There has been a lot of talk about the Russian Zircon/Tsirkon missile recently, particularly in light of strikes on Kiev in late March that were said to have used it. Since then, there have been several high level efforts from experts to delve into the precise details of the missile’s operation and secretive characteristics.
"Also, note the speed. While it does look extremely fast, it’s questionable whether the terminal impact is hypersonic for a variety of reasons, not least of which being that the missile does not appear to be glowing hot nor have any sort of plasma bubble effect."
No missile is hypersonic in the terminal phase. The heat generated by lower atmospheric pressure would destroy it before it reached its target. The key to the success of hypersonic speed in the upper atmosphere is the plasma bubble that generates, which makes the missile invisible to radar. By the time it's on its reentry track and has slowed down (still travelling fast) it's too late to effectively target.
"But the fact that the Kh-69 can be operated by Mig-31, Su-30/34/35/57 means any of the hundreds of buzzing planes around Ukraine can be sporting it at any given time."
I wonder if it's possible to launch it from a balloon? You could flood the sky with balloons very cheaply.
What I've observed over the last eighteen plus months is that the west is achieving hypersonic speed in its downfall, and now even bunkers aren't safe. I find that comforting news.
The kh69 looks an awful lot like the Taurus, don't you think?
Do you think all these missile strikes have had an effect on the fighting capacity on either side? Ukraine has taken thousands of missile hits, but to my eyes the Lancet has had a greater battlefield effect
@Simplicus - any idea of the true ZIrcon maximum speeds? There have been claims that the Zircon is capable of Mach 10+ speeds.
Interestingly, now the Russians have had SU-34 fighter / bombers that are capable of launching the Kinzhal, which means that the less common Mig-31 is not the only aircraft capable of launching the Kinzhal. That's a huge advantage for Russia, if this becomes more widespread, as has the dramatic increase in the amount of Kinzhals being produced (it has gone from a rare and expensive missile to something that has been produced and fired far more frequently).
The bottom line is, that the Western world is way behind in this critical field and with no easy way to catch up with the Russians nor the Chinese.
Several months before the Russians began the Special Military Operation, then Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Miley noted that the US had experienced a "near Sputnik" moment, something reported even by the pro-Western press.
It's been argued that the 2 worst things to have happened to the US was the breakdown of the USSR and the 1991 Desert Storm. It gave the US a sense of arrogance, a sense of their superiority that was not justified. Perhaps to give a historical analogy, some Ancient Roman historians noted that the fall of Carthage had produced a fall in the morality of Roman elites.
The very strong performance of Russian missiles is an example of Western superiority being unjustified. I'd argue it's worse. The Romans remained the dominant power in Europe and parts of Asia for hundreds of years. The US seems to be losing its superpower status after just a couple of decades of mismanagement and they never had to worry about their opponents deploying vastly superior technology.
Keep in mind that the much of the best scientific and engineering talent in the US are foreign born students. Many come from China and with the rise of anti-Chinese sentiment in the US, this crucial source of talent is going to be reduced in the future. The lackluster state of math and science at the primary and secondary school level in the US is going to have consequences.
Classic definition of hypersonic from the late 60s is a missile using outside oxygen for oxidiser at hypersonic speeds for normal (I e) march engines. Can’t go wrong with that. Under that definition no one has hypersonic weapons yet, but Russia comes close and theirs are good enough, which is the definition of Russian approach to weapons- they have to be good enough.
Elaboration - using outside oxidiser means the missile has to fly quite low, cause up high there isn’t enough air, which means high air resistance at hypersonic speeds, which is the crux of the problem
How impressive is our human imgenuity! To solve not only the engineering but also the logistic problems e.g. of marshalling five tons of exotic fuel for the single flight of one of these destruction devices! One basks in admiration! Despite the niggling glimmer of a question of what else we might be turning our species' genius to, were we not so intent on dominating and killing each other.
I keep seeing this sort of pissing contest from both sides: can X weapon achieve this or that, or can X weapon defeat Y weapon.
The thing in war is that none of that matters. All that matters is: did you win? And considering one of the most effective weapons of the war so far is an old soviet RPG warhead duct taped to a drone bought off Alibaba or Wish.com, I find these arguments laughable. It doesn't matter if the Raptor can out-stealth and out maneuver any warplane, if Russia operates it's planes using standoff weapons from behind an integrated AD network, well out of striking distance. It also doesn't matter if the Tsirkon achieves mach 7 or 8, if it cannto be operated in large enough numbers to make a difference.
Which leads me to my last point: I presume the Tsirkon strikes in this war were basically test-fires by the Russians against the Patriot and IRIS-T, a sort of post-production live fire test, if you will. It's not meant to be a game changer in this war, it doesn't have the numbers to do that. But it's a test for the role it does have the numbers to be a game-changer in, which is sinking carriers. And the success of the strike is not a message to us, or the OSINT crowd, it's a message to the Pentagon.
Former Saker contributor here, big fan of your work. I'm writing a multi-part series on Emmanuel Todd's French-only book "The Defeat of the West". I think you might like it, as this book is making major waves for its honesty regarding the conflict. Keep up the great work!
The Ukrainian suicide: Reading Emmanuel Todd’s French-only 'The Defeat of the West'
Peter Zion begs to differ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMTINxXa-zI
LLM-derived breakdowns and summaries for that post by Simplcius The Thinker:
https://complexiathesinker.substack.com/p/llm-over-3m22-zircon-debunking-misconceptions
"Also, note the speed. While it does look extremely fast, it’s questionable whether the terminal impact is hypersonic for a variety of reasons, not least of which being that the missile does not appear to be glowing hot nor have any sort of plasma bubble effect."
