They are not wrong at all. Kh-101 with 5000km mounted on tu-160 are capable of striking anything on world. They are far more cheaper and safer to use.
These nuclear propelled missiles are strategic weapons only and will only be used during WWIII, so their nuclear propulsion will be vapourised when the nuclear warhead explodes.
A dozen nuclear propelled cruise missiles released from a container ship in the southern Pacific ocean to fly around for 6 months and then head north and hit targets in the US is the sort of mission they will be used for... a mission a Tu-160 could never perform... it will already have flown its mission anyway...
Use of small nuclear materials that can contaminate is badly seen by poeple and it could turn poeple in the world against Russia. The economy of russia would be impacted much more than it is now with sanctions. Weapon export would be very affected because russian missile have contaminated the world.
There wont be a conventionally armed version of this missile... unless it ejects its warhead over the target and flys back to Russian territory and lands in a designated area for reuse...
Tu-160 can strike los angeles with cruise missiles. It was made for that. They are also putting VLS on every ship and sub to be able to strike USA anywhere they want.
This nuclear cruise missile is not a super weapon. It's gonna be way much more expensive than normal ones.
It is not a first strike weapon... it is a stab in the back weapon weeks after the mushroom clouds blow away... and then boom boom boom....
It will contaminate an area when it strikes even with conventional warehead. Strinking with nuks warehead is something else.
It is a revenge weapon... a we will keep hitting you after you think it is all over weapon...
This missiles is meant to carry conventional wareheads too so it's not only an WWIII weapon meant to destroy USA. If they want to use it against Something else, they won't be able because it will contamine and that's Something really badly seen by normal people no matter where they live.
Who said it would be conventionally armed?
I was trying to say that if this missiles is used and its engines contaminates the ground where it explodes, it would be seen really badly by poeple around the world which is worse than sanctions.
Yeah, because the US goes into every place it bombs and cleans up the DU rounds their CAS aircraft fire... and they cleaned up Vietnam of all those horrible defoliants and land mines and UXO... no... wait a minute.... no they didn't.
The Russians wont hand their enemy nuclear material... the only weapons that will use a nuclear engine will have a nuclear warhead to match.
Keep in mind that original Project Pluto/SLAM missile was supposed to be borderline hypersonic (Mach 4.2 with exposed fuel) while this one is subsonic. They probably made it cleaner and safer by insulating fuel and sacrificing speed. Smart move.
Of course define safe with a doomsday weapon.... the Pluto flew a dozen metres above the ground at something like mach 2 and was reportedly able to damage buildings by flying past them... it carried more than a dozen nuclear warheads which it fired upwards... they came back down and detonated behind the missile which just carried in its way. The jet exhaust was radioactive and the shockwaves were lethal to exposed humans on the ground... this thing could fly around for a decade irradiating... knocking down things and blowing up targets with its onboard bombs...
They didn't develop it because they feared the Soviets would build the same thing...
I saw once they had a project of a plane using nuk reactors but I don't know if it flew and if it was US or soviet.
They both had one... the Russian one was based on the Bear bomber... the problem was the weight of the reactor and all the shielding to prevent the crew from being killed meant the useful payload wasn't anything to write home about... even if it could fly around for ages before and after...
But if they manage to make this engine for a civilian project or for space project they will achieve something historical.
They are working on nuclear propulsion for a space tug... one that could be used to clean up earths orbit by removing junk, but also one that could assist interplanetary flights by adding thrust to other spaceships....