Kh-31
Encyclopedia
The Kh-31 is a Russia
n air-to-surface missile carried by aircraft such as the MiG-29 or Su-27. It is a sea skimming
cruise missile with a range of 110 km (59.4 nmi; 68.4 mi) or more and capable of Mach
3.5, the first supersonic anti-ship missile that could be launched by tactical aircraft.
There are several variants, it is best known as an anti-radiation missile
(ARM) but there are also anti-shipping and target drone versions. There has been talk of adapting it to make an "AWACS killer", a long-range air-to-air missile.
s (SAMs) has made the Suppression of Enemy Air Defence a priority for any modern air force intending offensive action. Knocking out air search radars and fire control radars is an essential part of this mission. ARMs must have sufficient range that the launch platform is out of range of the SAMs, high speed to reduce the risk of being shot down and a seeker that can detect a range of radar types, but they do not need a particularly big warhead.
The Soviet Union's first ARM was developed by the Raduga OKB engineering group responsible for the Soviet Union's missiles for heavy bombers. The Kh-22P was developed from the 6-tonne Raduga Kh-22
(AS-4 'Kitchen') missile. Experience gained with this led in 1971 to the Kh-28
(AS-9 'Kyle') carried by tactical aircraft such as the Su-7B, Su-17 and Su-24. It had Mach 3 capability and a 120 km (64.8 nmi) range, greater than the contemporary AGM-78 Standard ARM
. The Kh-28 was succeeded by the Kh-58
in 1978, which has similar speed and range but replaces the dual-fuel rocket motor with a much safer RDTT solid propellant.
The development of more sophisticated SAMs such as the MIM-104 Patriot
and the US Navy's Aegis combat system
put pressure on the Soviets to develop better ARMs in turn. Zvezda came at the problem from a different angle to Raduga, having a background in lightweight air-to-air missiles. However in the mid-1970s they had developed the successful Kh-25
family of short-range air-to-surface missiles, including the Kh-25MP (AS-12 'Kegler') for anti-radar use. Zvezda started work on a long-range ARM in 1977, and the first launch of the Kh-31 was in 1982. It entered service in 1988 and was first displayed in public in 1991, the Kh-31P at Dubai and the Kh-31A at Minsk.
In December 1997 it was reported that a small number of Kh-31's had been delivered to China, but that "production had yet to begin". It was around this time that the Russians sold Su-30MKK 'Flanker-G' aircraft to the Chinese. It seems that the original deliveries were of the original Russian model designated as X-31, to allow testing whilst the KR-1 model was being developed for licence production. Local production may have started by July 2005.
Russian development has accelerated since Zvezda was subsumed into the Tactical Missiles Corporation in 2002, with the announcement of the 'D' extended range models and the 'M' model mid-life updates (see Variants section below).
In many respects the Kh-31 is a miniaturised version of the P-270 Moskit
(SS-N-22 'Sunburn') and was reportedly designed by the same man. The missile is conventionally shaped, with cruciform wings and control surfaces made from titanium. The two-stage propulsion is notable. On launch, a solid-fuel booster in the tail accelerates the missile to Mach 1.8 and the motor is discarded. Then four air intakes open up and as in the Franco-German ANS/ANF the empty rocket case becomes the combustion chamber of a kerosene-fuelled ramjet
, which takes it beyond Mach 4.
The L-111E seeker of the anti-radar version has a unique antenna, an interferometer array of six spiral antennas on a steerable platform. The seekers delivered to China in 2001-2 were 106.5 cm (41.9 in) long, 36 cm (14.2 in) in diameter, and weighed 23 kg (50.7 lb).
As mentioned above, a few Kh-31P/KR-1's were delivered to China in 1997 but these were apparently for testing and development work. The Chinese ordered Russian missiles in late 2002 or early 2003, leading to 200 KR-1's in their inventory by 2005; the Chinese press reported in July 2005 that Su-30MKK's of the 3rd Air Division had been equipped with the missiles. In 2001 India bought Kh-31s for its Su-30MKI
; they appear to have bought 60 Kh-31A and 90 Kh-90P.
