Talk:R-7 Semyorka

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment[edit]

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 15 January 2019 and 2 May 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): GTR34S.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 07:38, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Contradictions[edit]

The article right now gives contradictory information as to how many of these missiles were deployed. This is not surprising as sources often contradict each other on such matters. That's why when giving any numbers it is always useful to provide the reference from which they were obtained. My numbers were from reference listed below, i.e. The Kremlin's Nuclear Sword. So, where does the information "A single launch pad was operational at Baikonur and from six to eight were in operation at Plesetsk" come from? Balcer 06:05, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I must admit I am not an expert on Russian missiles, but shorely the part in the article which states that the R7 was developed for A-bomb technology, and further states that the warhead has a yield of 2.9MT, this doesn't add up what A-bomb had a yiled this large, either the figures are wrong or the warhead was a H-bomb. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yakacm (talk • contribs) 09:55, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the warhead was thermonuclear, an H-bomb, not an A-bomb. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DonPMitchell (talk • contribs) 18:11, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong deployment time?[edit]

The article states that the missile was deployed from 1959. However, the article about Sputnik 1 states that it was launched by a R-7, in 1957. Is this deployment time supposed to include satellite launches? If so, the date should be changed.

Fact sequence is:
  1. Development of R-7 was initiated in 1954 in OKB-1 of S.P.Korolev
  2. First launches in May 1957
  3. 04 Oct and 03 Nov 1957 first satellites were launched using R-7.
  4. The first body of troops (formation?) of ICBMs has became the "Angara" object ("combat station" photo?) of 4 launchers under the command of colonel M.G.Grigoriev. The deployment of "Angara" was completed in fall 1958.
  5. The first in the USSR combat/training launch of R-7 from the "Angara" station was performed in July 1959.
See also: [1], [2], offisial history, warhead@[3]...
select dates at your taste --jno 09:06, 28 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The article states that a nuclear warhead was launched on October 1957, but the only R-7 launch that month was Sputnik-1. Among the many problems with this article. When was the first actual successful launch and detonation of a thermonucelar warhead by R-7? DonPMitchell (talk) 15:03, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OKB-1 had not developed a re-entry vehicle in 1957. There was not a successful test of the RV on the 8K71 until early 1958.

Did the Soviets ever actually launch a missile which exploded a bomb at the end of the flight ? Did the Americans ?Eregli bob (talk) 06:39, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Picture[edit]

Isn't the picture a Vostok?

That is correct. It is indeed a Vostok. Of course the Vostok is derived from the R-7 (as are the Voshod and the Soyuz), so the image ist not wholly incorrect. Still, I would strongly recommend placing a better image on the page.
By the way: The image itself is also incorrectly labeled as “R-7”.

this article is ridiculous[edit]

so many derogarating words and insinuations like failure, not viable etc, the bomber would detroy it or icbm.. dugh..... the person who wrote that is just jelauous of russian achievements..the r-7 did its job just fine, its not failiure its huge success... just be happy it had never been pressed in to the service..

I agree, in particular, section "Operational history" is not neutral by far. I've added {{POV-section}} tag due to this. Cmapm

You wish to tell us why the 1957 five year plan anticipated purchasing 210 R-7s and eventually only six launchers were deployed? Sergei Pavlovich Korolev succeeded in building the most important launch vehicle in history under the guise of producing a weapon. The maximum number of 8K74s that the Soviet Union could have hit the USA with was 7. Then the launchers would have been glowing smoking holes in the ground. That is given the optimum situation where the extensive and prolonged preparations for launch of six missiles at once from the Pletesk base were not detected by the USA. Had they been the base would have disappered before any could be launched. 

That the Soviet Union was so desperate as to proceed with what was clearly not a very good ICBM while the USA took only slightly longer to develop and field two much more practical missiles shows just how severe the strategic imbalance between the two nations was in the 1950s. The 8K64, aka R-16, aka SS-7, aka "Saddler" was a practical offensive system as was the Atlas D and E.

