Russia Boasts Future Weapons That Can Penetrate Missile Defense

[rodbarnett]

MOSCOW (AP) - Russia has successfully tested a hypersonic anti-Star Wars weapon capable of penetrating any prospective missile shield, a senior general said Thursday.

The prototype weapon proved it could maneuver so quickly as to make "any missile defense useless," Col.-Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, the first deputy chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, told a news conference

<snip>

"The flying vehicle changed both the altitude and direction of its flight," Baluyevsky said. "During the experiment conducted yesterday, we proved that it's possible to develop weapons that would make any missile defense useless."

<snip>

He said that the new vehicle had "ceased to exist" after the experiment - presumably burning up in the atmosphere.

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGATIVRWUQD.html

comment : sounds like another failure being "hyped" as a success

[bowens43]

1. Let's all thank the idiot for reinvigorating the arms race.

[buckeye1]

6. Oh of course.

It was expected. Action creates reaction. Too bad physics are against the law now.

[underpants]

2. Well obviously we ned to spend MORE on it

Seeing as how it wasn't going to work in the first place.

Did the Russians take the homing beacons out?

[buckeye1]

9. Posted sometime ago.

The ABM program is the best for several clients. Because it will never work,and it must always be improved. The "improvements" will always be a cash cow for certain congresstional districts and contractors.

This started in the '50's with the NikeX. As long as we play this game it will never end.

Blustering morons are good for this business. One either side.

[underpants]

10. Which program, the Air Force or the Navy one?

I am not sure if this is still going on but at one point (~5 years ago) both the Navy and the Air Force were working on different programs or at least different components. Not only do the "clients" get to sell and upgrade the faulty systems but they may get to do each TWICE!

Talk about a scheme.

[judge_smales]

3. Russia's military is in serious decline

Developing something like this is HIGHLY, HIGHLY unlikely.

[TheLastMohican]

7. Wrong

If you are talking about crazy drunk Boris Yeltsin times, this is surely true.
But now Putin started to pump in money into the military back again. They receive new tanks, subs and attack helos, not to mentions ICBMs.Russia's military budget is more than that of Germany, France and UK combined.

[chenGOD]

4. Is this an example of Russian-American co-operation?

Russians develop weapons that can beat a missile defense system (yet burn-up during the test), so the weapons contractors in America can develop weapons systems beyond the missile defense system, so then the Russians can develop more "future weapons"...

hmmmm :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat:

[ixion]

5. damn the neocons for reinvigorating the arms race

There are many of us here on DU that knew this would be the outcome of the Bush cabal's lust for weaponry.

[htuttle]

8. Great. A Russian missile that can do a Crazy Ivan...

I thought MIRVs could already get past missle defenses? Although, I suppose that ANYTHING can get past our missle defense at this stage, BECAUSE IT DOESN'T WORK!

That's just another sad part of this. Bush, by promoting and hyping missle defense years before it will work (to enrich his defense contractor colleagues), is going to spur countermeasures to it before it even exists.

I'd be willing to bet that by the time it actually works, it's already obsolete.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

11. No, it was a succesful test of a delivery vehicle.

This was NOT a failed test (well nothing indicates it was) because what is being discussed is a delivery vehicle - the part of a missile that carries the warheads into and through orbit.

Missile defences have three phases: the launch phase, where the rocket that carries the payload into orbit is targetted, the orbit phase, where the warheads transit the globe at hypersonic speed, and the terminal phase where the warheads drop back into the atmosphere.

The safest "shield" targets the launch and orbit phases, because a miss is not so important (you have time to fire again) and if the warhead goes off, it is safely in space, or in enemy territory.

Targetting warheads in the terminal phase is VERY difficult, firstly because they are moving so fast (25 times the speed of sound is not unusual) that you only get one shot at it, and any weapon capable of hitting it would have to be even faster and extremely manueverable, and secondly, because even if you DO hit it, it still contaminates friendly territory with radioactive debris (even if it doesn't detonate)

So what the Russians are saying they have developed is a vehicle that can carry the warheads that is fast enough and manueverable enough during the phase most likely to be used by a missile defense shield, to avoid interception.

The vehicle would ALWAYS burn up on re-entry after having successfuly delivered the warheads to their terminal trajectory.