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The Deadhand: Putin's Nuclear-Powered Cruise Missile

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  • #31
    Originally posted by Dazed View Post
    Shielding so you don't fry the structure/electronics/avionics, not to mention the people living and operating around the missile. Why have a missile fly for so long? MIRV ICBM/SLBM can overwhelm any missile defense and get there pretty quick. Global hawks have 14000 miles plus range. It sounds like Putin has more faith in your nuclear power industry than your aircraft engine makers
    Hi Dazed, the ICBM is a different animal, and as it was posted it can be theoretically intercepted. Not today though, but after USA stated this as a goal Russia plays ahead assuming such system will be created and placed on its borders. Henc this is a next step to make such development meaningless.

    Global Hawks has very low speed and it is an easy to intercept target. Its range and payload is meaningless at such speed. It was never designed to be used against an enemy which has Air Defense system - only countries like Afghanistan, Yemen.... and so. No Hawk can survive an enemy with even a moderate air defense capability...

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    • #32
      Originally posted by Dazed View Post
      Shielding so you don't fry the structure/electronics/avionics, not to mention the people living and operating around the missile. Why have a missile fly for so long? MIRV ICBM/SLBM can overwhelm any missile defense and get there pretty quick. Global hawks have 14000 miles plus range. It sounds like Putin has more faith in your nuclear power industry than your aircraft engine makers
      Dazed, neither you nor I know the amount of radiation from nuclear reactor of that missile nor how much shiedling is needed. We know only that body size is comparable to Tomohawk. I would assume it is under 1Mgw capacity.... but I am an ammature in this issue.

      Reference to pluto was overall, but we shall be aware that it was over half century ago..... and technologies of small reactors are war ahead since then. Especially in Russia which is couple of decades ahead of any other country in reactor technologies. Another assumption which I read in this some other forums is that air intake goes to active zone like it was on Pluto. Why? No groud for such assumption other than technologies of 1950-es.

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      • #33
        Expensive solutions looking for a problem. SSBNs and mobile ICBM launchers are easily the better and cheaper answers. Fire from an angle that the ABMs can't intercept. SSBNs launching in the Atlantic Ocean would bypass the interceptors in the Med.

        If these were not had been built, then maybe nuclear reactor cruise missiles have an arguement. Maybe. But SSBNs and mobile ICBMs have been developed. The costs have been sunk.
        Chimo

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        • #34
          Originally posted by WABs_OOE View Post
          Expensive solutions looking for a problem. SSBNs and mobile ICBM launchers are easily the better and cheaper answers. Fire from an angle that the ABMs can't intercept. SSBNs launching in the Atlantic Ocean would bypass the interceptors in the Med.

          If these were not had been built, then maybe nuclear reactor cruise missiles have an arguement. Maybe. But SSBNs and mobile ICBMs have been developed. The costs have been sunk.
          Good morning Sir! Long time to hear.
          Russians are capable of building nuclear reactors better and cheaper for already 30+ years in both civil and millatary applications. Their reactors are two generations ahead in civil sector, and nobody knows how far in millitary. They are utilizing this advantage now.

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          • #35
            I strongly doubt that. Else, we would seen a quantum jump in SSBN designs, ie smaller reactors giving way to more missiles and bigger crew compliments. But even if true, Solid fuel and liquid fuel rocket engines are mature and cheaper technologies. I really don't see Russia spending $200 million per cruise missile when a $100,000 SLBM could do the same job.
            Chimo

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            • #36
              Originally posted by WABs_OOE View Post
              I strongly doubt that. Else, we would seen a quantum jump in SSBN designs, ie smaller reactors giving way to more missiles and bigger crew compliments. But even if true, Solid fuel and liquid fuel rocket engines are mature and cheaper technologies. I really don't see Russia spending $200 million per cruise missile when a $100,000 SLBM could do the same job.
              Sir, if you review all the recent nuclear projects in civil industry launched and executed by USA firms and compare those by ROSATOM you will see big difference in budgets and number of years required to complete the project. In fact USA did not complete anything for quite a long time.... even the plant which was to be built to utilize plutonium is far from being half completed with delays and cost overruns for many many years. Same for fuel production / uranium enrichment sector - it is basically ruined. The nuclear reactrors that ROSATOM builds nowadays can actually consume a waste from the fuel of the western reactors thus closing the fuel loop.... ROSATOM built first specialized floating nuclear power plant, they are the only who have built nuclear plants of the 3+ generation, in millitary sector they finally to order technologies of non-water coolant reactors which have big advantage on weight/power ratio. And this type of reactors will be a power source for the new Hasky generation of strategic subs. I guess, the same is the one that would power Status6 nuclear cruise drone.

              The problem is that in USA nuclear industry was fragmented and partially privatized in end of 90-es.... which lead to insolvency of many of the enterprises which were left without state support - Westinghouse, USEC, maybe some else.

