3M22 Zircon Hypersonic Cruise Missile

Pentagon spokes John Kirby calls Russian test of a nuclear-capable Zircon hypersonic missile "destabilizing."

"You'd have to ask Vladimir Putin why he's chosen to go that route."

Yeah yeah the template for US State Department announcements is well known and understood.

Todays <exercise, military weapon sale, new weapon,> is a serious threat to security and peace in the region... unless it is a US exercise, military weapon sale, or new weapon, in which case it would be:

Todays <exercise, military weapon sale, new weapon,> is a wonderful development which will help improve security and peace in the region...

The nuclear capable Zircon missile is to counter the 10 Fixed wing nuclear power US carrier groups America currently operates, which ignores the carriers groups and landing forces of the US Marines which is another threat to stability and peace around the world.

Zircon has rendered the US ABM system based on AEGIS class ships and land based versions which carry tomahawk cruise missiles that were very destabilising and in direct violation of the INF treaty no longer a threat to Russia.

Together with the removal of the INF treaty by the US, this gives them a formidable capability against all of Europe... thanks for that by the way.

As far as I'm aware while its been copiously rumored to be a scramjet its never been officially stated as such.

To fit into a UKSK launch tube the Zircon can be at most about 10m long and at most about 750mm wide, and probably at most about 3 tons.

For a surface launched missile to reach 1,200km range targets at mach 9+ it cannot be a solid rocket fuelled missile.

A lot of people assumed that Kinzhal would be a scramjet too but it turned out to be 'just' an airlaunched Iskander so I've been working on the assumption that its not necessarily what everyone else assumed.

The reason the only aircraft that is actually carrying the Kinzhal is the MiG-31K is because the higher and faster you can launch it from the better its flight range and flight speed. Its range is quadrupled because it does not have to start from a standing start, and it does not have to climb through the thickest part of the atmosphere... so all the solid fuel it did not need to use to get moving and climbing to a useful altitude it could use to climb even higher to thinner air and accelerate to higher speeds of mach 9 instead of mach 7 for the ground launched model.

Iskander is about 4.8 tons and would never fit into a UKSK launch tube.

Being a solid rocket fuelled weapon it benefits enormously with launch at altitude and at speed... a scramjet not so much... it could actually use its throttle to fly fast but efficiently and keep climbing early in the flight when it is heavy and full of fuel and accelerate in full AB when it gets lighter to boost its speed and flight range.

The Zircon will be launched to the maximum range in the near future

"As part of the current flight design tests (LKI) of the hypersonic Zircon, in the near future, a product will be launched against a sea target at a maximum range," he said.

According to the source, the recent launch of the Zircon from a frigate on a ground target was also carried out during LKI. The interlocutor of the agency noted that the rocket demonstrated exceptional accuracy, "hitting right into the peg" (this is the name of the center of the circle denoting the target).

https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/11941125

Zircon strike on aircraft carrier will be practiced in the Barents Sea

Source: the launch of the Zircon missile on the "aircraft carrier" will take place in the Barents Sea in the coming days

https://ria.ru/20210720/tsirkon-1742004538.html

The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation confirmed that the state tests of the Zircon missile will be completed this year

The exact date of the end of the tests is not known.

MOSCOW, August 10. / TASS /. State tests of the Zircon hypersonic missile will be completed this year. This was stated by the Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Alexei Krivoruchko during a single day of acceptance of military products.

"This year, tests of the Zircon hypersonic missile will be completed," he said.

In January of this year, Krivoruchko reported that the state tests of the Zircon would be completed this year, and launches from submarines would be carried out.

https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/12098499

Highly doubtful it was Tzirkons.

Isos wrote:Highly doubtful it was Tzirkons.

I think you could be right as the missiles impact seems to be of a sea skimming type. I would expect a Tsirkon to fly a "top attack" profile?
The hypersonic speed at impact would probably rip the ship to shreds as well - sending it to the bottom.

Moving at almost 3km per second even without an explosive warhead on board a Zircon should do more damage than that... but ironically I would think the most lethal way to use Zircon against a ship would be a vertical dive through the centre of mass with a delayed explosion to detonate in the water under the ship... the impact velocity should allow it to pass through to the water easily enough and a large explosion in the water under the ship should create a huge gas bubble that rises up and breaks the back of the ship like a torpedo does.

