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| Russia claims hypersonic missile tested |
| 2004-02-21 |
| Edited for brevity. 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 manoeuvre so quickly as to make âany missile defence useless,â Colonel-General Yuri Baluyevsky, the first deputy chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, told a news conference. He said that the prototype of a new hypersonic vehicle had proved its ability to manoeuvre while in orbit, thereby making it able to dodge an enemyâs missile shield. âThe flying vehicle changed both the altitude and direction of its flight,â Gen. Baluyevsky said. âDuring the experiment conducted yesterday, we proved that itâs possible to develop weapons that would make any missile defence useless.â Gen. Baluyevskyâs comment followed a statement by President Vladimir Putin, who said Wednesday after attending rocket launches from the Plesetsk launch pad in northern Russia that experiments conducted during the military manoeuvres had proved that Russia could build new strategic weapons that would be unrivalled in the world. Mr. Putin said the development of new weapons was not directed against the United States, and Gen. Baluyevsky reaffirmed the statement, saying that the experiment should not be seen as a Russian response to U.S. missile-defence plans. âThe experiment conducted by us must not be interpreted as a warning to the Americans not to build their missile defence because we designed this thing,â he told Associated Press. He said that Russia has no intention of immediately deploying new weapons based on the experimental vehicle. âWe have demonstrated our capability, but we have no intention of building this craft tomorrow,â he said. Based on last weekâs performance--or, rather, lack thereof--I think Russia needs to go back to basics before contemplating any fancy new toys. |
| Posted by:Dar |
| #10 yeah i'm gonna worry more about that than just a reg nuke |
| Posted by: smokeysinse 2004-2-21 11:27:27 PM |
| #9 Bravo Jon Shep UK "America needs to pump more money into..." As usual you Euros get a free ride under our defense budget while your populace enjoys a national health insurance that we can't/won't afford because all our $$ are going to Halliburton, General Dynamics and Martin Marietta---parasites! |
| Posted by: NotMike Moore 2004-2-21 11:23:56 PM |
| #8 Personally I'm gonna wait for some verification of this test from a more reliable source. The closest thing I know of to a hypersonic platform the Russians have might be the joint Brahmos project with India or the Burlak rocket which is similar to our Pegasus system. Oh and I just read an article on MSNBC on the same subject, I'll post it up for tomorrow's subject, anyway it looks like I and 11A5S were right. This isn't a new hypersonic missile, but merely MARV capable of FOB or similar type orbits. Oooh I'm scared now..anyone got some popcorn? |
| Posted by: Valentine 2004-2-21 11:07:28 PM |
| #7 I thought the idea behind FOBs was to limit the track to target time or to mislead about missle tests. That being said I'm not too worried about a post Soviet FOBs system since there is evidently a problem with their SRBs.. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-2-21 4:00:16 PM |
| #6 America needs to pump more money and brains into the ABL or even SBL (airborne or space based lasers), see how the Russkies can beat speed of light warfare, hell through in some kinda microwave beam firing weapon and its right back to square one again |
| Posted by: Jon Shep U.K 2004-2-21 3:58:13 PM |
| #5 Um, MARVs? The Russkies are just getting around to building those, eh? |
| Posted by: 11A5S 2004-2-21 3:52:56 PM |
| #4 Um...a couple of points here. If its orbital then its moving much faster than hypersonic speeds. Secondly, one of our biggest fears back during the Cold War was Fractional Orbital Bombardment, this was a maneveur designed to keep the missiles on a short time limit from boost phase to target point with very little intercept time. Combine that with MIRV warheads and decoys and the result was that you usually had too few defensive missiles (unless they were topped with nukes themselves) to intercept even a single salvo of say 5-10 missiles. Anyways the main point I want to make here is that this technology and tactics were designed back in the 1960s. But if the Russkies still want to yak off about missiles and hypersonics, I say we go back to refurbishing Projects Triton and Pluto (look em up on google). Those would be real "crap your pants" systems. Hehe |
| Posted by: Valentine 2004-2-21 3:52:17 PM |
| #3 It moves so fast you can't even see it! |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2004-2-21 3:06:25 PM |
| #2 if its Russian then its either all hype or just a prototype that will never progress further, I'm all for military competition but Russias just to skint.The whole China vs USA should make exciting viewing over the coming decades |
| Posted by: Jon Shep U.K 2004-2-21 2:22:12 PM |
| #1 Oops--Hat tip: Drudge |
| Posted by: Dar 2004-2-21 2:07:51 PM |