Posted on 04/25/2025 12:53:58 PM PDT by Red Badger
The U.S. Army’s newest long-range hypersonic weapon will be called “Dark Eagle” the Pentagon announced Thursday after a successful test flight.
The land-based, truck-launched system is armed with hypersonic missiles that travel 3,800 miles per hour with a range of 1,725 miles. They can reach the top of the Earth’s atmosphere and “remain just beyond the range of air and missile defense systems until they are ready to strike, and by then it’s too late to react,” according to Army statements in a March 2023 Congressional Research Service report.
In December, the U.S. Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office, in collaboration with the U.S. Navy Strategic Systems Programs, completed a successful end-to-end flight test of a conventional hypersonic missile from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.
“Hypersonic weapons will complicate adversaries’ decision calculus, strengthening deterrence,” said Patrick Mason, senior official performing the duties of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology. “Their speed, accuracy and versatility are befitting its new popular name, Dark Eagle.”
Army officials repeatedly delayed tests of the Dark Eagle system after failures in 2021 and 2022, according to the CRS report.
The U.S. Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office and the U.S. Navy Strategic Systems Programs partnered to get land and sea variants of a hypersonic weapon system.
The use of a common hypersonic missile and joint test opportunities allow the services to pursue a more aggressive timeline for delivery and to realize cost savings, according to the Pentagon.
A Congressional Budget Office study from January 2023, buying 300 Intermediate-Range Hypersonic Boost-Glide Missiles, which are similar to the LRHW, was estimated to cost $41 million per missile in 2023 dollars.
But that’s just an estimate. Since the 2023 CBO cost estimate, the Pentagon has said little about the per missile cost of the LRHW.
With the Army planning to field LRHWs to units by the end of FY2025 – if the Army’s new leadership team concurs – an actual per missile cost should be available for policymakers,” according to the CRS note. “With an established per missile cost, the Army should also be able to provide Congress with details about the total LRHW stockpile it intends to procure and how long it will take to ‘grow’ the LRHW stockpile.”
The prime contractors on the project are Lockheed Martin, Dynetics Inc. and Dynetics Technical Solutions, according to the CBO report.
hey that’s great. Let’s aim one at the three gorges dam.
With the new DEI excellence in engineering and assembly, the US Army birds may approach the accuracy and reliability NASA achieved with the Boeing Starliner, ... in a decade or so.
three gorges dam is one of the most massive structures on earth nnothing short of megaton yield nuclear weapons are going to damage it. Even then you will need penetration warheads to hit the embankments. Hitting the same face would do very little even with megaton yields the mass is simply too great. The Soviets planned on using no less than half a dozen 20 megaton sized warheads to hit NORAD and that’s just dirt and rock not high compression reinforced concrete. You would need hit after hit of our largest trident warheads on the back face of the dam at or below the waterline using the water itself as a mass to focus the yield. Then you can expect the chicoms to wipe out with 5 megaton DF5s every city in the USA with a million or more. They have enough and we don’t habe enough interceptors to.stop them. Yeah not a good idea. Remember China could take 600 million dead in a nuclear exchange and have half it’s people still alive to rebuild. The USA looses 200 million and we cease to be a society. They win by demographics alone and they know this.
Knocking out the Three Gorges dam would probably kill tens of millions of civilians. Perhaps over a year, hundreds of millions, especially considering the agriculture it enables.
I think if we have a shooting war with China, there are better ways of knocking out their industrial base than one with such a high civilian death toll.
Let’s aim one at the three gorges dam.
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That is such a stupid idea its hard to imagine a moron coming up with it.
Knocking out the Three Gorges dam would probably kill tens of millions of civilians.
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Last estimate I saw, 9 cities and 420 million people would be wiped out.
The size of their standing army is our total population.
Chinese construction is shoddy. My money says that dam will collapse all on its own at some point
L
I’m certainly no expert in this stuff but while I imagine slamming a missile into the front face of the dam may achieve little, I do wonder about dropping a large explosive into the water behind the dam. The hydro-static shock coming behind the dam, with the water pushing in the same direction might overload the system. Or perhaps not. I’m not a damn engineer.
I don’t know about that. It was build by chinamen , which means it was done, cheap fast and shoddily. Second, I’ve seen it during monsoons and video of it shows it swaying back-and-forth pretty wildly. It will probably just go by itself.
wow I like your numbers!! Serves them right after Covid. Millions of lives for millions of lives. Even Steven
You’re a big fan of China I see. Me, not so much. Murdering millions of innocent people worldwide has consequences believe it or not. For one, people get to thinking the country is dogsh&t
From engineered bat bioweapons I should be clear
Apparently the Army isn’t smart enough to replicate SpaceX’s very successful rapid prototyping and testing methodology. The army failes and then goes fro for years trying to perfect the design in a room without testing.
bkmk
With the Army planning to field LRHWs to units by the end of FY2025 –
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Maybe, maybe longer. Russian and Chinese hypersonics have been in operation for a few years already….and less than half the price.
Better late than never, but the price tag insures a limited production.
All 0ur
Toys !
This thing is apparently comparable to what the ChiComs and Ruskies have been bragging about. This missile type makes an aircraft carrier obsolete.
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