Throughout the battle in Ukraine, one weapon has acquired ‘solely’ large quantities of curiosity – probably even an excessive amount of of it. Right here, we’re speaking concerning the notorious hypersonic Kinzhal missiles. The consultant of the Ukrainian Air Power has not too long ago revealed one attention-grabbing reality explaining why this weapon has solely very restricted use.
Totally different sources cite fairly completely different numbers of Kinzhal missiles that have been really fired through the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Some estimates say that solely 3 hypersonic Kh-47M2 Kinzhal missiles have been launched to this date. Different sources present a considerably greater quantity, saying that about 10-15 missiles of this sort we used towards Ukraine.
The spokesman of the Ukrainian Air Power Command, Colonel Yuriy Ignat, defined in his current interview the technical cause why this Russian weapon will not be used usually.
He admits that the Ukrainian air protection very often “doesn’t see” the Kinzhal missile due to its excessive velocity, and as a result of identical cause they’re nonetheless unable to take these missiles down earlier than they hit the goal.
However the spokesman emphasised that this weapon is way from the “surprise weapon”. In actuality, Kinzhal is technologically similar to the Iskander missile. Higher to say, the know-how of each rockets is sort of an identical, with the one distinction that the Kh-47 is launched from an airplane. And, Iskander has been within the service of the Russian Armed Forces since 2006. Which means Ukrainian army was well-aware of the attainable use of each Iskander and Kinzhal and have completely ready for such state of affairs – probably proper after the Russian invasion and subsequent annexation of Crimea.
Su-27P from the Ukrainian Air Power. Picture credit score: Alf van Beem through Wikimedia, Public area
The Ukrainian Military has technical capabilities to detect ground-based Iskander launches, says Colonel Yuriy Ignat. “However when the missile takes off, it is rather troublesome to trace it. We will solely orient ourselves by the route of flight. In any case, such a ballistic missile flies into area, into the stratosphere, and from there it returns downward at excessive pace,” Ignat elaborates.
Within the case of Kinzhal, it’s troublesome to detect the second of its launch. However the spokesman additionally defined why. The invading military takes precautionary measures to masks the very second when Kinzhal is launched. For this function, the Russians elevate a least a dozen MiG-31s into the air, certainly one of which really acts as a service of the hypersonic Kh-47M2.
This strategy of masking utilizing further plane is definitely a powerful limiting issue to how usually Kinzhal can be utilized, as a result of a whole formation of fighter jets must be current within the air so as to keep away from an early hit from the Ukrainian air protection. Principally, all different MiG-31s merely act as decoys.
Nonetheless, instantly after the beginning, Kinzhal flies into the stratosphere (roughly 50 km above the bottom) and flies down at a supersonic pace. “There may be extraordinarily little time to successfully detect it and attempt to knock it down,” Ignat sums up.
