China conducts first test of new ultra-high speed missile vehicle

China's military last week conducted the first flight test of a new ultra-high speed missile vehicle aimed at delivering warheads through U.S. missile defenses, Pentagon officials said.

The test of the new hypersonic glide vehicle was carried out Jan. 9 and the experimental weapon is being dubbed the WU-14 by the Pentagon, said officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The hypersonic vehicle represents a major step forward in China's secretive strategic nuclear and conventional military and missile programs.

The new hypersonic vehicle was detected traveling at extremely high speeds during the flight test over China, said officials who discussed some details of the test.

The hypersonic craft appears designed to be launched atop one of China's intercontinental ballistic missiles, and then glides and maneuvers at speeds of up to 10 times the speed of sound from near space en route to its target, the officials said.

A Pentagon spokesman confirmed the test but declined to provide details.

China conducts first test of new ultra-high speed missile vehicle

reply to post by haidian


Is that R.E.M I hear playing in my head?

Not so great news. If china has this tech, how long will it be till they sell it to other countries?

Thats just what we need, countries with the capability to deploy strategic weapons at insane speeds.

Is this one of those low oxygen breathing jet engines? or does it contain its own oxygen system?

Scramjet is the supersonic little brother to this.

I have tried telling people what China is up to for years. Few listen.

I will break it down for you folks. A good friend of mine was the Director of the Rand Corporations Think Tank. He led 200 other smart people who's primary goal was to determine what the future of Geo-Politics may be. Here is a nutshell was what he told me. "Make some friends in China".

Before I get flamed let me say this. China, Russia, Iran are all old Countries. They, unlike the USA understands the Long Game. America came up fast, made some Nukes and showed The World we had a willingness to use them.

When you want to fight a bully that is three times your size with better fighting skills how do you do it? You sneak up behind him and hit him with all you have. Think of the USA as that bully.

Here is the basic scenario.
The Cold War ended and Communist Russia became "friendly" to Democracy.

China Welcomed Capitalism and in doing so built a dependance in the USA for cheap goods.

Now imagine this, China one day says "USA you get no more goods from us, we don't want to do business with you any longer". 80% of all consumables in the USA come from China. In fact, most of the world relies on China for such goods. So a lot of folks say China would never do this as they would lose too much money. Well, China already has more than they can spend and will continue having more as long as the rest of the world buys from them. They also have The Worlds largest defensive army.....

Can you imagine the riots in the streets when Walmart is suddenly empty? Now you let that chaos hit the streets for a few days and taking out the power grid becomes fairly easy. Now toss in OPEC cutting off oil at the same time. The USA will have no chance of war with China as Russia will back them up if we choose to go to war over economic sanctions by China.

All the evidence of this play was given to me directly, I have no links to post or evidence to support what I am saying. He did tell me that all of the Countries involved had been caught having little secret talks.....

A few of the things below I was told were indicators of the above getting close to happening.
Chinese and Russian Military buildup. (pretty plain to see that is happening.
Our Military being spread thinly by additional wars. (this was told to me right after 911 so not in Afghanistan yet)
Homeland Security buildup to handle riots. (no argument there)
Putin being in charge of Russia again.
Iran in Control of Opec. (Currently a General from Iran's Republican Guard is at the head of the table)
China flexing it's rights. (with Japan right now)

When you want to hurt a bully you sneak up on him, Blast him hard enough he won't get back up and hurt you anytime soon. The leadership of China is aging and IMO there is little they would like more than to bury the USA. IMO there is a long line of those that agree with them.

Do I know when it's going to happen? Nope. But I have little doubt it will.

All of Romes soldiers are overseas. We are spread thin and dependent on those with politically opposite views.

reply to post by haidian


China have a vehicle/missile that can achieve Mach 10! Way to go China!

What's it made from is my first question? Stuff becomes extremely hot at that kind of velocity within our atmosphere.

Edit: I see it glides towards its target.

reply to post by andy06shake


At those speeds it would become hot entering the atmo, but this thing is designed to run at the edge of space.
There is very little resistance there. Little air to create drag.

The engine is a modified version of a scramjet.
Temperatures are much colder at the edge of the atmosphere.

