Anti-Ship Missiles Thread

Singular_Transform wrote:
The anti ship missile doesn't need to go sea skimming trajectory.

If it choose a high trajectory, and dive down on a semi ballistic one that can be effective as well.

Like I wrote before. Sea skimming ist best to avoid AD systems, but for max. efficiency "attack from above" is best.

In advertising videos the hit and boom of ASM looks quite impressive, but in reality not every missile will hit, or hit a vital section or from right angle. So it's important to direct the attack...correct information, good radar and/or satellite photos, a bit time...that the missile could fly the perfect course.

Singular_Transform wrote:
The onyx/granit/brahmos has variable air intake, means they can fly any altitude by any speed.

Of course

Singular_Transform wrote:I think the bulkheads are one of the reason why these missiles has so high speed.
They can penetrate with one hit many bulkhead.

No! They explode same way like older ASM or like western counterparts. Yes, they have higher kinetic energy, but they don't really need it. They are fast to be troublesome for enemy AD Systems.

The hardened warhead is not only for penetrating the hull, it's against AD missiles and against CIWS also useful. It's a higher chance that the missile will reach intact the ship.

Singular_Transform wrote:Practically they can fly along the main axis of a destroyer , puncture many section.

Yes and NO! The missile is not smart, it has no AI onboard. The missile doesn't know if it hits the ship from side or length. So theoretical a Zirkon could fly 100 or more meters through a carrier, but leave only one small hole (of course destroying the warhead...simply everything of the missile). But hitting from side??? If a Zirkon would explode after 40 meters of penetrating it would be outside of the ship again, causing a big boom only in the air and not in the ship ;D So Zirkon, Onyx, Harpoon, LRASM and Co. will all explode a few meters after penetrating the hull.

Other situation is if the hypersonic cruise missile will be smart, knowing from where it attacks. But this is music of far future.

Singular_Transform wrote:An if the blast happens just under the skin then the best part of energy will go outside.
But if the warhead penetrate many bulkhead then the explosion damage will be absorbed by the ship structure.
It can be debated how the damage profile looks like, but I think we can assume that it will be devastating.

Much of energy goes oustide, but the blast is enough for a whole section Believe me! Smaller ships like corvette will be complete ripped off, bigger ships have higher chance of survivability.

Singular_Transform wrote:The missile open up way to the air, to the fire .
Actually, the closed box like structures in the ship are quite favourable to fire, the steel walls reflect back the IR waves to the ignited material.

If there is any entry for air then it will burn nicely.

Some ships burned good after a small hit, some never really burned but after few hard hits. Depends on the hit...

Singular_Transform wrote:The internal metal plates looks 20 mm thick.

For me it looks a bit more, than 20 mm. If you zoom in the first photo you will see how thick the plates are, dimensions here are gigantic

Azi wrote:
Yes and NO! The missile is not smart, it has no AI onboard. The missile doesn't know if it hits the ship from side or length. So theoretical a Zirkon could fly 100 or more meters through a carrier, but leave only one small hole (of course destroying the warhead...simply everything of the missile). But hitting from side??? If a Zirkon would explode after 40 meters of penetrating it would be outside of the ship again, causing a big boom only in the air and not in the ship ;D So Zirkon, Onyx, Harpoon, LRASM and Co. will all explode a few meters after penetrating the hull.

Other situation is if the hypersonic cruise missile will be smart, knowing from where it attacks. But this is music of far future.


Much of energy goes oustide, but the blast is enough for a whole section Believe me! Smaller ships like corvette will be complete ripped off, bigger ships have higher chance of survivability.

The whole granit/oscar/heavy subs and ships ( like the kirov ) was bigger project in the SU than the Apollo program in the US.
I don't know the capability of them,, but they put waaaay more engineering resources into them than say into to Saturn-V rocket.

Impact - The target of the engineers visible - the whole missile design means that it hit a small hole, but leave a big on the opposite side.

