Major Threats: Why US 2020 Budget Massively Pushes Hypersonic Weapons

Russia and China are already testing Hypersonic weapons - US responds


By Kris Osborn - Warrior Maven

Hypersonic Weapons Acceleration

The Air Force increased 2020 budget push takes another step in an aggressive plan to prototype, test and deploy hypersonic weapons on an expedited schedule -- to defend against enemy attacks by fast-tracking an ability to launch high-impact, high-speed attacks at Mach. 5 - five times the speed of sound.

"Hypersonics is such an important area, we have to push it through - soon," William Roper, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, Acquisition, Technology & Logistics, told an audience recently at an Air Force Association Symposium.

Roper emphasized that the hypersonics effort is both focused on current emerging weapons, which are testing, being prototyped and quickly nearing operational status, but also on an "idea pipeline" to keep new developments emerging.

"We want to sharpen the industry base, even if we don't buy them in quantity. We want a 'big idea' pipeline, but we have to commit to it," Roper said.

The Pentagon's 2020 budget is proposing a hypersonic weapons increase, citing the request this way - "Hypersonics weapons development to complicate adversaries’ detection and defense - $2.6 billion," DoD budget documents say.

In the near term, Air Force has awarded several deal to Lockheed to expedite prototyping of a hypersonic weapon, called the “Air Launched Rocket Response Weapon.”

The effort involves two separate trajectories, including the Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon and a Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon. The Air Force has now awarded developmental deals for both systems to Lockheed.

Recent thinking from senior Air Force weapons developers had held that US hypersonic weapons might first be deployable by the early 2020s. Hypersonic drones for attack or ISR missions, by extension, were thought to be on track to emerge in the 2030s and 2040s, senior service officials have told Warrior Maven. Now, this aggressive new Air Force hypersonic weapons prototyping and demonstration effort is expected to change this time frame in a substantial way. In fact, an Air Force Magazine report citing senior service leaders said the Air Force should have operational hypersonic weapons in about 2 years.

A "boost glide" hypersonic weapon is one that flies on an upward trajectory up into the earth's atmosphere before using the speed of its descent to hit and destroy targets, senior officials said.

The Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon effort involves using technologies which have not yet been integrated for air-launched delivery, an Air Force spokeswoman told Warrior Maven last year.

Last year, Roper talked specifically about a Hypersonic weapons acceleration plan which involved prototyping and technological development early in the process.

Senior Air Force weapons developers, including Roper, have explained the rationale in terms of not waiting many more years for a "100-percent" solution if a highly impactful "90-percent" solution can be available much sooner. A weapon traveling at hypersonic speeds, naturally, would better enable offensive missile strikes to destroy targets such and enemy ships, buildings, air defenses and even drones and fixed-wing or rotary aircraft depending upon the guidance technology available.


Along these lines, the advent of hypersonic weapons is a key reason why some are questioning the future survivability of large platforms such as aircraft carriers. How are ship-based sensors, radar and layered defenses expected to succeed in detecting tracking and intercepting or destroying an approaching hypersonic weapon traveling at five-times the speed of sound?



Although potential defensive uses for Hypersonic weapons, interceptors or vehicles are by no means beyond the realm of consideration, the principle effort at the moment is to engineer offensive weapons able to quickly destroy enemy targets at great distances. Scientists explain that speed of sound can vary, depending upon the altitude; at the ground level it is roughly 1,100 feet per second. Accordingly, if a weapon is engineered with 2,000 seconds worth of fuel – it can travel up to 2,000 miles to a target, a former Air Force Chief Scientist told Warrior in a previous interview.





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Comments (5)
No. 1-2

There are a lot of false myths floating around about hypersonics, such as the claim that they go so fast defenders have only a few seconds to respond. That is clearly ridiculous. Hypersonics go really fast - much faster than for instance the SR-71 Blackbird. It went so fast (Mach 3+) that the superheating imposed on the airframe by atmospheric friction required that the skin be made of titanium, because aluminum lost too much of its structural strength at those very high temperatures.

Well, hypersonics at Mach 5+ get a whole lot hotter than a SR-71 does.

And that means that all of these hypersonics literally stick out like very sore thumbs to both space based, air based, and ground based IR sensors. The space based IR sensors can follow them literally from launch all the way through their flight paths to target, providing lots and lots of warning of their imminent approach and target points.

And of course, hypersonics are extremely expensive too, so we'll never be able to afford anywhere near as many of them as we do subsonic and low supersonic missiles and aircraft.

Hypersonics are the most hyper-hyped of defense tech in well, forever. A whole lotta sizzle, not much real steak.


No idea what he is talking about, but OK....