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The Rise of Hypersonic Weapons

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Re: The Rise of Hypersonic Weapons

#71

Post by treebeard901 »

eternalban wrote: post #50
mikeash wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the main things allowing for MAD at this point were the ability of retaliatory ICBMs to launch quickly before incoming weapons destroy them, and the ability for ballistic missile submarines to survive a strike by being hidden, and thus retaliate at leisure. I don't see how hypersonic weapons change either of that. They're not any faster than a missile, so the response time isn't worse, and they don't do any…

There is less critical ambiguity in the triad weapons. HS weapons introduce ambiguity in the above calculus. So with former, the global mafia could (safely) play proxy war in far flung location. Now, they can't do so, safely. All members of the global mafia cartel are concerned, since proxy wars are very good for [(settling)] business.

> All members of the global mafia cartel are concerned

Who are these members?

Re: The Rise of Hypersonic Weapons

#72

Post by paulmd »

dfsegoat wrote: post #12
Cozumel wrote: post #8

There's nothing 'hypothetical' about them like the article says, both Russia ( http://www.ibtimes.com/russias-secret-hypersonic-nuclear-mis... ) and China ( http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/china-successfully-tests-7000-mph-d... ) have operational hypersonic missiles. Whether they would use them when conventional weapons work just as well and are cheaper is debatable but they already have them.

The article you cite for the PLAN system states that it completed it's 7th test flight. This is not operational. For instance the F-35 only recently became "operationally capable" - but it has been flying since 2006.

And on the flip side, the P-51 Mustang took 149 days from placement of the order to the flight of the first prototypes (and the near-immediate order of a run of 300 further aircraft for evaluation).

I'm not disagreeing with you that a test firing is vastly different from serial production, but the F-35 is the poster child for an unreasonably protracted and dysfunctional development process. It's a massively complex system with a dozen different major players all trying to pull it in conflicting directions with dozens of contractors all trying to make sure they diffuse the project across all 435 Congressional districts.

The overall implication that because the F-35 is a trainwreck that it's not possible to ever develop a weapons system on a fast timeframe - that I disagree with. The fact that we are dysfunctional does not make everyone else so.

Re: The Rise of Hypersonic Weapons

#73

Post by breatheoften »

mikeash wrote: post #57
eternalban wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is less critical ambiguity in the triad weapons. HS weapons introduce ambiguity in the above calculus. So with former, the global mafia could (safely) play proxy war in far flung location. Now, they can't do so, safely. All members of the global mafia cartel are concerned, since proxy wars are very good for [(settling)] business.

There's no ambiguity only because nobody has bothered to mount conventional weapons on ICBMs. There's nothing preventing that, and indeed the US has seriously considered it as a way to implement Prompt Global Strike. Those plans have been held back by the fear that launching such a weapon could be mistaken for a nuclear launch, of course. Is the problem with hypersonic weapons just that it looks like the players won'…

Based on the arguments in this thread -- I don't see the difference with respect to m.a.d. either.

HS launch could carry conventional or nuclear threat, it's not possible to know which after detection of launch. For mad, we must always treat these launches as nuclear -- and therefore in the end, no one uses these weapons (unless they are intending to launch global nuclear war)...?

Re: The Rise of Hypersonic Weapons

#74

Post by drzaiusapelord »

theptip wrote: post #61
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or nuclear tipped cruise missiles on ships or in-air bombers. The nuclear triad is still unbeatable. The article is pretty terrible in general. Hypersonics won't change the balance of anything, especially considering what a decent sized one can do. If you're delivering nuclear-levels of destruction with hypersonics then your opponent will retaliate with nuclear weapons. There will be no exception for "Oh, you used hy…

I think the nuclear angle is a red herring, and that the real destabilizing aspect of hypersonic weapons is that they can take out carriers, at much lower cost. The entire foundation of US force projection is built upon the carrier battle group. If putting your $5b carrier in the South China Sea makes it vulnerable to getting taken out by a $5m missile, then the balance of power has changed. Obviously there's nuclear…

I believe the common wisdom here is that no nation has remotely accurate targeting location on US carriers. This hypothetical attack would require intelligence and sensing capabilities that don't currently exist. I'm not saying this isn't possible, but right now you'd have to fly an enemy drone or plane near the carrier group to get any accurate targeting information and that plane would be shot down or jammed well before it could determine the exact locale, especially in wartime where such things would be not even be given a warning and all sorts of electric countermeasures would be on 24/7. Worse, unless the carrier is parked, its moving and hypersonic missile attacks against moving ships is an unsolved problem. You can't do last second course corrections at Mach 5.

