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I agree. I was pretty shocked to see this: >The difficulty of shooting down an incoming missile is broadly overstated I figured it would back this controversi

by pydry 4y ago

I agree. I was pretty shocked to see this: >The difficulty of shooting down an incoming missile is broadly overstated I figured it would back this controversial claim by explaining how some clever new tech is able to shoot down Russia's current state of the art - its hypersonic missiles. Nope. Zero mention of hypersonic missiles. Why? Is this just a military contractor putting its cap out and asking for $$$?

scottLobster 4y ago
Hypersonic missiles are still in the prototype/research stage, the short/medium-term nuclear threat remains non-hypersonic. Regardless, right now there are zero systems that can hope to stop a hypersonic missile, reaction time limitations alone are a huge hurdle there. That said, effective missile defense is theoretically possible even given current tech, it's just extremely hard. In that sense it's not different than the various AI initiatives. Lots of wasted money on goose chases, but also lots of advantage for those who get it right, and some legitimately useful innovations along the way.
- lsllc 4y ago
  According to a late August Reuters article, Russia has deployed hypersonic missiles at least 3 times in Ukraine: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-it-has-deployed-kinzhal-hypersonic-missile-three-times-ukraine-2022-08-21/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-it-has-depl...
  - 988747 4y ago
    Still counts as "research", just this time in actual war conditions.
  - scottLobster 4y ago
    Research includes live fire tests. Russia has the advantage of an actual warzone with actual air defenses to test in. That or they're running out of missiles and down to pushing research prototypes into service (which given their use or Iranian drones and other supply woes would not surprise me).
  - chipsa 4y ago
    Strongly suspect that Kinzhal is just a relatively bog-standard air launched ballistic missile running in a depressed trajectory, and much of the talk is just bloviating. There's no US equivalent, because we decided to cancel it (See AGM-48 Skybolt, and later AGM-69 SRAM and AGM-131 SRAM II).
boc 4y ago
Reading through this thread really exposes how little defense industry knowledge there is on this forum. Like are we really just speculating that the entirety of the US strategic missile defense apparatus forgot about hypersonic missiles? The US invented hypersonic: the first in-atmosphere, manned hypersonic vehicle (X-15) in the 1960s, as well as the first hypersonic ABM system (Sprint) in the 1970s, which was designed to intercept warheads that were incoming at Mach 24 just seconds before they reached their targets. Sprint was a high-hypersonic countermeasure (Mach 10+) and that was something the US mass-produced 50 years ago. But to answer your rhetorical question, the answer is that US has indeed published some of its anti-hypersonic countermeasures to the public: https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2022-04-15 https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2022-04-15
- pydry 4y ago
  >are we really just speculating that the entirety of the US strategic missile defense apparatus forgot about hypersonic missiles? Nope. I think it was pretty self evident that we were just talking about this guy's opinion piece. >the answer is that US has indeed published some of its anti-hypersonic countermeasures to the public: https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2022-04-15 https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2022-04-15 Ummm thats more like preliminary research. It would certainly make for a more interesting article although perhaps a less convincing opinion piece.

by pydry 4y ago

scottLobster 4y ago

Hypersonic missiles are still in the prototype/research stage, the short/medium-term nuclear threat remains non-hypersonic. Regardless, right now there are zero systems that can hope to stop a hypersonic missile, reaction time limitations alone are a huge hurdle there. That said, effective missile defense is theoretically possible even given current tech, it's just extremely hard. In that sense it's not different than the various AI initiatives. Lots of wasted money on goose chases, but also lots of advantage for those who get it right, and some legitimately useful innovations along the way.

lsllc 4y ago
According to a late August Reuters article, Russia has deployed hypersonic missiles at least 3 times in Ukraine: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-it-has-deployed-kinzhal-hypersonic-missile-three-times-ukraine-2022-08-21/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-it-has-depl...
- 988747 4y ago
  Still counts as "research", just this time in actual war conditions.
- scottLobster 4y ago
  Research includes live fire tests. Russia has the advantage of an actual warzone with actual air defenses to test in. That or they're running out of missiles and down to pushing research prototypes into service (which given their use or Iranian drones and other supply woes would not surprise me).
- chipsa 4y ago
  Strongly suspect that Kinzhal is just a relatively bog-standard air launched ballistic missile running in a depressed trajectory, and much of the talk is just bloviating. There's no US equivalent, because we decided to cancel it (See AGM-48 Skybolt, and later AGM-69 SRAM and AGM-131 SRAM II).

boc 4y ago

Reading through this thread really exposes how little defense industry knowledge there is on this forum. Like are we really just speculating that the entirety of the US strategic missile defense apparatus forgot about hypersonic missiles? The US invented hypersonic: the first in-atmosphere, manned hypersonic vehicle (X-15) in the 1960s, as well as the first hypersonic ABM system (Sprint) in the 1970s, which was designed to intercept warheads that were incoming at Mach 24 just seconds before they reached their targets. Sprint was a high-hypersonic countermeasure (Mach 10+) and that was something the US mass-produced 50 years ago. But to answer your rhetorical question, the answer is that US has indeed published some of its anti-hypersonic countermeasures to the public: https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2022-04-15 https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2022-04-15

pydry 4y ago
>are we really just speculating that the entirety of the US strategic missile defense apparatus forgot about hypersonic missiles? Nope. I think it was pretty self evident that we were just talking about this guy's opinion piece. >the answer is that US has indeed published some of its anti-hypersonic countermeasures to the public: https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2022-04-15 https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2022-04-15 Ummm thats more like preliminary research. It would certainly make for a more interesting article although perhaps a less convincing opinion piece.