Posted on 02/11/2016 8:30:05 PM PST by Mariner
They've had fusion bombs for over 30 years.
Are you sure about that? The Standard SM6 version has a range of 200 nautical miles (230 miles or 370 km), goes at Mach 3.5 and carries a warhead that's just 125 pounds.
The main Russian missile, the Oniks, has a range of 370 miles (600 km), and carries a 250KG warhead at mach 3. While the SM6 is faster (3.5m vs 3.0m), the Oniks is still fast enough to spoof virtually any defense system and operational procedure is to ripple launch them. Moreover, the Oniks has a significantly longer range and carries a vastly larger warhead.
Anyway, the purpose of my first post was not really a , erm, stick measuring contest. I'm very glad the USN has a supersonic ASM that can enable it to reach out quickly and disable enemy surface combatants, and enable slower missiles like the ASM version of the Tomahawk or the Harpoon to successfully hard kill that which has already been soft killed. Also, as you mentioned before, a fast missile hitting the aluminum superstructure of a ship would result in a bad day for the ship's crew.
However, the USN will still need to come up with a heavy supersonic/hypersonic ASM that is a real ship killer, and the enhancement of the SM6 shows that thinking has started to shift that way (there is some good info on the failed DARPA supersonic missile project, which apparently seems to have been resurrected. A true HYPERSONIC ASM to put to shame anything from Russia).
The blast from a hydrogen bomb is only initiated by fusion but is not the result of fusion itself.
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