Zmeevik New hypersonic AShBM

Obviously an answer to Dark Eagle, a worthy successor to the Pioneer plus finally replicating the DF-26/21 role missing until now due to INF.

It is more of a solution to AEGIS cruisers in the Arctic ocean and Pacific and Atlantic oceans trying to pick off Russian ICBMs and SLBMs and bombers attacking the US.

Just take several Kinzhals, install them on shortened solid rocket booster from Topol/Yars, put it on a truck and voilà, Zmeevik anti-ship missile

Nah... a 3,000km to 5,000km range IRBM is going to come down at rather higher speeds than Iskander was ever designed to deal with... rather than looking small and scaling up I would say go the other way and look at their ICBM glide vehicles and scale them down.

Hypersonic solutions are really the only way to get attack advantage. Stealth is rubbish for attacking 3rd world countries without the detection and
response systems.

Stealth is good for some things but don't put all your eggs in one basket... combinations of weapons give the best chance of success and the most flexibility.

The game of cat and mouse continues.

Rocket designers have mistresses to feed too. Much harder to justify the payola on a circumcised RS-26, has to be a clean sheet.

Russian rocket designers don't get the enormous profit margins they would get in the west so when you get the job of designing a shore based IRBM it is easiest to just take one stage off of an ICBM or SLBM and use an already design hypersonic glide vehicle scaled down to hit the carrier.

Otherwise just use an obsolete SLBM with several big warheads... carrier location information is then used to target a pattern in the sea around the point of aim and launch... the effect of four large nukes exploding a few kilometres apart in the open ocean would melt most radar domes and set fire to most ships and aircraft nearby... no need for developing hypersonic glide vehicles at all... but if you have them anyway then why not use them too.

Conventionally armed models could be used in conventional wars too and would be interesting against naval and land based hardened targets too.

Probably the average speed in the hypersonic stretch of the flight will be also substantially higher.

Assuming an IRBM launch and a range of 4,000km it will likely be coming in to the target area at mach 15-18 already without any use of propulsion... the solid rocket motor on the Kinzhal would probably act as a gas generator on a base bleed artillery shell... countering and nullifying drag so it maintains speed as it dives down on the target... and of course control surfaces in the rocket exhaust would allow it to manouver as it comes screaming in.

GarryB wrote:It is more of a solution to AEGIS cruisers in the Arctic ocean and Pacific and Atlantic oceans trying to pick off Russian ICBMs and SLBMs and bombers attacking the US.

SM3 do not fly high enough for modern Russian ICBMs with shortened boost phase, bombers do not need to come close to USN vessels. But in any case, any surface fleet even at a serious distance from Russia would be under a much more acute threat than even now with Kinzhals and Tsirkons.

Nah... a 3,000km to 5,000km range IRBM is going to come down at rather higher speeds than Iskander was ever designed to deal with... rather than looking small and scaling up I would say go the other way and look at their ICBM glide vehicles and scale them down.

That is the case with Dark Eagle and probably close to the truth also in the case of Zmeevik. It would allow very high speed and long range, and would substantially raise the kinematic demands required for interception.

US totally fucked up. They let China grow to the first economical position by giving away their and EU industries to them. And they made Russia fully armed and investing in state of art military stuff and keeping its natural ressources for itself.

Worse than that... Russia and China didn't want conflict or to destroy the west... they bought US debt which means they were banking on its ability to pay its debt... you don't buy the debt of a country you want to destroy because you lose your money.

Russia wanted to be allies and friends and the US pissed all over them and told them it was raining...

The US has created a rival in Russia and China and other countries too... and it has not been nice...

Correct me if I am wrong but I dont think there are many classically defined ballistic missiles left. Even the new ballistic missiles can fly in the high high atmosphere and maneuver in almost all regimes.

There is still a difference between MARVs and ABM evading reentry vehicles, which are very different.

The former manouvers slightly to improve accuracy, the latter manouvers to be difficult to hit by defences... it is like the fine adjustments to run down a line and the manouvers you take when you are carrying a ball and don't want to get tackled.

Solid fuel ICBMs are faster than liquid fuel

Where does that come from?

New US AAMs use a gel propellent that is more powerful than their solid rocket fuels... my understanding is that liquid propellants are more powerful than solid rocket propellants.

Missiles that manuever throughtout their phases with more G overloads, EW capabilities, better stealth coatings, lower altitude capabilies, plasma shield generators, release black particle clouds that block radars, is worth the investment and i hope more detials get released that makes it different from an average ballistic missile. Also it has to have ICBM range capabilities or else I just find it pointless.

