"Hermes" multi-purpose guided missile:

And also Pantsir and Pine/SOSNA-R...



Pine is basically the same as Pantsir but smaller and with a lighter booster.

SA-19 as used on Tunguska also has a smaller solid rocket booster but the missile is a similar size to Pantsir.

So, since Hermes is a non line of sight weapon - what sort of guidance does it use?
It doesn't seem to have a visible seeker...
would that mean that the missile is coupled with a target designator system (either third party one for NLOS use or on a launcher for LOS use)
and if so, does the missile follow a laser pointer or is it command guided?

The current website for KBP is down for maintenance but AFAIK the HERMES is supposed to be a command guided missile much like the SA-19 missile it is based on except because targets on the ground are not line of sight like aerial targets the Hermes is supposed to use a terminal guidance system depending on the version ranging from IIR and radar (MMW) to EO with laser spot detection.

It is intended to hit point targets including moving targets so laser spot homing and IIR seeker as well as MMW radar could be used or combinations... the MMW would be all weather day and night capable, while the IIR would be day night capable too, as would the semi active laser homing.

Their newer missiles seem to combine an optical with laser spot detection capability so the missile can track a target or be directed to a target using a laser target marker.

They don't seem to be in any hurry to reveal what specific guidance it will be using, though interestingly MMW and IIR could also be used against air targets too so it is rather multi functional.

If it does use laser target marker seeking then a drone could be launched to find and mark targets for it.... there is the E90 drone already developed for the Tunguska and Pantsir systems that should have launch compatibility...

If you search for the website as kbptula.ru without the www at the start it shows a login screen and says the site is down for maintenance... so that will be interesting... I wonder what upgrades they are going to make...

Is Hermes and Izdeliye 305 the same?

No.

Hermes is developed from the Pantsir and SA-19 SAMs and is a two stage missile with a large solid rocket booster.

Hermes is tube launched.

This is an archived copy of the site that is currently down for maintenance:

https://web.archive.org/web/20211110211226/http://www.kbptula.ru/en/productions/multi-service-weapon-systems/germes-a

If you click on it on the right hand side below the little photos in the main centre article area the title System Composition there are two links... if you click on them small popup windows will open, the top link being an image of the missile and its launch tube showing it is a two stage missile... the second link shows the system including the launch tubes which are arranged the same way as Vikhr missile launch tubes on a Hokums weapon pylon where 6 missiles are loaded on one pylon with four missiles underneath and two missiles are on top for 6 per pylon.

In comparison the LMURs or object 305 looks like this:



And its single launcher looks like this:



There is a twin launcher for two missiles on a weapon pylon and there is also a surface launched missile carried by an armoured vehicle...





Missile in front of a twin launcher:



Missile mounted on a single launcher:

Just noticed...



In the image lower right seems to show the LMUR missile is a fully multipurpose missile for use against Tanks, BMPs, soft vehicles like trucks, bunkers and fortified positions, buildings, fixed wing aircraft, helicopters, and drones...

So it must have some sort of smart fusing to allow it to penetrate heavy armour while still being lethal against a range of target types of varying degrees of hardness or softness...

production of Zircons and Hermes in working conditions with enough numbers is considered to be game changing enough to thwart the idea of getting other parties involved in the Ukraine war. See Patriots getting destroyed by Kinzhals for reference.

Hermes seems to have been in development since forever. But I do believe it is what we were seeing used in Ukraine for a bit.

I imagine a lot of work is going into developing sub components since they cannot get what they used to be able to in the past.

Yes I hope its more of a trying to get enough electronics production problem(that of course can get resolved later) than a development problem since each missile will have a seeker. I am pushing a 10 year timeframe on the klevok-D2

sepheronx wrote:Hermes seems to have been in development since forever.  But I do believe it is what we were seeing used in Ukraine for a bit.

I imagine a lot of work is going into developing sub components since they cannot get what they used to be able to in the past.

Exactly. Its been in development for 23+ years.

Meanwhile still no truck launched Spike NLOS equivalent. Imagine how many russian lives couldve been saved if the izd.305 was developed and mass produced 5 years earlier on truck mounted launchers, instead of investing millions on a stillborn money sink like hermes.

Drones dominate the battlefield and Russians have showcased helicopters that have radars spotting tanks 70kms away and the newest ones might have longer radar ranges than those. Whats special is that Hermes hits mobile targets even other helicopters from 100kms away. Imagine having atleast 1000 of these missiles already produced+ functional and Poland uses 1000 m1a2s for Ukraine to all get destroyed before even seeing a T-90 or a T-14 in battle. MLRS systems just fire at designated coordinates, Hermes missiles do a little more than that.

