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Hypersonic HAWC missile flies, but details are kept hidden

airforcemag.com

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Re: Hypersonic HAWC missile flies, but details are kept hidden

#141

Post by imtringued »

foobarian wrote: post #88
rektide wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One key consideration that I only got recently is the difference between a cruise & ballistic missile. A ballistic missile launches at great velocity, then more or less falls at it's target (over an extended distance) using a ballistic trajectory. A cruise missile is under power for a large part of it's journey, typically flying much lower, & able to navigate/direct itself. A ballistic missile is often quite superson…

I was pretty surprised by how slow cruise missiles are when I read up on them recently - similar to big airliner speeds. I always had a mental image of missiles as these "fastest in the sky" things that you could only dodge but not outrun. It's possibly true for Sidewinders but even they top out around Mach 2.5, so the hypersonic developments are a huge step forward. Still kinda surprised there aren't fast missiles t…

In German the name is Marschflugkörper = marching flight body.

People imagine how drones are going to change everything. Cruise missiles are already bomb shaped drones...

And existing bombs get "drone" capability...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GBU-53/B_StormBreaker

Re: Hypersonic HAWC missile flies, but details are kept hidden

#142

Post by dotancohen »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #36
justicezyx wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legally Taiwan and Mainland are in a civil war for the legitimate government of the one China. One China is the "policy" of US China and Taiwan. Of course, Taiwan want to get rid of that. China will risk a nuclear war to prevent that, and US is OK with either, preferably let China bleed the most with minimal cost. These are as obvious as the sun hanging over the sky. China had no ambition for territorial expansion ot…

> Hi, propagandist? Personal attacks are against site rules, and you've been here long enough that you should know that. > China had no ambition for territorial expansion other than defending herself. That's the pattern for 2 thousands years. China occupied Tibet. China invaded Vietnam twice. The first time, they stayed for a thousand years. "China has no ambition for territorial expansion" only if you accept China's…

  > only if you accept China's definition of what is rightfully China.
And under what pretense do you or your government have more authority to declare "what is rightfully China" than the Chinese?

Re: Hypersonic HAWC missile flies, but details are kept hidden

#143

Post by rini17 »

dotancohen wrote: post #142
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hi, propagandist? Personal attacks are against site rules, and you've been here long enough that you should know that. > China had no ambition for territorial expansion other than defending herself. That's the pattern for 2 thousands years. China occupied Tibet. China invaded Vietnam twice. The first time, they stayed for a thousand years. "China has no ambition for territorial expansion" only if you accept China's…

> only if you accept China's definition of what is rightfully China. And under what pretense do you or your government have more authority to declare "what is rightfully China" than the Chinese?

That's exactly what governments do.

And private persons with human rights have the authority to name territorial conquest by its rightful name.

Re: Hypersonic HAWC missile flies, but details are kept hidden

#144

Post by dotancohen »

evilos wrote: post #100
bllguo wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, then give me the reasons to believe in imminent Chinese military aggression. And why I should take the word of a nation that has been basically ceaselessly at war for decades, off the heels of yet another senseless conflict in Afghanistan. I think you are projecting the warlike tendencies of the US onto China.

That's not even what is being discussed. The question is: what is the proper response to a hyper aggressive China? No one is saying something like that is likely. We are discussing hypotheticals. There's no need to be so upset.

> what is the proper response to a hyper aggressive China?

I believe that GP is trying to generalize that question to "what is the proper response to any hyper aggressive nation". And the fact that the answer to that question will have more profound effects on responses to the US than to China.

In fact, I think that the question is valid. Limiting the discussion to China is blatant anti-Chinese propaganda. Broadening the discussion to "hyper aggressive nations" is fair and legitimate.

Re: Hypersonic HAWC missile flies, but details are kept hidden

#145

Post by kubanczyk »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #140
yardstick wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t this why some countries have ICBM carrying submarines, so a retaliatory strike can be performed even if the mainland was hit?

I don't know exactly how the game goes. I'm sure there is no one single solution to it. If China detected nuclear capable missiles heading toward their country then they would have to consider the possibility their second strike capability is not a sufficient deterrent (including being compromised in various ways such as their subs being all located) so there seems like a large incentive to retaliate before missiles…

No, armies do not have their finger on nuclear trigger with a time horizon of 30-ish minutes. We are not in the 1960s when at times it was literally true.

The concept of nuclear triad is that, yes, armies very strongly depend on their second-strike capability. So, the game is for the subs to not to become compromised.

Re: Hypersonic HAWC missile flies, but details are kept hidden

#146

Post by krisoft »

vkou wrote: post #116
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not going to target one link. They're going to target the whole kill chain. Satellites, sure, and the satellite ground stations, and the missile launch sites, and the update path from the satellite ground stations to the missile launch sites, and jamming radio reception for the missiles in flight, and optical chaff or some other kind of confusion, and radar chaff, and probably some I haven't thought of.

> They're going to target the whole kill chain. Satellites, sure, So, their plan in the event of war is to make space inaccessible for all of humanity, by filling it with debris from killed satellites?

Yes. And a potential Kessler syndrome is the least of our worries when the nuclear missiles starts to fly.

