The Iskander Missile: Changing the Dynamics of Modern Warfare in Ukraine

The Iskander

The Ukraine War (let’s call it what it is – it’s not a “Special Military Operation”, it’s a war) has been a proving ground for game changing weapon systems. Russian glide bombs weren’t really new. They were a logical implementation of the JDAM concept. Indeed, Germany used glide bombs in World War 2. Frequently, they were launched from bombers based in Norway. Against the Atlantic convoys.

Russia has introduced hypersonic missiles to the battle. The speed at which a missile travels is indicated by its Mach number. This number indicates the speed of an object relative to the speed of sound. Mach 1 is the speed of sound. Mach 2 is twice the speed of sound. Mach 5 is five times the speed of sound, and so on.

The speed of sound is not constant. It varies with temperature and the density of the medium through which it travels. Typically, the denser the medium, the higher the speed. Sound travels fastest through a solid—the clang of a metal bar being struck, for example. Less fast through a liquid—the sound of a ship’s propellers traveling underwater. Slowest when traveling through the air. All else equal, sound traveling through the air at sea level travels faster than sound traveling through the air at thirty thousand feet.

Subsonic missiles travel at speeds slower than Mach 1. Supersonic missiles travel faster than Mach 1 (typically in the Mach 1 to Mach 3 range). “Hypersonic” usually refers to platforms that travel at Mach 5 or more.

Examples of subsonic missiles are the US Tomahawk cruise missile and the Russian Kalibr. Russia has introduced three hypersonic missile platforms in the Ukrainian theatre. These are the Iskander, the Khinzal, and the Zircon (Tsirkon). We will devote a separate post to each of these. In this article, we will introduce the Iskander.

The 9K720 Iskander (NATO reference SS-26 Stone) is a short-range, surface-to-surface ballistic missile with a range of about 500 km. The missile is road-mobile, and allows operators to avoid detection by moving the missile from one location to another. The Iskander travels at speeds between Mach 6 and Mach 8. It replaces the earlier Tochka ballistic missile. The Tochka remains in use by the Ukrainian armed forces, in small numbers. The Iskander is operated by the Russian armed forces.

This video is an introduction to the Iskander:

Nuclear-capable (yield of 5 – 50 kilotons), the Iskander is also capable of carrying at least five other conventional warheads. These are 1) cluster, 2) fuel-air, 3) High explosive fragmentation, 4) bunker-buster, and 5) electromagnetic pulse.

Different models of the Iskander are equipped with different guidance systems and have different capabilities.

Iskander-E

The export version, the Iskander-E, is the basic variant equipped with an inertial guidance system. Its Circular Error Probable (CEP) is from 50 to 200 meters (The concept of CEP was discussed in an earlier post. It is the radius of a circle, within which half of a large number of strikes are likely to hit).

Iskander-K

The “K” stands for “Krylataya,” or “winged.” It is a cruise-missile variant of the Iskander, equipped with terrain-following guidance. It should be noted that the flight path of the Iskander-K is not a simple ballistic trajectory.

Iskander-M

The current Iskander-M, equipped with GLONASS, or optical homing guidance, has a Circular Error Probable (CEP) of between one and seven meters. The missile is guided at all phases of flight and does not follow a simple ballistic trajectory. Its flight can be directed by encrypted radio guidance. In optical homing mode, images of the target can be transmitted to the missile’s guidance computer. The missile “recognizes” its target by comparison to the image received, locks on using its own optical sensors, and closes in the terminal phase to destroy the target.

Variants of the Iskander-M are capable of aggressive maneuvering to defeat anti-missile systems. US intel confirms that some variants are also equipped with decoys. The following video discusses the Iskander:

The Iskander is a flexible hypersonic missile system that is difficult, if not impossible, to intercept. Russia has used it against land targets in Ukraine, but certain variants are also effective against sea targets.

In future posts, we will cover the two other hypersonic missiles that have proven effective in the Ukraine war. The Iskander is a ground-launched missile. We will find that the Khinzal (Dagger) is an air-launched cruise missile variant of the Iskander. The Zircon (Tsirkon) is a sea-launched hypersonic weapon.

This article is part of a series; you can read part one here. 

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By Cameron Curtis

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Cameron Curtis has spent thirty years on trade floors as a trader and risk manager. He was on the trade floor when Saddam’s tanks rolled into Kuwait, when the air wars opened over Baghdad and Belgrade, and when the financial crisis swallowed the world. Having written fiction as a child, he is the author of the Breed action thriller series, available on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B08WH6T3KV/allbooks?ingress=0&visitId=250c99f7-fcb5-4552-9dc3-e9d9cdb20d49&ref_=ap_rdr

Editor’s Note:  All of us here at SOFREP are big Cameron Curtis fans. Be sure to check out his Breed series of thrillers. Once you pick one up, you won’t want to put it back down. — GDM