Bulava SLBM Thread:

close-up view of Bulava

Successful Bulava launch from Yuri "the long armed"...

http://ria.ru/defense_safety/20111028/473142063.html

Russia successfully test fires Bulava missiles


Russia successfully test launched two Bulava intercontinental ballistic missiles on Friday, Defense Ministry spokesman Col. Igor Konashenkov said.


The missiles were launched from the Borey-class Yury Dolgoruky nuclear-powered submarine in the White Sea and hit designated targets at the Kura test range on Kamchatka, some 6,000 kilometers to the east.

This was the troubled Bulava’s 18th test launch. Only 11 launches have been officially declared successful.

But some analysts suggest that in reality the number of failures is considerably larger. Russian military expert Pavel Felgengauer said that of the Bulava's first 12 test launches, only one was entirely successful.

Despite several previous failures, officially blamed on manufacturing faults, the Russian military has insisted that there is no alternative to the Bulava.

The Bulava (SS-NX-30) SLBM carries up to 10 MIRV warheads and has a range of over 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles). The three-stage ballistic missile is designed for deployment on Borey-class nuclear submarines.

http://www.en.ria.ru/mlitary_news/20111223/170450806.html

Pavel Felgenhauer is the Tom Clancy of the Russian Federation...

Before the Georgians invaded South Ossetia he was talking about the Georgians getting US and NATO training and western C4IR kit including Israeli drones and bits and pieces and he basically said that any conflict that the Georgians would wipe the floor with any Abkhazian or South Ossetian force and that it would teach a Russian force a lesson too.

I don't really like the guy very much.

Even in this case with a successful launch of a missile system this dick dwells on the previous failures... what an asshat.

All the failed tests were from static test stands or the modified Typhoon and all tests in the Borey class sub that will actually carry the weapon operationally have been successful.

More fun to say the sky is falling however...

Bulava missile completes flight tests, ready to deploy

The flight tests of the Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile have been completed and it will now be adopted for service with the Russian Navy, President Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday.

“We have made a very important step - we have completed the cycle of flight tests… of the Bulava missile,” he said. “Now it will be put into service.”

Russia successfully test launched two Bulava intercontinental ballistic missiles on Friday.

The missiles were launched from the Borey-class Yury Dolgoruky nuclear-powered submarine in the White Sea and hit designated targets at the Kura test range on Kamchatka, some 6,000 kilometers to the east.

http://www.en.ria.ru/mlitary_news/20111227/170516131.html

Bulava missile ready to deploy

The flight tests of the Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile have been completed and it will now be adopted for service with the Russian Navy, President Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday.



“We have made a very important step - we have completed the cycle of flight tests… of the Bulava missile,” he said. “Now it will be put into service.”



Russia successfully test launched two Bulava intercontinental ballistic missiles on Friday.



The missiles were launched from the Borey-class Yury Dolgoruky nuclear-powered submarine in the White Sea and hit designated targets at the Kura test range on Kamchatka, some 6,000 kilometers to the east.



They were the 18th and 19th test launches of the troubled Bulava. Only 11 launches have been officially declared successful.



But some analysts suggest that in reality the number of failures is considerably larger. Russian military expert Pavel Felgenhauer said that of the Bulava's first 12 test launches, only one was entirely successful.



Despite several previous failures, officially blamed on manufacturing faults, the Russian military has insisted that there is no alternative to the Bulava.



The Bulava (SS-NX-30) SLBM, developed by the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology (since 1998), carries up to 10 MIRV warheads and has a range of over 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles). The three-stage ballistic missile is designed for deployment on Borey-class nuclear submarines.

http://www.en.ria.ru/mlitary_news/20111227/170517515.html

Exceptionally great video of two Bulava missiles lunch.

http://www.tvzvezda.ru/news/forces/content/201112271612-iobq.htm

Wooaaaaaah!

I always thought that missiles are launched with intervals of several seconds between each other. These two seem to have been fired at the same time. A real salvo launch.

Operation Behemoth

Russia’s Bulava Carrying Sub to Enter Service by June




17:02 20/01/2012
MOSCOW, January 20 (RIA Novosti)
Tags: Yury Dolgoruky submarine, Bulava, Russia, Moscow


Russia’s newest nuclear-powered submarine, the Yury Dolgoruky, will be put into operation in the second quarter of the year, the United Shipbuilding Corporation said on Friday.

The Borey-class Project 955 sub will be armed with the Bulava intercontinental ballistic missiles but a USC representative said it was yet to be decided when the troubled missile will enter service.

The sub’s construction began in 1996 at the Sevmash shipyard and was completed in 2008. It has a crew of 130 and will be armed with 16 Bulava SLBMs and six SS-N-15 cruise missiles.

President Dmitry Medvedev said in late December that the flight tests of the Bulava SLBM were completed and it will now be adopted for service with the Russian Navy.

Russia successfully test launched two Bulava missiles on December 23.

They were the 18th and 19th test launches of the troubled Bulava. Only 11 launches have been officially declared successful.

But some analysts suggest that in reality the number of failures is considerably larger. Russian military expert Pavel Felgenhauer said that of the Bulava's first 12 test launches, only one was entirely successful.

