Raduga Kh-15

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	Weapon: Raduga Kh-15 Type: Air-to-Ground Missile Country of Origin: USSR Year Adopted: 1980 Overall Length (mm): 4780.0 Overall Length (in): 188.19 Weight (kg): 1200.00 Weight (pounds): 2645.55

The Raduga Kh-15 is a Soviet/Russian hypersonic, solid-fuel, aero-ballistic air-to-surface missile conceived in the 1970s as a standoff strike counterpart to the U.S. AGM-69 SRAM. After launch, the missile lofts to roughly 40,000 m before diving on the target at up to around Mach 5; guidance options include inertial navigation for the original nuclear model, plus passive anti-radiation (Kh-15P) and active-radar anti-ship (Kh-15S) seekers for conventional variants. Typical figures cited for the family include about 300 km operational range, a mass near 1,200 kg, and either a large conventional warhead (~150-250 kg) or a nuclear option (often reported ~300 kt).

Production began around 1980 with flight testing reported earlier in the decade; exact totals remain undisclosed in open sources, though references consistently note that the nuclear-tipped baseline outnumbered the anti-ship and anti-radiation offshoots. The type was developed by MKB Raduga and manufactured at Dubna Machine-Building Plant, entering Soviet service in 1980. Publicly available sources characterize production figures as unknown, with only broad estimates (hundreds to low thousands) appearing in secondary literature.

In service, the Kh-15 armed long-range bomber platforms-most prominently the Tu-22M3 "Backfire-C," with reporting also citing carriage by Tu-160 "Blackjack" (and in some accounts Tu-95MS sub-variants). It never saw confirmed combat use but became notable for its speed, loft-and-dive attack profile, and multi-role seeker family, while later Russian inventories reportedly placed the missile in storage or limited service as newer weapons emerged. As a result, the Kh-15's notoriety lies in its role as a high-speed Cold-War standoff strike tool and a technological waypoint between earlier heavy anti-ship/strike missiles and today's diversified Russian ALCM/AShM portfolio.