US Air Force tests its first fully functional hypersonic missile

The US Air Force says it has successfully tested its first fully equipped prototype hypersonic missile. Progress of the AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) was held up earlier this year due to a series of failed trial runs, though the Air Force says things went as planned when it launched one from under the wing …

[Bitsminer]

Oh boy

...ultimate goal with a hypersonic weapon is to be able to let General Ripper deliver a payload anywhere in the world in less than an hour.

FTFY.

One big issue with these things is they have such a low-measurable infrared signature, which makes them considerably more "stealthy" than your garden-variety ICBM. Can you say "first strike"?

[Kevin McMurtrie]

Re: Oh boy

Deliver a pizza anywhere in the world in less than an hour.

Then you'd have a billion dollar startup company.

[An_Old_Dog]

Hypersonic Heat Transfer

"All our pizzas are 'crisp-crust' pizzas."

[Mike 137]

Re: Oh boy

Ideally, pizza delivery par excellance..

Unfortunately, this level of ingenuity only seems to go into ways of killing people. After two million years (give or take) one would hope we'd have realised that doesn't solve any problems, but apparently we haven't.

[Paul Crawford]

Re: Oh boy

After two million years (give or take) one would hope we'd have stopped having problems needing this, but apparently we haven't.

[GrahamRJ]

Re: Oh boy

Pizza will still kill you. Just more slowly via heart disease.

[very angry man]

Re: Oh boy

Can someone do the maths?

Pizza ( what toppings as this will make a differance to termanal velostity)

Guidance systems, pizza guy always seems to get lost here!

packaging, nobody likes cold pizza

my question is just how much damage can a cold pizza do , when impacting your digestive system at

five times the speed of sound (3,836mph/6,174kph),

I'm thinking fast moving red mist where the tv used to be

and what are the reg units for pizza traveling this fast?

[Ken Hagan]

Re: Oh boy

Hmm, I'm pretty sure I don't want my pizza to hit the table at Mach 5.

[NoneSuch]

Re: Oh boy

"The US military's ultimate goal with a hypersonic weapon is to be able to deliver a payload anywhere in the world in less than an hour."

The US military's ultimate goal with a hypersonic weapon is to be able to bomb an entire wedding party anywhere in the world in less than an hour.

Fixed it for you.

[BOFH in Training]

Re: Oh boy

Wouldn't something going at hypersonic speeds generate alot of heat via atmospheric friction while in travel?

I thought it will be very easily spotted via infra, and you don't even need to be seeing it from the engine end to see it.

[An_Old_Dog]

Re: Oh boy

Sure, it'll have a major heat signature. Tracking that heat signature, and being able to do anything effective about that incoming missile is another kettle of fish.

[DS999]

Re: Oh boy

I would assume satellites could track that heat signature as it moves with little difficulty. They can spot the heat signature of a vehicle, something moving through the air at Mach 10 is going to have a far larger heat signature than a diesel truck.

As you say, taking it out it is a different problem since it will be moving much faster than the missiles that we currently can (mostly) intercept. I'm guessing that is more of a problem in terms of how many minutes you have to intercept it than the "hit a bullet with a bullet" problem that's already (mostly) solved.

That time to intercept might mean you need a hypersonic missile to take out a hypersonic missile. So defense contractors win and taxpayers lose, once again.

[Adam Azarchs]

Re: Oh boy

It's less about being able to shoot the missile down (which would be nice, but not actually terribly important to our defensive strategy) than it is about whether your target sees the middle coming early enough to have a chance to launch their counter-strike before your missiles disable their ability to do so.

[Peter2]

Re: Oh boy

Yes. And this is why things like this weren't developed before, and shouldn't be deployed now as strategic weapons like that. We could already deploy multi ton conventional warheads in that timeframe by refitting ICBM's. Why hasn't that been done? Consider it a moment.

If you have fast moving weapons that can annihilate you within minutes then it encourages nuclear weapons in fixed land silos or in airbases to be kept on a hair trigger and launched on warning of an incoming attack, which is highly subject to system mistakes accidentally wiping out half the population on the planet if you launch on a mistaken warning and the opposition (who hadn't actually started nuking you) retaliates against an actual launch.

