Posted on 07/29/2020 11:01:37 AM PDT by LibWhacker
Russian President Vladimir Putin boasted Sunday of nearing deployment of nuclear-tipped hypersonic missiles with his Navy, upping the ante in a three-way arms race with the U.S. and China to develop super-fast missiles that can penetrate any existing defensive system.
At the annual naval parade in St. Petersburg, Putin did not detail specifically when hypersonic missiles would be deployed, but the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that the weapons are in the final stages of testing.
"The widespread deployment of advanced digital technologies that have no equals in the world, including hypersonic strike systems and underwater drones, will give the fleet unique advantages and increased combat capabilities," Putin said.
China has also made significant advances in hypersonics, according to Dr. Mark Lewis, director of Defense Research and Engineering for Modernization at the Defense Department.
Last October, Chinese President Xi Jinping presided at a military parade marking the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. During the parade, a purported vehicle-mounted DF-17 hypersonic nuclear missile was displayed.
At a June 30 Hudson Institute discussion, Lewis said both China and Russia have taken advantage of a lull in U.S. modernization to make advances in what he called the "game changer" technology of hypersonics.
"I'm often accused of saying speed is the new stealth," he said, stressing the need for more focus and investment on hypersonics.
Stealth properties make bombers and fighters difficult to track, but hypersonic missiles traveling at speeds well in excess of Mach 5 mean that "you see me a little bit too late to do anything," Lewis said.
(Excerpt) Read more at military.com ...
Actually, I’m hearing US countermeasures have already rendered these pretty much useless no matter how fast they are.
Lasers? No matter how fast or maneuverable a physical target, it’s no match for a laser, and I think the US has a significant lead over everyone else in that department.
Are you kidding? We are so far behind now it would be a slaughter. I don’t even know if we could beat Iran.
That’s the nonsense I read every now and then online and even here.
Everybody’s got a plan to defeat the United States military until they get hit
One would hope. I’ve always said that our military spending should be tied to whatever keeps us decades ahead of our adversaries. Whether it’s the Chinese or the Russians or anyone else, we must never allow them to reach military parity with us again.
Not withstanding the contributions of the noted Cambridge physicist Dr. Allan Parsons.
Thus, it is somewhat akin to the old comic strip Spy vs Spy, with both sides quite certain they have what it takes.
Like most things in life, the truth is somewhere in the middle. The US is easily at the forefront of advanced anti-missile technologies, and laser defense (be it strategic or tactical) has shown a lot of promise. Once fully developed it can be a real game changer. We have seen planes and ships trying out different direct-energy technologies, often with success. The Russians on the other hand have poured a lot of money into supersonic and hypersonic missile research for decades, as going back to Soviet times it was a key part of their sea defense battle theory (where the US devoted billions to supercarriers the Soviets spent on supersonic missile salvos from often cheap missile carriers). As for China, they just copy technologies off the US and Russia and call it ‘new’ (eg their new J-20 stealth fighter is a modernized Soviet-era MiG 1.44 with the divertless supersonic inlets from the F-35; their DF-21 anti-ship ballistic missile is a modernized R-27K; their J-15 carrier plane is a Russian SU-33; their more modern subsonic cruise missiles are Tomahawk clones and their modern supersonic anti-ship missiles have Russian genes, etc).
On downsides - the USN has known of the threat of Russian ASM salvos and I am certain have good countermeasures; on laser tech beam integrity, atmospheric interference, line of sight limitations for supersonic ASMs streaming a few feet above the water are real; and for China they are yet to be properly blooded.
My thinking is that, like anything, it is about layers. The US should continue developing advanced systems, which it is doing. This will enable the US to always remain a generation ahead of near-peer adversaries. Losing that would be a body-blow to the US military doctrine. At the same time it should also continue exploring other technologies, including supersonic AND stealth missiles. Which I understand DARPA has been doing.
Not neglect. Clinton padded his pockets with Chinese gold and stopped all R&D in missile systems during his term.
Democrats, all Traitor, all the time.
What I have seen is a electronic type of countermeasure that basically discombobulates the entire guidance system.
No, this is a type of ecm that scrambles all guidance.
This is the same old garbage people said about the USSR in the 1970s and early 1980s. Then we got the truth. The Soviets were 5-15 years behind us.
The”ultra-fast” Apha subs could go 45 kn. . . . for a whopping 15 minutes before they blew up. The Backfire & other bombers had tech they stole from us . . . but nobody knew that buried in the tech they “stole” (i.e., were allowed to steal) were timed fatal flaws.
We later learned that 15% of Soviet missiles wouldn’t make it off the launch pad. Another 15% wouldn’t separate. Thus the claim that “Star Wars” isn’t 100% effective may have been actually wrong. We ran an analysis in 1988 with these failure rates showing that at an all out 1400 missile launch with 10 warheads per (way, way above the Soviet Average, maybe 6 would impact. Now, that’s incredible damage-—but not complete obliteration while the Soviets would have been completely eliminated.
Right now the military has stopped trying to “outrun” these Chinese missiles and has developed ECMS that simply scramble them. Doesn’t matter how fast they fly, they can’t outfly a wall of ECMS.
The US can win any confrontation at sea with China, ESPECIALLY after Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines and others take chunks out of them just getting into open water. No, we cannot win a land war against a billion man army.
I think the new strategy is a type of defense in depth of longer range lasers, closer in ECMS, and phalanx for leakers.
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