Do you know what the speed of this would be in the terminal phase (low altitude) ? Does it come straight down from above or does it come down and skim the water before hitting?
Shouldn't write everyone(who has a different opinion) off as bots though. Here is a question, Russia has actively demonstrated in this war that its anti-ship missiles are perfectly capable of targeting land targets. This adds an interesting twist with supersonic weapons delivering hurt to unexpected places. Does US have such an option available to its anti-ship missiles?
I love to see someone who is knowledgeable and authoratative in their field explaining concepts without patronising and treating their audience as semi-literates or infants. Such a refreshing change from current TV "documentaries" where a series of various token "talking heads" are paraded parroting scripts they've just been handed, written by someone who doesn't seem to fully understand the subject themselves. Keep up the great work Sub Brief.
The Aegis ballistic missile defense system demonstrated the ability to track a long-range hypersonic weapon during a non-intercept test executed in parallel with a March 2020 flight test of the Conventional Prompt Strike program, launching a simulated Standard Missile-6 against the actual hypersonic glide body during its 2,000-mile flight over the Pacific.
@@williamzk9083 Something I found interesting about the SM-6, well actually the SM-3, is the speed to which it flies... Mach 18!!! And from a MK-41 VLS tube no less! That in itself is actually pretty amazing, and shows just how much potential this old tube design still retains (along with all the vessels that use it). Considering it is flying at 3.5 times the officially declared “hypersonic” speed realm/capacity, and it’s a BMD missile only flying a little telescope as a warhead, imagine what it could do as an offensive platform with the contents of the nose cone “altered”... 😉
I would be realy scared if you had such a weapon, 300 years of history and only 12 years of peace, and yet you find that you have a moral highground to talk down to someone.
@@willyjimmy8881 it would violate the laws of physics. 8 seconds from detection to destruction is impossible. direct energy weapons need time. you are watching too much star wars
Well don’t worry, because these things can’t actually hit moving targets without slowing down to sub-hypersonic speeds, which makes them pretty easy for AEGIS to intercept. Phalanx isn’t really great for supersonic missiles, which is why it’s being phased out in favor is SeaRAM.
@@SubBrief 36 trillion in debt. Someone in the military commits suicide every 30min. Mass drug overdoses. Mass school shootings Homelessness Over a million people in jail %40 of Americans have no savings. So tough and belligerent.. 😂
@@josegil7835 ah, so you're here to right the wrongs in the world NOT because you're another bot with an algorithm for Zircon. Maybe you can explain how many more people would have died in the invasion of Japan had the bombs not been used? The Japanese were counting on the invasion and probably would have repulsed it. Our knowledge of these plans via Ultra was a primary reason we used the bomb. There was no other way for Japan except unconditional surrender. The "debate" was how many Japanese and Americans would have to die before the militarist junta running Japan would agree. We were reading virtually all of their diplomatic and military communications so were extremely well appraised of what Japan could do. You people need to educate yourselves on the use of the bombs since it's one of the most important events in human history.
The problem is it’s very difficult to develop a counter measure because it’s manoeuvrable! One worrying thing is that it’s too fast that it doesn’t even need to have a warhead as the impact would probably do just as bad a damage
The way to defeat that weapon is to try to befriend Russia instead of trying to wage war against Russia using proxies such as Ukraine and other potential destabilised countries by the US.
Oh absolutely. We should join hand in hand with Russia's war efforts. Perhaps we could liberate Ukraine and occupy right up to the Donbass? Or did you have something else in mind?
@@NikovK oh nope, I am on your side. Russia is not anyone enemies. We , the USA and NATO are the enemies of Russia. Russia just want go be left alone without getting worried about us destroying their culture, their land and their people. I am pro Russian all the way. This war made me realized how brainwashed we got in our country
@@NikovK We should have joined hands with Russia to find peace, to listen to the mutual concerns about each nation's security. The USA should not have used Ukraine as a tool to wage war against Russia, Russia did not start the war, this war started 8 years ago against Dombas from the fascist Ukrainian units. if you want to ignore history or facts, then you may find the Kinsal or the Zircon in your way
@@alexracoon4513 No, lets look to history and facts. Russia and America partitioned a country full of Nazis between them before. West Ukraine could enjoy half a century of economic development and Russia could enjoy rebuilding the war-torn Eastern side of the country. Russia is clearly struggling to denazify western Ukraine, so why not let NATO open a second front to do it?
Amazement or fear? Looked more like fear, to me. And thats alredy a win for Russia. But its nice to see a level-head USA expert actualy admiting that. Most of them are just full of bullshit, pretending they got the 'best militery in the world'. Reality is very diferent, and I think this guy gets it.
@@natalijalaonar8187 I'm not touching that with a 3m pole 😆 - but I get what you're saying! There should be a very healthy amount of fear & respect for the Russian navy & their amazing feats of military engineering.
Yet another reason for the Airborne Laser and other DEWs. At high Mach , it doesn't take much to disrupt a flightpath. If it does have issues with structural integrity at low altitude, melting off a winglet should be enough to splash the weapon.
YAL-1 was abandoned because it was useless as a weapon. Atmospheric bloom made its effective range way too short to achieve anything useful, and the reload time between shots of its chemical laser was measured in minutes at best.
@Fuzzle'd Youre probably not getting the range and accuracy required for CIWS with a bb gun. I suspect the solution will be more along the lines of missiles (which might deploy bb's or whatever) or lasers. Maybe CIWS with cluster ammunition, but against missiles this fast it might not be viable.
I really don't think you understand the energy required to penetrate the atmosphere at great distance, making interception of targets at any meaningful range close to impossible for the foreseeable future due to requiring a building sized farm of capacitors or a portable laser that's too weak to due anything more than blind sensors at short to moderate ranges. This is why as a previous commentor said the US's YAL-1 was abandoned. It's much better to develop more advanced missiles and multiple kill vehicles such as Lockheed Martin's MKV-L.
By the time the US has one Hypersonic weapon in service, all the various Russian Hypersonic weapons + Sarmat + Avangard + Poseidon + Laser + S-500 + S-550 are in service and integrated. The Russians are already testing upgraded versions of some of their Hypersonic weapon.
Actually thats not true, russians routinely state both that their weapons capabilites are higher/better/more advanced than they actually are, as well as the level of readiness and serial production that their weapons are at, essentially meaning that they are almost certainly 6months-several years behind what capabilites and what level and numbers of weapons they currently say that they have available. Also I flat out do not believe that they are already on the upgrades of whatever weapons youre talking about. They are most likely calling an actual serial, mass produceable version a "new variant/upgrade" hate to break it to you. Khinzal is the only "hypersonic" (really just an air launched BM with mayyyybe some slight maneuvering ability) that I assess they actually have ready, in production, with any real numbers produced and actually integrated onto a platform. In addition, the US is testing at least 4 different hypersonic weapons that I even know of and some will be ready very soon, which are actually going to be fully functional and in serial production when this announcement is made, and thats just going off of whats unclassified...
And all of that is not even taking into account all the slowdowns and even total roadblocks they are/will continue to be running into from sanctions that will slow down or totally prevent them from getting some materials they need to make and continue to design these weapons
Oh my God thank you so much for your insight into help with this lack of understanding that is pervading our people knowledge is critical here please make better effort to acquire accurate information especially in this subject it could be a matter of your life I'm speaking to the people who are assuming and training doubt and disbelieving anything could be capable of such claims well I'm sorry to say I wish there was reason there sadly is been shown not to be as it's been only this year as it was a little demonstration by our friend Mr Putin who said it all loud and perfectly clear! The game changing began in March primary high altitude 2.3 Mach speeding mate 31k was launched a Kinzhal. 1200 miles range.1meter accuracy.1to2 miles per second speed. 500kg high explosive (is also nuclear capable). In the mid fifties the Russians built a nuclear bunker in Ukraine that was 200 ft under solid Rock that was protection for your most valuable nuclear weapons. The ukrainians took it over and had it stored with high value you're not hypersonic missile the warhead becomes in all together intensifies by a factor of 119 times completely destroying the target. The second missile demonstration was a target that was essentially an unreachable target that shows how almost nothing is safe from this new weapon and the indefensibility of the weapon in both examples as it was clear our democracy has failed us this was demonstrated by Putin's attack on Ukraine with all his new weapons there's nothing he needs to worry about. China's behavior with this Taiwan situation shows that they are equally unafraid of us with good reason, df-17 missile being that reason and more weapons of theirs puts them and the Russians so far ahead of us that we should be thinking in terms of more careful how we affect them with our behavior and if you don't believe that that is how the situation is there aggressive nature and depressions of demonstrated that being the state of things at present. It's both parties that are at fault here for allowing our technology to fall behind it's time to make accurate knowledge available to everyone and motivate everyone to learn science and technology in politics accurately too where the facts will be the voters weapon . This Disinformation has got to go we all need to work towards that end.
Don't forget "plasma stealth" that happens at such high speeds ! But this works both ways, and this is why i doubt that active guidance is the prime guidance of it.. I bet they count on speed and reaction time to simply launch it on a "predicted" route and hope for the best, not ideal but if not detected, why a target would change his course ?? Last point; they are about (if not already) preparing some land-based version of it for coastal defences and India seems open to a partner program in the same spirit as the BrahMos
The stealth issue was solved. The missile has an antenna behind it, like one of those used by submarines in tow. This is partial solution, not ideal. The fully rounded version will be quantum communications, then they master it, if it can be fit inside. Cooling is an issue with that. But antenna works well enough for now.
There's many issues with an anti-ship application for hypersonics. The only practical use at this time, with this current level of technology, is as a tactical nuke. So maybe a nuclear-capable carrier killer but not much else. Russia would be better advised to develop better fleet air defense as shown by Moskva's experience with slow sea skimming missiles.
People get too hung up on the tactical application of this thing actually hitting anything. This is a strategic weapon that is never meant to be used. Its existence is justified simply by the question it poses. Even if an opponent force develops an intercepting technology that technology itself carries opportunity cost for alternative investments. Even after a countermeasure is developed and deployed, if you are the captain of a carrier battle group, how close are you willing to have your ships be to the Russian launch systems to test the capabilities? The fact that you now need to be further from Russian territory just to be safe even without being in active conflict is already a win. The fact that you now need to reformulate your naval doctrine is already a win. The loss comes when you have to actually use it in battle, because obviously these things are really only useful against superpower peers and in that war there are no winners.
Yup, but my God will the MIC get excited about a new reason to pocket some taxpayer dollars in pursuit of "symmetric response". Something also tells me that 1000 km is not the max range of this thing...
The President just needs to say “The limitations of our current technology cannot tell the difference between a hypersonic missile armed with explosives or a nuclear warhead.” Russia can then work out how lucky its feeling.
Strategic Capability cuz cost of Battleships and Carriers, both Material in their Construction and Political in case of a Sinking; not a Strategic Weapon. Maybe pedantic and nitpicky, bot possibly relevant.
Tell me one thing, please. How Zircon is going to find its target through a cloud of plasma? It's physically impossible. If it slows down on a last part of trajectory, it is going to be easy to take it down with SAM or even CIWS, because it will be still flying very high, not close to water surface. But even if we imagine, that Zircon would fly close to water surface (somehow) its just a regular Anti-ship missile like Onix or Harpoon
@@SubBrief Thats why i don't see any reason to discuss anything about Zircon until we see an actual footage of it. Even launch video in the beginning is most likely wrong. Check youtube, it looks exactly like Anti-ship Onix missile. Moreover, there is no photo of it at all. All pictures you shown are just copies of Boeing X-51 hypersonic rocket. You did a good job, probably, but its not a soviet magic yet, its physics
Are you a bott have you seen the footage in Ukraine of the Khinzal obliterating the building whit pint point acuracy you could saw only a plasma cloud and an impact which penetrated 80 m underground and raised down the multi story high building like nothing.
@@lowebooty4151 Say whatever you want, but there is no footage of kinzhal hitting anything. Like i said, no possible way that rocket will hit its target on a hypersonic speed. You should also remember that Khinzal is just a Air-based Iskander M rocket. The only difference between them is that Khinzal travelling to the target on a speed higher than Iskander (which is also hypersonic if u didn't know) and has a greater range. But they both hit target on a same speed (700m/s ≈ 2mach)
"Stealth plasma" is about as real as your hologram iphone. That isn't how it works. The plasma makes the missile blind, it does not make it stealthy. It sticks out like a blinding candle, that's why ballistic anti ship missiles never caught on in the west.
Hypersonic missiles have already been tracked on radar and an Airforce Institute of Technology study has already proven that plasma sheathes are primarily radar-reflective. The idea that they provide 'stealth' is literally just made up bullshit that continues to be parroted on the internet. What isn't made up, however, is the fact that plasma sheathes completely block radio transmission - meaning that a hypersonic missile cannot receive trajectory adjustments or new targeting info while in its march phase. Source: "A Computational Study: The Effect of Hypersonic Plasma Sheaths on Radar Cross Section for Over the Horizon Radar" by Zachary W. Hoeffner
NATO must have eyes on all the black sea fleet due to the announcement by Putin recently, this Zircon missile is truly the stuff of nightmares and things could escalate very quickly
I suspect they doubled the range by not having a war head. The maneuverability isn't side to side so much ,it's mostly acceleration/deceleration. If it's fired on a heading of 180⁰ it isn't going to deviate very far from that heading but because the scram jet can be throttled you don't how far it's going. Once it drops back into the lower altitudes it can start maneuvering , but every turn costs it speed. It's down to mach 3 by the time it's located it's target and locked on it. So basically this is a quick way to deliver a supersonic missile over a long distance.
Very interesting point. The delta-v of the missile absolutely is dependent on how much it weighs and how much specific impulse that engine has, among other factors. They might be able to hit something with it at 1000km yeah, key word, "hit", but with the very heavy warhead attached, that might actually be half that. The less efficient that engine is too the bigger this factor is the more that warhead weighs. This is all assuming, of course, they didn't have a warhead attached in the test... and assuming is never a safe bet
dagger have range about 1.200 miles and range reached because missile carried by plane and this plane can generate delta v using atmosphere oxygen. Planes with standard jet engines have absolutely crazy delta-v. ALSO if zircon uses SCRAMJET, then that missile have much more delta V than if booster is not air breathing Anyway if fighter!! plane can carry fully equipped hypersonic missile then possible to create solid booster with the same init delta v for reach the same condition for missile from conditions like speed=0m/s and alt=0 ft and only question is can this hypothetical solid buster and hypersonic missile be contained to standard vertical launcher or not Also I think 490 or so km was official range just because missile created while IRNFT was active and that was just pure lie to avoid another intermediate missile race or do not start that race long as possible
Directed energy weapon high altitude Aircraft/Dirigible mounted on patrol over CBGs, the Navy may need to dust off the books from the USS Akron and USS Macon, also mounted on ships.
You'd need an extremely powerful laser. The missile is maneuverable and very fast, which means it's going to be difficult maintain focus to generate burnthrough. It's also designed to take extreme heat, due to it's speed, so that makes head-on burnthrough even more difficult.
