Russia was the first of the countries of the “nuclear club” to create a maneuvering warhead flying at a speed close to the first space one. The Commander of the Strategic Missile Forces (Strategic Missile Forces), Colonel-General Sergei Karakaev, spoke about this. “Russia was the first to receive an actually operating aircraft, which develops a speed more than 20 times higher than the Mach number (Mach 1 is the speed of sound at a certain altitude. – MK),” the general said in an interview with the central press of the RF Ministry of Defense to the Krasnaya star “on the eve of the Strategic Missile Forces Day, which is celebrated on December 17. The general spoke about the capabilities of the Avangard maneuvering unit: it flies at speeds comparable to the first space speed, while being able to carry out an unexpected hypersonic maneuver and hit targets in unpredictable places and from unexpected directions.
Earlier it was reported that, thanks to the ability to maneuver, the “Avangard” becomes virtually invulnerable to any means of missile defense (ABM) of the United States. The existing missile defense systems work according to the following algorithm: they detect a target flying along a ballistic trajectory, determine its location at two or more points, based on these data, calculate the speed and trajectory of the target, and launch an anti-missile proactively at the desired point of the ballistic trajectory. The maneuvering Avangard breaks this algorithm, the missile defense system does not know where to launch the anti-missile.
Karakaev said that the Avangard missile system has already been put on alert and “is the world’s first strategic hypersonic nuclear weapon.” According to the commander, the Strategic Missile Forces receive up to 20 Yars and Avangard complexes a year.