Which countries have hypersonic missiles? Hypersonic weapons: principle of operation, comparison with nuclear weapons
The battle for hypersound: Russia is years ahead of the West
RIA Novosti reported extremely interesting speech British Navy representative Paul Burke at the symposium Strategic Command US military forces in Nebraska. He said that the British military is closely monitoring the successes Russia has achieved in the field of creating hypersonic weapons. And I have to admit that scientists and designers Foggy Albion unable to even somehow come close to the achievements of their Russian colleagues.
This was followed by a stunning conclusion: any hypersonic weapons must, it turns out, be “regulated” international standards and rules." That is, since nothing works out for us, it is necessary tie Russia hand and foot. Of course, unilaterally, trying to push the decision not through the UN Security Council, where Moscow has the right of veto, but through General Assembly this organization.
But here's what's remarkable. The proposal did not meet with resistance from Burke's American colleagues. And this may seem strange. After all, for quite a long time the United States has been declaring its own major successes in the creation of hypersonic weapons. In a number of their programs to achieve missiles extreme speeds very serious investments are being made. Both financial and intellectual. But they remained silent when it came to putting this kind of development under strict international control! This silence, in my opinion, can only mean one thing: Washington’s indirect recognition that the United States is far behind Russia in this area.
The current rate of production of SLCMs does not allow us to even dream of a “quick global strike”
And this seems to be true. Since our country is already testing a specific weapon - a sea-based hypersonic missile "Zircon". The warhead of a promising intercontinental ballistic missile, Product 4202, maneuvering at hypersonic speed is also being tested.
Before assessing the state of affairs in the field of hypersound “with us” and “with them”, it would be nice to remember how the USA and Great Britain adhere to these same international norms and rules when we're talking about about creating their own fundamentally new weapons.
The British battleship Dreadnought, which appeared in 1908, became a ship of a new class that no other navy in the world had. Did London ask anyone for permission to build it and use it in combat?
The US provides us with more scandalous examples. This was not only a pioneering development nuclear weapons, but also its tests on civilians two Japanese cities. The Americans also distinguished themselves in Vietnam, using napalm, which led not only to the destruction of millions of people, but also to genetic changes that are manifested to this day.
The United States was guided by international norms and rules when it unilaterally withdrew from the ABM Treaty!
As for the “hypersonic race” itself, it was the Americans who were the first to get involved. In 1959, flights on an experimental manned aircraft began in the United States. rocket plane X-15, lasting until 1970. The highest speed that was achieved on it was 6.5 M.
Several more military programs followed that did not progress beyond the preliminary design. In the end, this direction was considered a dead end. The fact is that the X-15 used liquid jet engine(LPRE), which has proven itself well in space exploration. However, due to the fact that it uses liquefied oxygen as an oxidizer, located in tanks of limited volume, the duration of operation of the liquid-propellant rocket engine was limited; after a few seconds (up to a minute), the oxidizer ran out and the flight continued by inertia. And, as it turned out, the thrust of such an engine can be adjusted within a very limited range.
That is, a liquid-propellant rocket engine is like a sprinter who, after the start, squeezes out the maximum possible within a short period of time. Hypersonic weapons require a fundamentally different engine.
Trying to solve this problem(conditionally successful) was already produced in the Soviet Union. In the 70s, MKB "Raduga" began research and then development work to create Kh-90 missiles. In the late 80s - early 90s, she was already flying steadily at a speed from 3 M to 4 M. But in 1991, the country ran out of money. Then that country itself “ended.” And the project was closed.
But nevertheless, “Rainbow” developed and implemented a hypersonic ramjet engine (scramjet) in a specific workable product. Schematically, it is designed in approximately the same way as a liquid propellant rocket engine. But it uses atmospheric air, entering the combustion chamber from the air intakes. However, there are many nuances, such as the lower efficiency of air compared to pure oxygen. Another feature is that the scramjet engine begins to operate when the aircraft reaches a speed of 4 M. And this leads to the high complexity of its development and testing, as well as to complicated way launch.
Theoretically, a scramjet engine can reach speeds of up to 25 Mach, but the practical ceiling is lower - about 17 M-19 M.
