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While the Zircon hypersonic cruise missile has not attracted the same level of media attention as the strategic Avangard re-entry vehicle or even the air-launched Kinzhal aeroballistic missile, it nevertheless represents an important advance in military technology and represents the state-of-the-art of Russian technologies. It promises to maintain and even expand Russia’s conventional deterrence through its high guarantee of effective retaliatory capability even against the most advanced anti-air and anti-missile defenses.
The secrecy surrounding the 3M22 Zircon, to the point of there existing no official images of the weapon, is remarkable and reminds one of the careful effort to conceal the true nature of the P-700 Granit heavy anti-ship missile, specifically its air-breathing ramjet propulsion. It is also indicative of the importance attached to this weapon by the Russian government. Zircon has already been assigned a NATO reporting designation of SS-N-33, indicating that the alliance is treating the reports of its development and testing fairly seriously. As well it should, given that the weapon system is being developed by the world-famous NPO Mashinostroyeniya know for, among other things, the aforementioned Granit and the Oniks/Yakhont cruise missile boasting ramjet propulsion, top speeds several times the speed of sound, and the capability of striking land and naval targets. While the Granit was never used in combat, Oniks has already proved itself in Syria, where it was used to destroy extremist high-value targets with high precision and played an important role in deterring NATO strikes against Syria by threatening its naval assets in the Mediterranean.
While the Oniks is still a potent weapon that poses an extremely difficult challenge for any point-defense system due to its small size and high speed, the nature of the offense-defense technological race means that its successor in the form of Zircon is already under development and will likely enter service within the next few years, though according to some officials it already forms part of Russia’s arsenal. It is entirely possible that while the weapon is still undergoing development and testing, some missiles are already being carried by naval vessels on an experimental basis, in the same way the air-launched Kinzhal aeroballistic missile was deployed while still undergoing evaluation.
The reports that the Zircon is to be launched from the same 3S14 vertical launchers that are used for the Oniks indicate the two missiles are in the same weight and size class, with comparable range and payload characteristics. The one advantage the Zircon will have over the Oniks is the speed, which various sources estimate at between Mach 6 and Mach 9, a figure that may well depend on the missile’s flight altitude. If a low-altitude trajectory is adopted, on the one hand the dense layers of the atmosphere would reduce the speed considerably while on the other reducing reaction time by allowing the missile to clear the radar horizon relatively close to its target. A high-altitude cruise at 30-40km would enable it to accelerate to maximum velocity likely approaching that of a short-range ballistic missile and attack its target in a steep dive. While the high-altitude approach would provide the adversary with greater opportunity to detect the missile whose heat alone would make it difficult to conceal, it still would be a difficult weapon to intercept, particularly since most weapons sent against it would be considerably slower. It is not clear whether the Zircon is capable of high-g evasive maneuvers. If it is, that would increase its resistance to interception even more.
The differences between high and low flight trajectories likely account for the different cited maximum ranges for the weapon. While some sources list its range as only 400km, President Putin’s recent address included the claim the weapon has effective range in excess of 1,000km. Moreover, should an air-launched variant of the Zircon be developed, which is rather likely considering the existence of sea-, land-, and air-launched versions of the Oniks, its maximum range should be well in excess of 1,000km, particularly if the launching aircraft is flying at high altitude and at supersonic speed.
Once operational, the naval variant of the Zircon will be deployed on all ships currently capable of carrying the Kalibr and Oniks missile systems, from 800 ton missile corvettes to frigates and even ships currently armed with the large Soviet-era Granit anti-ship missiles, namely the nuclear-powered missile cruisers and cruise missile submarines. It appears that, as in the case of Oniks, the primary mission is anti-ship, with a combination of inertial, satellite, and active radar guidance, with a secondary land-attack role. On account of its rather shorter range and smaller payload, it is unlikely to displace Kalibr as the naval land-attack weapon of choice. While there are reports that the Zircon could be used to target US command and control facilities on the Atlantic coast, the weapon’s range means the launching submarine would have to cruise uncomfortably close to US coasts and therefore risk detection and destruction in order to bring its missiles to bear. It is doubtful the Zircon would be the sole or even the main weapon used for conventional strikes against land targets in such a scenario, and there are no indications it is intended to completely or even partially replace the Kalibr. However, the Zircon would have one major advantage over the Kalibr in the land-attack role, namely its potential ability to destroy underground targets due to its extremely high speed, if equipped with an appropriate “bunker buster” warhead and launched on a plunging trajectory against its target. Kalibr does not have the ability to defeat such heavily protected targets, and while Kinzhal potentially does, it is an air-launched weapon only. Thus the Zircon promises to not only preserve the competitiveness and viability of Russia’s anti-ship weapon systems but also provide an important and so far lacking niche capability.