The fuzing, trajectory, sensors, hit probability, warhead design organised around this.


And of course the smaller ships can take less hit than a big one
The main point in the discussion is two point:
1. what is the damage capability ratio between the harpoon/sea tomahawk/granit/onyx/zircon
2. How many missile needed to destroy one ship?

I think the data supports quite well that one onyx can cause as much damage as several (2-4) sea tomahawk.
Next question is how many tomahawk needed to sink a carrier or a destroyer.

The speed of the Granit was to defeat air defences by penetrating them quickly limiting their reaction time.

The assumption was that with carrier support and full AWACS support any incoming missile will be detected very early on so a subsonic low flying cruise missile will be detected very early and intercepted well before it got anywhere near the fleet.

The solution was very fast low flying missiles and very fast high flying missiles.

The armour on the Granits warhead has nothing to do with penetrating a ship as most modern ships have no armour at all that would stop a multi ton supersonic missile.

The energy comparisons between a cargo ship and an Onyx are pointless... a person running into you on the playground of a school would have the same energy as a rifle bullet but one will kill you and one will not because the energy is concentrated in different ways. A train weighing thousands of tons moving a 5km/h will bump you aside, while a 5 gramme projectile moving at 300m/s can kill you easily yet it would have a fraction of the energy of the train.

The armour on the Granit is to render any lucky hit by Goalkeeper or Phalanx ineffective in detonating the warhead before it hits the ship.

If you don't think speed has any effect look at the image signature of my fellow countryman Ominous Squid.

Comparing a 7 ton missile with a 950kg warhead hitting a ship faster than many rifle bullets are moving at 500m, with Harpoon or Exocet is amusing.... the big fast Soviet missiles were designed to cripple an aircraft carrier... do you think they got that horribly wrong?

With hypersonic missiles the damage will be increased even further.

Also AFAIK the Kh-22M had a shaped charge warhead designed to blow an enormous hole in the side of a ship and in sea skimming mode was designed to hit the water 20m in front of the ship and make that hole half above and half below the waterline...

The fire produced by a Granit would be much bigger than one created by an exocet. The fire will make the structure weak and it will be fatal to it.

A carrier is 100 kt, imagine now that you burn one of the parts that "hold" the ship. It is like making a big hole in on of the wall that hold your house, the house will be destroyed the same way as will be your ship.

This is the missiles used by houtis. Look at the warehead, it is meant to make a big explosion and to make (HEAT) big hole that will burn everything where they go. Most of antiship wareheads are like that so that even if you have a lot of compartiments, it will go through and start fires everywhere. Those HEAT parts are far bigger than those on Kornet missiles whichis already capable of >1m penetration. You won't stop it with 20mm of armour.




Now look at the Nimitz and see how there is stock of everything everywhere on the ship.

GarryB wrote:
The energy comparisons between a cargo ship and an Onyx are pointless... a person running into you on the playground of a school would have the same energy as a rifle bullet but one will kill you and one will not because the energy is concentrated in different ways. A train weighing thousands of tons moving a 5km/h will bump you aside, while a 5 gramme projectile moving at 300m/s can kill you easily yet it would have a fraction of the energy of the train.

The oposite is true, if a slow moving hockey puck can cause serious injuries, then a 2 gram 0.22 projectile having the same energy can cause death.


so, if a slow moving container ship can cripple a destroyer then a fast moving missile with the same amount of kinetic energy can kill it.

Azi wrote:
Yes and NO! The missile is not smart, it has no AI onboard. The missile doesn't know if it hits the ship from side or length. So theoretical a Zirkon could fly 100 or more meters through a carrier, but leave only one small hole (of course destroying the warhead...simply everything of the missile). But hitting from side??? If a Zirkon would explode after 40 meters of penetrating it would be outside of the ship again, causing a big boom only in the air and not in the ship ;D So Zirkon, Onyx, Harpoon, LRASM and Co. will all explode a few meters after penetrating the hull.