One thing the 8K71 accomplished was causing hysteria in the USA which led to paranoid fantasies of a 'missile gap' and the subsequent waste of immense amounts of money by the USA in building idiotic numbers of ICBMs over the next decade.Mark Lincoln (talk) 15:37, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Censored article: great shame.[edit]

The R-7 is based on the german cluster design by Ing. Goetrupp, yet there isn't a single word on it in the article. Most of the rocket (layout, engine chambers, turbopumps, etc.) was designed by superior german engineers taken POW by the soviets. The russian missile programme was just as nazi-based as the US was with Wernher von Braun! 82.131.210.162 09:29, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's not at all true. That is a myth created recently by some German authors. The Russians used Germans to build a replica of the V-2 (which they called the R-1) and then sent them home in the late 1940s. Goetrupp was a radio engineer, he never designed rockets or rocket engines. The R-7's multi-stage design was based on detailed mathematical analysis of sequential and parallel stage designs made in the early 1950s at the Keldysh institute. DonPMitchell 16:57, 2 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Quite correct Don. The myth of "Our Germans vs. Their Germans" is spurious as veterans of the A-4 program had little or nothing to do with the R-7 or Atlas programs. Both Karl Bossart and Sergei Pavlovich Korolev were concerned with the unknown problem of igniting a liquid propellant motor at high altitude. Thus they each chose variants of "parallel staging' to evade the need to do so. The R-7 had 4 booster blocks which were were ignited simultaneously with the central block (stage). Bossart chose the 1-1/2 stage concept where the boosters drew fuel from the same tankage as the sustainer motor. The boosters would be ejected when fuel weight was drastically reduced and the sustainer finished the launch. The Atlas certainly had the Mass Ratio.Mark Lincoln (talk) 14:37, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Specifications[edit]

I tried to remove some confusing and inaccurate inf. and to introduce inf. on modifications of R-7 rocket. I took specifications for 8K71PS from http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/mwade/lvs/spuk71ps.htm And specifications for 8A91 from http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/mwade/lvs/spuk8a91.htm I also corrected image caption after looking at this picture: Image:GPN-2002-000184.png Cmapm 17:43, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would beware of using wade's site as a final authorality on numbers. Some of Korolev's reports are contained in Raushenbakh's biography. Probably the best facts and figures are compiled in the book _Bolshoi Kosmichesky Klub_, recently compiled by Afanasiev. There are huge problems with the data in this wikipedia article, including some conversions to pound units based on British ton defintion (all "tons" are metric, 1000 kg). DonPMitchell (talk) 20:10, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Slight correction[edit]

The Stage-0 boosters for the Sputnik (first spec set) are listed as weighing 3.400 g(rams?). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 15.251.169.70 (talk) 00:37, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Known as ... what?[edit]

"within the Soviet Union <it was known> by the GRAU index 8K71"

The phrase is misleading, it conveys the sense of public knowledge, and in reality it was quite opposite: GRAU codes, by default, were strictly for military use, they were never pronounced on TV, in open press etc. I don't know how to put it correctly - the few 1970s (public) books I have on hand simply don't name it at all. NVO (talk) 15:05, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

First World ICBM?[edit]

> The R-7 (Russian: Р-7) was the world's first true intercontinental ballistic missile

First Soviet true ICMB was R-7A

  • maiden flight: 24 December 1959
  • placed on combat alert: 31 December 1959
  • entered in service: 20 September 1960

First US ICMB was Atlas D

  • maiden flight: 14 April 1959
  • entered in service: ?
  • placed on combat alert: 31 October 1959

