During her stint as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton ensured that fully 20 percent of America’s uranium stockpile was delivered to Russia. That same uranium very well could be headed back to the United States one day.
But in this case, it just may be delivered via the newest weapons platform built by Mother Russia – the RS-28 Sarmat Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), NATO code name: Satan II.
As reported both by The Mirror of London, and the Russian government funded Sputnik News, the Sarmat is scheduled to go into production as soon as 2018. But what should have Westerners concerned isn’t just that this particular ICBM is touted as the largest missile ever constructed, but nuclear punch it can deliver.
The delivery platform can launch either 16 medium or 10 heavy nuclear warheads. While the particular warhead the RS-28 will carry hasn’t been cited, the system it’s designated to replace, the RS-36, is known to carry the 8F675 warhead.
That same singular warhead has a reported yield of 25 Mt (Megatons).
While 25 megatons equals 25 million tons to TNT, that same 25 million tons equates to 50 billion (50,000,000,000) pounds of radioactive explosive power.
By comparison, the Little Boy atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima had a blast yield of a mere 15 kilotons (15 thousand tons or 30 million pounds of TNT). Please keep in mind that there was only one atomic device aboard the Enola Gay.
However, a single Satan II armed with ten separate 8F675 warheads could conceivably carry half a trillion tons (1 quadrillion pounds) of TNT.
What makes the Satan II even more dangerous is that it doesn’t fly in a straight line. As reported;
In anticipation of the new missile’s appearance, what many foreign defense specialists have found most disconcerting is the prospect of the RS-28 being armed with Project 4202, a Russian hypersonic glider warhead carrier which, after separating from its ICBM launch vehicle, would be able to accelerate to speeds between Mach 7 and Mach 12, acting like a hypersonic cruise missile. The glider, expected to come online between 2020 and 2025, would be capable of maneuvering to overcome any existing or prospective missile defenses to reach its target.
Mach 7 equals 5,371 MPH, while Mach 12 is 9,207 MPH.
The speed of a NATO 5.56 round fired from an M16A2 rifle clocks in at 3,250 feet per second, or 2,216 MPH. Meaning that Russia’s Project 4202 is four and a half times faster than a bullet.
To better understand what devastation of RS-28 can deliver, NuclearSecrecy.com illustrates that 10 heavy warheads could sow a path of destruction from Boston to Norfolk, leaving almost 18 million dead and injured in its wake.
Other than the fireball and airblast casualties, just the thermal radiation would ensure a path 30 miles wide and 650 miles long.
According to the website,
Third degree burns extend throughout the layers of skin, and are often painless because they destroy the pain nerves. They can cause severe scarring or disablement, and can require amputation. 100% probability for 3rd degree burns at this yield is 13.3 cal/cm2.
Cal/cm2 is the unit of measurement for Arc flash heat energy (calories per square centimeter squared). Third degree burns normally occur at eight cal/cm2.
