It would also be a potentially less expensive route to strengthening theater deterrence compared with increasing the U.S. bomber fleet beyond original modernization requirements. Early warning systems would likely differentiate the depressed trajectory of such glide weapons from an ICBM’s re-entry warhead. Meanwhile, the Army and Navy, in conjunction with the Missile Defense Agency, have tested their own hypersonic delivery system, the Common Hypersonic Glide Body vehicle, or C-HGB. However, the Common Hypersonic Glide Body is not a new program — it already has development funding for the delivery systems and a conventional warhead. As a pentagon report stated, “While the designed speed of the hypersonic missile is faster than that of sound, its advantage lies in its enhanced maneuverability and smooth flight path, which is much harder to t… DF-ZF is fired using a DF-17 ballistic missile which was specifically … NASA also conducted a study in 2017 at the Langley Research Center into the “experimental determination of the drag reduction and energetic efficiency” of laser discharges ahead of simulated aircraft traveling at high speeds, and the Department of Energy (DOE) has looked into the same concept for wind turbines. Warhead ambiguity may even be beneficial by providing political flexibility to allies hosting these systems or inducing hesitancy in an adversary considering whether to strike a potential nuclear weapon, thus enhancing deterrence. Unlike ballistic missiles, hypersonic weapons do not follow a ballistic trajectory and can maneuver en route to their destination. However, the numerous intercontinental delivery systems already possessed by China, Russia, and the United States mean strategic hypersonic missiles produce only a marginal change in each other’s strategic vulnerability. Aside from the W76-2’s potential vulnerability to missile defenses, using a Trident means adversary leaders will not know if their country has been targeted with a high-yield or low-yield weapon until after impact. This is certainly true for conventional munitions, as well as theater nuclear delivery and therefore deterrence. As Vice Chairman of … For instance, the Russian Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle, which can carry a nuclear or conventional payload, is now operational. HGVs are launched into the atmosphere from a rocket and glide … For one, exquisite weapons make exquisite targets in a crisis. The first US production systems could appear only in 2023. DF-ZF, auch WU-14, ist ein chinesisches Hyperschallgeschwindigkeits -Gleitfluggerät (HGV hypersonic glide vehicle), das seinen Erstflug am 9. As it turns out, two cutting edge areas of defense research are beginning to converge in laboratories with the goal of enabling unprecedented levels of speed for aerial weapons, the report said. Rather than counting on endless restraint by the United States, Chinese leaders should see this as a natural consequence of the multipolar world they themselves advocate and be willing to safeguard their regional interests through arms control. It involves U.S. interests alongside those of regional nations, which are both party and victim to potential conflicts. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. It is also a reason theater deterrence relies on a different set of weapons and targets: to keep the cataclysmic power of strategic forces in reserve, and to keep national leaders in command. Avangard ICBM-launched boost-glide re-entry vehicles — also produced by the Tactical Missile Corp. — are different. History has shown the enduring value of rapid effects delivered from multiple firing positions and in conjunction with other forces. It is the mindset Russia and China have embraced, the mindset that is guiding their approach to nuclear modernization and investment.”. The glide warhead payload then glides unpowered to its target at hypersonic speeds. The second is the escalatory problem of using U.S. strategic Trident missiles for theater purposes. The oldest ships in the class entered service nearly 30 years ago, and although the ships have been regularly upgraded, altering them to operate a boost glide hypersonic vehicle … The views expressed here are his own and in no way represent any institution with which he is affiliated. This logic vis à vis Russia’s particular dedication to low-yield weapons is why they escaped complete elimination from the U.S. inventory before being reinvigorated by the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review. This leaves the Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon to continue on track as a conventional system and likely the first U.S. weapon to become operational. These issues lead to further concerns that hypersonic weapons will incentivize postures and reactions that heighten escalation risks. However, like dual-use cruise missiles and aircraft, the Common Hypersonic Glide Body is a theater system that is more resilient against the use-it-or-lose-it fears underpinning that argument. Their reaction would acknowledge Washington’s signal of commitment to deterring their revisionist ambitions and defending U.S. allies. If successfully developed, this concept may someday lead to new frontiers in speed and radical new forms of aerodynamic control and aircraft design, the report said. This leaves the Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon to continue on track as a conventional system and likely the first U.S. weapon to become operational. The hypersonic cruise missile, running at five times more speed than the speed of sound, is presently the fastest missile in the world. Their reaction would also reflect the fact that assured delivery for the United States means assured risk to their interests and security, giving both of them increased incentives to come to the negotiating table. Chinese Hypersonic glide vehicle is called DF-ZF which entered operational service in 2019, however, it is still being tested and refined. The document also highlights that Russia’s SSC-8 cruise missile presents a potential major threat to US military operations and deterrence goals. Hypersonic glide vehicles could be a lethal instrument for power projection, but for now, they would require limited range