Countermeasures for hypersonic weapons

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AI Thread Summary
Countermeasures against hypersonic weapons, which travel over 1.5 km/s, face significant challenges, particularly in interception. Conventional interceptors would need to be hypersonic and highly agile to effectively counter these missiles, as they must intercept from ahead rather than chase from behind. Laser systems may struggle due to the plasma sheath surrounding hypersonic missiles, which dissipates energy. Additionally, the agility of incoming hypersonic missiles complicates interception, requiring rapid course corrections from interceptors. Overall, the discussion highlights the complexity of developing effective defenses against this advanced class of weaponry.
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  • #152
  • #153
Roberto Teso said:
To return to the subject, while I have several doubts about the feasibility of large and maneuverable hypersonic weapon,

According to public (not classified) information, DF-17 is supposed to be that.

edit: Specifically the DF-ZF 'glider warhead' it can carry.
 
  • #154
ardnog said:
According to public (not classified) information, DF-17 is supposed to be that.

edit: Specifically the DF-ZF 'glider warhead' it can carry.

Yeah I don't really understand the skepticism about the feasibility here. These vehicles already exist, just not in large numbers. It's more a question of strategy and how revolutionary (overblown or not?) as opposed to technical capability.
 
  • #155
For now I have not seen any flight records from any of these hypersonic weapons, while I have seen all the difficulties of the attempts made with experimental vehicles (X-43, X-51) simply trying to reach and hold a hypersonic regime.

Sure, I don't think this is the crux of the matter, but the relationship between the cost and the benefits of this type of armament.

Hypersonic missiles: Three questions every reader should ask

Cool your jets: Some perspective on the hyping of hypersonic weapons
 
  • #156
Roberto Teso said:
For now I have not seen any flight records from any of these hypersonic weapons, while I have seen all the difficulties of the attempts made with experimental vehicles (X-43, X-51) simply trying to reach and hold a hypersonic regime.

Sure, I don't think this is the crux of the matter, but the relationship between the cost and the benefits of this type of armament.

Hypersonic missiles: Three questions every reader should ask

Cool your jets: Some perspective on the hyping of hypersonic weapons

One persistent issue here is that the nature of these vehicles (in any of the countries rapidly pursuing them) is such that the flight records will not be very public (with the exception of Vladimir Putin's public bluster). I don't foresee that changing in the near future.

----

The first link you posted has some good thoughts, but I think their focus on the mission for hypersonic weapons is too narrow and the conclusions are therefore off. The bottom line is that hypersonic weapons are not (at least in the U.S. view) intended as a replacement for ICBMs. This is reflected in some of his answers to his own questions.

"Compared to what?"
These new systems shouldn't be compared to existing ballistic missiles. At least the way that the U.S. envisions them, they are more comparable to a Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM) or the AGM-158 JASSM, which are standoff range subsonic cruise missiles. The U.S. intends for new hypersonic weapons to be non-nuclear and a way to attack targets in denied airspace from standoff range. I would argue that even a depressed trajectory ballistic missile would look too much like an actual nuclear launch to an adversary, so that is not an option for this mission (and is much more expensive to boot), and our existing cruise missiles are much slower and "easier" to shoot down than something moving at Mach 5+.

The author also notes that the Iranians/Houthis successfully attacked the Saudi Aramco facility in 2019 with more conventional drone and cruise missile technology and the attack was not stopped, so hypersonics are overkill. However, that facility allegedly had something like a single Patriot system, which is not optimized for low-level threats like that and also doesn't have enough missiles that can be launched quickly enough to take out a large number of low, slow targets. This is a known issue, but one that is actively being worked by the defense department and seemingly has tractable solutions on the horizon (e.g. directed energy). Also notable: Saudi Arabia and China/Russia are very different states with different capabilities. Articles calling hypersonics "unstoppable" are hyperbole at best, but no one currently has the tech to do so and it's going to be expensive and difficult to develop it (as opposed to the Aramco example, which is much more tractable).

