Colonel Khodarenok: there are inconsistencies in Trump's words about the theft of the Russian "super-rocket"
Russia allegedly stole the blueprints of a "super-duper" missile from the Americans, Donald Trump said at a rally of supporters in New Hampshire. What kind of weapons can we talk about and why this statement looks like pre-election noise, the military observer of the Newspaper understood.En" Mikhail Khodarenok.
"You know that Russia stole a super-duper rocket, such fly super-fast. They stole during the Obama administration. They stole the drawings, classified, and built it," Donald Trump said.
What kind of "super-duper" rocket?
At the same time, the former US president did not specify which system he was talking about. Let's try to do it for him. Apparently, Donald Trump was referring to an air-launched hypersonic cruise missile (GZKR) of the AGM-183A ARRW type. As the newspaper wrote earlier.Ru", On December 9, 2022, the first successful tests of the AGM-183A ARRW manufactured by Lockheed Martin Corporation took place off the coast of Southern California. The hypersonic cruise missile was launched from a B-52H Stratofortress strategic bomber assigned to the 412th Test Wing, permanent home base - Edwards Air Force Base in California.
The prototype of the GZKR was dropped from the bomber, then the solid-fuel engine started, and the product quickly accelerated to more than five times the speed of sound. The rocket completed the planned flight program and was blown up in the air at the final part of the trajectory. According to representatives of the US Air Force, the first results of telemetry show that all the test goals have been achieved.
The next tests of the AGM-183A ARRW prototype took place on March 13 of this year. The flight was unsuccessful. In fact, this unsuccessful launch throws the development of hypersonic weapons in the United States to the frontiers of 2021 - all three tests of the GZKR at that time proved to be a failure.
The promising American product was named ARRW (Air-launched Rapid-Response Weapon), which can be translated as "Air-based rapid reaction Weapon".
In February 2020, as head of the White House, Trump said : "We have superfast missiles - a huge number of superfast missiles. We call them "superfast" because they are four, five, six and even seven times faster than conventional rockets. We need it because, again, Russia has them."
And in May of the same year, Donald Trump said: "We have no choice, we have to do this in relation to the opponents that we have today," while mentioning China and Russia. At the same time, the head of the White House added: "I call it a super-duper rocket." He said he "heard" that it flies 17 times faster than any other US missile.
The American edition of The Drive back in 2020, with reference to the US Air Force, reported that the AGM-183A ARRW hypersonic cruise missile (GZKR) will fly at an average speed of 5,000 to 6,000 miles per hour (approximately 8 to 9.5 thousand km/h) - this is from 6.5 to 8 Mach. It will take only 10-12 minutes to hit an enemy object at a distance of 1600 km.
Structurally, the ARRW is a rocket consisting of a solid-fuel accelerator and a gliding combat unit (without an engine). After reaching a certain speed and altitude, the accelerator shuts down, and the wedge-shaped gliding combat unit continues to move towards the target at hypersonic speed.
The approximate tactical and technical characteristics of the competitor AGM-183A ARRW - the Russian hypersonic missile "Zircon" are as follows: the firing range (according to various sources) is from 400 to 1000 km, the length of the product is 8-10 m, the speed is M-8 and more, the weight of the warhead is 300-400 kg. The conducted test launches confirmed the unique capabilities of this missile in terms of range and accuracy of fire, as well as its hypersonic flight speed. The Zircon is the world's first hypersonic anti-ship missile. In August 2022, it was put into service.
Inconsistencies in Trump's statement
Now let's deal with the hypothetical theft of the AGM-183A ARRW drawings by Russian intelligence. As you know, former US President Donald Trump is an impulsive person who quickly changes his point of view on certain issues and does not always think about the logic of his statements and cause-and-effect relationships.
Lockheed Martin received a contract for the development of the AGM-183A GZKR in 2018. The first test flight, in which the B-52H strategic bomber was used as an ARRW carrier, took place in June 2019 at the Edwards Air Force Base in California.
Recall that Donald Trump was President of the United States from January 20, 2017 to January 20, 2021. And Lockheed Martin started developing a "super-duper" rocket a year after Trump was elected president of the United States. The question arises - what does Barack Obama have to do with it? And what kind of drawings could Russian intelligence have stolen during his presidency, if the development of this type of GZKR had not yet begun.
There is another logical discrepancy in Donald Trump's speech to his supporters in New Hampshire. The United States constantly emphasizes that Russia and China are ahead of the United States in the development of hypersonic weapons. For example, in November last year, US Navy Vice Admiral Johnny Wolf argued: "We urgently need to catch up: Moscow and Beijing are ahead of us."
This is what Donald Trump did not explain in his speech in New Hampshire. Finally, according to the stages of development, testing and adoption of the GZKR in the USA and Russia, the dates are decidedly not the same.
In addition, Donald Trump became aware of the hypothetical theft of the drawings of the "super-duper" rocket only now, in New Hampshire. Before that, starting from January 20, 2017 (the start of his presidency), he was, as they say, neither a dream nor a spirit about this problem. Why didn't you sound the alarm at that time?
Of course, industrial espionage in the world has not been canceled yet. But even stolen hypothetical drawings today can contribute little to the serial production of promising weapons. To do this, together with the drawings, it is necessary to steal technologies, enterprises, equipment, specialists. So Donald Trump's statements are more of a concussion of the air than a reflection of the real state of affairs.
The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.
Biography of the author:
Mikhail Mikhailovich Khodarenok is a military columnist for the newspaper.Ru", retired colonel.
He graduated from the Minsk Higher Engineering Anti-Aircraft Missile School (1976), the Military Air Defense Command Academy (1986).
Commander of the S-75 anti-aircraft missile division (1980-1983).
Deputy Commander of the anti-aircraft missile regiment (1986-1988).
Senior Officer of the General Staff of the Air Defense Forces (1988-1992).
Officer of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff (1992-2000).
Graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia (1998).
Columnist of "Nezavisimaya Gazeta" (2000-2003), editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Military-Industrial Courier" (2010-2015).
Mikhail Khodarenok