[HN Gopher] Hypersonic missiles are misunderstood
___________________________________________________________________
Hypersonic missiles are misunderstood
Author : abudabi123
Score : 126 points
Date : 2023-05-24 13:24 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (medium.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (medium.com)
| loudmax wrote:
| YouTuber Perun, who does videos on defense procurement, has an
| episode on Hypersonic missiles:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0n3fjoacL20
|
| It addresses a lot of the same topics as this Medium article.
| verdverm wrote:
| Highly recommend this video and all of Perun's
| tpm wrote:
| Perun is old Slavic god of thunder.
| troyvit wrote:
| They _are_ misunderstood. I mean you can't even hear what they're
| saying until they've hit you.
| zzzeek wrote:
| I've read most of this article so that I may bring you the money
| quote:
|
| "If you think hypersonic is fast, that's nothing compared to the
| speed of light."
| ceejayoz wrote:
| You have to use a _lot_ of light to impart 2,000 pounds of
| explosive 's worth of damage to a hardened bunker, though.
| User23 wrote:
| How about to lobotomize a bare human head?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| From orbit? Surprisingly much. Atmosphere and distance mean
| dumping a lot of power into stuff in the way.
| scheme271 wrote:
| People are also mostly water and that takes a lot of
| energy to heat up.
| MobiusHorizons wrote:
| If you read the article, the laser is for intercepting
| missiles mid flight even if they are maneuverable.
| claytongulick wrote:
| I thought a primary issue with DE weapons was water vapor?
|
| My grandfather helped design several missile systems and held
| patents on radar interferometry, he claimed repeatedly that laser
| systems would never work practically because all the enemy had to
| do was wait for a rainy or misty day.
|
| He claimed the power requirements for DE skyrocketed to
| unrealistic levels almost immediately once you had to pierce
| water vapor.
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| Most of the missiles fly above the water vapour, so that isn't
| really a problem for this solution.
| missedthecue wrote:
| Presumably the laser system is ground based though
| jandrese wrote:
| Seems like that wouldn't be an issue for the space based lasers
| targeting the vehicle at the apex of its flight.
| ambicapter wrote:
| > People thought that mirrored surfaces might just reflect the
| beam. It turned out that reflective surfaces are actually more
| vulnerable.
|
| Does anyone know why this is the case? Do mirrored surfaces
| trigger some sort of internal reflection which ends up absorbing
| more energy?
| Panzer04 wrote:
| I think the usual issue is a mirrored surface is not robust
| enough to absorb extreme levels of energy for very long before
| it becomes a poor mirror.
|
| I expect the counter will be more along the lines of having
| sufficient ablating material to block the laser - a small
| amount of extra armour probably has an outsize affect on
| survivability.
| gateorade wrote:
| Just spitballing here but it might have to do with the fact
| that materials that absorb light are more heat conductive than
| materials that are reflective.
|
| The SR71 was famously painted black as a mitigation for surface
| heating issues because the black paint conducted heat away from
| the areas the were really susceptible to ram-heating.
|
| Perhaps reflective surfaces reflect some percentage of the
| incoming energy away, but thermally conductive surfaces conduct
| a larger percentage of that energy away and are able to safely
| sink it into some thermal mass.
| barbegal wrote:
| This sounds like completely made up rubbish to me. Reflective
| surfaces definitely absorb less heat. Mirrors may however be
| impractical and may not reflect enough to make the missile
| immune.
| logophobia wrote:
| Or have a lower melting point, making it more practical to
| use some sort of heat-resistant armoring? Might be pretty
| difficult to make something that both reflects light and is
| heat-resistant, no mirror reflects everything.
| zorlack wrote:
| ULA: What if we're already falling behind in the orbital laser
| race?
| ekimekim wrote:
| We cannot not allow a Space Laser Gap!
| maxcan wrote:
| US Taxpayer: great, get those spacex contracts ready!
| reportgunner wrote:
| I heard that spinning the missile renders laser defense useless.
| I have not seen spinning the missile mentioned in this article,
| perhaps by intent of the author.
| dgritsko wrote:
| Towards the bottom of the article...
|
| > Could platforms defend themselves? What if the warhead or
| missile was spinning, etc.? All those questions were answered.
| The only real barrier at the time was generating very high
| laser power levels in a way that was logistically practical in
| the field.
| rektide wrote:
| "Just add three or four orders of magnitude to the power
| output and we're good to go!"
| aimor wrote:
| It's mentioned in this paragraph:
|
| "When we were developing this technology in earnest for missile
| defense 15 years ago, there were many theories about how it
| could be defeated. People thought that mirrored surfaces might
| just reflect the beam. It turned out that reflective surfaces
| are actually more vulnerable. Would the range be far enough?
| Maybe the atmosphere would scatter the beam too much? Could
| platforms defend themselves? What if the warhead or missile was
| spinning, etc.? All those questions were answered. The only
| real barrier at the time was generating very high laser power
| levels in a way that was logistically practical in the field."
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| "Reflective surfaces are more vulnerable"? I'm gonna need a
| fact check on that one.
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| Mirrors are extremely sensitive to high energy radiation.
| Maybe something similar happens with very powerful lasers?
| aimor wrote:
| I suspect the issue is that the reflective materials are
| weak. That is, a heat shield would survive longer against a
| laser than a mirror.
| [deleted]
| fauxpause_ wrote:
| The non-ballistic variety that Russia claimed was unstoppable has
| been stopped several time in the past couple weeks now that
| Ukraine has Patriot systems. Seems like they're not really a big
| deal at all.
| up2isomorphism wrote:
| What's the point of reading a highly informative article
| written by a domain expert and then simply state your opinion
| by laying out wrong facts?
| the_af wrote:
| Agreed. And the article goes in great detail of why a non-
| ballistic hypersonic projectile is so difficult to stop --
| everything is going at extreme speeds and there's little to
| no time to maneuver, so if it deviates from the predicted
| trajectory you cannot intercept it at all.
|
| Why ignore all of the article? If a hypersonic missile can be
| intercepted by a Patriot, then it stands to reason _it wasn
| 't truly maneuverable_, i.e. it was ballistic!
| fauxpause_ wrote:
| The article begins by referring to Russia using Hypersonic
| missiles against Ukraine, and then goes into detail about
| what defenses are necessary to defend against these weapons.
|
| It's a good article. But the reality is that the Russian
| missiles making headlines don't meet the specs of the
| article. Ukraine is shooting them down just fine using
| decades old technology.
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| > Ukraine is shooting them down just fine using decades old
| technology.
|
| It is not publicly known whether this is true.
|
| The Ukrainians claim they shot down 6 of 6 Kinzhal missiles
| over Kiev in one night with a Patriot battery. In the
| available videos of the event, all that can be seen is that
| a few dozen air defense missiles were fired, and that
| something got through and struck the general location where
| the air defense battery was.
|
| A very healthy dose of skepticism is warranted about claims
| made in wartime by interested parties.
| fauxpause_ wrote:
| Russia arresting the Kinzhal developers for treason
| (read: failure) tells you all you need to know.
|
| Note also that they purposefully forbid videos of air
| defenses to avoid showing where air defenses are.
|
| At least one Kinzhal was confirmed shot down earlier
| before the wave of 6 or so.
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| Another view would say that the explosion in the video,
| where the air-defense battery appeared to be,
| demonstrates that the claim about all Kinzhals being
| intercepted was not truthful. The initial claim was that
| the Patriot battery was undamaged, but later it was
| admitted that the battery was at least partially damaged.
| It seems that the full truth is not being told, possibly
| by both sides.
|
| > Note also that they purposefully forbid videos of air
| defenses to avoid showing where air defenses are.
|
| This has not prevented videos from leaking, as in this
| case.
|
| > At least one Kinzhal was confirmed shot down earlier
| before the wave of 6 or so.
|
| Independently confirmed, or claimed? This gets to my
| initial point, that one should be extremely skeptical
| about unverifiable claims made by both sides.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Another view would say that the explosion in the video,
| where the air-defense battery appeared to be,
| demonstrates that the claim about all Kinzhals being
| intercepted was not truthful.
|
| This doesn't conclusively demonstrate that; an
| intercepted missile or drone can still easily go kaboom
| when the pieces hit the ground. The footage has a
| building between the explosion and the camera.
|
| > Independently confirmed, or claimed?
|
| There's at least photos of an apparently-downed Khinzal.
| There are no photos yet of a destroyed Patriot.
| the_af wrote:
| > _There 's at least photos of an apparently-downed
| Khinzal_
|
| Doesn't look much like anything one of us could recognize
| though. We are not experts.
|
| More importantly, even if it _is_ a downed Khinzal, it
| doesn 't matter for the article, which is about
| _hypersonic maneuverable_ weapons, which the Khinzal is
| not. So the initial post in this thread is wrong.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Doesn't look much like anything one of us could
| recognize though. We are not experts.
|
| Articles about it cite said experts analyzing the photos.
| the_af wrote:
| Experts on every side say all kinds of things. At times
| of war, one should be very skeptical.
|
| It _pays_ for Ukraine to claim they are easily downing
| Khinzals and minimizing their own casualties /hits. I
| don't blame them for this, misinformation and
| demoralizing the enemy is key. The Russians are doing the
| same on their side. Both apply military secrecy and
| censorship on their own camps.
