Russian Navy to have nigh-unstoppable hypersonic missiles by 2018

[Skroe]

Just out of question, how exactly would you 'kick down the door' against Submarine launches?

You deploy our own attack submarine force + submarine drones + submarine hunter drones + P-8 Poseidons ahead of the carrier force.

No, that's not what I'm saying, - You know what - im just going to use your next quote as an explanation:

yeah see they accurately see that Carriers, and their strike groups, are increasingly vulnerable, and that CAP's are no longer all you need to defend them.
They need longer range force projection, so they can stay further away.

You're *entirely* missing the point. "Staying Further Away" is true... during the first day or two of a conflict. But that's always been true. After enemy defenses are degrated, you move the carrier closer in.

That's nothing new. I think the mistake your making is your presuming that the A2/AD is resillient against US "kick down the door" attempts to destroy it. It's not. It never has been. Conceptually it never can be. A2/AD has to have a 100% success rate against attempts to destroy it. Of the hundreds of missiles, fighters, decoys and drones the US will launch at an A2/AD site in a saturation attack, just ONE missile has to get through. And that presumes that we don't deploy a sophisticated Electronic warfare attack that increases the odds even more.

There is no way for any amount of A2/AD to permanently ward the US off eventually (within a couple of days or a week) moving its carriers and capital ships closer to shore as defenses are degraded. Eventually the A2/AD's will fall below that 100% success rate, run out of missiles or whatever.

How about in a scenario where you don't want to go 'kick down the door' ? How often haven't the US move its fleets into forward positions for the simple point of 'projecting force' ?

The US has done this a lot less than you think. There was the South China Sea sail through this month. But in recent history, that's about it. It didn't even send a carrier after Qaddafi, instead relying on land based aircraft from Europe. Heck a carrier was only sent to Syria until Turkey opened up use of our joint air base there, at which time the carrier was withdrawn (air base is far cheaper). This is the common image of the aircraft carrier, certainly historically validated (as when Bill Clinton orderd two carriers to sail through the Straight of Taiwan), but it's very far from an annual or semi-annual kind of things. The world simply isn't that dramatic.

Furthermore the US would still do it regardless of A2/AD. If the US "projected force" and China or Russia decided to destroy a carrier and killed 5000 Amerians, the US would probably resort to nuclear weapons then and there. So consider it a "I dare you, I double dare you, to shoot us" kind of thing.

What i'm saying is, that anything that keeps your Carriers away, is a win for Russia and China, even if its only a few days in case of war, or longer in case of 'posturing'.

That's a very low bar, especially whent he US has extreme range weaponry of it's own.

Your gripe with A2/AD - which really should be A3D as far as I'm concerned - is that its 'defensive' - But you seem to both ignore the relative position, and actual position.

My gripe with A2/AD is that there is this misunderstanding that it's mere existence makes the US unable to do things. It's one of this situations where if the US did come up against the A2/AD system, folks would be surprised that *gasp* the US wans't all that intimidated by it after all, because some very smart Colonels in the Pentagon figured out how to beat it (you know, as they are paid to do).

You can't win a war by turtling up and being defensive. That's what A2/AD is. it puts the entire initiative on the US.

Fundamentally how are conventional wars between states won? The power of one state to wage war is broken and the others isn't. With A2/AD, there is no such system that could exist that could be so comprehensive as to defeat every which way the attacking military (the US) has to defeat the defensive military (China for example's) A2/AD. They force arriers off, we got long range missiles. They have an anti-missile system, we got bombers. They got bomber-interceptors, we have tomahawk missiles in submarines that'll destroy air fields so they can't take off. So on and so forth.

The US would go after resources first. Fuel. Electrical grids. Refineries. Ammunition depots. Meanwhile US war machine industrial production would be unscathed.

This is why A2/AD is ineffective. Unless China (in this scenario) can destroy the ability for the US ability to wage war by destroying our defense industrial capacity, which they can't, then all A2/AD is slightly delay the inevitable.

