Russia’s Strategic Nuclear Forces (SNF) recently held unprecedented drills. Under the direct command of President Vladimir Putin the automatic communications control system and new battle management algorithms were tested. All elements of the nuclear triad were engaged and carried out combat training missions under a general plan.
Russia’s strategic triad, the Missile Strategic Forces, nuclear missile submarines and strategic missile carriers, all successfully launched their intercontinental ballistic and long-range cruise missiles, confirming the efficiency and reliability of the country’s strategic nuclear forces.
The first missile to be launched was one from the Plesetsk space center in the Arkhangelsk Region towards the Kura training ground in Kamchatka: it was an RS-12M Topol (NATO reporting name SS-25 Sickle), a strategic solid-propellant single-warhead missile. Like more than 100 of its counterparts, it has been on combat duty for 24 years. The error-free process of its preparation for launch, the launch itself and the fact that it hit its designated target demonstrated the combat capabilities of the missile and the possibility of extending its safe and accident-free service by several more years.
At the other end of the country, in the Sea of Okhotsk, within minutes of the launch of the Topol, the strategic missile cruiser, registration number K-433 (Project 667BDR, Kalmar Class – NATO reporting name Delta III), launched from a submerged position an R-29P Sineva missile (SS-N-18 Stingray) with three individually targetable warheads toward the Chizha firing range on the Kanin Nos Peninsula in the Arkhangelsk Region. These warheads also hit their designated targets.
It was this year’s first launch of a sea strategic missile from a submerged position. Last year there were seven of them, including five R-30 Bulava missiles.
The crews of Tu-160 and Tu-95MS strategic bombers, taking off from the Engels airfield outside Saratov, made long-range flights to Vorkuta in the Arctic and, after 15 hours of flying over featureless terrain, fired four missiles at their designated targets on the Pemboi range. By all appearances, these were Kh-555 missiles.
A unique feature of the launches was that Vladimir Putin ran the drills from a new automatic unified command post. The establishment of what is known as an anchor mobile switching center (AMSC) was briefly reported in the press on the eve of the drills.
There are also several other news items that directly concern the recent launches of strategic missiles. One of them is the information that the Defense Ministry has approved the preliminary design and performance characteristics of a new heavy liquid-fueled intercontinental missile, which is under development in Russia to replace the world’s largest R-36M Voyevoda (SS-18 Satan) missile, capable of delivering on target 10 individually targetable warheads. Russia has about 50 Voyevodas left. They are to be removed from operational duty by 2020-2025, and Russian designers are now busy developing a “successor” to them. It will be twice as light (100 tons) but in terms of combat efficiency and capability of penetrating any anti-missile system as good as the Satan.
There has also been talk of re-establishing rail mobile missile systems, which used to cross the expanses of the Soviet Union. There were 12 such regiment-trains, equipped with 36-ton missiles each carrying 10 nuclear warheads.
The prospect of seeing a U.S. anti-missile system on the doorstep of Russia is clearly worrying its political and military leadership. The unprecedented launches of strategic missiles, the placement on combat duty of missiles declared in the new START Treaty and talk of developing new ones are a sort of warning to overseas comrades and colleagues.
This is an abridged version of the article, originally published in Russian in Nezavisimaya Gazeta .
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