PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Russian warship with hypersonic Zircon missiles on drills in Atlantic
Old 27th Jan 2023, 19:53
  #47 (permalink)  
Sfojimbo
 
Join Date: Dec 2020
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My understanding is that hypersonic missiles are more effective at PR than they are as weapons. They have a few traits that limit their effectiveness as weapons.

First of all, they need to get up to 25 miles or so altitude in order to travel at mach 5+, and even there, they are still in partial Earth atmosphere, so they build an electrostatic 'bubble' around them, thus they can receive no mid course corrections, so while they are not on a ballistic trajectory and can maneuver (somewhat) they cannot 'see' or hear. When they re-enter the Earth's atmosphere the heat generated from the friction with air molecules is intense, thus they need heat shields on the forepart part of the missile; so they can have no sensors looking out to identify a moving target's current location and they still won't be able to receive mid course updates.

Another problem is that they don't have the ability to carry a large payload, so their warhead size is limited. Unless they have a nuke warhead they couldn't take out a ship anyway.
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