The giant TOPOL-M road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile is one frightening creation
of mankind.
It can hide in cities, forests, or even nuclear-attack hardened bunkers.
It'll travel at over 15,000 MPH while taking evasive action and pumping out decoys on the
way to its target.
TOPOL-M, known by NATO as the 'Sickle-B,' was the first ICBM created by Russia after
the fall of the Soviet Union.
Topol in Russian is the name for the White Poplar tree, which is very similar to the
Aspen tree in North America.
The TOPOL-M missile was designed to penetrate an American anti-ballistic missile shield
by leveraging high-speed, a relatively small infrared signature during its boost phase,
advanced decoys, maneuvering mid-course capability, and maneuvering independently targeted reentry
vehicles, of which it can carry up to six, although they are said to carry just one operationally.
The missile's high speed shortens the time anyone can react to it, and every second matters
when it comes to ballistic missile defense.
The rocket motors were designed for a short, very powerful boost stage so that American
space-based infrared detection satellites have less time to detect and track it.
Its decoys make it hard for radar to adequately track the correct target, and its countermeasures
are said to have been upgraded to fool infrared tracking systems, which are use for mid-course
interception.
The missile and reentry vehicles' ability to dynamically maneuver outside of their ballistic
track makes producing an effective kill solution, or even predicting the TOPOL-M's target, problematic.
All these features come together to make a missile that is probably outside of America's
missile defense capabilities today, and the sheer number of them that exists makes the
idea of defending against anything but a limited barrage totally invalid.
The missile itself is close to seventy feet long, made mainly out of carbon fiber and
weighs just over 100,000lbs at launch.
It can reach out to about 6,500 miles.
Its three stages are solid fueled, so it can be ready to launch at a moments notice, and
can remain ready to fire for long periods of time.
The TOPOL-M is so powerful that it can also be used to put up to medium-sized satellites
into low-earth orbit as its payload for ICBM operations can be as heavy as 2650lbs, although
it usually carriers a single 800 kiloton thermonuclear warhead.
It is guided by an on-board inertial navigation system that is coupled with a GLONASS interface,
giving the giant rocket a circular error probability of around 600 feet, which is more than accurate
enough for an ICBM.
Not only is the road-mobile TOPOL-M hard to hit once it is in the air, or at the edge
of space for that matter, it is also very hard to find on the ground as they can hide
pretty much anywhere.
Its transporter-erector-launcher is built in Belarus by heavy military vehicle makers
MZKT, features sixteen wheels, and the front and rear pair of axles have independent steering,
which is absolutely necessary for navigating the massive TEL on roads that were never built
for something its size.