3M22 Zircon (Brahmos II) Hypersonic Missile

Would it be possible for Cirkon to fly 9M at a low altitude?

Even if it could only manage mach 5 at low altitude it would be unstoppable... no aircraft or missile could fly for very long at that speed at that altitude.

The Russians say they have materials that can withstand 3000 degrees but a dense atmosphere will significantly reduce the range of the missile.

Having a mix of high and low flying threats further complicated the problem of defence...

to GarryB: I doubt that such a sign would deter this geniuses in Washington from trying it.

The people really in control of the US military are not stupid... all their decisions make sense and are perfectly logical... the problem is when you try to map what they say with what they do and is does not make sense... peace and democracy, truth and justice, rights of workers and children, the safety of children in buses or schools and hospitals in Iraq and Syria and Kosovo...

Freedom fighters and dissidents protecting peoples rights get nobel peace prizes... but only if they are activists against China or Russia or Myanmar or North Korea... oil outside of Americas control needs to be brought under US control so Iraq and Syria and Venezuela must be invaded and puppet states imposed, but the Saudi Dictatorship can continue to stone gays to death and ban women from being alone in public without a male relative to accompany them... they care so much about their virtue they will stone to death anyone that does not comply with their rules.

The American leadership... I don't mean trump... I mean the ones with the power.... they are basically .

to Arrow: the whole point of the development of hypersonic weapons is to fly shocking fast at low heights. The speed alone isn´t the big thing about them. Ballistic missiles exist for decades, but for most of the way they fly very high. Until now low-flying cruise (anti-ship) missiles were limited to Mach 2,5 or 3 or sometimes 4 for a few hundred kilometres. The hypersonic missiles are the cure for that problem.

Not strictly true... previously hypersonic weapons were ballistic.... like a mortar bomb... fired into the air and follow a very predictable path to impact... though their might be some minor changes in trajectory so it hits a point target at the end of its flight but totally predicable... once you know its speed by tracking a few points on its trajectory you can plot its flight path with pretty good accuracy and send an interceptor missile ahead on that path to shoot it down... the interceptor does not need to be moving at anything like the speed the target is moving at... just like a tennis racket doesn't need to be moving as fast as the tennis ball it intercepts during a game of tennis.

These hypersonic weapons are not ballistic like a shot fired from a gun... they are powered all the way like cruise missiles or airplanes so they can and will change trajectory and direction and even speed... as they travel they will get lighter as they burn fuel so they will be able to get faster and faster as they approach their target... a rocket like a Scud burns all its fuel on launch and then it just continues up and loses momentum and then falls back down in the direction of the target... a Zircon flys in level flight and can steer and manouver... it has sensors on board and will detect enemy air defence systems and fly around them... when you are covering almost 3km per second a ten degree turn and two seconds later you could be a dozen kms to the left or right of where you would have been if you had not changed course... now that Patriot battery that was tracking you notices the instant you turn but will take a few seconds to see how far you turn and will take a few more seconds to calculate your new projected position and in that time the missile it launched is now heading to where you were going so it needs a course correction to the new place... but in the 5 seconds total that took to detect the shift in trajectory and to calculate how far you turned and to project a new intercept point and pass that new interception point to the intercepting missile... that is 5 seconds... the target missile might have shifted course by 5-10km but it has already moved 15km closer to its target so the interception point has moved back 15km and to the left or right 5-10km... and what if it turns again?

This is not a ballistic missile... it is powered... so minor turns of 5-20 degrees wont slow it down very much at all because it is running its jet engine continuously... when it detects it is being tracked by a Patriot battery it can turn 5 degrees left or right... climb a little... turn 5-10 degrees the other way... increase throttle a bit to speed up... climb above the effective ceiling of Patriot... its intercept range against ballistic targets is something like 15-20km because of their steep trajectory so keeping more than 30km from any Patriot battery radar and it might not have to manouver at all....

well remove those 2-3 crew and you got... drone

With a drone they could send in the CIA to EMP zap it and claim it sailed into US waters so they boarded it for safety reasons...

In case of ship based Zircon, kinetic energy delivered is function of fuel volume it carries. You cannot have long range, heavy warhead, , high speed and and tiny missile.