              As for the difference, it will come inevitable in Russian next generation subs whose power source is being switched to lead-bismuth collant technologies.

              ps. I simply don't know even rough estimate of the cost of such nuclear reactor for cruise missile. However, judging to the budget difference in civil sector projects Rosatom is capable building 30% faster and 2 - 3 times cheaper.
              Last edited by Garry; 27 Mar 18,, 17:29.

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              • #37
                You're talking molten salt reactors, then. I've been hearing that for over 30 years, ie thorium, and it has yet to be even feasible in a test reactor, ie produce more energy than it consumes. No doubt research is continuing and might be even close though a cursory goolge showed that it has yet to be economically feasible. However, I doubt we will see it as the next generation military reactor rocket engines in the foreseeable future.

                Simple put, solid fuel and liquid fuel is damned cheap. Molten salt is not.

                Again, as far as military applications are concerned, deploying the nuke outside American ABM's intercept angles defeats the American ABM shields in ways that is far cheaper than an expensive nuclear engine that can only be used once. Not an efficent use of such technologies.
                Last edited by Officer of Engineers; 27 Mar 18,, 19:21.
                Chimo

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                • #38
                  Originally posted by Garry View Post
                  Dazed, neither you nor I know the amount of radiation from nuclear reactor of that missile nor how much shielding is needed. We know only that body size is comparable to Tomahawk. I would assume it is under 1Mgw capacity.... but I am an amateur in this issue.

                  Reference to Pluto was overall, but we shall be aware that it was over half century ago..... and technologies of small reactors are war ahead since then. Especially in Russia which is couple of decades ahead of any other country in reactor technologies. Another assumption which I read in this some other forums is that air intake goes to active zone like it was on Pluto. Why? No groud for such assumption other than technologies of 1950-es.
                  Garry

                  The US already has this weapon the X-37 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37 It can fly for years in space. The fourth mission, USA-261, launched in May 2015 and landed in May 2017. It is maneuverable zips along at 17,426 mph.
                  and at the altitudes it flys turning is not quite dramatic as turning at Mach 20 in the earth's atmosphere, but it would still cover huge distances just doing a circle. When you go that fast you cover a lot of ground in a very predictable track.

                  The proposed Mach 20 cruise missile. Let's say 15345.4 mph so 255.76 miles a minute. executing a 1.5 degree turn (very tight at those speeds) to turn 360 degree will require a distance of 1023.04 miles. Mach 20 in the dense earth atmosphere it will be very hot. The vehicle would glow, a trail visible from hundreds of miles away. Oh and the sonic boom thing.

                  Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG) The US uses on their space probes (Voyager, etc.) and the Russian have the technology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioi...tric_generator. Simpler safer than a fission reactor. You don't have to make steam to drive a turbine.

                  Radiation is one thing, think of what happens to the robots sent into Chernobyl and Fukushima. But I am thinking of conduction and thermal convection. Heat. Mach 20 in the dense earth atmosphere it will be very hot. Most material would experience sublimation change from a solid to vapor with those temperatures and presures.

                  QUOTE=Garry;1038110] Especially in Russia which is a couple of decades ahead of any other country in reactor technologies. Another assumption which I read in this some other forums is that air intake goes to active zone like it was on Pluto. Why? No groud for such assumption other than technologies of 1950-es.[/QUOTE]

                  Is the reactor are you referring to the “tokamak”. It is the design ITER and the National Ignition laboratory are using for their fusion reactors. A star in a bottle well, because it will be as hot or hotter than the Sun. So far they have yet to reach even parity in any reactor, but they say by 2030 it's doable.

                  If you are going to make a nuclear-powered aircraft, you would use 1950's technology for the engine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircra...ear_Propulsion

                  GE was going to use Direct cycle nuclear engines made from a conventional jet engine, except that there would be no combustion chambers. Using a plenums that directs the air into the nuclear reactor core. where it is cooled and heated the heat to directs the air into a turbine, which sends it out the exhaust. The end result is that instead of using jet fuel, an aircraft could rely on the heat from nuclear reactions for power. The hot section would really be a hot section. Pratt and Whittney were trying a more complex route.
                  Aturbine is still the way to go for flight

                  Could you make a nuclear-powered aircraft maybe but why?
                  Last edited by Dazed; 28 Mar 18,, 00:52.

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                  • #39
                    Originally posted by Garry View Post
                    Hi Dazed, the ICBM is a different animal
                    Garry - citanon, myself, and others were discussing this subject in the Military Aviation forum before it got sidetracked into a discussion of geopolitical matters regarding Kazakhstan. I'm not sure if this a subject that's on your mind, but it would be good to get a Russian perspective on the Kazakhstan question more narrowly, and Central Asian geopolitical matters more broadly.

                    http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/showthread.php?t=67015
                    "Every man has his weakness. Mine was always just cigarettes."