The US Navy bought eighteen MA-31
target drones of which thirteen were fired between 1996-2003. An $18.468-million order for thirty-four MA-31 was placed in 1999, but this order was blocked by the Russians and the remaining drones were expended in December 2007. The MA-31 was launched from an F-4 Phantom, and work was done on a kit to launch it from an F-16.
An active/passive air-to-air version for use against slow-moving support aircraft, a so-called "AWACS killer", was announced at the 1992 Moscow air show
with 200 km (108 nmi; 124.3 mi) range. That would be less than the 300 km (162 nmi; 186.4 mi) promised by the Vympel R-37
(AA-13 'Arrow') and Novator R-172 missiles, but a Kh-31 derivative could be carried by a wider range of aircraft. However this may have been mere propaganda; in 2004 the Tactical Missiles Corporation "emphatically denied" that it had ever worked on an air-to-air version of the Kh-31. In 2005 rumours persisted of a Russian AWACS killer based on the Kh-31A anti-shipping model, and of the Chinese adapting the YJ-91, derived from the Kh-31P, for the same purpose.
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n air-to-surface missile carried by aircraft such as the MiG-29 or Su-27. It is a sea skimming
Sea skimming
Sea skimming is a technique many anti-ship missiles use to avoid radar and infrared detection during their approach.-Method:Sea skimming anti-ship missiles try to fly as low as is practically achievable, which is almost always below 50 meters , and is often down towards 5 meters .-Advantages:By...
cruise missile with a range of 110 km (59.4 nmi; 68.4 mi) or more and capable of Mach
Mach
Mach may refer to:* Mach , a lunar crater* Mach disk, diamond pattern seen in rocket exhaust* Mach number, a measure of speed* Gillette Mach3, a manual razor with three blades* Mach bands, an optical illusion...
3.5, the first supersonic anti-ship missile that could be launched by tactical aircraft.
There are several variants, it is best known as an anti-radiation missile
Anti-radiation missile
An anti-radiation missile is a missile which is designed to detect and home on an enemy radio emission source. Typically these are designed for use against an enemy radar, although jammers and even radios used for communication can also be targeted in this manner.- Air-to-Ground :Most ARM designs...
(ARM) but there are also anti-shipping and target drone versions. There has been talk of adapting it to make an "AWACS killer", a long-range air-to-air missile.
Development
The proliferation of surface-to-air missileSurface-to-air missile
A surface-to-air missile or ground-to-air missile is a missile designed to be launched from the ground to destroy aircraft or other missiles...
s (SAMs) has made the Suppression of Enemy Air Defence a priority for any modern air force intending offensive action. Knocking out air search radars and fire control radars is an essential part of this mission. ARMs must have sufficient range that the launch platform is out of range of the SAMs, high speed to reduce the risk of being shot down and a seeker that can detect a range of radar types, but they do not need a particularly big warhead.
The Soviet Union's first ARM was developed by the Raduga OKB engineering group responsible for the Soviet Union's missiles for heavy bombers. The Kh-22P was developed from the 6-tonne Raduga Kh-22
Raduga Kh-22
The Raduga Kh-22 is a large, long-range anti-ship missile developed by the Soviet Union. It was intended for use against US Navy aircraft carriers and carrier battle groups, with either a conventional or nuclear warhead.-Development:...
(AS-4 'Kitchen') missile. Experience gained with this led in 1971 to the Kh-28
Kh-28
The Kh-28 was the first Soviet anti-radiation missile for tactical aircraft. It entered production in 1973 and is still carried on some Sukhoi Su-22s in developing countries but is no longer in Russian service...
