INF Treaty - coming to the end of its life

magnumcromagnon wrote:
Why not just convert a Zircon to launch munitions and fly back.  

Aside material problems, not sure if software can deal with such speeds yet in autonomous flight yet. Mind that every drone now is subsonic, for a reason. But once supersonic/hypersonic unmanned 6gen fighters will be reality perhaps topic will return.

Just change the accepted definition of "land"...

Extend the wheels in a 60 degree spiralling dive at mach 12... it is landing... the 10 MT warhead will detonate 300m above the ground so it is not like it will crash....

Mindstorm wrote:
USA analysts , like ours, are perfectly aware of those geo-strategic dynamics and that the actual exit from INF greatly penalize them while opening other enormous opportunities for us ,also and above all in the conventional struggle  and not only for the effect that on this balance will produce the grounding of the sub-strategic "Циркон" and "Кинжал" but above all because any future IRBM equiped with an Авангард vehicle will attain global reach while not being limited by START,  but them lack any credible alternatives.  

Your point about lack of R & D is not true. The Glide Breaker program is being designed specifically to defeat hypersonic vehicles.

https://www.fbo.gov/index.php?_cview=0&id=ba100893931fb47264d09521173f7435&mode=form&s=opportunity&tab=core

Do IRBMs carry hypersonic glide vehicles ? If not they can be targetted using PAC 3.

In any case what percentage of cruise missiles that Russia has (or even US has) are actually supersonic? Speed itself is not enough. Notice that there are no takers for Brahmos despite the fact that it is a supersonic missile.

They fly low so you don't need speed tbh.

And to add to that, Russian ICBM and SRBM are quasi ballistic, not fully ballistic meaning they don't fly a straight path.

As for their anti Hypersonic system, well, judging by history they need to really work on getting their previous systems like THAAD and PAC-3 to actually work.

RTN wrote:

Your point about lack of R & D is not true. The Glide Breaker program is being designed specifically to defeat hypersonic vehicles.

https://www.fbo.gov/index.php?_cview=0&id=ba100893931fb47264d09521173f7435&mode=form&s=opportunity&tab=core

it would be strange if there was no projects in the USA to defend against hypersonic gliders. Soviets had similar project in 1980' BTW . I posted this in Avangard thread
The question is when they will be ready since ABM is not really working since late 90s'/2000s . Does it? then why Korean missile flying over Japan couldn't be intercepted by any of US missile.
You understand propaganda effect it it was?

Do IRBMs carry hypersonic glide vehicles ? If not they can be targetted using PAC 3.

Iskander-M already does, this is one of sources you can use:
When descending to the target, the rocket maneuvers with an overload of 20-30 units (G) primarily due to aerodynamic control surfaces. The rocket has a hypersonic speed on the final segment of the trajectory of 2100-2600 m / s

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/09/19/russian-iskander-m-missile-system-credible-deterrent.html


Rubezh+Avangard was foreseen as one system. And Rubezh was tested with 2000km for sure.

R wrote: (1) what percentage of cruise missiles that Russia has (or even US has) are actually supersonic? Speed itself is not enough. (2) Notice that there are no takers for Brahmos despite the fact that it is a supersonic missile.

(1) supersonic doesn't make sense for terrain flowing stealth missile (Kh-50, Kh-101/102) its RCS and low trajectory does the trick. But this is buy no means anti ABM weapons . War might be over before they reach destination.

(2) better question with Brahmos is did India export any weapons ever?

Add Kalibr to that list too.

miketheterrible wrote:Add Kalibr to that list too.

hmm although Kalibr is a great CM I dont think is stealth optimized



Kh-101






Kh-50

GunshipDemocracy wrote:

miketheterrible wrote:Add Kalibr to that list too.

hmm although Kalibr is a great CM I dont think is stealth optimized

Yes, not stealth optimized but there are ways around it. I remember when the first Kalibrs were fired from Buyan-M's into Syria from the Caspian Sea. Presumably the ECM assets in Syria were actually masking the presence of their flight. The Pentagon spokesman admitted they couldn't effectively track them. There's a saying in the English language "There's more than one way to skin a cat", RAM coating and stealth shaping are one way (only effective against X-band), the other ways include using electromagnetic spectrum opaque aerosol made up aluminum-silicate particulate which is effective in every wavelength, the other way was already mentioned is to use ECM to mask the presence of an object.

magnumcromagnon wrote:Yes, not stealth optimized but there are ways around it. I remember when the first Kalibrs were fired from Buyan-M's into Syria from the Caspian Sea. Presumably the ECM assets in Syria were actually masking the presence of their flight. The Pentagon spokesman admitted they couldn't effectively track them. There's a saying in the English language "There's more than one way to skin a cat", RAM coating and stealth shaping are one way (only effective against X-band), the other ways include using electromagnetic spectrum opaque aerosol made up aluminum-silicate particulate which is effective in every wavelength, the other way was already mentioned is to use ECM to mask the presence of an object.

