The Tomahawk is a family of long-range cruise missiles that can be launched from submarines, sea surfaces, land and air. They have been in service with the US military since 1983 and have many classes that differ mainly in terms of warhead type, maximum flight range, and type of guidance system.

The missile has a range of 2,500 km, while the distance from Germany to Russian territory (excluding Kaliningrad) is regarding 1,200 km. These are its other specifications:

• Length (most models) 5.56 m (6.25 m with booster)
• Diameter 53 cm,
• Wingspan 2.62 m
• Weight between 1180 and 1500 kg (with booster),
• Speed ​​880 km/h,
• Warhead weight 450 kg
• Guidance system: GPS, terrain contour matching, digital scene matching with correlation area, inertial navigation.

The SM-6 is an anti-aircraft missile developed by Raytheon, an evolution of the RIM-156 SM-2ER missile family, the main difference being an improved guidance system in the final phase of flight (active radar guidance). The maximum range of this missile is regarding 450 km.

Its technical specifications include:

• Length: 6.55 m
• Weight: 1500 kg
• Speed: Up to Mach 3.5 (4,287.7 km/h)
• • Target altitude: more than 33 km
• • Launcher type: Mk 41 (Aegis Systems)
• • Warhead weight: 115 kg
• Guidance system: Inertial navigation system, semi-active radar guidance, active radar guidance

The Pentagon statement also spoke regarding the deployment of hypersonic weapons “currently under development,” noting that the United States currently does not have hypersonic missiles, as only Russia and China possess them in the world.

In March, the US Air Force announced a successful test of the AGM-183 hypersonic air-to-surface missile. The launch was carried out from a B-52 strategic bomber that took off from Andersen Air Force Base on the Pacific island of Guam. The Pentagon said the test was successful, without revealing the missile’s flight speed.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov stressed that the decision by Washington and Berlin to deploy long-range missiles in Germany aims to harm Russia’s security, and that Moscow will determine its military response to it “calmly and professionally.”

He added that Russia has no reason to be afraid or worried, because the country’s leadership has long been preparing for the possible deployment of US missiles in Europe, noting that “everything we need (to respond) has already been developed… Later, the military and the Supreme Commander will decide where, how and what we will deploy (of weapons) to ward off these threats.”

According to Russian military experts, the Russian army has a counterpart to the Tomahawk missiles, the Kalibr missiles, which are launched from submarines and ships. It is not technically difficult to modify them to allow them to be launched from the ground, in the same way that the Americans used to produce Tomahawk missiles that are launched from a mobile ground platform.

Experts also believe that a new Russian cruise missile 9M729 of the Iskander-M operational-tactical complex can be modified so that its range will exceed 500 kilometers.

Source: RT+ Agencies