Burezestnik - Russia's nuclear powered cruise missile

Calliban · Yesterday 07:55:58

This rumble video discusses Russia's new nuclear powered cruise missile.
https://rumble.com/v70xuv0-burevestnik- … ntage.html

Here is the wiki page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9M730_Burevestnik

This has just completed a flight test of some 8700 miles. So it is clearly approaching operational readiness.

From what I can tell, it is powered by a small, high-temperature, open-cycle gas cooled reactor. The reactor is unshielded, so will leak considerable neutron and gamma radiation, irradiating everything it flies over. The missile is intended to carry a nuclear warhead.

This is a significant strategic threat to the west. Russia already has ICBM capabilities that can target cities. I think this weapon is intended as a battlefield weapon, capable of delivering tactical nuclear weapons in the low kilotonne range. It could be used, for example, to irradiate NATO troops with some sort of low yield high-neutron warhead ahead of a Russian attack. Or it could be deployed against carriers.

The US studies this idea under project Pluto in the 1950s. But the concept of a power dense, unshielded and open cycle air-cooled reactor, was deemed too dangerous to test. This thing would be very difficult to land safely after any extended period of operation. Decay heat would probably melt the fuel as soon as airflow through the engine diminishes. It would be an extreme hazard to ground crew even after shutdown, due to high gamma emissions. Apparently, the Russians are crazy or desperate enough to do what other countries just didn't want to for seemingly obvious reasons. We seem to be entering a scary new world.

Last edited by Calliban (Yesterday 08:06:19)

tahanson43206 · Yesterday 08:10:05

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Post #3: GW Johnson
Post #4: kbd512

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GW Johnson · Yesterday 10:59:40

I do not know, but I am hazarding the guess that this thing is a nuclear turbojet, not a nuclear ramjet. It seems most likely subsonic, their equivalent to a Tomahawk, just with an effectively-infinite range. I've seen one source making that claim among a bunch making other claims, and that rounded but fairly-blunt nose does imply subsonic cruise. Ramjet works at high subsonic, but turbojet works a whale of a lot better. If this thing really is a nuclear-powered Tomahawk equivalent, it not only flies subsonic, it also flies at low altitude.

The heating rate for turbojet is lower than for ramjet: you only need to take the air to turbine inlet temperature (at or under 2000 F). You do not see the kind of full rich combustion temperatures needed for ramjet (nearer 3000-4000 F). That means a smaller unshielded reactor core that will actually fit inside such a modest-size airframe. But it does mean you have to get that heat into the airstream between some compressor, and the turbine that drives it. Maybe the core is in that stream, maybe not. Who knows? There are such things as heat pipes today.

The Project Pluto nuclear ramjet missile was a high-speed design using supersonic inlets, and early 1950's reactor core technology, with the air going through passages through the reactor core. Such were simply much larger cores, partly because of the old technology, and partly due to the presence of the air passages, which could not be small.

It was a very large missile, unlike Tomahawk, that was to fly "forever" at about Mach 3 and under-500 feet above the ground. The hazards that forced its cancellation were actually two-fold: (1) the exhaust plume was densely radioactive with materials eroded from the core, and (2) flying that fast that low, has the bow shock still lethally-strong as it "drags" along the ground. It would have killed a lot of our people on its way out of our country, from both radiation poisoning and violent death by blast wave effects.

This Russian thing won't have the shock wave problem, being subsonic. But it does present the same radiation poisoning problem, even though the core is smaller and there is less total plume mass. It has to fly over their people while leaving their country, just like the radiation risk the Project Pluto ramjet posed. Putin probably does not care about killing his own people, though.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (Yesterday 11:02:04)

kbd512 · Yesterday 16:51:31

The radiation plume would've been a significant problem, but I feel like the overpressure effects from supersonic flight are a bit exaggerated. Back when the Air Force was still studying this, researchers were uninjured by a 144psf overpressure produced by a supersonic F-4 flying 100ft overhead.

Roughly speaking, Project Pluto envisioned a F-4 mass vehicle (61,000lbs), albeit with significantly improved aerodynamics, moving at Mach 3 at low-level only for the penetration run into Soviet airspace, using its 513MWth / 35,000lbf engine. However, this nuclear ramjet powered "cruise missile" would've flown at much greater altitudes while loitering and cruising into the target area. Its onboard autopilot would direct the weapon to descend to treetop level only upon entering enemy airspace. As far as "unlimited range" is concerned, that should be heavily qualified. Range was estimated to be around 113,000 miles, so this thing could "only" fly around at Mach 3 for two days or so before the reactor core suffered too much thermal damage and/or the fuel was depleted to the point of no longer able to maintain Mach 3 flight speeds. Perhaps the weapon could fly over longer distances at reduced speeds and temperatures, but the notion of it staying aloft for a month or more was mostly fantasy.

How or why this weapon would ever be more useful or more lethal than a conventional ICBM equipped with a dozen MIRV warheads is beyond my understanding. ICBMs reach their targets in less than 20 minutes, regardless of where they're launched from, and travel at speeds far beyond Mach 3. To this day, there are very few known-effective defenses against ICBMs. Successful interceptor weapons typically cost more than the nuclear warheads / ICBMs they're being fired at. There have been many successful interceptions of much smaller sea-skimming supersonic (Mach 2-3) anti-ship cruise missiles and target drones.

GW Johnson · Today 11:18:10

These very large cruise missile concepts (several conventional like Snark, Mace and Matador, and Pluto's nuclear version) to replace manned bombers were designed in the early 1950's, long before there was any fieldable, practical ICBM technology. The Russians did the same things, too.

Yes, there was Atlas and Titan and Thor (and Russia's R-7), and there the initial IRBM-only Polaris on the submarines, by about 1959 if memory serves, but those liquid-propellant ICBM's and IRBM's were withdrawn as far too impractical for swift response purposes, as soon as Minuteman-1 became available in 1962. ICBM's have been instantly-ready solids ever since, on both sides.

And the SLBM range improved dramatically as they left the early Polaris models behind. Liquid propellant missiles persisted for several years on Russian subs, including the K-129 the CIA tried to salvage. Once the flirtation with Regulus 1 and 2 was over, our subs went all-solid with the Polaris SLBM IRBM. And our subs have used solids ever since.

No leaks, no drips, no toxic fumes, no delays fueling up, you just push the "go" button and it goes, right then. That is precisely why solids are very much preferred for ballistic missile weapons.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (Today 11:24:48)

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Burezestnik - Russia's nuclear powered cruise missile

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