"So what?"
The author claims that ICBM targets cannot be predicted before launch. This is true but a red herring. Once they are launched, the targets can be determined relatively accurately. Not perfectly, but you don't need to know it perfectly to try and intercept it in the midcourse and by then you have a better idea of its target to get ready for the next layer of defense. The newer hypersonic systems are not predictable for much longer. Of course you could still try to intercept during its glide/cruise phase (which we currently can't do as far as I know), but it will be even harder than an ICBM or TLAM/JASSM in its terminal phase due to the combination of speed and maneuverability.

"Motivation..."
I think the key thing the author misses here is that one of the missions that hypersonic weapons can fill is one that ICBMs could already fill. The key point is that this is not the only role hypersonic weapons can fill. If you view them as filling a similar role to more standard cruise missiles, only faster and harder to stop, then the calculus changes.

----

The second article is definitely interesting. The discussion of L/D for gliders is one I have wondered about myself. I don't have an answer to that, and if I did I am sure I would not be allowed to tell you. The only thing I will note is that gliders don't need to fly straight and level, so that would at least partially negate some of the issues the author cites.

This is also why, at least in the U.S. view, air-breathing systems are the real holy grail here, not gliders. The author actually has no technical rebuttal to air-breathing cruise missiles. His main point can be succinctly summarized as "scramjets are hard." Of course that is true, but lots of things are hard but still tractable.

But then the author gets back to comparing primarily against ballistic missiles, which I again thing is the wrong comparison to be making.

----

Clearly there needs to be a big international diplomatic discussion about these weapons, how they intersect with nuclear technology, etc. However, for me, their strategic value and technical feasibility is not really a question at this point. Though admittedly, maybe I am just too close to the R&D for these things to be 100% objective as the author suggests.
 
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  • #159
boneh3ad said:
I saw this yesterday. I find it amusing that they publicly-released range just happens to exactly coincide with the distance from Guam to Taipei. Or, rather, "at least" that distance.
I noticed that also. It brought the image of a barrage of missiles crashing in the Taiwanese surf to mind.
 
  • #160
caz said:
I noticed that also. It brought the image of a barrage of missiles crashing in the Taiwanese surf to mind.

It's really more aimed specifically at telling the Chinese government "If you invade Taiwan, we can mount a defense from our own territory." Whether it is actually farther than that (as they sort of implied) is not relevant to the message they were intending to deliver.
 
  • #161
boneh3ad said:
It's really more aimed specifically at telling the Chinese government "If you invade Taiwan, we can mount a defense from our own territory." Whether it is actually farther than that (as they sort of implied) is not relevant to the message they were intending to deliver.
I wonder if they deliberately chose a distance that would not hit the mainland.
 
  • #162
China will soon have lasers to destroy any missile.
 
  • #163
AlexCaledin said:
China will soon have lasers to destroy any missile.

Short, absolutist statements are a great way to demonstrate an appreciation for and understanding of the nuances of this problem.
 
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  • #164
  • #165
nsaspook said:
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021...ic-aircraft-chief-on-treason-suspicion-a74769Secrets don't stay secret forever.
True. For every method, a countermeasure.

Eventually, secret tech emerges as household technology, science progresses. At best 'secret' meant; either the secret required specialized education and/or a clearance level to understand content.

Hypersonic flight technology progresses to civilian aircraft and safe procedures. Satellite based traffic control radar systems permit upper atmosphere layering and hand off to local control for insertion and landing.
 
  • #166
nsaspook said:
Secrets don't stay secret forever.
How would you know if some did? :wink:
 
  • #167
DaveC426913 said:
How would you know if some did? :wink:
There goes your PF Security Clearance Dave! Sorry.
 