I am unwilling to just laugh it off or throw my hands up, it may be just pissing in the wind, but like the folks trying to defend against this I am putting everything on the table, and we will take them off 1 by 1, if this is nothing so be it, but it should be proposed.
@@kapitankapital6580 there are already lasers on some Naval vessels for drone defense. MIT has tested a plasma penetrating laser (wonder why) already, @SubBrief himself did a story on small portable nuclear reactors for the military aka air mobile/deployable. The limitation may be the traverse mechanisms but Is it really so far fetched?
The Russians would probably be interested in an arms control agreement to return to the type of stability before NATO moved too close to their border. The Russians are worried about US missiles like this being placed in Ukraine because that puts them too close to Moscow like the Pershing II was before the treaty on intermediate range missiles. We should not have overthrown the Ukrainian government in 2014 and replaced it with one that depends on Nazis to prop it up. NATO clearly built up a Ukrainian army that is strong enough for the Russians to consider a threat. The neocons were determined to have a proxy war with Russia. It is a stupid idea since Russia can wipe us out if things escalate out of control. We have forced Russia into an alliance with China when it had been seeking good relations with the West. We would have been better off to keep Russia neutral or friendly to us. China can now buy missiles like this for their navy. It will be harder to blockade China if Russia has its back.
There was one... the ABM Treaty (Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty) but the US unilaterally decided to exit the treaty. The danger of first strike with no reaction time was precisely the reason for the Ukraine conflict. Russia has been warning NATO since 2004 about it's unequivocal refusal to accept strategic NATO weapons in Ukraine with 5-minute strike capability on Moscow.
Yeah, it's our dream having an upper hand both in offensive and defensive rocket technology and gave it up to US in exchange for constantly broken promises xD
Hopefully the decision makers are taking this one seriously. I have my doubts, but we should make every effort and treat this new capability as if it is 100%. If it ends up not working as advertised well then great but if it does than at least we have some counters. Either way the protection of the fleet must be priority. The US needs to expand/speed up work on missile technology as it seems like we fell behind in the last 20 years.
Even if the russian zircon wasnt a functional weapon, the chinese version probably will be at some point. Heck, supersonic missiles already got hardly any counters. Its frankly over time for all western powers to get their own supersonic cruise missiles and think about more advanced missile defense.
Without the dollar and with the debt what will we do. Perhaps there's an integrity issue within the power structure. Seems they can't balance a checkbook.
The key is what speed does it approach at, flying at mach 9 at 120kft is the aerodynamic equivalent of flying 66 knots at sea level, yes 66 knots (think my maths are correct). That's why it can go so fast, but at 100kft the amount of drag will increase 5 fold and at sea level 100 fold. So it could easily end up at a terminal speed within the incept capabilities of an SM-6. Also at these speeds any manoeuvres are limited by Gs, and it's unlikely to be able to pull more Gs than an intercept missile.
I don't understand this simple thing, if an ICBM in it's reentry stage to terminal phase can have speed of Mach 20, why can't a hypersonic cruise missile retain it's speed, when definitely it's diving down on it's target from 130k ft?
If we assume the missile does a semi vertical dive in it's terminal phase, isn't it more probable that it can retain it's hypersonic speed? At the outer limits of this missile's range, the scramjet will be off, but if the target is closer, the engine is likely to be active. More probability of retaining hypersonic speed. Doesn't the Kinzhal also retain it's hypersonic speed in the terminal phase? Is that due to its vertical dive/ballistic path? Curious.
I'm stuck in the 60's. If even one hypersonic missile was launched at my group, I'd give the command to launch EVERYTHING immediately and commence combat. And call HQ afterwards. Right now the best defense is still flack. Either, a ship mounted chain gun throwing a cloud of bullets in the path, or a proximity based fragmentary antimissile.
I notice you didn't mention the concept that this is in effect possibly a stealth weapon by default also. The hypersonic speed develops a plasma shield around the missile which significantly reduces the radar cross section. Not sure how this affects the missile's own passive/active radar targeting systems.
I’m somewhat curious about the fact that maneuverability is rarely discussed in detail. At those speeds (Mach 5+) even the slightest move of the control surfaces creates big changes in direction. Definitely hard to intercept, but is it precise?
It's just the opposite. At mach 5+ it takes massive inputs to impart a course change. An object in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by an equal or opposite reaction.The greater the momentum, the greater the force required to alter that momentum. Drive 100mph and yank the steering wheel all the way over. You'll continue going mostly straight. Drive 10mph, yank the steering wheel all the way ove, you'll turn 180° in under a second.
Great video and analysis. One of the Russian navy commanders stated that final version of Zirkon will have maximum range of 1500 km, when all tests will be completed and the missile will be mass produced.
@@andrewhomo2461 Except only the Russian military has been exposed as a giant paper tiger. They wouldn't last a week against NATO, heck, I believe France or the UK could beat Russia one on one (or if it went nuke, tie).
@@andrewhomo2461 Well then we all lose but regardless we can't let Russia continue to act the bully because of the possibility Putin would end the world. Personally I think that order would be refused.
Great video Mr Bragg! I am a decades long reader of military technology. Glad to see good work, thanks for letting people know how they work. I do, lol! Have a Blessed Day
It's important to remember that if Zircon is doing those maneuvers, it has to be supersonic, not hyper sonic. The plasma cone caused by the ram pressure on any hypersonic lights it up like the belly of the space shuttle. It's a screen of plasma that is really hard to see or communicate through. Aside from the fact that maneuvering hard will cause the missile to fall below hypersonic speeds, the missile's detection systems for counter-countermeasures will operate sub-optimally. Supersonic is still really hard to deal with, but the SM series has been engaging supersonics for a good while now. That seems to be the issue with hypersonics. They still suffer from the same drawbacks as regular missiles. You're really paying for a sort of taxi service to get them into range at much further distances, because the speed of the hypersonic allows it to react to targets of opportunity and to support engaged allies from farther away and still be effective in a real time environment. But all the hypersonic did was get your missile there in a timely manner. I don't know, but I have doubts AEGIS cant already detect and track a hypersonic. So SM6 is actually not a bad choice for countering hypersonic missiles. That increase in performance has costs that the SM6 and AEGIS can be used to exploit.
Interesting point. But, do the missiles really need to maneuver hard, down to supersonic speeds? Semi-hard maneuver at hypersonic speeds won't work you wanna say? Take the following parameters into account: The missile's range is 1000km, and the target is at 700km. The scramjet will probably still be active.
So it uses a hypersonic sprint to get to the target area where it slows down to supersonic speeds to maneuver? Kinda like their Supercavitating torpedo
@@saqibshafin If it's still hypersonic, it won't be able to see the target. You would need to be painting the target for the missile using short wave radar, which would mean the painting platform is within range of the carriers defenses. Otherwise, there isn't a way to give the missile accurate targeting information. Also, it makes the missile MORe vulnerable, since it cannot dodge SMs at those speeds.
at the moment, about 30 thousand mercenaries from Europe and America's allies have been recorded, some of them have returned back to their countries, some have been destroyed, you can read the posts of these mercenaries on the Internet.
We also have to remember that the SR-71 Blackbird at 4 Mach if it needed to turn it needed an area the size of California to turn, I don't think at Mach 9 something is maneuverable.
true, although the SR-71 had a hard limit of 3.5 Gs maneuvering force; a missile designed for 60 Gs would be able to turn a fair bit sharper even at higher speeds
7:09 But the closer it comes, the less it can maneuver and hit the target. Unless it has a nuke a miss is a wasted weapon. They haven't used one with a nuke yet but...
That's the main reason why weapons like the DF-17 have been faster to develop than western versions. If you are arming them with a thermonuclear warhead it doesn't matter if they aren't accurate. If your hypersonic weapon is armed with high explosives, your aim better be good
I'm quite skeptical of Russia's "tests." That's not to say we shouldn't take this weapon seriously. However, at 120k feet, this missile is easily decteable and targetable by modern air defenses. Of course it can "maneuver" but any maneuvers will cause this thing to lose energy and make it harder to hit its target. Not to mention, hitting a moving target at that speed is extremely difficult.
Belligerent nation? There is no more belligerent nation than USA. Also I want to state that considering the time of reaction - the US moved it's nuclear weapons closer and closer to Russia, lowering and lowering the response time Russia has. So here you go, right back at ya. One of the reasons the operation i Ukraine started, was the fact that Ukraine intended to join NATO and Zelensky started talking about getting a nuclear weapon. Again - shortening the decision time Russia would have in a nuclear war.
Hello from India. I totally agree, belligerent nation is only USA. Only nation in the world who used nuclear, only nation who have been attacking, invading sovereign, independent nation illegally is the USA. USA is the only nation in the world , everyone must deal carefully and better to keep distance, , look currently what happened, supporting USA for world hegemony, Ukraine European nations got effected.
Here's my thoughts. To defend against these missiles, it's more/less impossible to do so during the flight stage as it can manoeuvre at hypersonic speeds. The thing is, the closer the missile is to the ship, the more predictable it's path will be. Same applies for how far away it is launched. The further away the more predictable it will be in its terminal phase as it has run out of fuel to manoeuvre. This can be exploited. Think active protection system like on a tank, but on a ship, and on a much larger scale and of course redesigned for it's purpose... that's where this will go imo
@@nutzeeer That's pretty much what I'm saying. But that specific system will need to be reworked because getting it to work on a RPG round or ATGM is one thing man... getting it to work on a hypersonic telephone pole is another...
@@Tuck-Shop Agreed. It's at the point where any defence is good defence until we develop better technology. I'll cop hypersonic shrapnel to the hull to avoid having that warhead detonate inside the hull any day. Edit: Also, owing to the trajectory these take in their terminal phase, I'm calling it right now, you are going to see radical new hull designs that take this into account and attempt to deflect such shrapnel buy removing the typical superstructure you see sitting on a flat "deck". The time of the flat deck is over.
These missiles travel so fast that they'll be close to red hot down closer to sea level. Presumably, they have some sort of an ablative coating like the reentry shield on spacecraft carrying away the intense heat. That means they'll be the hottest object in the sky except for the sun. Instead of the slow back-and-forth scanning of the doppler radars used in CIWS systems, maybe they need to be directed by real-time operating analog computers processing data from passive infrared sensors, thus speeding up sensing and tracking. The obvious counter to that would be to always launch your hypersonic missile with the sun behind the incoming round relative to the target.
it's irrelevant. earth isn't flat. as soon as it gets detected it takes a second to reach the target and countermeasures can't be deployed in time. and radar detection time vs optical isn't any problem. radars work just fine. and the sun is irrelevant. the sun isn't inside earth atmosphere it doesn't have any logic. you might want to learn a thing called laws of physics.
@@riskinhos Oh, well. Internet poster says we're all doomed DOOMED!!! That's the creative, problem solving spirit! p.s. There are no ships to plow into outside of the atmosphere.
@@abrahamdozer6273 the SPY-1 panels on a DDG-51 are 20m above the waterline. a missile sea-skimming at 5m above the water, clears the horizon at about 25km. zircon travels at 10'000km/h which is about 3km/s. that's about 9 seconds to detect, direct, launch, engage and destroy it. and that's just for 1 missile let alone a salvo (kirov class carries "only" 72 of those). PLUS it's manoeuvrable. good luck with that. not gonna happen. it's physics and math.
@@riskinhos I'll bet that you're a Russian. that would explain why you think that the biggest infrared emitter in this part of the universe is outside the atmosphere and therefore irrelevant and not detectable by infrared sensors (see how long you can stare at the sun.. it's outside the atmosphere and therefore irrelevant). You know ... the effects of childhood malnutrition due to third world impoverishment ...
@@riskinhos That missile aint gonna be able to hit squat that isnt glued to the floor. It wont hit a moving target. Thats just wishful thinking. It will be blind when its hypersonic, and not very maneuverable when supersonic so if the ships are evading the same benefit it has with speed also becomes a detriment when you have less than a few seconds to acquire, lock, move, and hit. I call bull on its abilities to hit anything that's not static.
My understanding is that hypersonic missiles as the Zircon have to slow down somewhat when entering the Troposphere as otherwise the vehicle will be destroyed by rapid atmospheric ablation of the forward part of these missiles as mach numbers above 3.0.
if they tested it at 1000km range, it probably can go 1500... And of course the speed is also going to make interception a lot harder. Not just because of the reduced reaction time, but also because an interceptor missile is going to find it a lot harder to intercept the target. As a hypersonic kill vehicle, I'd guess the attack profile is going be (mostly) vertical. Even if the engine no longer works, if it is coming down at Mach 9 from 100k feet it's going to hit at Mach 5-6 so even if it were to be designed to eject the engine and just have a kinetic kill vehicle it'd impact with enough energy to go right through and leave a big hole under water, big enough to have at the very least a mission kill on the target vessel and likely to kill it. This is basically the same kill profile as probably used by the Chinese DF.17 anti-ship MRBM (which without the optional hypersonic kill vehicle for it is slower). And of course 400kg is plenty for a small nuclear warhead as well, probably in the 20-50kt range. Large enough to not even have to hit the target ship directly. Detonate several hundred meters over the target fleet and you have a mission kill on an entire strike group from the blast alone, not even counting the damage from the gamma and heat pulses to electronics and crew, and the contamination from fallout (which wouldn't be very much from an airburst of that magnitude).
At those speeds, it requires an insane amount of energy to maneuver. So I am doubtful it can actually hit anything smaller than a carrier or something that isn't stationary. That being said, time will tell if this is a legitimate threat? or only a theoretical one.
russian navy has carrier killers supersonic missiles from late 60s/70s that make sure the US navy has 0 interest to do battle with them. Now hypersonic missiles make carrier obsoletion all the more compelling. So there is a good reason americans dont wanna mess with russian missiles. Missiles make surface fleets look like nice juicy targets.
It doesn't have to maneuver sharply to throw off an intercept though. Even a couple degrees' course correction will mean an intercepting missile is off by miles when we're talking a merge speed of Mach 12 or more.
TBH, it's probably CVNs that are it's primary target, and if you catch them during launching phase, not a whole lot of maneuvering it can do with just 6m of warning
@@GintaPPE1000 That means that if you launch an interceptor at the last minute, the missile will have to do the couple degrees of course correction, and then be off the target by miles. Then have to maneuver sharply to get back on target.
The hypersonic missile will be to the aircraft carrier what the carrier bomber was to the battleship in the 1930s/40s. End of an era for large surface vessels.
Is it a step forward in ASW weapons? Absolutely. Is it the wunderwaffen the media (all types) likes to pick it up and portray it as? No. Somehow people seem to imagine Gundam Wing Zero hypervelocity missiles dancing around like dragonflies during terminal phase which is so far from the truth it's not even funny. The main improvement of 'hypersonic' weapons is it shorten the engagement and thus counter engagement window. They aren't immune to counter engagement just more difficult. And like any threat they will spawn development of suitable counters if cost vs. reward and the laws of physics allow.
