Russian Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

Tomboy said:

Russia is traditionally very good with nuclear technology especially naval and miniature ones. Poisedon torpedo has a gas cooled mini reactor which if true would be very advanced and be first of it's kind, also there's that nuclear powered cruise missile. China also sourced RTGs from Russia for various space missions like Yutu rovers.

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Yes maybe with specialty nuclear reactors like the ones you've mentioned but certainly not with commercial power stations anymore. Russia's active molten salt reactors where? Russia's thorium reactors where? Russia's pebble bed reactors where? On all three China's got more experimental and commercially active ones now today operating. Russia has very limited experimental ones in the past or planning to build.

For conventional reactors China has caught up. Studied its own, Soviet ones, American ones, French ones for decades and the latest Hualong gen 3s are no less than the latest Russian VVERs. Russia isn't even ahead of China in commercial nuclear energy. Specialty cases the Americans are a match if not better than the Russian ones. They also have miniature reactors and a long history of building proven ones.

W20 said:

View attachment 158776

Hypersonic Cruise Missile

Fiction: Zircon ... The Hindu Zircon

Reality: "early ramjet - scramjet "dual purpose" engine powered basic tube missiles" (ougoah)

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Exactly. This Zircon (actual) launch shown looks NOTHING like the artist impression in "The Hindu". Those artist impressions always use a wedge scramjet X-43A looking object with intake on the underside of the missile.

This actual Zircon launch photo looks remarkably similar to this Ukrainian sketch:



Under that protection cone is an intake design similar to the Linyun-1 and Boeing Hyfly.

This part collected by Ukraine



Looks a bit similar to this section



Some of the parts the Ukrainians collected had the 3M22 and manufacturing plates. Sure they could have faked it but come on. How does the real Zircon look anything like that Hindu artist impression used. It's just a tube with that Hyfly ramjet-scramjet intake.

It's still a legit top tier weapon no doubt but some people talk it up like it's a X-43A/ HAWC only actually perfected and usable. Nah that's what the YJ-19 is ... only better

gelgoog said:

Just think about it. The nuclear power source in the Burevestnik cruise missile is something no one else has in service.
Russia also has the most advanced fast reactor program currently. BN-1200M and BREST-OD-300 reactors currently under construction have no equivalents.

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Sorry but the Burevestnik is a terrible weapon. It's so prone to issues and just a hazard for everyone. If you want a loitering nuke, perfect a FOBS. A flying nuclear reactor was also explored by Soviets and Americans since the 1960s. Nuclear powered aircraft (bombers in the Cold War cases) and nuclear powered cruise missiles. The American one was called Project Pluto. They abandoned it because they realised how insane the idea was. Russia persisted for some reason perhaps they convinced themselves they need it but honestly who is going to threaten Russia with anything existential when Russia has enough nukes to wipe the rest of the world twice over with nuclear triad.

Just because Russia fielded the Burevestnik doesn't mean they're ahead of the Americans in miniature reactors. I'm sure the Americans could do a similar thing and possibly even make it work more reliably. China on the other hand is certainly weaker than the other two in miniature reactors for now.

You see, you assume it is just a copy of Project Pluto. When the truth is we know nothing about the nuclear propulsion system. It could not leave any fissionables on the exhaust trail for all we know.
In fact I suspect as much. The original test site for Burevestnik was near Severodvinsk and was only moved to Novaya Zemlya later.
Which suggests it is designed to have a clean exhaust.

gelgoog said:

You see, you assume it is just a copy of Project Pluto. When the truth is we know nothing about the nuclear propulsion system. It could not leave any fissionables on the exhaust trail for all we know.
In fact I suspect as much. The original test site for Burevestnik was near Severodvinsk and was only moved to Novaya Zemlya later.
Which suggests it is designed to have a clean exhaust.

