The Kh-38/Kh-38M () is a family of standoff

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 and Kh-29 missile families. The Kh-38 also serves as the basis for the Kh-36 unpowered and powered glide-bombs.

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 veh ...

s, penetrating) can also be fitted. The Kh-38M is meant to succeed the Kh-25 and Kh-29 missile families. It can be used by combat aircraft such as the

Sukhoi Su-34 The Sukhoi Su-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 Soviet Air Forces, and it enter ...

and

Sukhoi Su-57 The Sukhoi Su-57 (; NATO reporting name: Felon) is a twin-engine stealth multirole fighter aircraft developed by Sukhoi. It is the product of the PAK FA (, prospective aeronautical complex of front-line aviation) programme, which was in ...

, and it is planned to be integrated on the Kamov Ka-52K 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, named for the asp, is an Italian medium range air-to-air and surface-to-air missile produced by Selenia and its successors, Alenia Aeronautica and MBDA that was developed in the 1970s to replace license built AIM-7 Sparrows then in us ...

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, foreign involvement in the Syrian civil war, and the war against the Islamic State , image = , image_size = , border ...

. It was also used during the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Variants

Kh-38

*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 passive radar, receiver) and the electronics necessary for it to find and track it ...

*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 r ...

Kh-36

*Kh-36 Grom-E1 - Rocket assisted version of the Grom-E2. Sometimes referred as a hybrid missile glide bomb. AS-23 tactical cruise missile derivative/AGM with 120 km range *Kh-36 Grom-E2 - AS-23B/KAB-type guided

glide bomb A glide bomb or stand-off bomb is a standoff weapon with flight control surfaces to give it a flatter, gliding flight path than that of a conventional bomb without such surfaces. This allows it to be released at a distance from the target rat ...

with 50 km range. Both versions of the Grom are of 600 kg weight, with various guidance mechanisms, and both are created on the basis of the Kh-38M short-range tactical missile and also have modular structures, warheads and seekers. This weapon was first seen at MAKS 2015, and intended to equip all types of fighters, including the MiG-35 and

Su-57 The Sukhoi Su-57 (; NATO reporting name: Felon) is a Twinjet, twin-engine stealth aircraft, stealth Multirole combat aircraft, multirole fighter aircraft developed by Sukhoi. It is the product of the PAK FA (, prospective aeronautical comp ...

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