It would be a real trick to launch a torpedo aboard a hypersonic weapon, then deliver it to a target area without destroying it on impact with the water. There would have to be a way to decelerate it enough so a parachute can take it to the water's surface intact. Given that space probes have achieved this feat, I have no doubt developing a hypersonic ASW missile is possible. Whether or not it's practical is another question. I imagine it would be easier to use a hypersonic missile to deliver a nuclear depth bomb than a torpedo, like the old ASROCS the U.S. Navy had decades ago.
Russian and Soviet weapons have had a generous dose of hype and propaganda. Anyway, I have a few thoughts: A) It launches and flies spectacularly but can it actually hit a moving sea target without tearing itself apart? Have the Russians actually demonstrated it hitting a moving target in a SINKEX? B) This has a relatively short range of 1000 kilometres. That doesn’t qualify it as a strategic intercontinental threat. The risks of launch on warning are not the same with those of launching nuclear armed ICBMs. C) Now reflect developments on such weapon technologies over the next ten years. It will be possible to arm destroyers and submarines with such weapons to shoot 1000 kilometres away. A submarine for example could launch a dozen of such missiles against a carrier group from a very long distance. You won’t be able to conduct ASW that far away and the window of reaction would be too small. D) The defence against such weapons would include the means to suppress and destroy the supportive means of detecting and tracking friendly assets, as well as jamming communications of targeting data. For example shooting satellites and jamming communication to the launch platform.
Scale it down - making Ma5 with 500km range still makes it something to contend with, and engineering difficulties for building such thing decrease exponentially. BTW: 1000km is JASSM-ER equivalent.
@@alpham777 Exactly. So launch on warning can be applied here. In fact, because the speed of these weapons is so fast, there should be a “launch on warning switch” which should be turned on/off depending on the rules of engagement and the situation. Assuming it is on, then the ship’s computers should take over the decisions and actions.
A) I newer found any evidences about moving data. So it's unproven capability B) Dagger have 2000 km range, what the problem with 1k range? Hypersonic is very dim for IR sat's you can find open data about this problem, so alert will not be emitted and problem about false alert is not exists. C) Yep and next gen ship will be small and possible it will be unmanned drones. Better if rowboat will carry hypersonic missile container than if you have heavy cost Yamato-2 with 50km fire range. D) destroying or jamming strategic sats means starts full scale nuclear attack if automatic systems like Perimeters have algorithms Cold War era based. So Perimeter computer detect sat was destroyed, thats a sign full scale nuclear attack so system engage full scale nuclear attack too. also drones can make alot of problems for ships. If you buy 1000 drones like tb-2 against several ship you can make a big problem for enemy fleet. Yep tb-2 have limited range of control(but drones can carry relay), but you can launch drones to find ships and then transmit by shortwave or direct microwave their position. Also ships defense system will be heavy overloaded What's happend if next generations drones will be cheap big radotransparent plastic planes with solar panels on their winds, and capability to infinitive flight on 15km alt and navigations by optics(by landscape shapes, sun, stars, and very good clock)? What's happend with ships strategy if someone will create thousands of that?
Lasers cannot be used to defeat hypersonic weapons, a laser beam can get to the missile fast but it cant destroy it fast, it takes several seconds to burn a hole in a large object like a missile and keeping it focused on a fast moving, far away object has to be nearly impossible.
while a valid concern lasers would be more effective than you think. this thing will be smoking hot already and any disruption could cause it's heat shield to fail. Imagine hitting red hot steel with a torch vs cold hard steel......its going to be red hot at mach6+
@@southjerseysound7340 It'll be designed to sustain high heat. Pointing a laser at it is like adding a 2nd blow torch to something already being blow-torched. Maybe the laser could damage its guidance instead, but IIRC the laser range is very small and by the time it could damage the radar, there's probably not much time left for it to go off course.
@@CheddarBro not really. The problem is that higher powered lasers will suffer much more from atmospheric attenuation and bloom than lower powered ones. That's what killed both the Soviet Sary Shagan installation (they abandoned that one when figuring this out) and the US YAL-1 concept. Lasers are interesting weapons, but unless in a vacuum are really effective at shorter ranges only. By tuning the frequencies depending on atmospheric conditions, and using extremely complex real time adaptive mirror systems, you can make some gains, but such systems are extremely complex, expensive, and large and unlikely to fit on any but the largest warships (it wouldn't fit on a Burke for example, unless maybe you'd strip it of everything else and just had 1 such laser on the fantail that's give you a range of a few nautical miles).
_Lasers cannot be used to defeat hypersonic weapons_ A bold statement, like the world market for computers is 5 or you cannot shoot a projectile out of the air. _a laser beam can get to the missile fast_ Literally at light speed. _it takes several seconds to burn a hole in a large object like a missile_ That is "merely" a question of how much power the laser deposits. Which in turn comes down to mirror size. _keeping it focused_ Well, try shooting from a fast moving ship to hit another fast moving ship, both of which may manoeuvre, with flight times of several dozens of seconds. _a fast moving, far away object_ that is coming practically in a straight line towards you. Head on shots rarely suffer from high angular velocities. _has to be nearly impossible_ *has* to be? That sounds more like personal incredulity. The correct phrase for _nearly impossible_ is "possible (may be hard, though)".
I believe the US Navy should be concerned about these missiles but there are several situational awareness type issues that make them much less scary in my opinion. 1. Targeting: How is the Russian frigate or destroyer going to target an aircraft carrier that far away. The answer is, it can't. They can fire blind or along a very rough threat axis. Almost certainly missing. 2. Aircraft Carrier Paranoia: Navy carriers are extremely cautious about what is out there. Especially surface and air threats. Almost certainly, the carrier will know the location of the frigate or destroyer long long before the threat ship has any meaningful info on the carrier. The missile might travel at mach 9 but the ship that targets and launches it is pretty much limited to 30 knots or so. Believe me, the carrier will not allow a threat ship to close the gap and acquire them as a target. 3. Minimum Range: And what is the minimum range of these new missiles? If they have to reach very high altitude to be effective then the min. range might be beyond the targeting range of Russian technology. Mach 9 speed needs space to operate. 4. Submarines: I still believe the greatest threat to US Navy carriers is enemy subs.
@@JohnRodriguesPhotographer Both are things to be concerned about. But I think the Navy could handle both. The radar on current Arleigh Burke destroyers can supposedly simultaneously track more than 100 objects the size of golf balls from 100 miles away. And the newer radars on the flight III Burke's will be 30 times more powerful. I am not aware of a foreign UAV that can travel long ranges (up to 600 miles) with better than that level of stealth and send targeting data undetected. Regarding RORSAT. Most Burke destroyers can carry SM-3 Block IIA missiles (range: 2500 km., speed: mach 16-18). Designed to take out ballistic missiles and ICBM's. So taking out a satellite should not be difficult. Whether a SM-3 Block IIA can handle a Zircon is a different question. Reaction time probably crucial. But if a carrier detected a radar signal from a RORSAT targeting it. I suspect an escorting destroyer could easily (and quickly) take out the satellite.
Question: why can't we container-ise VLS cells, and put them on container ships? i.e. take the warship (and very valuable sailors) out of the equation, and treat these readily-available container ships as drone missile trucks?
You could probably upscale or modify something like the Danish StanFlex to fit your needs, then mass produce such plug-n-play cells and field them as required. I have a nagging suspicion the usual NATO problem of "if it isn't an American system sold to other countries, for why it can't be adopted" would hinder such efforts.
I've heard that at these speeds the missles are hard to track due to the plasma envelope it creates. If that's true, how can the onboard radar operate?
The Pershing ll missile also has this problem, it flew at Mach 9 at about the same altitude too until just before it reached its target area. It would then do porpoise moves, bleeding off speed until it was below Mach 4.5 where the plasma would dissipate and its radar would work. I’m guessing the Zircon also performs a similar maneuver since he pointed out that the scram jet would tear itself apart in the lower, thicker atmosphere?
@@Middle-Eastt … Not really, it’s just physics, as smart as the Russians are, they can’t change this. As speed increases, the efficiency of a ramjet starts to drop as the air temperature in the inlet increases due to compression. As the inlet temperature gets closer to the exhaust temperature, less energy can be extracted in the form of thrust. This is why ramjets at lower altitudes due to air density are restricted to Mach 3.
@@JimCOsd55 !! I knew I should have tried harder in that Thermodynamics class! This seems like an important point about Ramjets that hasn't come up before.
I'm a skeptic. I'm sure the prototypes they have produced for these test are marvellous missiles, I don't doubt the design. I'm skeptical the Russians can actually field these missiles in large enough numbers to be effective. The events in Ukraine have shown that the Russian Military Industry is rotten to the core. The corruption at every level has left their military forces completely inept. The Russian Navy can't properly maintain their ships, how are we supposed to believe they can build these missiles in numbers, send them out to working ships or ground stations, and then maintain them?
I'd also like to see them shoot at something other than a pre-prepared target, that is maneuvering beyond the horizon. How does Russia see and track the target in real time? and how maneuverable is this hypersonic missile? when at hypersonic speed, you can't maneuver aggressively without risking self-destruction.
Keep watching CNN. Russia is cleaning the floor in Ukraine. I repeat, Russia is cleaning the floor in Ukraine. The Ukraine army was destroyed in the first weeks. Its taking all the supplies of western nations put together to keep Ukraine going and they're still losing. I repeat. Russia is cleaning the floor in Ukraine !
This sounds like it's both an anti-ship and a land attack missile. BOTH use RADAR to find and hit their targets. As for it's engine not being able to work at low-altitudes and possibly destroying the missile in flight, there is a solution. Why not jettison the engine section at the apogee of it's flight and leave the forward section with movable vanes to dive into the target? ICBM's do this, I see no reason why the Zircon's payload couldn't separate from the booster once it enters the terminal phase of flight. That would present a smaller but still maneuvering target that would not be predictable until it hits. The engine section can also poop out decoys to present false targets for the intended target's RADAR and other detection gear to make it even harder to identify the warhead section before it hits.
Taras, your comment is treading into sensitive information, imo. Let's not continue. For the record, I have no idea if you're ideas are correct. Let's go watch cat videos, those are fun.
@@SubBrief No worries........but I was making logical deductions about how the thing could work. I know NASA successfully tested a SCRAMJET engine in flight successfully some years ago. Maybe this technology will instead take people into space instead of destroying things.
If lasers get masterd virtually all missiles will become useless by burning the missile up just before it hits it target. It is easier to destroy a missile coming at you than it firing away from you.
Advanced Laser defense battery systems in the upper atmosphere as well as the ground need to be created with rapid firing generators capable of engaging multiple targets. The accuracy must be within inches.
Maybe with Russia being able to leverage this new weapon we may want to actually negotiate in good faith instead of shitting all over previous agreements such as the Minsk accords. The downside side of negotiations is that the “Big Guy” may not get his cut. Good work on the Sub Briefs love the channel.
@@SubBrief I truly hope that the Zircon never gets fired in anger against our ships and sailers. The Rank n File of our military is good and what I care about is the leadership, that worries me.
@@RMJTOOLS The DPR shat all over Minsk II by initiating a military assault of Debaltseve the day after it was signed. You know you're dealing with scum when they plan a military advance ahead of a ceasefire being introduced.
In honesty I'm pretty sceptical of the performance here. Even if it does meet the on paper capability I'd think it not as dangerous as it seems in practice. Of course historically the Russians have exaggerated even the paper performance, but these claims aren't particularly unreasonable. But as Ukraine demonstrated not every capable (Russian) weapon works out in practice. In this case I can't help but think how the past supersonic missiles felt a little lacking due to the long warning such a high altitude gives. Even with the massive speed I'd think the altitude would still give a pretty long warning. And whilst its manoeuvrable that sounds far better on paper and the manoeuvrability won't make it any more difficult to intercept than former manoeuvrable missiles. The speed might require a higher seeker slew angle (for the defending missile) and updated electronics, but once that's figured out it too becomes no more difficult. So ultimately its impressive Russia have the tech to make this missile work I'd not think its as big of a threat as it sounds. Personally I lean towards the western mentality of stealth sea-skimming missiles. I'd think that gives a far lower intercept time, plus it limits the number of ships and the number of weapons which can defend. Perhaps if the west adds a supersonic sprint capability in the pre-terminal and terminal phase they could make the ultimate missile, but either way it seems we are far ahead of the defensive capabilities of near-peer threats anyway.
Russian has been a long time leader in rocket engines... Russia sent a satellite to space before US and before this war started, the US was buying Russia's RD-180, which are used in United Launch Alliance's (ULA) Atlas 5 rocket... So I would not be skeptical of their Zircon missile performance.
I too am skeptical. Maneuvers at hypersonic speed? Just as maneuverable as a SR71 as in NOT! Small adjustments at that speed converts to large deflection and yes hard to have a counter fire solution within a reaction time. Lasers are not effective ATM as there is insufficient power for a laser to burn through an object moving that fast through the atmosphere. Being active homing? How powerful must the radar in the warhead be to get a solution to correct while going that fast? Eg very powerful to give it time to adjust, then defensive maneuvers. I have little doubt that they have built something that can be launched and go so fast. Making it into a deployable weapon is something completely different.
These prototype tests are Russia's strong point. They build fantastic prototypes in the lab and then fire them off. But, they take forever to go into production if ever. Production costs a fortune. Lots of Russian equipment shows the production versions to be much less capable then the very nice well funded prototype. We will see.
sounds like the strong points of the US as well... Take 30 years to develop something that looks great on paper and then spend the first 20 years it's in service to work out the design flaws, by which time you've reduced the numbers ordered by 75% from the originally planned because of the poor performance and lost 10-20% of what was delivered in accidents.
@@obsidianjane4413 First war was extremely effective. next one they did not update the seekers and softkills. I assume you refer to the anti ship missiles vs Israel.
@@SoloRenegade cause US high tech systems are made for counter insurgency and low intensity warfare, where exactly is russia supposed to test anti ship missiles in combat?
Given the diminutive maneuver service area and the thinness of the atmosphere at ~120K feet, my guess is the Zircon doesn't do tight turns. I'm thinking the SM-2 is up to stopping the Zircon
I was wondering if the "warhead" is just a solid slug of something! Tungsten is the first thing that comes to mind. So yeah, if you do some interception kind of action you might eat the white-hot tungsten slug just the same.
Another drawback: at that speed it WILL have a huge IR signature. It may well be able to heat it up more by a laser (which will not need to lead the missile, speed of light being much faster) ... and it will not react very kindly to material in the air it may slam into. Running into a cloud of plastic or aluminium stripes --- or anything else --- will not be conductive for the health of the missile, and it may be that even a dent at the nose will cause a catastrophic failure a bit later. Speaking of, what would happen when it is on the final dive and runs into a, say, anti-torpedo net or something similar? The kinetic energy would cause the missile to hurt, badly, and could possibly set off the explosive warhead, causing smaller missile parts in a shotgun pattern coming towards the ship ... which will a) lose more energy to the air than the streamlined missile and b) spread out the damage, making it more survivable, c) a number of the chunks are going to be a clean miss ... Not saying that that is a good idea or will work, it's just that targetting a ship means the last few kilometres are fairly predictable ...