In Layman's terms that would be called an EMP Delivery Device..............

Most likely US scram jet technology.

reply to post by Mamatus


It would be perfect for dropping a nuke above the us and getting out of the way in time.

Does the us have anything that compares to this? I assume so.

reply to post by shaneslaughta

Of course we do, Where do you think China got the plans from?

X-51A

The Air Force's X-51A Waverider reached a top speed of Mach 5.1 during the test flight, traveling more than 230 nautical miles in just over six minutes before crashing into the Pacific Ocean off the California coast as planned, Air Force officials announced today (May 3). Wednesday's flight used the last of four X-51A vehicles built by Boeing for the Air Force experiments. While the previous test, in August 2012, was a failure, Wednesday's mission pulled off the longest air-breathing hypersonic flight ever, officials said. [See Video of the X-51A's Final Flight] - See more at: www.space.com...

Keep in mind what the public knows exists is most often "Old Tech".

reply to post by haidian


I found this part particularly chilling:

Ian Easton, in a report published by the Project 2049 Institute, said China’s hypersonic weapons are part of what he called “the Great Game in space.”

“If there is a great power war in this century, it will not begin with the sound of explosions on the ground and in the sky, but rather with the bursting of kinetic energy and the flashing of laser light in the silence of outer space,” Easton said.

Now I don't think there is any evidence we've been visited by Aliens, but that seems like a really bad beacon to be displaying to any potential civilizations that might be out there. Then there is the stark reality of what such weapons could mean for the human race...

Scary stuff.

reply to post by Mamatus


Was this the contest winner? The one they had a few years ago to make space flight commercially viable?

reply to post by shaneslaughta


right, because the us is the only one who should be allowed to do this. OH WAIT, they can't.

Why would China sell something that will make it top dog? The US never sold any of their advanced tech.

How do we know there arent energy weapons riding earth orbits that could strike down any missile whether hypersonic or not...?
The facts seem to indicate secret development and installation of such things for decades......
How many "classified launches " by every country have gone up?
Killer satelites, Robot orbitting launch systems,Laser weapons and more......
The truth is simply that a kind of paranoid mentality,instilled in the world populace is taking control and soon the hundredth monkey syndrome may take effect on the last sane people out there.....
When that occurs, brother will turn against brother....husbands against wives, whole nations will split into warring factions.....
There will be no "zombie apocalypse" like the one the kids dream about....where the world is turned into a giant killing video game....
But we WILL destroy each other wholesale as the lines of destiny which we are weaving at this very moment......cross.....

Mach 10 would outrun the Star Wars satellite interception capabilities (Mach 3.5).

The accuracy drops in a BIG way at those speeds. This advancement makes my Father nervous (Director of Aerospace Engineering USAF ret.)

God Bless,

reply to post by Mamatus


Exceptional 1st post in this thread.

Correct, in the metaphor used "hit him with everything you got from behind." - how to stop a bully

God bless,

Interesting post Haidian, (district of BJ?)

Reminds me of the Saenger-Bredt antipodal bomber project (Amerika Bomber program) conceived by the Germans circa 1930/40 and cancelled due to war with Russia.

Something I had not realised about this project was a reference to a max speed of Mach 10.

Seems that heat was not such a problem as cooling occurred at certain points of the objects atmosphere skipping flight.

www.astronautix.com...
www.luft46.com...

ElohimJD
reply to post by Mamatus

 

Exceptional 1st post in this thread.

Correct, in the metaphor used "hit him with everything you got from behind." - how to stop a bully

God bless,

Thanks, It was as short as I could have made it. There is a game afoot and few people realize it's true nature.

WFB's Bill Gertz: We're in the middle of a hypersonic arms race with Russia and China

It looks like their progress on weapons that might be important in the next war is more significant than their progress on weapons that were important in the last like aircraft carriers. This is at least as advanced as any hypersonic system anyone else has if not more advanced. I mention this because everyone tells me not to worry because China only has one carrier while the US has 11 but what if carriers are what battleships were at the outbreak of WW2? A status symbol for the aging empires of Europe soon to be obsolete thanks to the new weapon on the block - carriers.