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US hypersonic missile fails in test- 2nd consecutive failed attempt

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Re: US hypersonic missile fails in test- 2nd consecutive failed attempt

#91

Post by jandrese »

wongarsu wrote: post #71
JDulin wrote: post #45

One problem with these hypersonic endeavors and DOD development in general is there are too few tests (And done too slowly) to iterate. The developers do not get lots of opportunities to learn from real-data, like at SpaceX. Instead, there are low-single-digit numbers of tests with tons of political attention ready to pounce at the smallest (And most common!) failure.

A lot of the success of SpaceX can be attributed to their rapid incremental development model that they established with Falcon 9 and continued with Starship. But at least with civilian rockets all the competitors have clear success metrics: they all launch with some regularity, and it's obvious if those launches were a success. Lots of weapon systems have one or two tests and then take a decade before they see any a…

It should be noted that the Patriot was being used outside of its original design goal when tasked with shooting down missiles. It was designed to shoot down Soviet interceptors, but had to pivot when the Soviet Union collapsed. Missiles were a stretch goal of the original project, but ended up being its primary mission.

Re: US hypersonic missile fails in test- 2nd consecutive failed attempt

#92

Post by CSMastermind »

rootusrootus wrote: post #74
torginus wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally find that the US lags in weapons technology whose biggest utility lies in countering American superweapons - carriers and stealth fighters. I think it's quite understandable why this is the case - imagine spending hundreds of billions on carrier procurement, and simultaneously developing a weapon that more or less renders them obsolete. The situation has changed in that there's news that the Russians and…

It seems more likely that Russia and China are still decades behind the US but considerably more willing to hype up technology they don't actually have. China has made some progress but they are a long ways behind. Russia, well, ... Ukraine is demonstrating how stagnant their military capability has become. I kinda wonder how many of their nukes would actually fly right now if they were crazy enough to push the butto…

My impression was that Russia's failures in Ukraine mostly stemmed from failures in their logistics and doctrine rather than their technology.

Re: US hypersonic missile fails in test- 2nd consecutive failed attempt

#93

Post by jandrese »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #43
edenceover wrote: post #5

Given that the bomber gap, missile gap and the cruiser gap was all shown to be fictional, I do wonder if the perceived hypersonic gap is real.

The US has a lot of experience designing hypersonic missiles -- I remember when they were testing various material configurations in hypersonic guided missiles 30 years ago. Some of those platforms exist as operational systems today. Design of hypersonic missiles is largely limited by material physics and configurations thereof. The US ability to fabricate unique exotic materials allows them to search a much larger p…

So you can build missiles that fly extremely quickly to a part of the sky where the target is no longer occupying?

Re: US hypersonic missile fails in test- 2nd consecutive failed attempt

#94

Post by mrits »

rootusrootus wrote: post #74
torginus wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally find that the US lags in weapons technology whose biggest utility lies in countering American superweapons - carriers and stealth fighters. I think it's quite understandable why this is the case - imagine spending hundreds of billions on carrier procurement, and simultaneously developing a weapon that more or less renders them obsolete. The situation has changed in that there's news that the Russians and…

It seems more likely that Russia and China are still decades behind the US but considerably more willing to hype up technology they don't actually have. China has made some progress but they are a long ways behind. Russia, well, ... Ukraine is demonstrating how stagnant their military capability has become. I kinda wonder how many of their nukes would actually fly right now if they were crazy enough to push the butto…

It seems likely that no one in Russia knows how many working nukes they have.

Re: US hypersonic missile fails in test- 2nd consecutive failed attempt

#95

Post by ryanmarsh »

edenceover wrote: post #5

Given that the bomber gap, missile gap and the cruiser gap was all shown to be fictional, I do wonder if the perceived hypersonic gap is real.

Would a (the) global superpower want its rivals to believe its capabilities are ahead or behind of their current state?

This leads me to believe we're never going to get an accurate picture of the state of a weapon development program through the press. Is the F-35 program in trouble, or not? If it was why would you let your adversaries know this?

It's an interesting question to consider.

Re: US hypersonic missile fails in test- 2nd consecutive failed attempt

#96

Post by jandrese »

torginus wrote: post #67
edenceover wrote: post #5

Given that the bomber gap, missile gap and the cruiser gap was all shown to be fictional, I do wonder if the perceived hypersonic gap is real.

I generally find that the US lags in weapons technology whose biggest utility lies in countering American superweapons - carriers and stealth fighters. I think it's quite understandable why this is the case - imagine spending hundreds of billions on carrier procurement, and simultaneously developing a weapon that more or less renders them obsolete. The situation has changed in that there's news that the Russians and…

Why would the someone develop anti-stealth fighter weapons when their opponents aren't flying stealth fighters? Same with carriers. Nobody else has a serious carrier fleet anymore.

Re: US hypersonic missile fails in test- 2nd consecutive failed attempt

#97

Post by ryanmarsh »

HelloNurse wrote: post #83
nabla9 wrote: post #44

Hypersonic is very unfortunate term, because it makes people assume that hypersonic speed is the new thing in these. X15 was manned hypersonic vehicle in 1959. Pershing II had maneuverable hypersonic re-entry vehicle in the 80s. ICBM's are hypersonic or high hypersonic. Space shuttle was a hypersonic glider, so is X-37 currently operated by the US Space Force.

"Technically", "hypersonic" means "scary because it's hard to intercept" and "NATO is behind Russia and China on this". Elementary military marketing.

Yes, you understood the assignment. The public knows about US and NATO weapons what the US and NATO wants the public to know. Individuals in a position to know the truth, who violate the narrative, are dealt with harshly.

Case in point: The public had relatively little knowledge of the battlefield performance of current gen ATGM's prior to Russia's recent offensive in Ukraine. This is in spite of the fact "current gen" dates back to the 2003 US invasion of Iraq where they played a decisive role. Today, according to the press, ATGMs are the savior of Ukraine.

Re: US hypersonic missile fails in test- 2nd consecutive failed attempt

#98

Post by superkuh »

SiempreViernes wrote: post #76
bufferoverflow wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Sprint accelerated at 100 g, reaching a speed of Mach 10 (12,300 km/h; 7,610 mph) in 5 seconds. Such a high velocity at relatively low altitudes created skin temperatures up to 6,200 °F (3,430 °C)" This is in 1975.

Mach 10 is almost too fast to be hypersonic! Hypersonic is the range around Mach 5-8. There are various types of ballistic missiles that go faster than this (and have been doing for decades) but since they are old they aren't as sexy as "hypersonic missiles".

The new thing is trying to go hypersonic in the atmosphere for more than a couple minutes so you can use it for lift. But either there's too much heat or not enough lift.

Re: US hypersonic missile fails in test- 2nd consecutive failed attempt

#100

Post by ARandomerDude »

lettergram wrote: post #99

I always hate the discussion around “hypersonic missiles” The US has had some version since the 1960s. What do you think ICBMs are? Real discussions should quantify precision, error rate, speed, payload of missiles, etc.

Yeah, any time somebody says "this thing goes Mach " the first question should be "at what altitude?" and the second should be "for how long?".
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