The 'Sarmat' heavy intercontinental ballistic missile prototype is now ready and will be tested by the spring of next year. This is what was declared by the Krasnoyarsk Machine-Building Plant, the military industrial complex that is implementing the new system to the Russian agency TASS.
"Despite the delays with the contractors, the prototype was completed. The test will be performed as soon as the Plesetsk site is reconfigured. Initially it was thought to the spaceport of Baikonur, in Kazakhstan, but then decided to move the entire system to the northwest of Russia. After the 'drop-tests', we will proceed to the flight phase foreseen in the 2016.
In the first tests the functioning of the pressure accumulator and the missile flight capabilities during all the various phases will be verified. The realized version is identical, for weight and dimensions, to the combat version that will reach the silos in a few years. Sarmat is included in the exclusive category of "super heavy" thermonuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Under development from the 2015 in response to the American system Prompt Global Strike, the liquid propellant rocket is intended to replace the entire deterrent line formed by the SS-18 Satan, the world's largest intercontinental solid-propellant ballistic missile ever built and entered into service in the 1967. Heavy over 100 tons, the Sarmat has an estimated range of over ten thousand kilometers. It was designed to reach Mach 20 and storm the target by releasing ten heavy (or fifteen light) independent indentation warheads. Probably, when it enters service between the 2020 / 2022, it will be equipped exclusively with Marv heads, practically immune to any sort of defensive shield that exists. The probable flight paths to the potential targets will be those above the North Pole and the South Pole.
The Russians intend to replace by the 2025, the 80% of the entire land-based nuclear arsenal with the Sarmat. The new ICBM will be in service with seven regiments of the Strategic Missile Forces of the Russian Federation.
The United States intends to keep ballistic missiles in service Minuteman III up to the 2030 with a series of updates, even if the Air Force has never hidden the intention to want to develop a new system. Both the Sarmat the Satan they are more powerful than Minuteman.
The Russian directive for "a carrier that should have breached all types of US missile defense" was issued on December 16 by the supreme command of the Russian Strategic Missile Forces.
(photo: TASS)
