In 2002, the US withdrew, citing the need to protect itself against nuclear blackmail from rogue states, and subsequently establishing the Missile Defense Agency. 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. Entangling conventional and nuclear capabilities comes with risks. So fielding of such an advanced weapon indicates high level of resources China is devoting towards its offensive capabilities. Meanwhile, low-yield Trident missiles invite escalation and put strategic deterrence assets at risk. Both Russia and China would likely object to dual-use hypersonic missiles, calling their adoption a destabilizing move by the United States. One U.S. hypersonic program — the Common Hypersonic Glide Body — relies on neither aircraft nor low-observability. 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. 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 DF-ZF is launched during the last stage of a missile and can reach nearly 7,500 mph (Mach10), as well as maneuver to avoid missile defenses and zero in on targets. Meanwhile, R&D has already led to several systems approaching operational status. This is one among many reasons China, Russia, and the United States safeguard their second-strike capabilities. He served over 10 years on active duty with the U.S. Navy before transitioning to the Navy Reserve. This would reduce escalatory risks by alleviating (though not eliminating) an adversary’s Trident discrimination problem. Now imagine a hypersonic missile, armed with a new technology — a technology that would shoot a laser in its path, elevating the weapon to even greater speeds, such as Mach 20. The US Army has unveiled a new video of a March common hypersonic glide body (C-HGB) test in Hawaii. At sea, decommissioning the nuclear Tomahawk variants removed attack submarines and surface warships from the deterrence chessboard. DF-ZF, a hypersonic glide vehicle known in the United States as the WU-14, has undergone more than a half dozen development tests between 2014 to 2016. This conventional-only approach was the right decision in the early 2000s, but that restraint may no longer be in the best interests of the United States and its allies. 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. HGVs are launched into the atmosphere from a rocket and glide … It’s not … the technology is on the drawing board. People's Liberation Army Rocket Force. Against the fear of a first strike, each of the three nations cultivates second-strike capabilities that may be more vulnerable to widespread cyber attack than a finite number of long-range hypersonic weapons. Their reaction would acknowledge Washington’s signal of commitment to deterring their revisionist ambitions and defending U.S. allies. 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 common hypersonic glide body for later tests and fielded prototypes, however, will be built by Dynetics in Huntsville, Alabama, Thurgood said. With allied coordination, port visits from these vessels could help signal U.S. commitment to extended deterrence while alleviating the political burdens allies would face in permanently hosting U.S. weapons. With its ground and maritime variants, shifting the Common Hypersonic Glide Body to a dual-use design would provide the United States with leverage and flexibility for future arms control efforts. Once … Moscow's hypersonic glide vehicle, dubbed Avangard, has been in development for three decades and is designed to sit atop an intercontinental ballistic missile. The Department of Defence called the test of the hypersonic glide body last Thursday a success. Moreover, Russia has already introduced this threat, and the United States should turn its attention to deterring Moscow from leveraging it as an asymmetric, potentially coercive, advantage. Like the Russian Avangard, American C-HGB will have intercontinental range. Avangard is a hypersonic glide vehicle. Although not formally defined, the phrase is useful in classifying weapons whose explosive power is generally tens of kilotons in TNT equivalent or less. 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. Covering geo-political news and current affairs across Asia. 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. Unlike Russia and China, the United States is not developing hypersonic glide vehicles for use with nuclear warheads. “It’s not that you couldn’t do it, but it ends up being a weight challenge to generate any appropriate level of power to have a reasonable drag reduction.”. These issues lead to further concerns that hypersonic weapons will incentivize postures and reactions that heighten escalation risks. Die beiden Anfangsbuchstaben WU standen vermutlich als Abkürzung für Wuzhai, eine Region in China. There are a number of other initiatives underway as well, including air-breathing hypersonic cruise missile designs, such as DARPA’s HAWC program, and a multitude of classified efforts, the report said. 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 are two basic types of hypersonic missiles. If shooting down ballistic missiles is hard, then boost-glide vehicles, also known as hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs), is even harder. 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 first is dependence on low observability (i.e., stealth) technology and tactics. 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. 14-X – hypersonic glide vehicle mounted on a … Additionally, the high-energy impact physics of hypersonic glide vehicles mean it would likely exceed the penetration capability of a B61 without relying on a ballistic trajectory. Dynetics won $351.6 million to build at least 20 Common Hypersonic Glide Bodies for both the Army and the Navy. 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. The views expressed here are his own and in no way represent any institution with which he is affiliated. In particular, the document points out Russia’s hypersonic glide vehicles (HGV) that can maneuver and travel at speeds of Mach 5 in or above the atmosphere. U.S. low-yield weapons responsive to threats posed by Russia do risk being seen as a threat that Beijing must in turn respond to. The glide warhead payload then glides unpowered to its target at hypersonic speeds. History has shown the enduring value of rapid effects delivered from multiple firing positions and in conjunction with other forces. A dual-use Common Hypersonic Glide Body would close gaps in U.S. theater deterrence capabilities and offer scalable deployment options to assure allies. 