AS 19 Koala missile

A found a pic of the 3M25A Meteorit-A / Kh-80 Missile

One of the problems would be a lack of suitable launch vehicles. The Tu-160M that was intended to carry 2 Koalas in its bomb bay was never built. The Tu-95s could be adapted to carry them but they must be getting long in the tooth by name and either way the types slow speed and massive signature make it less than perfect. As far as I am aware the Tu-22s would be too small to carry them although it may be possible to heavily modify them to carry one. That only realy leaves the 15 Tu-160’s which could potentially maybe carry one in the bomb bay.

A while back there was a report that the RuAF was pursuing a new strategic bomber (although such comments come out of Russia fairly reguarly the current modernisation of the Russian armed forces makes the idea not inconcievable), It may be that any new bomber has such weapons in mind.:confused:

I think there is more life yet for the Bear in Russian service;)

Considering that they are newer then the B52H in American service (a type which could well see another 40 years of service before retirement). I don’t know about the naval Tu142 but the Russian bomber force only operates the Tu95MS which were built in the 80’s and 90’s.

I doubt the Russians use their Bear H’s for low level tactical work which would absorb fatigue life quicker and the airframe is fairly over engineered which should allow for many more years of service.

In the end its a jack of all trades, cheaper to operate and capeable of carrying anything the Russians want a long way.

Long life to the big Bear of the skies:D

Well, after all a Onix/BraMos launched from a Su-34 can be considered a supersonic cruise missile. I can’t find the link right now but it seems that the Indians are seriously committed to such a project (probably launched from a MKI) and that they are doing an excellent work. India seems very interested also in a land-to-land version.

The last test demonstrated an almost Mach-3/280 km performance. Pretty impressive although still a theatre level weapon.

There is a “run-run” abouth the re-birth of development of Russian super(hyper?)sonic cruise missiles. Is that likely?

One of the problems would be a lack of suitable launch vehicles. The Tu-160M that was intended to carry 2 Koalas in its bomb bay was never built. The Tu-95s could be adapted to carry them but they must be getting long in the tooth by name and either way the types slow speed and massive signature make it less than perfect. As far as I am aware the Tu-22s would be too small to carry them although it may be possible to heavily modify them to carry one. That only realy leaves the 15 Tu-160’s which could potentially maybe carry one in the bomb bay.

A while back there was a report that the RuAF was pursuing a new strategic bomber (although such comments come out of Russia fairly reguarly the current modernisation of the Russian armed forces makes the idea not inconcievable), It may be that any new bomber has such weapons in mind.:confused:

They’re a good option for theater strike given that they have low warning times and short flight times, making detection and intercept more difficult. There is an argument that a terrain hugging subsonic weapon might be more survivable, but that’s a two-sided debate given the short ranges involved in this case.

BTW I used the theater strike example as Russia would be most likely to deploy cruise missiles in the European theater to counter the (erroneous) “threat” posed by the ABM system planned for Eastern Europe.

There is a “run-run” abouth the re-birth of development of Russian super(hyper?)sonic cruise missiles. Is that likely?

Last week’s (April 18th 2005).

Hey what issue of Aviation Week did that picture appear in? I want to get ahold of a copy.

In meteorits post number 5 you can see the centre missile has a square intake while the one to teh right has a circular intake.

Have read that early Soviet scramjets used circular intakes but reverted to square ones because they were easier to control and model and were more predictible.

With scramjet propulsion this bird could have flown very fast.

The missile on the right is the P-500 Bazalt (SS-N-12).
The missile on the left is the P-750 Granit (SS-N-19).
The Meteorit used a turbojet sustainer, though NPVO Plamya had designed a 780 mm ramjet engine for it.

In meteorites post number 5 you can see the centre missile has a square intake while the one to teh right has a circular intake.

Have read that early Soviet scramjets used circular intakes but reverted to square ones because they were easier to control and model and were more predictible.

With scramjet propulsion this bird could have flown very fast.

The IRNF treaty had less to do with the cancellation than the failures they had during the test program!

Copyright McGraw-Hill:

Russian missile manufacturer NPO Mashinostroyenia has finally released a test image of its 3M25 Meteorit strategic cruise missile. The air-launched variant of the Meteorit, probably designated Kh-80, is shown being dropped from an inboard pylon of a Tupolev Tu-95 Bear bomber. The Meteorit program was begun in the late 1970s, and ended in the early 1990s.

Deployment was curtailed by the 1988 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty between the U.S. and then-Soviet Union.

Air-, ship- and submarine-launched variants of the turbojet-powered missile were designed to include a number of novel technologies. The Marabu plasma-field generating system to reduce the radar-cross section of the high-flying missile is believed to be one of them. The weapon featured a high supersonic cruise speed and range of several thousand kilometers. Around 20 launches were conducted off a Tu-95MA flying testbed bomber.

That air-drop picture is great. Is there anything else in that article? One thing about that picture, the really high tailfin seems to match well with the faint image of the missile under the wing of the Tu-95 a few posts above, lending more credibility to it. I’d thought the picture might have been a fake job, but this makes me think that it’s a genuine (if not all to clear) image.

NPO Mashinostroyenia releases test image of 3M25

From this week’s Av Week

Hi Jazz,

Thank you for the picture, I haven’t seen it before. It looks like it could be a test round with those markings. Could you be so kind and tell the source?

Koala

Another pic indicative of 3M-25 Koala

Hello

The GELA was definitely NOT linked to the 3M25 Meteorit program. They were designed by different design bureaus – Meteorit by NPO Mashinnostrenya and GELA by Raduga – and at different timeframes – the 3M25 project was begun in 1976 and cancelled in 1989, the GELA was a late 1980s – early 1990s project. The GELA was probably linked to the Kh-90 air-launched cruise missile program. This issue has been discussed on this forum before.

And that drawing of 3M25 is wrong, it’s based on guesswork before the actual missile was unveiled. The last picture by heeroyui and the one posted by aerospacetech show the real thing.

Bobas – AFAIK the Russian are not working on either design anymore. The air-launched 3M25 was cancelled in 1984 and the submarine-launched in 1989. The Kh-90 was apparently replaced by the Kh-101/102 subsonic LO cruise missiles that are now entering service.

Here is the original bigger picture of 3M25:

Does Russia continue work on this hipersonic missile ???

A better insight into the appearance of 3M25 Meteorit comes from this picture of it 😉