Tu-22M3: News

Kinzhal is a solid rocket weapon and relies on top speed and altitude... which is why when launched from the ground in the Iskander its effective range (with manouvering which costs speed and range) is only 500km.

By lifting it to altitude and launching it in flight you reduce the amount of work the rocket motor needs to do to get the missile up in the air and moving so it can get higher and moving to a much higher speed.

The missile relies on thrust vectoring for manouvering so its fuel burns all the way to the target like a scramjet powered missile but by weight it would need to carry both fuel and material to generate oxygen for that fuel to burn so it is rather less efficient than a scramjet engine would be.

In many ways a rocket is like a car... you get the best fuel efficiency in a car by accelerating to the top speed you are allowed to drive at using the highest gear and lowest revs... a long straight flat motorway for example with no stops or no slowing down.

A scramjet can throttle up or down to save fuel, but a rocket just burns at the rate it burns which is normally full power to get to speed and height and then a sustainer thrust level to maintain speed to the target.

Its fixed fuel burn nature means a rocket would benefit most from being carried higher and launched at faster speeds, so a Tu-22M3 might be good in the sense of the number carried, but in terms of kinematic performance of the missile not as good as the MiG-31K.

The Backfire can carry more but their performance would be reduced because of the lower altitude and slower launch speed.

What I am trying to say is that if you are going to go to the trouble of building more launch platforms I would say build more MiG-31s rather than more Tu-22M3s.

With new temperature resistant materials and composite materials making it lighter and stronger its performance should be quite good.

They might even be able to test new materials that could be applied to the new MiG-41 design to see how they cope with real use...

Tu-160 was restarted because it has no replacement and Syria proved it works as advertised

The Tu-160 production was restarted because the 14-16 operational airframes simply are not enough to make a viable force.

Also plans to build the PAK DA meant modern large heavy bomber production facilities would need to be set up so setting them up now and building more Tu-160s made a lot of sense.

The forging facilities allowing the titanium centre box structure for the swing wing design would allow a flying wing design to be build of fewer pieces which is good for strength and good for low RCS.

I do not consider the PAK-DA to be a direct replacement for the Tu-22M3. You are comparing a subsonic to a supersonic platform.

When used as a theatre bomber the Tu-22M3 does not often use its supersonic speed as it burns a lot of fuel. In most cases it would only be used in a peer war where its supersonic speed would allow it to evade F-35s.

A PAK DA can use stealth and stand off weapons to penetrate enemy air defences instead of pure speed. It will also carry air to air missiles for self defence against long range SAMs and long range air to air missiles so it will likely be rather better defended than the Backfire.

It is rather likely that the PAKDA will replace the Bear first as long as its operational costs are not too high, which means a lot of Tu-95 aircraft free for other purposes... could bomb truck be one of them? Those long weapon pylons for cruise missiles would be interesting as MER for bombs...

Main goal is to launch long range missiles. For that matter they could use an il-76...

The PAK DA will carry long range stand off missiles in the strategic (ie Bear replacement) role, for the theatre (Backfire replacement) role it will carry bombs and short range attack munitions, like the Kh-50 to clear a path to the target for bombing perhaps... In lower threat theatres it could just carry bombs and self defence air to air missiles for shooting down enemy missiles and aircraft.

They might even have a bomber escort version that carries dozens of long and medium and short range air to air missiles...

Flying as high as it can and using its stealth to remain less obvious it would give its missiles their best chance of reaching targets at long range... perhaps it could get new variable cycle jet engines that allowed it to operate in ramjet mode for supercruise flight above and ahead of the bomber group.

A detected subsonic bomber is dead in most cases.

A subsonic bomber loaded with 100 air to air missiles including R-37s and the project 815 replacements, and R-77Ms and their replacements and R-74 and their replacements, might be a real challenge for an F-35 or long range ship launched SAM.

Missiles are long range or supersonic or both

No need for another supersonic bomber

The thing is that hypersonic missiles can fly very fast and being jet powered rather than rocket powered their flight performance can be quite impressive.

The Kh-32 probably has a flight range of about 600-800km at mach 5 with a rocket engine and weighs about 5 tons... which is likely double the weight of Zircon with a flight range of more than 1,000km and double the flight speed. If you add another 2.5 tons to the weight of Zircon, with that weight simply being more fuel then you are going to massively increase its flight range because the engine can burn longer so if it can burn as long as the Kh-32s rocket motor then it should be able to fly double the range, so 2,000km plus.... but the Kh-32 uses two rocket motors... when you look at it from behind you can see the two nozzles... there is no throttle per say... when launched both nozzles burn to accelerate the missile and climb to altitude and speed... when it reaches altitude and speed the big rocket shuts down and the small sustainer rocket maintains speed and height. When it approaches the target if it has fuel remaining it might light up both engines for a high speed dive to the target.

With Zircon it is a jet engine that can be throttled up and down depending on the situation, which means it can be rather more fuel efficient.

For subsonic cruise missiles they often get their long range by climbing to about 10km altitude and throttling back and flying at about 600km/h or so... as they approach the enemy territory and defence line they drop down to low altitude and often speed up as well to become a more difficult target.

Made more stealthy means they can fly high all the way extending range and improving the top speed they can achieve... if they are stealthy and flying high they can fly rather faster than at very low level...

I actually think the PAK-DP's design will be influenced by the current use of MiG-31BM/K (even the DZ version), to be capable enough to fulfill that (supersonic bombing) role if at any time it's deemed necessary.

Good point... the Tu-160 probably wont carry many bombs at all and likely will be a missile carrier only. For theatre supersonic strike I would agree a MiG-41RB would be very very interesting. The MiG-31RB was supposed to be able to carry 6 x 1.5 ton bombs, with two on belly positions and four under wing pylons for a total of 9 tons which is actually quite impressive... probably too big to be dropped in pairs it would more likely be dropped on 6 separate targets using a super Gefest & T bombing system no doubt... I understand that is where that system came from... it evolved from the MiG-25RB system... anyone confirm?

PAK-DP could easily be the size of a Tu-22M3M because it'll need to store it's weapons internally to greatly reduce drag.

Making it more multipurpose would make it more valuable too... on its missions in the far north or far east their might be targets it can deal with and also the Dagger missile is an air to surface missile it is not only anti ship...

The flight speed of the MiG-41 and its radar and missile capability might make it a good platform to deal with incoming missile threats of all types too.

It has a tail gun, didn't the upgraded Tu-22M3M remove the tail gun?

Also no inflight refuelling probe bump on the top of the nose...

Pretty sure they have withdrawn or upgraded the older missiles to Kh-32 standard by now... either way I suspect the new missile uses particularly nasty fuel, as did the older missile types too.

When I first looked at the photo I assumed it was the Tu-22M3M and that they had modified the bomb bay so it no longer had the recess to allow the missile to be carried conformally, but with no inflight refuelling probe and a tail gun it is not a upgraded aircraft.

I guess that just means they don't have to recess the centreline missile if they don't want to... perhaps there is something in the bomb bay?

BTW this is my fav photo showing max payload of three missiles and under the engine intakes it has MERs with bombs as well as the rear gun...