You can shoot a tomahawk down with a Zu-23. You can’t do that to a Bramhos…

agree but ASTER, S-300/400 ,SM-2/6 , ESSM , RAM …ect have no trouble shot down Bramhos , supersonic mostly caused trouble for ancient AA like Zu-23

Supersonic missiles have the pro that reduce reaction time, range, and kinetic energy. These are not exclusive to them of course, but as Andraxxus already said, whatever argument exists in favour of the SR-71 (which a lot of americans still maintain was un-interceptable) then they exist for the supersonic ASM too. It is not only about the altitude, it is about the window of time you have available to intercept.

People keep forgetting that missiles do not work as advertised. What if the missile coming to you is supersonic and the missile you fired at it, doesn’t hit? How much time have you got then? Obviously the other way round too, but you catch my drift. ..

1- with equal size supersonic missiles often have much shorter range Ex : BrahMos weight 3000 kg and have max range of 300 km while the much smaller JASSM-ER can reach 1000 km

2- there are reasons that aircraft like SR-71 retired and XB-71 , Lrasm-b been cancelded , that is with nowadays technology it not hard anymore to shot down
supersonic missiles , planes

3- supersonic ashm doesnot neccesary reduce reaction time :

again SPY-1 radar height of about 17 meter above the sea
P-270 Moskit in sea skimming mode fly at 20 meter above the sea thus the radar horizon is 35 km , Moskit reaches Mach 3 at a high altitude and its maximum low-altitude speed is M2.2 , so in sea skimming mode it take 47 seconds from detection until missiles hit
http://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/row/moskit.htm

P-500 BAZALT in sea skimming mode fly at about > 10 meter above the sea thus the radar horizon is 30 km , P-500 reaches Mach 2 at high altitude , while low-altitude speed is Mach 1.5
so in sea skimming mode it take 59 seconds from detection until missiles hit
http://www.vectorsite.net/twcruz_7.html

P-700 GRANIT in sea skimming mode fly at about > 10 meter above the sea thus the radar horizon is 30 km , P-700 reaches Mach 2.5 at high altitude , while low-altitude speed is Mach 1.6
so in sea skimming mode it take 55 seconds from detection until missiles hit
http://www.vectorsite.net/twcruz_7.html

also BrahMos according to their officials website can reached mach 3 , however cruise altitude is 15 km ( only at terminal phased it reduced to 10 meter)
thus the radar horizon is 522 km so it take 513 seconds from detection until missiles hit
http://www.brahmos.com/content.php?id=10&sid=10

AS-16 Kickback climbs to an altitude of about 40,000 m (130,000 ft) and then dives in on the target, accelerating to a speed of about Mach 5 , thus the radar horizon is 841 km so it take 496 seconds from detection until missiles hit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AS-16_Kickback

Kh-22 In low-altitude mode, it climbs to 12,000 m (39,000 ft) and makes a shallow dive at about Mach 3.5, making the final approach at an altitude under 500 m (1,600 ft) thus the radar horizon is 468 km so it take 394 seconds from detection until missiles hit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AS-4_Kitchen

Kh-20 Flight ceiling 20 km thus the radar horizon is 600 km, it have Speed of Mach 2.0 so it take 885 seconds from detection until missiles hit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kh-20

NSM ,JSM ,RBS-15 block III , EXCOCET block II , Harpoon in sea skimming mode fly only 1 meter above water thus the radar horizon is 21 km , with speed of mach 0.95 it take 65 seconds from detection until missiles hit ,in reality the ship may not be able to detect the stealth missiles like LRASM , JSM by radar and have to wait until it come to visual horizon about 18 km aways thus they only have 55 seconds to react
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=4S3h8j_NEmkC&pg=PA529&lpg=PA529&dq=mach+0.95+nsm&source=bl&ots=hJSsPU2Zd_&sig=7N5SfMaK-fmvAiIDXqzhQ4mtvUo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=XyY1VI_BLJPIggTypIDwBw&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=mach%200.95%20nsm&f=false
http://members.home.nl/7seas/radcalc.htm

A Bramhos going 3000km/h (slower than its top speed) at 2.5 tonnes of weight will have 868 MJ of kinetic energy (if I got my math right on my tiny phone) .. that is not something you wanna mess with .. in comparison a harpoon will have 19.9MJ of kinetic energy.

