Kh-20

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	Weapon: Kh-20 Type: Air-to-Ground Missile Country of Origin: USSR Year Adopted: 1960 Overall Length (mm): 14950.0 Overall Length (in): 588.58 Weight (kg): 11000.00 Weight (pounds): 24250.85

The Kh-20 (Russian: X-20) was a large, nuclear-armed, air-launched cruise missile developed in the 1950s for the Soviet Long-Range Aviation as a standoff weapon for the Tu-95 "Bear." Externally resembling a small delta-wing aircraft, it used a single turbojet, carried a megaton-class thermonuclear warhead, and flew high-altitude, high-speed attack profiles at roughly Mach 2-2.5. Guidance combined inertial navigation with command updates, optimized for striking fixed, area targets such as hardened infrastructure and urban/industrial centers at ranges on the order of several hundred kilometers (commonly cited around 600-700 km).

Series production followed state trials at the end of the 1950s, with hundreds of missiles manufactured (open sources generally describe low three-digit totals). The primary carriers were the Tu-95K/KD (later K-20) variants, which typically hauled a single Kh-20 semi-recessed under the fuselage. Entering service in the early 1960s, the weapon gave Soviet bombers their first practical nuclear standoff capability against heavily defended targets, while avoiding the need to penetrate the densest layers of Western air defenses then being built around key sites.

In service the Kh-20 earned a reputation for formidable speed and yield, but also for operational complexity-lengthy preparation, demanding launch procedures, and limited accuracy by later standards. As more modern missiles such as the Kh-22 and subsequently the subsonic, long-range Kh-55 family entered service, the Kh-20 was retired in the 1970s. Its notoriety endures as a symbol of early Cold-War standoff doctrine: a massive, supersonic "pilotless aircraft" that bridged the gap between first-generation cruise missiles and the more precise, flexible systems that followed.