Posted on 12/27/2018 7:15:07 AM PST by C19fan
Russia has tested a new hypersonic anti-ship missile that can travel a blistering 6,138 miles an hour, or 1.7 miles a second. The missile, known as Zircon, will attack ships at sea and land-based targets. It is in all likelihood unstoppable by modern air defenses.
CNBC reports that Russia has tested the Zircon anti-ship missile five times, with the latest test occuring on December 10. The December test hit a top speed of Mach 8, or 6,138 miles an hour. CNBC quoted two anonymous U.S. government officials with direct knowledge of an intelligence report on the test. The latest test proved the Russians were capable of achieving sustained flighta difficult goal in hypersonic flight research.
The networks source also said that it was clear Zircon was being diversified away from being a purely anti-ship missile to also strike land targets. It is expected to enter production in 2021 and service with the Russian Navy in 2022.
(Excerpt) Read more at popularmechanics.com ...
“We have been experimenting with this technology since 1980.”
Actually. . .decades before that.
Not really, at these speeds the warship is a large stationary target.
Except for the thousands of sailors and Marines who went down with the ships... Similarly for the hundreds of ships damaged... Blow a gun turret off the ship or a hole midships and the men killed and wounded think it is "bad"... How many men were killed and wounded when the ragheads rammed a small boat into a destroyer?
That must be precisely targeted from over the horizon to within 100 yards if the missile is a kinetic or conventional explosive device.
Anti-ship missiles have on-board terminal IR or Radar guidance to precisely target the ship. A hypersonic missile would have great difficulty trying to use either effectively, or to make the incredibly small adjustments to their flight path in such a short period of time.
Sure, 1.7 miles per second sounds fast, and it is fast. However, we have already demonstrated the ability to produce anti-missile missiles (interceptors) capable of hitting objects at sub-orbital and even orbital speeds. These closing velocities are approximately 3x higher than this missile's velocity. Yet our GBIs and SM-3s are able to "close the tracking loop" and maneuver to intercept.
So the question is, can the hypersonic vehicle maneuver enough to evade interception? There are lots of issues - altitude for range and low drag vs down low for radar evasion, aerodynamic heating, etc. Fundamentally, what it comes down to is the incoming warhead and the outgoing interceptor are subject to many of the same constraints and trade-offs. The main difference is, where the incoming vehicle is going is known - it's got to come for the ship after all. So in this high tech battle it has a disadvantage. It also has the disadvantage of carrying the weight of the warhead - this means increased stresses and drag during maneuvers. The outgoing interceptor is relatively lightweight, and has a much simpler job - just make contact and let physics do the rest...
As far as I can see, what this new missile really means is that a couple of defense contractors get a few $ to re-write and improve some terminal tracking algorithms. Given that we've known for years that these kinds of missiles were coming, I'd bet the contracts were already let, the guidance routines written, and some modeling and simulation, maybe even a couple of quiet tests have been run.
With relatively scarce multi-billion dollar assets and thousands of lives at stake, the Navy is not generally a service that is in react mode when it comes to defending the fleet. They tend to use/believe their intel and meet the threat on the drawing board (or in the computer) before they meet them at sea. Note that we are not hearing about program XYZ - a brand new defensive missile for the Navy. I'm going to guess the Navy is fairly confident the systems it already has are more than capable of intercepting this new threat.
I guess we should just surrender as soon as we lose 10% of our fleet. Maybe just scuttle the whole whole fleet and use the money on welfare instead.
Heat up a white hot object a few more degrees?
Sort of reminds me of that alleged Russian super high velocity torpedo. Essentially a straight shot affair.
Howdy, FRiend! & Happy New Year!!!
Consider that a vessel maneuvers at multiple knots (one Nautical Mile per HOUR).
OTOH, a hypersonic projectile/missile travels at rates of ~>one Nautical Mile per SECOND!
That's a velocity unit difference of 3600 : 1!
Leaving the matters of of threat detection/recognition time, crew decision/reaction time, and vessel response time out of the equation -- what delta in speed & position could a maneuvering destroyer achieve -- in the ten or so seconds of projectile flight time from a tracking railgun at a 10 NM distance?
~~~~~~~~~~
Or -- did I miss something?
FRegards,
TXnMA
Please see source from 2009 LMT assessment below. They have updated their capabilities since then:
Appendix A. Laser Power Levels Required to Counter Targets
Table A-1 shows two Navy perspectives, a Defense Science Board (DSB) task force perspective, and two industry perspectives on approximate laser power levels needed to affect various categories of targets. As can be seen in the table, these perspectives differ somewhat regarding the power levels needed to counter certain targets, perhaps because of differing assumptions about beam quality (BQ) and other factors.
