3M22 Zircon Hypersonic Cruise Missile

The Ministry of Defense told about the tests of the Zircon hypersonic missile

MOSCOW, July 26 - RIA Novosti. The tests of the Zircon hypersonic missile are being completed successfully, the Defense Ministry said .

"The test launches carried out from the frigate" Admiral of the Soviet Union Fleet Gorshkov "confirmed the unique tactical and technical characteristics of this missile in terms of range and accuracy of fire, as well as its hypersonic speed," the message says.

https://ria.ru/20200726/1574935509.html

dino00 wrote:The Ministry of Defense told about the tests of the Zircon hypersonic missile

MOSCOW, July 26 - RIA Novosti. The tests of the Zircon hypersonic missile are being completed successfully, the Defense Ministry said .
...
https://ria.ru/20200726/1574935509.html

...According to Deputy Defense Minister Alexei Krivoruchko, it is planned to take the missile into service in 2021-2022.
The Zircon hypersonic missile will have a speed of Mach 9 (nine times the speed of sound) and a flight range of over a thousand kilometers. As stated in the Ministry of Defense, it is intended for nuclear submarines of projects 885, 885M, 949AM, surface ships of projects 22350, 23560, as well as rearmament of the cruiser of project 1144.2 "Admiral Nakhimov". In addition, President Vladimir Putin mentioned the development of a ground-based Zircon."

Over a thousand kilometers range, this puts it comfortably outside of range of carrier aircraft and (probably) their missiles

Once this thing trickles down to ships like Karakurts Russian Navy will be become colossal pain in the as to deal with (more than usual) and even a small ship will become a threat to big to ignore

I think the 2021/22 time line is optimistic....I've seen other reports talk about roughly around 2025

Probably a bit like Su-57 service entry... they might already be in service, but not full operational service really.... mainly just probably being used in training and tactics units to develop operational manuals for pilots and ground crews...

I honestly doubt they would carry all Zircons on every (edit) platform... most will likely get mixed loads to cover a variety of uses and capabilities... so even if they start putting them on ships in 2021-2022, they likely wont be fully operational and widely deployed for a few years after that...

That all depends on the tests being carried from Girshkov frigates. If the tests are ok then it can be used very quickly. If not they will need to correct mistajes and retest them.

I honestly doubt they would carry all Zircons on any platform..

You want to use the best. If Zirkon is as good as advertized why would they buy Oniks or Kalibr ASM.

Kalibr land attack and Zirkon will take all the space available with some anti sub kalibr. Oniks will be removed with the one already build used on their missile boats.

It is likely that the RuN will use the Zircon to considerably increase their risk profile by installing, or saying they have, small numbers on a maximum number of ships.

That way the prospective enemy has to plan for it everywhere, a potential big pain in the bum. Or it could increase its intelligence gathering abilities.

Is it shipped and installed in canisters? If so that would be a big help in the strategy as empty boxes tell no lies

Sorry, mistake corrected...

I don't think they will fill every UKSK launch tube on every single vessel with Zircon... I suspect they would benefit more from putting it on the bigger vessels, but in sensible numbers.... carrying all Zircons would make them very potent but also very vulnerable to submarines...

Of course as pointed out, they can claim anything is loaded... how can you tell what is actually in there until they are launched...

Funniest thing is to read the absolute denial of the idiots who comment!!! These fukwitz think that snarky jealous comments will somehow defeat hypersonic scram-jet powered missiles? LOL!!!! This ain't the incompetent F-35...

Big_Gazza wrote:Funniest thing is to read the absolute denial of the idiots who comment!!!  These fukwitz think that snarky jealous comments will somehow defeat hypersonic scram-jet powered missiles?  LOL!!!!  This ain't the incompetent F-35...  

This sort of knee-jerk dismissal of the ability of others to develop effective weapons and even win the biggest war in history
is what comes from exceptionaist idiots who never lived through any major war of note and who have been brainwashed
for two centuries at least that they are special and have a "manifest destiny". Nobody ever disabused them of their rotten
ego-trip delusions. They laugh because they are experiencing severe cognitive dissonance.

Huge mistake in the video. The guy claims that Sarmat is a "normal ballistic missile" like Minutemen III.

Hole wrote:Huge mistake in the video. The guy claims that Sarmat is a "normal ballistic missile" like Minutemen III.

Not mistaken but delusional, the west relies on delusion to maintain the belief that they are ahead and they are making progress.

The Sarmat is just a replacement for the aging Voevoda, the Yars is just a MIRVed TopolM, the Nudol is just an ASAT missile and I can go on, they delude themselves into believing this because they cannot handle the thought that anti liberal, conservative Russia could technologically outmatch them to the point of being able to decisively win a nuclear war.

mnztr wrote:

Hole wrote:Huge mistake in the video. The guy claims that Sarmat is a "normal ballistic missile" like Minutemen III.

