Indian Military News, Reports, Data, etc.
- Thread starter bd popeye
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But renders of Tsirkon suggested a wedge shaped HCM shaped just like a X-51 and what Ukraine intercepted (or retrieved a detonated/faulty Tsirkon) was similar looking to a Hy-Fly or Ling Yun. All three are very closely looking. The American Hy-fly was the first of these three to be made known public. While that doesn't prove it came first, it does at least indicate this.
Nevertheless this sort of HCM is low tier level for Russia, China, USA. India does not yet have even experimental air breathing hypersonic speed cruise missiles in testing. China didn't even bother placing one of these Hy-fly like HCMs into service. Just played around with some testing. To be fair, the Americans also abandoned this as part of their previous Prompt Global Strike platform (they have higher sights and aims like the Chinese). Russia inducted the Tsirkon, let's call it Hy-flyski, no disrespect intended to Russians at all. It's fair to say China and Russia were both behind the Americans in aerodynamics for a loooong time. This is much less the case today and possibly not even the case. One of those countries have made strides.
India has test fired scramjet engines for tens, possibly now at hundreds of seconds at ground test level. That's roughly a decade away from sustained propelled hypersonic live flight tests for HCM equivalent. That is impressive in its own right though and no other country is even on this ladder. Japan has talked a lot and South Korea has initiated some programs too.
My guess is China already has rotating detonation and/or oblique detonation propelled HCM in the works if not already in service. There is no chance China discloses this before they are already mature. The public only found out about the existence of DF-100 when PLA apparently stopped its production. We only found out about DF-17 a few years before DF-27 was leaked by US intelligence to be flying around as a dedicated anti-ship HGV.
Point is Avangard could be much less impressive than a wedge glider. Would not be surprised if it is indeed a double conical MaRV mounted onto ICBM ranged booster or even IRBM for flexbility of platform.
So far the US latest HGV tests - HTV2 and darpa's HAWC combined air-breathing glider both have been failing as far as they say. Only China has successfully fielded gliders as far as public domain information goes. This is admitted, indeed was initially made known to the public by the US itself, commenting on observing hundreds of successful glider flights (different flight profiles compared to HCMs and of course goes without saying, ballistic missile hypersonics). I don't think North Korea developed a wedge HGV on their own. They apparently have no hypersonic wind tunnels but admittedly probably do have access to Russian and/or Chinese ones. Then again a wedge glider isn't that out of reach either with guidance from someone who's already done a few.
A wedge shaped glider probably just improves aerodynamic lift and adds some range. It could even have constraints like slower speeds compared to double cone gliders. Just seems to the public as more advanced than double cone because double cone gliders have been in service in PLA in the form of DF-15, DF-21, and DF-26 for well over a decade. Does Avangard need to be wedge shaped glider to be an effective and threatening weapon? No.
Should add that the US LRHW is a double cone glider. Nothing too different to a DF-21 or DF-26.
Some public domain info on double cone glider:
Nevertheless this sort of HCM is low tier level for Russia, China, USA. India does not yet have even experimental air breathing hypersonic speed cruise missiles in testing. China didn't even bother placing one of these Hy-fly like HCMs into service. Just played around with some testing. To be fair, the Americans also abandoned this as part of their previous Prompt Global Strike platform (they have higher sights and aims like the Chinese). Russia inducted the Tsirkon, let's call it Hy-flyski, no disrespect intended to Russians at all. It's fair to say China and Russia were both behind the Americans in aerodynamics for a loooong time. This is much less the case today and possibly not even the case. One of those countries have made strides.
India has test fired scramjet engines for tens, possibly now at hundreds of seconds at ground test level. That's roughly a decade away from sustained propelled hypersonic live flight tests for HCM equivalent. That is impressive in its own right though and no other country is even on this ladder. Japan has talked a lot and South Korea has initiated some programs too.
My guess is China already has rotating detonation and/or oblique detonation propelled HCM in the works if not already in service. There is no chance China discloses this before they are already mature. The public only found out about the existence of DF-100 when PLA apparently stopped its production. We only found out about DF-17 a few years before DF-27 was leaked by US intelligence to be flying around as a dedicated anti-ship HGV.
Point is Avangard could be much less impressive than a wedge glider. Would not be surprised if it is indeed a double conical MaRV mounted onto ICBM ranged booster or even IRBM for flexbility of platform.