ICBMs and SLBMs generally have three rocket stages... the first stage burns out fairly quickly and is the most powerful because it has to lift the full mass of the missile off the truck or out of the silo or tube or off the pad it is launching from, the second stage then starts in the upper atmosphere and is pushing the remaining rocket out of the atmosphere and continues to accelerate it further and finally the third stage ignites and gets the rocket onto the path to hit the target area.

If you think of it in terms of a gun the speed required to reach intercontinental range is over 5km per second and if you accelerated something to that speed over a short distance it would be more like a bomb explosion than an acceleration... using rockets spreads the acceleration over a much longer period... but it does not operate all the way to the target so as it is falling to the target it does not have thrust for manouvering.

The Iskander is different... if it was just a ballistic rocket it could be half its weight because it would not need its rocket motor running all the way allowing manouvering right to impact to evade air defences.

If this missile had ICBM range then they could have designed and built it decades ago... more importantly it would be very big and rather more expensive than necessary.

This weapon will be an IRCM/IRBM because they have ICBMs and SLBMs already... these weapons are for the gaps that now appear with the end of the INF treaty and the likelyhood that Europe is going to make their own ballistic missiles moving forward too.

The US hasn't got 100 aircraft carriers... at best they have about 25 including helicopter carriers and even then Russia likely already has enough Kinzhals and Onyx missiles to deal with the US fleet... and with Zircon on the way they are even better prepared.

This missile will make Russian SSGNs very capable with satellite links to a global satellite system finding enemy ships of all types... we have seen corvettes in the Caspian hit targets thousands of kms away in Syria... with this weapon we might see missiles fired from the Pacific ocean at targets in the Atlantic or Carribean sea...

Solid fuel ICBMs are faster than liquid fuel wrote:

Could you explain? Liquid fuel engines are more powerful The Sarmatian has no detonation engines. It just has engines with more thrust than the R-36M2. Thanks to that it accelerates faster and the engine phase lasts shorter.

I hope the zmeevik will have an SLBM variant, so boreis can target CBGs too.

Well if they end up with some spare Boreis then they could designate a few as being SSGNs with anti carrier ballistic missiles and that would make perfect sense...

I rather suspect the US will demand Poseidon and Thunderbird and other weapons to be counted, but then their demands to include Chinese weapons... while strangely not demanding UK and French and Israeli nuclear weapons be included, are likely going to prevent much traction on the next agreement... so I don't expect too much agreement after 2026 or so...

With the INF treaty also gone IRBMs and IRCMs are not restricted either, which is great for Russia because they can build such weapons to target Europe and the UK and the Middle East and hostile Asia Pacific countries like Japan and Australia, without needing rather bigger ICBMs for the job, which frees those up to get better coverage of the US in any all out conflict.

Solid fuel ICBMS/SLBMs are a bit harder to master than hypergolic-fueled missiles.

I don't agree, Solid fuels were not a priority of the Soviet Union and so they only dabbled for a while with them, but they are now every bit as good at solid fuels as the US is.

Solid fuels are just chemistry, while liquid propellent fuels is mechanical engineering too... pumps etc.

Liquid fuels can also be throttled and even shut down and restarted... once a solid fuel rocket is burning that is normally it... to get gaps in thrust with solid fuel you need multiple stages... the current medium range AAM the Russians are deploying now has a three stage rocket motor where the first stage is a layer of fuel that is high energy to accelerate and climb the missile to altitude and the next layer is lower energy longer burning cruise fuel that basically compensates for drag and maintains speed for several minutes... when it burns out the missile just coasts on its own inertia and slowly slows down... as it approaches the target another separate solid rocket stage lights up and provides energy for the terminal stage of the attack... making it much harder for the target to evade because the missile can turn harder with thrust vectoring energy than with falling energy based on its small external control surfaces.

Obviously a scramjet powered missile can manage its fuel and throttle setting to not waste energy and burn the fuel more efficiently with the ability to shut down and restart multiple times.

Solid fuel rockets/missiles generally have a pretty finite "shelf life" before requiring replacement of propellant.

To be fair their shelf life is generally better than the shelf life of most batteries and some electronic components.

kvs wrote:   For example consider the rail based ICBMs.   They are now fully practical
without the need for special moving stock and special rails.  

