Countermeasures for hypersonic weapons

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In summary: Do you have a specific example?Yes, for example, the US Navy's Standard Missile-3 Block IIA (SM-3B2) is an anti-ship ballistic missile that uses a hit-to-kill tactics to destroy targets at sea.It seems that conventional interceptor missiles would have to be hypersonic themselves, and even more nimble, to be able to intercept incoming hypersonic missiles. Furthermore, there will undoubtedly be issues with mounting sensors for terminal guidance on interceptors.That's correct. There would also likely be a need for very quick reaction times in order to be able to intercept the missile in its entirety.In summary, conventional interceptors would likely
  • #141
Sure, eventually all sides with have effective hypersonic weapons and countermeasures so the net gain is zero with a higher bias reference point for mutually assured destruction.
 
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  • #142
nsaspook said:
The typical military response to that is to blow them all up during an actual war.
That is not even close to feasible. Do you realize how many shipping containers that comes into US waters every day?
Not to mention that it would be illegal to target civilian ships.
 
  • #143
Realizing this thread specifies counter-measures to hypersonic delivery systems, my concurrent study has helped me understand astrophysical research and theories of hypersonic meteor entry in atmosphere and asteroids/planet formation. So, interesting thread.

I will cite some of the relevant books in "What are You Reading Now (STEM only)" as time permits.
 
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  • #144
Klystron said:
Realizing this thread specifies counter-measures to hypersonic delivery systems, my concurrent study has helped me understand astrophysical research and theories of hypersonic meteor entry in atmosphere and asteroids/planet formation. So, interesting thread.

I will cite some of the relevant books in "What are You Reading Now (STEM only)" as time permits.
I liked Opik’s book. How dated is it?
 
  • #145
caz said:
I liked Opik’s book. How dated is it?
Well Opik's name is hyphenated on the Opik-Oort cloud. Seems like an excellent basis.

New books I am currently reading on solar system formation lament how quickly new data supersedes theory, but also rejoices that space exploration has returned from ~40 year doldrums. Turns out some of Darwin's ideas on formation appear plausible given 19thC. technology limits. Now that is dated.
 
  • #146
Klystron said:
Well Opik's name is hyphenated on the Opik-Oort cloud. Seems like an excellent basis.

New books I am currently reading on solar system formation lament how quickly new data supersedes theory, but also rejoices that space exploration has returned from ~40 year doldrums. Turns out some of Darwin's ideas on formation appear plausible given 19thC. technology limits. Now that is dated.
Sorry. Opik Physics of meteor flight in the atmosphere 1959

Here’s a review
https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.3060580
 
  • #147
Wouldn't the limiting factor for a hypersonic missile be the sensors, not necessarily the missiles themselves? For example, the AIM-120 AMRAAM can already go approximately Mach 4 (from unclassified numbers at least) but is a great missile given the context it's used in. Tactically, the AMRAAM is used by aircraft with powerful radar suites that provide guidance to the missile for the majority of its flight until it goes Pitbull and engages its onboard active radar. So it would seem that the kill potential (KP) of the missile hinges more on the sensors rather than kinetic performance.

Any missile maneuvers like a brick when near max velocity, and the motors only run for a certain amount of time after launch. After which they rely entirely on potential energy for maneuvering, which bleeds fast. Going back to the AMRAAM example, this problem is overcome by tactics. The AMRAAM can be launched from a radar soft-lock in Track-While-Scan (TWS) mode. This allows the launch platform to passively send position data to the missile of the target without alerting the targeted aircraft that a missile has been launched. The assumption should be that if you see a hostile F-15 spike, assume he's already launched an AMRAAM at you and maneuver accordingly. The targeted aircraft only receives a warning of a missile when the AMRAAM goes pitbull, by which point it's too late to maneuver.

For heaters (IR guided missiles), the only way to defeat them in close is to cause a greater angular rate of change than the missile is aerodynamically capable of, which of course varies from missile to missile. But a hypersonic missile would still maneuver like a brick by the time it's actually hypersonic.