@@overlord4404 You won't notice an object 120k feet up on radar? This is not a sea skimmer! It also has an active radar seeker, and likely not JUST for the last few seconds. Also, it will be pretty hot from all that air friction at Mach 9; any IR sensor should see it with ease. Any space based IR sensor will also notice --- and they are up there, watching for ballistic missile launches, for example. Space based radar sensors should also pick up fairly easily as very few things move at that speed. And "in seconds" is rather a colloquial phrase, given that we can express the age of the universe in seconds (about 436,117,077,000,000,000 seconds, or 13.82 billion years).
@@advorak8529 ok, let me simplify Radar waves do not like plasma, missile going fast creates plasma. Neither you nor I really know the inside out of this missile. Infrared sensors, depends on the weather. Lasers, again, plasma is way hotter than contemporary lasers that can be mounted on any ship. Second, range of contemporary lasers in almost PERFECT weather conditions is 2-3km max. The missile travels that lenght in 1.54 seconds ( I took S= 3km and V= 7000 km/h not 7400 km/h) you can evan take lower speed if you wish, it wont change much. Is it more clear now?
@@overlord4404 “Plasma stealth” isn’t a real concept. Plasma blocks certain frequencies of radar. Not all. All ballistic missiles create plasma sheathes. Plenty of tests using ARH terminal interceptor missiles have been performed by plenty of countries.
@@jonathanpfeffer3716 And those different certain frequencies do a different job at detecting different sized object, which i'm sure has been taken into account. As we know lower frequencies travel through things better than high frequencies. For example a giganting extremely low frequency radar setup can detect navies even THROUGH a mountain range, but is entirely useless for small objects. This missile is not intended for small targets, but is a relatively small target. You get the point ? Nuclear ballistic missiles are a pretty big target compared to this thing.
Static airport's are all this will hit a moving target employing countermeasures not so much but much like the S400 this will get hyped massively by the paid trolls.
At these velocities you have a plasma around the missile during the touch down phase. To "soft kill" it seems impossible at that point, because it is not reachable by photon based signals aka radio, laser, light, IR, UV, etc.
@@lilMungo bro it’s hypersonic missile flies so fast it creates plasma around the missile and non anti missile system can detect it there is no defence against this type of missiles in us
@@leto2582 false as this has never been tested and it's not known if the plasma filled works likes that and its not hypersonic it's entire flight a sm3 and sm6 can easily shoot it down
I think since the "great reform" of Russian military, they prioritized the development of strategic and cutting edge weapons like Zircon, Kinzhal, Posiedon and Sarmat (obviously to guarantee their survival). Then the navy got the best fund, then the airforce procured some half decent aircraft, and the army got the least. That's why we see Russia is kinda struggling against Ukraine (read NATO technology and satellite information).
Well the corruption in the military is their biggest weakness atm. Its on all levels. Like Sergei who runs the russian forces has a salary of 120k dollars per year. But lives in an 18 million dollar mansion that is a Japanese palace.. His daughter owns lots of property in Moscow etc. So the top levels are corrupt. And then the lower levels get corrupt. Colonels using their soldiers for labor and take the money. Supplies officer takes arms and equipment and sells on the black marked. And even Russian soldiers stealing from each other and selling that equipment. Some soldiers have even their gun stolen from them. After all, a conscripted soldier only makes 30 dollars per month in Russia. Kinda gotta do some side hustle to afford some luxuries. Like stealing. Like before the invasion, most got nightvision etc. Now most have had nightvision stolen from them.. pretty much only tanks with nightvision left. That makes it hard to do war in 2022. This makes for a very uneffective armed forces.
The air force and navy don't seem to be doing particularly well either. It is not like they have air superiority over the battle field and have lost several significant ships to basic missile attacks.
Know your enemy. That's one big step. Admit your limitations and weaknesses. That another big step. Come to sanity and make diplomacies End the futile and sadistic effort of sending as many ukraini an warrios to afterlife. The only obvious step left. What say you now?
Yes, at hypersonic speeds the temperatures of the airflow are like a cutting torch. The X-15 during one of its faster runs had a burn-through of its skin and the pilot could feel the shaking of the aircraft. Came very close to catastrophic failure.
Makes way more sense than Cavitation Torpedoes, don't it?😉 Probably scary af for Ship (and Tank) Crews, but isn't fundamentally all that different from any other ASM or SSM but should result in Defense Contractors developing better Point Defense Systems and Quicker-turning and -tracking Flak Cannons.
It’s very difficult especially when even the patriot anti missile is only 50% effective or less. With that in mind how could you develop a counter measure when patriot struggles to shoot down normal ballistic missiles!!
Russia and China will arm their hypersonic weapons with nuclear warheads where the CEP doesn't require precision. According to a recent CRS report # R45811 the big challenge is precision strike accuracy with a hypersonic conventional warhead.
So if they launch one of those, the response will be nuclear missle strikes from already available missiles. Doesn't seem like a smart thing to do. They would be hoping that we wouldn't retaliate and destroy their country. They might as well just use icbms of their own instead of these. It would make more sense than just taking out a battle group of ships.
05/19/2022 USNI story: According to US NorthCom Gen. Glen VanHerck Russian Hypersonic missiles (conventional warhead) have underperformed in Ukraine because of inaccuracy (refer to the previous post).
USA military spend $801 billion, Russia $65 billion. Yet again Russia was the first to develop hypersonic weapons and is years ahead of anyone else in this field. Russia is also the only nation that has technically to defend against hypersonic missiles.
China reports 230 billion, but independent study had discovered it actually being over 700 billion. I do see what you're saying, but I wouldn't trust any information directly reported from Russia. Also Russia has been getting help from their partnership with China, Iran and North Korea. I only hope that the US research and development is so top secret we won't know what has been created until it has to be put into action. Hopefully direct energy weapons was the US top objective to make such weapon offensive capabilities obsolete.
There is one simple solution - help the Russian surface fleet relocate underwater. They will have a harder time launching this weapon while at the bottom of the sea.
Almost had me until you mentioned “As we are dealing with a belligerent nation” In order for me to remain clear about your concerns, were you referring to: 1. the past and current US administrations since President Carter to date 2. NATO 3. Ukraine (and it’s AZOV (NAZI) Battalion Or God forbid… 4. The Russian Federation - Whom by obtainable facts issued by: OSCE - they recorded on 15.02.2022 over 41 ceasefire violations by Kiev’s forces as they began shelling in the Donbas. These violations continued daily through to 22.02.2022 with rising amounts of shelling surpassing 1,484 (just on this unique calendar date). On 24.02.2022 Russian troops were left with no choice but to intervene, protect historical Russian speaking citizens, deweaponised and denazify (the Azov (Nazis) Battalions in) this region. Thankfully, the Russian Special Operation went above and beyond to discover the biological laboratories in Ukraine funded by US treasury, the undersecretary of state Victoria Nuland confirmed those facts.
Not to mention Russia's swift humanitarian actions to evacuate civilians and set up humanitarian aid and reconstruction efforts while they are still in combat.
While the missile itself is quite impressive and Russian engineers and rocket scientists where always topnotch, but the issue is not with the engineering itself but everything else... It all starts from the corruption that is rampant in the Russian military and we can see the results in Ukraine. Without the corruption at all levels the Russians would have ruffle-stomped the Ukrainians in a few weeks because "on-paper" they had the second most advanced military in the world and they did not need to cross half-the-world to invade a country... Getting back at the issue at hand, I would say that there is no need from panic. Yes, Zircon is impressive as a high-speed vehicle but to make it into a good weapon system, several other things are needed (like proper radar electronics to detect a moving target like a CVN, or a good logistics chain to allow the platform to be deployed, good and motivated crews capable to lunch the weapon)... So, in the end the engineering is great but I am skeptical about the capabilities based on what I saw in the last 3 months... Final notes: 1) when transiting from high altitude to low altitude the missile will bleed a lot of energy.. Assuming no modification were done to the ramjet itself, it will stalls/stop-working after getting into high density air and, when that happens, its air-intake will behave like a big air-brake which means that the missile may only have in mid super-sonic regime (maybe at around 2-3 Mach or so) in its final phase, which would make it vulnerable to SM-3s... Also without an engine, its maneuverability will be limited due to the reasons mentioned above. 2) maneuverability is not trivial, every trajectory update will be based on a pre-defined plan. That plan is either defined by the launch officer which need proper training or its hard-coded in the on-board computer of the missile... which can be "handled"... 3) I would be more scared about such missile if its launched from 500Kms than if its launched from 1000Kms (for obvious reasons)
United States military second to none. We might have weirdos in right now but that ain't our fault. But as long as you're confident do their mission will be fine.
EMP pulse weapons have been used before. Destroy the circuit not even the missile god-knows-where land. This Administration is embarrassing let them at that. I'm hoping and praying that our defense department is doing the right thing and getting our troops ready to go and do what they got to do. If they have two course I want no boots-on-the-ground in Europe. Is it Germany France and Great Britain's responsibility not ours.
I would like to welcome the Russian bot farm who pushed my video into the RUclips Algorithm stratosphere. Enjoy your stay.
Do you know what the speed of this would be in the terminal phase (low altitude) ? Does it come straight down from above or does it come down and skim the water before hitting?
@@narcoti I don't know.
Shouldn't write everyone(who has a different opinion) off as bots though. Here is a question, Russia has actively demonstrated in this war that its anti-ship missiles are perfectly capable of targeting land targets. This adds an interesting twist with supersonic weapons delivering hurt to unexpected places. Does US have such an option available to its anti-ship missiles?
It is not a bot farm i would say. Just a non bs opinion. Very rare right now.
5.8k views? 866 likes? bro, i love your content, but you're clowning if you think a bot farm is pushing your stuff out there.
I love to see someone who is knowledgeable and authoratative in their field explaining concepts without patronising and treating their audience as semi-literates or infants. Such a refreshing change from current TV "documentaries" where a series of various token "talking heads" are paraded parroting scripts they've just been handed, written by someone who doesn't seem to fully understand the subject themselves. Keep up the great work Sub Brief.
Russia is unbeatable, Zircon is turning USA aircraft carriers in to sitting ducks...
The Aegis ballistic missile defense system demonstrated the ability to track a long-range hypersonic weapon during a non-intercept test executed in parallel with a March 2020 flight test of the Conventional Prompt Strike program, launching a simulated Standard Missile-6 against the actual hypersonic glide body during its 2,000-mile flight over the Pacific.
@@williamzk9083 Something I found interesting about the SM-6, well actually the SM-3, is the speed to which it flies... Mach 18!!! And from a MK-41 VLS tube no less!
That in itself is actually pretty amazing, and shows just how much potential this old tube design still retains (along with all the vessels that use it). Considering it is flying at 3.5 times the officially declared “hypersonic” speed realm/capacity, and it’s a BMD missile only flying a little telescope as a warhead, imagine what it could do as an offensive platform with the contents of the nose cone “altered”... 😉
@@williamzk9083 Aegis hasn't ever faced the Russian hypersonic missiles. You're just projecting your beliefs
Z (IR) CON
Not
Z(AR) CON
I think Zarcon is an old SCI Fi character
@@SubBrief and I think a Zircon is a Hyper Sonic missle that runs on Vodka and communism.
I would be realy scared if you had such a weapon, 300 years of history and only 12 years of peace, and yet you find that you have a moral highground to talk down to someone.
So you're saying your country occupies a place of complete moral superiority? Which one is this, Shangri-La? Thanks for the history lesson.
As a former Phalanx tech, this worries me. That's way faster than it can handle.
@Viper 6 one second it's on radar and the next it's inside the radar.
Hopefully our directed energy weapons can mature faster than they seem to be.
You should be worrying even about P700 "Onyx" missiles.
@@willyjimmy8881 it would violate the laws of physics. 8 seconds from detection to destruction is impossible. direct energy weapons need time. you are watching too much star wars
Well don’t worry, because these things can’t actually hit moving targets without slowing down to sub-hypersonic speeds, which makes them pretty easy for AEGIS to intercept. Phalanx isn’t really great for supersonic missiles, which is why it’s being phased out in favor is SeaRAM.
The country that dropped two atomic bombs over Japan is not a "Belligerent" nation?
The United States? Hell yes, the U.S. is Belligerent. The world would do well to remember that.
@@SubBrief I believe you Mr. Adolfo Hisler!
@@SubBrief The families of hundreds of thousands of civilians killed in the Middle East by the Americans certainly will remember.
@@SubBrief
36 trillion in debt.
Someone in the military commits suicide every 30min.
Mass drug overdoses.
Mass school shootings
Homelessness
Over a million people in jail
%40 of Americans have no savings.
So tough and belligerent.. 😂
@@josegil7835 ah, so you're here to right the wrongs in the world NOT because you're another bot with an algorithm for Zircon. Maybe you can explain how many more people would have died in the invasion of Japan had the bombs not been used? The Japanese were counting on the invasion and probably would have repulsed it. Our knowledge of these plans via Ultra was a primary reason we used the bomb. There was no other way for Japan except unconditional surrender. The "debate" was how many Japanese and Americans would have to die before the militarist junta running Japan would agree. We were reading virtually all of their diplomatic and military communications so were extremely well appraised of what Japan could do. You people need to educate yourselves on the use of the bombs since it's one of the most important events in human history.
The problem is it’s very difficult to develop a counter measure because it’s manoeuvrable! One worrying thing is that it’s too fast that it doesn’t even need to have a warhead as the impact would probably do just as bad a damage
he literally says this in the video :d
A very detailed, objective and unbiased analysis. Godspeed!
The way to defeat that weapon is to try to befriend Russia instead of trying to wage war against Russia using proxies such as Ukraine and other potential destabilised countries by the US.
Finally, the smartest man in the room.
Oh absolutely. We should join hand in hand with Russia's war efforts. Perhaps we could liberate Ukraine and occupy right up to the Donbass? Or did you have something else in mind?
@@NikovK oh nope, I am on your side. Russia is not anyone enemies. We , the USA and NATO are the enemies of Russia. Russia just want go be left alone without getting worried about us destroying their culture, their land and their people.
I am pro Russian all the way. This war made me realized how brainwashed we got in our country
@@NikovK We should have joined hands with Russia to find peace, to listen to the mutual concerns about each nation's security. The USA should not have used Ukraine as a tool to wage war against Russia, Russia did not start the war, this war started 8 years ago against Dombas from the fascist Ukrainian units. if you want to ignore history or facts, then you may find the Kinsal or the Zircon in your way
@@alexracoon4513 No, lets look to history and facts. Russia and America partitioned a country full of Nazis between them before. West Ukraine could enjoy half a century of economic development and Russia could enjoy rebuilding the war-torn Eastern side of the country. Russia is clearly struggling to denazify western Ukraine, so why not let NATO open a second front to do it?