Actually tossing around nuclear capable delivery systems tends to make people on the receiving end VERY twitchy and that's generally agreed to be a Bad Thing when nuclear weapons are involved.

[ChrisC]

Re: Oh boy

"We could already deploy multi ton conventional warheads in that timeframe by refitting ICBM's. Why hasn't that been done? Consider it a moment."

Because ICBMs have *only* ever been developed with the purpose of delivering a physics package/bucket of instant sunshine/[other colloquialisms are available, see front desk for details], so anyone trying to retrofit one with a conventional warhead now would be insane - the only way to prevent your target from responding as if you were abouit to nuke them would be to warn them in advance that the missile you're about to lob in their direction genuinely, honestly, pinky promise, is "only" carrying a conventional warhead, and even then there's a fairly decent chance they'll just assume you're lying through your teeth in order to avoid receiving the retribution you'd so richly deserve for nuking someone, and response accordingly anyway...

Compare and contrast with the way cruise missile launches are perceived - whilst they *can* carry nuclear payloads, that wasn't their *sole* purpose for existing, and consequently rather less fuss is made by a defender on seeing a swarm of such weapons heading their way - you still don't know for certain that the inbound missiles are or aren't nukes, but the balance of probabilities tells you that (barring a war scenario where things have become *really* heated and you genuinely are expecting your attacker to throw anything and everything at you, no holds barred) they won't be and therefore there's no need to respond in kind.

[Peter2]

Re: Oh boy

Compare and contrast with the way cruise missile launches are perceived - whilst they *can* carry nuclear payloads, that wasn't their *sole* purpose for existing

Not quite. There had to be a specific cruise missile design that was armed with a nuclear warhead, and both the missiles and warheads were retired and have since been physically scrapped precisely so the non nuclear versions can be used without people on the receiving end worrying about the reaction.

[LogicGate]

Re: Oh boy

Which makes theRussians now using cruise missiles designed for nuclear warheads sans these warheads even more scary.

How do you know whether the next one will be sans as well?

[ChrisC]

Re: Oh boy

Though note that they appear to be using the nuclear-capable ones because they're scraping the barrel for anything remotely cruise-missile like they can find (see also their pressing of obsolete tanks into service) to lob in the direction of the Ukranians, and even a missile with an inert payload is worth using - it ties up air defence resources, and if it does get through and hits its target then even just the kinetic energy it carries will cause some damage.

Whilst we did have the daily threats of nuclear annihilation in the early days of the war, I don't think anyone genuinely believed Russia would be so utterly insane as to actually use them in any way - at least not after the first couple of weeks of hearing the same rhetoric - so having managed to survive all those threats without anyone getting an unexpected suntan, it feels like their current using up of nuclear-capable cruise missiles isn't nearly as scary as it might have been in those early days when we weren't quite as sure they were all bluff and bluster and not really willing to end the world...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Oh boy

if it hits nearby and you have enough time to consider the question, then you'll know.

[ChrisC]

Re: Oh boy

Not quite yourself, because dual-role cruise missiles have been used in the conventional role at times when that specific type of missile could also have been nuclear-armed...

e.g. around 86% of the 2000+ Tomahawks launched in anger to date were used during the time period when it had dual-role capability, without provoking any concerns.

Also note that nuclear capable cruise missiles are still in active service around the world today, so re-read my previous comment whilst remembering that "cruise missile" is a generic term not intended to invoke thoughts of any specific version, and that someone on the receiving end of a cruise missile attack may not be able to determine exactly which type of missile is inbound, when considering why I used them as a compare and contrast example earlier.

[Chris 15]

Re: Oh boy

Those on the receiving end will be worrying about the reaction, whether it's a chemical or atomic reaction on that warhead they're receiving is probably a moot point if they're the ones expected to play catch...

[EvilDrSmith]

Re: Oh boy

Though the Chinese Df21 (if I got the number right) was designed from, I think a Sub Launched missile (SLBM not ICBM, so not disagreeing with your comment on ICBMs) originally designed as a strategic nuclear armed weapon.

The DF21 is the so-called 'carrier-killer' (conventionally armed) anti-ship missile that, according to some, renders the US navy's carriers impotent to approach Chinese shores.

This whole point about not knowing whether it has a conventional or nuclear warhead is one of the concerns with it - that if the Chinese ever use it, the recipient, whoever they may be, will assume that it's nuclear armed, and react accordingly.

