This is one of the first pictures of the Kh-22 that crossed the West in the early 60’s. The missile was created under the Soviet tactics that the powerful American naval groups were more easily attacked with missiles launched from great distances than by surface ships or aircrafts, much more prone to interception by American escorts.The AS-4 Kitchen missiles could be launched in high altitude mode or low altitude mode. In the first mode the missile ascends to 27,000 meters to execute a dive towards the target at Mach 4.6, however in the low altitude mode the missile flies at 12,000 meters of altitude to descends later to 500 meters and then perform a soft dive on the target at Mach 3.5.This missile could be armed with a warhead composed by 1,000 kg of RDX explosive shaped charge or a 1 Mt nuclear warhead. It is known that with the shaped charge this missile could open a hole 5 meters in diameter and 12 meters deep, enough for sink any escort vessel.The Kh-22 missile had different variants, such as an anti-radiation missile Kh-22P, the export variant Kh-22E, or the improved conventional variants Kh-22M and Kh-22MA with greater range and the possibility of receiving mid-course updates through a datalink.
