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The Rise of Hypersonic Weapons

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Re: The Rise of Hypersonic Weapons

#91

Post by throwanem »

pinaceae wrote: post #79
throwanem wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you have a cite? I've seen a lot of different sources take the perspective I describe on MC '02, and it's easy to support from the JFCOM final report (see e.g. pages 59-60).

I would be very interested in evaluating a substantive claim that, rather than van Riper's surprise attack being outside the scope of the wargame but entirely plausible and effective all the same, a retired general with no personal stake in the outcome of the game nonetheless cheated in order to try to make it come out the way he wanted, despite that it'd be trivially obvious he'd done so.

Re: The Rise of Hypersonic Weapons

#92

Post by dredmorbius »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #77
dredmorbius wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ain't that th' thing about life? So many opportunities to learn new things!

Re: The Rise of Hypersonic Weapons

#93

Post by gozur88 »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #86
ekianjo wrote: post #26

> would be able to knock out a target’s nuclear capabilities fast enough and thoroughly enough to pre-empt any attempt at a retaliatory strike. Did the author completely forget about nuclear subs?

I believe the author was implying countries like North Korea or Iran who might develop a nuclear warhead and possibly ICBM technology but not have the other options (air or sea launch). That said, a sub at missile launch depth is susceptible to a hypersonic weapon from above. With sufficient mass, even a kinetic only impact from the surface could take out those subs. A nuclear depth charge can take out subs down to t…

>That said, a sub at missile launch depth is susceptible to a hypersonic weapon from above.

If you know where it is. If you do, the sub has already failed as a weapons system. We have all sorts of weapons that can take out subs if we know where they are.

Re: The Rise of Hypersonic Weapons

#94

Post by 3pt14159 »

adrianN wrote: post #33
3pt14159 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mi…

The episode I'm referring to was after 1985, with Boris Yeltsin in the early 90s. However Perimeter was designed or used, I'm sure the Russians didn't create a system that caused total war after a skirmish of a couple small nuclear weapons.

Re: The Rise of Hypersonic Weapons

#95

Post by 3pt14159 »

breatheoften wrote: post #78
3pt14159 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You only need a very small number of doomsday devices in order to allow arbitrary delay for retaliation after first strike. Ten sleeper agents with extreme bio weapons in the likely aggressor country, for example.

There is no purpose in rushing to doomsday and a great deal of interested parties in not doing so.

Re: The Rise of Hypersonic Weapons

#96

Post by ge96 »

regularfry wrote: post #49
ch4s3 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, clearly. If you slam into the water at Mach 6, there won't be anything left of you weapon more than a few meters down.

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?

I'd say use the hypersonic to get there then slow-down/top a d sink to the target.

I've got it! A high burst of energy to create a temporary Moses-tunnel straight to the sub.

Re: The Rise of Hypersonic Weapons

#97

Post by ge96 »

regularfry wrote: post #49
ch4s3 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, clearly. If you slam into the water at Mach 6, there won't be anything left of you weapon more than a few meters down.

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?

I'd say use the hypersonic to get there then slow-down/top a d sink to the target.

I've got it! A high burst of energy to create a temporary Moses-tunnel straight to the sun.

Re: The Rise of Hypersonic Weapons

#98

Post by dgudkov »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #74
theptip wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

>right now you'd have to fly an enemy drone or plane near the carrier group

That's a technique from WWI. For a modern long-distance radar a carrier is like the Sun in the sky (as you would expect from a huge pile of metal on a plain surface). It's too big, and also too "loud" in terms of radio emissions to be stealth.

Re: The Rise of Hypersonic Weapons

#99

Post by gozur88 »

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…

>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.

Not really. Everything you can do offensively with a hypersonic cruise missile you can do more cheaply with ballistic missiles, which use a 70 year old technology. It takes about twenty five minutes to hit something on the other side of the world.

We've been in that global game of chicken since the early days of the cold war. Nothing has changed, in that respect. SLBMs have been within five minutes coastal land targets for more than fifty years.

To really upset the nuclear applecart you'd need something like a reliable submarine detection system that could be deployed on satellites.

Re: The Rise of Hypersonic Weapons

#100

Post by lostsock »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #76
idoh wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've also fallen off a jetski at high speeds (~90km/h). The impact of the lifejacket trying to keep me above water broke a rib, but quite possibly saved my life.
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