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Russia said on Monday it had successfully tested a Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missile, a weapon President Vladimir Putin has touted as part of a new generation of missile systems without equal in the world.
[...] Russia's Defence Ministry said the Tsirkon missile was launched from the Admiral Groshkov frigate in the White Sea.
The Ministry said the missile flew at seven times the speed of sound and successfully hit a target more than 350 kilometres away on the coast of the Barents Sea.
[...] Mr Putin has said Tsirkon would be capable of flying at nine times the speed of sound and have a range of 1,000 kilometres.
[...] The Russian navy has conducted several previous test launches of the new missile, including one on Mr Putin's birthday in October, and officials said the tests were to be completed later this year.
Russia intends to arm its cruisers, frigates and submarines with the Tsirkon, one of several hypersonic missiles under development in Russia.
Previously:
Russia Successfully Tests New Hypersonic Tsirkon Missile.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 21 2021, @02:01AM (1 child)
Most of these are land-based artillery-style rockets rather than anti-ship or ship-launched cruise missiles. Not apples to apples.
The Chinese have an operational hypersonic missile, the WU-14, which is kind of halfway between an ICBM and a cruise missile. The US probably doesn't feel that it needs this type of weapon since it has SSGN submarines for the similar mission.
AFAIK there's not any unclassified, operational, American hypersonic weapon, except ICBMs. The closest American counterpart is the LRHW missile, which will be used by both the Army and Navy, which has been tested but is not expected to be operational for a few more years. There's also the AGM-183, which will be launched by Air Force bombers. It's not quite ready yet either. Of course this Russian test isn't ahead of where the Americans are, but it's comparable.
The thing is that any new type of weapon has the chance of making existing strategies obsolete, and the US has a lot more investment in aircraft carriers that are potentially vulnerable to these missiles. So even if Russia isn't ahead on this particular weapons tech, it's still a possible shift in naval power... unless effective countermeasures are developed, of course. Existing anti-missile defenses aren't quite good enough, but no rule says they can't be upgraded. And lasers and railguns are faster than any missile, assuming they ever get working.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 21 2021, @02:10AM
You can always overcome being slower by firing sooner. That why we need to fire preemptively in case they fire their slower weapons before us.