to avoid a nuclear escalation. It ought to be a prime candidate for becoming a dual-use weapon with conventional and low-yield nuclear variants. It needs better ones, suitable for 21st century deterrence. This pressure point alone might not be decisive, but using it to complicate their decision space would be useful in pursuing trilateral arms control solutions to replace the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty or respond to the low-yield lacunae in New START — solutions that are beneficial to the stability and security of all three nations. According to Vladimir Putin, the US withdrawal from the ABM Treatyin 2002 forced Russia to start developing hypersonic weapons: "We had to create these [hypersonic] weapons in response to the US deployment of a strategic missile defense system, which in the future would be capable of virtually neutralizing, zeroing out all our nuclear potential". This would reduce escalatory risks by alleviating (though not eliminating) an adversary’s Trident discrimination problem. Making the Common Hypersonic Glide Body a dual-use system is a more efficient use of limited funds as well as common infrastructure and logistics once operational. Against future air defenses, the Common Hypersonic Glide Body would be more credible for theater nuclear delivery than slower, low-observable cruise missiles while saving dual-capable aircraft for future missions, to include a potentially ongoing conventional fight. The DF-17 is believed to be the world’s first active hypersonic glide vehicle weapon, and powerful enough to penetrate US missile shields in the region. U.S adversaries may still perceive dual-use hypersonic missiles as threatening their strategic deterrence capabilities. The common hypersonic glide body for later tests and fielded prototypes, however, will be built by Dynetics in Huntsville, Alabama, Thurgood said. Avangard is a hypersonic glide vehicle. All the while, executing abrupt changes in trajectory to avoid detection and robust air defence systems, as it sped toward its target. This action thus entails gambling, or at best an educated guess, on whether those decision-makers will wait that long before initiating their own retaliatory actions. And should this turn out to be successful, or even remotely successful, such a technology would represent a total game-changer. Among U.S. hypersonic programs, the Common Hypersonic Glide Body is the best option for a dual-use design that closes gaps in U.S. theater deterrence. Hypersonic glide vehicles This type of hypersonic missile utilises re-entry vehicles. It reflects the fact that the United States is already engaged in deterring a Russian force that has retained, modernized, and produced so many low-yield weapons that they allegedly outnumber the United States’ eight to one (1,830 to 230). By combining advanced directed energy technology with the latest in hypersonic vehicle design, researchers in private and Department of Defense (DoD) funded laboratories have laid the groundwork for systems designed to literally sheathe an entire vehicle in laser and/or microwave-induced plasma in order to drastically reduce drag. At sea, decommissioning the nuclear Tomahawk variants removed attack submarines and surface warships from the deterrence chessboard. The U.S. tested a hypersonic glide body March 19, 2020, from the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii. The ongoing battle between signature and sensor will eventually meet an irreducible minimum, likely in favor of the sensor, at which point low observability may become moot. DARPA’s Hypersonic Test Vehicle 2 program attempted to demonstrate a range of 4,170 nm, but each experimental glider in two tests staged in 2010 and 2011 failed about 9 … Adding a low-yield capability to the Common Hypersonic Glide Body adds little on the margin of concerns driven by its conventional attributes but adds much to the ledger for deterring conflict overall. Play War Thunder for FREE! Rather than stealth, hypersonic missiles defeat air defenses through a combination of speed, trajectory, and maneuverability. It is a test bed for technologies to provide the United States with the capability to reach any target in the world within one hour (Prompt Global Strike) using an unmanned hypersonic bomber aircraft. That's putting it mildly. Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2) is an experimental hypersonic glide vehicle developed as part of the DARPA Falcon Project capable of flying at 13,000 mph (Mach 17.53, 21,000 km/h). Strikes against it would garner a strong response, but U.S. strategic deterrence would not be jeopardized and theater deterrence would be sustained by the portfolio of theater weapons that this hypersonic capability is meant to complement. It is reflected in Russia’s avowedly dual-capable Kinzhal and, potentially, its Tsirkon, as well as perhaps China’s DF-17. Some fear that an agitated adversary might purposefully or inadvertently strike a nuclear-armed hypersonic missile, prompting the United States to cross the nuclear threshold first. Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2) is an experimental hypersonic glide vehicle developed as part of the DARPA Falcon Project capable of flying at 13,000 mph (Mach 17.53, 21,000 km/h). U.S. defense contractor Raytheon just signed a $63.3 million contract with DARPA to develop a "tactical boost glide" (TBG) hypersonic weapons program. Escalation concerns are prominent and nuanced, incentivizing in-theater capabilities in order to forgo launching strikes from one’s homeland and risking retaliation there. Although not formally defined, the phrase is useful in classifying weapons whose explosive power is generally tens of kilotons in TNT equivalent or less. In fact, the Pentagon’s appetite for hypersonic weapons has grown so immense and pressing that it has issued contracting opportunities for what appears to be literally any hypersonic technology. Since at least the 1980s, many leading aerospace laboratories have explored the concept of “energy deposition” in order to reduce drag. Sound like science fiction? This concept involves beaming energy or microwave radiation along the leading edges or just in front of an aircraft in order to condition