Comparison of U.S. and Russian ABM systems

No need to annihilate, just inflict unacceptable damage & destroy nuke sites. That's why Trump recently met Kim & both hope to meet again. The MAD doctrine time is over. Also precision non-nukes can substitute for tactical nukes.

Yes MAD doctrine time is over. Now the possibility of using a nuclear weapon is increasing. Another START increases only the risk. Russia is currently unable to cover all military purposes in the US and where the NATO regime. On the other hand, the potential of the UK and France, 8 SSBN, comes to the USA.

No, you are both wrong... MAD is the only thing holding the US back... it is only the threat of destruction of the US that stops them because otherwise war is good for their economy.

Yes, the need is to kill people... Russia doesn't need to hit US ICBM silos, or their air bases... they will be empty by the time Russian weapons get there whether the US starts it or Russia does.

The purpose of Russian strategic weapons is to clear a path to launch positions for their strategic bomber cruise missile carriers... so radar and airfields in north america are all targets as well as ABM systems and of course population centres.

Precision guided weapons have replaced nukes in theatre war, but not strategic war... in strategic war you don't need to hit silo hatch covers because by the time your missiles reach there they will be empty... cruise missiles will be aimed at cities and food production areas, and water supplies... they are "you've killed us so we are going to kill you" weapons.

With NATO bases so close to Russia there is a risk that a large conventional precision strike could take out enough systems to stop a retaliation strike to take place... a sort of pre-emptive decapitation, except that currently Russian air defences can probably cope with western cruise missiles and Russian forces are too strong to get away with it... a Russian nuclear strike would be launched as soon as it was clear that was what NATO was trying to do... and it becomes a case of use it before you lose it (ie ability to launch nuclear strike).

For there to be a new Start agreement signed that replaces the existing agreement there will no doubt need to be a lot of changes... the US will want to include hypersonic missiles of course, and Russia will likely demand more missiles than the US because the US also has UK and French missiles on their team... not to mention the US controlled ABM system in Europe, in the US, on AEGIS class ships, and likely soon in Japan/South Korea.

I rather suspect the Russians wont be under any illusions and will play rather more hard ball than they have done before.

The whole point of START is to maintain MAD... and various weapons like Poseiden and the nuclear powered cruise missile should offer a guaranteed revenge for Russia no matter who starts what.

GarryB wrote:
The purpose of Russian strategic weapons is to clear a path to launch positions for their strategic bomber cruise missile carriers.

Do you think it's probable for Russian ballistic missiles to break through European or US ABM shield? NORAD has been always pretty much impossible to penetrate for Russians.

Which ABM shield?

verkhoturye51 wrote:

Do you think it's probable for Russian ballistic missiles to break through European or US ABM shield? NORAD has been always pretty much impossible to penetrate for Russians.

Just how many interceptors they have ? and how many targets it can be expected to handle.

It's pretty much still a problem for both US and Russia to handle massed SLBM or ICBM attacks.

Hole wrote:Which ABM shield?

Stealthflanker wrote:Just how many interceptors they have ? and how many targets it can be expected to handle.

It's pretty much still a problem for both US and Russia to handle massed SLBM or ICBM attacks.

100 Aegis ships, 1100 Patriot launchers, 30 GBIs. This month Arrow 3 deliveries started, it has kill rate of 99 %.

Not all of those ships will be in position, the Patriots r not that effective, GBIs & Arrow 3s weren't tested against the real Russian BMs & their decoys.

Do you think it's probable for Russian ballistic missiles to break through European or US ABM shield? NORAD has been always pretty much impossible to penetrate for Russians.

Yes.

The new MARV warheads don't just fall, they manouver, so US ABM systems are no where near in a position to cope... especially when the first hundred missiles come via the south pole instead of the north...

100 Aegis ships, 1100 Patriot launchers, 30 GBIs. This month Arrow 3 deliveries started, it has kill rate of 99 %.

How many of those AEGIS ships are actually in a position to do anything?

Patriot is irrelevant... we are talking about SLBMs and ICBMs... not SCUDS.

And Arrow 3... is it called that because that is how many they will have?

30 GBIs dealing with a thousand warheads and tens of thousands of decoys...

Avangrd, Sarmats or Poseidons were build for reason... Patriots in Korea/Japan or EU will take first blow from Kiznahls/Iskanders/Zircons

An airburst nuke in space would black out most radar for half an hour and render most unprotected electronics in need of replacement... and it could be launched over the south pole to prevent interception...