|
| "Expert" opinion shouldn't be taken as non-biased here,
| either.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Look, if you ask for experts, you can't complain that
| experts don't matter in the immediate follow-up. Is
| anyone reputable contesting the "that at least looks like
| a Khinzal" claim?
|
| Yes, fog of war exists. Yes, both sides are going to
| misdirect and misinform for a variety of reasons, both
| good and bad. We won't know quite a few facts until after
| the war when the history books are written, and we won't
| know some of them _ever_.
|
| Anyone inclined to see the air defense video as proof of
| a Patriot being taken out is exercising motivated
| thinking. Anyone inclined to take Ukrainian claims to
| having downed everything is doing the same thing. Right
| now, what we _can_ safely conclude is a) Ukrainian air
| defense seems thus far to be fairly effective and b)
| Russian Khinzals don 't appear to be a game-changer at
| this time.
| the_af wrote:
| > _Look, if you ask for experts, you can 't complain that
| experts don't matter in the immediate follow-up_
|
| I didn't ask for experts, I said no-one here is one. I
| also said who knows what the wreckage is? If you ask pro
| Ukraine experts, they'll say it's a Khinzal. If you ask
| pro Russians, it's a bomb fragment or whatever.
|
| More importantly, this doesn't tell us anything about
| hypersonic maneuverable weapons. We already know the
| Khinzal isn't one. Yes, the Kremlin is making a fuss
| about their hypersonic weapons capability, part of their
| infowar campaign. TFA explains that hypersonics are
| nothing new and that they can be countered.
|
| > _a) Ukrainian air defense seems thus far to be fairly
| effective and b) Russian Khinzals don 't appear to be a
| game-changer at this time._
|
| No, I cannot "safely" conclude anything about either, and
| neither can you. Both seem likely, but "likely" and
| "true" are so hard to say in this war were everyone is
| lying through their teeth.
| fauxpause_ wrote:
| Shrug. The Kremlin loudly arresting the Kinzhal
| developers for treason after the Kinzhals get shot down
| suggests a clear narrative to me about who is telling the
| truth.
|
| The best case you can make for Russia is that the Kinzhal
| developers actually did commit treason but in a way that
| was unrelated to the Kinzhal missiles not being effective
| which is... laughable
| the_af wrote:
| Ukraine is also arresting people who film AA incidents,
| so who cares.
|
| The governments of both countries are being "selective"
| about the truth and imposing censorship by force. _Which
| makes sense_ at times of war!
|
| Nobody here should take anything released by the involved
| parties (and their sponsors) as gospel. It's war. War is
| about deception.
| fauxpause_ wrote:
| The problem with filming AA deployments is not about
| hiding the efficacy of AA deployments. It's about hiding
| their locations.
|
| What is the purpose of arresting your missile scientists
| for treason? What's your best case interpretation?
| the_af wrote:
| > _The problem with filming AA deployments is not about
| hiding the efficacy of AA deployments._
|
| The problem is both, and Ukraine is arresting people who
| film them. It's martial law, both countries are at war
| and truth suffers (understandably).
|
| > _What is the purpose of arresting your missile
| scientists for treason? What's your best case
| interpretation?_
|
| I don't know, I would guess:
|
| - They said something about the Khinzal that downplays
| the importance of the weapon.
|
| - They said something that would help Ukraine better
| counter them.
|
| - They said something against Putin or the military
| invasion.
|
| What they very likely didn't say is that the Khinzal is a
| hypersonic maneuverable weapon, which is the point of TFA
| you're commenting about.
| fauxpause_ wrote:
| Each of three top scientists on the weapon said something
| treasonous? Or collectively as a group? Nah. Dumb theory.
|
| They're getting arrested because they promised Putin an
| unstoppable weapon and now he looks like a dumbass.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| If making Putin look like a dumbass is a jailable
| offense, Putin needs to start by arresting himself--no
| one has done as much of that as he has.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Admitting you are wrong and made mistakes is sort of an
| impossible task for despot dictators though. He has spent
| decades killing or jailing anyone who told him something
| he didn't like, so everyone learned to tell him good
| news.
|
| It's part of the reason why the initial invasion went so
| terribly; Putin's analysts told him Kyiv would bend over
| immediately, and that the public would welcome them as
| liberators.
|
| Putin smells so much of his own farts that he bought it
| completely. The analysts were then shocked when Putin
| said "Okay, invasion today"
| int_19h wrote:
| Putin is already in direct violation of article 353 of
| the Russian Criminal Code:
|
| "Article 353. Planning, Preparing, Initiating, or Waging
| War of Aggression
|
| 1. Planning, preparing, or initiating a war of aggression
| - is punishable by deprivation of liberty for a term of
| seven to fifteen years.
|
| 2. Waging a war of aggression - is punishable by
| deprivation of liberty for a term of ten to twenty
| years."
| the_af wrote:
| > _They're getting arrested because they promised Putin
| an unstoppable weapon and now he looks like a dumbass._
|
| You are jumping to wildly unsupported conclusions.
|
| Any of my guesses is more likely.
| int_19h wrote:
| Officially they're charged with espionage. The
| beneficiary wasn't specified, which lead to speculation
| that it is China, since if it were US or any other
| Western country, the official propaganda would be running
| amok with it.
| relativ575 wrote:
| Putin said this about Kinzhal in 2018:
|
| "This enables the missile to penetrate through all
| existing and projected air defense systems and deliver a
| nuclear or conventional warhead over a distance in excess
| of two thousand kilometers" - [1]
|
| Either he overhyped it, or he was misled.
|
| [1] - https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-
| news/defense/2018-03-02/p...
| the_af wrote:
| I agree Putin said false things about the Khinzal, I
| don't think anybody is disputing this... Russians are
| inflating and lying about their own capabilities, yes.
| the_af wrote:
| > _The article begins by referring to Russia using
| Hypersonic missiles against Ukraine, and then goes into
| detail about what defenses are necessary to defend against
| these weapons._
|
| The article explicitly states, one paragraph later than the
| beginning, that "about half of that is just plain wrong".
|
| The author also explains the hypersonic missiles are
| nothing new, that they are old tech, and that the real
| threat would be _maneuverable_ hypersonic missiles, which
| the Khinzal is not. The Khinzal is ballistic.
|
| So when the author writes of the threat of maneuverable
| hypersonics, and you say "The non-ballistic variety that
| Russia claimed was unstoppable [...]", you are both
| speaking of different kinds of weapons with different
| capabilities. The Khinzal is old tech for which there are
| counters. The author is speaking of newer tech for which
| there are fewer counters.
| fauxpause_ wrote:
| I don't agree that the article makes this clear. The
| article states
|
| > These are specifically designed for ballistic threats,
| which are common, and their extreme effectiveness is
| precisely why Russia and China have invested in something
| else.
|
| And
|
| > Russia used hypersonic missiles against Ukraine" --
| alarming! The average member of the public, as well as
| many policymakers, now understand that these things are
| dangerous because they are just too fast to shoot down.
| Clearly something needs to be done... (sarcastic)
|
| It really ought to make clear explicitly in the article
| that the missiles it referred to in the beginning are NOT
| what it spends the rest of the article discussing.
|
| It confused me at least. Because, without doing further
| research, I assumed the Kinzhals must not be ballistic
| because they're indirectly referenced in an article about
| maneuverable missiles!
| the_af wrote:
| Well, it says half of the opening paragraph is "just
| plain wrong".
|
| It doesn't mention the Khinzal by name, true.
| fauxpause_ wrote:
| The is saying that it's wrong that hypersonic are bad
| because they're fast. It goes on to clarify why the new
| tech is bad. And, imo, implies that this includes the
| ones referenced in the beginning. But in reality it does
| not.
|
| But whatever. Semantics at this point.
| airgapstopgap wrote:
| Kinzhal is simply an air-launched 9K720 Iskander, though, and
| it was always known to be interceptible because its trajectory
| is deterministic. You just need good radars.
|
| No, hypersonics are a legitimate new development, Russia just
| deceptively brands some of its low-tech arsenal.
| [deleted]
| fauxpause_ wrote:
| I agree. But I don't think the article makes that clear. In
| fact I think it strongly implies otherwise that the missiles
| being used against Ukraine are the scary maneuvering kind.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| When you say "they're not very scary", without mentioning
| that it's entirely due to dishonest marketing that "they"
| (the Russian "hypersonic weapons in Ukraine) are even in
| the conversation, you contribute to the confusion.
| fauxpause_ wrote:
| I guess? The article is the thing that introduces them as
| such and does not clarify to begin the problem, imo.
| credit_guy wrote:
| What Russia used were actually ballistic missiles. Here's the
| wikipedia description [1] The Kh-47M2 Kinzhal
| (in Russian: Kh-47M2 Kinzhal, "Dagger", NATO reporting name
| Killjoy) is a Russian hypersonic air-launched ballistic missile
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kh-47M2_Kinzhal
| cameldrv wrote:
| The Kinzhal is AFAIK ballistic. The Russians refer to it as a
| hypersonic weapon because it sounds scary, but really it's just
| an air launched SRBM. The Russians do have a maneuvering
| hypersonic weapon, the Avangard, but it's strictly nuclear and
| launched from an ICBM booster, not a plane.