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  • #168
nsaspook said:
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021...ic-aircraft-chief-on-treason-suspicion-a74769Secrets don't stay secret forever.
Probably a bureaucratic event.
The guy is a public person, represents Russia at major industry events and obviously talks about his work and his teams successes.
Expect he gets fees and honoraria, probably worth more than his official salary, which leaves him vulnerable to some put up scandal. Very much a normal event in top down autocracies such as the Soviets or the Nazis used to run. Certainly not helpful for the Russian hypersonics effort though.
 
  • #169
DaveC426913 said:
How would you know if some did? :wink:
Most of the time the public never knows about some government secret being exposed so, yes, we wouldn't know but history and human nature are good indicators that 'Hook or Crook' will be used if it's important to know.
 
  • #170
nsaspook said:
Secrets don't stay secret forever.
I think it's more like the resurgence of the old times than actual treason (above the level of usual talk-and-discuss between scientists).

Of course we'll need another half century to know.
 
  • #171
This seems right:
 
  • #172
hutchphd said:
This seems right:

Not strictly accurate. I think she does a pretty decent job covering the technical definitions and challenges (with some notable errors), but overall a good high level overview.
  1. The illustration of sound waves and the Doppler effect is what explains Mach waves, not shock waves. If you look at the angles that form there, they are different.
  2. She didn't explicitly say that the vapor cone on the F-18 flying by the carrier was a shock wave, but didn't really do anything to debunk that oft-claimed fallacy, either.
  3. The question of what makes Mach 5 the barrier between supersonic and hypersonic is a complicated one. It's not a hard cutoff (like Mach 1 for supersonic). There are multiple different phenomena that characterize hypersonic flows and not all of them occur at Mach 5 (including some of them she cites, like flow chemistry). You'd lose the attention of a general audience with a detailed discussion on this topic, though.
  4. 3.5 minutes is the publicly-released record for scramjet flight. In a field like this and with as much money going into it as it is right now, I would not be terribly surprised if something has beaten that record and they just haven't released the information publicly.
  5. Most of the technology is ready, despite her claims. There are certainly still challenges, but the majority of the major technical problems are solved, if not yet optimized for design.
  6. The fuel problem isn't going away for commercial travel, but for weapons that problem is much more tractable.
  7. The paper by the MIT folks, none of whom are aerodynamicists, was riddled with questionable assumptions and therefore I don't think her own conclusions are valid given they are based solely on that paper.
    • Chief among them is the idea that hypersonic missiles are imagined (at least in the US) as a replacement for strategic ballistic missiles. They aren't.
    • The general's comment about halving delivery time clearly adds the stipulation that it depends on the launch platform and location. The general idea is that hypersonic missiles are smaller and easier to transport than an ICBM and could be launched from much closer. The authors simply ignored that bit.
    • Hypersonic vehicles are easy to detect via satellite only if the optics on the satellite are designed to be looking at the relevant altitude. If they are just standard IR spy satellites, that sort of altitude will be highly out of focus.
  8. She would be dismayed to learn that Germany is also investing in this area quite heavily.
  9. It is healthy to ask questions and challenge the orthodoxy. There are some pretty decent reasons to be skeptical of hypersonic hype. But the paper cited is not an objective example of this. It's two people with an agenda that led to a pre-determined conclusion.
P.S. I love the fact that she laughs at Kevin Bowcutt's matter/antimatter propulsion prognostication. It's the only appropriate response.
 