Not sure what is "being smart" and AI for missile for you but  her e AI here is not rally used to build optimal strategy of attack. To few resources too little time. No need too. It can be used to adjust situational awareness'  parameters  but nothing more. Besides even  current missiles like  Kh-35 flying in packs share and  prioritize ships which to attack, based on their profiles.  Consider it as rule base systems with finite number of predefined attack possibilities against different carrier groupings'  configurations.

Other situation is if the hypersonic cruise missile will be smart, knowing from where it attacks. But this is music of far future.

This is not bout being smart but also having sensors allowing you to classify ships. Optical/radar/ whatever  Hypersonic might have problems with getting thru plasma around missile but I am sure they will find workaround that...

Azi wrote:

Singular_Transform wrote:An if the blast happens just under the skin then the best part of energy will go outside.
But if the warhead penetrate many bulkhead then the explosion damage will be absorbed by the ship structure.
It can be debated how the damage profile looks like, but I think we can assume that it will be devastating.

Much of energy goes oustide, but the blast is enough for a whole section Believe me! Smaller ships like corvette will be complete ripped off, bigger ships have higher chance of survivability.

if you check energy equivalent with something like 3km/s + no need to add chemical explosives. Mass carries as much energy. The problem here would be about energy transferring from missile parts to ship.

Zircon was recorded like 8 Ma right? it is close to magical 3000km/s.... mybe newer versions with Ma 10-12 would not need any HE warheads?

The oposite is true, if a slow moving hockey puck can cause serious injuries, then a 2 gram 0.22 projectile having the same energy can cause death.


so, if a slow moving container ship can cripple a destroyer then a fast moving missile with the same amount of kinetic energy can kill it.

I am a hunter and I know for a fact that shooting an animal in a non vital area will not be lethal.

Energy calculations are always skewed by velocity and make fast moving things more energetic.

At the end of the day a small very fast bullet going through the heart or brain of an animal is no more or less lethal than a very heavy very fast bullet doing the same thing.

There are too many variables... is the hit in the middle going sideways through, or will you hit one end and have it penetrate the length of the ship... low speed missiles like Exocet or Harpoon wont penetrate the entire length of a carrier whereas hitting sideways a Granit might over penetrate.

Interesting video about Bal (Kh-35) test launch back in the autumn of 2004, showcasing the sea-skimming ability. To say the least it show cases the Kh-35 capability to a great degree:





...At 3:42 the Kh-35 is shown to sea-skim at a height of 2.35 meters, and at 4:27 you see it's accuracy, by hitting one of the slim metal posts accurately.

What do you think of an antiship version of r-37 air to air missile ?

Could act like a small kh-22. Flying at mach 6 at 25km altitude with a range of 400km with top attack mode by diving on the target from its max altidude from 15-20km away. Would be a hard target for any air defence as most of them won't see it at 25km in altitude and most of them can't intercept above 20km. In the final diving attack it would be almost above the radar so it would be in the dead zone of the ship's sensors.

Big range, huge speed and decent warhead to damage any ship, sukhois could carry 4-6 of them and it's cheap to be used in big numbers.

R-37: 4,06m long, 510kg launch weight, 60kg warhead
Kh-31AD: 5,34m long, 715kg launch weight, 110kg warhead
Kh-35U: 3,85m long, 550kg launch weight, 145kg warhead

Not much difference. Why bother to develop an anti-ship version of R-37?

Hole wrote:R-37: 4,06m long, 510kg launch weight, 60kg warhead
Kh-31AD: 5,34m long, 715kg launch weight, 110kg warhead
Kh-35U: 3,85m long, 550kg launch weight, 145kg warhead

Not much difference. Why bother to develop an anti-ship version of R-37?

It has a longer range and is faster than the other two. It also flies at 25km in altitude which is another way of escaping modern SAMs.

