Russian Cruise Missiles Thread

Not at all true. You can aim them at a building and have them go thorough the window.

Actually very true... the Kh-55 had a CEP of about 200m which is good enough for a nuclear payload... but if they are launching cruise missiles at Europe it is not a question of precision strikes against point targets... Europe is the threat so they need to do as much damage as they can so a 200 CEP nuke is actually better than a through the window 400kg conventional payload weapon.

For nuclear attack the Kh-55SM is good enough for any target within 3,000km... the Kh-55 is the older model with 2,500km range... the Kh-555 is the much shorter range conventional model with Kh-101 terminal guidance for through the window attacks.

The point is that apart from the nuclear warhead the Kh-55SM would be the cheapest and easiest to mass produce even now.... it is also smaller and lighter and with the INF treaty gone you could bundle them 6 to a train carriage and carry thousands.

There is nothing difficult about making them so even a small firm that makes small aircraft could build them... these days the computer performance in a cell phone will be more than enough to control one from launch to impact.... the improved digital maps means it might be rather more accurate... say 100m CEP assuming GLONASS is being jammed at the target end.

Do they have a program for a dummy target drone like US TALD to make enemy air defence spend they missiles on fake targets ?

Honestly I would think Russian missiles cost less than US decoys and dummies, but there are 122mm rockets the Su-25 and Su-24 and Su-34 or in fact any aircraft that carries the 5 shot 122mm rocket pods where there is a decoy jammer rocket that sprouts wings on launch and starts up a pulse detonation jet engine and flys into enemy held territory for the launch aircraft to monitor radar and radio signals... I would expect that is just the tip of the iceberg, but also that such systems are rather secret too.

CEP for KH-55 is listed as 25m.

Not sure where you are getting your figures from but that is way too accurate for a missile with no terminal guidance system, just a terrain comparison system for flight along the way.

With its nuclear payload it would not need that level of precision.

There was also a optical terminal guidance version the SM, that was for precision strike.

The Kh-55 is nuclear armed and has little need for that level of precision. The Kh-55SM is the same missile with saddle tanks to extend the flight range from 2,500km to 3,000km and also uses a nuclear warhead.

The Kh-555 has the terminal seeker of the Kh-101 and the conventional warhead and has a CEP of 3m to 5m and a conventional HE warhead.

Missile threat lists the KH-555 range as 3500 km.

I believe its range has been revealed to be between 2,500km and 2,800km...


They started making Kh-55s in the late 1970s, but replaced it in about the mid 80s with the Kh-55SM with saddle fuel tanks and slightly increased range.

The first Kh-555s were converted Kh-55s... it was Kh-555s that were used in Syria along with Kh-101 which are both conventionally armed cruise missiles...

Yeah I think the KH series is pretty awesome and can just do with targeting upgrades. Other then that, easy to build, probably lots in stock for cheap upgrade, 3500km... what more do you really need.

There were essentially three families... the Kh-55, which improved to Kh-55SM and then the conventional Kh-555, and the 3M10 Granat, which was the naval system that has since evolved into the Klub and Kalibr system (Klub for export Kalibr for domestic use).

The Kh-101/102 is an enlarged and extended range missile family... no longer 533mm calibre for launching from torpedo tubes and no longer 6m long for fitting internal bomber weapon bays the new 750mm calibre 7.4m long missiles have much better flight range and will likely replace sea based versions too.

As you point out the older shorter smaller missiles are just as useful as they ever were and you could fit huge bundles on trucks and trains and shipping crates...

mnztr wrote:

franco wrote:

Remember reading the total of non-nuclear cruise missiles available at the start of this and it was only double digits hence the massive growth even with testing and use in Syria.

How can it only be double digits, no way. The had a lot of cruise missile models already that were quite mature.

This from a report that Shoigu gave in 2019 in regards to progress over the previous 8 years. Would assume he was only talking about non-nuclear cruise missiles but it is not clear.

"At that time, there were practically no long-range precision weapons in the Armed Forces. There were only 30 operational aircraft carriers, and only 37 aviation cruise missiles."

https://southfront.org/pivotal-changes-in-russian-armed-forces/

The only airforce units that got significant numbers of precision guided missiles were the Su-24 units... most fighter bombers used dumb bombs and unguided rockets most of the time... later model Su-17s and late model MiG-27s could carry guided weapons, but most other aircraft just used dumb bombs and unguided rockets.

Planes like the Su-25 was very effective with cannon fire and bombs and rockets.

The lack of rush to get conventionally armed cruise missiles mainly came from the neglect and almost total lack of C4IR assets... it would be stupid to buy thousands of conventionally armed cruise missiles when you didn't have the recon assets to find targets 2,500km behind enemy lines.

It was the wake up call of the conflict in South Ossetia that made them realise without C4IR they are essentially a WWII force.

Soviet generals saw what the west did to Iraq in Desert Storm and they wanted the same capability but having cruise missiles without terminal guidance means 150 to 200m which is only useful with a nuke warhead. To get it below 10m was the goal or you are wasting your time.

But to give them credit they took their problems seriously and looked at not just C4IR, but also training and equipment and EW and air defence.

They are at a point where they are a modern professional armed force... they could do with more ships and more new subs but they are on their way... those sorts of things take decades to get right unless you are in the position to throw billions and billions at the problem... it is not enough of a problem to take funds from other areas... it is simply going to take time... at least they are getting it right before mass producing...

Their intelligent focus on anti tank missiles for example and also surface to air missiles means the consumables... the missiles that are destroyed with each use are dumb and cheap, while the expensive and capable stuff is in the launcher.

