Russia and other developments in Hypersonic Research

Those specs make it compatible with the Su-70. Also, the 2030s is some meaningless projection. If NATzO pushes its aggression,
such missiles will show up faster.

Sources of Izvestia in the Ministry of Defense and the military-industrial complex explained that several research and development work is currently underway on means of protection against hypersonic weapons . All of them are carried out within the framework of a single plan to create an echeloned defense. They will oppose the ammunition itself, and their carriers, and guidance and aiming systems. Some of the developments have already reached the testing stage, the interlocutors added

Some information about the ongoing work can be found in open sources. So, in 2019, JSC "Scientific and Production Enterprise" Delta "patented in Russia a method to combat hypersonic aircraft . The enterprise, part of the Rostec state corporation, proposed a scheme for their destruction with a powerful laser, as well as a passive detection method that does not require the use of a radar.

https://iz.ru/1101811/anton-lavrov/zaglianut-za-giperzvuk-chem-rossiia-budet-zashchishchatsia-ot-novogo-oruzhiia

LMFS wrote:A nice study about constraints and performance of HGV:

http://scienceandglobalsecurity.org/archive/sgs28tracy.pdf

I have an issue with their Figure 7.   Maybe it's some US brain fart, but it certainly isn't a Russian one.   They have
the hypersonic glider starting out at under 114 km and descending to 40 km after 3000 km of the 8100 km total
distance to target.  

Hypersonic gliders are not constrained to atmospheric densities corresponding to 40 km.    They can engage in
ABM evading maneuvers including horizontal excursion in the hundreds of kilometers even at 100 km.  So launching
them higher is not precluded.    Anything cruising at 40 km would be slow and this whole scenario smells like some
delusional fantasy of the yanquis who can never admit that that Russia snookered their whole ABM "final solution".

What the Russian ICBMs with the Avangaard do is certainly not what is modeled in this paper.    They inject the
MARV well above 200 km and the glider separation occurs at the trajectory zenith where the yanquis and their
ABM wunderwaffe are not effective anyway.    The gliders use the enormous speed to bounce off the thin layers
above 100 km for most of the remaining trajectory distance.    Sure, they are losing altitude, but that is not
any sort of problem.  

This 40 km cruise altitude looks a lot like the Kh-102 flight path.   Why the f*ck would Russia constrain a hypersonic
glider capable at operating at temperatures of 2000 C to a trajectory that is similar to the Kh-102 cruise missile?
Operating at higher altitudes and lower densities keeps the temperature down.

thegopnik wrote:I have found sources that the HTV-2 and Avangard according to NPO use scramjet engines during their descending phase(for those interested). I have repeatedly argued this with another user(not here) as well but does not accept this because the speed classifications put it above an ICBM and they like to pretend they have defenses already available to intercept it when they cant event make a successful HGV themselves

The Avangaard HGV may well have scramjets since it is disposable. They could use a ceramic coating on the inner surface that will last long enough to
do the job. But it is unlikely to have any engine at all since that would require it to carry fuel. Why bother since depending on the shape of the glider,
it can still carry out large horizontal excursions (enough to defeat any ABM system) without needing active propulsion. The trick is the enormous speed
that allows it to bounce off atmospheric densities that are vanishingly small. That is why the posted research paper is crap. It assumes that Russia
is not capable of taking advantage of high altitude hypersonic "flight".

Flight does not require a constant altitude. It requires maneuverability.

HGV flies through part of the trajectory in the atmosphere and performs maneuvers. Its final speed is much slower than traditional RV?

So you consider 5100 km out of a 8100 km distance to be "terminal phase". Sorry, that's not serious. Their whole scenario
is patent academic onanism that has zero relevance for Russian hypersonic glider warheads. And their lack of knowledge of
the physics parameters for high altitude hypersonic flight is one of the lamest excuses of all time. It utterly defeats their
whole simulation exercise.

May as well go back and simulate cars moving on roads.

Regarding the civilian sector analysis of hypersonic systems, it really is not feasible if the data is locked up behind the secret category.
Both the USA and USSR conducted lots of hypersonic glider tests back in the 1970s.

http://www.astronautix.com/r/russianrocketplanes.html

So there would have been experience built up for re-entry "flight". But this data is not likely to have been declassified.

But even so, the authors just assume some Kh-102 style flight path for the Avangaard which is not based on anything other
than their own wants and needs. That is not serious research. They should have at least considered high altitude re-entry
gliding scenarios. If that is a show stopper, then there is no point producing such an article.

