The non-ballistic variety that Russia claimed was unstoppable has been stopped several time in the past couple weeks now that Ukraine has Patriot systems. Seems like they’re not really a big deal at all.
The Kinzhal is AFAIK ballistic. The Russians refer to it as a hypersonic weapon because it sounds scary, but really it’s just an air launched SRBM. The Russians do have a maneuvering hypersonic weapon, the Avangard, but it’s strictly nuclear and launched from an ICBM booster, not a plane.
It's worth watching the videos of the Kinzhal/Patriot showdown in Kiev. As far as I can tell the actual raw videos are pretty rare anywhere mainstream. I found the Telegraph with a minute of it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4sTZ1_9Cn8
Objectively as possible it looks like ~30 Patriot missiles were fired (plausibly the whole 32 missile battery). The production rate of these by Lockheed Martin is 500 missiles, annual. Up to 550/year starting this year. They're apparently attempting to intercept somewhere between 2-6 Kinzhals fired, and it appears 1-2 of those Kinzhals (i.e. between 15-100%) got through and struck the Patriot battery and at least damaged it. That's around 3 weeks total annual production of Patriot missiles fired in 2 minutes at a handful of targets with at best partial success.
So it's both correct that Kinzhal is really just an air-launched SRBM not a hypersonic glide weapon, and that our existing missile defense looks at best barely capable of partially defending against very limited numbers of conventional SRBM.
The Ukrainian claim is in that engagement they downed 6 Kinzhals, 9 Kalibrs and 3 Iskanders.
We don’t need to take the Ukrainian claims as totally accurate, but it’s worth at least including that the battery of patriots were fired at more than just the 2-6 Kinzhal missiles that you tallied (at least when we want to look at annual production rates).
The Russian’s haven’t been able to sustain a launch rate of once a month with smaller attacks. This attack was an unusually high density. Expending three weeks production capacity to fend off an attack that can be launched at most every 2-3 months seems… manageable.
In terms of this conflict, also worth considering that Patriot isn’t the only system in Ukraine, so if production of Patriot missiles becomes a constraint, they can shift more AD burden to IRIS-T and other European systems.
When considering the broader implications to the US, I think it’s not exactly right to describe Patriot as our “existing missile defense”. We have a number of other missile defense systems such as NASAMs and THAAD that occupy complimentary roles to the Patriot systems. If anything based on the performance of Patriot in Ukraine I have more confidence than I previously did in our missile defense systems. Performance in real world conditions has seemed pretty good to me.
> That's around 3 weeks total annual production of Patriot missiles fired in 2 minutes at a handful of targets with at best partial success.
Its a total success; the purpose of a defensive system is prevent something else from being hit. And, there’s pretty good reason to believe that the reason there aren’t more than about 6 Kinzhals in Russia every-one-to-two-week mass missile attacks is that they simply aren’t producing enough to fire more. Also, there were 18 missiles in the barrage, including other SRBMs (the ground launched Iskander), S-300s used in surface-to-surface mode, and cruise missiles, not just the 6 Kinzhals.
> So it's both correct that Kinzhal is really just an air-launched SRBM not a hypersonic glide weapon, and that our existing missile defense looks at best barely capable of partially defending against very limited numbers of conventional SRBM.
Patriot isn’t the whole (or even the most capable system) of our existing ballistic missile defense, even if it is the most notable system of ours deployed, as of today, in Ukraine. THAAD exists, and is more capable than Patriot.
I've seen a lot of criticism about giving weapons to Ukraine because of a 'current production is only X per month' thought process. It's a flawed premise because production was only supporting the needs of a peacetime force. Production in peacetime is there just to maintain capability and meet export demand. However, it is exceptionally useful to practice scaling up production to ensure that the capability to do so is there. Russia has failed the test so far--whether or not the US and allies pass the test remains to be seen.
I think one lesson from this war has been that ammunition stockpiles of all kinds will be depleted quickly in a widespread conventional conflict with China, and that replacement production would need to be drastically scaled up across all systems (from tank ammunition, to artillery, and air defense missiles).
And difference of how many China “can” make in a month and how many Patriot missiles Lockheed “is” making in a month are very different questions. How many missiles could Lockheed make in a month given 3 months lead time in a conflict with China? I bet it’s significantly more than we are currently making now.
It's not ammo for handheld guns that is the primary issue in Ukraine for both sides; it's the artillery shells. The main reason why Russian losses in Bakhmut were so high is because Wagner took the city by waves after waves of infantry assaults on fortified urban positions with very little artillery support - because they cannot sustain it.
