[HN Gopher] Hypersonic HAWC missile flies, but details are kept ...
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Hypersonic HAWC missile flies, but details are kept hidden
Author : mzs
Score : 54 points
Date : 2021-09-28 19:17 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.airforcemag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.airforcemag.com)
| hmm320 wrote:
| Don't the Russians have missiles that fly >5x faster than this,
| at mach 27?
|
| https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a30346798/...
| dirtyid wrote:
| Interesting to ponder the US need for hypersonic capabilities.
| PRC + Russia needs it to asymmetrically challenge the USN. Not
| many time-sensitive targets for the US to hit in PRC or Russia
| outside of mobile TELs to take out road mobile nuclear forces.
| For context, US dumping ~4B into hypersonics = ~3000 JASSMs which
| is probably a better investment for peer naval warfare.
| Politically, this program feels like air force trying to stay
| relevant for China pivot, grabbing a slice of the pie, and
| obviously good for MIC.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Would a hypersonic SAM improve CV survivability against non-
| hypersonic cruis missiles?
| dirtyid wrote:
| This is an entirely different program than hypersonic defense
| on naval platforms. As far as I know Pentagon is focusing on
| lasers and advanced interceptor designs, and hopes to have
| something "workable" by the mid 2025s.
| echelon wrote:
| The PRC is developing a blue water navy and is heavily ramping
| up on carrier shipbuilding.
|
| It makes sense that the US would want to build similar, land-
| based defensive strategies as a deterrent.
| dirtyid wrote:
| >The Air Force has said it plans to pursue both the ARRW and
| the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM), as initial and
| future hypersonic attack capabilities, respectively.
|
| These are offensive standoff weapons launched from air
| designed to hit time sensitive targets. The question is
| really what targets, like I said, spending the money on 3000
| JASSMs is already enough to sink every major PLAN combatants
| with room to spare. Need to consider what these hypersonics
| can hit that traditional standoff weapons can't. Or just the
| politics behind aquisition between branches. I'm not saying
| this is bad/wasteful defense spending, but curious what it's
| exactly for.
| x86_64Ubuntu wrote:
| What does hypersonic mean? I thought all missiles were largely
| supersonic, except for maybe cruise missiles.
| colechristensen wrote:
| 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 start paying attention to compression,
| then shock waves, heating, ionization, and the mechanics of
| individual particles.
| rektide wrote:
| 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 supersonic. But cruise
| missiles being hypersonic is definitely a big shift.
| heydabop wrote:
| Reading the article or simply typing "hypersonic" into Google
| would've gotten you an immediate answer, but it means faster
| than Mach 5.
| mchristen wrote:
| > In aerodynamics, a hypersonic speed is one that greatly
| exceeds the speed of sound, often stated as starting at speeds
| of Mach 5 and above.
| dsr_ wrote:
| It's a speed regime. Under Mach 1 is subsonic. From Mach 0.9
| through 1.2 or so is transsonic. 1.0 and greater is supersonic.
| Above Mach 5ish is hypersonic.
|
| Mach 25 is approximately orbital velocity, but since Mach is
| actually related to air pressure, it's not a very meaningful
| comparison except to note that anything moving that fast isn't
| going to be in-atmosphere for very long.
| HPsquared wrote:
| In subsonic flight, the air behaves as if it's incompressible
| (like a liquid).
|
| In transonic flight, some parts of the airflow are starting
| to become supersonic, and compressibility starts to become a
| factor. Something called "wave drag" is important in this
| regime, as the compression wave is moving along with the
| aircraft.
|
| In supersonic flow, compressibility of the air becomes the
| main thing and the flow is defined by the positions of the
| various shock waves. Ramjet engines work in this regime (the
| aircraft is moving fast enough that the forward movement is
| enough to compress the incoming air to the engine, without
| compressor blades). In a conventional ramjet engine, the flow
| within the engine is subsonic (the compressed air, being more
| dense, moves more slowly within the engine), so combustion
| works the usual way.
|
| In hypersonic flow, temperatures are getting very high (air
| is heated by compression). Scramjet engines become a thing
| (the "SC" is for supersonic combustion: air flowing through
| the combustion stage at supersonic speed).
| colechristensen wrote:
| The speed of sound in air (or mixtures of diatomic gasses) is
| a function of temperature only, independent of pressure and
| density. Or it depends on pressure and density in a way which
| cancels out and leaves only temperature as an independent
| variable for equivalent mixtures of gasses. (i.e. the speed
| of sound is the same at 20 atmospheres or 0.1 atmosphere as
| long as the temperature is the same) This becomes untrue when
| air is very very hot or very very cold, but generally those
| conditions aren't experienced on this planet outside of hot
| hypersonic flight.
