3M22 Zircon Hypersonic Cruise Missile

verkhoturye51 wrote:

Russian solid fuel for ICBM SLBM is less efficient. The old Minuteman III weighs only 36 tons and has parameters such as Topol M, which weighs 47 tons.
No RT-23  carried a much larger load of 10 heavy MIRVs. RS-24 carries more than 3 times less load than RT-23.

Liquid, too. 80 ton DF-41 makes 15k km at 25 M and 220 ton Sarmat 11k km at 20 M.

I am citing a specific example of actual improvement in Russian solid fuel characteristics over the Soviet era and you are citing some
unsubstantiated BS. China can't even replicate the jet engines of the Su-27 but it has the biggest and best ICBM ever. I guess
it also must be a leader in hypersonic technology too. Because somebody claimed it.

Arrow wrote:Russian solid fuel for ICBM SLBM is less efficient. The old Minuteman III weighs only 36 tons and has parameters such as Topol M, which weighs 47 tons.




No RT-23  carried a much larger load of 10 heavy MIRVs. RS-24 carries more than 3 times less load than RT-23.

Liar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BZhRK_Barguzin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT-23_Molodets

The RT-23 can carry 10 x 550 kt warheads WITHOUT MARV while the "RS-24" (actually unknown) can carry 3 x MARV 1 Megaton
warheads.

That is more avandgard than Zircon... even moving at mach 9 it is still only moving at about 3km/s which is nothing like the speed ICBMs and SLBMs will be moving at.

In terms of impact the real implications will be in replacing rocket weapons with powered engine driven weapons... so for instance an R-37M missile with a solid rocket motor will have two types of fuel... a high energy short burn fuel, and a slower burning lower energy fuel that will burn for several minutes rather than seconds... the result is the the high energy short burn fuel will take it from high altitude and high speed launch up to a much higher altitude with thin cold air and low drag, where its lower energy rocket motor will burn for minutes countering drag and maintaining speed to extend range... and because its top speed will be something like mach 6 and it will coast all the way to the target area 300KM away at that speed and then dive on the target... that is the limit of rocket technology.

The point is the fuel is fixed as are the burn times... if launched from low altitude it will never reach very high altitude and will fly through much higher drag air and slow down so while it will still burn exactly the same amount of time it might only travel 100-120km from a low altitude launch or even less.

With a scramjet engine the missile can use its throttle and it can climb with a full thrust setting for longer no matter what height it is launched from though max height and speed will help with range it will be better able to adapt to different launch conditions... plus it could fly much faster and higher because above about mach 5 it will use body lift.

So in answer to your comments... current rocket and ramjet powered weapons could all be replaced by a more efficient scramjet propulsion, from anti ship missiles to heavy SAMs and AAMs and even cruise missiles of various types because a ramjet is much more efficient than rocket or turbojet at high speeds.

Note missiles with ramjets like Onyx or SA-4 or SA-6 could greatly benefit from a scramjet, the most obvious change would be from a circular intake to a square one that is easier to control the air flow as they could do what they were already doing but at a much higher speed.

ATGMs are too small to get enormous benefit I suspect but there is potential for scramjet powered ATGMs... most will start with a rocket booster and then the scramjet will kick in and accelerate it further... tiny engines on APFSDS rounds or even bullets could extend effective range of tank rounds... in fact with the acceleration you might find it is more effective at 10km range than at 2km range because it had time to accelerate to a higher speed.

Imagine a bullet that is a hollow tube whose core acts like a scramjet... low drag because the air flows through it as well as round it...

SA-4 (Osa) uses solid-fuel rocket motor. No air intakes.

SA-4 and Osa are two different missiles... SA-4 is an enormous missile with solid rocket boosters located around a huge centre body with a ramjet propulsion, and Osa is a tiny SHORAD called SA-8...

I can tell you off about that because I never make mistakes... NOT...

 I am not upset, and you shouldn't be either...  

Now your reply should be "Excellent" based on your avatar...

Well they are making a new air launched cruise missile to take advantage of the full size of the Blackjack weapon bays, and I suspect they will do the same with weapons in the UKSK launcher and UKSK-M launcher.

I think the important message in that article is that they will be sharing information and target data in a shared information space, so an enemy carrier detected by sub or satellite or ship or aircraft can be engaged by a tiny corvette which on its own would not even know the carrier was there, but has been given information from other platforms... it could hide amongst islands or even be sitting in port under an air defence umbrella of other ships and aircraft and launch its weapon with the same chance of getting a hit as if it had been launched from an SSBN or cruiser.

I suspect they are confusing the fact that a land or surface based launched missile used to be required to have a max range of 500km or less due to the INF treaty... but now that that is gone there are no range restrictions for sea, or land based missiles.

Zircon is a sea surface launched missile that is described as having a range of 1,000km... a land based missile would have the same range for obvious reasons and an air launched missile would probably double that range (note for Iskander it more than triples when launched high and fast from a MiG-31 but it is rocket propelled).

A lot of energy is used to get a missile moving and up into the air... when aircraft launched the aircraft does all that work so that extra energy can go into more altitude and more speed, and very simply the more speed and altitude the more range it can manage.

An Air to Air missile like an R-73 probably has an effective range of about 12km at low altitude because the air is thicker and warmer so it can't accelerate to as high a speed so when the motor burns out it is coasting at a slower speed so it runs out of energy much faster therefore its range is much shorter.

The same missile launched at high altitude at high speed means thinner air and much much higher flight speed and it can coast along for a much longer period so so called kinetic or ballistic range is something like 40-45km.

It is less critical for Zircon because its propulsion is not a fixed rocket, it has a scramjet engine so it can throttle up or down to most efficiently use its available energy, but the solid rocket booster that normally gets it airborne and moving fast fired from an aircraft will allow it to get much higher and much faster than from a ship or sub or truck launcher so it will go further faster... a scramjet is most efficient at hypersonic speeds just like on level ground your car will idle along most fuel efficiently in top gear... the top gear doesn't make the car use less fuel... but it does make it coast fastest at that fuel consumption rate while lower gears means going slower for the same fuel burn...

A hypersonic missile would not be used in a low attack trajectory... that would just not make sense... it would certainly not be flying at mach 10 at low altitude, though in theory it should be able to fly much faster and for much longer than a rocket propelled missile at low altitude it would probably lose half its speed flying low... which would make it very formidable as most things are much slower at sea level...

For instance mach 4 missiles like AMRAAM are not mach 4 missiles launched at low altitudes so it would probably not be much use against Zircon at low level... most long range high speed SAMs would have very short ranges at low altitudes... normally they would be lofted up and come down on the target at range... the target flying lower means the target is slower and easier to get to... at high altitude they wont get there in time because the target is moving much faster...

if it flies 9Ma then this is like ~2,7km/s last 100km can fly in something more 30seconds. Why not?

For the same reason the SR-71 does not fly into enemy territory at low altitude... its top speed would drop to below Mach 1.2 and it would be rather vulnerable.

Of course for Zircon the issue is that with AWACs support for HATO navies and land forces and air force there is no practical advantage of flying below the radar because the radar touches the ground/water.

It makes more sense to fly at medium or high altitude above most fighter aircraft interceptors capacity to intercept and above the reach of most SAMs, but also so fast even big long range SAMs can't get you...