(AS-9 'Kyle') carried by tactical aircraft such as the Su-7B, Su-17 and Su-24. It had Mach 3 capability and a 120 km (64.8 nmi) range, greater than the contemporary AGM-78 Standard ARM
AGM-78 Standard ARM
The AGM-78 Standard ARM was an anti-radiation missile developed by General Dynamics, United States of America.-Overview:Originally developed for the US Navy during the late 1960s, the AGM-78 was created in large part because of the limitations of the AGM-45 Shrike, which suffered from a small...
. The Kh-28 was succeeded by the Kh-58
Kh-58
The Kh-58 is a Russian anti-radiation missile with a range of 120 km. the Kh-58U variant was still the primary anti-radiation missile of Russia and her allies. It is being superseded by the Kh-31.-Development:...
in 1978, which has similar speed and range but replaces the dual-fuel rocket motor with a much safer RDTT solid propellant.
The development of more sophisticated SAMs such as the MIM-104 Patriot
MIM-104 Patriot
The MIM-104 Patriot is a surface-to-air missile system, the primary of its kind used by the United States Army and several allied nations. It is manufactured by the Raytheon Company of the United States. The Patriot System replaced the Nike Hercules system as the U.S. Army's primary High to Medium...
and the US Navy's Aegis combat system
Aegis combat system
The Aegis Combat System is an integrated naval weapons system developed by the Missile and Surface Radar Division of RCA, and now produced by Lockheed Martin...
put pressure on the Soviets to develop better ARMs in turn. Zvezda came at the problem from a different angle to Raduga, having a background in lightweight air-to-air missiles. However in the mid-1970s they had developed the successful Kh-25
Kh-25
The Kh-25/Kh-25M is a family of Soviet lightweight air-to-ground missiles with a modular range of guidance systems and a range of 10 km. The anti-radar variant is known to NATO as the AS-12 'Kegler and has a range up to 40 km. Designed by Zvezda-Strela, the Kh-25 is derived from the...
family of short-range air-to-surface missiles, including the Kh-25MP (AS-12 'Kegler') for anti-radar use. Zvezda started work on a long-range ARM in 1977, and the first launch of the Kh-31 was in 1982. It entered service in 1988 and was first displayed in public in 1991, the Kh-31P at Dubai and the Kh-31A at Minsk.
In December 1997 it was reported that a small number of Kh-31's had been delivered to China, but that "production had yet to begin". It was around this time that the Russians sold Su-30MKK 'Flanker-G' aircraft to the Chinese. It seems that the original deliveries were of the original Russian model designated as X-31, to allow testing whilst the KR-1 model was being developed for licence production. Local production may have started by July 2005.
Russian development has accelerated since Zvezda was subsumed into the Tactical Missiles Corporation in 2002, with the announcement of the 'D' extended range models and the 'M' model mid-life updates (see Variants section below).
Design
Moskit
The P-270 Moskit is a Russian supersonic ramjet powered cruise missile. Its GRAU designation is 3M80, and its NATO reporting name is SS-N-22 Sunburn. The missile system was designed by the Raduga Design Bureau during the 1970s as a follow up to the "SS-N-9 Siren"...
(SS-N-22 'Sunburn') and was reportedly designed by the same man. The missile is conventionally shaped, with cruciform wings and control surfaces made from titanium. The two-stage propulsion is notable. On launch, a solid-fuel booster in the tail accelerates the missile to Mach 1.8 and the motor is discarded. Then four air intakes open up and as in the Franco-German ANS/ANF the empty rocket case becomes the combustion chamber of a kerosene-fuelled ramjet
Ramjet
A ramjet, sometimes referred to as a stovepipe jet, or an athodyd, is a form of airbreathing jet engine using the engine's forward motion to compress incoming air, without a rotary compressor. Ramjets cannot produce thrust at zero airspeed and thus cannot move an aircraft from a standstill...
, which takes it beyond Mach 4.
The L-111E seeker of the anti-radar version has a unique antenna, an interferometer array of six spiral antennas on a steerable platform. The seekers delivered to China in 2001-2 were 106.5 cm (41.9 in) long, 36 cm (14.2 in) in diameter, and weighed 23 kg (50.7 lb).
