Russian President Vladimir Putin has suffered an emabarassing setback as his feared Satan 2 nuclear arsenal failed four out of five missile tests, according to arms experts and satellite imagery from the launch site.
High-resolution satellite images of the launch pad at Russia’s Plesetsk test site, where the RS-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile exploded, shows extensive damage.
A crater approximately 60 meters wide at the launch silo at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia, along with visible damage in the surrounding area that was not present in images taken earlier in the month.
How many L’s is this man giving himself?
is russia testing nuclear arms again?
US tested a Minuteman III missile out of Vandenberg earlier this year. It was not carrying a nuclear payload. It’s fairly common for countries to test missiles. Some countries broadcast their intent publicly so as not to accidentally trigger a retaliatory launch. Others don’t broadcast publicly, but they do communicate via the good-old-boy net for the same reason.
Hey Russia, we’re launching a nuke missle with the nuke removed in your direction. Just testing we swear!
Sort of. The ICBM rocket delivery system.
The US is developing a new ICBM as well.
ok so they’re not “testing nuclear payloads” then. That’s good to know. I was confused as to what they meant with the title.
If they ever do test nuclear payloads, thats going to be a nightmare.
The US at least regularly tests its missiles. They shoot from California toward a Pacific island into a painted target.
Modern ICBMs are insanely accurate.
I don’t think a single soul on this planet was actually afraid of it. In fact, most people theorized this EXACT thing would happen.
But it passed one, huge success
No one wants to be at the receiving end of the Russian roulette.
The question is, did it pass the first one or the last one
Who would have thought that simply robbing an entire nation and giving all the proceeds to your corrupt friends would lead to an inability to manufacture practically everything? TIL
And I bet the ones who had an issue with corruption tended to be more competent than those who were ok with it, biasing those who sent to gulags or slipped out of open windows towards those who could compensate for the corruption.
ok slightly unrelated but the satellite pictures have an insane resolution for having been taken from, you know, space
Just imagine what the government has if that’s what’s available commercially to the public
for one thing, it’s mostly just lensing, and for another, it’s also partially due to the atmosphere of the earth actually working in tandem with the lensing of the satellites themselves. Dont ask me how it works but from what i understand, seeing out from earth is harder, but seeing in from space is easy. Something to do with the way that light refraction in the atmosphere works or something.
the weirdest thing about telescopes (essentially what these are), is that you can just put a hole in them, and they’ll still work just fine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlan_J._Smith_Telescope#Vandalism_damage
We know from Trump’s heedless shitposting that they can get the theoretical maximum resolution out of whatever aperture they have. For the US ones with the Hubble-clone mirrors that means not quite enough to recognise a face.
The heedless shitposting for those who don’t remember: https://www.npr.org/2022/11/18/1137474748/trump-tweeted-an-image-from-a-spy-satellite-declassified-document-shows
It’s amazing that one person can do so much crazy shit even that’s forgettable.
I bet no one remembers even a quarter of this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_views_of_Donald_Trump
Just gotta hope they are not pointing the thing at you…
I mean, it’s hard to avoid any number of other, closer cameras.
still scary AF
IMO it’s one of the least worst forms of surveillance. Keyhole 69420 might be able to see you’re outside, but the NSA sees everything you put in Google, especially the embarrassing things.
i imagine a bit of that is a software trick
I wonder how China feels having a North Korea on both sides of its country.
Hey, north Korea’s nuclear missiles work
Meh, ij mnay ways China IS north Korea, I doubt they have issues with it.
its north koreas all the way down?
I heard the success one got 35 kilometres, anyone can confirm?
for a ballistic missile 35 km is pretty ass. I think even ATACMs gets pretty close to this, upwards of like (edit 300km, i think i’m thinking of gmlrs lol) And that’s just a missile.
Ballistic missiles should really be able to go intercontinental, that was kind of the point of them.
ATACMS can go 300 km.
good call, i think i was confusing it with gmlrs for a second, though it’s also worth noting for a while the export variants had limited ranges, due to the US concerns over ukraine stuffing this shit straight into moscow.
Not anymore though.
for a ballistic missile 35 km is pretty ass.
Extremely ass.
Howitzers can shoot like 30km.
edit this cannon can do 41 km https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/155_GH_52_APU
edit2 we in Finland have like 700 howitzers and 56 of those linked cannons, plus tons of heavy mortars etc etc
The perfect range to nuke their own city and claim Ukraine did it.
