Russian Avangard Hypersonic Boost-glide Nuclear Weapon IOC Imminent

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Arnie123

It's the next best thing to impossible to hide hypersonic weapons testing. They have to file a NOTAM for the launch area, as well as the area it will travel through, and the area it's expected to land. They can not file it, but if something were to happen, and there was a freak accident and someone got in the way of the missile, there would be hell to pay. Not to mention the booms. Even Russia and China warn people when they're firing missiles.

There are a lot of other systems that they can hide, that are much easier. That's one reason that they've been fairly open about hypersonic weapons and systems testing. It's incredibly hard to hide, so they aren't trying to very hard. You can keep the details hidden very easily, but hiding that you're testing something is quite a bit harder in this case.

What are the advantages of hypersonic weapons? It seems with most of the militarized world's capability in ICBM and SLBM tech, that hypersonic is just a showoff tech. There isn't a defense platform on this planet that can defend against a full onslaught of the MIRV capabilities of S/ICBM's.

I still don't get the pursuit of fastest attack capability when the subs are out there carrying enough destruction to ruin a country in minutes if it were to go down. An Ohio-class has what, like 144 MIRV nukes on board that can strike within 5-10 minutes? What good does a fast missile do when Russia, China, and the US park their nuke subs nearby at all times.

a reply to: Vector99

Hypersonic weapons aren't necessarily nuclear. They can be, but they're also incredibly useful as conventional weapons, and antiship weapons. They're almost impossible to stop with current antimissile systems. Hypersonic speeds are considered to be above Mach 5, which is roughly 3800 mph and above. If your radar can see 250 miles, before the horizon gets in the way, that would give you roughly two and a half minutes to detect, target, and launch weapons at it before impact, if it's coming in between Mach 5 and 7. Increase that, and you have even less time.

A standard intercept with an Aegis equipped ship is known as shoot-shoot-look. The ship fires two Standard missiles at an incoming target, then pauses to see if they hit. If they don't, it fires two more missiles at it, then waits to see if it hits. A missile inbound at Mach 5 or higher, you might be able to get one missile away. If that missile misses, you aren't going to have time to fire more, or even really see if that one hits. Your other option is just to salvo the hell out of your missiles, but even then you aren't going to get many away, and you're going to be lucky to have enough time to see if they hit before the missile is on you. And even if you do hit it, if there's more than one, you're going to pretty quickly burn through your ammunition on hand.

The only way to stop them is to detect them farther out, which means finding a way to increase the range of your radar. That means having something like an E-2 out there looking. But they're vulnerable to air to air weapons. So if your launch aircraft has air to air capability, or has an escort that does, and they take out your Hawkeye, you just lost your extra detection range. That's one thing the F-35 will eventually be able to do much safer, but if you have them extending your missile protection, you lose them doing other things, like flying combat missions where they might be needed.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Ahh, so basically it's anti-carrier tech missiles. The down-side though must be the aiming. If you reach those speeds without going into sub-orbit you have spent a lot of fuel on a one-way path, and if you're coming in from orbital trajectories you have been detected most likely.

Does the tech exist to fire these efficiently enough to be a threat?

It's hard to believe anyone would use something like this unless it was an all or nothing go for it. Like I said, subs parked off of every coast worldwide kinda negate the need for it.

a reply to: Vector99

Yes. The BrahMos missile, developed between Russia and India is already capable of Mach 3. The BrahMos II, which will test fly next year, will be capable of Mach 7.

The most common use for them right now is as a boost glide weapon. They'll be launched on a ballistic missile to suborbital altitudes, where they'll be released and accelerate to hypersonic speeds. It will essentially skip along the atmosphere before reentering, and attacking its target. Even if it's detected, if it's fast enough, it's going to be extremely hard to stop. An ICBM reenters at around Mach 13 or higher. It's almost impossible to stop in its terminal phase. The missile interception system we're working on would target incoming warheads in their midcourse phase, before they accelerate into the terminal phase.

A boost glide weapon doesn't really have a midcourse phase. That makes it harder to target. And the flat path it takes to the target reduces the time to get there. There are times that you don't want to use a sub launched missile, or a nuclear weapon. That's where these will come in.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Boost glide weapons are really not that big of a deal long term. Dealing with them doesn't require anything inherently new, they just need to improve the existing missile defense solutions. Boost detection range, decrease reaction times and increase the speed of the interceptor.
Won't be cheap though.

a reply to: mightmight

Stopping any hypersonic weapon isn't going to be hard, it's just going to be difficult. And it's going to cost. As it stands now, stopping any of them is going to be a non trivial exercise.

a reply to: Zaphod58
Yes, but as it stands now nobody has an operational hypersonic weapon system aimed at surface ships. Intercept capabilities will evolve as the threat evolves. Just lagging behind five to ten years, as per usual.

The path forward is clear though. Put an upscaled AMDR on an San Antonio hull since LSC is a pipedream and field a hypersonic interceptor like Dart/Valkyrie.

a reply to: Zaphod58

At the speeds in play though, there really isn't a margin of error. You either hit or miss. Seeing as these are more designed as a naval deterrence, i can't see a practical use for them, because plain and simple, once you hit a carrier group, you might as well send out a distress signal that nukes are on the way.

I truly believe the US would respond with a limited nuclear attack if a carrier group was succsessfully attacked by anyone. And like I said, with the subs in play worldwide, hypersonic attack platforms just fall flat.

a reply to: Vector99

Killing a carrier is both easy and hard. If we're in a war with someone that has a hypersonic antiship capability, such as the DF-21, then having a carrier hit is part of the fight. They can mission kill the ship pretty easily, without killing the ship completely. Punch a hole in the deck, and she can't launch. A carrier that can't launch aircraft is a liability if it's still in the combat zone. It also ties up resources in repairs and damage control.

originally posted by: Vector99
a reply to: Zaphod58

At the speeds in play though, there really isn't a margin of error. You either hit or miss. Seeing as these are more designed as a naval deterrence, i can't see a practical use for them, because plain and simple, once you hit a carrier group, you might as well send out a distress signal that nukes are on the way.