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  • #173
boneh3ad said:
Not strictly accurate. I think she does a pretty decent job covering the technical definitions and challenges (with some notable errors), but overall a good high level overview.
  1. The illustration of sound waves and the Doppler effect is what explains Mach waves, not shock waves. If you look at the angles that form there, they are different.
  2. She didn't explicitly say that the vapor cone on the F-18 flying by the carrier was a shock wave, but didn't really do anything to debunk that oft-claimed fallacy, either.
  3. The question of what makes Mach 5 the barrier between supersonic and hypersonic is a complicated one. It's not a hard cutoff (like Mach 1 for supersonic). There are multiple different phenomena that characterize hypersonic flows and not all of them occur at Mach 5 (including some of them she cites, like flow chemistry). You'd lose the attention of a general audience with a detailed discussion on this topic, though.
  4. 3.5 minutes is the publicly-released record for scramjet flight. In a field like this and with as much money going into it as it is right now, I would not be terribly surprised if something has beaten that record and they just haven't released the information publicly.
  5. Most of the technology is ready, despite her claims. There are certainly still challenges, but the majority of the major technical problems are solved, if not yet optimized for design.
  6. The fuel problem isn't going away for commercial travel, but for weapons that problem is much more tractable.
  7. The paper by the MIT folks, none of whom are aerodynamicists, was riddled with questionable assumptions and therefore I don't think her own conclusions are valid given they are based solely on that paper.
    • Chief among them is the idea that hypersonic missiles are imagined (at least in the US) as a replacement for strategic ballistic missiles. They aren't.
    • The general's comment about halving delivery time clearly adds the stipulation that it depends on the launch platform and location. The general idea is that hypersonic missiles are smaller and easier to transport than an ICBM and could be launched from much closer. The authors simply ignored that bit.
    • Hypersonic vehicles are easy to detect via satellite only if the optics on the satellite are designed to be looking at the relevant altitude. If they are just standard IR spy satellites, that sort of altitude will be highly out of focus.
  8. She would be dismayed to learn that Germany is also investing in this area quite heavily.
  9. It is healthy to ask questions and challenge the orthodoxy. There are some pretty decent reasons to be skeptical of hypersonic hype. But the paper cited is not an objective example of this. It's two people with an agenda that led to a pre-determined conclusion.
P.S. I love the fact that she laughs at Kevin Bowcutt's matter/antimatter propulsion prognostication. It's the only appropriate response.
Thank you, boneh3ad, for this clear appraisal.
Your Point 7 very effectively highlights the tendentious arguments being floated.
It is not a sound piece of work imho.
 
  • #174
Roberto Teso said:
For now I have not seen any flight records from any of these hypersonic weapons, while I have seen all the difficulties of the attempts made with experimental vehicles (X-43, X-51) simply trying to reach and hold a hypersonic regime.
Sorry for the post dig here, but just wanted to make sure you were aware that these utilized scramjets, or airbreathing engines. HTV-2, and its supposed velocities and flight regime, display more current capabilities in hypersonics when utilizing rocket engines rather than airbreathing tech.

I'd say we're more than capable of delivering a payload in the hypersonic regime- feel free to check me if I've misunderstood your post or if there's some caveat to weaponizing hypersonics that mandate an airbreathing engine (admittedly most of my background is just the commercial side and space launch).
 
  • #175
Hi everyone, since the last post in this thread there have been a few "developments".
I'm sure by now everyone is aware of Hypersonic weapons being fielded in the Ukraine,
I won't bother posting a news links since there are plenty to go around but I would like to post a relevant link concerning the Title of this thread. After reading through from the beginning it seems eight months or so can make a big difference, I mean BIG.

The paper linked seems pretty solid, I'm hoping it gets some discussion here.

From; https://www.csis.org/analysis/complex-air-defense-countering-hypersonic-missile-threat

You get the PDF Download link; https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazon...rDefense.pdf?SmaHq1sva9Sk.TSlzpXqWY72fg8PdLvA

The first link is basically an abstract presentation, the "meat" is in the PDF, enjoy.

Thanks for your consideration, Scott
 
  • #176
Oldman too said:
Hi everyone, since the last post in this thread there have been a few "developments".
I'm sure by now everyone is aware of Hypersonic weapons being fielded in the Ukraine,
I won't bother posting a news links since there are plenty to go around but I would like to post a relevant link concerning the Title of this thread. After reading through from the beginning it seems eight months or so can make a big difference, I mean BIG.

The paper linked seems pretty solid, I'm hoping it gets some discussion here.

