STAR WARS: China beats US to testing 9,127mph HYPERSONIC missile carrier

[The SC]

Russia’s hypersonic trump card edges closer to reality

Posted on October 23, 2013 by editor

Russia’s newest ballistic missile the RS-26 Rubezh. Source: RIA Novosti

The RS-26 Rubezh will significantly expand the ability of Russian strategic nuclear forces to overcome missile defence systems

By the end of this year, Moscow will test its newest ballistic missile, the RS-26 Rubezh (which means frontier in Russian) equipped with hypersonic manoeuvring nuclear units. As Colonel General Vladimir Zarudnitsky, chief of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, said to Vladimir Putin, this system will significantly expand the ability of Russian strategic nuclear forces to overcome missile defence systems. The technical specifications of the new missile have not been disclosed. However, public recognition of the fact that it has “hypersonic manoeuvring nuclear units” indicates it is an ultimate weapon.

“Ballistic missiles have a certain trajectory and power supply capacity. It is rather difficult to reach beyond these parameters in the development of new models of this type,” says Vladimir Dvorkin, the former head of the 4th Central Research Institute of the Ministry of Defence (the institution that studies the effects of nuclear weapons). “So currently the only thing that can be upgraded is most likely the warhead of ballistic missiles.”

Back in 1997, then Chief of General Staff Yury Baluyevsky announced proudly that Russia had developed a hypersonic cruise vehicle (HCV). Its flight path is non-classical, meaning it doesn’t follow the classic parabola like a modern nuclear warhead, but can arbitrarily change directions. HCVs can enter outer space, and then re-enter the earth’s atmosphere. A conventional nuclear warhead enters the dense layers of the atmosphere at a speed of 5,000 metres per second. The speed of the HCV is twice as high. This makes it very hard to detect with radar missile defence systems. In addition, as military personnel note, the HCV can be retargeted throughout its entire flight, unlike conventional warheads.

Currently, the U.S. is working on several hypersonic missiles: the HySTR, Hyper-X, and X-34. Some of them are modelled on the strategic ballistic missiles that were removed from service. But there are other missiles. For example, at the MAKS-2013 air show a representative of the BrahMos Russian-Indian venture admitted that soon India will receive a hypersonic version of the anti-ship missile. According to him, a hypersonic engine for it has already been created and tested. The only ‘but’ delaying the finished product is the lack of materials that can protect its guidance system from overheating and subsequent failure. However, as can be seen from the work of the Russians, Moscow has already solved this problem. Not so long ago, Vladimir Popovkin, the former head of the Federal Space Agency, said that testing is being completed on the Zircon missile system. It includes a new hypersonic missile, created on the basis of the Onyx supersonic cruise missile (Russia’s equivalent of the Indian BrahMos).

In early 1997 engineers from the Raduga Design Bureau in Dubna (located just outside Moscow) displayed a new class of airborne vehicle — the Kh-90 hypersonic experimental cruise missile — at the International Aviation Aerospace Salon (MAKS) in Zhukovsky. In the West, it was called the AS-19 Koala.

This rocket was made to replace the Kh-55 strategic cruise missile that is carried by the Tu-160 bomber. Its flight range was 3,000 km. The missile could carry two warheads with individual guidance, each capable of hitting targets at a distance of 100 km from the point of separation. The carrier of the X-90 was to be a modernised version of the Tu-160M strategic bomber. However, according to official data, work on the missile was suspended in 1992.

There were also more exotic designs. For example, one of the missile design bureaus proposed placing several supersonic or hypersonic cruise missiles instead of a nuclear warhead in a heavy ballistic missile. The designers thought that with this weapon, the Soviet Union would have been able to engage U.S. aircraft carrier fleets anywhere in the world directly from Siberia. A ballistic missile would carry the warhead into the targeted area, and there the cruise missiles themselves would detect and strike the target. The idea was abandoned because of its exorbitant cost, and the Koala was left as the only tangible evidence of the scientists’ hypersonic research. All other development was kept top secret.

But after the United States stepped up its own work on hypersonic cruise vehicles, Moscow returned to its own hypersonic “trump cards,” including the RS-26 Rubezh “manoeuvring nuclear unit” ballistic missile.

Russia's hypersonic trump card edges closer to reality | Missile ThreatMissile Threat

 

[The SC]

Russia Develops Multiple Nuclear Systems

...Four officially announced flight tests of a “new ICBM” between September 2011 and June 2013 seem to point to the development of a weapon that will supersede Topol and Yars in production, both developed by the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology (MITT). It has been associated with the designation RS-26 and may be the missile referred to as Yars-M and Avangard, but recently it has most consistently been identified as Rubezh (Frontier).

