Article

2009-05-07 Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Russia to deploy regiment of RS-24 ballistic missiles in late 2009

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Posted by Anonymoose 2009-05-07 09:16|| || Front Page|| [3 views ] Top

#1 The Russians just have this ridiculous obsession with huge nukes. They are utterly useless and the money spent would better be used somewhere else...anywhere else.

Posted by gromky 2009-05-07 10:39|| 2009-05-07 10:39|| Front Page Top

#2 I say let 'em waste it.

They have totally backward and incompetent land forces, as the invasion of Georgia demonstrated. A cunning adversary would have ripped them a new one.

Posted by Mizzou Mafia 2009-05-07 12:17|| 2009-05-07 12:17|| Front Page Top

#3 Leaving aside the strategic considerations the Russians to build excellent and very reliable launch vehicles.

An outfit I used to work for used Protons (along with the Chinese Long March and Boeing's Delta V) to launch a bunch of satellites. A friend who went to Baikonur as part of the launch team described a successful launch during a thunderstorm with lots of lightning and fairly severe upper-level winds which would far more than have scrubbed a Delta launch. Despite taking that sort of risk at the time the Proton was more reliable than the Delta V.

Posted by AzCat 2009-05-07 12:30|| 2009-05-07 12:30|| Front Page Top

#4 The Russians just have this ridiculous obsession with huge nukes.

It's not ridiculous. It's the only thing that makes them relevant. Who would gives a rat's ass what Russia thought about anything if they weren't bristling with nukes? Also, nukes are a great deal cheaper than world class ground, sea and air forces.

Posted by Iblis 2009-05-07 19:17|| 2009-05-07 19:17|| Front Page Top

#5 Not if we have an effective Ballistic Missile Defense like the one Teh One just cut funding for.... damn

*we're so screwed*

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2009-05-07 19:24|| 2009-05-07 19:24|| Front Page Top

#6 Their old nukes work just fine. No need to spend badly needed rubles on brand new ones when the ground forces are falling apart. They just have this bizarre fantasy about a big war where they get to go to the Strategic Rocket Forces to win, totally forgetting about MAD, second strike, etc.

And 14 tests? Come on, the Russians just like to shoot off their toys.

Posted by gromky 2009-05-07 20:03|| 2009-05-07 20:03|| Front Page Top

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