguish between incoming nuclear and conventional warheads does NOT exist anywhere in the world.

A conventional or nuclear attack on Russia will lead to a response that may not wait for the incoming missile to explode so the may have no idea of what sort of warhead it had.

Cruise missiles as battlefield weapons are much effective than tactical ballistic missiles. Russia should increase its arsenal of cruise missiles.

Well it is interesting. The new cruise missiles might replace turbofan engines with scramjet engines and instead of hugging the terrain to stay hidden from ground based radar they might fly very high above the effective altitude of HATO SAMs and AAMs, and use manouvering to evade interception...

Ie replace stealth with speed.

They will certainly develop both and both will likely be a good combination that makes defence more difficult and more expensive...

I know about others but what​ does Osina-RV do?