No missile is hypersonic in the terminal phase. The heat generated by lower atmospheric pressure would destroy it before it reached its target. The key to the success of hypersonic speed in the upper atmosphere is the plasma bubble that generates, which makes the missile invisible to radar. By the time it's on its reentry track and has slowed down (still travelling fast) it's too late to effectively target.
"But the fact that the Kh-69 can be operated by Mig-31, Su-30/34/35/57 means any of the hundreds of buzzing planes around Ukraine can be sporting it at any given time."
I wonder if it's possible to launch it from a balloon? You could flood the sky with balloons very cheaply.
Tochka-U is hypersonic??
What I've observed over the last eighteen plus months is that the west is achieving hypersonic speed in its downfall, and now even bunkers aren't safe. I find that comforting news.
The kh69 looks an awful lot like the Taurus, don't you think?
Do you think all these missile strikes have had an effect on the fighting capacity on either side? Ukraine has taken thousands of missile hits, but to my eyes the Lancet has had a greater battlefield effect
Whew, mercy. There truly is a class of men who are deeply engrossed in comparing the size and performance of their "missiles" :)
Very interesting deep dive, nonetheless!
@Simplicus - any idea of the true ZIrcon maximum speeds? There have been claims that the Zircon is capable of Mach 10+ speeds.
Interestingly, now the Russians have had SU-34 fighter / bombers that are capable of launching the Kinzhal, which means that the less common Mig-31 is not the only aircraft capable of launching the Kinzhal. That's a huge advantage for Russia, if this becomes more widespread, as has the dramatic increase in the amount of Kinzhals being produced (it has gone from a rare and expensive missile to something that has been produced and fired far more frequently).
https://bulgarianmilitary.com/2023/09/04/russian-fullback-gained-the-ability-to-launch-ballistic-missiles/
The bottom line is, that the Western world is way behind in this critical field and with no easy way to catch up with the Russians nor the Chinese.
Several months before the Russians began the Special Military Operation, then Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Miley noted that the US had experienced a "near Sputnik" moment, something reported even by the pro-Western press.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/28/chinas-hypersonic-missile-test-close-to-sputnik-moment-says-us-general
It's been argued that the 2 worst things to have happened to the US was the breakdown of the USSR and the 1991 Desert Storm. It gave the US a sense of arrogance, a sense of their superiority that was not justified. Perhaps to give a historical analogy, some Ancient Roman historians noted that the fall of Carthage had produced a fall in the morality of Roman elites.
The very strong performance of Russian missiles is an example of Western superiority being unjustified. I'd argue it's worse. The Romans remained the dominant power in Europe and parts of Asia for hundreds of years. The US seems to be losing its superpower status after just a couple of decades of mismanagement and they never had to worry about their opponents deploying vastly superior technology.
Keep in mind that the much of the best scientific and engineering talent in the US are foreign born students. Many come from China and with the rise of anti-Chinese sentiment in the US, this crucial source of talent is going to be reduced in the future. The lackluster state of math and science at the primary and secondary school level in the US is going to have consequences.
The Western "experts" you cite are arguing about definitions, rather than about effectiveness, which is what actually matters.
Classic definition of hypersonic from the late 60s is a missile using outside oxygen for oxidiser at hypersonic speeds for normal (I e) march engines. Can’t go wrong with that. Under that definition no one has hypersonic weapons yet, but Russia comes close and theirs are good enough, which is the definition of Russian approach to weapons- they have to be good enough.
Elaboration - using outside oxidiser means the missile has to fly quite low, cause up high there isn’t enough air, which means high air resistance at hypersonic speeds, which is the crux of the problem
How impressive is our human imgenuity! To solve not only the engineering but also the logistic problems e.g. of marshalling five tons of exotic fuel for the single flight of one of these destruction devices! One basks in admiration! Despite the niggling glimmer of a question of what else we might be turning our species' genius to, were we not so intent on dominating and killing each other.
I keep seeing this sort of pissing contest from both sides: can X weapon achieve this or that, or can X weapon defeat Y weapon.
The thing in war is that none of that matters. All that matters is: did you win? And considering one of the most effective weapons of the war so far is an old soviet RPG warhead duct taped to a drone bought off Alibaba or Wish.com, I find these arguments laughable. It doesn't matter if the Raptor can out-stealth and out maneuver any warplane, if Russia operates it's planes using standoff weapons from behind an integrated AD network, well out of striking distance. It also doesn't matter if the Tsirkon achieves mach 7 or 8, if it cannto be operated in large enough numbers to make a difference.
Which leads me to my last point: I presume the Tsirkon strikes in this war were basically test-fires by the Russians against the Patriot and IRIS-T, a sort of post-production live fire test, if you will. It's not meant to be a game changer in this war, it doesn't have the numbers to do that. But it's a test for the role it does have the numbers to be a game-changer in, which is sinking carriers. And the success of the strike is not a message to us, or the OSINT crowd, it's a message to the Pentagon.
Fantastic post, Simplicius - Thanks for keeping on the Zircon!
Excellent story as usual
Former Saker contributor here, big fan of your work. I'm writing a multi-part series on Emmanuel Todd's French-only book "The Defeat of the West". I think you might like it, as this book is making major waves for its honesty regarding the conflict. Keep up the great work!
The Ukrainian suicide: Reading Emmanuel Todd’s French-only 'The Defeat of the West'
https://raminmazaheri.substack.com/p/the-ukrainian-suicide-reading-emmanuel