Despite several previous failures, officially blamed on manufacturing faults, the Russian military has insisted that there is no alternative to the Bulava.

The Bulava (SS-NX-30) SLBM, developed by the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology (since 1998), carries up to 10 MIRV warheads and has a range of over 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles). The three-stage ballistic missile is designed for deployment on Borey-class nuclear submarines.

http://www.en.ria.ru/mlitary_news/20120120/170865320.html

Many people say that the bulava is still no where near the trident 2 SLBM and while I disagree with this did see that in the statistics of these 2 missiles I saw that the trident has 11000km range while the bulava has only 8000 km range. What is the size of this disadvantage? Also many people say that the trident 2 is the most accurate SLBM in the world but how much exactly is the CEP of the bulava compared to the trident?

What merits does the bulava have that he trident 2 doesnt?

The US wants a first strike capability, and Russia covers a very large area of the globe, while the US covers a rather smaller area.

For the Russians more warheads is more useful than maximum range as such and accuracy above about 200m is actually fairly pointless in operational terms.

Ask yourself what use is extra range when you can hit all of Europe and China and the Middle East and the US from your ports?

High precision is only useful in a first strike because it means you can attempt to defeat enough of your enemies strategic nuclear capability before he can launch an effective attack on you. Obviously there is little chance of your missiles arriving without the attack being detected and whether their missiles are launched 5 seconds after yours or 5 minutes after yours is not really important because at the moment most will make it to their targets anyway... and all that precision goes into accurately hitting empty silos.

SLBMs are generally considered either a sneaky rapid first strike capability (ie US) or a guaranteed retaliation mechanism (ie the Russians).

The result is different results from different requirements.

Damn ... not again this saga

Testing the "Boreas" suspended because of a bad start "Bulava"

Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu ordered the government to suspend testing of nuclear submarines "Alexander Nevsky" and "Vladimir Monomakh" because of a failed missile launch "Mace". This was September 7 reports "Interfax" .

As explained in the press service of the Defense Ministry, failure to start, "Mace" from "Alexander Nevsky" was made on September 6 in the White Sea. The rocket, which was supposed to hit a target at the Kura test site in Kamchatka, nominally out of the launch canister, but in the second minute flight to its on-board system has failed.

In addition to the suspension of trials "Alexander Nevsky" and "Vladimir Monomakh" Shoigu has decided to conduct an additional five practical launches "Mace" to confirm it set the technical parameters.

"Alexander Nevsky" and "Vladimir Monomakh" - the first two serial strategic nuclear submarines of project 955 "Borey". According to the plans, they must be transferred to the Russian fleet at the end of 2013.

The new missile "Bulava" is the main weapon of submarines. Each of the submarines can carry 16 intercontinental ballistic missile solid fuel "Bulava-30" range of more than 10,000 kilometers.

LINK

Not the end of the world.

They will just need to do a few more tests and investigate what happened and hopefully sort it out.

With all these extra tests it should be a properly reliable missile once it is fully in service.

There is good luck and there is bad luck... good luck can get a bad weapon into service where you don't know it is faulty till you need to use it... in the case of an SLBM such over confidence is a bad thing. With bad luck you will thoroughly test the system to make sure it works before considering it ready... in this case the latter is better, though more expensive than the former.

So now what, start the tests all over again?

The missile was supposed to have had all of its kinks sorted out by now.
Now there are new ones.
Let's suppose we press it into service, all seems fine, but then a good part of the missiles don't work due to flaws again.

The later in the development process these sorts of things are noticed, the more expensive it is to fix them.

1. The bulava testing was stopped by Mod because U.S NORAD was getting too much information
about the latest weapon in Russian strike arsenal.
There was news that zig-zag manuevr over kamchantka, amur, vostochny(?)was noticed by U.S tracking systems.

2.the missile was not tested fully. due to G20 pressure the test was pre-poned to coincide with meeting at ST petersuerg.

3.The no of missiles produced till now not known. Also how do you open the systems of R-30 missiles already produced for
 3 submarines alteast. That would amount to almost 30 R-30 missles in storage by now..??Major political meesage would have gone
to White house in case of Syria in G20 meeting

4. Dont know how the Navy will come up for the test scehddule they had another test by end of september by dont what would happen
to that.

The warhead has manouvering capability... an Su-35 has manouvering capability.

If you want to you can take off in an Su-35 and fly to max range and then land without pulling more than 1-2 gs and without revealing anything about performance in combat.

Missiles can be tested without showing off terminal performance... in fact aiming for a point off to one side of the big cross aim point could lull the US into thinking it was rather less accurate than it actually is.

They found the reason for Bulava failure - that was quick

Named the cause of the launch failure "Bulava"

Bulava is  a war material it cannot be compared with the development of su-35.
Bulava is atop secret material and nothing about it is known till today.The no of tests exercising features of this missile has gone upto 20 or even more.

ITs testing was stopped in 2011 due to secury information reasons.

Now its testing is starting again for new submarines.
bulava test failure

Putin would have it inside Syria if he had to.

