Pentagon intelligence official says Chinese hypersonic weapon poses major challenge

I remember all the talk and finger pointing at the Clinton administration over selling the Chinese high tec missile guidance technology. www.freerepublic.com...

When the Justice Department began a grand jury probe of this apparent illegal transfer, President Clinton quickly reclassified the technology and approved its transfer, effectively undermining the Justice Department's case against Loral.

An old story but if you type in your search engine, "Clinton sells secrets to China" you will find several pages.. Many of my friends wondered at the time where this would all lead and if Johnny Chung and a Mr. Trie were just the tip of the scandal ..www.cnn.com...

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, April 4) -- A controversial former Democratic Party fund-raiser has told federal investigators that China's chief of military intelligence funneled $300,000 through him to back President Bill Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign, CNN has confirmed.

Johnny Chung has told investigators that Gen. Ji Shengde ordered the money transferred to Chung's bank account with the specific objective of helping Clinton's campaign, according to sources familiar with his testimony.

Not trying to rehash an old story but things done in the past tend to come back with unintended consequences.

With China's new aggressive stance in the region coupled with some of the hypersonic weapons they are testing and fielding (?) what was once considered a stand off war, if things got hot, has now been pushed back out of the entire area if these weapons are deployed.
Trying to defend against an 8000 mph war head coming at you is extremely difficult due to compressed time.. On board ship lasers or throwing up a wall of lead and hoping a golden BB takes out the war head is still extremely difficult if not impossible.. I can envision a system that takes the captain and other humans out of the firing sequence do to time constraints..Turn the system on once in an area and hope it works ! The problem is the area has just expanded big time due to accuracy !

China’s new high-speed maneuvering warhead is a “great concern” because it appears designed for use with both nuclear and conventional Chinese military forces, a Pentagon intelligence official said Thursday.

Combined with medium-range ballistic missiles “hypersonic vehicles of any kind—whether they’re glide vehicles or cruise missiles—are extremely difficult to defend against because just the time is so compressed between initial detection, being able to get a track, being able to get a fire control solution,” Fuell said.

The ultra high speeds make the maneuvering missiles difficult to counter with missile defense interceptors, he added.

“Following on Undersecretary of Defense Frank Kendall’s stark warning on Monday that China could overtake U.S. military technology in five years, both the Office of Naval Intelligence and the Air Force’s National Air and Space Intelligence Center have provided their most detailed assessments of China’s rapidly improving naval and air power,” he said.

freebeacon.com...

So here we are today and the question in my mind is where we and China will be in 5 years ? Not trying to fear monger but defense against the hypersonic weapons might be near impossible if MRV war heads are used.... I don't care how many picket lines you establish around your carrier based battle group... Subs are bad enough and if armed with the hypersonic sub launched missiles .... put it this way, the pucker factor in any battle group will be spring loaded to shoot first ask what it was secondly.... That's if the thing can be detected in the first place

reply to post by 727Sky


You know it's funny..

Not to take anything away from China's hard work and determination to make advancements but all too often I hear about how China caught up to the US/West with this tech or that. Meanwhile, Nothings usually mentioned about how their rocket program was floundering for years and not too soon after Clinton committed treason approved the transfer, China's space program began to make progress by leaps and bounds.

Now as far as this latest development. How does MAD not still play a part? Your post focuses on defense. The concept of MAD very explicitly means Mutual Assured Destruction. These new types will hit their marks but nothing is said about the overwhelming retaliation that would assuredly follow from subs and bombers etc.

So, in essence, aren't we back at square one?
*Just with another reason for even more Trillion dollar Defense spending?

The biggest problem with shooting a missile at a ship is targeting info. You need fairly precise locations to hit a target. You can't shoot in the general direction of a ship and hope for a hit. Satellites can do this, that's why the US is working hard to perfect shooting down satellites. The speeds involved are tremendous and a blink is a mile miss. Still a target moving at Mach ten is frightening.

Ah yes.I remember the NCOs "Green book" how it would show the vaunted Russian hardware and the capabilities were blown out of proportion.
We finally saw some of these vehicles up close and personal in Desert Storm and they in fact are POSs.
It's a way to pump for more cash. Case in point: Hows that moon rover doing?

China has a problem even when they copy things:
defensetech.org...

Time to learn Mandarin.

reply to post by 727Sky


There are faction's playing power game's and they are doing so with our live's and freedom's.

I have no doubt that China can overtake the US militarily in the coming years. They can produce weapons for a quarter of the cost that we pay for them. That is because they do not pay unearthly prices to contractors on these things. Some of their weapons cost only ten percent of what the US buys a comparable weapon for.

We may spend ten times of what they do on the military and national security but they get more for their money. This lines the pocket of the wealthy in this country and creates many high paying jobs. That is not the case there.

You can't even start to compare money spent on military as a judge of military expansion. We are losing ground badly because of high contractor costs.

Thanks for the replies guys; you make valid points. I remember back in the 70s when we had Japanese coming to America with their cameras and taking pictures of everything from cars to guitars.. Many of my engineer buds scoffed at them because at the time it was widely felt the only thing they knew how to make were pencils and ink pens. Well the learning curve for Japan was pretty darn steep if you look at all the stuff they make today and it seems like most have forgotten the quality issues Japan once had...