Table A-1.Approximate Laser Power Levels Needed to Affect Certain Targets
Multiple perspectives that may reflect varying assumptions about BQ and other factors
Source Beam power measured in kilowatts (kW) megawatts (MW)
~10 kW Tens of kW ~100 kW Hundreds of kW MW
One Navy briefing (2010)
UAVs
Small boats
Missiles (starting at 500 kW)
Another Navy briefing (2010) Short-range operations against UAVs, RAM, MANPADS (50 kW-100kW; low BQ) Extended-range operations against UAVs, RAM, MANPADS, ASCMs flying a crossing path (>100 kW, BQ of ~2)
Operations against supersonic, highly maneuverable ASCMs, transonic air-to-surface missiles, and ballistic missiles (>1 MW)
Industry briefing (2010) UAVs and small boats (50 kW) RAM (100+ kW), subsonic ASCMs (300 kW), manned aircraft (500 kW) Supersonic ASCMs and ballistic missiles Defense Science Board (DSB) report (2007) Surface threats at 1-2 km Ground-based air and missile defense, and countering rockets, artillery, and mortars, at 5- 10 kma Battle group defense at 5-20 km (1-3 MW)
Northrop Grumman research paper (2005) Soft UAVs at short range Aircraft and cruise missiles at short range Soft UAVs at long range Aircraft and cruise missiles at long range, and artillery rockets (lower hundreds of kW)
Artillery shells and terminal defense against very short range ballistic missiles (higher 100s of kW)
Source: One Navy briefing: Briefing slide entitled HEL [High-Energy Laser] Missions, in briefing entitled Directed Energy Warfare Office (DEWO) Overview, July 23, 2010.
Another Navy briefing: Briefing slide entitled Surface Navy Laser Vision, in briefing entitled Navy Directed Energy Efforts Ship Based Laser Weapon System, July 23, 2010. Industry briefing: Briefing to CRS by an industry firm in the summer of 2010; data shown in table used here with the firms permission. DSB report: [Report of] Defense Science Board Task Force on Directed Energy Weapons, December 2007, Table 2 (page 12). Northrop Grumman research paper: Richard J. Dunn, III, Operational Implications of Laser Weapons, Northrop Grumman (Analysis Center Papers), September 2005 (available online at Analysis Center Paper on Lasers 2009 ), visual inspection of Figure 1 (page 7).
Exactly. Anything going that fast makes everything it hit a bullet. A cloud of anything solid would stop it.
X3600
Bingo!! And knowing the Roosians, I believe it to be all bluster! You know, like in the past. Hell, even our own military dishes out crap about how well some systems work, in order to gain more funding.
Hell, not even the aliens on TV or any futuristic people from anywhere, can hit a moving target. Incredibly annoying. Intergalactic travel, and still can’t hit a moving target!
Heheheheh...still shooting some kind of projectiles and having to pull lead, even in a futuristic spacecraft!
Heya TXnMA, nice to hear from you! Happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year to you in 2019...:)
I make the assumption that detection technology will be at a far enough range to make unguided hypersonic munitions ineffective to evasive targets that can detect at a far enough range to change course appropriately.
Of course, if a hypersonic weapon traveling at speed (2 miles/sec) close to the earth that is only detected when it crosses a horizon nine miles away doesn’t give more than four or five seconds reaction time would be very different.
I make the assumption that a hypersonic munition can be detected much further out. Even at 20 miles that would only give ten seconds to an impact. I am just guessing at this, but the distance at which an incoming weapon can be detected is the key parameter, as well as the distance at which a non-guided weapon is fired at. The combination of those two factors dictates whether a ship traveling at a certain speed will be able to maneuver to evade, and how much.
Obviously if an unguided hypersonic munition is fired to hit a course and speed solution made from a platform ten miles away where a target ship 500 feet in length can only travel 35 feet/sec when traveling 20 knots...well, that’s a no miss solution. Can’t miss when a course and speed is calculated from ten miles away and the round lands at its solution in five seconds...the ship could only travel 175 feet in five seconds...which is a third of a ship length.
But...if the solution for a non-guided munition is targeted from a platform that makes a solution from 100 miles away and an incoming round can be detected by a target at 20 miles...crap. I am overthinking it.
Ah hell. It all comes down to time of flight and detection distance. Unguided hypersonic munitions are going to be deadly at short ranges and less effective further out...heh, like old naval gunfire, just on a different scale!
"Leaving the matters of of threat detection/recognition time, crew decision/reaction time, and vessel response time out of the equation..."
I did so, because I had in mind the performance of the Fitzgerald's leadership and warfighting crew.
And, when you factor in the command/response lag times inherent in passing spoken commands, person-person control commands via engine telegraph, and the (physics-controlled) lag times in ship delta speed and turning response... Bad news!
Even best case -- as long as we have humans in the C&C loop, (not just on ships) our vulnerability to fast-moving weapons is not going to be dominated merely by mechanical rate equations...
Frankly, I don't see target maneuvering as any sort of solution...
Assuming Naval fire control systems are even remotely on par with the Canadian fire control system for the MI Abrams tank that I saw demonstrated in 1978 -- I fear that Naval combat may well be becoming an attacker's game.
YMMV... '-)
All the best,
TXnMA
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