Anti-ship Ballistic Missiles (ASBM)

Big_Gazza wrote:

flamming_python wrote:Kinetic at Mach 7 will be plenty destructive enough; you don't really need an HE or cluster warhead at such speeds. Not for nothing are they planning to equip the Sarmat ICBM with Yu-74 hypersonic glider vehicles that release pure-kinetic warheads to destroy targets such as hardened missile silos.. where are their nuclear or explosive payloads?

Kinetic attack against small concentrated targets like a silo (where any damage to the missile will likely render it inoperable) isn't nearly as effective against something like a CVN.  Sure you can punch a hole through it and damage the systems you hit and cause some fires, but unless you hit something critical like a reactor or ordnance store, damage control could quite conceivably save the vessel.  A nice 800kg blast/frag warhead detonating in the ships guts will be far more destructive and likely to cause the sort of fires and secondary damage that have the potential to quickly cripple the ships operations.

Isos wrote:Iskander has a 800 kg warehead. Imagine you want to destroy an airfield or damage it seriously. You will need like tens of Kalibrs to do so like US did to Syrian airbase. With an Iskander you can put a warehead with submunitions and touch all the area to destroy any fighter that is not covered and even if it is detected it can't be destroyed by SAM (very difficult, not impossible).

Zircon has yet to prove all these capacities. You have 0 proof it has a range of a true land Attack cruise missile (1000+ km) or it has lot of flight profiles.

I didn't say to use Iskander for antiship missions but for land Attack on big target behind enemy lines. But to answer to you remark about chinese BM, it is a dangerous weapon because it attacks from the top. Radars have dead zones, and the chinese antiship ballistical missile exloits these dead zones (like normal antiship flying low to be under the coverage of radar) to go through defences.

You should compare what Houti's BM did to saoudis and what can do a single cruise missile. The difference is huge in terms of results.

Iskanders are not Scud to miss targets by 1km or more. They are as precise as kalibr but fly just 5 to 10 minutes befire reaching the target with 4 times bigger warehead than kalibr.

Big_Gazza wrote:Do you have a source for stating that Iskander slows to supersonic speeds for terminal phase?   Sounds counter-intuitive for a missile touted to defeat ABMs systems to slow down at the target...   Wiki claims the vertical attack mode has a final attack speed of 700-800m/s but... pfftt...  its wiki so who knows?

KomissarBojanchev wrote:What is the Russian equivalent of the DF-21? TR1 once told me that its the Sineva SLBM, but can it actually target ships with conventional warheads? Also what about a ground based equivalent?

George1 wrote:

KomissarBojanchev wrote:What is the Russian equivalent of the DF-21? TR1 once told me that its the Sineva SLBM, but can it actually target ships with conventional warheads? Also what about a ground based equivalent?

except china only Iran i think has developed anti-ship ballistic missile

KomissarBojanchev wrote:

George1 wrote:

KomissarBojanchev wrote:What is the Russian equivalent of the DF-21? TR1 once told me that its the Sineva SLBM, but can it actually target ships with conventional warheads? Also what about a ground based equivalent?

except china only Iran i think has developed anti-ship ballistic missile

Its a shame that Russia hasn't developed such a thing yet. With their massive experience experience in missile technology, they could've created a DF-21 equivalent in the 1980s, which would effectively destroy US carrier superiority in the middle of the atlantic. Could the object 4202 on the sarmat be made into a carrier killer then?

KomissarBojanchev wrote:What is the Russian equivalent of the DF-21? TR1 once told me that its the Sineva SLBM, but can it actually target ships with conventional warheads? Also what about a ground based equivalent?

Anti-Ship Iskander-M?
Posted on August 9, 2018 | 2 Comments

Russia may view the Iskander-M as an effective weapon against high-value ships and aircraft carriers in particular. There is, however, no openly available information indicating the Russians have actually tested it as an anti-ship ballistic missile.

In late July and early August, the Russian Army conducted two exercises for the first time featuring notional launches of the land-based mobile 9K720 Iskander-M (SS-26 ‘Stone’) short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) against ships in the Black Sea. Reports on the drills appeared on Mil.ru and government-controlled newspaper Rossiyskaya gazeta.

The 1st Missile Brigade of the Krasnodar-based 49th Combined Arms Army departed garrison in late July for combat readiness drills under the personal control of Southern Military District commander Colonel General Aleksandr Dvornikov. The brigade performed the Iskander-M launch drills at some point before they were reported on July 27 and August 2 respectively.

The MOD press-releases stated that the Russian forces “delivered an electronic missile strike on notional enemy ships and shore facilities” and conducted “electronic launches on notional enemy targets detected in the Black Sea and ashore.”

An “electronic” launch likely means a field combat simulation where the missile unit prepares and performs all procedures for a real-world launch without firing a live missile.

Exactly which ships the Russians used as notional targets for the Iskander-M is unknown. However, the annual NATO Sea Breeze exercise took place in Black Sea waters during mid-July. Forces from 13 alliance members as well as Georgia, Moldova, Sweden, and Ukraine participated in the multinational training. Tensions between Russia and Ukraine remain high since Moscow seized Crimea and sent forces to fight in eastern Ukraine in 2014.

The Iskander-M has the capability to attack moving targets including ships. Its 9M723 missile flies a low, semi-ballistic trajectory at Mach 6-7 with possible maneuvering in the terminal flight stage. It has inertial navigation as well as active radar or electro-optical terminal guidance. Active radar would be employed against ships at sea. However, a successful SRBM strike on a moving naval target would likely also depend on real-time inputs and updates from space-based surveillance and intelligence systems.

The deployment of the Iskander-M as a possible anti-ship system comes just months after Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled the Kh-47M2 Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missile. The Kinzhal uses a modified Iskander-M missile and has also been advertised as an anti-ship weapon and “carrier killer.”

Compared to the relatively long-range Kinzhal, the 500-km declared range of the Iskander-M makes it less threatening to foreign aircraft carriers and battle groups which could remain outside its reach. However, combined with existing sea- and land-based anti-ship cruise missile systems, Iskander-M’s hypersonic speed would be a major contribution to Russia’s robust anti-access/area denial strategy on the approaches to its four fleet areas.

Mindstorm wrote:

Mindstorm , any idea , which weapon is this that Colonel-General Karakayev is referring to

Space based US ABM components, including perspective defeating elements (based both on HTK mechanism and ,in middle term, DE solutions).

Both sides are very active in this crucial (potentially decisive in future) department ; when the race for space weaponization will openly begin the most farseeing actor will gain a position of technological and strategical preeminence for some decades  

GarryB wrote:Indeed, the Kinzhal offers better performance all round simply because being air launched its range and flight speed can be easily enhanced and it is not bound by the INF treaty.

Of course a naval version would also be rather potent as there would be no range limitations so it could be enlarged and improved with a bigger solid rocket motor and perhaps even a sustainer scramjet motor to further improve performance.