The look of amazement on Jive's face during the opening video with the missile launch really sums it up nicely.
Amazement or fear? Looked more like fear, to me. And thats alredy a win for Russia. But its nice to see a level-head USA expert actualy admiting that. Most of them are just full of bullshit, pretending they got the 'best militery in the world'. Reality is very diferent, and I think this guy gets it.
@@natalijalaonar8187 I'm not touching that with a 3m pole 😆 - but I get what you're saying! There should be a very healthy amount of fear & respect for the Russian navy & their amazing feats of military engineering.
Yet another reason for the Airborne Laser and other DEWs. At high Mach , it doesn't take much to disrupt a flightpath. If it does have issues with structural integrity at low altitude, melting off a winglet should be enough to splash the weapon.
YAL-1 was abandoned because it was useless as a weapon. Atmospheric bloom made its effective range way too short to achieve anything useful, and the reload time between shots of its chemical laser was measured in minutes at best.
@@jwenting IIRC thats why current research focusses on solid state laser.
@Fuzzle'd Youre probably not getting the range and accuracy required for CIWS with a bb gun. I suspect the solution will be more along the lines of missiles (which might deploy bb's or whatever) or lasers. Maybe CIWS with cluster ammunition, but against missiles this fast it might not be viable.
I really don't think you understand the energy required to penetrate the atmosphere at great distance, making interception of targets at any meaningful range close to impossible for the foreseeable future due to requiring a building sized farm of capacitors or a portable laser that's too weak to due anything more than blind sensors at short to moderate ranges. This is why as a previous commentor said the US's YAL-1 was abandoned. It's much better to develop more advanced missiles and multiple kill vehicles such as Lockheed Martin's MKV-L.
@Fuzzle'd EMPs are usually created by nukes, so probably not a great choice^^
By the time the US has one Hypersonic weapon in service, all the various Russian Hypersonic weapons + Sarmat + Avangard + Poseidon + Laser + S-500 + S-550 are in service and integrated. The Russians are already testing upgraded versions of some of their Hypersonic weapon.
Actually thats not true, russians routinely state both that their weapons capabilites are higher/better/more advanced than they actually are, as well as the level of readiness and serial production that their weapons are at, essentially meaning that they are almost certainly 6months-several years behind what capabilites and what level and numbers of weapons they currently say that they have available. Also I flat out do not believe that they are already on the upgrades of whatever weapons youre talking about. They are most likely calling an actual serial, mass produceable version a "new variant/upgrade" hate to break it to you. Khinzal is the only "hypersonic" (really just an air launched BM with mayyyybe some slight maneuvering ability) that I assess they actually have ready, in production, with any real numbers produced and actually integrated onto a platform. In addition, the US is testing at least 4 different hypersonic weapons that I even know of and some will be ready very soon, which are actually going to be fully functional and in serial production when this announcement is made, and thats just going off of whats unclassified...
And all of that is not even taking into account all the slowdowns and even total roadblocks they are/will continue to be running into from sanctions that will slow down or totally prevent them from getting some materials they need to make and continue to design these weapons
Oh my God thank you so much for your insight into help with this lack of understanding that is pervading our people knowledge is critical here please make better effort to acquire accurate information especially in this subject it could be a matter of your life I'm speaking to the people who are assuming and training doubt and disbelieving anything could be capable of such claims well I'm sorry to say I wish there was reason there sadly is been shown not to be as it's been only this year as it was a little demonstration by our friend Mr Putin who said it all loud and perfectly clear!
The game changing began in March primary high altitude 2.3 Mach speeding mate 31k was launched a Kinzhal. 1200 miles range.1meter accuracy.1to2 miles per second speed. 500kg high explosive (is also nuclear capable).
In the mid fifties the Russians built a nuclear bunker in Ukraine that was 200 ft under solid Rock that was protection for your most valuable nuclear weapons. The ukrainians took it over and had it stored with high value you're not hypersonic missile the warhead becomes in all together intensifies by a factor of 119 times completely destroying the target. The second missile demonstration was a target that was essentially an unreachable target that shows how almost nothing is safe from this new weapon and the indefensibility of the weapon in both examples as it was clear our democracy has failed us this was demonstrated by Putin's attack on Ukraine with all his new weapons there's nothing he needs to worry about.
China's behavior with this Taiwan situation shows that they are equally unafraid of us with good reason, df-17 missile being that reason and more weapons of theirs puts them and the Russians so far ahead of us that we should be thinking in terms of more careful how we affect them with our behavior and if you don't believe that that is how the situation is there aggressive nature and depressions of demonstrated that being the state of things at present.
It's both parties that are at fault here for allowing our technology to fall behind it's time to make accurate knowledge available to everyone and motivate everyone to learn science and technology in politics accurately too where the facts will be the voters weapon . This Disinformation has got to go we all need to work towards that end.
And ?
And people actually belive they are loosing to Ukraine. People are funny
Don't forget "plasma stealth" that happens at such high speeds !
But this works both ways, and this is why i doubt that active guidance is the prime guidance of it..
I bet they count on speed and reaction time to simply launch it on a "predicted" route and hope for the best, not ideal but if not detected, why a target would change his course ??
Last point; they are about (if not already) preparing some land-based version of it for coastal defences and India seems open to a partner program in the same spirit as the BrahMos
The stealth issue was solved. The missile has an antenna behind it, like one of those used by submarines in tow. This is partial solution, not ideal. The fully rounded version will be quantum communications, then they master it, if it can be fit inside. Cooling is an issue with that. But antenna works well enough for now.
@@theflame5919 Free space quantum communication doesn't offer any advantages to this application, and it has a lot of disadvantages.
I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure military vessels don't travel on a straight course for any long time.
"plasma stealth" lol. stealthy as a blow-torch.
There's many issues with an anti-ship application for hypersonics. The only practical use at this time, with this current level of technology, is as a tactical nuke. So maybe a nuclear-capable carrier killer but not much else.
Russia would be better advised to develop better fleet air defense as shown by Moskva's experience with slow sea skimming missiles.
People get too hung up on the tactical application of this thing actually hitting anything. This is a strategic weapon that is never meant to be used. Its existence is justified simply by the question it poses. Even if an opponent force develops an intercepting technology that technology itself carries opportunity cost for alternative investments. Even after a countermeasure is developed and deployed, if you are the captain of a carrier battle group, how close are you willing to have your ships be to the Russian launch systems to test the capabilities? The fact that you now need to be further from Russian territory just to be safe even without being in active conflict is already a win. The fact that you now need to reformulate your naval doctrine is already a win.
The loss comes when you have to actually use it in battle, because obviously these things are really only useful against superpower peers and in that war there are no winners.
Yup, but my God will the MIC get excited about a new reason to pocket some taxpayer dollars in pursuit of "symmetric response".
Something also tells me that 1000 km is not the max range of this thing...
The President just needs to say “The limitations of our current technology cannot tell the difference between a hypersonic missile armed with explosives or a nuclear warhead.”
Russia can then work out how lucky its feeling.
@@OK-1K1 Yeah it is a nice even number.
Strategic Capability cuz cost of Battleships and Carriers, both Material in their Construction and Political in case of a Sinking; not a Strategic Weapon. Maybe pedantic and nitpicky, bot possibly relevant.
They used this same bomb in Ukraine bombing a underground ammunition depot
Tell me one thing, please. How Zircon is going to find its target through a cloud of plasma? It's physically impossible. If it slows down on a last part of trajectory, it is going to be easy to take it down with SAM or even CIWS, because it will be still flying very high, not close to water surface. But even if we imagine, that Zircon would fly close to water surface (somehow) its just a regular Anti-ship missile like Onix or Harpoon
soviet magic
@@SubBrief Thats why i don't see any reason to discuss anything about Zircon until we see an actual footage of it. Even launch video in the beginning is most likely wrong. Check youtube, it looks exactly like Anti-ship Onix missile. Moreover, there is no photo of it at all. All pictures you shown are just copies of Boeing X-51 hypersonic rocket. You did a good job, probably, but its not a soviet magic yet, its physics
@@poseidon1984jealousy at the highest 🤣🤣.
Soviet magic
Are you a bott have you seen the footage in Ukraine of the Khinzal obliterating the building whit pint point acuracy you could saw only a plasma cloud and an impact which penetrated 80 m underground and raised down the multi story high building like nothing.
@@lowebooty4151 Say whatever you want, but there is no footage of kinzhal hitting anything. Like i said, no possible way that rocket will hit its target on a hypersonic speed. You should also remember that Khinzal is just a Air-based Iskander M rocket. The only difference between them is that Khinzal travelling to the target on a speed higher than Iskander (which is also hypersonic if u didn't know) and has a greater range. But they both hit target on a same speed (700m/s ≈ 2mach)
It also has stealth plasma configurations. It's insane.
Все для наших друзей и партнеров
@@evgenys3373 lol, spasiba
Stealth plasma is a city legend
"Stealth plasma" is about as real as your hologram iphone.
That isn't how it works.
The plasma makes the missile blind, it does not make it stealthy.
It sticks out like a blinding candle, that's why ballistic anti ship missiles never caught on in the west.
Hypersonic missiles have already been tracked on radar and an Airforce Institute of Technology study has already proven that plasma sheathes are primarily radar-reflective.
The idea that they provide 'stealth' is literally just made up bullshit that continues to be parroted on the internet.
What isn't made up, however, is the fact that plasma sheathes completely block radio transmission - meaning that a hypersonic missile cannot receive trajectory adjustments or new targeting info while in its march phase.
Source: "A Computational Study: The Effect of Hypersonic Plasma Sheaths on Radar Cross Section for Over the Horizon Radar" by Zachary W. Hoeffner
NATO must have eyes on all the black sea fleet due to the announcement by Putin recently, this Zircon missile is truly the stuff of nightmares and things could escalate very quickly
THE RUSSIANS PLAYING CHESS WITH NATO ,EVERYTHING PUTIN DO ITS TO MISLED NATO 😊
I suspect they doubled the range by not having a war head.
The maneuverability isn't side to side so much ,it's mostly acceleration/deceleration.
If it's fired on a heading of 180⁰ it isn't going to deviate very far from that heading but because the scram jet can be throttled you don't how far it's going.
Once it drops back into the lower altitudes it can start maneuvering , but every turn costs it speed.
It's down to mach 3 by the time it's located it's target and locked on it.
So basically this is a quick way to deliver a supersonic missile over a long distance.
Very interesting point. The delta-v of the missile absolutely is dependent on how much it weighs and how much specific impulse that engine has, among other factors. They might be able to hit something with it at 1000km yeah, key word, "hit", but with the very heavy warhead attached, that might actually be half that. The less efficient that engine is too the bigger this factor is the more that warhead weighs. This is all assuming, of course, they didn't have a warhead attached in the test... and assuming is never a safe bet
@@hapidjus2520
Serious Scientists
Don't assume Anything !?
Doubling the range by reducing the payload by 400kg? Seems unlikely.
At that speed you don't need a war head to rip trough a ship.
dagger have range about 1.200 miles and range reached because missile carried by plane and this plane can generate delta v using atmosphere oxygen. Planes with standard jet engines have absolutely crazy delta-v. ALSO if zircon uses SCRAMJET, then that missile have much more delta V than if booster is not air breathing
Anyway if fighter!! plane can carry fully equipped hypersonic missile then possible to create solid booster with the same init delta v for reach the same condition for missile from conditions like speed=0m/s and alt=0 ft and only question is can this hypothetical solid buster and hypersonic missile be contained to standard vertical launcher or not
Also I think 490 or so km was official range just because missile created while IRNFT was active and that was just pure lie to avoid another intermediate missile race or do not start that race long as possible
Straight forward and no clickbait bs, this is why we love your videos!
Russia is unbeatable, Zircon is turning USA aircraft carriers in to sitting ducks...
"Six minutes Dougie Fresh Zircon.." Plus 400Kg warhead for good measure..just in case breaking your vessel in two wasn't enough.
Directed energy weapon high altitude Aircraft/Dirigible mounted on patrol over CBGs, the Navy may need to dust off the books from the USS Akron and USS Macon, also mounted on ships.
XD XD
You'd need an extremely powerful laser. The missile is maneuverable and very fast, which means it's going to be difficult maintain focus to generate burnthrough. It's also designed to take extreme heat, due to it's speed, so that makes head-on burnthrough even more difficult.
I am unwilling to just laugh it off or throw my hands up, it may be just pissing in the wind, but like the folks trying to defend against this I am putting everything on the table, and we will take them off 1 by 1, if this is nothing so be it, but it should be proposed.
@@castlecircle7612 wait you were serious?
@@kapitankapital6580 there are already lasers on some Naval vessels for drone defense. MIT has tested a plasma penetrating laser (wonder why) already, @SubBrief himself did a story on small portable nuclear reactors for the military aka air mobile/deployable. The limitation may be the traverse mechanisms but Is it really so far fetched?
The Russians would probably be interested in an arms control agreement to return to the type of stability before NATO moved too close to their border. The Russians are worried about US missiles like this being placed in Ukraine because that puts them too close to Moscow like the Pershing II was before the treaty on intermediate range missiles. We should not have overthrown the Ukrainian government in 2014 and replaced it with one that depends on Nazis to prop it up. NATO clearly built up a Ukrainian army that is strong enough for the Russians to consider a threat.
The neocons were determined to have a proxy war with Russia. It is a stupid idea since Russia can wipe us out if things escalate out of control. We have forced Russia into an alliance with China when it had been seeking good relations with the West. We would have been better off to keep Russia neutral or friendly to us. China can now buy missiles like this for their navy. It will be harder to blockade China if Russia has its back.
Yup but that's all over now, China will get Taiwan without a fight. Would you want your island to become a wreck like Ukraine?
The U.S. has Joe Biden as commander & head thinker!🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I agree with you 100%. Get ready to be called a Russian bot by this corporate media twat who made this video.
There was one... the ABM Treaty (Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty) but the US unilaterally decided to exit the treaty.
The danger of first strike with no reaction time was precisely the reason for the Ukraine conflict. Russia has been warning NATO since 2004 about it's unequivocal refusal to accept strategic NATO weapons in Ukraine with 5-minute strike capability on Moscow.
Yeah, it's our dream having an upper hand both in offensive and defensive rocket technology and gave it up to US in exchange for constantly broken promises xD
Hahaha americans not brain chickens are very funny people.
An American talking about another nation as biligerant is hilarious. How many wars of aggression has the US waged around the world now? LOL...
Hopefully the decision makers are taking this one seriously. I have my doubts, but we should make every effort and treat this new capability as if it is 100%. If it ends up not working as advertised well then great but if it does than at least we have some counters. Either way the protection of the fleet must be priority. The US needs to expand/speed up work on missile technology as it seems like we fell behind in the last 20 years.
It hides the missile itself but not the massive signature of the bow shock wave.
Hopefully the decision makers are more competent than the high school student government they work for.
Even if the russian zircon wasnt a functional weapon, the chinese version probably will be at some point. Heck, supersonic missiles already got hardly any counters.
