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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

#101

Post by ARandomerDude »

jandrese wrote: post #93
jandrewrogers wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Or at the ground and hit the wrong target, potentially with very bad consequences.

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

#102

Post by softcactus »

jollybean wrote: post #89
softcactus wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best defense is probably still going to MAD with second strike capabilities. Assuming that a hypersonic first strike would destroy a majority of our silos and bombers, we'll probably have to beef up our submarine fleet.

No, we can defend against these weapons just like we defend against regular cruise and ballistic missiles ... just 'better'. If it flies we can stop it.

The problem is that the cost of an interceptor is a magnitude higher than a single missile. So it's easier to just build 10 missiles for every interceptor. You can also put multiple warheads on a single missile, or use decoys/countermeasures to defeat an interceptor.

Our current mid-course interceptors only have about a 50% success rate if I remember correctly, and terminal interceptors only cover a small range. There is a reason why we only deploy interceptors to geo-politically important theaters like Israel or Korea:

1. Because we only need to intercept intermediate-range or short range ballistic missiles

2. They are pinpoint areas that yield large amounts of coverage (of human lives) for a single deployment

It wouldn't be possible to blanket the US population centers in interceptor sites. Even if we could, our current radar systems wouldn't detect hypersonic missiles before its too late, meaning we would need a satellite fleet to detect launches from space. MAD is going to be the best option.

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

#104

Post by JackFr »

newaccount2021 wrote: post #38
edouard-harris wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very reasonable question, though in cases like these it seems prudent to err on the side of being too paranoid rather than the opposite.

but this is gobs of money that could be much better spent by the military just off the top of my head: - dramatic improvements in military IT (search for recent story "just give us new computers") - more investments in unmanned combat systems - just buy more of the things that work...numbers matter etc etc

> - just buy more of the things that work...numbers matter

That's not always true. Numbers can matter but certain technological leaps render whole classes of weapon systems obsolete.

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

#105

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

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…

The new Chinese carrier needs a takeoff ramp and isn't even nuclear powered. Paper tiger.

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

#106

Post by killjoywashere »

jandrese wrote: post #93
jandrewrogers wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

@edenceover is probably referring mainly to the boost-glide vehicles that are moving at up to mach 20 ... through atmosphere. The air-breathing cruise missile type designs go slower (only mach 6-ish) but at that speed you can have a sane discussion about guidance. This rocket-guidance problem, by the way, is where the Black-Scholes model came from.

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

#107

Post by govg »

killjoywashere wrote: post #106
jandrese wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

@edenceover is probably referring mainly to the boost-glide vehicles that are moving at up to mach 20 ... through atmosphere. The air-breathing cruise missile type designs go slower (only mach 6-ish) but at that speed you can have a sane discussion about guidance. This rocket-guidance problem, by the way, is where the Black-Scholes model came from.

Do you mean Ito's Lemma? As far as I know, Black-Scholes itself had nothing to do with rocket guidance.

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

#108

Post by tablespoon »

CSMastermind wrote: post #92
rootusrootus wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

Also lack of proper spending priorities: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJkmcNjh_bg

And corruption: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9i47sgi-V4

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

#109

Post by jvanderbot »

jandrese wrote: post #91
wongarsu wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And in particular, many of the failures were from lack of proper operation, such as keeping the system on far too long, causing timer overflows.

https://www-users.cse.umn.edu/~arnold/disasters/patriot.html

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

#110

Post by tablespoon »

softcactus wrote: post #52
jollybean wrote: post #47

I'm far more concerned with defence against them than otherwise.

The best defense is probably still going to MAD with second strike capabilities. Assuming that a hypersonic first strike would destroy a majority of our silos and bombers, we'll probably have to beef up our submarine fleet.

> The best defense is probably still going to MAD with second strike capabilities. Assuming that a hypersonic first strike would destroy a majority of our silos and bombers, we'll probably have to beef up our submarine fleet.

For MAD scenarios, wouldn't attacking the US with stuff like fractional-orbital bombardment be more effective than hypersonic weapons?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_Orbital_Bombardment...

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