| themgt wrote:
| It's worth watching the videos of the Kinzhal/Patriot
| showdown in Kiev. As far as I can tell the actual raw videos
| are pretty rare anywhere mainstream. I found the Telegraph
| with a minute of it:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4sTZ1_9Cn8
|
| And just some rando with the closest to the original raw
| video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjxX2gqdlkQ
|
| Objectively as possible it looks like ~30 Patriot missiles
| were fired (plausibly the whole 32 missile battery). The
| production rate of these by Lockheed Martin is 500 missiles,
| annual. Up to 550/year starting this year. They're apparently
| attempting to intercept somewhere between 2-6 Kinzhals fired,
| and it appears 1-2 of those Kinzhals (i.e. between 15-100%)
| got through and struck the Patriot battery and at least
| damaged it. That's around 3 weeks total annual production of
| Patriot missiles fired in 2 minutes at a handful of targets
| with at best partial success.
|
| So it's both correct that Kinzhal is really just an air-
| launched SRBM not a hypersonic glide weapon, _and_ that our
| existing missile defense looks at best barely capable of
| partially defending against very limited numbers of
| conventional SRBM.
| ncallaway wrote:
| The Ukrainian claim is in that engagement they downed 6
| Kinzhals, 9 Kalibrs and 3 Iskanders.
|
| We don't need to take the Ukrainian claims as totally
| accurate, but it's worth at least including that the
| battery of patriots were fired at more than just the 2-6
| Kinzhal missiles that you tallied (at least when we want to
| look at annual production rates).
|
| The Russian's haven't been able to sustain a launch rate of
| once a month with smaller attacks. This attack was an
| unusually high density. Expending three weeks production
| capacity to fend off an attack that can be launched at most
| every 2-3 months seems... manageable.
|
| In terms of this conflict, also worth considering that
| Patriot isn't the only system in Ukraine, so if production
| of Patriot missiles becomes a constraint, they can shift
| more AD burden to IRIS-T and other European systems.
|
| When considering the broader implications to the US, I
| think it's not exactly right to describe Patriot as our
| "existing missile defense". We have a number of other
| missile defense systems such as NASAMs and THAAD that
| occupy complimentary roles to the Patriot systems. If
| anything based on the performance of Patriot in Ukraine I
| have more confidence than I previously did in our missile
| defense systems. Performance in real world conditions has
| seemed pretty good to me.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > That's around 3 weeks total annual production of Patriot
| missiles fired in 2 minutes at a handful of targets with at
| best partial success.
|
| How many Kinzhals can Russia make a month? I can only find
| motivated sources, but those say ~10/month, and that's
| after a push to increase production.
| zip1234 wrote:
| I've seen a lot of criticism about giving weapons to
| Ukraine because of a 'current production is only X per
| month' thought process. It's a flawed premise because
| production was only supporting the needs of a peacetime
| force. Production in peacetime is there just to maintain
| capability and meet export demand. However, it is
| exceptionally useful to practice scaling up production to
| ensure that the capability to do so is there. Russia has
| failed the test so far--whether or not the US and allies
| pass the test remains to be seen.
| themgt wrote:
| The question you should be asking is how many China can
| make in a month.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| China is just as upset as the rest of the world about
| learning that real war requires lots of ammo, and not
| just a pittance in a storehouse somewhere.
|
| Powerful countries have been surprised at how much ammo
| is required since firearms became the dominant way to
| wage war.
| int_19h wrote:
| It's not ammo for handheld guns that is the primary issue
| in Ukraine for both sides; it's the artillery shells. The
| main reason why Russian losses in Bakhmut were so high is
| because Wagner took the city by waves after waves of
| infantry assaults on fortified urban positions with very
| little artillery support - because they cannot sustain
| it.
|
| This isn't really a surprise, either - this isn't any
| different from any other major modern war where the sides
| are roughly on par. The original surprise was that
| Ukraine managed to hold up against the initial invasion
| such that positional warfare became more prominent, and
| with it the traditional dominant role of artillery.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| That invites follow-up questions, though.
|
| * Is the Patriot the only available system? (No. THAAD,
| SM3.)
|
| * Is _monthly_ production likely to matter in a US vs.
| China war? (Probably not.)
|
| * Can China's hypersonics hit _moving_ targets like
| carriers? (Much harder, at the very least.)
|
| China also has to ask the "what if our R&D, procurement,
| and training system is as corrupt/ineffective as Russia's
| turned out to be?" question.
| fauxpause_ wrote:
| China is not sending missiles to Russia
| ncallaway wrote:
| I think one lesson from this war has been that ammunition
| stockpiles of all kinds will be depleted quickly in a
| widespread conventional conflict with China, and that
| replacement production would need to be drastically
| scaled up across all systems (from tank ammunition, to
| artillery, and air defense missiles).
|
| And difference of how many China "can" make in a month
| and how many Patriot missiles Lockheed "is" making in a
| month are very different questions. How many missiles
| could Lockheed make in a month given 3 months lead time
| in a conflict with China? I bet it's significantly more
| than we are currently making now.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > That's around 3 weeks total annual production of Patriot
| missiles fired in 2 minutes at a handful of targets with at
| best partial success.
|
| Its a total success; the purpose of a defensive system is
| prevent _something else_ from being hit. And, there's
| pretty good reason to believe that the reason there aren't
| more than about 6 Kinzhals in Russia every-one-to-two-week
| mass missile attacks is that they simply aren't producing
| enough to fire more. Also, there were 18 missiles in the
| barrage, including other SRBMs (the ground launched
| Iskander), S-300s used in surface-to-surface mode, and
| cruise missiles, not just the 6 Kinzhals.
|
| > So it's both correct that Kinzhal is really just an air-
| launched SRBM not a hypersonic glide weapon, and that our
| existing missile defense looks at best barely capable of
| partially defending against very limited numbers of
| conventional SRBM.
|
| Patriot isn't the whole (or even the most capable system)
| of _our_ existing ballistic missile defense, even if it is
| the most notable system of ours deployed, as of today, in
| Ukraine. THAAD exists, and is more capable than Patriot.
| infamia wrote:
| Videos on these attacks and the Ukraine/Russian War in
| general are widely circulated and documented by YouTubers
| like Suchuminous and also by various accounts on Twitter.
| You can find videos of most any attack within a day or two
| and sometimes on the same day.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=patriot+Suchom
| i...
|
| There are numerous types of missile systems (SAMs)
| protecting Kyiv including IRIS-T, S300, and others. Looking
| at the various videos of the attack on Kyiv, the missiles
| had a very different physical appearance from each other,
| lending credence to the supposition that different SAMs
| were active. This would make a lot of sense considering
| there were different types of Russian missiles active
| (Kinzal, Iskander, etc.).
|
| > They're apparently attempting to intercept somewhere
| between 2-6 Kinzhals fired, and it appears 1-2 of those
| Kinzhals (i.e. between 15-100%) got through and struck the
| Patriot battery and at least damaged it.
|
| Although information is limited, there is no evidence of
| any Kinzhals making it through and striking anything of
| note. It seems that one Patriot Battery was lightly
| damaged, but all Patriot Batteries of them were fully
| operational before and after the strike. The one Patriot
| battery was lightly damaged and repaired in the field
| within a few days. This strongly suggests that the Patriot
| battery was hit by debris of some kind (perhaps from shot
| down missiles) [1], and not a direct strike as the clowns
| at the Russian MOD laughably claims (they've also claimed
| to have destroyed every single HIMARs launcher and the
| Ukrainian Air Force three times over).
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/OPGn2TXJaQs?t=34
| giantrobot wrote:
| It's important to note that a Patriot battery consists of
| multiple components that can be distributed over a wide
| area. There's the trailer-mounted launchers, fire control
| radar, and the command and control unit. All the
| components talk to each other but don't need to be parked
| next to each other. Damage to a single launcher doesn't
| prevent the other launchers in the battery from
| functioning. A damaged radar can be covered by a backup
| or even the radar from another battery.
| infamia wrote:
| Great points all. The reports that I've seen indicates
| that none of the launchers were offline, and the one
| launcher was repaired in a few days.
| lazide wrote:
| Apparently, the biggest issue with true hypersonic weapons
| (including missles) is that they can't 'see' - the plasma
| created by their speed stops radar, any high resolution
| optical, etc. systems from working effectively.
|
| Everyone else however can see them just fine.
|
| So they might be able to maneuver (normal ballistic missiles
| can usually do last minute maneuvering too!), but without data
| it's blind.
|
| Maybe useful if already programmed with a decent random walk,
| but it doesn't help it actively avoid something coming for it,
| and it doesn't let it aim for moving targets that can adjust
| course.
|
| Slower stuff doesn't have this issue, but is of course slower.
|
| This is the same reason why supercavitating torpedos seem
| really cool on paper, but are not actually all that useful or
| scary (unless nuclear tipped). Unless the blast radius is huge
| or the target is fundamentally fixed (a large building), you
| can just... move out of the way.
| vezuchyy wrote:
| Seems like a footage of Patriot system firing out millions
| worth of ammunition and being destroyed/damaged afterwards by a
| ballistic missile is a big deal for its sales prospectives.
| JanSt wrote:
| I don't believe it was destroyed. Russia would have continued
| attacks ok Kiev otherwise.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Deception is always possible, but both Ukraine and the US
| have claimed only minor damage to the Patriot, repaired and
| back in service within a day. Patriot batteries are also made
| up of a number of different launchers; damage to one doesn't
| take out the whole thing.
