3 ms·

I believe they used a hypersonic missile before the US has fielded theirs?

• mrguyorama 1y ago
  No, that's wrong. The Kinzhal is just a normal ballistic missile. If it is "hypersonic", so were the missiles the US has sitting in bunkers. China has the first real "hypersonic" weapon. Besides, Russia's super awesome hypersonic missile that will totally kill the west is regularly intercepted by the Patriot platform. Because it's just a normal ballistic missile, which is what the Patriot is designed to intercept.
  • MattPalmer1086 1y ago
    I was referring to the Oreshnik, not the Kinzhal. But I'm no missile expert.
    • Yizahi 1y ago
      All long and medium range rockets are hypersonic, simply by virtue of falling from space fast enough. From any country. So the "reached speed" metric is kinda pointless. Lately people tend to call rockets hypersonic is they can be controlled at the hypersonic flight stage. Oreshnic is an old ballistic missile, whose only innovation is removing third stage from an existing rocket, and can't be controlled with precision. This is why there was no significant damage and hits were all over the place with hundreds of meters of error. It is 80 million dollar equivalent of a single Smerch or Uragan shot, which is a pretty dumb and useless idea, considering price and complexity of a rocket.