So far the US latest HGV tests - HTV2 and darpa's HAWC combined air-breathing glider both have been failing as far as they say. Only China has successfully fielded gliders as far as public domain information goes. This is admitted, indeed was initially made known to the public by the US itself, commenting on observing hundreds of successful glider flights (different flight profiles compared to HCMs and of course goes without saying, ballistic missile hypersonics). I don't think North Korea developed a wedge HGV on their own. They apparently have no hypersonic wind tunnels but admittedly probably do have access to Russian and/or Chinese ones. Then again a wedge glider isn't that out of reach either with guidance from someone who's already done a few.
A wedge shaped glider probably just improves aerodynamic lift and adds some range. It could even have constraints like slower speeds compared to double cone gliders. Just seems to the public as more advanced than double cone because double cone gliders have been in service in PLA in the form of DF-15, DF-21, and DF-26 for well over a decade. Does Avangard need to be wedge shaped glider to be an effective and threatening weapon? No.
Should add that the US LRHW is a double cone glider. Nothing too different to a DF-21 or DF-26.
Some public domain info on double cone glider:
They've called this "hypersonic" like a V-2 rocket is a hypersonic weapon. This test missile is not a HGV, not a HCM. It is not a combined air-breathing glider - HCM glider.
This is a quasi-ballistic missile with potentially modified trajectory, aimed to be an Indian long range anti-ship missile making use of potentially MaRV technology, although that isn't even visually obvious. No dual cone, no control surfaces like the Iranian MaRVs. Not likely to be thrust vectored rocket for payload carrying stage. It looks exactly like a guided ballistic missile. Its fairing isn't large enough to be carrying a HGV whether wedge or cone like the Xing-Kong 2, DF-21/26 etc or US ARRW and LRHW. The section drawing if to be held at face value shows that this is a high flying ballistic missile to be developed as an anti-ship missile so would need some advanced guidance and controls to be able to hit moving targets.
That would be novel for India indeed and quite an achievement since only China so far has even demonstrated the ability to use ballistic missiles to hit moving targets. The US surely can easily do this too but have yet to field a weapon that does this or do a live test. Russia and Iran claim to be able to do this.
Essentially this Indian missile concept is basically something similar to a DF-15 or LRHW. A capable thing if developed and fielded but nothing that interesting.
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Hah. You sure ate up that US propaganda.
Look, the Russians have been ahead in cruise missiles since the end of WW2. Chelomey's design bureau was the main driver behind it.
The Soviets thought the cruise missiles would be a necessary deterrent against possible attacks from the US Navy. This would prevent a repeat of what happened in late WWI when the US landed troops near Arkhangelsk and Vladivostok.
The cruise missiles also enabled them to do standoff attacks without having as many long range bombers.
Russia has ALWAYS had the better cruise missiles. Regardless of whatever you hear from US propaganda, any supposed superiority of the US there, it is all bullshit.
If the Boeing Hyfly was ahead of the Russians, how come none such systems are in service? I will tell you why. They flew the prototypes three times and they failed three times:
The Soviets had higher Mach speed wind tunnels than the US had. The US somewhat recovered by using computer simulation, they were ahead of the Soviets in this at one point in the 1970s, but that is no longer the case since the computer technology is now widespread. Computer simulation also has issues when simulating aerodynamics at high Mach speeds anyway, so you cannot 100% rely on the results you get from it. Because the Soviets had the wind tunnels, they always had the better research on this.
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Not that I am really an expert, but I suspect as others have said, a lot of things are declared "hypersonic" when they are not technically so. The American STS was "hypersonic" but...
Good paper on disk-aerospikes, from Space Physics Lab, Beijing
TL;DR - reduces drag in hypersonic glide vehicles
by78
General
Indian new nuclear submarine base?
Before brics india and china had some sortof a border deal, why is india testing?
Because the border issue has no relevance to weapons development programs. This would be like asking why China is fielding next generation stealth bomber and hypersonic glide weapons since it has a border deal with India secured now.
India is very far behind on SLBM tech so they continue developing SLBM tech. They are trying to field SLBM with medium range ballistic missile equivalent ranges combined with SSBN. Every other major nuclear power (UK, France, China, USA, Russia) has more than one generation of operational SSBN experience combined with intercontinental ranged ballistic missile SLBM equivalents. India has yet to demonstrate an intermediate ballistic missile SLBM equivalent on their first generation of SSBN.
None of this has anything to do with border deal.