The "Zircon" hypersonic missile is a very advanced long-range hypersonic anti-ship missile currently developed and installed by Russia, which inherits the characteristics of the former Soviet Navy anti-ship missile "faster speed and longer range", and its excellent performance makes Western countries say "unstoppable".
Zircon "hypersonic anti-ship missile)
The "Zircon" hypersonic anti-ship missile is developed and produced by the Russian Machine-Building Research and Production Consortium, and is the core long-range anti-ship combat of the Russian Navy in the 21st century. The "Zircon" missile inherits the characteristics of the former Soviet Union's anti-ship missile, which is "long-range, fast, and powerful." Judging from its advanced technical performance indicators, none of the NATO countries' air defense can effectively intercept the "Zircon" missile.
The Russian frigate Project 22350 launches the "Zircon" missile).
The "ZirCon" anti-ship missile is a hypersonic anti-ship cruise missile that skims the sea, in order to meet the needs of hypersonic flight, the design of the missile is very unique - it does not adopt the cylindrical body design of conventional anti-ship missiles, but adopts a missile body design with a square cross-section, so that the entire missile body can be used as a lifting body to provide a certain lift for the missile. At the same time, the missile has an air intake in the abdomen, and the power system uses a scramjet engine, according to the test, the thrust of the scramjet engine is more than 4 times that of an ordinary rocket engine, with a higher fuel utilization rate and thrust-to-weight ratio, so it can push the missile to fly at a faster speed.
The development of supersonic anti-ship missiles, Russia is undoubtedly specialized, and the "Zircon" missile is the highest embodiment of Russian hypersonic missile technology).
The biggest advantage of the "Zircon" missile is that it is fast enough, the average flight speed of the missile is more than Mach 5, so it is a real "hypersonic missile", and its maximum flight speed can reach more than Mach 10, which translates to a flight speed of more than 10,000 kilometers per hour. The range of the missile is between 400 and 1,000 kilometers, and even if the maximum range of 1,000 kilometers is calculated, it only takes less than six minutes on average for the "Zircon" to fly 1,000 kilometers, and the movement distance of surface ships within six minutes is quite limited, so the "Zircon" hypersonic missile does not even need to use relay guidance, as long as it locks on the target, it can be launched.
One of the great advantages of the Zircon missile is its small size, so in addition to the 22350 frigates, the smaller tonnage of 20380 and 21631 can be carried)
Due to this characteristic, the "ZirCon" missile can be equipped on the Russian Navy's 4,500-ton Project 22350 frigate or even the smaller Project 20380 frigate, because these ** are equipped with the Russian military-standard "Mineral" skywave radar system, which uses the ionosphere in the earth's atmosphere as a reflective mirror, so it can break through the limit of the earth's curvature and achieve over-the-horizon detection, and once the "Mineral" radar is used to lock on to the target, the "Zircon" can be launched directly Missiles strike at targets.
With the cooperation of the "Zircon" missile and the "Mineral" radar, even the frigate has the ability to effectively hit targets within 1,000 kilometers, so that although the Russian Navy is far inferior to the Western Navy in terms of tonnage and number of capital ships, it still has a strong long-range strike capability with this ** system.
22350 frigates launch Zircon missiles)
It should be noted that due to the very fast flight speed of the "Zircon" missile, the current air defense system of the West does not have a single missile that can effectively intercept the "Zircon" missile, and the multi-barreled Gatling close-in defense gun is even more unable to effectively intercept this hypersonic missile. In the future, only the development of a completely new laser anti-ship system will be able to effectively combat hypersonic anti-ship missiles such as the Zircon.
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