An even greater breakthrough than at the Raduga Central Design Bureau was made at the Moscow Central Institute of Aviation Engine Building named after. P. I. Baranova (CIAM). Started here in 1979 Research work "Cold" to create a scramjet engine using cryogenic technologies. At the base anti-aircraft missile 5B28 from the S-200 air defense system, a flying laboratory was created, on which various options for constructing a scramjet were tested. The highest result was obtained in 1998, when the speed reached a value of 6.5 M.
After which CIAM, together with a number of co-executors, began to implement Research project "Cold-2". As a result, a speed of 14 M. But everything was limited to the construction of a model, which was shown at the MAKS-99 air show. And then, too, “the money ran out.”
It must be said that Russian designers We helped the Americans a lot, who then called us “friends.” All the test results of the flying laboratory on the topic “Cold” were sold to the Americans. A last test(in 1998) was carried out with US funding. In return, they received access to all the invaluable research materials.
As a result, in 2001, miraculously, without any research background, three experimental ones were built in the USA at once prototypes hypersonic vehicleX-41. In 2001, the first of them exploded. In 2004, in two consecutive tests, the speed was obtained 9.6 M. In essence, it was a flying laboratory that tested the possibility of achieving hypersonic speeds through the use of scramjet engines. The X-41 was brought into normal engine operation using a Pegasus rocket. She, in turn, rose into the air strategic bomber B-52. After the third launch of the X-41 the program was canceled.
And here the “friendship forever” with Russia ended. And each power moved on in its own way. Three programs have been launched in the United States. Two of them relate to the creation of engineless gliding vehicles that reach hypersonic speed due to the acceleration obtained as a result of descent into the atmosphere during suborbital flight. Accelerate the devices and raise them to the required height powerful rockets. We will talk about these experiments in more detail below.
The most famous overseas project- creation of another experimental hypersonic aircraft Boeing X-51. Its trials began in 2010. To date, the device has managed to reach a speed of 5.1 M, having flown 420 km. Launches are made from a B-52 bomber. The Pentagon calls the X-51 a cruise missile, or rather, a prototype of one.
However, this is not true. The competent American publication Popular Mechanics reports that main task of this project is to achieve stable operation of a scramjet engine, which is extremely capricious in operation. Tests are underway With with varying success : either the rocket, having covered the calculated distance, falls into the ocean in a given square, then it explodes shortly after launch, then it turns the wrong way and has to be destroyed remotely.
That is, this is a typical flying laboratory, and not a prototype.. It is assumed that, based on the experience gained as a result of the development of the X-51 project, hypersonic strike weapons will be created. Namely, a rocket airborne.
How are things going in Russia? Maneuvering cruise missile 3M22 "Zircon" sea-based is a specific weapon currently at the testing stage. The heavy nuclear-powered missile cruisers Pyotr Velikiy and Admiral Nakhimov will be armed with it. The estimated flight range is from 500 km to 1000 km. The rocket has already been accelerated to a speed of 8 Mach. Adoption is expected at the end of this decade or at the beginning of the next.
There is information that work is underway to create a modification of the Zircon for air-launching. In any case, during the Russian-Indian project to create a hypersonic missile "BrahMos" it is supposed to be done for surface ships, and for airplanes.
Meanwhile, in the USA there are two more projects that are based not on the use of scramjet engines, but on accelerating the aircraft powerful intercontinental missile and diving from near space while gaining hypersonic speed. These are the Advanced Hypersonic Weapon (AHW) and the DARPA Falcon Project. The first continues to develop sluggishly, the second is closed due to hopelessness.
The AHW rocket, in its only successful launch from the Kodiak spaceport in Alaska, gliding from space and guided by GPS, reached speed 8 M. At the same time, the flight was controllable, but not maneuverable.
Quite recently, in mid-July, it was reported that an Australian-American apparatus, made in approximately the same way, launched into space, rushed to the ground at a speed 11M. At the same time, it is not reported what share of the achieved speed belongs to the scramjet engine, and what share to the rocket that lifted the device to an altitude of 278 km.
It should be noted that all these projects are research character and are not directly related to the creation of specific hypersonic weapons.