The US is dominant - They should focus on defensive armaments - But more importantly, Via location, neither Russia or China 'really' needs (the same kind of) force projection capabilities in their navies - because Russia and China are where they want to project force - You are the ones that are not.
Imagine if North America was where Africa is, would the US have the same, kind and size, of Navy it does now?
Realistically, even if you inflated the Russian GDP and population to the same as the US one, It still wouldn't want to build a navy designed around force projection.

The oceans make up 74% of the planets surface and constitute the majority of global trade. To control the oceans is to control the world.

Russia and China are just terribly geographically located to make the most of it, while the US is ideally situated. China is actively working on a blue water navy, which undercuts what you're saying, because they recognize this fact.

[Easo]

Wake me up when this is actually in production. It is not the first wunderwaffle I have heard about.

[Berengil]

I feel like the title of this thread should be " Entire Russian navy to be at the bottom of the ocean within the first week of killing any Americans". I wonder sometimes how prone to dangerous gambles Putin can actually be.

[Kellhound]

These are basically Aircraft Carrier killers, aren't they? They don't even have to directly hit them, a close enough detonation is enough.

Some people claim lasers can hit them. I think they could in theory, but I am not sure if it's even possible to actually get one targetted on hypersonic missile. Anyone got any idea about that?

No, a near miss is not likely to mission kill a carrier.

- - - Updated - - -

no i said a 100 missiles could cost about 150 million.
which would make the 1000 you would need to make a sizeable dent cost 1.5 billion, within reach of other states - Which still is dwarfed by the cost a single US carrier, or the group as a whole.
Put it this way, No other state could (or would want to) put sufficient money into building a naval force to match yours in capabilities.
Building one that could deny yours, much cheaper and more doable.
In a scenario where Russia can negate your navy, it doesn't even need to do anything else, it can just leave you on the other continent - It would then have Eurasia, which is what both of you want.

Those missiles need launch platforms, that have to survive long enough to launch.

- - - Updated - - -

This may be a dumb question, but as missiles are much easier to defend against than torpedos, why does nobody try building long range high speed guided torpedoes? A quick Google shows Russia has 400 kph rocket torpedoes but they are a design from the late 70's, why don't they try and improve on this?

The USN is also developing anti torpedo torpedoes. It takes a lot of energy to go fast and far in water, its a bit thicker than air...

- - - Updated - - -

@Skroe

I know you participate a lot on NASA forums, but where did you actually learn all that stuff about military?

- - - Updated - - -



Is @Ulmita unbanned atm? I think this was his que.

A good deal of military information is open source, it just needs to be fused together. If you want a nice easy daily update try: http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/2015/06/17/early-bird-brief/28814719/

[Crispin]

Why so? Many of them demonstrating tests in the clear weather and not a single in the rain/fog since 09/2014 when they announced success? I'm not telling that it is impossible. But right now it looks doubtful.

what do you hope to see from a test in fog? fog?

[Hooked]

The speed of sound and its multiples are so last decade. 6,125 km/h isn't much compared to the 299,792 km/s that our weaponized lasers fire at.

I agree, lasers are the future of missle defense or some form of radio wave type force field.

[Kellhound]

what do you hope to see from a test in fog? fog?

I believe they are alluding to a degradation of performance when subject to refraction caused by water droplets.

[Nadiru]

Russian military R&D procurement has been a major funnel through which Putin skims federal cash for himself and his cronies. Since the end of the Cold War, Russian military expenditures have been pushed back everywhere...except for R&D which has remained consistent since the early 1990s. Despite no collapse in R&D budgets, the Russian military has yet to showcase any of these special projects they make news articles about.

[Crispin]

I believe they are alluding to a degradation of performance when subject to refraction caused by water droplets.

No doubt, I'd imagine some kind of reduction of the issue beeing developed, but I'm no laser tech specialist and are simply pointing out that they say they've done a successful test, could be lighting a cigar from 5 feet away for all I know.

[RoxyBlue]

Why is the human race so hell bent on destroying its self? I mean any logical sane race would look at this and go , these people are insane. Do they not realize we are all the same people? That MAD is a real thing, and there are no winners.

