Russian air defense missile factory running at full capacity

Kommersant,Russia ^ | Aug. 25, 2007

[gulfcoast6]

Here we go again..

[stm]

The dawn of a new Cold War.

[nw_arizona_granny]

Ping.

[wastedyears]

Keep your gun clean.

[wastedyears]

If we do enter the second Cold War, it’s not from the tail end of WWII. If Congress were to get the sticks out of their butts and put money to the military, we would easily beat Russia again.

[gulfcoast6]

You are so right, history to repeat itself...Ought to make some dems happy.

[R.W.Ratikal]

For decades the policy of MAD, Mutual Assured Destruction, prevented the Russians from making a first strike on the U. S. They were assured that any missile fired at the U. S. would be shot down and that the U. S. would retaliate.

But what now? Russia will soon have a missile defense system and the U. S. will not. What will then prevent the MAD Russians from striking first?

Our only defense will be: When Russia launches a fleet of missiles we can hunker down under a table, face away from the explosion and pray (optional). As the white-hot heat of the nuclear blast turns us back into the dust from whence we can we can be consoled by the thought that we did not spend money on a missile defense system that would not work 100 percent of the time anyway.

[topher]

What high energy prices fund: more and more weapons for the Middle East.

[Sandreckoner]

“Russia will soon have a missile defense system and the U. S. will not”

They’ll also be able to travel through time.

[Dilbert56]

Putin wants Russia to be a military power again. Exporting arms is the only way he can fund it. Looks like the SEAD folks will be busy for years to come. Even the most sophisticated SAM sites may worthless as deterrents if stealthy UCAVs can take them out.

[GBA]

I’m trying to come up with products that Russia sells to the world. The only things I can think of are oil and weapons. As an aside, oil and weapons are two things the Demonrats supposedly hate the most, but they sure loved the Soviets.

[wastedyears]

And they’ll have sharks with lasers on their frickin’ heads.

[Liberty Valance]

[Tai_Chung]

For decades the policy of MAD, Mutual Assured Destruction, prevented the Russians from making a first strike on the U. S. They were assured that any missile fired at the U. S. would be shot down and that the U. S. would retaliate

I don't think the MAD policy assured the Soviets we would shoot down their missiles. If the Russians attacked the US, it would be impossible for them to destroy our entire nuclear counter-strike capability. We had nuclear weapons on bombers, submarines, and silos.

The US would be able to destroy the Soviet Union even if the United States itself was destroyed.

[Sal]

bump for later read.

[sukhoi-30mki]

That’s not exactly true.The Russians don’t have anything as good as the American SM-3 or the missile defense interceptors being deployed in Alaska & Eastern Europe,which can take out strategic ballistic missiles beyond the atmosphere.The Russian S-400 or S-300 maybe deadly against aircraft,but they are of marginal use against strategic missiles.

[JasonC]

HARM are a better countermeasure actually.

The Tor is a quite capable system. Iran bought 29 batteries, but each has 4 launch vehicles and each of those carries 8 missiles, so that is over 850 actual missiles. They are designed to shoot down PGMs on approach - cruise missiles or laser guided bombs or JDAMs etc. As well as aircraft, of course, but only under 20,000 feet. But a high enough speed anti-radiation missile (homing on their radar) might be too fast for them to engage. (You need better than Mach 2 or they will work). The radar isn't high signature though - phased array so works at low power.

[JasonC]

S-400 can KO missiles - the top speed of the target they can engage is about 5 kilometers per second. Beyond the atmosphere ballistic missile warheads might be faster than that, but re-entry slows them down. It can certainly hit them at the lower speeds they have in the atmosphere. They have deployed a battery of them around Moscow as a point missile defense. It is comparable to the Navy's THAAD system, basically.

[dusttoyou]

Come on.... nothing the russians have actually is comparable to US Mil.

Potato drinkin doesn’t lead to high tech.