Didn’t Ukraine give up it’s nuclear armaments by treaty with Russia in exchange for Russia acknowledging its sovereignty?
How many kilometers is one stick of dynamite? By one stick, I mean like the size of a soda’s height with a diameter equal or Greater than an A in chemistry. The internal composition being 37.3 grains and the .3 grain was cut and licked properly…so yeah, how many kilometers would that be?
Why would you make up your own metric? 1 stick and 1/2 stick are literal measurements.
You understood the comment?
I’m sorry, the what missile? I know there’s already “hellfire” missiles, but proclaiming a sequel to Lucifer Morningstar seems a bit silly.
It’s just the NATO designation. Official name is Sarmat.
Misread as Sharmat.
“Oh shit, Dagoth Ur?!”
It is not the NATO reporting name, as I detail in my comment. That’s associated with an older missile.
The SS 18 MIRV missile (and later versions) right?
Try to copy Ukrainian missile from 58 years ago
Fail
Second greatest military in the world!
Second greatest military in the world
I think they might be second best in Russia by now lmfao
Third best after prigozhin.
Has Wagner done anything since Jeka’s definitely not suspicious death?
They were hunted down a couple of times by Ukrainian spec ops in Africa.
I think I remember hearing in Jake Hanrahan’s Popular Front podcast in an interview that they have all been absorbed into the regular army.
Try to copy Ukrainian missile from 58 years ago
When both Russia and Ukraine were part of the USSR?
Second greatest military in the world!
The USSR hasn’t existed for >30 years, since then, Ukraine and Russia have done little but feed on its corpse. Does anyone honestly think modern Russia has a better military than China?
Good point. Failing to copy your own missile would be even worse, though.
Does anyone honestly think modern Russia has a better military than China?
A good number of people did until early 2022. It looked a lot better on paper.
A good number of people did until early 2022. It looked a lot better on paper.
You are technically correct, the best kind of correct.
I mean the jokes comes from somewhere.
To try to be less technical, I’d go as far as saying it was a double-digit percentage of public commenters. I remember because I was there thinking how dumb that is.
A good number of people did until early 2022. It looked a lot better on paper.
Did it? I remember a ton of propaganda about Putin and Russia going back to the Obama era, but then they’d show off stuff the USSR had developed to fight a war in Germany/Ukraine against late 1900s American equipment and tactics.
Whereas China was showing off their modern fighters, tank and ship production, and an entire branch of the military dedicated to missiles, and greater numbers than any other military, all designed to fight their next war; defending against/driving the US out of it’s back yard.
If you’re talking about the whole “human wave” thing in WWII, the ex-Nazis made that up for their memoirs. The old AskHistorians subreddit went into it once; basically the USSR fought the same way everyone else did.
I think the smart money was still on China post 2010 or so, but there was actual debate. They had a lot of old weapon stocks, and a still respectable population, if not as huge as China’s.
If you’re talking about the whole “human wave” thing in WWII, the ex-Nazis made that up for their memoirs.
Ironically, there actual cases of human-wave like attacks in WWII, notably banzai charges by Japan and MacArthur’s Walking Fire.
Walking Fire is new to me. It sounds like it’s pretty much an older term for suppressive fire during an advance, from a quick search. Do you have an example of it leading to massive attrition like that?
The Japanese liked to do it as a last resort sometimes, that’s definitely true, and it was the plan if the home islands were invaded. I have no idea what proportion of those civilians drilling with melee weapons would have been dumb enough to try it IRL, though.
Ukraine has done a lot more to move forward then Russia ever has.
The USSR couldn’t have achieved a fraction of what it did without all its SSRs working together.
Hell it probably wouldn’t have survived getting invaded by every country with a military after WWI without both Russia and Ukraine.
And? I only said the Ukraine has been doing more to increase the quality of life for its citizens then Russia.
Also, it’s a pretty bold claim to say that EVERY nation with a military has tried to invade. I’d like to see a list of that.
it’s a pretty bold claim to say that EVERY nation with a military has tried to invade
It’s only the slightest exaggeration..
Between 1915 and 1920, they were invaded by: United Kingdom, France, US, Japan, Italy, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Serbia, Romania, China, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, The Ottoman Empire, and I’m sure I missed a few more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Russia_intervention
Czechoslovakia certainly didn’t invade in the traditional sense, because:
- The troops were there before the bolshevik revolution with the agreement of the Russian government and on the way out of Russia when they were attacked.
