NPOMash 3M22 Zircon Hypersonic Missile

[Josh_TN]

PAC-3 MSE is a particularly maneuverable point defense system, though that is all it would be against something hypersonic. The fact is Ukraine does not a meaningful number of radars and launchers for that target type. More over even older types like Kh-22 have sufficient speed that to the best of my knowledge, they have never been intercepted.

 

[paralay]

One of the possible versions

 

[Josh_TN]

Does the rear booster separate? That forward extension is presumably for underwater launch?

 

[paralay]

This "hood" orients the missiles in space and protects it from external influences at launch. Not only underwater, but also from the ship and from the ground

View: https://youtu.be/rpJdleN3Dv4?t=179

 

[TMA1]

Been seeing your concept art and it looks pretty legit. So if true is this similar to our hyfly? Also I am adding this picture I saw someone posted on your forum that I think could add some weight to your speculations.



I could not find the origins of this image but I thought it would help in what you were trying to show with the four intakes.

 

[Forest Green]

PAC-3 MSE is a particularly maneuverable point defense system, though that is all it would be against something hypersonic. The fact is Ukraine does not a meaningful number of radars and launchers for that target type. More over even older types like Kh-22 have sufficient speed that to the best of my knowledge, they have never been intercepted.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1779566768933028191

View: https://x.com/Archer83Able/status/1779566768933028191

 

[KurtDingus]

One of the possible versions

Are these 3D models available? Id like to try and print some.

 

[paralay]

this model is not for printing, it is full of inaccuracies and errors

3M22.stl

Посмотреть и скачать с Яндекс Диска

disk.yandex.ru

 

[KurtDingus]

this model is not for printing, it is full of inaccuracies and errors

3M22.stl

Посмотреть и скачать с Яндекс Диска

disk.yandex.ru

Thats all fine, I can clean it up. They look great. Ill take everything you can throw at me.

 

[QuadroFX]

Another one "Tsirkon" launch. This time in Mediterrian sea:

View: https://youtu.be/DiG3ZS50RSM

ВМФ провел стрельбы гиперзвуковыми ракетами на учениях в Средиземном море

Российские корабли провели в Средиземном море учения, в ходе которых выполнили пуски гиперзвуковых ракет, сообщили в Минобороны. РИА Новости, 03.12.2024

ria.ru

View: https://youtu.be/eMBocYJX4vw

https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/22563759

View: https://youtu.be/wqMY2PjmhGc

VK.com | VK

vk.com

 

[Josh_TN]

Do we know anything more about it’s propulsion after its use in Ukraine?

 

[zjz]

Our Best Look At Russia’s Shadowy Zircon Hypersonic Missile

The Russian Navy launched the Zircon cruise missile as part of a large-scale live-fire exercise in the Mediterranean. The Russian Navy launched the Zircon cruise missile as part of a large-scale live-fire exercise in the Mediterranean.

www.twz.com

 

[zjz]

 

[totoro]

Are we sure about those mid body wings on the upper section? There is nothing resembling those in the launch video above. there are some folded fins at the bottom of the upper section. Those are maybe even fairly long fins, longer than the fins in the graphic above. but they still look like a single set of fins placed near the bottom quarter of the missile (upper stage) length.

 

[print]

Air inlet……
View attachment 755291

 

[TeourdBeourglaer]

Air inlet……
View attachment 755290View attachment 755291

That's what the Boeing X-51 HCM demonstrator looked like when it flew in ~2010 - 2013.
Since then when someone mentions "Scramjet" missile, the X-51 pops into everybody's mind.
Most people don't realize there are many different scramjet intake designs.
I'm pretty sure the Russians copied one of a joint US/AUS Scramjet designs for Tsirkon.
HACM, from what I've read and seen has a very fluid-like flowing conical inlet, like nothing we've seen on any other missile...

 

[Ronny]

That's what the Boeing X-51 HCM demonstrator looked like when it flew in ~2010 - 2013.
Since then when someone mentions "Scramjet" missile, the X-51 pops into everybody's mind.
Most people don't realize there are many different scramjet intake designs.
I'm pretty sure the Russians copied one of a joint US/AUS Scramjet designs for Tsirkon.
HACM, from what I've read and seen has a very fluid-like flowing conical inlet, like nothing we've seen on any other missile...

