Russian Avantgard hypersonic missile officially commissioned

[ikalugin]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Thats a bit like concluding from that a Tomahawk cruise missiles can be emergency-detonated via remote control this means it was the primary intention to design a weapon that can break off an attack it was laucnhed on. Or that a plane was designed with the primary purose of ejecting the pilot with a rocket seat.

All this is secondary, and backup. Not the project-leading idea. You do not buy a car so that you can wear seat-belts. You buy a car to drive from A to B. Seat-belts are just part of the deal.

Yes and no. For example while manned bombers are indeed built as delivery systems one of the main reasons why they are maintained in Russian and US use despite many disadvantages is that they can be recalled in flight, both passively (when they reach positive control points and do not receive orders to go forward with the attack) and actively (via recall orders).

The ability to recall the attack has it's merits that I have described above. To re-iterate: it can significantly decrease the risks of accidental launch or launch on false warning while retaining the advantages of enabling the rest of your force to deliver the attack by killing the BMD.

For context - 12 Avanguards used in such a way would enable est. 115 RVs from SLBMs and 34 RVs from ICBM TELs (for mobile forces, I do not discuss other silo based ICBMs here) to reach their targets with ease. So you spend 12 RVs to ensure arrival of ~150.