Posted on 06/19/2019 5:58:03 AM PDT by RoosterRedux
Northrop Grumman and Raytheon have revealed that they have been working together on a scramjet-powered hypersonic cruise missile, which uses an engine that is entirely 3D-printed. Their design is competing against one from Lockheed Martin under the Defense Advanced Research Project's Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept program, or HAWC.
The two companies publicly announced their partnership at the 2019 Paris Air Show on June 18, 2019, but they have been working together secretly for years on HAWC, according to Aviation Week. DARPA began the HAWC program in 2014, in cooperation with the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).
"We have a flight test planned for the near future where we will begin flying this particular class of weapon system," Tom Bussing, the Vice President of Raytheon's advanced missile system division, told reporters in Paris. "This weapon is fundamentally game-changing. There’s nothing like it."
Raytheon had revealed concept art of the missile ahead of the Paris Air Show. From what we can see so far, the design has a relatively typical layout for this weapon concept, with a rocket booster attached to the rear of the main scramjet-powered weapon. The booster motor will accelerate the missile to near hypersonic speed in order for the scramjet to work properly, before falling away.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedrive.com ...
Orders of magnitude more surface to protect. Probably way too expensive.
Was that even English?
Somehow I doubt that Stealth technology, as a overall concept, overlaps at all with Hypersonic weapons technology. Anything moving that fast is generating a lot of eat as well as a pressure wave (noise).
Anything flying Mach 3 or better is also going to be operating at very high altitudes — not on the deck where today’s ship killing weapons tend to operate. Maybe a hypersonic could do a terminal low-level pass, but the margin of error for obtaining a hit gets a little dicey at those speeds. If youre off even a fraction of a degree on your approach vector you could miss by a significant margin.
“My guess, a lot of the UFO sightings by USN can be traced to some of these secret missiles et al being tested over water.”
My guess is that these sightings are of very small, stealthy drones. The Navy recently upgraded the radar to an updated ASEA model on their F-18E/F models. They’re picking up a lot of small stuff that the older radars didn’t “see” or were set to “ignore”.
Nevertheless the technology keeps advancing. The question is can these ships defend from the different types of missiles and drones and survive. For instance suppose a distant submarine launches a cruise missile which is loaded with hundreds of small “seagull” stealthy drones packed with C4 plastique programmed to swarm a huge carrier about to launch fully armed and fueled planes? IMHO these big surface capital ships are big targets for clever weapon designers. Not sure the defensive systems can stay ahead of the offensive weaponry.
No doubt. I saw a video of a couple of F-18’s scattering a bunch of small swarming semi-autonomous drones in a demonstration.
Looked like they could click on an object presented on their targetting pod and the drones would swarm that object. Click somewhere else and they would move like a flock of sparrows and begin circling that focal point.
I’m thinking that if each was carrying a small grenade-size fragmentation warhead and those “targets” were SAM installations, that it would be game-over for the missile shooters.
Todays “battleship admirals” will only come to this realization after a steep price is paid with young blood.
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However, until they do, the fleet is immensely useful.
You are incorrect in your assumption. (link shows steered .50 caliber bullets)
Smart artllery shells (155 mm) are now common.
I worked on the projects and attended briefings.
They can come in relatively slow and maneuver then speed up then BAM!
I haven’t measured the circumference of the earth myself.. but evidence is clear.
The size, shape,orbital plane and distances of our moon is unique.
There are many other data sets.
Cheers
I haven’t measured the circumference of the earth myself.. but evidence is clear.
The size, shape,orbital plane and distances of our moon is unique.
There are many other data sets.
Cheers
The reveal provides for FUD if plausible.
Hyper-sonic vehicles tend to form a plasma sheath which can be manipulated by application of MHD techniques. Some approaches work all the way down to Mach 2 with a little augmentation to form the plasma. See NASA Glenn hyper-sonic research under Blankson.
Maybe those Navy laser tests aim to decoy a missile’s terminal guidance lock. Might also be capable of creating gremlins that appear to demonstrate impossible maneuvers.
The Universe not the moon which is not evidence of anything since we’ve only explored less than 1 percent of the surface to say nothing of all the lava tubes and so on.
As far as I recall this is the first mention of the moon in this thread.
Actually this was my thread of the day. Loved the scramjet concept.. spent coffee time talking about it with hubby.
Somebody mention air force ufos... so the moon is relevant in that regard.
We are the only intelligent life, except for our xreator. Einstein, Newton and even a handful of scientists today make that clear.
If you count heaven and hell.. yep there is intelligence somewhere else. That’s a bit existential if the moon is off topic.
FR was always a place of thought, debate and respectful disagreement. A gentleman’s debate. It has changed quite a bit. But... i still prefer that forum.
In the eyes of any missile, ships do not “maneuver”.
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