Why Kinzhal is called a hypersonic maneuvering rocket. it's an ordinary ballistic missile like Iskander-M. The missile maneuvers but only to a limited extent like Iskander-M. Only Awangard and Cirkon are hypersonic missiles with the possibility of considerable maneuvers.
Hypersonic means high supersonic... generally meaning mach 5 plus in this day and age.
So calling the Kinzhal a hypersonic manouvering rocket is just saying that the mach 10 kinzhal can manouver as it approaches its target.
The Iskander is also a hypersonic missile... it flys at mach 6-7, which makes it hypersonic and it does not fly a ballistic path like the bullet fired from a gun... a predictable trajectory.
Both Kinzhal and Iskander manouver during their flight to their target making interception very very difficult.
So Iskander- M is hypersonic wepons, Bulava is hypersonic wepons, Yars is hypersonic wepons... V-2 is hypersonic wepons Laughing All balistic missile is hypersonic wepons
No. V-2 was barely mach 3 on impact and a totally ballistic weapon. V-2 was supersonic ballistic missile, Scud from Desert Storm with extended range was coming in at mach 6 or so because of its extended range but it was not manouvering either so it was a hypersonic ballistic missile... not hard to intercept for ABM systems because although moving very fast its flight path was largely predictable.
Note Patriot struggled with the Mach 6-7 Scud upgrades because it was not designed to hit ballistic missiles and normal aircraft don't move this fast, so firing an average of 32 Patriots at Scuds they found none of the Scuds were actually shot down because the Patriot missiles were hitting the bodies and rear areas of the scuds... but in the final part of the trajectory the bodies and rears are pointless and have done their job so being shredded by fragments from Patriot missiles didn't make any difference it was the falling warheads that were the problem and they hit the ground intact and did their damage anyway.
An S-300V would have targetted the warhead of the Scud and destroyed it in the air because it was designed to hit ballistic missile targets and could direct its warhead fragments at where the targets warhead was.
The Patriot did what it was designed to do... the US clearly were not expecting to fight an enemy with any ballistic weapons... go figure... the Soviets were very well prepared....
Old Soviet R-5 it was hypersonic wepons. This is normal balistic missile like Kindzal.
Kinzhal is based on Iskander and is a manouvering hypersonic missile with extended range because when it is launched it is already 10km plus up in the air and moving at over mach 2.
The question is what is revolutionary in Kindzal? I understand Avangard, Cirkon but why Kindzal balistic missile launch from aircraft platform. Balistic missile with MaRV and maneuvrable warhead is nothing new.
The Iskander isn't just a dumb ballistic missile like Scud... it has sensors on board to detect radar tracking signals so it knows when something is coming to intercept it and it can turn to avoid it and turn again and again to make itself a difficult target... just like Kinzhal does.
A MaRV uses its manouvering performance to manouver away from the warhead bus to hit targets well beyond the trajectory of the ICBM it was launched from... it wont be dodging bullets all the way down...
But this is not a type of hypersonic weapon like Avangard and Cirkon.
Actually it is, the difference is that Avangard is launched from an ICBM, while Zircon is a replacement for ship launched Onyx missiles and also Granit missiles and uses scramjet propulsion and will be powered from launch to impact with target unlike Kinzhal which is rocket powered.
It is a ballistic missile launch from an airplane against ship targets like Chinese ballistic missiles launched from the ground against ship.
Again... that term ballistic means it is launched upwards on a curved trajectory towards the target which it basically falls down upon at high speed but on a relatively predictable trajectory... so even though it is moving fast you can estimate a point in front of it to intercept it easily enough.
The difference is that with Zircon or Kinzhal while your interceptor missile is launched and on its way to that intercept point the target might have started climbing and turning left... shifting the interception point 20-30km from the original point, so you immediately command your interception missile to turn and head for the new interception point, but then your interception point changes again because the incoming missile turns back to the right to an equal angle distance on the other side of its original trajectory so and the interception point shifts 40-60km to the right of the second interception point... which your first launched missile can't now reach in time because that would require a 180 degree turn which would massively reduce its effective range so it can no longer reach the intercept point (your interception missile would be coasting so a hard 180 degree turn would burn up all its energy and it would drop from the sky...
The enormous speeds of these targets means even small flight direction angle changes shift intercept points by enormous distances... 3 seconds before interception and the target turns 10 degrees the tracking system might not detect the new final angle of turn and therefore not know where the new interception point would be by the time the intercepting missile has blown past anyway... you could launch dozens of SAMs and still miss...
Home
Latest images
Register
Log in
Arrow
All balistic missile is hypersonic wepons. 
Name me one other quasi-ballistic air-launched missile that is designed to attack ships from the zenith (where radar coverage is poor) at hypersonic velocities from a 1000km range....