Operational history
The Kh-31P ARM entered service in Russia in 1988 and the Kh-31A anti-shipping version in 1989. Unlike its predecessors, it can be fitted to almost any of Russia's tactical aircraft, from the Su-17 to MiG-31.As mentioned above, a few Kh-31P/KR-1's were delivered to China in 1997 but these were apparently for testing and development work. The Chinese ordered Russian missiles in late 2002 or early 2003, leading to 200 KR-1's in their inventory by 2005; the Chinese press reported in July 2005 that Su-30MKK's of the 3rd Air Division had been equipped with the missiles. In 2001 India bought Kh-31s for its Su-30MKI
Su-30MKI
The Sukhoi Su-30MKI is an air superiority fighter jointly developed by Russia's Sukhoi and India's Hindustan Aeronautics Limited for the Indian Air Force...
; they appear to have bought 60 Kh-31A and 90 Kh-90P.
The US Navy bought eighteen MA-31
MA-31
The MA-31 was a conversion of the Kh-31 anti-ship missile, developed by the Soviet Union during the 1980s, for use as a target drone by the United States Navy...
target drones of which thirteen were fired between 1996-2003. An $18.468-million order for thirty-four MA-31 was placed in 1999, but this order was blocked by the Russians and the remaining drones were expended in December 2007. The MA-31 was launched from an F-4 Phantom, and work was done on a kit to launch it from an F-16.
Variants
- Kh-31A - active seeker head for use as an anti-shipping missile against vessels up to destroyer size, range of 25 km–50 km (13.5–27 nmiNautical mileThe nautical mile is a unit of length that is about one minute of arc of latitude along any meridian, but is approximately one minute of arc of longitude only at the equator...
; 15.5–31mi). Missile is sea-skimming as it approaches the target.
- Kh-31P (Type 77P) - passive seeker head for use as an anti-radiation missile. Stays at high altitude throughout its flight, allowing higher speeds and increasing range to 110 km (59.4 nmi; 68.4 mi). The seeker has three interchangeable modules to cover different radar frequency bands, but they can only be changed at the factory.
- Kh-31AD/Kh-31PD ("Kh-31 Mod 2") - increase range "by a modest amount" through increasing the fuselage from 4.7 metre to 5.23 metre long.
- Kh-31AM/Kh-31PM - substantial update to electronics and propulsion systems, trials scheduled for 2005/6. Updated resistance to countermeasures, better fuses, and an improved 31DP propulsion system that "considerably" improves the range with little increase in weight. The Kh-31AM has an improved RGS-31 active seeker, whilst the Kh-31PM replaces the L-111, L-112 and L-113 seekers with a single multiband unit, the L-130.
- MA-31 - telemetry and other systems installed by McDonnell Douglas/Boeing for use by the US Navy as a target drone. Tested between 1996-9; a version upgraded with GPS, the MA-31PG, was offered to the Navy as a replacement for the MQM-8 Vandal but they bought the GQM-163 CoyoteGQM-163 CoyoteThe GQM-163 Coyote is a supersonic seaskimming target built by Orbital Sciences and used by the United States Navy as a successor to the MQM-8 Vandal. Orbital's proposal was chosen over the MA-31, a joint venture between Boeing and Zvezda-Strela...
. Even with the additional equipment, the MA-31 was capable of Mach 2.7 and 15G manoevres in its anti-ship (sea-skimming) flight profile and Mach 3.5 in ARM mode at 48000 ft (14,630.4 m).
- KR-1 - version of the Kh-31P exported to China in 1997. It seems that Zvezda wanted to sell an initial batch of KR-1's to China, before the KR-1 went into production in China. Rather than the original three seeker modules, the KR-1 has a single K-112E "export" seeker targeting DD bandIEEE D band is the range of radio frequencies from 110 GHz to 170 GHz in the electromagnetic spectrum. This is equal to wave lengths between 1.8 mm and 2.7 mm...