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Putin Reveals Zircon Mach 9 Missile Specification
https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/defense/2019-02-22/putin-reveals-zircon-mach-9-missile-specification
More info about the missile.
Not about the Zircon missile, but Russian military related.
‘We aren’t slaves’: Erdogan defies US pressure over S-400 deal with Russia, says S-500 may follow
https://www.rt.com/news/453206-s400-deal-erdogan-slave/
“It’s done. There can never be a turning back. This would not be ethical, it would be immoral. Nobody should ask us to lick up what we spat,” Erdogan told Kanal 24.
“We’re an independent country, not slaves.”
The fuss over the Russian deal is now even forcing Turkey to consider upgrading to the next-generation of Russian air defense systems, the S-500, once it enters Russian military service sometime in 2020, Erdogan said.”
The Turks have already sunk $1 billion into their f-35 purchase, from what I’ve read earlier, so this S-400 purchase represents a major change, given the u.s. threats about cancelling Turkey’s f-35 order.
The Thanatopians must be so annoyed that Russia alerted Erdogan to the plan to murder him when their coup went awry in Turkey. Any Austfailian politician would consider it an honour to lick up their own spittle on orders from Thanatopolis DC, but, even more delicious, would be to be allowed to lick up the Imperial spittle, or-bliss!-their vomitus.
From what I can understand the main purpose of this missile is to knock out the USA with it’s long range, very high speed and ability to launch from submarines in neutral waters.
Summarised – “The Americans have torn up the INF nuclear treaty which prohibited land-based mid-range conventional and nuclear missiles. Russians expect the next step for the US is to bring mid-range nuclear missiles aimed at Russia to Europe as they did in the 1980s.
Putin has made it clear if that happens, the Russian response will not be simply to deploy its own land-based missiles aimed at European hosts of American missiles as was the case in the 1980s, but to also park such missiles under the waters of the Atlantic aimed at the US. ”
The significance would seem to be that whereas historically the US always fought it’s wars in other peoples’ countries, now they themselves will be subject to attack.
“Putin said his naval response to such a move would mean Russia could strike the United States faster than U.S. missiles deployed in Europe could hit Moscow because the flight time would be shorter”
“They (the tensions) are not a reason to ratchet up confrontation to the levels of the Cuban Missile Crisis in the 1960s. In any case that’s not what we want,” said Putin. “If someone wants that, well OK they are welcome. I have set out today what that would mean. Let them count (the missile flight times).”
https://www.checkpointasia.net/putin-to-americans-you-bring-back-nuclear-missiles-to-europe-ill-park-mine-in-the-atlantic/
As far as I can understand this would seem to be zircons big advantage for the Russians. Hopefully the US might experience the same fear of nuclear war that other nations have for decades and help bring them to some degree of sanity.
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Good comment
I addition, Missiles prohibited under INF when placed in Kamchatka can easily reach much of North America and Japan.
Abolition of INF is a real mistake and stupid move with far reaching consequences.
RF plays chess, US plays roulette.
The US has lost the capacity to make peace. It is the enemy of peace anywhere in the world today. No one trusts the US now, and many are losing their fear of it. The louder the paper tiger tries to roar the more it’s weakness becomes evident.
A couple of important points here…the Zirkon missile is significant not as a weapon in itself, but more for its means of propulsion, which is a supersonic combustion ramjet engine, commonly referred to by the acronym SCRAMJET…this is important because to date no nation has been able to master scramjet technology, which basically holds the promise of revolutionizing atmospheric flight on a scale similar to the way that the turbojet engine ushered in a new global era of flight and air power…
First a brief history…the Soviet Union was indisputably the first to fly a scramjet engine in 1991…the Kholod test vehicle reached a speed of Mach 6.5 at a flight altitude of about 30 km and flew for 77 seconds…the US had been attempting a scramjet flight without success, and the political climate at the time of the Yeltsin regime made possible a technology transfer to the US of this scramjet engine technology developed by the Central Institute of Aviation Motors [CIAM]…here is a Nasa technical report about that…
https://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/pdf/88580main_H-2243.pdf
The funny thing is that despite this help the US is still not able to catch up to Russia in scramjet technology…if we are to assume that the Zirkon is indeed ready to go into production, as claimed…The US, despite a lot of hype over the years about various experimental programs, is forced to admit that they are not close to actually fielding a production scramjet engine…
Here is why scramjet propulsion is such a game changer….the reason obviously is speed…a turbojet engine is good up to about Mach 3, which is about 1 km per second…above that speed a ramjet engine must be used if the engine is to breath air instead of carrying its own oxygen tank like a rocket engine…the ramjet engine has no moving parts as the sheer speed of the air being rammed into the engine inlet is enough to provide a very high compression of the air [compression being essential for any heat engine, since there can be no useful work without pressure…and the compression in a jet engine being accomplished by means of rotating blades on a compressor wheel, or more accurately a set of wheels]…
