Posted on 09/28/2021 12:20:27 AM PDT by Olog-hai
The United States tested an advanced hypersonic missile system last week that will “offer next generation capability” to the US military, the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) said on Monday. The test flight comes just a few months after Russia tested a similar missile.
The US missile system, called a “Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept” (HAWC), was developed by the aerospace and defense giants Raytheon Technologies and Northrop Grumman.
During the test, which was carried out in partnership with DARPA and the US Air Force last week, the missile was released from under the wing of an aircraft, and seconds later a rocket booster kicked in propelling it faster than the speed of sound, or Mach 1.
Then a secondary engine built into the missile, called a “scramjet,” turned on and accelerated the missile to hypersonic flight.
Hypersonic speed is considered anything faster than Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound, equivalent to just over 100 kilometers (60 miles) per minute or about a mile every second. …
(Excerpt) Read more at dw.com ...
Now Byedone has an extra weapon he can use on us.
What a thought.
Slo Joe is now fast.
I forgot, he is not speeding along, he is imploding.
Sleepy46 is getting a chubby thinking about how many innocent (brown) families he can kill with this.
It sure took them long enough /s. I was doing scramjet work more then 25 years ago and hypersonic work since ‘91.
It’s an anti-ship missile. The U.S. always thought the way to sink a ship was with a submarine. The Russians gave up on trying to sink U.S. ships with submarines, and developed stand off hypersonic missiles. Apparently, the U.S. wants to catch up, or at least build something they can practice counter measures against. There fast, but can they hit anything?
And sell to the Chicoms.
Maybe the point isn’t precision, but to cause as much destruction as possible as rapidly as possible.
Heard about this yesterday.
Did they check to make sure that Spritle Racer and Chim Chim didn’t stow away in the trunk?
I don’t get your point. If you are trying to destroy a ship without a nuclear weapon, you need an accurate weapon. Remember this will be coming in facing an array of countermeasures, and close-in weapon systems. The munitions are too expensive they to volley-fire, you have to have a relatively high probability of kill. It’s likely the target will observe the separation of the weapon from the attack aircraft and have a hot reception waiting. This kind of weapon probably costs more per copy than most “warships” in the Iranian “navy”.
Any adversary who cannot counter-measure this system is not worth using it on. Just sink their entire navy with submarines.
The true breakthrough would be being able to make them cheaply in large quantities, where you COULD volley fire a swarm of the against a carrier.
And if China sells a few hundred of them to Iran for cheap, and Iran launches a swarm attack and sinks a carrier group, will we launch an attack against China for supplying the missiles?
Always assume that China will operate through deniable proxies.
If a missile is flying at Hypersonic speeds would the missile need an Explosive warhead or could a Depleted Uranium or tungsten penetrator do the required damage?
With a Non explosive warhead the missile should fly faster still because it could weigh less.
You want a lot of damage on the target all at once
(big hole in the hull or massive damage to the superstructure). An inert penetrator would not generally do that. Indeed, it might create a hole and pass through the ship completely. Lots of examples of this from history - see accounts of using AP ammunition against lightly armored ships.
DARPA is running this hypersonic project, which may explain why it’s progressing better than the Air Force’s AGM-183A. According to the agency (and various experts), the scramjet hypersonic missile has “plenty of kinetic power” without a warhead. Makes sense; anything flying at Mach 5+ slamming into something is going to inflict devastating damage, if not destroy the target outright....
In a conflict between technologically advanced opponents the surface ships of both will die.
The idea is to keep your surface ships out of range of the other guy’s stand-off weapons, and sink his surface ships with your submarines, which is why the AUKUS agreement is ticking off the Chinese. The USAF has more aircraft than all the other AF in world combined. The second largest AF in the world is the US Navy. The USAF and Navy provide an insuperable barrier to invading Taiwan, if we chose to intervene.
“The USAF has more aircraft than all the other AF in world combined. The second largest AF in the world is the US Navy.”
OK - Not doubting you, but I never heard this before. Sounds like you are serious and not exaggerating... Is that right?
I would think that an incendiary warhead might be most effective against modern ships. Slam through at Mach 5, depositing flames all along the path.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_People%27s_Liberation_Army_aircraft
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_United_States_military_aircraft
If Wikipedia is accurate, then he is correct
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