My two cents anyways.
 
  • #148
Stormer said:
That is not even close to feasible. Do you realize how many shipping containers that comes into US waters every day?
Not to mention that it would be illegal to target civilian ships.

In a war you restrict shipping for ovbious reasons and civilian ships can get targeted if they are being utilized by the enemy for a military purpose.
The US Naval Handbook (2007) states:
Civilian passenger vessels at sea and civil airliners in flight are subject to capture but are exempt from destruction. Although enemy lines of communication are generally legitimate military targets in modern warfare, civilian passenger vessels at sea, and civil airliners in flight, are exempt from destruction, unless at the time of the encounter they are being utilized by the enemy for a military purpose (e.g., transporting troops or military cargo) or refuse to respond to the directions of the intercepting warship or military aircraft. Such passenger vessels in port and airliners on the ground are not protected from destruction.
 
  • #149
nsaspook said:
In a war you restrict shipping for ovbious reasons
And destroy your own economy...
 
  • #153
Roberto Teso said:
To return to the subject, while I have several doubts about the feasibility of large and maneuverable hypersonic weapon,

According to public (not classified) information, DF-17 is supposed to be that.

edit: Specifically the DF-ZF 'glider warhead' it can carry.
 
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  • #154
ardnog said:
According to public (not classified) information, DF-17 is supposed to be that.

edit: Specifically the DF-ZF 'glider warhead' it can carry.

Yeah I don't really understand the skepticism about the feasibility here. These vehicles already exist, just not in large numbers. It's more a question of strategy and how revolutionary (overblown or not?) as opposed to technical capability.
 
  • #155
For now I have not seen any flight records from any of these hypersonic weapons, while I have seen all the difficulties of the attempts made with experimental vehicles (X-43, X-51) simply trying to reach and hold a hypersonic regime.

Sure, I don't think this is the crux of the matter, but the relationship between the cost and the benefits of this type of armament.

Hypersonic missiles: Three questions every reader should ask

Cool your jets: Some perspective on the hyping of hypersonic weapons
 
  • #156
Roberto Teso said:
For now I have not seen any flight records from any of these hypersonic weapons, while I have seen all the difficulties of the attempts made with experimental vehicles (X-43, X-51) simply trying to reach and hold a hypersonic regime.

Sure, I don't think this is the crux of the matter, but the relationship between the cost and the benefits of this type of armament.

Hypersonic missiles: Three questions every reader should ask

Cool your jets: Some perspective on the hyping of hypersonic weapons

One persistent issue here is that the nature of these vehicles (in any of the countries rapidly pursuing them) is such that the flight records will not be very public (with the exception of Vladimir Putin's public bluster). I don't foresee that changing in the near future.

----

The first link you posted has some good thoughts, but I think their focus on the mission for hypersonic weapons is too narrow and the conclusions are therefore off. The bottom line is that hypersonic weapons are not (at least in the U.S. view) intended as a replacement for ICBMs. This is reflected in some of his answers to his own questions.

"Compared to what?"
These new systems shouldn't be compared to existing ballistic missiles. At least the way that the U.S. envisions them, they are more comparable to a Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM) or the AGM-158 JASSM, which are standoff range subsonic cruise missiles. The U.S. intends for new hypersonic weapons to be non-nuclear and a way to attack targets in denied airspace from standoff range. I would argue that even a depressed trajectory ballistic missile would look too much like an actual nuclear launch to an adversary, so that is not an option for this mission (and is much more expensive to boot), and our existing cruise missiles are much slower and "easier" to shoot down than something moving at Mach 5+.

