Kalibr missile system

Well if the Klubs for export have a range of 220km and 300km for the subsonic and supersonic versions respectively, and the 300km range Klub in Russian service has a range of 2,000km, then I would suspect that the supersonic missile would have a range on the order of 1,000-1,200km or so.

The problem of course is the fact that a subsonic missile with a range of that magnitude will have problems with a moving target such as a ship.

Of course if you give it a satellite link that updates it in real time about the targets location then the problem is solved to a degree, and in terms of a solution having a long range missile with a terminal attack speed of mach 2.9 at low level is quite impressive performance.

It simply makes a carrier a necessary component of any naval force as long range detection via AWACS and outer ring protection of a combat air patrol become vital in dealing with such a threat.

3M-14E land attack missile launch from aircraft what range will have?

For export it will have the magic range of 300km... because of MTCR. (Missile Technology Control Regime).

For domestic use it has been reported to have a range of something like 2,000km for the surface launched model. The subsonic all the way missile that is.

With an air launched model range could be 2,000-2,500km depending on the launch height and speed.

2,000-2,500km it sounds too much

It does, I agree, but it is not some fantasy I have made up.

A Russian official stated that the range of the missiles is 2,000km... and it is the missile type the Russian Navy seems to have decided to use.

From corvette right up to carrier and everything in between will likely carry this missile family in UKSK vertical launch tubes.

The missile itself has lots of names... I have seen it being called Club, Klub, and Calibr (often with a letter denoting whether it is ship or sub or air launched.

As a standard land attack cruise missile for the Navy I would expect a reasonable flight range.

I rather suspect they also will use the Kh-101 as I have seen range figures for cruise missiles by navy officials for ships and subs as being 5,000km and also as 2,000km.

Now knowing the range performance of most Russian missiles the only weapons that fit these specs are the Kh-101, and the Club/Klub/Calibr respectively.

GarryB wrote:It does, I agree, but it is not some fantasy I have made up.

A Russian official stated that the range of the missiles is 2,000km... and it is the missile type the Russian Navy seems to have decided to use.

From corvette right up to carrier and everything in between will likely carry this missile family in UKSK vertical launch tubes.

The missile itself has lots of names... I have seen it being called Club, Klub, and Calibr (often with a letter denoting whether it is ship or sub or air launched.

As a standard land attack cruise missile for the Navy I would expect a reasonable flight range.

I rather suspect they also will use the Kh-101 as I have seen range figures for cruise missiles by navy officials for ships and subs as being 5,000km and also as 2,000km.

Now knowing the range performance of most Russian missiles the only weapons that fit these specs are the Kh-101, and the Club/Klub/Calibr respectively.

Ι think that Kh-101 maybe be fitted to larger warships like Kirovs or project 21956 destroyers. For smaller ships, stereguschy, gorshkov, i think 3M-14E meets the requirements.

Ι think that Kh-101 maybe be fitted to larger warships like Kirovs or project 21956 destroyers. For smaller ships, stereguschy, gorshkov, i think 3M-14E meets the requirements.

I totally agree, in fact I think the main user of Kh-101 at sea will be submarines.

In a carrier battlegroup the Kirovs might have a few land attack cruise missiles fitted, but it will also likely carry a significant number of supersonic anti ship missiles too.

Corvette sized vessels even though fitted with UKSK launchers and Redut SAM launchers will likely not carry long range land attack missiles or 400km range SAMs operationally even if their launchers are compatible.

Of course a radar picket vessel has traditionally been a very dangerous role allocated to smaller more expendible vessels, so a tiny corvette armed with 32 x 400km range SAMs would be an interesting prospect.

The Russian Navy has developed a C4IR system that shares air, sea surface and under sea information between ships... very much like AEGIS, but fitted to ships and subs so they can share info from all sorts of sources including subs, ships, aircraft, and satellites.

This means a corvette that would normally have weak air defence, could be loaded up with 400km range SAMs and be fed target data from a range of other platforms, so while an old corvette unable to see much past a very small radar horizon (because it is a small vessel its mast mounted radar is not up very high so it can't see very far), new corvettes with Sigma will be able to carry and use very long range weapons.