There's no question about what you've said nonetheless Russian CMs' shape evolution shows this also has importance.
In every case couple of hours waiting for CM application result is in war were Avangard go to antipodes in 30minutes a bit long for ABM attacking. For conventional war or retaliation of course this another story.

GunshipDemocracy wrote:

magnumcromagnon wrote:Yes, not stealth optimized but there are ways around it. I remember when the first Kalibrs were fired from Buyan-M's into Syria from the Caspian Sea. Presumably the ECM assets in Syria were actually masking the presence of their flight. The Pentagon spokesman admitted they couldn't effectively track them. There's a saying in the English language "There's more than one way to skin a cat", RAM coating and stealth shaping are one way (only effective against X-band), the other ways include using electromagnetic spectrum opaque aerosol made up aluminum-silicate particulate which is effective in every wavelength, the other way was already mentioned is to use ECM to mask the presence of an object.

There's no question about what you've said  nonetheless Russian  CMs' shape evolution shows this also has importance.
In every case couple of hours waiting for CM application result is in war were Avangard go to antipodes in 30minutes a bit long for ABM attacking. For conventional war or retaliation of course this another story.

So what do you think about the development of Kalibr-M? They'll be a range upgrade, but not a ram/shaping upgrade, which would otherwise be a naval Kh-101. It was speculated that Kh-101 would find it's way in to UKSK/M, but it seems like that's not the case. For that matter the USN has never attempted to make Tomahawks stealthy, and their obsession with stealth is myopic/tunnel-vision derangement level.

magnumcromagnon wrote:So what do you think about the development of Kalibr-M? They'll be a range upgrade, but not a ram/shaping upgrade, which would otherwise be a naval Kh-101. It was speculated that Kh-101 would find it's way in to UKSK/M, but it seems like that's not the case. For that matter the USN has never attempted to make Tomahawks stealthy, and their obsession with stealth is myopic/tunnel-vision derangement level.

same question I might ask why Kh-50 is stealthy and Kh-101 external look changed as well... Tomahawks? build form 83? c'mon   nobody is gonna to redesign them  touching them. LRASM - is new and stealthy

Guys, do you want a good a laugh? You want to see the prima faci definition of Orwellian double-think? I can't wait to hear from GarryB or kvs on this:

The Pentagon began developing missiles in case of the collapse of the INF.

The United States has announced the development of new non-nuclear missiles. According to the statement of the new executive head of the Pentagon, research is being conducted in case the DISMD is terminated.

The Treaty on Medium and Short Range Missiles (DDRM), which is under threat of termination due to the policy of Donald Trump, may cause a new arms race. As stated by the. The head of the US military department, Mark Esper, in case of the termination of the agreement, Washington began the development of promising non-nuclear missiles.

According to Esper, the United States complies with the provisions of the INF. However, "in order to cope with potential threats," America began developing new non-nuclear missiles. According to the head of the Pentagon, both research and development work in this direction is already underway.

Esper: NATO should develop a missile defense system

Mark Esper also noted that the United States and the North Atlantic Alliance should strengthen the missile defense system in order to defend themselves against any type of Russian cruise missile.

"At the moment, European countries are under threat from cruise missiles with nuclear warheads from Russia."

We do not want a new arms race.

- declared Esper.

History of SMDR

The United States and the Soviet Union signed the Treaty on Medium and Short Range Missiles on December 8, 1987. On June 1, 1988, it entered into force. Thanks to this document, it was possible to overcome the crisis, which threatened to lead to an even greater arms race and significantly increased the risks of a nuclear war.

The de jure treaty eliminated a whole class of missiles: the ban included the production, testing and deployment of medium-range ballistic and cruise missiles (medium range from 1,000 to 5,500 km) and a shorter range (from 500 to 1,000 km). In addition, launchers for these types of missiles fell under the same prohibitions.

Some time ago, the United States accused the Russian Federation of violating the terms of the treaty, after which, on October 20 last year, United States President Donald Trump threatened to suspend its validity. After Trump's statements, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo presented Russia with an ultimatum, according to which Moscow had to destroy or modify the 9M729 missile: Russia refused to do so.