Hypersonic weaponry is not necessarily nuclear armed. If anything weapons like the Avangard will be the exception, since conventional hypersonics weapons are actual usable in combat and not just a strategic deterrence.

a reply to: Zaphod58

That's a top down strike, and at the speeds given there is no error margin, you either hit or miss. Also at those speeds the benefit is minimized payload due to the kinetic force, but i still go back to the either hit or miss. A dense pocket of atmosphere could send it millimeters off course and that would determine hit or miss with such a weapon. There is no correcting your path when you fly at the speeds these weapons will travel.

Cool weapons to show off, but I just don't see the practicality behind them, considering what the use of them could entail. I just don't see the practicality of hypersonic weapons.

originally posted by: mightmight

originally posted by: Vector99
a reply to: Zaphod58

At the speeds in play though, there really isn't a margin of error. You either hit or miss. Seeing as these are more designed as a naval deterrence, i can't see a practical use for them, because plain and simple, once you hit a carrier group, you might as well send out a distress signal that nukes are on the way.

Hypersonic weaponry is not necessarily nuclear armed. If anything weapons like the Avangard will be the exception, since conventional hypersonics weapons are actual usable in combat and not just a strategic deterrence.

The faster you make your weapon go, ,the less margin of error you have to play with.

Several factors make 100% successful strikes very unlikely.

A dense pocket of air could change the trajectory of any projectile, and dense pockets of air cannot be predicted nor detected.

It would be the equivalent of changing a bullet's path while in motion to make adjustments of a weaponized projectile traveling at those speeds.

You either hit or you miss.

originally posted by: Vector99
The faster you make your weapon go, ,the less margin of error you have to play with.

Several factors make 100% successful strikes very unlikely.

Yes absolutely. No one has demonstrated the capability to hit a moving and alert target yet. The challenges are tremendous and just fielding a ballistic missile with as sort of maneuverable warhead doesn't cut it.

Reality isnt a video game where you just point and click, you need to close the OODA Loop somehow and maintain a real time datalink until the terminal phase to even have a chance to hit the maneuvering deck hiding behind a thick EW screen and very robust BMD.

But this has never deterred the doomsayers from predicting the imminent death of the carrier and whatnot.

a reply to: mightmight

it's the capability of the subs of the world that keep the world in check in my opinion. Carrier groups are a great show of force, but one sub off the coast can reign hellfire onto any nation.

It's also my opinion should any carrier group ever be hit in a disabling factor that the subs would launch.

144 per sub. 10-14 deployed at any time.

Who knows what Russia and China has floating around down there.

Like I said, these missiles are for show, if SHTF it would be the subs that launch everything.

a reply to: Vector99

A nuclear attack on a Carrier Strike Group - or any US facility abroad for that matter - would certainly be an extreme escalation. It would not however trigger an automatic wide scale nuclear response.
This is just not how the process works. A lot would depend on the particularities of the situation, but in general a nuclear attack on US assets abroad would most likely result in the gloves coming off as far as the US would in turn use nuclear weapons in proportional but ultimately limited counterforce strikes.
Generally I don't see the US just backing down after a nuclear escalation, but the focus would nevertheless be on defusing the situation, not escalating it any further. Maybe you’d see a tit for tad exchange, carefully limited not to force anyone into indiscriminate countervalue attacks, IE nuking cities.
It’s far more likely however that there’d be a stop in hostilities after the initial attack and counterattack. Resorting to nuclear weapons changes the playing field in an extreme manner and unless you’re dealing with irrational actors, no one would be inclined to go further down that route.

The big problem however is that this kind of calculation makes it far more likely for nuclear weapons to be used in potential near peer conflicts. Russia is not regenerating their nuclear arsenal for a doomsday go for broke attack. They are not stupid, they’re just ruthlessly betting on the fact that they would be able to control a nuclear escalation and ultimately force the West into a favorable ceasefire if it came down to it. And they might very well be on the right track.

Oh and btw, the US has 14 Ohio SSBNs and probably not more than 3 deployed at any time. START I and New START limit them to 20 missiles with an average of 4 warheads.

a reply to: Vector99

Piercing the sound barrier has a distinctive boom. The speed which it is noted on the ground or via seismic sensors is pretty standard for everything seen so far. For those things moving after faster than certain speeds, the signature is different. Not vastly, but distinct.

a reply to: Vector99

And yet pretty much everyone is developing some version of these weapons. So either there's a lot of use for them, or weapons developers are complete idiots just trying to waste everyone's money.

a reply to: mightmight

Yes absolutely. No one has demonstrated the capability to hit a moving and alert target yet. The challenges are tremendous and just fielding a ballistic missile with as sort of maneuverable warhead doesn't cut it.

That may not be entirely accurate:

www.globaltimes.cn...

nationalinterest.org...

a reply to: anzha

They have to know where the carrier is going to be for this to work. Of course in a test they can make it work because they know where the target will be.

Just realize carriers can move quicker than you think. And there is a reason carriers practice high speed maneuvers.

a reply to: dragonridr

Carriers can only move so fast though. At a certain point they can't move fast enough to get out of the way. As for location, there was a very interesting satellite photo recently that showed over one of our carrier groups sailing along nicely in the South China Sea. It's not impossible to find them.