US hypersonic missile fails in test- 2nd consecutive failed attempt
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
But at least with civilian rockets all the competitors have clear success metrics: they all launch with some regularity, and it's obvious if those launches were a success. Lots of weapon systems have one or two tests and then take a decade before they see any action, if at all.
Fore example the Patriot system is operational since 1981, but when first used in combat a decade later its accuracy came under heavy scrutiny, and continues to look suspect on a per-missile basis [1]. But that's one of the weapons systems that actually sees active combat, and sees improvements based on that. Now think of all the systems that are deployed but never used.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIM-104_Patriot#Operational_hi...
https://www-users.cse.umn.edu/~arnold/disasters/patriot.html
Public tests are still independently necessary and failing them is still an embarrassment, of course.
>DOD development in general is there are too few tests (And done too slowly) to iterate. The developers do not get lots of opportunities to learn from real-data, like at SpaceX
i suppose cost is among the major reasons. The SpaceX had an objective to take the cost down which is synergetic/self-enforcing with the many tests and iterations approach. DOD is opposite - the goal for the contractors is the smallest number of tests done at the highest billed price to DOD as that maximizes the contractor's profit.
Kind of like the Russian ground forces in Ukraine. They hadn't fought real ground wars in a while.
Not sure what this says about humanity. But it certainly raises questions about how to maintain a defensive force. The answer, unfortunately, might be to have a series of small wars just to keep in practice. Even then, the knowledge gained might not translate well to a large war.
just off the top of my head:
- dramatic improvements in military IT (search for recent story "just give us new computers")
- more investments in unmanned combat systems
- just buy more of the things that work...numbers matter
etc etc
Isn't that why we should invest in hypersonic missiles? It is a relatively cheap unmanned alternative to building aircraft carriers (and the obligatory fighters), and other large vulnerable systems.
That's not always true. Numbers can matter but certain technological leaps render whole classes of weapon systems obsolete.
- desperately needs a new self-propelled howitzer, as the M109 is a 60-year-old design that has been upgraded to its limit, and can no longer perform adequately in a modern near-peer engagement
- the AIM-120 AMRAAM is outclassed by other beyond visual range air-to-air missiles developed in the last 30 years
- the OH-58 Kiowa, based on the Bell JetRanger, was the Army's scout helicopter for decades -- but was retired in 2020 without a replacement
- the Ticonderoga-class cruiser, which was the first incarnation of the Aegis anti-air and anti-ballistic-missile system, is being retired without a replacement, forty years after it entered service -- its planned replacement, CG(X), was cancelled, and so more Arleigh-Burke class destroyers with larger Mark-41 VLS cells are being shoehorned in
- the Arleigh-Burke class destroyer, which also has the Aegis system, is still in production after 34 years because the Zumwalt-class that would've replaced it was a total flop due -- its eight-inch Advanced Gun System requiring bespoke ammunition on the order of $800,000 per round
These are all replacement programs that could have been (and in some cases were) started over a decade ago, but we are just now seeing the fruits of some of the very long development processes.
- the ERCA (Extended-Range Cannon Artillery) is not forecasted to enter service until 2025
- the AIM-260 is meant to enter production this year
- there is currently an ongoing competition between Sikorsky and Boeing to build the Army's next scout helicopter
- the DDG(X) program will replace both ship classes eventually, but is not even meant to begin construction until 2028
Meanwhile, one shining example of the successful replacements of older programs is the Virginia-class submarine. It remains one of the few examples of American military procurement that was delivered ahead of schedule and under budget, while still being a success.
Tangential: the USA had a mach 5 phoenix missile back in the 1970s on the F-14 and now they're re-fitting them with new guidance/etc to make a hypersonic test bed.
*1: Of course, when you're going hypersonic you only need tens of minutes to travel to the other side of the Earth.
This is in 1975.
That's a pretty fast missile...
(RV zips by at 3x the speed)
There are various types of ballistic missiles that go faster than this (and have been doing for decades) but since they are old they aren't as sexy as "hypersonic missiles".
The technology of a HGV and a maneuverable re-entry vehicle are essentially the same. The main reason for talking about "hypersonics" as a separate category today is to emphasize flight profiles that would not be interpreted as nuclear strikes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dl9Ovwmnxw&t=220s
I think this is the first video on that channel where the subject can match the guy's cadence. It's a great overview of the development of the Sprint though, worth watching if it's of interest.