It means over time you can get expensive launch systems but using them is cheap so you have a lot of munitions on hand and don't learn to be afraid to use them because they are cheap and easy to mass produce. Hesitating to shoot at an enemy position with a guided missile because the missile is a Javelin and probably costs more than your house, so you have a very limited number of those and when they are gone you are not getting more for the next financial year... is a real issue.

The Gefest & T system is a case in point where the smart stuff is built into the aircraft so cheap dumb bombs and rockets can be used in free flight without needing to fly low and straight and level at a steady speed... you can manouver and you can also drop bombs from altitude.

Newer aircraft like the Su-35 and Su-57 and MiG-35 wont need that to be added because it will be built in... and make actually using weapons affordable.

The number of types of new missiles and bombs and weapons has exploded (pun intended) including a special class for drones... that could be used on light aircraft and helicopters too no doubt.

Simple conventional subsonic cruise missiles would be amazingly cheap to mass produce, and it would be useful to make a whole lot of them simply because when they get to expiry dates they can be used in Syria or in training etc.

Cheap affordable weapons make sense, and it is something the west is really bad at to be honest.

How can this be correct when 575 were returneed from Ukraine in 1999? Maybe they were sabotaged?

He is not talking about strategic nuclear missiles.... the ones returned from Ukraine were returned because they were nuclear armed strategic missiles... not precision guided theatre missiles.

Labor is expensive in west because their currency is desired and used a lot in trade...

Most labour in the west in defence factories is people watching robots assemble components... western labour costs are not that big... quite a significant number of jobs are minimum wage.

It is more like gouging is more acceptable in the west so everyone gets in on it... a $20 keyboard becomes a $500 keyboard without any significant changes made to it...

In Syria thry had state of the art radars to detect them and systems designed to hit such targets.

Actually to be fair in Syria those cruise missiles were all guided at Syrian targets.

As far as I am aware no missiles were directed at Russian facilities and no Russian operated SAMs were attack nor were the facilities they were protecting.

When that cruise missile attack the Syrians were not part of the Russian IADS so essentially their BUK and Pantsir batteries were vehicles operating on their own without much if any warning and actually not fully equipped the way a Russian equivalent would be.

An airfield in Syria might have a couple of vehicles but not the full batteries the Russians used, and from the results I have seen the targets where the missiles got through were old disused buildings that used to be used for chemical weapons research, but were not longer in use and were not defended.

Now I suspect the Russians might have contributed with information as well as perhaps jamming or GPS interference, but the performance of those SAM vehicles was essentially the result of small groups of vehicles or systems on their own dealing with the incoming threat.

Firing ten times more missiles at one target in Russia today would be likely even less successful simply because they have long range over the horizon early warning radar and an air force that can be deployed to help coordinate and pre warn air defences on the ground so they can take down the maximum number of threats as they pass each installation.

That is very interesting... so it has four front mounted shaped charges that blow a hole into the side of something subsantial and then the main warhead flys through and explodes inside the target.

It is GLONAS and Inertial guided so no nose mounted radar for use against fixed stationary heavy targets.

So it would be useful against hydro electric dams and also nuclear power stations or oil storage facilities I suspect too, not to mention hardened bunkers... very large ABM radars would also be more easily taken out with a warhead exploding inside them.

Hardened aircraft shelters because the main charge would destroy the contents too which would make it rather more effective than a single warhead weapon...

I thought those tubes might be passive radar related or even EMP "warheads"...

Not the first time I have been wrong, wont be the last for sure.

A few more drone strikes on Saudi Oil storage and they might not remain thin skinned...

For all their tough talk of no fly zones in Syria they seem to be behaving properly there with regard to Russian forces.

With clever use of critical bits of technology like AWACS platforms and satellite networks and of course other behind the scenes stuff that lets them listen to enemy communications means when the US plans attacks and wars against third world countries they normally know where everything is and always make sure they have good local superiority before trying anything, which makes them look rather more powerful and invincible than they actually are...

Abrams tanks look amazing when you stay out of cities and close combat and use their long range fire power and day night optics so you see the enemy and they can't see you.

When you are kicking Iraq out of Kuwaite you fight in open desert and mostly at night when you have the best advantage... even a Bradley with its excellent optics is a dangerous opponent for a T-55 series tank at night, so you kill lots of enemy vehicles without exposing your own vehicles to very much enemy fire at all.

In Afghanistan they used the Afghans to move into areas the Taliban held... the Taliban could either hide... in which case the Afghans would hunt them down and kill them in small pockets... or they could form up into larger formations to face the Afghan troops... in which case the US simply called in air power to smash them all formed up... didn't always work perfectly.... is a big group of Afghans the Taliban forming up for a fight.... or a wedding... made that mistake a couple of times.

Their last option would be to disappear into the mountains or leave the region... you might get some kills with air power but you captured the area...

And how to screw up a withdrawal... openly state and actually withdraw that air power three months before you withdraw the troops who manage and organise the war... with the air power gone and no special forces guidance or assistance or leadership for the Afghan government forces of course they are going to collapse... the Taliban are forming up and kicking their asses and no air power to call.

The invasion of Iraq was another case where they avoided operating in the cities for as long as they could... sitting out in the desert protecting the oil fields, and then they had to start fighting in cities and they started losing armour.... it wasn't magic.

The Soviets did have long range missiles but in terms of cruise missiles they just had nuke armed missiles with no terminal guidance for precision hits/kills.

They didn't really need it or want it... till Desert Storm and then they wanted it... and got it eventually.