The obvious solution would be to just have many megatons of kinectic energy hit near the carrier group via a decently sized kinetic, but the US would treat that exactly as a nuclear attack by a foreign power and respond in kind. It would probably look like one to central command as well, mushroom cloud and all.

I think the idea that these things will be stealthy, maneuverable, unstoppable, accurate, and undetectable is a little much. These weapons come with quite a bit of liability and might be impractical in any non-total war scenarios. The US is not going to let China and Russia blow up carrier groups with multi-megaton weapons and not respond in kind with its own megaton weapons, either nukes or large kinetics against military bases or capital cities. Once that hotpoint is reached, nuclear war is assumed. A kinetic strike against USS Ronald Reagan will mean a kinetic or nuke strike against Beijing or Moscow. The Chinese and Russians would know our escalation policies and would act accordingly if they don't plan to start WWIII with these weapons. Whether these policies have been officially written yet is the only real question here. Its safe to assume multi-megaton attacks against the US will absolutely not be tolerated and will not be treated with a conventional response.

Re: The Rise of Hypersonic Weapons

#75

Post by sqeaky »

M_Grey wrote: post #51
regularfry wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting question: is it possible to build something capable of hypersonic speeds which can survive a surface impact and go straight into supercavitation? Alternatively, how deep do you have to go to escape the damaging effects of the shockwave from something slapping into the surface of the sea at mach 6?

At hypersonic speeds, hitting the water starts to resemble slamming into the side of a tank. I'm not sure how that could be managed while keeping the warhead intact, and of course, you'd need to lift all of that armoring in the first place, and the drive to make it work underwater and produce cavitation effects. As to how deep... not that deep, especially for a boomer.

When waiting for a retaliatory strike a sub can be at any operational depth, it doesn't have to wait at firing depth near the surface. It could potentially be a kilometer below the surface. If some hearsay is to be believed it could be resting on the ocean floor.

There is also the matter of targeting these things. Water absorbs radar and if they are silent you have no way to target your bunker buster.

Re: The Rise of Hypersonic Weapons

#76

Post by ryanmarsh »

idoh wrote: post #67
ryanmarsh wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having hit the water at 60mph. Can confirm, felt like hitting the side of a tank.

How did that happen? Fall off a speed boat?

Modified jet ski with the governor removed from the engine. I was 16. My buddy and I were taking turns trying to throw each other off.

It hurt. Hit so hard I got water under my eyelids. Felt like my face exploded. Knocked the wind out of me. Luckily: life vest.

Re: The Rise of Hypersonic Weapons

#77

Post by ryanmarsh »

dredmorbius wrote: post #64
M_Grey wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damn... how did that happen to you?

If free-fall, that would require a drop height of about 40m (130 ft).

I've always been afraid of the high dive. Unfortunately I did not share the same fear of powered water craft.

Re: The Rise of Hypersonic Weapons

#78

Post by breatheoften »

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…

The premise in the thread seems to be that after the first nuclear skirmishes, the only optimal strategy is to delay all-out response on the hope that initial firings were a fluke, an error, or a mistake. And that the ability for a delayed response is assured, so there's no point in rushing to press the annilihation button.

It may be true that delay would be the best option for maximizing probability of survivability in that scenario, however I do not think the capability exists to actually do this -- it might not even be possible to implement this strategy. I don't think it's possible to construct a control system that would manage the diverse array of retaliatory launch systems in a way that both preserves "guaranteed total annihilation of aggressor" and "arbitrary delay for retaliation after first strike"

Re: The Rise of Hypersonic Weapons

#79

Post by pinaceae »

throwanem wrote: post #32
mxvzr wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

this wargame was equivalent of Hopplites killing Tanks in Civilization. abuse of broken game mechanics. motorcycle couriers operating at light speed, little boats carrying huge missiles, etc.

but a great internet legend, brought up over and over again.

Re: The Rise of Hypersonic Weapons

#80

Post by vilhelm_s »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #56

This got me wondering, how low would the cost to reach LEO have to get for it to start making sense to use Falcon 9 + Dragon to deliver an SF team (e.g. commanders in-extremis force) to an objective? Then that got me thinking about the reality of drop ships. Isn't that the next logical progression? I mean, currently we can put a battalion of paratroopers anywhere in the world with 48 hours notice. We can put a Ranger…

http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2015/03/23/the_ulti...
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