Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)
SOURCES AND METHODS
Facilities Russia / Soviet Nuclear Forces
- Except as noted, this list is complete and believed accurate.
- The Vypolzovo [Yedrovo] base is very poorly localized .... we can't find either placename anywhere near the apparent location.
- All designated locations are base headquarters, rather than actual deployment areas.
- Rail-mobile garrisons for RT-23 [SS-24] at Kostroma and Tatishchevo are poorly localized.
- Except as noted, this list is complete and believed accurate.
- The primary source is the December 1987 data exchange materials from the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles. These materials also include a rather handy set of geo-coordinates for the out-of-garrison field deployment areas for mobile missiles, but at present these are only indicated for the Smorgon' facility.
- Given the nature and timing of this primary source, facilities dismantled prior to 1987 are not indicated. The extent of missing R-12 [SS-4] facilities is unknown, and we remain utterly clueless as to R-14 [SS-5] facilities, since these were all dismantled in the early 1970s.
- This is a big mess, and is going to need some serious sorting out. We seem to have an awfully large number of airfields at which a relatively small number of the Russian strategic and theater bombers might be based.
- The primary source is Nuclear Battlefields by William Arkin & Richard Fieldhouse [Ballinger, 1985]. Without detracting from the pathbreaking stature of this monumental work, it must be noted that this source lists a number of "possible" or "probable" bomber bases. Nuclear Battlefields does not provide precise geocoordinates, and in some instances we have not been able to locate named facilities [ie, if anyone knows where Anisovo Gorod, Balbasovo, Kulbakino, Olenek, Vladimirovka, or Zyabrovka might be found, please drop us a line ASAP]. And it goes without saying that the data is over a decade old, and reflects neither post-Soviet redeployment of forces or more recent withdrawals from service.
- The other major source for this list is the START-1 data exchange, which provides the numbers and locations of strategic bombers. This source, however, sheds no light on the far more numerous theater [Tu-16, Tu-22, and Tu-22M] bombers or their locations.
- Unfortunately, we are not able to immediately locate any other UNCLASS sources that even mention deployment locations.
- We have provided individual pages with maps for only those facilities that we reasonably believe currently host strategic and theater bombers, and for which we are able to identify the location of the airfield.
-
The airfield marker designates an airfield location indicated in the National Imagery and Mapping Agency DTED Level-0 maps. In some instances, this is the only airfield around, and so we are pretty confident we are on the mark. In other instances, such as Irkutsk or Engel's, there are multiple airfields in the immediate vicinity, and we are unable to determine their relationship to the bomber base [ie, we may have guessed wrong, or there may be multiple airfields associated with the base, or something...]. But we only provide maps with this marker when we know that there is an airfield at that location, which we suspect hosts strategic or theater bombers.
- Thanks to the excellent work of the fine folks at NRDC, this list is complete and believed accurate.
- Many of these facilities cover extended areas, and while the map markers designate the main or central site, we need to get a better handle on the full extent of some of these locations.
References
|
NEWSLETTER
|
|
Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list
|
|
|
