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 List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

and Russian

ICBM 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 weapons ...

s (intercontinental ballistic missiles). They were characterized by a heavy throw-weight 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 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 A proton is a stable subatomic particle, symbol , H+, or 1H+ with a positive electric charge of +1 ''e'' elementary charge. Its mass is slightly less than that of a neutron and 1,836 times the mass of an electron (the proton–electron mass ...

which successfully launched the first living beings to orbit the Moon and return safely, on Zond 5.

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