The author also notes that the Iranians/Houthis successfully attacked the Saudi Aramco facility in 2019 with more conventional drone and cruise missile technology and the attack was not stopped, so hypersonics are overkill. However, that facility allegedly had something like a single Patriot system, which is not optimized for low-level threats like that and also doesn't have enough missiles that can be launched quickly enough to take out a large number of low, slow targets. This is a known issue, but one that is actively being worked by the defense department and seemingly has tractable solutions on the horizon (e.g. directed energy). Also notable: Saudi Arabia and China/Russia are very different states with different capabilities. Articles calling hypersonics "unstoppable" are hyperbole at best, but no one currently has the tech to do so and it's going to be expensive and difficult to develop it (as opposed to the Aramco example, which is much more tractable).

"So what?"
The author claims that ICBM targets cannot be predicted before launch. This is true but a red herring. Once they are launched, the targets can be determined relatively accurately. Not perfectly, but you don't need to know it perfectly to try and intercept it in the midcourse and by then you have a better idea of its target to get ready for the next layer of defense. The newer hypersonic systems are not predictable for much longer. Of course you could still try to intercept during its glide/cruise phase (which we currently can't do as far as I know), but it will be even harder than an ICBM or TLAM/JASSM in its terminal phase due to the combination of speed and maneuverability.

"Motivation..."
I think the key thing the author misses here is that one of the missions that hypersonic weapons can fill is one that ICBMs could already fill. The key point is that this is not the only role hypersonic weapons can fill. If you view them as filling a similar role to more standard cruise missiles, only faster and harder to stop, then the calculus changes.

----

The second article is definitely interesting. The discussion of L/D for gliders is one I have wondered about myself. I don't have an answer to that, and if I did I am sure I would not be allowed to tell you. The only thing I will note is that gliders don't need to fly straight and level, so that would at least partially negate some of the issues the author cites.

This is also why, at least in the U.S. view, air-breathing systems are the real holy grail here, not gliders. The author actually has no technical rebuttal to air-breathing cruise missiles. His main point can be succinctly summarized as "scramjets are hard." Of course that is true, but lots of things are hard but still tractable.

But then the author gets back to comparing primarily against ballistic missiles, which I again thing is the wrong comparison to be making.

----

Clearly there needs to be a big international diplomatic discussion about these weapons, how they intersect with nuclear technology, etc. However, for me, their strategic value and technical feasibility is not really a question at this point. Though admittedly, maybe I am just too close to the R&D for these things to be 100% objective as the author suggests.
 
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  • #159
boneh3ad said:
I saw this yesterday. I find it amusing that they publicly-released range just happens to exactly coincide with the distance from Guam to Taipei. Or, rather, "at least" that distance.
I noticed that also. It brought the image of a barrage of missiles crashing in the Taiwanese surf to mind.
 
  • #160
caz said:
I noticed that also. It brought the image of a barrage of missiles crashing in the Taiwanese surf to mind.

It's really more aimed specifically at telling the Chinese government "If you invade Taiwan, we can mount a defense from our own territory." Whether it is actually farther than that (as they sort of implied) is not relevant to the message they were intending to deliver.
 
  • #161
boneh3ad said:
It's really more aimed specifically at telling the Chinese government "If you invade Taiwan, we can mount a defense from our own territory." Whether it is actually farther than that (as they sort of implied) is not relevant to the message they were intending to deliver.
I wonder if they deliberately chose a distance that would not hit the mainland.
 
  • #162
China will soon have lasers to destroy any missile.
 
  • #163
AlexCaledin said:
China will soon have lasers to destroy any missile.

Short, absolutist statements are a great way to demonstrate an appreciation for and understanding of the nuances of this problem.
 
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  • #164
  • #165
nsaspook said:
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021...ic-aircraft-chief-on-treason-suspicion-a74769Secrets don't stay secret forever.
True. For every method, a countermeasure.

Eventually, secret tech emerges as household technology, science progresses. At best 'secret' meant; either the secret required specialized education and/or a clearance level to understand content.

Hypersonic flight technology progresses to civilian aircraft and safe procedures. Satellite based traffic control radar systems permit upper atmosphere layering and hand off to local control for insertion and landing.
 