War is hell. A peer level shooting war would suck hard in many painfull different ways to almost everyone. Let’s try to avoid it.

Re: Hypersonic HAWC missile flies, but details are kept hidden

#147

Post by volta83 »

colechristensen wrote: post #31
x86_64Ubuntu wrote: post #19

What does hypersonic mean? I thought all missiles were largely supersonic, except for maybe cruise missiles.

There aren't exact thresholds, but hypersonic generally refers to speeds fast enough that fluid heating can no longer be approximated away and chemical reactions and ionization in the air start to dominate. Aerodynamics is a practice of which physical phenomena you can ignore. At low speeds you can pretend the speed of sound is infinite / air is incompressible (these are equivalent), as you get faster you have to sta…

And to give some examples, while you could maybe ignore ionization for the aerodynamics of an F22 travelling at Mach 3, you probably could not ignore them for a school bus travelling at Mach 3.

Re: Hypersonic HAWC missile flies, but details are kept hidden

#148

Post by kubanczyk »

fnord77 wrote: post #94

would a MARV-tipped ICBM be able to reach a target faster than flying straight at it at Mach 5? I was looking for MARV reentry velocities, couldn't find any numbers. A regular ballistic missile hits mach 20+ on reentry but I don't know if it maintains that speed all the way to the target.

> A regular ballistic missile hits mach 20+ on reentry but I don't know if it maintains that speed all the way to the target.

The word "ballistic" means it doesn't maintain the speed. Etymologically and practically it's about throwing a stone, i.e. finding out what happens when you give it an initial velocity with approximately zero delta-V budget for the main part of the flight.

But everything gets complicated with time, so there are now depressed trajectories (i.e. not-entirely-ballistic flight paths) for the ballistic missiles. But these still do not carry dramatic delta-V.

Re: Hypersonic HAWC missile flies, but details are kept hidden

#149

Post by monort »

kubanczyk wrote: post #145
throwawaylinux wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know exactly how the game goes. I'm sure there is no one single solution to it. If China detected nuclear capable missiles heading toward their country then they would have to consider the possibility their second strike capability is not a sufficient deterrent (including being compromised in various ways such as their subs being all located) so there seems like a large incentive to retaliate before missiles…

No, armies do not have their finger on nuclear trigger with a time horizon of 30-ish minutes. We are not in the 1960s when at times it was literally true. The concept of nuclear triad is that, yes, armies very strongly depend on their second-strike capability. So, the game is for the subs to not to become compromised.

Actually, since the invention of ballistic missiles we are permanently 30 minutes from death. There are around 900 flight ready warheads both in US and Russia.

https://uploads.fas.org/2014/05/Brief2017_GWU_2s.pdf

Re: Hypersonic HAWC missile flies, but details are kept hidden

#150

Post by throwawaylinux »

kubanczyk wrote: post #145
throwawaylinux wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know exactly how the game goes. I'm sure there is no one single solution to it. If China detected nuclear capable missiles heading toward their country then they would have to consider the possibility their second strike capability is not a sufficient deterrent (including being compromised in various ways such as their subs being all located) so there seems like a large incentive to retaliate before missiles…

No, armies do not have their finger on nuclear trigger with a time horizon of 30-ish minutes. We are not in the 1960s when at times it was literally true. The concept of nuclear triad is that, yes, armies very strongly depend on their second-strike capability. So, the game is for the subs to not to become compromised.

> No, armies do not have their finger on nuclear trigger with a time horizon of 30-ish minutes.

> We are not in the 1960s when at times it was literally true.

You are claiming that not only China, but the US and Russia don't have the capability of launching strikes from 30 minutes? (i.e., well beyond the time to respond to ballistic missile launch detection)? Do you have a source for this?

This doesn't appear to agree with you:

https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/ISEC_a_0021...

  Launch-On-Warning
  One source of ambiguity in the implementation of China's no-first-use policy is the ongoing debate in China regarding the pursuit of a launch-on-warning posture. Recent doctrinal publications and Chinese interlocutors indicated that the debate has yet to be resolved. On one side, some members of China’s strategic community argued that a launch-on-warning posture would ensure the survivability of its nuclear deterrent if its opponent has robust targeting intelligence. The Science  of  Military Strategy states that a launch-on-warning posture "is in accordance with China's long-standing no-first-use policy, and may effectively protect China's nuclear forces from sustaining even greater losses, improving the survivable nuclear counterstrike capability of China’s nuclear missile forces." China's first priority should be to prevent its adversary from precisely locating its missile launch positions. If China is able to reliably ascertain that an adversary has already launched nuclear missiles at China, however, China could quickly launch its nuclear missiles for a counterstrike "before the enemy has been able to actually inflict nuclear destruction." Launch-on-warning would therefore provide China with an option for nuclear retaliation if a nuclear adversary were able to overcome Chinese efforts at concealment, deception, and mobility to ensure that its forces survived a first strike.
This touches on what I was talking about too. The next few paragraphs interestingly provide a counter-point that disagrees China would take this posture, but not because they don't have the capability to retaliate quickly enough, but for other reasons.
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