At least not in my understanding of physics.

The laws of physics are the limits but using different propulsion methods also makes the impossible possible...

For a while supersonic flight was literally impossible because propellers couldn't operate at such speeds so no amount of engine power could get a missile supersonic. Rockets burn out too fast so give high speed but short range. Then came jet engines which gave more speed but early ones were thirsty so range was still not great... but turbofans greatly improved flight range by being more efficient with fuel.

To get speed back however they went to turbojets which were not so efficient as they needed to operate in AB mode which rapidly burned fuel to get the supersonic speed.

Then they went to ramjet which is a simple jet engine that is efficient at supersonic speeds, so the ramjet restored the capacity for high speed without burning a lot of fuel like a turbojet in AB.

Now we have scramjets which opens up much higher speed potential with an engine that is relatively fuel efficient... more so than any rocket to turbojet...

the funny thing is here - 1,300kms flying 3km/s you need... 7,5 mins to meet US admiral on his fraternal-bed-of-honor command post

Zircon is for sinking US carriers, but 7.5 minutes would be perfectly acceptable for hitting targets in Washington or ABM bases in Alaska or Eastern Europe.

Ironically for such targets a nuke warhead would be the payload of choice and as the nuke warhead is likely 1/3rd or less the weight of the conventional warhead the nuke armed Zircon might be faster and longer ranged than the conventionally armed models...

do you suggest there will be 2 coexisting UKSKs on one ship like 22350?

No... I am expecting that the larger UKSK-M... if it exists... will likely be fitted as standard on new build and upgraded ships and subs larger than Destroyer size... which will also allow them to carry S-500 SAMs and other larger more potent weapons. For smaller vessels the existing UKSK weapons will be potent enough... in fact Poliment-Redut missiles of the small, medium and large size that are adapted to fit in packs in the UKSK-M launchers could be adapted to fit in the smaller vessels UKSK launchers too so existing small ships could have their extra SAM launch bins replaced with extra UKSK launch tubes... or the smaller vessels could simply keep their existing weapon arrangements...

would you suggest anybody can just take down US unmanned shuttle, navigation sat or B-21 in unmanned mode?
First things first Skif does exist. For reason I guess.

What I am saying is that artificial Chinese islands in the South China sea is seriously pissing off many countries inside and outside the region... including the US and Australia et al.

Imagine the serious butthurt from the US if Russia started construction of islands off their coast... say 500km off their coast... the salty tears...

IMHO most efficient way is not to just drop 'n' forget but constantly pick up, move, drop missile containers. Imagine logistic company moving containers round country Smile so US never knows where they actually are Of course combiners are in 24/7 discrete surveillance by your drones.

US has a history of robbing sea graves.... check out CIA raising a Golf class sub last century. Things dropped in international waters will get tracked down and recovered... whether it is a sub or a missile or anything like an expendable sonobuoy...

B-21, X-37 are unmanned, would you suggest anybody can just take them? ,

Like that super secret US stealth drone in Iran.... yes... if they could... unmanned things sitting in international waters are fair game...

Solution: put Skiff on the seabed around arctic islands of Russia: Novaja Semlja, Wrangel and so on.

Agree. Somewhere where you can stand guard.

In warfare a minefield is dangerous... but a minefield covered by machine gun fire, sniper fire, and ATGMs is much much more deadly than an unprotected minefield...

GarryB wrote: With a drone they could send in the CIA to EMP zap it and claim it sailed into US waters so they boarded it for safety reasons...

And with 2-3 crew you cannot?  yes you can. Kill/drug/bribe

GB wrote: The laws of physics are the limits but using different propulsion methods also makes the impossible possible...
{}Now we have scramjets which opens up much higher speed potential with an engine that is relatively fuel efficient... more so than any rocket to turbojet...

it is not answering my question Im afraid. There are limits of energy density.  Even if you use it with minimal loss you still are restricted. .


Look t so called GZUR, it should be light (1,5tons), small but it is only airborne.. You simply replace booster with aircraft. In case of Zircon you have UKSK so boosters or bigger fuel tanks are needed.

