The Rise of Hypersonic Weapons • Hacker News Board

Re: The Rise of Hypersonic Weapons

#31

Post by LoSboccacc » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 2:42 PM UTC

CapitalistCartr wrote: post #21

LoSboccacc wrote: post #20

I think this article conveniently forgets to mention nothing hypersonic of sort will outrun lasers. lasers can't track of course and range is limited by factor like atmosphere and earth curve, but still, thinking about an hypothetical future scenario hypersonic weapons would just get lasered down by automated point defences all the same as conventional speed ordinance.

To shoot down a missile with a laser, you need a segment of light about 30-50 cm long, so the target doesn't move too much whilst burning a hole in it. In that little segment has to be the energy of at least a .50 BMG, so 20k joules of energy. In a portable form that can fire repeately, reliably. That's doable, but not easily.

yeah it's hard to do now, I agree, but it's not like hypersonic weapons are readily available, so I'm gonna wager lasers would get viable defenses in time.

Re: The Rise of Hypersonic Weapons

#32

Post by throwanem » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 2:43 PM UTC

mxvzr wrote: post #16

throwanem wrote: post #3

I'm not sure these are as destabilizing as the article makes them sound. If Russia and China didn't already have the capability of destroying US carrier battle groups, I could see the sense in the argument, but Moskits are cheap, capable of Mach 3, and easily able to swamp antimissile defenses when launched en masse. (And they can carry a nuclear payload, too, not that it's likely they would in such a scenario, nor w…

This pretty much sounds like the scenario used, successfully, here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

Very much so, yes. Unfortunately, in a real conflict, you can't just "refloat" your sunk ships and rewrite the game so that the good guys win.

Re: The Rise of Hypersonic Weapons

#33

Post by adrianN » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 2:45 PM UTC

3pt14159 wrote: post #30

ekianjo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats not how the chain of command would actually work in a nuclear exchange. You are much more likely to go all in anyway.

Chain of command starts with the president. Look to how Moscow has acted multiple times when there were nuclear worries due to faulty equipment. Multiple times they waited until confirmation of a hit. Now thank goodness nuclear weapons haven't been used since multiple parties have had them, but had a strike actually occurred what do you think the response from Moscow would have been? Full military preparedness (obvio…

A decade after the release of “Strangelove,” the Soviet Union began work on the Perimeter system—-a network of sensors and computers that could allow junior military officials to launch missiles without oversight from the Soviet leadership. Perhaps nobody at the Kremlin had seen the film. Completed in 1985, the system was known as the Dead Hand. Once it was activated, Perimeter would order the launch of long-range missiles at the United States if it detected nuclear detonations on Soviet soil and Soviet leaders couldn’t be reached. Like the Doomsday Machine in “Strangelove,” Perimeter was kept secret from the United States; its existence was not revealed until years after the Cold War ended.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/almost-everything-in...

Re: The Rise of Hypersonic Weapons

#34

Post by Retric » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 2:46 PM UTC

nprecup wrote: post #15

throwanem wrote: post #3

I'm not sure these are as destabilizing as the article makes them sound. If Russia and China didn't already have the capability of destroying US carrier battle groups, I could see the sense in the argument, but Moskits are cheap, capable of Mach 3, and easily able to swamp antimissile defenses when launched en masse. (And they can carry a nuclear payload, too, not that it's likely they would in such a scenario, nor w…

A hypersonic vehicle can travel much faster than that. We're talking about the ability to strike targets anywhere on the globe in minutes. That IS destabilizing. The example of striking carrier groups in the pacific is only the tip of the iceberg. This race amounts to a global game of chicken, and the stakes of a mistake are world war. Let's hope cooler heads prevail. On the other hand, there are some pretty amazing…

They however are less cost effective and thus less dangerous.

Re: The Rise of Hypersonic Weapons

#35

Post by Spooky23 » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 2:48 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #27

3pt14159 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if you run the simulations. A city or three might get nuked in a tit-tat-tit exchange, but total war isn't currently likely. During the 60s and 70s there was the _chance_ we could just nuke all their nukes at once and maybe they'd get London, NY, or Washington, but we'd survive. A total strike is no longer even a first reach option because even if they level us and somehow cripple our nukes or kentic weapons we c…

Thats not how the chain of command would actually work in a nuclear exchange. You are much more likely to go all in anyway.