As for Russian situation with the creation of combat maneuvering with hypersonic speed ICBM warheads, then it, like the Zircon, is being tested. Namely, tests, and not research into the possibilities of building such a device. This is “product 4202” or Aeroballistic hypersonic combat equipment(AGBO), developed, like Zircon, at NPO Mashinostroeniya. It is assumed that they will be equipped with promising Sarmat ICBMs. Tests have been carried out since 2004. According to various sources, from 5 to 7 launches took place.
The speed of AGBO is higher than that of Zircon - 7 M-12 M. The Sarmat rocket will be capable of launching up to three combat units. The flight, like that of the Zircon, involves maneuvering due to aerodynamic rudders at low altitudes, which makes the AGBO difficult to detect for radars. Stealth is also added by the fact that the block shrouded in plasma, absorbing and not reflecting signals from radar stations. Together with maneuvering with enormous overloads, this makes anti-ship missile, and AGBO practically inaccessible to modern and promising complexes PRO. Which obviously worries the West very much.
Thus, it can be stated: work on the creation of Russian and American hypersonic weapons is at different stages. We are undergoing testing in full swing before being put into service. So far they only have research papers. Experts believe that USA at least goes this route with a seven-year lag. This is precisely why there is talk about the need to clip Russia’s wings, at least with the help of bureaucratic mechanisms.
Cry USA: Sarmat is merciless, the elder brother of the Voivode
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The high rate of railgun acceleration is due to the work of electromagnetic Lorentz forces in the gun mechanism. They arise and begin to act on the projectile when two parallel current-carrying (minus and plus sign) guide rails are short-circuited after a very powerful but very short current pulse is applied to them. As a current-closing element, a special fitting with a projectile built into it or the projectile itself, lying on the rails and closing them, is used. Lorentz forces are directed to push the projectile out of the cannon, and it flies out of the barrel at hypersonic speed. The acceleration of the projectile is also facilitated by the pressure of the plasma, which is formed behind the projectile from the action of a powerful arc discharge. Plasma at a speed of 50-100 km/h acts on the projectile as a kind of powerful jet stream.
Rails are expensive and vulnerable
In American experiments to create electromagnetic weapons, as a rule, special form"shoe" in which the projectile is fixed. This design eliminates contact of the projectile with the rails. Guides made from silver-plated oxygen-free copper are highly susceptible to wear from friction and erosion. When using metal projectiles that perform a short circuit with their “body,” replacement of the rails is required after two or three shots.
The name “railgun” was invented in the 50s of the last century by Academician L. Artsimovich, a world expert in the field of thermonuclear fusion and high-temperature plasma physics. The plasma accelerator he invented was advanced to Nobel Prize, but the USSR removed the scientist’s candidacy from discussion due to the secrecy of the development.
The projectile itself is made of refractory tungsten. The high density of this metal allows even a heavy projectile to be made small, which solves the problem of placing ammunition in limited volumes of charging compartments or projectile magazines.
However, it is not only the rapid wear of the rails that prevents the railgun from turning into a superweapon; there are also other obstacles. First of all, these are power sources. The railgun requires a powerful power supply system in the form of unipolar generators, compulsors, and megawatt ionistor capacitors. These devices make it possible to generate a very powerful short electrical impulse transmitted to the rails. In laboratory conditions, one can put up with equipment units that are substantial in size and weight. In the navy, the factor of weight and volume is also not so significant: the ship has enough displacement to pack 130 tons of equipment in addition to the gun barrels themselves.
The Blitzer railgun manufactured by General Atomics (USA) is placed on two trailers - on one the gun itself, on the other - power plant. The development of EMF began in 2005 and was completed in 2011.
For ground-based military railguns, the problem seems more complex. If you placed the equipment on tank chassis, you would have to lead a 78-ton monster into battle. The solution was to distribute the installation between two car trailers (on one the gun itself, on the other - the “energy”), this option was implemented in the American Blitzer army gun. Another tractor-trailer was given to the control station. For food ship railguns(on the high-tech destroyers of the Zumwalt project there will presumably be two of them) a power reserve of the ship’s installation (reserved only for railguns) is provided for at least 35-45 MW. The energy should be enough to accelerate the projectile to 2000-2500 m/s. Then, having received a muzzle energy of 64 MJ, he will be able to fly to a distance of up to 400 km and, having saved 20 MJ of energy, hit the target with a powerful kinetic blow. It has already been calculated that such a projectile weighing 18-20 kg hitting an aircraft carrier will produce the effect of a nuclear strike.
