America stunned by the acceleration of Russian hypersonic weapons

The Russian Defense Ministry expects to receive a series of aviation products and anti-aircraft means operating at hypersonic speeds, that is, at least eight times faster than the speed of sound, in 2020-2022.

Sputnik news agency reported that Russia is currently conducting tests of the Zircon 3M22 sea-based hypersonic missile, the mass production of which is expected to begin in the near future.

The Zircon 3M22 missile is said to represent a “quantum leap” in creating asymmetric weapons to defend against nuclear attack, according to US defense officials.

Photo: RT

Data from the Washington Times shows that Russia's Zircon is capable of flying eight times faster than the speed of sound and is practically invulnerable to missile defense systems.

However, this is not the final limit, according to the Russian Tactical Missiles Corporation, the potential for modernization of this type of missile allows reaching speeds of up to 12-13 Mach.

The Russian Defense Ministry believes that in hypersonic inventions Russia is not lagging behind the world's leading high-tech countries.

Super engine

According to Russian Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov, the country's most valuable achievement in the hypersonic speed category is not the missile but the straight-flow engine.

“It is impossible to propel hypersonic vehicles with conventional jet engines, but it is necessary to use ramjet engines with hypersonic internal combustion fuel. Missile weapons with ramjet engines can be recognized by the nose with air vents,” the Russian Deputy Defense Minister emphasized.

The ramjet rocket is a hybrid system that combines the working principles of a liquid-fuel rocket engine and a ramjet engine.

The difference in principle is that the rocket engine works on the fuel it carries, while the radial-flow engine works on the oxygen in the atmosphere, and thus allows to reduce the overall weight of the rocket or increase the weight of the warhead. The radial-flow engine cannot work at low speeds. However, speed is not everything.

Hypersonic engines and machines operate in high-temperature plasma clouds (up to 1,500°C), when aluminum and magnesium melt, steel loses its heat-resistant properties. This forces the solution of numerous complex scientific and applied tasks.

Low orbit characteristics

Yu-71 hypersonic missile.

Only a small circle of experts knows the basic tactical and technical characteristics of hypersonic weapons, but it is known that at a speed of 5-6 Mach the missile will become virtually invulnerable to existing air defense systems.

Therefore, even in the unlikely event that enemy air defense systems are able to detect and destroy Zircon, the kinetic energy of the fragments is still enough to destroy a ship or ground target.

Russia's successful test of the Zircon hypersonic missile is a powerful leap forward in creating asymmetric weapons to protect against nuclear attacks.

Another example. The Yu-71 ("Product 4202") hypersonic missile covered a distance of 6,000 km in 20 minutes and accurately hit the target at the Kurra training ground in Kamchatka in the fall of 2016.

Before entering the dense atmosphere, the device actively maneuvered in the specified height and direction at a speed of up to Mach 15. It is assumed that this was a test of a prototype of a new warhead of the super-heavy sea-based ballistic missile RS-28 Sarmat, which should replace the "Voevoda" in the Russian Strategic Missile Forces.

The deployment of the new complex began in 2018. An elusive system, Sarmat is capable of delivering up to 16 nuclear warheads over a distance of 16,000 km. The concept of the complex takes into account the maximum weight of the launched warhead (up to 10 tons).

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts - a leading expert in the field of long-range missiles in the US said about the power of Sarmat: "Compared to the super missile RS-28 Sarmat, the two atomic bombs the US dropped on Japan in 1945 are just toys."

He believes that this new generation of super missiles has enough destructive power to "wipe out three-quarters of the US state of New York" easily.

As early as May 2014, Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov announced that work on the creation of heavy sea-launched ballistic missiles was proceeding according to plan, and that the new missiles would be able to fly over any pole.

High-precision hypersonic products are not just a tool of World War III. In local conflicts, this type of weapon can destroy the enemy's strategic objects with kinetic energy nuclear warheads without using nuclear ammunition.

It can be said that, with Sarmat, Zircon and many other hypersonic products, the Russian army has been gradually completing the modernization of its armed forces. Russia's success has made the Americans start to worry and panic to find a way to deal with it.

According to TPO