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. Low-yield variants of the Common Hypersonic Glide Body aboard Virginia-class submarines should be a replacement capability for low-yield W76-2 warheads. 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). 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… Given the expected capabilities of its naval variant, one solution may be to forgo developing a replacement for nuclear sea-launched cruise missiles and utilize those funds to cover nuclear integration. Hypersonic Manoeuvrable Glide Vehicle. This is certainly true for conventional munitions, as well as theater nuclear delivery and therefore deterrence. Although U.S. doctrine retains the prerogative of nuclear first use in defense of vital interests, a limited retaliatory action remains the most probable scenario. Low-observable techniques are effective today and for the immediate future, but they are increasingly jeopardized by advanced air defense systems from Russia and China, along with the future systems they will inevitably deploy. The U.S nuclear modernization plan will replace its air-launched cruise missiles from the 1970s with the Long-Range Standoff weapon and will see the return of a nuclear sea-launched cruise missile. However, the Common Hypersonic Glide Body is not a new program — it already has development funding for the delivery systems and a conventional warhead. U.S adversaries may still perceive dual-use hypersonic missiles as threatening their strategic deterrence capabilities. Unlike ballistic missiles, hypersonic weapons do not follow a ballistic trajectory and can maneuver en route to their destination. “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. The notional glide vehicle modeled here is based on the Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2), an experimental glider jointly developed and tested by the U.S. Air Force and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).16 This system is commonly considered a proto-typical intercontinental-range hypersonic glide vehicle. Interest in hypersonic weapons and vehicles have literally exploded (pardon the pun) across the aerospace defense-industrial complex, with massive contracting opportunities popping up across the board, Brett Tingley of The War Zone reports. 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. While Myrabo’s radical concept never left the ground, R&D in this area has rapidly advanced. 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. 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, … 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. 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. While its accuracy has not been disclosed, its origin in delivering precise conventional effects means it is surely accurate enough for low-yield weapons. However, the current approach perpetuates three vulnerabilities in U.S. theater deterrence. Januar 2014 absolvierte. Hypersonic glide vehicle: Status: Operational: In development: Warhead: Likely conventional: Nuclear: Range: 1,800-2,500 km >6,000 km: Speed: Mach 5-10 (1.72-3.43 km/s) Mach 20 (6.86km/s) Source: CSIS Missile Defense Project: Multiple states are building defense systems to respond to the threat posed by hypersonic missiles. The United States could then credibly assert that attacks on these submarines would be considered attacks on its strategic deterrent. USA and India are also developing hypersonic glide vehicles that can overcome advanced air defense systems. "It has happened with hypersonic weapons, including the Avangard [Vanguard] glider… 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 … 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. 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. The W76-2 is responsive to this but with the escalatory issues mentioned above. The USAF and Lockheed Martin are working on the AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), a boost-glide hypersonic system. 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. Theater capabilities currently depend too much on aircraft and low-observable technology, the advantages of which are being eroded by advancements in adversary air defenses. The US is working on a hypersonic glide body weapon as well as an anti-ship or surface to surface missile. Concerns about using hypersonic weapons for nuclear delivery often focus on the strategic level of war, where fears of large-scale instability and national vulnerability reside. 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. For 20 years, Washington has answered “no” by excluding nuclear weapons from its prompt strike and hypersonic weapons programs. These new delivery systems reflect a broader modernization theme: The United States does not need more nuclear weapons. It involves U.S. interests alongside those of regional nations, which are both party and victim to potential conflicts. Boost-glide trajectories are a class of spacecraft guidance and reentry trajectories that extend the range of suborbital spaceplanes and reentry vehicles by employing aerodynamic lift in the high upper atmosphere. 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. There are a number of other initiatives underway as well, including air-breathing hypersonic cruise missile designs, such as DARPA’s HAWC program, and a multitude of classified efforts, … U.S. defense contractor Raytheon just signed a $63.3 million contract with DARPA to develop a "tactical boost glide" (TBG) hypersonic weapons program. 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. The vehicle, referred to as Object 4202 in the Soviet era, was reported in October 2016 to have had a successful test. 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