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Old 10-09-2009, 06:25 PM
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Mohoender Mohoender is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RN7 View Post
Would somebody with some more time on their hands than me at the moment like to verify the range of the Soviet SS-11 & SS-18 ICBM, and check the distances from Soviet silos in the Soviet Far East, Siberia and Central Asia to Australian cities and locations to confirm this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categor...e_Soviet_Union
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/wo...a/icbm_fac.htm
http://www.mapcrow.info/cgi-bin/citi...sydney&cntry2=
Your numbers are accurate at least for the SS-18 (204 in Russia and 104 in Kazakhstan). SS-11 were being retired by 1986.

Replace the SS-11 by about 500 Topol (SS-25) that are mostly road mobile (MAZ-547) and regularly moving in Russia. These eventually located at fix bases are to be about 200. That makes them harder to hit and despite a slightly smaller range and single warhead they are much more threatening. SS-25 were designed to counter ABM systems. The ability to penetrate ABM systems should be true also of the R-36M2 (SS-18).

About the SS-18, they are to be R-36M2 (99) and R-36MU (209) as R-36M were retired by 1981. R-36M2 are the only one with enough range to hit any city in Australia (outside Alice Spring, Darwin, Norse West Cape and Perth) if they carry a single warhead of 20Mt. Out of the 99 (more or less) R-36M2 a question remain: how many are equipped with that 20Mt warhead? Don't expect to find this answer until 2020 as the missile will remain in service until at least 2014. Nevertheless they represent such a threat that the Start II treaty which didn't come into effect was specifically designed for them. One last thing about the R-36M2, IRL their number has possibly been reduced to about 2 dozens.

Here is a good site about missiles and the most reliable source on nukes today:
http://missile.index.ne.jp/en/
http://www.nti.org/b_aboutnti/b_index.html

Your research have been good but you should not rely on Globalsecurity (except as a starting point). As everyone I used them a lot until I got to the conlusion that they are among the worse source on the Web on military subjects.

Last edited by Mohoender; 10-09-2009 at 06:33 PM.
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