The reason I haven't stickied this is that there are some things with this story that don't check out for me. NO missile has ever destroyed a buried bunker at a depth of 400ft. So far, only gravity bombs have done that. From a weapons design perspective, the design approaches of a bunker buster and a hypersonic missile couldn't be more opposed to each other.
From ChatGPT:
The Kinzhal missile is a Russian air-launched ballistic missile that was first unveiled in 2017. It is a hypersonic missile designed to be carried by Russian fighter jets such as the MiG-31. The Kinzhal missile has a reported range of up to 2,000 km and can reach speeds of up to Mach 10, or 10 times the speed of sound.
While the exact capabilities of the Kinzhal missile are not publicly known, it is designed to be a highly maneuverable and fast missile, which makes it difficult to intercept by existing missile defense systems. However, it is not specifically designed to destroy buried bunkers. A bunker buster looks like this:
Inside a bunker-buster, there are several internal structures that enable it to penetrate the ground so well. These structures include a heavy and dense metal casing around the explosive charge, which provides the bomb with its weight and momentum. The metal casing is usually made of materials such as depleted uranium or tungsten, which are very dense and heavy.
In addition to the metal casing, the bunker buster may also have a hardened nose cone made of a similar material, which is designed to withstand the initial impact with the ground or concrete. This nose cone helps to keep the bomb on target and prevent it from veering off course.
The explosive charge inside the bunker buster is typically surrounded by a layer of high-strength steel or other material that is designed to direct the force of the explosion downward, further aiding penetration. Some bunker busters may also have a delayed fuse or timer, which allows the bomb to penetrate deep into the ground before detonating, increasing its destructive power.
Guaranteed, the Khinzal would have none of this.
It is worth noting that destroying a buried bunker at a depth of 400ft would be a difficult task for any missile system that emphasizes speed and maneuverability (the Khinzal would be basically a small SRB with a 1000lb max warhead), as it would require a high level of precision and a large amount of explosive power. It is also possible that the bunker may have been designed to withstand such an attack.
There is a chance this story could be true if the Russians used one of their new glide bombs on the bunker. They are GPS guided, have warheads of 1500lbs, and can coast 65km to their targets (launched from 14km high). But those bombs are not bunker busters. So, hence, I'm having a hard time explaining this feat by Russia. I still think that "hearing buzz" about this from multiple channels means it's likely true, tho, but, I hesitate to sticky this based on these doubts.
Wait, no, absolutely not. Rods from God are 24-tonne tungsten rods that impact at mach 34. They are designed from the ground up to be deep ground penetrators (several KM) and deliver energy yields in the 5-15 kiloton range. These are entirely different animals. Also, and I hope I'm stating the obvious, these are American weapons, not Russian.
you might be right, but one thing to think about, is that Kinetic energy goes up with the square of the velocity, ,
KE = (1/2)mv^2
if it really is going mach 10, instead of say, even mach 5 or 6, it isn't simply double the energy, it's to the square, giving it much much greater penetrating power
i'm going to do a quick sanity check, to see if this is even in the ballpark,
so making a few assumptions, about the Kinzhal.
lets just say it has the same mass as an AGM-129 3500lbs
and lets take them at their word, that it's doing mach 10 (maybe it's going faster, maybe it's going slower)
and also.. just ignoring any warhead it may have on board
converting everything to metric
3500lbs = 1588 kg, lets just say 1600kg
and mach 10,,. at sea level 3313 m/s, lets just call it 3300 m/s
the kinetic energy . KE = (1/2) 1600kg * 3300^2(m/s)
or KE = 8,712,000,000 Joules that's 8.712 Gigajoules and that's without any warhead going off
I can convert your glide bomb with a 1500lb warhead (680kg) to giga joules
I used Kilograms of TNT to gigajoules as the conversion
680 Kilograms of TNT work out to 2.84512 Gigajoules
8.712>2.84512
so assuming.. that warhead weight is equivalent to KG of TNT, , and assuming that a 1500lb(warhead size) glide bomb could penetrate 400 feet of rock along with layers of steel, than, the Kinzhal missle has more than enough energy to penetrate (completely disregarding any warhead it would have).
that being said, i'm not fully confident of those assumptions(you would likely know better than me),., but it makes for an interesting sanity check, and the results are a definite maybe.
This stat only refers to the crater created, as the MOAB is an aerosolized, atmospheric-detonating weapon. Its kinetic yield literally depends on the supply of atmospheric oxygen at the target site.