This isn't really a surprise, either - this isn't any different from any other major modern war where the sides are roughly on par. The original surprise was that Ukraine managed to hold up against the initial invasion such that positional warfare became more prominent, and with it the traditional dominant role of artillery.
Videos on these attacks and the Ukraine/Russian War in general are widely circulated and documented by YouTubers like Suchuminous and also by various accounts on Twitter. You can find videos of most any attack within a day or two and sometimes on the same day.
There are numerous types of missile systems (SAMs) protecting Kyiv including IRIS-T, S300, and others. Looking at the various videos of the attack on Kyiv, the missiles had a very different physical appearance from each other, lending credence to the supposition that different SAMs were active. This would make a lot of sense considering there were different types of Russian missiles active (Kinzal, Iskander, etc.).
> They're apparently attempting to intercept somewhere between 2-6 Kinzhals fired, and it appears 1-2 of those Kinzhals (i.e. between 15-100%) got through and struck the Patriot battery and at least damaged it.
Although information is limited, there is no evidence of any Kinzhals making it through and striking anything of note. It seems that one Patriot Battery was lightly damaged, but all Patriot Batteries of them were fully operational before and after the strike. The one Patriot battery was lightly damaged and repaired in the field within a few days. This strongly suggests that the Patriot battery was hit by debris of some kind (perhaps from shot down missiles) [1], and not a direct strike as the clowns at the Russian MOD laughably claims (they've also claimed to have destroyed every single HIMARs launcher and the Ukrainian Air Force three times over).
It's important to note that a Patriot battery consists of multiple components that can be distributed over a wide area. There's the trailer-mounted launchers, fire control radar, and the command and control unit. All the components talk to each other but don't need to be parked next to each other. Damage to a single launcher doesn't prevent the other launchers in the battery from functioning. A damaged radar can be covered by a backup or even the radar from another battery.
Apparently, the biggest issue with true hypersonic weapons (including missles) is that they can’t ‘see’ - the plasma created by their speed stops radar, any high resolution optical, etc. systems from working effectively.
Everyone else however can see them just fine.
So they might be able to maneuver (normal ballistic missiles can usually do last minute maneuvering too!), but without data it’s blind.
Maybe useful if already programmed with a decent random walk, but it doesn’t help it actively avoid something coming for it, and it doesn’t let it aim for moving targets that can adjust course.
Slower stuff doesn’t have this issue, but is of course slower.
This is the same reason why supercavitating torpedos seem really cool on paper, but are not actually all that useful or scary (unless nuclear tipped). Unless the blast radius is huge or the target is fundamentally fixed (a large building), you can just… move out of the way.
Kinzhal is simply an air-launched 9K720 Iskander, though, and it was always known to be interceptible because its trajectory is deterministic. You just need good radars.
No, hypersonics are a legitimate new development, Russia just deceptively brands some of its low-tech arsenal.
I agree. But I don’t think the article makes that clear. In fact I think it strongly implies otherwise that the missiles being used against Ukraine are the scary maneuvering kind.
When you say "they're not very scary", without mentioning that it's entirely due to dishonest marketing that "they" (the Russian "hypersonic weapons in Ukraine) are even in the conversation, you contribute to the confusion.
Agreed. And the article goes in great detail of why a non-ballistic hypersonic projectile is so difficult to stop -- everything is going at extreme speeds and there's little to no time to maneuver, so if it deviates from the predicted trajectory you cannot intercept it at all.
Why ignore all of the article? If a hypersonic missile can be intercepted by a Patriot, then it stands to reason it wasn't truly maneuverable, i.e. it was ballistic!
Not commenting on GP post, but it is an area where I would not trust domain experts. This kind of work is typically very classified and experts have clearances. Having a clearance mean you can't talk freely, the more you know, the less you can say. Ideally you say nothing at all about your work, but I know some of them will simply repeat what is found in newspapers when asked. The less accurate, the better.
People without clearances, working on a domain that is tangential but not the domain itself are probably more reliable, as they don't know truths that cannot be told, but they know enough to make informed guesses.
I take this article as informative but only for the general idea. The part about which country has what capabilities, I give absolutely no credence.
The article begins by referring to Russia using Hypersonic missiles against Ukraine, and then goes into detail about what defenses are necessary to defend against these weapons.
It’s a good article. But the reality is that the Russian missiles making headlines don’t meet the specs of the article. Ukraine is shooting them down just fine using decades old technology.
> Ukraine is shooting them down just fine using decades old technology.
It is not publicly known whether this is true.