|
| All we have in the footage to go on is a flash. No indication
| of what kind or how much damage was done in it.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| not really. If a Patriot systems fires out $5M of ammo, gets
| destroyed, but shot down missiles that otherwise would have
| destroyed 5 tanks, that might be an absolute bargain.
| similarly, if it shot out $5M ammo against $20M worth of
| missiles fired at it..
| fauxpause_ wrote:
| "Unstoppable* missile"
|
| *have been stopped
| zip1234 wrote:
| The Patriot had minor damage. Regardless, all SAM systems,
| regardless of how good they are, have vulnerabilities to
| massed attacks. My understanding in this case is that the
| Patriot performed very well.
| programmarchy wrote:
| If we combine space lasers with runaway AGI...
| bombcar wrote:
| The missile knows where it is at all times. It knows this because
| it knows where it isn't.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT1sSy39CuU
|
| Now it is not misunderstood anymore, in fact, it understands you
| more than you know.
| jupp0r wrote:
| "U.S. has excellent defenses against all classes of ballistic
| missiles"
|
| This is the first time I've actually read somebody making that
| claim. Every other take on this topic has been that defenses
| against long range missiles are woefully inadequate and easily
| saturated by a low two digit number of missiles with MIRVs.
| jjk166 wrote:
| Those criticisms are not about the technical capability of
| missile defenses, but the scale at which they are deployed. If
| you can shoot down anything, but you only have 40 shots,
| obviously you can be defeated by anyone who can make 41 of even
| the crudest missiles. Likewise the best tank in the world is
| much less effective after it runs out of ammo. But if the issue
| is merely scale, all you need to do is make more interceptors,
| which is a finite and predictable expense, as opposed to
| developing a new technology which could be a massive money pit
| that ultimately fails.
|
| The US maintains a rather small inventory of interceptors
| because for the past few decades only small strikes by rogue
| nations or accidental launches by major powers have been
| considered likely threats, and a large number of interceptors
| jeopardizes mutually assured destruction, which has been a much
| more cost effective counter against large scale nuclear
| exchanges. But there's nothing saying the US needs to stick to
| the current number if the global geopolitical situation
| changes.
| walrus01 wrote:
| Although they are clearly not coming right out and saying it,
| the _quantity_ of individual launch-cell-installed ballistic
| missile interceptors deployed in Alaska right now is clearly
| meant to deal with a threat from North Korea, not from Russia
| or China. The technology might exist but we would need
| something like a modern DEW line of many, many more of the
| same interceptors installed at bases spread throughout
| northern Canada to deal with a larger threat.
|
| It is assumed right now that the threat from Russia and China
| is met by the concept of mutually assured destruction, as
| neither Russia or China have a vast quantity of missile
| interceptors that could be truly relied upon to destroy
| hundreds of incoming US missiles. And the fact that US
| missiles can come from almost anywhere via submarine launch
| platforms.
| throw_nbvc1234 wrote:
| > Curdest of missiles
|
| https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/ruaf-glide-
| bombs-u...
|
| For example, using gliding bombs rather then missiles or
| dropping dumb bombs from overhead.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| > But if the issue is merely scale, all you need to do is
| make more interceptors, which is a finite and predictable
| expense, as opposed to developing a new technology which
| could be a massive money pit that ultimately fails.
|
| Except it costs many times more to make an anti-ballistic-
| missile interceptor then the original ballistic missile.
|
| There's a fundamental asymmetry here, because interceptors
| have to be extremely high performance to be useful but the
| launching missiles can be as cheap as possible as long as it
| can throw enough penetration aids into the approximate
| trajectory.
|
| So regardless of how much is spent on such a program, any
| country could spend a small fraction to fully defeat it,
| maybe as little as 10%.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| Unless we gradually produce enough interceptors over many
| years to disarm MAD. Then we could notice some other state
| building a lot of ballistic missiles and preemptively
| strike.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Hence why countries carefully monitor breakout
| capabilities, including interceptors.
| ajross wrote:
| > Except it costs many times more to make an anti-
| ballistic-missile interceptor then the original ballistic
| missile.
|
| That doesn't sound correct to me. They're both rockets, one
| is much larger than the other and has a payload (in the
| case where we're looking at a failure of deterrence) made
| out _outrageously_ expensive material. I mean, you can
| construct an argument that one is already built and paid
| for, or that 70 's/80's technology was cheaper inherently,
| etc...
|
| But from first principles, no. An ICBM is more expensive
| than an ABM.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Do you have any idea what your talking about?
|
| The launching missile can carry dozens of penetration
| aids, each one needing an interceptor warhead.
|
| Plus, the physical structure and fuel are by far the
| cheapest parts, it's everything else, guidance systems,
| maneuvering systems, etc., that make up the majority of
| the cost. Which each interceptor warhead needs but which
| dumb penetration aids don't.
| ajross wrote:
| Maybe you could cite a reference on the costs of these
| things instead? I'm just saying I don't buy it. They're
| both extremely expensive, but ICBMs, even accounted per
| warhead, are more so.
| lmm wrote:
| You don't have to fire more ICBMs, you can put more RVs
| on the same ICBM. (And you don't have to put warheads on
| all of them).
|
| And remember that acceleration is what costs, not speed.
| To shoot down an ICBM you need to hit it with a similar
| mass at a similar speed, and you need to do it in less
| time (because the ICBM launched first), so your
| interceptor needs to accelerate harder.
| somat wrote:
| I think the claim is true, I also think that a lot of missiles
| would get through.
|
| A baseball analogy, an excellent, best in the world baseball
| batter will hit 4 out of every ten balls thrown at him. that is
| still an awful lot of balls that get through.
|
| For real world numbers note how well Israel does against all
| the ballistic missiles thrown at them, also note that these are
| slow short range ballistic missiles.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _[the ballistic missiles thrown at...Israel] are slow short
| range ballistic missiles_
|
| They're artillery rockets [1][2]. Not maneuverable to my
| knowledge, but continuously (and noisily) accelerating.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qassam_rocket
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_artillery
| CydeWeys wrote:
| The motors on these burn out pretty quickly, after which
| point they become atmospheric ballistic (not truly
| ballistic because they have fins and there's atmosphere).
| This is true of all basic rocket artillery generally.
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| Also remember what a disaster alot of us-systems were that went
| untested by real battlefield situations for decades.
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/8xkgw4/patriot-missile-saudi...
|
| Its clearly a mostly unuseable trade chip of buying projected
| security for buying weapon exports. Which is okay, but for
| actual protection, look towards countries who actually use the
| equipment they have regularly in a warzone against a opponent
| similar to the expected opponent. Israel, turkey, other middle
| eastern countries, lots of african and some south american
| countries come to mind.
|
| Everything else is.. a mixed bag
| Manuel_D wrote:
| This is probably better interpreted as "the US has the best
| defenses against ballistic missiles". The Patriot missile is
| proven to defeat Scud missiles in real combat, and THAAD is the
| most thoroughly tested system against long range ballistic
| missiles. Is that going to stop 5,000 ICBMs with penetration
| aids launched against the US? Almost certainly not, and I don't
| think the author meant it that way.
| dirtyid wrote:
| Yes - best against moderately complex threats in limited
| numbers. For reference Recent SM6 test (FTM33) shot down 1 of
| 2 short range ballistic missiles with 4 interceptors in
| what's described as "most complex" test so far, but "most
| complex" hasn't hinted at dealing with anything like counter
| measures. Reality is, even US missile defense also haven't
| been seriously stress tested.
| Animatronio wrote:
| The Patriot has a very high failure rate and isn't all it's
| cracked up to be.
|
| https://veteransbreakfastclub.org/scuds-vs-patriots-
| desert-s...
|
| https://www.gao.gov/products/t-nsiad-92-27
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| PAC3 is a completely different and physically smaller
| missile.
| Animatronio wrote:
| Yet they're not that much better. Per Wikipedia (I have
| edited out successful intercepts!):
|
| Syrian civil war (2014-)
|
| {...}
|
| In July 2016, two Israeli Patriot missiles missed an
| incoming drone launched from Syria, according to Russian
| media. Israeli Air Defence Command fired two Patriot
| missiles, but they did not manage to destroy the target.
| Russia Today stated that the drone penetrated four
| kilometers into Israeli airspace, and then flew back into
| Syria. In June 2018, a single Israeli Patriot missile was
| fired toward a drone which was approaching Israel from
| Syria. The missile missed its target, and the drone
| turned back to Syria.
|
| Service with Saudi Arabia
|
| In March 2018, another missile, apparently fired from
| Yemen, was intercepted by a Patriot missile over Riyadh.
| Missile experts via news agencies cast doubt on the
| effectiveness of the Saudi Arabian Patriot defense.
| According to videos, one interceptor exploded just after
| launch and another did a "U turn" midair toward Riyadh.
|
| In September 2019, the six battalions of Patriot missile
| defense systems owned by Saudi Arabia failed to protect
| its oil facilities from attacks by multiple drones and
| suspected cruise missiles during the Abqaiq-Khurais
| attack.
| bahmboo wrote:
| Those are 30 year old documents. Much like everything else
| the patriot technology has advanced a lot since then.
