Russian missile-test salvo

On Saturday I posted that Russia plans to conduct five more ICBM launches this year. The first of these announced tests was conducted on Monday. A RS-18 (SS-19 Stiletto) missile was successfully launched from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan and its simulated warhead has reached the Kura testing site on the Kamchatka peninsula. The RS-18 missiles are in operation since 29 years. Due to the successful test their service life will be extend by two years. Two previous tests launches were conducted on November 9, 2006 and October 20, 2005.

Russia began manufacturing the silo-based RS-18 missiles in the 1970s. Each missile carries six 550-kiloton warheads and has a launch-weight of 105 tons. As usual, the numbers on how many missiles of this type are in service are varying, they range from 160 over 123 to over 100.

A small follow-up occurred on the next day: Russia tested on October 30 an interceptor missile of its Moscow missile defense system. The purpose of this launch was also to test the performance characteristics and extend the service life of the interceptor. It was already the 43rd launch of this type of missile.

The next short-range missile tests are already scheduled. The NTI Newswire reports:

Russia announced Thursday that it plans to flight-test two Tochka ballistic missiles between Nov. 13 and 17 from a site in southern Russia, RIA Novosti reported (see GSN, Oct. 18).

Also called the SS-21 Scarab, the short-range, single-warhead missile can be fired from a mobile launcher to hit targets within 45 miles. Russia has maintained the weapon in its arsenal since 1976, but it ultimately is to be replaced by the multiple-warhead Iskander-M missile.

“The missile units will conduct missile firing practices (at the Kapustin Yar testing site in the Astrakhan Region) and will test launch two Tochka tactical missiles,” said Col. Igor Konashenkov.The Russian Ground Forces successfully tested 12 Tochka missiles in 2007, Konashenkov said, noting that the November launches would be carried out by a Siberian missile brigade.

©RIA Novosti

Russia's "grandiose" modernization plans

Again some cross-blogging: Jeff from Nukes of Hazard posted yesterday an article on Russia's "grandiose" modernization plans. He highlights the importance of reading the news carefully: missiles are not warheads!

I know what you did last Friday...

The U.S military conducted its fourth successful Ground Based Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) test in a row (for a factual summary of the earlier tests see the Missile Defense Agency’s website). As Reuters reports, the test conducted late Friday evening was designed to show how the radar, launcher, fire control equipment and procedures of the system worked together, as well as the interceptor detecting and destroying the target using only the force of the collision.

During this test the target missile was intercepted outside the Earth's atmosphere. The THAAD system is designed to defend troops, population centers and critical facilities against short- to medium-range ballistic missiles. These missiles can be destroyed during late mid-course or final stage flight, flying at high altitudes within and even outside the atmosphere. With this capability, THAAD is able to protect a significant wider area than the Patriot missile defense systems could. The THAAD missile has a range of 200km and can intercept in altitudes of up to 150km - the equivalent Patriot figures are 70 and 24+ km, respectively. For more facts on the THAAD system take a look at this site.

The Pentagon Channel had also a brief clip on the test.

GMD test

The last interceptor test of the US Ground-based Midcourse Defense occurred on September 28. Even though this was already one month ago, I discovered today The Pentagon Channel. They have clip on the missile test which I think is worth sharing. It shows a Pentagon Briefing with Missile Defense Agency director Lieutenant General Henry Obering.



Those of you, who are looking only for a brief summary, might want to read this factual note.

The video contains some information I have not found elsewhere, neither in the official press release nor in analyzes like one by Vinod Kumar at IDSA. One of them is that for the first time Russian observers attended such a test. Efforts to reduce tensions and disperse the concerns of Russians side but as rhetoric of the last weeks show, it is still a long way to go. Furthermore General Obering mentioned that the next test will be the first in which the target missile will be equipped with counter-measures like decoys. Finally. He also spoke of “volume kill”: future interceptors might have more than one kill-vehicle. They are intended to increase the chance that not only a decoy is intercepted while the warhead continues its path.

The next test will be conducted at earliest in February 2008.

Russian sabre-rattling

The head of the Russian Strategic Missile Forces Colonel General Nikolai Solovtsov told a news conference yesterday that Russia will conduct five launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles by the end of 2007. The launches will include a RS-18 (SS-19 Stiletto), a RS-12M (SS-25 Sickle), a missile interceptor and a heavy RS-20 (SS-18 Satan). During the course of the year Russia has already conducted seven missile tests, the latest test launch occurred on October 18.