The Rubezh missile is believed to be mated to a new six-axle TEL, the Belarus-built MZKT-27291, which was unveiled this year. If it is used with this launcher, it must be smaller than the Topol/Yars family and easier to move. As in the case of some other recent ICBM tests, official announcements described it as a “maneuverable” system. According to Russian media, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, speaking after the test in June, called the new ICBM a “missile-defense killer—neither current nor future American missile defense systems will be able to prevent that missile from hitting a target dead on.” It is expected to be operational next year.

Like the Yars with MIRVs—an upgraded version of an existing missile—the apparently all-new Rubezh originated after the end of the Start II and ABM treaties. Despite Washington's protestations to the contrary, Russia has continued to insist that U.S. ballistic missile defense plans are aimed at tipping the nuclear balance between the two nations. Technically, it is possible that the missile could carry a maneuverable, evading warhead: Such a system, the Advanced Maneuvering Reentry Vehicle (AMaRV), was tested in 1979-80 in the U.S. as a counter to ballistic missile defense systems, which are designed to intercept nonmaneuvering targets. The AMaRV can also be launched on a flattened, aero-ballistic trajectory to reduce the defender's warning time.

Mark Schneider, an analyst with the hawkish National Institute of Public Policy, suggests another potential issue with the new weapon: I could represent the start of a breakout from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty signed in 1987, which bans both the U.S. and Russia from deploying any ground-launched missiles, nuclear or conventional, with a 270-3,000-nm range (500-5,500 km). Schneider notes that the Russian military has yet to release any images of the Rubezh missile. “They have not even released a photo of the missile in flight, which is very usual. That would probably tell if it has two or three stages,” he explains. If it is a two-stage missile, he says, it would be an INF violation. Podvig, however, remains convinced that the missile is an ICBM.

The relatively small Rubezh could be the basis of a project disclosed in April—the revival of rail-mobile missiles, extinct since the retirement of the last RT-23UTTH (SS-24 Scalpel) train in 2005. Russian media say MITT is the prime contractor, and either the Rubezh or the bigger Yars could be carried. The advantage of a rail-mobile missile, Russian commentators suggest, is that it is faster than a road-mobile ICBM—it could be relocated as far as 1,000 km in 24 hr.

Following behind the Rubezh, according to multiple reports, is a new heavy liquid-fueled ICBM to replace the R-36M2 (SS-18 Mod 6 Satan), a late-1980s development of a design that originated in the 1960s. Forty R-36M2s remain in service and can carry ten MIRVs each...

Russia Develops Multiple Nuclear Systems | AWIN content from Aviation Week

 

[The SC]

SK had to back down, because America wasn't willing to back them up.

If America guaranteed their support to South Korea (as per their mutual defense pact) you think South Korea would be sitting there and accepting hundreds of their naval personnel being killed like that. They had no other choice.

Not only that, the support guarantee exists only on paper, if it comes to total war between the two Koreas, they will both lose, and mostly SK which has a good standard of living, so in a way they had to De-escalate the event, because they do understand that at the end of the day the only losers will be themselves, since even NK does not have much to loose, and the US will be incapable of invading NK with its formidable defenses and nukes on top of it. The US would have nothing to gain either but might loose its rich friend and thus its own economy might get affected, not mentioning a strategic place.
The one thing to remember is that in a conflict between North and South Korea it is their land that will be affected not the US land, and I think that they came to understand this like the middle eastern countries when they rejected to support the US war on Iran.

 

[F-22Raptor]

China's Second Secret Test of Hypersonic Glide Vehicle Fails

The second test failed shortly after launch.

 

[Oldman1]

Maybe America is deliberately putting out misinformation, to give that impression. Who knows.

Pure speculation. So far China has already launch multiple HGV while U.S. hasn't since long time ago. China would have known right?

You know North Korea sunk a South Korean warship with hundreds of naval personnel on board, back in 2010?

You have a mutual defence pact with South Korea, just like you do with the Philippines. The only commonality between the two is that both of them didn't count for anything when it mattered.

North Korea can't even land their nukes on American cities yet, at most they will hand them to Al-qaeda or some other anti-American outfit. And even then it would probably end up detonating in Israel, since we all know the extremists would prefer that. America probably wouldn't even have been touched, but they still backed off.

Did you know North Korea also lost people by the hands of the South Koreans including their midget subs and spy ships? What did China do? Nothing.