GB wrote:

the funny thing is here - 1,300kms flying 3km/s you need... 7,5 mins to meet US admiral on his fraternal-bed-of-honor command post

{}
Ironically for such targets a nuke warhead would be the payload of choice and as the nuke warhead is likely 1/3rd or less the weight of the conventional warhead the nuke armed Zircon might be faster and longer ranged than the conventionally armed models...

love the idea

GB wrote:

do you suggest there will be 2 coexisting UKSKs on one ship like 22350?

No... I am expecting that the larger UKSK-M... if it exists... will likely be fitted as standard on new build and upgraded ships and subs larger than Destroyer size... which will also allow them to carry S-500 SAMs and other larger more potent weapons. For smaller vessels the existing UKSK weapons will be potent enough... in fact Poliment-Redut missiles of the small, medium and large size that are adapted to fit in packs in the UKSK-M launchers could be adapted to fit in the smaller vessels UKSK launchers too so existing small ships could have their extra SAM launch bins replaced with extra UKSK launch tubes... or the smaller vessels could simply keep their existing weapon arrangements...

Perhaps you 're right but I rather see it s UKSK-M on anything enough big to carry them  22350, CVNs, destroyers ro Orlans, JHusky.  
However MRKs / 22160/22800/21631 will get UKSK with "lightweight" Zircons/calibers .

GB wrote:Imagine the serious butthurt from the US if Russia started construction of islands off their coast... say 500km off their coast... the salty tears...

GREAT trolling but unfortunately little economic/military leverage

GB wrote:

IMHO most efficient way is not to just drop 'n' forget but constantly pick up, move, drop missile containers. Imagine logistic company moving containers round country Smile so US never knows where they actually are Of course combiners are in 24/7 discrete surveillance by your drones.

US has a history of robbing sea graves.... check out CIA raising a Golf class sub last century. Things dropped in international waters will get tracked down and recovered... whether it is a sub or a missile or anything like an expendable sonobuoy...

First of all if you can track such container you can track each and every Russian sub 24/7.  what doesn't seem to be probable.
Secondly your own troops monitor it from distance.  There is no movement of any ships in re you dont see.

After some time you can shuffle locations so even if one tracked enemies got nothing.. consider that a submersible-bagruzin

GB wrote:Like that super secret US stealth drone in Iran.... yes... if they could... unmanned things sitting in international waters are fair game...

Form when Iran is an international air   space?      


@Hole+ @GB

GB wrote:

Solution: put Skiff on the seabed around arctic islands of Russia: Novaja Semlja, Wrangel and so on.

Agree. Somewhere where you can stand guard.

[/quote]

If its no within 12miles then there are still intl waters ... same as elsewhere

flamming_python wrote:Which it almost certainly will need to do because targetted ships will change bearing and speed as part of evasive manuevers of their own, and of course launch their own ABMs and SAMs:

The whole 1000km with 9Ma is 6min? what maneuvers can be done then by 100,000 tons CVN...
last 100km is like 35 seconds, how much does CVN course can change?

Arrow wrote:You do not know how long the Cirkoengine works. Maybe only a few tens of seconds and then it flies without a sliding flight? If it works throughout the flight range it is very dangerous. If not on maneuvers, it will quickly lose energy.

It is not a ballistic or aeroballistic missile, it is an air-breathing cruise missile. That means, no short boost phase to gain speed and altitude to spend afterwards in its descent to target. The engine is intended to last throughout the majority of the flight. The missile will fly and manoeuvre in a certain way or variety of them, the details of which we simply don't know and are not likely to know any time soon. But rest assured, it is dangerous as hell. Amis are still searching for an appropriate target to test their SAMs against 3M54 which is <3 M in the terminal phase, imagine a newer, more sophisticated 9 M missile. Probability of intercept is never zero but in this case and in view of publicly available info it is as close to that value as it gets.

Good artwork.

Nicholas Drummond
‏ @nicholadrummond
7h7 hours ago

Russia's 3M22 Zircon hypersonic anti-shipping missile is thought to be close to production. It hits speeds of Mach 8 (9,800 km/h). Range is around 1,000 km. During flight, the missile is totally enveloped by a plasma cloud that absorbs radio waves making it invisible to radar.