On the same day Solovstov warned that Moscow could restart at short notice production of short- and medium-range missiles:

“If a political decision is taken on creating such a class of missiles, obviously Russia will build them quickly. We have everything needed to do this.”

This is just another warning sign directed towards the United States that is related to the row over the missile defense facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic. Just yesterday President Putin made a comparison between the U.S. missile shield and the Cuban Missile crisis.
However, the threats to restart the production of short- and medium-range missiles will not cause major concerns or fears on the other side of the Atlantic, because it is obvious that it is only a fight with words. Russia is not in a position to jumpstart its missile production. As UPI reported earlier this year:

Redevelopment and redeployment of intermediate-range missiles for use against NATO also presents several logistical problems. Russia's primary ballistic missile assembly plant at Votkinsk is only capable of a historical peak production capacity of approximately 80 missiles per year.

Since the actual rate of production has been closer to the minimum rate -- 12-15 per year for more than a decade -- Votkinsk's optimal production capacity is likely to have fallen closer to 30 missiles per year as unused production lines have been shut down.

Like in several earlier occasions the statement made by Colonel General Solovstov has not to be seen as a credible threat, but rather as some sabre-rattling and a call for attention. Russia does not want to be ignored and side-lined.

Photo: © RIA Novosti

European bases of the U.S. Missile Defense

President George W. Bush said on Tuesday that a planned missile shield in Europe is vital to protect against an "emerging Iranian threat". He described the threat as real and urgent: "Iran is pursuing the technology that could be used to produce nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles of increasing range that could deliver them." According to U.S. intelligence estimates Iran could be capable of striking European countries with IBCMs before 2015. Therefore the aim is to have both missile defense sites ready for limited operation by 2011 and fully operational by 2013.

However, the people that President Bush wants to protect perceive the situation differently. It almost seems that they do not want to be “protected”, at least not in the proposed way. A poll that was conducted earlier this year in Germany hints that 48 percent of Germans believe that the United States is a bigger threat to world security than Iran and 72 percent are against missile defense. Only 31 percent perceive Iran as the bigger threat.

The online journal WMDInsights had a special report on the perceptions in European countries on the missile defense system. Some findings for the two potential host countries are:

According to a survey conducted in Poland in early February [2007], 55 percent of the Polish people oppose the deployment while only 28 percent support it. A subsequent poll by the CBOS agency, a leading Polish public opinion research organization, confirmed this opposition, with 56 percent responding negatively to a question on their views regarding hosting U.S. BMD interceptors. The most recent poll, published on March 19, 2007, found that 51 percent of the respondents definitely oppose the base and 28 percent would prefer not to host it. Only 30 percent support the proposed deployment of the BMD interceptors, with a mere 8 percent “definitely” backing it.

The opposition is even more obvious in the Czech Republic:

In the Czech Republic, concern about the possibility of losing a referendum on the U.S. radar base led the government parties in mid-March to vote in the Czech legislature against holding a ballot on the BMD issue. An early March poll by the Center for Public Opinion Research (CVVM) found that 61 percent of the respondents opposed the proposed U.S. BMD radar base and 73 percent wanted the government to hold a referendum on the issue. Another early March survey conducted by the STEM agency, a second respected Czech polling firm, found that 70 percent of Czech respondents objected to the radar.

Naturally, also here the saying “Do not trust any statistics you have not faked yourself” applies. A poll that was conducted by the U.S. Opinion Research Corporation and sponsored by the non-profit Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance (MDAA) comes to completely different results:

While 58 percent of Pole respondents in a recent poll supported the BMD plan, in the neighboring Czech Republic, 51 percent of the poll's respondents said they were against it.

A small annotation: the mission statement of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance starts off with: “The Mission of MDAA is to help make the world safer by encouraging the development of missile defense which would protect against all types of missiles during all times.” A slight bias towards a certain direction might be given. Any poll contains a certain error probability but it comes to a surprise to see an increase of 30 percent even when one takes into consideration that the polls mentioned in WMDInsights were conducted in February and March and the one mentioned by the MDAA in September. The developments in the recent months in the countries’ national politics do not indicate that such a major change has taken place. The recent Polish elections have brought to an end the Kaczynski-government that was a staunch supporter of the missile defense system. Donald Tusk, the politician expected to become the next Polish prime minister after elections this week, is said to have taken a tougher stand than the outgoing government on talks with the United States about a missile site. The parliamentary elections can also to a certain degree be seen as a poll on the question of missile defense. It remains to be seen in how far the new Polish government will take a different approach to the issue and how this will impact the overall negotiations.