32 Golfs on target
Army guns have a shorter firing range - 80-160 km, which is why the “energy” for shots will require approximately half as much as the ship’s. For reference: a Golf passenger car has an energy of 1 MJ at a speed of 160 km/h. A railgun projectile weighing 10 kg with a muzzle energy of 32 MJ at a speed of 2500 m/s is capable of piercing three concrete walls or six 12 mm steel sheets, which is equivalent in effect to an explosion of 150 kg of TNT.
Serious obstacles along the way widespread use railguns are resonance phenomena in the rail system and the effect of pushing the rails away from the action of Lorentz forces, electromagnetic compatibility with the electronic systems of the gun, the need to cool the barrel and electronics units, etc.
During full-scale testing, the need for rapid reloading of the gun was also identified to increase the rate of fire at at least up to 6−10 rounds per minute. This year, working in cooperation with American military-industrial complex The British company BAE Systems conducted firing tests at the US Navy training ground in Virginia. As the British say, in the next couple of years they expect to increase the rate of fire of their installation to 10 rounds per minute with a projectile weight of 16 kg, so this problem is gradually finding a solution.
Estimated projectile weight: 18 kg; Muzzle velocity: 2.5 km/s (Mach 7.5), twice that of conventional guns; Range: 400 km (for conventional ship guns- no more than 80 km); Projectile: destroys the target due to impact energy, explosives does not contain; Gun barrel length: 10 m
Indestructible electronics
The projectile has the most suitable conical elongated shape for hypersonics with a slightly blunt toe - this is a kind of pointed rod. The stabilizer in the tail allows you to keep the projectile on its flight path. The creation of such ammunition is another problematic area of the railgun program.
The United States has been developing a unified hypersonic HVP projectile since 2012, and today it is already undergoing fire tests. It is unified because it will be used not only in railguns, but also in ordinary ship guns of different calibers, which they want to leave mixed with railguns on the Zumwalt destroyers. The same ammunition will be used in ground guns.
To make the HVP suitable for guns of different calibers, it will be manufactured in sub-caliber versions with a projectile in the pan for each specific caliber. When the assembly leaves the barrel, the pallet breaks into pieces, and only the projectile flies further. In the 2015 tests, HVP was fired with a caliber of 90 mm and a length of 609 mm. The projectile itself weighs 12.7 kg, and the entire assembly weighs 18.5 kg. The remaining 5.8 kg is the pallet.
The projectile is placed between two conductive rails. The reinforcement protects the rails from direct contact with the projectile
They plan to make HVP projectiles adjustable in flight, for which they will be equipped with a precision guidance module working with a GPS system. The Americans said that they already have workable electronic systems controls that can withstand overloads of 30,000 - 40,000 g during acceleration, exposure to plasma temperatures of 20,000 - 25,000 degrees and electrical magnetic fields ultra-high power. There is evidence of successful tests of such projectiles in 2016. It is expected that full development of the HVP will be completed by 2020, and they will be transferred to series by 2025. The control unit will lead to an increase in the price of the projectile, which in its original (without electronics) version costs 25 thousand dollars. But it’s still significantly cheaper than ship-based guided missiles costing 0.5-1.5 million.
Three grams of monstrous power
The peculiarity of the American approach to the development of a railgun is a gradual increase in capabilities with the consistent achievement of improved parameters: projectile acceleration speed from 2000 to 3000 m/s, firing range from 80-160 to 400-440 km, muzzle energy projectile from 32 to 124 MJ, projectile weight from 2−3 to 18−20 kg, rate of fire from 2−3 rounds per minute to 8−12, power of energy sources from 15 to more than 40−45 MW, barrel life from intermediate 100 shots by 2018 to 1000 shots by 2025, barrel length from initial 6 m to final 10 m.
Such information is not officially published in Russia, but last year, First Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Defense Franz Klintsevich stated that work is actively underway in our country in the field of creating electromagnetic weapons.