| Animatronio wrote:
| Alright, here's a more recent one.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Riyadh_missile_strike
|
| "However, according to Jeffrey Lewis, director of the
| East Asia Nonproliferation Program at CNS, the Saudis
| failed to intercept the missiles following a malfunction
| of the MIM-104 Patriot system.[3] One video appeared to
| show a Patriot missile launch on Sunday night go rapidly
| wrong, with the missile changing course midair, crashing
| into a neighborhood in Riyadh and exploding. Another
| appeared to detonate shortly after being launched in the
| Saudi capital. " Pretty much the same failure mode as 30
| years ago I would say, so maybe those ancient documents
| are still relevant today.
| jupp0r wrote:
| I see. We do have good systems, but too few to be of
| practical relevance in most threat situations.
|
| The North Korea case shows that the step from having one
| missile to having 100 is extremely short compared to going
| from having no missiles to having one missile.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _We do have good systems, but too few to be of practical
| relevance in most threat situations_
|
| We somewhat intentionally lack defences against MAD salvos.
| Our defenses will likely remain adequate for defending
| against the likes of Pyongyang.
| perihelions wrote:
| I don't think that's a consensus view? Jeffrey Lewis says
| the opposite,
|
| - _" The point is that North Korea is clearly aimed at
| overwhelming the US missile defense system in Alaska...
| At that cost, I am pretty sure North Korea can add
| warheads faster than we can add interceptors."_
|
| https://twitter.com/ArmsControlWonk/status/13150050310751
| 232...
| WalterBright wrote:
| I read that Patriot missiles cost $5m each. Should make a
| contract with SpaceX to crank 'em out for $20,000 each.
| dboreham wrote:
| Cost of individual military items is often clouded by the
| need to amortize development cost over a relatively small
| production run. Making an additional missile beyond the
| contracted quantity does not cost $5m.
| [deleted]
| WalterBright wrote:
| > a relatively small production run
|
| Over 10,000 have been built. The R&D cost should have
| been amortized away by now.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIM-104_Patriot
| wazoox wrote:
| And that was recently demonstrated in Ukraine, where a Patriot
| battery fired 32 missiles against incoming targets[1], but got
| hit nonetheless. It looks to me like missile defence works well
| in very unbalanced situations, such as Hezbollah's home-made
| rockets against Israeli Iron Dome, but is easily saturated when
| against a roughly equal adversary.
|
| [1] IIRC Ukrainians and US say there were 29 incoming missiles;
| Russians say there were 6 or may be 9 (unsure). Both numbers
| are probably made up, and truth is probably in the middle, 12
| to 18 or so.
| technothrasher wrote:
| We really don't know enough about that incident to draw any
| conclusions from it. Russians said the Patriot was destroyed
| by their missile, US said it was minor damage from debris and
| was operational again within 24 hours. I'm sure at some point
| we'll know what happened, but not for quite a while.
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| Unless the Ukrainians deployed everything in the same area
| and very close together, I don't see how one or two
| missiles could destroy a Patriot. Unlike planes or tanks,
| the system is modular and made of different parts
| (launchers, radars, etc) that - as far as I understand -
| are supposed to be spread around.
| jupp0r wrote:
| These were short range ballistic and cruise missiles, which
| are an entirely different category of threats compared to
| ICBM delivery vehicles. The difference between Mach 5 and
| Mach 23 is significant for interceptors, obviously. Patriot
| is not able to intercept ICBM warheads for that reason.
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| Two points:
|
| - The Patriot system is modular, there are pictures of the
| different parts on Wikipedia[0]. When Russia says they've
| destroyed a Patriot, what exactly have they hit? The radar? A
| launcher? Hitting one component of the system is not exactly
| the same as destroying the whole thing.
|
| - Decoys are used during these attacks. Both Russia[1] and
| Ukraine[2] use them. Even if no one lies, I assume that the
| number of targets seen by the defenders will always be higher
| than the number of missiles launched.
|
| ---
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIM-104_Patriot
|
| [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/14/us/russia-ukraine-
| weapons...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADM-160_MALD#Ukraine
| golergka wrote:
| > Patriot battery fired 32 missiles against incoming
| targets[1], but got hit nonetheless
|
| This phrasing suggests that the only objective that Patriot
| had was to defend itself, which it failed. However, Patriot
| system in question was also tasked with defending a lot of
| critical objects in Kiyv, all of which have not been hit.
|
| Any system can be saturated and overrun. To make an honest
| assessment, we need to know exactly how many Patriot systems
| were on the ground, and how many targets were they tasked to
| protect.
| sharikous wrote:
| You probably meant Hamas. Hezbollah has much more advanced
| rocket capabilities and has just much more of them. While
| Hamas (and Islamic Jihad) rockets can usually be stopped by
| the Iron Dome, Hezbollah has orders of magnitude more of them
| and many of them are precise.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _where a Patriot battery fired 32 missiles against incoming
| targets, but got hit nonetheless_
|
| It also shot down Russian hypersonic missiles [1]. I don't
| know which variant [2] we sent Kyiv, but this is almost
| certainly an old PATRIOT battery taking out "cutting edge"
| Russian hypersonics.
|
| [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/air-defence-systems-
| rep...
|
| [2] https://www.armyrecognition.com/united_states_american_mi
| ssi...
| gdy wrote:
| "It also shot down Russian hypersonic missiles"
|
| You forgot "Kiev says".
| dboreham wrote:
| > Russian hypersonic missiles
|
| There are zero such missiles. It's all marketing BS. They
| have air launched ballistic missiles. These are not
| "hypersonic missiles" by any accepted definition.
|
| (If the Russian definition is valid, then the V2 was a
| "hypersonic missile").
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _There are zero such missiles. It 's all marketing BS._
|
| Completely agree. To the extent there may be an actual
| long-range, high-speed, powered maneuvering missiles, it
| will be from America and China.
| Animatronio wrote:
| In fact hypersonic missiles are pretty common. Every
| rocket that leaves Earth's orbit is 'hypersonic'. There
| is nothing inherently special about being 'hypersonic' in
| general. In space everything achieves hypersonic speed
| quite easily(ICBM's and space rockets) are all hypersonic
| when they enter space. The trick of hypersonic missiles
| is to do that within the constraints of earth's
| atmosphere. The US has them:
|
| https://www.raytheonmissilesanddefense.com/what-we-
| do/hypers...
|
| https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-
| us/capabilities/hypersonic...
|
| and apparently the Chinese:
|
| https://theconversation.com/chinas-hypersonic-missiles-
| threa...
| twic wrote:
| Kinzhal is an air-launched ballistic missile. It's roughly
| an Iskander dropped from a plane rather than fired from a
| truck: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kh-47M2_Kinzhal
|
| It is hypersonic, but it follows a very predictable high-
| altitude trajectory, so it's the easiest kind of hypersonic
| missile to intercept.
|
| I read a good thread about the various kinds of hypersonics
| a while ago, but can't find it now. Broadly, there are
| three classes: hypersonic cruise missiles (like Tomahawk
| but much faster), hypersonic glide vehicles (basically
| ballistic missile warheads with wings), and classical
| ballistic missiles. It's the former two which are new and
| scary. This touches on it, but is rather one-sided:
| https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-
| chaos/2023/05/23/u...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| It was unveiled in 2018 by Putin alongside the Zircon
| anti-ship and Avangard glide vehicle [1]. Within the
| context of Russian hypersonic ballistic missiles, Kinzhal
| is the flagship.
|
| You're absolutely correct, by the way. And that's the
| author's point. (Which I've been partial towards for a
| long time.) Hypersonic missiles are not the game changer
| they're claimed to be, and to the degree they open new
| tactical ground, the United States is well set to at the
| very least match adversaries' capabilities.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_%27super_weapons%27
| int_19h wrote:
| The thing with Kinzhal is that it is _not maneuvering_ ,
| but the Russian agitprop muddies the waters by focusing
| on the "hypersonic" part. However, as the article points
| out, an actual maneuvering hypersonic missile - which is
| something that all major players are working on - is
| indeed a major threat. It's just unlikely that Russia
| would have that any time soon, given the overall state of
| their technological development demonstrated during the
| war so far.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _an actual maneuvering hypersonic missile - which is
| something that all major players are working on - is
| indeed a major threat_
|
| I've heard Avangard lacks propulsive glide. That means
| it's ballistic in space, and only maneuverable (at the
| expense of range and speed) at the terminal phase. This
| is solvable because it's old tech-basically MIRVs.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Close to MARVs, but with presumably greater maneuvering
| capacity (the "glide" description suggests this) which
| necessarily trades speed to exploit.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Its perhaps worth noting that literal hypersonic
| "ballistic missile warheads with wings" were developed by
| the US for ICBMs in the 1970s, and are deployed by many
| countries on ICBMs or MRBMs (ironically, _not_ the US,
| whose last MARV-capable missiles were the Pershing II,
| retired in 1991.)
|
| I think the deal with the Avengard (and the US C-HGB as
| used on the soon-to-be-deployed LRHW) is bigger wings /
| lifting body giving it greater maneuvering capacity
| through a flatter flight phase trading more of its speed
| for lateral displacement than earlier maneuverable
| ballistic missile warheads.
| dist-epoch wrote:
| There is a 4th kind of hypersonic missile: Fractional
| Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS)
|
| > _rocket launched into orbital flight, which later re-
| entered the atmosphere and released a maneuverable glide
| vehicle travelling at hypersonic speeds_
|
| https://www.apln.network/analysis/policy-briefs/chinese-
| frac...
| dragonwriter wrote:
| If they are actually glide vehicles these are exactly the
| hypersonic glide weapons discussed above, if thy "glide"
| part is an exaggeration, they are just classic ballistic
| missiles with maneuverable attack vehicles (MARVs), which
| are widely used, they aren't, in any case, outside of the
| three categories presented.
| dist-epoch wrote:
| The glide part would be in the three categories above,
| but not the whole system, which has extra capabilities
| (unlimited loitering time for example).