The Ukrainians claim they shot down 6 of 6 Kinzhal missiles over Kiev in one night with a Patriot battery. In the available videos of the event, all that can be seen is that a few dozen air defense missiles were fired, and that something got through and struck the general location where the air defense battery was.
A very healthy dose of skepticism is warranted about claims made in wartime by interested parties.
Another view would say that the explosion in the video, where the air-defense battery appeared to be, demonstrates that the claim about all Kinzhals being intercepted was not truthful. The initial claim was that the Patriot battery was undamaged, but later it was admitted that the battery was at least partially damaged. It seems that the full truth is not being told, possibly by both sides.
> Note also that they purposefully forbid videos of air defenses to avoid showing where air defenses are.
This has not prevented videos from leaking, as in this case.
> At least one Kinzhal was confirmed shot down earlier before the wave of 6 or so.
Independently confirmed, or claimed? This gets to my initial point, that one should be extremely skeptical about unverifiable claims made by both sides.
> Another view would say that the explosion in the video, where the air-defense battery appeared to be, demonstrates that the claim about all Kinzhals being intercepted was not truthful.
This doesn't conclusively demonstrate that; an intercepted missile or drone can still easily go kaboom when the pieces hit the ground. The footage has a building between the explosion and the camera.
> Independently confirmed, or claimed?
There's at least photos of an apparently-downed Khinzal. There are no photos yet of a destroyed Patriot.
The ground explosions were caused by Kalibr cruise missiles targeting the airport terminal nearby to where it appears (from satellite imagery) that the Patriots were stationed. It's perfectly possible that A) all Kinzhal's were indeed intercepted and B) the Patriot battery was indirectly damaged by a nearby explosion but was not even necessarily the target of the missile in question.
It can be very difficult for radars to track objects coming in from a high angle of attack and low angle of attack simultaneously, so IMO the failure to intercept makes more sense from that perspective as well.
Shrug. The Kremlin loudly arresting the Kinzhal developers for treason after the Kinzhals get shot down suggests a clear narrative to me about who is telling the truth.
The best case you can make for Russia is that the Kinzhal developers actually did commit treason but in a way that was unrelated to the Kinzhal missiles not being effective which is… laughable
> The article begins by referring to Russia using Hypersonic missiles against Ukraine, and then goes into detail about what defenses are necessary to defend against these weapons.
The article explicitly states, one paragraph later than the beginning, that "about half of that is just plain wrong".
The author also explains the hypersonic missiles are nothing new, that they are old tech, and that the real threat would be maneuverable hypersonic missiles, which the Khinzal is not. The Khinzal is ballistic.
So when the author writes of the threat of maneuverable hypersonics, and you say "The non-ballistic variety that Russia claimed was unstoppable [...]", you are both speaking of different kinds of weapons with different capabilities. The Khinzal is old tech for which there are counters. The author is speaking of newer tech for which there are fewer counters.
I don’t agree that the article makes this clear. The article states
> These are specifically designed for ballistic threats, which are common, and their extreme effectiveness is precisely why Russia and China have invested in something else.
And
> Russia used hypersonic missiles against Ukraine” — alarming! The average member of the public, as well as many policymakers, now understand that these things are dangerous because they are just too fast to shoot down. Clearly something needs to be done… (sarcastic)
It really ought to make clear explicitly in the article that the missiles it referred to in the beginning are NOT what it spends the rest of the article discussing.
It confused me at least. Because, without doing further research, I assumed the Kinzhals must not be ballistic because they’re indirectly referenced in an article about maneuverable missiles!
The is saying that it’s wrong that hypersonic are bad because they’re fast. It goes on to clarify why the new tech is bad. And, imo, implies that this includes the ones referenced in the beginning. But in reality it does not.
Seems like a footage of Patriot system firing out millions worth of ammunition and being destroyed/damaged afterwards by a ballistic missile is a big deal for its sales prospectives.
The Patriot had minor damage. Regardless, all SAM systems, regardless of how good they are, have vulnerabilities to massed attacks. My understanding in this case is that the Patriot performed very well.
not really. If a Patriot systems fires out $5M of ammo, gets destroyed, but shot down missiles that otherwise would have destroyed 5 tanks, that might be an absolute bargain. similarly, if it shot out $5M ammo against $20M worth of missiles fired at it..
Deception is always possible, but both Ukraine and the US have claimed only minor damage to the Patriot, repaired and back in service within a day. Patriot batteries are also made up of a number of different launchers; damage to one doesn't take out the whole thing.
All we have in the footage to go on is a flash. No indication of what kind or how much damage was done in it.