The Raduga KSR-5 (

NATO reporting name NATO reporting names are code names for military equipment from Russia, China, and historically, the Eastern Bloc (Soviet Union and other nations of the Warsaw Pact). They provide unambiguous and easily understood English words in a uniform manne ...

AS-6 Kingfish) was a long-range,

air-launched cruise missile An air-launched cruise missile (ALCM) is a cruise missile that is launched from a military aircraft. Current versions are typically standoff weapons which are used to attack predetermined land targets with conventional, nuclear or thermonuclear p ...

and

anti ship missile An anti-ship missile (AShM) is a guided missile that is designed for use against ships and large boats. Most anti-ship missiles are of the sea skimming variety, and many use a combination of inertial guidance and active radar homing. A good ...

developed by the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

. It was essentially a scaled down version of the

Kh-22 The Kh-22 (russian: Х-22; AS-4 'Kitchen') is a large, long-range anti-ship missile developed by MKB Raduga in the Soviet Union. It was designed for use against aircraft carriers and carrier battle groups, with either a conventional or nuclear wa ...

'Kitchen', built to be carried by the less capable

Tu-16 The Tupolev Tu-16 (NATO reporting name: Badger) is a twin-engined jet strategic heavy bomber used by the Soviet Union. It has been flown for almost 70 years, and the Chinese license-built Xian H-6 remains in service with the People's Liberation ...

Variants

The Raduga KSR-5 was developed in variants to be deployed as a land attack missile and an anti-ship missile. The missile was designed to be fitted with either a conventional or

nuclear warhead A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...

Operational history

The Raduga KSR-5 was deployed aboard such Soviet aircraft as the

Tupolev Tu-16 The Tupolev Tu-16 ( NATO reporting name: Badger) is a twin-engined jet strategic heavy bomber used by the Soviet Union. It has been flown for almost 70 years, and the Chinese license-built Xian H-6 remains in service with the People's Liberatio ...

'Badger' in Tu-16K-26, Tu-16KSR-2-5, and Tu-16KSR-2-5-11 variants, as well as the

Tu-22M The Tupolev Tu-22M (russian: Туполев Ту-22М; NATO reporting name: Backfire) is a supersonic, variable-sweep wing, long-range strategic and maritime strike bomber developed by the Tupolev Design Bureau in the 1960s. According to some s ...

Backfire. Post 1991 with the retirement of the Badger, the KSR-5 warstock was converted into supersonic targets.

Operators

Specifications

* Length: * Wingspan: * Diameter: * Launch weight: * Speed: * Range: * Guidance:

inertial guidance An inertial navigation system (INS) is a navigation device that uses motion sensors (accelerometers), rotation sensors ( gyroscopes) and a computer to continuously calculate by dead reckoning the position, the orientation, and the velocity (dire ...

, optional

mid-course update Command guidance is a type of missile guidance in which a ground station or aircraft relay signals to a guided missile via radio control or through a wire connecting the missile to the launcher and tell the missile where to steer to intercept its ...

via

data link A data link is the means of connecting one location to another for the purpose of transmitting and receiving digital information (data communication). It can also refer to a set of electronics assemblies, consisting of a transmitter and a recei ...

, terminal

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 ...

passive radar Passive radar systems (also referred to as passive coherent location, passive surveillance systems, and passive covert radar) encompass a class of radar systems that detect and track objects by processing reflections from non-cooperative sources of ...

homing * Warhead: high explosive or 350 kt nuclear

References

Bibliography

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External links

Federation of American Scientists page on the KSR-5 missile

{{Russian and Soviet Aircraft Ordnance Weapons of Russia Cold War anti-ship missiles of the Soviet Union Nuclear air-to-surface missiles Nuclear cruise missiles of the Soviet Union KSR-005 KSR-005 Target drones MKB Raduga products