U.S.-supplied Patriot missiles were used to thwart some or all of the attempted strikes. It happened 10 days after the military said it brought down another Kinzhal, over Kyiv, using a Patriot missile defence system. The Pentagon also credited the Patriot system for thwarting the strike on May 6.
A hypersonic missile is defined as one that can reach least five times faster than the speed of sound. Russia claims the Kinzhal can reach Mach 10 — that’s 10 times the speed of sound, or 12,350 km/h — within a range of 2,000 kilometers.
The easiest and simplest form of a hypersonic missile is one on the tip of a regular rockets. Regular rockets and ICBMs have been able to reach 25 times and even 38 times the speed of sound for about 60 years. A hypersonic tipped missile needs have something that has the ability to maneuver.
“It does fly at hypersonic speeds, but typically what we would mean when we use the term is something that’s highly manoeuvrable at hypersonic speed.”
Multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) are an exoatmospheric ballistic missile payload containing several warheads. This has existed for over 50 years.
Tom Karako, a senior fellow and director of the Missile Defence Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C., agrees that Russia’s claims of the Kinzhal’s hypersonic manoeuvrability may be exaggerated compared to that of weapons typically referred to as hypersonic, such as a cruise or a boost glide missile.
“[It] may or may not have been at hypersonic speeds, but it’s nevertheless a sophisticated and challenging intercept problem,” he said.
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Russian hardware does not work as advertised. Amply demonstrated over the last 20 months, so not surprising.
Nor are they the only ones who have hyped a military technology that at best works intermittently.