Heavy ICBM is a term that was created in the 1970s to describe a class of

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

and Russian ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles). They were characterized by a heavy

throw-weight A ballistic missile is a type of missile that uses projectile motion to deliver warheads on a target. These weapons are guided only during relatively brief periods—most of the flight is unpowered. Short-range ballistic missiles stay within the ...

of 5 to 9 metric tons, several times that of an

LGM-30 Minuteman The LGM-30 Minuteman is an American land-based intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in service with the Air Force Global Strike Command. , the LGM-30G Minuteman III version is the only land-based ICBM in service in the United States and ...

, and a length of over 35 meters, and were thus capable of delivering a large number of warheads in a single

MIRV A multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) is an exoatmospheric ballistic missile payload containing several warheads, each capable of being aimed to hit a different target. The concept is almost invariably associated with i ...

missile. This term usually refers to R-36 / "SS-9 Scarp", R-36M ( SS-18) variants / "SS-18 Satan", and the

RS-28 Sarmat The RS-28 Sarmat (, named after the Sarmatians; NATO reporting name: SS-X-29 or SS-X-30), known as "Satan II", is a Russian liquid-fueled, MIRV-equipped super-heavy intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) produced by the Makeyev Rocket Desig ...

/ "SS-X-32 SNOWFLAKE" missiles. RS-28 Sarmat is called a "superheavy" ICBM. Superheavy ICBMs date back to the

UR-500 Proton (Russian: Протон) (formal designation: UR-500) is an expendable launch system used for both commercial and Russian government space launches. The first Proton rocket was launched in 1965. Modern versions of the launch system are sti ...

which was designed to deliver the 50 megaton (potentially, 100 megaton)

Tsar Bomba The Tsar Bomba () ( code name: ''Ivan'' or ''Vanya''), also known by the alphanumerical designation "AN602", was a thermonuclear aerial bomb, and the most powerful nuclear weapon ever created and tested. Overall, the Soviet physicist Andrei ...

warhead. The UR-500 was developed into the Proton which successfully launched the first living beings to orbit the Moon and return safely, on

Zond 5 Zond 5 (russian: Зонд 5, lit=Probe 5) was a spacecraft of the Soviet Zond program. In September 1968 it became the first spaceship to travel to and circle the Moon, the first Moon mission to include animals, and the first to return safely to ...

Deliveries

The SS-9 was a silo-launched missile capable of delivering warheads of 5–18 megatons, with a range of up to 15,500 km. These were then replaced by the similar SS-18, with payloads of 18–25 megatons. The silos used for launching were the same for both, once modified.

References

Ballistic missiles of the Soviet Union 1970s in the Soviet Union {{Nuclear-weapon-stub