I think that there is space for all of such tactical weaponries.
The idea of abandon one in favor of other is IMHO wrong.
They would be used by different units for different tasks, so that they can operate together instead of being the alterative one to the other..
So as an example the LMUR has given to attack helicopters a weapon that could be used for hitting buildings, bridges, logistical and command points, lancet can instead loiter to keep enemies pinned down, Hermes would be instead the one going fast to overcome enemy air defences that would instead be a problem for the other two categories of weapons.

Agree with Marcellogo, the Hermes is a mach 3 missile that can really reach out and touch and its 30kg warhead is rather substantial.

From what I have read the Hermes started out as pretty much a two stage missile based on the SA-19 missile the Tunguska uses but with a much bigger solid rocket booster to extend range. These missiles are two stage where the solid rocket booster accelerates the missile rapidly and then falls away so from about 2.5km onwards the missile just coasts to the target in free flight with no propulsion and a warhead and basically command guidance to track the target.

The Hermes was going to add terminal guidance in the form of a seeker, either EO seeker for IIR guided or laser homing (where the target is marked by another platform with a laser), or MMW radar homing, or some combination.

The point is that the missile was either fired directly towards the target by a helicopter out to about 20-25km, so it could use its radar to find and mark targets for MMW radar homing, or another platform could use a laser target marker, or if the target was moving an optical sensor like low light TV or IIR to find the moving target and get a lock for itself.

The ground launched model had a much bigger thicker heavier solid rocket booster and was basically lofted up into the air like a Grad rocket at about 1.3km/s but also had no engine on the second stage so it would basically be lofted like a rocket at the target and then just fall on the target out to about 100km.

What appears to be causing the delay is that they want to make the missile itself heavier and to carry its own propulsion so it can manouver to evade being shot down on its way to its target like US HIMARS rockets are getting shot down in the Ukraine.

A manouvering mach 3 plus guided anti tank anti armour anti structure missile with a 30kg plus warhead that is difficult to shoot down seems a rather useful think on a modern battlefield and something worth the wait.

With IIR guidance you could probably optimise the flight profile and get a top attack weapon that will target turret bustles on tanks and with a 30kg warhead it should be able to penetrate down to the engine and really obliterate those HATO super tanks.... coming down vertically with perhaps a solid rocket booster to get its speed up perhaps an APHE warhead might be a good idea as the roof of most vehicles is less than 200mm and an APHE is always more devastating than other types of penetrating rounds...

Isos wrote:

lyle6 wrote:Lancet shits on Spike all day, everyday. Hermes can wait - the West has nothing like it in development anyway.

Clearly Lancet is the best solution to hunt enemy vehicles. Hermes not needed anymore.

Hermes is far quicker

Lancet is a loitering munition, you can't really launch it against a specific target dozens of km's away and expect it to be in the same place by the time it gets there.

Hermes and Zircon(counting the kholod project as part of it) have been in development since the 90s. Zircon is going to need sophisticated electronics to work because of its plasma sheath and each Hermes missile would need homing capabilities, even the quadpack missiles from pantsir would need some kind of homing at best which requires small electronics. When the full scale PIC production starts in 2024 or any other MMIC production i will assure you the zircon, hermes and quadpack pantisrs will be mass produced. PICs for radars would work amazing in the millimeter wave values than MMICs where Hermes and a quadpack pantsir would have enough accuracy and millimeter wave radar/communication device on the zircon would be undisturbed by the plasma sheath on the Zircon which at best covers low frequencies all the way to X-band.

Its just weird the U.S. or any western country has not proceeded to develop MLRS systems with homing capabilities even without sophisticated engines for maneuvering capabilities while a country no offense to Russia is developing such a system when they are currently behind the west and east in electronics (unless PIC production changes that) and such MLRS systems require an extensive use in electronics which the west portrays not having a production problem with while the Russians have bought electronics from the west and turks and we are still waiting to hear about the MMIC production facilities.