Terminal ballistic missile defense is hard!
Who could build something like that today?
Air breathing hypersonics at altitude are real though. The US has successfully tested scramjets in the past. And currently has the HAWC program which has successfully flown twice now.
Historically, most of the bugs in new US hypersonic designs stem from an unwillingness to sacrifice terminal guidance performance for the sake of velocity. Sensor packages rapidly and unavoidably disintegrate due to atmospheric ablation in-flight, which makes terminal guidance very difficult (because your sensors barely work by the time they get to the target). Anyone can build a hypersonic missile if you are willing to forego high-quality terminal guidance, and most do. This is an extremely difficult engineering problem when operating at the fundamental limits of material physics but the US has been unwilling to field systems that don't address it.
I think it's quite understandable why this is the case - imagine spending hundreds of billions on carrier procurement, and simultaneously developing a weapon that more or less renders them obsolete.
The situation has changed in that there's news that the Russians and Chinese have overtaken the US in this field, as well as the Chinese started fielding similarly high-end carriers of their own, creating a legitimate target for US hypersonics.
Also lack of proper spending priorities: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJkmcNjh_bg
And corruption: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9i47sgi-V4
Russia’s reactive armour had egg cartons in place of explosive. The same oligarchs are delivering these weapons. Meanwhile, Moscow’s “smart” weapons missed entire airfields.
Too many people conflate the US deeming a weapons technology relatively ineffective given the (classified) capability matrix of their other systems with them not having the technology. Hypersonic endo-atmospheric guided missiles, for example, is an area where the US has deep design expertise going back several decades. They were designing and testing hypersonic guided missiles for battlefield(!) use in the 1980s.
Now after shaking off decades of counter insurgency warfare and pivoting to address a multipolar world instead it's not surprising they want to change up the mix. It doesn't mean there's some dire technology or capability gap fundamentally however.
Military stuff is entire operational systems vs other operational systems, yet nearly all these forum warrior conversations treat it as some sort of swipe left or swipe right pairwise comparison of two pieces of specific equipment.
Almost every weapon or weapon system can be described as defensive or offensive, depending on the motives of the person discussing said systems.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_aircraft_carrier_Shand... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_aircraft_carrier_Fujia...
No ski jump but still only conventionally powered.
Carriers are by no means obsolete, and ballistic missile defense is one of the things the Navy prioritizes heavily, and has done, for ages. Even for the DF-21 a carrier strike group is a tough nut to crack.
China's carriers are still a couple generations away from being at parity to the US fleet.
Sensationalized bait headline articles are not a good source for learning about this stuff. https://twitter.com/RickJoe_PLA writes for the large media brands with some regularity, and is strict about sticking to a substantive factual basis for everything.
This leads me to believe we're never going to get an accurate picture of the state of a weapon development program through the press. Is the F-35 program in trouble, or not? If it was why would you let your adversaries know this?
It's an interesting question to consider.
X15 was manned hypersonic vehicle in 1959. Pershing II had maneuverable hypersonic re-entry vehicle in the 80s. ICBM's are hypersonic or high hypersonic. Space shuttle was a hypersonic glider, so is X-37 currently operated by the US Space Force.
Case in point: The public had relatively little knowledge of the battlefield performance of current gen ATGM's prior to Russia's recent offensive in Ukraine. This is in spite of the fact "current gen" dates back to the 2003 US invasion of Iraq where they played a decisive role. Today, according to the press, ATGMs are the savior of Ukraine.
And the threat posed by ATGMs to improperly deployed tanks has been well understood since the 73 War where Israel first faced the Sagger ATGM.
Also, ATGMs didn't play a big role in either Iraq or Afghanistan, especially against armored vehicles. In Afghanistan the Javelin was used primarily as a bunker buster or knocking on cave doors. In Iraq, both TOW and Javelin were used for breaking up fortifications. Hellfire was used in the abortive Apache raid that showed how useless helicopter gunships were in a contested environment with lots of AAA.
