Anti-Ship Missiles Thread

Probably a cheaper simpler lighter version that makes more sense on lighter smaller platforms like Corvettes, but also smaller aircraft like the Flanker series and also internally on the Su-57 or Tu-22M3M.

It would be a standard design so able to be carried on existing types without modification.

The Zircon is optimised for taking down carrier groups with excellent air defence capability, but Corvettes are not normally going to need that sort of system... but something based on that system could be made much more cheaply and would certainly be more effective against smaller less well defended targets.

Lets face it... Uran is probably good enough for most targets, but a reduced size Zircon offers a margin of overkill which means a target a Corvette might fire 2-3 Urans to ensure a kill would only need one mini Zircon missile most of the time.

This drone/cruise missile attack on Saudi oil production means the next new thing in western air defence will be defence from low level subsonic threats, so as new systems get in to service the effect of Uran type missiles is going to be eroded, but high flying hypersonic missiles are in a different category... and will likely remain so for a while.

And that special container might be a 40 ft standard shipping crate, which means trucks and river barges and even aircraft can transport them around if need be...

Zircon has a range of 1000km.

We have been told the Zircon has a range greater than 1,000km, but that would include terminal manouvering as it is expected to penetrate IADS... it is an anti ship missile intended to sink US carriers after all.

For maneuvers, Zircon will have a much smaller range.

It is expected to penetrate AEGIS protected areas... manouvering during flight to the target and terminal homing is expected and will be part of the normal operation of this missile, so no it wont be smaller.

But part of the flight probably takes place without propulsion.

Why?

It it because that would suit your agenda?

The group is strongly defended. Hundreds of anti-aircraft missiles.

Of course the group is strongly defended... that is the whole point of creating a 1,000km range hypersonic manouvering anti ship missile to defeat them.

Now for the quote, if Zircon missile speed beats reaction time of said air defense system all missiles are useless arent they?

More importantly... once the missile is developed and ready for service then improved model design can start using things learned from this and other projects to improve efficiency and performance including range. The first Moskit (SS-N-22 Sunburn) entered service in 1982 but had a range of 120km... on launch it would climb to 300m altitude to find its target and then drop below 7m for the rest of the trip. It used a ramjet motor so it needed a lot of fuel to fly at such low altitudes for such a long distance in the thick warm air near sea level. Wasn't much later that a newer version of the missile that was a ton lighter and with a flight range of 250km was developed based on experience and improvements.

Of course in 1996 the Onyx was developed that was so much lighter than either the SS-N-22 or the SS-N-19 that it made it possible to consider vertical launch tubes and large volume carriage on relatively small vessels.

Onyx was as fast as Granit and Moskit but was half their weight with more efficient and powerful ramjet motors... it was smaller and lighter but just as fast and with greater flight range.

Scramjet technology is new so the Zircon will likely improve in performance quite radically over its lifetime too.... it is just like early post WWII propeller driven bombers being replaced by jet powered ones... the first ones were faster but burned a lot of fuel so range was not usually much better... but over time shapes changed and designs were refined and better engines were developed that increased speed and range to the point where propeller driven piston engined aircraft are now considered obsolete by most experts.

Nice photo find there... but the big missile has a rear mounted rocket motor as shown by the extra set of fins seen at the back end... this means that this model is for Helicopter launch or Ship or Sub launch... they all have an extra solid rocket booster to accelerate them up to speed before the internal jet engine starts up and continues the flight to the target.

For fighter and attack and strike aircraft that are fast movers they use the same missile of course but without the solid rocket booster... effectively meaning the missile is bigger and heavier for ground or sea or helicopter launch... which is ironic for the helicopter as smaller and lighter is better there... for ships and subs it doesn't really matter.

The smaller missile has more fin surface area which suggests to me it probably has a built in solid rocket booster to get it up to speed and away from the launch platform and then just accelerates under engine power with more wing surface lift... this would probably mean it could be carried on any platform without needing a separate solid rocket booster (though for ship and sub launch it might use a cold launch booster to throw it up into the air that is part of the launcher rather than the missile... a bit like a TOR missile)

That would mean a small lighter missile that could be carried by a wider range of aircraft and in larger numbers but obviously with reduced range performance.

A small helicopter like an Ansat or Ka-225T could carry four of these weapons where perhaps it would struggle with 2x 600kg Kh-35.