  • #166
nsaspook said:
Secrets don't stay secret forever.
How would you know if some did? :wink:
 
  • #167
DaveC426913 said:
How would you know if some did? :wink:
There goes your PF Security Clearance Dave! Sorry.
 
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  • #168
nsaspook said:
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021...ic-aircraft-chief-on-treason-suspicion-a74769Secrets don't stay secret forever.
Probably a bureaucratic event.
The guy is a public person, represents Russia at major industry events and obviously talks about his work and his teams successes.
Expect he gets fees and honoraria, probably worth more than his official salary, which leaves him vulnerable to some put up scandal. Very much a normal event in top down autocracies such as the Soviets or the Nazis used to run. Certainly not helpful for the Russian hypersonics effort though.
 
  • #169
DaveC426913 said:
How would you know if some did? :wink:
Most of the time the public never knows about some government secret being exposed so, yes, we wouldn't know but history and human nature are good indicators that 'Hook or Crook' will be used if it's important to know.
 
  • #170
nsaspook said:
Secrets don't stay secret forever.
I think it's more like the resurgence of the old times than actual treason (above the level of usual talk-and-discuss between scientists).

Of course we'll need another half century to know.
 
  • #171
This seems right:
 
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  • #172
hutchphd said:
This seems right:

Not strictly accurate. I think she does a pretty decent job covering the technical definitions and challenges (with some notable errors), but overall a good high level overview.
  1. The illustration of sound waves and the Doppler effect is what explains Mach waves, not shock waves. If you look at the angles that form there, they are different.
  2. She didn't explicitly say that the vapor cone on the F-18 flying by the carrier was a shock wave, but didn't really do anything to debunk that oft-claimed fallacy, either.
  3. The question of what makes Mach 5 the barrier between supersonic and hypersonic is a complicated one. It's not a hard cutoff (like Mach 1 for supersonic). There are multiple different phenomena that characterize hypersonic flows and not all of them occur at Mach 5 (including some of them she cites, like flow chemistry). You'd lose the attention of a general audience with a detailed discussion on this topic, though.
  4. 3.5 minutes is the publicly-released record for scramjet flight. In a field like this and with as much money going into it as it is right now, I would not be terribly surprised if something has beaten that record and they just haven't released the information publicly.
  5. Most of the technology is ready, despite her claims. There are certainly still challenges, but the majority of the major technical problems are solved, if not yet optimized for design.
  6. The fuel problem isn't going away for commercial travel, but for weapons that problem is much more tractable.
  7. The paper by the MIT folks, none of whom are aerodynamicists, was riddled with questionable assumptions and therefore I don't think her own conclusions are valid given they are based solely on that paper.
    • Chief among them is the idea that hypersonic missiles are imagined (at least in the US) as a replacement for strategic ballistic missiles. They aren't.
    • The general's comment about halving delivery time clearly adds the stipulation that it depends on the launch platform and location. The general idea is that hypersonic missiles are smaller and easier to transport than an ICBM and could be launched from much closer. The authors simply ignored that bit.
    • Hypersonic vehicles are easy to detect via satellite only if the optics on the satellite are designed to be looking at the relevant altitude. If they are just standard IR spy satellites, that sort of altitude will be highly out of focus.
  8. She would be dismayed to learn that Germany is also investing in this area quite heavily.
  9. It is healthy to ask questions and challenge the orthodoxy. There are some pretty decent reasons to be skeptical of hypersonic hype. But the paper cited is not an objective example of this. It's two people with an agenda that led to a pre-determined conclusion.
P.S. I love the fact that she laughs at Kevin Bowcutt's matter/antimatter propulsion prognostication. It's the only appropriate response.
 
