Debunking Russian capabilities
 

I just read an article in yesterdays USA Today that said that Russia's Kinzhal missile had a range of 1250 miles, and a speed of Mach 10. I personally don't believe these numbers, (consider the source) but can anybody confirm or deny these numbers? If true, the Russians know what they have, so it would not be releasing classified information.

Joe

It is NOT a hypersonic cruise missile... that would be bleeding edge tech.

It's just a hypersonic BALLISTIC missile. We have thousands of those, with some ranging 8,000 miles. ICBM re-entry vehicles come in at speeds of mach 20+. Space shuttle re-entered at mach 25.

A ballistic missile quickly leaves the earth's atmosphere, so it can accelerate without any pesky air drag... when it comes back down, it's hauling arse.

Kinzal is a just a MRBM, capable of being nuclear armed. In this case they're using conventional warheads. Conventional warheads do require a more accurate guidance system.

Those numbers are right in the ballpark for an MRBM.


It's not a great idea to be tossing any sort ballistic missiles around Europe though... you can't track the impact point until well after launch, so you don't know if it's Kiev... or Berlin. You also have no idea what kind of warhead is on it. Somebody could end up at DEFCON 1 that way.



Actually it would be, the fact that we actually *know* their capabilities gives away the fact that we acquired it surreptitiously, so that endangers sources and means. They can certainly indict you based on that.

https://www.thedrive.com/content/202...920&quality=70

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...in-kaliningrad


Here is a month old article about it.

It appears the claimed numbers are straight from Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kh-47M2_Kinzhal

Which doesn’t necessarily mean they are either right or wrong.We claimed back in 2014 that Russian IRBMs had violated the treaty prohibiting missiles with ranges of 500-5500 kilometers. A 1250 kilometer range - especially if fired at altitude - would not be all that surprising. The basic ground launched version carried a nominal 490 km range for a one ton warhead. A less accurate export version was determined to have a 300 kilometer angle.

Iskander (SS-26 Stone) Short-Range Ballistic Missile | Military-Today.com

Did a little research. Given the missile has a range of 490 km as a ground launched missile and the MiG-31 can do Mach 2.8 at 70,000 feet where the air pressure is a very small fraction of sea level pressure (0.61 PSI vs 14.7 PSI) so you are generating the same thrust with an added Mach 2.8 velocity and far less air resistance, actually getting to Mach 10 and going somewhat less than three times as far ballistically seems pretty easily possible.

Nor is dramatically increasing the capability of a rocket by launching it from a fighter aircraft without precedent.

https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Vi...llite-missile/

In Sept 1985 the US used an ASAT ASM-135 A to hit a satellite in low Earth orbit (350 miles high) launched from an F-15A doing just under Mach 1 from about 35.000 feet. That missile reached a maximum velocity of 15,000 mph - very nearly orbital velocity. In the last 37 years it would seem strange if the Russians couldn’t have matched or exceeded that performance. They are fairly competent with rockets. They’ve been took the first US astronaut up to the ISS for NASA in a Soyuz launch in 1995 and have been doing so pretty consistently since the last US space shuttle was decommissioned 11+ years ago.

I can assure you the Mig31 can’t do Mach 2.8 at 70000 feet lugging that missile around. In fact carriage limits might well limit the aircraft to subsonic speeds and a Q limit. I would guess probably 1.2 at 50,000 might be ballpark.