I see that the authors appealed to other similar rubbish:

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/IF11459.pdf

I tried to find a rational analysis of this problem but I am seeing just the same idiotic assumption of constant altitude flight
below 50 km for most of the trajectory to the target. The inanity is mind numbing. Why would the kinetic energy of a
zenith glider release not be employed for maneuverability? The ceramics exist as shown by all the above linked tests to
enable re-entry survival. Using that kinetic energy the glider can pull very large variations in trajectory even approaching
100 km. I do not see the benefit of 1000+ km lateral excursions. The glider needs to avoid any potential ABM warhead(s)
and thus even ten kilometers is enough to survive a nuclear detonation.

An important parameter is speed. It has more value than the ridiculous 40 km cruising assumed in these lame attempts
at analysis. The HGV warhead is not avoiding interception by hiding over the horizon, it avoids it by having just enough
non-ballistic movement ability and speed. So the most likely HGV trajectory follows quasi-ballistic ICBM delivery to
the release point hundreds of kilometers above the ground (the ICBM trajectory is likely the depressed one) with the HGV
progressively deviating from ballistic movement as it descends into thicker layers of the atmosphere. This way the
HGV can leverage the atmosphere over a much greater depth and does not spend all of its time in slow cruising mode
at 40 km.

Interception of regular warheads is hard enough. So adding extra movement ability to them achieves the goal of
defeating any kinetic kill or even nuclear ABM interception capability. Slowing down the warhead to cruise at
40 km defeats the purpose of the exercise. These ludicrous scenarios purported to be HGV flight paths reduce
the speed to less than MACH 6. Why? Just to "glide"?

The real gliding is done at the top of the atmosphere (not in the stratosphere) where it is very likely that the descent
trajectory from near space back into the atmosphere is not steep but shallow. This increases the non-ballistic
duration of the warhead flight and makes the window through which it enters the target zone wider. A steep
descent would narrow the conic section of warhead paths above the target making interception somewhat easier.
So a depressed ICBM trajectory is almost certain to be used for delivering HGV warheads.

In the above scenario, interception is not possible. In the Mickey Mouse 40 km cruising scenario it is actually
quite feasible since the HGV becomes a cruise missile. This explains the origin of such inane analysis. Delusional
invincibility syndrome, where reality is interpreted through a heavy bias affirmation filter.

MACH 20 clearly does not apply to the 40 km cruise altitude attributed to HGVs. So it is not inconsistent with my arguments.

Taking the speed of sound to be 343 m/s to define a MACH number, a simple ICBM reentry speed of 8,000 m/s translates into
MACH 23. So my arguments are supported by the high MACH numbers being thrown around. The HGV is leveraging the
kinetic energy of the ICBM to enter the atmosphere at over MACH 20. It does not waste this energy by descending to
40 km after 3,000 km and then cruising there for 5,100 km.

Cruising at 40 km for 5,100 km actually requires engines. But the cruising speed is then under MACH 6 since the air density
is too high at this altitude to have MACH 20 flight.

How do all these "experts" dismiss the patently physical scenario I describe.   They know everything about
the Avangaard because they have access to the classified information, do they?   And please, don't
claim that this ludicrous cruising at 40 km is the only option for HGVs and "self-evident".   It is nothing
but delusional nonsense and a straw man.

No, you cannot cruise at 40 km at MACH 20.   All of the sources that claim that HGVs travel for most of their
trajectory at 40 km put the upper bound at MACH 6.   In this regard they know what they are talking about.
A Kinzhal missile can hit MACH 10 because it does not travel for 8100 km at that speed.   For sure its
surface coating ablates during its flight under 2000 km max range.   Doubling its speed results in at least
a factor of 4 ablation rate but it is probably higher since simple scaling with kinetic energy is too simple
and its surface texture matters and gets worse at higher temperatures.   You cannot trivially push the ablation
to last over a range of 8100 km.   The Avangaard likely uses ceramic surface protection and can survive MACH 20
above 100 km which rapidly drops to under MACH 10 by the time it reaches the stratosphere.   It is not traveling
at MACH 10 in the troposphere since it has no rocket propulsion.   It is a passive glider and hits the target at
under MACH 3.

https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/avs/offices/aam/cami/library/online_libraries/aerospace_medicine/tutorial/media/iii.4.1.7_returning_from_space.pdf

Figure 4.1.7-9 for meteor re-entry.   The exponential increase of the atmosphere density with decreasing altitude
is actually not the full measure of its impact on the speed.   The speed transition is like a step-function shock
and happens over a 10 second period.   That is from a re-entry initial speed of 8 km/s which is roughly the
same as for a warhead and the Space Shuttle.   After 15 seconds crashing into the atmosphere it is traveling
8 times slower.    There is a meteor "dust" layer around 80-85 km which tells you that the density even
at those altitudes is high enough to ablate them big time.