The successful tests of a railgun (though not of a combat class, but of a laboratory class) in Shatura near Moscow, which were carried out at a branch of the Joint Institute for High Temperatures of the Russian Academy of Sciences under the leadership of Academician V. Fortov, are well known. A railgun with a barrel length of 2 m fired bullets weighing a few to tens of grams. Russian know-how—preliminary acceleration of a projectile before being fed into the barrel—allows for muzzle velocities higher than American ones. Thus, in January 2017, a projectile made of dense plastic weighing 15 g was accelerated to a speed of 3000 m/s and penetrated a metal target many centimeters thick. Somewhat earlier, a projectile weighing 3 g was accelerated to a speed of 6250 m/s (almost the first in space) and when it hit a steel target, it simply vaporized it.
China, according to press reports, is at the stage of research and development work, which is concentrated in the specially created CASIC corporation in scientific center Wuhan (WUHAN). Representatives of the PRC said that they are developing a ground-based railgun similar to the American Blitzer and promise to create a 130 mm caliber gun under Project 055A by 2020.
Lockheed Martin Vice President of Aeronautics Orlando Carvalho, speaking at the International Aerotechnical Congress and Exhibition (Fort Worth, Texas, USA), said that “the United States is on the verge of a hypersonic revolution.” What the new weapon was and what it will be, as well as how Russia will respond to US developments, tells.
Hypersonic weapons involve the movement of aircraft, such as aircraft, missiles or warheads, at speeds above Mach five (more than six thousand kilometers per hour). With such characteristics of motion in the boundary layer between the aircraft body and air environment the gas turns into plasma and the gas flow becomes turbulent. Due to such processes, the quantitative description of the phenomena characteristic of hypersound becomes significantly more complicated.
Moving at hypersonic speeds space rockets and ships as well combat units ICBMs are on the final leg of their trajectory, however, when they talk about hypersonic weapons, we are not talking about them. Promising weapons(airplanes, missiles or warheads) must travel at hypersonic speeds for most of the trajectory. It is believed that this will allow avoiding the impact of air defense or missile defense of a potential enemy, which in conditions Cold War has already provoked a technology race between the USA and the USSR, which the Americans won.
Sold in the USA individual elements PGS (Prompt Global Strike) initiatives, main goal which is a guaranteed strike on any point on the planet within no more than an hour. In particular, hypersonic cruise missiles X-51A Waverider are being developed with a flight speed of seven to eight Mach numbers, a range of about two thousand kilometers, and an altitude of up to thirty kilometers. Thermal protection of the rocket nose will be provided by a tungsten coating, bottom part protected with ceramic plates.
The effective dispersion area of the X-51A Waverider will be no more than 0.01 square meter. The lower this value describing the ability to dissipate electromagnetic radiation, the more difficult it is to detect the object. The missiles are planned to be launched from airplanes strategic aviation, demonstration weapons should be manufactured in 2020. Also in the USA they are working on kinetic weapons, which involves dropping a payload at high speed from a near-Earth spacecraft. The result is expected to achieve speeds sufficient to destroy almost any target.
However, Carvalho was most likely talking about other types of weapons. According to Aviation Week, the US military tested a prototype of the SR-72 hypersonic drone at the end of July; the flight of the device was accompanied by two supersonic training aircraft Northrop T-38 Talon. The tests took place at a test site in Palmdale (USA), where the Skunk Works team from Lockheed Martin, which is working on the aircraft, is headquartered.
According to Lockheed Martin's plans, a promising hypersonic drone will be able to reach speeds of up to Mach six (up to seven thousand kilometers per hour). The SR-72 should be comparable in size to the SR-71. It is supposed to be used for reconnaissance: the high speed of the device will not allow the enemy to intercept the drone. A full-scale working prototype of the SR-72 is expected to be produced before the end of 2020, and the development of a manned version cannot be ruled out.
The SR-72 is considered the direct successor to the US Air Force SR-71 Blackbird strategic supersonic reconnaissance aircraft, which was retired from service back in 1998. It is this device that holds the speed record of Mach 3.2 in direct flight. This model, despite the complexity of operation, is one of the most successful in the US Air Force. From the late 60s to the early 80s, the USSR was powerless to oppose anything to the SR-71; intelligence officers repeatedly monitored the country’s borders on Far East and the Kola Peninsula.
