Tupolev Tu-95 variant
Tupolev Tu-95 Tu-95K-5
A 1976-1977 missile-carrier project intended to take two KSR-5 (AS-6 Kingfish) missiles; abandoned before any flight testing or production.
History
The Tu-95K-5 never left the drawing board. In 1976-1977 work began on a new Bear modification able to carry two KSR-5 missiles, known in the West as the AS-6 Kingfish, giving the Tu-95K family airframes a fresh role.
The proposal ran into two weightier decisions. One was to produce the Tu-95K-22, which was already adapting existing bombers to the Kh-22 missile and the guidance systems used on the Backfire. The other was to develop an entirely new cruise-missile carrier, the Tu-95MS. With both programmes under way the Tu-95K-5 lost its purpose and the work stopped almost at once.
It never entered flight testing or production, which is why Western intelligence did not detect it at the time and why the variant never received a NATO reporting name of its own: a dead branch of the Bear family tree, documented only from the Soviet side.