JohninMK wrote:

Russia's 3M22 Zircon hypersonic anti-shipping missile is thought to be close to production. It hits speeds of Mach 8 (9,800 km/h). Range is around 1,000 km. During flight, the missile is totally enveloped by a plasma cloud that absorbs radio waves making it invisible to radar.[/i]

Putin said 9Ma, but we all know Putin lies

Pretty sure Zircon will slow down to Mach 4-4.5 in the terminal phase.

Why?

I would suggest it would normally fly at 30-50km altitude but by the time it has travelled all the way to the target it will have burned off a ton of fuel and be as light and as high a thrust to weight ratio as it is going to get.... in a steep corkscrew dive it should be able to combine engine thrust in full AB mode as well as gravity assistance to maintain that speed or even accelerate for the impact.

The Kh-22M is a mach 3.5 missile but only in the terminal dive where it accelerates to max speed... and it flys to the target at about 40km altitude to overfly the AEGIS Standard SAM and the F-14 and Phoenix missile combination...

The Kh-15 dives on the target at mach 5 and it is a solid fuelled rocket so in all likelyhood the dive is unpowered...

These things are shaped to cut through the air efficiently... terminal velocity is going to be rather high for them even when unpowered...

As a cruise missile against moving targets wth powerful ECM means - it needs self-guidance and manueverability. As the missile approaches the target and hits higher air densities it will need to slow down for its seekers to work and to conduct manuevers or correct its flight path. Which it almost certainly will need to do because targetted ships will change bearing and speed as part of evasive manuevers of their own, and of course launch their own ABMs and SAMs

But that would be self defeating... because by slowing down you extend the effective range of the enemy SAMs and interceptors against you... a Patriot interception ring might be 150km for a manned fighter plane operating at high subsonic speeds, but a missile moving at 3km per second it is not going to need to do too much manouvering to evade the Patriot missile even if it flys directly over the launcher... and once it reaches a point ... say 50km above the Patriot launcher there is no way a Patriot missile of any kind could then be launched to catch it or even climb to that altitude... there are no Patriot missiles able to move at 2.88km/s so it has already beaten it without any manouver at all.

Even if you used a Star Trek teleporter and magic and got the Patriot missile in front of the Zircon and perhaps a few metres to one side... by the time the proximity fuse set off the Patriots warhead the Zircon would have already blown past and the fragments of the Patriots warhead would not be travelling fast enough to catch up...

Of course it's possible that it could have an optional additional flight-profile, of literally hitting the target like a meteor at Mach 8-9. Would be good against ships in port or land targets

I would suspect the standard go to attack profile will be high altitude diving terminal corkscrew attack at a peak speed of mach 9... during its normal flight it will probably be moving at mach 7-8 or so...

And with 2-3 crew you cannot? yes you can. Kill/drug/bribe

The crew could send a warning signal that they are under attack and initiate a launch... for the US it would be too risky...

it is not answering my question Im afraid. There are limits of energy density. Even if you use it with minimal loss you still are restricted. .

There are pretty much two ways to get hypersonic speed at the moment for Russia... rocket and scramjet... 3/4ths of the solid fuel in a rocket engine is used for generating oxygen for the remaining 1/4 fuel to burn and it burns at a fixed rate that cannot be controlled or used efficiently (ie managed).
A scramjet gets its oxygen from the air it passes through so it can be a quarter the size and the thrust can be managed... if the missile shape is efficient at 40km altitude at mach 7 then the throttle can be set to fly at that speed on a scramjet and fuel is saved for later... with a rocket engine the fuel burns at a standard rate so it might use double the fuel the Scramjet is using and the missile might travel at mach 7.6... all that extra energy is wasted.

Look t so called GZUR, it should be light (1,5tons), small but it is only airborne.. You simply replace booster with aircraft. In case of Zircon you have UKSK so boosters or bigger fuel tanks are needed.

True, but being a scramjet powered missile the Zircon is going to need a rocket booster whether it is ground or sub or truck or train or air launched... the same as Yakhont or Brahmos or Onyx with their ramjet propulsion.

It is not as bad as it sounds because a ramjet/scramjet engine has a large empty volume at its core where air flows and is heated and fuel is added and burned so in that cavity solid rocket fuel is often stored, but even then a bit hanging out the back with more solid rocket fuel is often placed to accelerate the missile to as high and as fast as it can get before the main ramjet engine is started as that makes its job much easier and greatly extends range and increases flight speed.