- Czechoslovakia didn’t exist yet.
It’s kinda wild to claim that the US invaded Russia when they literally only sent one contigent of troops. That’s like saying Canada invaded Afghanistan.
Canada did invade Afghanistan though?
Between 1915 and 1920
Not at all relevant to any current events.
The point was that it’s silly to try to divide up and assign individual responsibility for the achievements of the USSR 30-100+ years ago when those achievements were only possible because Ukraine and Russia were part of a greater whole.
.ml moment
No, the .ml moment would be something like “don’t believe your lying CIA eyes, all the non-Western nations are working together in beautiful anti-imperialist harmony and very competent”.
This seems like a normal take from someone who happens to be on .ml.
Most propaganda isn’t that obvious. It often seems normal and a lot of it is actually based on the truth.
Internet “anti-imperialists” wish they were getting paid, which is what propaganda implies. In reality, it’s Qanon but gay-friendly.
Yes, well said. Many of them are just useful idiots.
I expected a .ml to show up huffing copium when I saw this thread, wasn’t disappointed. So predictable.
It’s copium to acknowledge that Ukraine and Russia were part of the same country 58 years ago, and that modern Russia and Ukraine are able to achieve far less than the USSR was? This is evidenced by both countries primarily fighting with 30+ year old weapons.
I guess basic historical literacy is tankie shit now.
Really hard to adhere to quality if money is being pocketed at every corner and then spend outside the hellhole you created.
That’s a Russian clean sweep! Get out the smuggled Champaign.
I’m sorry the hwhat?!
I know that a nuke would literally create a hell on earth but there’s no way you can name the fucking thing Satan and not be the bad guy.
They didn’t. They named it “Sarmat”.
NATO also had reporting names for Soviet weapons. IIRC surface-to-surface missiles start with “S”. A few are rather…less-than complimentary, “Satan” – the name used for the weapon that this replaces – probably being the most so.
This missile doesn’t have the reporting name “Satan 2” for NATO, though. The only link it has with the original surface-to-surface missile with the NATO reporting name “Satan” is that it’s supposed to replace it and so Western media, which very much enjoyed mentioning “Satan” wherever possible, dubbed the new missile “Satan 2”. But it’s not an official name with NATO or Russia, just something that the media uses for the clicks.
The original missile:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-36_(missile)#R-36M
The new one:
Sounds like NATO should name it “Stupid”
But really we should name all nuclear weapons Stupid anyway.
The Kremlin is probably happy to hear it called Satan. They’re getting desperate and empty threats of global nuclear war are one of the only cards they have left.
No wonder the media is using Satan II. NATO hasn’t given it one or is just referring to it by number. I’d do the same thing if I was reporting on it.
They gave it one. It’s just not as evocative as “Satan”:
NATO reporting name: SS-X-29 or SS-X-30
Sounds like a Tesla model or one of Elon’s kids.
Well they couldn’t very well call it the Sexy 29.
Stupid sexy ICBM…
Found a Techpriest
No you can’t, because Russia can’t get it up!
I’ll show myself out…
NCD might
NATO hasn’t given it one or is just referring to it by number.
I’m not surprised the media went with Satan II.
Extremely angry at my military for naming it’s unlimited genocide machine “Big Evil Monster” rather than “Widdle Fuzzy Bunny Wabbit”.
Almost don’t even want them to use it anymore.
You should work for the Royal Navy.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Dainty_(H53)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Tickler
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Cockchafer_(1915)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower-class_corvette
Just to name a few.
Can just give it a simple code. We don’t need fun names for this stuff.
We actually need the fun names. The point is that barely-educated Private Joe in the military remembers what it is and how it looks like, and does not mix it up with other things if he sees it.
It’s not a nickname, it’s an official reporting name.
Satan 2 literally is a nickname.
The official NATO reporting name is SS-X-29
That’s why he named it Satan 2.
Everyone said I was daft to build missile in Russia, but I built it all the same, just to show them. It blew up on the launchpad. So I built a second one. That blew up on the launchpad. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then blew up on the launchpad. But the fourth one stayed airborne! And that’s what you’re going to get lad, the stupidest named missile in all of Russia
What, the [Iron] Curtains?
Article including the satellite imagery of the site where the RS-28 Sarmat missile exploded:
