"Kinzhal" hypersonic aviation-missile complex

See what a scramjet missile looks like.

Arrow wrote:Kinzhal does not have a scramjet engine. Scramjet needs a lot of air inlets. Kinzhal is not here.

how does it relate to being able to use gas rudders or being hypersonic?! besides whether k if Kiznah has scram jet or not - iyup t doesn't look like Zircon/Brahmos II but none of us have seen it in flight neither so you are just guessing without proofs

The grey part is the solid fuel rocket Booster, propably from the Iskander.
The with part is the Missile with the scramjet. You can see in the first video (CG) how it separates from the rest and flies towards the target.

Arrow wrote:Kinzhal does not have a scramjet engine. Scramjet needs a lot of air inlets. Kinzhal is not here.

Kinzhal does have what appears to be air inlets; there are normally covered up in the photos but in a few they are open.

So it's either a scramjet or its a rocket engine that gets its oxidizer from the atmosphere.

Having a rocket booster combined with a scramjet would hardly be unprecedented. After all the Moskit ASM is a rocket booster combined with a ramjet.

Viewing the CG video of Putin's presentation one can see that the first part of its trajectory looks ballistic; or rather something similar to the Kh-15/Kh-22/Kh-32. But the 2nd past of it shows the Kinzhal going down towards sea-skiming altitude and conducting all sorts of manuevers; for which it will need to slow down quite a lot - and that sort of manueverability disqualifies it from being even a quasi-ballistic missile.

No doubt the missile also has a mode though where it maintains its hypersonic speeds and impacts the target with a more or less ballistic trajectory; because that way it will optimize its range and bleed the least speed - however because it's not a ballistic missile it will still be capable of manuever to avoid ABMs or can even select a different target.

PapaDragon wrote:
It's a Mach 10 anti-ship missile with 2000km range

With those numbers it can work on reindeer farts for all I care

Why sell it short by simply calling it an anti-ship missile? The sole footage of it attacking a target, was in fact a ground target, which means it'll likely take on the the Mk. 41 launchers stored in the Aegis Ashore Euro Meat Shield. The fact it fly's at Mach 10 speed, and that it is the evolutionary path of the maneuverable hypersonic Iskander-M, and if fitted with a large thermonuclear warhead, it would fit comfortably in the regime of a ABM system, it is fitted on the MiG-31 after all.

PapaDragon wrote:
It's a Mach 10 anti-ship missile with 2000km range

With those numbers it can work on reindeer farts for all I care

Best comment of the week.

Did anyone else notice in the footage provided of it hitting a land target that it seemed to be flying at qutite a low speed?

So slow infact that you could see it moving. If it was hypersonic all you would see is a faint blur.

Ofcourse that might just be footage of some other missile used intead to avoid giving away classified information.

ever heard of slow motion? High speed cameras?

PapaDragon wrote:

magnumcromagnon wrote:

PapaDragon wrote:
It's a Mach 10 anti-ship missile with 2000km range

With those numbers it can work on reindeer farts for all I care

Why sell it short by simply calling it an anti-ship missile? ......

I ain't selling it short.

Hitting moving target like a ship is harder than hitting stationary target on land. So if it can handle a ship it can handle everything else by default.

What are you talking about? For the longest people doubted (not me of course) that Onyx could be used against ground targets, similarly people doubted (not me) that the MiG-31 could be used with guided munitions against ground targets, and labeling it as an AshM usually saw people limit such munitions to that role. Its more accurate to call it simply a strategic system. It's Mach 10 speed, it's 2000 km range, and its large warhead means that it can be utilized as an Anti-Ballistic Missile; just fit it with a large thermonuclear warhead and your set to go.

PapaDragon wrote:

magnumcromagnon wrote:

PapaDragon wrote:
It's a Mach 10 anti-ship missile with 2000km range

With those numbers it can work on reindeer farts for all I care

Why sell it short by simply calling it an anti-ship missile? ......

I ain't selling it short.

Hitting moving target like a ship is harder than hitting stationary target on land. So if it can handle a ship it can handle everything else by default.

I disagree. The ship is the only target on the water so the radar or optics will see it easily.

