Russia’s “Ghost” Kh-101 is an extremely dangerous long-range air-to-surface cruise missile, but they also have a fairly high price when up to 13 million USD.
Forbes Ukraine magazine estimates that Russia may have spent about $700 million on the raid on targets across Ukrainian cities on October 10, 2022.
The Ukrainian side said that Russia launched 84 cruise missiles and deployed 24 drones to carry out a series of raids on Ukrainian cities.
“Based on the proposal of the Ministry of Defense and implementation of the plan of the General Staff, a large-scale attack with a high-precision long-range missile was carried out this morning on October 10, targeting energy infrastructure, military command, and communications in Ukraine,” Putin said after the attack.
Putin repeated the accusations that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) carried out the attack on the Kerch bridge in Crimea on October 8, calling it a terrorist act that destroyed vital Russian civilian infrastructure. At the same time, the attack is a response action.
The Russian Defense Ministry claimed to have “hit all the designated targets” and completed the mission in the air strike.
According to data collected by Forbes Ukraine magazine, the Russian military has used Kh-101 missiles ($13 million each), Kalibr missiles ($6.5 million each), and Iskander missiles ($3 million per fruit). fruit), Onyx missile ($1.25 million each), Kh-22 missile ($1 million each), and Tochka-U missile ($300,000 each).
The series of Russian drones used in the October 10 raid are also worth millions of dollars. Forbes Ukraine estimates Russia spent about $700 million on this raid. The Russian side has not yet responded to the above information.
The Kh-101 is an ultra-modern subsonic long-range cruise missile that has a reported maximum range of 5,000 km.
Kh-101 was developed by Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, this type of missile was used for the first time in the Russian military campaign in Syria.
The Kh-101 missile allows the Russian Strategic Air Force to launch attacks on key targets from thousands of kilometers away. This is considered one of the most feared cruise missiles in the world.
The Kh-101 is an advanced cruise missile developed to replace the old Kh-55 (AS-15 Kent) used on Russian strategic bombers such as the Tu-160 and Tu-95MS.
The special thing is that the Kh-101 long-range cruise missile has the ability to stealth and fly at low altitudes, which makes detecting and shooting them down very difficult.
The Kh-101 missile is mounted on the rotary mounted inside the strategic bombers. Or they can also be mounted directly on the wings of the aircraft.
Kh-101 corrects the flight path through the GLONASS satellite navigation system along with the Inertial Navigation System (INS).
Besides, the missile is also supported by an optoelectronic detector with “image matching” technology for very high accuracy.
The Kh-101 missile was developed in the 1990s, but Russia has only perfected this weapon in the last few years.
The missile has a missile length of 7.54 m and a diameter of 0.51 m. The launch weight of the Kh-101 is up to 2.3 tons.
Each Tu-95MS is capable of carrying up to six externally mounted Kh-101 missiles.
While the Tu-160s equipped them with revolvers containing 6 missiles inside. According to the manufacturer, the target error of Kh-101 is only about 5 – 10 m. An excellent parameter for a missile with a range of thousands of kilometers.
A special feature is that the Kh-101 is equipped with propeller-driven turbofan engines with propellers made of low radar reflective materials.
Kh-101 has a “brother” Kh-102 with identical appearance and system equipment, the difference between them is the warhead.
Kh-101 carries a normal warhead weighing 450 kg with powerful explosives.
While the Kh-102 is equipped with a nuclear warhead with an explosive yield of up to 250 kT.
The atomic bomb dropped by the US on the Japanese city of Hiroshima had an explosive equivalent of 13kt. Thus, the destructive power of Kh-102 is more than 19 times higher than this atomic bomb.
With such tremendous destructive power, the Kh-102 cruise missile can blow up a large enemy city.
Currently, both Kh-101 and Kh-102 missiles have a speed of up to Mach 0.9. For a terrain-tracking cruise missile, this is considered a fairly high speed.
The missile can fly extremely low, from 30 – 70 m, which makes it difficult to intercept.
With a range of 4,000 to 6,000 km, this is considered the longest-flying cruise missile in the world today, surpassing all products of the same type in the world.
The latest version of the Tomahawk cruise missile also has a range equal to that of the Kalibr, which is about 2,500 km. Thus, the range of Kh-101/102 is 2.5 times higher.
With such a long-range, Russian aircraft can launch Kh-01/102 missiles from a safe distance without worrying about enemy air defense systems.