Perhaps you 're right but I rather see it s UKSK-M on anything enough big to carry them 22350, CVNs, destroyers ro Orlans, JHusky.
However MRKs / 22160/22800/21631 will get UKSK with "lightweight" Zircons/calibers .

It is all just speculation... we really just have to wait till we hear more about this UKSK-M design...

I mean for all we know it might not even be bigger... it might just be designed to allow more efficient use of existing tube space by moving the wiring to the bottom or something and of course allowing SAMs to be loaded too... but if it is actually becoming a fully universal missile system then can we assume it can also carry Kh-35 and Shtil missiles too... how about Pantsir and TOR...

Maybe there will be a nice big article all about it when they fit the first one in their first upgraded Kirov class vessel... I guess that would be the earliest we could learn about it.

The thing is that they have said from the beginning that Kirov would get ten UKSK launchers for 80 missiles, but if the UKSK-M adds large SAMs then they should replace the Granit missile but also the Rif missiles and the SS-N-14 missiles on the front of the Kirov... they might put 20 or 30 UKSK-M launchers in the front area of a Kirov...

GREAT trolling but unfortunately little economic/military leverage

When the US puts missiles in Ukraine and Georgia, Russia could put missiles on these islands... the Cuban missile crisis all over again...

First of all if you can track such container you can track each and every Russian sub 24/7. what doesn't seem to be probable.
Secondly your own troops monitor it from distance. There is no movement of any ships in re you dont see.

Not suggesting they will see or hear all, but Russian subs and ships operating around the US will get a lot of attention 24/7 I don't think they will ignore what the Russians are doing and not sniff around everything in that area...

Form when Iran is an international air space?

Who said it was in Iranian airspace other than Iran?

If its no within 12miles then there are still intl waters ... same as elsewhere

My friend... are you suggesting we should expect the US to respect international treaties and rules... we are talking about the US Navy here
they rule the waves and make the worlds oceans safe for everyone... they have special rights and their EEZ extends the full width of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans...

The whole 1000km with 9Ma is 6min? what maneuvers can be done then by 100,000 tons CVN...
last 100km is like 35 seconds, how much does CVN course can change?

It would probably take them 6 minutes to stop a carrier group...

Besides from 30-50km altitude you get an excellent view of a significant part of the planet... you will see targets at enormous ranges...

You do not know how long the Cirkoengine works. Maybe only a few tens of seconds and then it flies without a sliding flight? If it works throughout the flight range it is very dangerous. If not on maneuvers, it will quickly lose energy.

It is not a ballistic weapon... it is a powered aircraft like a cruise missile or an aeroplane... its flight range is determined by its speed and the time its engine keeps running. Like a cruise missile or an aircraft it can throttle back to idle to cruise, or could even shut down its engine and coast, but it is not a ballistic weapon so it can restart the engine and accelerate and manouver all it wants...


What if it was in international airspace just outside the Iranian border.... who is to know?

The US will claim bloody murder no matter what... so who cares what they say about it.

That's a bit simplistic; the missile won't be flying at 9Ma for the whole flight-path. In fact that sort of figure was only mentioned as the maximum speed that the missile achieved at one point.

And logically the top speed would be easiest to achieve in a steep dive on the target with the engine running at full throttle... would you not agree?

Yes all Cirkon drawings rangs are based on the appearance of X-51. Cirkon will be very visible in IR

It has never been suggested it will be invisible... it wont matter if the US could track the missile from space... if they can't intercept it it will hit its target so being able to watch it go all the way from launch to boom will be entertaining but not fruitful.

You can use missiles with a larger range and IR guidance.

You probably can... but where are they?

Putting an IR seeker on a Saturn V rocket wont help in this case because the targets flight path is unpredictable... where do you direct the Saturn V rocket to go?

