PAK-DΑ: News #2

Supersonic allows you attack faster and escape, a PAK DA will be out there twice as long with planes that can gain on it at at maybe 1000 KM per hour.

I think you are rather over estimating the ability of aircraft this size to turn 180 degrees at mach 2 flight speeds... flying towards the target at mach 2 just means you are closing the target at half a kilometre a second and your ability to do a 180 degree turn at such speeds would limit your ability to stop closing the target after you launch your weapons and turn around and start making more space between the enemy.

The missiles they use have gotten much longer ranged and much faster, so travelling fast is not so important now when you launch.

Yes I know the TU22 will not do the entire mission at M2. Sprint speed makes it harder for the target to react.

Those enormous air intakes makes the Tu-22M3 much easier to detect by radar at extended ranges.... a Stealthy PAK DA should be able to get to launch range and leave without being detected at all.

It wont have the RCS of a full stop, but from 1,000km range it would be hard to detect... a Tu-22M3 would not.

You can send these planes on a subsonic flight to me a tanker, fuel up then sprint to lauch position. I think you can count on any bomber being observed

And what is a Tu-22M3 going to do with that tanker? There was talk of Tu-22M3Ms having their inflight refuelling probes reinstalled but I have not seen any confirmation.

Tu-160 and PAK DA will certainly have inflight refuelling capacity.

I think the PAK DP could do the anti-shipping mission. It is highly likely it will not be a simple interceptor but some sort of multi-role aircraft. I expect us to see some sort of air-launched Zircon eventually.

The PAK DP might be interesting, though Hazel can reach 5,000km from a truck based launcher that could be deployed anywhere at much higher speeds than the new MiG will be flying. I rather suspect they will focus on home defence with MiG-31K and use any new MiGs for air defence roles at least to start with.

IRBMs should be ideal for anti carrier roles well out into the arctic and pacific oceans.

The PAK DA will be designed to carry 11 ton FOAB missiles for the threatre role, but also GZUR II hypersonic 11 metre long 10,000km range strategic missiles in the strategic role too. This means enormous internal volume for huge weapons of all types in a zero drag internal weapon bay or more than one.

Even Gzur, which is supposed to be a mach 6 x 1.500km range 6m long missile should be rather potent in the anti ship role.

Oreshnik makes all kinds of air power obsolete, wrote:

Nonsense

5000 nuks makes any air force obsolate against you wrote:

I understand that in the current war in Ukraine with NATO, 5,000 nuclear warheads were useful and aviation was not needed? I am not talking about total war here. Although they have ICBMs, SLBMs, Oreshniks, etc., they also have VKS and strategic aviation, which is very active. It is also a carrier of nuclear missiles and a set of conventional ALCMs. The striking power of one Tu 160M is greater than that of an Oreshnik. Despite everything, developing aviation and bomber aviation. They have resumed production of Tu-160M ​​and are working on PAK DA.

I would say that is what they will be getting with the 11m long GZUR II missile with hypersonic flight speeds and a 10-12K km range... 6 in each weapon bay for a total of 12 missiles... very potent.

There is no information about the Gzur missile. It may not even exist. Zero information. Even when they were developing the Cirkon, there was little information about its progress and tests. Here, it is not even known whether this project exists. No photos, leaks, etc. Until these missiles are officially announced to be in service or any photos or videos are released, we can assume that they simply do not exist.

Ok I will bite. so you can fire a single missile that cannot be stopped and can deliver the destructive power of a heavy bomber at M10 wrote:

Tu 160M can deliver over 30 tons of cargo. Oreshnik about 2 tons. See the difference?

Oreshnik makes all kinds of air power obsolete, but I do expect one can probably put Oreshnik warheads on Tsirkon

So many targets and situations simply do not justify the use of such a missile and air power has a multitude of uses that Hazelnut would be useless... particularly recon and self defence roles.

Hazelnut is a ballistic weapon that presumably uses solid or liquid rocket boosters to get it most the way to the target... we don't know much about the warhead busses or the penetrators but they will be impacting the target at speeds likely rather similar to the speeds Zircon achieves. We can make guesses like the fact that the Zircon is probably 2 to 3 tons at launch and probably has a solid warhead for the same reason the Hazelnut has a solid warhead... because kinetic impact is probably more effective at such speeds than HE warheads, but who knows... it might have a small bursting charge that spreads the metal payload a milisecond before impact so you get a hypersonic shotgun blast effect to spread the damage...

Point is that jet powered weapons can now deliver at speeds comparable to rocket propelled weapons.

5000 nuks makes any air force obsolate against you.

True, but only in the situation of nuclear war with a nuclear power.

For everything else, which is hopefully normal, an air force makes sense.

I understand that in the current war in Ukraine with NATO, 5,000 nuclear warheads were useful and aviation was not needed? I am not talking about total war here.

Normally an air force is more useful than a nuclear weapon because you can use an air force without committing suicide.

In the case of Hazelnut they can use it without stepping into nuclear war territory.

This makes it better than nuclear weapons, but you still need nuclear weapons if the enemy decides to escalate because for HATO there is only nuclear weapons they can escalate to... and of course air forces are necessary for all sorts of other roles and uses.

There is no information about the Gzur missile. It may not even exist. Zero information.