US HACM mock up

 

[Josh_TN]

US HACM mock up
View attachment 760092
View attachment 760093

I believe the bottom photo is suspected to be NGs HALO submission. Certainly it has nothing to do with HACM, which is RTX.

 

[mokahete]

Alright then.

Imo, 99% sure zircon is purely rocket sustained.
Doesn't mean, it's not a HCM though, well if you consider "cruise" part purely as flight characteristics/profile Rather than tying it up with "air-breathing( in this case sramjet)" propulsion that is.
Scram jet is a propulsion method that is synonymous with hcm.
But what if you can use purely rocket motors for maintaining same flight characteristics associated with sramjet powered HCMs, there's nothing stopping rocket propulsion from doing so.

With that Said while you can definitely achieve HCM flight characteristics and maneuverability with rocket motor, but it would be lot more inefficient compared to air breathing sramjet so to achieve desired range a somewhat bigger and lot heavier missile would be needed compared to using scramjet.
Though making a rocket sustained HCM will be lot more easier than developing scramjets.

With that Said definition of hcm is a missile that flies in depressed path at sustained 30-50km altitude, not following any predictable trajectory and lots of freedom of movement and good maneuverability during flight all that while flying at mach5+ in most of its flight path.
That's what makes it very hard to intercept and makes HCM scary, zircon even with rocket motors can achieve it.

So modification of HCM definition is needed, with not tying it up with propulsion.
Subcategories of HCM:-
1, HCM-RS( rocket sustained)
Pros:- easier and cheaper to builld and develop, proven, decade of experience and research, and designing a missile and Its internals around a rocket based propulsion is easier and tried and tested, while being just as deadly as HCM-AB.



Cons:- propulsion system is lot less efficient compared to air breathing

2, HCM-AB( Air breathing, scramjet in this case)
Pros:- lot more efficient.

Cons:- difficult and costly to develop.

So scramjet is not the only propulsion that can enable HCM flight characteristics, though its the most efficient way( for now) to enable those characteristics, though whether the extra cost and time it would take to develop scramjet to get that efficiency is worth it or not depends on case by case.

If we wish to develop a anti ship HCM with ~1000km range that is launched from land( size constraint are not much of a problem), then I would choose a bigger rocket sustained HCM due to it being easier to develop.


Vs

if we Wish to develop a HCM to launch multiple of those from a bomber aircaft then HCM-AB would be better and extra cost would be worth it.

So to choose between HCM-AB And HCM-RS it depends of what the desired range is and what size and weight constraints are there.
In terms of ability to penetrate enemy air defenses both will be equally deadly.



Using rocket propulsion also make it a lot easier and allows even countries like north korea of develop similar system for land attack role.
In 2022 NK tested a "hypersonic missile" which was previously assumed to be carrying a Marv warhead, but the description made by NK& tracking data provided by japan made the second stage sound more like a "boost-glide" vehicle than a traditional Marv similar to the "boost-glide" vehicle US is developing.

Them there's also HGV of NK


Recently tested anti ship hypersonic missile called LR-ASHM By India also seems to be a HCM-RS similar to Zircon, but with bigger control surfaces and larger size, as it's stated to have range upto 1500+km.
Though they call it "hypersonic glide missile" which is not completely wrong as it's flight characteristics seems like a hybrid between HCM and HGV, i thought of using boost glide for it, but it will be lot more maneuverable and seems to be maintain "constant altitude" like a hcm.

Then there is Shuarya missile, which can be called precursor or prototype of modern day HCM-RS missiles.
acc. To this graph the max range in "hypersonic glide" of Shaurya is 700km, while zircon seems similar in size( ~10m length, 0.6-0.7m diameter) to this missile and is said to have ~1000km max range. This further supports my assumption of zircon being rocket powered as shaurya Is also purely rocket powered 2 stage missile.

