Sorry, Russia: America Didn’t Copy Your Hypersonic Missile Idea

[Boats]

Sorry, Russia: America Didn’t Copy Your Hypersonic Missile Idea
By: Michael Peck of Aerospace & Defense - Forbes News - 08-04-20
Re: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michael.../#4ad4dd76650e

Photo link: https://specials-images.forbesimg.co....jpg?fit=scale
A Russian Air Force MiG-31K jet carries a high-precision hypersonic aero-ballistic missile Kh-47M2 ... by ASSOCIATED PRESS

Did America copy Russia’s idea for an air-launched hypersonic missile?

“In Russia’s Footsteps?” questioned the headline in Russia’s state-controlled Sputnik News last month, regarding a $1.2 billion U.S. Air Force contract for eight Boeing +1.7%BA F-15EX fighters, a 21st Century upgrade of the legendary Cold War F-15 Eagle. The Boeing announcement carefully noted that the F-15EX “can launch hypersonic weapons up to 22 feet long and weighing up to 7,000 pounds.”

Aha! cried Russian media. Russia has already armed the MiG-31 interceptor (NATO code name: Foxhound) with the Kh-47M2 Kinzhal, a hypersonic air-launched ballistic missile with a reported speed of Mach 10, so fast that Western air defenses might not be able to stop it. “The Russian military, which became the first in the world to receive operational hypersonic capability in 2017, made the decision to field its cutting-edge Kinzhal hypersonic missile aboard an upgraded, tried and tested fourth-generation platform, the Mikoyan MiG-31,” Sputnik News said. “The interceptor aircraft was first introduced in the early 1980s but has seen a number of key upgrades in recent years. In its MiG-31K configuration, plane can accelerate to Mach 3, and carry the Kinzhal, a missile which has a 2,000-kilometer [1,243 mile] range, the ability to accelerate to Mach 10, and maneuver in flight, making it virtually impossible to intercept.”

There do seem to be some parallels. The MiG-31 made its first test flight in 1975, while the F-15 first flew in 1976. The MiG-31 replaced the MiG-25 Foxbat, while the Air Force may turn to the F-15EX as a quick replacement for aging F-15C/D air superiority fighters and F-15E Strike Eagle strike fighters, rather than waiting years for sufficient F-35s to be built. Both Eagle and Foxhound have been heavily modernized to carry what has become the 21st Century superweapon, the hypersonic missile (which actually is nothing more than a missile that flies faster than Mach 5).

Russian president Vladimir Putin has created a near-cult of hypersonics, warning that missiles such as the Kinzhal, the ship-launched Zircon and the thermonuclear-armed Avangard hypersonic glider cannot be shot down by Western defenses. The U.S. is trying to catch up in the hypersonics race: for example, the Air Force test-launched the AGM-183 Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) hypersonic missile from a B-52 in 2019.

Why turn revamped Cold War fighters into hypersonic missile launchers? For Russia, the MiG-31 is attractive because it is a big 24-ton interceptor that can accelerate to the supersonic speeds needed to launch the Kinzhal. Russia has also fitted the Kinzhal to the Tu-22M3 Backfire bomber, which can also fly supersonically, but has a range of 1,500 miles compared to about 500 miles for a MiG-31.

The attraction of the F-15 is that it’s simply one powerful aircraft. Though lacking the stealth features of the F-35, the F-15EX is bigger, faster, has longer range, and carries a larger payload of 29,000 tons versus 22,000 for the F-35 (see this Air Force Magazine infographic).

When carrying a 26-foot-long Kinzhal or an American hypersonic weapon up to 22 feet long, that extra size and power helps. Fighters can also penetrate hostile air space more easily than bombers like the B-52, as well as defend themselves better.

But what about the claim that America copied Russia’s idea for an air-launched hypersonic missile? The genesis of that idea probably belongs to the Nazis.

In 1944, the Third Reich unveiled the V-1, essentially a robot aircraft propelled by a pulsejet and armed with a one-ton warhead and a simple gyroscopic guidance system. Thousands of V-1s were fired at Britain from launch sites in France, Belgium and Holland.

But the Nazis soon added a deadly new twist: V-1s launched in mid-air from Heinkel 111 bombers (watch the video here). Some 1,600 air-launched V-1s were aimed at Britain, especially London, with rather poor accuracy.

Cold War bombers were armed with large standoff missiles, such as the U.S. B-52 and its 21-foot-long AGM-86 cruise missile, or Russia’s Tu-22M Backfire armed with 38-foot-long Kh-22 anti-ship missiles. While the Pentagon would certainly have noted that the MiG-31 had been armed with a hypersonic missile, the idea of aircraft with large missiles seems merely a continuation of a long tradition.

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Personal note: Ya gotta love the Cold War Era - Reverse Engineering and Modifying the Old with State of the Art weapons is common place. If the aircraft ain't broke don't fix you can update it to carry hurtful weapons so be it! He said She said it goes back and forth
sooner or later it will all come to an explosive end. Who Win or Who Loose's is all that counts. Tough Guy's on the edge of making big mistakes. The pressure is on to show who is the almighty strongest guy on the block or in the world. Who care's anymore there will be no winner's once all hell breaks loose and the smoke clears - they can all start all over again.

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