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
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China claims to have successfully tested its first hypersonic aircraft
China claims to have successfully tested its first hypersonic aircraft, a big step forward in aerospace technology that could intensify pressure on the US military. The China Academy of Aerospace Aerodynamics (CAAA), based in Beijing and part of the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, conducted the first test of the "Starry Sky-2" aircraft last Friday.
Hypersonic vehicles are not simply high-speed -- they travel at least at five times the speed of sound. That's fast enough to travel across the US in around 30 minutes. According to a CAAA statement released Monday, the Starry Sky-2 reached a top speed of Mach 6 -- six times the speed of sound, or 4,563 miles (7,344 kilometers) per hour.
The test was a "complete success," claimed CAAA, which posted photos of the test launch on social media platform WeChat. "The Starry Sky-2 flight test project was strongly innovative and technically difficult, confronting a number of cutting-edge international technical challenges." The CAAA did not indicate what the new aircraft or technology would be used for, other than to say they hoped to continue contributing to China's aerospace industry.
Also at Quartz and NextBigFuture.
Related: General: U.S. Has No Defense Against "Hypersonic Weapons"
Russia successfully tests new hypersonic Tsirkon missile:
Russia says it has successfully tested a new hypersonic anti-ship cruise missile in a move hailed by President Vladimir Putin as a "great event" for the country.
The military said on Wednesday that the Tsirkon missile was fired from the Admiral Gorshkov frigate in the White Sea on Tuesday morning in the Russian Arctic and successfully hit its target.
Valery Gerasimov, chief of the Russian military's General Staff, told Putin – who turned 68 on Wednesday – that it was the first time the missile had successfully struck a target at sea.
"The tasks of the launch were carried out. The test-fire was successful," he told Putin. Gerasimov said the missile hit its target 450 kilometres (280 miles) away in the Barents Sea and reached a speed of Mach 8 – eight times the speed of sound.
China and America have also been developing hypersonic missiles.
Previously:
US Hails New Milestone in Development of Hypersonic Weapons
Russia Takes Lead by Deploying Hypersonic Nuclear Warheads First
Air-Breathing Engine Precooler Achieves Record-Breaking Mach 5 Performance
Putin Hails Successful Test Of Russia's New Hypersonic Missile
China Tests Hypersonic Aircraft "Starry Sky-2"
General: U.S. Has No Defense Against "Hypersonic Weapons"
Hypersonic Cruise Missile Scores USD$175m DARPA Cash
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday March 24 2018, @04:55AM (1 child)
Don't consider NATO actions against Yugoslavia unlawful. It will get you mod-bombed into oblivion an order of magnitude faster than suggesting vaccines cause health problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @05:09AM
And why do people still care about it nearing three decades later?
Surely run of the mill underhanded shit isn't worth caring about at this distance, what happened that was significant?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by qzm on Saturday March 24 2018, @05:13AM (7 children)
We must NOT allow a mineshaft gap!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybSzoLCCX-Y [youtube.com]
What exact defense are they thinking of?
Perhaps the same defense they have against an incoming ICBM (that is, none, at least none that comes close to working)?
Perhaps the same defense other countries have against the Railguns the US keeps making so much noise about while plodding along porkfunding them?
Perhaps the same defense they have against someone visiting on holiday, hiring a concrete mixer, and filling it with ANFO?
Remember folks, the answer is more of YOUR tax dollars into the pockets of a few military contractors so they dont have to actually produce anything of value.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @05:52AM (6 children)
Meh, I'd rather tax dollars go into a blackhole than fund shitty universities that only create student debt.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by anubi on Saturday March 24 2018, @06:11AM (5 children)
I get nauseous when the politicians do not fund healthcare and schools.... but they could find enough money for "cash for clunkers" to buy and destroy hundreds of thousands of cars.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by RS3 on Saturday March 24 2018, @01:50PM (4 children)
We think exactly alike. The only, and big, problem: the more money you pump into something ("fund"), the more people will raise prices, and the more opportunists you'll attract. Too many great govt. programs are abused by greedy "cash cow" hunters. There aren't enough auditors and inspectors to keep up with it.
I wondered if "Cash for Clunkers" was just a publicity stunt. I know they thought it was "trickle-down" economics, but I think people generally don't understand economics, and I see it as rich getting richer. I'll explain:
Being somewhat less well-off than many, I do much of my own auto repair (sometimes it's fun anyway), and occasionally get parts in salvage yards. Around that time ("Cash for Clunkers") I remember finding, and getting parts from, cars much nicer than mine in the salvage yards. That really bothered me. The engines were intentionally destroyed, with tags stating so, and the cars were never allowed to be sold for rebuilding / reconstruct / reuse, and _had_ to be completely scrapped within a few months.
So people who can afford new cars, I'll deem them on the rich side of the line, were subsidized to buy new cars and live well. Those of us on the poor side of that line I've drawn, who can't afford new cars, should have gotten the used cars then passed ours down to the person who has an even worse car, and eventually the bottom of the chain into salvage / scrap.
By giving money to people who can afford new cars, they've enriched the richer segment of the population. By skimming the nicer used cars off of the top and trashing them, they've bypassing the poorer people, whose cars just get older and worse with time and use. Great. Brilliant.