[Nadiru]

Why is the human race so hell bent on destroying its self? I mean any logical sane race would look at this and go , these people are insane. Do they not realize we are all the same people? That MAD is a real thing, and there are no winners.

Humans aren't logical. Most of the time, humans don't even make it up to being rational. You're not logical either. You're a meat robot with faulty wiring, just like the rest of us, and your reaction to this post only confirms it.

[Mavett]

Just like their Yakhont glorifying.

Much strong, very warhead, wow fast.

Even if it magically came to a realization, they have a suitable (!) saying for such smart ass announcements:

На каждую хитрую жопу найдётся хуй с винтом

Which quite literally translates to : for every smart wazoo there is a left threaded dick.

[RoxyBlue]

Humans aren't logical. Most of the time, humans don't even make it up to being rational. You're not logical either. You're a meat robot with faulty wiring, just like the rest of us, and your reaction to this post only confirms it.

Well to be perfectly honest I think its in the earths best interest that humankind become extinct. Hows that rational for you?

Actually this speaks for it better than I can.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmVLcj-XKnM

[Nadiru]

Well to be perfectly honest I think its in the earths best interest that humankind become extinct. Hows that rational for you?

Not even remotely rational. Earth doesn't care one iota that some walking bits of carbon set off a tiny explosion on its skin.

[Nuipofig]

what do you hope to see from a test in fog? fog?

Nothing really. But until there are proofs that it works in rain and fog we cant take lasers seriously.

[Crispin]

Helicopters have a tendency to crash in storms, let's take them off the table aswell.

I guess the Russians will have to change their motto to "Fog is coming"

[Skroe]

This is a great article that should add further perspective to what the US is working on and how it is different from what China and Russia are working on. It touches on everything talked about in the thread.

http://www.defenseone.com/technology...ref=d-topstory

The Problem with the Pentagon’s Hypersonic Missile
APRIL 14, 2016 BY PATRICK TUCKER
Military officials say their superfast weapons of the future won’t carry nuclear warheads. But will other nuclear nations believe it when the missiles start flying? Arms / Research & Development / Defense Department
TAMPA, Fla. — The U.S. military is pouring money into hypersonic research, and it’s making China and Russia —which have their own similar programs — nervous. But the accelerating effort to build missiles that fly at speeds between Mach 5 to Mach 19 is also alarming some in the nonproliferation community. Despite Pentagon officials’ assurances that superfast weapons will carry only conventional warheads, some believe that other nations may well treat any hypersonic launch as a potential nuclear strike.

It’s been a good year for hypersonic researchers, who got a 50 percent bump in the Defense Department’s 2017 budget request. The Air Force plans to test a hypersonic missile by the end of the decade.

The Pentagon, whose long record of hypersonic research stretches from the X-15 rocket plane to the Boeing X-51 scramjet and beyond, is today funding the Lockheed Martin Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 program, the Raytheon Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC), and the Raytheon/Lockheed Tactical Boost Glide. The Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency gave Raytheon $20 million and Lockheed $24 million for the latter.

Raytheon is pouring tens of millions of its own dollars into hypersonic research.

“These are very specific point design weapon systems. We have picked design points where the technology is available today and we can put these things together as systems now,” said Thomas Bussing, vice president of Raytheon’s Advanced Missile Systems. He added that 3D printing and additive manufacturing have reduced the complexity of hypersonic devices. “Not only can you build them, you can build them affordably.”

The company is working on two kinds of hypersonic missiles. One is a boost glide system that rides a rocket into space, then reenters the atmosphere and glides to its target at up to 14,000 miles per hour. The other is an airbreathing missile, a close cousin to the ramjet, that scoops up oxygen as it flies a flatter, Mach-10 path to its destination.

The primary challenges in the boost glide system were “materials, stability control, the aerodynamics of the vehicle itself,” according to Bussing. In the air-breathing missile, “it’s all about the engine and having the engine operate over a range of conditions.”

Unlike the ballistic path followed by an ICBM plummeting toward its target, a cruise missile can steer its way past defenses, or, in some cases, sneak in below radar coverage. Being able to strike so quickly has distinct advantages, if you’re trying to penetrate sophisticated air defenses.