From; https://www.csis.org/analysis/complex-air-defense-countering-hypersonic-missile-threat

You get the PDF Download link; https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazon...rDefense.pdf?SmaHq1sva9Sk.TSlzpXqWY72fg8PdLvA

The first link is basically an abstract presentation, the "meat" is in the PDF, enjoy.

Thanks for your consideration, Scott
I'm not sure what big difference you are implying here. There hasn't been a new defense system developed in the last 8 months or anything. More money has been thrown at the problem but it's too early for that to have borne fruit.
 
  • #177
boneh3ad said:
I'm not sure what big difference you are implying here. There hasn't been a new defense system developed in the last 8 months or anything. More money has been thrown at the problem but it's too early for that to have borne fruit.
Hi, please allow me to elucidate on my post and it's points.
boneh3ad said:
I'm not sure what big difference you are implying here.
The biggest differences from earlier posts in this thread are, prior to the past few days hypersonic missiles have not been used in combat, also the only practical information concerning defense presented in this thread (that I have noticed) is the youtube video you commented on, and as you noted that presentation is likely flawed on multiple technological points. I appreciate your opinion on the tech, thus I'm posting the PDF for your, and others to review and comment, particularly how the PDF presentation compares to the video presentation.

Reading over the posts in this thread, I couldn't help but notice that it has been long on opinions (some good points, some not so good) and a little short on the current "State of the art" concerning realistic defense options. My hope is that, moving forward with this discussion, (which seems extremely relevant to the current situation in Europe) there will be a better understanding of hypersonic threats and defense against those threats.

While you're statement "There hasn't been a new defense system developed in the last 8 months or anything." is true, the presentation I've linked is a huge step in the right direction, development will be some time coming but this is a critical issue that will likely (I hope) get attention sooner than later.

Concerning the problem "having money thrown at it", that unfortunately seems to be how the defense system has functioned for as long as I can remember. We can hope this situation is different but I wouldn't bet on it,
at least this "money toss" would be put to good use if it results in a system that neutralizes the hypersonic threat. (my opinion only, but it seems logical)

I'd like to conclude by saying, this subject is way above my pay grade. I don't expect or hope to add any technical info of my own, only bring about an informed discussion and exchange of ideas involving the report I've posted and its relevance to defense. This seems like a perfect "forum" for that discussion, considering the aggregate knowledge PF represents. I don't want or intend for this to be a discussion on the Ukrainian situation, its just my example of the urgency that the defense tech needs to be developed.

I'm curious as to the opinions here regarding the presentation mentioned, I'd like to see it examined and its merits discussed, that would, as they say be awesome.

Scott
 
  • #179
The most advanced military tech remains classified. Nearly every tool and tactic, especially counter-measures, carries at least a Secret label. Even after some of my favorite 'old' systems appear on movies and videos, I try to avoid describing how to actually use them against threats, even while introducing new engineers and scientists to the history.

Secrecy requires a mindset, a sense of cooperation, as long as we develop weapon systems.
 
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  • #181
The CSIS report is great in that it summarizes the current state of defenses against hypersonic weapons and the challenges inherent in upgrading them or fielding new ones. Having said that, none of the information is really new. It's existing information packaged in a nice, publicly releasable format. That will help raise awareness and appreciation of the problem.

I'm also not intending to disparage the idea of throwing money at the problem. You can't make progress without money. Engineers and technicians have to eat and materials cost money. But money doesn't immediately (or even always) turn into workable solutions. It takes time.

Having said that, there is now a major funded program ongoing to take a first shot at solving this problem, the Glide Phase Interceptor (GPI): https://www.defensenews.com/pentago...sign-hypersonic-missile-interceptors-for-mda/
 
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  • #182
boneh3ad said:
See also: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...med-kinzhal-hypersonic-missile-use-in-ukraine
Wow, talk about exposing falsehoods. Here's a passage from that article. Now flip the coin and suppose the War Zone is pushing fake news; how do we expose that? Fact checking can be very labor intensive.

