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America's top nuclear commander described a grim scenario for U.S. forces facing off against a new breed of high-speed weapons that Russia and China are developing.
"We don't have any defense that could deny the employment of such a weapon against us," Air Force Gen. John Hyten, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday. This means that, as of now, the U.S. has to rely on deterrence against these so-called hypersonic weapons, he said.
Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., then asked the general to explain what a hypersonic weapon is and what it does. "A hypersonic threat is a system that starts out ballistic, so you'll see it like a ballistic missile, but then it depresses the trajectory and flies more like a cruise missile or airplane," Hyten said. "It goes up into the lower reaches of space and turns immediately back down and then levels out." At that point, Hyten said, the weapon will fly at very high speed, which is where the term hypersonic comes from.
"Both Russia and China are aggressively pursuing hypersonic capabilities," Hyten told Inhofe. "We've watched them test those capabilities."
See also: Russia will put advanced mach 20 hypersonic boost and glide missile into service in 2019
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Saturday March 24 2018, @06:08AM (3 children)
Excuse me, "What defense is he proposing? Lasers?"
IIUC the US is also developing hypersonic weapons. This, of course, is not a defense, it's only MAD capability, so he comment is true. But that doesn't answer "What defense is he proposing?". Saying we don't have one is like saying "We can't defend against an H-Bomb explosion.", it's true, but it isn't a proposed way to proceed.
The only thing that strikes me as even vaguely plausible is surrounding the area you plan to defend with Gigawatt lasers, and that might not be strong enough. Also, if they know you are doing that, then there are various attack modes that fight it, basically high-tech chaff. (I.e., lots of dummy war heads in the MIRV.) Mirrors also help, but not as much, and you need to know be able to reflect the frequency of the attack. Silver plate works ok for visual spectra, but not so much for UV or IR. OK, at this point I'm spinning, so don't take this part seriously. But the question of what kind of defense you are contemplating is serious. And all I see is another round of MAD, this time with a lot shorter fuse on the trigger. (Or should that be "fuze"?)
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(Score: 2, Informative) by milsorgen on Saturday March 24 2018, @06:20AM (1 child)
Yeah we've been working at it for a while: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Falcon_Project [wikipedia.org]
Things have gotten up to mach 20 based upon a quick Bing search of the topic. If MAD worked this long, I guess we can count on it working a while longer.
On the Oregon Coast, born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days...
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday March 24 2018, @04:21PM
The trouble is, we've already been with 30 seconds of WWIII, and this thing makes the fuze shorter.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @09:40AM
Are you serious? How can you even ask that? Sharks with lasers.