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| I'm still failing to see the difference between this and
| MIRVs. (But with fins!)
| porphyra wrote:
| Apparently the Patriot system that got hit only suffered
| minor damage and is repaired and back up and running now. I
| wonder if it was perhaps hit by some debris? But it is hard
| to speculate through the fog of war.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Hypersonic is a poorly defined term. Some people use it to simply
| mean "faster than about 5x the speed of sound". That is what
| people mean when they say "China and Russia have Hypersonic
| missiles".
|
| But speed at that level is basically irrelevant for interception
| etc.
|
| Other people use Hypersonic to mean able to manoeuvre at those
| speeds. A normal ICBM, especially the old ones, cannot do that.
| They follow a simple, predictable, course to their targets. In
| theory that makes it easier to hit them. Only no one can do that.
| People have done a respectable job of shooting down non-ICBMs.
| But ICBMs are 10-100 times faster, further away, higher, etc. And
| no one will use 1, they will use 1000 and it is dooms day unless
| you intercept 990 of those.
|
| So all of this is really just a mix of honest ignorance (and
| confusing terms) and dishonest sensationalism...
|
| The point of a hypersonic missile is to NOT follow a simple
| parabolic curve to the target. That is what hypersonic really
| means: able to manoeuvre at speeds about the speed of sound. That
| makes it harder to intercept. Only no one can intercept an ICBM
| anyway.
|
| Interestingly this is why the first Hypersonic missile was
| actually build in the 1930s...
| partiallypro wrote:
| This is one of the more annoying things when talking to
| Russophiles that believe that Russia has a huge upper hand on
| hypersonic missile technology. What Russia is currently fielding
| is basically an air dropped ballistic missile. They don't have
| hypersonic gliding and they can't do avoidance maneuvers; they
| travel hypersonic...but so does every ballistic missile. They
| travel in an arc before reaching their target which is how the
| Patriot defense system has been able to intercept them. By the US
| goal for such technology, Russia's does not meet the criteria
| where we'd call designate it differently than a ballistic missile
| with a lower glide path and maneuvering to avoid defenses.
|
| I do think that some of the Russian upper echelon actually
| believed what they were touting, but in a military environment
| where being a "yes man" serves you better (both for your career
| and possibly to avoid jail/punishment), you often exaggerate
| capabilities to get ahead, or just lie about current status which
| we're seeing play out in Ukraine.
|
| The US also just avoided such tech in the past because it's so
| expensive, and stealth has just been better. That might change
| soon, but overwhelming with hundreds of missiles (and decoys) is
| currently much cheaper and more effective than using what the US
| would actually define as a "hypersonic missile." You could fire
| 50-100 missiles for the price of one true "hypersonic" one, and
| what if that missile fails? You just wasted $80M-$100M for
| nothing. Meanwhile a cruise/normal missile costs $1.5-5M. The US
| will eventually have them in their arsenal, but they will mostly
| never be used.
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| Summary: Space based directed energy (DE) weapons are the only
| thing capable of _reliably_ intercepting hypersonic glide
| vehicles --- and the USA does not have them at this time.
| paganel wrote:
| > and the USA does not have them at this time.
|
| If the US would have still had smart strategists in positions
| of power we wouldn't have had to deal with all this hysteria
| about Russian _hypersonic wunderwaffen_.
|
| After all, how much damage can the Russians inflict with 10 or
| 20 or, let's say, with 50 such missiles? Not much, maybe
| they'll damage a building or two, maybe there will be some
| casualties on US soil, but not enough, and by a large margin,
| to win a war. Or, to put it another way, if the US were to
| militarily fold as a result of 50 such missiles hitting them on
| their home turf then they wouldn't have stood a chance anyway,
| hypersonic missiles or not.
|
| But this guy (otherwise pretty smart when it comes to tech) is
| not in the business of ensuring a strategic win for the US in a
| possible confrontation against Russia or China, he's in the
| business of selling his new tech (apparently some new laser
| gun?) and of making money for himself and for his investors.
|
| If it hadn't been clear, I'm ignoring the nuclear component in
| all this, as a Russian/Chinese nuclear hit on US soil, no
| matter the "transport" procedure (via "hypersonic" thingie or
| not) will very soon be matched by the US hitting
| Russian/Chinese soil in return. But, again, that's a totally
| different discussion to have, having "hypersonic missile"
| capabilities or not is quite orthogonal to it.
| c37d8bc wrote:
| > After all, how much damage can the Russians inflict with 10
| or 20 or, let's say, with 50 such missiles? Not much, maybe
| they'll damage a building or two, maybe there will be some
| casualties on US soil, but not enough, and by a large margin,
| to win a war. Or, to put it another way, if the US were to
| militarily fold as a result of 50 such missiles hitting them
| on their home turf then they wouldn't have stood a chance
| anyway, hypersonic missiles or not.
|
| You (and the article, frankly) are pointing them at the wrong
| targets: the best application of hypersonics is to shoot them
| at the US's blue water navy. The combination of perfect,
| real-time information via synthetic aperture radar and highly
| maneuverable hypersonics turns an aircraft carrier into an
| extremely expensive floating coffin.
| giantrobot wrote:
| > The combination of perfect, real-time information via
| synthetic aperture radar and highly maneuverable
| hypersonics turns an aircraft carrier into an extremely
| expensive floating coffin.
|
| For that you need a synthetic aperture radar and a highly
| maneuverable hypersonic missile. Aircraft carriers are
| surrounded by other ships and have air wings flying air
| patrols. If you paint an aircraft carrier with SAR you're
| likely to eat a couple AAMRAMs or SM-3s.
|
| With a hypersonic missile it needs an explosion big enough
| to disable a carrier within its CEP radius. The most likely
| warhead capable of that would be nuclear. So you've just
| started a nuclear war with the United States.
| Animatronio wrote:
| Kinzhal's operational range is presumably 2000 km
| (carrier+missile), while AAMRAM's is 160km max and SM-3's
| is 1200 km so not really effective.
| paganel wrote:
| > US's blue water navy. (...) hypersonics turns an aircraft
| carrier
|
| I actually started thinking about the carriers a couple of
| hours after I had made my comment, which is to say I think
| that you're of course pretty on point.
|
| Hopefully that danger that you hint to will make the smart
| people still left in the US Military think twice or thrice
| when it comes to continuing the aircraft carriers policy,
| as they've become too big of a target and if the US will
| need space-based laser guns (or whatever it is that this
| article proposes) in order to defend them then something is
| most certainly amiss.
| dirtyid wrote:
| A few hundred missiles taking out large fixed critical infra
| like refineries is existential. Advanced rocketry tech is
| eroding fortress American with will greatly limit US
| expeditionary posture that relies on unmolested homefront.
| Think precise long range strikes against ships in port or
| strategic bombers in harden bunkers, space infra stations or
| production facilities. Everything changes when CONUS becomes
| vunerable to foreign power projection - something that
| constrains nearly every US adversary who has to consider
| homeland strikes.
| paganel wrote:
| You would think so, but, then again, Ukraine has been
| pretty resilient in the face of much more and devastating
| attacks targeting its infrastructure (mostly related to
| power generation, as far as I can tell).
|
| As for the refineries, I agree, it would most definitely
| suck to have some of them taken off-line, but the
| discussion comes back to the point I was mentioning,
| meaning if the US is ready to call it quits because it will
| have to introduce some gasoline rationing as a result of a
| World War (because at that point we would be in the middle
| of WW3) then, honestly, it couldn't have won the war
| anyway. You need some resilience built in, both at the
| technical level (maybe have more refineries that would be
| more spread out, for example) and at the _national psyche_
| level, for lack of a better term.
| zamnos wrote:
| Ten or twenty buildings on the continental US being hit by
| Russian hypersonic missiles may seem like basically nothing,
| but on 9/11 we lost two buildings, plus minor damage to the
| Pentagon, and the US collectively lost it's shit. It's still
| looking for it, more than a decade later. It's not the
| destruction from the Russian missiles I'm worried about, it's
| the US's totally unhinged response that I'm afraid of.
| paganel wrote:
| > but on 9/11 we lost two buildings,
|
| Yeah, I'm aware of that, I also think that the US response
| was a huge strategic blunder, 20 years of Afghanistan and
| Iraq proved it.
| golergka wrote:
| > After all, how much damage can the Russians inflict with 10
| or 20 or, let's say, with 50 such missiles?
|
| 50 nuclear or thermonuclear warheads? Quite a lot, actually.
| paganel wrote:
| I mentioned that all that discussion ignored the nuclear
| dimension, that it is a totally diferent thing (for the
| sake of the argument/discussion being made).
| jandrese wrote:
| However, it is not clear that the Russians have working
| maneuvering hypersonic glide vehicles. If they do, they may be
| too expensive and rare to actually deploy to the front lines.
| gerikson wrote:
| Bring back Star Wars, all is forgiven.
| clessg wrote:
| Seems to be a reference to this:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative
| The 80s seemed like a blast, jealous!
| Arubis wrote:
| The money poured into this without effect was astonishing.
| gerikson wrote:
| Some say trying to compete with it bankrupted the Soviet
| Union.
| mustacheemperor wrote:
| The author worked on this project, and does remark that the
| only way to power the jet-borne laser at the time was to
| essentially pack a liquid rocket inside a 747 - but
| advancements in laser tech over the last 20-30 years have
| created alternatives like solid state systems.
| georgeg23 wrote:
| At the end he says directed energy lasers in space are the
| answer. But considering the ceramic thermal shielding these
| hypersonic maneuverable vehicles need and have, it would seem the
| reentry plasma is far hotter than anything a laser can add from
| thousands of km away. I also chuckled seeing his picture doing
| the interception over the water, because yes lasers keep going
| and you're going to be frying things on the ground too.
|
| The author is with ULA, and is competing with Elon Musk's
| Starshield-- which if you read the various leaks (see Michael D.
| Griffin) it's pretty clear will be some sort of Brilliant Pebbles
| system. Biden has been snubbing Elon on this. I suspect it's one
| reason he has turned starkly political and we are now seeing
| Reagan Republicans announce there candidacy on Twitter.