Bramhos is about as big as tomahawk with much shorter range and warhead , despite being a modern missiles it give enemy about > 500 seconds to react , alot more than a subsonic sea skimming missiles

another weakness of supersonic Ashm is that they all use radar seeker thus when there is jamming they cannot detect ship such as DDG-51 from > 24 meter , or ship such as DDG-1000 from > 3 meters , they also easy to be lure aways by decoy such as Nulka

Is a MiG-31 pulling 5Gs@M2.5 easier to hit by a missile compared to learjet pulling 2Gs @M0,85, only because it has higher RCS and IR signature?

On the extremest example, IF P-700 has 30G limit, it will be able to pull it at M2.0+ and completely immune to RAM,ESSM,SM-2,SM-6 or whatever SAMs you put. Its likely to be lower, around 15Gs, but this is still much difficult target than a exocet making 7-8G evasive turns; its irrelevant that IR/radar homing seeker can track or not, SAM will be much harder pressed to to make corrections in time for a succesful hit.

you are assume that supersonic anti ship missile will turn more G , but that may not be true , may be even opposite
ex : mig-31 can turn maximum of 5 G while su-27 can turn 9 G , Same for missile : AIM-120 is faster but can turn maximum 45 G while the slower Aim-9 can turn 80-90 G
in real life a big , fast missiles like p-700 may be able to turn 3-4 G , at top speed of mach 1.6 low altitude
About your example replace the learjet with a drone that have RCS = 0 , and you see shot down mig-31 still easier

Really? Then let’s get realistic; at the moment there is no JSM -with expected IOC after 2021- or LRASM-A which doesnt even have an estimated IOC date. Then this makes your discussion even pointless; such missiles will never be see a 5V55 or 9M330 firing Kirov; those ships will either be thoroughly upgraded, or scrapped long before 2021.

what i mean is at least the missile iam talking about is in development , been tested ..etc,while what you talking about doesnt exist

ASMP is not a US missile. Rest; are powered solid fuelled rockets; I repeat myself; US doesn’t have a engine design (which can sustain supersonic flights for 200nm+ when sea skimming) that can be readily used for Anti-shipping role.

no
AGM-28 Hound Dog have jet engine , can fly 1263 km nap of the earth at mach 2.1
ASALM have ramjet engine , can fly 480 km at mach 4.5
GQM-163 Coyote have ramjet engine can fly at speed of Mach 3.0-4.0 at 35,000-60,000ft for 445 km or Mach 2.5 at 13-15ft for 222 km
and what the problem with rockets powered solid fuelled ? Exocet use solid fuelled and still reached 70 km
and i repeat again Russian still dont have stealth missile

That is a different point, which is not entirely valid either due to two facts; 1-you are stating two different aircraft with one designed almost 40 years later 2- Moskit is an extreme example.

fair enough

-A MiG-29K can carry 4 Kh-35s or 4 Kh-31As.
-A Su-30M can carry 6 Kh-35s or 6 Kh-31As.

So for platform-vise, there is no difference between number of subsonic and high supersonic missiles carried.

true for RUSSIAN aircraft , Western aircraft often be able to carry alot more subsonic missiles vs supersonic missile
EX : F-16 can carry maximum of 8 JSOW-ER but can carry only 4 HARM max

Kh-35; Sea skimming, 990 km/h speed (M0,8), 145 kg warhead, 130 km range.
Kh-31; Sea skimming, 3340 km/h speed (M2.7), 94 kg warhead, 50 km range.

I believe specs speak for themselves; there is no difference between # of missiles carried, Kh-31 is much harder to intercept due to 3.37 times speed, around same destructive power (less warhead more KE), but less range. Kh-31 provides 3x better saturation of defenses due to shortened engagement, at the cost of operational range.

both can sea skimming but
KH-31 fly at 50 meters from the sea while KH-35 can skimming at 4 meter from the sea
so again SPY-1 the radar horizon for KH-31 is 46 km while KH-35 Radar horizon is 25 km so KH-31 take 50 seconds to impact , while KH-35 take 92 seconds
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=4S3h8j_NEmkC&pg=PA534&lpg=PA534&dq=KH-31+skimming+ALtitude+meter&source=bl&ots=hJSsRPY-aY&sig=YFHAtDW5HCDah76ggK-Rmgz_7L8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=iFk3VJ-DI8nYasjmgegP&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=KH-31%20skimming%20ALtitude%20meter&f=false
http://eng.ktrv.ru/production_eng/323/512/372/

