Oreshnik MRBM

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It is the ICBM that is worrisome. Wonder whether it is a desperate move (using ICBMs as a "Super Iskander") or nuclear sabre rattling.
 
Archibald said:
It is the ICBM that is worrisome. Wonder whether it is a desperate move (using ICBMs as a "Super Iskander") or nuclear sabre rattling.
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It is something desperate and grossly irresponsible.
 
Archibald said:
It is the ICBM that is worrisome. Wonder whether it is a desperate move (using ICBMs as a "Super Iskander") or nuclear sabre rattling.
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Probably a bit of both. What I find surprising is that they apparently have conventional warheads for ICBMs. For I’d heard of such a thing. I have long suspected China would deploy something like that, just because it fills a useful rung on the escalation ladder and for the moment the PRC is at a nuclear disadvantage: the U.S. could strike infrastructure targets pretty much on day 1 with long ranged cruise missiles and the only weapons that would reach the U.S. states from the mainland are ICBMs. And China has the capacity to expend the huge amount of resources for a conventional strike that using an ICBM entails. I would think it far less useful for Russia, though again a conventional ICBM does fill a useful escalation niche that the U.S. can easily fill with stealth bombers and cruise missiles.

I cannot imagine this delivery mechanism is remotely accurate unless it uses a MARV, so the Iskander comparison is probably not a good one: this was to make a political point more than destroying a high value target.
 
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NMaude said:
It is something desperate and grossly irresponsible.
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They said there would be repercussions for striking Russia proper with US weapons. It does not seem like an extreme response to my eyes. They are advertising they have a non nuclear way to strike the US back if they feel like it. Interesting capability revealed; curious what response if any comes from the U.S. and NATO.
 
It's seems to me to be a relatively mild signaling strike with basically no consequences either way. The Russians cannot possibly gain any significant advantage through expanded use of costly, precious, conventional MRBMs with basically no payload in Ukraine. It doesn't seem very significant, more designed to muddy the information space than actually signal.

If they were really pissed, they'd signal by doing something costly to themselves - e.g. nuclear testing, which would very much annoy the Chinese and Indians, or arm the Houthis with advanced ballistic and cruise missiles like they've been talking endlessly about, which would have high risks of backfiring on them, or annoying the Chinese, or drawing down their much-needed stocks of weapons, or eliciting an American reaction.

Honestly, I thought the Russians would do what they had threatened and give shinier missiles to the Houthis to shoot semi-randomly at random people. A Houthi rocking an SS-20 (or modernized equivalent) could hit the UK or France or something in support of Palestine or whatever; the Brits are already bombing Yemen and backing Ukraine to the hilt, they can't bomb Yemen that much more or back Ukraine that much more.

Also, do we have good information on the nature of the submunitions? Someone upthread suggested antirunway munitions, which sounds like something the Russians might have on hand atop an MRBM.
 
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Josh_TN said:
They said there would be repercussions for striking Russia proper with US weapons.
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Never mind the fact that Russia has been repeatedly assaulting Ukraine with cruise and ballistic missile strikes along with drone strikes, then when running short of missiles turning to Iran and North Korea for more missiles. Yet somehow it's not okay for Ukraine to retaliate in kind against an aggressor?

Josh_TN said:
It does not seem like an extreme response to my eyes. They are advertising they have a non nuclear way to strike the US back if they feel like it
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It IS an extreme and disproportionate response using such a weapon and it shows Putins desperation.
 
NMaude said:
Never mind the fact that Russia has been repeatedly assaulting Ukraine with cruise and ballistic missile strikes along with drone strikes, then when running short of missiles turning to Iran and North Korea for more missiles. Yet somehow it's not okay for Ukraine to retaliate in kind against an aggressor?



It IS an extreme and disproportionate response using such a weapon and it shows Putins desperation.
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I am hardly applying morality to the situation. From a realpolitik point of view it makes sense.

I have seen nothing yet confirming or denying the attack from either Russia or NATO, which leads me to believe the report is indeed false.
 
No, Russia did not.

www.theguardian.com

Russia-Ukraine war: Doubts cast over Kyiv claim that Russia launched intercontinental ballistic missile – as it happened

UK intelligence services say they are ‘urgently’ looking into Ukraine’s claim, which has been reportedly denied by a Western official
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

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www.nbcnews.com

Ukraine says Russia used an ICBM in attack; claim disputed by Western official

The claim was disputed by a Western official, who said it was a ballistic missile but not an ICBM that was fired at the eastern city of Dnipro early Thursday.
www.nbcnews.com www.nbcnews.com

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Could you please stop spreading all this ICBM nonsence? Just because Ukrainean propaganda claimed something happens, it doesn't means in happened in reality.
 
What would be the advantage of this? Range? Maybe a page from South Korea's playbook? (Big payload on a large missile launched to a relatively short range.)
 
Antonio said:
What's the point on using an ICBM with a conventional warhead?