|
| Water vapor content, not being a diatomic gas does very
| slightly change the speed of sound but usually to a degree
| which can be ignored.
|
| (people generally don't believe that the speed of sound in
| air depends only on temperature when you tell them)
| credit_guy wrote:
| A good starting point is this Congressional report on
| hypersonic weapons, updated one month ago:
|
| https://sgp.fas.org/crs/weapons/R45811.pdf
| x86_64Ubuntu wrote:
| Thanks, I've started reading it and will continue later, the
| material seems to be perfect for a non-Aerospace
| professional.
| nielsbot wrote:
| OMG "The Pentagon's FY2022 budget request for hypersonic
| research is $3.8 billion"
| mzs wrote:
| Though it means mach 5+ in terms of weapons systems it
| indicates a capability for a long highly maneuverable period at
| those speeds.
|
| https://www.gao.gov/blog/faster-speed-sound-u.s.-efforts-dev...
| TrainedMonkey wrote:
| > The HAWC is exploring air-breathing hypersonic flight
|
| > propelling the cruiser at a speed greater than Mach 5
|
| I wonder if they are running a scramjet engine:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scramjet
| MilStdJunkie wrote:
| There's a sort of fuzzy line betwwwn high supersonic and
| hypersonic, but the secret sauce that definitely separates them
| - and the hardest part by far - is supersonic combustion in the
| scramjet. You basically have to figure out how to make
| something sit still long enough to impart a thrust impulse,
| while at the same time sitting in an airstream that's starting
| to act like a cutting laser. Very little tech data from working
| scramjet shots have been made public, but it's likely the most
| successful use some kind of incredible heat exchange system to
| take at least some of the energy out of the flow. Maybe pipe it
| into the fuel.
|
| The Skylon / Sabre engine justa went "fuck it" and liquified
| the air at lower speeds, then transitioned to liquified
| oxidizer like a rocket when hypersonic time came around. If
| that sounds like some kind of miracle heat exchanger that's
| because it is. It's not been worked out.
|
| Pulse Detonation is something I always wondered why we didn't
| see more of it, but apparently when you make a PDE big enough
| it hammers the plane apart like an infant with a frying pan.
| Who knew?
| twic wrote:
| The SABRE engine won't liquefy incoming air, it just cools it
| down a lot (to -150 C!). But SABRE is an evolution of a 1980s
| design, the RB545, designed for the HOTOL spaceplane, which
| would indeed have liquefied incoming air. The RB545 was in
| turn derived from a 1950s concept, LACE:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_air_cycle_engine
| alexisread wrote:
| As far as I know, the Sabre heat exchanger doesn't liquefy
| the air as frost kills the tubing. It cools down to the
| boundary without going over. I believe they've demonstrated
| mach 3 conditions but not mach 5, and they're on track
|
| https://www.pprune.org/military-
| aviation/print-619462-reacti...
| heywherelogingo wrote:
| "In order for the scramjet engine to ignite,..."
| HPsquared wrote:
| These engines (ramjets, including scramjets - the 'sc' means
| supersonic combustion, which is the hard part) rely on
| forward airspeed to compress the air as it enters the engine.
| You can't have a ramjet without some sort of booster stage
| (or non-ramjet mode of operation).
|
| In this case, there's probably a conventional rocket engine
| to get it up to speed, which is then sustained by the
| (sc)ramjet engine.
| varjag wrote:
| "In order for the scramjet engine to ignite, the vehicle
| must be moving at hypersonic speed, so a booster is used
| for that portion of the flight."
| echelon wrote:
| As I understand it, China has hypersonic missiles and nukes,
| whereas the US does not.
|
| Should a conflict in the South China sea break out, China could
| nuke US carrier groups assuming their satellites aren't taken out
| first. That spells game over for US projection of power if
| successful.
|
| China could deploy air and submersible drones to get around
| downed satellites, but these have the potential of being jammed
| with EMP, other drones, etc. It could become a game of cat and
| mouse, and if the carriers get close enough, China's land-based
| missile defenses are toast.
|
| Is the US developing hypersonics for close combat? How does this
| fit into a South China sea conflict, or does this assume the
| battle is closer to home? (If China goes blue water, is this
| meant to combat their carriers?)
|
| If, when, and where will the theater be? What will the outcome
| be?