[Alan Brown]

Re: Oh boy

The DF21 and its cousin the DF4D don't need to be nuclear armed for the task they have

A nuke in such an instance is useful if you have a delivery radius of a few hundred metres

These things are quite capable of reliably putting a hole in the flight deck. In many ways you don't need any explosive at all when the kinetic energy is considered - a mission kill is more than adequate to send the aggressor home, without actually sinking the vessel

(China has more than enough ASBMs to rain a bunch down and force an escort group to expend all defensive weapons before picking off the ships themselves unoppose, or to drop them around the main vessel to make a point that they COULD sink it if they chose to do so, but they want people to go home. The biggest unknown right now is that the leadership is suffering from having the same guy at the top for too long. There are good reasons WHY democratic countries change the management periodically - it stops people from being utterly surrounded by yes-men)

[wub]

Re: Oh boy

"/bucket of instant sunshine/"

Wish I could upvote more than once. I haven't laughed this hard in a long time... I guess having lived through the '50s and '60s helps me see that phrase in two very different, non-super-imposable ways.

Thanks for brightening my day, safely.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Oh boy

When one gets one's retaliation launched depends to a large extent on survivability. If your counter strike depends on air or land launched missiles, then yes, you probably need to get those launched before the attacking missiles hit.

But if your counterstrike is going to come from submarine launched weapons, you can afford to wait. And, actually, a sub-launched counterstrike would be an absolute nightmare for the attacker, if they know the subs were out there. The attacker would have to cower in their bunkers and keep their own missile defenses on high alert all the time, which is very difficult to do - very tiring, effectively living in long term fear of a counter strike. Whereas the submarine can take it's own sweet time (probably a few months) before counterstriking, and probably can strike more than once; it doesn't have to fire everything it's got in one go.

This is the classic "Mutually Assured Destruction" stance of old; if you wipe us out, don't expect to get away with it. It does depend on both sides being sane enough to understand and avoid the consequences. Submarines remain the harshest point of pressure in that calculation.

[DS999]

Re: Oh boy

early enough to have a chance to launch their counter-strike

You're assuming missiles with a nuclear payload. As the war in Ukraine shows, missiles equipped with conventional payloads are far more common and so a defense against hypersonic missiles will eventually be required even against non-nuclear adversaries.

[Neil Barnes]

Re: Oh boy

Are we at the stage yet where the target missile is flying faster than the explosion front from whatever we try to intercept it with?

[DS999]

Re: Oh boy

I'm assuming you'd have to destroy a hypersonic missile with a kinetic impact, though an explosion in its path might disrupt the airflow enough that it'll tear itself apart. At least I assume something traveling at Mach 10 is pretty sensitive to that sort of thing, but I'm not an aeronautical engineer so I'm guessing.

[werdsmith]

Re: Oh boy

I can’t comprehend anything travelling at Mach 10 in the lower atmosphere. The gas molecules in the air are not going to co-operate. I would like an explanation about how this problem is addressed. Surely the phase of trajectory at this speed is above the stratosphere? It’s a re-entry from orbit kind of velocity. As the projectile comes down to lower altitudes it must be much slower.

[Alan Brown]

Re: Oh boy

" I would like an explanation about how this problem is addressed"

It gets hot - white hot. Ablative or active cooling of control surfaces is needed, or you come up with some way (as with reentry vehicles) to divert most of the hot air around the airframe without touching it

If you have a flight time of only a couple of minutes on a one way trip, cooling is less of an issue

[42656e4d203239]

Re: Oh boy

hmmm.... given that the incoming would be travelling at about 1 mile per second as it pops over your horizon (about 2.9 miles in flat clear terrain) you have 3s to interdict it...

Detection/confirmation might take 0.5s, launch of something will take a second or two more, by which time the bogie would be overhead (assuming you weren't the target)... assuming it was headed somewhere other than your current position, catching it up would probably not be an option.

For a little thought experiment, using big handfuls, Phalanx shells travel about 1100m per second, about 2/3 the speed of the target, so anything other than almost head on interception is going to be more by luck than judgement.... you would have to predict the course, and start pupming DU (or lead) skywards back along the most probable track becasue the slew rate on your point defence isn't going to be high enough to keep up if you are chasing it across the sky.