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  • #173
boneh3ad said:
Not strictly accurate. I think she does a pretty decent job covering the technical definitions and challenges (with some notable errors), but overall a good high level overview.
  1. The illustration of sound waves and the Doppler effect is what explains Mach waves, not shock waves. If you look at the angles that form there, they are different.
  2. She didn't explicitly say that the vapor cone on the F-18 flying by the carrier was a shock wave, but didn't really do anything to debunk that oft-claimed fallacy, either.
  3. The question of what makes Mach 5 the barrier between supersonic and hypersonic is a complicated one. It's not a hard cutoff (like Mach 1 for supersonic). There are multiple different phenomena that characterize hypersonic flows and not all of them occur at Mach 5 (including some of them she cites, like flow chemistry). You'd lose the attention of a general audience with a detailed discussion on this topic, though.
  4. 3.5 minutes is the publicly-released record for scramjet flight. In a field like this and with as much money going into it as it is right now, I would not be terribly surprised if something has beaten that record and they just haven't released the information publicly.
  5. Most of the technology is ready, despite her claims. There are certainly still challenges, but the majority of the major technical problems are solved, if not yet optimized for design.
  6. The fuel problem isn't going away for commercial travel, but for weapons that problem is much more tractable.
  7. The paper by the MIT folks, none of whom are aerodynamicists, was riddled with questionable assumptions and therefore I don't think her own conclusions are valid given they are based solely on that paper.
    • Chief among them is the idea that hypersonic missiles are imagined (at least in the US) as a replacement for strategic ballistic missiles. They aren't.
    • The general's comment about halving delivery time clearly adds the stipulation that it depends on the launch platform and location. The general idea is that hypersonic missiles are smaller and easier to transport than an ICBM and could be launched from much closer. The authors simply ignored that bit.
    • Hypersonic vehicles are easy to detect via satellite only if the optics on the satellite are designed to be looking at the relevant altitude. If they are just standard IR spy satellites, that sort of altitude will be highly out of focus.
  8. She would be dismayed to learn that Germany is also investing in this area quite heavily.
  9. It is healthy to ask questions and challenge the orthodoxy. There are some pretty decent reasons to be skeptical of hypersonic hype. But the paper cited is not an objective example of this. It's two people with an agenda that led to a pre-determined conclusion.
P.S. I love the fact that she laughs at Kevin Bowcutt's matter/antimatter propulsion prognostication. It's the only appropriate response.
Thank you, boneh3ad, for this clear appraisal.
Your Point 7 very effectively highlights the tendentious arguments being floated.
It is not a sound piece of work imho.
 
  • #174
Roberto Teso said:
For now I have not seen any flight records from any of these hypersonic weapons, while I have seen all the difficulties of the attempts made with experimental vehicles (X-43, X-51) simply trying to reach and hold a hypersonic regime.
Sorry for the post dig here, but just wanted to make sure you were aware that these utilized scramjets, or airbreathing engines. HTV-2, and its supposed velocities and flight regime, display more current capabilities in hypersonics when utilizing rocket engines rather than airbreathing tech.

I'd say we're more than capable of delivering a payload in the hypersonic regime- feel free to check me if I've misunderstood your post or if there's some caveat to weaponizing hypersonics that mandate an airbreathing engine (admittedly most of my background is just the commercial side and space launch).
 
  • #175
Hi everyone, since the last post in this thread there have been a few "developments".
I'm sure by now everyone is aware of Hypersonic weapons being fielded in the Ukraine,
I won't bother posting a news links since there are plenty to go around but I would like to post a relevant link concerning the Title of this thread. After reading through from the beginning it seems eight months or so can make a big difference, I mean BIG.

The paper linked seems pretty solid, I'm hoping it gets some discussion here.

From; https://www.csis.org/analysis/complex-air-defense-countering-hypersonic-missile-threat

You get the PDF Download link; https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazon...rDefense.pdf?SmaHq1sva9Sk.TSlzpXqWY72fg8PdLvA

The first link is basically an abstract presentation, the "meat" is in the PDF, enjoy.

Thanks for your consideration, Scott
 

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