In reality it will start from rest, take time to accelerate into higher altitudes, following a sort-of ballistic trajectory and running up to its highest speed; then when it gets close to the target it will start to lose altitude and speed and applying course corrections. Which it will need to do after flying for some 10 minutes as yes even a carrier could have changed its expected position significantly by then compared to what was initially calculated

Not as much time as you might think... and as it flys towards its target it will be listening for radar signals warning it of threats... it will likely also have its own radar that might also detect incoming threats and trigger kick manouvers to jink left or right or up or down along with an increase or decrease in speed and then back on to target.

Being a weapon that can steer I don't think it will loose much speed turning a couple of degrees 100km away from the carrier group because the enemy carrier has moved maybe 3km at 20 knots in the six minutes since the missile was launched... from 100km away that 3km is going to be a tiny turn and I would not expect it to slow down if at all...

The Kh-22/Kh-32 are also air-breathing cruise missiles; but they function pretty much the same as the Kh-15, which is a ballistic missile; and the Zirkon won't be too much different based on what we've heard about it thus far.

No, they are not... both have dual rocket motors using the same toxic red fuming acid fuel... a cruise rocket and a higher energy terminal attack rocket.

No you can't. They are fire and forget missile and very slow. An IR detector can't know the distance between itself and the target. It will see the zirkon and try to hit it but it will just fly in front of it and miss by km.

Agreed... it would be like getting a lock on the sun with a Stinger... you can launch but you wont get a kill...

Yes you're right, Cirkon will be flying a long part through the ballistic trajectory.

Rubbish... it will climb under rocket booster thrust and when that burns out it will continue to climb on scramjet engine thrust and when it gets to its operational height it will level off and fly on body lift at mach 5 plus where the surface of the missile generates the lift that keeps it in the air... just like an aeroplane uses wings for lift with its forward speed the Zircon will use hypersonic airflow over its bodies surface to wave ride... with the scramjet motor generating minimal thrust to maintain speed... like an aeroplane... when it gets close to the target it will likely increase thrust to accelerate to max speed and then dive down on the target... all in controlled NON BALLISTIC flight.

hoom wrote:

dino00 wrote:

I think thats mainly a wrong interpretation.
By Decision Centers I think he means the capitals of EU countries who make the Decision to host US missiles, a retaliation against US for ordering a strike is a given but with different weapons than Zirkon.

Different translation of the range & launch platforms sections: 600 miles (presumably nm since Russia is Metric but it is a naval weapon) = 1,111km.
Explicitly links it to existing Calibr platforms -> must fit in UKSK.

I think Putin was obvious...the decision centers are the real ones in US.

"The Kh-22M has a Isayev S5.33M twin-chamber liquid-propellant rocket motor. In launch mode both chambers are runnig, delivering 7.000 kgp at 10.000m. In cruise flight one chamber generates either 600 kgp or 1.300 kgp, depending on the fuel delivery rate, the cruise chamber can repeatedly switch between these modes of operation to maintain the required flight speed."

Quote from Soviet/Russian aircraft weapons by Yefim Gordon.

To put it simple, the missile flies with max. speed the whole time, only the range will differ according to the height in which the weapon was launched. It cruises with M3 and accelerates at the end.

The Kh-32 builds upon this with a new engine and new engine control system to fly higher and longer and even faster at the end. I don´t think that the Zirkon will be a step backwards.

Explicitly links it to existing Calibr platforms -> must fit in UKSK.

Well it makes sense, you don't develop a new universal large missile launcher, and then just ignore that and design your next major standard missile to not fit inside it...

The obvious benefits of standardisation don't last if you start making things that don't fit.

Source: Russian nuclear submarine "Kazan" in 2020 for the first time shoot "Zircon"

The interlocutor of the agency clarified that the Kazan itself is planned to be introduced into the fleet combat personnel in late 2019.

"In 2020, the Zircon will shoot at the test of this missile from the surface and underwater position of the Kazan 885M multi-purpose nuclear submarine of the 885M project," the agency’s source said. years after completion of state tests.

https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/6232214

flamming_python wrote:
Hypersonic speed makes the Zirkon less vulnerable than the previous missile generations. All R&D is classified, but open sources said the missile can accelerate to Mach 5-10 speed and destroy targets at distances of 300-500 km. The antiship missiles can be engaged in a group as a single self-coordinated swarm. It makes it impossible to repel the strike.

Putin saying 9Ma and 1000+ km is not an open source then?

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