Just as a comparison the U.S. uses MLRS but with glide bombs. the GBU has a 240mm-180mm diameter and because of slow speed it would have enough of a time window to identify and hit targets, I believe a few months ago it was promised for Ukraine and probably won't arrive until a year? Russia only has room for 170mm to build a homing sensor for the warhead, still behind the west i think in infrared and MMIC technology while the U.S. has access to Taiwan's chips. And mach 3+ offers a small timeframe window to track and hit targets. I am estimating the production of Hermes will start in 2024-2028.

https://integral-russia.ru/2022/12/07/novyj-zavod-mikroelektrniki-28-nanometrovoj-topologii-stroitsya-v-zelenograde-na-baze-ao-zntts-miet/?ysclid=li66bdgxmf324893339

https://future-tech.ru/2023/01/10/%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B2%D1%8B%D0%BC%D0%B8-%D0%B2-%D1%80%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%B8-%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%87%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%B5%D0%BC-%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B7%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B1%D0%BE%D1%82%D0%BA%D1%83/?ysclid=li66btofnh500994080

talks of 28nm and a possible 3nm chip production assemblies that they could be on Taiwans level. PICs transfer terabits of information meaning that the hermes homing sensors will have absolutely no problem identifying targets at a far enough range with a small timeframe window using millimeter radars which PICs are far superior in detection and tracking than MMICs. REMEMBER it was only recently that the U.S. created the idea of MLRS with glide bomb homing and despite their own chip capabilities they have not even thought about giving homing sensors to their HIMARS missiles. Reason I say 2024-2028 is we don't know the production capacity of PICs and if aircraft radars, communication devices, etc would be prioritized over PICs for Hermes homing head sensors. To me this is important worth noting here in regard to the possible production of Hermes.

Why do you think a missile needs a fricken super computer to detect a target on the ground?

Do you understand that the radar seekers of their anti ship missiles can detect ships at sea and identify them by their radar signature... the Granit that rises from the pack and scans the now extended radar horizon and then drops back down and passes on target data to the other missiles in the flight group depending on the ships present in the carrier group was made with 1970s technology... so we are talking 286 processors were not available at that time... even the Motorola 68000 chips weren't available yet either...

Equally you would not use a CPU for processing the video data from an IIR sensor or optical camera sensor, you would use a video card with extra electronics for processing the video image in real time to detect objects and moving parts of the image... much the same way face detection works on the camera on your phone.

The real time processing phones use to put wolf faces on people or to age them or change their features would be used to analyse the shape of the visible objects to find specific things like tanks and vehicles with gun barrels or rockets in tubes or towed artillery guns so the missile itself can recognise what it is seeing and choose targets for itself, but I suspect the new Hermes will likely have a datalink... again something that does not need a fast processing chipset... to allow the operator to select the target.

Information during the engagement will mean the missile will be launched to a specific location to find its target so it wont just be fired blindly and randomly... a drone might even be launched first... the Ka-52 can carry a box on one pylon that holds a half dozen drones that can be flown into dangerous areas to look for targets and suicide into them itself or to mark targets for missiles fired from the launch helicopter or other helicopters operating with it.

lyle6 wrote:Lancet shits on Spike all day, everyday. Hermes can wait - the West has nothing like it in development anyway.

>comparing a loitering munition to a NLOS ATGM

GarryB wrote:Why do you think a missile needs a fricken super computer to detect a target on the ground?

Do you understand that the radar seekers of their anti ship missiles can detect ships at sea and identify them by their radar signature... the Granit that rises from the pack and scans the now extended radar horizon and then drops back down and passes on target data to the other missiles in the flight group depending on the ships present in the carrier group was made with 1970s technology... so we are talking 286 processors were not available at that time... even the Motorola 68000 chips weren't available yet either...

Equally you would not use a CPU for processing the video data from an IIR sensor or optical camera sensor, you would use a video card with extra electronics for processing the video image in real time to detect objects and moving parts of the image... much the same way face detection works on the camera on your phone.

The real time processing phones use to put wolf faces on people or to age them or change their features would be used to analyse the shape of the visible objects to find specific things like tanks and vehicles with gun barrels or rockets in tubes or towed artillery guns so the missile itself can recognise what it is seeing and choose targets for itself, but I suspect the new Hermes will likely have a datalink... again something  that does not need a fast processing chipset... to allow the operator to select the target.

Information during the engagement will mean the missile will be launched to a specific location to find its target so it wont just be fired blindly and randomly... a drone might even be launched first... the Ka-52 can carry a box on one pylon that holds a half dozen drones that can be flown into dangerous areas to look for targets and suicide into them itself or to mark targets for missiles fired from the launch helicopter or other helicopters operating with it.

I think the Pantsir-SM is already considered operational since December 1, 2022 when I read Pods article on that Pantsir thread. And the Hermes missiles is basically just that but with a slightly bigger sustainer 2nd stage. So if Pantsir-SM is operational than maybe they are lying and mass producing the missiles already because hitting mostly armoured vehicles is an easier task than smaller aerial targets which the pantsir already does. They already have the Klevok-D2 pre-planned to be developed. I guess average MLRS systems dont have rocket engine stirring capabilities which made it pointless for even the U.S. to stick homing sensors into MLRS systems and just use rocket assisted glide bombs instead.