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Air Force: Hypersonic Missiles From China, Russia Pose Growing Danger to U.S.

American

American

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Air Force: Hypersonic Missiles From China, Russia Pose Growing Danger

The United States is vulnerable to future attack by hypersonic missiles from China and Russia and is falling behind in the technology race to develop both defensive and offensive high-speed maneuvering arms, according to a new Air Force study.
“The People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation are already flight-testing high-speed maneuvering weapons (HSMWs) that may endanger both forward deployed U.S. forces and even the continental United States itself,” an executive summary of the report says.
“These weapons appear to operate in regimes of speed and altitude, with maneuverability that could frustrate existing missile defense constructs and weapon capabilities.”

Hypersonic missiles are ultra-high speed weapons that travel along the edge of the earth’s atmosphere at speeds above Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound. The missiles also can maneuver to avoid current missile defenses—all of which were developed to hit ballistic missiles with predictable flight paths.
The unclassified summary of the report, “A Threat to America’s Global Vigilance, Reach, and Power: High-Speed, Maneuvering Weapons,” was produced by a blue-ribbon panel of experts for Air Force Studies Board at the National Academies of Science. The summary was made public earlier this month.
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We definitely must put more funding towards this technology.
 
American said:
Air Force: Hypersonic Missiles From China, Russia Pose Growing Danger


We definitely must put more funding towards this technology.
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The Patriot and other US anti-missile systems cannot reliably intercept a hypersonic missile due to two factors (from my understanding) - the lack of accurate maneuverability at such a high overtake speed, and the speed differential between the two missiles where once the hypersonic conjoins the interceptor it will leave the interceptor behind with no chance to overtake it again.

This is one of the reasons that the USAF was trying to develop laser technology to heat the fuel cells and payloads of intercontinental ballistic missiles which are out of the reach of current anti-missile systems as well as new technology missiles such as hypersonic missiles and long range anti-ship missiles that are at deployed at sea where current anti-missile platforms are not located.

Example:



Cool story:

https://defensesystems.com/articles/2016/08/19/darpa-endurance-anti-missile-laser-aircraft.aspx
 
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joG said:
Absolutely. We should use a much larger portion of military spending on military R&D and a larger portion of the budget on fundamental science.
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Yeah, that has worked so damn well for the last 40 years...
 
Three thoughts.

1) this report was done by the Air Force. Which means the Air Force wanted more money for a certain thing, so they came up with a report that seems unbiased that states America desperately needs funding for that certain thing. The military has been doing this for centuries. Most militaries do it.
So the report has to be taken with a train of salt. It could be legit. More likely it is partially legit and partially exaggerated to secure more funding.

2) there is no way these missiles - if effective - would be used on the U.S. itself except against purely military targets. If these things came raining down on cities, America would launch nukes...they cannot just sit there and let the civilian population be decimated.
And killing civilians with conventional missiles is ridiculously expensive...nukes are far more efficient. Naaaa....this is a purely anti-military weapon. The Air Force just mentioned missiles hitting America to scare people.

3) these are, IMO, primarily anti-ship missiles. And if they are as effective as advertised, kiss aircraft carriers goodbye as an effective offensive weapon. Which I think is inevitable eventually anyway.
 
DA60 said:
Three thoughts.

1) this report was done by the Air Force. Which means the Air Force wanted more money for a certain thing, so they came up with a report that seems unbiased that states America desperately needs funding for that certain thing. The military has been doing this for centuries. Most militaries do it.
So the report has to be taken with a train of salt. It could be legit. More likely it is partially legit and partially exaggerated to secure more funding.

2) there is no way these missiles - if effective - would be used on the U.S. itself except against purely military targets. If these things came raining down on cities, America would launch nukes...they cannot just sit there and let the civilian population be decimated.
And killing civilians with conventional missiles is ridiculously expensive...nukes are far more efficient. Naaaa....this is a purely anti-military weapon. The Air Force just mentioned missiles hitting America to scare people.

3) these are, IMO, primarily anti-ship missiles. And if they are as effective as advertised, kiss aircraft carriers goodbye as an effective offensive weapon. Which I think is inevitable eventually anyway.
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The aren't for cities, they are to counter our military.
 
American said:
The aren't for cities, they are to counter our military.
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I realize that - but the report mentioned attacks against the U.S. itself. And you cannot start landing these missiles on U.S. territory and not eventually have civilian casualties. And when that happens, the military will have to stop the attacks at any cost. And if they cannot shoot them down, then they will destroy the source. And if they cannot find/get to the source with conventional weapons, then they will have to use nukes.

My point is that you cannot use these things against the continental United States unless you are prepared for a nuclear war. They are purely anti-weapon system missiles.

And what is the single most potent, conventional, weapon system the U.S. possesses? Aircraft carriers.

These are basically anti-ship missiles...assuming they are either cheap enough to launch in waves OR are accurate enough.

These are not an Air Force problem...these are a Navy problem, imo. And if these are as good as advertised, then the Navy had better stop them or kiss their beloved aircraft carriers good bye as a viable weapon system (which - as I said - is inevitable anyway).
 
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Time to make those aircraft carriers submersible.
After that, moon based ;)
 
This is not the first time the Air Force tried to panic the West over a new 'Eastern' weapon system.

During the 60's it was the Mig-25. The Foxbat was supposed to be a wonder weapon - a titanium, Mach 3 fighter with great maneuverability and a powerful, high tech radar.

Then a Soviet pilot defected and landed in Japan with one and the truth came out.

Turns out it had almost no titanium in it. If it went anywhere remotely near Mach 3 it's engines would go into overspeed and burn themselves to destruction. It was not maneuverable. And it's radar was crude - using vacuum tubes of all things (though it was very powerful - but just with brute force to burn it's way through jamming).

It was still an impressive plane. But not remotely near the aircraft the Air Force claimed it was.
 
DA60 said:
This is not the first time the Air Force tried to panic the West over a new 'Eastern' weapon system.

During the 60's it was the Mig-25. The Foxbat was supposed to be a wonder weapon - a titanium, Mach 3 fighter with great maneuverability and a powerful, high tech radar.

Then a Soviet pilot defected and landed in Japan with one and the truth came out.

Turns out it had almost no titanium in it. If it went anywhere remotely near Mach 3 it's engines would go into overspeed and burn themselves to destruction. It was not maneuverable. And it's radar was crude - using vacuum tubes of all things (though it was very powerful - but just with brute force to burn it's way through jamming).

It was still an impressive plane. But not remotely near the aircraft the Air Force claimed it was.
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I remember my father talking about the mig25 everytime time russian tech was brought up, he said the world was scared that the russians had space age tech and would destroy the world. Turned out to be the lightest aircraft they could cheaply make with the biggest engines they could afford.

Alot of people in the us navy nicknamed them the flying coffin, besides lack of maneuverability, to keep weight down they stripped out most safety features other countries used. It is how the old soviet union rolled, make weapons that look scary and look better than americas on paper.
 
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