Obviously for land attack cruise missiles it makes more sense to send a sub than a corvette, but I think very occasionally as a radar picket, or indeed as a SAM trap it might make sense to sometimes arm a Corvette with the big stuff.

That would be doubtful. Unless the Russians somehow got a missile to have x2 more range at the same size, putting the 40N6E's on a corvette's VLS would be wish.

I said it would only be under very specific circumstances, but the large S-400 missile with the lofted flight trajectory is supposed to be able to engage targets at 400km range, and if the Redut VLS can handle all the missiles of the S-400 system then it makes sense that when fitted to even small surface vessels it wont suddenly lose its capacity to hold the larger missiles.

For normal duties it is most likely to be fitted with the two small missiles of the S-400 system (with 40km and 120km range missiles), which as TR-1 points out are still very long range and capable missiles for a Corvette, which traditionally have been armed with MANPADs and Osa/Tor class SAMs.

But for a role of Radar picket vessel using target information from other platforms as a sort of SAM trap then such a loading might make sense.

In many ways it is akin to the PVOs idea of using the Su-30 with its larger and more powerful radar to operate with a flight of Mig-29s where the Su-30 uses its two man crew, where one crewman flys the plane and the other crewman operates the onboard large radar and data from ground radar and AWACS aircraft to find targets at maximum range. The Su-30 does not launch its own missiles at these targets, it directs the Mig-29s within its flight to move closer to the targets in radar and radio silence and to climb and accelerate and then launch their missiles at the target, which the Su-30 will monitor and guide. The enemy will detect the Su-30, and will detect incoming missiles but may not detect the Mig-29s who can... after firing their BVR missiles withdraw and rearm and refuel and return to combat.
This gives the Su-30 the best standoff capability, and it is still fully armed and ready for combat, and allows it to use its radar to best effect. The Mig-29s receive target data from the Su-30 so their radar screens show threats even though their radars are not emitting, and of course they can still listen with their radars and IRSTs for extra target information without giving away their position.
By climbing and accelerating they burn off a lot of fuel, but also give a lot of extra energy to their missiles to maximise their range and terminal energy.

In many ways the Corvettes could be used in the same way with their small size and speed an advantage, while the long range of their missiles means they don't need to get close to the targets they are engaging in the first place. 400km range SAMs means they can engage enemy aircraft over an enormous volume of sky, a circle with a 400km radius means a circle 800km across... which is huge... and there will be rather more Corvettes than Kirovs...

Have a look at this model:



On the left side top is a picture of the Klub cruise missile on the Iskander tactical missile vehicle, but if you look on the right hand side you will see the standard UKSK launcher.

If you look at the top you will see 8 hatch covers (two rows of 4 hatches) but if you look underneath you will see two very large diameter tubes.

The standard UKSK launcher has 8 missile launch tubes, but each UKSK launcher is made of two modules each with four launch tubes.

Each of the 8 launch tubes on the UKSK is designed to hold one Klub or Kalibr or Oniks/Yakhont/Brahmos missile.

All of which are long relatively slim missiles.

The vertical launch system that causes confusion is the Redut SAM system, which is for SAMs what UKSK is for cruise missiles.

Being a unified launcher for Russian Naval SAMs means it has to deal with huge missiles like the S-300 Rif-M and the large S-400 missiles as well as smaller missiles like the new Vityaz missiles based on the smaller S-400 missiles.

This results in the missiles being carried in different capacities as the large missiles need to be accommodated in the launch tubes, while the smaller Vityaz missiles are quite long, but are narrower and can be put in smaller tubes.

Because the tube size is fixed of course that means they have special adaptor sleeves to allow 4 of the smaller missiles to be fitted in one tube, so a 14 tube launcher of Redut can either carry 14 large long range heavy SAMs or 14 x 4 of the smaller missile or 56 of the smaller missiles.

With even smaller missiles like Morfei the number that can be fitted is unknown, but obviously with such large tubes using smaller missiles gets very inefficient unless you can stack them on top of each other and use the full length of the tube.

Western sources like to gloat over the fact that the supersonic Klub had a troubled start... but then Bulava had a problem start too.