Like it was the case with its northern neighbor, also the government of the Czech Republic in the recent time firmly favored hosting a U.S. missile defense site but a senior Czech official said on Tuesday that Prague believes it will take longer to negotiate a deal than U.S. officials had hoped. He also mentioned that his government takes little stock in public opinion polls that show a majority of Czechs oppose having a U.S. missile defense site on their territory. However, with a new Polish government in place that does not equally firmly support the missile system the Czech Republic might feel singled out and the comment about the need for more time could be seen as a first cautious hint for a weakening governmental support.

Against this background the U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced yesterday that the United States might delay activating its planned East European missile defense sites until Iran took some concrete action, such as testing its own missiles. Such a condition appears to be very vague because also throughout 2006 and 2007 Iran has continued with the development and testing of its missile systems. Therefore the only question is “when” the next missile test will occur and not “if” it will occur at all. In so far the delay of which Secretary Gates spoke was probably not a way to soothe Russian concerns over the system but rather a way of acknowledging that original time-table of finalizing the deals with the two potential host countries by the end of the year is off the table.

The cartoon was taken from: The Economist, A few interceptors, a big gap

Russia scraps more Topol ICBMs

Russia has announced that it has dismantled another nine of its Topol mobile missile systems under the START I agreement. Earlier this year – in March, May and August – already 27 Topol systems were scrapped. This brings down Russia’s arsenal of this type of ICBM to 207 from 243 in January 2007. The pace of dismantling increased in comparison to 2006, where only 16 mobile Topol ICBMs were dismantled under monitoring by U.S. inspectors.














© Капустин Яр

Russia test-launches Topol ICBM

Russia conducted on October 18 a test launch of its RS-12M Topol intercontinental ballistic missile, NATO codename SS-25 Sickle, from the Plesetsk Space Center. The Topol is a three-stage missile fired from a mobile launcher and is similar in size to the US Minuteman ICBM. It can carry a single 550kt nuclear warhead. 80 Topol missiles have been launched from the Plesetsk Space Center so far; 50 of those have been combat training launches.

The missile headed from the space center in the northwestern part of Russia, roughly 800 km northward of Moscow, toward the Kura impact range in the Kamchatka Peninsula where it hit its test target. A space center source told Interfax: "The launch has been carried out under a program for extending the service life of this type of missiles. Based upon its results, the service life of Topol missiles at the [Russian Strategic Rocket Forces] may be extended to 21 years". Other sources report on a possible extension of up to 23 years. The missile was first deployed in 1988 and had an original service life of 10 years.

The missile will be progressively retired over the next years and is being replaced by a mobile version of the Topol-M (SS-27) missile, which can carry up to six nuclear warheads.















© Первый канал, archive

Bahrain prepares against Patriot attacks

Defense Industry Daily announced that Bahrain receives the AN/TPS-59(V)3B ballistic missile defense radar system. The sale was initiated in May 2004 when a US$43.6 million contract was awarded to Lockheed Martin. The system is designed to operate with Patriot or Hawk missile batteries.

On a not too serious note: Bahrain is in dire need of such a missile defense radar. Hopefully the system will not only operate with Patriot batteries but also protect the Kingdom from those missiles: earlier this week a Patriot missile was accidentally fired from a US military base in Qatar. Luckily no one was hurt during this incident; the missile only ploughed some nearby farmland. With its range of over 80 km Bahrain is well in the range of the Patriot missiles deployed in Qatar. But not all hope is lost: Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman acknowledged that “[t]hose things are not supposed to accidentally discharge" and that "[i]t was not supposed to happen". Hooray! So neither Bahrain nor Qatar were exposed to a deliberate attack. The old Russian proverb, which is attributed to Lenin, applies also here: доверяй, но поверяй (trust, but verify).













The Patriot missile that was accidentally launched. (c) Al Jazeera