It would appear that this either may be a fake designation or a newly developed missile that has not been published before.

 

The Russians were working on the RS-40 - which was a mini-ICBM with a single warhead.  This does not appear to be in the same class but by the description - this sounds like either a development of the TOPOL-M or a revised version of the SS-24.

Ivanov said the missile was a new version of the Topol-M, first known as the SS-27 in the West, but one that that can carry multiple independent warheads, ITAR-Tass reported.

 

 

Cheers, this may end up being linked to Russia's submarine version of the Topel M, I know they are developing a verison of that missile to carry multiple warheads.

its their new missile that they are testing this week and that they claim is proof against current and future (bold claim) AMD.

 

Paul

Countermeasures and mulitiple warheads: I think they mean while an AMD will stop some, it wont get all the warheads, and it's not like they're only deploying a few systems if this is to replace their SS-19s and SS-18s they'll be deploying a serval hunderd, that is alot of warheads. I just don't understand why Russia is making a big deal about a US AMD, they should just go, "fine we'll make our own, call it even?"

RS24 is land mobile and multi warhead.

 

guess the Russians have decided that creating an AMD from scratch is probably harder and will cost a lot more than just improving the methods of defeating it and making it pointless in the first place....  

 

Paul

 

 

What's laughable to me is that Russia is wasting money and effort on unnecessary improvements since the tiny defense proposed for Europe couldn't possibly defend it from even a relatively limited Russian strike using their current arsenal (nor will it be properly positioned to even try to do so), and the same is true even of our limited missile defenses currently deploying on our west coast.  Russia could swamp it now, and the vast majority of American targets are out-of-reach of the limited defenses that we do have, anyway.  Russia already has far more than sufficient deterrent, and our missile defenses (current and proposed) can't change that. 

RS24 is land mobile and multi warhead.

 

guess the Russians have decided that creating an AMD from scratch is probably harder and will cost a lot more than just improving the methods of defeating it and making it pointless in the first place....  

 

Paul

 

 

 I thought MIRVs  were  outlawed in SALT II  ??

Someone can correct me if I am wrong but I think that the SALT limitation is on the number of total warheads.  I am pretty sure the SS-18 Satan missiles are all MIRV units.

 

The consensus I have is that this shot from Russia was expected since the SS-18 is reaching the end of its lifespan and needs to be replaced.  It is cheaper for Russia to use a MIRV'd platform (e.g. 300 missiles with 3 warheads each - as compared to 900 missiles with a single warhead).  This is not some sort of arms race deal nor is it aimed at the US NMD.  Instead, this is a pure budget deal.  Russia simply can't afford to build as many missiles as the SRF wants so they have to stack multi-warheads to make the required numbers.