|
| Would the conflict be limited to the coastal regions, or would it
| spill over into nuclear MAD?
|
| Will either side back down?
|
| I'm super curious about all of this, and I'm interested in more
| sources to follow. I don't know enough to understand
| military/navy Twitter.
| Aunche wrote:
| From what I understand, we aren't particularly afraid of
| hypersonic missiles because nobody even has defenses against
| conventional ICBMs.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Perhaps hypersonic missiles could play a part in ICBM
| defense. You need something very fast and maneauverable.
| masterof0 wrote:
| > What will the outcome be? Judging by what we did in
| Afghanistan, not good. I hope we don't send thousands to die
| and/or kill other people. If they invade the US, we fight,
| otherwise, we shouldn't be policing the world. I don't see the
| benefits of a war with China, or any other country at all.
| emaginniss wrote:
| What if they decide they want to gobble up Taiwan, Vietnam,
| Japan, Australia, etc? Should we just sit back and say "it's
| not us, so this is fine?"
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Does Taiwan have nukes? EDIT: google thinks no.
| patagurbon wrote:
| No, but they have been identified as a "nuclear latent
| state", in that they possess the capabilities to create
| one. How long that latency is I'm sure no one really
| knows.
| masterof0 wrote:
| Are they going to gobble up Japan, Australia and Vietnam
| tho? I'd say nope, doesn't makes sense, for them. What's up
| with the war fetish? Do you enjoy watching people killing
| each other? I really don't understand.
| justicezyx wrote:
| 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 other than
| defending herself. That's the pattern for 2 thousands
| years.
|
| China indeed has historical claim over Taiwan and South
| China Sea. How strong that translate to modern legal
| system, that's up to debate.
|
| But extending China's territorial ambition beyond
| historical claims is not only disgenious, it's propaganda.
|
| Hi, propagandist?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| > 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 definition of what is rightfully China. A bunch
| of us don't, though. For that matter, a bunch of
| _nations_ don 't.
|
| Specifically with regard to Taiwan: Yes, China has a
| historical claim on Taiwan. (And, yes, Taiwan has a
| historical claim on the mainland.) Technically, as you
| say it is a civil war.
|
| _Practically_ , it's two countries. They have two
| militaries, issue two different passports, have two
| different currencies, etc. Neither one wants to admit
| this, but _de facto_ they are two separate countries. (So
| are North and South Korea, even though that civil war
| legally isn 't over either.)
|
| So, legal fictions aside, for China to conquer Taiwan
| would be a dramatic increase of their _actual_ territory.
| (That 's kind of implied in the word "conquer".)
|
| And it's clearly China that's the aggressor here.
| Nobody's talking about Taiwan invading and conquering the
| mainland. But China talks about invading if Taiwan even
| dares to _say_ that they 're a separate country. They act
| like, if we all play pretend with them, it makes their
| claim more legitimate or something.
|
| Speaking of legitimacy, let's note that Taiwan is the
| legitimate government of China. The mainland is held by
| the rebels.
| justicezyx wrote:
| I think we are just speaking the same thing.
|
| You might assume that I sided with China mainland. Well,
| that not where I stand. Neither do I side with Taiwan,
| nor US.
|
| I stand with the safety and prosperity of people.
| masterof0 wrote:
| It doesn't matter, you are not allowed to point out
| hypocrisy, as is not immoral to criticize another
| government while your own kills children with drone
| strikes. Is the way it is, I learned the good old
| *downvoted* way. There is, it seems, a list of things you
| cannot criticize over here: Rust, US, React JS, Firefox,
| Elon Musk, Tesla, etc...
| emaginniss wrote:
| Perhaps you haven't noticed that China has been building
| islands and claiming the sea around them. In fact, they
| claim the entire South China Sea as territorial waters.
| They routinely send their fishing fleets into the
| legitimate territorial waters of other nations. As they
| are starting to struggle again with the size of their
| population, expansion will seem like a natural solution.
| justicezyx wrote:
| > China has been building islands and claiming the sea
| around them
|
| Of cuz, that's known everywhere. Chinese netizens are
| ecstatic about this ingenious move that fenced off SEA
| countries from meddling the water area in any way that
| could affect China's claim over them.
|
| > They routinely send their fishing fleets into the
| legitimate territorial waters of other nations
|
| They are just self directed business man. Just like the
| numerous business man who invaded almost every Asian
| countries in the early 1900s. These fisherman would have
| been invading all-over the places if they were in 1900 as
| well.