Its frankly over time for all western powers to get their own supersonic cruise missiles and think about more advanced missile defense.
Without the dollar and with the debt what will we do. Perhaps there's an integrity issue within the power structure. Seems they can't balance a checkbook.
@@dj007twk Without the dollar?
Why in these videos no one ever mentions that the IR signature of that thing could probably be seen from Neptune?
@@UncleFester84 and what if you see it, what can you do
The key is what speed does it approach at, flying at mach 9 at 120kft is the aerodynamic equivalent of flying 66 knots at sea level, yes 66 knots (think my maths are correct). That's why it can go so fast, but at 100kft the amount of drag will increase 5 fold and at sea level 100 fold.
So it could easily end up at a terminal speed within the incept capabilities of an SM-6. Also at these speeds any manoeuvres are limited by Gs, and it's unlikely to be able to pull more Gs than an intercept missile.
and climbing to altitude early in the launch phase enables launch detection and tracking potentially almost at the point of launch.
Yeah unpowered that ram scoop becomes an air brake...
Despite all this, didn't the man with the brief just say the missile travelled a thousand kilometres, striking its target?!
I don't understand this simple thing, if an ICBM in it's reentry stage to terminal phase can have speed of Mach 20, why can't a hypersonic cruise missile retain it's speed, when definitely it's diving down on it's target from 130k ft?
If we assume the missile does a semi vertical dive in it's terminal phase, isn't it more probable that it can retain it's hypersonic speed? At the outer limits of this missile's range, the scramjet will be off, but if the target is closer, the engine is likely to be active. More probability of retaining hypersonic speed.
Doesn't the Kinzhal also retain it's hypersonic speed in the terminal phase? Is that due to its vertical dive/ballistic path?
Curious.
I'm stuck in the 60's. If even one hypersonic missile was launched at my group, I'd give the command to launch EVERYTHING immediately and commence combat. And call HQ afterwards.
Right now the best defense is still flack. Either, a ship mounted chain gun throwing a cloud of bullets in the path, or a proximity based fragmentary antimissile.
I would love to see 5” 38 cal guns back with proximity fuses.
@Fuzzle'd You got me there. I love Atlanta’s and even better one with an aggressive gunnery oriented captain!
so...the missile knows where it is, right?
It certainly knows where it isn’t
I notice you didn't mention the concept that this is in effect possibly a stealth weapon by default also. The hypersonic speed develops a plasma shield around the missile which significantly reduces the radar cross section. Not sure how this affects the missile's own passive/active radar targeting systems.
You can see it in action .. I saw it over Ukraine .. its simply looks like a laser .. mindblowing
It’s June 12 2024 it’s in Cuba 🇨🇺 now.
'The last thing is, we can always strike first'. That's quite funny.
I’m somewhat curious about the fact that maneuverability is rarely discussed in detail. At those speeds (Mach 5+) even the slightest move of the control surfaces creates big changes in direction. Definitely hard to intercept, but is it precise?
Theres definitely a lot of open questions and little hard data on weapons like this.
and too much maneuvering at those speeds will destroy the missile itself.
Enough for ships , i guess
It's just the opposite. At mach 5+ it takes massive inputs to impart a course change.
An object in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by an equal or opposite reaction.The greater the momentum, the greater the force required to alter that momentum.
Drive 100mph and yank the steering wheel all the way over. You'll continue going mostly straight. Drive 10mph, yank the steering wheel all the way ove, you'll turn 180° in under a second.
The difference in G will rip it apart, any even minor change of course would lead to instant self destruction.
Zur-con, Zeer-con, Tzur-con, Tzirkon, not 'Zar-kon'.
'Khan!!!' -Luke Skywalker
Great video and analysis. One of the Russian navy commanders stated that final version of Zirkon will have maximum range of 1500 km, when all tests will be completed and the missile will be mass produced.
And like the Russian military in Ukraine reality will be nothing like claims.
@@drawingdead9025 This principle applies to everything. USA included.
@@andrewhomo2461 Except only the Russian military has been exposed as a giant paper tiger. They wouldn't last a week against NATO, heck, I believe France or the UK could beat Russia one on one (or if it went nuke, tie).
@@drawingdead9025 It would start from nukes
@@andrewhomo2461 Well then we all lose but regardless we can't let Russia continue to act the bully because of the possibility Putin would end the world. Personally I think that order would be refused.
Another reason Submarines dominate
Great video Mr Bragg! I am a decades long reader of military technology. Glad to see good work, thanks for letting people know how they work.
I do, lol!
Have a Blessed Day
It's important to remember that if Zircon is doing those maneuvers, it has to be supersonic, not hyper sonic. The plasma cone caused by the ram pressure on any hypersonic lights it up like the belly of the space shuttle. It's a screen of plasma that is really hard to see or communicate through. Aside from the fact that maneuvering hard will cause the missile to fall below hypersonic speeds, the missile's detection systems for counter-countermeasures will operate sub-optimally. Supersonic is still really hard to deal with, but the SM series has been engaging supersonics for a good while now.
That seems to be the issue with hypersonics. They still suffer from the same drawbacks as regular missiles. You're really paying for a sort of taxi service to get them into range at much further distances, because the speed of the hypersonic allows it to react to targets of opportunity and to support engaged allies from farther away and still be effective in a real time environment. But all the hypersonic did was get your missile there in a timely manner.
I don't know, but I have doubts AEGIS cant already detect and track a hypersonic. So SM6 is actually not a bad choice for countering hypersonic missiles. That increase in performance has costs that the SM6 and AEGIS can be used to exploit.
Interesting point. But, do the missiles really need to maneuver hard, down to supersonic speeds? Semi-hard maneuver at hypersonic speeds won't work you wanna say?
Take the following parameters into account:
The missile's range is 1000km, and the target is at 700km. The scramjet will probably still be active.
So it uses a hypersonic sprint to get to the target area where it slows down to supersonic speeds to maneuver? Kinda like their Supercavitating torpedo
I'm assuming wide sweeping S-turns only and a high supersonic terminal phase.
Probably only really manueverable up until it goes hypersonic. Afterwards my guess is very minor course corrections or it would tear itself apart.
@@saqibshafin If it's still hypersonic, it won't be able to see the target. You would need to be painting the target for the missile using short wave radar, which would mean the painting platform is within range of the carriers defenses. Otherwise, there isn't a way to give the missile accurate targeting information. Also, it makes the missile MORe vulnerable, since it cannot dodge SMs at those speeds.
if the cowardly Americans did not sit at home but went to Ukraine to defend democracy, then this war would immediately stop
The goal is to defeat Russia in Ukraine, bleed them dry over the next 18 months.
at the moment, about 30 thousand mercenaries from Europe and America's allies have been recorded, some of them have returned back to their countries, some have been destroyed, you can read the posts of these mercenaries on the Internet.
@@SubBrief it 's wonderful that you give such comments , I hope you understand that for every action there is a reaction
We also have to remember that the SR-71 Blackbird at 4 Mach if it needed to turn it needed an area the size of California to turn, I don't think at Mach 9 something is maneuverable.
true, although the SR-71 had a hard limit of 3.5 Gs maneuvering force; a missile designed for 60 Gs would be able to turn a fair bit sharper even at higher speeds
Obviously it glides down to the target at less than Mach 9.
SR-71 was built to fly within human G-force and aircraft structural tolerances, unlike Russia's unmanned manoeuvrable hypersonic missiles.
Wow man Great, that is a fair analysis as always.
Excellent down-to-earth insightful commentary. As somebody form Russia not something we are used to coming from the West lately.
7:09 But the closer it comes, the less it can maneuver and hit the target. Unless it has a nuke a miss is a wasted weapon. They haven't used one with a nuke yet but...
If it can fit a 400 kg high explosive warhead it can fit a nuclear warhead too. There's no way they didn't design it with that in consideration too.
It doesn't need to maneuver if the air defenses can't even track it in time.
@@zolikoff the smallest nuclear warheads are like 50kg ish so easily doable.
That's the main reason why weapons like the DF-17 have been faster to develop than western versions. If you are arming them with a thermonuclear warhead it doesn't matter if they aren't accurate. If your hypersonic weapon is armed with high explosives, your aim better be good
I'm quite skeptical of Russia's "tests." That's not to say we shouldn't take this weapon seriously. However, at 120k feet, this missile is easily decteable and targetable by modern air defenses. Of course it can "maneuver" but any maneuvers will cause this thing to lose energy and make it harder to hit its target. Not to mention, hitting a moving target at that speed is extremely difficult.
Rest assured, the army's been developing ramjet artillary shells since 2019. Fingers crossed this makes Iowa class battleships great again🤞
10:30
Well, keep your ships home then. Keep'em out of range.
I think that's what they have been asking!
Yeah that sounds about like what we saw in the footage striking that volcano!
Belligerent nation? There is no more belligerent nation than USA.
Also I want to state that considering the time of reaction - the US moved it's nuclear weapons closer and closer to Russia, lowering and lowering the response time Russia has. So here you go, right back at ya.
One of the reasons the operation i Ukraine started, was the fact that Ukraine intended to join NATO and Zelensky started talking about getting a nuclear weapon. Again - shortening the decision time Russia would have in a nuclear war.
I want you to remember just how capable you think we are.
You and Truth seems to have a very long distance relationship.
ZZZ
@@HahaHaha-gq8ft What are you talking about? It is the US now trying to catch up with Russia *and* China on hypersonic missiles. What 70s?! What 80s?!
Hello from India. I totally agree, belligerent nation is only USA. Only nation in the world who used nuclear, only nation who have been attacking, invading sovereign, independent nation illegally is the USA. USA is the only nation in the world , everyone must deal carefully and better to keep distance, , look currently what happened, supporting USA for world hegemony, Ukraine European nations got effected.
Here's my thoughts. To defend against these missiles, it's more/less impossible to do so during the flight stage as it can manoeuvre at hypersonic speeds. The thing is, the closer the missile is to the ship, the more predictable it's path will be. Same applies for how far away it is launched. The further away the more predictable it will be in its terminal phase as it has run out of fuel to manoeuvre. This can be exploited. Think active protection system like on a tank, but on a ship, and on a much larger scale and of course redesigned for it's purpose... that's where this will go imo
Large and close clouds of Flak. Unfortunately there still will be hypersonic shrapnel.
Just give ships a large shotgun
Or the defense system tanks have
@@nutzeeer That's pretty much what I'm saying. But that specific system will need to be reworked because getting it to work on a RPG round or ATGM is one thing man... getting it to work on a hypersonic telephone pole is another...
@@Tuck-Shop Agreed. It's at the point where any defence is good defence until we develop better technology. I'll cop hypersonic shrapnel to the hull to avoid having that warhead detonate inside the hull any day.
Edit: Also, owing to the trajectory these take in their terminal phase, I'm calling it right now, you are going to see radical new hull designs that take this into account and attempt to deflect such shrapnel buy removing the typical superstructure you see sitting on a flat "deck". The time of the flat deck is over.
These missiles travel so fast that they'll be close to red hot down closer to sea level. Presumably, they have some sort of an ablative coating like the reentry shield on spacecraft carrying away the intense heat. That means they'll be the hottest object in the sky except for the sun. Instead of the slow back-and-forth scanning of the doppler radars used in CIWS systems, maybe they need to be directed by real-time operating analog computers processing data from passive infrared sensors, thus speeding up sensing and tracking. The obvious counter to that would be to always launch your hypersonic missile with the sun behind the incoming round relative to the target.
it's irrelevant. earth isn't flat. as soon as it gets detected it takes a second to reach the target and countermeasures can't be deployed in time. and radar detection time vs optical isn't any problem. radars work just fine. and the sun is irrelevant. the sun isn't inside earth atmosphere it doesn't have any logic. you might want to learn a thing called laws of physics.
@@riskinhos Oh, well. Internet poster says we're all doomed DOOMED!!!
That's the creative, problem solving spirit!
p.s. There are no ships to plow into outside of the atmosphere.
@@abrahamdozer6273 the SPY-1 panels on a DDG-51 are 20m above the waterline. a missile sea-skimming at 5m above the water, clears the horizon at about 25km. zircon travels at 10'000km/h which is about 3km/s. that's about 9 seconds to detect, direct, launch, engage and destroy it. and that's just for 1 missile let alone a salvo (kirov class carries "only" 72 of those). PLUS it's manoeuvrable. good luck with that. not gonna happen.
it's physics and math.
@@riskinhos I'll bet that you're a Russian. that would explain why you think that the biggest infrared emitter in this part of the universe is outside the atmosphere and therefore irrelevant and not detectable by infrared sensors (see how long you can stare at the sun.. it's outside the atmosphere and therefore irrelevant).
You know ... the effects of childhood malnutrition due to third world impoverishment ...
@@riskinhos That missile aint gonna be able to hit squat that isnt glued to the floor. It wont hit a moving target. Thats just wishful thinking. It will be blind when its hypersonic, and not very maneuverable when supersonic so if the ships are evading the same benefit it has with speed also becomes a detriment when you have less than a few seconds to acquire, lock, move, and hit. I call bull on its abilities to hit anything that's not static.
Aaron, Great to see your channel is a hit. Well Deserved.
My understanding is that hypersonic missiles as the Zircon have to slow down somewhat when entering the Troposphere as otherwise the vehicle will be destroyed by rapid atmospheric ablation of the forward part of these missiles as mach numbers above 3.0.
if they tested it at 1000km range, it probably can go 1500...
And of course the speed is also going to make interception a lot harder. Not just because of the reduced reaction time, but also because an interceptor missile is going to find it a lot harder to intercept the target.
As a hypersonic kill vehicle, I'd guess the attack profile is going be (mostly) vertical. Even if the engine no longer works, if it is coming down at Mach 9 from 100k feet it's going to hit at Mach 5-6 so even if it were to be designed to eject the engine and just have a kinetic kill vehicle it'd impact with enough energy to go right through and leave a big hole under water, big enough to have at the very least a mission kill on the target vessel and likely to kill it.
This is basically the same kill profile as probably used by the Chinese DF.17 anti-ship MRBM (which without the optional hypersonic kill vehicle for it is slower).
And of course 400kg is plenty for a small nuclear warhead as well, probably in the 20-50kt range. Large enough to not even have to hit the target ship directly. Detonate several hundred meters over the target fleet and you have a mission kill on an entire strike group from the blast alone, not even counting the damage from the gamma and heat pulses to electronics and crew, and the contamination from fallout (which wouldn't be very much from an airburst of that magnitude).
Uhm...400kg is well above 270-300kg for full strategic thermonuclear, 0,5 MT W87-1
@@piotrd.4850 also consider size...
And maybe my information on the weight of warheads is out of date, I'm stuck in the '80s more or less, LOL
data from open sources:
1) final speed is 5+M
2) nuclear variants are 500kt and several less powered
The "Zarcon"?