Cool, sorry, I hope it came across OK. The USAF has a deep penetrator called the GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), but, yeah, it's hard finding data on testing. It can supposedly penetrate 200 ft of concrete.
The other thing that sounds weird to me is how the Russians would know how many dead were found. Are they the ones digging through the rubble? If so, why did they need to bomb the bunker if they have control of the area?
Are you familiar with anti-tank penetrating rounds? One variety is simply a rod of uranium. The high-speed impact essentially reduces the uranium to a molten state through extreme plastic deformation such that, when it penetrates to the interior, it does so in a spray of fine molten droplets. Uranium is pyrophoric: at high temperature, it spontaneously bursts into flame when exposed to air. It creates a high-pressure fireball within the tank.
So, what is so hard to imagine about a 1.000-lbm uranium warhead on a Kinzhal, diving into the ground at a speed of Mach 10 (11,400 feet/second) when anti-tank rounds have a muzzle velocity of 5,000-5,400 feet/second? This is far faster than any gravity bomb penetrator, so there is little question that it could penetrate to that depth.
So, what is the alternative? That the whole story is a fiction, and there are no deep bunkers---and no capability to get them? What would be the point of bothering with such a story, when there are other important matters to deal with? If there are no deep bunkers, who is going to lose any sleep about a Russian ability to go after them?
A quick read online read tells me hypersonic weapons have extreme diminishing returns and then lose effectiveness in penetration ability above mach 5. They then theoretically gain effectiveness again at mach 30-35. Either way, the particular weapon claimed can not penetrate 400 feet of earth and reinforced concrete/whatever else this supposed bunker had protecting it. Wondering why someone would ever post a fake story is a good question, that’s what everyone should be asking with this very obviously false story being told in this post
I don't know how to take your "online" information, when the Navy spent a long time working on hypersonic railgun configurations. In any case, here is an account of its capability: "If it strikes with a mass of 2,000 kg (4,400 lb), including 500 kg warhead, and at a speed of Mach 12, the Kinzhal has more than 16.9 gigajoules of kinetic energy excluding detonation, the equivalent of 4,000 kg of TNT." (Wikipedia) Also: "During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian military said that it used Kinzhal missiles to destroy an alleged underground weapons depot of the Ukrainian armed forces in Deliatyn on 18 March 2022 and a fuel depot in Konstantinovka the next day." (ibid.)
The key parameter correlating to penetration is momentum per unit area, which is maximized for high speed and low frontal area.
No doubt any object moving at mach 12 will have some good penetration properties regardless of its design intentions. The question is, are these underground weapons and fuel depots being claimed to be 400 feet deep?
In general, the effectiveness of a kinetic weapon like a hypersonic missile depends on a number of factors, including its speed, mass, and impact angle. While a uranium warhead traveling at Mach 10 would certainly have a lot of kinetic energy, it is unclear whether it would be able to penetrate 400 feet of solid rock and then cause enough damage to destroy an underground bunker.
I feel this is unlikely to yield the destruction needed to destroy a large, hardened concrete underground bunker and kill a hundred NATO officers.
It would not be the kinetic energy that would cause the destruction. It would be the thermal energy released by the oxidation combustion of the uranium. Sufficient overpressure (20 psi) would kill all of any number of personnel exposed to it (easy to do in a confined space). Such an overpressure would be a structural load of 2,880 lbf/sq.ft. Enough to mess things up. Infall from the overburden would finish the damage. (I worked on the design of kinetic energy weapons.)
BTW, you'll laugh at this. ChatGPT was careful to include this warning:
It's worth noting that the use of uranium in military applications has raised concerns about its potential health and environmental impacts, particularly in areas where depleted uranium rounds have been used in combat.
To be clear, I do not believe that the khinzal has a depleted uranium warhead. As you know, the uranium has to be in a "formed penetrator" shape and the weapon's attack profile would have to dive straight down, which the khinzal doesn't do
Edit:
I don't appear to be right. I asked ChatGPT:
As for the Kinzhal's target capabilities, it has been reported that the missile is capable of carrying a variety of warhead types, including conventional and nuclear options. It is possible that the missile could be configured for a bunker-busting mission profile, given its high speed and ability to penetrate deeply into targets. However, such details are not publicly available and would likely depend on the specific mission requirements and target characteristics.