|
| Of cuz, not like the 1900s, these fisherman are not going
| to be protected (very strongly) by their home country
| when they were caught.
|
| > they are starting to struggle again with the size of
| their population, expansion will seem like a natural
| solution.
|
| Well, almost everyone is expecting the population to be
| dwindling from now on. A lot have calling the recent
| census fake, because they all expect a population drop.
|
| Not sure why this population driven expansnism holds
| itself...
| HyperRational wrote:
| April 15th, 1989
| bllguo wrote:
| I think citizens of the most violent nation in recent
| history should do some introspection before projecting
| their misdeeds onto others..
| randomopining wrote:
| Nope. False premise. US is the best we have.
| HyperRational wrote:
| April 15th, 1989
| throwaway6734 wrote:
| How recent is recent history?
| bllguo wrote:
| at _least_ a century?
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Clearly more recent than April 15th, 1989.
| bllguo wrote:
| Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, coup after coup in South
| America - you think Tiananmen was more reprehensible than
| any of these?
|
| I'll also remind you Tiananmen was internal, whereas all
| of our wars are just that - wars. Directed against other
| nations.
|
| edit: to clarify, I don't see how Tiananmen suggests
| China will go to war, but I do see how a sordid history
| of spurring violence across the globe suggests the US
| will go to war again.
| zeusk wrote:
| or the on-going uyghur concentration camps
| evilos wrote:
| "What if X happens?"
|
| "Shut up, Y is bad."
|
| Uh.
| bllguo wrote:
| 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.
| mrlonglong wrote:
| On the other hand, if China was to adopt the Taiwainese
| constitution and embrace democracy then yes, they could
| reunify.
| dd444fgdfg wrote:
| IMHO, the risk of nuclear war is higher than we think. Can you
| imagine the number of expected casualties of all-out-war with
| China? We've played this game before. Japan/WW2. The US _will_
| nuke China and justify it under number of lives saved.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| there is no chance a US carrier could be nuked without a
| proportional response
| justicezyx wrote:
| The hypersonic missle won't carry nuclear war head. The
| impact is enough to render a CV lose combat capability. The
| modern weaponry are delicate machines. A 50s computer might
| withstand an earthquake. The modern one probably won't
| survive a drop less than 1 meter.
| lampington wrote:
| A 50s computer would have been largely glass vacuum tubes
| and dropping it would cause quite a lot of problems. And a
| modern computer would be fine in an earthquake if it didn't
| fall off something or have something heavy fall on it.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| Yeah was just thinking that! That analogy may have worked
| 20 years ago but everything, including notably storage,
| is solid state now and way more durable.
| mzs wrote:
| DF-17 + DF-ZF & Xingkong-2
|
| https://gjia.georgetown.edu/2021/01/27/chinas-hypersonic-wea...
| 3pt14159 wrote:
| Follow Arms Control Wonk. There's a bunch of OSINT folks in the
| podcast slack channel including friends of mine that have been
| interviewed by magazines like The Economist.
|
| I'm there more for the cyberwarfare takes, but from what I
| understand nobody is seriously worried about a power imbalance
| between China and America regarding missile speed since
| interceptors aren't accurate enough, but that's just me
| regurgitating what I see tweeted around and talked about.
|
| Edit: And don't be intimidated by people reverse engineering
| sidewinders in the Slack. The community is very open to humble,
| curious newcomers. They'll teach you how to analyze satellite
| imagery for free, haha.
| justicezyx wrote:
| https://openosint.slack.com/?redir=%2Fmessages%2Fosint%2F
|
| This one?
| [deleted]
| PerkinWarwick wrote:
| Generally, I'd say that anti-carrier strike group tactics
| involve simply (well, maybe not so simple) overwhelming the
| defenses. Quantity can work as well as quality.
|
| You might look into Russian missile work. Of course, as a land
| power (and not as invested in trade as China), their answers
| are different.
| [deleted]
| tptacek wrote:
| Is the premise here that carrier groups would be survivable in
| the absence of hypersonic missiles? They... aren't at all, are
| they?
| krisoft wrote:
| Every time the navy is asked about the survivability of the
| carrier groups they seem to start talking about the "whole
| kill-chain" of the enemy weapons. It sounds like they plan to
| knock out the targeting satelites before they could target
| them instead of trying to catch the missiles. Or at least
| thats how I read the tea leaves.
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| Carrier groups are supposedly survivable except for the
| stealth subs and hypersonic missiles but noone has tested
| that theory.
|
| I wonder if the future will be just a cheap ship with a large
| number of single-use missile launchers.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| How are the hypersonic missiles guided and what is their
| range?
