3M22 Zircon Hypersonic Cruise Missile

f so, then they do not have to hide Cirkon's appearance.

They don't have to do anything.

The US equivalent does not exist and at the moment the US really does not have a successful reliable hypersonic manouvering weapon like the Zircon... showing the real missile will immediately show the Americans the shape that works... why help them?

Anyway, the USA in its X-51 also used it.

The Space shuttle is much faster than Zircon... the point is that different shapes require different levels of propulsion... they could make a brick hypersonic simply by attaching a minuteman rocket to the back of it, but it does not make it an effective weapon because the shape of the brick is not efficient and aerodynamic and will rapidly slow down... or actually shatter at such speeds.

The Zircon uses a shape that allows the scramjet motor they are using to maintain speeds and altitudes not attained by air breathing jets before... and there is no advantage to Russia to reveal that shape or design any time soon.

So I don't know what they would find out if Russia presented Cirkon's appearance?

When the US revealed the shape for the US Space shuttle they revealed a design that could be made at that time that that level of technology and materials... they spent over 2 billion dollars refining the shape specifically for the use as a glider. The Soviets could then adapt the design to their needs without spending 5 years and 2 billion dollars working out a useful design shape for that job... which happened to be very similar but not the same.

When the Soviets revealed a mach 3 fighter in the form of the MiG-25 and the US needed an equivalent really quickly... the US came up with a copy... the F-15... same layout and general planform. What the west didn't realise is that the MiG-25 was an interceptor and not a fighter, but that is another discussion.

At the end of WWII the Soviets found they had no four engined strategic bombers... they were leaders in bomber technology before the war, they had several four engined bombers like the old 1933 TB-3 and the more modern Pe-8, but there was no funding or development of any four engined bombers during the war because that is not what they needed. The end of the war arrives and they need a new four engined bomber and three land on their territory... what do you think they will do?

More important are the materials it is made of, the details of the propulsion, etc.

Of course they are important, but with the wrong shape even the best materials and propulsion mean nothing... you can make an An-2 out of heat resistant Aluminium alloy and fit a scramjet motor but it will never break the sound barrier...

The US had no problems showing the X-51 and Russia still has a problem to even publish the appearance.

Because they are behind in the technology, the design of this particular weapon is not secret but how many other missiles do they have they don't mention?

Obviously if they had other missiles that worked we would hear about them and be told the Zircon is a copy of them, but that does not mean that better shapes have not been tested in the US or elsewhere.

Probably since the X-51 was a test vehicle and a poor performer that was soon abandoned, while Zirkon is a cutting-edge weapon system with impressive performance unmatched by any other AShMs and which will soon enter service and give Russia a huge qualitative edge.

Good enough reason you reckon?

A huge factor is that Zircon is a weapon designed to fit into a launch system that is currently being deployed now. X-51 was a test vehicle.

Once it has cleared its tests any ship or sub using UKSK launch tubes being new or upgraded old, and carry and use this weapon against land and sea targets.

Talk about a force multiplier.

Actually different layers of water are different temperatures and a submarine moving stirs things up... a moving submarine even deep under water can create an IR trail that can be seen from orbit.

Different radar frequencies also have different properties in terms of penetrating water and also ground penetration...

But in terms of Hypersonic anti ship missiles being able to track submarines is kinda irrelevant... they couldn't reach a submerged submarine.

More likely they were talking about the Liana satellites communicating with Russian submarines to send the target data so they can use their own hypseronic missiles against surfaced ships beyond the range of the subs sensors... but within range of their 1,000km range missiles.

Ultra low frequency radio is used to communicate with submerged submarines.

Supposedly even submerged quite deep submarines push the surface of the water above them to some barely noticeable level. So you'd have something like a silhouette or a patch of water that's say a couple of inches taller than the surroundings if the water is perfectly still. Of course there are waves that make it even more hard to detect but its possible that with increased granularity of modern sensors it could be done even with that bit of complication.

GarryB Infrared radiation propagates very poorly in water.

Yeah... when I boil a pot of tea I always find the water in the top of the pot is cold and the water at the bottom is hot so I pour the top few cms of water into the sink and then use the boiling water in the bottom of the kettle to make my cup of tea....

Water stratifies in temperature and salinity, and the coldest water does not necessarily sink to the bottom.... there are convection currents in water... both horizontal and vertical, but there is an enormous volume of actual water there... it would be like trying to use the element from a kettle to heat an olympic swimming pool...

Which would be about as much use as trying to empty said pool by pulling out a normal sized plug you would use in a normal sized bathtub.

There are three popular bands of IR being used these days... long, medium, and short wave IR and in the long and medium wave frequencies water and glass essentially block your view, but short wave IR is different and can see through glass and into water.

It is physically impossible to detect a submarine from orbit in the IR range.

It is physically possible to detect if someone has recently walked across a field of grass dude... you can look at a parking lot and tell which cars have recently been running and which have not been run in a long time.

Even other surface and submarines are unable to detect submarines in the IR.

Detecting the wakes of submarines under the water is easier from a distance... ie in the air.

If it were a good method, apart from sonars, each ship would have IR sensors as in the case of aviation.

Look at the masts of all the new Russian ships and you will see lots of new optronic posts with TV and IR sights... including laser range finders and other equipment.

Detecting a submarine from orbit via IR is a fairy tale. You can't fool physics.

In many places the sea water is not opaque and you can visibly see submarines... remember even the latest American subs can't go much deeper than 300m... that is not even three submarines length deep.

If the water is not too dirty you could probably see them from patrol aircraft using binoculars.

But honestly... why do you think this matters?

This thread is about Zircon... WTF use would Zircon be against an enemy submarine FFS.

Now new radars using photonic radar technology operating in the Terahertz frequencies might be able to detect and track submarines from space... who knows...

mnztr wrote:So far is do not see any air launch tests of tsirkon. this variant will probably be the simplest as its just a dead drop.

They have other hypersonic missiles for planes. I doubt there will be an air launched version of Tzirkon.

Being launched from UKSK means it's a huge missile with a big booster which isn't needed when launched from the air.

Zircon is a replacement for Onyx... they talked about mini Onyx missiles for reduced range increased speed roles, where aircraft like the Su-27 Flanker family could carry one Onyx, they would be able to carry five mini Onyx missiles, and smaller aircraft like the MiG-29 family of new planes could carry four smaller missiles too.

It is not really a huge priority, but it will be under development.

Arrow wrote:https://ria.ru/20210516/tsirkon-1732557689.html

Once they write that the Cirkon tests will start soon and then that at the end of the summer .WTF

They mean the end of their summer... so around Aug-Sep. Yeah, that counts as soon in the scheme of things.

"Tests of the missile system with a surface-launched Zircon hypersonic missile are scheduled to be completed by the end of summer"

The next Zirkon test will be on the next days

Completed by the end of summer... so they will have done all the launches they want to do before clearing the weapon available for operational use before the end of this year... sounds pretty good to me.

Now to be clear the surface and sub launched roles are the critical ones... the air launched ones being less important because they already have Kinzhal and MiG-31Ks and Tu-22M3s with Kh-32s operational at the moment... in fact they have Onyx in service so the introduction of Zircon is not that urgent really either...

But it is a normal step forward in keeping Russia safe from the boogey men of the west.

You can´t park a satellite.