Not quite the design of the new railway complex is based on the much lighter Yars version of the missile. The older system from the 1980s was based on the heavy ICBM RT 23 that weighed over 100 tons. Yars weighs approximately 50 tons. The RT 23 missile carried 10 heavy MIRVs and had a throw weight of over 4 tons. Yars has a throw weight of only 1.2-1.5 tons according to the START declaration. This indicates that solid fuels in the 1980s in the USSR were not so energy backward compared to their Western counterparts. The American MX weighed 90 tons and had a similar throw weight to the RT-23.

SM3 do not fly high enough for modern Russian ICBMs with shortened boost phase, bombers do not need to come close to USN vessels.

SM-6.

Hitting targets in the US from bases in Russia the missiles going over the north pole wont allow for very high trajectories which can be used at the cost of range... they could use high trajectories against targets in Europe and Asia or the Middle East but not the US... it is too far away.

Yeah right.....that's why they continue to design liquid fuelled ICBMs/SLBMs. To justify their lack of competence they will use alibis like throw weight and size. Even Avangard has been put on a liquid-fueled ICBM. And SS-29 Sarmat is also liquid fueled.

The SS-N-20 SLBM was a solid rocket missile and they have had solid (Bulava) and liquid fuelled rockets (Liner) developed since.... the fact of the matter is that liquid rocket motors was a strength of the Soviet Union and so solid rocket motors weren't so critical and urgent as they were in the west.

Solid rocket fuel tends to be more compact than liquid fuel rockets but it is not more powerful which is why the Russians continue to make liquid fuel rockets.

In fact the most powerful rockets are used to get into space and except for the solid rocket boosters attached to the US Space shuttle all rockets designed to deliver objects to space are liquid fuelled (except obviously ex SLBM or ICBM rockets used for the purpose when they approach expiry dates).

Liquid rocket motors offer the most power but are not as simple or compact as a solid rocket motor which does not need tanks of fuel and acids and oxygen generating chemicals as well as pumps and fuel lines and other complexities.

One of the core reasons the US went to solid rocket fuels was because their liquid fuel technology was not good enough... a space rocket is fuelled just before launch because the chemicals are volatile and don't store very well for long periods and their fuels for ICBMs and SLBMs were the same.

The Soviets and Russians had better fuels which were powerful but also able to be stored for very long periods so you could fuel up an ICBM and put it on a truck or in a silo and leave it for 10 years... with US fuels you couldn't leave the fuels in the missiles for long periods which meant it took hours to fuel up your missiles so a surprise attack on your ICBM fields was a real threat... Soviet rockets were ready to go much quicker...

Even the Kh-22M anti ship missile used liquid propellent and it was seriously nasty stuff... inhibited red fuming nitric acid... that was incredibly volatile and rather toxic and could not be stored in the missile so part of the arming process was fuelling up these missiles which was very unpopular... but mach 3 speed at 23km altitude to 600km... it got the performance wanted... further improved fuels mean the replacement Kh-32 which is externally identical means mach 4.5 at 40km altitude to 800km range and it is worth it.

Not quite the design of the new railway complex is based on the much lighter Yars version of the missile. The older system from the 1980s was based on the heavy ICBM RT 23 that weighed over 100 tons. Yars weighs approximately 50 tons. The RT 23 missile carried 10 heavy MIRVs and had a throw weight of over 4 tons. Yars has a throw weight of only 1.2-1.5 tons according to the START declaration. This indicates that solid fuels in the 1980s in the USSR were not so energy backward compared to their Western counterparts. The American MX weighed 90 tons and had a similar throw weight to the RT-23.

The thing is that with a rocket design 100 ton missiles will be 85-90 tons of fuel and rocket engines (three sets for the three stages)... with scramjet technology you can use a solid rocket motor to get the missile airborne in conjunction with wings and control surfaces and reduce the total fuel load by three quarters by eliminating the oxygen generating component... in this case that means 67.5 tons of oxygen generating liquids are not needed... now taking a 100 ton rocket and removing more than half its launch weight means a smaller rocket is needed to get it moving and airborne which means the rocket motors get lighter and smaller too and also the missile itself can be narrower and smaller reducing drag and weight even further... pretty soon you have a 20 ton vehicle with the potential to drop multiple small bombs over enemy territory on its way to its primary target.

Another factor is that their train mounted ICBMs had to be ICBMs, but now with Scramjet technology and also the tearing up of the INF treaty they can design 5,000km range IRBMs or IRCMs with multiple nuclear warheads to attack targets much closer to home... Europe, the Middle East, Asia... mount them on a train for mobility but their use means all the SLBMs and ICBMs they have can be used against the US instead of wasting them against much closer targets.