I remember a really mean Bully who used to beat all us 12 year olds every chance he got...He was 16... When I turned 17 I saw him again...He was at least 5" shorter and about 40 pounds lighter... Funny how things turn around and how some do not think about how the actions of today bring consequences in some near future.

I too wondered if this was another excuse to suck money up for some type of star wars defense initiative; which is certainly a possibility..

The hypersonic missiles or MRVs will change warfare IMO in big ways. Not to mention instead of a speed boat loaded with explosives what if some band of more money than brains gets the tec and decides to use it against one of our ships..

I am so far removed from defense type stuff I have no idea what is available other than what I read and can speculate about.. However, the hypersonic cruise missile or god forbid they can make a shoulder fired or truck mounted system with shoot and forget targeting... See where I am going with this?

This is the new big bad boy on the block and I have no doubt anyone who can, will be trying to make a go of this technology and will be hard at work over the next few years buried in R&D...

reply to post by rickymouse

I'd like you to name the weapon system China paid 10% that the U.S. did for a "comparable" system.....

reply to post by nwtrucker


They can produce those little personal surveillance drones for a lot less than ten percent of what the US would get them for. Look at the cost of Labor in China. Look at the factories that are already build for selling stuff to the USA consumers. Paid for by our purchases of everyday things.

Look at what the USA pays for a military knife than look at what the Chinese can produce one for.

reply to post by rickymouse


That is a factor. Yet, you omit that every one of those little trinkets were developed-brother! does that cost-in the U.S..

The U.S. has taken out satellites in orbit from surface, sea-launched missiles, they've intercepted ICBMs in flight-much tougher than a ballistic missile inbound to a carrier, even hit an asteroid with two missiles...tougher still.

Do you really think we can't do the same or better than a country that has never matched, never mind beat U.S. Technology?

Russia and China both has "slip-streamed" via reverse engineering, hacking and out right gifts to them...Yawn.

Last year the supreme commander of the Chinese military was taken on a "tour" of very top secret U.S. military facilities and shown-for some reason-some of our capabilities that you and me will never see. In a interview he stated that China could not match U.S. technology. I'd say he looked a bit pale but I didn't see a "before" picture of him. LOL.

It'll be a good while before China will match the U.S....if ever.

I wonder what our friends The Chinese are up to deep down in those tunnels, below an entire moutain range, that was reported a few years ago?

Could our sneaky little Mandarin buddies be up to no good? Remains to be seen Jim. ~$heopleNation

reply to post by SheopleNation


We have these nifty things in orbit...

nwtrucker
reply to post by rickymouse

 

That is a factor. Yet, you omit that every one of those little trinkets were developed-brother! does that cost-in the U.S..

The U.S. has taken out satellites in orbit from surface, sea-launched missiles, they've intercepted ICBMs in flight-much tougher than a ballistic missile inbound to a carrier, even hit an asteroid with two missiles...tougher still.

Do you really think we can't do the same or better than a country that has never matched, never mind beat U.S. Technology?

Russia and China both has "slip-streamed" via reverse engineering, hacking and out right gifts to them...Yawn.

Last year the supreme commander of the Chinese military was taken on a "tour" of very top secret U.S. military facilities and shown-for some reason-some of our capabilities that you and me will never see. In a interview he stated that China could not match U.S. technology. I'd say he looked a bit pale but I didn't see a "before" picture of him. LOL.

It'll be a good while before China will match the U.S....if ever.

AMERIKA! RAR RAR RAR!

The sound of your rar rar merika chest beating will liklely be the last thing you hear before a hypersonic nuclear missile snacks into your town.

Well only if your miltary R&D guys are as arogant as you and underestimate there adversarys.

But the history has shown one thing over and over.....all superpower fall in the end, normaly when they start thinking like you !

reply to post by cavtrooper7


Oh I know, Indeed we do. ~$heopleNation

Having a hypersonic missile really doesn't mean anything to anyone.

It is useless until it is launched.

When do you think China will launch one and attack someone?

If there isn't already, how long to develop the defensive technology to track and kill such a missile?

I don't even think it is a concern for anyone in the world.

The one thing the US can do right now is to project force at long range via its carrier task groups.

Those days are over and this is the problem for the US.

Send in a carrier task force and by Hyper Sonic Missiles or by Subs, you can kiss them goodbye.

Force Projection becomes more and more difficult.

The biggest navy = the biggest target group. China knows this which is why she concentrates on Defense.

P

pheonix358
The one thing the US can do right now is to project force at long range via its carrier task groups.

Those days are over and this is the problem for the US.

Send in a carrier task force and by Hyper Sonic Missiles or by Subs, you can kiss them goodbye.

Force Projection becomes more and more difficult.

The biggest navy = the biggest target group. China knows this which is why she concentrates on Defense.

P

Its only a problem if the usa wants to go around invading everyone as the agressor.

If the usa adopted a more defensive role it wouldnt be so much of a issue.

reply to post by 727Sky


Doesn't it seem like we should have articles in the paper everyday about China and their capabilities?

I mean, some stuff leaks through, but Russia, the Mideast, North Korea, all regularly peppered through our media, but you don't here nearly as much as you'd expect about China given their position in the world.

It might just be me that feels that way?