Sarmat is just the launch vehicle no? Its Avangard that is the glider. Sarmat, however is a pretty special launcher. While the Minuteman can deliver warheads, Sarmat has more range so it can take any path to the target. I have also read it has an immensely powerful first stage so that it is much less vulnerable during the boost phase. It gets higher much faster and gets to hypersonic speed much more quickly.

Actually, the Sarmat and other Russian ICBMs engage in non-ballistic flight before even releasing their payloads. The Minuteman III is an ancient system with a much smaller range than the Sarmat and which lacks any
serious non-ballistic flight ability.

The combined Sarmat plus Avangard glider warheads allow the ICBM to be fired in any direction and to circle the globe to reach their target. The glider extends the effective range by thousands of kilometers. It is the
first ICBM that can be launched over the South Pole to hit Northern Hemisphere targets. The Wiki claim of an 18,000 km range is BS. Russia releases legitimate information about its systems. It is NATzO freaks who
always claim Russia is lying. As if lying achieves anything outside of "soft power" brainwashing. NATzO is the real collection of liars since that is their primary geopolitical shtick.

Interesting background.

https://www.stalkerzone.org/how-many-tsirkon-missiles-will-be-needed-to-neutralise-a-us-navy-carrier-strike-group/

Whoever wrote that seems unaware that Aegis has successfully tracked & shot down Mach3 targets.
Not that this proves capability to shoot down Mach8 targets by any means.

hoom wrote:Whoever wrote that seems unaware that Aegis has successfully tracked & shot down Mach3 targets.
Not that this proves capability to shoot down Mach8 targets by any means.

In controlled tests, which many times these exercises act as propaganda to be consumed by the masses. NATO 'successfully' defeated Slovakian S-300's in a exercise back in 2009. So what was the end geopolitical result? In that same year (2009) US and Israel desperately begged and pleaded Medvedev, Rosoboronexport and the Russian Federation not to sell S-300's to Iran despite successfully defeating S-300's in training lol!

The claim that Aegis can enable the shooting down of Mach 3 targets is propaganda BS. Like the retarded Bell-Textron video showing some attack helicopters taking out
T-14 tanks without any effort. Pap for morons.

The precious US Aegis will not be operating unhindered in any real war of aggression on Russia. It will be subject to ECW and will not have anywhere near the claimed
performance of staged tests.

A mach 3 drone is not the same as a mach 8 plus target actively trying to evade an air defence system.

The Americans are not renowned for making their tests hard for their systems to pass.... in fact sometimes when they don't pass they change the parameters so they do pass...

It was a maneuvering target? The US had a problem intercepting targets based on Ch 31.

If they had Mach 3 manouvering targets they would not have needed to buy Kh-31s and call them MA-31s.

Would not surprise me if the Mach 3 drone was a Standard II missile fired from another ship on a preprogrammed path to simulate what they think a Russian anti ship missile will do... its ability to manouver of course would not be that great...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GQM-163_Coyote

They use the Coyote target missile that goes at mach 2.6 at very low altitude and mach 3-4 at high altitude.

It simulates russian supersonic missiles much better than the old soviet missiles used as a target simulate western missiles during russian tests.

GarryB wrote:A mach 3 drone is not the same as a mach 8 plus target actively trying to evade an air defence system.

The Americans are not renowned for making their tests hard for their systems to pass.... in fact sometimes when they don't pass they change the parameters so they do pass...

It was a maneuvering target? The US had a problem intercepting targets based on Ch 31.

If they had Mach 3 manouvering targets they would not have needed to buy Kh-31s and call them MA-31s.

Would not surprise me if the Mach 3 drone was a Standard II missile fired from another ship on a preprogrammed path to simulate what they think a Russian anti ship missile will do... its ability to manouver of course would not be that great...

They stage these tests, make lots of noise and then forget about them. Just like with the kinetic kill ABM wunderwaffen which is fading into oblivion. Some of these
clowns are competent enough to know that any ABM would require nuclear warheads to even have a fraction of a chance. So we have the tearing up of the
INF treaty.

America has no defence against Russian anti-ship missiles. And none of the Russian missiles are Mach 3. The supersonic variants have
Mach 4.7 terminal impact regimes. The hypersonic Kinzhal is a Mach 10 missile.

Isos wrote:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GQM-163_Coyote

They use the Coyote target missile that goes at mach 2.6 at very low altitude and mach 3-4 at high altitude.

It simulates russian supersonic missiles much better than the old soviet missiles used as a target simulate western missiles during russian tests.

So this target does the inverse of what Russian supersonic (not hypersonic) missiles do. They do not slow down when entering the final stage
of their attack flight, they dive at maximum Mach deliberately to overcome CIWS defences and to get more kinetic energy damage.

BTW, Wikicrapia has total BS numbers. It claims the Onyx does only Mach 2. WTF. That would qualify it as a marginally supersonic weapon.
NATzO propagandists need to stop drinking their own retard koolaid.