That's weird
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No ICBM were used, and the pattern of projectiles on video suggest that they are rocket-boosted concrete-penetrating submunition (probably of BETAB-500 type). The whole ICBM nonsence is blown up by Ukrainean propaganda to scare Western public. Seriously, I thought at least on this forum peoples would realize, that during military conflict they should not believe outrageous claims by ANY side!
 
Dilandu said:
Okay, it was officially revealed (by our president, so it's not rumors) that it was a combat test of "Oreshnik" (rus. Hazel) hypersonic medium-range missile. Probably with cluster warhead.
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First time i hear of this missile unless i've missed some previous references to it here? If the video is not tempered with in any way then the MIRVs/cluster warheads look wickedly fast, even eerily fast. Good luck intercepting that. Presumably this is the russian antidote for the so called american "ABM shield"?
 
Archibald said:

WDF are russians doing ?
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Wtf are all of these madmen politicians doing? Tbf you can't possibly expect to corner a nuclear armed state forever, this "pushing boundaries" act can't go on for much longer if we're still living in a somewhat sane world.

And you can't launch an ICBM and expect your adversaries to not respond to that in the same manner. They will also soon start launching ICBMs with conventional warheads and this will make it harder for everyone to determine before impact whether a missile that's coming to them has a nuclear payload or not.

A step further and we're officially living in the "idiocracy movie universe"...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1859030466856394803
View: https://x.com/ArmsControlWonk/status/1859030466856394803
 
Crossposting my post from an another thread:

snne said:
Wtf are all of these madmen politicians doing? Tbf you can't possibly expect to corner a nuclear armed state forever, this "pushing boundaries" act can't go on for much longer if we're still living in a somewhat sane world.

And you can't launch an ICBM and expect your adversaries to not respond to that in the same manner. They will also soon start launching ICBMs with conventional warheads and this will make it harder for everyone to determine before impact whether a missile that's coming to them has a nuclear payload or not.

A step further and we're officially living in the "idiocracy movie universe"...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1859030466856394803
View: https://x.com/ArmsControlWonk/status/1859030466856394803
Click to expand...
 
lancer21 said:
First time i hear of this missile unless i've missed some previous references to it here? If the video is not tempered with in any way then the MIRVs/cluster warheads look wickedly fast, even eerily fast. Good luck intercepting that. Presumably this is the russian antidote for the so called american "ABM shield"?
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Most likely it's a response on recent long-range strikes against Russian home territory by American and European build missiles. A demonstration, that Russia have potential for flexible response also, and NOT limited to nukes.
 
Is it just me or there has been a quite worrying streak of revelations about "secret" weapons sytems lately? The never-heard-before Israeli ALBMs in the leaked docs, this "Oreshnik" MRBM nobody has ever heard of before... maybe all of these "who know what they're hiding under the wraps" people were right all along.
 
leiter said:
Is it just me or there has been a quite worrying streak of revelations about "secret" weapons sytems lately? The never-heard-before Israeli ALBMs in the leaked docs, this "Oreshnik" MRBM nobody has ever heard of before... maybe all of these "who know what they're hiding under the wraps" people were right all along.
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Everyone hopes to disrupt the other side planning by demonstrating the new systems the other guy did not expect - and force him to wonder "what else they may have inside their sleeve?" Essentially it's a "stabilizing instability"; since neither side is sure about opponent true capabilities, neither side could dare to plan.
 
leiter said:
Is it just me or there has been a quite worrying streak of revelations about "secret" weapons sytems lately? The never-heard-before Israeli ALBMs in the leaked docs, this "Oreshnik" MRBM nobody has ever heard of before... maybe all of these "who know what they're hiding under the wraps" people were right all along.
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Add the air-launched SM-6 for USA, it was also pretty much a game-changer in aerial warfare.
 
Dilandu said:
Most likely it's a response on recent long-range strikes against Russian home territory by American and European build missiles. A demonstration, that Russia have potential for flexible response also, and NOT limited to nukes.
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In the current tactical context i fully agree with you, what i meant was the capability of this missile looks to me just what is needed to take out the american ABM bases in Romania, Poland etc. if it would ever come to that (ie nuclear war), let rip a salvo of these Oreshniks, nuclear tipped likely, then the ICBMs follow behind. I think the underlying real message from Russia to the americans through this strike, if they ever had illusions to the contrary, is "you could never ever hope to win a nuclear war against us, no matter what you do, you will be anihilated as well".
 
Dilandu said:
Everyone hopes to disrupt the other side planning by demonstrating the new systems the other guy did not expect - and force him to wonder "what else they may have inside their sleeve?" Essentially it's a "stabilizing instability"; since neither side is sure about opponent true capabilities, neither side could dare to plan.
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Eh, sounds as toxic as secret diplomacy to me. We did away with that in 1919. MAD is being reshaped as a concept and that's not good.
 
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