There are around 20 Burke class ships fitted with the modified radars, software and missiles for the ABM role, rest is pure air defence. Plus a few rusty Ticonderogas.

Patriot can only engange short range ballistic missiles.

GBI system missed more than half of the targets.

THAAD was never used, even against north-korean missiles flying above Japan.

Hole wrote:There are around 20 Burke class ships fitted with the modified radars, software and missiles for the ABM role, rest is pure air defence. Plus a few rusty Ticonderogas.

Patriot can only engange short range ballistic missiles.

GBI system missed more than half of the targets.

THAAD was never used, even against north-korean missiles flying above Japan.

Not only 20, 28 Burke Flight I/II plus the 3 new restart Fl IIA are ABM ships: 31 and 5 Ticonderoga : 36

verkhoturye51 wrote:
100 Aegis ships, 1100 Patriot launchers, 30 GBIs. This month Arrow 3 deliveries started, it has kill rate of 99 %.

Only GBI is designed or having any chance to kill ICBM's. So 30 GBI's is what the best you have.

Those AEGIS's and Patriots and Arrows are NOT for ICBM's, they're at best used for interception of IRBM's.

As mentioned, Patriot even fails pretty hard to defeat an old, basic missile that is less advanced than Scud C.  Then the fact that most Russian BM's were designed with a quasi ballistic flight path since Topol was created as it was becoming much easier to shoot down BM's flying at a standard ballistic flight path.

A rated "kill" is best case scenario. Iron Dome also was said to have such high accuracy and turns out it doesn't. Not like Russian system would fair better. It comes down to that it really isn't easy to shoot down missiles and rockets. Now make them harder to track cause they don't fly at standard curve, then it becomes harder.

Funny NORAD was mentioned. I can't say much because even my access to info was very limited due to fact my family member couldn't explain it without getting into trouble but stationed up in Dew Line in 1985 and job was monitoring Soviet bombers and nuke launches, I asked him what would happen if a Soviet nuke headed our way and his answer was "kiss our ass goodbye. Oh and we were not allowed to call home to loved ones".

Both sides bluff. They really Trump up their systems greater than they really are. In end, we won't know cause both sides knows for fact that it would be the end. And in honesty, I rather live in fear but be alive, than be dead.

Not only 20, 28 Burke Flight I/II plus the 3 new restart Fl IIA are ABM ships: 31 and 5 Ticonderoga : 36

Yeah, but they are no good unless they are sitting under the flight path of the missile they are supposed to be intercepting... and even they they need to be watching for the target.

Chances are unless there is a planned attack against Russia... in which case ships can be positioned and systems prepared, these boats wont be anywhere near where they need to be to be effective at shooting down ICBMs.

Performance against BMs for Soviet and Russian SAMs is much much better because they have been designing their missiles to intercept BMs for decades... it was a primary requirement, while for Patriot it was never even considered even at the deployment stage let alone the development stages where much more effective changes to design could be made.

Patriot didn't actually fail in Desert Storm... they were trying to use a an anti aircraft missile system against missiles for which it was never designed properly to do.

Needless to say THAAD is not even as good as S-300P/V in some aspects, let alone S-400 or S-500...

GarryB wrote: especially when the first hundred missiles come via the south pole instead of the north...

This is starting to be good. Russia will overcome 20.000 km from their mainland to US via south pole?

The only theoretical way would be to launch missiles towards Mexico and than turn them north. But that's too large distance for ICBMs or bombers. The only option are three ballistic missile submarines of the Pacific fleet with max 320 150 kiloton warheads, which wouldn't exactly paralize the US. We have to take into account that some would malfuntion or be shot down.

There is a new missile called Sarmat which achieves a range of 20.000km.

No, it's 11.000 km. Even Satan has max 16.000 km range.

You folks do realize that ABM shield does not work and even if by some miracle it worked with 95% reliability it would still not be good enough to prevent extinction of US population?

Also, you have gone off-topic quite a bit....

verkhoturye51 wrote:No, it's 11.000 km. Even Satan has max 16.000 km range.

SSBN can move you know ? One can go off the coast of Africa and wait there.