Soviet S-75 and S-200 air defense systems had disabilities to intercept the SR-71, and the third generation MiG-25 fighters were, in principle, useless to push back the SR-71. The time for data exchange between Soviet radars and the MiG-25 exceeded the time during which the SR-71 performed reconnaissance missions in close proximity Soviet borders. In addition, interception was possible only when the aircraft approached at a distance of about tens of kilometers.
The situation changed after the adoption of an interceptor fighter into service by the USSR fourth generation MiG-31 equipped guided missiles"air-to-air" with maximum speed flight of approximately five thousand kilometers per hour. Apparently, it was after the MiG-31 pushed the SR-71 beyond the borders of the USSR several times that the United States froze this program in the late 1980s. And the emergence of new modifications of the S-300 air defense system has made reconnaissance flights over the country’s territory simply dangerous.
Modern Russian air defense systems capable of intercepting the SR-72, but at altitudes only up to 50 kilometers. In addition, such systems (equipped with 40N6 and 9M82MV missiles) are far from the most widespread in Russia; they are not enough to protect everything at once airspace countries. However, this is not the most important thing. Lockheed Martin allows the SR-72 to carry hypersonic warheads with extreme speed characteristics and a small effective dispersion area.
Today Russia is powerless against such weapons. The situation is saved by two circumstances. Firstly, the SR-72 will enter US service (and this will probably happen) only in the 2020s, so, secondly, Russia has time to find protection. Hypersonic weapons will enter the Russian Aerospace Forces at the beginning of the next decade, the main means of deterring American hypersonic missiles should be the S-500 air defense system, but for now the development of military hypersonic aircraft (which can be classified as sixth-generation fighters) in Russia is carried out at the level of design documentation (although in the USSR similar technologies existed).
In addition to the United States and Russia, they are working on hypersonic weapons in China, where over the past four years they have tested the hypersonic glider DF-ZF (WU-14), which reaches speeds of up to Mach ten, seven times. The aircraft, like the Yu-71, is launched from an ICBM. Work on hypersonic weapons is probably underway in India, but there is a long way to go to finished products there.
Hypersonic weapons are an element of the American “third compensation strategy”, which provides for the use latest technologies and control methods to achieve an advantage over the enemy. If the first two “compensation strategies” were implemented exclusively as a response to the USSR, then the third is directed mainly against China. Most likely, in the field of hypersonic weapons in 2020, some country, apparently the USA or China, will short time will take the lead, but will quickly achieve parity.
On the completion of the development of hypersonic weapons that can operate in plasma. As Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Yuri Borisov noted, weapons require the use of completely new control systems and fundamentally new materials.
The nature of all military conflicts shows that the time from decision making to final result has sharply decreased: if earlier it was hours and sometimes days, today it is tens, units of minutes, and “soon it will be seconds.”
Hypersonic weapons are not yet in service with any army in the world. About specific samples Russian weapons Today it is quite difficult to say, they have not yet been openly demonstrated. But about the importance of owning such powerful weapon many experts are already saying. According to TASS military observer Viktor Litovkin, we need a “reliable antidote” against promising systems PRO.
Hypersonic warheads and missiles are one of the options for making us count. Not only today, but also tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. And, of course, the emergence of hypersonic weapons will require a reconsideration of the principles and tactics of their use. It’s worth talking about them when hypersound becomes a reality in army structures
Victor Litovkin
TASS military observer
At the same time, the expert emphasizes that “if we do not deal with this problem, we may find ourselves unarmed in the face of such military equipment that a potential enemy or competitor may have.”
Hypersonic speed
WITH a speed that significantly exceeds the speed of sound in the atmosphere. Hypersound starts at Mach 4.5. One Mach is 300 m/s, or 1000 km/h. Hypersonic speeds have been used by humans for quite a long time: for example, at this speed objects move that approach the Earth and pass through the upper layers of the atmosphere and land spacecraft(including with astronauts inside).
Continuation
The ongoing development of hypersonic weapons in Russia could produce immediate results as early as the early 2020s. The general director of the Tactical Corporation announced this in September 2016. missile weapons"(KTRV) Boris Obnosov to the Kommersant newspaper.