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| I was under the impression that Starshield was just a more
| secure version of Starlink. Do you have source that it is
| supposed to be a weapons platform?
| jmyeet wrote:
| > By the way, the U.S. has excellent defenses against all classes
| of ballistic missiles
|
| I am _highly_ skeptical of this claim.
|
| The author is otherwise correct: you can almost pinpoint the
| target soon after launch of a ballistic missile because of the
| way trajectories work. Ballistic missles go through three phases:
| launch, flight and re-entry. Modern ICBMs have a re-entry
| velocity as high as 7km/s (Mach ~20). Intercepts at that speed
| have, to my knowledge, an extremely poor record.
|
| Another factor is that ICBMs can (and do) carry multiple
| warheads. These will separate at different points in the flight
| phase or re-entry phase to hit different targets. Detecting
| multiple warheads isn't necessarily easy either because they're
| unlikely to have the visible plume of a full-blown rocket engine
| and it's at such a distance that radar signature probably isn't
| sufficient to detect the warhead let alone plot the target
| sufficiently accurately for a kill vehicle to hit it.
|
| The author is otherwise correct in that the real advantage of
| hypersonic missiles is targeting. The speed (Mach 5-10) makes
| intercept difficult and you won't know the target until it hits
| it really so good luck intercepting that.
|
| Maybe top secret THAAD development has improved to the point
| where it can reliabily intercept ICBM warheads at scale but I'll
| believe it when I see it. Most ICBM defense relies on hitting the
| launch vehicle in the boost phase because that's when it's the
| slowest.
| empressplay wrote:
| I imagine the targets can be predicted based on the trajectory
| of the missile, the same calculations used by the missile to
| release the warheads could in theory be used by the defender to
| predict their release and intercept them.
| empedocles wrote:
| I always enjoy hearing Tory Bruno talk tech.
|
| The key missing information here seems to be how many of these
| satellites would be required to have constant coverage of likely
| trajectories. This depends on the distance at which the laser
| remains effective. There would be no atmospheric scattering, but
| beam collimation is never perfect. It also depends on how fast
| the satellite can fire a new shot, as any warhead will be
| surrounded by decoys and other penetration aids. If this requires
| a large number of satellites, I am very sceptical. While Starlink
| has shown the possibility of creating large constellations, these
| sats would surely be much larger and more expensive. Really,
| Starlink makes me think something like BRILLIANT PEBBLES
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brilliant_Pebbles) would be a more
| reasonable alternative.
|
| Also, could an adversary surround the warhead with absorbent
| chaff as a countermeasure? Or simply an ablative shield, the
| warhead needs one anyway to get through the atmosphere.
|
| Still, a very interesting read from a very interesting CEO.
| dsr_ wrote:
| Referenced: cost of firing a laser is $1 of gasoline run
| through a generator. That's roughly a liter.
|
| Let's say raw energy content is 32MJ/L, and we have
| gasoline=>electricity losses of 50% and laser efficiency of
| 30%, so we expect a little more than 5MJ per shot.
|
| If you can hit a 2m target moving at 5Km/s through 1000Km of
| space and atmosphere with 5MJ, how much energy can you put on a
| 1m target moving at 7m/s at a range of 500Km?
|
| The difficulty in killing people from space will be targeting,
| and the limited availability of fuel and oxidator in space.
| pdonis wrote:
| So basically the system from the movie Real Genius?
| arijun wrote:
| > limited availability of fuel and oxidator in space
|
| And don't forget---you have to fly up Tory Bruno each time to
| fire it.
|
| But as a platform for assassination, it doesn't seem so far
| fetched. The two main things I can think of that would make
| it difficult would be the much higher attenuation and
| scattering from the atmosphere, and the need for a different
| (telescope based?) target acquisition method.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| would the atmosphere along the beam path vaporize in short
| order at those power levels, so scattering/attenuation is
| temporary for a fixed beam?
| AstralStorm wrote:
| Even more so, limited availability of cooling. Overheated
| laser melts rather than firing, so it will likely need active
| cooling droplet heatsink for fast refire in case it does miss
| or enemy fires more than one missile, and that's a limited
| resource.
| elurg wrote:
| The US currently has a large advantage is mass-to-orbit
| capabilities that is set to explode once Starship comes online.
|
| Elon needs to talk less about peace with Russia and more about
| deploying weapon systems. He can make enough money from it to
| retire on Mars.
| belter wrote:
| "Chinese scientists call for plan to destroy Elon Musk's
| Starlink satellites" - https://www.livescience.com/china-
| plans-ways-destroy-starlin...
| robotnikman wrote:
| iirc there are international treaties to prevent this. If
| those treaties get broken you will unleash some nasty
| weapons, like 'Rods from God'
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| I always assumed he would end up deploying a weapons system
| to space. Of course he would have to pretend to be doing
| something else while he builds up the capability to prevent
| others from becoming nervous. Something silly like colonizing
| Mars would work, especially if he really leans in to the
| eccentric billionaire trope.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| It would be impossible because even large amateur
| telescopes can photograph launch payload to a decent level
| of detail.
|
| If the appearance doesn't match a plausible civilian
| satellite mission then everyone will know within hours.
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| Brilliant Pebbles seems _way_ more practical today than 1987.
| Lots of exotic 80s autonomous systems are now commercial and
| mundane, and launch costs are plummeting.
|
| Sending up a space laser seems particilarly absurd when one
| could send up 100(?) drone interceptors for the same cost with
| less R&D, especially when a drone constellation is far more
| resilient against anti satellite weapons.
| empedocles wrote:
| I agree, though the cost of an exoatmospheric kill vehicle
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exoatmospheric_Kill_Vehicle is
| probably high.
|
| And one way to avoid this is the other part of the hypersonic
| renaissance, which is the ability to dip down into the
| atmosphere.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| Wealthy nations will probably keep pace with defenses. Poor
| nations will probably just bypass them.
|
| The easiest way for North Korea to nuke Tokyo is to just put
| the bomb on a legitimate seeming boat, and sail it over.
| dabluecaboose wrote:
| > There would be no atmospheric scattering
|
| Kind of by definition if something is -sonic then it's in the
| atmosphere. There would be less scattering but there would
| definitely be some on the target end.
| arijun wrote:
| The article said ICBMs were hypersonic, and those certainly
| spend a lot of time outside of the atmosphere.
|
| The gliders seem to spend the entirety of their trip in the
| upper atmosphere, though.
| dabluecaboose wrote:
| Reentry does kind of by definition enter the hypersonic
| regime, but it's somewhat unintuitive to the layperson
| since Mach 5 is much slower at those very low pressures,
| and it's an entirely different beast than flying at Mach 5
| in-atmosphere proper
| MilStdJunkie wrote:
| Yeah, me too. Bruno, although ex-LM and ULA, is one of those
| "born-dirt-poor-but-obsessed-with-rockets" kind of CEOs that
| seem to be hard to find these days. That's one of the great
| differentiators between now and the days of the S1C; you'd have
| a hard time finding finance executives doing technical steering
| in 1967. Which, I mean, fair point, as far as I'm concerned,
| but I might be a wee bit biased.
|
| From a layman's perspective, it seems like maybe DEWs should be
| looking at disrupting the extraordinarily delicate
| aerodynamics/hydrodynamics/plasmadynamics(?) of maneuvering
| Mach 5+ targets in atmosphere. Why do I say that? Well, if
| these things get consistent asymmetry in any part of their
| forward shock they'll spin themselves into bits, that's one.
| You can't shield the air with ablatives, that's second. Also,
| third, the sheath might be part of the communication/guidance
| system, so disrupting that it is good. Finally - somewhat
| related to second - tuning DEWs to interact with a plasma has
| TONS of possibilities, which helps to mitigate DEW's many many
| weaknesses over longer ranges. For the most part, I think DEWs
| will be short range wunderwaffen - particularly on the
| defensive end - but there's going to be niche cases.
| m0untaineer wrote:
| Is this article germane to aircraft carrier vulnerability? What
| is the state of play on defending surface ships to unpredictably
| positioned missiles?
| guhcampos wrote:
| The article is very cool and informative, I actually enjoyed it.
