Russian President Vladimir Putin has suffered an emabarassing setback as his feared Satan 2 nuclear arsenal failed four out of five missile tests, according to arms experts and satellite imagery from the launch site.
High-resolution satellite images of the launch pad at Russia’s Plesetsk test site, where the RS-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile exploded, shows extensive damage.
A crater approximately 60 meters wide at the launch silo at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia, along with visible damage in the surrounding area that was not present in images taken earlier in the month.
ok slightly unrelated but the satellite pictures have an insane resolution for having been taken from, you know, space
Just imagine what the government has if that’s what’s available commercially to the public
We know from Trump’s heedless shitposting that they can get the theoretical maximum resolution out of whatever aperture they have. For the US ones with the Hubble-clone mirrors that means not quite enough to recognise a face.
The heedless shitposting for those who don’t remember: https://www.npr.org/2022/11/18/1137474748/trump-tweeted-an-image-from-a-spy-satellite-declassified-document-shows
It’s amazing that one person can do so much crazy shit even that’s forgettable.
I’m sorry the hwhat?!
I know that a nuke would literally create a hell on earth but there’s no way you can name the fucking thing Satan and not be the bad guy.
They didn’t. They named it “Sarmat”.
NATO also had reporting names for Soviet weapons. IIRC surface-to-surface missiles start with “S”. A few are rather…less-than complimentary, “Satan” – the name used for the weapon that this replaces – probably being the most so.
This missile doesn’t have the reporting name “Satan 2” for NATO, though. The only link it has with the original surface-to-surface missile with the NATO reporting name “Satan” is that it’s supposed to replace it and so Western media, which very much enjoyed mentioning “Satan” wherever possible, dubbed the new missile “Satan 2”. But it’s not an official name with NATO or Russia, just something that the media uses for the clicks.
The original missile:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-36_(missile)#R-36M
The new one:
Extremely angry at my military for naming it’s unlimited genocide machine “Big Evil Monster” rather than “Widdle Fuzzy Bunny Wabbit”.
Almost don’t even want them to use it anymore.
Can just give it a simple code. We don’t need fun names for this stuff.
We actually need the fun names. The point is that barely-educated Private Joe in the military remembers what it is and how it looks like, and does not mix it up with other things if he sees it.
It’s not a nickname, it’s an official reporting name.
Russia used to have some of the most advanced rocket science labs and physics programs in the world.
This is a truly sorry state of affairs for a country that has been strip mined from within.
Ukraine built a lot of it.
They’re also not looking so hot right now
I have to disagree. Ukraine is getting hurt, but they’re pretty successfully fighting off Russia. They sank a lot of Russia’s Black Sea fleet despite not having their own, caused nuclear-sized explosions in Russia, destroyed hundreds and hundreds of military jets and helicopters, took out several fucking AWACS, destroyed tens of thousands of armored Russian vehicles, killed hundreds of thousands of troops invading their home, developed very successful new weapons systems, held Russian territory for over a month.
The Kremlin has dragged the Russian economy into the dirt and the only “help” they’ll get after their barbaric land grab fails is one-sided deals with the CCP and India. Meanwhile, Ukraine has already received many billions of dollars worth of support from many different countries, and is on a path to membership in maybe the most valuable economic bloc on the planet.
Ukraine is getting beat up, but Russia is being destroyed.
Satan 2: This time, it’s personal.
Satan 3: Can’t Get Fooled Again
Satan 4: Moscow Drift