Moving at almost 3km per second even without an explosive warhead on board a Zircon should do more damage than that..

Only if the thing it hits actually has enough strength/density to cause the missile to transfer a significant amount of kinetic energy.
Probably that tug superstructure is pretty flimsy -> just pretty clean holes punched.
Diagonally through a carrier should give opportunity for plenty of energy transfer.
Also real one would have a warhead too, though timing that so that it goes off at the right time

I like to see them testing with a proper ship instead of the usual net barges but a bit disappointing I see at least 4 corner reflectors on there.

I have been hoping they'll do a test vs a drone ship doing ~30kt, manoeuvring & preferably using ECM to really prove the anti-ship capability.
I dunno if thats actually practical though, maybe separately vs a static ECM target & a mobile target?
Never actually heard of US etc doing similar either other than with small missiles like the LCS Hellfire variant vs drone RIBs.

I like to see them testing with a proper ship instead of the usual net barges but a bit disappointing I see at least 4 corner reflectors on there.

They don't expect to use it against fishing boats so there is no point targeting something that size for testing and I suspect they didn't want to sink a Kirov class ship just for a test.

It is perfectly normal to use a small target and rig it out to appear to be more like the target they would be engaging... a bit like the US using Sheridan tank hulls with bits on them to make them look like BMPs for target range shooting.

I have been hoping they'll do a test vs a drone ship doing ~30kt, manoeuvring & preferably using ECM to really prove the anti-ship capability.

They haven't even done a max range test yet... and I honestly don't think travelling at 50kts would save it...

With that speed, they should blow off the whole structure with the pressure wave only.

In fact at that speed one of the better warheads you could have would be chunks of aluminium all stacked in a column with a line charge of HE down the centre of about 50kgs... on impact with the target the 50kg charge blows and spreads the lumps of aluminium sideways but the forward speed of the missile at 3km/s would mean it would be like a shotgun blast of soon to be molten metal and burning material spreading in a cone through the ship.

Moving at 3km/s already there is no need for a bit warhead because fragments will already be moving at explosion speed.

To put it in context the US had a low flying nuclear powered cruise missile weapon in development in the 50s and 60s that would fly at less than 30m above the ground at mach 3 with a nuclear ramjet motor... the shock wave just from the missile flying past was lethal to humans on the ground and damaged vehicles and buildings as it blew past... mach 3 is about 960m/s, so Zircon is moving three times faster, though to be fair would be smaller and lighter.

Of course it is not clear if those are entry points or exit points... but there is no light coming through the holes from the side on view...

hoom wrote:
Only if the thing it hits actually has enough strength/density to cause the missile to transfer a significant amount of kinetic energy.
Probably that tug superstructure is pretty flimsy -> just pretty clean holes punched.
Diagonally through a carrier should give opportunity for plenty of energy transfer.
Also real one would have a warhead too, though timing that so that it goes off at the right time

Actually quite the opposite. Warships are not that heavily armoured, or even at all in some cases. So you want less strength and hardness as that would risk the missile just punching a clean hole in the ship and exiting still travelling mach 5. You want it to disintegrate a fraction of a second after impact and send a cloud of Mach 7 debris ripping through the ship.

Obviously a live round would have an explosive warhead, maybe not so much for explosive damage but as GarryB suggests to spread a bunch of shrapnel which can then separately transfer kinetic energy to the target.

I remember in the 1980s they were talking about the most effective anti ship missile warheads and one of the most popular was a cluster warhead that spread incendiary elements around inside the ship to damage and also start fires through the ship structure...

With a missile moving at the speeds Zircon will be flying a big HE warhead wont be as much use as a smaller HE warhead that spreads other material on impact to spread the damage caused by the impact.

The reason the entire world does not have 1,500km range anti ship missiles is the same reason we don't have 20km range sniper rifles... it is a lot of time and money to spend on something you will never use.

The satellite based detection and tracking systems the Russians have is a good start and as they expand that it will become more and more useful just for intel purposes... it is hard to over estimate the value of being able to watch what your opponents are doing and how they are doing it... monitoring shipping is more than just watching plastic junk float down a river... especially with military traffic it gives you an indication of what they are up to... even when they turn their civilian tracking systems off.