Wouldn’t the softer soil of Ukraine allow better penetration to a deeper depth? I have heard many agricultural pundits say Ukraine has a very rich layer of soil that extends nearly 80’ below ground level. Without knowing the below surface materials, between ground and the bunker, I would think this may change the effectiveness of a bunker buster…. If true it is quite a feat.
The reason I haven't stickied this is that there are some things with this story that don't check out for me. NO missile has ever destroyed a buried bunker at a depth of 400ft. So far, only gravity bombs have done that. From a weapons design perspective, the design approaches of a bunker buster and a hypersonic missile couldn't be more opposed to each other.
From ChatGPT:
Guaranteed, the Khinzal would have none of this.
It is worth noting that destroying a buried bunker at a depth of 400ft would be a difficult task for any missile system that emphasizes speed and maneuverability (the Khinzal would be basically a small SRB with a 1000lb max warhead), as it would require a high level of precision and a large amount of explosive power. It is also possible that the bunker may have been designed to withstand such an attack.
There is a chance this story could be true if the Russians used one of their new glide bombs on the bunker. They are GPS guided, have warheads of 1500lbs, and can coast 65km to their targets (launched from 14km high). But those bombs are not bunker busters. So, hence, I'm having a hard time explaining this feat by Russia. I still think that "hearing buzz" about this from multiple channels means it's likely true, tho, but, I hesitate to sticky this based on these doubts.
Side question - Are you certain ChatGPT isn't going to parrot MSM talking points?
I know weapons and military very well, I used ChatGPT only to assemble the facts in a presentable manner.
The kinetic energy alone would be sufficient-Rod from God enters the chat..
Wait, no, absolutely not. Rods from God are 24-tonne tungsten rods that impact at mach 34. They are designed from the ground up to be deep ground penetrators (several KM) and deliver energy yields in the 5-15 kiloton range. These are entirely different animals. Also, and I hope I'm stating the obvious, these are American weapons, not Russian.
Which don't exist anyway.
you might be right, but one thing to think about, is that Kinetic energy goes up with the square of the velocity, ,
KE = (1/2)mv^2
if it really is going mach 10, instead of say, even mach 5 or 6, it isn't simply double the energy, it's to the square, giving it much much greater penetrating power
Wow, that's very interesting, I forgot to consider that. So it's logarithmic, like the Richter scale? OK, hmm
this might all be MOOT now, but i did this anyway
i'm going to do a quick sanity check, to see if this is even in the ballpark, so making a few assumptions, about the Kinzhal. lets just say it has the same mass as an AGM-129 3500lbs and lets take them at their word, that it's doing mach 10 (maybe it's going faster, maybe it's going slower)
and also.. just ignoring any warhead it may have on board
converting everything to metric
3500lbs = 1588 kg, lets just say 1600kg and mach 10,,. at sea level 3313 m/s, lets just call it 3300 m/s
the kinetic energy . KE = (1/2) 1600kg * 3300^2(m/s) or KE = 8,712,000,000 Joules that's 8.712 Gigajoules and that's without any warhead going off
so using another table/calculator i found here https://www.justintools.com/unit-conversion/energy.php?k1=joules&k2=atomic-bomb-[nuclear-weapon]
I can convert your glide bomb with a 1500lb warhead (680kg) to giga joules I used Kilograms of TNT to gigajoules as the conversion 680 Kilograms of TNT work out to 2.84512 Gigajoules
8.712>2.84512
so assuming.. that warhead weight is equivalent to KG of TNT, , and assuming that a 1500lb(warhead size) glide bomb could penetrate 400 feet of rock along with layers of steel, than, the Kinzhal missle has more than enough energy to penetrate (completely disregarding any warhead it would have).
that being said, i'm not fully confident of those assumptions(you would likely know better than me),., but it makes for an interesting sanity check, and the results are a definite maybe.
For reference even MOAB only goes to 200 ft. https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/2017-04-14/ty-article/what-is-moab-mother-of-all-bombs-and-what-is-it-capable-of/0000017f-dbb8-d856-a37f-fff875cb0000
This stat only refers to the crater created, as the MOAB is an aerosolized, atmospheric-detonating weapon. Its kinetic yield literally depends on the supply of atmospheric oxygen at the target site.
I couldn't find much (on the open internet) that says there are bombs that can penetrate 400 feet. I was agreeing with your earlier point.