the air to be more conducive to high-speed flight, the report said. The US has initiated multiple programs to develop hypersonic missile defense, including the Glide Breaker, the Hypersonic Defense Weapon System, the Regional Glide Phase Weapon System, 9 and the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor. The Department of Defence called the test of the hypersonic glide body last Thursday a success. Shifting to a dual-use design should be acknowledged for what it is: a failure of arms control and an incremental step of arms racing prompted by U.S. adversaries. “The real question is what kind of efficiency can I get on a system that’s more optimized for a flight vehicle, an aerodynamic shape, which is fundamentally designed to not have a lot of drag,” he told The War Zone. Even if not immediately dispatched, simply having this family of deployable systems could help in assuring allies and cautioning adversaries, or reinforcing a secondary theater while the United States fought a major conflict elsewhere. Meanwhile, the Army and Navy, in conjunction with the Missile Defense Agency, have tested their own hypersonic delivery system, the Common Hypersonic Glide Body vehicle, or C-HGB. China is less transparent but has similar motivations, with added concerns rooted in its smaller arsenal and perceptions of U.S. ambiguity on mutual vulnerability — a condition that Beijing may try to impose with an Avangard-like system, as mentioned by Gen. Terrence O’Shaughnessy. The DF-ZF is a Chinese hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV), previously denoted by the Pentagon as WU-14 and currently officially operational on October 1st, 2019, in the 70th anniversary of the People's Republic of China. Hypersonic glide vehicles (HGV) are launched from a rocket before gliding to a target.7 Hypersonic cruise missiles are powered by high-speed, air-breathing engines, or “scramjets,” after acquiring their target. Furthermore, cooperative development of the Common Hypersonic Glide Body by the Army and Navy facilitates joint familiarity, logistics, and options for conventional-nuclear integration within theater contingency plans. Entangling conventional and nuclear capabilities comes with risks. The USAF and Lockheed Martin are working on the AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), a boost-glide hypersonic system. FE-2 marked the first and only test of a hypersonic glide vehicle since the Navy’s FE-1 test in November 2017. An ordinary YouTube search for hypersonic glide vehicles yields test footage of the firing of the Xing Kong (Starry Sky-2) and Dong Feng 17 missiles, … The new component would be integrating a low-yield capability. Sarmat is still in development, although it may be deployed by 2021. In August 2019, Dynetics Technical Solutions (DTS), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dynetics, was awarded a $351.6 million U.S. Army contract to produce C-HGB prototypes. The Navy is handling the … Should an ally see that burden become more tolerable or more necessary, ground-mobile firing units armed with this system atop the Army’s Long Range Hypersonic Weapon would provide options not constrained to airfields. Category: USA Published: 24 March 2020 The Pentagon said it tested an unarmed hypersonic weapon in Hawaii, as both China and Russia develop similar military and defence capabilities. The first is dependence on low observability (i.e., stealth) technology and tactics. But in order to deter, it needs to ensure that its arsenal is fit for purpose in defeating an adversary locally. Gen. Dave Goldfein, who will retire on Oct. 1, recently stated that this is the first time the United States is modernizing its nuclear and conventional enterprises at the same time, and that “[t]he current budget does not allow you to do both.” Adding a proposal like this runs the risk of being a fiscal non-starter. Virginia-class submarines and potentially Zumwalt-class destroyers offer high-mobility options for unilaterally deploying these weapons to either the European or Pacific theater. The US Army has unveiled a new video of a March common hypersonic glide body (C-HGB) test in Hawaii. There are counterarguments, which I will address and welcome others to raise, but even once they are fairly considered, the case for nuclear-tipped hypersonic missiles is persuasive. In order to close gaps in U.S. theater deterrence and assurance capabilities, it is time to consider a change of course. It is a test bed for technologies to provide the United States with the capability to reach any target in the world within one hour (Prompt Global Strike) using an unmanned hypersonic bomber aircraft. “A one-megawatt generator riding on a turbine engine is a fairly heavy system to get integrated into any practical aircraft,” said Van Wie, who has published extensively on energy deposition drag reduction systems and other plasma-based aerodynamic concepts. The vehicle, referred to as Object 4202 in the Soviet era, was reported in October 2016 to have had a successful test. Three nations (Russia, China, USA) have been testing hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs), although a number of other countries are also pursuing hypersonic programmes. The same may be true for future sea-launched cruise missiles. Alongside the burgeoning hypersonic revolution, directed energy systems continue to become smaller and more powerful, and applications like the energy deposition concepts seem far more possible than they were in decades past. Several recent analy- Dynetics won $351.6 million to build at least 20 Common Hypersonic Glide Bodies for both the Army and the Navy. He served over 10 years on active duty with the U.S. Navy before transitioning to the Navy Reserve. This is known as a hypersonic glide vehicle. In the Pacific, reports that China is expanding its arsenal are pulling an ever-present nuclear subtext to the foreground and raising questions about what capabilities may yet come to underscore Beijing’s revisionist foreign policy. To Hype or Not to Hype (America’s Nuclear Arsenal)? The risks of action, however, are more specific when it comes to adopting a dual-use Common Hypersonic Glide Body. 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