Pentagon budget 2019 Russian, Chinese hypersonics emerge as clear concern

[Heathrow Harry]

From Jayne's

Development of hypersonic weapons, and defences against those weapons, are given new life in the US Department of Defense’s fiscal year 2019 (FY 2019) budget amid concerns that peers such as Russia and China are advancing hypersonics technologies.

These systems, such as hypersonic glide vehicles, are meant to be capable of significant range within a short period of time; a hypersonic weapon would reach speeds between Mach 5 and Mach 10.

“We have investments in critical areas, such as hypersonic technology,” Pentagon Comptroller David Norquist told reporters at the Pentagon during the budget rollout.
For example, in FY 2019 the Pentagon is requesting USD263.414 million for its Conventional Prompt Global Strike (CPGS) project. The now-secretive effort involves the military services, government agencies, national research laboratories, and industry. Previous projects included the US Army's Advanced Hypersonic Weapon, the US Air Force's Hypersonic Technology Vehicle-2, and US Navy efforts towards launching hypersonic weapons from submarines (likely via Ohio-class guided-missile submarines or a future version of the new Virginia-class fast attack submarines).

Now, the programme broadly “funds the design, development, and experimentation of boosters, payload delivery vehicles (PDVs), non-nuclear warheads, thermal protection systems, guidance systems, test range modernisation, and mission planning and enabling capabilities”. Among other goals, the Pentagon wants “effects on targets in a very short period of time from execution order; non-ballistic flight over the majority of the flight path; positive control from launch to impact; adequate cross-range/maneuverability to avoid [sovereign country] overflight issues; [and] controlled stage drop over Broad Ocean Area”. This project is also developing non-nuclear warhead technologies to defeat time-sensitive targets.

[T28B]

The arms race never ends.

[racedo]

They don't actually work but Contractors retirement plans need to be funded.

[Heathrow Harry]

Don't forget the Bonus for the current CEO ... and the shareholders of course.......

[Lonewolf_50]

I find the juxtaposition of "hypersonic" and "glide" in the same descriptive a bit jarring. The only thing I can think of that "glides" at hypersonic velocity is a meteor coming down to earth - and that's not so much a glide as a plummet.

Interesting stuff that the 20 pound brains are coming up with.

[Lyneham Lad]

Flight Global article. (https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/chinese-waverider-vehicle-hits-mach-6-450926/)
China has reportedly conducted the maiden flight of a new hypersonic test vehicle, achieving speeds of Mach 5.5 for over six minutes, and reaching Mach 6.
Click the link for the full article.

[Lonewolf_50]

Good for them, and their teams of engineers and scientists. The tricky part is getting it to behave in a controllable manner in the lower atmosphere where the targets are. :)

[Lyneham Lad]

Just published on Flight Global (https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/lockheed-martin-claims-both-usaf-hypersonic-programm-450968/) - (you wait ages for an update and then two come along together...)
Snip:-
The US Air Force has selected Lockheed Martin to rapidly develop and field both new hypersonic missiles launched as a response to surprise developments in high-speed weapons by China and Russia, newly-released acquisition documents confirm.

The service already announced a $928 million award in April deal for Lockheed’s Missiles and Space company to develop the Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon (HCSW, pronounced “Hacksaw”, an air-ingesting missile capable of speeds in the single-digit Mach number scale. But a new document reveals that the USAF awarded a separate deal to Lockheed’s Missiles and Fire Control division in July 2017 to rapidly develop and field the Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW, pronounced “Arrow”). The ARRW, now assigned the designation AGM-183A, evolves from the Tactical Boost Glide (TBG) programme launched in 2014 by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). By using a rocket to boost the missile to very high altitudes, the unpowered ARRW then glides down to lower altitudes at speeds up to Mach 20.

[dead_pan]

Does it involve putting a big ol' beam weapon on a 747 and training up a few millennials who misspent their youth on X-boxes or PS-3s?

​​​​​​

[tartare]

I find the juxtaposition of "hypersonic" and "glide" in the same descriptive a bit jarring. The only thing I can think of that "glides" at hypersonic velocity is a meteor coming down to earth - and that's not so much a glide as a plummet.

Interesting stuff that the 20 pound brains are coming up with.

The Space Shuttle?
Google Eugene Sanger.
There's nothing new under the sun...

[Lonewolf_50]

@tartare fair point; that was a dead stick landing John Young did with the first one.
Lockheed Martin to rapidly develop...new hypersonic missiles
Well that's a relief, seeing as how rapidly they developed the F-35. :yuk: We should have that kit deployed about the time that my grandkids are on Social Security.
Please pardon my being underwhelmed by that announcement.

[KenV]

I find the juxtaposition of "hypersonic" and "glide" in the same descriptive a bit jarring. The only thing I can think of that "glides" at hypersonic velocity is a meteor coming down to earth - and that's not so much a glide as a plummet.A meteor follows a ballistic trajectory. So yes it plummets. These new weapons "glide" in that they are not powered during the descent and terminal phases of flight, but are controlled and have not just control surfaces, but also lifting surfaces (think space shuttle as an example). They do not follow a ballistic trajectory and can manuever both to complicate defenses and to steer them to their targets. The Pershing II missile had a gliding and maneuvering hypersonic reentry vehicle, but carried a nuclear warhead. The difference is that these things have a conventional warhead and much more precision terminal guidance. (Pershing II had a CEP of about 30 meters, plenty good enough for a nuke warhead, but effectively useless for a conventional warhead.)

[Harley Quinn]

@tartare fair point; that was a dead stick landing John Young did with the first one.


Weren't all Shuttle landings dead stick?

[KenV]

Weren't all Shuttle landings dead stick?They were indeed.
(And BTW, the "dead stick" does not refer to the control stick. It refers to the stopped propeller which was made of wood back when this phrase was coined.)

[tartare]

As were the X-15 landings - admittedly from powered hypersonic flight.
A mile a second boys.
That's fast.
And the man who worked out the optimal descent and fearsomely steep approach profile from that ride - which was later adopted for the Space Shuttle?
One Neil Alden Armstrong.

[A_Van]

With regard to Space Shuttle it is more correct to mention X-20 "Dyna Soar" (nearly a homonym to dinosaur, actually stand for "Dynamic Soaring").
Yes, Armstrong was in the group to fly this ugly beast, too. But McNamara killed the project.
IMHO more interesting is that the projet manager was Walter Dornberger, the former project manager for the nazi's V-2 and boss of Werner von Braun. I assume that all interested in space read his (very interesting) book.

[Lyneham Lad]

An 'in depth' article in The Times today.
Russia and China have a head start in the race to develop superfast weaponry, but the Pentagon is fast closing the gap. Michael Evans reports.
Need for speed: why the US is spending billions in a hypersonics arms race (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/need-for-speed-why-the-us-is-spending-billions-on-hypersonics-fr977p8jq?shareToken=cde176d93df61740b068063d7b0a85ae)

[Rheinstorff]

As a non-expert, I found this quite useful background reading:

Air Power Development Centre - Hypersonic Air Power (http://airpower.airforce.gov.au/Publications/Hypersonic-Air-Power)

[West Coast]

As a non-expert, I found this quite useful background reading:

Air Power Development Centre - Hypersonic Air Power (http://airpower.airforce.gov.au/Publications/Hypersonic-Air-Power)

Non expert- Bravo, refreshing admission. Seldom seen on pprune where folks google up for 5 minutes and then argue for hours on any given subject.

[pr00ne]

Isn't this sort of thing supposed to be one of the main drivers behind the huge funds being poured into directed energy weapons?