All in all a non-trivial problem - and certainly doing something about it will not be as easy as spotting it in the first place... which is, after all, the point of hypersonic ordnance.

[Pascal Monett]

If you wait for it to be over the horizon to detect it, you've already lost.

To have any chance above zero of resisting a hypersonic strike, you need eyes in the sky that can bring your reaction time into a more comfortable range of 10 seconds at least.

And most of the stuff doing the reacting needs to be completely automated to avoid meatbag reaction time.

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Oh boy

However your horizon is much bigger if you simply put your radar on a big stick. Or even a hilltop.

Air defence destroyers put their radars on masts. Or even this Giraffe lorry-mounted radar link to Wiki - which uses a hydraulic mount to give it a larger horizon.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Or even this Giraffe lorry-mounted radar

I am very disappointed this does not use an actual giraffe.

.

.

Although I expect that any passing giraffes will likely have different opinions on this matter...

[Binraider]

Re: Oh boy

And how do you tell the difference between one loaded with a Nuke or a conventional explosive. Like everything else, you can't.

Next step is to figure out how to do a moving target.

[Fr. Ted Crilly]

Re: Oh boy

cue a Buck Turgidson arm waving demonstration...

[Black Label]

Re: Oh boy

You said: "Can you say "first strike"?"

... Hoping China and Russia does not strike back with their hypersonic, right? MAD style.

Interestingly, there are VIDEOS of hypersonic weapons from Russia and China. None from the US Air Force (No CGI please guys...)

Why? Links please?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Oh boy

No videos because the USA, USA, USA completely took their eye off the ball from developing the most effective modern weapon systems (how many $billions wasted on the F35, which given their operating range limit can now be destroyed on the ground in their frontline bases by el-cheapo mass drone attacks, and on on their carriers by aforementioned hypersonic missiles?).

Now the USA is frantically trying to develop hypersonic missile technology, for which they're years behind the Russians and esp the Chinese.

Also, no sign yet the Pentagon has noticed how cheap drone tech has changed ground and sea-based warfare forever.

What do these people do all day?

Homer slaps forehead - "Doh!" Chinese and Russian Nelsons - high pitched "Ha Ha!"

[very angry man]

Re: Oh boy

the real first boys on the block here , as far as i understand it, was India with isralia help, whitch drove the chinesse to build there own, the israilies also developed a counter measure, the indian one also did a fancy "S" move before inpacting at mack 5

[Kev99]

I thought the Nike Hercules & Nike Zeus (Mach 4+) were the first hypersonic missiles. Wait. It's the military. Reinvent the sledge before looking back or across the way.

[Anonymous Coward]

How well can the an incoming Hypersonic missile and an incoming meteor be distinguished from each other?

[Filippo]

I guess that the trajectory would be rather different.

[DS999]

They aren't entering outer space like a ballistic missile, they stay within the Earth's atmosphere at all times (and ideally they would travel very low to the ground to make seeing them with radar difficult)

So it seems unlikely they would ever be confused with a meteor.

[Anonymous Coward]

In space, no-one can build an *air breathing* hypersonic missile....

[Pascal]

Given the speed of sound in a vacuum, just give your air-breathing missile a big shove out the airlock and it'll actually be hyper-sonic!

[Anonymous Coward]

HTV-3

Operational for years, but we'd have to kill you if we told you about it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: HTV-3

Never heard of it. Is that a successor to ITV?

[bazza]

Re: HTV-3

Predecessor. "H" comes before "I" in the alphabet.

[Ken Hagan]

Re: HTV-3

Specifically: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITV_Wales_%26_West

[FuzzyTheBear]

Yes, all nice but ..

can it rid us of all the shady characters in one single shot ? Putin , Musk and Twitter .. Trudeau .. Johnson :D

Willing to press the button if you need any assistance ..

So long suckers .. < KABOOM >

lol

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Yes, all nice but ..

Downvoted because you put Trudeau in the same category as Putin, Muskrat and Johnson - where he definitely does not belong, and left out the tiny-fingered, cheeto-faced, ferret-wearing shitgibbon.

[MyffyW]

Re: Yes, all nice but ..

giggled like I haven't giggled in years at the descriptor "cheeto-faced, ferret-wearing shitgibbon"