To determine the cause of the incident was a commission under the leadership of Commander of the Navy,
Admiral Viktor Chirkov, the newspaper said. And on Saturday, according to the "Y", with Deputy Prime Minister
Dmitry Rogozin, a meeting was held with representatives of the War Department and, in particular, of the
Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology (developer of the complex). An unnamed member of the
committee told the newspaper that "most likely, it is the fault of some companies involved in the cooperation."

I wasn't comparing the development of the Bulava with the development of the Su-35.

I was just saying that if the reason they don't like testing Bulava a lot is because of US spying on the results might give them too much information that they could simply use dummy false warheads that just fall to earth to test the reliability of the missiles themselves... they don't need to give away terminal ballistics secrets with every test...

ITs testing was stopped in 2011 due to secury information reasons.

But why?

Surely they can continue testing with a modified terminal stage that gives false data to the US regarding the terminal stage of the weapon...

I find it stupid the idea that they have ordered 5 more test after , 7 sucessful test and 1 failure.

In India we dont test more than 3 times IRBM/ICBM before it gets inducted in Armed Forces and when they are inducted the armed forces rarely test it.

Recently the Armed forces tested the inducted Agni-2 which failed for some reason and they rectified the problem and within a year DRDO tested it and declared it successful ....the problem was some issue with component manufacturer , QC issue.

Bulava by now has been tested 20 times and more than half of those are sucessful ....so not sure why they keep testing it , one more sucessful test  is more than enough why they need 5.

I am quite sure all our Agni series i.e Agni-1 , 2 ,3 ,4 and 5 has not been tested in total till date till 20 times including failures and success.

But why?

Surely they can continue testing with a modified terminal stage that gives false data to the US regarding the terminal stage of the weapon...

I am not an expert on strategic weapons.I cannot answer why the tests were stopped.

But yaah the new submarines were still in development.
AND ALSO THE less number of tests done with Bulava points that Russ Navy wants to keep information
about  flight characteristics as classified as possible
this gives less chance for u.s long range radars to track the trajectory , speed and mode of attack
for such sensitive weapons.

In India we dont test more than 3 times IRBM/ICBM before it gets inducted in Armed Forces and when they are inducted the armed forces rarely test it.

Once such systems become operational they are regularly tested in exercises and operational tests. Older missiles given upgrades of any kind are often also tested to ensure the upgrades have not effected performance negatively.

Older missiles near expiry dates are often used in tests to ensure they still work and missiles being withdrawn are often modified for use in the lucrative sat launch role to recover some of the cost of making them.

Recently the Armed forces tested the inducted Agni-2 which failed for some reason and they rectified the problem and within a year DRDO tested it and declared it successful ....the problem was some issue with component manufacturer , QC issue.

When the problem is identified and corrected there is no need to delay service entry... when there are multiple issues then multiple tests can be needed to ensure solutions work.

The cause of the launch failure "Bulava" was a violation of technology in the manufacture of the material to the nozzle
http://www.itar-tass.com/c1/959458.html

The cause of the launch failure "Bulava" September 6, was a violation of technology in the manufacture of the material to the nozzle. Itar-Tass said the first deputy chairman of the Military-Industrial Commission under the Government of the Russian Federation Ivan Kharchenko. He could not say whether his work has been commission to investigate the causes of the accident, but referred to the operational reports. "If an idea: the manufacture of the material from which made the nozzle was broken technology," - he said. "When all the cards picked up, it was determined that the same defect is material for another three rockets / the same production batch /", - he added.

First deputy head of the military-industrial complex emphasized that we are not talking about any significant alteration of missiles, because the defect concerns the sliding nozzle. "It's just about changing to three more rockets from the party itself that element," - he stressed. Kharchenko did not specify whether already done this work by proposing to address this question to Roscosmos. "But this is not some fatal error. And for us it was important that after the missile was tested in the trial serial number 202" Borey "and actually work to launch complex, work boats and all of its systems have no complaints," - he added agency. In this regard, he said, a good thing that the defect was discovered, since it will be possible to remove it on three missiles.

The cause of the launch failure "Bulava" was a violation of technology in the manufacture of the material to the nozzle
http://www.itar-tass.com/c1/959458.html

The cause of the launch failure "Bulava" September 6, was a violation of technology in the manufacture of the material to the nozzle. Itar-Tass said the first deputy chairman of the Military-Industrial Commission under the Government of the Russian Federation Ivan Kharchenko. He could not say whether his work has been commission to investigate the causes of the accident, but referred to the operational reports. "If an idea: the manufacture of the material from which made the nozzle was broken technology," - he said. "When all the cards picked up, it was determined that the same defect is material for another three rockets / the same production batch /", - he added.

First deputy head of the military-industrial complex emphasized that we are not talking about any significant alteration of missiles, because the defect concerns the sliding nozzle. "It's just about changing to three more rockets from the party itself that element," - he stressed. Kharchenko did not specify whether already done this work by proposing to address this question to Roscosmos. "But this is not some fatal error. And for us it was important that after the missile was tested in the trial serial number 202" Borey "and actually work to launch complex, work boats and all of its systems have no complaints," - he added agency. In this regard, he said, a good thing that the defect was discovered, since it will be possible to remove it on three missiles.