Could say exactly the same about Hazelnut, but burying your head in the sand and pretending they don't exist and wont exist is not a practical response to the situation.

The description and purpose of Gzur and Gzur II made good sense. GZUR to replace the Kh-15 short range attack missile to penetrate enemy air defences during a strategic nuclear strike, and GZUR II to make use of the 11m long weapon bays of the Tu-160 and the externally carried weapon pylons on the Bear.

Presumably the PAK DA will have internal weapon bays the same as the upgraded Tu-160M2 so they will have some conformity as to what they can carry and use... depending on the design the PAK DA might have quite a few different weapon bays for different weapon types including self defence AAMs.

Even when they were developing the Cirkon, there was little information about its progress and tests.

A secret programme they kept secret...

Here, it is not even known whether this project exists. No photos, leaks, etc. Until these missiles are officially announced to be in service or any photos or videos are released, we can assume that they simply do not exist.

Hang on... so you just said the Zircon was secret till it was revealed, the Hazelnut was secret until it was revealed, the Kinzhal was secret until it was revealed... don't you think the Gzur would be secret until it is revealed too?

Piotr Butowski has mentioned it multiple times as a programme to upgrade the strategic weapons of long range aviation... they have long range stealth missiles... with scramjet technology it makes sense to also have long range hypersonic missiles too.

Or do you think they will only use scramjet technology for anti ship missiles?

It is a powerful and very efficient propulsion method... now they have it working I would think they will be wanting to apply it to all sorts of jobs and situations and platforms.

The major stumbling block was the heat barrier which they had to solve with the missiles they already developed and put into service.

Ok I will bite. so you can fire a single missile that cannot be stopped and can deliver the destructive power of a heavy bomber at M10 .

For the vast majority of targets you will want to be hitting a Hazelnut will be massive overkill... especially when the target can be hit using a Kh-101 with a conventional HE warhead over a distance of 4,000km where your bomber is rather safe from enemy attacks.

A bomber is a more flexible tool able to solve a range of different problems, but that is not to say Russia is in the excellent position of having both options.

What is the cost per strike vs building, and provisioning a heavy bomber for its full lifecycle over which it may do 5-10 actual missions? Lets be generous and say 50 missions.

Launching weapons in Syria and Ukraine I would say the Tu-160s they have now have probably already flown rather more than 50 missions each launching cruise missile attacks at a range of targets.

You can also send Tu-160s to visit Cuba and Venezuela and make the Americans sht themselves... which is always entertaining.

Scramjet powered missiles will be smaller lighter and just as fast as their rocket powered equivalents and the 11m weapon bays in the old White Swans gives them plenty of growth potential if required.

They will be starting serious prototyping and testing of the PAK DA soon and so the new weapons for this aircraft will be also testing and developing too... and they have no reason to show them to us until they are ready.

Plus said heavy bomber can be shot down and, at most, travel at M2 and that is a very unique feature of only 1 bomber. PLUS its M2 range is only about 2000 km.

That was part of the logic behind the two stage GZUR II where the missile flys at hypersonic speed and the missile penetrates enemy air defences so the carrying aircraft does not have to.

The Kh-101/102 are ~5,000km range missiles, why not make the replacements even longer ranged and more difficult to deal with?

Scramjet propulsion creates potential designs not possible just for solid rocket motor missiles... look up the British Blue Steel missile... a potentially potent weapon killed by the US MIC, but a scramjet powered version could be just as fast or faster and carry 1/4th the fuel weight because the air is scooped up as it flys instead of stored in chemical form in the fuel tanks.

The mach 3 version of the Club anti ship missile showed they can be clever as well... there is no reason why a two stage weapon could have a section using cheap fuel where the scramjet operates as a ramjet and flys at 25km altitude at 900km/h with 3 tons of jet fuel for 5,000km... and then when that has burned out the rear section falls away and you are left with a Kh-55SM sized missile (6m) that has the scramjet motor in it and it starts burning its 2 tons of internal fuel and accelerates and climbs to mach 8 or 9 and 40km altitude for the next 4,000km into enemy airspace... you are not ballistic and can turn left and right easily enough so most ABM systems wont be effective for the same reason they would not be effective at shooting down aircraft moving at very high speed... they can't predict where the target will be in the 2 minutes it will take the interceptor missile to reach the interception point and even right up until the last 10 seconds the target might turn and the interception point might shift 5km in the fraction of a second and your interceptor missiles simply don't have 10 seconds to turn and get to the new interception point 5km away in time to intercept the target which will be there....

Tu 160M can deliver over 30 tons of cargo. Oreshnik about 2 tons. See the difference?

It can also deliver a wide variety of weapon types for different purposes too, and new weapons are being developed all the time and will likely be designed for the White Swan and the PAK DA to use to make them more capable and more flexible.

People taking military dogmas out of their ass is really funny.

The problem of wonder weapons in the west... you only need Javelin, you don't need any other type of ATGM... etc etc.

Look at the Russian approach... lots of different solutions each not perfect but practical and useful and when used together offers a very comprehensive array of tools for any job.

When war starts scaling up production for hundreds of different types of weapons means you don't run out, whereas monopolies in the west means ramping up production is easy to start with but really ramping up production could take decades.