, however you have to consider that Russian aircraft dont have weapon rack like BRU-55/57/69 or BRU-61 that allow them to carry many subsonic missiles instead of 1 supersonic missile , not to mention Kh-35 is quite inferior compared to Western subsonic missiles in terms of speed and cruising altitude :
for example :
Exocet block 1 can fly only 2 meter from sea surface at speed of mach 0.9 => radar horizon is 22 km => ship have 72 seconds warning
NSM can do wave adaptable super sea skimming 1-2 meter from sea surface at speed of mach 0.95 => even if ship radar detect the stealth missiles they only have 65 seconds warning , in reality the ship may not be able to detect the stealth missile by radar and have to wait until it come to visual horizon about 18 km aways thus they only have 55 seconds to react
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exocet
http://weaponsystems.net/weapon.php?weapon=HH10%20-%20Exocet

Ship vise its not true either. A Slava carries 16 P-500 missiles, when its US counterpart Ticonderoga carries 8 Harpoons. You can argue Slava could have carried more Kh-35 missiles, but it also can carry smaller yet high supersonic Onyx or Kalibr missiles.

ESSM , SM-2 ,SM-6 , RAM can all be used in anti ship , so this is irrelevant and Ticonderoga have like 100-200 of them , no need for carry more missiles , also ship pretty much detect other within radar horizon

You pointed out subsonic missiles fly 1m above the ground; a comment I didn’t even bothered responding. All sea skimming missiles fly as low as they can, around 10-20 meters above the sea. Comment of supersonic missiles fly higher is BS, A harpoon/Exocet/Kh-35 etc also cruises high to reach their maximal range. As physics wont change in 10 years, same will surely apply to JSM or whatever new missile is introduced. However when fired at 140 km; A harpoon will cruise high to reach that range, but a P-700 will spend all the route sea skimming, an advantage bigger missile always have compared to smaller one.

i said above the sea not grounds
search around internet and you will see they can fly alot lower than 10-20 meters it nothing new for subsonic missiles even the very old missiles such as Garbriel MK II can do that
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Y8kePYFK1L8C&pg=PA142&lpg=PA142&dq=anti+ship+missile+1+meter+skimming&source=bl&ots=hOA8FJtax7&sig=0XHGoaaaXdSX3DeFL-png6rqg2E&hl=en&sa=X&ei=1Ic3VMTFNIPPaPaCgnA&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAjgK#v=onepage&q&f=false
in the past missile have tiny range so they required to be launch and cruise at high altitude , however missiles now a day have very huge range so cruise high is not quite necessary any more especially when your aircraft use nap of the earth tactic to launch missiles from short range such as 50 km aways
Ex :
JSOW-ER have 500-600 km range
LRASM have 1000 km range
NSM, JSM have 200-350 km range
SLAM-ER have 280 km range
supersonic missiles have to fly higher because :
1- thinner air
2- they are too fast to evade the sea wave even if their sensor detect it => have to fly at 10- 20 meter
3- collide with bird , flying fish , wave at super sonic speed is not a good idea

smaller missiles will always have smaller IR , RCS

And what ? You mean the same sources have Onxy same range as it’s export version. Or Kalibr same as their export Club veriants ?

why not ? export version may have weaker seeker with less lock on range

Nevermind that not to be true:

Here’s a source for onyx having a range

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clWZCNaZpeE

At low altitude range no less then 340 Km. From the horses mouth.

anti ship missile will give enemy too much warning if they fly at high altitude
also unless you provide anythings different about their speed and cruising altitude then the point i made earlier still true , their range not going to change that

http://ria.ru/defense_safety/20140319/1000160934.html

500 km for both Onyx and Kalibr sub launched.

And another for Kalibr

http://bmpd.livejournal.com/255530.html

375 km for antiship(final stage supersonic veriant obviosly) and 2600 km for land attack variant.

there are many version of Kalibr so different in range is reasonable you can have more range by adding more fuel but the same cannot be said about top speed

3M-54E – Anti-shipping variant, Basic length 8.22 m, with a 200 kg warhead. Range is 200 km. Sea-skimmer with supersonic terminal speed and flight altitude of 15 feet (4.6 m) at final stage(2.9 mach).[2]

3M-54E1 – Anti-shipping variant, Basic length 6.2 m, with a 400 kg warhead. Range is 300 km. Sea-skimmer with subsonic terminal speed(0.8 mach). Allegedly capable of disabling or even sinking an aircraft carrier.[3]

3M-14E – Inertial guidance land attack variant. Basic length 6.2 m, with a 400 kg warhead. Range is 275 km. Subsonic terminal speed(0.8 mach).

