Getting accurate missile intercept data in times of war is difficult with both sides inevitably selling their own narrative to their various audiences. However, in the case of Russian hypersonic missiles, a trend is appearing – they are not nearly as good as the hype suggests. About a month ago, Russia fired eight Kh-47M2 Kinzhal missiles and one 3M22 Zircon missile (as part of a 210-strong barrage of weapons against Ukraine). Despite the fact that Vladimir Putin includes both Kinzhal and Zircon in his list of Russian “super weapons” that nobody can defend against, initial reporting suggests that 140 of the barrage were intercepted, including the Zircon and all but one of the Kinzhals.
A probability of kill (pKill) of 66 per cent against all the munitions is respectable. A pKill of 88 per cent against the ballistics and hypersonics is remarkable. Until this point, against the 111 Kinzhals fired since February 2022, the pKill was closer to 25 per cent. Ukraine is clearly getting better and better at using Patriot interceptors – there is of course no better environment for testing and improving your weapons than combat.
Kinzhal was unveiled in 2018 and whilst it can exceed Mach 5 – the threshold for being called hypersonic – this tends to be during its high altitude phase. As it descends towards its target it slows to a mere Mach 1.9, at which point it becomes vulnerable to Patriot ground-to-air interceptors. Zircon is ship-launched and uses rockets to achieve speeds in excess of Mach 7 before an air-breathing scramjet engine takes over. It too has turned out to be vulnerable to interception, so it seems likely that it also slows down as it nears the target.
While there is no doubt that these are both remarkable weapons, there’s an unavoidable downside to flight at hypersonic speeds: a layer of superhot plasma is generated around the missile’s airframe, which interferes with radio transmissions to or from it. That in turn means that the weapon can’t use communications, satnav or radar. It will be unable to hit a moving target and, being limited to inertial navigation, won’t be very accurate in hitting a fixed point.
Out at sea, a missile will always be trying to hit a difficult, moving target: some sort of target refinement in the final stages will always be necessary. While technology to do so is getting better and more common, so is the technology used to degrade or confuse it. Real-time targeting at sea remains hard to do in all but the gloomiest of scenarios.
At sea, you can also move your interceptor escort ships onto the threat axis in order to minimise the crossing angle of the incoming missile. The closer you can get to a headshot the further away you can conduct your interception. The smaller crossing angle also increases your chance of intercept – shooting a clay pigeon coming straight at you is easier than shooting one crossing at high speed. Patriots on land will often be pre-positioned up threat but are likely to be defending more than one target against more than one threat, and some combinations will result in high crossing angles.
Getting accurate missile intercept data in times of war is difficult with both sides inevitably selling their own narrative to their various audiences. However, in the case of Russian hypersonic missiles, a trend is appearing – they are not nearly as good as the hype suggests. About a month ago, Russia fired eight Kh-47M2 Kinzhal missiles and one 3M22 Zircon missile (as part of a 210-strong barrage of weapons against Ukraine). Despite the fact that Vladimir Putin includes both Kinzhal and Zircon in his list of Russian “super weapons” that nobody can defend against, initial reporting suggests that 140 of the barrage were intercepted, including the Zircon and all but one of the Kinzhals.
A probability of kill (pKill) of 66 per cent against all the munitions is respectable. A pKill of 88 per cent against the ballistics and hypersonics is remarkable. Until this point, against the 111 Kinzhals fired since February 2022, the pKill was closer to 25 per cent. Ukraine is clearly getting better and better at using Patriot interceptors – there is of course no better environment for testing and improving your weapons than combat.
Kinzhal was unveiled in 2018 and whilst it can exceed Mach 5 – the threshold for being called hypersonic – this tends to be during its high altitude phase. As it descends towards its target it slows to a mere Mach 1.9, at which point it becomes vulnerable to Patriot ground-to-air interceptors. Zircon is ship-launched and uses rockets to achieve speeds in excess of Mach 7 before an air-breathing scramjet engine takes over. It too has turned out to be vulnerable to interception, so it seems likely that it also slows down as it nears the target.
While there is no doubt that these are both remarkable weapons, there’s an unavoidable downside to flight at hypersonic speeds: a layer of superhot plasma is generated around the missile’s airframe, which interferes with radio transmissions to or from it. That in turn means that the weapon can’t use communications, satnav or radar. It will be unable to hit a moving target and, being limited to inertial navigation, won’t be very accurate in hitting a fixed point.
Out at sea, a missile will always be trying to hit a difficult, moving target: some sort of target refinement in the final stages will always be necessary. While technology to do so is getting better and more common, so is the technology used to degrade or confuse it. Real-time targeting at sea remains hard to do in all but the gloomiest of scenarios.
At sea, you can also move your interceptor escort ships onto the threat axis in order to minimise the crossing angle of the incoming missile. The closer you can get to a headshot the further away you can conduct your interception. The smaller crossing angle also increases your chance of intercept – shooting a clay pigeon coming straight at you is easier than shooting one crossing at high speed. Patriots on land will often be pre-positioned up threat but are likely to be defending more than one target against more than one threat, and some combinations will result in high crossing angles.