“A number of projects are underway with the Advanced Research Foundation under the Military-Industrial Commission. Believe me, we already have interesting results in this area,” he said. The head of KTRV noted that when working on hypersonic projects Russian scientists use the developments of the USSR - the research projects "Cold" and "Cold-2".
We all understand perfectly well that it would be simply impossible to make hypersonic weapons from scratch, although technology has reached the required level
Boris Obnosov
General Director of KTRV
First of all, “strategists”
Speaking about this topic, Litovkin notes that we are mainly talking about hypersonic equipment strategic missiles. Primarily intercontinental ballistic missile(ICBM) RS-24 "Yars" with a multiple warhead and a prototype of the new type RS-26 ICBM.
Their warheads, as follows from open sources, have the ability to fly to the target in the final part of the trajectory at hypersonic speed, almost like a cruise missile, changing course in altitude and pitch, also navigating the terrain
Victor Litovkin
TASS military observer
The RS-26 solid propellant missile, also known as Rubezh, is based on the RS-24 Yars. It is expected that it will be lighter than it, but will have improved combat equipment and a multiple warhead. Such missiles can only be launched from mobile complexes- there is no mine-based option for them.
The control test launch of the RS-26 was successfully completed in mid-March 2015. It was previously reported that already in 2016 the missile should enter service with the Irkutsk division. The re-equipment of the Strategic Missile Forces with the RS-24 and RS-26 is planned to be completed in 2021.
"Zircons" to "Eagles"
Most military experts consider the Zircon missile to be the main type of domestic hypersonic weapon. This rocket, like all other developments, is still in operation, going through the stages of design, bench and full-scale testing. It is expected that the hypersonic Zircon should be launched into production in 2018.
, seven times faster than sound!
Experiments in the field of hypersonic weapons allowed one of the largest weapons corporations in Britain, BAE Systems, to declare that by 2020 hypersonic weapons could enter service with the army.
The US Navy plans to adopt electromagnetic weapons - weapons capable of accelerating projectiles to record speeds, which will give a range unavailable today.
The first experimental samples should be manufactured by BAE Systems already in 2014.
The ship version of the innovative weapon may be ready for service by 2020.
- Projectile weight 18 kg
- The initial projectile speed is 2.5 k m / s (i.e. 7.5 speeds of sound), which is almost twice as fast as conventional guns
- The estimated range is 400 km, which the projectile must cover in six minutes.
diagram of the installation of hypersonic weapons on destroyers built using stealth technology
Modern guns have a range of no more than 80 km.
The projectile is capable of destroying a target only due to colossal kinetic energy, without the need for an explosive
The USS Zumwalt combat ship, created using Stealth technology, all of whose systems are fully electrified, is capable of providing energy for electromagnetic weapons.
Diagram of operation of an electromagnetic gun
An electrical impulse passing through the rails creates magnetic fields in them that are oppositely directed relative to each other. The projectile is placed between two conductive rails, in front of the fittings, which provide the necessary gap between the rails.
HOW THEY WORK Hypersonic weapon electromagnetic gun
Zamvolt-class destroyers are capable of providing energy for electromagnetic guns
The United States is already building Zamvolt-class destroyers to test hypersonic weapons technologies. Projectiles fired from electromagnetic weapons are already reaching hypersonic speeds. In the future, it is expected that the range of the guns will reach 400 km!
Why is a projectile flying at hypersonic speed so scary? It is enough to remember how the deceleration of the Chelyabinsk meteorite in the atmosphere ended.
At the same time, the material from which the shells are made (as in the case of a meteorite) is not explosive, which means that the ship (tank) is not in danger of detonation of the ammunition.
Of course, there are a lot of problems with “small forms” of using hypersound. A colossal amount of energy to power the gun, subsequent heat removal from the barrel ensuring cooling... But the very prospect of turning an ordinary piece of iron weighing 18 kg, charged kinetic energy into a weapon of targeted and guaranteed destruction is impressive. Isn't it worthwhile, having reached parity in this type of weapons, to agree on its ban? If we manage to achieve parity...or if we manage to agree on a ban.
After all, a shell fired at a nuclear aircraft carrier is capable of causing a catastrophe comparable to the use of nuclear weapons.