Russia has said it successfully launched a hypersonic missile described by Vladimir Putin
as an ideal weapon when he unveiled new armaments earlier this month.
The Kinzhal or Dagger was one of the weapons the Russian president unveiled in his state
of the nation address earlier this month, ahead of a presidential election on 18 March
that he is all but guaranteed to win.
In this video, Defense Updates ANALYZES RUSSIA’S NEWEST HYPERSONIC MISSILE KINZHAL.
Lets get started.
The defence ministry said, the Kinzhal missile was launched from a MiG-31 aircraft that took
off from an airfield in south-western Russia.
As per it, “The launch went according to plan: the hypersonic missile hit its target."
It released footage of two pilots preparing for a flight and then running towards a jet
carrying a large missile.
Set to rousing, patriotic music, the video showed a missile detaching from the airborne
plane and gliding across the sky, leaving a fiery trail.
This first Kinzhal test comes several months after the Brahmos-A (Air Launched ) supersonic
missile test on November 22, 2017 by India.
The missile project was completed by India with close cooperation from Russia.
The reported performance of the Brahmos was a top speed of Mach 3 and a range of 290 kilometers.
The deadly missile was launched from a modified Sukhoi Su-30MKI.
Kinzhal reportedly has a range of approximately 1,250 miles or 2000 km and a top speed of
more than 10 times the speed of sound.
According to the Russian president, units in the country’s Southern Military District,
which borders Ukraine and the Black Sea, have deployed the missiles operationally.
Russia had previously claimed it was working on a hypersonic anti-ship missile called Zircon
and computer generated graphics during Putin’s speech showed Kinzhal attacking surface warships,
though it also reportedly has a land-attack capability.
It’s unclear how the two weapons might be related, if at all, but Kinzhal could simply
be an air-launched derivative of the sea-launched Zircon.
In general, these types of weapons typically use a rocket motor to kickstart an air-breathing
engine of some kind to push them to at least Mach 6, making them harder for existing land-
and space-based sensors to spot.
Unlike ramjet engine which powers Brahmos, Kinzhal is expected to have a scramjet engine.
Both ramjet and scramjet are engines with no moving parts, rely on the enormous pressures
created by airflow into the engine to ignite fuel without needing the compressors and turbines
used in the turbofan engines found on conventional jet planes.
The scramjet is an innovation on the ramjet in which the combustion chamber is specially
designed to operate with supersonic airflow.
Scramjet is simply an acronym for 'supersonic combustion' ramjet.
The missile is also reported to be nuclear-capable. and able to hit ground as well as naval targets.
Dmitry Rogozin, the deputy prime minister, said on Facebook that work had been carried
out to modernise the “unique” MiG-31 that will carry the missile.
Since the start of the year, more than 250 sorties have been carried out by the aircraft
to perfect the missile system, the defence ministry said.
The reported 1,860-mile or 3000 km unrefueled range of the MiG-31 long range, supersonic
interceptor, gives the Kinzhal potentially intercontinental strike capability.
The choice of the aging MiG-31, that would probably launch the Kinzhal from +60,000 feet
at supersonic speed, is aimed at giving the missile much more reach than it would have
if launched from the ground.
As per some unconfirmed reports by the end of 2018, Russian Air Force will form an Aviation
Squadron with 10-12 MiG-31BMs especially modified for carrying the Dragger Hypersonic Missile
in one of its Fighter Regiments.
For now 6 MiG-31BMs are known to have been modified to carry the missile.
Total US military expenditure is over one-third of world military expenditure and its more
than 10 times (approx.) that of Russia’s spendings.
Russian cannot possibly compete with US platform by platform , weapon by weapon.
For example , US has more than 10 aircraft carriers where as Russia has only 1 , that
too is in very bad shape.
In this situation , Russia is developing Asymmetric weapons to counter the U.S.
Kinzhal is part of that effort.
Probably capable making rapid course corrections and otherwise flying erratically, the weapon’s
speed could make it very difficult for existing surface- and airborne radars to track in order
to cue an interceptor or other close-in defense system.
Kinzhal armed with conventional warhead could potentially be used to take out multi billion
dollar aircraft carriers or destroyers.
When armed with nuclear warhead, it can theoretically , decimate a US Carrier Strike Group.
The US defence secretary, James Mattis, said that nothing Putin showed off changed anything
from the Pentagon’s perspective, as he spoke to reporters as he travelled to Oman.
“I saw no change to the Russian military capability and each of these systems that
he’s talking about that are still years away, I do not see them changing the military
balance.
They do not impact any need on our side for a change in our deterrence posture.”