Zhu Yuntao, Li Juntong
In January of this year, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visited the manufacturing base of the Kh-101 cruise missile and revealed the purpose of the new Kh-101 cruise missile in modification. In recent years, medium- and long-range cruise missiles have played an important role in the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield in carrying precision strikes against the enemy's high-value targets in depth. In 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke highly of Russia's newest missile system Kh-101 at a meeting with the Committee on Military-Technical Cooperation with Foreign Countries. So what is the combat performance of the latest Kh-101 missile system of the Russian army? How can it be improved and developed to adapt to today's Russian-Ukrainian battlefield? What are its outstanding contributions on the actual battlefield?
(Figure 1 The Russian army is equipped with Kh-101 cruise missiles)
The old device is reforged, and the performance is fully upgraded
In the 80s of the last century, in order to benchmark the AGM-129 cruise missile system of the United States, the Rainbow Design Bureau began to develop the Kh-101 subsonic "stealth" cruise missile system, which was later interrupted due to the collapse of the Soviet Union. In 1999, Russia restarted the research program on the Kh-101 cruise missile system. The Kh-101 cruise missile, which entered service in 2013, is the latest derivative of the Kh-55 cruise missile.
The Kh-101 cruise missile is known for its high accuracy and long range. The missile is 7.45 meters long, 0.74 meters in diameter, and has a wingspan of 3 meters. The original Kh-101 cruise missile warhead has a mass of about 450 kg and a launch mass of about 2300 kg. The missile has a variety of launch platforms and can be launched by Tu-160 and Tu-95MS strategic bombers of the Russian Air Force.
Compared with the Kh-55 cruise missile, the power system of the Kh-101 cruise missile has been fully upgraded. The Kh-101 cruise missile is powered by a TRDD-50A turbofan engine and has a maximum flight speed of Mach 0.78. And the range of the Kh-101 cruise missile has also been greatly improved, the range has been increased to 3,000 kilometers to 5,500 kilometers, far better than most cruise missiles in the world, only the now retired American AGM-129 advanced cruise missile is close.
The KH-101 cruise missile system adopts a guidance method that combines an inertial-terrain guidance system with a GLONASS satellite guidance component, and the missile terminal adopts optoelectronic or infrared imaging guidance, which greatly improves the guidance accuracy. The Kh-101 cruise missile can change the target during the flight and can accurately hit high-value targets in local depth.
Compared with the Kh-55 cruise missile system, the Kh-101 cruise missile system has improved the ability to evade enemy detection and interception and the ability to resist electromagnetic interference. The Kh-101 cruise missile body adopts a multi-angular stealth design and radar absorbing material coverage, and the radar scattering cross section (RCS) is reduced by about 1/14 compared with the non-stealth cruise missile of the cylindrical projectile, which is about 0.01 square meters. However, the small turbofan engine at the tail of the missile still follows the telescopic design of the Kh-55 cruise missile, and the engine is hung on the outside of the missile body during the flight, which increases the radar scattering cross section of the Kh-101 cruise missile to a certain extent, and is not conducive to dealing with infrared reflection, which is also one of the reasons why the Kh-101 is intercepted more on the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield. In order to make up for the shortcomings of the external engine of the Kh-101 cruise missile system, the Russian army has equipped the Kh-101 cruise missile with a jamming missile launcher to strengthen its penetration capability in a complex electronic environment.
(Fig. 2 Model of the Kh-101 cruise missile)
Modular design, adapt to the battlefield environment
At the end of March this year, Ukrainian sources reported that Russian Air Force units used Kh-101 cruise missiles with reinforced warheads to strike targets on the territory of Ukraine during a massive missile attack at night. According to images of the wreckage of the missile posted by War-Home on social media, the improved Kh-101 cruise missile has an additional warhead module, uses a dual warhead system, and carries a warhead weighing about 800 kg almost twice the weight of the original warhead.
The dual-warhead module is more suitable for the needs of Russian-Ukrainian battlefield missions. According to open sources, the Russian army has recently continued to invest in Ukraine's infrastructure, such as hydroelectric power stations, thermal power stations, underground oil storage facilities, and workshops of some large industrial plants. However, most of these infrastructures were built during the Soviet era, and most of them are structurally strong, and it is difficult to completely destroy them, requiring more powerful missiles. Although the dual-warhead module used in the new Kh-101 cruise missile squeezed part of the fuel tank of the original Kh-101, sacrificing part of the missile's range and accuracy, it was exchanged for greater destructive power. The Kh-101 cruise missile, equipped with a dual-warhead module, is better able to deliver devastating strikes on the solid infrastructure of the Ukrainian army, as well as military facilities. The range and accuracy of some of the missiles sacrificed by the dual-warhead module do not have a great impact on the combat mission due to the small area of the Ukrainian territory and the close geographical area of the combat mission.