The kh-31 is very limited in use because if you want to achieve longer ranges (110km) you have to launch it pretty high exposing the fighter to SAM and the enemy ship will most likely see you at that range so it will know it is under attack. Even chinese rejected the high-low trajectory of russian version and developed their own version with Low-Low trajectory but with shorter range.

Kh-35 is slow. Nothing better than exocet or harpoon. Modern sam will deal with it easily unless it is a small ship.

R-37 could be a nice replacement for kh-31 actually in three version air to air, anti ship and ARM.

Hole wrote:R-37: 4,06m long, 510kg launch weight, 60kg warhead
Kh-31AD: 5,34m long, 715kg launch weight, 110kg warhead
Kh-35U: 3,85m long, 550kg launch weight, 145kg warhead

Not much difference. Why bother to develop an anti-ship version of R-37?

If anything I would like to see a sea-skimming torpedo launcher. I'm thinking of taking the Kh-35U, removing the standard warhead, and adding a stage that launches a (a smaller with far less propellant) Shkval torpedo missile in to the water. Kh-35U has range of 300km, a modified version of it could fly 290 km, and launch a shrunk Shkval torpedo for the last 10 km. Should be devastating.

R-37 is rocket powered so it would be unpowered as it fell on its target at or near max range... the Kh-31 uses a ramjet, but with all the new work they are doing on scramjet engines they could upgrade it to a scramjet powered model with much higher speed and much greater range.

Solid rocket fuel is expensive, while the Kh-31 uses kerosene...

The kh-31 is very limited in use because if you want to achieve longer ranges (110km) you have to launch it pretty high exposing the fighter to SAM and the enemy ship will most likely see you at that range so it will know it is under attack.

The R-37M is supposed to have a range of 300km from a high altitude high speed launch (from a MiG-31), so an anti ship model R-37M would be no great advantage... in terms of launch characteristics.

Even chinese rejected the high-low trajectory of russian version and developed their own version with Low-Low trajectory but with shorter range.

Russian missiles have the option of flying high or flying low... if someone told you this story about the Chinese rejecting it because they wanted it to fly low then they are lying to you or to themselves.

The Russian missile could just as easily fly low all the way like the Kh-41 Moskit does, and of course shorter flight range will be a consequence of this flight profile...

If anything I would like to see a sea-skimming torpedo launcher. I'm thinking of taking the Kh-35U, removing the standard warhead, and adding a stage that launches a (a smaller with far less propellant) Shkval torpedo missile in to the water. Kh-35U has range of 300km, a modified version of it could fly 290 km, and launch a shrunk Shkval torpedo for the last 10 km. Should be devastating.

Or use the already invented Club missile with its rocket propelled mach 2.9 terminal missile... AFAIK the export model flys about 250km at subsonic speed... which sounds a little strange... the whole point of subsonic cruise missiles is their enormous range... I suspect the domestic Russian model has a subsonic flight range closer to 1,500km than 300km, as the models with subsonic flight all the way reach beyond 2,500km...

The fundamental issue is that the R-37s is a large heavy missile carried currently by the MiG-31 and PAK FA. In the future it will likely be integrated to other aircraft as their radars are updated to AESAs so they can use the missile to its max range, but I rather suspect a future development of the Kh-31 with a scramjet would improve its performance well beyond anything the solid rocket powered R-37 could manage.

magnumcromagnon wrote:

Hole wrote:R-37: 4,06m long, 510kg launch weight, 60kg warhead
Kh-31AD: 5,34m long, 715kg launch weight, 110kg warhead
Kh-35U: 3,85m long, 550kg launch weight, 145kg warhead

Not much difference. Why bother to develop an anti-ship version of R-37?

If anything I would like to see a sea-skimming torpedo launcher. I'm thinking of taking the Kh-35U, removing the standard warhead, and adding a stage that launches a (a smaller with far less propellant) Shkval torpedo missile in to the water. Kh-35U has range of 300km, a modified version of it could fly 290 km, and launch a shrunk Shkval torpedo for the last 10 km. Should be devastating.  