Americans see words differently .
ikr bugs the hell out of me. he can read it and if you know about russian cruise missiles theyre all named after rocks/minerals
I thought of Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy: "Zarking Phonon" was it? "Zarking Photon"?
At those speeds, it requires an insane amount of energy to maneuver. So I am doubtful it can actually hit anything smaller than a carrier or something that isn't stationary. That being said, time will tell if this is a legitimate threat? or only a theoretical one.
russian navy has carrier killers supersonic missiles from late 60s/70s that make sure the US navy has 0 interest to do battle with them. Now hypersonic missiles make carrier obsoletion all the more compelling. So there is a good reason americans dont wanna mess with russian missiles. Missiles make surface fleets look like nice juicy targets.
It doesn't have to maneuver sharply to throw off an intercept though. Even a couple degrees' course correction will mean an intercepting missile is off by miles when we're talking a merge speed of Mach 12 or more.
TBH, it's probably CVNs that are it's primary target, and if you catch them during launching phase, not a whole lot of maneuvering it can do with just 6m of warning
it's actually the opposite. The faster you go the less energy you require to maneuver. see Ginta's comment.
@@GintaPPE1000 That means that if you launch an interceptor at the last minute, the missile will have to do the couple degrees of course correction, and then be off the target by miles. Then have to maneuver sharply to get back on target.
I sure high speed computer's will be able to track and deploy a response .
The hypersonic missile will be to the aircraft carrier what the carrier bomber was to the battleship in the 1930s/40s. End of an era for large surface vessels.
Yup
Is it a step forward in ASW weapons? Absolutely. Is it the wunderwaffen the media (all types) likes to pick it up and portray it as? No.
Somehow people seem to imagine Gundam Wing Zero hypervelocity missiles dancing around like dragonflies during terminal phase which is so far from the truth it's not even funny. The main improvement of 'hypersonic' weapons is it shorten the engagement and thus counter engagement window. They aren't immune to counter engagement just more difficult. And like any threat they will spawn development of suitable counters if cost vs. reward and the laws of physics allow.
If a war between NATO and Russia actually happens, the only Russian thing floating within 1000km of a Carrier Group will be wreckage and survivors...
It would be a real trick to launch a torpedo aboard a hypersonic weapon, then deliver it to a target area without destroying it on impact with the water. There would have to be a way to decelerate it enough so a parachute can take it to the water's surface intact. Given that space probes have achieved this feat, I have no doubt developing a hypersonic ASW missile is possible. Whether or not it's practical is another question. I imagine it would be easier to use a hypersonic missile to deliver a nuclear depth bomb than a torpedo, like the old ASROCS the U.S. Navy had decades ago.
Russian and Soviet weapons have had a generous dose of hype and propaganda.
Anyway, I have a few thoughts:
A) It launches and flies spectacularly but can it actually hit a moving sea target without tearing itself apart? Have the Russians actually demonstrated it hitting a moving target in a SINKEX?
B) This has a relatively short range of 1000 kilometres. That doesn’t qualify it as a strategic intercontinental threat. The risks of launch on warning are not the same with those of launching nuclear armed ICBMs.
C) Now reflect developments on such weapon technologies over the next ten years. It will be possible to arm destroyers and submarines with such weapons to shoot 1000 kilometres away. A submarine for example could launch a dozen of such missiles against a carrier group from a very long distance. You won’t be able to conduct ASW that far away and the window of reaction would be too small.
D) The defence against such weapons would include the means to suppress and destroy the supportive means of detecting and tracking friendly assets, as well as jamming communications of targeting data. For example shooting satellites and jamming communication to the launch platform.
Scale it down - making Ma5 with 500km range still makes it something to contend with, and engineering difficulties for building such thing decrease exponentially. BTW: 1000km is JASSM-ER equivalent.
@@alpham777 Exactly. So launch on warning can be applied here. In fact, because the speed of these weapons is so fast, there should be a “launch on warning switch” which should be turned on/off depending on the rules of engagement and the situation. Assuming it is on, then the ship’s computers should take over the decisions and actions.
@@piotrd.4850 It's not going either of those speeds at altitudes where ship are found
A) I newer found any evidences about moving data. So it's unproven capability
B) Dagger have 2000 km range, what the problem with 1k range? Hypersonic is very dim for IR sat's you can find open data about this problem, so alert will not be emitted and problem about false alert is not exists.
C) Yep and next gen ship will be small and possible it will be unmanned drones. Better if rowboat will carry hypersonic missile container than if you have heavy cost Yamato-2 with 50km fire range.
D) destroying or jamming strategic sats means starts full scale nuclear attack if automatic systems like Perimeters have algorithms Cold War era based. So Perimeter computer detect sat was destroyed, thats a sign full scale nuclear attack so system engage full scale nuclear attack too.
also drones can make alot of problems for ships. If you buy 1000 drones like tb-2 against several ship you can make a big problem for enemy fleet. Yep tb-2 have limited range of control(but drones can carry relay), but you can launch drones to find ships and then transmit by shortwave or direct microwave their position. Also ships defense system will be heavy overloaded
What's happend if next generations drones will be cheap big radotransparent plastic planes with solar panels on their winds, and capability to infinitive flight on 15km alt and navigations by optics(by landscape shapes, sun, stars, and very good clock)? What's happend with ships strategy if someone will create thousands of that?
Russia is unbeatable, Zircon is turning USA aircraft carriers in to sitting ducks...
Lasers cannot be used to defeat hypersonic weapons, a laser beam can get to the missile fast but it cant destroy it fast, it takes several seconds to burn a hole in a large object like a missile and keeping it focused on a fast moving, far away object has to be nearly impossible.
while a valid concern lasers would be more effective than you think. this thing will be smoking hot already and any disruption could cause it's heat shield to fail. Imagine hitting red hot steel with a torch vs cold hard steel......its going to be red hot at mach6+
@@southjerseysound7340 It'll be designed to sustain high heat. Pointing a laser at it is like adding a 2nd blow torch to something already being blow-torched. Maybe the laser could damage its guidance instead, but IIRC the laser range is very small and by the time it could damage the radar, there's probably not much time left for it to go off course.
@@CheddarBro not really. The problem is that higher powered lasers will suffer much more from atmospheric attenuation and bloom than lower powered ones.
That's what killed both the Soviet Sary Shagan installation (they abandoned that one when figuring this out) and the US YAL-1 concept.
Lasers are interesting weapons, but unless in a vacuum are really effective at shorter ranges only.
By tuning the frequencies depending on atmospheric conditions, and using extremely complex real time adaptive mirror systems, you can make some gains, but such systems are extremely complex, expensive, and large and unlikely to fit on any but the largest warships (it wouldn't fit on a Burke for example, unless maybe you'd strip it of everything else and just had 1 such laser on the fantail that's give you a range of a few nautical miles).
_Lasers cannot be used to defeat hypersonic weapons_ A bold statement, like the world market for computers is 5 or you cannot shoot a projectile out of the air.
_a laser beam can get to the missile fast_ Literally at light speed.
_it takes several seconds to burn a hole in a large object like a missile_ That is "merely" a question of how much power the laser deposits. Which in turn comes down to mirror size.
_keeping it focused_ Well, try shooting from a fast moving ship to hit another fast moving ship, both of which may manoeuvre, with flight times of several dozens of seconds.
_a fast moving, far away object_ that is coming practically in a straight line towards you. Head on shots rarely suffer from high angular velocities.
_has to be nearly impossible_ *has* to be? That sounds more like personal incredulity. The correct phrase for _nearly impossible_ is "possible (may be hard, though)".
Do lasers work well in rain/clouds?
I believe the US Navy should be concerned about these missiles but there are several situational awareness type issues that make them much less scary in my opinion. 1. Targeting: How is the Russian frigate or destroyer going to target an aircraft carrier that far away. The answer is, it can't. They can fire blind or along a very rough threat axis. Almost certainly missing. 2. Aircraft Carrier Paranoia: Navy carriers are extremely cautious about what is out there. Especially surface and air threats. Almost certainly, the carrier will know the location of the frigate or destroyer long long before the threat ship has any meaningful info on the carrier. The missile might travel at mach 9 but the ship that targets and launches it is pretty much limited to 30 knots or so. Believe me, the carrier will not allow a threat ship to close the gap and acquire them as a target. 3. Minimum Range: And what is the minimum range of these new missiles? If they have to reach very high altitude to be effective then the min. range might be beyond the targeting range of Russian technology. Mach 9 speed needs space to operate. 4. Submarines: I still believe the greatest threat to US Navy carriers is enemy subs.
Jensen, I suppose you have never heard of the cobalt cladded nuclear Poseidon torpedo? Game over.
@@JohnRodriguesPhotographer Both are things to be concerned about. But I think the Navy could handle both. The radar on current Arleigh Burke destroyers can supposedly simultaneously track more than 100 objects the size of golf balls from 100 miles away. And the newer radars on the flight III Burke's will be 30 times more powerful. I am not aware of a foreign UAV that can travel long ranges (up to 600 miles) with better than that level of stealth and send targeting data undetected. Regarding RORSAT. Most Burke destroyers can carry SM-3 Block IIA missiles (range: 2500 km., speed: mach 16-18). Designed to take out ballistic missiles and ICBM's. So taking out a satellite should not be difficult. Whether a SM-3 Block IIA can handle a Zircon is a different question. Reaction time probably crucial. But if a carrier detected a radar signal from a RORSAT targeting it. I suspect an escorting destroyer could easily (and quickly) take out the satellite.
Question: why can't we container-ise VLS cells, and put them on container ships?
i.e. take the warship (and very valuable sailors) out of the equation, and treat these readily-available container ships as drone missile trucks?
seems like a good idea to me.
You could probably upscale or modify something like the Danish StanFlex to fit your needs, then mass produce such plug-n-play cells and field them as required. I have a nagging suspicion the usual NATO problem of "if it isn't an American system sold to other countries, for why it can't be adopted" would hinder such efforts.
I've heard that at these speeds the missles are hard to track due to the plasma envelope it creates. If that's true, how can the onboard radar operate?
The Pershing ll missile also has this problem, it flew at Mach 9 at about the same altitude too until just before it reached its target area. It would then do porpoise moves, bleeding off speed until it was below Mach 4.5 where the plasma would dissipate and its radar would work.
I’m guessing the Zircon also performs a similar maneuver since he pointed out that the scram jet would tear itself apart in the lower, thicker atmosphere?
Top secret.
@@Middle-Eastt … Not really, it’s just physics, as smart as the Russians are, they can’t change this. As speed increases, the efficiency of a ramjet starts to drop as the air temperature in the inlet increases due to compression. As the inlet temperature gets closer to the exhaust temperature, less energy can be extracted in the form of thrust. This is why ramjets at lower altitudes due to air density are restricted to Mach 3.
@@JimCOsd55 !! I knew I should have tried harder in that Thermodynamics class! This seems like an important point about Ramjets that hasn't come up before.
@@leonardpearlman4017 Yep, everything is a compromise, if you want more of one thing than you have to give up part of something else!
I'm a skeptic. I'm sure the prototypes they have produced for these test are marvellous missiles, I don't doubt the design. I'm skeptical the Russians can actually field these missiles in large enough numbers to be effective. The events in Ukraine have shown that the Russian Military Industry is rotten to the core. The corruption at every level has left their military forces completely inept. The Russian Navy can't properly maintain their ships, how are we supposed to believe they can build these missiles in numbers, send them out to working ships or ground stations, and then maintain them?
Keep reading that MSM agitprop swill
keep watching TV fatso
I'd also like to see them shoot at something other than a pre-prepared target, that is maneuvering beyond the horizon. How does Russia see and track the target in real time? and how maneuverable is this hypersonic missile? when at hypersonic speed, you can't maneuver aggressively without risking self-destruction.
Keep watching CNN. Russia is cleaning the floor in Ukraine. I repeat, Russia is cleaning the floor in Ukraine. The Ukraine army was destroyed in the first weeks. Its taking all the supplies of western nations put together to keep Ukraine going and they're still losing. I repeat. Russia is cleaning the floor in Ukraine !
Keep dreaming boy 👦
This sounds like it's both an anti-ship and a land attack missile. BOTH use RADAR to find and hit their targets. As for it's engine not being able to work at low-altitudes and possibly destroying the missile in flight, there is a solution. Why not jettison the engine section at the apogee of it's flight and leave the forward section with movable vanes to dive into the target? ICBM's do this, I see no reason why the Zircon's payload couldn't separate from the booster once it enters the terminal phase of flight. That would present a smaller but still maneuvering target that would not be predictable until it hits. The engine section can also poop out decoys to present false targets for the intended target's RADAR and other detection gear to make it even harder to identify the warhead section before it hits.
Taras, your comment is treading into sensitive information, imo. Let's not continue. For the record, I have no idea if you're ideas are correct. Let's go watch cat videos, those are fun.
@@SubBrief No worries........but I was making logical deductions about how the thing could work. I know NASA successfully tested a SCRAMJET engine in flight successfully some years ago. Maybe this technology will instead take people into space instead of destroying things.
If lasers get masterd virtually all missiles will become useless by burning the missile up just before it hits it target. It is easier to destroy a missile coming at you than it firing away from you.
Advanced Laser defense battery systems in the upper atmosphere as well as the ground need to be created with rapid firing generators capable of engaging multiple targets. The accuracy must be within inches.
Maybe with Russia being able to leverage this new weapon we may want to actually negotiate in good faith instead of shitting all over previous agreements such as the Minsk accords. The downside side of negotiations is that the “Big Guy” may not get his cut. Good work on the Sub Briefs love the channel.
Thank you, Roy.
@@SubBrief I truly hope that the Zircon never gets fired in anger against our ships and sailers. The Rank n File of our military is good and what I care about is the leadership, that worries me.
@@RMJTOOLS The DPR shat all over Minsk II by initiating a military assault of Debaltseve the day after it was signed.
You know you're dealing with scum when they plan a military advance ahead of a ceasefire being introduced.
In honesty I'm pretty sceptical of the performance here. Even if it does meet the on paper capability I'd think it not as dangerous as it seems in practice. Of course historically the Russians have exaggerated even the paper performance, but these claims aren't particularly unreasonable. But as Ukraine demonstrated not every capable (Russian) weapon works out in practice. In this case I can't help but think how the past supersonic missiles felt a little lacking due to the long warning such a high altitude gives. Even with the massive speed I'd think the altitude would still give a pretty long warning. And whilst its manoeuvrable that sounds far better on paper and the manoeuvrability won't make it any more difficult to intercept than former manoeuvrable missiles. The speed might require a higher seeker slew angle (for the defending missile) and updated electronics, but once that's figured out it too becomes no more difficult. So ultimately its impressive Russia have the tech to make this missile work I'd not think its as big of a threat as it sounds.
Personally I lean towards the western mentality of stealth sea-skimming missiles. I'd think that gives a far lower intercept time, plus it limits the number of ships and the number of weapons which can defend. Perhaps if the west adds a supersonic sprint capability in the pre-terminal and terminal phase they could make the ultimate missile, but either way it seems we are far ahead of the defensive capabilities of near-peer threats anyway.
