Quote:
Originally Posted by Baron von Kriterium
The western media is shaking in their collective boots about the nuclear weapons mentioned in Putin's announcement, but they have totally ignored perhaps the most important revelation and that is the information about the Kinzhai (Dagger).
They are operational in the Southern Military District on board MiG-31. I don't doubt that SU-30/34/35 can carry them as well.
On board the MiG-31 makes this a very formidable weapons system. Without any notion of hyperbole, naval warfare as we know it is finished. We have entered a new era where no modern or prospective air defense system deployed by any NATO fleet can intercept a single Kinzhai. A salvo of six or so of these missiles will decimate a carrier battle group.
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I think that they just used the Mig-31 as a test bed, but the Mig 31 is pretty much a pure interceptor.
I would think that the idea would be to link up a missile like the Kinzhal with their frontal naval aviation groups and find a way to mount them on something like a long range Blackjack bomber which have gone through extensive modifications. They're also close on the PAK DA
Right now its assumed that the Kinzhai can travel at mach 10 and has a 2000 mile range. That means that if the missile is launched from maximum range it would arrive on target in about 20 minutes.
Most Naval air defenses right now are focused around SAM missiles and the venerable R2D2.
A medium range RIM-161 has a range of under 400 KMS so it would have at at best under 3 minutes to intercept and the problem is that a mach 10 missile would outrun shrapnel from a war head explosion and a missile to missile hit isn't going to happen.
The Phalanx has a maximum range of 3 miles, the missile has a speed of about 127 miles a minute or 2 miles a second..
This is why the Russians and American's are putting a lot of money in ship born laser defenses, that can shoot out to the range of basically a Aegis radar and can shoot a lot in a short period of time.
The doctrine won't change all that much from the 70's doctrine of the Soviets using a plane like the Badger to pinpoint a naval formation and radio the information back to a flight of backfires that would then close and shower the formation with missiles, and then boost away on after burners.
However, now you have the threat of using satellites to pin point a formation. Send that information live to one or two stealth based bombers, or a lot of Black Jacks who would then close and fire missiles that could arrive in seconds.