Interest abounds; the Navy is considering arming its ships with a tactical boost glide weapon, said Joe Doychak, the associate director of aerospace technology for the assistant defense secretary for research and engineering.

What do you do with a rocket that can travel that fast over intercontinental distances? A 2014 RAND report noted hypersonic technologies “could be used in future nuclear-armed systems.” The Pentagon could—if it chose to—turn hypersonics into an entirely new type of nuclear weapon.

“At this point, our hypersonics program is really a technology development program, purely focused on conventional” payloads, said Stephen Welby, assistant defense secretary for research and engineering. “There’s nothing in the budget” related to modeling, researching, or exploring nuclear-armed hypersonics.

While the U.S. is also planning to spend more on modernizing U.S. ICBMs, the “two things are uncoupled” Welby said Wednesday at a National Defense Industrial Association, or NDIA, event here.

Asked about potential payloads, a Raytheon spokesman said only that “the hypersonics programs on which Raytheon is currently a performer are focused on advancing the technologies that support hypersonic flight. The eventual application of those technologies in support of a customer mission is for the customer [the U.S. government] to answer.”

Superfast Strike Jet

The ultimate goal of today’s hypersonic research, military leaders say, isn’t a nuclear missile but a re-usable hypersonic jet.

“We see this as being a long-range program,” David Walker, the U.S. Air Force deputy assistant secretary for science, technology and engineering said at the NDIA event. “It’s 2020 for the missile, 2030 … until you get into something that’s refurbishable” [meaning an aircraft you could potentially use again] and probably 2040 until you get into something that’s a totally reusable type of capability.”

In his presentation, Walker laid out the Air Force hypersonics roadmap. It starts with a quick-firing tactical strike missile, ready around 2020. Around 2030, it foresees an ISR craft capable of “deep strike of high value targets.” And finally, a “re-usable and persistent” ISR and strike craft labeled “tech ready by 2040.”

The military sees hypersonic airplanes as one answer to the rise of more capable programmable radar. “Our ability to operate in a stealthy mode is starting to lose its advantage because of the advanced radars,” Dick Urban of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, told the crowd at NDIA. “We think that speed is going to give us that extra advantage.” (Welby called advanced programmable radars “a challenge” but said that they did not necessarily make stealth obsolete.)

But that doesn’t mean that hypersonics are invisible. They’ll have a bright infrared signature visible from space.

Inherently Destabilizing?

The same speed advantage has alarmed members of the non-proliferation community, who believe hypersonics raise the risk of nuclear conflict.

“I see hypersonics as weapons whose only plausibly logical use would be a niche role in a strategic first strike vs. Russia or China. So the nuclear standoff already exists, and this road is taking us closer to war,” physicist Mark Gubrud said by email. (He also says the speed advantage of hypersonics is overstated; ICBMs are still faster.)

An enemy would have no way to know whether or not such a missile was carrying a conventional or nuclear warhead.

“If I see a cruise missile flying over, I have to assume it’s nuclear,” William Perry, a former defense secretary, said at a recent event in Washington.

He is not unique in that concern. Tong Zhao, an associate in the Carnegie Endowment’s Nuclear Policy Program, echoed this concern in a June essay for the Bulletin for Atomic Scientists. “Some analysts in China suspect that the United States is seeking the ability to eliminate Beijing’s nuclear deterrent in a first strike—and if Washington successfully develops hypersonic missiles, Beijing’s confidence in the credibility of its nuclear deterrent would only erode,” Zhao wrote. “Already, some in China are discussing whether Beijing should, in the face of new conventional threats to its nuclear arsenal, alter its unconditional no-first-use policy.”

China is also working to develop hypersonic cruise missiles and has already conducted six tests of a hypersonic weapon, the WU-14. Russia and India are also planning to test a hypersonic missile called the BrahMos-II capable of reaching Mach 7, in 2017.

In the same series of essays for the Bulletin, Gubrud called for banning even tests of hypersonic weapons, arguing that such a prohibition “stands out as an easy and highly significant opportunity to resist an onslaught of destabilizing weapons technology.”

