Tu-22M3: News

GarryB wrote:As you mentioned the Tu-134UBL was intended for crew training for Tu-160 crews... enough room to get a dozen crews in at a time for training and practise so other crews can "feel" the mistakes of other crews in real time...

But I remember looking at pictures of this plane in the 1990s and thinking it was cheaper to operate... would it make sense to fit some real bombs to this plane and other airliners with similar modifications.

Then when the Russians started talking about their Gefest & T automatic bombing system I thought back to this design as a dual purpose training model that can be used in some theatres as a bomber itself.

I mean if they are making another 50 Tu-160s then they are going to need to train personnel, but then a great way to save money would be to modify a brand new jet aircraft perhaps with a fly by wire system and also four engines to properly replicate managing four engines... you could add the bombing system at a fairly early design stage and fit it out to look like a White Swan with plenty of capacity for dumb bombs that could be released with precision on targets in all sorts of places at very low costs.

Sure the west will complain about the innocent victims of the Russian bombing rampages that hit schools and hospitals and churches and weddings of course but for training crews, reducing the needed flight hours on rather more expensive aircraft, yet offering more realistic training especially if the actual radar is used so you could train to bomb targets and check your results with various cameras and perhaps even a rear facing radar for altitude bombing missions... on the cheap.

GarryB wrote:

That's an awsome design for all those specialized military versions. Too bad it failed on civilian market.

I believe we got ourselves a 3rd brand new hypersonic missile boys.

I would guess this is Gzur?

The Kh-32 is rocket based, so I would hope they don't continue down that path simply because the chemicals needed are pretty nasty, but it gets the job done I suppose.

GarryB wrote:

Maybe they scaled up the Kh-59MK2 for longer range to take advantage of greater payload capacity of the Tu-22M over the MiG-31?

First of all I suspect you mean the Kh-58 ARM rather than the Kh-59 subsonic attack missile, (ie the AS-11 rather than the AS-13 and AS-18 types).

I can't see even a 6 metre long 1.5 ton missile with solid fuelled rocket reaching 1,500km at mach 6.

To be clear the AS-16 or Kh-15 Kickback ASM was a 6m long 1.5 ton missile with a top speed of mach 5 and a range of 250-300km.

They have improved their solid rocket fuel but not that much...

Isos wrote:Kh-59mk2 would be more usefull. Kinzhal is meant to destroy US carriers so it won't be used anyday soon and they already have kh-32 and mig-31 equiped with it.  

Kh-59 is a smaller and probably cheaper counterpart to the huge kh-101 and a tu-22M can carry a big amount with special pylons. It is a weapon that may be needed for new conflicts that start like fires all over the world.

The range of the tu22+kh59mk2 is enough. Tu-160+kh-101 or frigate launched 2000km kalibr is overkill most of the time.

Isos wrote:There is no point to use hypersonic missiles in low intensity conflicts like in Syria or ukraine. They will be much more expensive than kh-59 which is more than enough against any target in modern conflicts.

I'm not saying they should stop hypersonic missiles. If they develop them it means they are not sure to win with oniks and older missiles. And they are mostly made to destroy US ships.

But against land tarets with no air defence or system not desin to deal with cruise missike kh-59 is the best option.