Modern Missiles – Russian, Chinese and American, Part 1

First of a series of blog posts from Geoffry Clark on modern missiles:

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Modern missiles – Russian, Chinese and American, Part 1

Mentioned in the previous post on the Zhuhai Air Show (see The Japanese Gifu and Chinese Zhuhai Airshows, 2024 – The Dupuy Institute), the Chinese PLA have revealed two new systems in 2024, the HQ-19 and DF-100. These systems are different types of missiles, generally known as Surface-to-Air Missiles (SAM) and Surface-to-Surface Missiles (SSM), respectively.

Image Credit: truexanewsua/Telegram

There was also a very notable development regarding SSMs in Ukraine recently; on November 22, 2024, the Russian Federation tested a new missile named “Oreshnik” (meaning “hazel”, referring to the shape of the luminescence of the re-entry vehicles). As reported by Voice of America:

Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate reported that the Oreshnik missile was launched from Russia’s Kapustin Yar 4th Missile Test Range in the Astrakhan region. The missile traveled for approximately 15 minutes before striking the city of Dnipro. The missile was equipped with six non-nuclear warheads, each containing six submunitions, and it achieved a speed of Mach 11 during its flight.

There is some confusion and debate about the classification of this missile, whether it was an Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM), or an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). This is just a matter of range category, which is just anachronistic jargon from the Soviet Cold War and arms control negotiations and treaties. Since that time, the U.S. has withdrawn from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) in October 2018, many claim since China is unbound by any arms control, and the U.S. saw a need to develop such mid-range ballistic missiles.

Then, in a video address by Russian President Vladimir Putin said:

There are “no means of countering such weapons today. Missiles attack targets at a speed of Mach 10, which is 2.5 to 3 kilometers per second. Air defense systems currently available in the world and missile defense systems being created by the Americans in Europe cannot intercept such missiles. It is impossible.”

This high mach number is really what sets this type of missile apart. By comparison, the Chinese DF-100 missile (also known as CJ-100, and also by NATO as CH-SSC-13 Splinter) has a similar range to the Oreshnik (also known as the RS-26 Rubezh – The War Zone has a good explanation for the lineage), but these two missiles have very different speeds; the DF-100 is supersonic at about mach 4. The speed of these missiles – subsonic, supersonic, hypersonic – is directly proportional to the difficulty of interception.

So, there is debate about whether many advanced systems such as the American THAAD and certain missiles (especially the Standard Missile 3) from the Aegis system may be able to intercept such missiles. One new contender for this category is the Chinese HQ-19 SAM, which was apparently derived from the HQ-9, which was itself derived from the S-300 SAM of Russian design and build, and also widely used in the Ukraine War by both sides.

Image credit: VLS_Appreciator via twitter: https://twitter.com/VLS_Appreciator/status/1844408468452802602

HQ-19 at Zhuhai airshow 2024. (Image Credit: Twitter/David Wang)

I’ll briefly mention a few more important recent events which shed light on the state-of-the-art of missile defense.

A USAF awards ceremony on November 12 provided a number of details about how USAF squadron of F-15Es that was forward deployed to Muwaffaq Salti air base in Jordan, in order to defend Israel.  Ward Carroll reports:

During the Iranian attack on Israel on April 13, 2024, the 494th Fighter Squadron launched 14 Strike Eagle sorties, including six aircraft scrambled at a moment’s notice, while base defenses simultaneously neutralized enemy threats overhead. Ultimately those F-15Es (along with those previously mentioned base defenses) successfully engaged and destroyed more than 80 kamikaze UAVs, out of more than 300 drone and missiles intended to strike Israel.

Apparently, this air defense effort included U.S., U.K., Israel and Jordan.  What was public knowledge was the success of the Iron Dome, but there were apparently many other assets operating together to attrit the drones and missiles in their trajectories from Iran to targets in Israel. 

And, finally, the statistics published by the Ukrainian Defense Forces about the Russian missiles used, and the rate at which they were intercepted.

Screen capture of video address by General Oleksandr Syrskyi via Odessa Journal.

Through the translation provided by the Odessa Journal, and through the identification of these missiles and the Harpoon V Admiralty Trilogy Annexes, I’ve attempted to describe these missiles in more detail.

There are reports that Russian Armed Forces are amassing large stockpiles of these missiles for future strikes.

In Part 2 of this analysis, I plan to give a few examples of these types of intercepts and illustrate the odds using the Harpoon V game system.

Thanks for reading, and for your comments!