That's the assumption that MAD rests upon.

Personally, I don't buy it. We've had many known near miss incidents that should have been escalated. I don't think that the people sitting in front of the keys will turn them.

Re: The Rise of Hypersonic Weapons

#36

Post by Spooky23 » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 2:48 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #27

3pt14159 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if you run the simulations. A city or three might get nuked in a tit-tat-tit exchange, but total war isn't currently likely. During the 60s and 70s there was the _chance_ we could just nuke all their nukes at once and maybe they'd get London, NY, or Washington, but we'd survive. A total strike is no longer even a first reach option because even if they level us and somehow cripple our nukes or kentic weapons we c…

Thats not how the chain of command would actually work in a nuclear exchange. You are much more likely to go all in anyway.

That's the assumption that MAD rests upon.

Personally, I don't buy it. We've had many known near miss incidents that should have been escalated. I don't think that the people sitting in front of the keys will turn them.

Re: The Rise of Hypersonic Weapons

#37

Post by simonh » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 3:01 PM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #2

This reminds me of Project Thor [1]. The idea was to drop tungsten rods from orbit on the target. It would also be a weapon that is very hard to defend against with similar implications to these hypersonic missiles. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment

I'm surprised the wikipedia page doesn't discuss the technical problems. Accurate guidance proved to be surprisingly hard and the heat of atmospheric re-entry both blocks targeting sensors and also interferes with targeting signals from a ground spotter.Also it turns out terminal velocity for such a device isn't really all that high, relatively speaking. It's also prohibitively expensive. So it sounds good, but isn't really practical. Shame, I was a big Jerry Pournelle fan back in the day.

Re: The Rise of Hypersonic Weapons

#38

Post by ufmace » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 3:03 PM UTC

LoSboccacc wrote: post #20

I think this article conveniently forgets to mention nothing hypersonic of sort will outrun lasers. lasers can't track of course and range is limited by factor like atmosphere and earth curve, but still, thinking about an hypothetical future scenario hypersonic weapons would just get lasered down by automated point defences all the same as conventional speed ordinance.

Yes, that's what the article made me think - wide deployment of these types of weapons might make laser countermeasures the only viable protection, and thus spur the development of laser weapons.

Re: The Rise of Hypersonic Weapons

#39

Post by ethagknight » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 3:04 PM UTC

CapitalistCartr wrote: post #11

ethagknight wrote: post #10

The article frequently mentions the agility of these hypersonics. Doesn't 'flies super fast' usually require 'flies in a straight line'? Do we have suitable materials for control surfaces that can withstand the drag/heat/pressure of an evasive, quick turn at Mach 5?

The SR-71 did it fine slightly above Mach 4. If you call taking a few states to make a turn evasive.

Requiring a few states to hang a left makes it difficult to both evade and defense hit a target, right?

Re: The Rise of Hypersonic Weapons

#40

Post by mikeash » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 3:08 PM UTC

nprecup wrote: post #15

throwanem wrote: post #3

I'm not sure these are as destabilizing as the article makes them sound. If Russia and China didn't already have the capability of destroying US carrier battle groups, I could see the sense in the argument, but Moskits are cheap, capable of Mach 3, and easily able to swamp antimissile defenses when launched en masse. (And they can carry a nuclear payload, too, not that it's likely they would in such a scenario, nor w…

A hypersonic vehicle can travel much faster than that. We're talking about the ability to strike targets anywhere on the globe in minutes. That IS destabilizing. The example of striking carrier groups in the pacific is only the tip of the iceberg. This race amounts to a global game of chicken, and the stakes of a mistake are world war. Let's hope cooler heads prevail. On the other hand, there are some pretty amazing…

That capability has been around since the 1950s, and has been deployed widely enough to wreck civilization on a moment's notice since the 1960s. What do hypersonic weapons do in this respect that ICBMs don't? Is it just that they're cheaper and so could potentially be more numerous?