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A cruise missile is a guided missile used against terrestrial or naval targets, that remains in the atmosphere and flies the major portion of its flight path at an approximately constant speed. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large warhead over long distances with high precision. Modern cruise missiles are capable of traveling at high subsonic, supersonic, or hypersonic speeds, are self-navigating, and are able to fly on a non-ballistic, extremely low-altitude trajectory.
The Raduga Kh-15 or RKV-15 is a Russian hypersonic aero-ballistic air-to-ground missile carried by the Tupolev Tu-22M and other bombers. Originally developed as a standoff nuclear air-to-ground missile similar to the U.S. Air Force's AGM-69 SRAM, versions with conventional warheads have been developed.
The Kh-55 is a Soviet/Russian subsonic air-launched cruise missile, designed by MKB Raduga in the 1970s. It has a range of up to 2,500 km (1,350 nmi) and can carry nuclear warheads. Kh-55 is launched exclusively from bomber aircraft and has spawned a number of conventionally armed variants mainly for tactical use, such as the Kh-65SE and Kh-SD, but only the Kh-101 and Kh-555 appear to have been put into service. Contrary to popular belief, the Kh-55 was not the basis of the submarine and ground-launched S-10 Granat or RK-55 Relief designed by NPO Novator. The RK-55 is very similar to the air-launched Kh-55 but the Kh-55 has a drop-down turbofan engine and was designed by MKB Raduga.
Fire-and-forget is a type of missile guidance which does not require further external intervention after launch such as illumination of the target or wire guidance, and can hit its target without the launcher being in line-of-sight of the target. This is an important property for a guided weapon to have, since a person or vehicle that lingers near the target to guide the missile is vulnerable to attack and unable to carry out other tasks.
An air-to-surface missile (ASM) or air-to-ground missile (AGM) is a missile designed to be launched from military aircraft at targets on land or sea. There are also unpowered guided glide bombs not considered missiles. The two most common propulsion systems for air-to-surface missiles are rocket motors, usually with shorter range, and slower, longer-range jet engines. Some Soviet-designed air-to-surface missiles are powered by ramjets, giving them both long range and high speed.
MKB Raduga is a Russian aerospace company, concerned with the production of various missile-systems and related technologies. It is headquartered in Dubna, Moscow Oblast. Formerly a division of the Mikoyan-Gurevich design bureau, it was spun off as a separate OKB in March 1957.
The Raduga Kh-20 was an air launched cruise missile armed with a thermonuclear warhead which was developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The Kh-20 was designed to be air-launched.
The Kh-29 is a Soviet air-to-surface missile with a range of 10–30 km. It has a large warhead of 320 kg, has a choice of laser, infrared, active radar or TV guidance, and is typically carried by tactical aircraft such as the Su-24, Su-30, MiG-29K as well as the Su-25, giving these aircraft an expanded standoff capability.
The Kh-31 is a Soviet and Russian air-to-surface missile carried by aircraft such as the MiG-29 or Su-27. It is capable of Mach 3.5 and was the first supersonic anti-ship missile that could be launched by tactical aircraft.
The Kh-25/Kh-25M is a family of Soviet lightweight air-to-ground missiles with a modular range of guidance systems and a range of 10 km. The anti-radar variant (Kh-25MP) is known to NATO as the AS-12 'Kegler' and has a range up to 40 km. Designed by Zvezda-Strela, the Kh-25 is derived from the laser-guided version of the Kh-23 Grom. The Kh-25 remains in widespread use despite the apparent development of a successor, the Kh-38.
The Kh-59 Ovod is a Russian TV-guided cruise missile with a two-stage solid-fuel propulsion system and 200 km range. The Kh-59M Ovod-M is a variant with a bigger warhead and turbojet engine. It is primarily a land-attack missile but the Kh-59MK variant targets ships.
The Main Missile and Artillery Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, commonly referred to by its transliterated Russian acronym GRAU (ГРАУ), is a department of the Russian Ministry of Defense. It is subordinate to the Chief of Armament and Munition of the Russian Armed Forces, a vice-minister of defense.
The Zvezda Kh-35 is a Soviet turbojet subsonic cruise anti-ship missile. The missile can be launched from helicopters, surface ships and coastal defence batteries with the help of a rocket booster, in which case it is known as Uran or Bal. It is designed to attack vessels up to 5,000 tonnes.
The Kh-28 was the first Soviet anti-radiation missile for tactical aircraft. It entered production in 1973 and is still carried on some Sukhoi Su-22s in developing countries but is no longer in Russian service. Use of the Kh-28 was restricted by its weight, limited seeker head, bulk and fuelling requirements, and it was superseded by the smaller, solid-fuel Kh-58 in the early 1980s.
The Novator RK-55 Relief is a Russian Navy cruise missile that is launched either from submarines (SLCM) or from surface ships. It can have a nuclear warhead developed in the Soviet Union. A version launched from submarine torpedo tubes, the S-10 Granat, has apparently been converted to carry conventional warheads and continues in service to this day. The Russian Federation was reported to have deployed the derivative SS-CX-7/SS-CX-8 systems on 14 February 2017. The land launched version is called the Novator 9M729.
The YJ-12 is a Chinese supersonic anti-ship cruise missile.
10Kh was the designation for the initial series of Soviet Union pulse jet engine powered air-launched cruise missiles, reverse engineered from the Fieseler Fi 103 (V-1) flying bomb, developed in the 1950s by OKB-52 under the leadership of Vladimir Nikolaevič Čelomej (Chelomey) and cancelled in the same decade.
The Tupolev Samolyot 135 was a designation that was used for two different strategic bomber projects in the Soviet Union in the late 1950s and early 1960s, neither of which progressed beyond the drawing board.
A hypersonic weapon is a weapon capable of travelling at hypersonic speed, defined as between 5 and 25 times the speed of sound or about 1 to 5 miles per second.