Small torpedo like the one on klub missile have very short range like less than 5 km.

This one would be even smaller.

R-37 is rocket powered so it would be unpowered as it fell on its target at or near max range... the Kh-31 uses a ramjet, but with all the new work they are doing on scramjet engines they could upgrade it to a scramjet powered model with much higher speed and much greater range.

Agree but now kh-31 is very limited by its ramjet. At low altitude it has small range so launch aircraft has to come close.

The good point of R-37 is that ot flies high and fast. Keep some fuel to accelerate it at the end and you will have a mach 4 or 5 final attack.

Kh-31AD has a range of 260km launched from 15.000m.

If launched from below 5.000m the range of the R-37 will be closer to 150km, even less when it has to fly close to the Ground/sea. And it has only a 60kg warhead. And a plane can´t carry more then Kh-31. No Advantages.

Hole wrote:Kh-31AD has a range of 260km launched from 15.000m.

If launched from below 5.000m the range of the R-37 will be closer to 150km, even less when it has to fly close to the Ground/sea. And it has only a 60kg warhead. And a plane can´t carry more then Kh-31. No Advantages.

You are not honest in your statements. You compare range of a low flying r-37 with the range of a high flying kh-31.

R-37 can fly at 25km altitude so it is a huge advantage since most air defence missiles or radars won't see it.

Kh-31 launched below 5000m is nowhere near the 150km range of the r-37 too.

Agree but now kh-31 is very limited by its ramjet. At low altitude it has small range so launch aircraft has to come close.

The good point of R-37 is that ot flies high and fast. Keep some fuel to accelerate it at the end and you will have a mach 4 or 5 final attack.

You say the Kh-31 has a short range with a low altitude flight profile... the R-37s range would be much much worse using the same low flight profile because rocket powered missiles have limited thrust curves.

The R-37 is rocket propelled... it can't keep fuel for anything... once lit it burns... no stopping it or saving some for later...

The Kh-31 would be better suited to a high lofted flight profile where it coasts a lot of the way ballisticly and then uses fuel at the end for terminal attack manouvers...

As I mentioned... a new model with a scramjet motor could accelerate to much higher speeds too.

You are not honest in your statements. You compare range of a low flying r-37 with the range of a high flying kh-31.

R-37 can fly at 25km altitude so it is a huge advantage since most air defence missiles or radars won't see it.

Kh-31 launched below 5000m is nowhere near the 150km range of the r-37 too.

He is not wrong... the thicker denser warmer air at lower altitudes that reduce the range of the Kh-31 would be devastatingly more harsh on a rocket powered missile in terms of flight range and speed.

The range given for the R-37 is for a high altitude high speed launch from the only aircraft that can carry it... the MiG-31.

The figures given for the Kh-31 are for attack aircraft flying much lower and much slower.

Very simply put a Kh-31 launched from high altitude and high speed could travel much much further and that is compounded by its jet engine...

An R-37 has a high energy fuel and a lower energy fuel.. the high energy fuel burns first and very very rapidly and accelerates the missile to its flight speed... then the lower energy fuel starts burning... it helps the missile maintain speed rather than accelerate or climb but it burns dozens of times longer than the high energy fuel.

At high altitude the R-37 fired at high speed, the high energy fuel accelerates it to top speed... mach 5-6 or so, but after 5-10 seconds that burns out and the lower energy fuel starts burning... it helps the missile maintain speed and might burn for a minute or more. The point is that if the missile only had the high energy fuel it might accelerate to mach 6 or 7 but it will rapidly slow down after the engine had burned out and so instead of going 300km it might only reach 180km or so.

A low altitude launch at a much lower speed and the R-37 might reach mach 3-4, but more importantly it wont be able to climb to altitude where the air is thin and friction is lower so it will have less energy and momentum and much more drag all the way... a low altitude launch and the R-37s range would probably be less than 100km.