Putting it on hold is not the end of the world, they might be able to change it a little to incorporate new scramjet technology and further improve potential performance.

They describe it as being like the Chinese DF-21D which is a medium range ballistic missile, with the INF treaty gone they could develop a variant of the road mobile SS-20, perhaps with its 5,000km missile flight range reduced with perhaps a heavier payload of hypersonic gliders, perhaps four or more that can be released at the top of the ballistic flight path towards the target with the gliders falling to the top of the atmosphere where a scramjet engine lights up and accelerates the weapons to spiral down on any ship targets they can spot at mach 10 or more.

Delaying it for a few years should allow improvements in a range of areas and technologies.

Or Russia was sobered by just how shit NATO IADS is and realized they can get away with Kalibrs and Gerans for the foreseeable future.

Probably also realized they underinvested in their airpower. Now they know why NATO went all in on JDAMs and glide bombs - its because that shit for IADS is all NATO knows .

Well like their anti ship missiles this new MRBM should have plenty of range to hit targets all through Europe and Asia if needed so it wont just be for hitting aircraft carriers, but their aircraft carriers are their best defended western targets in existence, so any weapon designed to sink a carrier will be useful to level HQs and bunkers in Brussels and Bonn and Paris and London and Washington DC.

In terms of what they need right now it probably isn't at the top of the list as most of their anti ship missiles will probably already get the job done easily enough.

I suspect they actually realised air power is over rated and you shouldn't build your defence or your attack around it like the west has done.

Because the west relies so heavily on air power then weapons that take out runways and hangars and enemy aircraft become that much more valuable in destroying the enemy and making them come to terms that suit Russia.

Being a carrier killer is key and important.

Serpentine is intended to be an intermediate range Iskander type weapon that would manouver and evade air defences so it can hit what it is attacking with one shot instead of needing to launch dozens or more to have a chance of hitting the target.

Serpentine is called a carrier killer because western air defences are mostly untested except their defences defending their aircraft carriers, which is much better than any land based system they have.

Being able to kill US aircraft carriers and their AEGIS class escorts means it is an intermediate range missile that can basically defeat any western target including land based targets in Europe at speeds that should allow penetration to the deepest sub basements for all the most important European VIPs.

If it could only hit Carriers it would be a waste but it is essentially an Iskander with rather more range and probably much faster too, which is why it is suspended rather than cancelled.

Increasing production of ammo and weapons and drones and vehicles and aircraft is more useful at this time.

There is one more issue you are missing bro.
Zmeevik is a ballistic missile.
And ballistic missiles are the type of targets that US Navy is capable of shooting down.
They are training for years, and do have lots of both success and expertise in the matter.
2000+ km perimeter for the Kinzhal weapon system, plus 1000 km of Tsirkon, makes the Russian shores already impenetrable.
It is way too far even for Tomahawk strikes, exposing salvos for an extremely long time and multiple layers of interception.
US Navy don't have hands long and capable enough to operate, not risking being annihilated. Literally.

Being a carrier killer is key and important.

To clarify what I meant I mean that it is designed from the outset to defeat the air defences of the best defended western targets, which is good for the design because it means when it is aimed at US bases in Europe or Asia or HATO HQs or comms centres or other important targets including but not limited to ABM facilities in Europe and Asia and Alaska then it is probably going to get through.

Zmeevik is a ballistic missile.

Well no it probably isn't considering it is intended to take out US ships with ABM systems on board and the carriers they will be defending.

Iskander was assumed to be a ballistic weapon but it isn't either because it was intended to hit targets potentially protected by Patriot PAC-2 and PAC-3 systems as well as THAAD systems.

The extra range that Serpentine reaches suggests it might have a ballistic path for the first part of its trajectory but it will likely dip back into the atmosphere 300-500km short of the target and then fly at very high altitude on scramjet power and very high speed in a non ballistic flight profile to approach the target in level flight and then climb and then dive down vertically, perhaps in a semi cork screw flight pattern down onto the ships it was launched at... it might even contain a dozen reentry vehicles to hit as many AEGIS radars as possible in the first strike and might only hit the carrier with one or two RVs to take it totally out of action.

And ballistic missiles are the type of targets that US Navy is capable of shooting down.
They are training for years, and do have lots of both success and expertise in the matter.

Yep, they can shoot down dumb non manouvering ballistic targets quite regularly, but missiles that can detect your defences and are actively manouvering to evade your incoming missiles is another level harder.

Otherwise I agree with that... The US Navy is a sub threat only really.