It sounds like the Sarmat will have FOBS capability, so it will have unlimited range and an unpredictable attack vector. In essence, it puts a warhead/HGV into low orbit, then de-orbits when over the target. There is of course a trade-off in the form of reduced payload weight, but its worth it to give a migraine to Seppostani missile defense planners

A threat of another Pearl Harbor attack with SLBMs from the Sea of Okhotsk &/ SLCMs/Status 6 from the surrounding Pacific Ocean is enough to cool hot heads in Washington; not much need to target CONUS overcoming the BMD that may btw have new elements on both coasts looking South. Diego Garcia (looking North), Kerguelen, Falklands, PR, Clipperton, Colombia, &/ Panama may also host them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Garcia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerguelen_Islands
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falkland_Islands
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rico
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipperton_Island
The US is in the process of setting up a new Space Force branch

A threat of another Pearl Harbor attack with SLBMs from the Sea of Okhotsk &/ SLCMs/Status 6 from the surrounding Pacific Ocean

The threat is not a Russian first strike, the threat is that the psychos running the US think they're protected by ABM from a Russian 2nd strike -> launch a 1st strike & we all die.
The point of the new Russian systems is to provide concern that Russia still has a valid 2nd strike despite US ABM -> the psychos are held at bay & we don't all die.

This is starting to be good. Russia will overcome 20.000 km from their mainland to US via south pole?

If you launch a Saturn V on a ballistic path it would probably have a range of about 12-16,000km... the point is that Sarmat is powerful enough and fast enough to get into earth orbit at orbital speeds... which means it could have any range you want...

The only theoretical way would be to launch missiles towards Mexico and than turn them north. But that's too large distance for ICBMs or bombers. The only option are three ballistic missile submarines of the Pacific fleet with max 320 150 kiloton warheads, which wouldn't exactly paralize the US. We have to take into account that some would malfuntion or be shot down.

The only SLBMs or ICBMs that could be shot down over the US would be shot down by the 30 GBIs you talk about... and assuming current performance record 56% will get hits... and what sort of performance is that against tens of thousands of targets (they can't tell decoys from warheads until they enter the atmosphere and the decoys slow down real fast... by which time interception from Alaska is pointless).

Now a group of MiG-31s operating over the Northern Pacific could easily launch a couple if Kinzhals with nuke warheads and destroy the GBI base in Alaska before any missiles come in to view from the north or south pole...

A Sarmat warhead detonated over Alaska from a South Pole direction would blind the GBI sensors for quite some time as it ionised the atmosphere... so an entire fleet of ICBM warheads could penetrate US airspace and not be detected...

No, it's 11.000 km. Even Satan has max 16.000 km range.

The Russians have already stated its range offers the new capability of attacking the US from the North or the South pole... that means either it can put its warhead bus into orbit, or they are building ICBM silos in Antarctica.

You folks do realize that ABM shield does not work and even if by some miracle it worked with 95% reliability it would still not be good enough to prevent extinction of US population?

Also, you have gone off-topic quite a bit....

Both very good points.

or range of Samrat + Avangard is 30,000kms? Avangard flies with 7km/s on orbital trajectory. Can have quite a range though.

I would say range unlimited due to the Sarmat getting the Avangard into orbit...

hoom wrote:

A threat of another Pearl Harbor attack with SLBMs from the Sea of Okhotsk &/ SLCMs/Status 6 from the surrounding Pacific Ocean

The threat is not a Russian first strike, the threat is that the psychos running the US think they're protected by ABM from a Russian 2nd strike -> launch a 1st strike & we all die. The point of the new Russian systems is to provide concern that Russia still has a valid 2nd strike despite US ABM -> the psychos are held at bay & we don't all die.

Could well be, but losing just Pearl Harbor & other bases in Hawaii & Alaska in a 2nd strike is also very sobering. It'll be worse than losing Guam to a NK strike. The US will again lose most of the 7th Fleet + footholds in the Pacific & the Arctic. W/o Alaska, Brazil will become the largest nation in the Western Hemisphere.
Even after a full nuclear exchange, there'll be many survivors.
Not all reptiles, birds & small mammals died out in the last big extinction 65M y.a. caused by an asteroid impact & volcanoes.

Tsavo Lion wrote:Even after a full nuclear exchange, there'll be many survivors.
Not all reptiles, birds & small mammals died out in the last big extinction 65M y.a. caused by an asteroid impact & volcanoes.

That's so... encouraging.  

What does it say about our race of marginally-evolved arboreal primates that we put into power (and tolerate the corruption of) the worst sociopathic specimens of our kind, who then threaten us all with global genocide, simply because the monkeys in the next valley across refuse to give us their bananas or pay rent for the trees they sleep in, or deliver the best of their young maidens for our Chiefs pleasure?

Even chimpanzees know better than our species of tool-using two-legs.