Rear Admiral Sviridov told how the new hypersonic missile "Serpentine" will work
Russia is developing a ballistic missile "Serpentine" with hypersonic combat equipment in the interests of the Navy. She will become the new "killer of aircraft carriers," a source told TASS. "Newspaper.Ru" figured out what the features of the new rocket are.
"The Serpentine ballistic missile with hypersonic combat equipment has been developed for quite a long time. It will be designed to defeat large surface targets, primarily aircraft carriers," the source told TASS.
The development of the "Serpentine" was carried out back in Soviet times, the bet was on long-range. Specific information regarding the combat capabilities of the Serpentine system has not been officially published. The characteristics of the weight, warhead and other parameters are not disclosed. It is only reported that this is a "coastal anti-ship complex of increased range."
"The Serpentine complex, declared as an anti-ship missile, appears to be a larger-scale weapon. This is exactly the system that lifts into the air a set of independent missiles capable of attacking either one large target or a squadron of enemy ships, striking them with pinpoint strikes of instant suppression.
In this way, the Serpentine is able to fly from the Russian Primorye to Hawaii in a matter of minutes," he told the newspaper.Ru" military expert, retired Rear Admiral Alexey Sviridov.
The expert noted that many parts of the project are still classified.
"The project of the anti-ship complex "Serpentine" was developed at the Reutovsky NPO Mashinostroeniya, which is part of the Tactical Missile Armament Corporation. The project was classified. Even the name itself was not advertised, although its similarity to a part of the moonshine machine, popularly known as the "serpentine", was due to the ability of the missile to maneuver at the final stage - to fly along the "snake", making it invulnerable to air defense," the rear admiral added.
In turn, military expert, captain of the 1st rank of the reserve Vasily Dandykin believes that the Serpentine solves the issue of equipping surface ships with weapons capable of destroying aircraft carriers and entire aircraft carrier groups.
"Countering enemy aircraft carrier groups was initially assigned to submarine missiles. The missile range was essential when it was necessary to approach the "aiming distance", which was up to a thousand kilometers. From the coastal zone, ships of a potential enemy can be fired at from a shorter distance, even with the potential of the Bal and Bastion complexes. They are good in the waters of the Black and Baltic Seas, but in the Pacific Ocean or in the North, longer-range systems are required that do not allow ships to approach for cruise missile strikes. Hence the need for a "coil", - said Dandykin.
Source "Gazeta.The Rostec corporation claims that initially the project under the conditional name "Serpentine" was not considered by the military as a promising anti-ship weapon.
"The Navy was then focused on other tasks. The main emphasis was placed on ballistic missiles for the Sineva and Bulava submarines. Then came the era of hypersound, which largely changed the strategy of using weapons. Our industry turned out to be ready for this - the previous developments worked. And they fired.
The peculiarity of the "Serpentine" lies in the fact that in addition to coastal use, a powerful launch vehicle can also lift the complex, which is launched from Russian cosmodromes and delivers it to any point for the main application," he told the newspaper.Ru" source in Rostec.
Victor Sokirko