The history of U.S. advances in hypersonics is intertwined with nuclear weapons research, Gubrud points out. “The US has tested maneuvering reentry vehicles which were intended for nuclear delivery. The Advanced Hypersonic Weapon, successfully tested in 2011, was derived from the Sandia SWERVE [Sandia Winged Energetic Reentry Vehicle Experiment] maneuvering reentry vehicle, which was intended as a nuclear warhead,” he told Defense One.

“The US may not be planning to use hypersonics for nuclear delivery, but US statements allege that Russia and China do intend to do so, and the technical possibility is clear,” he says. “More importantly, even non-nuclear hypersonic weapons would be mainly intended to attack strategic targets including nuclear weapons and the infrastructure of nuclear war. The best way to prevent this needless uptick in the nuclear arms race would be to initiate a moratorium on hypersonic missile testing (both glide vehicles and cruise missiles) and challenge Russia and China to reciprocate and to negotiate a permanent ban.”

The unique advantages that the Pentagon sees in hypersonic technologies suggest that is unlikely to happen.

Basically China and Russia are working (independently) on Hypersonic gliders - replacements for ballistic warheads that can manuever and fly a different trajectory than a warhead - but are themselves unpowered. They would be attached to missiles and rockets (at first Short Range and Anti-Ship missiles, eventually ICBMs) as replacement for warheads. But they would rely on rocket power to get to Hypersonic speed in a first (or second) stage before the unpowered boosted-glider detaches.

The US is working on that as well, for the same purpose as Russia and China... an aim that may eventually intertwine later next decade when the time comes to design a replacement for all Warheads in the US Nuclear arsenal (so a potential nuclear-armed hypersonic glider, MIRV'd in a ballistic missile, instead of ballistic warheads). This look like this:






But the US is also working on hypersonic powered flight, first for a different type of missile, and later as a road to a hypersonic strike aircraft (the so called 2037-bomber... likely well after 2037 though). This is more like an engine and would be useful as Prompt Global Strike weapons and is the priority program over the unpowered gliders. Russia/China are not working on this. These look like this:


https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/d...averider1.jpeg




https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8r9DNirNk...nicroadmap.png


The US is more interested in powered-flight hypersonics over gliders (warhead replacements) because they'll have vastly greater range and speed, and open the door to a hypersonic bomber. But the technical challenges are much higher and you get to powered flight by going through unpowered flight, which is why the US worked on both.

They're just fundamentally different and easily confused. A long range powered-hypersonic missile based on the X-51 Waverider (pictured above) is scheduled to be in the arsenal around 2020. But that's a wholly different technology than a hypersonic glider replacement for a ballistic missile nuclear warhead, which CHina, Russia and the US are working on separately.

[Reeve]

Well to be perfectly honest I think its in the earths best interest that humankind become extinct. Hows that rational for you?

Actually this speaks for it better than I can.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmVLcj-XKnM

First off, the Earth doesn't have an interest. It's a rock in space.

Second, why would we care about the interests of the remaining organisms on Earth if we no longer exist?

When we talk about stuff that's good for the Earth, usually what we really mean is stuff that keeps the Earth a pleasant place for humans to live.

[Deleted]

Huh? The guardian published the NSA files from snowden and the panama papers, I guess you think snowden is full of shit then.

Did not mean every article is like this. Just most.

Funny though, how you jump the train from my post to Snowden being full of shit. The Guardian is the least tainted by corruption and lies for now..better than Fox News by leagues. I applaud them and support Snowden.

[Crispin]

Did not mean every article is like this. Just most.

Funny though, how you jump the train from my post to Snowden being full of shit. The Guardian is the least tainted by corruption and lies for now..better than Fox News by leagues. I applaud them and support Snowden.

It's a pretty bold claim that most of the articles on TheGuardian hide the truth, heck that's a bold claim for all the news outlets you mentioned, got anything to back that up other than "It's obvious" ?

Should be easy for you to point out atleast 10 articles on their frontpage that's hiding the 'truth', when the majority of them do according to you.