Shaurya surfaces as India’s underwater nuclear missile: New “hybrid” technology more advanced than China’s or Pakistan’s

www.ajaishukla.com

Good read.
Surprisingly Indians seem to be the first ones to field hypersonic missiles that can cruise. More than a decade ago.
Though Russians still seems to be first one to make "anti ship" hypersonic missile that can cruise.


In terms of difficulty of interception all the systems mentioned here will be in same category of difficulty to intercept as HCM-AB( the bench mark for modern day hypersonic), though all being less efficient in terms of range.
HGV like chinese dfzf solves the range inefficiency problem, but they also need large booster to get to edge of space and generally less precise to control compared to powered missiles making them less ideal to use against moving targets, but chinese do seem to be developing an anti ship varient( currently only land attack varient exist, only hypersonic anti ship in chinese service for now is df21 ballistic missile) of that hgv with first tested reported to be done in 2023.



Then there's also russian avangard HGV.

Russia Deploys Long Range Hypersonic Missile System “Invulnerable to Intercept”.

Avangard Hypersonic Glide Vehicle Claimed to Fly at “Mach 27”, Carries MIRVs (Multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles). Russian state news

theaviationist.com

So modern hypersonics are being created and are either Close to enter service or already entered service.
But scramjet based ones are still little far away(US being most ahead in scramjet propulsion for now).

 

[mokahete]

Is there any actual hard information on this? For all we know it could just be a rocket, something like a mini-Shaurya.

Dang, this speculation was ahead of its time.

 

[Josh_TN]

Any air breathing hypersonic would still have a solid rocket booster, and likely an integral one (an invention I believe the Soviets pioneered with “SA-6”). I think that’s all we are seeing; there is almost no possibility that Zircon is not air breathing.

 

[Archibald]

What the media interchangeably calls "hypersonic" actually mix three different things
-boost-glide (rocket + glider)
-scramjet (rocket + plus a powered-airbreathing vehicle, all the way)
-ballistic missiles (dumb rocket, concept as old as the V-2)

Of the three, the one that can manoeuver the most to fool SAM and ABM defenses is obviously the airbreathing-powered one. Gliders quickly lose energy, V-2s are constrained by the unflexible rules of ballistics, very unforgiving PITAs.

Since Putin March 2018 wunderwaffen announcement, the Russians are developping "hypersonic" weapons belonging to all three above categories (Iskander and Kinzhal, Zirkon, and co.)

 

[mokahete]

Any air breathing hypersonic would still have a solid rocket booster, and likely an integral one (an invention I believe the Soviets pioneered with “SA-6”). I think that’s all we are seeing; there is almost no possibility that Zircon is not air breathing.

Why would a scramjet HCM have an integral booster just because soviets used integral booster in sa6 along with ramjet during cold war?
What benifit or ease of construction will it have over an booster that can be detached once scramjet starts?
Why benifit would integral booster have that the scramjet hcm will still that dead weight?
Not to mention in russian-India brahmos(p800) the booster separates are ramjet starts.

BRAHMOS Supersonic Cruise Missile - BrahMos.com

a universal supersonic cruise missile.different types of indian missile and russian missile.

www.brahmos.com

And why is there almost no possibility for zircon to be purely rocket powered two stage missile?

 

[mokahete]

What the media interchangeably calls "hypersonic" actually mix three different things
-boost-glide (rocket + glider)
-scramjet (rocket + plus a powered-airbreathing vehicle, all the way)
-ballistic missiles (dumb rocket, concept as old as the V-2)

Of the three, the one that can manoeuver the most to fool SAM and ABM defenses is obviously the airbreathing-powered one. Gliders quickly lose energy, V-2s are constrained by the unflexible rules of ballistics, very unforgiving PITAs.

And why can't you achieve the same manoeuvrability as airbreathing with "sustained rocket motor" especially with efficiency modern fuel and rocket motors provide? it will be lot more inefficient compared to air breathing, but not so much that it's not achievevable, range would be relatively sacrifised, but a decent size missile would still have 100s of km of range with large ones having 1000+ km.
Plus not having to care about flow of air into intake does give lot more freedom of movement.