The thing is that the supersonic Klub is genius... there was traditionally the subsonic cruise missile which had advantages like long range and fairly small signature in radar and IR, and there was the supersonic missile which needed to be fairly huge to get any sort of reasonable range, but to fly supersonically for any decent distance it needed a jet engine which meant it was only really fast at high altitude and it would have a large IR signature.

The Klub combines the virtue of both systems... it can fly low all the way on a subsonic turbojet engine which is efficient at low altitudes, but when it gets to the radar horizon of the target it launches its rocket section which because it only needs to cover tens of kms instead of hundreds can be much smaller and lighter, yet covers those last few vulnerable kms at very high speed because of the rocket propulsion.

Brilliant.

Of course the idea is based on the Alpha cruise missile which was a strategic level weapon of the same concept... subsonic several thousand kms and then supersonic close to the target area to breach the close in defences.

If it is supersonic all the way then it wont be a rocket unless it is huge... a naval extended range Iskander? The INF treaty does not apply to naval weapons so a 2,000km naval Iskander is not impossible.
Of course a more likely alternative would be a scramjet model of Onyx whose high speed could increase the flight range considerably...

One would assume that the Yasen class follow the concept the Russian Navy has been following for the last few years and is fitted with UKSK launchers which means the missile should be Yakhont/Onyx/Brahmos like.

Remember that they could be talking about the Russian equivalent of Brahmos II, because although Brahmos II is restricted to a warhead of less than 500kg and a flight range of less than 300km the Russian version is not.

Brahmos has land attack capabilities while Onyx... in its original form was an anti ship weapon.

With Glonass guidance I suspect adding land attack capabilities will be so trivial that they will likely do it even if they never end up using it in that role.

So what they are saying is that the supersonic Klub missile is ready for service on submarines.

The UKSK launcher is an 8 tube vertical launch system for long heavy missiles.

It can carry Klub, Kalibre, and Yakhont/Brahmos/Oniks type missiles.

The missile called Kalibre is a development of the SS-N-21 Sampson, and is a subsonic 2,500km range land attack cruise missile.

Two of the other Klub missiles are anti ship missiles that in their domestic models should have much greater ranges than the export versions which are restricted to 300km or less by international export agreements.

One of those other Klub missiles is just a subsonic all the way anti ship missile very similar to Tomahawk.
It should have a range of about 2,500km in the domestic model.

The other Klub is a subsonic cruise missile that has a terminal stage with its own rocket motor that carries the guidance system and the warhead, and according to reports about the supersonic or hypersonic Klub with a range of 1,500km I rather suspect that this is the domestic model of this weapon.

Very simply it is launched like the subsonic models and it flys subsonically most of the way at medium altitude to maximise range and increase flight speed. When it gets to a point that is near the radar horizon of the target it scans for the target and when it detects that target and learns its precise position it will drop down to very near sea level and launch the rocket stage. The rocket stage accelerates the missile from high subsonic to mach 2.9 in the export version and it covers the last 30-40km to the target at very high speed in a few seconds. (note at mach 2.9 it is travelling at about 1km per second so 40km is only 40 seconds of flight time).

Talking about equipping the Yasen with this weapon perhaps means they have cleared it for underwater launch, but those same launch tubes can be used for the other Klub, Kalibre, as well as the Yakhont/Brahmos/Oniks missiles, and one would assume Brahmos II developments too.

There are two other Klub missiles, one designed for sub launch from UKSK launch tubes and one designed for surface ship launch from UKSK tubes. Both deliver a homing torpedo by ballistic rocket at mach 2.5 out to 40-50km depending on the model.

The source said that the Kalibr supersonic high-precision missile is capable of targeting aerial, submarine and coastal targets, and is effective up to an operational range of 375 kilometers.

http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_08_14/New-cruise-missiles-for-Russian-Yasen-class-sub/

Can target aerial and land targets as well as naval targets... interesting!

Would be interesting to see a Yasen class SSN fighting off P-8s with Kalibrs'.

Different requirements.

Navy needs something that will fit in torpedo tubes, airforce needs something that will fit in existing rotary internal launchers.

Next generation hypersonic cruise missiles might be developed together perhaps... simply because of the cost being shared...

I remember reading from a few sources that the Kh-102 and 101 were compatible with the UKSK, but I suspect they meant dimensionally compatible rather than actually integrated into the system.