The modular design of the Kh-101 is not limited to the warhead module. On February 18, 2023, according to a press conference held by the Research Center for Trophies and Future Military Equipment of the Ukrainian General Staff, the Kh-101 cruise missile system on the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield has been comprehensively upgraded in terms of guidance and electronic countermeasures, and the strike accuracy and anti-interception capabilities have been significantly improved.
According to information published by the Ukrainian army, the new Kh-101 has also been upgraded in the Digital Scene Image Matching Correction System (DSMAC). The new Kh-101 cruise missile's digital scene image matching correction system changed the old version of the belly with a single rotating camera to the belly with three cameras with fixed deflection angles. This change makes the digital scene image matching correction system acquire images faster, and can correct images more quickly. As a result, the fast and precise guidance capabilities of the new Kh-101 cruise missile system have been enhanced.
The new Kh-101 cruise missile system was also upgraded in the electronic countermeasures module. The new Kh-101 cruise missile is equipped with L-504 jamming missile droppers on both sides of the head, as well as radar warning receivers. The new Kh-101 cruise missile system can trigger the throwing of L-504 jamming bombs when receiving irradiation from the fire control radar of the Ukrainian air defense system, jamming the detection of enemy radars and improving the penetration capability.
The modular design of the new Kh-101 cruise missile is a fit for the battlefield environment and operational needs of Russia and Ukraine again and again, so that the Kh-101 cruise missile has a broader battlefield application environment.
(Figure 3 Russian troops throwing Kh-101 cruise missiles on the battlefield)
Bright sword battlefield, set up great feats
In November 2015, during Russia's intensified air campaign against IS terrorists in Syria, the strategic aircraft of the Russian Air Force Tu-160 and Tu-95MC used Kh-101 cruise missiles for the first time in real operations, took off from the territory of the Russian Federation, flew over Iran and Iraq, returned to base after launching Kh-101 cruise missiles in the Mediterranean region, and carried out precision strikes on combat targets. In the "battlefield debut" of the Kh-101 cruise missile, the Kh-101 showed extremely strong firepower strike capability and excellent hit accuracy, successfully destroyed important enemy military facilities, and perfectly completed the task of precision fire strikes against local targets.
On June 26, 2022, according to Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Ignat, the Russian army dispatched Tu-95 and Tu-160 strategic bombers from the Astrakhan region on the same day, and used Kh-101 cruise missiles to launch an air strike on Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, over the Caspian Sea, and a salvo blew up 15 military targets. After that, the Russian army also used Kh-101 cruise missiles to carry out large-scale missile attacks on Ukraine many times, and successfully hit the Ukrainian army's power plants, gas storage equipment and other infrastructure, as well as some important military facilities and targets such as Ukrainian warehouses and command posts. The fire strike of the Kh-101 cruise missile system on the battlefield between Russia and Ukraine fully demonstrated the penetration capability of the cruise missile system. Even in the area with the largest area covered by the release, the Kh-101 cruise missile can successfully hit the intended target and complete the combat mission.
It is worth mentioning that after each missile strike, the Ukrainian military "reports" the success of its defense and control systems, claiming that dozens of drones and air-launched cruise missiles were shot down, including the Kh-101 cruise missile. However, in fact, almost all missiles and drones successfully completed their missions and destroyed designated targets, and only a small number of drones and missiles were shot down by the Ukrainian army's prevention and control system or fell due to insufficient technology.
The application of the KH-101 cruise missile system in both Syria and Ukraine has demonstrated extremely high tactical and technical characteristics. Moreover, the deployment of the Kh-101 cruise missile system in eastern Ukraine or near Belarus can bring important industrial areas of NATO member states into the strike range, forming a great strategic deterrent to NATO.
In the future, the Kh-101 cruise missile system will be applied in what scenarios and what targets will be assigned have not yet been clarified, but it can be expected that the Russian army will continue to use such weapons against Ukrainian targets according to the needs of the battlefield.
War is the best catalyst for the development of weapons, and in the coming decades, the design of weapon performance will inevitably match the battlefield environment, combat mission, and combat mode to an increasing degree. The Kh-101 cruise missile system of the Russian army also provides a new idea for the design of new high-precision long-range weapons.