The War Zone hasn't yet been able to geolocate the supposed target using commercial satellite imagery that matches what is seen in the video, which appears more like a large above-ground warehouse or barn. There’s also a distinct lack of secondary explosions as one would expect when rocket fuel and explosives cook-off. It’s still possible a Kinzhal hit the base, but the video is suspect at a minimum.
 
  • #183
anorlunda said:
Wow, talk about exposing falsehoods. Here's a passage from that article. Now flip the coin and suppose the War Zone is pushing fake news; how do we expose that? Fact checking can be very labor intensive.
Very labor intensive for sure. Having said that, the information that War Zone publishes is generally publicly available, so you could go and check if you so desired.

Note that they did eventually geolocate the target in that video and it was hundreds of miles to the east of where the Russian MoD claimed it was. They clearly used old footage from a different strike. That doesn't mean that they didn't actually fire a Kinzhal, but if they did, they decided not to show actual video (or more likely didn't have any given the supposed target's location).
 
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  • #184
Yep, I posted about using modified Phalanx and Aegis systems repurposed for land engagements to counter missile attacks in the 'Worried About Ukraine' thread. Next day Russia attacked a military training facility in West Ukraine with a massive cruise missile barrage. Some missiles survived to engage the target.

Seems like an enormous expense, symbolic perhaps?

New York Times article from 13 Mar 2022.
 
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  • #185
Klystron said:
The most advanced military tech remains classified. Nearly every tool and tactic, especially counter-measures, carries at least a Secret label. Even after some of my favorite 'old' systems appear on movies and videos, I try to avoid describing how to actually use them against threats, even while introducing new engineers and scientists to the history.

Secrecy requires a mindset, a sense of cooperation, as long as we develop weapon systems.
I agree 100%, obfuscation is part of these programs by design. While reading about the Blackbird in the 80's I recall how stunned I was to learn it was in use during a particular SE Asian conflict, pretty impressive for 1960's tech. One analogy might be, laying down your hand at the beginning of a poker game, from a military point of view, you're going to come up aces and eights.
 
  • #186
boneh3ad said:
The CSIS report is great in that it summarizes the current state of defenses against hypersonic weapons and the challenges inherent in upgrading them or fielding new ones. Having said that, none of the information is really new. It's existing information packaged in a nice, publicly releasable format. That will help raise awareness and appreciation of the problem.

I'm also not intending to disparage the idea of throwing money at the problem. You can't make progress without money. Engineers and technicians have to eat and materials cost money. But money doesn't immediately (or even always) turn into workable solutions. It takes time.

Having said that, there is now a major funded program ongoing to take a first shot at solving this problem, the Glide Phase Interceptor (GPI): https://www.defensenews.com/pentago...sign-hypersonic-missile-interceptors-for-mda/
I appreciate your post very much, useful is an understatement. I'm particularly pleased with the quality bookmarks I'm collecting from this thread.

You can rest assured I'll be busy reading from the recent links for a while, Thanks again everyone.:thumbup:
 
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  • #187
Klystron said:
Yep, I posted about using modified Phalanx and Aegis systems repurposed for land engagements to counter missile attacks in the 'Worried About Ukraine' thread. Next day Russia attacked a military training facility in West Ukraine with a massive cruise missile barrage. Some missiles survived to engage the target.

Seems like an enormous expense, symbolic perhaps?

New York Times article from 13 Mar 2022.
It's also odd because the range didn't seem to warrant it. They have other more plentiful weapons that could have hit the same target just fine. I've seen speculation that it was either meant as a message to the West or signified they were running low on stocks or confidence in other precision systems. Or both. No one really knows (or is allowed to publicly say they know, anyway).
 