|
| But since I didn't know the author, it took me to the last
| paragraph and his signature to notice he's actually trying to
| sell us on the idea of putting actual Death Ray satellites in
| space.
|
| That's kind of cool too, but I'm sure it's a very bad idea to
| combine worldwide surveillance and killer lasers in space.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _he 's actually trying to sell us on the idea of putting
| actual Death Ray satellites in space_
|
| This is also an essential component of a planetary asteroid
| defence system.
|
| One could theoretically tune the power and wavelength of the
| beam such that it's highly destructive in space and the upper
| atmosphere, but mostly a nuisance on the ground.
| Animats wrote:
| Well, ULA needs some big DoD contract to launch heavy objects.
|
| Military solid state lasers are finally getting powerful enough
| to be useful. Below 100KW, they weren't effective enough, and
| it took decades to get the power up. Northrop-Grumman delivered
| a 150KW laser to the Navy in 2021. Lockheed-Martin delivered a
| 300KW demo unit last year.[1] These are ground or sea based.
| Israel's Iron Beam system tried lasers, but below 100KW, and
| only useful against small rockets and drones. Since that's what
| their opposition shoots at them, it's useful.
|
| Space-based lasers have lots of problems, from cooling to being
| big targets themselves. But they're a much less silly idea than
| they were in the 1980s.
|
| We may be seeing the biggest reversal in war since late WWI -
| defense may be stronger than offense again. Historically, this
| has gone back and forth. In the era of castles, defense was
| stronger. Then came artillery. WWI started out with defense
| being stronger - nobody could advance against machine guns.
| Then came tanks and the beginnings of air power. Offense has
| usually been stronger since then. Now we're entering an era
| where nobody has air superiority. There's a mostly empty sky.
| If it flies, it dies. On the ground, tanks are now very
| vulnerable to man-portable weapons.
|
| When defense is stronger, wars lead to bloody stalemates, like
| Ukraine. Nobody can force a decision. Battles are long, bloody
| and destructive. The winning side gets to own the ruins.
|
| [1] https://newatlas.com/military/lockheed-martin-delivers-
| recor...
| mabbo wrote:
| > Now we're entering an era where nobody has air superiority.
| There's a mostly empty sky. If it flies, it dies.
|
| The danger here is everyone filling space with satellites as
| a means of defense. When the war starts, Kessler Syndrome
| kicks in, and everyone loses their defenses in a few days.
|
| Ground based lasers may have less range, etc, but they can be
| hardened, protected, even hidden.
|
| Imho, we'll see a day where every major city on the planet
| has a set of anti missile lasers.
| frumper wrote:
| How about moon based lasers?
| dirtyid wrote:
| >We may be seeing the biggest reversal in war since late WWI
|
| Mainstream discussion so far limited to the tactic/operation
| layer in farflung battle fields. More pertinent is strategic
| layer where this desperate race for ABM is due to offensive
| rocketry / long range conventional strikes is increasingly
| openning up CONUS for attack. Which is the biggest reversal
| against US primacy since Revolutionary war. US homefront
| being ground to existential halt because ABM can't prevent
| adversaries from blowing up US refineries will place vast
| constraints on US willingness to defend interests abroad.
| When homelands are mutually vunerable - something US hasn't
| had to factor into calculations - it becomes much harder for
| US specifically to unilaterally force decisions, something it
| would otherwise do with relative impunity when adversaries
| could not disrupt CONUS.
| danw1979 wrote:
| > We may be seeing the biggest reversal in war since late WWI
| - defense may be stronger than offense again.
|
| Pretty sure once you've got that 300kW space laser up there
| someone is going to find an offensive use for it.
| asah wrote:
| this was my first thought too... could they be used for
| assassinations?
|
| p.s. there's a joke in there for Marjorie Taylor Greene...
| jackdh wrote:
| This reads as though these are already deployed. If that is so,
| why have we not seen them being used in Ukraine? Surely the
| ground based, city defenses lasers he mentioned would be
| invaluable there?
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-patriot-kinzha...
|
| Ukraine downs Russian hypersonic missile with US Patriot
| jandrese wrote:
| As far as I know none of them have been deployed to Ukraine.
| They probably require specialized personnel to run so even if
| they did want to send them there the Ukraine government would
| have to send specialists off to training first. Plus, it seems
| like the Patriots are working better than expected, even
| shooting down "hypersonic" missiles, much to the embarrassment
| of the Russian military.
|
| I think this article has somewhat fallen into the imagined
| capabilities trap that US arms manufacturers were constantly in
| during the Cold War. They would see Soviet propaganda about
| their new invincible weapons system and do some math on what it
| would take to make it work and then try to design systems to
| counter that paper exercise. Then they get a sample of the real
| thing and it turns out the Soviets were outright lying about
| the capabilities and the counter they developed is ridiculous
| overkill.
| golergka wrote:
| Because Russia is not firing ICBMs with megaton warheads at
| Kyiv yet.
| local_crmdgeon wrote:
| We're giving Ukraine the old stuff. You keep the new stuff for
| yourself, if the old stuff turns out to not be good enough.
| isk517 wrote:
| You forgot the step where you use what you learned from the
| old stuff failing to develop even newer stuff, then hopefully
| you can give away the new old stuff and start the cycle
| again.
| dist-epoch wrote:
| > _However, the only practical way to defend against long-range
| hypersonic gliders, which can threaten entire regions along a
| single flight corridor, is from Space. Orbiting DE platforms,
| looking down on entire regions from the ultimate high ground can
| leverage "birth to death" tracking of any given glider, combined
| with its speed of light "interceptor," to completely nullify this
| threat._
|
| But wouldn't an attacker then first take out the DE satellite,
| and only after launch the missile?
| TrackerFF wrote:
| That could certainly be a defense strategy, but taking down
| satellites work very much in the same way as taking down a
| ballistic missile - and there's considerable collateral damage
| due to the amount of space debris (which could very well induce
| more debris), which in turn could damage your own satellites.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| You know, before we had interceptor missiles that were tolerably
| good against ballistic missiles, pretty much the exact same
| argument was made by experts like Edward Teller for why space
| based lasers and/or particle beams were essential to intercept
| _ballistic_ missiles.
|
| Not saying its necessarily wrong now, but it was definitely very
| expensively wrong the last time.
| rektide wrote:
| It was hideously expensive to develop interceptor missiles too
| though.
|
| (But yes, SDI had almost no chance of working at the time.)
| time0ut wrote:
| I am been fascinated by Edward Teller and the x-ray laser. It
| strikes me as a case of a golden hammer [0]. Here he had an
| incredible tool: a thermonuclear weapon. It can destroy a silo,
| a fleet of ships, or a city. What else can we do with it [1]?
| Maybe for the best it didn't work out.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_instrument
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Excalibur
| vertis wrote:
| The human genome project cost 3 billion dollars to sequence the
| first genome(s) (with one draft costing about 300 million), you
| can now have your genome sequenced for less than $1000.
|
| Yes there are differences, but science and technology have
| moved on substantially. Just because it was wrong the last time
| does not mean it is going to be wrong this time.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The human genome project cost 3 billion dollars to sequence
| the first genome(s)
|
| Yeah, but (1) that's orders of magnitude less than SDI, and
| (2) it actually did the thing.
| local_crmdgeon wrote:
| "SDI failed" doesn't actually have a ton of evidence.
|
| If I built something like SDI, and I put it in HOE, the
| next thing I'd do is tell everyone else that it didn't
| work.
|
| We still don't know the content of a few shuttle launches,
| as well as many ULA launches.
|
| I think SDI was completed and functions.
| joncrane wrote:
| Isn't that what "Star Wars" was?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Yes, that's what I am referring to.
| dirtyid wrote:
| Trading multiple interceptors too expensive/infeasible long term
| against peer adversaires, magazine depth favours offense. Against
| peer adversaires with increasing long range precision stike,
| CONUS survivability against conventional attacks will eventually
| be an issue and the underpinning of US expeditionary model
| depends on ability to power project with CONUS impunity even
| against peers. Once that balance is upset US has to contend with
| homeland escalation like her adversaries.
| cwkoss wrote:
| > People thought that mirrored surfaces might just reflect the
| beam. It turned out that reflective surfaces are actually more
| vulnerable.
|
| Why is this? Definitely counterintuitive.
| metal_am wrote:
| Just because something is reflective in the visible light
| spectrum doesn't mean it's as reflective in other spectrums,
| say near-IR.
| boxed wrote:
| The article argues that lasers are cheap because you can just run
| them off a diesel generator in a container. But then it switches
| to space... which obviously doesn't do well with diesel and
| refueling.
|
| I assume we're talking about either battery+solar cell or nuclear
| power on those satellites?
| varenc wrote:
| The important part is that their overall energy consumption is
| low. And their usage is quite bursty so I think you're right
| that a space based laser would just spend days charging
| batteries via solar or from an RTG.
|
| Also even on land with the diesel generator, I assume the
| generator is charging up batteries or super capacitors and not
| hooked up directly to the laser. Estimating a ~30 second laser
| discharge, only the most gigantic diesel generators can convert
| a gallon of diesel to electricity in half a minute.
| jandrese wrote:
| Almost certainly solar. The limitation isn't so much gathering
| the energy as it is keeping the thing from melting itself down.
| If you want to fire it more often you're probably going to have
| to put a bunch of these in orbit and maintain them
| indefinitely. Very expensive.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-05-24 23:01 UTC)