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U.S. Air Force says it conducted successful hypersonic weapon test

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. Air Force says it conducted successful hypersonic weapon test

#111

Post by kcb »

staunch wrote: post #107
kcb wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aegis is continually evolving with new sensors, processing, and missiles and far from obsolete. It's no coincidence that China is building similar capabilities into its own Destroyers. I definitely would't call the scale of missile defense in the fleet limited. Each carrier group would contain and be screened by Destroyers and Cruisers with several hundred interceptors ready to go between them.

This might've been the article that I read, which seems to disagree: "The inconvenient truth is that our Navy has 12 carrier groups and all are now obsolete. The Chinese have developed an antiship ballistic missile (ASBM), the DF-21D, nicknamed the “carrier killer.” It has a range of 1,200 miles and can fly at speeds higher than Mach 5. During descent to the target, it can fly at Mach 10. That’s like launching one in…

Skeptical of anyone who claims "The inconvenient truth is that our Navy has 12 carrier groups and all are now obsolete." China sure is building a lot of carrier groups for a country who supposedly just made carrier groups obsolete,

And the only test I can find from last year was this. https://www.mda.mil/news/21news0012.html

Re: U.S. Air Force says it conducted successful hypersonic weapon test

#113

Post by nradov »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #56
rootusrootus wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading through the timeline on that page, it sounds like Congress has decided to kill the project. I wonder if this successful test will turn that around.

Biden's bumping up the military budget by tens of billions of dollars, that's what's turning this around. We finally got ourselves out of the Middle East, but we gotta keep the military-industrial complex fed, I guess. We already spend more total and per capita than the next top ten countries combined. It's so sad. We could do so much domestically, or just worked on influencing foreign policy by helping other countri…

20+ years of the "Global War on Terror" really ground down our military capability across the board. Systems were pushed past the breaking point in a short-sighted attempt to hold down costs. Now if we're going to continue having an effective military at all then we're going to have to recapitalize everything. That is the budgetary reality. If we want to reduce the intended mission set and scale down the military accordingly then that's an option, but it means surrendering control of the Asia-Pacific region to China. Would that be better?

Re: U.S. Air Force says it conducted successful hypersonic weapon test

#114

Post by nradov »

Vladimof wrote: post #112

Can't be that hard to make an hyper-sonic weapon when some planes are able to go hyper-sonic... you could use a plane as a weapon if it was anyways. My laser gun is hyper-sonic too....

There are no manned hypersonic (Mach 5+) aircraft. Since the retirement of the SR-71, nothing can sustain a speed much over Mach 2.4.

Re: U.S. Air Force says it conducted successful hypersonic weapon test

#115

Post by nradov »

hammock wrote: post #75
oneoff786 wrote: post #4

I believe most explosives detonate in the air anymore. Is there a speed threshold where the kinetic energy is enough to justify not doing that?

Look up "rods from God." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment https://www.businessinsider.com/air-force-rods-from-god-kine... .

"Rods from God" is a silly impractical sci-fi concept. It would be too expensive to launch a large enough satellite constellation to provide persistent global coverage. And the satellites themselves wouldn't be survivable. The prompt global strike mission can be accomplished more cheaply and effectively by missiles launched from aircraft or ships.

Re: U.S. Air Force says it conducted successful hypersonic weapon test

#116

Post by xatlasm »

mywittyname wrote: post #87
hammock wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look up "rods from God." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment https://www.businessinsider.com/air-force-rods-from-god-kine... .

It always baffled me that these weren't named after Zeus.

Drop a deuce from Zeus?

Re: U.S. Air Force says it conducted successful hypersonic weapon test

#117

Post by pyinstallwoes »

nradov wrote: post #114
Vladimof wrote: post #112

Can't be that hard to make an hyper-sonic weapon when some planes are able to go hyper-sonic... you could use a plane as a weapon if it was anyways. My laser gun is hyper-sonic too....

There are no manned hypersonic (Mach 5+) aircraft. Since the retirement of the SR-71, nothing can sustain a speed much over Mach 2.4.

In terms of public information. How long has an aircraft maintained secrecy from public that was used militarily?

Re: U.S. Air Force says it conducted successful hypersonic weapon test

#119

Post by LunaSea »

hungryforcodes wrote: post #39
ramesh31 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Alas, the media fell for it and billions are now being spent on “catching up” with our “peer” competitors. These things are no joke. I felt the same before actually looking into it. China can effectively deny the South China Sea to our carrier fleets with their land based hypersonic weapons. There is absolutely no means of intercepting them with current technology.

They have already denied the US the South China Sea -- just by expanding their economy. The US is a joke here. China -- for example -- in the last 20 years has started more than 400 companies in the Philipenes at least and where else? Structural changes to the economy, basically. While Europe and the US persist in this 1970s: "we will give the primitives subsidies and cash prizes" -- demonstrating that they are total…

Chinese fishing vessels are also invading Philippines' territorial waters and depleting the available fish resources.

Is that not colonialism?

Re: U.S. Air Force says it conducted successful hypersonic weapon test

#120

Post by thereddaikon »

sudosysgen wrote: post #80
thereddaikon wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Russian "hypersonic" missile is just the upper stage of a short ranged ballistic missile launched from an aircraft. Its just an existing weapon with more steps. The Chinese hypersonic weapons everyone is worried about is a boost glide vehicle. Basically a ballistic missile with a hypersonic lifting body as its warhead as opposed to a blunt body RV you usually see. This makes it more maneuverable and potentially h…

Russia also has an air-breathing hypersonic missile with a scramjet engine - 3M22 Zircon. It is being field-tested and is already starting production after more than a dozen successful tests including hitting moving target - making them much further in development than HAWC which only recently managed to fly for any distance without blowing up and never actually struck a target. So your impression is not correct. The…

No they don't. They claim they do but if you believe Russian claims after the last three months then I can't help you.

They steal money from their military to buy yachts and mansions. Russia's wunderwaffe are not operational. The US spends more on its nuclear arsenal alone every year than Russia spends on its entire military. Where is the T-14? Where is the Su-57? They exist in propaganda videos and parades. That's it. You wont find them or zircon on the battlefield. Russia can't even afford to mass issue red dot sights to their infantry. Something America did 20 years ago. Do you really think they can afford some ridiculous scramjet cruise missile that does nothing to improve their national security?

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