Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle:

Russia wants to extend START

Of course they do... any rational sensible country would rather spend money on useful things rather than weapons to destroy mankind... the US is not a rational sensible country.

MOSCOW, December 16. /TASS/. The first regiment equipped with the Avangard missile system with the hypersonic glide vehicle will assume combat duty at the Dombarovskaya Rocket Division in the Orenburg region by the end of 2019, Commander of the Russian Strategic Missile Forces (RVSN) Colonel-General Sergey Karakaev told the Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star) newspaper.

https://tass.com/defense/1099595

Weapon spending drives a technical revolution. And here we have materials resistant to high temperatures, miniature reactors, scramjet engines. This is all technological development useful for humanity. So if it were not for the US to leave the ABM treaty, there would be no Avangard, Burevestnik Poseidon

Did Boeing or General Dynamics tell you to say that?

If weapon spending generates accidental benefits in other more peaceful and more useful areas... imagine what spending directly on peaceful and useful technologies could achieve?

2. VLS's that hold kaliber missiles would be to hold Zircons? Does anyone have a reference size to the VLS in terms of diameter and length just to ballpark the size of the Zircon?

Zircon... like Onyx/Yakhont/Brahmos and Club and Kalibr were designed to fit the UKSK launcher tube from the outset... that was the intention.

They are making an enlarged UKSK-M launch system which we suspect is intended to include SAMs as well as other missiles and be a more universal launcher... with a size increase perhaps to allow S-500 missiles to be carried too.

It is possible that UKSK is for new (Corvettes and frigates and conventional subs), while UKSK-M might be for new (destroyers, cruisers, carriers and nuke subs).

It has already been stated that corvettes and frigates will get Zircon too so it is clear it fits in the UKSK launcher.

And by the way I think it is a bit insulting to suggest that the Russian Navy would standardise all their new missiles on one launcher type and then develop a new and capable missile that doesn't fit its new standard launcher...

[That said, I can well foresee that the Ruskies will develop heavy versions of their strike weapons to fit an upgraded launch system like UKSK-M. It simply makes so much sense.

Well once they have the UKSK-M launcher that is supposed to be able to take all their attack missiles and their SAM (defense) missiles, then the tube size will be established and very simply they will have standard sizes... like those Russian dolls... there are going to to missiles whose performance requirements will fill those tubes to the max and the next size down needs to allow four to be fitted in to each tube and then four into each of those for the different requirement levels.

Right now most of the missiles carried in the UKSK launch tubes were designed to be fired from a torpedo tube and are 533mm calibre, while the Onyx/Yakhont/Brahmos were designed to be about 750mm calibre so for both types to fit the tube needs to be bigger than 750mm for the bigger missiles so when the smaller missiles like the Klubs and Kalibres and the 91ER missiles are loaded there is a lot of empty wasted space.

Now they could make those missiles bigger to fit those tubes to get extra range and payload and possibly even speed, but they were making the UKSK-M launch system for the S-500 which means the tube size has probably changed anyway.

Now, with the UKSK-M launch tubes they will have the dimensions of their full sized missiles and the missiles they need to fit four of or 16 of inside the tube, so now they can look at increased sized missiles... all the current and new missiles will remain in production because they can still use them in torpedo tubes on other vessels, but increased size variants of most of their missiles to more efficiently use the available space make a lot of sense and improve the performance of existing systems... the 2,500km land attack Kalibre can now have a 5,000km range... it will be heavier but there is room and no issue with weight to be honest...

It's not news, it's default setting

I would agree, though the earlier heavy anti ship missiles were too big for most aircraft to carry them, the new missiles are getting better and better flight performance while getting lighter and smaller.

Granit is huge... 7 tons, but Moskit is 4.5 tons and Onyx is 2.5 tons... and I would expect Zircon to be in the 2-3 ton weight range too.

The Kh-22M is about 6 tons, but only strategic aircraft could carry those... new reduced weight Brahmos and Zircon will probably be able to be carried by tactical aircraft like Flankers and Fulcrums...

The missiles that used to be anti ship only are now anti ship and land attack... giving the modern navy capabilities it has never had before.

On the part of bmpd, we recall that the end of 2019 was announced as a deadline for the first missile regiment with intercontinental ballistic missiles UR-100 UTX equipped with the Avangard hypersonic winged warhead. The missile regiment is part of the 13th missile Orenburg Red Banner Division of the 31st Missile Army of Strategic Missile Forces in Yasnoy (Dombarovsky, Orenburg Region).

It was reported that at the end of 2019, in the regiment will be put on combat duty the first two Avangard missile systems with UR-100N UTTH missiles deployed in silo launchers of ballistic missiles R-36M2. Subsequently, the number of deployed complexes in the regiment should be brought up to a staff of six.

It is known that the current State armament program for 2018-2017 provides for the deployment of two missile regiments with Avangard complexes as part of the 13th Missile Division until 2027 (a total of 12 deployed UR-100N UTTH missiles).

