Countermeasures for hypersonic weapons

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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.
  • #211
boneh3ad said:
Russia goes out of their way to oversell their stuff.
Yes they do. The Moskva was an invincible flagship. Now it's an artificial reef at the bottom of the Black Sea.
 
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  • #212
boneh3ad said:
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.
It's worth noting that PAC-3 is almost an entirely different weapons system than the Gulf War era Patriot. It follows the US tradition of keeping the same name for a system even when basically everything about it has been redesigned.

Unlike Patriot Classic, Pac-3 has an active radar seeker (in the missile itself), uses small maneuvering rockets for terminal maneuvering rather than aerodynamic forces, and is hit-to-kill rather than proximity fused. It is shorter range, but it's been heavily optimized for terminal defense against short to medium range ballistic missiles like Kinzhal/Iskander, and we've been testing it against aeroballistic targets like Boosted Zombie (basically an ATACMS converted to be a target missile on top of a Terrier booster). It's probably one of the best shorter range air defense systems in existence.
 
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  • #213
Vanadium 50 said:
Yes they do. The Moskva was an invincible flagship. Now it's an artificial reef at the bottom of the Black Sea.
As some guys I fly with in DCS would put it. "It has been promoted from surface combatant to submarine."