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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: 4, Insightful) by leftover on Saturday March 24 2018, @06:03PM (1 child)
These pronouncements look, to me, like rabble-rousing in preparation for yet another major line of political pork funding. Notice that this comes from the Air Force, the same branch that failed to stop a weapon program that it said it did not want.
Did give him points for the Dilbert PHB arm-waving description of hypersonic weapon though.
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @07:35PM
Likely the real reason they want to start World War 3. Pork, pork, pork, pork.
Doesn't seem to occur to them that all that pork will be useless when every major city is irradiated ruins.
If we want to give USA 2.0 with some refactoring a try after the year of hell, we may want to include something preventing pork along with stronger prohibitions against standing armies.