Cool, sorry, I hope it came across OK. The USAF has a deep penetrator called the GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), but, yeah, it's hard finding data on testing. It can supposedly penetrate 200 ft of concrete.
The other thing that sounds weird to me is how the Russians would know how many dead were found. Are they the ones digging through the rubble? If so, why did they need to bomb the bunker if they have control of the area?
Are you familiar with anti-tank penetrating rounds? One variety is simply a rod of uranium. The high-speed impact essentially reduces the uranium to a molten state through extreme plastic deformation such that, when it penetrates to the interior, it does so in a spray of fine molten droplets. Uranium is pyrophoric: at high temperature, it spontaneously bursts into flame when exposed to air. It creates a high-pressure fireball within the tank.
So, what is so hard to imagine about a 1.000-lbm uranium warhead on a Kinzhal, diving into the ground at a speed of Mach 10 (11,400 feet/second) when anti-tank rounds have a muzzle velocity of 5,000-5,400 feet/second? This is far faster than any gravity bomb penetrator, so there is little question that it could penetrate to that depth.
So, what is the alternative? That the whole story is a fiction, and there are no deep bunkers---and no capability to get them? What would be the point of bothering with such a story, when there are other important matters to deal with? If there are no deep bunkers, who is going to lose any sleep about a Russian ability to go after them?
A quick read online read tells me hypersonic weapons have extreme diminishing returns and then lose effectiveness in penetration ability above mach 5. They then theoretically gain effectiveness again at mach 30-35. Either way, the particular weapon claimed can not penetrate 400 feet of earth and reinforced concrete/whatever else this supposed bunker had protecting it. Wondering why someone would ever post a fake story is a good question, that’s what everyone should be asking with this very obviously false story being told in this post
I don't know how to take your "online" information, when the Navy spent a long time working on hypersonic railgun configurations. In any case, here is an account of its capability: "If it strikes with a mass of 2,000 kg (4,400 lb), including 500 kg warhead, and at a speed of Mach 12, the Kinzhal has more than 16.9 gigajoules of kinetic energy excluding detonation, the equivalent of 4,000 kg of TNT." (Wikipedia) Also: "During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian military said that it used Kinzhal missiles to destroy an alleged underground weapons depot of the Ukrainian armed forces in Deliatyn on 18 March 2022 and a fuel depot in Konstantinovka the next day." (ibid.) The key parameter correlating to penetration is momentum per unit area, which is maximized for high speed and low frontal area.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kh-47M2_Kinzhal
No doubt any object moving at mach 12 will have some good penetration properties regardless of its design intentions. The question is, are these underground weapons and fuel depots being claimed to be 400 feet deep?
In general, the effectiveness of a kinetic weapon like a hypersonic missile depends on a number of factors, including its speed, mass, and impact angle. While a uranium warhead traveling at Mach 10 would certainly have a lot of kinetic energy, it is unclear whether it would be able to penetrate 400 feet of solid rock and then cause enough damage to destroy an underground bunker.
I feel this is unlikely to yield the destruction needed to destroy a large, hardened concrete underground bunker and kill a hundred NATO officers.
It would not be the kinetic energy that would cause the destruction. It would be the thermal energy released by the oxidation combustion of the uranium. Sufficient overpressure (20 psi) would kill all of any number of personnel exposed to it (easy to do in a confined space). Such an overpressure would be a structural load of 2,880 lbf/sq.ft. Enough to mess things up. Infall from the overburden would finish the damage. (I worked on the design of kinetic energy weapons.)
BTW, you'll laugh at this. ChatGPT was careful to include this warning:
So, THAT'S what killed the dudes in that tank!
To be clear, I do not believe that the khinzal has a depleted uranium warhead. As you know, the uranium has to be in a "formed penetrator" shape and the weapon's attack profile would have to dive straight down, which the khinzal doesn't do
Edit:
I don't appear to be right. I asked ChatGPT:
Interesting
Wouldn’t the softer soil of Ukraine allow better penetration to a deeper depth? I have heard many agricultural pundits say Ukraine has a very rich layer of soil that extends nearly 80’ below ground level. Without knowing the below surface materials, between ground and the bunker, I would think this may change the effectiveness of a bunker buster…. If true it is quite a feat.
I just posted a follow-up with explanation actually:
https://greatawakening.win/p/16amPFVgNU/
Thank you (and the others above) for this technical detail. I loves the maths.