But the above is for simple ballistic descent.   For an HGV, the speed is higher since it glides
through the upper layers of the atmosphere with a shallow angle instead of crashing at a steep angle.
But even with gliding and staying in less denser layers for longer, the energy loss is still there:

F = 0.5 * rho * V^2 * Cd * A

where rho is the atmospheric density, V is the speed of motion through the air, Cd is the drag coefficient,
and A is the cross sectional area of the object in question.   Since rho is increasing exponentially this drag
force cannot be argued away as being small.    The equation for F tells you that if you want large V, then
you need to stay where rho is small enough.    If you want to cruise at 40 km, then you pay the price of
having to reduce V.   And there is no cruising at 40 km without propulsion since the drag force is large enough
that it will reduce the kinetic energy of any object no matter how streamlined it is over a 5100 km flight distance.

Also, clarify for yourself that all the reference that claim constant cruising altitude for HGVs are talking about
cruising below 50 km.   None of them describe flight above 80 km where MACH 20 would work.

It is a passive glider and hits the target at under MACH 3. wrote:

If the HGV had scramjet engines, it would not have lost energy while flying in the atmosphere. 3M speed is not enough in the final flight phase, it could sustain over 10M.

"Product 70" is the code for the Tu-160.
I think they made a typo

LMFS wrote:What has me puzzled is that the bays in the Tu-22M3 allow weapons like Kh-15 which are more than half a meter longer and with bigger diameter than the ones in the Su-57. But this is very promising, maybe it is indeed and air breathing missile... we will see!

I think this is the mini-Gzur for the SU-57, the Gzur for the Tu-22M3 was already texted last year. But time will tell

Purchase No. 32009541542 stipulates the conduct of an integral part of research work with the code "Klevok-D2-Caliber". The topic is designated as "substantiation of the possibility of creating an interspecific long-range missile through the use of ramjet engines." Purchase No. 32009541559 launches the Klevok-D2-Airplane R&D midrange - “substantiation of the possibility of creating an interspecific long-range missile by optimizing the aerodynamic characteristics of the main stage with a ramjet engine”


"A missile with a ramjet engine must have a launch mass of no more than 150 kg and fit into a transport and launch container with an inner diameter of 207 mm. The product should consist of a sustainer stage and a 23Ya6 dumped starting engine, having a mass of approx. 67 kg. Payload - warhead length approx. 1,5 m and weighing 56,6 kg."

Klevok is the future development of Hermes with the ramjet powered second stage... presumably a solid rocket booster to launch and accelerate it, while the ramjet powered second stage allows terminal manouvering to evade air defences and interception attempts.

"Product 70" is the code for the Tu-160.
I think they made a typo

If it is Gzur then its code should be izdeliye 75... estimated to be 6m long, 1.5 ton in weight, 1,500km range and mach 6 flight speed.

If it is to be carried internally by the Su-57 and Tu-22M3M then it is probably shorter than 6m... likely 4.2m or thereabouts like other weapons intended for carriage inside the Su-57.

This would mean it would fit internally inside the Tu-22m3 but also internally on the Tu-95SM and would be able to be carried in the Tu-160 in twice the numbers that the Kh-102 can be carried... ie 12 missiles per rotary launcher... much like the Kh-15 kickback missile was carried by all three aircraft.

Note the Tu-22M3 could carry four Kh-15s externally and 6 on its internal rotary launcher for a total of 10 missiles.

The Kh-15 was a solid rocket powered 250km ranged Mach 5 nuclear armed missile for enemy defence penetration use...

Replacing it with a Mach 6 scramjet powered 1,500km range missile would greatly improve potential for their heavy aircraft... carrying 6 of these and perhaps four external Kinzhals would be a very potent loadout for anti ship use in the arctic to deal with those pesky American AEGIS class cruisers.

I think this is the mini-Gzur for the SU-57, the Gzur for the Tu-22M3 was already texted last year. But time will tell

No, wasn't that the KH-SD that was a 6m missile that was subsonic and had a 1,500km range... much like a mini Kh-102 for smaller aircraft and tactical fighters that can't fit 7.4m long cruise missiles.