This idea that there's a secret arsenal with staff and personal briefed on a need to know basis is just conspiracy theory. Sure, there are weapons in development that are secret, and specific capabilities are secret, but there's very few silver bullets hiding out in Tonopah or White Sands.
Agreed, but most didn't. I believe it was downplayed.
ATGMs didn't play a big role in either Iraq or Afghanistan
I said they played a "decisive" role. I should have said a "key" role. The battle of Debecka Pass is one such example.
Agreed. Key in the battle, not a key battle.
saved by F-18s flying CAS
That's not how the team explained it.
Not to mention that PAC-3 and the like can intercept such targets.
The US has had some version since the 1960s. What do you think ICBMs are?
Real discussions should quantify precision, error rate, speed, payload of missiles, etc.
Lockheed is in charge of development, just like the SLS program. I'm curious how hard it would be to have SpaceX make an attempt or if they would even be willing. Seems safe to say they know rockets far better than Lockheed
Lockheed tried to buy Aerojet Rocketdyne a couple years ago, the maker of the Shuttle's RS-25 engines, which are being re-used on SLS, but abandoned the acquisition. Boeing is the lead contractor for the launch vehicle.
Several big defense contractors are involved, but Lockheed isn't one of them.
Now, the fuckups seem to be mainly on Boeing's side of the fence, but it's incorrect to say that Lockheed isn't involved.
See "V2" by Dornberger.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-uses-hypersonic-...
Of course you’re also assuming that a country that can’t even manufacture a car is somehow able to maintain nukes.
If it flies we can stop it.
Our current mid-course interceptors only have about a 50% success rate if I remember correctly, and terminal interceptors only cover a small range. There is a reason why we only deploy interceptors to geo-politically important theaters like Israel or Korea:
1. Because we only need to intercept intermediate-range or short range ballistic missiles
2. They are pinpoint areas that yield large amounts of coverage (of human lives) for a single deployment
It wouldn't be possible to blanket the US population centers in interceptor sites. Even if we could, our current radar systems wouldn't detect hypersonic missiles before its too late, meaning we would need a satellite fleet to detect launches from space. MAD is going to be the best option.
For MAD scenarios, wouldn't attacking the US with stuff like fractional-orbital bombardment be more effective than hypersonic weapons?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_Orbital_Bombardment...
Another reason is to highlight the need for more funding. "We obviously need more money to run even more tests".
It's a very strong message. It's also propaganda, to control the narrative, distract and deceive.
Maybe they already know it's a dead end, or this is a test bed for something else. The cancelled rail-gun seemed like a giant materials science project, but maybe the Navy got _exactly_ what they needed.
If you commit a crime and tell the whole neighborhood that someone else did it, they are less likely to suspect you.
E.g. Putin calls Ukrainians neo Nazis even though he is acting like a Nazi.
Recall that we also once thought it was imperative to develop a "stealth" destroyer
Game theory-wise, the winner would be whoever struck first, since they would get to use their full arsenal. Retaliation could only be done reliably with submarines. That's what frightens me the most about hypersonic development. Whoever cracks the secret and can field the most will potentially upend MAD.
I don't think so.
Did you read my comment? I acknowledged that submarines would be the most reliable second strike option.
Those are a lot of "ifs" sure, but it's a numbers game. If deployed hypersonics were as numerous as ICBMs in the 80s, then it would be about who strikes first. If a first strike can reduce the enemy population by 90%, and reduce their second strike capability to kill only 70% of your own population, then striking first is in your best interest.
I am talking about the 21st century as a whole. Can we really be so sure that at some point MAD will cease to exist and someone pulls the trigger? I wouldn't be so complacent about it.
The MAD balance is still there for the most part. The most part being it is unclear what % of Russian nukes still work given the shit show of maintenance and graft shown in the convention forces used in the Ukraine.
US has 14 Ohio class subs, ~90 warheads each. This is in addition to 400 MM3 ICBMs. Unlike the Russians the US knows their weapons system will work.
Also I don't know what a "boomer" is, do you mean submarine?
Been like this for many decades. That it hasn’t happened is kind of surprising.
They would have to retaliate on every other (non-allied) country.
The US has quite a.lot of ASW resources, can identify subs, and you can't do that attack without providing a position fix.
Also, the US has other intelligence sources.
