The MR-UR-100 Sotka was a

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 ...

-warhead

intercontinental ballistic missile An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more thermonuclear warheads). Conventional, chemical, and biological weapo ...

(ICBM) developed and deployed by the

Soviet Union 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 nationa ...

from 1978 to 1993. The missile was given the

NATO reporting name NATO reporting names are code names for military equipment from Russia, China, and historically, the Eastern Bloc (Soviet Union and other nations of the Warsaw Pact). They provide unambiguous and easily understood English words in a uniform man ...

SS-17 Spanker and was built under the Soviet industry designation 15A15. An alternative designation for the missile is the UR-100MR.

Development

OKB-586 Pivdenne Design Office ( uk, Державне конструкторське бюро «Південне» ім. М. К. Янгеля , lit=State design bureau "Southern", named after M. K. Yangel, translit=Derzhavne konstruktors ...

developed the MR-UR-100 project. The purpose was to develop a

capable replacement for the existing

UR-100 The UR-100 (russian: УР-100) was an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) developed and deployed by the Soviet Union from 1966 to 1996. UR () in its designation stood for Universal Rocket (russian: links=no, Универсальная Р� ...

missiles in service. While designed to fit into existing

silos, it still required some modification of existing silos to accommodate the new missile, due to its requirement for a cold launch system. The development of "modernized

" was authorized on 19 August 1970 (document No.682-218) and assigned to both

and TsKBM (builder of

). The design bureau conducted flight tests from 1971 through 1974. Deployment commenced in December 1978. The more advanced MR-UR-100UTTh version began development in 1979, with flight tests from 1977 through 1979. The new missiles had completely replaced the original version by 1983, at which time the Soviets fielded 270 launchers. From there the number of launchers declined, and by the 1991

START I START I (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) was a bilateral treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union on the reduction and the limitation of strategic offensive arms. The treaty was signed on 31 July 1991 and entered into force on 5 De ...

Treaty they were down to 76. All were scheduled for dismantling and removed from the inventory.

In fiction

In the historical fiction novel ''The Third World War'', written by General Sir John Hackett, a warhead from a MR-UR-100 detonates 3500m above

Birmingham, England Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...

at 10:30 hours GMT on 20 August 1985. The explosion kills 300,000 people within minutes, with a further 250,000 likely to die in the aftermath.''The Third World War'', General Sir John Hackett, Sphere Books, 1978, p371

Operator

; : The

Strategic Rocket Forces The Strategic Rocket Forces of the Russian Federation or the Strategic Missile Forces of the Russian Federation (RVSN RF; russian: Ракетные войска стратегического назначения Российской Фед� ...

were the only operators of the Sotka.

References

External links

15A15
MR-UR-100 Cold War intercontinental ballistic missiles of the Soviet Union MR-UR-100 Military equipment introduced in the 1970s {{Russia-mil-stub

Development

In fiction

Operator

See also

References

External links