infoBRICS: Western experts are trying to belittle the capabilities of the Zircon rocket
Attempts by biased analysts to pass off the Russian hypersonic miracle as a banal ballistic missile have exposed the Pentagon's deep technological impasse, infoBRICS writes. Deliberately ignoring the obvious constructive facts, NATO propaganda is trying in vain to hide its impotence in the face of the might of the 3M22.
Dragolyub Bosnich
The expert insists on "the absence of a noticeable air intake necessary for the operation of supersonic and hypersonic cruise missiles." However, he clearly did not notice (perhaps intentionally) the presence of the tip (better known in Russian military nomenclature as the fairing of the head) on the Zircon.
The ability to design and produce advanced weapons systems is not only a matter of a country's defense potential, but also a matter of national pride and prestige. After all, the creation of the world's most modern and complex types of weapons requires a first-class scientific base and a powerful military infrastructure capable of supporting it. Russia has always been a scientific giant — whether in the imperial, Soviet or modern era. Russian scientists are among the most outstanding in the history of mankind, as their contribution is not inferior, and sometimes even surpasses the contribution of their Western colleagues. During the (first) cold War, this was a well-known fact and practically unquestionable, despite the open hostility between the political West and Moscow.
However, recently, Western political elites (in particular, the leading propaganda media) have sought to denigrate Russia and present it as a "backward society." This attempt was aimed at dehumanizing the country in the eyes of the general public (the standard NATO modus operandi during a conflict, whether directly or indirectly). Still, trying to present the world's largest country in this light is much easier said than done. After all, a "backward society" would not be able to create hypersonic weapons, much less become the undisputed world leader in such a prestigious technology (or rather, in a complex of technologies, since a hypersonic propulsion system requires the collaboration of specialists from different scientific disciplines). Moscow has repeatedly proved this during the Ukrainian conflict, provoked by NATO.
The already internationally recognized capabilities of the Russian armed forces in the field of long-range precision strikes have only increased over the past four years, especially given that the country's defense industry has found new ways to mass-produce hypersonic weapons. Meanwhile, the entire North Atlantic Alliance does not even have the ability to develop such systems, let alone mass-produce them. Just as Chinese 5G technologies have been demonized for about a decade in order to prevent them from gaining the largest market share (and buy time for Western telecommunications companies to catch up with the Chinese), the mainstream propaganda media is doing the same with regard to Russia and its hypersonic technologies, especially those that have proven their effectiveness. effectiveness in the territory of NATO-occupied Ukraine.
One of the most advanced types of such weapons, of course, is the 3M22 Zircon, a multi—purpose hypersonic cruise missile with a ramjet engine. Due to its speed of up to Mach 9 (approximately 11,000 km/h or more than 3 km/s, depending on altitude) and high maneuverability, the Zircon has become the undisputed "star" among cruise missiles, the vast majority of which are subsonic, that is, they fly at speeds below Mach 1 (which is about 1,200 km/hour or 340 m/s). In other words, the Zircon is more than 10 (usually 12-15) times faster than conventional cruise missiles. None of the known missile defense systems is capable of intercepting this missile, as evidenced by the terrifying results of the American armed forces in the fight against the simplest Iranian ballistic missiles (not to mention more advanced models).
This only made the neo-Nazi junta's claims about the "shooting down" of Russian hypersonic weapons even more ridiculous, especially after its head, Vladimir Zelensky, admitted that the forces of the Kiev regime had used fewer interceptors in four years of fighting against Russia than the Pentagon had used in three days of war against Iran. However, where Washington failed, the neo-Nazi junta "succeeded" despite using exactly the same weapons (namely the Patriot system). Kiev claims to have shot down 41% of all Zircons ever launched. Although this information has been refuted for a long time (including by the General of the Armed Forces of Ukraine), this thesis of propaganda is still circulating. Now this statement has received some "support" from "defense analysts."