The ramjet engine is notably used in the Russian P800 Oniks missile and the Brahmos derivative for India…and works very well in achieveing a MANEUVERABLE high speed flight vehicle…
Typically a ramjet will use a solid fuel rocket motor to accelerate it to speed and the empty rocket cylinder casing that is left after the rocket fuel burns out then becomes the combustion chamber for the ramjet engine…a ramjet engine typically flies at a speed of about Mach 2 or 3 in the dense lower atmosphere, but can reach up to a maximum of about 5…at which point it is impossible to go faster, since the ramjet must slow down the air it ingests, in order to burn it with fuel and produce thrust…
This slowing down of the airflow inside the engine to below the speed of sound [Mach 1] is what creates the ‘ram’ pressure to begin with…but past about Mach 5, slowing down the flow inside the engine is not feasible for reasons of physics…the pressure recovery achieved decreases as speed increases, so there is eventually not enough pressure recoverable to make thrust…think of blowing up a balloon only a little bit…when you let it go, it’s not going to jet around the room like a fully ‘pressurized’ balloon…
Therefore, the only way for an air-breathing engine to fly faster than about Mach 5 is by NOT slowing down the ingested air below sonic velocity…that’s what a scramjet does, and that’s why it’s called supersonic-combusting [the SC in scramjet]…since the flow inside the engine remains above the speed of sound, more pressure is able to be recovered…
The only problem is that it takes time for combustion to actually take place and a flow of air moving through an engine that is a few feet or meters long, will spend a tiny amount of time in that engine…not enough time for combustion to actually take place…
So this has been the challenge for many decades…if scramjet engines are perfected it would have massive ramifications for air power [and also eventually air transport]…imagine a piloted aircraft that can fly at say Mach 9, which is about 3 km/s [this is the high altitude speed given for the Zirkon]…that’s the speed of an intermediate range ballistic missile, only it can maneuver at will, instead of flying in a ballistic trajectory…there would be no way to stop such a flight vehicle…one side having such a technology would instantly turn the entire balance of power on its head…
What we have with the Zirkon, if the reports prove accurate, is just such a capability…right now this is a missile that is fairly small, and therefore its range is limited by the small amount of fuel it can carry…but if the scramjet vehicle is scaled up to a size that can carry even 30 minutes worth of fuel that would be a range of over 5,000 km…an hour’s worth of fuel would make that 10,000 km…two hours flight time would be enough to reach any point on earth, starting from any other point [ie antipodal]…
Of course these are still very early days for scramjet propulsion…the Zirkon may be able to operate on scramjet power for about five or six minutes…but like jet engine technology, it will gradually be perfected and its capabilities increased…
Incidentally, the key ingredient to the scramjet engine in the Zirkon may be about chemistry rather than anything having to do with aerodynamics or thermodynamics…namely the fuel that it burns…to date, scramjet engines [starting with the Kholod] have used cryogenic liquid hydrogen, for its fast combustion…but reports are that Russian researchers have developed a new kind of fuel compound for the scramjet…this may be the key breakthrough…although there are certainly many super interesting aspcts to the Zirkon that we would love to know more about…
So while the Zirkon may be a very interesting weapon in and of itself, the propulsion technology that it embodies represents a very fundamental leap forward in atmospheric flight…
The second point is that the term ‘aeroballistic’ used in this article to describe the Kinzhal missile, is wholly inappropriate and is a coinage of the western media…the Kinzhal and the Iskander on which it is based is fully maneuverable throughout its entire flight path, which is the exact opposite of the meaning of the word ballistic…which simply means a trajectory of a projectile in a straight line, affected only by gravity…such as a thrown rock, or a bullet…
I know this isn’t a reliable source but it appears some development work on SCRAMjet occurred in secrecy.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scramjet_programs
The more I think about it, this is the type of technology that would explain the high-g maneuverability of “observes” UFOs that was captured in military approved videos in the last year.
It’s of some interest that in the last couple of days two new developments have been made public.
One was that a “War Games” think tank in Washington announced that in recent gaming scenario, where US took on Russia and China in the South China Sea, US got “handed it’s ass” !!
The other was Shoigu stating that Russia was limited to “close to home defence only” fighting for a long time while she rebuilt after the US invasions and destruction of 1990’s, but that this is now no longer the case.
“We can take on anywhere in the world” he said.
This does change the complexion rather of possible future conflict scenarios.
what we dont know is how the US Pentagon war hawks are regarding it.