Attacking land targets is more complicated because you need to found the target in a unfriendly environment for your detector.

The air defences against ballistic missiles are the same on sea or on the ground. It would be more complicated to go through them for a classical anti ship missile because it won't have the terrain to mask its flight.

Nice pic of Khinzhal....  

Yes, but its a good pic for clearly showing the missile general arrangement and silhouette. Clear Iskander pedigree.

I was thinking Kinzhal can also be used as a pretty amazing strategic anti aircraft weapon. Using airburst nukes, it can swat down B-52s in their staging areas and take down many cruise missiles with shockwaves as well.

Hit them before they start.

Russia should deploy MiG-31s with Kinzhals in Black Sea region — expert http://tass.com/defense/1014139

MEUs & oil tankers/ammo. supply ships could also be targeted by them. W/o those, a CSG is mission killed.

Some quick points:

1) MiG-31 is the best carrier of the missile. Period. Mach 10 can be achieved only with its speed. Missile's range is 1500km, though.

2) Su-30SM/34 won't be used as a platform IMHO, since they are a lot slower. With Su-30SM/34 the speed would be like Mach 8,5. Su-35 makes more sence in that case.

3) It seems to me, that at least 50 MiG-31s will be converted into MiG-31K and Su-30SMs, equipped with RVV-BD will replace those MiGs as interceptors.

4) The missile is based on Iskander, obviously. It is very likely it uses totally different seeker in order to avoid plasma field's 'mutting'.
Some folks say that seeker is optical one, though it is still debatable.

5) It would be a lot easier to destroy NATO's air defence, air/naval bases in Europe with the missile, than USN's CBG, since the latter one is a lot better protected by electronic warfare, sprayed clouds and false-targets. It is safe to say, that with 400 Kinzhals, let's say, UK Armed Forces become easy meat for instance.

Then why test them on TU-22Ms? Even if they r slower, still it'll add another tool against CSGs. They could send a strike package with differently armed TU-22Ms for different vectors &/ targets in the CSG.
The MiG-31Ks (or whatever their designation will be) r for backup &/ shorter range land/maritime strike missions, not too far from the EEZ.

Tsavo Lion wrote:Then why test them on TU-22Ms? Even if they r slower, still it'll add another tool against CSGs. They could send a strike package with differently armed TU-22Ms for different vectors &/ targets in the CSG.
The MiG-31Ks (or whatever their designation will be) r for backup &/ shorter range land/maritime strike missions, not too far from the EEZ.

I think they do it, because of payload. Tu-22M3 can carry up to 4 of them. But, you are right in some way - 8,5M is not a serious downgrade, since NATO still has nothing to counter it, really. Frankly speaking, even Mach 6 is a hell of a challenge for NATO's air defence.

MiG-31K is the primarily platform, since it is the only Russian jet, that can hit and leave without even minding any interception. Simply put, NATO jets are slowpokes compared to it. Also, with MiG-31, the speed will be higher as I stated, so it provides more opportunity to make a 'surprise strike' and gives enemy even less time to react.

Ives wrote:Some quick points:

5) It would be a lot easier to destroy NATO's air defence, air/naval bases in Europe with the missile, than USN's CBG, since the latter one is a lot better protected by electronic warfare, sprayed clouds and false-targets. It is safe to say, that with 400 Kinzhals, let's say, UK Armed Forces become easy meat for instance.  

Blimey, 400!!! We only have 7/8 or so military airfields (inc USAF) left here now. Hit them and a couple of naval bases along with 3/4 civilian ports and the UK military isn't going anywhere. You could probably even ignore the HQ sites as they wouldn't have anything left that they could do but it might be good to hit the 2/3 US comms sites.

JohninMK wrote:

Blimey, 400!!! We only have 7/8 or so military airfields (inc USAF) left here now. Hit them and a couple of naval bases along with 3/4 civilian ports and the UK military isn't going anywhere. You could probably even ignore the HQ sites as they wouldn't have anything left that they could do but it might be good to hit the 2/3 US comms sites.

7-8? You for real? How come? I thought UK is sorta 3rd strongest in NATO...