Presumably, “Avangard” combat equipment equipped (both for test launches and for commenced combat deployment) UR-100N UTTX missiles from among 30 missiles type, received by the Russian side in 2002-2004 from storage at Ukraine and until recently in storage in Russia.

https://bmpd.livejournal.com/3889729.html

The codename for the SS-19 for civilian satellite launch was ROKOT I think and they were talking about making all Russian components so they can produce some more for themselves... it is apparently a solid reliable and accurate rocket that is popular.

I don't think they want to produce brand new ones... just enable the continued use of existing ones safely.

It's not news, it's default setting

Every single ship missile they are using can be launched from sea, land or air

They always develop ship version first​ because making land and air versions afterwards is easy

It was always part of the plan, there was no scenario in which Zircon stays exclusively ship borne missile

Not strictly true.... most big heavy ship based and air carried anti ship missiles don't have land launched equivelants because any surface launched weapon would be bound by the INF treaty and limited to less than 500km flight range.

When Zircon was being developed there was no intention of a land based version because its enormous speed means long range is a bonus so to limit max range they would need to dramatically change the design... perhaps triple or quadruple the warhead weight for instance.

Also most of their anti ship missiles were anti ship only... Granit and Vulcan etc etc were anti ship only, but with the post cold war I push for multirole ships they realised they needed multirole missiles too so they expanded their anti ship missile range to include land attack... they joint developed the Brahmos with India which meant they could joint fund the solution of guidance and seekers that could be used against land targets and ships at sea and they adapted those systems to their Onyx base missile that the Brahmos and Yakhont are designed from, and also their other missiles.

They also developed land attack cruise missiles too because previously their granat cruise missile had a CEP of about 200m so a nuke warhead was the only solution for land attack or anti port use, but both their airforce (Kh-101/2) and navy (Calibr) developed precision targeting capability for their land attack missiles and also adapted their sea based anti ship missiles to land attack too.

Note their previous multifunction air to surface missiles were weapons like the Kh-25 where they came in different models with different seeker heads, so the missiles were not multifunction at all, but the missiles were standardised and seekers were available for different targets or attack methods.

New missiles will likely combine a few seeker options together to become more multifunction like Hermes... which is probably why it is taking so long.

Work on Russia’s Avangard hypersonic missile continued for over 30 years — designer

The weapon was developed in response to the US Strategic Defense Initiative

MOSCOW, October 6. /TASS/. The Research and Production Association of Machine-Building (now part of Tactical Missiles Corporation) started work on the Avangard hypersonic missile system in 1985 in response to the US Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), Company Honorary CEO and Honorary Chief Designer Gerbert Yefremov told TASS on Tuesday.

"After all-embracing considerations, the proposal of the Research and Production Association of Machine-Building began to be implemented in 1985," he specified, responding to a question about how and when the work on the Avangard hypersonic missile system proceeded.

The US anti-ballistic missile defense coupled with massively deployed nuclear-tipped strike missiles reinforces the American combat potential. The simultaneous possession of the capabilities for delivering a pre-emptive massive nuclear strike and the systems for intercepting the few remaining enemy missiles becomes destabilizing and inflames tensions in the world, Yefremov said.

"I can say that [then-US President Ronald] Reagan’s SDI alarmed the leadership of the Soviet Union," he recalled.

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the USSR Council of Ministers issued a resolution, instructing defense enterprises to put forward proposals on measures in response to the US SDI program, the chief designer said.

"I, being the newly appointed chief designer of the Research and Production Association of Machine-Building, using the vast experience of previous R&D work, sent a proposal on practically implementing a very difficult task of making the classical ABM defense system intended for countering ballistic missiles useless," he recalled.

"For this purpose, it was necessary to create a flying vehicle moving at great speeds in the atmosphere and making various maneuvers," Yefremov noted.

After comprehensive considerations, the proposal by the Research and Production Association of Machine-Building began to be implemented in 1985, he said.

"The experimental testing, both ground, bench and flight tests, using UR-100N UTTKh missiles, continued until the early 2000s. Further practical trials that already involved a combat system proceeded under the direct control of President [Vladimir] Putin after the US withdrew from the ABM Treaty in 2002," the chief designer said.

Award

Russian President Putin announced on September 19, Russia’s Gunsmith Day, the conferring of the Order of St. Andrew the Apostle the First-Called with swords on Yefremov for developing the Avangard hypersonic missile system.

As the Russian president recalled during his talk with Yefremov at the time, large-scale work had been launched in 2004 to implement the chief designer’s ideas. A final test-launch was carried out in December 2018. Therefore, all the trials were successfully completed. The first strategic missile regiment armed with Avangard hypersonic missile systems went on combat duty in December 2019.

In 1972, the US and the USSR signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty and simultaneously the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. However, in March 1983, US President Ronald Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative program aimed at effectively intercepting even a full-scale Soviet missile attack.

The Avangard is a strategic intercontinental ballistic missile system equipped with a hypersonic boost-glide vehicle. According to open sources, the breakthrough weapon was developed by the Research and Production Association of Machine-Building (the town of Reutov in the Moscow Region) and was tested from 2004. The boost-glide vehicle is capable of flying at over 20 times the speed of sound in the dense layers of the atmosphere, maneuvering by its flight path and its altitude and breaching any anti-missile defense.

https://tass.com/defense/1209209