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  • #188
boneh3ad said:
It's also odd because the range didn't seem to warrant it. They have other more plentiful weapons that could have hit the same target just fine. I've seen speculation that it was either meant as a message to the West or signified they were running low on stocks or confidence in other precision systems. Or both. No one really knows (or is allowed to publicly say they know, anyway).
Most likely high end terrorism.
 
  • #189
boneh3ad said:
It's also odd because the range didn't seem to warrant it. They have other more plentiful weapons that could have hit the same target just fine. I've seen speculation that it was either meant as a message to the West or signified they were running low on stocks or confidence in other precision systems. Or both. No one really knows (or is allowed to publicly say they know, anyway).
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/22/russia-hypersonic-missiles-low-stockpile-00019358
 
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  • #192
caz said:
https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/americ...lead-in-hypersonic-cruise-missile-technology/
And only a month ago we were cowering in fear over Russian hypersonic strikes in Ukraine.
The media are a bunch of blind men describing an elephant.
Who was cowering in fear? Kinzhal is kind of "hypersonic lite" but Russia still has actual hypersonic weapons. But their numbers are few and they're not as tactically usefully as what we are developing.

Having said that, I only partially agree with the author of that article. It's possible to still be behind in the race but with an advantage for the next leg of it.
 
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  • #193
Washington Post prints this article on Russia's hypersonic missile use in Ukraine with diagrams among other weapons. This non-technical article contains discrepancies such as sea vs. air launch.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/23/russia-ukraine-weapons-missiles-nukes-drones/

Russia’s weapon is named Kinzhal — Russian for “dagger.” A modified version of Russia’s ground-launched Iskander missile, it is an air-launched ballistic missile that can be maneuvered to hit a target or dodge defenses. Russian officials say the missile was used last week to hit an ammunition depot in western Ukraine.

On Wednesday, Russia said it had also used a long-range cruise missile called Kalibr in an attack on Ukrainian forces earlier in the week. The missile, which can be launched from sea, was first used by Russian forces in Syria. U.S. officials said they could not confirm that the weapon had been used.

1649424688226.png
 
  • #194
boneh3ad said:
Who was cowering in fear?
My comment was directed at media coverage of military technologies. I agree that there is nothing special about Kinzhal.

While there is additional military utility for hypersonic weapons, I am sticking with my post from 2020.
caz said:
There is a lot of hype about hypersonic weapons. There are not very many cases where it is currently cost effective to stop a non-hypersonic weapon.
 
  • #195
  • #196
caz said:
My comment was directed at media coverage of military technologies. I agree that there is nothing special about Kinzhal.

While there is additional military utility for hypersonic weapons, I am sticking with my post from 2020.
Your 2020 comment is a good one. If Russia, for example, wanted a nuclear holocaust we couldn't stop it whether they used newer hypersonic missiles or standard ICBMs. There are just too many ICBMs and not enough interceptors.

This is why I'm not worried about Russia's systems. They're largely either nothingburgers like Kinzhal or just new ways to hold enemy cities at risk, which their ICBMs already do.

China's approach is different, though. Their DF-ZF is intended to be used to sink carriers from stand-off range. That's a much more tactically and strategically relevant system that isn't really subject to MAD deterrence. Basically, if China decided to invade Taiwan, we wouldn't be able to safely park carriers within range (assuming the DF-ZF works as claimed).

Meanwhile, what the US is developing is intended largely to be used more like very fast Tomahawk missiles. Basically, build a large number of smaller, tactical systems that can be used for fleeting targets and in contested airspace.

So I think the potential utility depends largely on the strategy in how they are fielded and used. This is why the Sandboxx author has a point. The US systems under development are likely to be much more useful for the types of things we have in mind and more scalable. But we don't have them yet and others (notably China) do have relevant systems for their own strategies.
 
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  • #197
boneh3ad said:
I don't see the discrepancy. Iskander is a ground launched SRBM. Kinzhal is an air launched modification of Iskander.
Right. Thanks for the clarification. My knowledge of missiles remains slight; my aero and radar career focused primarily on fixed-wing aircraft. The WP series describes evasive counter-measures employed by these missiles penetrating controlled battle space.