Also, current political situation helps narrow likely attackers.
Also, and perhaps most importantly, not a lot of people have hypersonic weapons and subs to deliver them near the US. Flashy unique capabilities are great in many ways, but they are absolute crap for obscuring responsibility.
The idea of nuclear winter has been largely debunked by modern science. Sure the places hit by nukes would be destroyed, but most nukes aren't powerful enough to push smoke into the atmosphere, so there'd be no global cloud blackening out the sun and ending all life on earth.
Everything changed after 9/11. There is a permanent Flight-Restricted Zone above the capital now.
Anyone pitching this is talking tripe. Russia can already do this. They’ve been able to do this since the 60s. We have no missile defence against a MAD attack, which is what you propose involves.
Also, mechanically, Russia’s hypersonics are air-to-ground, anti-ship and ballistic or semi-ballistic. They evade naval and missile defences with more kinetic energy. Even theoretically, a gliding hypersonic missile (a) screams a heat signature more trivially detectable than a ballistic and (b) rapidly bleeds off the kinetic energy that separates it from a cruise missile. In summary, it’s not some magic new category of weapon, but a trade-off between ICBMs and cruise missiles. (Note: not best of both worlds. More expensive, more detectable and less accurate than ballistic. More expensive, more detectable and less manoeuvrable than cruise.)
The real threat hypersonics pose is to carrier groups. With Russia that’s mostly hypothetical, since they apparently can’t even get their subsonic weapons to hit targets with accuracy.
A semi-ballistic cruise missile.
> At Mach 9, that's about 2-3 minutes to impact DC
ICBMs go Mach 20+ in their final stage. Falcon 9 flies faster than Zircon. Hypersonics don’t instantly accelerate. Their advantage is in flying low and plasma stealth, both of which are good against ground-based radar but not against anything in the air or in space.
If your stealth comes from submarine launch, you gain little from flying hypersonic. It’s faster than cruise or short-range ballistic, but much less accurate for a decapitation strike.
> Putin would survive
So would most of the U.S. government. (Not the civilian government, perhaps. But again, this is old news.) Certainly almost all of its military.
If you know where the other nation's leader is, first strike allows you a better chance at eliminating them. It's a marginal benefit. And Russia is more vulnerable to it. (Putin disappearing could create a violent scramble for power that diminishes its military's retaliatory capabilities in a way that taking out the President and say half the Cabinet would not.)
edit: if western intelligence had managed to cultivate the number of traitors and the amount of influence that it would take to quickly replace the Russian system, it would already have assassinated Putin. An assassination of Putin right now would unite the Russian public in its hatred for the US, not fragment it. The goal is to make the Russian public miserable enough that the US can get into this position.
Public opinion is irrelevant when considering decapitations. In Russia or anywhere else. The generals and intelligence agencies are the beginning and end of power in Moscow.
Putin is, as a dictator, personally the institution of power. That contrasts blindingly with America’s institution-oriented system. Taking out Putin is roughly similar to taking out the President and his Cabinet and the leaders of Congress. This is the dilemma of dictatorships. It’s weak in a way monarchies weren’t. (It is a weakness the Soviet Union and China (until Xi) didn’t suffer.)
Anybody who thinks that America wouldn’t retaliate and turn half of east-Asia into a sheet of radioactive glass is kidding themselves.
A nation is stronger than just the leader. Even in the age of kings, subordinates aristocrats wouldn’t walk willingly into a no win situation.
Also, time to reach the target may play a role, given that the launching platform cannot come closer than, say, 500 miles in either case. We assume that the adversary can detect the launch in either case; the time to react would be very different for a Tomahawk (about 0.75M; 1 hour) and a hypersonic missile (say, 5M; 10 min).
1) Get out of Poland, now.
2) Get out of anywhere to the east of Poland.
3) Get to American-controlled Germany. Register with the Americans, and say you were a low level bureaucrat. You will be immediately released, possibly with a stipend, and rearrested a couple of years later. Go to trial, be sentenced to life or death. You will be released before 1954. There will be a network of people you killed children with to help you get back on your feet, leaders of government and industry. Your fate after this relies on how much your peers respected your ability to kill. If you were good at it, and never complained, the sky is the limit.