-F bandF bandThe F band is the range of radio frequencies from 90 GHz to 140 GHz in the electromagnetic spectrum. This is equal to wave lengths between 2.1 mm and 3.3 mm...
(S bandS bandThe S band is defined by an IEEE standard for radio waves with frequencies that range from 2 to 4 GHz, crossing the conventional boundary between UHF and SHF at 3.0 GHz. It is part of the microwave band of the electromagnetic spectrum...
) emissions, and reportedly optimised for specific Taiwanese radars.
- YJ-91YJ-91YJ-91 is the Chinese version of the Kh-31. YJ is short for Ying Ji meaning eagle strike. After purchasing 200 Kh-31Ps from Russia, China decided to develop its own version, because the original Kh-31 missile did not fully satisfy Chinese requirements...
Ying Ji 91 - Chinese missile based on the Kh-31P, with faster speed, slightly longer range, and easier switching of seeker heads. They are also reported to have developed an anti-shipping version with an indigenous active seeker, and are looking to develop this for use in submarines. The name YJ-91 was already in use by 1997, and may have been a Chinese name for the original Russian missiles designated X-31 by the Russians. By 2005, the name YJ-93 was being applied to missiles made in China, but Western reports generally do not distinguish between YJ-91 and YJ-93.
An active/passive air-to-air version for use against slow-moving support aircraft, a so-called "AWACS killer", was announced at the 1992 Moscow air show
MAKS Airshow
MAKS is an International Air Show held near Moscow, Russia on Zhukovskiy LII air field. The first show, Mosaeroshow-92, was held in 1992. Since 1993, it was renamed to its current name and is held on odd years .MAKS is an important event in Russian business...
with 200 km (108 nmi; 124.3 mi) range. That would be less than the 300 km (162 nmi; 186.4 mi) promised by the Vympel R-37
Vympel R-37
The Vympel R-37 is a Russian air-to-air missile with an extremely long range. It has also had the names K-37, Izdeliye 610 and R-VD , and the NATO codename 'Andi'.It was designed to shoot down AWACS and other C4ISTAR aircraft whilst keeping the launch platform out of range of any fighters...
(AA-13 'Arrow') and Novator R-172 missiles, but a Kh-31 derivative could be carried by a wider range of aircraft. However this may have been mere propaganda; in 2004 the Tactical Missiles Corporation "emphatically denied" that it had ever worked on an air-to-air version of the Kh-31. In 2005 rumours persisted of a Russian AWACS killer based on the Kh-31A anti-shipping model, and of the Chinese adapting the YJ-91, derived from the Kh-31P, for the same purpose.
See also
- YJ-91YJ-91YJ-91 is the Chinese version of the Kh-31. YJ is short for Ying Ji meaning eagle strike. After purchasing 200 Kh-31Ps from Russia, China decided to develop its own version, because the original Kh-31 missile did not fully satisfy Chinese requirements...
- Chinese missile based on Kh-31 - MoskitMoskitThe P-270 Moskit is a Russian supersonic ramjet powered cruise missile. Its GRAU designation is 3M80, and its NATO reporting name is SS-N-22 Sunburn. The missile system was designed by the Raduga Design Bureau during the 1970s as a follow up to the "SS-N-9 Siren"...
P-270 (SS-N-22 'Sunburn') - AGM-88 HARMAGM-88 HARMThe AGM-88 High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile is a tactical, air-to-surface missile designed to home in on electronic transmissions coming from surface-to-air radar systems. It was originally developed by Texas Instruments as a replacement for the AGM-45 Shrike and AGM-78 Standard ARM system...
- main US anti-radiation missile - ALARM missile - British ARM with loiter capability
- AGM-136 Tacit RainbowAGM-136 Tacit RainbowThe AGM-136A Tacit Rainbow was a United States military anti-radiation missile program run from 1982 to 1991.The requirement was for a low-cost air-launchable system to aid in the destruction of enemy air defense networks...
- US ARM cancelled in 1991