Russia Shows off a Claimed Hypersonic Missile Test

Russia's deputy defense minister has offered new details on the new hypersonic missile announced by President Putin in a recent speech to lawmakers. This reported by Sputnik.

The Kinzhal hypersonic air-launched missile system, capable of rendering useless all existing and prospective anti-missile systems, is also able to destroy large, moving sea-based targets such as aircraft carriers, destroyers and cruisers, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov has confirmed.

"This is a class of precision weapons which has a multifunctional warhead capable of striking at both stationary and moving targets," Borisov said, speaking to Krasnaya Zvezda, the defense ministry's official newspaper.

Confirming that the Kinzhal ('Dagger') system is based on the MiG-31 supersonic interceptor aircraft, the general explained that that plane "takes off into the air, accelerates to a certain speed at a high altitude, and then the missile begins its own autonomous movement."

According to Borisov, the system's capability to reach speeds of about Mach 10 "allows [the missile] to approach its target quickly, in contrast to cruise missiles, which fly at an average cruising speed of about 850-900 km/h."

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The Russian Aerospace Forces have conducted the first successful test firing of the air-launched Kinzhal (Dagger) hypersonic missile according to state sponsored media outlets.

The missile, supposedly named Kh-47M2 and referred to as the “Kinzhal”, was fired from a modified MiG-31BM (NATO reporting name “Foxhound”) over Southwest Russia. A report published on Facebook by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said the “unique” MiG-31 that fired the missile had been “modernized”. Rogozin did not specify what modifications or “modernized” meant.

In video and still photos portions of the weapon seen in the test launch are obscured by imaging software, presumably for security purposes.

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Note!  This is a missile that is NOT scramjet powered.  There are no inlets.  This is just a traditional missile that goes fast.  That limits its range.  It's also not all that different in some ways than an ATACMS missile: this is a ballistic missile the US Army uses, one that has been used to accelerate our scramjet testbeds up to mach 5+.  The Russian missile is not a huge innovation as such.  The Indian Brahmos-II is more of one, honestly.  Note: the Russians were jointly developing the Brahmos-II with the Indians when they suddenly jacked up the price on the Indians.  The Indians went it alone since.