u.s army is testing the deadliest hypersonic missile the united states announced friday that
it has successfully tested an unarmed prototype of a hypersonic missile a nuclear-capable weapon that
could accelerate the arms race between superpowers the pentagon said a test glide vehicle flew at
hypersonic speeds more than five times the speed of sound or mach 5 to a designated impact point
after a long hiatus hypersonic missile research and development is back in full swing
major powers such as russia china and the us have been racing to develop hypersonic missile
a missile system so fast it cannot be intercepted by any current missile defense system hypersonic
missiles will play a huge role in foreign policy in the years to come as core pillars of
geopolitics such as geography and technological power can be undermined by hypersonic missiles
and given a recent uptick in successful tests from the likes of china and russia hypersonic missiles
are much closer than we think forcing a global reassessment of traditional notions of deterrence
what is a hypersonic missile a hypersonic missile travels at speeds of mach 5 and higher five times
faster than the speed of sound 3836 miles per hour which is around 1 mile per second some missiles
such as russia's upcoming kh-47m2 kinzhal air launched ballistic missile are allegedly capable
of reaching mach 10 speeds 7 672 miles per hour and distances up to 1 200 miles for comparison
the us tomahawk cruise missile the united states navy and royal navy's go-to long-range missile
system is subsonic traveling around 550 miles per hour and traveling a maximum distance around 1
500 miles they can travel much faster than current nuclear-capable ballistic and cruise missiles at
low altitudes can switch direction in flight and do not follow a predictable arc like conventional
missiles making them much harder to track and intercept even as conventionally armed non-nuclear
weapons they are viewed by analysts as raising the danger of conflict because an adversary might not
know how they are armed when launched the joint army navy test was carried out on march 19 from
the pacific missile range facility in kauai hawaii the test was for the military's common hypersonic
glide body or chgb weapon designed to be launched from a rocket that could be land air or sea based
the glide body tested today is now ready for transition to army and navy weapon
system development efforts said mike white the assistant director of the hypersonics program
the us military is meanwhile pouring money into advanced missile defense research to find ways to
protect against hypersonics a senior nato official warned that in a hypersonic missile strike
it may not even be clear what the target is until there's a boom on the ground
in january the bulletin of atomic scientists advance its doomsday clock its assessment of
the risk of nuclear holocaust in part due to the rising threat of hypersonic weapons
united states hypersonic missiles the us is developing a range of advanced hypersonic systems
and has recently awarded lockheed martin contracts for the development of two systems the hypersonic
conventional strike weapon 928 million dollars and agm-183a air launched rapid response weapon
480 million dollars with regards to current u.s projects boss petinis says the us is not focused
on the same extent as russia and china on the operational deployment of hypersonic capabilities
moscow and beijing both seek to counter us missile defense systems
and are developing respective anti-access area denial capabilities
the u.s in contrast has not prioritized hypersonic system to the same extent as
russia and china and is pursuing arguably more advanced systems capable of long-range
conventional precision strike as opposed to nuclear-armed weapons where accuracy is not so
important although the kinzhal shirkhan avangaard and chinese systems include conventional variants
that said the us can be accused of relying too heavily on its nuclear-powered aircraft carrier
groups to project power russia and china have the capability to hit carrier groups with hypersonic
missiles before they can get in operational range to launch airstrikes as the upcoming f-35 stealth
fighter jets have a combat radius of 450 to 600 miles meanwhile hypersonic missiles potentially
have a range in the excess of 1 200 miles current supersonic missiles such as brahmos have a range
of around 370 miles but this can be increased with glide vehicles meaning that carriers will have to
move dangerously close to hostile territory to be effective president donald trump signed
the national defense authorization act which authorized a 717 billion defense budget for 2019.
it is clear that the us is aiming to bridge the gap with regards to missile technology
a gap which has been widened over the last decade as russia and china have poured resources into
their respective hypersonic projects long-range hypersonic weapon the long-range hypersonic weapon
lrhw is a surface-to-surface hypersonic missile planned for use by the united states army
the united states navy intends to procure a ship submarine launch variant of the missile as part
of the service's intermediate range conventional prompt strike ircps program the weapon consists of
a large rocket booster that carries the unpowered common hypersonic glide body chgb in a nose cone
once the booster reaches significant altitude and speed it releases the chgb which glides at
hypersonic speeds as it descends towards its target dynetics will build the glide vehicle
while lockheed martin will build the booster as well as assemble the missile and launch equipment
the design of the common hypersonic glide body is based on the previously developed alternate
reentry system which was tested in the early 2010s as part of the army's advanced hypersonic weapon
program the alternate reentry system was itself based on the sandia winged energetic re-entry
vehicle experiment swerve prototype developed by sandia national laboratories in the 1980s
design work is by scandia while dynetics constructs prototypes and tests units
next generation combat vehicle the next generation combat vehicle ngcv is a us
army program intended to procure a variety of armored vehicles to add new capabilities
to army units and replace existing platforms that are nearing the end of their service life
the program covers the following systems it was announced in march 2018 that the next
generation combat vehicle team had selected the operationally manned fighting vehicle
as a prototype to replace the m2 bradley the army said omfv will be designed to engage
in close combat and deliver decisive lethality during the execution of combined arms maneuver
and will have a 30 millimeter cannon and second generation forward-looking infrared system
or fleur testing of the vehicle is expected to begin in 2020. in december 2019 it was reported
that the government plans to fund 100 million dollars for the next generation combat vehicle
a recurrent theme in all army programs going forward and particularly important in the ngcv
is to move away from proprietary systems to open architecture and plug and play that will allow
inserting new capability and technology these include general dynamics land systems bae systems
rhine metal america oshkosh defense with hanwa defense republic of korea
and point-blank enterprises of note is the scope of varied experience and
international participation in these teams bae is working with israeli lbit systems
rheinmetall a german firm is linked with l3 harris raytheon textron and allison transmission oshkosh
defense is aligned with korea's hanwa defense pratt and miller plus israel's raphael and plasan
unlike the others point blank is not a traditional vehicle supplier
but has teamed with keshik mobile power systems and other firms however company representatives
repeatedly stressed that these were not their omfv candidate designs however there were test beds
intended to allow for the evaluation of various technologies components and design details this
suggests a level of uncertainty that may exist at this early stage as the army's preferred direction
perhaps this is not surprising given the open give and take dialogue approach the army has proposed
still it is increasingly evident that a next generation combat vehicle may in fact
physically look very much like current vehicles the majority and most significant new capabilities
will be largely internal and essentially invisible although new weapons sites power
and survivability enhancements may be introduced these may not be what offers the most significant
battlefield capabilities these rather come from the ability for sharing and integrating data
not just within the ngcv platform but networked across the full range of battlefield systems
so
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