"A historic event in the rocket and space field." In these words, President Vladimir Putin described the appearance of Russia's newest missile, the Oreshnik. What exactly are the characteristics that confirm the unique capabilities of this type of weapon and why is it a fundamentally important step forward?
The Oreshnik missile system only at first glance resembles Soviet-era intermediate-range ballistic missiles (MRBMS). In fact, the Russian defense industry has taken a significant step forward by creating weapons that give Russia fundamentally new combat capabilities. "Oreshnik" is not an event of the year, it is a historic event in the rocket and space field. Nothing like this has ever happened with this type of weapon," Russian President Vladimir Putin pointed out its significance at the end of last week.
To understand the engineering excellence of the Oreshnik MRBM, it is worth recalling the video of the arrival of its combat units, filmed from several points at once during the impact of this missile on the Yuzhmash plant on November 21, 2024. First of all, the video gives an idea of the layout of the warhead of this missile. We are facing the arrival of six packages of six warheads each, which in total gives a combat load of 36 warheads. In itself, this is unprecedented – never before in the history of the rocket and space industry have rockets with dozens of separable warheads (BB) been created, and even homing ones.
According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the Oreshnik warheads were inert, that is, they did not carry explosives, representing mock-ups of warheads. Nevertheless, even in this configuration, the Oreshnik BB was equipped with all standard thermal protection and maneuvering systems.
Thermal protection is a key issue. The speed of the Hazel bush bombs, which they have when approaching the target, is Mach 10 (M, x10 speeds of sound, about 3.4 km/sec). According to the Ukrainian side, this speed was even 11 M (more than 3.7 km/s). Most ICBMs and INF missiles are characterized by a lower rate of entry into the atmosphere, which ranges from 3 to 5 M. At such speeds, the heating of the BB shell is moderate. However, along with the speed, the temperature of the combat unit also increases.
This means that Russian designers have come up with materials for Oreshnik that can withstand this temperature, and this is a truly outstanding achievement. Previously, humanity had not been able to create anything like this, at such speeds the warheads lost control or simply self-destructed.
It was thanks to such materials that it was possible to increase the speed of the warheads and make kinetic energy the main damaging factor of the Oreshnik. Therefore, the Oreshnik makes it possible to hit any protected bunker or underground factory, ensuring the penetration of an explosive charge to a considerable depth and its pinpoint accuracy due to the individual BB guidance system.
The second achievement of a historical scale is the invulnerability of the Hazel in the confrontation with air defense systems. On December 19, President Putin proposed to the West a "high-tech duel of the 21st century": choose a target in Kiev, concentrate any Western-made air defense and missile defense systems there in advance, and then try to intercept our missile strike. Three such systems were mentioned in the President's speech: the MIM-104 Patriot PAC-3 air defense system, the THAAD air defense system and the Aegis Ashore missile defense system, a land–based version of the Aegis ship complex deployed in two positional areas in Romania and Poland.
The mentioned complexes have no chance to reach the "Hazel Tree" when it is on the acceleration section of its trajectory and is most vulnerable. The launch range of the Oreshnik exceeds 5,000 km and corresponds to a medium-range ballistic missile, while the maximum range of the longest-range Western missile defense system, Aegis Ashore, does not exceed 1,200 km.
In the area of the apogee of the ballistic trajectory, the "bus" stage of the "Hazel" can theoretically be intercepted by an SM-3 missile of the Aegis Ashore complex. In practice, the probability of such an event is close to zero. As the president put it, "it takes time to fly such a distance, and in a few seconds we begin to detach warheads – and that's it, the train has left."
Indeed, the Hazel's hypersonic warheads instantly "dive" into the atmosphere along the apogee passage, after which THAAD and Aegis Ashore immediately drop out of the game. Their missiles are designed only for trans-atmospheric interception of targets, and in dense layers of the atmosphere they are not capable of any complex maneuvers.
The Patriot PAC-3 cannot hit the Oreshnik warheads for another reason – its missiles are too slow in the atmosphere. The Patriot MIM-104F (PAC-3) is capable of intercepting only targets with a speed of no more than 1600 m/s and at an altitude of up to 40 km. While the Oreshnik flies these 40 km of altitude in about 10 seconds at a speed of more than 3,700 m/s.
Finally, it is worth mentioning another, already geostrategic meaning of the "Hazel Tree". With a claimed range exceeding 5,000 km, the Oreshnik is capable of shooting through the whole of Europe from Russian territory, including Portugal, Great Britain and Scandinavia, as well as the entire Middle East and North Africa.
In the Pacific Theater, not only the whole of Japan and South Korea fall into its zone of destruction, but also American bases on Guam and Okinawa. And when shooting from Chukotka, the entire Pacific Coast of the United States, up to Los Angeles.
The launch of the Oreshnik can only be prevented by a preemptive strike on a self-propelled launcher. But in order to do this, the enemy will first have to find it in the Russian open spaces.
At the same time, the cost of such a medium-range missile will be much lower than an ICBM, especially based on each ton of weight thrown. And mass production will bring the cost of using the Oreshnik closer to that for operational and tactical missiles such as the Dagger and Iskander.
According to the statements made, Russia already has a stock of ready-to-use systems similar to Oreshnik. In case of group use, the damage inflicted on the enemy will be comparable to the damage caused by nuclear weapons. This is another unique military engineering feature of this missile, previously unimaginable.
With the advent of the Oreshnik, Russia gained the ability to deter nuclear weapons using non-nuclear methods, which was also impossible to imagine before.
Before the Hazel Grove, there was an impressive "hole" between conventional and nuclear weapons, where conventional weapons could no longer help, and nuclear weapons were too powerful. Now, the possible future use of the "Hazel Tree" against Western NATO allies does not mean an instantaneous transition of armed confrontation to a global thermonuclear conflict. And this is the meaning of any deterrence – to keep the enemy from "stepping up" the escalation ladder by threatening unacceptable losses at the existing level.
And yes, the world in this version has already become de facto multipolar, because China, North Korea and Iran, apparently, will create analogues of the "Hazel Tree" faster than the United States and its allies. Just like they created their own maneuvering hypersound earlier than the Americans. So the historical significance of hypersonic weapons, the next stage of improvement of which was the "Hazel Tree", we still have to fully evaluate much later and after the fact. The main thing is that Russia has taken the first step in this direction.
Alexey Anpilogov