At the beginning of February, Washington suspended its participation in DPDMD 2, after which Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that Moscow’s response would be a mirror one. It is assumed that the United States will withdraw from the treaty in early July.


https://topwar.ru/159510-pentagon-nachal-razrabotku-raket-na-sluchaj-kraha-drsmd.html

Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy! You develop INF violating missiles in case the INF treaty failed, only for the development cause the failure....and to openly admit it!!! How brazen!

It is really an opportunity for Russia... what they can do is develop IRsBMs and IRCMs (intermediate range... semi ballistic and cruise missiles)... the semi ballistic missiles can be hypersonic manouvering missiles, and cruise missiles are relatively cheap that will rely on the fact that the faster semi ballistic missiles will have already nuked the airfields and SAM sites that would be a threat to cruise missiles.

The more expensive semi ballistic missiles could be designed to be the air breathing last stage when fitted with an enormous solid rocket booster first stage to a space launch system for small satellites.

It means Russia could build thousands of hypersonic missiles to shred EU and NATO and US defences, that could alternatively be used during peacetime to launch small short term satellites which would also be useful in times of war to replace damaged systems.

Cruise missiles also mass produced are relatively cheap and with conventional alternative warheads can be used in conventional wars too so they are both fully dual purpose and not wasted money at all.

Provide all with nuke warheads for when you really mean business... with the new breeder reactors that should be relatively quick and easy to achieve anyway.

I say screw the INF treaty... the Soviets mostly went bankrupt developing a fully integrated air defence network and new layered modern SAMs and now they are being rewarded with the fruits of their labour... keeping the INF treaty means the EU can ignore the threat and not bother spending trillions of dollars not to mention the arguments between states on developing a complete EU wide air defence network that is not purely based on fighter aircraft and AWACS platforms.

Let the west waste an enormous amount of money setting up their own air defences too...

Both sides are now 'officially' out of the treaty, and they've been recently pointing fingers at eachother. NATO moving it's goal posts East, and disguising it's launchers as SAMS (mk. 41 cells), the real question is how will the Federation respond? Personally I think the first response is that they develop cruise missile analog for their MLRS. Imagine if they made a family of cruise missiles for Tornado-G/Grad, Tornado-U/Uragan, Tornado-S/Smerch? I could definitely see a cruise missile for Tornado-S/Smerch having 1500-2500km range, maybe seeing the Tornado-U/Uragan cruise missiles have 1000-1500km range, and the Tornado-G/Grad equivalents that extend to 250-500km range.

Of course they'll need to have smaller warheads to maximize the amount of fuel, which would be O.K. because they'll be carrying rather potent nuclear warheads. Another interesting option if they developed the cruise missiles for MLRS, but they made a system that allowed attack helicopters, fighter/strike bombers and other aerial vehicles that could use the newly developed MLRS cruise missiles. I could see Mi-24/28, Ka-52 using the aerial launched version of Tornado-G cruise missiles, while strike bombers like the Su-32/34 could launch the Tornado-U/S variants. The cruise missiles launched by the Su-34's would have significantly higher performance (range wise) the higher the altitude they're launched. It'll also be interesting what they could do with tactical and strategic airlift in regards to this. Could they multi-stack on the weapon pylons on the Il-476? Or maybe they could use the internal space for that capacity?

This is a story of two opposed organisms... one... that used to include all of the soviet union and the warsaw pact, that was based in Moscow, and one that composed of old HATO and everyone thinks was based in brussels but is actually in fact based in Washington.

During the cold war the quality of missiles was improving so rapidly a situation was created where HATO could base an IRBM in Turkey and within 5 minutes or so set off a nuke in Moscow effectively taking out one sides ability to launch a full retaliatory strike, so even though the Soviets had vastly more deployed IRBMs and a better air defence network it was really in their interests to eliminate this class of weapon... because otherwise they would have their nuclear response on a hair trigger because any decision to launch would have to be made within about 3 minutes of any warning... sounds like a lot of time... but 3am on new years day something has been detected coming from Turkey... it might be the first missile of an all out nuclear attack or it could be a software error or mistake... do you want to launch a full nuclear strike on the enemy knowing that even if this is not an attack that their response means it will end up being the end?

I am not a great decision maker at 3am on anything let alone something that important.

So an agreement was signed that pretty much stopped HATO from decapitating the Soviet response.

Soviet IRBMs can't reach Washington so it is really not so important to them actually, and the flight time from Russian territory to Brussels or Paris or London or Berlin meant they would have had a bit more time anyway.