R-7 was never placed on combat alert. Although it entered in service on 20 January 1960. 2.60.252.132 (talk) 03:59, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It was the first ICBM to be developed, and the first to fly. --GW… 16:10, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As I said, the first soviet ICBM was R-7A. 2.60.210.37 (talk) 02:20, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The R-7 was the first ICBM design to fly over intercontinental distances. Atlas A (X-11) was the contemporary of the R-7, but lacked the sustainer state. Atlas B (X-12) did not fly until the next year. Atlas C had only a 560 mile range. The original R-7 proved it's ability to deliver it's RDS-37 warhead in For public relations purposes three Atlas D missiles were 'deployed' on test and training pads at Vandenberg AFB. Only one was on operational alert at any time. This was no more credible than the idea of launching R-7s from Baikonor. A real usable deployment of Atlas did not occur until September 1959 at Warren AFB. The R-7A went operational at Pletesk on 9 February of the same year. That the R-7 was the 'First" ICBM is clear. That it was not a practical ICBM (nor was Atlas D) is also true.Mark Lincoln (talk) 15:13, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Mark, both this and the R-7A article state the missile was declared operational on 31 December 1959. Here you state that it was in 9 February. However, you are confusing the strategic-missile unit with the strategic missile itself. No missiles were available at that time, and the first test firing didn't occur until December. This is not at all analogous with the October (not September) deployment at Warren. Those were real missiles ready to be fired. Do you disagree with any of these points?
Here are the dates that I can find as used in these articles:

Atlas: First considered: 16 January 1951 Design finalized: ~ summer 1954 Production contract: 14 January 1955 First flight: 11 June 1957 First flight to ICBM range: 28 November 1958 First flight of full production version: 14 April 1959 Entered operational use: 31 October 1959

R-7/7A: First considered: 1953 Design finalized: May 1954 Production order: ??? First flight: 15 May 1957 First flight to ICBM range: 21 August 1957 First flight of full production version: 23 December 1959 Entered operational use: 31 December 1959

By this list it seems that the Atlas predates the R-7A in several ways - it certainly is the earlier program, but greatly delayed through the early 1950s. But then development seems to have rapidly caught up, and then surpassed it.
Can you offer any reason why the October deployment at Warren should not be considered earlier, in every sense of the word, than the R-7A deployment in December? Maury Markowitz (talk) 22:58, 15 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Please rewrite these two incomprehensible sentences[edit]

"For the first time in the history of the development of the conceptual design firm Sergei Pavlovich Korolev was created, received the room volume № 14. This volume was developed under the leadership of the Arcady Ilyich Ostashev and devoted to the organization of test missiles." These two sentences make no sense in English. How was Sergei Pavlovich Korolev "created"? What is a "room volume" or "volume"? Autodidact1 (talk) 05:02, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Revert?[edit]

The latest change as of now (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=R-7_Semyorka&oldid=1175306983) appears to be a mix of German translation of portions of the text, alongside annotations that are either ungrammatical or appear to be unintentional. There are also a few material changes, though - mentioning Angara where previously only Plesetsk was mentioned, changing some link targets slightly, stating that the R-7 was in operation in Kourou and the US, and including derivative launchers in the family as being R-7s. There's also something I'll charitably fail to parse, stating that the 'V8' was developed to reach Moscow among other places, and also a mention of Fokke-Wulf.

Some parts of this change may be valid edits, but to me it seems it needs enough cleanup to be worth reverting and trying again. Is this sensible? Moopli (talk) 19:56, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Restored reference link to Encyclopedia Astronautica[edit]

The reference links to Encyclopedia Astronautica (deleted by @Ilenart626 in August 2023 as "unreliable") (see diff was restored because the RfC for the reliability of Encyclopedia Astronautica concluded that "there appears to be a consensus that this is a valuable resource". In fact, this presentation is much more detailed than Siddiqi's. So far no specific errors were addressed for the items linked to this article. Siddiqi (2000) was kept as a reference for the first fully successful launch in August 1957 because this fact is somewhat hidden in Encyclopedia Astronautica. SchmiAlf (talk) 16:28, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@SchmiAlf has misrepresented the rfc, which concluded “There appears to be a consensus that this is a valuable resource, but which lacks editorial oversight, contains errors and is no longer updated…caution needs to taken in using the source.” The rfc found that no consensus, unclear, or additional considerations apply on the reliability of the site, which includes “It may be necessary to evaluate each use of the source on a case-by-case basis while accounting for specific factors unique to the source in question.” Given the issues with this source I am reverting SchmiAlf's change pending consensus for inclusion.Ilenart626 (talk) 11:12, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Major update[edit]

Have performed a fairly major update of the article, including additional references. Therefore have removed the “needs citations” templates from the article.Ilenart626 (talk) 13:59, 26 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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