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I didn't say it was a copy of Pluto. I mentioned Pluto to make it known that the US has a half century old nuclear powered cruise missile program and abandoned it like a sensible nation (in this case lol). The US today can easily do a Burestnik equivalent and possibly do it much better. You however are making some crazy assumptions about how great the Burevestnik is. Um we do know it leaves fission trails. At least It's had some issues that was reported in the media. However accurate or fair those reports are is unknown. These are western claims, the flip side is the Russians claiming this thing is a supa dupa unmatched weapon.

Burevestnik is not proof of Russian superiority in miniature nuclear reactors. It's only proof that it was more desperate to field a ridiculously pointless and hazardous weapon.

My thoughts on this is the Russians used to conceptualise a FOBS weapon but they couldn't do it or decided against it. Instead they still wanted a loitering nuke weapon so they've made the Burevestnik. It appears to be a different challenge to the FOBS. Where FOBS is hard mechanically and in control, targeting, guidance (Russian relative weaknesses), the Burevestnik challenge is in the reactor. They are great at making those sure and so they've pursued that. The issue is a super long range long endurance cruise missile eventually has other things fail. It can't fly for years even if the reactor can power it for years. At some point, its electronics components will give out even if they can still be powered by the reactor. At some point, the wings and controls give out. What then? It doesn't have landing gears. It's a crazy weapon to put it lightly. Madman weapon.

We know nothing. They don't even know if it is a turbojet, ramjet, rocket, or whatever. What we know is it uses a nuclear power source and it is pretty compact, there are pictures of the missile, way more compact than the Pluto prototype even.
They claim it has a radioactive exhaust when they don't even know the propulsion scheme. i.e. they just make shit up.

gelgoog said:

BN-1200M and BREST-OD-300 reactors currently under construction have no equivalents.

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CFR1000 China's 4th generation sodium-cooled fast reactor preliminary design has completed. construction can start anytime. with target date is 2029.

i would say, both Russia and China more or less on same stage when it comes to civilian nuclear Technology. but yeah Marine nuclear tech Russia/USA ahead but China just started the deployment of marine nuclear reactor. for type 095 SSN they designed a totally new reactor.

ougoah said:

China on the other hand is certainly weaker than the other two in miniature reactors for now.

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the World's smallest commercial reactor, Linglong-1 (ACP100) is a third-generation small pressurized water reactor developed by CNNC, with fully independent intellectual property rights. In 2016, it became the world's first small reactor to pass a safety review by the International Atomic Energy Agency, earning it the nickname "nuclear power bank."

gelgoog said:

We know nothing. They don't even know if it is a turbojet, ramjet, or whatever. What we know is it uses a nuclear power source and it is pretty compact, there are pictures of the missile, way more compact than the Pluto prototype even.

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It's more compact than Pluto because it was made decades after Pluto.

We don't know nothing. We know it's a nuclear powered cruise missile. That alone is enough to say ... these people have lost their minds. Come on. Does this need clarifying. It's a one use end of world scenario weapon. Sure it might have a place but Russia has top 2 in the world nuclear deterrence. It doesn't really need such a thing. It's there for domestic PR points. It's not as effective as hypersonic nuclear delivery whether dropped from space or wherever.

It's a subsonic cruise missile judging from the available public photos of its frame. Even if it's supersonic, it's not any more effective. It's stealthy sure. But not too much less detectable than other stealthy long range cruise missiles. Probably more detectable. So what's the point? Why go to the risks of having a nuclear powered missile that you can't contain or reuse.

Seriously how is this more effective than a long range stealth cruise missile that hugs terrain? It is the same thing with longer range so it's target isn't Europe but US. For that one little benefit it risks everything and can only be used in a end of world scenario. I think it was just cool to present as some super weapon. Anyone else realises this is the most pointless thing to come out of any MIC for a long time. The Americans were conceptualising and experimenting with every idea in the 1960s and 70s. They didn't even bother continuing this idea back then.

Burevestnik is probably supersonic given the angle of the wings.


It is pretty compact. Can fit inside a container and has unlimited range. No need to use an expensive and easy to track strategic bomber to launch it.

Can we just move this part to the Russian thread?