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                    • #40
                      Full article here: https://thediplomat.com/2018/04/russ...mkin-missiles/

                      Russia’s Potemkin Missiles

                      Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave his 14th address to his country’s Federal Assembly. Halfway through his speech, Putin launched into a fierce condemnation of the United States’ withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty as well as its nuclear development and expansion in ways which he claimed undermine Russia’s strategic parity and security. Putin told his audience that Russia tried to persuade Washington not to destroy the ABM framework, but to no avail — “no one heard us,” he raged.

                      Then, he upped the ante: “[A]nd what did Russia do except protest and warn?” chided Putin. “How did Russia respond to this provocation?” He then asked an assistant to play a video presentation of a new generation of advanced weapons — from the hypersonic “Kinzhal” air-launched missile to the liquid-fueled superheavy thermonuclear RS-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). The video was a hodgepodge of animations of missiles circumventing anti-air defenses in the Atlantic Ocean en route to the United States, an ejector test of a rocket exiting its silo, and what appeared to be different missiles in atmospheric flight shot in a way to make the audience believe it was looking at one missile in mid-flight. Putin concluded that “[the U.S. and its allies] need to take account of a new reality and understand… [this]…is not a bluff.” Or is it?

                      Putin’s ominous presentation — aimed as much at a Russian electorate bereft of positive economic news as at Western audiences — brings to mind the late Soviet First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev’s boasts at the height of the Cold War that ICBMs were rolling off Soviet assembly lines “like sausages” and that his country would swallow U.S. forces in West Berlin in one gulp. All of this as Khrushchev’s own general staff and senior advisers knew that the feared missile gap between the United States and the Soviet Union was a myth, that the Soviets had fallen behind in the nuclear arms race, and that their leader’s bellicose rhetoric was hot air — bombast to compensate for Potemkin missiles. It also bears recalling how the Soviet Union responded to U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s strategic defense initiative — as relayed in an interview by the late Russian physicist, politician, and democracy activist Boris Nemtsov –– with a plan to first launch an ICBM to detonate at an altitude sufficient to cripple U.S. targeting satellites with radioactive fallout and then send a second missile against the U.S. mainland.
                      "Every man has his weakness. Mine was always just cigarettes."

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                      • #41
                        It also bears recalling how the Soviet Union responded to U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s strategic defense initiative — as relayed in an interview by the late Russian physicist, politician, and democracy activist Boris Nemtsov –– with a plan to first launch an ICBM to detonate at an altitude sufficient to cripple U.S. targeting satellites with radioactive fallout and then send a second missile against the U.S. mainland.
                        The author is a turd. It's not radioactive fallout but EMP to disable the satellites.

                        Problem is that EMP doesn't care which satellite, American or Soviet.

                        It goes without saying that a nuclear explosion would be detected against American strategic assets and a retallitory strike was on its way.
                        Chimo

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                        • #42
                          Originally posted by WABs_OOE View Post
                          The author is a turd. It's not radioactive fallout but EMP to disable the satellites.
                          Good catch.
                          "Every man has his weakness. Mine was always just cigarettes."

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                          • #43
                            Originally posted by WABs_OOE View Post
                            The author is a turd. It's not radioactive fallout but EMP to disable the satellites.

                            Problem is that EMP doesn't care which satellite, American or Soviet.

                            It goes without saying that a nuclear explosion would be detected against American strategic assets and a retallitory strike was on its way.
                            Don't satellites utilize radiation hardening already due to the environment they operate in? Between the large flux from solar radiation and cosmic rays even civilian satellites would have to be pretty resilient against the kinds of effects a nuke would have.

                            Granted a nuke would likely overpower radiation/EMP defenses anything very close might have, but with the rapidity with which energy dissipates as it expands in a sphere I wonder how big an effective range a nuke would really have for disabling satellites.

                            Additionally memory such as MRAM provides a substrate that isn't susceptible to data loss due to ionization-induced data loss which would make it a prime candidate for use in space based applications.
                            Last edited by SteveDaPirate; 16 Apr 18,, 21:32.

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                            • #44
                              Originally posted by SteveDaPirate View Post
                              Don't satellites utilize radiation hardening already due to the environment they operate in? Between the large flux from solar radiation and cosmic rays even civilian satellites would have to be pretty resilient against the kinds of effects a nuke would have.
                              Who knows? Star Wars never left the lab so we never knew what kind of C4ISR we needed to keep it operational during crisis. The Soviets were in kind brainstorming on how to defeat Star Wars. This was all just theory.
                              Chimo

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                              • #45
                                http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the...bat-duty-25765

                                some more on Kinzhal the aircraft carrier killer

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