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air defense missiles must have even greater speed for interception. That's the whole breakdown on the topic.
But Western analysts already knew about this missile, which has the NATO reporting name “Killjoy.” They were not impressed with Putin’s attempt at rebranding.
“Kinzhal is nothing more than an air-launched ballistic missile,” Jeffrey Lewis, Ph.D., of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California, tells Popular Mechanics. “It’s only hypersonic in the sense that pretty much all ballistic missiles are hypersonic.”
Sidharth Kaushal, Ph.D., of the U.K.-based defense think tank RUSI is similarly doubtful about the “hypersonic” label. “It doesn’t meet the maneuverability criteria for being a true hypersonic weapon,” he tells Popular Mechanics.
Their doubts are rooted in the Kinzhal’s lineage. It is an air-launched version of a ground-launched Iskander ballistic missile, with only fairly minor modifications for the new launch method. It was first seen in 2010 proposals for a weapon to be carried by a MiG-31 “Foxhound” fighter.
The quasi-ballistic approach is hardly unique; others, such as the U.S. Army’s ATACMS missile, do the same thing.The quasi-ballistic approach is hardly unique; others, such as the U.S. Army’s ATACMS missile, do the same thing.
KYIV, May 6 (Reuters) - Ukrainian air defences shot down a Russian hypersonic missile for the first time during an attack on the capital Kyiv this week, the Air Force said on Saturday, in a potentially major setback for the Kremlin's campaign of long-range air strikes.
The Kinzhal, which means "dagger" in Russian, is one of six "next generation" weapons unveiled by President Vladimir Putin in 2018 when the Russian leader boasted that it cannot be shot down by any of the world's air defence systems.
Ukraine downs Russian hypersonic missile with US Patriot...
originally posted by: Oldcarpy2
a reply to: Kurokage
The Khinzal seems to be used by Russia against civilian targets rather than military ones, so, basically a terror weapon.
Therefore, to prevent melting, the warhead must fly in a cloud of plasma. And this can be done. But another problem arises. Plasma does not transmit control signals. But to make it let through signals, and not just let through, but let through its own and block other people’s
originally posted by: MBakhtin
a reply to: RussianTroll
Therefore, to prevent melting, the warhead must fly in a cloud of plasma. And this can be done. But another problem arises. Plasma does not transmit control signals. But to make it let through signals, and not just let through, but let through its own and block other people’s
The heat itself is what creates the plasma, when the air around missiles like Kinzhal is superheated it becomes plasma. Only letting through it's own signals would be undesirable because then it would still be visible on radar but not remote controllable, unlike a cruise missile that is visible but controllable. But that's not how it works, it uses inertial navigation when it's hypersonic.