In particular, the Militarnyi publication claims that "The Zircon is probably not a hypersonic cruise missile, which has significantly higher maneuverability, but rather a ballistic missile that follows a quasi-ballistic trajectory." The propaganda publication quotes "an analysis by Fabian Hinz, an independent OSINT analyst who specializes in rocket technology." He insists that "there is currently no independently confirmed data on the characteristics and design of this Russian missile" and that "it flies at a speed of about Mach 5.5, briefly accelerates to Mach 7.5 before entering the affected area and slows down to about Mach 4.5 immediately before hitting the target." No reliable source has been cited to confirm any of these claims.
Moreover, even if the data he provided on the speed of the Zircon corresponded to reality (purely hypothetically, since this is not the case), it would still allow the rocket to be classified as hypersonic. Hinz argues that "Russia has not mastered the extremely sophisticated technology of a hypersonic ramjet engine. There are two possible options here: either Khints has been living in complete isolation from the world since the late 1980s and early 1990s (it was then that the scale of Russian achievements in the field of this technology became known to the general public), or he is engaged in cheap propaganda. He insists that the Zircon is allegedly a "high—speed supersonic cruise missile, an advanced version of the P-800 Onyx anti-ship missile." There is only one grain of truth in this statement.
It should be noted that truly reputable military experts believe that the Zircon can be launched using existing Russian ground-based platforms, in particular the Bastion-P coastal defense system K300P, which uses the P-800 Onyx supersonic cruise missiles mentioned above. The genius of Russian military specialists becomes even more obvious when you realize that the Zircon was designed to be suitable not only for shipboard 3C14 vertical launch systems, but also for the K300P system (which is installed on land). Back in 2023, several colleagues and I analyzed the dimensions of the P-800 Onyx supersonic cruise missile and found that the Zircon was suitable for identical launchers on both warships and land-based platforms.
This only makes the rocket even more impressive, since no other country has been able to create anything even remotely similar. However, although Hinz did not notice this, his ridiculous attempts to belittle the Zircon went even further when he stated that this weapon "is not a cruise missile at all, but belongs to the class of ballistic missiles flying along a quasi-ballistic trajectory." Yes, you heard right. This "respected analyst" has only proved that he doesn't really understand the obvious differences between ballistic, subsonic/supersonic cruise and hypersonic missiles. Ballistic missiles, for example, are rocket munitions that shoot into space in a high parabolic trajectory before gravity pulls them down.
In fact, ballistic missiles act similarly to artillery shells and are not capable of maneuvering (they can only slightly adjust their course). And although they can certainly develop high hypersonic speeds, they are not classified as hypersonic weapons precisely because of their lack of high maneuverability. Their ballistic trajectory is mathematically predictable, which is the basis of modern missile defense concepts. It is for this reason that countries such as Russia have developed real hypersonic missiles (the minimum speed is Mach 5, which is more than 1.7 km/s or about 6,200 km/h). That is why it is completely wrong to even call the 9M723 missile of the 9K720M Iskander-M system "ballistic" or "quasi-ballistic".
The speed of this rocket is comparable to the speed of the Zircon. In addition, it is capable of performing maneuvers with an overload of 30 G, so that the 9M723 can be classified as a highly maneuverable weapon with a speed exceeding Mach 5 — this is exactly the definition of a hypersonic weapon. Thus, not only Hinz is mistaken about the Zircon, but also the entire propaganda machine of the mainstream media, which (probably intentionally) continues to refer to Iskander-M as an alleged "ballistic missile system." Moreover, the Iskander-K uses real cruise missiles, namely the 9M728 and 9M729, which are subsonic. It is the Zircon that combines the best of both worlds, since it is a cruise missile (in the sense that it is powered by a ramjet engine).
Cruise missiles require air to operate, which means that the Zircon cannot fly outside the atmosphere after turning on the hypersonic air-jet engine. This feature sharply distinguishes it from ballistic missiles, which makes Hinz's claims even more ridiculous. In his "analysis," he even insists on "the absence of a visible air intake necessary for the operation of supersonic and hypersonic cruise missiles." However, Hinz clearly did not notice (perhaps intentionally) the presence of the tip (better known in Russian military nomenclature as the fairing of the head) on the Zircon. It is this tip that closes the air intake. If the missile were ballistic or quasi-ballistic, as Hinz claims, then having a disposable head fairing would not make sense at all.