Aircraft like a MiG-29KR might be able to carry a couple of these without degrading performance too much too... so if there is a known enemy threat they could fly with a couple of these on the centreline pylon and with wing pylons carrying jammer pods and AAMs which would not reduce its operational radius by much at all especially with the occasional top up from an inflight refuelling tanker or buddy tanker... If targets are detected then it can start engaging straight away... the shorter missile range compared with the Kh-35 compensated for with the flight range of the aircraft extending its range further away from the surface ships they are defending.

Of course with the UKSK-M increased size launch tubes and cruise missiles and anti ship and land attack missiles increased in size and weight to fill those tubes means if the MiG can fly out to 1,000km and launch a 120km range anti ship missile it effectively means it is a small light missile with a range of 1,120km at subsonic speeds most of the way, while a Zircon would likely have a similar range but at 10 times greater speed, but a land attack cruise missile might have a range of 5 times more at a similar speed.

The point is that with this mini missile you risk an aircraft and burn rather more fuel than with a cruise missile, and of course while a cruise missile can reach much further it wont really be much faster and it certainly wont be as aware as a fighter with a missile could be... as the fighter approaches the area it might see other targets that would be more useful to hit first... it could hit those more useful targets and then as it withdraws Zircons might come in and take out the other targets just spotted.

The point is that they will have options to suit different situations and this new missile could be carried by their new 12,000km range HALE and MALE drones which offers a whole new capability for them...

Thanks for the photo... the older photo I remember seeing was different... I don't remember those extra fins, but I also think the photo I saw you could only see the front of the new smaller missile design so any fin change would not have been visible... thanks for posting.

I must say I like this mini missile... it reminds me of an experimental missile the British used in the Falklands war called the Skua or Sea Skua or something...

The smaller missile also got an optic or IIR under the nose. Like...

Possible that when it is first launched it uses radar to locate and identify the target like the Kh-35 does but then drop down low to the water and fly to where the target should be.

The Kh-35 then turns on its radar in the last seconds of the attack to ensure it hits the target, but this small missile might use passive IR for the terminal bit or in case there is a lot of jamming and radar interference to protect the ship.

(note the missile pictured in the example is an upgraded version of the AS-11 anti radiation missile for internal carriage on the Su-57 where the IR sensor would be used in case the target radar turned off... it uses a passive radar to detect a radar operating but as it approaches the radar will detect the missile and shut down to the missile can no longer home in on the radar wave signal... but this missile continues the attack using IR because big radars generate a lot of heat and while you can turn them off quickly to stop a missile homing on their signal you can't cool the antenna down to hide is IR signature so these missiles would still hit their targets... note ships are often a different temperature from the sea they are sitting in so remain an IR target too...)

Dual IIR/radar (or probably passive radar). Nothing surprising.

Its fins are similar to the r-77's ones. Maybe it is good also against p-8 airctaft and other ASW choppers.

I don't think they would be IIR, more an IR detector in case it loses radar signal from the target by jamming or decoys... a decoy wont have the same IR signature as the original target so become less attractive as an alternative...

Is it actually an imaging IR seeker or is it just an IR seeker... the difference is quite enormous.

Not suggesting it can't be an IIR seeker... but we are talking about the difference in price of a few dollars like the PIR sensor in a burglar alarm compared with a couple of thousand dollars worth of thermal imager...

For instance the Soviets developed a self forging fragment anti tank munition for their artillery rockets and cluster bombs... it is basically a flat disk with a block of HE on the back with a MMW radar and a parachute... the parachute is designed like the fin structure on a sycamore seed so it slows it down but also imparts a rapid spin that also helps slow down its fall speed... the MMW radar sensor is angled outwards at say 30-40 degrees so when it is high up it spins around and might scan round a circle a few hundred metres across... as it falls and gets closer to the ground the circle it is scanning gets smaller and smaller... while it is falling and scanning it is looking for large metal boxes and when it sees one it explodes sending the disk of metal down at hypersonic speeds which deform the flat disk into a sort of shuttle cock shaped penetrator that penetrates the thin top armour of the target... now the obvious problem is that if there are 24 in each bomb there is a risk they might all hit the same vehicle multiple times and not hit any other vehicle nearby.

So the above system was in service in the 1980s with Smerch and Grad and Uragan batteries and was also available for Su-25s and other attack aircraft in the form of cluster bomb filler options.

In the mid 1990s they added an IR sensor... not imaging, but it didn't need to be imaging... very simply it all worked the same except the IR sensor could detect a running engine and also a burning tank so it would prioritise running tank vehicles as targets but would ignore those vehicles already burning.

Munitions that hit the ground without firing used sprung legs to flip over and face upwards with the MMW sensor detecting tanks running over them and firing the disk up into the belly of the vehicle as a type of mine.