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| Yes, no, maybe?
|
| As far as I know, with existing known technology and
| defenses, there's probably a number n, such that if you
| launch more than n simultaneous non-hypersonic cruise
| missiles, an aircraft carrier is going to be unable to deal
| with them all. This of course assumes you can launch that
| many missiles, in range of the carrier, simultaneously,
| without advanced warning.
|
| Now, the navy also isn't dumb, so I'd venture to guess they
| avoid parking their carriers within that range when possible,
| and that they probably have some other defenses like C-130's
| and other ships mounted with directed energy weapons and
| other missile defense and whatnot. I imagine they also
| aggressively pursue and maintain intelligence on the
| location, number, and readiness state of those missiles. This
| starts to get complicated because there's a complicated
| interplay of strategy and tactics related to the off-ship
| capabilities, and defenses have counter-strategies (such as
| launching a bunch of Surface-to-air missiles at those C-130's
| immediately prior to launching the cruise missles) and those
| counter-strategies have counter-strategies, etc. etc.
|
| I also have no idea what that number n is. It could be
| infeasibly high.
| throwaway210222 wrote:
| > China could nuke US carrier groups assuming their satellites
| aren't taken out first. That spells game over for US projection
| of power if successful.
|
| Incorrect, the USA will probably just shrug, and call in the
| other 11 super-carriers and 9 amphibious assault ships.
|
| At the same time they will invoke NATO article 5 and a few
| other Asian mutual-defence treaties. 2 UK, 1 Spanish, 1 French,
| and 2 Italian carriers will arrive soon afterwards.
|
| As will 4 Japanese, 3 French, 2 Australian and 2 South Korean
| helicopter carriers.
|
| The trick isn't to take out one aircraft carrier: its to to be
| able to take them all out.
| Armisael16 wrote:
| Article 5 only applies to attacks in Europe or North America.
| The SCS is definitely in neither.
| AlexAndScripts wrote:
| Fair, though in practice they would join in anyway - China
| would be going for them next. Better to fight with the US
| than alone.
| throwawaycuriou wrote:
| Interesting. Edge case: if French Guyana (off the north
| side of South America but considered part of France and the
| European Union) is the victim of an attack by some means,
| are NATO members obliged to act in its defense?
| Armisael16 wrote:
| No. The same is true of New Caledonia (most of overseas
| France, actually).
| throwaway210222 wrote:
| Fair point. 2/3 of the armada (modulo dry dock) is still
| coming to the fight.
| simonh wrote:
| That's absolutely right if course. Taking out a carrier
| group, or even several carrier groups is if course doable,
| but by itself it isn't an objective. It's a means to an end,
| so without a strategic context it doesn't mean anything.
| echelon wrote:
| > The trick isn't to take out one aircraft carrier: its to to
| be able to take them all out.
|
| Hypersonic missiles and nukes cost a lot less than a carrier.
| Assuming their surveillance doesn't get taken out, they can
| spam missiles.
|
| China will have to have good signals intelligence for this to
| work, though.
| varjag wrote:
| A nuclear attack will ensure proportional response.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Should a conflict in the South China sea break out, China
| could nuke US carrier groups
|
| If China wants to start a nuclear exchange, sure. The US
| probably wouldn't go nuclear in response to an invasion of
| Taiwan, but it absolutely would in response to a nuclear attack
| on US forces.
| bb101 wrote:
| And our reality would segue into the storyline of Threads.
| The 1984 BBC film should be mandatory viewing for all people
| in positions of power. The bombing is only the start of the
| horror. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgT4Y30DkaA
| wahern wrote:
| The Cuban Missile War Timeline:
| https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/the-cuban-
| mis...
| zionic wrote:
| > but it absolutely would in response to a nuclear attack on
| US forces.
|
| But apparently not without phoning China about it first, if
| recent news is to be believed.
| pmdulaney wrote:
| Ouch.
| willvarfar wrote:
| Somewhat related to a China tech angle, I submitted this
| article about what Chinese stealth boats look like to the
| newest commercial radar satellites:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28686121
| numpad0 wrote:
| Is that a big deal? Internet told me the reason why ships go
| only halfway YF-117 is because surface radar expects sea
| clutters, and an awkward black patch created by stealth
| features gives out its position and nature.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| ... From the top. That is, the exact angle from which stealth
| doesn't matter.
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(page generated 2021-09-28 23:00 UTC)