With the Kh-31 there is a high energy solid rocket booster that accelerates the missile and allows it to climb but its ramjet is a jet engine and it can throttle it to optimise its flight performance... ie a relatively high throttle setting to allow it to climb, and then top setting to accelerate to top speed at an altitude where it can fly fast and then throttle back to coast to the target area...

With a scramjet it will be able to accelerate to much higher speeds...

I have never seen this on the forum so...

An interview to Boris Obnosov ceo of KTRV(Tactical Missile Weapons Corporation) they incorporate raduga, npo Mashinostroeniya etc... in 17/08/2016

This part:

In the operation of the Russian Navy in Syria, the Caliber-NK and Caliber-PL missiles developed by the Novator Design Bureau distinguished themselves. Are there similar developments in KTRV?

Yes there is. And significantly longer range. More, you know, I can not say.

What is This??? Cant be zirkon from npo because of the range, a super oniks?Nah,  A sub/sea launched kh-101 from Raduga? Most probable. Cant be an improved kalibr because Novator is from Almaz-Antey corporation

Other thing:

In the Syrian VKS operation, the Kh-101 long-range air-launched cruise missiles of the KTRV developed and produced well. Is the modernization of these missiles continuing? What characteristics of missiles can be improved?

Yes, modernization is coming. The direction of work is clear. This is an increase in range and increased accuracy.

Its an old interview, but i didnt saw on the forum or read anywhere, if already posted and debated  dont BE mean

The full interview:
https://rns.online/interviews/Glava-KTRV-ob-operatsii-v-Sirii-giperzvuke-i-oruzhii-dlya-dronov-2016-08-17/

I recall there was talk of a naval X-101 for UKSK but it seems unlikely to fit in a UKSK cell, being quite a bit fatter than Onyx which appears to be a pretty tight fit.

Actually the early specs I read for the UKSK launchers mentioned Kh-101 and Kh-102 missiles specifically... I was actually surprised to find they had the Calibr in them which is basically an upgraded SS-N-21 Grannat missile with terminal guidance and better accuracy allowing both conventional and nuclear warheads.

(Note SS-N-21 Grannat missile as opposed to SS-19 Granit missile).

Unification of missile types makes a lot of sense and it would be expected that the missiles would fit in the UKSK... the U meaning universal... the meaning of which is pretty clear...

What is This??? Cant be zirkon from npo because of the range, a super oniks?Nah, A sub/sea launched kh-101 from Raduga? Most probable.

Calibr NK and PL are both cruise missiles... the only air launched equivalents would be Kh-101 and Kh-102... NK being ship launched and PL being sub launched cruise missiles.

GarryB wrote:
Calibr NK and PL are both cruise missiles... the only air launched equivalents would be Kh-101 and Kh-102... NK being ship launched and PL being sub launched cruise missiles.

I know. My question was what should be the new missile from KTRV, most probable a kh-101 sub/sea launched.

Yup, so larger and heavier and with a more efficient turbofan engine for greatly increased flight range... though from a surface or sub launch its range might be reduced to 4,500km or so compared with air launched...

https://www.checkpointasia.net/russian-navy-hit-and-sank-a-decommissioned-frigate-in-syria-live-fire-drills-video/

I don't know if this video was posted before but it's a good one. Back in april 2018, russian su-34 destroyed a syrian retired corvette with two kh-35.

You can see the missile hiting the back of the ship targeting the propulsion of the ship.

Went down like a Norwegian Frigate hitting an oil tanker...

Hello
I just wanted to see if someone has any numbers of SSC-1 sepal TEL operational by 1990
military balance gives only 40 TEL
and here http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-Rus-Cruise-Missiles.html#mozTocId369687

it says in 4 fleets soviets had 19 battalions of 15 TEL each so over 300 TEL

huge discrepency

any help appreciated