Ml. 571 Schnellfalke
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| Ml. 571 Schnellfalke | |
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 Ml. 571 Schnellfalke in both Kaiserliche Marine & Heer markings |
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| Type | Long-Range Anti-Ship/Land Attack Cruise Missile |
| Place of origin |  Belkaland |
| Service history | |
| Used by |  Belkan Kaiserliche Marine Belkan Heer Middle East Coalition Navy Birkainian Voruzhonnije Síly Birkansky |
| Wars | None |
| Production history | |
| Designer | Hoffnung Technologies |
| Manufacturer | Hypersphere Technologies Ltd. |
| Unit cost | Standard Warhead: $1,000,000 USD per missile Thermobaric/FAE Warhead: $1,500,000 per missile Nuclear Warhead: $3,000,000 USD per missile |
| Variants | Ml. 571 Schnellfalke Ml. 571 Schnellfalke-TB/FAE Ml. 571 Schnellfalke-N |
| Specifications | |
| Weight | 2,150kg to 2,847kg; Depends on the Warhead |
| Length | Without booster: 5.4m With booster: 6.4m |
| Diameter | .51m |
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| Blast yield | Ml. 571 Schnellfalke-N: 475 kt |
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| Engine | Rocket Booster Motor Air-Breathing Ramjet |
| Operational range |
Ballistic Flight: 1,200 nautical miles (1,381.2 miles / 2,215 km) Surface Skimming: 400 nautical miles (462 miles / 741 km) |
| Speed | Ballistic Flight: 3,031 knots (3,500 mph / 5,614 kph) Surface Skimming: 1,602 knots (1,850 mph / 2,967 kph) |
| Guidance system |
Inertial Navigation, Millimeter Radar, & LIDAR |
| Steering system |
Special Thrust Vectoring Tail-Nozzile |
| Accuracy | 3-4 m |
| Launch platform |
Sea & Land-based VLS |
The Ml. 571 Schnellfalke(Belkan: Fasthawk) is the primary Land Attack Missile in service with the Belkan Kaiserliche Marine as well as a Long-Range Anti-Ship Cruise Missile. It also services as a Ground Launched Cruise Missile for the Belkan Heer. It replaced the Tomahawk Cruise Missile and is the most exported missiles in Belkaland.
Contents |
Origin
At the turn of the century, it became clear that, although having served well, the Tomahawk cruise missile needed a replacement. Even with the upgrade of the basic missile to the TacTom configuration(Tactical Tomahawk), the missile was becoming obsolete. With its slow speed and reaction time the Tomahawk became an increasingly easy target for defense systems, and in a modern war it simply couldn’t be launched fast enough (requiring extensive planning to program its flightpath). The new missile would have to be much more flexible, and be capable of reaching its target much faster. Enter the Ml. 571 Schnellfalke, the product of almost a decade of work by Hoffnung Technologies.
Design
Just like the Tomahawk it replaced, the Fasthawk is designed to fit into the existing Strategic-length MK-41 vertical launch system. The missile as taken into production is a hypersonic missile powered by an air breathing ramjet. Since the missile moves at extreme velocity, there was no need for wings: the round body supplied all the lift that was needed to keep the missile airborne. Steering is done by means of a movable nozzle, which makes up the entire tail of the Fasthawk.
Guidance
Guidance and flightpath is dependant upon the chosen mission. For ground strikes, the Schnellfalke usually follows a very high flight profile, nearly that of a ballistic missile. This enables the missile to reach extreme speeds, and in its terminal phase, the missile dives almost vertically down upon its target. The missile can be fired ballistic at naval targets but usually is fired in the surface skimming path. For anti-ship purposes, the missile normally follows a surface skimming attack profile but can follow this path against ground targets as well. Since in this mode of flight the missile encounters a great deal of air resistance, both range and speed are markedly decreased from the semi-ballistic strike flight path. In both cases, the initial guidance is by Inertial Navigation, which merely served to get the missile into the general target area. From there, active guidance in the form of a millimeter radar and LIDAR took over. There was no provision for infrared guidance, as the missiles nosecone became nearly as hot as its exhaust plume during its high speed flight.
Warhead
The choice of warheads is somewhat limited when compared to the old Tomahawk missile, with only three options available. The most common of these is a general purpose blast-fragmentation warhead which could be optimalized for several different burst modes. The first is Airburst, for destroying vehicles, light material and troops. In this setting the warhead would explode a few dozen feet above the targets, spraying them with preforged armor penetrating fragments. The second burst mode is contact burst, which is normally used in the anti ship mode. In this setting the warhead exploded on impact. The final setting was delayed contact burst, in which the incredible kinetic energy of the missile when moving at mach 5+ in the semi-ballistic dive is used to penetrate deeply into hardened targets like bunkers. Up to a hundred feet of sand or nearly thirty feet of hardened concrete can be penetrated before the warhead exploded. This warhead has been designated as the standard warhead for the Schnellfalke by the Hypersphere Technologies Ltd Corporation.
The second warhead is a thermobaric/FAE warhead which has the much greater blast radius of a FAE bomb and the massive punch a thermobaric bomb has, creating a blast comparable to a bomb twice it's size. This warhead has 4 settings, the 3 normal Air/Contact/Delayed bursts and a midair burst similar to that of the Nimbus Air to Air Cruise Missiles deployed by the Belkan Luftwaffe. However, the targeting must be done before hand and can not be changed, unlike that of the Nimbus, which follows UAVs launched into the target area before hand.
The final warhead is a nuclear warhead, the W88 475KT Thermonuclear bomb. This variant is only deployed on select von Koester-Class SSGNs.
Notes
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