Russian has been a long time leader in rocket engines... Russia sent a satellite to space before US and before this war started, the US was buying Russia's RD-180, which are used in United Launch Alliance's (ULA) Atlas 5 rocket... So I would not be skeptical of their Zircon missile performance.
@@-jovoc Well, they've also launched a hypersonic jet at a munitions dump, so they don't really have a choice
That and initial reports from western intel in UKR (pinch of salt) report that these missiles missed their long range mark by tens of meters.
Your viewpoint is clouded by Nato and Ukrainian propaganda. We won't know what's really going on in Ukraine for years to come.
I too am skeptical.
Maneuvers at hypersonic speed? Just as maneuverable as a SR71 as in NOT! Small adjustments at that speed converts to large deflection and yes hard to have a counter fire solution within a reaction time.
Lasers are not effective ATM as there is insufficient power for a laser to burn through an object moving that fast through the atmosphere.
Being active homing? How powerful must the radar in the warhead be to get a solution to correct while going that fast? Eg very powerful to give it time to adjust, then defensive maneuvers.
I have little doubt that they have built something that can be launched and go so fast. Making it into a deployable weapon is something completely different.
These prototype tests are Russia's strong point. They build fantastic prototypes in the lab and then fire them off. But, they take forever to go into production if ever. Production costs a fortune. Lots of Russian equipment shows the production versions to be much less capable then the very nice well funded prototype. We will see.
sounds like the strong points of the US as well...
Take 30 years to develop something that looks great on paper and then spend the first 20 years it's in service to work out the design flaws, by which time you've reduced the numbers ordered by 75% from the originally planned because of the poor performance and lost 10-20% of what was delivered in accidents.
And then as been shown many times, from the Arab-Israeli wars all the way up to Ukraine, actual combat utility has rarely lived up to the hype.
@@obsidianjane4413 First war was extremely effective.
next one they did not update the seekers and softkills. I assume you refer to the anti ship missiles vs Israel.
@@jwenting but at least the US fields its high tech systems. other nations talk big but they rarely get produced at all.
@@SoloRenegade cause US high tech systems are made for counter insurgency and low intensity warfare, where exactly is russia supposed to test anti ship missiles in combat?
Given the diminutive maneuver service area and the thinness of the atmosphere at ~120K feet, my guess is the Zircon doesn't do tight turns. I'm thinking the SM-2 is up to stopping the Zircon
Just the kinetics in the missile even if you could hit it as it closed in , the frag would shred the hull like birdshot on wet tissue
I was wondering if the "warhead" is just a solid slug of something! Tungsten is the first thing that comes to mind. So yeah, if you do some interception kind of action you might eat the white-hot tungsten slug just the same.
Another drawback: at that speed it WILL have a huge IR signature. It may well be able to heat it up more by a laser (which will not need to lead the missile, speed of light being much faster) ... and it will not react very kindly to material in the air it may slam into. Running into a cloud of plastic or aluminium stripes --- or anything else --- will not be conductive for the health of the missile, and it may be that even a dent at the nose will cause a catastrophic failure a bit later.
Speaking of, what would happen when it is on the final dive and runs into a, say, anti-torpedo net or something similar? The kinetic energy would cause the missile to hurt, badly, and could possibly set off the explosive warhead, causing smaller missile parts in a shotgun pattern coming towards the ship ... which will a) lose more energy to the air than the streamlined missile and b) spread out the damage, making it more survivable, c) a number of the chunks are going to be a clean miss ...
Not saying that that is a good idea or will work, it's just that targetting a ship means the last few kilometres are fairly predictable ...
Last few km are passed in seconds, untill then you wont even notice it on radar
@@overlord4404 You won't notice an object 120k feet up on radar? This is not a sea skimmer! It also has an active radar seeker, and likely not JUST for the last few seconds.
Also, it will be pretty hot from all that air friction at Mach 9; any IR sensor should see it with ease. Any space based IR sensor will also notice --- and they are up there, watching for ballistic missile launches, for example.
Space based radar sensors should also pick up fairly easily as very few things move at that speed.
And "in seconds" is rather a colloquial phrase, given that we can express the age of the universe in seconds (about 436,117,077,000,000,000 seconds, or 13.82 billion years).
@@advorak8529 ok, let me simplify
Radar waves do not like plasma, missile going fast creates plasma. Neither you nor I really know the inside out of this missile.
Infrared sensors, depends on the weather.
Lasers, again, plasma is way hotter than contemporary lasers that can be mounted on any ship.
Second, range of contemporary lasers in almost PERFECT weather conditions is 2-3km max. The missile travels that lenght in 1.54 seconds ( I took S= 3km and V= 7000 km/h not 7400 km/h) you can evan take lower speed if you wish, it wont change much.
Is it more clear now?
@@overlord4404 “Plasma stealth” isn’t a real concept. Plasma blocks certain frequencies of radar. Not all.
All ballistic missiles create plasma sheathes. Plenty of tests using ARH terminal interceptor missiles have been performed by plenty of countries.
@@jonathanpfeffer3716 And those different certain frequencies do a different job at detecting different sized object, which i'm sure has been taken into account. As we know lower frequencies travel through things better than high frequencies. For example a giganting extremely low frequency radar setup can detect navies even THROUGH a mountain range, but is entirely useless for small objects. This missile is not intended for small targets, but is a relatively small target. You get the point ? Nuclear ballistic missiles are a pretty big target compared to this thing.
I always thought having a giant airport on the ocean is a beautiful target. Other than for enemy's that are technically 30y behind.
That's why they are never alone
Static airport's are all this will hit a moving target employing countermeasures not so much but much like the S400 this will get hyped massively by the paid trolls.
Russia is unbeatable, Zircon is turning USA aircraft carriers in to sitting ducks...
@@mirekslechta7161 Haha that's it mate give it some bollocks.
30 yr behind like NATO and the USA
The Kerov also looked a beast on paper.
At these velocities you have a plasma around the missile during the touch down phase. To "soft kill" it seems impossible at that point, because it is not reachable by photon based signals aka radio, laser, light, IR, UV, etc.
I wonder howbmany of its internal parts are made in the west and not further available for them.
None
could it hit an aircratf carrier?
Yes it can
@@pxy24x28 cant wait to see the fotage of UsS ronald regan sinking!
If it gets threw the worlds heaviest anti missle defense I doubt it can get threw sm3 and sm6 missles and a patriot can certainly intercept it
@@lilMungo bro it’s hypersonic missile flies so fast it creates plasma around the missile and non anti missile system can detect it there is no defence against this type of missiles in us
@@leto2582 false as this has never been tested and it's not known if the plasma filled works likes that and its not hypersonic it's entire flight a sm3 and sm6 can easily shoot it down
I think since the "great reform" of Russian military, they prioritized the development of strategic and cutting edge weapons like Zircon, Kinzhal, Posiedon and Sarmat (obviously to guarantee their survival). Then the navy got the best fund, then the airforce procured some half decent aircraft, and the army got the least. That's why we see Russia is kinda struggling against Ukraine (read NATO technology and satellite information).
ya. they only have a half-dozen in stock! lmao
Well the corruption in the military is their biggest weakness atm. Its on all levels. Like Sergei who runs the russian forces has a salary of 120k dollars per year. But lives in an 18 million dollar mansion that is a Japanese palace.. His daughter owns lots of property in Moscow etc.
So the top levels are corrupt. And then the lower levels get corrupt. Colonels using their soldiers for labor and take the money. Supplies officer takes arms and equipment and sells on the black marked.
And even Russian soldiers stealing from each other and selling that equipment. Some soldiers have even their gun stolen from them. After all, a conscripted soldier only makes 30 dollars per month in Russia. Kinda gotta do some side hustle to afford some luxuries. Like stealing. Like before the invasion, most got nightvision etc. Now most have had nightvision stolen from them..
pretty much only tanks with nightvision left. That makes it hard to do war in 2022.
This makes for a very uneffective armed forces.
The navy always gets the best funds,just look at Britain,USA and France.
The air force and navy don't seem to be doing particularly well either. It is not like they have air superiority over the battle field and have lost several significant ships to basic missile attacks.
I guess occupying 1/3 of Ukraine is called struggle nowadays.
Know your enemy. That's one big step.
Admit your limitations and weaknesses. That another big step.
Come to sanity and make diplomacies End the futile and sadistic effort of sending as many ukraini an warrios to afterlife. The only obvious step left.
What say you now?
internet w4nk3r
@@SubBrief you're pulling my leg
Thank you for the work done. It was very interesting to listen to your analysis
ASW circa 1979.UUM-44 SUBROC coms to mind. we came a long way baby> STS
Wonderful they fired the whole one missile out of like four missiles they actually have. Lol all the electronics probably came from France
Lol yea yea lol lol. Cope you bastard cope and then cope harder
They can be fired from any vessel capable of launching a Kalibr cruise missile, i.e. most of the Russian navy, submarines included.
Would a small dimple or pinhole on the fuselage from a high-energy laser be enough to destroy a Zircon missile?
Yes, at hypersonic speeds the temperatures of the airflow are like a cutting torch. The X-15 during one of its faster runs had a burn-through of its skin and the pilot could feel the shaking of the aircraft. Came very close to catastrophic failure.
I imagine it will take quite some time to burn a hole in the fuselage that's meant to withstand plasma.
@@ЯБезымянный-о5ф
For the X-15 it was less than 141 seconds before a hold was burned through.
Makes way more sense than Cavitation Torpedoes, don't it?😉 Probably scary af for Ship (and Tank) Crews, but isn't fundamentally all that different from any other ASM or SSM but should result in Defense Contractors developing better Point Defense Systems and Quicker-turning and -tracking Flak Cannons.
It’s very difficult especially when even the patriot anti missile is only 50% effective or less. With that in mind how could you develop a counter measure when patriot struggles to shoot down normal ballistic missiles!!
Very impressive presentation. Thanks.
THe impact of a mach 9 missile would be interesting to watch.
Russia and China will arm their hypersonic weapons with nuclear warheads where the CEP doesn't require precision. According to a recent CRS report # R45811 the big challenge is precision strike accuracy with a hypersonic conventional warhead.
So if they launch one of those, the response will be nuclear missle strikes from already available missiles. Doesn't seem like a smart thing to do. They would be hoping that we wouldn't retaliate and destroy their country. They might as well just use icbms of their own instead of these. It would make more sense than just taking out a battle group of ships.
05/19/2022 USNI story: According to US NorthCom Gen. Glen VanHerck Russian Hypersonic missiles (conventional warhead) have underperformed in Ukraine because of inaccuracy (refer to the previous post).
USA military spend $801 billion, Russia $65 billion. Yet again Russia was the first to develop hypersonic weapons and is years ahead of anyone else in this field. Russia is also the only nation that has technically to defend against hypersonic missiles.
China reports 230 billion, but independent study had discovered it actually being over 700 billion. I do see what you're saying, but I wouldn't trust any information directly reported from Russia. Also Russia has been getting help from their partnership with China, Iran and North Korea. I only hope that the US research and development is so top secret we won't know what has been created until it has to be put into action. Hopefully direct energy weapons was the US top objective to make such weapon offensive capabilities obsolete.
There is one simple solution - help the Russian surface fleet relocate underwater. They will have a harder time launching this weapon while at the bottom of the sea.
russans notorious for simple solutions also
The publicity photo floated by the Russians is that of X-51 Waverider.
You guys are toast. Enjoy the ride..
Almost had me until you mentioned “As we are dealing with a belligerent nation”
In order for me to remain clear about your concerns, were you referring to:
1. the past and current US administrations since President Carter to date
2. NATO
3. Ukraine (and it’s AZOV (NAZI) Battalion
Or God forbid…
4. The Russian Federation - Whom by obtainable facts issued by: OSCE - they recorded on 15.02.2022 over 41 ceasefire violations by Kiev’s forces as they began shelling in the Donbas.
These violations continued daily through to 22.02.2022 with rising amounts of shelling surpassing 1,484 (just on this unique calendar date).
On 24.02.2022 Russian troops were left with no choice but to intervene, protect historical Russian speaking citizens, deweaponised and denazify (the Azov (Nazis) Battalions in) this region.
Thankfully, the Russian Special Operation went above and beyond to discover the biological laboratories in Ukraine funded by US treasury, the undersecretary of state Victoria Nuland confirmed those facts.
Not to mention Russia's swift humanitarian actions to evacuate civilians and set up humanitarian aid and reconstruction efforts while they are still in combat.
While the missile itself is quite impressive and Russian engineers and rocket scientists where always topnotch, but the issue is not with the engineering itself but everything else... It all starts from the corruption that is rampant in the Russian military and we can see the results in Ukraine. Without the corruption at all levels the Russians would have ruffle-stomped the Ukrainians in a few weeks because "on-paper" they had the second most advanced military in the world and they did not need to cross half-the-world to invade a country...
Getting back at the issue at hand, I would say that there is no need from panic. Yes, Zircon is impressive as a high-speed vehicle but to make it into a good weapon system, several other things are needed (like proper radar electronics to detect a moving target like a CVN, or a good logistics chain to allow the platform to be deployed, good and motivated crews capable to lunch the weapon)... So, in the end the engineering is great but I am skeptical about the capabilities based on what I saw in the last 3 months...
Final notes:
1) when transiting from high altitude to low altitude the missile will bleed a lot of energy.. Assuming no modification were done to the ramjet itself, it will stalls/stop-working after getting into high density air and, when that happens, its air-intake will behave like a big air-brake which means that the missile may only have in mid super-sonic regime (maybe at around 2-3 Mach or so) in its final phase, which would make it vulnerable to SM-3s... Also without an engine, its maneuverability will be limited due to the reasons mentioned above.
2) maneuverability is not trivial, every trajectory update will be based on a pre-defined plan. That plan is either defined by the launch officer which need proper training or its hard-coded in the on-board computer of the missile... which can be "handled"...
3) I would be more scared about such missile if its launched from 500Kms than if its launched from 1000Kms (for obvious reasons)
Is it really better then their most modern T-62 Tank?
First channel I saw, I liked
Maybe teaching science and math is better than teaching CRT and Tommy Has Two Daddies
Aaron
Great presentation. Love having a knowledgeable person combined with great graphics, makes a powerful combination!
Russia is unbeatable, Zircon is turning USA aircraft carriers in to sitting ducks...
Looks like something out of Superman III
United States military second to none. We might have weirdos in right now but that ain't our fault. But as long as you're confident do their mission will be fine.
The best hard counter to hypersonic missiles is direct energy weapons. But those are still in development.
EMP pulse weapons have been used before. Destroy the circuit not even the missile god-knows-where land. This Administration is embarrassing let them at that. I'm hoping and praying that our defense department is doing the right thing and getting our troops ready to go and do what they got to do. If they have two course I want no boots-on-the-ground in Europe. Is it Germany France and Great Britain's responsibility not ours.
Wake me up when they get a Sprint type missile.
You had to have slow motion to see that missile.