The Kh-38/Kh-38M (russian: Х-38) is a family of

air-to-surface missile An air-to-surface missile (ASM) or air-to-ground missile (AGM) is a missile designed to be launched from military aircraft at targets on land or sea. There are also unpowered guided glide bombs not considered missiles. The two most common prop ...

s meant to succeed the

Kh-25 The Kh-25/Kh-25M (russian: Х-25; NATO: AS-10 'Karen) is a family of Soviet lightweight air-to-ground missiles with a modular range of guidance systems and a range of 10 km. The anti-radar variant (Kh-25MP) is known to NATO as the AS-12 ' K ...

and

Kh-29 The Kh-29 (russian: Х-29; NATO: AS-14 'Kedge; GRAU: 9M721) is a Soviet air-to-surface missile with a range of 10–30 km. It has a large warhead of 320 kg, has a choice of laser, infrared, active radar or TV guidance, and is typically ...

missile families.

Design and development

The basic configuration of the Kh-38M was revealed at the 2007 Moscow Air Show (MAKS). The first prototypes of the missile had initially folding wings and tail fins for internal carriage, and would have a variety of seeker heads for different variants. Different warheads (fragmentation,

cluster munition A cluster munition is a form of air-dropped or ground-launched explosive weapon that releases or ejects smaller submunitions. Commonly, this is a cluster bomb that ejects explosive bomblets that are designed to kill personnel and destroy vehicl ...

s, penetrating) can also be fitted. The Kh-38M is meant to succeed the

and

missile families. It can be used by combat aircraft such as the

Sukhoi Su-34 The Sukhoi Su-34 (russian: Сухой Су-34; NATO reporting name: Fullback) is a Soviet-origin Russian twin-engine, twin-seat, all-weather supersonic medium-range fighter-bomber/strike aircraft. It first flew in 1990, intended for the Sov ...

and

Sukhoi Su-57 The Sukhoi Su-57 (russian: Сухой Су-57; NATO reporting name: Felon) is a Twinjet, twin-engine stealth Multirole combat aircraft, multirole fighter aircraft developed by Sukhoi. It is the product of the PAK FA (russian: ПАК ФА, russ ...

, and it is planned to be integrated on the

Kamov Ka-52 The Kamov Ka-50 "Black Shark" (russian: Чёрная акула, translit=Chyornaya akula, English: kitefin shark, NATO reporting name: Hokum A) is a Soviet/Russian single-seat attack helicopter with the distinctive coaxial rotor system of the ...

K helicopter. The first test firing took place in 2010 from a Su-34, and production was ordered to start in 2015. In a successive version, unveiled at MAKS 2017, both control surfaces were replaced by longer and narrower fixed ones, a solution similar to the one used in the Selenia

Aspide Aspide (the Italian name for the asp) is an Italian medium range air-to-air and surface-to-air missile produced by Selenia (then by Alenia Aeronautica, now a part of Leonardo S.p.A.). It is provided with semi-active radar homing seeker. It i ...

missile.

Operational history

The Kh-38M was first used in combat during the

Russian military intervention in the Syrian civil war {{Infobox military conflict , partof = the foreign involvement in the Syrian civil war, and the military intervention against ISIL , image = , image_size = , border = , caption = To ...

Variants

*Kh-38MA - inertial,

active radar homing Active radar homing (ARH) is a missile guidance method in which a missile contains a radar transceiver (in contrast to semi-active radar homing, which uses only a receiver) and the electronics necessary for it to find and track its target aut ...

*Kh-38MK - inertial, satellite guidance *Kh-38ML - inertial, semi-active

laser guidance Laser guidance directs a robotics system to a target position by means of a laser beam. The laser guidance of a robot is accomplished by projecting a laser light, image processing and communication to improve the accuracy of guidance. The key ide ...

*Kh-38MT - inertial, imaging

infrared guidance Infrared homing is a passive weapon guidance system which uses the infrared (IR) light emission from a target to track and follow it seamlessly. Missiles which use infrared seeking are often referred to as "heat-seekers" since infrared is radi ...

*Grom-E1 AS-23 tactical cruise missile derivative/ AGM Air to Surface with 120 km range *Grom-E2 AS-23B / KAB- guided bomb gliding 50-km range version ≈600 kg, various aim guidance, both created on the base of Kh-38M short-range tactical missile and also have a modular structure, warheads and seekers. First seen at MAKS 2015, intended to equip all types of fighters, including the MiG-35 and

Su-57 The Sukhoi Su-57 (russian: Сухой Су-57; NATO reporting name: Felon) is a twin-engine stealth multirole fighter aircraft developed by Sukhoi. It is the product of the PAK FA (russian: ПАК ФА, russian: label=short for, Перспек ...

References

External links

Manufacturer information of the Kh-38

KTRV finalises development of Grom air-to-surface munition variants
{{Use dmy dates, date=June 2017 Air-to-surface missiles of Russia Tactical Missiles Corporation products Military equipment introduced in the 2010s

Design and development

Operational history

Variants

See also

References

External links