It exists already and is called Avangard. And flies with 20Ma The problem here is how much costs total cost of ownership?
Avangard is a powered glider that needs an ICBM to launch it into the target area at operational speeds.
What I am talking about is a theatre missile that can be used in a conventional conflict that is not limited by the fact that it is based on a short range ballistic missile.
By making it bigger you get better performance and if the US gets treaty ripping happy and tears up the INF treaty you get a ready made ground launched IRBM you could mount on land vehicles overnight...
It is also something you could put in your UKSK launcher tubes and carry on all your ships... with perhaps a reduced range of maybe 2,000km.
There is huge irony here because it was no that long ago that I was arguing that putting an Iskander on a ship was stupid because they already had Zircon and other potential systems that using a 500km ground to ground missile was a bit silly... getting within 500km of an enemy ship is risky... but being ship based you could triple it length and increase its flight range to 2,000km plus from a surface launched position... in fact you could fit the warhead with a scramjet sustainer engine and make it even better...
Kinzhal is surely not cheapest weapon and is to be used only in specific situations. At least so far. Not going to replace Zircon not Onyx. Mainly for CSGs. Or deliver Novitchok to Downing Street 10
Iskanders are not super expensive AFAIK, and don't have nuclear ramjet motors so are perfectly acceptable weapons of war... and would be devastating against most targets...
Onyx was mounted on one MRK pr.1234.7 for evaluation purposes in late 80s, but the missile was then only working up. It was adopted in service much, much later. The development was finalised only with Indian funding.
India never saw Onyx missiles, the Brahmos is an Indian version of the Yakhont export model of the Onyx.
The contribution of the Indian investment was multirole land attack capability for Brahmos which was then retrofitted to Onyx and other missile types like Granit...
Onyx was ready for the 90s... they just didn't need it... I mean what would they do with it in mass production?
It does not fit in a Granit launch tube... otherwise Oscar class SSBNs would not be getting launchers for Onyx and the upgraded Oscars would be carrying 24 Onyx missiles instead of 72 which they are supposed to be carrying.
Onyx was never going to enter Russian service until the UKSK launcher for it entered service and if you check, you will likely find the date for the first order for Onyx by the Russian Navy is very much related to the entry into service of a vessel with a UKSK launcher.
It was the same with the R-77 AAM... they had them for ages before the Air Force actually ordered bigger than a test sample because there were not that many in service Russian aircraft that could even use them during the 90s and 00s.
Edit: Just checked the specs for the Su-34, it definitely can carry 4 of them plus 2 IR for A2A. It can theoretically carry even more but not all hardpoints can handle that weight. But I wonder cat it carry 4 Kh-35 and an additional tank under the fuselage, might be to much of a performance downer, don't know.
Kh-35 is a 600-700kg missile so it should be able to carry about 6 or so of them on the two inner wing pylons and the under nacelle pylons...
Tandem warhead, are ships getting equipped with reactive armour?
Not sure why it would have a tandem warhead... it would be much more sensible to just have one big warhead...
DAT tandem on missile? oh I like very much
If you mean that tandem then we are not talking HE... we are talking sHEs...
I guess that means that Su-34 will carry tactical missiles of all kind. Not sth bigger like Oniks or long range cruise missiles
It will be their primary medium strike aircraft so it will pretty much carry all of their tactical missiles... but Onyx is rather big so it could only likely carry three I suspect...
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