Roll on 30 years and things have changed... HATO has massively expanded, but really US capacity to hit Moscow remains with new HATO members popping up all around Russian borders, so what they used to need a 1,500-2,000km range missile they could now do with a 500km range weapon... which further shortens the flight time, but their problem now is that shorter ranged missiles can be intercepted by S-300, and S-400 can actually intercept most IRBMs... and of course Pantsir and TOR systems can hit cruise missiles and other munitions... and the S-500 will be able to intercept most ICBMs and SLBMs... and of course two other factors... the ABM system around Moscow has been continually upgraded and improved with new sensors and missiles, and of course the Russians have systems in place where Putin can order a nuclear response no matter where he happens to be, and even if he can't dead hand means the missiles will be launched if needed even if no one is alive to order it...

So for Russia the reasons for having the INF treaty have disappeared, and to be honest having a large force of IRBMs with nuclear payloads would be a very good way of dealing with a hostile EU that outnumbers them substantially, while at the same time making it clear it is about destroying a threat and not invading and occupying neighbours.

The new weapons they develop will be very useful on their naval vessels too... long range guided hypersonic missiles... devastating.

Interesting analysis

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/08/the-end-of-the-inf-treaty-will-not-create-a-new-arms-race.html

The new weapons they develop will be very useful on their naval vessels too... long range guided hypersonic missiles... devastating. wrote:

So hypersonic weapon changes the balance of forces at sea. It causes a significant increase in the capabilities of the Russian fleet. Even a small ship with a displacement of> 1000 tons will carry Cirkons, which can pose a huge threat to the aircraft carrier and destroyers.

Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy! You develop INF violating missiles in case the INF treaty failed, only for the development cause the failure....and to openly admit it!!! How brazen!

Well it is like all these Russian troll farms and hackers that keep hacking and interfering with US elections... then we find out that government funded organisations have been set up throughout europe that attack any pro Russian public figure and ruin their political career, or the ones in the US led by the owner of Linkdn who "tested" some techniques to effect elections there to see if the Russians could do it... their own attempts to counter the alleged actions of the Kremlin mimicked the crimes they claim the Kremlin was committing... so again they created the situation they said they were trying to prevent...

So hypersonic weapon changes the balance of forces at sea. It causes a significant increase in the capabilities of the Russian fleet. Even a small ship with a displacement of> 1000 tons will carry Cirkons, which can pose a huge threat to the aircraft carrier and destroyers.

Yes, although in a sense similar weapons have been available... most major long range naval SAMs are well hypersonic, but are not designed to manouver hard in the anti surface role, they perform fairly simple manouvers to intercept a target and largely rely on enormous speed and a relatively large warhead, but that probably wont be hugely effective in the anti surface role... AFAIK it has never actually been done in a combat situation.

But relatively compact manouvering long range hypersonic missiles are going to raise the bar for air defence meaning AWACS and fighters become even more critical as layers of a defence to stop such weapons.

No SM-2 and SM-6 isn"t hypersonic. The maximum speed SM-6 is only 1200m/s. Missile from S-300/400 are hypersonic.

US has tested a ground launched cruise missile with range capability outside of the limits imposed by INF Treaty until 2 of this same month.

https://dod.defense.gov/News/Special-Reports/Videos/?videoid=703577


Obviously nothing already attentively projected and planned since a long time.......


All of that while getting the face to accuse the Federation of theirs sins..........simply disgusting.

Mindstorm wrote:US has tested a ground launched cruise missile with range capability outside of the limits imposed by INF Treaty until 2 of this same month.

https://dod.defense.gov/News/Special-Reports/Videos/?videoid=703577


Obviously nothing already attentively projected and planned since a long time.......    


All of that while getting the face to accuse the Federation of theirs sins..........simply disgusting.

More precisly a tomahawk missile from the same VLS launcher that is used in Poland and for which Russiia complained that it could be used with nuk armed tomahawks. The today test proves that US had the capacity to do so since very long time as the treaty's end was not far long ago and such conversion would take some months so they were working on it at least since last year and in my opinion they never destroy land based tomahawks.

If it was up to me I would destroy them very quickly. And if I was European leader I would let Russians destroy them. It can only make another nuclear crisis and risk a nuclear war in a time where stupid decision makers are informed by twitter and facebook's fake news rather than by their intel. We saw that in Syria. Same missile will be used but with nuks inside.

US are a cancer.

Mindstorm wrote:US has tested a ground launched cruise missile with range capability outside of the limits imposed by INF Treaty until 2 of this same month.

https://dod.defense.gov/News/Special-Reports/Videos/?videoid=703577


Obviously nothing already attentively projected and planned since a long time.......    


All of that while getting the face to accuse the Federation of theirs sins..........simply disgusting.

Absolutely disgusting, this proves without a shadow of a doubt the Mk. 41 cells of Aegis Ashore were designated INF Treaty violators.