If I understood correctly, these missiles avoid detection by flying nap-of-the-earth (NOE) and can vary thrust depending on midflight commands entering hypersonic flight when necessary, say when acquired by look-down radars or after being locked by an interceptor. This description confirms several prior posts that hypersonic flight is just one counter-measure used by essentially a NOE cruise missile.
 
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  • #198
Klystron said:
Right. Thanks for the clarification. My knowledge of missiles remains slight; my aero and radar career focused primarily on fixed-wing aircraft. The WP series describes evasive counter-measures employed by these missiles penetrating controlled battle space.

If I understood correctly, these missiles avoid detection by flying nap-of-the-earth (NOE) and can vary thrust depending on midflight commands entering hypersonic flight when necessary, say when acquired by look-down radars or after being locked by an interceptor. This description confirms several prior posts that hypersonic flight is just one counter-measure used by essentially a NOE cruise missile.
This depends on the type of missile in question, as not all of these planned hypersonic systems are the same. There are, broadly, two types of hypersonic strike weapons under development by various countries right now: boost glide and air breathing.

Boost-glide weapons get boosted to a high speed by a rocket and then glide unpowered to their target. Naturally, they lose energy as they fly and the only way they can change speeds is through changing altitude or due to lost energy during maneuvers.

Air-breathing systems are basically scramjet-powered cruise missiles, so they should be able to change speeds to at least some degree. After a boost up to the speeds required for their propulsion to function, they also no longer need to carry oxidizer aboard so they can be smaller and lighter or, alternatively, have longer range per total mass.

Both of these types will tend to fly NOE in some sense, though what that means in this context is far different from, say, an F-4 Wild Weasel on a SEAD/DEAD mission. The ranges involved mean they can still fly quite high for most of the path and the speeds mean once they are detected by a ground-based radar, there is very little time to react. They also fly lower than typical existing space-based detection and tracking systems can typically handle since those were designed to track ICBMs flying at a much higher altitude. See the image in this post I made earlier in the thread for a better idea of what I mean here (though it doesn't show satellites).

Maneuvers are not generally related to speed (or at least not speed alone). They can do all kinds of maneuvers using control surfaces.

In short, the new systems fly below the region traditionally covered by satellite detection and tracking and so fast that, by the time a ground-based radar near the target detects it, it's almost too late. It can then maneuver around as you try to intercept it (though to what degree is a closely-held secret by all parties).

Ultimately, it's not an impossible problem, and anyone pitching it as one ignores the fact that, throughout human history, someone always devises a new shield any time their opponent designs a new spear. It is a very hard problem, though. It's just a question of how fast that can be developed, at what cost, and what can or will happen in the meantime.
 
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  • #199
boneh3ad said:
It's just a question of how fast that can be developed, at what cost,
Just wondering if the war game is pricing itself out of existence with these advanced systems.
Make a bunch of high tech systems; use them as a deterrence.
And try to never use them, nor the either side use them, as they are so costly and will bankrupt you pretty darn quickly, in addition to losing your whole fighting force pretty darn quickly.
Just a thought.
 
  • #200
256bits said:
Just wondering if the war game is pricing itself out of existence with these advanced systems.
Make a bunch of high tech systems; use them as a deterrence.
And try to never use them, nor the either side use them, as they are so costly and will bankrupt you pretty darn quickly, in addition to losing your whole fighting force pretty darn quickly.
Just a thought.
I guess we will see. The DoD has publicly and repeatedly expressed a strong desire for the defense industry to find a way to push the coats way down so they can field many of these in tactical roles. That certainly seems unlikely to be true of the first batch of systems with all of the sunk R&D costs and no established economies of scale, but may be reasonable for second generation systems. Finding ways to make it more economical is itself a major R&D focus.
 
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