The Thermobaric Missile Strike is the WMD of the Russian Federation. It is deployed by the Russians from ground-mobile launchers. Of the three factions, Russia's WMD is the crudest but is just as effective as the Laser and Kinetic Strike of their rivals.
Description
Russia doesn't have access to orbital-based kinetic energy weapons or advanced high energy orbital lasers, but it does have plenty of advanced thermobaric weapons (often incorrectly referred to as Vacuum Bombs). The Space-Land-Air-Missile Shield may have made ICBMs obsolete, but short-range, low-flying, high-speed missiles can still be used. It also appears that these missiles are mounted on ground-based mobile platforms, like some of late-Soviet/Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles. The Russian arsenal in 2010s included tactical ballistic missiles with conventional warheads, regarded as a type of artillery.
The weapon itself works by spreading non-oxidized fuel (it can be coal dust, jet fuel or aluminum powder, but the most powerful mixes are classified) with a small explosion, then igniting the fuel-air mixture. The result is a lot of heat and a powerful shock wave, producing a very real mushroom cloud.
The effect was discovered by the Germans, weaponized by Americans in 1960s as "Daisy Cutter" bombs, and brought to the extreme by the Russians as the ATBIP a.k.a. "Father of All Bombs" on 9.11.2007, giving the yield of 44 tons of TNT with just 7.8 tons of explosive.
This type of warhead is more versatile than one might think. 43mm pump-action grenade launchers for close-quarters combat are being developed, with a safe radius of 4m - and a guaranteed kill radius of 3m, thanks to the zero-frag ordnance. Shoulder-fired RPO-A Bumblebee rockets have been around since the 1980s, producing an explosion on par with a howitzer round. Aircraft-deployed bombs (mainly the 500-kg ODAB-500) are also available, just like the warheads for the Smerch MLRS. An artillery system, the TOS-1, is built solely to bring 30 thermobaric missiles within range of an enemy company - and burn it out.
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