Obviously during a conflict if you can track your enemy carrier groups you can send subs out to sink them very very efficiently... much more efficiently than sending your own carrier group out to bludgeon them to death instead.

Without the satellite system the long range anti ship missiles are rather less effective.

And no... you would never fire a Zircon off in a specific direction to have a look to see what is out there... that would never be done...

Note this is a new system, but there was a previous system that this new system would have replaced.

There are hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions of ships in the worlds oceans including some tankers that make a 100K carrier seem tiny... actually knowing precisely where it is is critical to dealing with it and its defence and systems and design are specifically designed to make it hard to find as odd as that may sound.

The main radar operating will be the airborne radar of AWACS aircraft in flight which will be search air and sea surface for targets and threats... sonar will be operated by most of the ships to detect threats as well and helicopters will be operating active sonar for better detection performance because giving away its location is not as problematic as a ship doing the same.

The AWACS will deliver target information to all the ships which can then operate in radar and radio silence and fighter aircraft and helicopters can be sent to investigate any subsurface, surface or air contacts that are detected.

An enemy would detect the AWACS aircraft of course but have no idea where the fighters and ships operating nearby are specifically... attempts to attack the AWACS might lead to you finding yourself flying directly over a cruiser which will shoot you down, while the formation of carrier fighters has skirted around your radar and attacked you from behind.

Obviously these days with satellites in peace time has changed the dynamic somewhat but even then a US carrier group is essentially the most powerful grouping of surface and subsurface and air defence capacity the west has including about their only decent IADS system with layered SAMs being carried by their enormous number of ships as well as fighter aircraft carried by their carriers and able to operate with their carrier groups from their 800+ land based foreign bases...

A carrier group working operationally will not have all radars blazing away revealing the position of every platform... it is the primary purpose of a shipborne AWACS platform to keep an excellent view of the surrounding air and sea space while allowing most ships to operate in listen mode on their radar and sonar.

Nato has radars around there. They don't hide tests to them. They can test it more east where there is nothing.

Isos wrote:Nato has radars around there. They don't hide tests to them. They can test it more east where there is nothing.

Maybe Russia is so confident that the plan is to show, i.e. ram down US/NATO's throats, just how far ahead Russia is. Encourages yet another increase in US MIC spending in the 'bankrupt the US' strategy.

Source: the first launch of the Zircon missile from a submarine will be performed from the White Sea in October
According to the source, depending on its results, the second launch is planned in November from under water to a sea target.

MOSCOW, September 30. /TASS/. The first test launch of the underwater version of the Zircon hypersonic missile will be performed from the Northern Fleet's Severodvinsk nuclear submarine from the surface of the White Sea in October. This was reported to TASS by a source in the military-industrial complex.

"The first launch of the Zircon from the Severodvinsk submarine as part of flight design tests (LKI) will be performed from a surface position in early October. Depending on its results, the second launch is planned in November from under water to a sea target," he said.

According to him, the first launch from the Severodvinsk nuclear submarine, which was planned in September, was postponed to October due to the need to carry out all the technical preparations for it.

The NPO Mashinostroyeniya (part of the Tactical Missile Armament Corporation), where the Zircons were developed and manufactured, did not comment on this information to TASS.

According to the source, until the end of 2021, a total of two launches of the Zircon from a nuclear submarine are planned, and next year tests from an underwater carrier will continue. The source also noted that state tests of this missile from a surface carrier are planned to begin in November, and in 2022 they can be continued, after which the planned delivery of missiles to the Russian Navy will begin.

Earlier, the Zircon LKI from the surface carrier, the lead frigate of Project 22350 Admiral Gorshkov, was successfully completed.
Contract for the supply of Zircons

On August 24, during the Army-2021 international military-technical forum, a contract was signed for the supply of Zircons to the Russian Defense Ministry. As Alexander Leonov, General Director and General Designer of NPO Mashinostroeniya, told TASS, this contract will be fulfilled until 2025. On the sidelines of the forum, he noted that the missile "is unified, can be used both from surface ships and submarines." According to Leonov, "the difference [is] only in the type of launcher used on surface ships or submarines."

https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/12540229

missile "is unified, can be used both from surface ships and submarines."

Excellent. One size missile fits all. Eases logistics, no need to maintain seperate surface/sub launches units.