91RE1 – Submarine launched anti-submarine variant, with an anti-submarine torpedo. Basic length 8.0 m, with a range of 50 km. Supersonic speed. The torpedo has a warhead weight of 76 kg. This, along with the 91RE2, are similar to the American ASROC/SUBROC missile/torpedo system. Follows a ballistic path into the surface, speed is 2.5 mach.

91RE2 – Ballistically launched anti-submarine variant, with an anti-submarine torpedo. Basic length 6.5 m, with a range of 40 km Supersonic speed. The torpedo has a warhead weight of 76 kg. For surface ship use only. The lightest of all variants, with a launch weight of 1300 kg. Speed is 2 mach.

and also why do you think russian source must be right and that not a typo ? like in the link below
http://bmpd.livejournal.com/255530.html

Books such as “The Naval Institute Guide to World Naval Weapons Systems, 1997-1998” aren’t any better
Take for example their Moskit section. (And you can read for free just search google books section.) Has Moskit designated as P-80 Zubr. Nevermind that there is no such AShM ever in such designation. And all Moskit and there are four of them. Are under designation as P-100, P-105 and the P-270.

how do you know ? are you a missiles designer ?

Or the fact that they have labaled Yashma(Yasper) as a Moskit missile. Never mind the fact that Yashma(Yasper) is the a export version of sub launched Onyx(Yakhont).

no they didnt
their picture :

real thing :

Also mention Moskit having a Tell back data link. Moskit doesn’t comminicate with launch platform after start nor do they (missiles) themselves communicate with eachother either.

how do you know they dont ?,it a big missile so that may be possible

Also they list a air launched Moskit. There isn’t one. It was just a placeholder next to a Sukhoi 27 for 3M-51 Alfa aka ASM-MMS which at the time was in competition with npo novator 3M54 Alfa and 3M14 Biryuza missiles. (ASM-MS and AFM-L) The fact the book couldn’t get that straight nevermind the auther though a 4 ton moskit could be lifted by a Su-27. Says volums of so called wester sources.

air launched MOSKIT is like 3 tons about the same as Brahmos so sure su-27 can lift it

Fact is no book of mine in russian have anything on P-700. The missile is still classified. And I doubt western sources which get lot wrong know better.

1- read more book
2- people make mistake but if they can write a book about sth , it likely that they know about that more than you
3- P-700 isnot classified anymore , it too old , cold war stuff

You’re wrong on many things here. And frankly there is nothing to debate here

no iam not

The fact is everybody and their mother are going or went “more ******* speed route.” Russia, China India, French and Uk.(Perseus) Even US will be going that way. LRASM is basicly a stopgap.

no they dont
Western have supersonic missile such as ASMP , ASMP-A, AGM-69, AQM-37C , AGM-78 , AGM-88 ,ASALM , Hyfly ,GAM-87 Skybolt ,AGM-28 Hound Dog but never think about their application as anti ship ,even the supersonic LRASM-B was cancelded while the subsonic stealth LRASM-A was keep => stealth > speed
The fact is everybody and their mother are going or went stealth with their UAV , Fighter , missiles Ex : US , UK , JAPAN , GERMAN even RUSSIAN and China
Perseus (UK )and ASM-3 (JAPAN ) are exception because they have both stealth and supersonic which is great but that doesnt prove speed > stealth , it just mean it great to have both

here we are comparing supersonic vs steath subsonic sea skimming

Also Granite specs never been disclosed and won’t be until it’s official retirment if even that. And I have several books on russian AShM by Russian authors. That have barely anything on Granite either. Besides it’s range with a nuclear warhead. And seeing as most western sources on russian AShM are erroneous one way or the other. Well you get my point…

they are every where on internet , and unless you designed the missiles then you cannot say most western sources on russian AShM are erroneous one way or the other without evident

A single missile has no advantage against a frigate and up type ship. There is however a critical mass of missiles that will overcome a ships defences and for most ships that mass is not that many missiles.

P-500/700 only reduce reaction times by 5-10 seconds compared to JSM ( iamnot even take in to account stealth factor here , with stealth + jamming the ship may not even able to detect JSM by radar)
is supersonic advantages really worth the trade off ?

point defense systems are obsolete vs high speed missiles

SM-2/6, ESSM ,RAM can all intercept supersonic missiles fine
even normal CIWS can intercept mach 2 missiles

The system’s reaction time to a Mach 2 sea-skimming missile such as the Russian SS-N-22 Sunburn from automatic detection to kill is reported to be 5.5 seconds with the firing synchronized to start the engagement at a range of 1,500 m and ending with a kill at 300 m

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goalkeeper_CIWS