Sorry, I know I'm off-topic, but somehow it all dovetails with money, economics, technology, govt. spending and prioritization, etc...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by toddestan on Saturday March 24 2018, @04:08PM (2 children)
The other thing that bothered me a lot about Cash for Clunkers is that it was supposed to be "green", but if your car's EPA mileage rating was higher than 18 MPG, it was ineligible for the program no matter its current condition or how much of a clunker it really was. So the people who did the right thing and chose more efficient cars got the finger, and the program was just bailing out the irresponsible people who bought into the whole SUV craze a few years previous and now were facing $3-$4/gallon gas.
There's a lot of better ways the program could have been run, but if it was up to me I would have just canned the whole thing as economically irresponsible.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday March 24 2018, @10:48PM (1 child)
Spot on, toddestan. I wasn't aware of the MPG requirement, but I do remember something about MPG being part of the deal.
Please remember, when you talk about things like "people who did the right thing..." - some of us have to drive work trucks. I happen to drive one of the most efficient, but there's only so much you can do when you need to carry lots of heavy stuff sometimes.
I think a MUCH more important metric is the total fuel consumption. Maybe I have a 35 MPG vehicle, but I drive 50K miles / year. Or maybe I have a 14 MPG vehicle, but only drive it 4K miles / year. Again, do-gooders (the govt.) rushing into stupid decisions. My point is: if congress would implement a correction system, like maybe a good network of, IDK, SN moderators? And revise and refine laws, maybe society would start improving.
Maybe a bunch of us need to organize a case study and report on the Linux kernel development model, or SN moderator model, and extrapolate that model into an augmentation / addon for our govt.
BTW, is toddestan near Tajikistan?
(Score: 2) by toddestan on Monday March 26 2018, @11:21PM
Well, I was writing that from a "Greenie" perspective. Though actually, the Clunkers program did have different rules for commercial vehicles, which ended up meaning that very few of them got turned in - because as you might expect, it doesn't make sense to intentionally destroy a productive asset. Unless of course the vehicle was pretty much used up and would have been scrapped soon anyway.... in which case free money!
Of course, I really don't have a problem with people driving trucks and SUVs, it's just that they shouldn't get a handout for doing so. Or for that matter, a handout for driving an efficient vehicle. And certainly no bailouts if you make a poor choice.
I agree on you with the mileage thing. I don't actually drive that many miles a year, and I've kind of wondered if I had a truck and would let people borrow it if they topped off the tank, if I would almost never have to pay for gas. And of course, it's always fun to out-smug the Prius drivers who brag about the mileage they got coming into work by pointing out I biked in and used zero gas.
Actually closer to Uzbekistan :)
(Score: 1) by anubi on Monday March 26 2018, @10:04AM
I have several neighbors that have absolutely decrepit old cars... belching blue-gray smoke. They need a ring and valve job something terrible - but they have to make do with what they have. You don't know how much I wanted the government to "open the car lot" and let people look over the cars brought in for destruction ( after the closeoff date for bringing one in ), with the offer to swap for the one they drove in. It would have gotten rid of a lot of the really old junk cars in my neighborhood with no skin off my back. Not only that, when the poor people get a buck, they would have spent it - in the local economy - which would have been a boost for our local businesses. Call it "gleaning", if you will, if one wants the deal scriptural.
A lot of my neighbors are in the same boat I am in... I do not use the car all that much - but if I am going to use it, its gotta be big enough to put the family in.
If a car has to be crushed, at least let it be a car that has lived a good long life...
If that big diesel mechanical IDI van I bought had have been on the list, it would have been gone forever before I was aware of what it was. It was the last of its kind, and I feel quite fortunate to have one of them. A completely mechanical system... everything is gears, cams, shafts. It wins no award for efficiency, power, or emissions, but its sheer elegance of design makes it quite dear to me.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(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"?)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(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.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @06:12AM
What about the sub-sonic weapons, like the infamous "Brown Note". You know the "agencies" got to the Mythbusters before they did their show on this. I have unsourced intell that says the Brown Note will be broadcast on Fox News on April 1, 2018, in an attempt the get Trump to shit his pants and at the same time admit to the Moscow Golden Showers. Should be quite a day.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 24 2018, @02:24PM
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20170929 [userfriendly.org]
User Friendly was doing cartoons about kinetic energy weapons long ago. And, that is the proper term for these "hypervelocity" and/or "hypersonic" weapons. Given enough mass and speed, a stupidly simple bullet (or crowbar) can be as destructive as a nuclear weapon.
Sure, there's a defense. First, you want to be sure not to piss off the guy who has control of the crowbars. Second, you can invest in some super powerful lasers. Or, maybe you can just hack the bad guy's crowbar controller, and whack him first. Or, maybe swaddle the earth in crowbar-proof clothing. But, seriously, nuclear weapons without the cost of nuclear weaponry? WTF kind of defense do you seriously expect?
Oh yeah - railguns. That's just another form of "hypervelocity" or "hypersonic". Instead of relying on gravity, and/or using gravity assist, a railgun relies on electromagnetism to boost the projectile to hypersonic speeds. Phhttt. Bottom line, superfast bullet. The best Dragon Skin armor isn't going to be good enough!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Skin [wikipedia.org]
(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.