Countermeasures for hypersonic weapons

[boneh3ad]

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/

 

[anorlunda]

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.

 

[boneh3ad]

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).

 

[Klystron]

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.

 

[Oldman too]

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.

 

[Oldman too]

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.

 

[boneh3ad]

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).

 

[Oldman too]

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.

 

[boneh3ad]

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

 

[Oldman too]

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/22/russia-hypersonic-missiles-low-stockpile-00019358

Interesting, I hope that turns out to be the case.

 

[Frabjous]

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.

 

[boneh3ad]

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.

 

[Klystron]

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.

 

[Frabjous]

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.

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.

 

[boneh3ad]

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/
View attachment 299605

I don't see the discrepancy. Iskander is a ground launched SRBM. Kinzhal is an air launched modification of Iskander.

 

[boneh3ad]

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.

 

[Klystron]

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.

 

[boneh3ad]

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.

 

[256bits]

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.

 

[boneh3ad]

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.

 

[Frabjous]

Modern War Institute (West Point) podcast on hypersonics
https://mwi.usma.edu/mwi-podcast-breaking-down-the-hypersonic-missile-threat/

 

[Flyboy]

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.

Correct on both points. Most modern missile defense, whether against subsonic, supersonic, hypersonic, or exoatmospheric weapons, is predicated on predicting where the target will be at a given time. That's why it's comparatively easy to intercept an ICBM reentry vehicle (or decoy), as it's on a "fixed" path and unable to maneuver defensively, and easier to counter sub- and supersonic weapons, as the speeds are slower and you have more time for your interceptor to react. The challenge with hypersonic, especially stuff that can maneuver, is the ability of the target to maneuver in ways that make the intercept far more difficult to successfully complete. Not impossible, as you can throw enough interceptors up and guarantee you'll kill the target by simply covering all possible vectors it could use to evade, but that gets cost and resource prohibitive in a hurry. Similarly, using a big enough 'boom' can do the trick, and that was considered a viable strategy in the Cold War for the SAFEGUARD program. Sprint and Spartan both carried nuclear warheads to compensate for the challenges in using 1960s computing to intercept incoming ICBM RVs within and outside the atmosphere, respectively. Sprint, iirc, used the blast effect and the radiation pulse to effect the kill, while Spartan was exclusively a radiation kill using high x-ray flux, but that's a topic for another thread.

As for the DF-ZF, I think there's more capability in defending a US carrier battlegroup than is widely publicized, for obvious reasons, including the ability to perform a "soft" or "mission" kill on the warhead. If you kill the electronics on it with a high powered maser, for example, it can't guide to the target, right? I don't know exactly how much power the current radars on the Arleigh Burkes are, but my dad used to do work on the earlier ones, especially their power control system. (Liquid cooled vacuum tubes, if you can believe it.) He says there's enough power there to cause some serious havoc on electronic systems, and the new radars are even more powerful and capable. I suspect brighter minds than mine could figure out a way to use those huge AESA radars to fry multiple incoming warheads seekers in less time than it takes for you to read this post.

And yeah, the US is looking hard at a range of hypersonic weapons, both boost-glide and air-breathing, mainly for extended range, time sensitive strike against well defended targets. I mean, if you get actionable intel on the location of a DF-ZF TEL, you don't want to wait 2 hours for a subsonic, non-stealthy Tomahawk to cruise to the area. that TEL is gonna be long gone by the time the missile would arrive, if it ever arrives at all. But a ARRW dropped from a B-52 loitering a thousand miles out will get there in reasonable timeframes, and stand a very good chance of getting through the defenses. Or, use it to destroy air defense capabilities that could threaten something like the B-21, allowing several such aircraft to slip into enemy airspace to provide more precise targeting data for follow-on strikes. Heck, even just slamming one into a runway where they launch long-range fighters and tankers from would shut that airfield down for several valuable hours while they patch the runway up. It's no Durendal or SG-357 submunition (dedicated anti-runway weapons), but I wager it'll still crater that runway pretty well.

 

[nsaspook]

They claim it's a hypersonic missile but who knows what it really is.

 

[Vanadium 50]

t's a hypersonic missile

In the words of Jacques Clousseau "Not any more."

 

[boneh3ad]

It's a Kh-47M2 Kinzhal according to the Ukrainians, Russians, and Americans.

It's a missile and it travels at hypersonic speeds. But it is not the same as as the more modern maneuverable hypersonic missiles that have been the topic of discussion lately. It's the light beer of hypersonic missiles. It's more correctly an aeroballistic missile, i.e., a short range ballistic missile launched from an aircraft to give it more energy.

I am not surprised the Kinzhal can be intercepted. I'd be a lot less confident if it were one of the more modern missiles like a Russian 3M22 Tsirkon or Chinese DF-17.

 

[berkeman]

like a Russian 3M22 Tsirkon

Why are they using the Kinzhal instead of the Tsirkon? Is it mainly a supply problem?

 

[boneh3ad]

Why are they using the Kinzhal instead of the Tsirkon? Is it mainly a supply problem?

Russia goes out of their way to oversell their stuff. There are probably a few reasons for that: propaganda (both domestic and international), no one willing to tell the boss bad news, etc. They do that with the Kinzhal, but it appears increasingly likely those have now been depantsed as still being relatively standard SRBMs with a bit of a speed boost.

Tsirkon is a much larger technical challenge and much more expensive. It's been debated in public whether they are even truly operational yet, and even if they are, how many Russia even has in stock. Maybe non-public sources know more, but obviously that information isn't just floating around or freely accessible (though, in fairness, I haven't checked any War Thunder forums lately ). I believe they are also primarily anti-ship missiles.

 

[nsaspook]

I'm pretty impressed by the anti-missile defense network. Old man Patriot looked pretty good.
https://www.businessinsider.com/pat...l-hypersonic-ballistic-missile-experts-2023-5

Russia's Kinzhal was never an unstoppable hypersonic missile, but killing one with a Patriot is still 'impressive,'​

 

[berkeman]

https://www.businessinsider.com/pat...l-hypersonic-ballistic-missile-experts-2023-5

Interesting graphic:

 

[boneh3ad]

I'm pretty impressed by the anti-missile defense network. Old man Patriot looked pretty good.
https://www.businessinsider.com/pat...l-hypersonic-ballistic-missile-experts-2023-5

Russia's Kinzhal was never an unstoppable hypersonic missile, but killing one with a Patriot is still 'impressive,'​

Kinzhal was never a superweapon. But Patriot has a history of being seriously oversold (e.g., in the Gulf War when it was sold as having a nearly 100% success rate against Scuds and apparently had a nearly 0% success rate in reality). So to me this is very interesting because it's a very public demonstration of how much improvement these systems have had.