6 28, the day after the Amstor shopping mall in the city of Kremenchuk in central Ukraine was hit by a Russian missile, Ukrainian officials announced the time of the missile hit captured by a camera near the mall. picture. The screenshot clearly shows that the model of the missile is the old KH-22MA/NA heavy supersonic air-to-ground missile developed and produced during the Soviet period. This missile is a ground attack missile developed from the KH-22 supersonic anti-ship missile. It is only guided. The accuracy is not high. Judging from the targets around the shopping mall that were hit this time, this attack should be a typical tragedy caused by a missile accidental attack.
Picture: The missile hit the east corner of the Amstor shopping mall
Picture: The satellite image shows that the mall was hit at the due east corner
Picture: The camera field of view restored by foreign netizens based on the picture
Picture: Screenshot of the moment the missile hit, you can see it is a KH -22MA/NA missile
Picture: Russian military picture -22M3 Backfire bomber throwing KH-22N anti-ship missile
As you can see from the satellite image above, the missile hit the east corner of the Amstor shopping mall, not a direct hit of shopping malls. Considering that behind the mall is the railway freight station and cargo storage point of Credmarsh Machinery Factory, it is obvious that these two targets have greater military value. The Russian army claimed that the target of this attack was a storage point for Western aid weapons set up by the Ukrainian army near the Credmarsh Machinery Factory. Previously, the outside world thought that the storage point mentioned by the Russians was a shopping mall, but in fact they What I should be talking about is the freight station behind the mall. The Russian KH-22NA accidentally hit the shopping mall when attacking this freight station. In addition, the Russian army launched two KH-22NAs to attack this location that day, and the other hit the workshop of the Credmarsh Machinery Factory 400 meters away. This also proves that what the Russian army really wants to attack is the Credmarsh Machinery Factory target.
Picture: Behind the mall is the railway freight station (purple area) and cargo storage point (yellow area) of Credmarsh Machinery Factory. The red is the missile hit location.
Picture: The hit location of the two missiles, the second one from the left. KH22MA/NA hit the workshop of Credmarsh Machinery Factory
This time the Russian army chose the KH-22MA/NA missile to perform the attack mission. It was obviously a mistake. This missile is the KH-22 supersonic missile that was put into use in the 1960s. An improved version of the heavy anti-ship missile. The KH-22 has two improved series. One is the KH-22M series developed to support the Tu-22M/M2 bomber, including the anti-ship KH-22M that uses terminal active radar guidance, and the KH-22M that uses an anti-radiation seeker. 22MP and ground attack KH-22MA using pure inertial guidance. The range of this series has been increased from the KH-22's 300 kilometers to 400 kilometers. Another improved series, the KH-22N, was developed to support the more advanced Tu-22M3 Backfire bomber, including the anti-ship KH-22N and the land attack KH-22NA with a range increased to 600 kilometers. Among them, the KH-22NA's guidance method incorporates contour matching correction, so the strike accuracy is improved compared to the KH-22MA.
Picture: The KH-22NA no longer has a radar seeker on its head, but uses inertial guidance and terrain correction.
Picture: The Ukrainian army said that the missile was fired from the direction of Kursk, Russia.
According to the report of the Ukrainian army, , this time the Russian missile was launched from the direction of Kursk, and the flight distance was about 340 kilometers. Therefore, both ground attack models, KH-22MA and KH-22NA, are possible. However, the KH-22MA using pure inertial guidance has a relatively large attack error, and its probability of accidental attack is relatively high. Although the accuracy of the KH-22NA has been improved, this bomb uses the contour matching correction technology developed in the 1970s. If the Russian army's surveying and mapping information is not updated in time or the terrain features of the planned flight correction points are not obvious, it will not be possible. This will cause the error correction of the inertial navigation to fail during the missile's flight, and eventually lead to a larger hit error. In order to make up for the lack of accuracy, the KH-22MA/NA is equipped with a 960-kilogram high-explosive warhead with huge damage power. Therefore, although it did not directly hit the main body of the mall this time, it still caused serious damage.
Picture: The antenna window of the contour matching system on the belly of the KH-22NA
It may also be a helplessness for the Russian army to use this old-fashioned air-to-ground ammunition with unguaranteed guidance accuracy in attacking urban targets. Although Russia has also successively demonstrated new generation long-range air-to-ground guided munitions such as KH-59MK2 and KH-101 using multiple methods of composite correction using Glonass satellites and images in recent years. However, their overall equipment is still insufficient, especially since the war began. Cruise missiles have been consumed in large quantities, which makes them have limited missile model choices when attacking targets in the hinterland of Ukraine. In addition, when planning the mission, we may not have considered it so carefully and comprehensively, which ultimately led to accidental strikes.