And gliders Don't loose energy "quickly", especially not as quickly as you are describing.
There's a reason chinese df17's range is estimate to be 2000+km.


and instead of trying to tie it up so much with propulsion.
Categorize them by their flight characteristics/profile.
Then separately assign propulsions that can be used for those categories.

 

[Dilandu]

Imo, 99% sure zircon is purely rocket sustained

I see no proof of that besides "it's costly to develope" in all your post.

 

[Dilandu]

Why would a scramjet HCM have an integral booster just because soviets used integral booster in sa6 along with ramjet during cold war?

Kinda obvious, that missile have a detacheable booster.

 

[mokahete]

I see no proof of that besides "it's costly to develope" in all your post.

My post was more about its possible to achieve the flight characteristics associated with scramjet HCM through sustained rocket motors too, so zircon "does not necessarly need to be "scramjet" powered", other methods of propulsion are possible too.


As for proof, 100% certainty of whether it's a scramjet powered or rocket sustained can only be achieved when clear pictures of its nose without fairing appear, that's why i said 99% instead of 100%.
But I personally 99% believe it to be rocket sustained instead of air breathing.
Specially after comparing it to Shaurya missile and Its range in HCM/depressed glide trajectory mentioned in the graph.

Another aspect was to detach the definition of hcm from propulsion method, as cruise is ultimately a flight envelop/path.
Tho scramjet for now are the "most efficient with good controllablity" propulsion method to achieve cruise flight envelop at hypersonic speeds

And that thing about scramjet being "expensive" to make plays a much bigger role than you think, countries need to decide whether it's worth it or not to go for this "expensive" route of propulsion.
Or can also go both route.

 

[mokahete]

View attachment 767383
Kinda obvious, that missile have a detacheable booster.

I know it's detachable.
I was asking why * he thinks* an integral booster would be used instead of detachable one.

 

[Josh_TN]

Why would a scramjet HCM have an integral booster just because soviets used integral booster in sa6 along with ramjet during cold war?
What benifit or ease of construction will it have over an booster that can be detached once scramjet starts?
Why benifit would integral booster have that the scramjet hcm will still that dead weight?
Not to mention in russian-India brahmos(p800) the booster separates are ramjet starts.

BRAHMOS Supersonic Cruise Missile - BrahMos.com

a universal supersonic cruise missile.different types of indian missile and russian missile.

www.brahmos.com

And why is there almost no possibility for zircon to be purely rocket powered two stage missile?

Ramjets need super sonic speed to work. This typically achieved by solid rocket booster, and the most volume efficient way to do that is fill the combustion chamber with the booster. Most Soviet/Russian supersonic cruise missiles use this design; I noted a SAM only because I believe it was the first missile to use this layout. I suspect Zircon uses a detachable external booster for its initial launch and an integral one as a sustainer. If you look at X-51, it used an ATACMS booster and air launch at 49,000 feet to achieve its performance. Zircon is almost certainly a ramjet or dual mode ramjet/scramjet; there’s no possibility of it getting into the scramjet regime from surface launch just with solid rocket motors.

A solid rocket cruise missile would have a very short range or be massive; I cannot think of aany examples and there is no physical way zircon could achieve anything like its stated range given its size.

 

[kqcke for you]

Ramjets need super sonic speed to work. This typically achieved by solid rocket booster, and the most volume efficient way to do that is fill the combustion chamber with the booster. Most Soviet/Russian supersonic cruise missiles use this design; I noted a SAM only because I believe it was the first missile to use this layout. I suspect Zircon uses a detachable external booster for its initial launch and an integral one as a sustainer. If you look at X-51, it used an ATACMS booster and air launch at 49,000 feet to achieve its performance. Zircon is almost certainly a ramjet or dual mode ramjet/scramjet; there’s no possibility of it getting into the scramjet regime from surface launch just with solid rocket motors.

A solid rocket cruise missile would have a very short range or be massive; I cannot think of aany examples and there is no physical way zircon could achieve anything like its stated range given its size.

He said sustained rocket so it can also be a Hybrid or liquid rocket. That said even with external booster an internal seems likely AS with a scramjet (and or ramjet) it should be possible given there design and that extra boost can be needed.